The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 99: Perfect Emperor Qianlong

In the 1766st year of Emperor Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty, in AD, the daring Burmese commander Mang Nie Miaozhe received news from the northern special forces about the low combat effectiveness of the Qing Green Camp soldiers.

He once again decided to continue the risky advance.

Four thousand Burmese troops left Tiebi Pass and headed straight for the Longchuan chieftain’s residence.

That is Longchuan County of Dehong Prefecture in later generations. To the south of Longchuan County is Ruili City, which is close to northern Myanmar in later generations. Its location is very important.

More than 10,000 Qing troops led by Yunnan Admiral Li Shisheng were resting in Longchuan. When they saw the Burmese army chasing them, although they were afraid, they had more people after all, so they mustered up the courage to fight and actually surrounded the Burmese army.

Although Mang Nie Miaozhe was extremely bold, his command ability was also up to par. The 4,000 vanguards he sent out were actually a decoy.

After these 4,000 people attracted all the attention of the Qing army, he personally led the only 1,500 cavalry of the Burmese army, walked through the dense forest and rushed to the flank of the Qing army.

The Qing army surrounded the Burmese vanguard. Although they couldn't eat, they felt much more relaxed.

After several days of continuous siege without much success, they could not help but want to retreat. Each unit shirked responsibility and refused to take the lead in the attack and be shot by the Burmese army. They only thought about how to protect themselves.

At this moment, Mang Nie Miaozhe suddenly led the cavalry out of the dense forest, and the besieged Burmese army also launched a fierce attack.

The Qing army was caught off guard and became frightened. After fighting for just over an hour, the more than 10,000 Qing troops lost only 300 to 400 people and the entire army collapsed.

They rushed all the way from Longchuan to Tengchong, and lost all their weapons, food, mules, horses, bedding, etc.

However, their speed was quite fast. They ran more than 60 miles in half a day. The Burmese army on horseback could not catch up with many of them. Therefore, although all the baggage was lost, few people died.

Mang Nie Miaozhe achieved another brilliant victory, but he did not dare to chase anymore.

Not only did the Qing army not lose many lives, but the Burmese soldiers also obtained a large amount of Qing army property. Everyone made a fortune and didn't want to fight anymore.

Therefore, after the battle of Longchuan, the Burmese army tried to attack the Longchuan Tusi Office, which was the Longchuan County in later generations, but failed. Then they calmly withdrew to Myanmar with a large amount of supplies.

The shameless bastard Yang Yingju, the Governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, immediately asked his advisor to write another victory report and send it to Beijing when he saw the Burmese retreat.

He claimed to have achieved a great victory in Longchuan, killing more than 2,000 Burmese troops who had invaded the territory and killing a major leader with artillery fire. Unfortunately, he failed to escape from the city and capture him.

. . . .

Beijing, Forbidden City, Purple Light Pavilion.

I, Emperor Qianlong, was 55 years old and had been emperor for 31 years, but he was still very energetic. This year, he had his 16th son, the future Prince Qing Yonglin.

Emperor Qianlong himself was often proud of this, believing that his good health was rare among emperors of all dynasties.

How could he not be healthy? Emperors of all dynasties were either trapped in the deep palace and could hardly go out.

Or there are a lot of bad things that need to be dealt with.

Or he would be surrounded by a large number of beauties in the harem, with fine wine and beauties, and he would be drained dry in a few years.

As for me, Qianlong, with the added bonus of the system of the Qing Dynasty, which was at the peak of feudal centralization, few people had a stronger control over the country than Qin Shihuang, not even the Tang and Ming emperors could compare to me.

If you want to go south of the Yangtze River, go south of the Yangtze River. If you want to go to the northern frontier, go to the northern frontier.

Guan Quan can just take the Grand Council with him. If he needs money, he can ask the Yangzhou salt merchants, Suzhou textile manufacturers, and Guangzhou Thirteen Hongs for it.

There was also smooth maritime trade, which brought in all kinds of fun things from the West, and the cultural life was particularly rich, which was really wonderful.

At the same time, in the early years of Qianlong's reign, the Qing Dynasty was at its strongest period. Even the Junggars could not pose much threat to the Qing Dynasty. Instead, they could help Qianlong to improve his military achievements.

As for other emperors, such as Emperor Cheng of Han, they had the dilemma of having Zhao Feiyan for beauty and figure, Zhao Hede for beauty and talent, and Ban Jieyu, the most talented concubine in history.

I, Qianlong, don’t have any of that!

The Manchus are just a small group of one or two million people. We are not saying that there are no beauties among them, but there are really not many.

Even if there were one or two, they might have been engaged when they were young, and Qianlong couldn't snatch them away by force.

Therefore, with Qianlong's vigorous energy, he had forty-three women, from empress to concubines, but they only gave birth to seventeen sons and ten daughters for him in a few decades.

On average, one per person. Not even one in two years.

