The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 194 Why should I give you the majesty of the greatest emperor in history?

The 1770th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty, the end of March AD.

Mo Zibu was finally ready to withdraw from Ava City.

Before this, out of the 26,000 troops of the Konbaung Dynasty in Laoguantun, about 10,000 were taken away by Badong King Meng Yun.

Soon after Meng Yun set off, the remaining 16,000 men began to lose morale and scrambled to board boats and go downstream.

Among them, more than 4,000 people who failed to seize the large ship were caught up by the Qing Dynasty and almost all of them were killed.

The remaining 12,000 people fled to a place more than 40 kilometers away from Ava, and only 3,000 or 4,000 people were left.

They were then ambushed again by the Boxers commanded by Major Jean Jacques and 300 British and Dutch troops. Hundreds of them were killed or wounded, and the rest were taken prisoner.

After the threat was completely gone, Mo Zibu directly looted the city of Ava.

King Sinthamine, the Burmese nobles in the inner city, and the merchants in the outer city almost spent all their property, taking out all kinds of gold, silver, jewelry, silk, cloth and other valuables, with a total value of about 2.1 million taels.

And this is just a rough estimate, because there are no professional accountants in Mo Zibu's army to calculate it. The actual value should be higher.

Faced with so much wealth at the same time, it was impossible to avoid corruption. Mo Zibu estimated that at least 200,000 taels of wealth had flowed into the army.

Well, Mo Zibu has asked Wu Shixiu to send someone to inform Li Xianwen. Once they arrive in Yangon, they will teach these guys a lesson again.

Anyone who embezzles less than twenty taels will be forgiven.

Those with fines between twenty and fifty taels will be fined, confiscated, and given a warning.

For those with fines between fifty and one hundred taels, they will be fined and given a slight punishment.

Those fined between one hundred and one hundred and fifty taels will be dealt with according to military law.

If the amount exceeds one hundred and fifty taels, it depends on how strong your life is. If you can withstand dozens of military sticks, you can consider him lucky and expel him from the barracks.

This thing must be controlled, otherwise it would be unfair to other law-abiding people.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the British and Dutch soldiers. If you don't ignore them, you can't take care of your own people.

This approach of being strict with oneself and lenient with foreigners might even cause a mutiny.

So Mo Zibu, Dutch Major Marco and British Colonel Green discussed and decided that the British and Dutch armies should also follow this discipline.

In order to get these officers to agree, Mo Zibu stated that the officers of the British and Dutch armies could legally confiscate any property that exceeded the limit carried by their soldiers.

There was nothing that could be done about all this, because even though Mo Zibu held a small meeting every three days and a large meeting every five days, and tried every possible means, he still could not stop the trend of corruption because he obtained too much wealth.

These 2.1 million taels were merely the life-saving money paid by the Burmese nobles and wealthy merchants in the inner and outer cities. Mo Zibu also unearthed over 1.5 million taels of treasure from the White Elephant King's treasury.

This does not include the 30,000 kilograms of precious items such as sandalwood and rosewood that the Qing envoy Mingde has taken or will take away. If all the items are added up, it would be at least around two million taels.

As for why there were so many, it was because a large part of them were just transported back by the Burmese army from the captured Ayutthaya.

My goodness, King White Elephant worked so hard to conquer the Ayutthaya Dynasty of Siam, and just after registering the gold, silver and jewelry he obtained, they were packed up by Mo Zi Bu again. He really worked so hard for no one.

But this money is too much for Mo Zibu to spend alone, and Zheng Xin is going crazy from poverty, so he has to give at least 300,000 or 400,000 to show his appreciation.

After all, Taksin had sent over 3,000 men to accompany Mozi Bu to aid him in the battle. Many of these men bore the distinct marks of the Ayutthaya Dynasty, and Mozi Bu had no way of cashing them in, so he might as well be generous.

In addition to these, the interrogation of every household in the outer city and the cattle and horse grain market also earned 130,000 taels of silver, which was used to pay off the debts with more than 11,600 Burmese women aged 14 to 24.

On the way back, we can still rob at least 700,000 or 800,000 taels.

At this point, Mo Zibu suddenly understood Zeng Guofan a little.

In history, when Wang Kaiyun advised Zeng Guofan to rebel, the biggest reason why Zeng refused was probably because he knew that the Hunan Army could no longer fight, or in other words, could not fight a fierce battle.

If Mo Zibu captured the city of Ava, the soldiers under him would be fat and bloated. After returning, it is estimated that 30% of them would not want to fight again, not to mention the Hunan Army, who were fighting in the richest place in China and even the entire East.

At that time, the Hunan Army was all eyeing Tianjing and Suzhou and drooling. If you asked them not to fight, the soldiers would definitely not do it.

If you let them fight, with the wealth of Tianjing and Suzhou, they will be full after defeating these guys. Everyone will save a few hundred taels of silver. Who will have the energy to continue fighting, especially to rebel and fight hard and lose their heads?

. . . .

As for the situation in Myanmar, as early as mid-March, Mozibu allowed King Sinthamine to send people out of the city to recruit some defeated Burmese soldiers and establish a puppet regime, otherwise the operation of Ava City would not be able to continue.

Afterwards, at the instruction of Mo Zibu, King Xintamin deliberately created a riot in the inner city. Not many other people died in the riot, and the few unlucky people who died were just smoke bombs.

