The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 638 No More Bannermen
Outside Xinwan Town, traces of the battle are still visible, but the tense atmosphere has basically disappeared.

Right by the river, at the former temporary logistics camp of the Russians, a group of children dressed in the costumes of Daur, Ewenki, Oroqen and other tribes were running around laughing and playing. They were basically descendants of the retreating bannermen.

Inside the camp, the hundreds of bannermen who followed Fukangan to retreat north of the Greater Khingan Range were not as excited as the children outside.

Each of them had a trace of uneasiness on their face, and from time to time they glanced towards the distant Xinwan Town.

In the barracks, only Fukang'an was very calm. He even held a string of Buddhist beads and closed his eyes to recite Buddhist scriptures.

Le Bao looked back and forth several times and even made noises on purpose, but seeing that Fukang'an ignored him, he finally couldn't help but walked in.

"Master, all our people are here. If the Han people have any evil intentions, none of us will be able to escape!"

Le Bao was so anxious that a big bubble appeared at the corner of his mouth. "It's been almost twenty days. What do you want to do to us? You have to give us an explanation."

Fukang'an still ignored it and only slowly opened his eyes after the scripture was finished.

"You and I are descendants of sinners, burdened with guilt. What if I give you an explanation? What if I don't? What if you have evil thoughts? What if I don't?

This world belongs to Emperor Guangzhong. If the emperor feels that we have been punished and is willing to give us a way out, it will be a blessing for you and me.

If you don't want to, it's a dead end whether we get together or not."

As Fu Kang'an spoke, he turned to the first page of the Buddhist scripture he had just finished reading. "If you can't calm your mind, take this "White Lotus Infinite Deliverance Treasure Scroll" and chant it. From now on, let's convert to the White Lotus Sect."

Le Bao was stunned for a moment, then suddenly overjoyed. "This is the White Lotus Sect's sutra, right? The White Lotus Sect's Cihang Pudu Zun Buddha is the legitimate father-in-law of the emperor. Wu Fubo from Xinwan Town sent this sutra here, so it must have a deep meaning."

Fukang'an sighed in his heart. Although Lebao was also a talented person, he was still far behind Aligun, Agui and others in the past, and was far inferior to Hailancha who defected halfway.

He shows his emotions so clearly on his face and over-associates everything. He is not a general!
Seeing Lebao leave happily, Fukang'an couldn't help but take out the note from his mother Yehenara that his cousin Mingde brought to him.

Looking at the sentence above, "If you continue to be stubborn and refuse to change your ways, your wife and I will become the emperor's maids!"

Fu Kang'an laughed in silence. This was not urging him to surrender quickly, but telling him that the emperor had already intended to forgive him and even use him.

Because if the emperor did not want to forgive him or use him, his mother Yehenara would have no right to ask for the opportunity to take his wife Irgen Jueluo to work as a maid for the emperor. She would have been sold to Southeast Asia long ago to make beds for the foreign colonists.

Two days later, a warm breeze blew from the southeast, and the Greater Khingan Range was covered with green trees and red mountain flowers. A large flag with a red background and a golden sun and moon, symbolizing the emperor, fluttered in the air.

Accompanied personally by General Deng Tingjia of Jilin, the angel, led by Mo Shanzong, a member of the imperial clan, took a boat from Miaojie to Xinwan Town.

'Your ancestors have been citizens of the Ming Dynasty for generations, but instead of being loyal to the emperor and patriotic, they became Nurhaci's lackeys.

However, times have changed. I am not a murderous ruler like Nurhaci and Huang Taiji, and you are not people who have committed heinous crimes and must be killed. Now I have military merits to atone for my sins.

Therefore, I will show leniency and pardon the crimes of your tribe. Those who have made military merits will be allowed to return to the Han family, and those who have not will continue to make efforts.

Since the 46th year of the Wanli reign, when I, this old slave, started an uprising out of personal revenge and greed, all the lives that have been destroyed in the world have passed away.

