The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 354 The Last Night
January 1776, 1, the 10th day of the th month, was the th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty.

The storm was brewing. After both Man Qing and Mo Zibu had the idea of making the other side suffer a major setback, the pace of war began to accelerate rapidly.

On the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month, Yonggui, the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi of the Qing Dynasty, sent troops to clear out the main hall of Kunlun Mountain in Xishan Temple and arrested a group of so-called rebels.

But in fact, most of them were poor local people. The real Kunlun Mountain gang members had already broken up into small groups and disappeared under the leadership of Li Xianwen.

Even Li Xianwen himself ran to Wugui Mountain in Xiangshan County and hid there.

The Chen clan ancestral hall in Baiyun District was also directly demolished by the Qing army, but similarly, the direct descendants of the Chen clan also evacuated with the tablets and portraits of their ancestors, and all activities of the entire Kunlun Mountain near Guangzhou basically stopped.

On the 25th day of the 12th month, Yonggui personally ordered the continued search for the rebels, but this only further exacerbated the confrontation between the Manchus and the Han people in Guangzhou.

Because of the threat from Kunlun Mountain, the yamen runners and guards in the counties of Guangzhou Prefecture did not dare to investigate with all their heart and soul.

Most of the Green Camp soldiers in Guangdong are lazy and unwilling to fight seriously. You only give me one tael and five cents of silver a month. Is it worth risking my life?

In addition to the low military pay, most of these Green Camp soldiers who had seen a lot of big scenes in the glamorous world of Guangzhou still had work in the city.

Officers may buy shops and do business, and soldiers may also have various side jobs. What these people fear most is actually offending their brothers in the underworld.

When doing business, if you don’t have a good relationship with the local underworld, you will have a lot of trouble even in the future, let alone now.

Therefore, even if these Green Camp soldiers were forced by their superiors, they would not work hard unless their superiors were willing to give them a huge reward.

Therefore, in order to cut the Gordian knot, Yonggui had no choice but to ask Guangzhou General Yang Ning to mobilize the Eight Banners stationed there to take action.

According to the rules of the bannermen at that time, the garrisoned Eight Banners were not allowed to leave the city without the permission of a general or above, and could only live in their own little world.

After decades of life, the Manchus in Guangzhou have already visited every corner of the city. Now they suddenly received the order to leave the city. They were like pet dogs that had been locked up for a long time and were finally allowed to go out. They couldn't wait to have fun in Guangzhou.

Moreover, due to artificial isolation, many of the Eight Banners stationed in Guangzhou could not even speak Cantonese and could not communicate with the local people in Guangzhou. They were absolute outsiders in the eyes of the local Cantonese.

These Eight Banners soldiers were used to being superior. They would beat people if they didn't like them, and would rob if they liked them.

Their actions immediately caused stress among all the people in Guangzhou.

You know, Guangzhou suffered the Gengyin disaster. The losses suffered by Guangzhou people in that disaster are still being passed down by word of mouth among local people.

In addition, people from Kunlun Mountain spread rumors everywhere. For a time, there were rumors everywhere that the Eight Banners were going to enclose land again, or that the new governor was afraid that the people of Guangzhou would support King Mo, so he intended to imitate the Gengyin disaster that happened more than a hundred years ago and kill a lot of Guangdong people.

When the rumor spread to the end, not only the common people, but even the local gentry could no longer sit still. They went to the Governor's Office to petition, asking Yonggui to withdraw the Eight Banners soldiers and calm the panic in the market.

But Yonggui was already in a difficult situation and could only appease the enemy while continuing the search.

Since he was so anxious, his subordinates naturally acted more violently. When these Eight Banners soldiers demolished the Chen Family Ancestral Hall, it almost caused a fight between the Eight Banners soldiers and the local militia.

When people were being arrested indiscriminately around Xishan Temple, both sides engaged in bloody battles. The native Cantonese people from all over Guangzhou fought against the Eight Banners soldiers with hoes, dung forks, and machetes.

