The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 121 Who will shed blood today?

Let’s go back two months to the first month of the year 1767, the nd year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign in the Qing Dynasty.

Just after the Siamese army was defeated outside the city, a large number of Burmese spies and the Thai traitors they bribed took the opportunity to sneak into Ayutthaya.

They set fires and caused destruction everywhere in the city, and the bad thieves in the city took the opportunity to come out and rape and plunder.

The Ayutthaya Dynasty had completely lost its administrative capabilities, and no one listened to King Agada's orders anymore.

Finally, by the time the citizens and some soldiers organized themselves to maintain public order, the Burmese spies had already reached the armory in the city.

With bursts of loud noises, tens of thousands of pounds of gunpowder stored in the Ayutthaya Dynasty were ignited one after another.

The huge explosion caused the earth to tremble and blew huge craters in the city.

As soon as the mushroom cloud produced by the explosion dissipated, the new Burmese commander, Thihapodi, ordered a general offensive, with the main force attacking the south of the city.

Because at that time the south of the city was defended by the Chinese, the Dutch who originally lived in the south of the city had already fled on their ships.

In Thihapati's opinion, the Chinese are not Thais, so there is definitely no need for them to fight to the death for Ayutthaya.

But his consideration was completely wrong. The Chinese knew very well that the Burmese were brutal and would plunder like thieves when attacking cities. Moreover, they had lived in Siam for at least a hundred years and at least a dozen years, and had deep feelings for the country.

Among the 6,000 Chinese in the south of the city, there were about 5,000 able-bodied men. They relied on churches and other solid buildings built by the Dutch to hold their ground, and cooperated with the Chinese general Luang Chatu who was still defending the fortress not far away.

Thehapatis sent his main force of 20,000 troops to attack the south of the city. Since the pontoon bridge was destroyed, the cannons could not approach, so they could only enter the city with light troops. Their weapons were only muskets and swords, which were similar to those equipped by the Chinese.

The two sides fought from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon. The Burmese army failed to win despite several attacks. Hundreds of them were killed by the Chinese volunteers, and countless were injured. Thihapodi had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

On the second day, Thihapati ordered the Thai traitor to deliver a letter of surrender to the south of the city, claiming that as long as the Chinese gave up resistance, they would be allowed to leave.

But unfortunately, since the Burmese army invaded Siam, they had been burning, killing, looting and behaving like bandits wherever they went, and the Chinese did not dare to trust them at all.

Moreover, during the more than one year of fighting, countless Chinese had their properties destroyed and their relatives killed by the Burmese army, and none of them were willing to negotiate with the Burmese.

The angry Chinese beat six Thai traitors who entered the city to death and threw them off the city wall to show that they would never surrender.

Tihapati was furious and once again ordered General Suki to lead 15,000 soldiers equipped with rattan shields to enter the southern part of the city through the breach and engage in street fighting.

The Chinese continued to fight bravely under the leadership of Chinese general Luan Zhen and wealthy merchant Huang Wen Ze. The Burmese army was once again driven out of the south of the city and lost all face.

Just when the Burmese suffered a great setback, King Agada in the inner city of Ayutthaya had already fallen into despair.

He sent the Minister of the Interior out of the city to the Burmese army camp to ask for surrender, saying that as long as he could continue to be the King of Siam, he was willing to submit to the Konbaung Dynasty, and sent the Crown Prince Chao Phetchee and several other princes to Ava as hostages.

His surrender quickly made the Burmese commander Thihapati realize who was the most important resistance force in Ayutthaya.

Thihapati quickly formulated a battle plan to separate the southern city and the inner city of Ayutthaya by water.

So the Burmese army expressed its willingness to negotiate to paralyze King Agada and the Siamese defenders, while at the same time it mobilized its troops and launched an attack through the canal that ran through the city.

The Burmese army quickly broke through the water fort garrisoned by the Siamese army, which was eagerly waiting for the results of the peace talks, and took control of the two key floating bridges connecting the south and inner city.

The Siamese army then realized that something bad had happened, and quickly organized its troops and the Chinese volunteers in the south of the city to attack from the front and back in an attempt to recapture the water fort and the pontoon bridge.

In the south of the city, the roars of killing by the Chinese volunteer army shook the heavens, once again demonstrating the ability of the Chaozhou men to quickly gain a foothold in Southeast Asia.

The Chinese volunteers, who numbered only 3,000 in total, braved the hail of bullets from the Burmese army and forced more than 5,000 Burmese soldiers to retreat. There was hope of regaining the pontoon bridge.

