The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 203: Under the Yingtian City

The 10,000 main forces led by Zhu Jianxuan sailed upstream along the Yangtze River on a steam sailing ship.

The area around the Yangtze River estuary and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is the real core area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, and normal vassal state armies cannot enter directly.

News of the civil uprising in Yingtian Prefecture has spread, and the situation around the Yangtze River waterway has become tense.

When the river defense fleet spotted the Wu ships, they immediately approached and asked questions.

Zhu Jianxuan personally met with the junior officer on the patrol boat and took out the imperial edict and the note from the old emperor ordering him to preside over the Northern Expedition and to go to Beijing to serve the king.

While letting the officer look at it, he was also asked to immediately call their chief officer, who was the admiral of the Songjiang River Defense Command who was in charge of entering and exiting the Yangtze River Estuary.

He asked the Jiangfang admiral to confirm his imperial edict and prepare to allow other Wu ships that followed to enter the Yangtze River.

Zhu Jianxuan made the same arrangements when crossing the two river defense checkpoints of Jiangyin and Zhenjiang.

The governors-general of Songjiang, Jiangyin and Zhenjiang, as well as the garrison generals and officials in the three cities, now know that something has happened in Yingtian Prefecture, and are waiting on the banks of the Yangtze River.

If there is any order or news coming from Yingtian Prefecture, he will be able to know and respond immediately.

Now seeing the imperial edict that Zhu Jianxuan took out, he was very surprised and relieved at the same time. He immediately allowed the Wu army to pass through his jurisdiction and guaranteed to allow subsequent Wu troops to pass through.

After the Song Dynasty, the power to command troops and the power to mobilize troops were separated.

The generals who usually manage and train the army have no right to lead the troops away from the garrison without the emperor's order.

His subordinate officers could not see the emperor's order, nor did they dare to rashly obey the commander-in-chief's order for the troops to leave the garrison directly, because that might be suspected of rebellion.

If the local garrison knew that there was unrest in the capital, but there was no order from the emperor yet, it would be a dilemma whether the generals should go to the capital on their own to defend the emperor.

Under normal circumstances, if there was a possibility of unrest in the capital, the emperor would immediately issue a dispatch order to the nearby garrisons, asking them to rush into the city to suppress it.

But the situation in the Ming Dynasty is very special now. The old emperor is preparing to change the crown prince, believing that the civil and military officials will collectively kidnap the prince and rebel.

Therefore, even when it was discovered that the workers in the city might riot, only one transfer order was sent to the King of Wu.

Even the garrisons in the counties and prefectures surrounding Yingtian Prefecture had not received any emergency dispatch orders, and were now struggling over whether or not to send out troops.

When the King of Wu's army arrived with the order, they naturally breathed a sigh of relief.

But their tangled emotions did not disappear, but all changed direction.

Why did the emperor only issue the order to the King of Wu? Why did he only allow the King of Wu to enter the capital? Why did he not move the troops that were originally directly under the imperial court?

Did the emperor really only invite King Wu to come to Beijing, or was there something wrong with these imperial edicts themselves?

The Wu fleet where Zhu Jianxuan was located sailed in the Yangtze River for a whole day and finally arrived at Yingtian Prefecture in the early morning of the last day of the 42nd year of Xianning.

There was a patrol fleet on the river outside the dock, and the dock was full of soldiers. All civilian ships had stopped.

There were originally two armies (six divisions) with nearly 60,000 troops stationed in the urban area and suburbs of Yingtian Prefecture.

In the past few years, they were deployed to garrison near the urban area in order to control the victims of the disaster, and in the past two years, they were deployed to control the workers' calls for rest.

With the continuous development of industry and commerce, the built-up area of ​​Yingtian City has long exceeded the original city wall, and houses have been built from the original city wall to the riverside.

Most of these troops were responsible for the areas outside the city walls, while the areas within the city walls were originally under the responsibility of the Jinyiwei.

The key point is that when the old emperor was trying to change the crown prince, the army commanders and division commanders of these armies were also placed under house arrest in the palace.

The remaining large group of brigade commanders and regiment commanders all became headless flies, each controlling their own defense zone.

Zhu Jianxuan asked the guards to hold the imperial edict and shout to the patrol boat from the bow:

"His Royal Highness the King of Wu has been ordered to come to the capital to defend the king. Please ask the general of your patrol fleet to come aboard to talk."

The junior officer in charge of the patrol fleet hurried up to pay a visit to Zhu Jianxuan, checked the imperial edict, and explained the current situation in Yingtian City.

Now the garrison outside Yingtian Prefecture controls the urban area and dock area outside the city walls.

But the area within the city walls was controlled by rioting workers.