Fourteen years after the reign of Emperor Guangzhong, the hatred finally ended, and there was no longer any distinction between Han and Manchu, only the people of the various Chinese nations, standing side by side and heading west.

After the imperial edict was read, Fukang'an was finally moved. He knelt on the ground and burst into tears, "I, Fukang'an, thank the great emperor for not killing me!"

After saying this, he knelt down three times and kowtowed nine times towards the south, until his forehead was black and blue. The other bannermen were in a similar situation. They dreamed of getting the emperor's pardon and were willing to pay any price.

Well, that’s how the icy and snowy old forests of the Xianbei wilderness teach people.

After the kowtow, Fukang'an was the first to stand up. After his military merits were verified, the angel Mo Shanzong personally allowed him to return to Han. His cousin Fu Mingde personally picked up the knife and shaved off the rat tail on Fukang'an's head.

"Brother, the Dayu Dynasty is not like our ancestors. When Your Majesty first entered Nanjing, he abolished the order to shave the hair and change clothes. From now on, you can have whatever hairstyle you want."

After Fukangan, Lebao, Changling, Hukejing'a and others also shaved their heads one by one. Those who had enough military achievements were smiling happily, while those who did not have enough military achievements had red eyes of jealousy.

On the second day of July, Fu Kang'an returned to Dayu with the last 411 bannermen and more than 43,000 people from various ethnic groups north and south of the Greater Khingan Range under their control.

At this point, Dayu officially controlled the Eastern Xianbei Wasteland, and the Rakshasa people only had a few stronghold-like cities left here.

At the same time, the emperor's edict pardoning the bannermen spread from Shenyang to all directions of the northeast.

When the emissaries from the government offices of prefectures, counties, and cities, and the archers and garrison troops from the inspection offices of various places, spread the news with the sound of gongs and drums, tens of thousands of people, with disheveled hair and dirty faces, looking like savages, emerged from the deep mountains.

In mid-July, the main force of the North Sea Fleet that came from Miaojie basically returned, not to Miaojie, but directly to Fushan.

Only the Sun Chuanting was left, but it was not because this third-class sailing steam battleship was here to keep order, but because the Sun Chuanting could no longer move.

Although the side-blowing steelmaking method, which is the historically known as the Beisemeier converter, has been invented and put into production, the output and quality of steel have made almost a qualitative leap.

However, it is still not enough to take on the task of moving a row of warships weighing more than a thousand tons at full speed.

So during the war, there was a high-speed race, with all four steam engines running at full speed, reaching a speed of 17 or 18 knots, and the propeller of the Sun Chuanting was directly broken into pieces.

Although there is a spare one now, I dare not use it because the wind direction is wrong. If this one breaks down on the way, it will be troublesome.

So they simply stopped outside Xinwan Town and waited for someone to deliver another spare propeller before setting off again.

This also means that it will take a long time, because Guangzhou is the only city that can produce propellers suitable for battleships for the navy.

Captain He Dingjiang urged the officers and technicians to take notes while saying somewhat depressedly, "Those are the cases with the third-tier battleships, so the problems with the second and first tiers are even greater.

It's all the fault of those businessmen. To make money, they only developed propellers suitable for inland boats weighing dozens of tons, without considering our navy's warships weighing thousands of tons."

"Captain He, His Majesty has issued a verbal order to our family. This time, three propellers will be sent from Guangzhou. We are to test the data with three, two, and one steam engine running at full power, respectively."

Hearing the angel's words, He Dingjiang quickly knelt on one knee, facing south, and said, "I will obey your orders and record all the data."

Ten days later, at the end of July, just when He Dingjiang was eagerly waiting for the propeller but still couldn't get it, the first batch of 3,500 samurai from the East Coast arrived.

The samurai who came this time were mainly from the Kuroishi, Hirosaki, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima, Nakamura domains in the northeastern region of Japan, and the Sakura and Shimodate domains in the Kanto region.

They were all small fiefs, the highest of which was no more than 100,000 shi, and most of them only had 30,000 to 50,000 shi.