The result was of course that they were no match for the garrisoned Eight Banners who were equipped with muskets. More than 30 people were killed, and public resentment became even more boiling.

Two Eight Banner soldiers were killed and more than twenty were injured. They refused to give up and complained everywhere, and even carried the bodies to the governor's office crying and shouting. Yonggui was so overwhelmed that he had no choice but to pay a sky-high price of 80 taels of silver for each soldier's funeral and pension to suppress the matter.

As a result, the family of the militiaman who was beaten to death was dissatisfied and carried the body to the governor's office to make trouble, demanding 80 taels of compensation.

As a result, Yonggui was so angry that his nose was crooked. You poor people want to be treated the same as the Eight Banners masters?
He had been in the north for a long time and was unaware of the strength of the militiamen in Guangdong and Guangxi. He immediately ordered them to disperse them with sticks, which resulted in even greater chaos. The runners of the government office were unwilling to beat their own fellow villagers, and although the governor's staff carried out the order, they also complained.

Afterwards, rumors began to spread that Zhang Jiayu, the former loyal minister of Dongguan, still had descendants who wanted to come out to avenge their fellow villagers and blow Yonggui to death.

This scared Yonggui half to death, so that he dared not go out without hundreds of guards. He could only order the quick beheading of all the so-called rebels who were caught to scare the local residents, and at the same time report to Qianlong that the case had been closed.

Therefore, Yonggui executed 300 so-called rebels in Guangzhou at one time, giving outsiders the illusion that the case of assassinating the governor had been solved and all the bandits had been executed.

Qianlong had already received secret reports from Han officials and gentry from all over Guangdong accusing Yonggui. Now, when he received Yonggui's report, Qianlong was so angry that he almost laughed.

It was the first time he felt that there were so many idiots among the Bannermen!
But what could he do? Yonggui was already considered above average. Replacing him would not necessarily be better than Yonggui, and would also disrupt the early deployment and dampen the morale of the Eight Banners.

Therefore, Qianlong could only suppress his nausea and reply to Yonggui, asking him to close the case immediately and not to investigate further. If he continued to investigate, Guangzhou would have exploded before Mo Wu could call.

At the same time, Emperor Qianlong secretly ordered Fu Kang'an and the former Shaanxi Provincial Governor and Hanlin Academician Zhu Gui to leave the army and rush to Guangzhou overnight to quell the incident.

Fu Kang'an was ordered to be the governor of the military affairs of Guangdong and Guangxi as the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Counsellor, and actually became Yonggui's superior.

He ordered Zhu Gui to replace the assassinated Debao as the Governor of Guangdong, taking away Yonggui's administrative power.

Qianlong even secretly advised Zhu Gui to repair the Baiyun Chen family's ancestral hall as soon as he arrived in Guangzhou.

He also asked Zhu Gui to spread the word that the emperor knew of Chen Zizhuang's loyalty and was preparing to bestow a plaque written by himself and to build a temple in his memory.

Our brother Qianlong is still capable. Even though he was disgusted by King Mo and all the provincial governors were killed, he still held back his anger. He knew that even if it was shameless, he should stabilize Guangzhou first, otherwise there would be no need to fight this battle.

On the 27th day of the 12th lunar month, Fu Kang'an and Zhu Gui killed several post station horses. In a month, they rushed from Jiangning to Guangzhou, covering an average of more than 80 miles a day.

Fu Kang'an goes without saying the reason why he worked so hard.

Although Zhu Gui was a Han Chinese and his ancestral home was Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, he was born in Beijing and registered in Daxing County, Shuntian Prefecture.

You must know that after the Manchus occupied Beijing, they cleared out all the Han people. It was not easy to register someone in Daxing County, and he could even be considered half a Han army bannerman. Therefore, Zhu Gui was extremely loyal to the Manchus.

Moreover, this person was very capable. He and Fukang'an had a clear division of labor and quickly stabilized the situation.