The rioting workers took out weapons from various government offices in the city and organized tens of thousands of people to defend the city walls to resist the imperial troops stationed outside the walls.

They shouted to the garrison outside the city wall, claiming that they were not intending to rebel, they just wanted the emperor to intervene and resolve the wage issue between them and their employers.

If the garrison outside the city wall attacks the city, they will attack the Forbidden City inside.

The division commander and army commander stationed outside the city were not there, and no one dared to make a decision whether to attack or not. The two sides were deadlocked across the city wall.

Zhu Jianxuan heaved a sigh of relief after hearing this:
"That means the Forbidden City is still safe now, right?"

The patrol officer immediately said:
"There are guards on Xiaolingwei, who use telescopes on Zhongshan Mountain to observe the situation in the city at all times.

"The rioters occupied the Imperial City a few days ago, but never had the chance to enter the Forbidden City.

“The Forbidden City is more well-defended, with artillery guns on its walls that can fire submunitions that are extremely powerful against infantry.

“Without enough artillery powder to bombard for dozens of days, it is difficult to break.

“The rioters did not attack the Forbidden City. They probably wanted to leave some room for maneuver and negotiate with the imperial court to resolve the issue.

"But His Majesty seems to be unprepared to negotiate with them..."

Zhu Jianxuan nodded gently:
"Help the Wu army land as soon as possible, and notify all brigade commanders and regiment commanders outside Yingtian City, as well as chiefs of staff of the same level, to come to the dock to see me."

The patrol fleet officer did not dare to delay and immediately arranged for someone to go out and report.

The Wu army led by Zhu Jianxuan landed at the dock and directly controlled the entrance and exit and defense facilities on the dock.

Around ten o'clock in the morning, more than one hundred officers at the brigade and regiment levels arrived at the dock one after another.

Zhu Jianxuan, wearing the prince's uniform, stood in the open space in the middle of the dock and accepted the worship of these middle-level core officers.

Then he asked the accompanying Wu State Privy Councilor Cao Zhendong to read out the emperor's edict and orders.

After the reading, Zhu Jianxuan gave the order himself:
"From now on, all the naval and land garrisons inside and outside Yingtianfu will obey my command and work together to control the civil unrest in Yingtianfu and rescue the Forbidden City."

When these middle-level officers learned that King Wu had arrived, they all felt relieved. Finally, someone of sufficient status was here to take charge of the situation.

Although the King of Wu is a vassal king, he is also your Majesty's biological son. He has just destroyed the Qing Dynasty and recovered the Central Plains.

In the entire Ming society, the people who most admired Zhu Jianxuan were the elite class including these middle and lower-level military officers.

There is no direct conflict of interest between the two parties. They are influenced by the nationalist enlightenment thought, recognize Zhu Jianxuan's actions, and admire Zhu Jianxuan's great success.

Most officers obeyed the order immediately, and a small number of officers hesitated for a few seconds and then followed the general trend and accepted the order.

However, some people are worried that the identity of Prince Wu is too special. Will this prince really save the Forbidden City?

If the emperor and the crown prince in the Forbidden City were dead, he, the King of Wu, could directly ascend the throne and become the emperor.

However, no one would directly say this malicious speculation. They just kept some suspicion and vigilance in their hearts and observed the subsequent orders of the King of Wu.

Zhu Jianxuan appointed several Wu State staff officers he brought with him to serve as temporary division commanders of six garrison divisions in Yingtian Prefecture. He controlled the army and stabilized the situation through these brigade-level officers.

Zhu Jianxuan asked the accompanying fleet to control the river defense, left a regiment of the main force to control the dock, and led the rest of the troops to the city of Yingtian Prefecture.

At around twelve o'clock in the morning, Zhu Jianxuan arrived at the Xiaoling Guard stationed in the east of Yingtian Prefecture, two kilometers away from Chaoyang Gate.

Yingtianfu City is not a regular square city. At the same time, the Forbidden City is on the easternmost side of the city wall, almost right next to the wall. You can reach the outside of the city through the Chaoyang Gate.

Zhu Jianxuan subconsciously wanted to send someone to Zhongshan Mountain to find a suitable location to raise his King of Wu flag so that people in the Forbidden City would know that he had arrived.

Because for the defenders, confidence is a very important thing.

Being simply trapped or knowing that reinforcements have arrived are two completely different mentalities.

In most cases, the mentality and confidence of ordinary soldiers and officers may directly affect the outcome of the war.

However, Zhu Jianxuan immediately realized that his arrival as the King of Wu might not necessarily increase the confidence of many people in the Forbidden City.

I am outside and the emperor and the prince are inside. Many people may doubt whether I will really rescue them.

