The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 101 Mo Zibu's concerted efforts
Well, I, Emperor Qianlong, was still thinking of asking Siam about the situation, but in fact, Siam was almost finished.

Zheng Xin and others stopped briefly at a small village called Bodhisattva behind a mountain. They had not eaten for more than a day and were extremely hungry and thirsty.

Fortunately, we had just broken into a Burmese army stronghold and obtained 100 to 200 kilograms of food.

Chen Lian and his men caught another 10 to 20 kilograms of fish in a nearby river. They quickly set up an earthen stove and cooked fish porridge without any oil or salt.

As Chaozhou people, as long as they have porridge to eat, they will not collapse that day and will recover some strength after a while.

"We can't go any further east. There are at least two more Burmese military checkpoints on the road to Bachen. They've blocked the main land and water routes and are protected by fortifications. It's difficult for us to get through. Even if we do, we'll suffer heavy casualties."

After eating a big bowl of porridge, the hunger in his stomach was temporarily suppressed, and Zheng Xin's brain was able to continue working at high speed.

"Let's go straight south from here."

Tong, a childhood playmate, immediately guessed what Zheng Xin was thinking. "Xin, do you really think that Haxian Mo Zibu can come to pick us up?"

Zheng Xin hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded and said, "From what I've seen of this man, he's definitely not an ordinary person.

Fifteen days ago, I had Wei Changle inform him. If I'm right, his fleet is already cruising near the coast."

In fact, Zheng Xin wanted to say that he saw that Mo Zibu had his own style of doing things, so he thought about it from his perspective.

If he were Mo Zibu, after receiving the news, he would definitely use the fastest time to reach the southern sea area where the Burmese army could not reach and cruise there, waiting for an opportunity to pick him up.

Zheng Mincheng and Chen Lian shook their heads at the same time. Chen Lian, as a confidant, immediately advised:

"Xin, we can't gamble our lives in the hands of outsiders. If Mo Zibu doesn't come, what should we do?"

Zheng Xin laughed loudly. Although he was being chased like a prey, he was still full of confidence and not at all desperate. He stood up, took Chen Lian's hand, and looked behind him.

"That group of Burmese troops has been chasing us for several days and has been haunting us. I concluded that they are not ordinary Burmese troops. It must be a big shot in the Burmese army who is targeting us.

Because we performed the best on the battlefield. If it weren't for King Agada's incompetence, the Burmese army, even if it outnumbered us several times, would have found it difficult to defeat us Teochews!"

When Zheng Xin said this, all the people from Chaozhou and those with Chaozhou ancestry couldn't help but puff out their chests.

They did have reason to be proud. Thousands of them fought against the main force of the Burmese army. Without any supplies, they fought their way through on an empty stomach and still maintained their organization and morale.

It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that they were the most capable fighters in the Siamese army at that time.

“They chased us all the way, thinking we were lost and that we Teochews had lost our minds.

But I want to tell these Burmese people together with all my fellow villagers, no!

Think about that White Elephant King Meng Bo, he is just a descendant of Meng Huo. A thousand years ago, his ancestor was captured and released seven times by our Han sage Zhuge Wuhou, and he was played around in the palm of his hand. Now he has just suddenly become powerful.

How dare the barbarians who eat raw meat and drink blood compare themselves to the nobles of our Han family?

"Fellow tribesmen, fellow villagers, after we have eaten and drunk our fill, we will lie in ambush in this village and wait for them to come up. We will let them see that we are not stray dogs, but lions, lions that eat their flesh and drink their blood!"

"If we kill them, we'll go to the beach calmly, and someone will pick us up!"

"Fuck you!" After saying that, Zheng Xin drank the fish porridge in the bowl in one gulp and started cursing.

"Pu Lingmu! Pu Lingmu!" A group of Chaozhou people immediately started laughing and cursing loudly, and the frustration and depression caused by being chased for many days were instantly swept away.

Well, people at that time, including the Nguyen family of Ha Tien and the Nguyen family of Quang Nam, called the Konbaung Dynasty the Huadu Kingdom, and they all believed that Meng Bo was a descendant of Meng Huo, the former powerful chieftain of Nanzhong.

What is even more strange is that neither Mengbo nor the royal family of the Konbaung Dynasty refuted this statement.

And I don’t know if it’s because of this mentality, or if they think that Siam can be rich and powerful only because of the Chinese.

The Konbaung Dynasty was most hostile to the Chinese in Siam, or perhaps it could be said that they valued them, and treated them as their mortal enemies.

Historically, when Ayutthaya was captured, the Siamese were only taken as slaves, and even King Vu Bentong, a large number of princes, and concubines were not killed. However, thousands of Chinese were almost all killed.

