The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 515: Eradicate All Pests and Be Invincible (Part )

January 1782, 1, was the seventh year of the Guangzhong reign of the Great Yu Dynasty of China, and the fourth day of the twelfth lunar month.

Winter has passed and spring has come, and the earth is reviving, but all this has little to do with Gansu Province, where the mountains and rivers have turned red.

The chaos in Shaanxi and Gansu began in March of the lunar calendar last year, and it has been almost a year now.

Shaanxi was pacified very quickly, not only because the imperial army entered early, but also because the Han people in Shaanxi still had strong power.

Especially after they knew that the imperial court was planning to place a group of people from Henan and Hebei in the local area to search the mountains and seas and eat the imperial food, they took the initiative to assume this responsibility which had some benefits.

A large number of men from Yansui Town entered Guanzhong. They settled in Yan'an, Suide, Yulin, Fugu and other prefectures and counties. They were originally from the hometown of Li Xianwen, who was in charge of Guanzhong.

So when they heard that Li Zicheng's descendants had returned, they came to join him excitedly.

Life in northern Shaanxi is too hard, with thousands of ravines and gullies. In this era when there is not even corn or potatoes to eat, the men in northern Shaanxi have nothing but their lives.

Within three months, Li Xianwen recruited more than 30,000 strong men from northern Shaanxi, and then settled some of them in various places in Guanzhong that had been "vacated".

These warriors from northern Shaanxi, together with the swordsmen and bandits from northern Wei, searched the mountains and seas much faster than the White Lotus Sect members from Henan and Hebei, because they were locals.

Moreover, a very ridiculous joke is that among these 30,000 swordsmen from northern Shaanxi and 30,000 swordsmen from northern Wei, at least 20%, definitely no less than 5,000 people, were originally believers in the Tianfang Sect.

Facts have proved that in the hearts of many people, especially those who are deeply influenced by Confucian culture, they really don't believe in religion that much.

Because it is not easy for these people to become Han people, they have to go through a process.

During the Tongzhi Rebellion in history, so many believers disappeared at once. Some people were indeed killed, but many others actually gave up their faith and gave up the most obvious sign that would cost them their lives.

Of course, this was achieved through this ceremony.

Well, in history, people who looked simple and honest were also good at making people feel disgusted. The operation in this time and space is similar.

The swordsmen were originally locals, and there were also thousands of such rebellious guys among them. They knew the situation of local believers very well. After investigating all the way, they found that many troublemakers had nowhere to hide.

With the addition of these tens of thousands of fierce new forces, Li Xianwen quickly pacified Shaanxi in less than five months.

Afterwards, Li Xianwen arranged those who were willing to farm to serve as local garrison soldiers, and kept those who were unwilling to farm and wanted to make a living by using swords and guns to become superior people by his side.

At this point, Li Xianwen had extremely sufficient troops and no shortage of supplies.

Because the emperor transferred grain from Southeast Asia to Lingnan, and then the grain from Huguang that was supposed to go to Lingnan was transferred to Henan, and Henan transported the grain that was originally consumed by itself to Shaanxi.

This ensured that Shaanxi and Gansu would not lack food even during the war.

After the situation was basically stabilized, Mo Zibu sent his clan member Mo Shande as an angel to Xi'an, promoted Li Xianwen, the Duke of Shuofang County, to the Duke of Xia, gave him a large flag, a sword and a Shangfang sword, and ordered him to go to Gansu to establish a government and take charge of all affairs in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

Full name: Appointed by the Emperor to control Shaanxi, Gansu, Eleuth and Uzang, Governor of Criminal Law, Finance and Reclamation, Commander-in-Chief of Military and Horse Guards, with the privilege of handling important affairs between Han and foreign nationals, and the head of the Xia Kingdom's government. He was granted the imperial sword to facilitate his actions.

This basically handed over the entire Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai-Tibet to Li Xianwen, but at the same time, the royal family member Mo Shande stayed in Xi'an as the governor of Shaanxi, and ordered Li Xianwen to go to Lanzhou to open a government office. He also deprived Li Xianwen of his original control over Sichuan, which was considered a small restriction.

In order to prevent Li Xianwen from feeling uncomfortable, Mo Zibu also stipulated that officials below the fifth rank in the Xia Guogong government would be given preferential treatment when it came to protecting their descendants, or when they were promoted to civil officials or military ranks.

Sichuan's cooperation was needed to handle the affairs of U-Tsang, so Li Xianwen's former confidant Yuan Kaidao was appointed as the governor of Sichuan to cooperate with Li Xianwen.

Since others are going to guard the border, they naturally have to be given enough benefits.

After Li Xianwen obtained authorization from the emperor, he immediately selected 6,000 people from the surrendered bannermen to form two regiments of Black Flag Volunteer Cavalry.

Well, after the Han people served as green flag soldiers for the bannermen, now it is the turn of the bannermen to serve as black flag soldiers for the Han people.

The warriors from northern Shaanxi and the swordsmen from northern Wei formed the 15,000-man Yansui Army.

The 4,000 people who gave up their faith borrowed the name of the emperor's auxiliary troops in Jiading and named them Huiliang Army.

These three armies were directly under the command of Li Xianwen under the name of Zhenjun, just like the governor's standard-bearing troops and admiral's standard-bearing troops in the Qing Dynasty.

In the sixth year of Guangzhong (1781), Li Xianwen, who had received an epic reinforcement, personally led Beijing camp troops, garrison troops, of his standard-bearers, and White Lotus Sect members to march and recover Gansu.

