I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 695 Hami County

Yusubu couldn't run away.

Looking at the swarming army in the distance outside the city, Yu Subu froze directly on top of the city.

He could no longer see how many people from the Ming army had arrived.

Even Isaac, who had clamored for war with the Ming army and even invaded Gansu, was standing next to his father with a pale face.

Under the rising sun, with smoke and dust billowing on the horizon, countless troops, civilians, mules and horses rushed to the camp outside the city to gather.

Zhou Haizhong, the commander-in-chief of the Xi'an Right Army Governor's Office, personally led his troops to the outside of Hami City to command and supervise the battle.

"Send the order, the whole army attacks the city!"

There was no nonsense, and he didn't even bother to persuade him to surrender.

Zhou Haizhong, as one of the four major governors of the border towns of the Ming Dynasty, has now been promoted to Yizihou, and he also has a military title. This is all due to his accumulated achievements in many previous battles.

After the battle in the Western Regions is over, he will almost be promoted to Duke and then retire from the Governor's Mansion.

The Ming army sent out a large number of troops for this Western Expedition. Although there was only one Xi'an Governor's Office to coordinate, the total number of regular troops, patrol auxiliary troops, and reserve civilians still reached 150,000.

The number of civilians was so large that it almost matched the previous Mobei War, and the money, food and military expenditures were even more difficult to budget.

The importance of the Western Region is even greater than that of Mobei.

When the siege order was issued, the Ming army had no intention of filling in the moat. They directly advanced the infantry formation and set up forts nearby.

Three hot air balloons took off to conduct an all-round survey of Hami City.

Yu Subu and his son had never seen what a hot air balloon was, but their eyes did not have time to dwell on this spectacle. They only saw that the Ming army outside the city had begun to set up cannons.

A total of twenty-five heavy artillery pieces were lined up in a row, with many light medium-range artillery pieces interspersed in between.

Yu Subu had begun to regret it. Although he had been repairing the castle in the past few years, the Western Region was too poor, and even the poor were in poverty.

The so-called repairing the castle really just means repairing it. What's more, it means expanding some residential areas and building more commercial areas.

After all, he relied on this to earn money from Han merchants. With the money, he could raise troops and maintain his rule in Hami.

Today's Hami City is equivalent to an ordinary Daming County town, and its population is not as large as that of a county town.

Not to mention the twenty-five heavy artillery pieces, even the five heavy artillery pieces that bombarded Hami City for a whole day would definitely not be able to withstand the city wall.

"Hurry, open the city gate quickly, the Han army is outnumbered, surrender immediately!" Yu Subu roared and ordered.

Isaac quickly stepped forward to dissuade him: "Father, we can't surrender! This Hami is an inheritance passed down from my grandfather, and we can't just hand it over to the Han emperor."

Yu Subu was furious: "Your grandfather died for Hami. Do you want to die too?"

While the father and son were arguing, the Ming army's artillery had begun testing.

"Boom boom boom!"

Several cannon shots were fired at close range, and the shells directly hit the Hami city wall.

Several more fell into the city, damaging several houses.

The residents of the city and the Hami nobles who fled in saw this situation and stopped defending the city. They gathered their troops and fled to the west of the city.

The entire city of Hami fell into chaos instantly. The war had just started, but Hami could no longer hold on.

Yu Subu didn't hesitate, he just grabbed his stupid son and summoned his cronies to follow the fleeing army.

They were going to the west and defected to Turpan Burke. The Ming army began to attack the city, and they made it clear that they did not want to keep Hami nobles like them.

If Hami could defend for two seconds, he could still surrender to save his life, but now he surrendered.

The lookout hand of the hot air balloon clearly saw the chaos in Hami and quickly signaled to the friendly forces.

The Ming army simply stopped using artillery bombardment, and the infantry took the lead in directly launching a strong attack.

In less than half an hour, Hami City was captured.

"Except for women and children below the wheel, no male will be left alive!" Those who can live in Hami City, even if they are not Hami nobles, can be regarded as Hami's ruling class.

To deal with this kind of local snakes, or local snakes with greenery, if you have the opportunity to eradicate them all, you should not be lenient.

The people in the remote areas of the Western Regions are poor and sparsely populated. Children below the wheel can be kept. Anyway, if they are too old to remember anything, they will be raised by Han people, and they will become Han people.

Yu Subu took his son, as well as the remnants of his trusted cavalry and nobles, and fled westward. Before they could escape far, they were overtaken by the Ming army's dragoons.