. . . .

Although Bodhisattva Village is a village, it is not small and is located on an important waterway.

Zheng Xin and others were familiar with the geography and escaped quickly, making it very difficult for the Burmese to chase them.

After Zheng Xin got rid of them, he was still able to cook fish porridge, but the Burmese army could only drink cold water and eat dry biscuits.

When the Burmese army arrived at the Bodhisattva, they could even see the temporary porridge stove built by Zheng Xin and others.

Almost at the same time, several Siamese soldiers suddenly appeared at the gate of Bodhisattva Village, and they tied up five or six women with ropes.

The Burmese army immediately rushed forward, and the Siamese army fled like the wind, leaving several women behind.

After personal interrogation, the Burmese commander learned that the Siamese had just left the village half an hour ago.

He was overjoyed and forced his soldiers to continue chasing through the village, regardless of the fact that they also wanted to use the Siamese army's earthen stove to cook porridge.

Well, these women were not lying, because they did see Zheng Xin and others running through the village to the north.

Although the Burmese army is known to be elite, in fact, that is only relative when compared with Siam, Arakan and other countries.

They had been chasing Zheng Xin and others for a hundred or two hundred miles and were exhausted. Now when they heard that they were not allowed to make a fire and cook on the spot, they kept grumbling and complaining.

In a bad mood, not many people were on guard, and they all rushed into the village from several directions. Zheng Xin and others were running all the way and never turned back to attack.

At this moment, there was a loud bang, and the Burmese troops entering the city were cut into two. Many people were dizzy and their ears were buzzing due to the huge explosion.

Zheng Xin personally led the army, and 700 Chaozhou soldiers attacked from all directions.

Although the total number of Burmese troops was close to two thousand, they were caught off guard and had no psychological preparation at all. After a brief resistance, they began to retreat continuously.

The Burmese commander was riding on a war elephant and giving orders loudly, but Zheng Xin had already noticed him. A group of eight Chaozhou warriors, armed with several clay pots and fire bombs, took advantage of the Burmese army's panic and approached desperately.

After paying the price of five deaths, they finally rushed to the Burmese commander's mount and threw the lit fire bombs with all their might.

Tiny ceramic pieces flew all over the elephant's face. Frightened by the violent explosion, the trained elephant turned around in fear and stomped to death the elephant slave who was trying to control it.

Then it roared wildly and fled backwards carrying the Burmese commander on its back.

The surrounding Burmese troops looked at each other in confusion. They saw that their commander had disappeared and they didn't know how many Siamese people had come, and they became more frightened.

No one knew who took the lead, but a sound of footsteps was heard. After the thousand or so people outside the village pretended to charge twice, they gave up the hundreds of people who had entered the village one after another and followed the direction where their leader left, slowly disappearing.

In the village, Zheng Xindu personally participated in the hand-to-hand combat. His swordsmanship was as superb as Chen Lian. It was with this martial arts skill that he made a great success in the Ayutthaya Dynasty in the past.

Although he hasn't fought in battle in several years, his skills are still as strong as before.

The morale of the Burmese troops trapped in the village was taken away by the Chaozhou soldiers, and they soon went from organized resistance to fighting alone, and then quickly turned to hiding from place to place.

However, they were well-equipped, and Zheng Xin's troops had only eaten one bowl of porridge for a day and a half and were somewhat exhausted. Although they had the upper hand, they could not defeat them for a while.

At this moment, thunderous shouts were heard from the east and south directions of the village.

It turned out that when the Siamese people saw Zheng Xin and others surrounded the Burmese army, they rushed over under the leadership of village elders and local officials to beat the fallen dog.

Although the Ayutthaya Dynasty was not well-equipped for military affairs, that was because of the rampant corruption among the upper class and the military. The common people still maintained the custom of practicing martial arts that had been passed down for hundreds of years since the founding of the country.

In countries like Siam and Myanmar, for hundreds or even thousands of years, men have done very little farm work, while women have taken care of most of the work.

This is because their civilization has only reached this stage. Just like on the African savannah, male lions certainly rarely participate in hunting, etc., that is the job of female lions.

The only thing a male lion has to do is to protect the tribe. Men in these places also learn martial arts from a young age, and their only job is to fight and protect their relatives and tribesmen.

Don’t worry about how well they train. Although in the eyes of Chinese people, there is really no martial ethics, but since they are born, this is their greatest responsibility.

Bodhisattva Village is located at a busy intersection in Nakhon Nayok City, surrounded by a dense population. They were originally afraid of the ferocity of the Burmese and did not dare to resist, but they were Thais after all. Seeing Zheng Xin and his men surrounded the Burmese, they immediately rushed over.

