The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 220 The Last Xia Jun Yimin Practitioner (make up for yesterday's update, there are two more updates today)

At this time, the structure of Annan was a very unique four-layer structure with distinct characteristics of the Xia Dynasty and the Yi people.

The royal family at the top are basically descendants of the Han people.

However, in order to ensure the relative independence of Annan and their own throne, they often refused or were reluctant to mention their family background, so as not to give the impression to those below that they were outsiders.

The middle and upper levels (ministers and officials) who actually held administrative power were composed of a large number of Han people who had been assimilated to Beijing and Han people who had been assimilated to Beijing.

Instead, they were very happy to show off their family background, calling themselves Han people or Beijing Chinese, and using Han Chinese classics from the north and even Chinese characters and Chinese language as the standard for identifying each other.

In order to prevent too many people from squeezing into this circle and safeguard the interests of the small circle, they will even deliberately prevent the decline of Han culture.

The middle and lower classes (Guo Ren) who served as the basis of the rule were composed of a certain number of Han descendants, a certain number of mixed-race Han people, and more than half of the descendants of the Baiyue people.

These descendants of the Baiyue people actually basically came from the Han area and have close kinship with the Zhuang, Dai, Yao and other ethnic groups in China.

The fourth class, which is the lowest class of savages, are the real indigenous people.

It is composed of the Shang people (Indonesian people of the Austronesian language family, Negrito people of the Austroasiatic language family), the Cham people, and the Khmer people.

These guys are nothing but cattle and horses. Their only purpose for thousands of years seems to be to be conquered by the people of Beijing.

Among these people, a certain number, especially the Cham people, were integrated into the Kinh people in later generations, while the rest were driven to the poor mountains to struggle for survival.

This situation was also reflected in the eight camps in the south, headed by Jiading.

At this time, the population of the Southern Eighth Battalion, including the 70,000 to 80,000 people of the Chen family, was only 420,000 to 430,000.

With such strength, it was actually impossible to suppress Cambodia, which also had a population of more than 400,000, let alone compete with Siam, which had a population of 3.5 million, for Cambodia.

Therefore, these more than 400,000 people actually only counted the Han people of high rank and the lower-class people from Hue, that is, the nobles and the people of the country.

In addition to them, there are about 500,000 to 600,000 Champa, Zhenla and other people, but they are in an absolutely ruled position, and except for a few high-level officials, their presence is not strong.

And among the more than 400,000 Chinese people who can be considered human beings.

There are about 80,000 Mingxiang people like the Chen family.

There were about 50,000 high-ranking Han Chinese families in Annan, including Wu, Pei, Huang, and Nguyen, who also controlled about 80,000 people in Jing.

Among the remaining more than 200,000 people, their ancestors were the Annamites who migrated south from Hue and other places over the past hundred years or so. Generally speaking, they can also be regarded as Han Chinese, but their status is lower.

The Hue court's governance policy was also very simple. On the one hand, it relied on the Minh Huong people and the Han people of Annan to educate the local people and develop the territory, while on the other hand, it was wary of them becoming too powerful locally.

As for the Annan people, who were part of the common people class, they were treated as the basis of rule and were shown favor and prevented from being swallowed up by the Han Chinese nobles, who were part of the class of nobles and officials.

As for the indigenous savages, who were generally Han Chinese and looked similar to the Han people, and had pygmies and South Asian ancestry, they were all enslaved or driven into the deep mountains and forests of the Changshan Mountains to wait for death.

The unjust death in prison of Chen Dading, Chen Shangchuan's eldest son and uncle of Ou Zibu, is a concrete manifestation of this struggle.

After Chen Da Dinh's death, the garrison of Gia Dinh began to be appointed by the Hue court.

The only thing the garrison sent here had to do was to control the more than 200,000 Guangnan people who migrated south, suppress the most independent Mingxiang people, and monitor the Han nobles.

In fact, from this perspective, although Nguyen Phuc Tam was too greedy, what he did was still good.

If anyone were to become the King of Annan, he would definitely follow this rule, because this is the optimal solution summarized over the past eight or nine hundred years.

But Mo Zibu was not like that. While other Annan kings were afraid of being pulled back to the Central Plains Dynasty, Mo Zibu extremely wanted to return to the Central Plains Dynasty and pull Annan back.

Therefore, other Annan kings wanted to suppress the high-ranking Han families in Annan and win over the middle and lower classes in order to maintain independence and guarantee their own power.

However, Mo Zibu's needs were consistent with those of the Han nobles in Annan, and he hoped to integrate with them.

For example, families like the Bian and Wu families consider themselves Han Chinese, study Han classics, the entire family can speak Mandarin, and they have Han Chinese ancestors.

No matter whether he is a Jing person who was sinicized, or a Jing person who was sinicized, he is Mo Zibu's natural ally in his attempt to bring Annan back to the Central Plains dynasty.

