1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3880

Of course, Ning Zijing's willingness to provide special treatment to Lu Congshan was not entirely due to Lu Congshan's recent performance, but also took into account the considerations for future governance of the region.

After Haihan occupies the area around Poyang Lake, it will need reliable shipping capacity to maintain the normal operation of the area. However, the shipping capacity that Haihan officials transfer from other places to Jiangxi is far from enough. This gap in shipping capacity can be filled by local merchants like Lufaxing.

In return, Lufaxing would also report various local business information to the government so that Ning Zijing could grasp the business operations of Jiujiang Prefecture in the shortest possible time and adjust and formulate corresponding policies.

After May arrived, Shi Chengwu and Ha Jianyi did not rush south to attack Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi. Instead, they turned their forces eastward and attacked Raozhou Prefecture first.

Raozhou Prefecture is located in the northeastern corner of Jiangxi Province, bordering Chizhou Prefecture and Huizhou Prefecture to the north. The Ming Dynasty's rule in these two places had long been nominal. After the war broke out in Jiangxi, the local governments, seeing that the situation was not right, decisively changed sides and surrendered much faster than Jiujiang, which had a prefect acting as an inside agent.

This gave Haihan more routes to attack Raozhou Prefecture. He could attack northern Raozhou by land, or he could attack the city of Raozhou by water across Poyang Lake.

Capturing Raozhou Prefecture would, on the one hand, connect Haihan's newly occupied territory with the original land, facilitating the transportation of supplies and local governance. On the other hand, it would also take into account coordination with the southern route troops, so that when the northern route entered Nanchang Prefecture, the southern route would still be attacking small towns along the way hundreds of miles away, missing the great opportunity to seize the capital of Jiangxi.

On May 13, Shi Chengwu led his troops from Nankang Prefecture. The fleet crossed Poyang Lake and headed south to Poyang County, where the seat of Raozhou Prefecture was located.

Just two days later, Raozhou City fell under the bombardment of Haihan's heavy artillery. After the battle, the Haihan army killed more than 300 enemy soldiers and captured more than 1,200 Ming soldiers and officials of all ranks.

With the city of Raozhou fallen, the Haihan army naturally wouldn't stop there. Shi Chengwu and Ha Jianyi then split their forces and continued to attack the various counties under Raozhou's jurisdiction.

On May 17th, Ha Jianyi's troops arrived at Yugan City and breached its defenses in just half a day. Some of the garrison and civil and military officials abandoned the city and fled westward to Nanchang Prefecture.

Just one day later, Shi Chengwu's troops arrived at Leping City in central Raozhou. This small city also did not last long, and was captured by Haihan Army on the same day.

On May 21, Anren City, located at the southernmost tip of Raozhou, chose to surrender without a fight after the Haihan army approached the city. Magistrate Wang Ping, along with civil and military officials and more than 500 soldiers, opened the city gates and surrendered, saving the Haihan army some trouble.

On May 24, Dexing County, located in eastern Raozhou, was captured by Shi Chengwu's troops after a short period of resistance.

On May 27th, the Haihan army sailed up the Changjiang River and reached the city of Fuliang. After two days of fierce fighting, Fuliang, which held out to the very end, could not escape defeat, and the red and blue flags of Haihan were raised on the city walls.

With this, having captured this small city in northern Raozhou, all the cities of Raozhou Prefecture had fallen to the Haihan army. Although a few towns and villages within its jurisdiction had not yet surrendered, this no longer hindered Haihan's overall control of Raozhou.

Meanwhile, the two armies in the south were not idle either, continuing their simultaneous operations. The Second Division of the Army marched north from Nan'an Prefecture and attacked Ji'an Prefecture. Within a month, they captured five counties: Longquan, Wan'an, Taihe, Yongning, and Yongxin, annihilating more than 3,000 Ming soldiers. This can be considered as sweeping away the gloom of the previous unsuccessful battles in Nan'an Prefecture.

