The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 491 A Money Man Becomes a Valuable Man

"This world is so fucking evil. What the hell is God doing?"

In the countryside twenty miles north of Yongqing County, Shuntian Prefecture, Zhili, an old bannerman with white hair and beard was wailing, followed by several equally distraught bannermen teenagers.

Xing Dunxing and others who were transferred from Anxin County, Baoding, looked at the bannermen numbly with confusion in their eyes.

The news of the great defeat in Linqing Prefecture had spread to the north, because some bannermen with horses still managed to run back.

Although the number of people was small, it was enough to spread the explosive news everywhere.

Although the Xing Dunxing brothers were skilled in martial arts, they were not taken with them by the divine soldiers heading south because they had not joined the sect.

So they followed the Tianjin Coastal Defense Commander appointed by the Sixth Prince Yongrong and came to Tianjin Prefecture to set up camp.

The old bannerman is named Yongxiang. He looks very old, but he is actually only 51 years old this year.

The three small bannermen behind him were all his grandsons, and his son Baosheng was trapped in Linqing Prefecture, and his life or death was unknown.

However, Yongxiang did not give in because of this. For the bannermen, especially those stationed in Beijing, the only thing left in their lives was to practice martial arts and fight. It was normal to die on the battlefield.

It was Yongxiang himself. Among the four brothers, the eldest brother died in the battle to pacify Amursana, the Taiji of the Huite tribe, in the 1756st year of Qianlong's reign (), together with General Celeng of Dingbian.

In the 1758rd year of Qianlong's reign (), my second elder brother died in the Battle of Heishuiying along with General Gao Tianxi.

In the 1764th year of Qianlong's reign (), the fourth brother followed General Agui to quell the rebellions of Chanhui Lai and Mutula and was stationed in Yili. There has been no news about him since then, and no one knows what happened to him.

Even Yongxiang himself escaped from the Black Water Camp and followed General Mingrui to escape death in the third expedition to Burma in the 1767nd year of Qianlong's reign (), and survived.

With such an experience, Yongxiang would not be discouraged by the death of his son Baosheng in battle, because before setting off, Yongxiang thought that his son was already dead.

What really broke his defenses was that his daughter-in-law got into the bed of a Han Chinese, a Han Chinese who only knew how to farm and who had to kneel on the side of the road to greet Yongxiang when she saw him.

And this is not an isolated case, it is a very common situation in Zhili now.

Because everyone knows that the Han people have produced Zhu Yuanzhang and Hongwu again, and have fought back. The Han people have gone from being worthless to being valuable, while the Banner people have become worthless.

Perhaps this change is not too obvious to the Han people, but to the banner people who have always enjoyed privileges, it is extremely obvious.

Ever since Emperor Qianlong suffered a stroke and was dragged back to Beijing in a panic, public opinion in Zhili began to change, and a large amount of news that was difficult to distinguish between true and false was spread everywhere.

The most widely circulated rumor was that after the Han people fought back, they would kill all the bannermen in Zhili to avenge Emperor Chongzhen.

Well, Yongxiang, who had read a few books and had some historical knowledge, was a little confused at first. If he wanted to avenge Emperor Chongzhen, shouldn't he kill Li Zicheng?

Then Emperor Mo's brother-in-law can barely be considered a descendant of Li Zicheng. If he really wants to avenge Chongzhen, shouldn't he let Emperor Mo kill his brother-in-law and his family?

However, not many people have the same understanding as him, and most people just follow the crowd.

Therefore, when the rumor spread rapidly to the present day, most people believed that the Han army came to kill all the bannermen.

What was the most common type of bannerman among the Zhili people, or more precisely, the bannermen around Shuntian Prefecture in the capital?

These were the large numbers of widows created by the Qianlong Emperor's wars over the years, which resulted in the deaths of a large number of Eight Banners stationed in Beijing.

These widows do not have as strong a sense of tribalism as men. What they need most is to live a good life.

Well, or we can say that the economic status of women at that time, as well as their irreversible physical conditions, destined the vast majority of them to be unable to maintain a strong sense of ethnic identity like men.

Even before Mo Zibu fought back, there were cases around Zhili where the Bannermen, due to a shortage of labor, secretly sought strong Han men to live with in order to provide widows with a better life.

There was even an outrageous situation where a man who had died in battle for three or four years was still able to give birth to a son and successfully report him as a foster soldier.

There is no way around it. The bannermen widows have houses and land, but they cannot effectively transform these assets into means of production on their own.

A very simple example is that a bannerman widow owns 30 acres of land. She can recruit Han men to farm the land for her. On the surface, the bannerman widow is a landlord and should be superior.

But in reality, the widow needed to please the Han men who helped her farm the land.

Because when bannermen widows were unable to farm the land themselves, the means of production had been transferred to the hands of Han men along with production capacity.

This is a bit like those homeowners in big cities in later generations who hope to rent out their houses for profit, but are often manipulated by the sub-landlords or real estate agencies who rent out their houses.

