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Chapter 500 Suspicion chain will force people to act first

The complete truce between Ming and Burma was finally reached in June of the sixth year of Xiaokang.

Peace can come again, on the one hand, it is because Da Ming has indeed completely taken back what should belong to him (three declarations and six comforts were originally Da Ming’s territory, which was gradually lost after Jiajing), and it also punished Da Ming who dared to accept Da Ming’s rebellion and swaying chieftains The king of Myanmar is not a minister.

On the other hand, it was because Ming really didn't want to invest more resources in the war against Burma, and continued to fall into the quagmire.

During the continuation of this war, Li Dingguo has always maintained a troop scale of about 6. Once the front line suffers losses, he will continue to recruit recruits to replenish it, so he has mobilized more than [-] troops.

Zheng Chenggong on the sea route also used 3 to [-] soldiers, which adds up to [-] soldiers.

To provide support for such a large troop on a transnational expedition, even if the food and grass have been "supplied by the enemy" as much as possible, while robbing the Burmese of food while eating, the rear is mainly responsible for the first stage of food, and the whole process of medicine, ammunition, weapons and ordnance loss.

But even so, the logistical pressure is still enormous.Provide supporting facilities for 9 people, involving at least 30 civilian husbands, sailors, and craftsmen.In particular, the Ming army has a high rate of firearms, and its logistics is far more complicated than other ancient armies, and the types of materials it needs are also extremely complicated.

Daming's national power can be sustained because Zhu Ciyu's father has been insisting on recuperating, farming and improving technology in the first four years after Zhu Ciyu ascended the throne, and he did not spend money randomly.

The surplus grain in the Yunnan-Guizhou area is also saved in advance.Since the first year of Xiaokang, the central court has not allowed the two provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou to transfer a grain of grain, which can support today's war.

And with this battle, which lasted for about ten months, almost half of the official warehouse food accumulated in Yunnan and Guizhou in the past four years has been consumed, and it is about to approach the warning line.

Of course, some people may think: Isn't the grain stored in the official warehouses of Yunnan and Guizhou only consumed more than half?Since there is still a small half, why not continue to fight?Why should the critical line of food security be set so high?
But in fact, this cordon is really lenient.

Because Daming's enemies in southern Xinjiang are not limited to Burma——

As mentioned earlier, last year was the fifth year of Xiaokang, when Daming condemned and beat Myanmar, he also beat Vietnam together.After all, Vietnam also committed the crime of "accommodating the rebellion of Ming Dynasty" when Zhu Ciyu came to the throne.

In the beginning, in order to retreat and farm, the Ming court could turn a blind eye and pretend not to trace back.But once the trace is opened, it is no longer possible to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and must condemn Myanmar and Vietnam at the same time.

Otherwise, if because of the same incident, one is condemned first, and then the other is condemned every few years, then Ming's diplomatic credit will be over in the future, and it will be considered "selective punishment, picking the soft persimmon".

After all, the meaning of "statute of limitations" is that people can have a buffer time to file a dispute when they "do not know that their interests have been infringed".Instead of letting you know that your interests have been violated, you still haven't expressed your position in time.If the latter situation occurs, it will be too hypocritical.

This is why the measure of "shelving disputes, but not acknowledging and maintaining condemnation" is so important in later generations of international law.

In many international disputes, as long as you have not recognized the other party, you express your position that there is a dispute, and you condemn it first, then you will retain the legal basis for turning your face in the future.After the condemnation is over, you can continue to endure, cultivate yourself and develop yourself, and turn your face when you become stronger, so that international law will give you a chance.

But if you didn't even condemn when you encountered controversy at the beginning, and acquiesced, it would be tantamount to admitting that there was no controversy.Even if you become stronger in the future, if you think about the fact that the legal basis for turning your face is gone since ancient times, even if your fist is hard, you will risk the disgrace of the world.

Therefore, for Ming, the condemnation of Burma and Vietnam must be issued at the same time without delay.

It's just that the condemnation must be at the same time, but there is still a time difference between the condemnation and the action.

Since the turn of summer and autumn last year, after condemning both Myanmar and Vietnam at the same time, Daming quickly took action on Myanmar.As for Vietnam, it only insisted on verbal condemnation and did not actually send troops.