Lu Sanshi attacked northward from Jianchang Prefecture into Guangxin Prefecture, which coincided with the northern army's offensive against Raozhou Prefecture.

Although the garrison of Guangxin Prefecture had a buffer period to mobilize troops and deploy defenses before this, its forces were ultimately limited, and Nanchang Prefecture was preoccupied with its own affairs during this time, so it naturally would not send reinforcements to Guangxin Prefecture.

The Xinjiang River, one of the five major rivers in the Poyang Lake system, flows from east to west through the entire Guangxin Prefecture. The main cities in the prefecture are all located along the Xinjiang River. Therefore, the Haihan Army's offensive was also launched along the Xinjiang River, and in May, they successively captured Guixi, Geyang, Xing'an, Qianshan and other cities.

The remaining garrison fled to Shangrao, Yongfeng, Yushan and other places in the upper reaches of the Xinjiang River, but the space available for their activities had been greatly reduced. Moreover, the eastern border of Guangxin Prefecture, including Quzhou Prefecture in Zhejiang and Jianning Prefecture in Fujian, were all Haihan's territory. These garrison troops had nowhere to escape, and it was only a matter of time before they were annihilated.

By the end of May, the Ming Dynasty had lost most of the jurisdiction of Raozhou Prefecture, Guangxin Prefecture, and Ji'an Prefecture. Although this did delay Haihan's offensive and prevented Haihan's army from sweeping across the entire Jiangxi province, the defeat and decline were not reversed, but instead grew stronger.

At this point, only five prefectures in Jiangxi remained under the control of the Ming Dynasty: Nanchang, Ruizhou, Fuzhou, Linjiang, and Yuanzhou. In terms of area, the Ming Dynasty had lost more than half of Jiangxi.

At this point, the Ming Dynasty still had not come up with a concrete solution to the problem and was still pinning its hopes on stopping Haihan's offensive through ceasefire negotiations.

After several twists and turns, the newly appointed ambassador Meng Jinfeng, who was in Hangzhou, finally met with high-ranking officials of the Haihan Executive Committee. The actual situation was just as he had been told by Yue Shizong: Haihan was not entirely uninterested in the ceasefire negotiations, but their attitude could only be described as perfunctory.

Meng Jinfeng met with Tao Donglai and Ning Qi one after the other. Both of them expressed the same view on Haihan's current military actions in Jiangxi: Haihan's deployment of troops was to protect its own commercial interests in Jiangxi, and it was due to the local government's unwillingness to cooperate.

Tao Donglai even cited Jiujiang as an example, saying that the local officials of Jiujiang Prefecture cooperated well with the Haihan Army's actions, so no large-scale battles broke out in the Jiujiang Prefecture. The implication was that the Ming Dynasty should take the actions of the Jiujiang government as a model for other regions to follow.

Ning Qi argued that the Haihan Army's actions in Jiangxi were not a true war between the two countries, but merely a special military operation within a limited scope, so there was no need for ceasefire negotiations—since no war was declared, how could there be a ceasefire?
For Haihan, this might just be a small-scale military operation involving a few local garrisons, not even worthy of being called a war, and there was no need for diplomatic consultations. But for the Ming Dynasty, this was a major crisis that plunged the entire country into tension. If the fighting continued, the fall of the entire Jiangxi province would not be far off.

Meng Jinfeng naturally could not condone the almost perfunctory attitude of these two high-ranking Haihan officials. Although he did not expect Haihan to sit down and negotiate seriously, he could not tolerate their attitude towards the Ming Dynasty.

Meng Jinfeng had to point out that Haihan's military operations in Jiangxi amounted to an invasion, and the Ming Dynasty could not possibly comply with Haihan's demands and hand over local governance to Haihan. Haihan should first cease its military operations in Jiangxi before making its demands, and the two countries could then resolve the matter through negotiation.

(End of this chapter)