As soon as Fukang'an arrived, he first confiscated Yonggui's military power, then took out the imperial edict and imprisoned Guangzhou General Yang Ning on the spot. He sent him directly to the capital in a prison car and specially arranged for Yang Ning to pass through Guangzhou City in the prison car.

When the people of Guangzhou saw this, their resentment began to subside a little.

Facing the discontent of the Eight Banners stationed in Guangzhou, Fu Kang'an publicly announced that a member of the imperial clan, Aisin-Gioro Yongwei, would soon be appointed the general of Guangzhou. Yongwei was the grandson of Yinreng, who had served as crown prince during the Kangxi era. His noble status immediately frightened the Eight Banners stationed in Guangzhou, who were extremely strict about hierarchy.

Afterwards, Fu Kang'an dispatched the Yongzhou Town of the Hunan Green Camp, which had been prepared long ago, into Guangzhou City, used foreign soldiers to threaten local soldiers, and began to reorganize the governor's flag and the governor's flag.

More than ten days later, 600 men from the Eight Banners of the Jianrui Camp in the capital arrived in Guangzhou. Fukang'an completely took control of the military power and expanded the scope of the rectification to the Green Camp.

With powerful figures and strong foreign troops as the strong dragon, the local green camp can only start to obey.

After Zhu Gui arrived, he first summoned the gentry from various prefectures to appease them, showing that the court absolutely trusted them and never thought that they would collude with the Mo thieves. He successfully appeased the upper class of the locals and stopped them from having any unrealistic thoughts.

Regarding the more than 30 people killed by the Eight Banners soldiers, Zhu Gui first announced that they would compensate them at 40 taels per person, which was half of the amount paid by the Eight Banners soldiers.

However, this still caused dissatisfaction, and Zhu Gui came out again to express his willingness to pay another 20 taels of money from his own pocket, increasing the pension to 60 taels. Finally, the people were satisfied and public opinion tended to stabilize.

Afterwards, the two men decided that they couldn't get beaten in public like this, so they began to recruit people from the underworld.

The Qing court still had a much greater advantage than Mo Zibu. It threw out a bunch of small military officers with empty titles and immediately poached many gangsters who followed the trend and joined Kunlun Mountain.

This move was quite effective, forcing Li Xianwen to leave Xiangshan and move towards Zhaoqing, Deqing, and even Wuzhou along the Xijiang River under the protection of Liang Sanye of Xijiang Hall.

It can be said that there were still a few capable people in the Qing Dynasty. Although the old Emperor Qianlong began to pursue more enjoyment, his basic political ability was still online.

However, the situation in Guangdong was suppressed, and the Xiaodaohui in Fujian gave again. The Qing Dynasty prepared a big gift.

Yin Chengfang still couldn't resist the temptation. At the age of fifty, he really wanted to give it a try, just in case he could become the second Liu Bowen.

With his joining, the Xiaodaohui led by Chen Xu quickly opened up northern Fujian, northeastern Guangdong and southern Jiangxi.

A large number of weapons were transported from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou to this area, and heroes from all over the country were recruited by the Xiaodao Society.

Chen Xu recruited 9,000 soldiers in just over a month. In view of his mediocre command ability, Chen Xu has already reported to Mo Zibu, hoping to send a general of Hakka origin to lead the army.

Yin Chengfang and Lin Qiaoyin cooperated to vigorously promote the idea of expelling the Manchus and promoting the Han people in Fujian.

This is really serious, especially when a large number of Green Camp members in Jiangxi have been withdrawn. If it doesn't erupt, it will be fine. But once it erupts, it will explode like a volcano.

March 1776, 3, the 4st year of Emperor Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty, the th day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival.

Li Xianwen brought more than a hundred people from Deqing, Guangdong to Wuzhou, Guangxi, and then entered Pingnan County, Xunzhou Prefecture under the escort of the local White Lotus branch.