After all, from the perspective of the art of war, if you can defeat each of them, why bother to fight against two enemies at the same time?As long as I maintain my condemnation, my casus belli and strategic initiative remain in hand.

However, Vietnam was several times weaker than Myanmar in terms of national strength. Although it was secretly supported by Myanmar King Mangbai at the time, it did not dare to directly invade Daming.

Therefore, on the Ming-Vietnamese border, from July of the fifth year of Xiaokang to February of the sixth year of Xiaokang, for seven months, the two sides were in a "sit-in war". , but it just didn't hit.

The guys in the Ministry of Rites who are in charge of writing swearing words don't know how many KPIs they have collected, including Gu Yanwu, the Minister of Rites who has just taken over the post, all of them are personally off the stage, with an average of one piece of data per month.

The Vietnamese, who have always been scolded and never fought back, finally had a subtle change in their mentality and behavior at the end of February in the sixth year of Xiaokang—this change was mainly because they heard that Zheng Chenggong had landed in the estuary delta of Bago He also fought with Li Dingguo from north to south, and opened up the supply channel of the Irrawaddy River in the Burmese battlefield.

It has to be said that this change has refreshed and deterred the Vietnamese people, which is really extraordinary.

So much so that Zheng Zuo, the ruler of the Le Dynasty in Vietnam, couldn't help but feel a chill when he learned about it, and immediately called his sons to discuss how to deal with it.

……

Looking at the political situation in Vietnam in the 1660s, outsiders may be a little confused: Since the Vietnamese dynasty at that time was the Le Dynasty, why was Zheng Tak Tse the ruler?

This matter is a bit complicated to say, but to make a long story short, it can be roughly summarized as follows: in Vietnam at that time, there were two dynasties and four surnames.

The so-called two dynasties are the Li Dynasty and the Mo Dynasty.The founding of the Li Dynasty was earlier, and the country was established during the Ming Xuanzong period. Basically, it was the original regime re-established in Vietnam after the Ming army who conquered Vietnam in the south during Zhu Di's time was driven away.

The founding of the Mo Dynasty was more than 100 years later, about the early years of Jiajing on the Ming side, before usurping the throne and destroying Li Jian's country.It is a pity that not long after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zheng Jian, an old minister of the Li Dynasty, supported a branch of the royal family of the Li Dynasty as the King of Houli, and then used the name of King Houli to order the princes to reoccupy the Red River Basin occupied by the Mo Dynasty.

But the Mo Dynasty was not wiped out. After the defeat, he fled northward to Gaoping and Lang Son, which bordered the Guangxi border of the Ming Dynasty, leaving only the two prefectures lingering.

For more than 100 years since then, the two dynasties of Beimo and Nanli have coexisted in Vietnam.

The Zheng family was worried that if they usurped the throne and abolished Li, they would lose their legitimacy and be regarded as traitors and traitors just like Mo Chao.Now that Mo Chao had occupied that self-supporting ecological niche, the Zheng family did not dare to act recklessly. In the end, they learned from Cao Cao for more than 100 years at one go, and always only held power with the king and did not usurp the throne.

But after being in power for a long time, some people in the Li Dynasty will eventually say that the Zheng family is coercing the emperor and deceiving the emperor. So at the end of the apocalypse in the Ming Dynasty and the early years of Chongzhen, a local general with real power, Ruan Fuyuan of the Ruan family, appeared in the south of the Le Dynasty. Openly pull the flag to break with Lord Zheng,
Ruan Fuyuan played a banner similar to "clothes edicts against the thieves who take the king", and then after more than ten years of fighting, he occupied Hue and the southern half of Vietnam to the south, and in fact divided the north and the south with Lord Zheng.

In this way, there are three de facto local military and political forces in Vietnam from north to south:

They are the northernmost Gaoping Langshan, the Mo Dynasty near the border of Guangxi,

In the middle, Lord Zheng (and the puppet King Li of the Zheng family), who controlled the Hanoi Plain to Hue,

Ruan Lord in the south of Hue in the south (Ruan Lord still submits to the king of the Le Dynasty in name, but said he would defeat the Zheng family to rescue the king)

Among the three forces, Da Ming didn't usually come, and they themselves didn't stop.