Of course, just like he couldn’t tell his father Ou Tianci and others for the time being that he wanted to go against the Qing Dynasty.

He also couldn't immediately tell these Han people in Annan that he wanted to bring Annan back to the Central Plains.

So Mo Zibu found an excuse that seemed very reasonable, which was that he planned to lead the southerners of the Eighth Battalion of Jiading to the highest level of Guangnan.

Although Mo Zibu did not say that he wanted to replace the Ruan family, the Han Chinese nobles below definitely understood it.

Even an old fox like Wu Shizun immediately began to support Mo Zibu after he understood what Mo Zibu was going to do and how much he was willing to share with the Han nobles like him.

This isn't just the Mo family bandits invading Jiading, this is the Sima family taking us, the aristocratic families, into the Jin Dynasty to engage in aristocratic politics!

With their support, from Jiading to all directions, as long as there were Han noble families, or even places where they did not exist, they could be conquered by issuing an edict.

. . . .

In Ben Tre, Song Fuqia was a little discouraged. Before he replaced Nguyen Cu Trinh, he thought this was a simple battle where the heavenly troops would arrive and the bandits would be helpless.

But when the real fighting started, he was paralyzed. Although he easily captured half of Ben Tre City, he could not break into the Chen family's ancestral hall.

Although this ancestral hall was built like a fortress, Song Fuqia had already anticipated it.

What he didn't expect was that the Chen family suddenly had three hundred soldiers with extremely strong combat capabilities.

Among them, one hundred red-clad soldiers were armed with spontaneously fired muskets and had very accurate marksmanship. They used the ancestral hall buildings as cover, and often a large number of them would die before their side even got close.

There were also two hundred hand-to-hand combatants. Whenever they managed to break through the hail of bullets from the redcoats, they would howl in a language they could not understand and rush out like a mountain torrent.

With just swords and guns, he killed his own vanguard in a panic.

It was just such a simple move. Song Fuqia led tens of thousands of people to surround and fight for three or four days, but was beaten back more than ten times and could not make any progress.

On the fifth day, Song Fuqia's artillery finally arrived. Relying on these three twelve-pound naval guns, he finally destroyed a wall of the Chen Family Ancestral Hall.

Then, the soldiers from the five battalions who rushed in encountered another tragedy. Inside the wall was another wall, with four layers in total, like a maze.

The enemy was also equipped with fire mines, which they dropped through holes in the wall, leaving the soldiers of the fifth battalion crying out for help. Worse still, over two hundred soldiers were killed in the battle, yet they gained nothing, as only the stubborn Chen family members remained in Ben Tre; the rest had been evacuated.

This kind of battle is not something that the five battalions of soldiers can fight. There is no benefit, no military merit, and hundreds of people will die. They are unwilling to fight.

Those who forced themselves to fight were basically just pretending, yelling and shouting but refusing to move their legs forward.

Seeing this situation, Ruan Taidong took the initiative to find Song Fuqia and advised: "Commander, the casualties are a bit too heavy. It is understandable that the brothers do not want to fight anymore.

I think the Chen family must have received support from the Hexian soldiers. Let's ask the garrison commander, Master Yong, for reinforcements and bring over a few more artillery pieces from Jiading."

Song Fuqia nodded and agreed with Mrs. Ruan's opinion.

The Jiading military system is also a product of balance and mutual restraint.

Among the six camps without the participation of the Ou and Chen families, the Fu'an Camp, which has the largest number of people, is the regular camp, divided into two camps, left and right, and is stationed in Jiading all year round.

The other five battalions are special forces battalions, which are usually stationed in various places. Every six months, one battalion is transferred to Jiading to assist in the defense, that is, they adopt a rotation guard method.

Among them, the Fu'an Camp, the main military camp, was controlled by the Jiading garrison, and the other five camps were controlled by the five camp commanders.

Before Song Phuc Kiat came to attack Ben Tre, the soldiers of the Left Camp were sent to Ha Tien by Nguyen Phuc Tam, and the vacancy was replaced by Song Phuc Kiat's Long Hu Camp.

The artillery position guarded by the right battalion was directly taken down by Mo Zibu. Even if it had not been taken down, Song Fuqia would not have been able to command it.

So all he could take away were his own Longhu Camp, Nguyen Tai Dong's Pingkang Camp on duty as guards, and Nguyen Ju Zhen's Pingshun Camp which was temporarily recruited.

After receiving the empty salaries, each battalion had only about 1,500 people, and it was impossible to mobilize all of them, so only 1,000 people actually arrived in Jiading.

Now he and Nguyen Tai Dong came to attack Ben Tre, which consisted of two battalions of 2,000 people. The rest were 2,000 Kinh people auxiliary soldiers recruited from the fields and 5,000 to 6,000 Zhenla and Champa farmers.

