The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 318: Heroes of the South
"Dog thief!"

In Tokyo, at the Jingdu Palace, the 35-year-old Zheng Sen, Lord of Beihe Zheng, was furious.

He threw the precious white porcelain teacup in his hand to the ground and stomped on it with his feet until the cup was crushed into powder. He was still not satisfied and was still breathing heavily.

"Little Mo, I swear I won't forgive you!"

The reason why Zheng Sen cursed so loudly was because Mo Zibu had broken his defense.

The key point is that Mo Zibu said that his ancestor was a descendant of a Ming Dynasty general, but he recognized the enemy as his father.

Because Mo Zibu was not wrong, Zheng Ke, the ancestor of Zheng Jian, the founding emperor of the Zheng family, did have a relationship with the Ming Dynasty.

The Zheng family themselves said that when Zheng Ke was eighteen years old, he was spotted by a Ming Dynasty general stationed in Xijing, Qinghua, and taken as a slave. Later, seeing that Zheng Ke was very brave and extraordinary, they were worried that he would be detrimental to the Ming Dynasty in the end and wanted to kill him.

So Zheng Ke fled and turned to support Le Loi's rebellion, becoming one of the ninety-three heroes who established the Later Le Dynasty.

But in fact, Zheng Ke was born in 1403. When he was only thirteen years old in 1416, he participated in the Longya oath-taking ceremony in Le Loi and became a member of the Annan rebel army.

This is totally inconsistent with what the Zheng family said about being spotted by a Ming general when he was eighteen years old.

So in fact, Zheng Ke's father Zheng Juan died very early. When he was four years old, the Ming army recaptured Annan and then sent generals to garrison in various places.

Although Zheng's mother was a peasant woman, she was beautiful and was favored by the Ming general stationed in Xijing, Qinghua. He took her as a concubine and adopted Zheng Ke as his adopted son.

However, when he was eleven or twelve years old, Zheng's mother died of illness, and his adoptive father, General Ming, was involved in the factional struggle between the Crown Prince and Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu. He was implicated, imprisoned, and sent back to the capital for trial, and could no longer protect him.

The newly arrived Ming general did not like him at all as the adopted son of an old general of the Han Dynasty, and made things difficult for them. Zheng Ke then ran away with the young heroes of Annan recruited by his adoptive father, the Ming general, and defected to Le Loi.

In history, among the so-called 93 founding heroes of the Later Le Dynasty, at least two dozen of them came from a similar background as Zheng Ke, or simply went to join Le Loi with Zheng Ke.

Therefore, Mo Zibu's accusation that Zheng Sen's ancestors recognized the enemy as their father and were ruthless and heartless was completely justified, as Zheng Sen also admitted that he was a descendant of the Han people.

So what really broke Zheng Sen's defense was that Mo Zibu scolded his ancestor Zheng Jian as the number one culprit who went against the will of heaven.

Damn it, the culprit is obviously the Ruan family that your Mo family once relied on, right?

The greatest contributor to the restoration of the Later Le Dynasty was Nguyen Gan, the ancestor of your concubine Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xiu, not my ancestor Zheng Jian.

Secondly, Mo Zibu actually wrote him a letter in person, which was only a few dozen words long, saying, "What virtue do you have that you can be called a forest? Why not leave the forest and become a tree like Zheng?"

This was an insult to him, saying that he was unworthy of having the same name as the national surname Chenggong. Zheng Sen also found out that Mo Zibu's nickname for his eldest son was Asen.

Fuck you! When Zheng Sen thought of this, he suddenly felt nauseous and uncomfortable all over. He wished that Mo Zibu would be crushed into powder in front of him like this white porcelain.

"Don't worry, my lord. In my opinion, Mo Zhao is arrogant and will soon face death."

Seeing Zheng Sen lose his composure, the attendant Ruan Yu hinted to the eunuch to clean the floor and walked over to Zheng Sen to persuade him.

Since the Lord of Beihe Zheng was actually a hegemon, the chief of staff under this hegemon was the prime minister of the country, and his attendants were cabinet ministers.

Ruan Yan knew that although Zheng Sen seemed to be broken by Mo Zibu's words, he was actually afraid.

You must know that since the battle of Shunzhou, when Zheng Sen personally led tens of thousands of troops and was ambushed by Mo Zibu's thousands of elite soldiers, the elite troops of the three prefectures were almost wiped out in one day and have not recovered until now.

