The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 26 Mingxiang people's Achilles' heel
Wei Rikun's breathing became rapid, because Ou Zibu's plan was an enlarged version of his original plan. No wonder Ou Zibu said that his original plan was very feasible.

"You, Ou Zibu, don't you want Patani?"

Wei Rikun expressed his final concern. The soldiers belong to others, and they are responsible for the operations. The Wei family is only responsible for logistics. Can they really get a piece of the Pattani cake?

"I do, I want it!" Ou Zibu nodded without any concealment, but his expression began to become extremely lonely.

"But I have no one! It's not that I, Ou Zibu, have no one, but the entire Hexian is left with no one.

You Chaozhou people and your fellow countrymen from Chaozhou Prefecture can continue to move south to replenish our ranks, but we Mingxiang people no longer have a country. From the moment my maternal grandfather, Chen Shangchuan, evacuated from the mainland, there will be no more Mingxiang people.

My fellow countrymen from the Lu and Chen families in western Guangdong would rather form a Guangzhao Guild Hall with the Guangzhou and Huizhou people, or even establish their own Qionghai Guild Hall, than come to Jiading or Hexian.

Wei Rikun lowered his head. He didn't know why, but an inconsolable sadness filled his aging heart.

What Ou Zibu said was exactly the Achilles' heel of the Mingxiang people. They haven't had any fresh blood joining them for almost a hundred years.

Every second they stay in this southern land is a struggle for survival, because they are people without a motherland and a nation of exiled people.

He Xiwen, Yuan Kaidao and others also fell silent. This was their Achilles' heel, so He Xiwen joined the Hunyuan Sect, collectively known as the White Lotus Sect, hoping to introduce fresh blood through missionary work, but ultimately failed.

Ou Zibu looked at He Xiwen and said, "Brother He, you must think that I, Ou Zibu, want to be Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin."

He Xiwen was about to nod, but suddenly stopped. It was just that when Ou Zibu said he wanted Hexian just now, he really believed it.

Ou Zibu smiled bitterly, "My mother was made the legal wife many years after my eldest mother passed away.

At the age of eighteen, she was extremely reluctant to marry her father, who was thirty-six at the time, in order to form a marriage between the Nguyen and Chen families and unite the Mingxiang people of Jiading and Hexian.

But that year, his uncle Chen Dasheng, who was quite talented and willing to promote the integration of Mo and Chen, suddenly fell seriously ill and passed away soon after.

The grandfather who initiated the initiative has been dead for several years.

Without the two of them, the internal forces of Hexian, the internal forces of Jiading, the court and the garrison of Guangnan all strongly opposed and spread rumors everywhere.

My father was talented, but he was only a man who maintained the status quo. He lacked the determination to break free from the shackles and face challenges head-on, so that not only did it take a full ten years for my mother to be the legitimate wife, let alone the reunification of Chen and Mo.

However, if Ou and Chen cannot unite, the Mingxiang people will sooner or later be defeated one by one by the Guangnan Kingdom. In that case, within a few generations, the descendants of the Ou and Chen families will all become Annan people.

I have four older brothers. My eldest brother, Ou Zihuang, is 37 years old this year. His mother is a respected member of the Ruan family in Guangnan. She has strong external support and deep roots within, and her position is unshakable.

Although my father is sixty-three years old this year, he is in good health, similar to my grandfather, and I am afraid he will live a very long life.

If I, Ou Zibu, want to be a carefree young man, that’s fine with me, but I just don’t want to see my descendants become Annamites.

I also want to move my grandfather's coffin back to my hometown, so I have to put my head on the line, do it, and go for it!

Brother He, don't you wish you could return to your hometown one day and tell everyone in the world what a great man your ancestors were?"

Ou Zibu spoke with tears in his eyes and his emotions were sincere, because this was what he wanted to say and what he wanted to do.

He Xiwen's eyes were wet. He walked up and patted Ou Zibu on the shoulder.

"Brother Zibu, from today on, I'm handing over these thousands of men to you. Let's work together to give an account to our ancestors and to future generations."

Wei Rikun also sighed. These two people had ships, cannons, strategies, and a very feasible action plan. He had long wanted to start a business. Compared with the people of Fulangsha, at least these two people in front of him were more reliable.

"My two brothers, you are all future heroes. If you respect me, your brother, the Chaozhou Wei family will stand with you!"