It can be seen that the quality of this group of concubines is really not that good. Many of them were probably chosen, taken a quick look at, doted on for one or two nights, and then thrown aside.

Therefore, I, Emperor Qianlong, had good physical exercise from traveling and sightseeing, was in a good mood while chatting and laughing, and had many interests in calligraphy, painting, clocks, and orchestras. I did not have a peerless beauty like Zhao Feiyan to exploit me every day, so how could I not live a long life?

But today, Mr. Zhang’s mood is not so good.

He was even not interested in the Ziming scroll inscriptions, which he had identified as an authentic Fuchun Mountain Residence with his "brilliant" artistic vision, but was actually a fake.

He arranged the victory reports sent by Yang Yingju, the Governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, in chronological order, his eyes blazing with anger.

You are so good, Yang Yingju, you think I, Emperor Qianlong, am a fool, right?
You sent out the battle report yourself, one great victory after another. Qianlong counted it himself and found that there were nearly 10,000 Burmese soldiers killed in battle alone, but the battle line was getting smaller and smaller.

At the beginning, the battle was fought in Xinjie outside the country, and then it was fought to the Iron Wall Pass at the national border. Now this great victory report was actually fought in Longchuan County.

We will wipe out 100 million enemies and occupy Taiwan, right?

Especially when I saw Yang Yingju's last sentence, "The officers and soldiers fired their cannons and hit an umbrella. Seeing a great chief fall off his horse, the bandits cried out in grief."

Qianlong's long face twitched suddenly, and the pockmarks on his white face seemed to be shining.

You must have copied this paragraph directly from the scene where Yuan Chonghuan bombarded my ancestors. Do Burmese people also use yellow umbrellas?

President Zhang paced back and forth quickly several times. He wanted to immediately order the arrest of Yang Yingju and bring him to Beijing for questioning, but he still held on to one last glimmer of hope.

I hope that Yang Yingju, a Han army slave of the Plain White Banner, did not lie. The war was so stalemate and it was his misjudgment.

After forcing himself to calm down, Mr. Zhang was thinking about where to transfer personnel to Yunnan to maintain order if Yang Yingju was really so bold.

At the same time, he waited quietly for Fu Ling'an, the second-class guard he secretly sent to Yunnan, to bring back the true news.

. . . .

Ayutthaya, King Agada appeared for the first time on the city wall of Ayutthaya.

He still wore his monk's robes and invited all the eminent monks from the temples in the city to come out. They chanted scriptures loudly on the city wall, praying for the army that had gone out to fight and praying that the Buddha would bless them with his power.

But in Zheng Xin's eyes, this was not a prayer, but a group of demons dancing wildly...

Siam is located in the tropics, and its soldiers basically do not wear armor. Only the elite have very short and narrow protection on their wrists, chests, and abdomens.

As for the spears, firstly, since the spear forest requires extremely high organization, discipline and physical fitness of soldiers, there are not many times in Southeast Asia where people line up and stab each other with spears, as they cannot reach this technical and tactical level.

Secondly, there are many dense forests and swamps in Nanyang. In these places, especially the dense forests, long weapons cannot be used at all and are easily restricted by the terrain. It is far less convenient and advantageous than dual-wielding Thai swords and jumping and slashing.

Therefore, they are not equipped with many spear-like weapons. Even if they do, they are basically short spears, which are mostly used as throwing spears and a small part of the time for close combat.

So whether it is the Siamese or the Burmese, the main weapons are long and short swords.

Long swords are usually used by commanders or elephant soldiers, while short swords are equipped by all soldiers, and their styles mainly differ in length and blade tip.

In addition to short swords, soldiers are also equipped with wooden shields and rattan shields, which are generally used by the front-line soldiers to break the formation, while the soldiers in the back row responsible for output basically use double swords.

In the early Ayutthaya period, bows and crossbows were very popular in Siam.

The royal guards were equipped with bows and crossbows imported from the Ming Dynasty or made by Ming Dynasty craftsmen from Southeast Asia, mainly wooden crossbows. The common people were more popular with weak bamboo bows.

But in the later period when firearms began to develop on a large scale, these were basically replaced by muskets.

When Zheng Xin launched the attack this time, he did not choose elephant soldiers and sword and shield soldiers at all.

He knew that the Burmese artillery was very powerful, and sending elephant soldiers would most likely suffer losses. The protection provided by wooden and rattan shields against muskets was also very limited.

Therefore, Zheng Xin's three thousand men were five hundred musketeers and two thousand five hundred double-sword soldiers.

Chen Lian followed Zheng Xin closely. He was best at using a knife and could be said to be the best knife master in Siam at that time.

A famous military general in Siamese history, known as Phraya the Broken Sword. Although there are many different opinions, it is generally limited to Chen Lian and Zheng Tai's son Phijayaraja. The most likely one is Chen Lian.

"Xin, the Burmese army has a large number of musketeers and there are artillery in the city. Their number is more than twice ours. We can't force our way in." Chen Lian whispered to Zheng Xin.

