Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2171 Security Strategy
The "Yao chaos" in Guangdong and Guangxi has a long history.Its history can be traced back to the Song Dynasty.From the Song Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, "Yao chaos" occurred one after another for 600 years in Hunan, Guangxi, and Guangdong provinces.Generally speaking, the "Yao chaos" developed from north to south. The "Yao chaos" in the Song Dynasty mainly occurred in Hunan. As the Yao people gradually moved south, in the Ming Dynasty, the "Yao chaos" mainly occurred in Guangdong and Guangxi. .

The Yao people migrated from Hunan to the south. Although they first entered Guangdong and then entered Guangxi, they have long used Guangxi Province as their base camp.Guangxi has rugged mountains and dense forests. It is an ideal place for the Yao people to live in mountain farming as their main source of income.For example, Goulou Mountain and Dayao Mountain are the main gathering areas of Yao people.The Yao policy of the Ming Dynasty also focused on Guangxi.

Since Xuande, Yunshan, the commander-in-chief of Guangxi, conquered Yao on the border between Guangdong and Guangxi, and killed tens of thousands of people in two years. Afterwards, Liu Pu and Tian Zhen massacred in Guangxi. The mountainous areas intertwined between Fufu and Guangxi, especially the Yunkai Mountains of Longshui.Therefore, the Guangdong Yao Rebellion in the Ming Dynasty was mainly located in the south of the Xijiang River, starting from Fengchuan and Kaijian in the west, reaching Yangchun and Gaozhou in the south, and reaching Gaoyao and Xinxing in the east. With Dongshan, Xishan and Houshan in Longshui as their base camp, they were active in Guangdong and Guangxi. The various mountainous counties on the border.The Yao Rebellion affected a very wide range. Among the ten prefectures in Guangdong at that time, there were Yao Rebellions in six prefectures.

Luo Pangyao, located in Longshui County, often haunts the Xijiang River to plunder, seriously threatening the communication arteries of Guangdong and Guangxi, like a bone spur in the throat, which cannot be resolved for a long time.The initial reason for the establishment of the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi in Zhaoqing in the Ming Dynasty was precisely because of the chaos in Yao.

However, since the Yao chaos subsided in the fifth year of Wanli (1577) and Luoding Zhili Prefecture was established in Shenglongshui County, the power of the Yao people in Guangdong declined, and the large-scale "Yao chaos" in Guangdong came to an end.The influence of the Yao people in the counties south of the Xijiang River no longer exists.The Yao districts in Guangdong only exist in the mountainous prefectures and counties at the junction of northwest Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hunan, and their strength is not as good as before.Since then, the scale and scope of the "Yao Rebellion" has continued to shrink. Although there have been many riots, they are no longer as large and powerful as in the past.

The "Yao Rebellion" in Ba Pai Yao was a riot after the "pacification" of the Yao Rebellion in Guangdong. Although the scale was not as large as before, it was also a riot in the old time and space that allowed the Ming court to mobilize troops from several provinces and mobilize tens of thousands of troops to suppress them.So from the very beginning, the General Staff Headquarters and the South China Army Command were quite nervous about this "Yao riot", because the Ba Pai Yao riot not only started much earlier than the history of the original time and space, but also had a much larger scale.

Originally, the "Ba Pai Yao riot" that broke out in 1639 was not widespread, but this time, the Ba Pai Yao riot was not only five years earlier, but also expanded rapidly due to the collapse of the Zhen Yao system of the original Ming army in Guangxi. .In particular, the retreat of the Ming Army's anti-Yao generals in Luoding Prefecture directly created a huge vacuum. The rioting Yao people's armed forces drove straight down and once again touched the Xijiang waterway.And according to the feedback from the army and the local government, the Yao people's riots have spread eastward and southward from Lianzhou in northwestern Guangdong, and the affected areas are rapidly expanding.

In order to prevent the Yao people's riots from forming a chain reaction, the General Staff hastened to transfer the national army to western and northern Guangdong to fill the gaps in local defense, and at the same time dispatched a large number of reconnaissance personnel with permission to conduct reconnaissance in areas where riots occurred in western and northern Guangdong.At the same time, a large number of documents and historical materials were consulted.

According to the feedback from the scouts, the scale of the Yao people's riot was not as serious as the staff officers estimated. After the establishment of Luoding Zhili Prefecture in 1577, the power of the Yao people was greatly reduced. Although the riot team of Ba Pai Yao encouraged many Yao people's villages to follow the storm, the strength of these villages was generally limited.Most of the Yao people's villages are slash-and-burn farming in mountainous areas, with very little savings. Ironware and salt are imported by traders. They lack weapons and have no ability to attack fortifications. Although sometimes they can use strange tricks to capture cities by surprise, but generally speaking, the combat effectiveness of attacking fortifications is weak. .The Hakka villages on the edge of the Yao district have been in conflict with the Yao people for a long time, and the number of times the villages have been attacked is not many.Therefore, the conclusion of Xu Xu's comprehensive judgment is: the scale of Yao Chao is not too large, and it is not enough to pose a big threat.

"Is your conclusion a little...optimistic?" Zhu Mingxia frowned and asked at Xu Xu's report.

"I think we should divide the matter into two." Xu said, "Currently riots along the Xijiang River keep coming and going, but according to the report of our army, the main range of activities of the Yao people's armed forces is still on the north bank of the Xijiang River—they are not They have not infiltrated into the South Bank area, based on the analysis of past historical data, the actions of the Yao people's armed forces are mainly 'plundering', that is to say, they care more about wealth and population than occupying territory."

