Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 524
The new book "The Rise of Great Powers 1900" is for collection.

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Liaodong is a direction.

In September, in Dengzhou, Shandong, thousands of ships of all sizes gather.

When the news reached Beijing, the Manchus couldn't help becoming nervous. They sent [-] Banners to Tianjin and strengthened the troops in Shanhaiguan.

But it's strange that they didn't even think about strengthening the defense of Liaodong.

Of course, there is no way to defend Liaodong. The coastline stretches for thousands of miles, and there is no ready-made good port. Who knows where Yang Chao will attack.

Even if Dorgon wants to be on guard, who will be transferred back?

Most importantly, the Qing court itself believed that Beijing was the most important, and believed that Yang Chao's Shandong mobilization of warships must be to attack Tianjin and then attack Beijing, or to attack Shanhaiguan as Zheng Chenggong did last time.

Zhao Kang's cavalry boarded the ship from Dengzhou, with 1 pioneers, and soon boarded the ship to cross the Bohai Sea and easily captured Juehua Island behind the Qing Dynasty.

Juehua Island used to be one of the Liaodong fortresses built by Sun Chengzong. It faces Ningyuan City across the sea and they are both offensive and defensive. In Ningyuan City, the grain storage is focused on Juehua Island.

This place used to exist as the logistics base of Ningyuan City.

Yang Chao's goal in capturing Juehua Island was actually Ningyuan City.

Ningyuan City is one of the most important fortresses in the West Liaoning Corridor. When Yuan Chonghuan was stationed here, from Nurhachi to Huangtaiji, he repeatedly attacked without success. Knowing the connection between the Manchu Qing Dynasty and Liaodong, if they want to go to Shenyang in the future, they have to detour to Mongolia like their predecessors.

Such an important city is naturally heavily guarded, so it's a pity that Zhao Kang's vanguard failed to take it under the surprise attack.

But then Yang Chao's station boats landed in an endless stream, and finally gathered 3 horses and [-] cannons, blasted away Ningyuan, rushed into the city, and then hurriedly repaired the city defense, and repaired it before the arrival of Qing army reinforcements city.

And Juehua Island is also the place where Yang Chao hoards grain and grass, and the warehouse built here can still be used after repairing it.

With Juehua and Ningyuan as a chain, the passage from Liaodong to Liaoxi was firmly blocked. If the Manchus were going to Shenyang, they had to either detour or cut off this chain. Obviously cutting the chain was the most convenient, so Manqing had to continue For a time, there were soldiers, horses, money, food and vehicles from Shanhaiguan to Liaodong every day, and the battle suddenly became tense.

But after attacking Juehua and Ningyuan, Yang Chao did not immediately attack Shenyang. Instead, he sent troops to attack another island, the Phi Island that Mao Wenlong occupied back then, and the Phi Island that was very close to North Korea.

The North Koreans immediately became nervous.

In less than ten days, they contacted the defenders of Phi Island, crying bitterly, saying that they finally waited for the arrival of the heavenly soldiers, and expressed their willingness to help the heavenly soldiers to fight against the barbarians anyway.

In this era, there is no doubt about the loyalty of Koreans to the Ming Dynasty. If it weren’t for the Ming Dynasty, North Korea would have perished. The Japanese pirates invested in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s army and left North Korea with only a few ports. , and killed most of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's men, and this gave Tokugawa Ieyasu, who stayed in Japan, the opportunity to finally defeat the Toyotomi family and become Japan's new generation of shogunate.

So the loyalty of the North Koreans is still credible, at least much stronger than that of Sun Kewang.

Yang Chao really did not expect to tease North Korea. He ignored this country. A country that can be occupied by tens of thousands of Japanese pirates is really hard to take seriously. At least in military affairs, this nation cannot be counted on. They play Confucian culture He also played himself weakly, unlike the Japanese who play samurai culture and are always mentally excited.

