The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 661: Forty-nine Days in Zhangzhou
On August 18, Quanzhou gentry Guo Xian conspired to kill the remnants of the Zheng family, opened the Laifeng Gate, and welcomed the King of Qi's army into the city.

The defending general Zeng Guozuo learned about this in advance and sent troops to surround Guo's mansion, killing all of Guo Xian's family members, including more than 100 members.

On August 19th, the Ming army began to search for spies in Quanzhou City and slaughtered gentry and civilians.

The city was flooded with blood, and the mouth of the Jinjiang River was dyed red with blood.

At the same time, the Portuguese who surrendered to the Qi army informed Wang Zengbin of the strength of the Ming army and the location of artillery in the city.

In view of the fact that Zeng Guozuo and Zhu Youjian were slaughtering the city in a frenzied manner, Wang Zengbin decisively ordered to abandon the siege and launch an immediate attack.

On August 20, the Seventh Corps concentrated all its artillery fire to attack Laifengmen.

On the same day, ships of the Sixth Fleet on the Jinjiang River also joined in the bombardment of Laifengmen.

The Seventh Corps' chief instructor was concerned that rockets and naval guns would cause serious damage to the port.

After all, the emperor had repeatedly ordered that Quanzhou must be preserved.

Wang Zengbin disagreed and said:
"The Emperor said we should protect the people of Quanzhou. Now that they are suffering, how can we just sit back and watch? The port can be repaired if it's damaged, but how can we bring the people back to life if they die?"

On the 21st, two hot air balloons rose above Laifeng Gate, guiding naval guns to bombard the Ming army camp.

The Ming army was defeated.

On that day, the Qi army broke into Quanzhou City from Fengmen, killed Zeng Guodong, captured the pseudo-Ming Emperor Zhu Youjian, and annihilated the remnants of the Zheng family.

By the end of August, all seven counties in Quanzhou were pacified.

On the ninth day of the ninth month, the false emperor Zhu Youjian was taken back to Nanjing and handed over to the Suoyi Guards and the three judicial departments for interrogation.

On September 15th, the false emperor Zhu Youjian was executed by slow slicing in front of the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang's Empress Ma) on the southern foot of Purple Mountain for 1,808 crimes including "treason, disrespect, usurpation of power, massacre of the city, and collusion with Japanese pirates."

Zhang Yunxiu, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, went to Quanzhou without stopping to preside over the land survey work.

Xie Yang also sent officials from the Chamber of Commerce to Quanzhou to take over Zheng's land, assets, shops, and cargo ships, and to repair the port.

As for restoring the commercial order in Quanzhou, appeasing Fujian merchants, and dividing the land, there is no need to elaborate.

In early September, the first phase of the Quanzhou Port dredging project was fully launched, led by the Chamber of Commerce and jointly funded by the imperial court and Fujian merchants. The first phase planned to invest 3 million taels of silver, recruit 100,000 militiamen, repair port facilities, clear the Jinjiang silt, and gradually restore international shipping at Quanzhou Port.

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In early September, the Qi army continued to advance westward and pursue the Ming army. On September 8, the Sixth Fleet occupied Xiamen without bloodshed.

The remnants of the Ming army, together with the Japanese pirates entrenched in Xiamen, fled to Zhangzhou in a hurry.

The passage from Zhangzhou to Meizhou and Chaozhou to the west had long been cut off by bandits in eastern Guangdong.

It was no longer possible to continue turning west.

As a result, Zhangzhou became the last base camp of the anti-Qi forces in the southeast.

On September 15, the Qi army pressed forward and approached Zhangzhou. The Sixth Fleet entered the waters off Xiamen and blocked the Ming army's retreat.

On the same day, Wang Zengbin sent envoys to the city to negotiate, demanding that the Zhangzhou defenders immediately abandon the city and surrender.

The retired emperor only executed the culprit Chen Jin, and spared all his followers.

Chen Jin, courtesy name Lufang, was a native of Quanzhou. He grew up in a poor family but was very strong due to his martial arts training. He was helped by the pirate Zheng Zhilong and passed the military examination in the second year of the Tianqi reign.

