1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2306
When Shen Jingzhen heard this question, the expression on his face suddenly became a little complicated. After a moment of silence, he replied: "This matter is a long story, please let Rong Weichen report it slowly later. General Haihan is coming soon. Now, the son should concentrate on dealing with them first."

Shen Jingzhen's answer obviously did not satisfy Li Yan, he could feel that the other party was hiding something from him intentionally or unintentionally.All the civil and military officials of the imperial court, how could there be only a few people, and they still couldn't tell the king's whereabouts, which made Li Zhen secretly feel bad.

"Since that's the case, my lords, let's take a break first. Come and give me your seat!" Seeing that Shen Jingzhen didn't want to say more, Li Yan didn't force it at the moment, and said in his heart that he had met the Haihan people first.I, Tom Wang and Qian Tiandun are old acquaintances, maybe I can get some real and credible news from them after meeting.

Conditions on the ship were limited, but there were no grandmaster chairs for these officials to sit on. At that moment, a sailor brought two benches. After Shen Jingzhen and others thanked Li Yan, they could only make do and sit down.

They didn't wait too long, Qian Tiandun and Wang Tom rushed to the pier under the escort of a team of cavalry.Li Yan tidied up his clothes, and then led the people off the boat to meet them.Although he came back in a hurry this time, and his situation was a bit down, but in front of outsiders, Li Yi still had to maintain the image of the son of Joseon. After all, if the king was gone, he would now be the nominal ruler of Joseon.

But Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun did not immediately mention the civil strife in North Korea and the whereabouts of the king after seeing him. Instead, they asked him to go to the palace built by the royal family on Ganghwa Island to settle down. The feeling of uneasiness intensified a little more.But he did not raise any objection to this arrangement, so he asked his civil and military officials to go to the palace together.

The palace built by the royal family on Ganghwa Island has been going on for quite a long time. Back in 1232, King Goryeo temporarily moved his capital to Ganghwa Island under the coercion of his powerful minister Cui Yu to avoid the invasion of the Mongolian army. In 1290, the army of the Yuan Dynasty invaded Goryeo again, and the then king Wang Ji ran to Ganghwa Island to hide for another year.

After that, in addition to becoming a safe house for the kings of all dynasties to escape the war, Jianghua Island also had the function of exiling the former ruler who was overthrown by the coup. After Yeonsangun was abolished in 1506, he was exiled to Ganghwa Island. In 1623, Li Ji launched a successful coup and exiled the former king, Gwanghae-jun, to Ganghwa Island.In 1627, during the rebellion of Dingmao, Li Zhen also fled to Ganghwa Island to seek refuge like his predecessors.

Ganghwa Island, with an area of ​​400 square kilometers, has continuously upgraded its administrative level since the Goryeo Dynasty. It was upgraded from a county to a county, and then from a county to a government. The Governor's Mansion was promoted to Jianghua's Left-behind Mansion, which directly made it the accompanying capital.

If the Haihan army hadn't sent troops to aid North Korea in fighting the Qing Dynasty last year, then Li Zhen would have taken his family and ministers to flee to Ganghwa Island for refuge again.But in the original history, Dorgon commanded the Qing army to conquer Jianghua Island and captured all the people on the island including the royal family members.

Of course, Li Yan would not know that in the original history, after being captured on Jianghua Island, he was taken to the Manchu Qing as a hostage for eight years, and died inexplicably only two months after he was released and returned to China in 1645. Opportunity on Ganghwa Island.

The palace on Jianghua Island seems to be the same as when Li Yi came here last time, but after he stayed in Haihan for a year and experienced various comfortable living environments, he couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable coming back to this palace.There is no bed so comfortable that you don’t want to get up when you lie down, there is no convenient bathroom facilities, and there is no magical biogas lighting. It looked like a luxurious palace at first, but now I just feel that this place is rustic everywhere. In Haihan Kingdom It is probably only equivalent to the living environment of a rich man in the countryside.

A golden nest and a silver nest are not as good as his own kennel after all, so Li Yan can only use this proverb he learned in Haihan to comfort himself.At least this is North Korean territory, and it is the area that I will rule in the future.