After Zheng Tai arrived at Taksin's house, his close relatives stopped calling Taksin "Phrayada" and started calling him "Sin" directly.

This is not disrespectful, in fact, it is like calling him 'my king'.

Zheng Xin nodded and said, "In order to raise my mother, we are not afraid of death, but our sacrifice cannot be in vain.

I guess this battle was a trap set up deliberately by the White Elephant King. His purpose was to kill as many living forces as possible in the city.

Therefore, he would definitely order the Burmese army, which actually has the upper hand, to take the initiative to attack."

"Let's wait until the Burmese army leaves the camp and attacks us!" Zheng Xin said very calmly.

Sure enough, the situation was exactly as Zheng Xin had expected. Siam had only 20,000 soldiers, and its combat effectiveness was not as good as that of the Burmese army.

The Burmese army had a total of 40,000 troops, twice as many as the Siamese army. In addition, they had fought wars in the south and the north over the years, and had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the British, French, and Qing Dynasty. The level of their elite force was completely incomparable to that of the Siamese army.

The Siamese army that went out of the city to fight attacked from all sides and even attacked the sturdy Burmese army camps. They were basically waiting for food and were quickly defeated.

Especially Phraya Songkhalok's troops. There were 300 Portuguese slave musketeers stationed in the camp they attacked. They were so scared that they cried for their parents with a musket fire. They were driven back before they could even reach the gate of the Burmese camp.

It can be said that as soon as the battle started, the situation turned into the most dangerous situation for the Siamese.

Opposite Zheng Xin, the Burmese army still did not leave the city, but he stood on a high place and looked around. All he saw were the defeated Siamese soldiers crying and shouting, and even some defeated soldiers from other places retreated to his side.

While gathering his troops, Zheng Xin approached Zheng Tai's troops in Phraya Phetchaburi, who were right next to him.

In the distance, the White Elephant King Meng Bo was also riding on a huge white elephant. He used a telescope to see from afar that only the flags and formations of Zheng Xin and Zheng Tai's troops were still in order on the battlefield, and he could see that they hoped to join forces and fight together.

Immediately ordered:

"Mobilize the main force and attack the two Thai armies. Don't let them join forces!"

The war elephants neighed and the war horses grumbled.

The Burmese army received the order and quickly came towards Zheng Xin and Zheng Tai, with a total of 12,000 people.

Seeing this, Zheng Xin did not dare to move and could only order his soldiers to form a battle formation on the spot.

He also cleared the defeated soldiers from the army and placed them in the back to prevent them from fighting and shouting and disrupting the morale of the army.

The Burmese army came in two directions, with the main force of 8,000 people besieging Zheng Xin's 3,000 people, and the detachment of 4,000 people besieging Zheng Tai's 2,000 people.

Zheng Xin set up his battle formation on a gentle slope, placing his only two field guns in the front, five hundred musketeers lined up on the left and right, and two thousand five hundred double-sword soldiers hid behind the slope.

The Burmese army advanced in formation. Zheng Xin first bombarded them with artillery, and then fired three rounds of musket fire. Suddenly, bullets rained down, and he repelled the Burmese army's three attacks in a row.

The Burmese commander was furious and also sent out musketeers to fight against Zheng Xin's troops in a horizontal formation.

The Burmese army had a large number of muskets, with a total of two thousand people. Zheng Xin's troops could not resist them. The musketeers retreated hurriedly to the back of the hillside, even ignoring the cannons.

The Burmese commander turned his anger into joy, thinking that he had defeated Taksin, and quickly ordered his soldiers to occupy the high ground.

As a result, when they arrived at the broken mountain, Chen Lian and other double-sword soldiers who were lying in ambush suddenly jumped out and slashed fiercely.

A quarter of an hour later, the Burmese army could no longer withstand the damage and had to retreat in embarrassment, leaving behind one or two hundred corpses.

As soon as they left, Zheng Xin's musketeers began to line up and shoot again from the high ground.

This happened twice, and the Burmese army suffered heavy casualties. The Burmese commander then changed his strategy and took the risk of sending people to wade through the water to encircle the enemy.

As a result, Zheng Xin saw that he had divided his troops, so he immediately went into battle himself with two swords in hand and rushed to the location of the Burmese commander.

The Zheng Siamese army, mainly composed of Chaozhou folks, was united and almost defeated the Burmese commander.

There was chaos on the front line. Chen Lian was like a mad tiger, waving his two swords and charging back and forth among the Burmese army. The sound of Chaozhou Township resounded throughout the battlefield. Each of them was worth ten. The Burmese army suffered heavy casualties and was beaten back again and again.

The White Elephant King suddenly laughed nervously, "This must be the elite of the Thai army. Maybe it's composed of the Tang people who were most effective in resisting our army in the south of the city.

Send the Third Regiment of our Imperial Guards to annihilate them!"

(End of this chapter)