Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1242 Attack on Malacca

The cavalry of the Ming army chased the defeated soldiers all the way, killing hundreds of people along the way, but because the road was difficult to walk, weeds flooded the road, and the surrounding forests were dense, the cavalry of the Ming army could not exert their speed, and finally chased and lost the defeated soldiers.

When the Ming army chased near the city of Phnom Penh, a group of thousands of people appeared in front of them. The armor was similar to that of the Ming Dynasty. At first glance, they were the people of the vassal state influenced by the culture of the Central Plains.

They looked embarrassed, and the leader was a burly general with a rough appearance, who came out of the woods with a big knife in his hand, and said, "Is it the army of Marshal Li?"

"Exactly!" Ming army cavalry Qianhu said loudly, "Who are you?"

It was Nguyen Lord Nguyen Phuc who came here. The Phnom Penh defenders saw the Dutch suddenly withdrawing from the siege and looked north. They judged that the Ming army must have arrived, so they wanted to cooperate with the Ming army to attack the Dutch army.

After deliberation, they decided that Lord Ruan would lead the army out of the city. They didn't want to be ambushed by the Dutch within ten miles out of the city.

Fortunately, there were not many Dutch in ambush, and the Ming army quickly defeated the main force of the Dutch army. Some of the defeated soldiers ran back, and Constantine was so frightened that he hurriedly fled south. The Phnom Penh defenders who left the city did not suffer much loss.

"Great, it really is the army of the Heavenly Dynasty." Master Ruan was overjoyed when he heard the words, "I am Ruan Fubin, King of Guangnan, and these are all troops from Guangnan Kingdom and Annan Kingdom!"

When the thousand households heard that it was the King of Guangnan, they couldn't help getting off their horses, saluted together with several hundred households and said, "See Your Highness!" Then asked, "Why is Your Highness here and still in such a mess?"

Ruan Fu smiled awkwardly, hiding his embarrassment, "We were going to flank the enemy with Marshal Li. After we left the city, we met a group of enemies and were killed by us."

Ruan Fu was not blushing, and lied without heartbeat, then hurriedly changed the subject and asked, "Has Marshal Li already won?"

The leader Qianhu took a look at Master Ruan and the army behind him, said nothing, and said with a smile, "We won. The army is cleaning the battlefield and will come over later."

Qianhu looked at them, it didn't look like they had won a battle. The higher-ups explained that the Chenla Kingdom should be a vassal, and the army must ensure the safety of the capital of Chenla. The enemy must not let the enemy capture Phnom Penh, break the face of the court, and damage the majesty of the court. , so Qianhu was silent for a while, and said again, "Then I will go to Phnom Penh with His Highness first, and then send someone to meet the commander-in-chief!"

Ruan Fubin had nothing to say. The Dutch who ambushed him suddenly retreated. He was also worried about the situation in Phnom Penh, so he nodded and agreed immediately. He led more than 1000 Ming cavalry and returned to Phnom Penh first.

When it was dark, Li Dingguo led 1 people and arrived at Phnom Penh City first. King Chenla, Lord Zheng, Lord Ruan, scholars from Gaopingguo and others greeted Li Dingguo at the gate of the city.

The defeat of the Dutch by the Ming army brought great shock to the vassal states and convinced them. On the other hand, Constantine withdrew with more than 400 Dutch people, which also made the King of Chenla a little worried, fearing that the Dutch would make a comeback , so they have to get closer to the Ming Dynasty and hold their thighs tightly.

Everyone stood at the gate of the city, King Chenla was the master, and he led the crowd to salute, "Heavenly Dynasty sent troops to rescue me in Zhenla, Xiaowang is very grateful!"

Li Dingguo dismounted from his horse, returned a salute, and said to several people, "It is my responsibility to protect the vassals. Your highnesses guarded Phnom Penh to prevent Chenla from falling into the hands of the Heyi. They made great contributions to the barrier of Champa, and Li admired it very much. !"

"The Duke has won the prize, so Xiao Wang invites the Duke to the city to have a talk in order to prepare the banquet."

At that moment, Li Dingguo entered the city together with Qian Bingdeng, the supervising army. The soldiers on the city wall saw Ming soldiers with guns on their shoulders, sabers on their waists, cloth armor, turbans, iron helmets, blankets, and dry food on their backs. , lined up in four rows, stepped into the city with neat steps, and the army was mighty.

The soldiers and residents in the city couldn't help cheering together when they saw the army of the Celestial Dynasty entering the city.

Master Zheng sighed: "We were easily defeated by the Dutch, but as soon as the Chinese army arrived, they defeated the Dutch in less than half an hour. After this battle, we have to buy some weapons from the Chinese Dynasty like North Korea. !"

Master Ruan also thought it was true, they didn't know if they didn't fight, and they were taken aback by the fight, only to realize that they had actually opened up such a large distance from the outside world.

The banquet was very lively, and Li Dingguo undoubtedly became the focus, but now he just repelled the Dutch, and it was still too early to completely defeat them.

Halfway through eating and drinking, the banquet turned into the next battle meeting. The Ming army will rest in Chenla for a while, and then advance by land and water to Malacca.

This time the Ming army set off from Champa, relying on soldiers to carry dry food, so they needed to obtain a certain amount of food supplies in Chenla.

The next morning, the main force of the Ming army escorted a large number of captives to Phnom Penh. At the same time, the Ming army cavalry who went south to investigate also brought back more than 1000 captives in the afternoon.