However, on the opposite side, the elite Siamese army had long been lost, and the temporarily organized army did not dare to engage in battle with the Burmese army. After a brief resistance against the 6,000 Burmese army, tens of thousands of people fled back to the inner city.

The Burmese army was able to mobilize heavy troops and continuously gather them to the south of the city via the pontoon bridge. The Chinese volunteers were small in number and short of ammunition. After holding out for two hours, they were defeated by the Burmese army, with losses of nearly 700 people. They were forced to retreat to the south of the city, severely damaged.

What’s more serious is that the reason why the Chinese were able to persist in the small and almost ruined southern part of the city was that they had to rely on the inner city for ammunition and food.

After the Burmese army isolated the inner city and the south of the city, the south of the city quickly faced the dilemma of food shortage.

The Burmese army commander, Thihapodi, had anticipated this situation long ago. He kept deliberately throwing food outside the south of the city to lure the Chinese out to snatch it.

At the end of February, the Chinese volunteer army was about to run out of ammunition and food, and had no choice but to risk leaving the city to rob. Often, every little bit of supplies they snatched came at the cost of huge casualties, and an atmosphere of despair began to spread in the south of the city.

In early March, seeing that the morale of the Chinese was low, Thihapodi ordered the Burmese army to attack day and night. The Chinese suffered even more casualties and struggled to hold on in despair.

. . . .

In the south of the city, at the temporary command center, Luan Zhen took a look around and saw that almost all the Chinese generals and officers present were injured.

Huang Wenzhe, a wealthy businessman who led the Chinese army with him, had broken both legs and could only be carried by his clan members to come to the meeting.

If even these generals and officers were in this situation, one could imagine the plight of other Chinese people in the city.

Dozens of people died almost every day, and there was no time to collect most of their bodies, which were then piled up in several ruins.

Although it was not the hot season yet, the stench of corpses had already begun to spread, and a plague was about to break out. The Chinese population had also dropped from over 6,000 to less than 4,000 today.

Huang Wen Ze looked at Luan Zhen, who had barely recovered from his injuries and was now injured again, and said miserably, "At this point, we are all gone. Our ancestors went to Southeast Asia and made a fortune in Siam. Our descendants have lived a prosperous life for decades, no longer having to live in Chaozhou and eat porridge every day. But we never thought that today we will have to give it all back to Siam."

Luan Zhen also said sadly: "It is fate, and I will die here today. My name will be passed down as a loyal righteous man.

You and I have enjoyed decades of wealth and luxury, and it is understandable that we have sacrificed our lives for Siam. I only feel sorry for the young people and children outside. They have not yet enjoyed their own pleasures, and they will follow us to the grave."

Huang Wen Ze gritted his teeth and said, "I think the Burmese army has not been able to completely encircle us. Although they have the intention of deliberately surrounding us on three sides and leaving one side open so that they can pursue us closely, they are also embarrassed by the lack of troops.

We have persevered until now, and we have done our best for Siam.

Why don't you, Ah Zhen, gather the best men in the city and break out, and we'll go as far as we can to find Zheng Guoying and have him avenge us!"

Luang Zhen couldn't help but recall the scene when he led 4,000 troops to come to the king's aid and Taksin begged him not to leave the city to fight the Burmese army, and he felt extremely regretful.

Although he only had the title of Luang, his family had three ancestors who had served as finance ministers, and was a well-known family among the Nazhen of Chaozhou, Siam.

Therefore, he looked down on Zheng Guoying, the upstart, at that time, and was thinking about repelling the Burmese army, accumulating reputation for himself, and then replacing Zheng Guoying as the new leader of the Teochew people in Siam.

Now seeing the situation of the Chinese people, he was filled with regret. It was really hard for him to have the nerve to leave so many of his fellow countrymen behind and escape.

Huang Wen Ze was about to persuade him again when he suddenly heard loud shouts of killing outside. It turned out that the Burmese army was attacking again. The Chinese leaders who were in the meeting quickly dispersed and went to make their own arrangements.

Historically, after the Burmese army reached this point, they continued to attack day and night. After the Chinese ran out of ammunition and food and held out for 18 days, Luan Zhen was hit by a stray bullet and died. The southern part of the city was broken, and Huang Wenzhe committed suicide by swallowing gold.

The Burmese army hated the Chinese resistance so much that they launched a retaliatory massacre in the south of the city. Almost all the Chinese in the south of the city were killed.

