The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 331: Insidious and Shameless, Mutual
Now that Xijing has been captured and the news of Ye Xianchun and Wu Wenchu's great victory has arrived, do you think that I, King Mo, will immediately lead my troops across the river to engage in a decisive battle with Huang Tingbao?
No, not at all.

Mo Zibu still kept his troops in place, but Reinstein, who had captured Xijing, began to move out. He left a small number of troops to guard Xijing, and the remaining 20,000 troops attacked from all sides.

On the 20th day of the first lunar month, Reinstein's Western Army occupied Chang'an Prefecture, northeast of Xijing.

On the 27th day of the first lunar month, Reinstein personally led his troops to attack Tianguanfu, the town of Qinghuawai Town.

It was at this point that Reinstein truly demonstrated his characteristics as a French soldier and half-Austrian.

That is, he made very good use of artillery. Although Tianguanfu had high walls and thick walls, Reinstein mobilized more than 80 large and small naval guns, field guns, and mortars to bombard Tianguanfu from three directions day and night.

Wang Shiyan, the assistant governor of Qinghua Outer Town, was a civil official by birth and had never seen such fierce artillery fire. After being surrounded and bombarded for two days, he actually wanted to abandon the city and escape.

It turns out that this gap was actually left by Reinstein on purpose. The French also understand this principle.

So not long after Wang Shiyan ran out of the gap, he was caught by the cavalry of the Xing Tang Army.

Then this cowardly and timid commander of the Qinghua Outer Town Assistant Town was taken directly to the outside of Tianguanfu City and beheaded in front of everyone. The morale of the army in the city collapsed immediately.

On February 13, Reinstein sent Wu Wenchu to attack Shannanxia Town, and successively took over Shannanxia Town, Yi'an Society, Jianchang Prefecture, etc., and headed straight for Tokyo City.

This frightened King Zheng Sen of Jingdu so much that his hair stood on end. He opened the treasury in Tokyo and recruited soldiers everywhere. Even the farmers in the fields and the beggars in the towns were organized.

At the same time, Zheng Sen issued an edict in the name of King Jingxing Li Weiduo, angrily denouncing Huang Dinh Bao, Nguyen Khung and others for failing to resist the enemy and demanding that they return to rescue as soon as possible.

Seeing that Zheng Sen had responded, Reinstein did not choose to continue attacking Tokyo, but suddenly turned around and attacked from behind Qinghua Neizhen.

He ordered Wu Wenchu to lead 3,000 people to quickly capture Hezhong Prefecture, the key retreat route of Huang Tingbao and others.

Tokyo is just a piece of fat meat at your fingertips, it can't escape. As long as you kill the tens of thousands of troops of Huang Dinh Bao and Nguyen Van Hue, you can eat it however you want.

At this point, the Xing Tang Army completely surrounded the Zheng Army and completely cut off the connection between Huang Tingbao and Zheng Sen.

At this time, Mo Zibu asked Louis Kulun, who stayed in Xijing, to lead the surrendered inland fleet downstream, and the main army began to cross the Majiang River.

This way there were enough ferries. Although Zheng's army destroyed the wooden bridge on the Majiang River, the power of black gunpowder at that time was such that it was impossible to completely destroy it.

Not to mention black powder, even if the US military used aerial bombs in later generations, it would not be easy to completely destroy a bridge with piers and foundations built of huge stones.

While the Xing Tang army was using ferries to cross the river, they began to repair the Qinghua Bridge on the Ma River, and the road to cross the river suddenly became unobstructed.

Even before Mo Zibu started crossing the river, Huang Tingbao and others were already furious. This little Mengchang wanted to stop Mo Zibu from crossing the river, but Ruan Wenhui was immediately defeated.

“What’s the point of stopping Mo Zei now? We can’t stop him either.

Brother, the most important thing now is to take back Hezhong Prefecture. If our retreat is cut off, all of us hundreds of thousands of people will be dead."

After saying that, without waiting for Huang Tingbao, who had difficulty making decisions, to hesitate, Ruan Wenhui stood in front of him and began to give orders.