They were all jealous of the reward that the Matsumae domain had received this time, so as soon as Mo Zibu gave the order, they immediately rushed over with their own basic weapons, beddings and other daily necessities.

What the court provided them was a high-quality flintlock rifle and the corresponding lead blocks, gunpowder, etc.

Wuxing welcomed the arrival of these warriors very much. After all, these warriors, who were similar to the Tang Dynasty's palace soldiers, had good combat effectiveness, and the key was that they were cheap.

At that time, a quiver soldier needed a monthly salary of about three silver dollars, which did not seem much, not even as much as a teahouse waiter in Jiangnan earned, but the hidden welfare investment was not small.

For example, those Korean soldiers from Shandong each had more than 500 acres of land, and more than a dozen Korean farmhands from ten households worked for them. This one-time cost was not small.

These Japanese warriors, apart from the flintlock rifles they needed to be reissued by the court, had only one and a half silver dollars a month to pay them, apart from food. Such cheap and durable goods, what general would not like them?

Once these 3,500 fresh troops arrive, the clarion call for a counterattack will be sounded.

At this time, the Russian army was mainly in three areas east of Lake Baikal.

The first is Okhotsk, the second is Yakutsk, and the third is Nerchinsk.

Among them, Okhotsk was the easiest to attack. Without the protection of warships, the cities of Okhotsk and Magadan on the seaside could not be defended at all. They had nowhere to run because they were surrounded by traditional forest farms of the Ewenki and other tribes controlled by Fukangan.

But Yakutsk and Nerchinsk are different. They are all ice fortresses, the kind that the Russians have operated for more than a hundred years.

"General Wu, I suggest that we attack Yakutsk first, because Yakutsk is further north and relies on the Lena River for transportation. Its advantages over me are very great.

If we were to fight on a normal day, it would be quite difficult. The only way is to take advantage of the fact that the Russians have just been defeated and their people are in a panic. If we make a concerted effort, even if we cannot defeat them after winter comes this year, we will definitely be able to defeat them next year.

Although the fortress of Nerchinsk is strong, it is right on the bank of the Amur River. We have steam engines and can go upstream to attack it at any time. There is no need to rush now."

As one of the people who is most familiar with the Xianbei wilderness, this famous general in Qing Dynasty history, who had just shaved off his rat tail and changed his name from Fu Kang'an to Fu Kang'an, was talking freely.

"According to your opinion, Fu Kangan, the freezing weather will begin in two months, and we really need to attack outside Yakutsk.

I'm afraid we'll only have a month's window to get to Yakutsk, and by then we won't be able to return and will have to stay where we are to avoid the cold."

This is the biggest problem. The combat window in the Xianbei Desert is very short. If you miss it, you will have to wait another year.

"That's true. The ice and snow are indeed terrifying, but that's only for the local tribes I deal with." Fu Kang'an cupped his hands and quickly replied without any arrogance.

"But for Dayu, we have enough cotton cloth and furs to keep warm, enough whale oil for making fires for heating and cooking, and various tools to quickly build tents in the wild to shelter from the wind and snow.

Most importantly, we have this!"

As Fu Kang'an spoke, he placed a small bag of flour and three handfuls of grain in front of Wu Xing and the other generals.

"These are the staple foods of the Xianbei peoples: millet, oats, and rye.

Millet is not cold-resistant, and its yield in high-altitude areas is worrying. If it is not managed well, it is very common to have a yield of only 70 to 80 kilograms per acre.

However, oats cannot be used to make staple foods such as steamed buns and bread commonly eaten by the Russians, and are difficult to shell. When eaten, they are often just cooked into a pot of mush with a very poor taste.

Rye can be used to make bread or steamed buns, but it is too rough and difficult to swallow, and it makes you feel very hungry after eating it.

Even this kind of rye was strictly restricted by the Russians, who basically did not allow it to flow into the Xianbei desert tribes."

The Northeast at that time was different from later generations. Since cold-resistant high-quality rice varieties had not yet been cultivated, the small amount planted was only enough for the upper class to eat, and ordinary people could not afford it.