In the eighth year of Hongguang, he served as a guerrilla in Quanzhou. In the tenth year of Hongguang, he was dismissed because of his failure in suppressing the Tatar pirates.

In the 12th year of Hongguang, he defected to Zheng Sen and became Zheng Chenggong's confidant.

In the Liaonan naval battle, Zheng was defeated and fled to Japan. Chen Jin was ordered to stay in Zhangzhou and organize a resistance against the Tatar Qi.

Chen Jin planned to "prepare in one year, counterattack in two years, mop up in three years, and achieve success in five years."

In the early years of Guangde, he planned several raids on Zhejiang and Shandong, "killing many Tartars."

Unfortunately, it was difficult to support the army alone. Since the Tatar Qi's southern expedition in the third year of Guangde, the Ming army suffered repeated defeats and retreated all the way to Zhangzhou.

Half a year ago, Chen Jin was appointed Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang by Emperor Longwu, in charge of military affairs in the southeast (to be precise, the three prefectures of Fujian).

When Quanzhou fell, Chen Jin's family was killed by rebel soldiers in Quanzhou.

Emperor Longwu was executed by slow slicing by the Tatars.

The national hatred and family feuds would not allow this Fujian military leader to surrender - in his view, surrender would mean death.

Negotiating peace was certainly not something he considered.

With the support of the Satsuma daimyo (actually a group of ronin), and the high probability that the shogunate would send troops to assist, plus the more than 8,000 remnant soldiers gathered in Zhangzhou, Chen Jin felt that he still had the strength to fight.

At the Zhangzhou Governor's Office, Wang Zengbin's handwritten letter was torn to pieces. Furious, the burly Governor Chen cursed in Minnan dialect:

"Sarenmu! (Fuck you!), the first batch of declines (Get lost!) Tatarstan wants to negotiate peace, what a fool!"

A short Japanese warrior nearby echoed:
"Governor Chen, the Edo Shogun's reinforcements are on the way. The Tartars killed so many Japanese warriors in Quanzhou. Liu Zhaosun will pay the price in blood!"

Chen Jin nodded and said nothing more. In his opinion, even if Japan did not send troops, Zheng Sen would send people back to reinforce.

He shouted at the Qi envoy who was tied up in front of him:
"Cut off this Tartar's legs and feet and throw him out of the city!"

The Qi envoy remained calm and laughed loudly:
"The Emperor has compassion for the people, so General Wang asked me to come and mediate. You don't know how to advance or retreat, and you don't know whether to live or die. You have brought trouble to the people of Zhangzhou. Zhangzhou is not like Quanzhou. Da Qi will not be afraid to act rashly! Massacre of the city is inevitable! You will all be buried with him."

Upon hearing the word "massacre", the Osaka ronin who claimed to be an envoy of Satsuma Domain gasped and his face changed drastically.

The wanderer was about to persuade Governor Chen, but he saw Chen Jinmeng wave his hand:

"Push it down! Chop it down!"

On that day, the peace envoy of the Seventh Corps was torn into pieces by the Zhangzhou defenders, and the body parts were thrown from the top of the city wall.

Also killed were 28 shopkeepers and clerks of the Qi Chamber of Commerce in Zhangzhou, seven spies of the Suoyi Guard, and 324 gentry and civilians in Zhangzhou who advocated peace talks with the Qi army.

September 16, the third year of Guangde.