The reason why Yang Chao attacked Phi Island was because Phi Island, Dengzhou and Juehua Island could form a big triangle. Juehua and Phi Island could attack Liaodong from both sides, and Dengzhou was the forward base. It's like when Mao Wenlong was there, the Qing army was always uncomfortable.

Unexpectedly, a Korean who claimed to be in Cao Ying and his heart was in Han was provoked. The guard did not dare to be careless, and immediately sent the Korean envoy to the south of the Yangtze River. After Yang Chao received the envoy, he told him that if he wanted to see the emperor, he had to I went to Burma, because we, the Son of Heaven, went to patrol the vassal state.

The North Korean envoy was immediately stunned. Did Da Mingzi go to Myanmar? Why, why...

Countless question marks flickered in his mind. Didn't the news he knew mean that the army had recovered the entire Jiangnan and hit Beizhili? Why did the emperor go to Burma instead?

In fact, the Qing court didn’t care about Zhu Cihuan for a long time. When they captured Zhu Cihuang, they still showed off in front of the North Korean envoys. They beat Zhu Cihuan to Burma. They didn’t bother to show off, so the North Koreans didn’t even know about it.

It’s okay if you don’t know, Yang Chao told Jin Zhennan, the North Korean envoy who was dressed in nondescript clothes that neither resembled Confucianism nor Hanfu, that he could talk to him about anything, and he could pass it on to the emperor.

Jin Zhennan could only express the North Korean people's longing for the heavenly dynasty as longing for the rain after a long drought.

But as far as Yang Chao knows, the Manchu Qing oppression of North Korea was actually not ruthless. They wanted to learn from the Han Dynasty and play the game of all nations coming to North Korea, so they were not too oppressive. Yes, this made the North Koreans feel like a thorn in their throats, but they did not dare to resist, and they were submissive like a little daughter-in-law. They could only hope that the Chinese government could save them from the tyranny of the rough man again.

Yang Chao bewitched the North Koreans to rise up and rebel, telling them that as long as they killed the thousands of Eight Banners soldiers in Pyongyang, they could join forces with Yang Chao to attack Liaodong, drive away the Manchus, and no longer be threatened by the barbarians.

The North Korean envoy was hesitant, and did not make a clear statement until he left, which disappointed Yang Chao. It seems that this kind of loyalty has a limit. He secretly sacrificed to Emperor Chongzhen, and the year name of Emperor Chongzhen was used in history books. Not being beaten by Man Qing is their bottom line of loyalty, and it is too difficult for them to raise troops.

Not long after the Korean envoys left, the Japanese also came. They expressed their willingness to send troops to help Ming Dynasty, and they also took out Emperor Longwu's edict for borrowing troops.

What's going on here?

As early as when Emperor Longwu was still in Fujian, a large group of civil servants thought of borrowing troops from Japan, and sent Zhu Shunshui as a representative to borrow troops with the emperor's credentials.

This group of civil servants only knew that the Japanese pirates described in the book were ferocious, so they planned to borrow troops. Didn’t they know that Ming Dynasty had no shortage of soldiers, what was lacking was organization. As long as they could organize rebel soldiers and train them patiently, field battles might not work, but defending the city was more than enough. Still need to borrow Japanese soldiers?

But the embarrassing things they did made the Japanese once again get great psychological satisfaction. Look, the sky has borrowed troops from Japan. What does this mean?So they immediately recorded it in the history books, using extremely sensational descriptions, saying that the emperor of the land of sunset borrowed troops from the emperor of the land of sunrise to suppress the bandits.

Yang Chao had no choice but to refuse. The Japanese had already arrived at Shuangyu Port in Zhoushan on a Dutch merchant ship. The envoy came ashore with the letter of credentials, and said in a generous tone that they wanted to send troops together.

Of course, when Longwu borrowed troops, Japan did not agree or agree. They kept expressing that they were thinking about it. After seeing that Yang Chao had recovered most of China, they thought it over and agreed to borrow troops.

