1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2470
The time enters 1648.In the original history, Daming was at the end of its life at this time, lost most of its territory, and could only barely maintain its rule in a few areas in the south. turned around.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty successfully defended the northern border after several hard fights, and also regained part of the territory occupied by the Manchu Qing, so that the Manchu Qing could only retreat to the bitter cold north of Shenyang to survive, and it was impossible in a short time Going south again threatened the rule of Ming Dynasty.

It’s just that Ming paid a heavy price for this. In order to win this war, almost two-thirds of the coastal areas have been lost, the actual control area has shrunk greatly, and a large number of people and wealth have flowed into Haihan’s rule. , The balance of strength between the two sides also began to produce subtle changes.

In the past, Haihan just depended on Da Ming for development. Da Ming's resources, population, and market were all necessary conditions for Haihan's development. For its own development, Haihan also took the initiative to maintain diplomatic relations with Da Ming.

However, as Haihan has gradually encroached on Daming's territory over the years, and his national power has grown rapidly, his attitude towards Daming has gradually become less polite than before.In the process of occupying the southern provinces, Haihan didn't take Da Ming's reaction into account too much. He used force to occupy the territory first, and then went back to discuss the division of these areas with Daming.

Naturally, Daming was not willing to hand over a large area of ​​land, and swallowed his anger in the past few years, it was to obtain military aid from Haihan, and put all his troops into the war to quell the civil strife and expel the Tartars.But now that the domestic situation has tended to be stable, and the powerful enemy in the north has suffered a crushing defeat, it seems that it is time to clear up the territorial dispute with Haihan.

After the beginning of the spring of 1648, Daming contacted Haihan through official channels, hoping that Haihan could return the territory of Daming "illegally occupied" after the signing of the Golden State Peace Treaty in 1639 as soon as possible.

Haihan is now slowly assimilating these new territories, and of course he will not make concessions on the negotiating table and return these areas that he had so hard to acquire to Daming.Negotiations between the two parties quickly failed due to disagreements.

In April, the Ming Dynasty sent Hong Chengchou to Ganzhou Prefecture, Jiangxi Province, trying to gather the Ming troops from Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, enter the border of Guangdong from Nanxiong Prefecture and Shaozhou Prefecture, and take back the areas occupied by Haihan.

However, it took too long for Ming to mobilize and assemble the army, and the movement was too great. Before the Ming army was assembled, the information had already reached Haihan.

Haihan did the opposite and mobilized troops to attack Ganzhou from three directions: Nanxiong Mansion, Huizhou Mansion, and Chaozhou Mansion, and Xu Xinsu's troops also sent troops from the direction of Tingzhou Mansion to attack Ganzhou from west to east.

Hong Chengchou hastily responded to the battle, and almost failed to make a decent resistance, so he was pushed all the way to the city of Ganzhou by the Haihan army.He had to go out of the city to negotiate with the Haihan army himself, saying that the Ming army's assembly in Ganzhou was just a daily drill, not to take action against Haihan.

However, Haihan dispatched thousands of soldiers and horses for this, and he has already made preparations for a full-scale war. Of course, it is difficult to perfuse the past based on such a scene. Yan Chujie, who was supervising the battle in the front, made a request that Daming need to compensate Haihan for sending troops this time. All expenses will be dealt with at the same time by the main combat officials represented by Hong Chengchou in the court.If Daming refuses to agree, then the Haihan armies in Liaodong, Shandong, Zhejiang and other places will also take simultaneous actions, and Daming will have to bear all the consequences at that time.

When things came to an end, Chongzhen and his courtiers realized that Ming was not really ready for a full-scale war.The opponent of Haihan is completely different from the Manchu Qing. To deal with the Manchu Qing, you only need to defend the northern border. At least there are several pass fortresses that can stop the opponent's army. It may become a channel for the Haihan army to invade, and it is impossible to guard against it.

Moreover, the coast of the Bohai Sea in the north is a large plain. Once the Haihan army lands, Daming is completely safe to defend, and the capital will be directly exposed to the guns of the Haihan army.

Therefore, the ambitious plan was quickly declared a failure under Haihan's initiative before it was implemented.However, Chongzhen was reluctant to publicly admit defeat because of his face. He only asked Hong Chengchou to sign a secret agreement with Haihan on the front line, thus stopping all hostile actions against Haihan and paying Haihan 200 million taels of silver for military expenses.As for Haihan's request to deal with the officials of the main combat faction, the condition is simple, just temporarily suspend the officials named by Haihan for a period of time, and it will not hurt the bones.

For Chongzhen, this seems to be an acceptable result.But if the timeline is extended, he has broken the tradition of not cede land and not pay compensation since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Once this bottom line is broken, it will be difficult for Ming to take the initiative to seek change through diplomatic means.

After that, Haihan didn't continue to make troubles. As long as Da Ming didn't struggle, he would cut his flesh slowly. The large area of ​​land he annexed before would take time to digest, so he wasn't in a hurry to overthrow Da Ming completely.

In July, news came from Fujian that Xu Xinsu was suddenly seriously ill. Haihan attached great importance to this and sent a medical expert team led by Johnson and Morgan to Fujian for diagnosis.But the result was not optimistic. After consultation, the experts believed that Xu Xinsu had a malignant tumor in his chest cavity, and it was very likely that it had become cancerous. In this era, it is definitely impossible to carry out effective treatment.

However, Xu Xinsu was over seventy years old at this time, and in terms of the average life expectancy of this era, he was considered a long life.However, after Xu Xinsu's death, the Fujian region controlled by the Xu family will inevitably experience certain turmoil, and there may even be conflicts due to the uneven distribution of family interests. This is not a situation that Haihan is happy to see.

Of course, there is another voice in the executive committee, who thinks that this rare opportunity can be used to bring the Fujian region under Haihan's rule.

Ever since Xu Xinsu took control of the Fujian region, its ownership has always been rather embarrassing. Although Daming has lost control of Fujian, it is unwilling to award the throne to Xu Xinsu, making this region completely the private property of the Xu family. .Although the Xu family has always been attached to Haihan, they are unwilling to take the initiative to merge the Fujian region into Haihan.However, if the Xu family wanted to build a country on their own, neither Daming nor Haihan would allow such a situation to happen.

For this reason, the executive committee started a telegram negotiation with Xu Xinsu who was on the sick bed, and the content was about the future ownership of Fujian and the status of the Xu family.

(End of this chapter)