. . . .

The sound of muskets replaced the sound of firecrackers, and even the six-pounder on the Fortune was loaded with gunpowder and fired a few shots.

Hundreds of Wei family men, dozens of French sailors, and hundreds of pirates cheered and witnessed a very grand ceremony of sworn brotherhood.

The portrait of Guan Yu in the center was brought by Wei Rikun from the Guandi Temple near Laiyuan Bridge in Hoi An. Wei Rikun, already in his fifties, was naturally the eldest brother, He Xiwen, at twenty-four, the second, and Ou Zibu, barely eighteen, the third.

The three men were very skilled in chopping off the chicken's head, burning yellow paper, and drinking chicken blood wine. They had been enemies a few days ago, but now they had become sworn brothers.

Ou Zibu looked at Wei and He with a smile, calling them "big brother" and "second brother" affectionately.

"Brother, since we are brothers, we can no longer let our second brother stay on Champa Island. It is too conspicuous here, and it will also save Grandpa Luo from being blamed.

It would be better to temporarily settle on Son Tra Peninsula in Da Nang Bay, and our sailors and crews can also be trained there in the future."

Da Nang, north of Hoi An, had not yet developed at this time, but the local port conditions were far superior to those in Hoi An.

The Camellia Peninsula in the port is like an arm extending from the mainland, tightly blocking the harbor and making it the best port for anchoring ships.

At the same time, there are more than a thousand Vietnamese people farming near the Ba Na Mountains behind Da Nang. The Wei family and the Ming Xiang people have a large number of farms here. They can provide rice and grain to the fleet to a certain extent without the need for supplies from Hoi An.

Wei Rikun nodded. "Da Nang is indeed a good place, but it's not up to the Wei family alone to decide. This matter still needs the approval of Grandpa Luo."

. . . .

Hoi An.

Ou Zibu returned here again, and Wei Rikun also came back to start mobilizing the children of the Wei family, and even sold Ou Zibu's plan to capture Pattani to other Qing merchant leaders.

There is no need to worry about other people being surprised, because doing this kind of thing is common in Nanyang.

Don't be fooled by the historical stereotypes of the Chinese in Southeast Asia, thinking that they were all poor people who were bullied by the natives and foreigners in Southeast Asia.

Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, when the Qing Dynasty had not yet completely exposed its true colors, and before the Chinese were sold around the world on a large scale as pigs, the Chinese in Southeast Asia were actually very ferocious.

Whether they are cultivating land, mining, or doing business, when sweet words and small gifts fail to impress the natives, they basically have to mobilize force to physically "impress" them.

Wei Rikun’s goal is to attract as many investors as possible for this operation, even if they only offer a few thousand kilograms of rice.

The main thing is to use interests to unite people's hearts, so that the next time there is such an action, angel venture capital can be attracted.

Ou Zibu returned to the Wei family first, wrote two letters and gave them to Old Man Pei, asking him to deliver them to Hexian quickly.

One of the letters was addressed to his father, Zou Tianci, and the other was addressed to his mother, Chen.

Such a big thing has happened, so we have to inform our parents no matter what.

The letter to his father, Ou Tianci, was written in a rather formal manner. Anyway, the relationship between father and son has never been very good.

Ou Zibu told his father Ou Tianci that he was going to Pattani with the Wei family and hoped that his father could give them some support.

In the letter to his mother, Ou Zibu started crying directly. He was Chen's only son and had only one older sister, so he was naturally Chen's apple of his eye.

Chen had already become the eldest wife in the Zhu family, and her maternal grandfather, the Jiading Chen family, stood behind her.

Although the Chen family has been squeezed by the Ruan family in recent years, it still has 80,000 to 90,000 clansmen and hundreds of ships at sea. The second uncle Chen Dading is pedantic and a little confused, but he loves his sister and nephew very much.

I think that as long as mother Chen goes to his second uncle Chen Dading to cry and complain, she will definitely be able to get a lot of help for Ou Zibula.

If we could have three or five ships of seventy or eighty tons each from Hexian and Jiading, and two or three hundred elite sailors, we would have our own team.

As for the rest, it depends on how to convince Grandpa Luo.

There are so many Mingxiang people in Hoi An, and there are also extremely useful and high-quality mercenaries, the Japanese ronin, so it would be a waste not to use them.

(End of this chapter)