The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 400: Guocheng and Xiaoduozi in Jiangning City

Mo Zibu stood on Shuangshan Island, a sandbar in the middle of the river, gazing at Jiangyin City in the distance, while Lan Yuanmei introduced it to Mo Zibu beside him.

"Your Majesty, the river surface in this Jiangyin section is commonly known as the trumpet mouth.

When coming from the sea, the river is wide. Once you pass the two islands, the river immediately becomes extremely narrow. After passing the Jiangyin section, the river begins to widen again.

At the same time, there is Huangshan Mountain extending along the river bank south of Jiangyin, which is a perfect place to set up artillery blockade. Artillery can also be set up on Gushan Mountain north of the river.

As a result, once they reached Jiangyin, the river suddenly narrowed, the resistance when going upstream increased, the warships moved slowly, and the Huangshan and Gushan mountains on both sides of the river were blocked with artillery, making it impossible for the attackers to advance an inch.

When the situation becomes extremely tense, set fire to hundreds of ships upstream and send them downstream. No matter how many ships you have, they will all be swallowed up by Zhu Rong."

Mo Zibu nodded and said, "It is indeed a gateway to the sea and the river, surrounded by mountains and rivers. If the military and civilians are united, even with a million soldiers, it will be difficult to cross this natural barrier.

But now, the military and the people are on our side, so we won't wait for Yu Jinao. Those who don't know what's good for them will only be buried with the Tartars."

After saying this, Mo Zibu waved his hand and said, "Go ashore, the entire army wears mourning clothes, and tell the world that we are here to restore the Han people's rule and avenge the Ming emperors.

The Security Department will print another 10,000 copies of this manifesto. I want every county in the seven prefectures of Upper and Lower Jiang to know that we are back."

Mo Zibu's logic was very simple. Since it was indeed difficult to go upstream from the river surface, I would land directly and take Jiangyin County by land.

The officers and soldiers of the Huangshan Fort may all support the Qing Dynasty, but it is impossible that all the people in Jiangyin city support the Qing Dynasty.

. . . .

The person in charge of guarding the city of Jiangyin was a lieutenant general of the left camp who was in charge of the flag and was of course also a bannerman.

Next to the lieutenant general was Zhao Yuanzhi, the magistrate of Jiangyin. He was a juren from Xichong, Sichuan. He had made contributions in the battles of Jinchuan and was recommended by Agui to be the magistrate of Jiangyin.

As for the other Green Camp guerrillas, garrisons and captains, they were basically all Han people, not to mention the recruited men in the county, who were all Han people.

"It seems that the Huangshan Fort is still very deterrent. They have been stationed on Shuangshan Island for a whole day and there is no sign of attacking." County Magistrate Zhao said this to ease his anxiety.

He was so angry that he should not have donated 3,000 dan of grain and spent 3,000 taels to bribe Agui, which would have led to such a real shortage.

This fucking Han emperor is back. He is a juren and his family is a wealthy family in Xichong. He just needs to wait for the heavenly soldiers of the Dayu Dynasty to enter Sichuan, drive away the bannermen, and leave so many vacancies. How can he get an official position?

There's no need to travel thousands of miles to be an official. You might even lose your life here.

The Bannerman Lieutenant General was even more nervous than the County Magistrate. The County Magistrate was a Han Chinese, so the worst that could happen was that he would lose his job, and his life would most likely not be in danger. But for him, the situation was not certain. As long as Jiangyin City was captured, he would surely die.

In extreme tension, the lieutenant general also wanted to say a few words to ease the situation, but as soon as he opened his mouth, the city wall suddenly exploded.

Because suddenly an army appeared in everyone's sight. They were in neat uniforms and were carrying some black and white flags. From a distance, they looked like a vast expanse of white.

"Oh, white helmets and white armor!" An old Green Camp soldier guarding the city wall couldn't help but shout in surprise.

County Magistrate Zhao and the bannerman lieutenant general were startled. They looked closely and saw that it was indeed a white helmet and white armor.

The soldiers either wore robes made of white cloth or had white headbands wrapped around their military caps. Even the foreheads of the war horses and the barrels of the cannons were wrapped with white cloth strips.

Seeing Jiangyin County right in front of them, dozens of riders came on horseback, holding long white banners with Yan Yingyuan's quatrains written on them.

"Eighty days of untied hair pledged loyalty, representing the seventeen generations of Taizu. One hundred thousand men united in death, preserving the three hundred miles of territory of the Ming Dynasty."

County Magistrate Zhao couldn't help but recite it aloud, an unknown feeling lingering in his heart, as if countless people were watching him from the sky.