But when Li Yan arrived at the palace, there were no civil and military officials to greet him, nor did he see his family members. Only a few servants were waiting outside the gate.

Li Yan was in no mood to rest and settle down slowly now, and handed over his luggage and other personal belongings to the servants to take care of. He simply washed his face, and hurried to meet Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun.

Li Yan originally brought An Daoshi and Park Hongye with him, but outside the living room, the Haihan officer on duty at the door "friendly" reminded Li Yan that the content of the next meeting needs to be kept secret, so it is best to be alone In, so as not to leak the news.

Since it was the meaning of the Haihan people, Li Yan did not intend to question such an arrangement. He must now understand the actual situation in the country and strive for Haihan's support before he can return to power.Li Yan then asked An Pu to stay outside, and pushed the door in by himself.

As expected, Tom Wang and Qian Tiandun were the only two people in the hall. When they saw Li Yan coming in, they put down the teacups in their hands.

"The son came so quickly, have you settled down already?" Tom Wang asked.

Li Yan responded: "The situation is urgent, how can I keep the two generals waiting for a long time! I hurried back from Sanya on this road, and I can't sleep almost every night. I hope the two generals can tell me what happened in Seoul." So, where is my family at this time?"

At this time, Li Yan was in no mood to go around slowly with them, and he directly stated his request when he came up.At this time, he believed that there was no need for the Haihan people to hide the domestic situation from him anymore. Even if Seoul had been turned upside down, he still had to explain the situation to himself after all.

Wang Tom said: "Well, I will briefly tell the son what happened recently, and it has to start more than a month ago..."

More than a month ago, King Li Ji got the news from nowhere, saying that someone in the country was plotting to rebel, but there was no more specific information about the participants and the time of launch.

Li Jing knows that his ruling foundation is not stable, and there have been ambitious people who want to replace him over the years.At least half of the reason for being able to sit on the throne today is because there are Haihan troops stationed in the country that he invited, so many people can only secretly harbor dissatisfaction but dare not openly make mistakes.

However, if the intelligence claimed that someone was secretly plotting to overthrow him, Li Tang believed that this was very likely to be true, so he ordered people to track down the clues, and at the same time reported the situation he had to the Haihan garrison at the Datongjiang base.

Although the matter seems to be in the stage of catching wind and shadows, Li Jing knows that if someone really intends to make trouble, they will not be able to bypass Hai Han's barrier.Say hello to the Haihan people earlier, so as not to be too abrupt if you want to ask Haihan for help in the future.

It was not the first time that the Datongjiang base had received such a notification. In fact, in the short period of one year after the end of the Anti-Qing war, Li Zhen had notified them of similar situations at least three times.However, in the previous few times, either the intelligence was wrong, or the clues were found by Li Yan and they were secretly culled in the bud, and no bad results were caused. Naturally, there was no need for Haihan Army to intervene.

Li Jing did not provide any definite evidence, nor did he seek the immediate intervention of the Haihan garrison, so the Datongjiang base naturally regarded this as a similar situation to the past and left it to the North Koreans to handle it themselves.

"But about half a month later, the king suddenly sent someone to send another secret letter to the Datongjiang base, asking us to send troops to Seoul immediately to help him 'destroy the rebels'..."

Tom Wang paused temporarily when he said this, and Qian Tiandun next to him handed out an envelope to Li Yan: "This is a secret letter from the king at that time."

Li Yan quickly reached out to take it with both hands, and took out the letterhead to check the content on it.He has been assisting the government for several years, during which time he would see his father reviewing memorials almost every day, the handwriting on this letter was his father's handwriting, definitely not a counterfeit.

But what shocked Li Yan even more was the content of the letter. In the letter, Li Zhen stated that someone in the court tried to support Lord Fenglin and Lord Linping, and forced him to abdicate by armed means.However, Li Zhen had already lost control of the Seoul garrison including the pro-guard army, and was unable to catch the rebels and thieves, so he could only send someone to ask for help from the Datong River, hoping that Haihan could send troops to Seoul as soon as possible, and disappear before the rebels attacked. Misfortune.

