Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 716

Time flies, two months have passed, and the spring of 1794 has arrived.

In early March, the border negotiations between Beihai Town and Li Dynasty restarted after being interrupted for more than a month due to the Spring Festival.However, the two sides have been talking for so long since last year, but there is no progress.

The main reason for this is that Beihai Town is like a lion opening its mouth in the middle and eastern borders. From Li Yu to the ministers of the peace faction below, no one dared to agree, for fear of being infamous through the ages.It's one thing to have a fait accompli, it's another thing to sign a treaty and put your stamp on it.

Just like when facing foreign enemies in the past, Li Chao's court is now divided into the main peace faction and the denunciation faction.Among them, the advocate peace faction is the current faction headed by Cai Jigong, who is in charge of discussing politics, while the denunciation faction is the secluded faction headed by Jin Zhongxiu, the judge of the central government.

Because the former was born in the South, he is more tolerant to the Catholic community, which is mostly from the South, and is more receptive to new things.Cai Jigong has been to Beihai Town himself, and has a personal experience of its strength, while his backbone brothers Ding Ruoyong and Ding Ruoquan have kept close correspondence with Lin Ruoyu, Cao Peng's father-in-law, and firmly believe that only by following the pace of Beihai Town, Li Chao In order to achieve national prosperity.

As for the latter, they are just a group of self-proclaimed Qingliu, but they are actually guys who use the name of "Qingdang" to form cliques for personal gain.And denunciation does not mean that we have to fight with the Beihai Navy. The idea they uphold is that the parties work together to fight differences. As long as the enemy agrees, we must oppose it.

Although Wang Zhong and Liu Taigong have been arguing on the negotiating table for a few months with reason and evidence, throwing out historical materials of the Korean Kingdom from another time and space to surprise them from time to time, but Li Chao and his group are not vegetarians; Each of them has experienced many years of court and court political disputes, and they are much more capable of sophistry and wrangling than Wang Zhong and the others. Once angry, Wang Zhong even threw up his sleeves and stopped talking, which hit the heart of Li Chao's envoy.

Procrastinate, if you can procrastinate for a day is a day.Everyone thought that as long as the king didn't nod his head, whoever dared to agree would be a traitor who would gang up and punish him.

In fact, after talking for so long, generally speaking, the two sides have no objection to the central line of the Yalu River as the boundary of the western section of the border, which has been a fact since the Ming Dynasty.Negotiations on the crossing of border residents on the western section of the border have always been limited to the Yalu River. Crossing the river means crossing the border and is punished as a crime of "transgression".Li Chao's punishment for this is quite severe. The main offender will be shown to the public by the riverside, and the second offender will be assigned to the frontier, and the magistrate will be dismissed or assigned.

However, in the middle section of the boundary, Beihai Town’s request is to completely overturn the result of the Mukden boundary survey in Kangxi’s 51st year, and directly advance to the line between Xiaobai Mountain and Dajiao Peak, and take five miles north of the main peaks of the two mountains as the boundary line.For this reason, Beihai Town simply drew a crooked horizontal line on the map, starting from the Yalu River in the west and ending in the Tumen River in the east.That is to say, whether it is the upper reaches of the Yalu River or the Tumen River or even its source, it has nothing to do with Li Chao.In addition, Beihai Town also asked Li Chao to make it clear in the agreement that Changbai Mountain with Tianchi Lake is not Li Chao's ancestral land, and the official ceremonies of Changbai Mountain must be abolished in the future.

If it is said that the Li Dynasty can still reluctantly accept the above requirements, on the issue of the eastern border, even the Peaceful faction cannot accept it. Many people directly shouted that they would rather make jade broken than let the thieves in Beihai Town know the eight ways The indomitable heart of the people.

Well, in today's Beihai Town, most of the common people's hairstyles after cutting their braids are inch-cut or bald. When Li Chao learned about it, he denounced them as disobedient, just like those who committed crimes and were punished in ancient times. thief.The problem is that they don't want to see Beihai Town, and the people of Beihai Town don't want to see them either!The reason why many men keep short hair is because it is easy to clean up and saves soap when washing their hair.