The brutal siege of Zhangzhou officially began.

~~~~~
Nowadays, there is a custom in Zhangzhou area to eat spring pancakes and spring rolls during the Spring Festival.

This custom is closely related to a brutal siege battle more than three hundred years ago.

Mr. Meng Wuyue once heard from a friend in Zhangzhou that the siege of the city by the royal army lasted for a long time (a total of forty-nine days), and the Ming bandits in the city robbed the people of their food, causing a great famine in the city and killing countless people.

The bodies were piled up on top of each other and there was no time to bury them, so the people had to wrap the bodies in straw mats and abandon them on the roadside.

In order to commemorate this tragic history, the people used spring rolls to make straw mats to wrap the corpses to show that they would not forget, and this tradition has been passed down to this day.

Every Spring Equinox and Spring Festival, every household in Zhangzhou, men, women, old and young, gathers together to eat spring pancakes and spring rolls, which has become a custom.

Tan Qian, a famous historian in the late Ming and early Qi dynasties, was originally named Yixun, with the courtesy name Zhongmu and the pseudonym Shefu. He was from Haining, Zhejiang Province, and fled to Fujian after the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

Records of Southern Travels is a record of Tan Qian's personal experiences in Fujian during the Guangde period, and has high historical value.

According to the "Nanyoulu", in the third year of Guangde, the main force of the Qi army advanced by land and sea. After capturing Changtai, Pinghe, Zhao'an and Nanping, they defeated the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Chen Jin, in Jiangdong and then besieged Zhangzhou.

People from all the surrounding areas entered the city, each relying on their relatives to avoid the war.

The defender of Zhangzhou killed the envoy from Qi and held his ground, refusing to move forward.

The Seventh Corps attempted several assaults, but found that the casualties were too heavy, so it switched to a siege.

"They gathered 74 combat troops ( of whom were Ming surrendered troops), built wooden forts, surrounded them with two layers of wooden palisades, dug two trenches, and added cannons and ships, arranged in a grid like a star, to urge the Ming rebels to surrender day and night." (Records of Southern Travels, Volume , Page )
On the fifth day of October, fifty Japanese red seal ships arrived off the coast of Xiamen, loaded with Japanese soldiers and pirates to provide assistance to Zhangzhou.

The Seventh Fleet pretended to retreat, let the Japanese ships enter the Jiulong River, and then blocked the sea outlet.

On the eighth day, the Japanese ship arrived at the northern port of Jiulong River (less than ten miles away from Zhangzhou City) and was suddenly attacked by artillery from both sides of the river. The sky full of artillery fire instantly destroyed the Japanese flagship Izumo.

The surviving ships retreated hastily, and when they reached the river mouth, they were intercepted by the Empire's Sixth Fleet.

Fifty Japanese ships and more than two thousand Japanese pirates were finally destroyed off the coast of Xiamen and sank to the bottom of the sea.

Zhangzhou originally had a large population and limited food. As the siege lasted for a long time and external aid was cut off, the Ming army plundered the hidden food. Those who refused to hand over the food were executed.

In October, a dou of rice in the city cost fifty gold coins.

When the food ran out, people had to eat human bones and cook them. Countless people died.

On the second day of November, the extremely hungry defenders opened the Zhenyuan Gate and surrendered to the Qi army.

The Qi army marched straight in and occupied Zhangzhou. The culprit Chen Jin and his family burned themselves to death. The Japanese pirate leader Inoue Juichiro was captured and escorted to Nanjing, awaiting death by slicing.

Of the 8,000 Ming troops in the city, 3,000 died in battle, starvation or disease, and the rest all surrendered to the Great Qi.

The number of people in the city was only about 120,000, and the number of 130,000 people was reduced sharply to 50,000.

After forty-nine days, the siege of Zhangzhou finally ended.

From then on, Fujian came under the rule of Qi State.

Appendix: Records of Southern Travels:
"At first, the Qi army, numbering 130,000, stormed the city, but could not capture it for a long time. The autumn floods of the Jiujiang River surged, and the Qi army built a dike on Mount Men, pushing the water into the city. Food ran out in the city, and people began to eat each other. Seventy thousand people lay dead. The gates and alleys were thrown open, leaving the city like a cemetery. Rats and hungry crows crouched on tables in broad daylight. After the siege was lifted, only thirty to forty thousand people remained. One local, known for his generosity, led his wife and children in grief. A neighbor secretly cooked and ate the food, only to find that the dead man's intestines were filled with old paper, with faint, legible characters. The neighbor also abandoned his chopsticks and died."

(End of this chapter)