Moreover, in addition to practical needs, the spiritual and physical emptiness requires even more comfort. Later, it even developed to the point where the upper echelons of the bannermen turned a blind eye to this.

Because the imperial court needed a large number of male men from the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing to maintain military force, if some widows were not allowed to resume childbirth, the Banner people would probably become extinct in a few decades.

This situation became very obvious after the disastrous defeat at Hetongpo. If we had not turned a blind eye, it would have been difficult for those thousands of bannermen widows to survive, and the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing would not have been able to recover so quickly.

Of course, a large number of the Han men favored by bannermen widows were Han bannermen who had been expelled from the banner, and most of them were bannermen living in settlements outside the Forty-Nine Cities, rather than among the bannermen living in the cities themselves.

However, since such a foundation had been established, the situation began to get out of control in the past ten years or so after the large-scale loss of male bannermen stationed in Beijing and the increasing number of widows.

So much so that now that Yongxiang's defenses have been breached, the Banner women have been scrambling to actively lick the Han men, hoping to become their wives and take this opportunity to become Han Chinese and avoid being killed by the impending Han army.

"Father, just listen to me. Let Fude and the others come with me. As long as they join the Zhao family and become Han Chinese, they won't die."

Yongxiang was so broken that he was wailing everywhere. A pretty woman in her thirties came after him and kept begging him.

"Father, Fude is only thirteen, and Fubao is only nine. How could you bear to kill them all? What's wrong with being a Han Chinese? In this world, as long as you can save your life, that's all you need!"

After hearing what his daughter-in-law said, Yongxiang staggered and fell on the edge of the field, howling like a dying wolf.

He looked at the Xing brothers holding spears in the distance, and suddenly tore off his clothes, revealing his scars all over his body to show them.

"The Qing Empire is finished, the Manchus are finished, everything is finished!"

"I fought for the Qing Empire, risking my life from the Western Regions to Burma, but in the end, I'm going to be without any descendants!"

"Hongli, you are a sinner, you are a sinner! You have let down so many good men, and you have let down this old man who is covered in wounds!"

"Fuck, this old dog is asking for death, calling the emperor's name directly!" Brother Xing Dunchao was shocked and pointed at Yongxiang in horror and screamed. Xing Dunxing was also shocked, but he quickly reacted and raised his hand to slap his brother Xing Dunchao on the back of the head.

"What emperor? We Han people now have our own emperor. Qianlong is the Manchu emperor, not ours."

Uh, that’s right!
Xing Dunchao reacted immediately. Although they and their brothers were still wearing the clothes of the Green Camp soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, they were Han people, not Bannermen. Once they took off this dog skin, good days would come.

"Go, arrest all these guys!" Xing Dunxing shouted, and asked his younger brother Xing Dunchao to take people down to arrest them.

"When our Han Emperor Guangzhong arrives, we can hand them over to him and it will be considered a meritorious service."

Just when the entire Zhili region was in a state of panic, the situation in Beijing became even more complicated.

Speaking of which, the biggest reason for this situation where a huge family was overturned in one fell swoop was caused by the Qing Dynasty itself.

They first used various policies to destroy the Mongols in the south and north of the desert who had already knelt down to serve as their brothers.

Before the Mongols became the Qing Dynasty's younger brothers, they could mobilize 50,000 to 80,000 people from the grassland at any time. Regardless of their combat effectiveness, they still had no problem with simple riding and shooting. The only problem was their weapons and equipment.

After the Manchus came to control the Central Plains, they had 200 million Han people to oppress, so naturally they had no shortage of weapons.

Therefore, as long as the Qing Dynasty could truly treat the Mongols as its own people, it would be able to mobilize at least tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry by now.

With these Mongolian cavalrymen riding Mongolian horses, holding flintlock rifles, matchlock rifles, bows and arrows, and dragging field artillery, even if you gave Mo Zibu ten times the courage, he would not dare to attack Huanglong with only 10,000 or 20,000 people.

If this is true, the Qing Dynasty will probably be much more difficult to deal with than the Northern Yuan Dynasty in the past.

It’s a pity that the Qing government was much more cruel to the Mongols than to the Han people, reducing the population on the grassland to even less than that of the late Ming Dynasty, and their morale was also dulled by the Yellow Sect.

As a result, the Qing Dynasty was in trouble now, and Yongrong issued three edicts to the grassland, but as a result, less than 10,000 cavalry came.

However, these 10,000 cavalry were mostly misfits, because the most capable fighters of the Mongols south of the desert were either used up in the two expeditions to Burma and the Northern River, or were stationed in the Western Regions to guard the border.

There are not many people in the Mongolian desert south of the desert now, even fewer than during the Second Crow period. During the Second Crow period, the Mongols still had thousands of high-quality cavalry who had fought against the Taiping Army and the Nian Army.