Closer to home, Beihai Town’s request on the eastern border is that Li Chao not only abandon Ludao, Qingxing, Ashanpu, Qianyuanpu, Qingyuanfu, Xunzhencheng, Meijianzhencheng, Wencheng, and Yongdacheng. At the Ninth Office, the border between the two sides must be pushed to the front line of Luoduan Mountain, Xiaobai Mountain, and Huangshan Mountain.In addition, Maoshan County has a radius of [-] miles to be assigned to Beihai Town.

In fact, although Li Yan has already made preparations to give up the five northern towns, he doesn't want to give Maoshan ah!Furthermore, the eastern border is divided by Luoduan Mountain, Xiaobai Mountain, and Huangshan Mountain. This is completely different from what I thought before. inside!
It's so bullying, the rabbit bites even in a hurry!

In the twelfth lunar month, Lang Ting of Bibian Division had already received a report from Funing County, and learned that the Northern Navy occupying Maoshan City was a lone army with only more than 300 people.So in the second month of the lunar calendar (March in the Gregorian calendar), Li Yi issued an order to Bei Biansi to recruit large and small merchant ships, and sent both water and land to mobilize the army to enter Jingcheng, a coastal city on Hamgyong Road.

By the beginning of April, 4 soldiers and horses had already arrived in Jingcheng County.There is an endless stream of civilian vehicles and ships on the sea that deliver grain and grass every day.When the grain and grass were almost assembled, tens of thousands of people marched along the post road to Funing County.Then they will follow the post roads of Qianshuiyan, Feimao Mountain, Wheel Ridge, and Matian to enter Duyu City and Nanling in the south of Maoshan City, forcing the North Navy in Maoshan City to withdraw.

In order to form a battlefield cover, Bi Biansi also made a big show of adding [-] troops to Xishuiluo, and mobilized warships to gather at the water camp at Xishuiluoqianpu to confuse the northern navy on the Qingxing and Mokuowei sides.

As everyone knows, the North Navy Staff Headquarters is well aware of the movements of Li Chao's army.Since three years ago, the Northern Navy Intelligence Agency has obtained the conditions for obtaining the household registration of Beihai Town, secretly recruiting spies from the people of the Li Dynasty who crossed the border to open up wasteland, and then spent another two years building a huge network in the entire North Hamgyong network of agents.

Yongba is a node in this big network.He is from Huining County, a servant of Cui Jinshi's family. A few years ago, he helped Lin Ruoyu's father and daughter smuggle to Hunchun, and he also helped the Qing army pass information.After Lin Ruoyu took refuge in Beihai Town, he asked Yongba to help spy on the intelligence of the Qing army on the south bank of the Tumen River.

The Intelligence Bureau will conduct screening and questioning of all new recruits, and will also use so-called "polygraph equipment"; it is said to be a polygraph, but it is actually a portable electrocardiograph, plus an oximeter.

Yongba has never seen this before!He panicked when he was brought into the Intelligence Agency's stronghold in Hunchun, and even more so when he brought the equipment; especially when he was asked whether he had been a spy for the Man Qing, his heart beat a hundred and sixteen.

The people from the Intelligence Bureau then gave him two choices, either go to Bitter Leaf Island to dig coal, or become an agent of Beihai Town.Yongba chose the latter without hesitation.

Afterwards, Lin Ruoyu wrote a secret letter to Cui Jinshi, Yongba's owner, saying that he wanted to find a sum of money to start the business of leather goods and agricultural tools.Cui Jinshi readily agreed, and also helped to clear the way in the official face.So Yongba used the funds to open two shops in Huining and Funing. After that, he frequently traveled between the two places to collect information about the Qing army and the Li Dynasty.