Nguyen Van Hue divided the army into two groups. One group of 7,000 people was led by Nguyen You Zheng and headed straight for Tianguan Prefecture. If they could recapture Tianguan Prefecture, it would be the best. If not, they would at least attract part of the Xing Tang army there.

Nguyen Van Hue personally led 30,000 elite troops and attacked Hezhong Prefecture directly, opening up the almost only escape route behind him.

Huang Dinh Bao stayed in the inner town of Thanh Hoa, relying on the forts stretching out on Jade Emperor Mountain outside the town to resist the main force of Mo Zi Bu and buy time for Nguyen Van Hue to capture Ha Trung Prefecture.

. . . .

Wu Wenchu was standing on the city wall of Hezhong Prefecture, looking at Nguyen Van Hue surrounded by the Beihe cavalry in the distance, and he couldn't help feeling mixed emotions.

Ruan Wenhui, wearing a cloth armor, rode his horse forward a few steps, a complicated look in his eyes. He shouted to Wu Wenchu on the top of the city wall:
"Brother, you were such a hero when you and Hui roamed the Southern Kingdom. Do you still remember the oath we made when we gathered at the West Mountain Stronghold?"

"Punish corrupt officials from above, punish corrupt officials from below, and eliminate all injustice in the world!" Wu Wenchu's eyes were confused for a moment, and he couldn't help but answer loudly.

"Since you still remember, why are you now becoming an accomplice to the evil?" Ruan Wenhui was overjoyed and could not help but take a few steps closer, shouting passionately:

“A true man may make mistakes, but as long as he can turn back from his mistakes, he is still a hero.”

"Oh!" Wu Wenchu sighed and stroked his forehead with his hand, as if he was struggling.

"Brother, open the city gate and follow me to show off our power in Beihe. Dai Viet belongs to us southerners, not northerners." Nguyen Van Hue shouted loudly, and rode forward a dozen steps with his entourage.

At this moment, Wu Wenchu suddenly waved his hand forward and screamed, "Fire!" Bang, bang, bang, three hunters hiding behind the battlements aimed their rifles at Nguyen Van Hue and opened fire.

Almost at the same time, Nguyen Van Hue and his five or six followers suddenly took out copper-framed, iron-backed ox-tendon bows weighing at least two stones from the sides of their horses and shot them at Wu Wenchu on the top of the city wall.

A lead bullet grazed Nguyen Van Hue's ear and flew out. Nguyen Van Hue could even feel the burning sensation caused by the intense friction in the air. At that moment, two of his close followers fell down with screams.

Wu Wenchu groaned miserably as three arrows suddenly sprouted from his chest. Fortunately, he was very cunning and wore a set of leather armor with bone powder underneath his outer robe. Therefore, although he was shot, his life was not in danger.

But it wasn't like he wasn't injured at all. Wu Wenchu felt as if he had been punched twice in the chest. The place where he was shot must have been bruised.

"Wu Wenchu, you are such a heartless person, so shameless!" Ruan Wenhui was almost furious. If the lead bullet had been off by half an inch, he would have died.

"Hu Pihui, you three brothers are all the same insidious villains." Wu Wenchu was also pulling out arrows and cursing on the city wall.

The soldiers on both sides were almost paralyzed by this outrageous operation. Huang Silang, who followed Wu Wenchu to defend the city, looked back and forth between Wu Wenchu and Ruan Wenhui in amazement.

It seems that the words shameless and insidious can be used by both of them, and they are almost equally matched.

Unable to steal each other's heads, the two equally black-hearted gangsters had to return to their respective camps.

Wu Wenchu looked at the Beihe soldiers covering the mountains in the distance and laughed heartily at the officers behind him.
"Hu Pihui was an outsider, and his tactics of fortifying the city and clearing the countryside to lure the enemy deep into the enemy's territory had failed. The Beihe soldiers had begun to distrust him.