The Ming army's dragoons directly encircled the encirclement and surrounded the Hami nobles.

Seeing that he couldn't leave, Yu Subu got angry and took the lead, planning to break through with his own cavalry.

It's a pity that he picked the wrong opponent in this charge.

The dragoons of the Ming Army all carried guns. They could use guns to solve battles. Who the hell would use swords?

"Bang bang bang!"

The Ming army's dragoons quickly dismounted and raised their guns, finishing in one go.

Before Yu Subu's cavalry had even reached the halfway mark, they were beaten into pieces by the concentrated fire of flintlock rifles.

Even Yu Subu himself, who was wearing armor, was hit by a shot and fell off his horse. He did not know whether he was alive or dead.

This frightened the Hami nobles. They had just been encouraged by Yu Subu and were ready to fight the Ming cavalry.

Now, what's the point of fighting for this?
Use your flesh and blood to compare with the Ming army's flintlocks to see who is tougher?
What a joke!
The Hami nobles lost their leader and fled like crazy. Even Isaac didn't care about his father who was still living on earth, and directly took the remaining members to try to escape in the chaos.

The Ming army's dragoons drew their sabers and rushed into the crowd of Hami nobles to kill them.

The order from above is that there is no need to worry about identity or surrender. Except for women and children, no one will be left alive. Kill them all!
The Ming cavalry pursued and surrounded the Hami nobles for a whole day. In the end, 80% of the Hami nobles were buried forever in the desert of the Western Regions. Only 10% fled further west to Turpan, and the remaining 10% were missing.

In Hami City, Zhou Haizhong has led his troops to settle in and began to lay grain roads for logistics supplies. At the same time, he appeased the people of Hami, distributed grain to relieve the poor, and helped the Hami County magistrate win the hearts of the people.

Yes, although the war had just begun, the imperial court had already decided to establish a county seat in Hami before setting off for the campaign.

Even the Hami County Magistrate came directly with the army, captured Hami and took over on the spot, seamlessly.

The magistrate of Hami County who came with the army was called Song Cheng, and he was from Shaanxi. This is not a coincidence, but the Western Region is too remote and poor. It is still in a western border town, dangerous and lacks water. There are many yellow sand and Gobi deserts, so not many mainland officials are willing to come here.

The Song county magistrate from Shaanxi was selected from among the officials in Shaanxi. His ability and political performance were only acceptable, but he was above average and could endure hardships.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to take the initiative to sign up and come to the Western Regions to serve as an official and govern the people.

There are also some civilian reserves who accompany the army to transport food, and they are also immigrants resettled by the imperial court.

In the early days, only 3,000 households immigrated to Hami City. The place was too poor to support many immigrants. Even these 3,000 households had to pay a high price for the imperial court to immigrate.

In the first five years, all taxes were exempted, but grain supplies had to be transported from the mainland. In the next five years, taxes were also reduced by half, and the children of immigrants could attend county schools for free, and they also had to receive compensation for three times the land allocation and settlement in the mainland.

In addition to the previous tax exemptions, the following policies are to encourage the population growth of the Han people in the Western Regions, to allow the Han people to take root in the Western Regions as much as possible, and to make other ethnic groups in the Western Regions yearn for sinicization.

After Zhou Haizhong collaborated with Song County magistrates in Hami to pacify the people and established logistics and food routes, he continued to lead his army westward and took Turpan directly.

Song Cheng stayed in Hami and presided over civil affairs.

The Hami County magistrate of Songcheng was not just a commander, but also the county magistrate, county lieutenant, and officials from various Cao divisions.

He did not immediately start to rectify the civil affairs, but gave priority to counting the households of various ethnic groups in Hami. All the nobles were killed by the Ming army, and those who survived ran away. So the progress of his work was quite smooth.

After briefly counting the yellow records of households of all ethnic groups, I personally visited several "Muslim" villages that had been purged by the Ming army.

Because there were no nobles, the serfs were naturally released.

Song Cheng thought carefully for a few days, discussed it with two other subordinates at the same level, and then reported to the court: requesting the court to go to the Western Regions and exile more people...send some eminent monks to preach and learn and resolve doubts.

Emperor Zhu agreed with a stroke of his pen.

They are thousands of Taoist and Buddhist masters who "volunteered" to come to the Western Regions to spread the profound teachings of Buddhism and Taoism.

(End of this chapter)