Since the early years of Chongzhen, there have been six wars between Zheng Zhu and Ruan Zhu in 40 years, with an average of one war every six years.In history, they will fight again in a few years, and then they will stop there, and each other will acquiesce in each other's sphere of influence.

Between Lord Zheng and the Mo Dynasty in the north, there was also a hundred years of war. In the original history, just last year, that is, in 1667 or the fifth year of Xiaokang, Lord Zheng Zheng Zuo would take advantage of the weakness of Ming Dynasty to attack the king of the Mo Dynasty. Mo Jingyu, and broke through Mo Jingyu's Gaoping mansion, forcing Mo Jingyu to finally seek refuge in the historical Remnant.

But now, it is only because Daming has not declined, but has become stronger, that Zheng Zuo did not dare to rashly launch the final blow to Mo Jingyu who had defected to Daming.

However, after they discovered that the Ming army was able to conduct a large-scale amphibious landing battle in which the land and sea advanced side by side and the sea route detoured for thousands of miles, Zheng Zuo finally couldn't sit still.Because he knew that he had to act first, otherwise Vietnam would be finished sooner or later.

……

Against such a background, Zheng Zuo and his son Zheng Gen's discussion of countermeasures seemed very sad.

One day at the end of February, Zheng Zuo directly expressed his concerns to Zheng Gen and others:
"Ming's wolfish ambitions for Vietnam have been known to everyone for 200 years. At the beginning, Zhu Di's thieves harmed our Vietnamese people, but they were finally repelled by Wang Shi. It was all because of the Ming Emperor's stupidity to ban the sea. The supplies for our Vietnamese troops had to come from Yunnan. Go down the Red River waterway.

It was only then that our Taizu of the Li Dynasty destroyed the Red River waterway, cut off the Ming army's support, money, food, arms, and medical supplies, and finally forced the Ming army to suffer heavy casualties and had to retreat.

But now I heard that Zheng Chenggong landed in Bagu last month. From Guangzhou to Bagu, the sea route is eight thousand miles away.The naval forces of the Ming army were so strong that it was so powerful. Wouldn’t it be much easier to go to Qinghua at the mouth of the Honghe River from Qinzhou, Guangxi, than to go to Bagu?How should our army respond then?

Vietnam's geography is narrow and mountainous. If we rely on land supply, there are two to three thousand miles of mountain roads from north to south.But if it can be transported by sea, there is no danger in Vietnam.

What's more, the Mo family puppet dynasty in the north has completely surrendered to the Ming Dynasty since the Tianqi period. Now if there is chaos inside, the Ming army will attack outside again, and the country will perish forever! "

Facing the worries, his eldest son Zheng Gen tried to comfort him: "Father, although Zheng Chenggong successfully landed in Burma's Pego, he may not be able to land in Vietnam in the future.

Mangbai, king of Burma, was a fool after all, because Burma was not worried about being diverted and landed by enemy countries on land, so Mangbai was never willing to spend gold and silver on the purchase of Western warships.

But I am different from Vietnam. I have always known that the country is long and narrow, and it is easy to be cut by the enemy at sea. Therefore, in recent years, I have spent a lot of money to buy Portuguese and Dutch warships. The Hongyi cannon is also more advanced than the Burmese army. Annihilate them at sea!
Six years ago, when we fought against Nguyen Nguyen in the south, we tried to escort the two Dutch galleons we bought at that time, and landed at Ri Li (now Dong Hai County, Quang Binh Province, Vietnam) south of Hue. It's a pity that our Dutch warships are still not enough, and we have not been able to break through the Portuguese fleet accumulated by Ruan Ni all the year round, which is why we have not been able to cut off Ruan Ni's Hue Palace from the rear!

This time the Ming people are attacking, Ruan Ni should be aware of the general situation and fight side by side with us.If we combine the battle-hardened Western warships of our two sides together to defend against foreign aggression, we will definitely be able to annihilate Zheng Chenggong at sea!In this way, the Ming army is still forced to invade by land, and sooner or later it will be dragged to death by our army!Just like the division that annihilated Zhu Di back then! "

Zheng Gen's words cannot be said to be completely unreasonable.