He might even suspect that he might have deliberately provoked the rioters in the city.

Let them continue to attack the Forbidden City with all their might.

Although these people's thinking is traditional and the judgments they make are obviously biased, they are very accurate to a certain extent.

Zhu Jianxuan was first and foremost a great inventor and engineer, and a direct promoter and beneficiary of the Industrial Revolution.

It is also a representative of the initial formation of a large-scale industrial production system.

Zhu Jianxuan should have been a potential leader of the Ming Dynasty's industrial and commercial groups.

In terms of social composition, the industrial and commercial community is clearly a force for innovation.

Zhu Jianxuan was naturally the leader of the reformists.

As for the original emperor, prince, and most of the old bureaucrats, they were all representatives of the remnants of feudal traditions.

If Zhu Jianxuan acted completely according to his interest group, he should have fanned the flames and used the power of the rioting workers to lure them all into one pot.

In recent years, Zhu Jianxuan has been advocating for higher wages for workers and basic protection for them, and he has indeed been doing so in his own industry in Wu.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan has a high reputation within the worker group. In addition, with his understanding and knowledge of the workers' power in his previous life, he can also become a leader of the workers' movement.

Zhu Jianxuan can use his prestige to reconcile the conflicts between workers and factory owners, so that this new generation of forces can temporarily unite against the outside world.

Then he led them to work together to carry out a thorough social revolution and wipe out all the conservatives in the Ming Dynasty.

But Zhu Jianxuan himself was actually a reformist among the reformists, a relatively moderate and conservative reformist.

Zhu Jianxuan believes that a large-scale and thorough social revolution can indeed quickly liberate productivity, but it will also cause great damage to existing social assets.

Therefore, we hope to gradually release productivity through social reform without destroying existing social wealth.

Wars should not be expanded. They should be fought and resolved as quickly as possible to minimize damage.

Zhu Jianxuan cannot abandon his identity as a prince, which is the basis for his current achievements and the basis for him to obtain a higher status.

My father has told me that he has decided to make me the crown prince.

It was precisely because he decided to make himself the crown prince that the current chaotic situation was indirectly caused.

I don’t know how many more years my seventy-year-old father can last.

If he had allowed the rioters to destroy the Forbidden City and even murder his father and brother just to gain control of the supreme power a few years earlier, his good political reputation would have been completely destroyed.

That would definitely not be worth it at all.

The emperor, who recognizes his abilities, would certainly realize this, but ordinary soldiers and low-level generals might not.

Therefore, the sudden appearance of their own flag outside the city might not only fail to increase the confidence of the soldiers defending the Forbidden City, but might instead increase their worries.

Zhu Jianxuan immediately decided not to raise the flag, and at the same time he had to find a way to make people believe that he was there to mediate, not to quell the rebellion.

It is also not worthwhile to turn yourself into a pure revolutionary.

Because the identity of a prince itself means conservatism, Zhu Jianxuan is actually an intersection of new and old, upper and lower, internal and external interests.

If Zhu Jianxuan were to deal with this riot, he would definitely focus on coordination and appeasement rather than further intensifying it.

It is in Zhu Jianxuan's personal best interest to allow all participants to exit peacefully and gain the highest political reputation among all social classes.

Zhu Jianxuan asked for paper and pen at the Xiaolingwei garrison and wrote a simple draft to persuade the enemy to surrender.

Let two staff officers take the manuscript, the loud-voiced soldier in charge of shouting, and a tin loudspeaker to the bottom of the city wall, ready to shout to the workers on the city to persuade them to surrender.

There may be a small number of rifled guns in the city, so a group of soldiers with special shields should be arranged to protect the staff and soldiers responsible for shouting.

At the same time, Zhu Jianxuan also knew that empty persuasion and reasoning alone would hardly produce immediate results.

We must also prepare deterrent forces so that our opponents will listen to what we have to say.

So the soldiers in charge of the escort carried grenades, and two squads of infantry carried rocket launchers and followed behind the shouting team to provide support.

Such a large group of people made defensive preparations one thousand meters away from the Yingtian Prefecture city wall, and then slowly approached the city wall.

There were workers patrolling on top of the city wall and they soon discovered the movement here.

"What's that outside?"

"Everyone, pay attention. The imperial soldiers are approaching."

"Are they going to attack the city?"

"Don't worry about what they are going to do. Go and inform the bosses and get some people over here."

The patrolling workers immediately shouted to alert other companions around them, and the patrol team's leader immediately ordered people to notify the gang bosses.

The workers didn't know whether the imperial army was going to attack the city, but they quickly called for more people to come and defend it.