Once the southern part of the city fell, the Burmese army captured Ayutthaya in about seven days, and the Siamese Empire was destroyed.

It is really sad that when the country was destroyed, the Thais were scattered, but it was the Chinese who shed their last drop of blood for it, and then took advantage of the Qing Dynasty's attack on Myanmar to restore Siam.

I just don’t know what their situation is in this time and space, and whether Mo Zibu can make it in time.

. . . .

In northern Myanmar, the war was still going on. After understanding the actual situation, Emperor Qianlong secretly ordered Fucha Mingrui to mobilize elite Manchu and Han troops to rush to Yunnan.

At the same time, he ordered Guangzhou General Yang Ning to lead a thousand elite Eight Banners soldiers stationed in Guangdong to Yunnan to take up the post of admiral.

As soon as Yang Ning arrived in Kunming to stabilize the situation, he immediately arrested Yang Yingju, the Governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Li Shisheng, the Admiral of Yunnan, Liu Decheng, Zhu Lun, and Wuerden'e, the generals of the Yunnan Green Camp.

In March, these people were escorted to Beijing, and Qianlong immediately ordered the confiscation of property and beheading of Li Shisheng, Zhu Lun, and Liu Decheng.

Li Shisheng and Zhu Lun were really wronged. To be honest, the Yunnan Green Camp, which had not experienced war for a long time, was able to fight to this extent with the prosperous Konbaung Dynasty. Although they were guilty, they were definitely not punished with property confiscation and beheading.

Only the thief Liu Decheng deserves to be put to death by slow slicing.

Yang Yingju, a member of the Han army's Plain White Banner, was taken to Chengde and questioned in person by Emperor Qianlong, and was executed in June.

Although Yang Ning brought a thousand Eight Banners garrisoned in Guangzhou to Kunming, he was a brave man with strict military discipline. He knew very well that the Eight Banners garrisoned in Guangdong under his command looked powerful, but in fact they were just a bunch of empty soldiers who had not fought a war for more than a hundred years.

Therefore, they did not dare to engage in battle with the Burmese army, for fear that the prestige of the Eight Banners Heavenly Army would be destroyed.

So he took a defensive stance. At that time, the Qing army was still in Mubang, which is now Xingwei, Kokang, located north of Lashio, which was recently recovered by Kokang for the first time in northern Myanmar.

Yang Ning was unable to provide rescue and could only order the Qing army in Mubang to retreat. The Qing army was already out of ammunition and food, and the morale of the army collapsed as soon as the retreat order was issued.

The Manchu guerrilla Junde and the Han general Mo Chun were killed in the battle, and nearly 30% of the officers and soldiers were killed.

Afterwards, the Burmese army gathered some of the chieftains in northern Myanmar who had defected to the Konbaung Dynasty and sent out a total of 5,000 troops to attack the Cheli chieftain (Xishuangbanna) which had been recently recaptured by the Qing army.

After a brief resistance, the Qing army fled back in a panic.

At this point, the Burmese army had gained a great advantage in northern Myanmar. The Yunnan border was shocked three times a day, and the White Elephant King Mengbo continuously sent troops to Bhamo, Mubang and other places.

He felt that the Qing army was vulnerable and only slightly better than the Siamese army. He was ready to take the opportunity to return all the chieftains of Yunnan under the rule of the Qing Dynasty to the Konbaung Dynasty, and use war to force the Qing army to sue for peace.

But Meng Bo didn't know that the real test was about to come.

The Governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Fu Cha Mingrui, has arrived in Guizhou and is recruiting the Guizhou Green Camp to fight.

During this period, among the three southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, which later became the southwestern F4 of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing, the Guizhou Green Camp was the strongest and most capable, with brave generals and sharp soldiers, rich combat experience, and was not inferior to the last elite troops of the Eight Banners and the Sauron soldiers.

It can even be said that the Guizhou brothers were the best fighters in the past two or three hundred years, enough to make Wang Jialie of later generations shed tears of envy.

　There are only a few records about Huang Wenzhe in history, such as in the accounts of Dutch merchants, where it is not known whether his surname was Wang or Huang.

　　Based on the fact that Huang is a common surname in Chaozhou, Lao Hu guessed that his surname should be Huang, but he did not leave his name.

　　Lao Hu also found a Huang Wen Ze based on the Chaozhou Huang family genealogy. This man should have been doing business in Siam from the 18th to the 19th century, so he borrowed this name. It is very likely that the two are not the same person. Fellow book friends, please be aware of this.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)