Now it is the 1660s, and the VOC of the Dutch has been operating in Southeast Asia for more than half a century. The coastal regimes in Southeast Asia actually did arms trade with the Dutch and even the Portuguese before that.

Especially countries with more internal wars, in order to compete with each other, they spare no expense in buying guns.

In fact, let alone Southeast Asia, if you look at Fusang in the late Warring States Period, you will know how much those Warring States dynasties are willing to pay for "iron cannons and big tubes". Even the Kyushu and Western Kingdoms are willing to buy more guns. Buy foreign guns even if you don't want gods and Buddhas.

The regime of the Ming Dynasty was definitely an anomaly at the time. The main reason was that until the end of the Wanli period, there was no crisis of life and death in the Ming Dynasty. They thought highly of themselves, so they were unwilling to bow their knees in order to buy foreign guns and cannons.

On the Vietnam side, Lord Zheng and Lord Ruan are all out of their minds. At this time, the warlords are very pragmatic. As long as they can improve their combat effectiveness, no matter whether you are a Western barbarian or not, they will buy at all costs.

The narrow and long land of Vietnam and the rugged terrain of the mountains have caused them to pay more attention to the navy than the Burmese. Since the 1620s, the north and the south of Vietnam have desperately engaged in a warship arms race. If you buy a Portuguese caravel warship, I will buy a Dutch galleon. .

So when it comes to the navy alone, they are indeed qualified to look down on Myanmar and think that these landlubbers in Myanmar are garbage.Just because Zheng Chenggong can bully Myanmar does not mean he can bully Vietnam!

As long as the naval battle is won, the Ming Dynasty will not perish in Vietnam!

However, Zheng Zuo is much more mature than his son after all, he knows that things are not that simple.

"In the face of foreign enemies, all factions within the Li Dynasty can put aside their grievances and unite to the outside world." He dared not even think about such a thing.

It would be good if the Ruan family didn't fall into trouble, why would they fight against Zheng Chenggong with him?Even if troops are dispatched, it is estimated that they will wait and see at any time. When it comes to the decisive naval battle, the Zheng family's fleet will go first and suffer losses first, and then the Ruan family's fleet will try to pick peaches for cheap.

But right now, he has no better solution, so he can only sigh: "First try to be righteous, and then we can stabilize the Ruan family. It would be nice if the Ruan family doesn't cause more trouble.

Then our army must try to wipe out Mo Jingyu of Gaoping and Lang Son before the Ming army withdraws from Burma!You must not wait for the Ming army to withdraw its hand before joining hands with my puppet puppet in Vietnam!
Anyway, the Ming army will invade Vietnam sooner or later. After Burma is completely over, we will miss the opportunity to fight to the death. It is better to strike first.

If one of Zheng Chenggong's fleets is still pinned down in Bagu, they can succeed in provocation here, let the Ming army advance arrogantly, first use the navy to try to land rashly, and then our navy will annihilate it at sea, then it will be If you can defeat each of them, you must first break Zheng Chenggong's arm before encountering Zheng Chenggong himself. "

Zheng Zuo's thinking is similar to that of Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the German High Seas Fleet during World War I.

The essence of Scheer's naval warfare thinking during World War I was that he knew that he could not fight the main force of the British Royal Fleet, so he wanted to lure out a few fighters for the Royal Navy to divide his troops.

Each defeat weakens part of the British fleet each time, and waits for one to ebb and flow before the final decisive battle. In the final analysis, the Battle of Jutland in 1916 was a failed battle to lure and annihilate the enemy. Unfortunately, the German radio encryption was too rubbish.

But in any case, Scheer's strategic thinking itself is fine, what is problematic is execution and intelligence leaks.

Now Zheng Zuo also feels that Vietnam's naval power may not necessarily be the opponent of Zheng Chenggong's main force, but if he can first hide his strength and show weakness, and then provoke on land, so that the Ming army will rashly let the navy attack first when the main force is not there. Maybe there is a chance to annihilate each one.

Cut Zheng Chenggong's fleet into two parts and finish the battle twice. Zheng Zuo felt that there was still a chance.

(End of this chapter)