With the help of these people, the morale of Zheng Xin's troops was greatly boosted, and they quickly killed all the Burmese troops.

With such an impressive record, Taksin revealed his identity as Phraya Kamphaeng Phet, and local village elders and local officials who had long heard of his reputation came to him one after another.

Taksin gathered men and supplies, and his army quickly expanded to over 3,000 men, finally giving him some real presence. He then led his men south from the Pusa, intending to see if Mo Zi Bu had arrived. Unfortunately, they were overtaken by the Burmese army after less than two days.

This time, there were at least three thousand Burmese troops, carrying the royal flag of the Konbaung Dynasty. They were in neat uniforms and had countless guns and cannons. It was obvious that they did not come here by chance, but were really targeting them.

Zheng Xin's mouth twitched, and he wanted to slap himself twice.

He said that a few days ago to cheer everyone up. He actually didn't think that the White Elephant King would specifically target him among so many Siamese troops.

But now it seems that my bad luck came true.

Alas, Emperor Zheng didn’t know yet that he was badly betrayed by his future son-in-law, me, Mo Dalongtou.

Because in this time and space, Mo Zibu took advantage of the emptiness of the White Elephant Kingdom and went to Pyiu City to slap the White Elephant King. He has always remembered this grudge.

The White Elephant King had defeated 20,000 Siamese troops and was already deploying the final siege.

As a result, we received battle reports one after another, saying that a group of Miaoxiang people (Chinese) were very powerful and had fought off several groups of pursuers in succession.

Under normal circumstances, for a country as big as Siam, it is normal for some people with good fighting power to escape, and it is not worth chasing them.

But when the White Elephant King Meng Bo checked the battle report, he found that the group of fish that had escaped were indeed the remnants of the Miao Xiang army that he wanted to capture but failed outside the city of Ayutthaya.

Then he remembered the report sent by the Regent that the city of Pyin Uyen was captured by a group of Myo Xiang people.

An idea flashed through the mind of the White Elephant King like lightning. Could this army be the same one that attacked the city of Pyin Uyen more than a year ago?
The more the White Elephant King thought about it, the more likely it seemed. He immediately gave an order in a rage, ordering his two guard corps to go out and chase after them without even caring about the siege of Ayutthaya.

This put Zheng Xin in great trouble. He had already gathered more than 3,000 people and was barely able to make a decent army.

Moreover, more and more people are coming to seek refuge, which seems to be a sign that heroes from all directions are coming to join the army.

Before the battle even began, the elite Burmese army arrived.

Although Zheng Xin temporarily escaped from the predicament, he was definitely no match for the White Elephant King's guards.

Moreover, they also had cavalry. He was leading a few thousand people who could only be considered a mob. He could not defeat the Burmese army, nor could he get rid of them.

Along the way, Zheng Xin arranged several waves of ambush, but they were all easily defeated by the Burmese.

After setting up an ambush, not only did he not fall for it, he was almost surrounded by the cavalry, and the situation became more and more dangerous.

When they reached the vicinity of Pattaya in the future, Zheng Xin had no choice but to turn around and resist. However, he was completely defeated and was soon caught up by the main force.

Although Zheng Xin's troops had a large number of people and no shortage of supplies at this time, their combat effectiveness was actually not as good as before.

Zheng Xin was well aware of this. In the past, if he wanted to leave, he would have to run away with hundreds of people. There was a dense network of rivers near Pattaya, and even the Burmese cavalry could not catch up with them.

But now, although Zheng Xin can leave, it will definitely deal a huge blow to his reputation.

Because so many Siamese people kept coming to surrender, it was because they saw that Taksin could fight the Burmese. If Taksin ran away now, he would lose the support of the people and it would be difficult for him to achieve anything great.

"Alian, I want you to rush out and go to Sattahip.

If Ha Tien Mo Wu can come, his fleet will definitely dock near Sattahip, as that's the only place with a deep-water port."

Taksin decided to hold on. He wanted to use this to prove to the world (Siam) that he, Taksin, was the only hope to resist Burmese enslavement in the future, just like King Naresuan almost two hundred years ago.

. . . .

Mo Zibu did come, and he was more 'smart' than Zheng Xin imagined.

Because I, the great time traveler, have the ability of "clairvoyance", I know that in history, Taksin accumulated strength to resist the Burmese in the areas of Rayong and Chanthaburi.

So after receiving Wei Changle's report, he immediately led a fleet to Siam.

Although Mo Zi Bu could not mobilize many people because he had to keep some people in Pattani for construction, he had warships. The Burmese came by land and only had some small inland boats.