Even though he has tens of thousands of men, ten times more than me, the Beihe soldiers will not fight to the death. As long as we can withstand the first three attacks, this Hezhong Prefecture will be as stable as Mount Tai."

When the officers heard this, they felt relieved. Wu Wenchu then gathered all the people in Hezhong Prefecture, stockpiled a large amount of food and grass, and decided to use these 2,000 people to defend the city to the death.

Nguyen Van Hue also knew that he was in big trouble. The biggest problem was, as Wu Wenchu said, a large part of the Beihe soldiers did not support or even trust him as an outsider. Especially now that things had gone wrong, it had dealt a serious blow to Nguyen Van Hue's already limited reputation.

Therefore, Nguyen Van Hue did not carry out any mobilization or heart-to-heart talks. He knew that this would not be of much use, so he simply used cruel military law to control the upper and lower levels, forcing these people to fight a bloody battle under his command.

As a result, the offensive and defensive battle in Hezhong Prefecture became intense from the very beginning and quickly escalated to an extremely cruel level.

April 1775, 4. The tenth day of the third lunar month, the fortieth year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign in the Qing Dynasty.

Nguyen Van Hue attacked Hezhong Prefecture for a full twenty-two days. The Beihe Army mobilized almost all of their artillery and blew down the city walls of Hezhong Prefecture three times. They once broke into the city, but were eventually driven out by Wu Wenchu's desperate counterattack and the gap was blocked.

Nguyen Van Hue suffered more than 2,000 casualties, but still failed to capture the devastated city.

Wu Wenchu in the city was also very determined. He didn't care what tricks Ruan Wenhui played, even if he sent more than a thousand people to cross mountains and rivers to bypass Hezhong Prefecture, Wu Wenchu didn't care.

Because Wu Wenchu knew that one or two thousand people could leave, but as long as Hezhong Prefecture was there, more than ten thousand people would not be able to pass, not to mention the entire Beihe Army of more than one hundred thousand people.

Therefore, if he stayed here for another day, the main force of Beihe in Qinghuanei Town would be trapped and die in this place for a day.

Moreover, Wu Wenchu knew very well that he was a surrendered general from Xishan, and that Yanqing Town had participated in the rebellion under the instigation of Pan Wenlin and others.

If Wu Wenchu wanted to wash off this stain on his body, he had no choice but to use blood.

The defense of Hezhong Prefecture was the best place for Wu Wenchu to wash away his bloody stain. Only by stopping Ruan Wenhui regardless of casualties here, would he become King Mo's confidant.

. . . .

A huge projectile weighing nearly 30 kilograms gushed out from the 36-pound cannon, and with one shot, it blew the small fortress gate in front of it into pieces.

The so-called thirty-six forts that Huang Tingbao meticulously built on the north bank of the Majiang River on Jade Emperor Mountain to protect the inner town of Thanh Hoa were all taken down in less than twenty days.

The Beihe Army lost six to seven hundred soldiers in the battle, and the number of those injured or captured totaled more than three thousand. They had no choice but to abandon the Yuhuang Mountain Heights and retreat back to Thanh Hoa City.

His retreat brought him into big trouble, as Mo Zibu took the opportunity to set up a fort on Yuhuang Mountain and bombarded Thanh Hoa town from above with 36-pound cannons and 36-pound howitzers.

Most of the houses in the city were made of wood. Mo Zibu even used iron bullets regardless of the cost, heated them up and shot them into the city. On the first day alone, more than ten fires were caused. Huang Tingbao had to mobilize all the laborers to put out the fires everywhere before the fire was brought under control.

But Huang Tingbao understood that there is no such thing as a thief on guard against thieves for a thousand days. Even if you want to guard against thieves, it is impossible to avoid any mistakes.

Therefore, Huang Tingbao was inclined to fight a decisive battle with the Xing Tang Army, and life and death would be on the line.

He sent a messenger to summon Nguyen Van Hue to return, preparing to join forces and fight a decisive battle with Mo Zi Bu at the foot of Jade Emperor Mountain.

(End of this chapter)