The real victims were the Ayutthaya clan members who were taken captive to Ava, including a son of King Agada and two sons of King Vubenthong, among a dozen others. By this point, the only remaining male members of the Ayutthaya royal family were a few "lucky ones" whose fathers had not been kings of Siam.

There were also five Siamese princesses who were kept by the White Elephant King for himself or distributed to meritorious officials. They were also rescued and taken away by Mo Zi Bu, ready to be handed over to Zheng Xin.

But generally speaking, although it was extortion and kidnapping, if you ask people at that time to comment, Mo Zibu's entry into Ava was already very, very merciful.

You have to know that at other times, take the example of the Burmese army's capture of Ayutthaya, not to mention money, just the human aspect.

There were nearly 300,000 people in Ayutthaya before the siege, 140,000 or 150,000 before the city was captured, and only less than 30,000 people were lucky enough to survive after the city was finally captured.

In Ava, Mozibu killed only a few hundred remnants of the Toungoo Dynasty. Four to five hundred ignorant rebels were executed, and more than three hundred city foxes and rats who took advantage of the situation to rob were killed. In total, not counting those who were abducted, there were only more than a thousand people.

This is not an occupying force, this is the reincarnation of a great benefactor for nine generations!
. . . .

When Mo Zibu was eating with his mouth full of oil and preparing to go downstream, Tong, who was in Taunggyi City, seventy or eighty kilometers away from Ava, was so angry that his eyes were about to bleed.

He had just crossed the Shan Plateau with hundreds of casualties and painstaking efforts, and before he could descend from the mountain, he received the news that Mo Zibu had captured Ava.

Tong once thought it was fake news, until his confidants confirmed it, and then he was shocked and had to believe it.

Tong felt numb as he stood on the Shan Plateau, feeling the cold wind and looking towards the distant city of Ava. He thought a lot, but he really couldn't figure it out.

Where did this freak Mo Zibu come from?

It’s 600 kilometers upstream, and to Laoguantun, it’s more than 1,000 kilometers.

How could he be sure that the Qing army would be able to hold the White Elephant King's army firmly in the north?

How could the once ferocious Burmese army have reached the point where it could leave the entire country so empty just by stationing more than 30,000 men in Laoguantun!
Soon after, Tong received gifts from Mo Zibu, including various materials worth about 30,000 taels of silver, as well as the Qing envoy Mingde and others who accompanied him.

Then, Tong felt even more miserable.

Because he learned from the soldiers who transported the gifts how much Mo Zibu had gained. These 30,000 taels were just like giving money to a beggar.

As for the Qing envoy, Manduhu led seventy people back north to report to Agui.

He also brought the envoy of King Sinthamine and the letter from the Konbaung Dynasty to the Qing Emperor Qianlong, in which they painfully repented and knelt down to beg for mercy and admit their mistakes.

At the same time, Manduhu also took away the White Elephant King's robes, golden seals, royal swords and muskets, as well as the White Elephant King's death picture drawn by Mo Zibu.

Also accompanying him were three of the White Elephant King's sons.

As for the body of the White Elephant King, Mo Zibu did it on purpose. After having Li Yulong, Changbao and others confirm it, he cremated it according to the Burmese custom, using the excuse of avoiding any further troubles and to appease King Sinthamin.

Humph, although I, King Mo, helped the Qing Dynasty win this war, it was more out of my own interests. I didn't want Qianlong to be so happy.

Since the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the kings of great countries who refused to submit to the king's rule and opposed the Celestial Empire were captured and their heads were sent to the Taimiao for the ancestors to eat as blood sacrifices.

To be precise, since the destruction of Goguryeo and the imprisonment of its king Go Zang in Chang'an, no emperor of the central dynasty has enjoyed such treatment since then.

Why should you, Old Man Shiquan, enjoy the majesty of the greatest emperor of all time? I, King Mo, would be the first one to object!
Even if Qianlong hated him, he didn't want to do that, so he decisively burned the White Elephant King to death.

Of course, he couldn't offend him too much, so Mo Zibu selected two of the White Elephant King's queen, concubines, and daughters, and asked Mingde to take them to send to Qianlong first.

Well, Mingde is not good at swimming and is afraid of riding on a boat, especially a sea ship. Most of his guards are also landlubbers.

Mo Zibu simply scared them, making them afraid that they would die at sea.

So Mingde took the more than 30,000 taels of bribe given by Mo Zibu, headed east to meet Tong, and went to Siam by land.

Of course, this was also because Mingde had to go to Siam as part of his mission to see what kind of person Zheng Xin was for Qianlong.

After arranging these guys, Mo Zibu gave up Ava and went straight downstream.

Except for Wu Yanle who led his men to sneak back to Tengchong, the capital of Tengyue Prefecture, to bring the descendants of Li Runxing, the youngest son of King Li Jin, to Mo Zibu, all the troops left Ava.

As he went downstream, Mo Zibu gave a good lesson to the great monks along the way.

All temples within 30 kilometers along the Irrawaddy River were destroyed.

Gold, silver, cloth, cattle, sheep, mules, horses, and food were taken away. Those that could not be taken away were burned on the spot, and anyone who dared to resist was killed.

It’s not that Mo Zibu is interested in these gold and silver, but because these temples are the basic administrative units of the Konbaung Dynasty and even the Burmese.

Mozibu's intention in doing this was not to rob, but to completely destroy the administrative foundation of the Burmese, ensuring that it would be difficult for them to fully recover for at least fifteen to twenty years.

(End of this chapter)