At this time, not only Lord Zheng Sen was afraid of Mo Zibu's Northern Expedition, but the soldiers and generals under him were also very afraid.

But now that things have come to this, Ruan Yan still plans to encourage Zheng Sen first. If he, the lord, feels that he is bound to lose, how can he expect his subordinates to have the courage and determination to fight a decisive battle with the Mo thief?

"Ever since the First Lord of Wu defeated the Southern Han, our Southern Kingdom has not been united with the Central Plains. This has been the will of the people for eight hundred years.

Now Mo Zhao has actually invented a religion and is now commanding the whole world. It's like a barking dog, causing the people of the Southern Kingdom to see his true face. How can he not be defeated if he acts so perversely? "

"尨" refers to a dog with very long hair, and generally refers to a malnourished stray dog. Old man Ruan is quite cultured.

"Yes!" Zheng Sen nodded vigorously. What he feared most was that Mo Zibu would continue to borrow the name of the Ruan family and come to him to fight a war between Zheng and Ruan.

In that case, it would not be a dispute over orthodoxy or line, but simply a feud between him and Mo Zi Bu. It was questionable whether his subordinates would help him or not. Even King Le Viet of the Later Le Dynasty, Jingxing the Great, who had long been nominally dissatisfied with him, might do something bad in secret.

But now, this thief Mo not only scolded him, but also overturned the legal system of the Later Le Dynasty. He also said that King Le Loi of the Le Dynasty was a savage who ate raw meat and drank blood, walked in the mud, and went in and out of the woods. He almost said that he was a macaque in the woods.

The scope of the attack is so wide that it is like handing a knife to oneself.

Thinking of this, Zheng Sen suddenly felt that since Mo Zibu was so unwise to push the five million people of Beihe to his side, there was nothing to be afraid of.

His fear subsided slightly, and Zheng Sen immediately began to read carefully Mo Zibu's edict to the soldiers and civilians of Beihe, and suddenly he smiled contemptuously.

"Spread this manifesto throughout Beihe, and have all the Confucian scholars join in the criticism. Let them see how northerners like Mo Zhao view us southerners. They've become destitute, yet they still think they're the nobles of China.

Humph, we southerners, why do we need northerners to unify our country? Even if we want to unify, does Mo Zhao have the entire Northern Dynasty? Without the Northern Dynasty, what is the point of unification?

Zheng Sen decided that since you want to wage a war of public opinion and engage in a debate between China and the barbarians, I will add fuel to the fire and see what face you northerners, who have lost your country twice, have left and what tricks you can come up with.

Ruan Xian hesitated for a moment, because he felt that many of the words in Mo Zibu's manifesto were still lethal.

For example, Mo Zibu put the Vietnamese dynasties together with the Southern Han Dynasty and even the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties as separatist regimes, while he regarded the Ming Dynasty as the first unified Han dynasty after the Tang Dynasty.

This proposal is not only very destructive to the northerners, but also to the southerners, especially when the Han area is sinking again.

Recalling the last time the sky fell, King Xingdao Chen Guojun issued the "Instructions to All Lieutenant Generals" to call on the Song army in Lingnan to counterattack the Mongols. He cited the deeds of Ji Xin who died in place of Emperor Gaozu, Yu Rang who swallowed charcoal, and Shen Kuai who cut off his arm, in the name of protecting the orthodox teachings and the Han Dynasty, which touched the hearts of many people.

If the Chen Dynasty itself had not been weak, a Northern Expedition might have been possible.

Now the world is in chaos, and Mo Zei is from Mingxiang. If he raises the banner of resistance against the invaders like King Xingdao, won’t the heroes of the southern country follow his lead?
Ruan Yan knew clearly that Beihe was not a land of peace and prosperity at present. There were countless talented people who were suppressed among the people and could not make any progress. If these people were bewitched by this statement and regarded Mo Zibu as the King of Xingdao, Chen Guojun, then there would be trouble.

Moreover, the legal and moral traditions of the South were all inherited from the North. It would be fine if there was no debate, and one could pretend to be different from the northerners by pretending to be a Beijinger or even a Yue person. But if one really brings them out for debate one by one, there might be loopholes everywhere.

But while Ruan Yan was hesitating, the extremely excited Zheng Sen had already arranged everything. He even said to Ruan Yan with a smile:
"Mr. Yixuan, it's still early today. Why don't we go to the palace together to meet His Majesty and let him know how despicable Mo Zhao is. If the court directly issues an edict to refute Mo Zhao's manifesto, it will be much more effective!"