Goose bumps instantly covered his back, and Zhao Yuanzhi's face was paler than the white cloth outside the city.

An old constable glanced around quietly, and seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he immediately ran down the city wall.

Amid the rumbling sound of war drums, the 30,000-strong army slowly dispersed, and the soldiers and horses were like snow, and began to besiege the entire Jiangyin city. The field artillery was also pulled to the front in a pretentious manner.

It seemed like a short time, but more than ten minutes had passed. In a place where the county magistrate and the bannermen general could not see, a large number of people crowded onto the top of the city wall and looked at the army in white helmets and armor outside the city.

But this time is different from one hundred and thirty years ago. At that time, the people of Jiangyin had to deal with foreign armies, but this time it was their own people who came.

Therefore, the people were not afraid at all, but rather somewhat excited.

Mo Zibu ordered a dozen Jinyiwei officers to come forward. They were dressed in gorgeous Feiyu uniforms, but with white cloth as headbands on their foreheads.

"Kill the Tartars, kill the Tartars!" There was no need for these Jinyiwei officers to say anything else, they just needed to keep shouting "kill the Tartars".

Sure enough, the original source of nationalism is extreme ethnic oppression. Although the people don’t say anything, they understand it very well in their hearts.

Several knights in brocade robes had not finished shouting before they had circled Jiangyin City when someone on the city wall started shouting, "Kill the Tartars!" Some young men who had been conscripted to defend Jiangyin City started shouting, "Kill the Tartars!"

The Han army of the Green Camp seemed to have lost their former majesty and dignity for a moment. They all looked pale and didn't know what to do.

"What a bold and unruly person!" The magistrate's face suddenly erupted with anger. "I want to see who dares to speak so arrogantly and disrupt the morale of our army at this moment."

After saying this, without even waiting for the banner general to react, County Magistrate Zhao, with a face full of anger, lifted the hem of his official robe and rushed down the city wall.

The lieutenant general heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed the magistrate was still on his side. He coughed to calm himself down and pointed at the white-robed Xing Tang Army below and said loudly:

"Don't be afraid, brothers. Mo Wu is just a pirate like Zheng Chenggong of Dongning. They have come here very seldom in recent years, and they have always been defeated and fled.

The military headquarters is in Changzhou, and the imperial army is also heading south from the Grand Canal. Sooner or later, we will wipe out this traitor. By then, everyone who holds on today will be rewarded handsomely. "Hearing him say this, a few of the soldiers around him who were still ignorant of their own danger actually looked a little better, and they all agreed.

The lieutenant general felt more confident. He was considering whether to let the sharpshooter with a shotgun shoot down the knights in brocade robes outside, when he suddenly heard a heart-numbing roar.

"Kill the Tartars!"

The lieutenant general turned around suddenly and saw that County Magistrate Zhao, who had just run down the city, had taken off his official uniform and was wearing only white underwear. He was accompanied by dozens of tall militiamen, holding a steel knife and yelling at him.

The lieutenant general was terrified and before he could draw his sword, the militiamen instigated by the county magistrate rushed over and pinned him and several Green Camp soldiers around him to the ground.

"Those who wish to return to Han may wrap themselves in white cloth!"

The magistrate understood that the militia could not defeat the Green Camp soldiers, so he grabbed a handful of white cloth and shouted at the Green Camp soldiers who still had some fighting power around the lieutenant general.

The Green Camp officers and soldiers were overjoyed. They scrambled to get the white cloth strips and wrapped them around their arms, immediately making them their own people.

The gate of the county town slammed open, and one hundred and thirty-three years later, Jiangyin, the heroic and loyal city, once again returned to the hands of the Han people.

As the vanguard, Wang Wubing entered the city and was immediately surrounded by the people of Jiangyin. They cheered and kept casting excited glances at the officers and soldiers of the Xingtang Army in white helmets and armor. Some elders brought their families and bowed and saluted them.

It was also unlucky for the Qing Dynasty. Originally, the deeds of Yan Yingyuan and others were not so well known to everyone.

However, during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the Qing Dynasty felt that the world was stable. In order to consolidate its rule, they began to agree to invite Yan Yingyuan to the Minzhong Temple for worship. Emperor Qianlong even began to publicize it extensively, using Yan Yingyuan as a model of a loyal minister.

Now that the Xing Tang Army has arrived, the people of Jiangyin already remember this grudge, and you have made it known to everyone, including women and children. They will not accept Qianlong's kindness, but will immediately choose to return to their compatriots.

