Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1013 1008 [Military Expedition to Goryeo]

Chapter 1013 1008 [Military Expedition to Goryeo]

It won't take many troops to destroy Goryeo.

Three thousand field troops and five thousand garrison troops, a total of eight thousand troops are enough.

However, some civilian merchant ships were requisitioned, which were engaged in trade with Goryeo and Japan all year round.

While waiting for the imperial court's order, the civil and military officials of Liaoning did not dare to dispatch troops without authorization, but they could mobilize grain and grass in advance. Grain from the Changping warehouses in various parts of Liaodong was transferred to Gai County, and then transported to the north bank of the Taedong River by sea.

At the same time, the Ming army was also gathering in Pyongyang.

Such an obvious troop and food movement could not be kept completely secret, and soon Korean merchants reported back the news.

Bai Gongmei, the governor of the Western Sea Road of Goryeo, was so frightened that he frantically sent letters to the military government asking for help.

Facing the Ming army, the first to bear the brunt was the Saikaido. The three states of Saikaido were Huangzhou, Haizhou and Yangzhou, and these broken place names were obviously borrowed from China.

Yangzhou is very far away, almost next to the Han River.

Huangzhou City is very close, only a hundred miles away from Pyongyang.

Zheng Zhongfu changed the central government of Goryeo into a cabinet and ministry system, but he was too lazy to change the local official positions, and his system was particularly strange and interesting.

The provincial-level administrative divisions continue to use the old Tang Dynasty system of "dao".

In the early years, just like in the Song Dynasty, each prefecture had a transport envoy. But later for some unknown reason, this system was abolished and replaced by the very retro "provincial governor".

In addition, there are governors, inspectors, and so on.

Below the first level of the Dao, there are prefects, state governors, and county magistrates, which are not much different from the Song Dynasty.

"Why hasn't the court sent reinforcements yet?" Bai Gongmei was extremely anxious.

Huangzhou Governor Zheng Shiyou sneered: "A group of warriors are busy fighting for power in Kaifeng. They don't trust local civil officials and probably think it's fake news. How can they send reinforcements quickly?"

"How to deal with it?" Bai Gongmei asked.

Zheng Shiyou shook his head: "I don't know. You have to ask General Xin about the military affairs here."

Xin Jia, the commander-in-chief, said, "Without money and food, the soldiers are all starving. How can I lead the troops to fight?"

The governor in charge of Saikaido is concurrently a central government official and currently resides in the capital with no real power.

There was no actual chief of Saikaido at all. The power was shared among several "envoys", the most important of whom were the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief - which can be understood as the Governor and the General.

This general named Xin Jia was already full of resentment.

When civil officials were in power, there was a shortage of food and money. When military generals seized power, there was still a shortage of food and money. The central government had entered the era of military officials, but the local areas were still controlled by powerful families.

For local military generals, this is just a shitty era of military men, the substance remains the same in a new form!
Xin Jia's meaning was very clear. If he wanted him to fight with all his heart, he should quickly ask the civil servants and the nobles to fetch food and fodder.

Bai Gongmei said: "The Huangfu family is trying to persuade all the major families to provide food."

"Let them gather all the food and come back to me!" Xin Jia turned away.

The largest family in Huangzhou of Goryeo was the Huangpu family. The fourth concubine of the founding monarch of Goryeo was the daughter of Taiwei Huangpu Tigong, and was known as Queen Dowager Shenjing.

Due to a military coup, all the prominent figures of the Huangfu family were killed in Kaifeng.

The most prestigious and talented person in his hometown of Huangzhou went to Kaijing to serve as a civil servant in name only. Huangfu got a cabinet minister, a minister, two assistant ministers, a Hanlin, three censors, and a lot of miscellaneous temple officials.

The person who controls the situation in his hometown now is an old man named Huangfu Minzhong.

"Uncle, the money and food of my Huangfu family were all earned through hard work. Why should we give it to those warriors as food and wages?" A middle-aged man was the first to object.

Another person immediately agreed, "That's right! The Ming army was invincible, and even the Jin Kingdom was destroyed by them. How can the old, weak, and sick people in Huangzhou stop such a fierce army? Giving them money and food is the same as throwing them into the sea. What's more, if the Ming Dynasty annexed Goryeo and found out that we provided money and food to support the garrison, the Huangfu family would be exterminated."

As soon as the voice fell, someone else said, "I am in charge of the family business. Since the Ming Dynasty occupied Pyongyang, we can do business with those Ming Dynasty merchants on the south bank of the Taedong River and make money. In the past few years, the income of the various branches of the Huangfu family is equivalent to several years in the past. Why should the Huangfu family just join the Ming Dynasty? Why should we guard this broken ship of Goryeo?"

The Huangfu clan, which owned half of Huangzhou, was divided into several branches, large and small.

Huangfu Minzhong, who was already sixty years old, took the position of the patriarch of the Huangfu clan because the warriors rebelled and killed the family's leading figures. Regardless of prestige or ability, he could not control the forces of the various clans.

Seeing that none of the sects were willing to provide money and food, Huangfu Minzhong could only sigh helplessly.

After a long argument, Huangfu Minzhong said, "Send someone to contact the Ming Dynasty. If we can keep half of the Huangfu family's land and wealth, we will be willing to pledge our loyalty to the Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, we must pay money and food to stop the Ming army! You should know that after the chaos in Pyongyang, the surviving wealthy families there were unable to get their land back. The Ming government distributed the land to the poor and common people, and even the former untouchables could get land."

The representatives of each sect were silent; they were also considering the pros and cons.

They thought that the Goryeo army was too weak and would definitely not be able to stop the Ming army, but they were also afraid that the Ming army would come and confiscate their land.

How to choose?

……

A young man named Huangfu Ying crossed the river and found Li Yi, the prefect of Pyongyang.