Among them, Li Xianwen personally led 50,000 main forces, went upstream along the Jing River and the Malan River, and recovered the two prefectures of Pingliang and Qingyang.

With Wang Wubing as his deputy general, he led 25,000 troops from Baoji to Qinzhou (Tianshui) and then to Lanzhou.

Although temperatures in Shaanxi and Gansu often dipped below zero in October, making travel extremely difficult, the two armies, spurred by their high military achievements and hatred, advanced at a remarkable speed. In early October, Wang Wubing lifted the siege of Qinzhou, defeating over 50,000 Christian troops outside the city, killing thousands in battle and capturing tens of thousands. He then recaptured Longxi, Anding, Weiyuan, Didao, and other prefectures and counties.

At the end of October, they marched to the outskirts of Lanzhou and confronted the main force of the rebel army of more than 200,000 outside the city.

Also at the end of October, Li Xianwen personally led the main force to successfully recapture Pingliang and Qingyang prefectures.

Among them, the capital of Pingliang Prefecture was captured and all the counties in the prefecture were in ruins. It is no exaggeration to say that bones were exposed in the wild and no roosters crowed for thousands of miles.

These brutal thugs not only massacred the Han people living in Pingliang Prefecture, but also spared many moderate Taoists.

Of course, after retaking Pingliang Prefecture, Li Xianwen did not spare them. Since there were not many people left in Pingliang Prefecture, it would be better for everyone to die.

Subsequently, in early November, Li Xianwen personally led the main force into Ningxia Prefecture.

The Ningxia Prefecture at that time was still different from the Ningxia in later generations. The reason why Ningxia became the base camp in later generations was "thanks to" the bastard Ma Hongkui.

When this bastard was in charge of Ningxia, he built more than 20 large church schools and mobilized the entire province to attract foreign monks from West Asia to come and preach. They not only taught the scriptures but also Arabic.

So much so that in the later period of his administration, more than 70% of the scholars in Ningxia came from these schools, and over the past ten years, they trained tens of thousands of religious talents who could speak Arabic.

Even in Ningxia in later times, there wouldn’t be so many people who could speak Arabic.

As a result, in Yinchuan at that time, many scholars could not speak Mandarin fluently, but they could speak Arabic with several different dialects, such as Yemeni, Mecca, Jerusalem, etc.

But fortunately, it's still not too late.

Now, the place where the rebel troops are most concentrated in the entire Ningxia Prefecture is Wuzhong, and in Wuzhong, the most concentrated area is around Jinjibao.

This is the home of the Baishan Sect, the earliest Sufi sect in China. At the same time, the Baishan Sect also occupies a large part of the Western Regions.

Although the Old School is generally considered moderate, the White Mountain School belongs to the Old School.

But the White Mountain Sect belongs to the Old School as well as the Sufi sect, which is the kind that controls the personal belongings of believers, raises monk soldiers, builds fortresses, and mobilizes people layer by layer.

Therefore, in the entire northwest, only the White Mountain Sect of the Old Sect Hua Temple in Wuzhong could fight against the later Black Mountain Sect such as the Jahriyya.

The most famous people of the Baishan Sect in the Western Regions were the elder and younger Khojas, who had just been pacified for more than twenty years, and Zhang Geer, who was about to make a comeback in forty years.

In early November, after Li Xianwen arrived in Wuzhong, he sent people to investigate and summarized the situation. He couldn't help but gasp.

From Dingbian in the east to Zhongwei in the west, there are nearly three hundred forts densely packed along the few rivers and the Yellow River.

This only counts large docks that can accommodate at least hundreds of people, and the rest are too small to count.

Jinjibao, the old nest of the Baishan Sect, located at its core, has been built for more than a hundred years and is surrounded by more than seventy fortresses.

If you want to capture Jinjibao, you need to take it down one fort at a time.

Although these forts did not have the large number of flintlock rifles sent by Tsarist Russia and the three Central Asian khanates through Yakub Beg as in history, they were also quite difficult to capture.

The main reason was that the fanatical rebel army destroyed all the roads, and the fortress was built on a high place, so artillery could not reach it at all. They could only use flintlock rifles, small mortars, and mountain-splitting cannons.

Li Xianwen calculated that if he continued to fight his way through, it would take at least five months to reach Jinjibao.

Moreover, it is already the end of October in the lunar calendar, so it is impossible to get vaccinated. It will take at least until March next year before we can start to vaccinate slowly.

Just when the situation was at a stalemate, good news came from the northwest. The Zasaks of the Mongolian desert south of the desert had decided to collectively submit to Dayu and were selecting beauties and warriors, preparing to go to Chengde for an audience next year.

After they expressed their submission, Dayu was able to mobilize them to a certain extent.

So just when Li Xianwen was preparing to attack head-on, the Mongols from the Khalkha, Chahar and Ordos banners around Ningxia Prefecture gathered more than 6,000 light cavalry.

Under the leadership of these more than 6,000 light cavalry, 5,000 Han cavalry, half new and half old, that is, half Huaibei knights and half Daibei knights, crossed the Helan Mountains, crossed the Yellow River and met up with Li Xianwen.

As a result, Li Xianwen had 10,000 Han and Banner cavalry with good combat effectiveness, and nearly 8,000 light cavalry, mainly Mongolians.

Then there's nothing to be afraid of. Li Xianwen laughed heartily. "In that case, my lord, let them stay in the fort. We will first lift the siege of Lanzhou and then come back to deal with them."

(End of this chapter)