It's just that this distress letter still didn't mention who the so-called rebels were.But there are not many people who have the power to replace Li Xun in command of the Seoul army. The first person Li Xun thought of was Shen Jingzhen, the military judge.But if Shen Jingzhen rebelled, how could he appear on Jianghua Island to greet him?

At the end of this distress letter, Li Yan expressed his attitude that if he failed to fight against the rebellious party in Seoul, he would ask Haihan to take Li Zhen back to North Korea from Haihan as soon as possible, and let him succeed the king.

This means that Li Zhen does not consider leaving the throne to Li Xuan's two brothers, even if someone wants to support them, Li Zhen still insists on passing the throne to Li Zhen who is far away in Haihan Kingdom.

"After we received this distress letter, we realized that the situation was serious, and the king might not be able to control the situation in Seoul. At this time, we also learned through our own news channels that the recent mobilization of soldiers and horses in the vicinity of Seoul is very frequent. It just confirms some of the information mentioned by the king in the letter."

Qian Tiandun said slowly: "From the standpoint of the allies, we should not have interfered in your country's power change, but this letter was sent by the current king. After we verified the authenticity of the letter, we decided to deal with it." To respond to this. So on the one hand, we reported to Sanya by telegram, and on the other hand, we immediately mobilized troops and horses, preparing to go south to Seoul, and first get the king out of the city before we talk about it!"

Li Yan listened carefully to Qian Tiandun's narration, and there was nothing to criticize about the Haihan army's response, and they were very measured, and did not intend to prepare for a big fight in North Korea just because of the king's distress letter.If the king can be taken out of Seoul first, then the rebellious party will not be able to coerce him to abdicate, and the rebellion will naturally not continue.

This would give Li Ying some buffer time, so that he could take some measures to suppress the civil strife, and the Haihan army only needed to protect him comprehensively, without directly participating in the subsequent fighting, which can be said to be a very appropriate way to deal with it.

"But we were in a hurry, but we still couldn't catch up." Qian Tiandun continued: "Just two days after we received this secret letter, something happened in Seoul!"

After the Datongjiang Base received the distress letter, it took a certain amount of preparation time to formulate an action plan, mobilize supplies, and arrange troops to participate in the war. As soon as the preparations for these things were almost ready, the troops had not yet moved out, and news came from Seoul. The local army suddenly sealed off the city, and even blocked all the ports along the Han River.A few Haihan merchant ships that happened to be unloading by the river saw that the situation was not good, and escaped in time. Perhaps because they were afraid of their identities, the navy did not send ships to pursue them, so the news was sent to the Datong River.

After receiving the news, Haihan also realized the seriousness of the situation, so Tom Wang led several warships of the navy to go south, but when they reached the mouth of the Han River, they encountered a large number of Haihan people fleeing by boat.These people are basically merchants and servants who went to Seoul to engage in trading activities, and they were able to leave Seoul safely, it is said that they also relied on the special status of Haihan nationals.The local army did not dare to embarrass them, and let them leave Seoul after verifying their identities one by one.

Li Xuan couldn't help but feel sad when he heard this. These rebels had the guts to rebel, but they didn't have the guts to confront Hai Han.But in this way, wouldn't Haihan's source of information be cut off?
Sure enough, Qian Tiandun continued: "It's a good thing for the rebels in the city to let our people go, so that we don't have to worry about the safety of our own people, but in this way, we will lose a credible source of information. So About the situation in the city, most of the information we have is up to that time."

Hearing this, Li Yan's heart was mostly cold. Since Qian Tiandun said that most of the sources of information stop here, it means that the Haihan Army did not enter Seoul at all, and naturally there was no way to interfere with the situation in the city.As for the previous plan to take Li Jing out of the city, it must have failed to be implemented.In this way, the possibility of Li Jing getting out safely is very slim.

But Li Yan still asked without giving up: "The response plan that was formulated before, will it be implemented later?"

Qian Tiandun shook his head slowly and said: "According to the news we got from the people, it was too late to take action at that time. Before we went south and reached the mouth of the Han River, the rebels had already broken through Changdeok Palace and captured The vast majority of the royal family, including the king."

(End of this chapter)