Li Yi didn't even bother to say polite words, and directly offered the treatment: "If the Huangfu family abandons the dark and joins the light, you can obtain business privileges and be issued some special licenses. You can also keep all your floating wealth. However, 80% of your shops and lands must be confiscated. The slaves you keep at home must sign new employment contracts. All the tenants and serfs under your control must be released as free people."

"This... is too harsh." After hearing about the treatment, Huangfu Ying already had the urge to recruit soldiers to resist.

Li Yi said, "When the heavenly soldiers arrive, do you have any other choice? If you insist on being stubborn, you will lose the 20% of shops and land!" Huangfu Ying said, "This is a serious matter. I need to go back and discuss it with the elders."

Huangfu Ying quickly returned to Huangzhou and told the Ming Dynasty about its conditions, which made the various branches of the Huangfu family so angry that they started cursing.

Then there were internal quarrels. Some said they should recruit soldiers to fight the enemy, some said they should donate food and fodder to the defenders, and some were afraid of death and wanted to accept the conditions of the Ming Dynasty.

There is no consensus and no conclusion can be reached through discussion.

That night, someone sneaked across the Taedong River and accepted the harsh conditions of the Ming court on behalf of his branch of the Huangfu family.

Some people also took out money and food to send to the Korean soldiers, and recruited local soldiers to defend the city.

"Boom boom boom!"

The Ming army's inland warships, which were on routine patrol along the Taedong River, suddenly opened fire at the defenders on the south bank.

Subsequently, countless requisitioned civilian boats, carrying Ming army soldiers, began to cross the river to fight.

There are several Goryeo fortresses on the south bank of the Taedong River, all of which have been defended. The soldiers no longer have to work to earn money, and finally they can receive rations. They have been stationed in the fortresses for more than a month.

When the cannon sounded, everyone ran for their lives!

They were willing to stay in the fortress purely to make a living, so how could they possibly fight desperately to defend it?

The first batch of Ming soldiers who crossed the river had just boarded the ship when the Goryeo defenders on the other side of the river had already fled.

Most of the defenders fled back home, waiting for the war to end quickly with their starving wives and children so that they could continue to look for work.

There were also generals who fled all the way to Huangzhou City with a small number of elite troops.

In fact, the only one who crossed the river here was Zhang Yi, the general of Pyongyang, who had only 3,000 men under his command.

Another 5,000 Ming troops took a ship directly to Haizhou.

Three thousand Ming soldiers reached the city of Huangzhou a hundred miles away without encountering any resistance.

Along the way, they recruited Korean people as laborers, claiming that they would have enough food to eat every day and would receive a bushel of rice as settling-in allowance.

After receiving a bushel of rice, the people of the south bank immediately cheered and regarded themselves as Ming people. They were also sent out to recruit people, and spread the word along the way, pulling more Korean people to serve as laborers.

Huangzhou City.

Governor Bai Gongmei, Commander-in-Chief Xin Jia, and Prefect Zheng Shiyou, along with a group of Goryeo civil and military officials, climbed up the city wall.

They were surrounded by other officials and local nobles.

Outside the city, there were only 500 Ming cavalrymen, serving as the vanguard to persuade the enemy to surrender.

Bai Gongmei asked: "General Xin, there are only a few hundred enemy soldiers outside the city, but we have more than 10,000 soldiers. Can we fight outside the city and kill the enemy's vanguard?"

Xin Jia smiled bitterly and said, "Half of our 10,000-plus soldiers were recruited temporarily, and many of them only have a stick in their hands. The real elite are only a thousand or so. How can we fight against the Ming cavalry?"

"It seems that we have no choice but to defend the city to the death." Bai Gongmei sighed.

What the hell!

Xin Jia looked at the Ming cavalry outside the city and had no intention of defending the city at all.

After dark, Xin Jia led more than a hundred soldiers and opened the city gate and fled. The reason why he did not surrender the city was that he was worried that his relatives in his hometown would be implicated and executed.

The commander-in-chief fled, and the army was in chaos.

The governor-general Bai Gongmei angrily rebuked him and simply ran away. He was born into a prominent family and was not afraid of being executed. He could continue to fight by retreating to Haizhou.

All the top civil and military officials fled, which soon led to a trend of fleeing.

Especially the temporarily recruited militia, seeing that the officials had run away, they also followed suit and dispersed.

The five hundred Ming cavalrymen outside the city took the opportunity to chase and capture them.

When Zhang Yi arrived with the main force, Huangzhou City had already been captured by 500 vanguard troops.

Huangfu Minzhong and his people knelt outside the city and shouted: "Huangfu Minzhong, a descendant of Yanhuang, and his people respectfully welcome the general into the city!"

The cavalry general Cui Shan came forward and reported in detail: "General, these Koreans are very strange. When we persuaded them to surrender, they refused to open the city gates. At night, they began to flee for no apparent reason. I led my troops to capture more than 3,000 prisoners. At dawn, the city gates suddenly opened, and the local nobles came out to surrender with the officials who had not fled."

Zhang Yi sighed, "I hope the enemy in the south can resist. Otherwise, it will be difficult to write a detailed battle report to the court."

Of course I will resist.

The Goryeo army has already set out from Kaizhou.

The excuse for the Ming Dynasty to send troops this time was that the Goryeo warriors rebelled and deposed the king appointed by the Ming Dynasty.

As the leader of the military, Zheng Zhongfu has no way to retreat. Even if he surrenders, he will be executed by the Ming Dynasty!

(My grandmother's body functions have aged. She hasn't eaten for a month and has been relying on intravenous drips to stay alive. She was critically ill today and the doctor said she doesn't have much time left. I'll try to keep updating in the next few days, but I guess there will be delays.)
(End of this chapter)

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