Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Nanhai County, on the city wall.

Nguyen Phuc Anh looked at the troops boarding the ship and nodded with satisfaction.

Nguyen Phuc Anh was born in the Nguyen clan of Quang Nam and was the grandson of King Nguyen Phuc Kho. In 1775, the Zheng clan in the north captured Phu Xuan, and Nguyen Phuc Anh fled south to Gia Dinh with his uncle, King Dinh Nguyen Phuc Tran. In 1777, Nguyen Phuc Tran and King Nguyen Phuc Duong were killed by the Tây Sơn army. Nguyen Phuc Anh was promoted to the Grand Marshal and took over the government the following year. In 1780, he officially became king.

For the next twenty years, Nguyen Phuc Anh continued to fight against the Tây Sơn Dynasty, and only in recent years did he gradually pacify the entire border of Annan.

In 1802, Nguyen Phuc Anh changed the name of the era to Gia Long, established the Nguyen Dynasty, and named the new country "Nanyue". Unfortunately, Nanyue was not recognized by China. Not only Jiaqing did not recognize it, but Chen Gu also did not recognize Nanyue as a country.

This time, Jiaqing took this opportunity to force Nguyen Phuc Anh to send troops.

A weak country has no diplomacy and even no human rights. Nguyen Phuc Anh had to send troops to fight for a country name for himself. Of course, it would be even better if he could take this opportunity to occupy Guangdong and Guangxi, making the name of South Vietnam worthy of its name.

Therefore, this time, Nguyen Phuc Anh not only came in person, but also sent his most elite navy.

Nguyen Phuc Anh watched the soldiers board the ship, and only retracted his gaze after the warship started moving. He then looked at the foreign commander next to him and said unhappily, "Smith, you'd better restrain your men. If they dare to do evil again, don't blame me for being rude and enforcing military law on them."

"Oh, Your Majesty, they are just some people from other countries. Why should we make everyone unhappy over this?" Smith smiled indifferently.

Nguyen Phuc Anh became furious upon hearing this. South Vietnam originally belonged to China, and the founding emperors of every dynasty were basically immigrants from Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian. They could not be said to be from another country in any way.

What's more, Nguyen Phuc Anh came here to plot against Guangdong and Guangxi. If possible, he also wanted Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and other places. To do this, he naturally needed to win the hearts of the people. How could he allow these foreigners to do whatever they wanted?

"I will say it again, if any of your men commit evil deeds again, I will never tolerate them!" Nguyen Phuc Anh said in a cold voice.

Smith shrugged and said, "Okay, as you wish, I will control my men, but please don't forget what you promised us, Your Majesty."

“Of course, I will give you what I promised, but you’d better not touch anything that I don’t allow.” Nguyen Phuc Anh said seriously.

Although the East India Company is powerful, it is ultimately just a group of businessmen. They will put profits first and naturally do not want to offend Nguyen Phuc Anh.

Although South Vietnam was not a large area, Nguyen Phuc Anh's power was not weak. He not only had hundreds of thousands of land forces, but also tens of thousands of naval forces and more than a thousand warships, including 4 European warships, 40 large warships and more than 300 large rowing boats.

Such strength gave Nguyen Phuc Anh enough confidence to face the East India Company.

"My Lord, the Chinese army doesn't seem to be that strong, why don't you send more troops?
Only in this way can we conquer a large territory!" Smith asked doubtfully.

Nguyen Phuc Anh shook his head and said, "You don't understand. This country is not that easy to deal with. What we are facing now is not the regular army of this country at all. These people are just some civilian armed forces. Compared with the regular army, their combat power is naturally not that strong."

For South Vietnam, which is also part of the Confucian cultural circle, Nguyen Phuc Anh naturally knows China very well. At that time, the number of troops from both the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese was indeed small.

In terms of numbers alone, China has less than 200,000 soldiers, the Manchu Eight Banners also have only 200,000 soldiers, and the Green Camp has 600,000 soldiers but their combat effectiveness is low. In other words, the entire Chinese army that is truly combat-capable actually has less than 400,000 soldiers, but even with such a small number of soldiers, none of the surrounding small countries dare to look down on China.

Even though Nguyen Phuc Anh had hundreds of thousands of veteran soldiers, if he wanted to establish a country, he still had to send envoys to China to ask for a title to demonstrate its legitimacy.

Because although China at that time did not have a large number of troops, it had vast territory and a large population. With a territory of more than 10 million square kilometers and a population of 100 to 200 million, that was a huge war potential.

If it weren't for Jiaqing's order, even if Nguyen Phuc Anh had a hundred courage, he would not dare to bring his army into China.

Even with Jiaqing's order, Nguyen Phuc Anh did not dare to bring too many people. On the one hand, he wanted to test the waters first to see if he could gain any advantage. On the other hand, he was afraid that if he brought too many people, the Chinese would focus their attention on him.

Nguyen Phuc Anh is waiting, waiting for China and the Qing Dynasty to suffer heavy losses on both sides. That will be his chance. Now he is just trying to make a preliminary move and gain a foothold first.

Even so, Nguyen Phuc Anh was still worried that his strength was not enough, so he pulled the East India Company into it, just to find someone to take the blame. In case something went wrong and he was held accountable later, he would have a scapegoat, or at least have an excuse.

Anyway, all the evil things were done by foreigners, and Nguyen Phuc Anh only came to China at the behest of Jiaqing.

And if he were to seize the opportunity and agree to give the East India Company some benefits, it would mean nothing to China as a whole.

After the 5,000-strong siege force of South Vietnam crossed the river, they first sent envoys to the city to persuade it to surrender as usual. Even though he knew it would be of no use, Nguyen Phuc Anh still demanded that envoys be sent to persuade it to surrender before the battle every day.

Firstly, he didn't want to force the other party too much and arouse their determination to fight to the death. Secondly, Nguyen Phuc Anh really hoped that the other party would surrender.

If we can subdue a group of local troops, it will be much easier to capture cities and territories in the future.

Unfortunately, the Tiandihui coalition had an absolute numerical advantage and was fighting on home soil, with wives, children and elderly mothers behind them, so it was naturally impossible for them to surrender easily.

Not to mention that Chen Gu's reinforcements had already arrived in Zhaoqing and could return to Guangzhou at any time, so it was even less likely that Yang Yunfeng and others would surrender.

Moreover, the Tiandihui’s slogan was to expel the Tartars and overthrow the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty. If it defected to South Vietnam at this time, what would that mean?
I’m afraid that the Tiandihui will no longer exist in the future.

After persuading the surrender, there was a bombardment from the ship-borne artillery. After nearly ten days of heavy bombardment, the city wall of Panyu County had already collapsed in many places under the heavy load. Although each collapse was repaired in time, it became fragile because it was bombarded every day.

The city wall, which was originally four or five meters high, was reduced to two or three meters high in several places after being hit by a salvo from twenty ocean-going warships.

After the ship-borne artillery bombardment, it was the soldiers' turn to attack the city. Three thousand Nanyue soldiers lined up, holding muskets and fired at the city walls.

(End of this chapter)