After Zhao Xin heard the news of Li Chao's dispatch of troops, he warmly welcomed this move, saying that he finally had an excuse!He was determined to let Li Chao sign this territorial agreement, so he did not hesitate to change the king for Li Chao, and he had already found a new king!

On April 1794, 4, the three Northern Navy gunboats stationed in Mokuowei were ordered to dispatch. At the same time, Pan Xiucheng, who was stationed in Hunchun, also received an order from Zhao Xin. A regiment went south along the post road to attack Xishuiluo.

On April 4, the Northern Navy Fleet bombarded Xishui Luoqianpu Water Village and the wharf.The next day, under the guidance of drones, the artillery battalion bombarded Li Chao's defenders in Xishuiluo.Eighteen 12mm cannons fired for only one hour, and Li Chao's army, who had no experience in positional warfare, was already blown up crying to their fathers and mothers, only hating that they had lost two legs.Then the ground troops of the Northern Navy entered Xishuiluo in great strides.

On April 4, a battalion of the Beihai Navy stationed in Tongguan City crossed Xiaochuan, crossed Guoshitang Ridge in a day, and suddenly appeared under Zhongcheng City.The local defenders immediately lit a beacon to call the police, and called the people in the city to defend the city.Li Chao built a strict beacon fire alarm system in the six towns in the north, especially along the Tumen River, where there was a beacon tower every fifteen miles.

The Northern Navy outside Zhongcheng did not send troops to attack the city. After submitting a letter ordering surrender to the defenders, they dug fortifications and trenches on the hills two miles north of the city, and fired several mortars at the city wall. Boom.This frightened the soldiers and civilians in the city, and then the defenders tried to launch a night attack, but who would have thought that stealing chickens would not make a fortune, not to mention the heavy casualties, even the commander of the army was seriously injured and fell into a coma.The helpless Sheriff of Zhongcheng thought about it for a day, finally gritted his teeth and left the city to surrender.

On April 4, eight North Navy motorboats and five transport and supply ships departing from Dolphin Harbor arrived in Mokuwai, which also carried two battalions of marines.

On April 4, the fleet that completed its fresh water supply began to head south. Among them, three gunboats and a supply ship went to Yuyou Stream in the south of Xishuiluo, and imposed a naval blockade on Jingcheng.Gyeongseong is an important point connecting the north and south of the east coast of Hamgyong-do. Once this place is lost, Funing County will become an isolated city, and the 17 troops heading to Musan will be cut off from supplies.

However, what frightened Li Chao the most was not the problem of Jingcheng. On the morning of April 4, a fleet composed of five gunboats and four transport ships arrived at Anping Port.After completing the resupply again, the fleet went straight north and appeared on the sea south of Yanping Island in two days.

This time, the North Navy's goal is Ganghwa Island.

Speaking of Ganghwa Island, because it guards the estuary of the Han River, coupled with the complicated hydrological conditions of the Ganghwa Strait and many hidden reefs, it has been a place to avoid foreign invasion since the Goryeo Dynasty.When Jin invaded Joseon in the year after Jeongmao, King Injo fled to this place first, and then went to Namhansanseong.Therefore, Jianghua Island's status is equivalent to that of the accompanying capital. Since it was upgraded to the left-behind mansion, its military defense has also been strengthened repeatedly.

Since the headquarters of the Three Ways Naval Command Battalion of the Lee Dynasty was stationed on Ganghwa Island, when King Injo’s son, King Hyojong, planned the Northern Expedition to recover Daming, fortresses such as Wolcheon, Jemo, Yongjin, and Gwangseong were set up on the island. ; when his grandson, King Sujong, built 53 forts on prominent locations along the coast of the island, making the entire Ganghwa Island a huge military fortress group, which can not only defend against enemies at sea, but also defend Ganghwa. Strait, deal with inland.

In addition, on Qiaotong Island on the west side of Ganghwa Island, there is also a military fortress called "Qiaotongyi City", and some troops from the water camp are also stationed.