That's why Mr. Ruan asked for reinforcements. There were only two thousand full-time soldiers in total, and one or two hundred of them died in the battle after five or six days. It was normal that they couldn't fight any further. It would be strange if they could still fight.

So Song Fuqia stopped the attack and sent a messenger to Jiading to ask for help and artillery.

Then, people came and cannons came.

Wu Wenyong and Major Marco arrived with 800 men, pulling six field guns, all armed with flintlock rifles.

After capturing Song Fuqia's messenger, Wu Wenyong made a prompt decision. He selected 100 elite soldiers from his own 400 men, equipped them with daggers, pistols, and fire bombs, and handed the rest over to Major Marco.

The two agreed that Wu Wenyong would disguise himself as reinforcements and enter the Song army camp.

Major Marco was waiting outside. As soon as he saw the fire from the explosion in the Song camp, he would immediately attack from northwest to southeast and break through the camp.

Lei Ahu was still a little nervous. Although he would beat up several villagers until they cried for their parents every day, for a village bully like him, it was still a bit too exciting to have one hundred people fight against ten thousand people.

Huang Silang was so nervous that he had trouble breathing.

He himself did not want to join the army, but his parents saw that his second uncle's cousin Huang Wulang died in the battle and earned twenty taels of pension silver and five taels of maintenance silver every year.

He immediately thought that it would be a good idea to send his son Ah Si, who was uneducated, fond of fighting, and unwilling to farm honestly, to the army.

The old couple are not even forty years old yet, so they can live another fifteen years without any problem. Assuming Huang Silang dies on the battlefield, they can earn hundreds of taels of silver right away.

Where can you find such a good thing? According to the normal life trajectory, Huang Silang will not be able to earn more than 100 taels in his entire life.

Ah Gang also looked back at the villagers behind him. He smiled calmly and said, "Don't be nervous. We are the heavenly soldiers and generals. A mere five battalions of soldiers are no match for us.

After this battle, when we're rewarded handsomely, I'll take you to Jiading to eat braised pork and drink liquor, and then find some Cham women to hang out with."

When Lei Ahu and Huang Silang heard about the braised pork and the Cham women, and saw that their biggest supporter Agang was so calm, the tension in their hearts suddenly eased a lot.

At the front, Wu Wenyong led the way with a loud slap.

He was from Beihe and could speak with a fluent Tokyo accent, which made it particularly easy for him to pretend to be a high-ranking Beijinger.

Therefore, no matter who came to interrogate him, he would just slap them a few times and then continue walking inside with his nose in the air.

The beaten small and medium-sized leaders of the Champa and Zhenla savages, as well as the young officers of the Kinh people's descent, no longer had the courage to continue questioning when they heard Wu Wenyong's colonel accent and were dizzy after being slapped in the face.

So a group of people walked in, and our team had a smooth flow of movement.

Until they finally met the real culprit, a young man from the Longhu Battalion who also spoke with a Tokyo accent, and two guards stopped Wu Wenyong.

Wu Wenyong laughed heartily. "I am here to meet the commander on the orders of Master Yong. These brothers are the elite soldiers of our battalion, specially sent to serve as the vanguard."

The young officer looked at Wu Wenyong suspiciously, "Which battalion are you from? Why haven't I seen you before? The messenger has only been out for less than half a day, and already reinforcements are here?"

"Hahahaha!" Wu Wenyong laughed loudly, pretending to be heroic. "Master Yong is very smart. He sent me here to reinforce us a long time ago. But the messenger has never been seen.

You're worrying too much, brother. Come, look at this and you'll know who I am."

As he spoke, Wu Wenyong turned around as if to get something. The young officer became wary and stretched his neck curiously to take a look.

At this moment, Beihe's confidant beside Wu Wenyong covered the young officer's mouth with one hand, and stabbed the officer's waist with a sharp knife from the right.

In an instant, the kidneys that the young officer had rarely used were turned into kidney slices.

The intense pain caused him to spasm suddenly, and blood flowed down his waist.

Wu Wenyong suddenly turned around, took out two daggers, and stabbed the guard on the officer's right side in the neck, turning it into a mess.

Agang also took out a short-handled mattock from his waist and hit another guard on the head with one blow. The guard opened his mouth silently and died almost instantly.

After quickly killing three people, the soldiers immediately rushed over and dragged the three dead men back into the crowd to hide them.

Wu Wenyong shook his hand, revealing a gold and jade-inlaid pocket watch. "This should be the Longhu Camp's base. Each guard will lead twenty men. Follow the predetermined plan and march fifty steps east, west, south, and north. In five minutes, move!"

Each young guard, including Agang, took out an enviable pocket watch, calibrated the time, and immediately dispersed in all directions.

(End of this chapter)