If we were to divide the prefectures and counties under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the closer to Beijing, the stricter the control. For example, in Hebei, Henan, Shanxi and other places, the rule of the Qing Dynasty was quite strict and stable.

The further south you go, the weaker the Qing Dynasty's ruling power becomes. If we were to rank these regions with weak rule, Guangxi and western Guangdong would definitely be the ceiling.

It’s not that they had the loudest voice in expelling the Manchus, but that the Qing court’s control here was the weakest.

The situation in Guangxi and western Guangdong is extremely complicated, and the people are tough. If you commit a crime, you have nowhere to run away like in other places and can only wait for death.

In these two places, even if they are not near the sea, you can still choose to run to Annan, and there should not be too many retreat routes.

Therefore, Guangxi and western Guangdong at that time were paradises for all kinds of rebels. There were countless secret societies, White Lotus sects, and chieftains. In many counties and prefectures, the orders of the county magistrates were no longer effective if they were twenty miles outside the county seat.

They will not rebel openly, but they will not easily listen to you. Only when the imperial court mobilizes a large army will they temporarily behave themselves.

We can even get a glimpse of the rebelliousness and fierceness of their ancestors from the fact that in later generations, the number of spirited young men and yellow-haired will-o'-the-wisp in Guangxi and western Guangdong far exceeded that in other provinces and regions.

After Li Xianwen arrived, he made a blood alliance with the chieftains of the Zhuang, Yao, Miao and other ethnic groups in Pingnan, agreeing not to attack each other.

They also agreed that after King Mo had gained a firm foothold in Beihe, he would sell rice and salt to them at low prices, and after occupying Guangzhou, he would restore the official positions of the 17 chieftains who had been changed to native chieftains by the Qing government.

These people will not follow the Qing government to fight in Beihe. When my King Mo enters Guangzhou, they will directly start an uprising and drag the Green Camp soldiers from the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi into Guangxi.

The reason why these chieftains of various ethnic groups were willing to give it a try was that they were a little annoyed by the Qing Dynasty's policy of converting chieftains into officials.

However, Mo Zibu was not very interested in the policy of returning the native peoples to Han Chinese in the southwest.

In his opinion, instead of spending energy on land reform in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, it would be better to put this energy into how to control the plateau, prevent greening in the northwest and stabilize the western region.

Anyway, these southwestern ethnic minorities have lived with the Han people for thousands of years, and in many ways they have become more similar to the Han people. It is also a poor place with high mountains and dense forests, so there is no need to be too radical in carrying out the policy of land reform.

On the contrary, it should be relaxed, allowing goods from the Han area to flow in, destroying the local self-sufficient economic model, and allowing the upper class to quickly become sinicized.

The surplus population was attracted to Southeast Asia, where they occupied the lands of Laos, Cambodia and Lower Burma.

Even if we have to change the system of native officials to Han Chinese, it will be the last choice after the whole country is stabilized.

When Li Xianwen reached an agreement with the Zhuang, Yao and Miao chieftains in Guangxi, the Qing Dynasty played its second card.

On the one hand, Qianlong sent a messenger to Siam, asking Zheng Xin to send someone to Beijing to explain the matter of Mo Zibu and destroy the relationship between the father-in-law and son-in-law.

At the same time, he sent people to mediate the war between Myanmar and Siam. This mediation was not done in Thonburi, but directly in Ava.

At this time, Tong had 30,000 Siamese troops in his hands, which gave him a certain advantage, but he was unable to capture Ava.

King Meng Yun of Burma had an army of 20,000 men, but they were poorly equipped and exhausted from years of fighting. At the same time, the domestic economy had basically collapsed.

The Qing Dynasty mediated between the two sides with the intention of seeing if they could allow the Burmese army to attack Mo Zi Bu's territory from the flank, but they inadvertently discovered Tong's ambitions and the fierce Tang-Siam conflict that began in Siam.

The situation began to develop towards the most chaotic place.

(End of this chapter)