The person in charge guarding the east side of the city wall today is the boss of the dock laborers' gang. He ran over immediately after hearing the report from his subordinates:

"Don't worry about what they are going to do, brothers, be ready to fight."

The leader of the laborers ordered his men to raise their rifles and aim them at the shouting team protected by mobile shields outside the city.

The Wu State's shouting team stopped two hundred meters below the city wall.

At this time, the smoothbore gun cannot hit the target at all. If the rifled gun does not have a pointed bullet and uses a traditional spherical bullet, it will also be difficult to hit the target at this distance.

Besides, the shouting team has a large number of shields for the ultimate protection.

After the moving shield array stopped together, the soldier with the loud voice raised a large trumpet made of rolled iron sheets and stuck it in the defensive wall formed by the shields.

Two staff officers squatted under the shields and read the script sentence by sentence, and the loud-voiced soldier shouted it out through the loudspeaker.

"Listen up, all the workers in the city. Our Highness the King of Wu has something to say to you.

“Your Highness the King of Wu knows that you did not intend to rebel.

“It’s just that the wages are too low, it’s too hard to make money, and life is too hard.

“No money for housing, no money for food, no money for medical treatment, no money to support my wife and children.

“That’s why you choose to take a break and want your employers to pay you more.

“It’s just that the bosses were unwilling to pay, and you never got the results you wanted, so you rushed into the government office in anger.

“Now, His Royal Highness the King of Wu has promised that the court will immediately issue minimum wage regulations, requiring that the monthly wages of all hired workers in Yingtian Prefecture must not be less than five silver dollars.

“If you are well-informed, you should know that this is the minimum standard for Wu’s factories.

"As long as you don't break the palace rules, lay down your weapons and return to your factory, His Royal Highness the King of Wu promises to forgive you for what happened.

“This is your last chance.

"You can control the wall for a while, but you cannot control it forever.

"You are usually factory workers. Do you think you can defeat the imperial army on the battlefield?
"Your Highness the King of Wu has arrived in Yingtian Prefecture. The Wu Northern Expedition Army, which just wiped out a million Qing troops, is now arriving at the city of Yingtian Prefecture.

"You can't hold on forever, the food in the city will eventually run out.

“The Northern Expedition Army can also easily break through the city walls you control.

“But His Royal Highness the King of Wu believes that you are all citizens of the Ming Dynasty.

“Many of the materials needed for the development and construction of Wu were produced by you.

“Many of the craftsmen in the capital of Wu are your relatives and friends.

“Many of the supplies used by the Wu Kingdom’s Northern Expedition Army on the battlefield were also produced by you.

“Your Highness the King of Wu does not want to kill the workers who have contributed to the Wu Kingdom and the Northern Expedition on the battlefield.

“Yingtian Prefecture is also the most benevolent capital of our Ming Dynasty. Your Highness the King of Wu does not want rivers of blood to flow under the city of Yingtian Prefecture, nor does he want more killings to be committed.

“So His Royal Highness the King of Wu decided to give you one last chance.

“Lay down your weapons and surrender Kaesong.

"You can arrange for someone to go out of the city to discuss this with His Royal Highness the King of Wu."

Zhu Jianxuan also appealed to their emotions and explained the reasons to them.

What Zhu Jianxuan said was all true, and it wasn't a consolation against one's will.

These workers from Yingtian Prefecture did contribute to the construction of the Wu State and the Northern Expedition.

Zhu Jianxuan's main force of the Wu Kingdom could indeed easily break through the Yingtian Prefecture City, but Zhu Jianxuan really did not want to fight in the Yingtian Prefecture City.

At the same time, through the African Campaign and the Northern Expedition, he let the entire Ming Dynasty know that his military power was strong.

If the civil uprising in Yingtian Prefecture can be resolved peacefully this time, the civil servants, military officers, workers and soldiers around Yingtian Prefecture will all know of his "kindness".

It can further enhance one's political reputation and give oneself a label of being kind to others.

It can also cover up the impact of the Yi Chu coup, prove that he has no intention of using others to endanger the safety of his father and brother, and prove that he cares about the safety of his father and brother.

With the army and wealth under his control, he has no need to worry that a vassal king can affect his position, so he will definitely make good enough arrangements for his elder brother.

Now I really want to rescue my father and elder brother safely.

After the call, the staff officer immediately raised his hand to signal the soldiers in charge of the escort to take out their grenades and throw them towards the open space ahead.

The soldier with the rocket launcher on the side and rear also took position and fired a shot into the middle of the empty road in front of the city gate.

Deafening explosions sounded one after another, and the entire ground seemed to tremble slightly.

The dust caused by the explosion covered the sky, and a lot of sand and gravel flew onto the city walls and hit the faces of the gang boss and workers.

(End of this chapter)