Soon these Japanese troops will come to Nanjing, they will receive the people of Nanjing, most importantly, they will be inspected by Emperor Hongguang, and then they will go straight to the front.

The Japanese army has [-] troops, all of them are in extremely gorgeous armor, wearing oni masks, and riding short Japanese horses, they look decent.

When it arrived, Nanjing was empty for thousands of people, because Yang Chao had already publicized that the Japanese would come to Ming Dynasty, and let interested people welcome them on the designated route.

The people in Nanjing were indeed shocked by the gorgeous armor and hideous masks of the Japanese. Some people said that it is no wonder that the Japanese pirates are so cruel, just look at it.

Yang Chao stood with his brother-in-law Zhu Cihuang at Chengtianmen, watching the Japanese riding horses slowly from Hongwumen to the Thousand-step Corridor. In addition to wearing gorgeous armor, these people even wore armor on horses and ghost masks. Many banners were raised, with words such as "respect the king and fight against the barbarians" and "help the Ming to fight against the rebels" and so on.

Yang Chao is very satisfied, and wants to spread Chinese culture to the outside world through horsemen like Japan and North Korea.

Finally, under the Chengtian Gate, they dismounted collectively and bowed to the old emperor in the city, and then carefully led the horse back a few hundred steps before riding away on the horse.

After they left Nanjing, they headed north immediately.

Japanese samurai are also divided into grades. Yang Chao thinks that since these samurai have horses, they are high-status samurai. In fact, this is true. These are elites selected from all over Japan.

But what is surprising is that their desire for war is really strong. Under the banner of respecting the king and fighting barbarians, what they have in their minds is the story of Duke Huan of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period. status, but their strength was beyond expectations, beyond their own expectations, and beyond Yang Chao's expectations.

Eight hundred Japanese cavalry, as soon as they arrived in Cangzhou, actively called for battle.

Then they sent out troops without stopping, but they encountered three hundred Manchus and Eight Banners, and were shot and killed more than 100 people in one encounter. They walked back, but the Eight Banners soldiers stuck up like a dog's skin plaster, and another round of riding and shooting killed more than 100 people.

300 people were killed before touching the opponent's hair. The Japanese quit and beat their horses frantically. In the end, they were surrounded. , Supported the rescue of Cangzhou reinforcements.

The leader of the Japanese banner was so ashamed that he wanted to cut his seppuku, but he was persuaded by Li Wuliu, because he knew that Yang Chao had a deep meaning in sending these people here. People have fallen behind the Eight Banners soldiers by an era, and the equipment of these Japanese is almost the equipment of Genghis Khan and Mongolia.

Of course, Li Wuliu never imagined that Japan actually had advanced muskets, but it was banned after Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power, and only a few people could play with muskets, but these fanatical warriors were not included, and these people also looked down on the weapons used by civilians. They are proud of their katana swords.

In fact, they do have two brushes, the elite who jumped out from all over Japan, absolute masters of swordsmanship, but unfortunately they have never fought.

Yang Chao was surprised by the Japanese's record at first, but later he couldn't laugh or cry, because the reason for the Japanese defeat was analyzed. They lost in the armor. Their seemingly gorgeous armor is not made of iron, but bamboo and wood chips. Made and painted, each piece is as exquisite as a work of art, but it can't stop the Eight Banners soldiers from clearing their bows and arrows at all.

Only then did Yang Chao suddenly realize that when he saw these Japanese cavalry for the first time, he was still surprised that the elite ponies of the Japanese could carry heavy armor, so it seemed that their vests were probably made of bamboo chips.

Wearing a gorgeous bamboo armor, playing the banner of respecting the king and fighting barbarians, but being beaten up by the Qing Dynasty, Yang Chao couldn't help but feel a sense of humor. The Japanese seemed to be acting.

(End of this chapter)