Li Chaonan has not been in war for many years, his military equipment is lax, and he engages in anti-smuggling at sea.Just as they panicked, the North Navy Fleet, guided by the drone, fired at the Qiaotong Water Camp.

For a moment, the sea was like thunder roaring, and gunpowder smoke filled the air.In just one hour, the warships in the water camp sank and burned, and all the officers and soldiers on the shore fled into the city.Immediately afterwards, the fleet turned to the south and began bombarding the Mangsan Beacon Tower and Pujing Fortress on the west side of Ganghwa Island. After the defenders were beaten away, the Marine Battalion landed in an assault boat in a leisurely manner, and then rushed up to only 400 meters away. The high-altitude Xuekou Mountain goes straight to Jianghua Mountain City along the ridge.

When the marine battalion appeared outside the mountain city, the defenders all over the island hadn't completed their assembly.The defenders in the mountain city were terrified when they saw the Beihai Navy approaching from all directions.Just as they fired indiscriminately towards the outside of the city and fired a few more shots, the mortars of the Marine Battalion opened fire.A dozen shells fell, and the officers and soldiers on the top of the city ran away without a trace.

Jianghua Mountain City was built very solidly, but no matter how strong it was, it couldn't stop the explosives.With a huge explosion, the gate of Zhanhua Tower in the west was blown to pieces, and the small tower above also shook, crackling and falling bricks, wood and stones, and it became a dangerous building in a blink of an eye.When the soldiers of the Marine Battalion charged into the city with their guns in hand, messy gunshots rang out from all over the Yamen and Palace of the Left-behind Mansion. It took less than an hour for the battle in the city to come to an end.

Xu Dayong, who was wearing a military uniform, quickly walked into Jianghua Mountain City from Yanbo Tower in the south under the guard of several soldiers.Because Zhao Xin said that this task is very important, so he, the deputy director, came in person.

After whispering a few words with a company commander of the marine battalion at the gate of the city, Xu Dayong was led to a dilapidated courtyard surrounded by fences in the city.

At this time, on the small open space in the courtyard, a family of eight, five men and three women, were kneeling, four adults and four boys, all with their heads bowed. Although they were wearing white clothes and net scarves, both men and women had messy hair and clothes. It's also a bit run down, obviously having seen a rough day.

Xu Dayong first asked the five of them to stand up, and then said to the middle-aged man who was frightened: "You! It's you! What's your name?"

"Report to the Lord of the Kingdom, my humble Li."

Ouch!Xu Dayong heard that the other party's Chinese was not bad, and it was obvious that he had received higher education since he was a child.So he spoke kindly, and said with a smile on his face, "Is your Excellency the son of Prince Zhuang Xian? The younger brother of the current King of Korea?"

Well, this middle-aged man is Zhao Xin's candidate for King Li Chaoxin, Li Zhi's half-brother who was concubine, and his biological mother is the concubine of the eldest son Zhuang Xian.

Because he was a concubine, Li's fate was very sad.When this unlucky boy was 17 years old, he borrowed money from a businessman because he was short of money, and was found out by King Yingzu.The concubine who could even lock his own son to starve to death in a rice cabinet would not have a good face towards his own son.So the unlucky boy and his younger brother were exiled to Dajing County on Jeju Island, which is now Anping Port.During this period, his younger brother died of illness, and Li Ze returned to Hanyang two years later.

Unexpectedly, after more than ten years of good times, Princess Jin discovered that the power minister Hong Guorong, who had died five years ago, planned a rebellion before his death, and wanted to support Li's eldest son, Li Zhan, as king.This is so amazing!Soon Li Zhan was given poison and alcohol to commit suicide. Li, who had turned from an unlucky child to an unlucky father, was deprived of his official title again, and the whole family was dispatched to Ganghwa Island, where they lived a life of being dependent on others.

Hearing Xu Dayong mentioning his biological father, Li raised his head in horror and surprise, then lowered his head, bowing his hands solemnly.