It turned out that Constantine, the deputy commander of the Dutch, led the remaining 400 Dutch and 3000 native soldiers to flee to the sea in a hurry after learning that Wood was defeated by the Ming army. Not so many people left, so there were more than 1000 native soldiers, who were directly abandoned by Constantine, and were easily captured by the Ming cavalry who were scouted.

In this way, the number of local soldiers captured by the Ming army was too large. Not to mention food consumption, they had to be guarded and distracted, but it would be a pity to kill them.

The Ming Dynasty restricted slavery in law, but in Champa and Taiwan, the law was not so strict. Many landlords bought a lot of slaves in order to cultivate and reclaim wasteland.

This kind of slave is almost different from the slavery of the wealthy families in the Ming Dynasty. Domestic servants and maidservants are protected by the Ming Dynasty. If the master beats someone to death, they will be questioned by the government, and most of them signed Contracts, some of which are only for a few years, are more like work contracts, but holding slaves in Champa is like restoring the ancient slavery system, where the head of the family holds the power of life and death, and the government basically does not intervene.

This kind of situation is mainly due to the shortage of manpower. Although many people from China have gone to Nanyang in recent years, it is not that the people in China are unable to survive. Not many people are willing to go to Nanyang.

There are far from enough people from China, so slavery in Champa, Taiwan, and Luzon has become a common practice, and slaves are often purchased from indigenous tribes in Southeast Asia and other channels for land reclamation and planting.

The sale of more than 1 people to Champa is also a lot of income, but it takes a lot of effort to send some people to Champa, and the attack on Malacca cannot be delayed because of this small profit.

At this time, Qian Bingdeng, the supervising army, put forward an opinion to keep these captives in Chenla Kingdom to help Chenla build water conservancy and control the flooding of the Mekong River. Chenla used food and land to compensate for the project costs.

If the middle reaches are well managed, then the lower reaches will also be well managed, which is beneficial to the Ming Dynasty's reclamation of the Saigon area. Li Dingguo agreed, and the King of Chenla naturally had no objection to this. The construction of water conservancy is a great thing, and he has no reason to refuse.

The Ming Dynasty earned so much money through trade, and they couldn't just watch the money pile up there and turn the Chenla Kingdom into a granary, so that the Ming Dynasty had room to spend money.

Trade should be a large circular system. The Ming Dynasty shipped out domestic tea, porcelain, and cloth, earned money, and then shipped back Nanyang rice, melons, fruits, and spices to enrich domestic materials. This is a virtuous cycle.

Otherwise, just earning money and going back will not only make the domestic materials poor and the people's living standards will not be improved, but will also cause inflation.

The matter of the captives was settled in this way, and Qian Bingdeng immediately signed an agreement with King Chenla.

At this time, after Zheng Chenggong personally led the navy to contain the Spaniards in Sulu, the Ming navy immediately went south from Champa to the Gulf of Siam, and the Ming army began to prepare to march south. The soldiers were still carrying dry food for several days. After rendezvous with the navy, you can get supplies from the ship.

Because of the compromise between Siam and the Dutch, the Ming army was not polite and directly entered Siam. The king of Siam, who was resisting the attack of the Toungoo Dynasty, was so frightened that he sent envoys to apologize to the Ming Dynasty, fearing that the Ming army would attack from behind. them.

Fortunately, they were not the target of the Ming army. Qian Bingdeng told the envoys that he was just using an excuse to let them deal with Toungoo with peace of mind. He also said that the Ming Dynasty had a large number of bird guns. If Siam needed them, they could go to Daming to buy them.

Toungoo was a big threat to the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty did not want to see Siam defeated by Toungoo, making Toungoo dominate Southeast Asia, so it could give Siam a certain amount of support. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty had a large number of outdated birds Put the blunderbuss in the warehouse, if you can sell some, it counts as some.

In fact, ever since Dongyu didn't give Wang Yan face, Wang Yan didn't like Dongyu.

Furthermore, Dongyu took advantage of the Ming Dynasty's lack of time to take care of the southwest, and quietly annexed several Ming Dynasty Xuanwei Divisions in Yunnan, and also annexed the Shan State, which still occupies a large area of ​​the Ming Dynasty's territory.

The conflict between the Ming Dynasty and Toungoo was not only on the Nanyang issue, but also the dispute over the territory. The conflict between the two countries would inevitably erupt. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty needed to prevent it from happening and not allow Toungoo to become bigger.

In order to deal with Dongyu and take back the territory, the Ming Dynasty also changed its original attitude of pursuing and suppressing Ainengqi who fled into Dongyu territory, and instead supported it secretly.

In October, after the defeat, Constantine returned to Malacca by boat with more than 400 Dutch and less than [-] Malaccan soldiers.

Fortunately, Wood was treacherous enough to stay with this group of troops to ambush the defenders in Phnom Penh, otherwise they would have lost everything in this battle.

When Constantine returned to Malacca, the Dutch East India Company was suddenly struck by lightning. At this time, the Ming army entered the Malay Peninsula and was invincible all the way. The news that the Ming navy was approaching Malacca again also spread to Malacca.

Malacca is an important trade node for the Netherlands. Without Malacca, the Netherlands will not be able to stand in Batavia.

According to the news brought back by Constantine, Moschell, the president of the East India Company, confirmed that the Ming army would attack Malacca, so he decided to concentrate his strength, not only dispatching a large number of reinforcements from Batavia, but also from Ceylon and southern India. Cochin mobilized troops to guard Malacca, and he must keep the city.

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(End of this chapter)