At the same time, the Qing court was extremely cruel to the New Han Army that defected to the government. They were even worse than the worst scumbag.

Therefore, the more hurt they were when Yongzheng and Qianlong forced them to leave the banner, the greater their resentment is now.

The more than 10,000 people with less resentment had already followed him down from Linqing Prefecture, and Yongrong did not dare to bring those who stayed around with him.

Therefore, even though he knew that Linqing Prefecture had suffered a crushing defeat, Yongrong could not mobilize many troops to protect Beijing City. He could not even control Beijing City because of his lack of legal authority.

However, compared to Yongrong's embarrassing situation, Heshen and the adults had a clear goal.

This person is actually a very rare talent. Except for his possible weakness in fighting, he is a top expert in other aspects.

"His Majesty Emperor Guangzhong has personally sent someone to reply to me. He said that as long as we can defend the Forbidden City, it will be a great achievement."

Heshen also specially wore a set of cloth armor of the Zhenghuang Banner, and under the protection of several palace guards, he shouted while holding a steel knife.

"Anyway, Shen and I don't want to go grazing on the grasslands and eat sand in the spring and autumn. We also don't want to go back to the old forest outside the Great Wall. We have lived in the Central Plains for more than a hundred years, and we won't survive if we go back.

More importantly, everyone should recall how our ancestors dealt with the Mongols and the fish-skinned Tartars outside the Great Wall. If we really retreat to their territory, is it better than being captured by the Han people?

Heshen's words made the surrounding bannermen startled. A rather funny fact was that the bannermen did not consider themselves Tartars. They believed that the Mongols from tribes other than Khorchin and the Jurchens such as Solon and Daur were Tartars.

There is a saying that goes, the one who wronged you knows better than anyone else how wronged you are. It is the same now. The Bannermen understand better than anyone else how they treated the Mongols and the Jurchens.

So when He Shen said this, they were frightened. Someone asked anxiously, "Master He, will Emperor Guangzhong really forgive us?"

Heshen was actually a little nervous, but he had no choice but to protect the Forbidden City and the precious cultural relics accumulated in the city over the past few hundred years.

In particular, many of the treasures handed down from generation to generation have not yet been stamped with the seal of Emperor Qianlong. Even a bannerman emperor like Qianlong was obsessed with that thing, so how could a Han emperor not like it?
"Of course!" Heshen said firmly: "The blood that needed to be shed has been shed for us in Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou and Jiangning. Even the bannermen in Jingzhou and Chengdu are fine, so we will be fine too.

The Emperor still needs us. He needs us to help him defend the Western Regions and win over Mongolia. After tonight, let's grow our hair and change our clothes to become Han Chinese. After all, few people can speak Chinese anymore."

After hearing Heshen's words, the more than 1,000 bannermen guards stationed in the Forbidden City immediately relaxed a lot.

In fact, at this point, most people have long lost their fighting spirit, and the only thing they worry about is whether they and their families can save their lives.

The sound of horse hooves was heard, and Yongrong led 3,000 cavalrymen from the left and right wings of Kharchin to the outside of the palace.

"Heshen, hand over His Majesty. If you don't want to go back to the outside of the Great Wall or to Mongolia, I won't force you. But if you still have a conscience, let the Emperor come with me."

Qianlong's health was getting worse and worse, and he even had difficulty walking, but he was still a figurehead.

Yongrong lacked ability and had even less appeal, so he wanted to bring Qianlong to the grassland and use Qianlong's reputation to stabilize the situation.

He Shen laughed heartily from the top of the city wall, "Sixth Prince, I have a word of advice for you. Whether it's south of the desert, north of the desert, or outside the Great Wall, you can't stay here any longer.

It would be better for you to join me in apologizing to the Emperor. Even if you cannot be forgiven, at least you can still be his servants."

Yongrong was anxious. He was not in a legitimate position to begin with. If he just went back to the grassland with only a few hundred Eight Banners soldiers under his command, it was unknown whether the Mongols would really listen to him.

"Sixth Prince, Heshen has only a thousand men, let's fight his way in!" A Mongolian commander beside him showed a greedy look on his face, and the cavalrymen behind him were also ready to move.

Several men in yellow belts also rode their horses and slowly approached, "Regent, if you want the Mongols to serve you in the future, you can't do it without money."

Yongrong slowly looked back and saw a large group of dark Mongolian cavalry surrounding their few bannermen. He suddenly felt like he was sitting on the crater of a volcano.

But he had no choice but to use rewards to stabilize these Mongols first.

"Charge in and escort His Majesty the Emperor back to the grassland!" Yongrong drew his sword with a screech and pointed at the Forbidden City.

My goodness, they started fighting before the Han army even arrived.

　I was reported, and almost everything related to the Yanshenggong Mansion had to be rewritten. I'm scared, scared. I'd better go and cause more trouble for the Koreans, Japanese, Americans, British and Indians in the future.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)