Xu Dayong said: "Do you have something to prove your identity?"

Li thought for a while, then reached into his bosom, and took out a small sapphire seal. Xu Dayong took it and looked carefully, and found that the word "Mingxing" was engraved on it.It is clearly written in the information Zhao Xin gave him that Li's character is Mingxing.

Done!Xu Dayong returned the seal and said to Li: "Clean up your belongings, forget it, don't clean up, your family will follow me immediately."

Li was shocked and said, "Where is Shangguan taking us?"

"Do you know Beihai Town?"

Li thought for a while and shook his head helplessly.It has been nine years since he was exiled to Jianghua Island, the news is cut off, and he has no memory of many things.

"Your Excellency, please rest assured that we will not harm you. You said that your family is in such a state of desperation, how could it be worse?" Xu Dayong smiled after finishing speaking, and leaned forward to whisper to the panic-stricken Li: "You said that if the woman in Hanyang knew that your wife and daughter-in-law are both Catholics, what do you think she would do?"

Li's face suddenly changed, his legs couldn't help but soften, and he slumped on the ground.He couldn't figure out how this person in front of him knew such a secret thing!

It is said that in another time and space in 1801, the Li Dynasty suppressed Catholicism again. During the investigation, it was discovered that Li's wife Song and his widow daughter-in-law Shen had been baptized, and had been promoted to the king and concubine and took charge of the state affairs. Shi said that he would never let them go, so he killed the three of them one after another, leaving only one only son who escaped.This only son was the later Quanxi Daewon Lord Li, and also the father of King Cheoljong, the No.20 fifth emperor of the Li Dynasty.

The news of the Northern Navy's attack on Ganghwa Island soon spread to Hanyang. Li Yan, who was so frightened, immediately took a whole family to Hanyang, more than 60 miles south of Hanyang, in the name of worshiping his father Zhuangxian. Suwon Hwaseong.

Since the Li Dynasty in this time and space obtained a large amount of rent by relying on Anping Port, which greatly eased the financial crisis, Li Zhi's city building plan was started in advance in 1792.During the construction process, the official Li Chao, who was in charge of the project, borrowed from various lifting equipment in Whale Harbor in Beihai Town, and made a large number of wooden cranes and iron chain blocks, which greatly improved the efficiency of the project. It took only one and a half years to build this political and military fortress city.

On the morning of the second day after Li Zhi arrived at the Hwaseong Palace, his buttocks were still hot, and his subordinates suddenly reported that the North Navy on Ganghwa Island had all withdrawn that night.However, before he could be happy, a bolt from the blue came, and Bei Haijun took the Li family away!

Now Li Yan finally panicked, and he immediately understood the purpose of Bei Haijun's visit here.

Well!This is to threaten to abolish the new king and force me to bow my head!

Sure enough, a few days later, the North Navy issued an ultimatum to Li Chao through the Hanyang businessmen who traveled to and from Anping Port, saying that if the demarcation agreement was not signed before the end of April in the lunar calendar, let alone the entire Hamgyong Road, they would directly enter Hanyang to support Lixin. king.

Now Li Yan finally stopped chanting, so he had no choice but to send a secret envoy to Beihai Town, expressing that he would do as King Zhao wanted.He sent an envoy on his front foot, and then he went to the tombstone of his father, Shizi Zhuang Xian, and wept loudly.Humiliation!What a humiliation!
Upon receiving the news, the time travelers in Beihai Town were naturally elated. When they went home to visit their relatives not long ago, they were all disgusted by Bangzi's plagiarism.However, apart from the excitement, some time travelers questioned, why not take down the entire peninsula?

Zhao Xin's answer to this is that the cost of management and control is too high in remote mountains and remote areas, and I don't have much time to spare.

Well, Zhao Xin finally achieved the goal he planned many years ago. Changbai Mountain has nothing to do with Li Chao.

Hoho hahaha!
(End of this chapter)