Ruan Yan could only nod. He knew Zheng Sen's temper. If he got excited, ten cows couldn't persuade him. He had to do things according to his own ideas.

However, Ruan Yan still knew the depth of the situation. He looked at the attendant beside him, that is, the deputy assistant Ruan Bolin, and said:

"Hurry and tell Huang Tingbao and Pei Shida to come. Especially Huang Tingbao, you must have him come in person. To protect the Beihe foundation, it is not enough to just rely on words, it must also be supported by military means."

. . . .

When Huang Tingbao received the notice from the assistant minister Nguyen Nguyen, he was still staying in Jingbei Town, northeast of Tokyo, where he was waiting for Huang Tinghui (Nguyen Van Huy) to return from Guangzhou.

After the last great defeat in Hue, thanks to Nguyen Van Hue's ruthless killing of Nguyen Phuc Duong, the grandson of the King of Quang Nam, Huang Tingbao was able to leave Hue with more than a thousand elite soldiers from the Northern Rivers, thus preserving a certain vitality of the three prefectures' armies.

Therefore, even now, Huang Tingbao, the defeated general, is still one of the very few generals that Beihe Kingdom can rely on.

The more than a thousand elite Bac Ho soldiers who left Hue were all veterans and grassroots officers. Through them, at least an army of 20,000 to 30,000 people with decent combat effectiveness could be formed.

"Brother, there is no hope for the Eastern Tartars!" After waiting for several days, Huang Tingbao finally waited for Ruan Wenhui. However, Ruan Wenhui's first words pushed Huang Tingbao's heart to the bottom.

"Guangdong Governor Baode is a complete loser. He didn't summon us immediately after we sent us to Guangzhou, but instead insisted we write a letter of repentance first.

As a result, before I could finish writing my confession, the Hongmen assassins controlled by Mo Ze came to our house that night and killed us along with all our people.

Huang Tingbao was stunned with shock, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses. "God damn the Tartars, they have caused me so much trouble. How could they be so careless? It is not so easy to catch the weak spot of the Mo thief. Now that there is no witness, how can I explain to the Qing emperor?"

Ruan Wenhui snorted coldly, "The Eastern Tartars have always looked down on our Great Southern, but Baode didn't take this as a big deal at all.

He doesn't have to explain to the Qing emperor because he didn't report it at all. Now there's no witness. After I went there, this person started to play dumb and refused to take charge."

Huang Tingbao was offline again. "Just ignore it? Are the people who rule the Central Plains really their bannermen?

"Mo Ze, the descendant of Mingxiang, has such an obvious desire to expel the Tartars. If he were to gain a foothold in Beihe, would Guangdong and Guangxi still be able to maintain peace?"

Nguyen Van Hue sighed, "I thought so too, but the Guangdong Governor Bao De is such a scoundrel that he has no loyalty to the emperor or patriotism at all. When he saw there was no benefit, he immediately retreated."

"However," Ruan Wenhui lowered his voice, "it was Li Shiyao, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and the former backer of Mo thief, who secretly met with me.

He hinted that he could privately give us a batch of guns and cannons produced in Foshan, and we could also secretly buy a batch, but the price was that we had to help him collect more intelligence on the Mo thief.

This is not information that the Mo thief intends to expel the Tartars, but information that the Mo thief is greedy and wants to enter Beihe, even if it is false.

Huang Tingbao frowned and thought for a moment. He understood, "Li Shiyao cannot be trusted either. He has colluded too much with the Mo thief. He is afraid of being liquidated by the emperor in the future, so he wants to get rid of him."

"Right!" Ruan Wenhui nodded. "That's why Li Shiyao wanted to portray Mo Ze as someone who wanted more and more, rather than someone who was a member of a secret society that was against the Qing Dynasty and wanted to restore the Ming Dynasty."

"Promise him!" Huang Tingbao gritted his teeth. "This old thief is about to run away. We have to get more things before then, otherwise it will be too late."

"But even so, the probability of us stopping Mo Zei is not great." Ruan Wenhui nodded in agreement, then took Huang Tingbao's hand and walked to the river away from his entourage, whispering

"The situation is so severe that it is likely beyond human control. Brother, we must make a decision quickly. Our Huang family can only hope to survive by emulating the Gaoping Mo family of the past and relying on the Northern Dynasty."

(End of this chapter)