Therefore, as long as Mo Zibu doesn't go too far away from the seaside, he will be safe.

Moreover, Mo Zibu made some changes to the composition of the troops. In addition to his own people, he also asked several other Chinese families in the surrounding area to send people to rescue.

Among them, the Wei family in Pattani contributed fifty people, Wu Rang in Songkhla contributed fifty people, Ye Fengchang in Kedah contributed twenty people, and the Zhuang family in Gaotoulang contributed ten people.

Even the Tao Gongye family agreed to send a boat with 60 people to Siam with Mo Zibu because of his continuous goodwill.

In this way, the fleet that rescued Zheng Xin was not just Chaozhou people.

Instead, there are Hakka people, people from Zhangzhou, people from Quanzhou, and Mo Zibu, a Cantonese, so there are representatives from the coastal areas of Fujian and Guangdong.

It seems that it is not the Teochew compatriots who are working together, but the Nanyang Chinese who are working together.

Afterwards, Mo Zibu left Li Xianwen to guard Pattani, to oversee the construction of the arsenal and the resettlement of the Annamites, as well as to strengthen and tighten the reins on the natives.

He took 27 large and small warships, four companies of the Yicongtuan, three companies of the Ha Tientuan, the Guards Flintlock Company and the Artillery Company of the Staff Officers Corps, plus 180 people from other families, a total of 1,200 people, and sailed north.

After arriving in Luokun, the Wang family, who had been preparing for this day for many years, dispatched eight large and small warships and 450 soldiers, and the mixed fleet of both sides set out again.

It’s just that Mo Zibu was a little too clear-headed, and because he only had a thousand soldiers, he was a little afraid of being caught by the Burmese army.

So instead of going directly into the Gulf of Siam and going upstream along the Chao Phraya River, we chose to go to Rayong City first.

This sight almost made Mo Zibu's nose twisted with anger.

The Siamese Phraya of Rayong City ignored the report and thought he was a pirate, and directly fired cannons set up at the port at him.

Mo Zibu almost couldn't hold back and went up to beat him, but when he thought about rescuing Zheng Xin, he tried hard to hold back.

The fleet then headed west and arrived at Sotao.

After staying there for a day, they still did not see any sign of Zheng Xin's troops, so they quickly allocated 700 soldiers to prepare to search north.

Just when Mo Zibu was about to send out his troops, Chen Lian broke through the Burmese blockade and arrived in Sotao.

. . . .

Chen Lian looked up at Mo Zibu, who was much taller than him, with a sunny and warm smile on his face, and even looked a little honest.

His appearance is not particularly outstanding, but his square face and big forehead, coupled with his bright eyes and broad shoulders, give people a very calm and inexplicable sense of security that they can rely on completely.

At least Chen Lian went through many hardships and arrived in Sotaoyi. Facing a completely unfamiliar environment and strangers, he immediately felt less nervous without even a word of communication.

In a trance, he looked at Mo Zibu walking towards him with the sunlight shining from behind, and felt the safe feeling of returning home to see his father and brother waiting for him.

"Mo Longtou, I am the messenger of Duke Zheng. I have come to Longtou to ask for help. Please send troops to rescue my master." Chen Lian knelt on one knee with his face flushed.

He was not excited, but because he had just had a strange feeling of treating Mo Zibu as his father or brother. Now he felt indescribable weirdness. You know, he was seven years older than Mo Zibu.

Mo Zibu misunderstood. He thought Chen Lian was anxious and secretly admired Chen Lian's loyalty in his heart.

At the same time, he also had quite complicated feelings towards this Chaozhou tough guy.

In the historical war between the Ou and Zheng families, Chen Lian fought against the 50,000-strong army of Mo Zibu's cousin Chen Dali for seven months with less than 3,000 soldiers in Chanthaburi, east of Sattahip.

Chen Dali was kept at bay until the rainy season arrived, and nearly half of the army became ill and had to retreat. Even Chen Dali himself died of the disease.

It can be said that it was this person who led to the complete downfall of the Ou family.

"Brother, please get up quickly and don't talk about asking for help. You and I are fellow Chinese. We should share the hardships and do our best to help each other."

Mo Zibu helped Chen Lian up and said, "Look, not only Cantonese people like me are here, but also Zhangzhou and Quanzhou people and Hakka people are here."

Only then did Chen Lian realize that behind Mo Zibu, people speaking various accents were coming and going.

Those who like to wear uniforms and pretend to be officers and soldiers are obviously Hakka people from Jiaying Prefecture. They are the only ones who like to do this.

The Chaozhou man was speechless. He blinked and suddenly felt a little damp.

(End of this chapter)