Even in the peninsula and Japan, which are located at a slightly lower latitude than the Northeast, rice is extremely precious.

The later books can arrange a bowl of rice into various exquisite shapes, and you have to squint your eyes and say "oh, I vaguely" after taking a bite. The fact that a Korean can swallow a large bowl of rice with a few slices of kimchi and perilla leaves is proof of this.

It’s all because of poverty. Their ancestors engraved this in their genes.

Because in the eyes of their ancestors, rice was not a relatively refined staple food as the Chinese see it, but a delicacy.

Not to mention there are some side dishes, even without any side dishes, they can still eat a big bowl of it happily.

Fu Kangan analyzed them one by one, and when he talked about rye, he gritted his teeth, because the Russians often used rye to extort money, and even clearly wanted to starve the locals to death.

In fact, the rye that Fukangan gritted his teeth and longed for was made into the famous black bread.

It has high fiber content and is seriously lacking in carbohydrates compared to wheat, so it is often difficult to eat, but you will feel hungry again after a while.

"I have come to the conclusion that eating only meat and vegetables without staple foods can easily lead to muscle weakness or even general weakness.

In the past, tribes could not even afford to eat rye, which was easy to make people hungry, so naturally they could not survive in the ice and snow for a long time.

But Dayu is different, General. We have an almost unlimited supply of flour. The refined white steamed buns made from this white flour are ten times more abundant than those made from millet, oats, rye, etc. As long as we can ensure we have this every meal, it won't be difficult to survive the winter."

In fact, the core of what Fu Kangan said is just one word, which is the word that people who want to lose weight in later generations least want to hear: carbohydrates.

This thing is the most essential substance for human beings. For humans, eating only meat without carbohydrates can really kill people, but eating only carbohydrates without meat can keep people alive for a long time.

With flour, a high-quality carbohydrate, the soldiers could naturally survive the winter, which was unbearable for the soldiers in the past because they could not eat much carbohydrates and were in a state of hunger every day.

The reason why Dayu was able to supply flour was that before the steam engine, grinding flour was a very hard and strenuous job, which was one of the reasons why farm work was very hard in the past.

But with the power provided by the steam engine, grinding flour was no longer a labor-intensive task, so Dayu's flour production increased rapidly.

It is currently entering the homes of farmers in the north at a very fast pace.

So it is not too expensive to get some as military rations, and it can be supplied freely.

But even though Fu Kangan said so much, Wu Xing thought about it and was still a little undecided for a moment.

When Fu Kangan saw this, he immediately increased his bet. He really needed the credit for taking Yakutsk.

"Master Wu, I will lead 1,500 of my men to Yakutsk in advance and build a camp for the army in the leeward area 11 miles from the city.

At the same time, I have also prepared 200 deer. I will kill half of them and use salt to pickle them instead of salt, and use the other half as fresh meat to supplement the nutrition of the army.

"Your Excellency, Lieutenant General, we, the warriors of the Akita Domain, are not afraid of the cold winter. As long as we have sufficient food and a sheltered camp, we are willing to accompany General Fu to besiege Yakutsk."

As soon as the Akita clan elder spoke, the other fifty Japanese leaders also expressed their opinions, and their fighting spirit was very high.

Wu Xing was originally hesitant because if these thousands of quivers were frozen to death outside the city of Yakutsk, he would not have enough heads to chop off even if he had ten.

But now, seeing that those who took the initiative to launch a large-scale siege were either the Lingbei tribes or the Japanese samurai, he would not feel sad if a few people died.

So Wu Xing made a prompt decision!

"Okay, in that case, we will mobilize 500 quivers and authorize you, Fu Kangan, to dispatch them.

In addition, you will be provided with plenty of flour, muslin, cotton, whale oil, etc., as well as some oil and sugar.

As long as you can hold out until the thaw next year, at least 15,000 troops will arrive, and by then Yakutsk will definitely be ours."

(End of this chapter)