The Yao people mainly cultivate mountains, scattered in large areas, live in small clusters, have strong mobility, backward culture and education, and live in hardship. They often take risks to find a way out of life.Although the Yao people's armed forces captured Daming's prefectures and counties more than once, they basically abandoned them after looting, and they would never stick to the city.

"A Yao proverb says: 'Officers have ten thousand soldiers, I have ten thousand mountains, soldiers come and I go, soldiers go and I come.' Relying on the mountains to protect themselves, exhausting the enemy, and finally forcing the officers and soldiers to retreat. This is the Yao people's armed forces. The battle principle that has been tried and tested. In fact, the Eight Pai Yao Rebellion did not end until the end of the Ming Dynasty, and it was not suppressed until the Shunzhi period. Yu went down the mountain to plunder, then withdrew back to the mountain, looking for an opportunity to take a cold breath and then go down the mountain. I investigated the Ming army's method of dealing with the Yao people's armed forces, and especially emphasized "difficulty" - using troops to control the various water and land exits inhabited in the mountain area, it can be effective Control the scope of activities of the Yao people's armed forces. I think we can learn from this point."

After hearing his introduction, Zhu Mingxia felt that he had some ideas.

"Another point is that although the Ba Pai Yao armed forces have a large scope of activities this time, and there are many Yao villages that have rioted, these villages have basically not merged with the Ba Pai Yao armed forces—the Yao people in Guangdong and Guangxi are different from the southwest Yunnan and Guizhou , there is no big chieftain like the Yang clan in Bozhou, the Shui'an clan, which has been inherited for hundreds of years and thousands of years, and is like the emperor of the earth. Although there are leaders like Yaomu among the Yao people, their power is limited and the scope of jurisdiction is not large. The economic level is backward , it is generally difficult to form a large armed group - don't look at many Yao villages that are rioting now, in fact they will not merge with the armed forces of Ba Pai Yao. For these Yao villages, the riots are just because the Ming army fled and created public order It’s just a vacuum, just take the opportunity to go down the mountain to plunder. As long as the national army is in place quickly and rebuilds social order, the riots in these mountainous Lizhai villages will quickly subside.”

"You mean, apart from the Ba Pai Yao in Lianshan, the Yao people's riots in other areas are not a concern? There is no need for us to send troops to suppress them."

This question is a bit of a heavy responsibility, and I can think about it for a moment, and then I replied: "That's right. According to the compilation of materials in the big library and the information we obtained from asking local elders and officials. As long as the local security and traffic can be controlled The main way can effectively curb the looting activities of the Yao people. In fact, even if we attack, we will actually go over mountains and mountains to attack cities and villages, and there is no decent armed group for us to encircle and annihilate."

"So that's how it is." Zhu Mingxia nodded, "This is actually a public security war."

"Exactly," Xu said, "we really have to use large troops to suppress them. That's called cannons to fight mosquitoes. And it will seriously restrict our field troops. It is more appropriate to let the national army deal with them. In fact, the most worrying thing now is not It's not the riots of the Yao people. It's the problem of local bandits—they are much more mobile than the Yao people's armed forces, and they are more destructive."

Banditry is an old problem. In China in the 17th century, as long as there were people, there were bandits. Even in the "best place" like Beijing, there were bandit activities outside the city.Guangzhou is known as the No. [-] city in the south of the sky, and as soon as you leave the north gate, there is a possibility of being robbed and kidnapped by Da Tian Er.The two sides of the golden waterway of the Xijiang River are no exception.However, the collapse of the Ming army in Guangdong and the destruction of local wars caused the number and equipment level of bandits to double rapidly.

"...Now it is the bandits who are harassing the prefectures and counties everywhere, attacking our troops and staff, and causing great pressure on us," Xu said, "What I am most worried about is that the bandits may merge with the rioting Yao people. It seems that there is already such a trend.”

In the history of the old time and space, the Yao rebellion in 1635 was just a minor disturbance. Only Ba Pai Yao participated in the rebellion. They briefly captured Lianshan County and seized the county seal. Guerrilla.The real uproar would have to wait until eight years later, when Ba Pai Yao, together with the Cu people in Lianshan County, joined forces with Zhang Xianzhong's generals Tang Taozhong and Yang Guozhi's tens of thousands of bandits to plunder Yangshan in Liankelianshan and Lianzhou , Yingde and other places.It was very powerful for a while, and it was not suppressed by the Qing army until the Shunzhi period.

"...If the social order cannot be restored as soon as possible, the bandits will form a large group of rogues, and the Yao people's armed forces will merge with the rogues on a large scale. At that time, the situation will be a hundred times more difficult to deal with than it is now." Xu Xu then mentioned an important piece of information .

"According to our interrogation of the prisoners, many of the bandits currently active in the Xijiang River Basin are not the collapsed Ming army, but "official bandits" from Guangxi.

"Official bandits?!" Zhu Mingxia was taken aback. "You mean Xiong Wencan..."

"That's right," Xu Xu nodded, "although we have limited information. However, the Ming army in Guangxi infiltrated back to Guangdong in the form of a small group of bandits, and they have also become bandits."

"Xiong Wencan is short of food and salary, and wants to call the officers and soldiers back to die, can you be happy?"

"Why don't you like it?" Xu Xu said, "You are asking them to become bandits, not to fight wars. When you become bandits, you can be free, and the children and treasures you rob are all yours—isn't it better than a few military salaries?"

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Next update: Volume 375 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter [-]

(End of this chapter)