"General, there are still hundreds of artillerymen at the Huangshan Fort. Please lead the people of Jiangyin as the vanguard to capture the fort for Your Majesty." County Magistrate Zhao shouted loudly in front of the horse.

Wang Wubing looked at the strange man wearing only a single white garment and asked, "Who are you?"

"I am Zhao Yuanzhi, the magistrate of Jiangyin. I have rebelled and led the people to capture the Tartar lieutenant general." Magistrate Zhao quickly began to show off his achievements.

"Okay!" Wang Wubing still had some scholarly habits. He politely raised his hand and said, "Please let Magistrate Zhao lead the way!"

. . . .

Nanjing, the Qing Dynasty called this city Jiangning, which simply lowered the city's status by several levels.

At this time, Nanjing was actually the most populous city in China under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Although there is no exact data, the population should be no less than 700,000, and perhaps more than 800,000.

This is also an important reason why the so-called Kangxi and Qianlong prosperous eras are not widely recognized, because during this prosperous era when the population exceeded 200 million, the most populous city in China did not even have more than one million residents.

This is not only not comparable to the prosperous Song and Ming dynasties, it is not much better than the Han and Tang dynasties, and is even slightly worse than the Tang Dynasty with a population of 80 million.

There is only one reason to explain this phenomenon, that is, a large number of people are tied to the countryside, relying on a small amount of self-cultivated land and working as tenants to barely avoid starvation.

After a large amount of rural output is consumed by such poor people, the remaining food cannot support the rapid expansion of the urban population.

The inability of urban population to expand rapidly has further led to a downturn in economic activities, which in turn has been unable to provide sufficient non-agricultural jobs in cities, and everyone has become stagnant.

Therefore, although the proportion of corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes in grain production at that time was much lower than later generations thought, there is nothing wrong with calling it the heyday of sweet potatoes.

As the largest city under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, once Nanjing fell, the impact would be devastating. Its fall would mark the true arrival of troubled times and would quickly spread throughout the north and south.

At the same time, there were quite a few bannermen in Nanjing, and those stationed there were not just marginal figures like those in Fuzhou and Hangzhou.

When Qianlong told Fu Kang'an in Linqing Prefecture that he no longer cared about Nanjing and that there would be no shortage of bannermen as long as there were benefits, it was obvious that a large part of his statement was simply to boost morale.

The idea is right, but you can't execute it that way.

The emperor of the Qing Dynasty must first be the clan leader and patriarch of the bannermen. If you leave tens of thousands of core members in Nanjing without any care, the morale of the bannermen may be dispersed.

Even if they don't disband, there are fewer core old bannermen willing to follow your Aisin-Gioro family. What can you use to suppress the new bannermen?

Therefore, it was impossible for Qianlong to give up the more than 30,000 Guocheng and Xiaoduozi in Nanjing City. Not only could he not give up, he also mobilized a group of elite soldiers who had been recruited.

Qianlong gathered 10,000 men, led by the new Governor of the Grand Canal, Mukden'a, and added 6,000 men from the Green Camp's Langshan Town and the Governor of the Grand Canal's Hebiao, to garrison in Yangzhou and control Guazhou.

More than one hundred large and small ships for grain transport were requisitioned and converted into warships, all of which were stored in Yangzhou, ready to send troops to support Nanjing in case of any changes.

In the city of Nanjing, the Governor-General of Liangjiang, Gao Jin, was transferred away by Emperor Qianlong due to his old age and frailty, and all military and political power was controlled by General Jiangning, Hao Chun.

This person is a member of the Manchu royal family, who inherited the title of Duke of Fuguo. He is a descendant of Fingu, the eighth son of Shurhaci, the old slave's younger brother. He has always served in the army and can be considered knowledgeable about military affairs.

The second-in-command, Deputy Governor-General Cheng De, was a member of the Manchu Plain Red Banner and a member of the Niuhuru clan. He made many military achievements in the Jinchuan Campaign and was listed among the heroes in the Purple Light Pavilion. He was a fierce general.

Everything was arranged properly, and Hao Chun was very proud. He believed that Nanjing City had a large population and could temporarily recruit hundreds of thousands of militiamen.

Moreover, the Xing Tang army is coming from the sea, so their retreat cannot be cut off. Supplies from upstream can be transported in continuously, so there is no need to worry about shortage of supplies.

At the same time, Nanjing is considered to be one of the most fortified cities in the country, with more than 200 artillery pieces of various types, making it absolutely easy to defend and difficult to attack.

He even said that even if Mo Zibu personally led the troops to attack, he would be defeated like Zheng Ni.

(End of this chapter)