The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 213 Unpredictable Enemies

In Hexian, Ou Tianci was wearing armor and holding a long sword. The guards behind him raised the flag of the general of Leizhou Town of the Ming Dynasty, which he rarely used.

When the Mingxiang people of Hexian saw this, they cheered in joy.

Because according to the vassal relationship at that time, Nguyen Thien Ci, the lord of Ha Tien, could only use the two banners given by the Nguyen family: "Imperial Envoy and Governor Cong De Hou" and "General of Ha Tien Town".

And now, Ou Tianci has raised the flag of recognition of the general commander of Leizhou Town in the Ming Dynasty, and his intention is very clear.

Immediately, Ou Tianci and the people of Hexian rushed into the barracks of the Zuoying soldiers. They attacked from all sides in anger and easily defeated the Zuoying soldiers who had lost the command of their senior officers.

These Guangnan soldiers, who had been domineering in Ha Tien for two years, were dragged out of the barracks and beaten to death by angry Ha Tien citizens.

Some others who were agile escaped from the city, and Ou Tianci immediately ordered a pursuit.

Soon, when the angry people were chasing the defeated soldiers of Zuoying, they caught up with Song Gaidui and others who were pulling carts and traveling hard.

Without waiting for Ou Tianci's order, thousands of people rushed forward one after another and killed all the Guangnan soldiers and generals who were still dreaming of wealth and luxury.

These one or two hundred people were the elite of the entire Zuoying Camp, but in the midst of this huge uproar, they were killed by ordinary people.

Ou Tianci gave the recovered silver as pensions and rewards to the people who chased him on the spot, and announced the start of mobilization to seek revenge on the people of Guangnan.

Almost at the same time, Mo Zi Bu ordered the fleet to depart from Nakhon Si Thammarat and Pattani and head towards the Con Dao Islands.

The Con Dao Islands are located 80 kilometers southeast of the Mekong River estuary. The main island is Con Dao Island, also known as Snake Island.

During the French Indochina period in history, this was a famous political prisoner prison, and many leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party were imprisoned here.

At the same time, this is also the place where Li Xianwen had no choice but to settle down after going to Southeast Asia in history. When he was in the most difficult time, he met Nguyen Phuc Anh here and later became a Vietnamese.

At this time, Kunlun Island was not in its original state. It had a small fortress and corresponding barracks, and even a small piece of farmland, although it was basically deserted.

It turns out that in 1702, sixty-eight years ago, the British East India Company built a stronghold here and appointed a major as the commander of the stronghold.

At that time, the British were tortured by Chinese pirates in the South China Sea, so they planned to block the island at the end of the Spratly Islands to restrict the activities of the pirates in the South China Sea.

Then, the major was murdered by the pirates who came up in the middle of the night and their accomplices on the island. The British had no choice but to withdraw in disgrace and continue to pay protection fees to the pirates.

The reason why Mo Zibu came here was naturally not to go to Hexian, because his father Ou Tianci would definitely be able to deal with the Zuoying soldiers, and then withstand the counterattack of the Jiading and Guangnan soldiers in Hexian.

What he had to do now was to rush directly to Jiading with warships, take advantage of the opportunity when the royal family member Yan and Song Wenkui sent troops to Hexian, quickly capture Jiading City, and then beat the stray dog on the Mekong River plain.

"Jiading is 450 miles away from Hexian. Given Jiading's military equipment, even if they mobilize immediately, it will take at least ten days to assemble. By the time they reach Hexian, it will be at least a month and a half later."

Chen Chengshan pointed to the map and said that he grew up in Jiading and had lived in this area for thirty years. Naturally, he knew everything here very well, including the armaments of the five Guangnan battalions that bullied the Chen family.

"That's a good opportunity for us to be more fully prepared." Mo Zibu nodded. "Major, please tell me your opinion. I mean regarding the navy."

The major that Mo Zibu was referring to was none other than Major Marco, who had scored twice against him.

It is said that the job of being a mercenary for Mo Zibu was very popular this time, and Major Marco almost missed the chance.

Marco knew what Mo Zibu meant by the navy, and he smoothly took out a nautical chart from his arms.

This is a hydrological map of the Mekong River area surveyed and mapped by the Dutch over hundreds of years. It includes not only the estuary area, but also a large number of inland rivers.

This information was compiled by the Dutch with great effort over a period of at least fifty years, and Mo Zibu only had to pay an additional 500 livres, about 21 pounds, and 73 taels of silver.

Major Marco was happy to steal it and let Mo Zibu make a copy, which was a very cost-effective deal.

Major Marco is also a very reliable person. He sets fair prices for what things are worth and allows bargaining. He is willing to pay big or small amounts.

After looking at this map, Mo Zibu suddenly realized that although Jiading City is the core city of the Mekong Delta, the Mekong River does not flow through Jiading.

The Saigon River and the Dong Nai River flow through Gia Dinh, of which the Saigon River is the most important. Gia Dinh City was built almost next to the Saigon River.

In fact, what Mo Zibu didn’t know was that Jiading at that time was much smaller than Saigon in later generations.

At this time, Gia Dinh was basically just the embankment area where the Chinese lived before the fall of South Vietnam. Saigon in later generations was at least six or seven times larger than it was at this time, and even the Saigon River ran through the city.

The naval officers gathered around, and Captain Jean Pierre took a look and said, "None of the three soft sailboats, including the Lucky, can go.

Because judging by the map, the Saigon River doesn't have a lot of water, even 400 tons is dangerous, and a soft sailboat lacks the maneuverability to navigate the inland river."

Tankaer took a look and found that this pirate, who could hardly read or write, could now recognize some words and could even understand the map.

"Red One doesn't even need to go. We can move the Fortune's guns onto a few black barges of around 100 tons. We can use them to directly cover the army's landing."

It's quite funny to say that although the Fortune is a regular fifth-level sailing cruiser, the caliber of its ship's guns is only a pitiful eight pounds, which can't even knock down slightly thicker city walls. It can only be used to cover the army's landing.

At this moment, Mo Zi Bu missed the huge 36-pound naval guns captured outside Ayutthaya. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, he had to nail the fire ports shut and then handed them over to Zheng Xin.

If we had five such cannons, we could have directly blown down the city wall.

"Colonel Pierre, send a hydrographic reconnaissance team ashore."

"Second Lieutenant Colonel Tanka, prepare three black barges of approximately 100 tons and a transport ship capable of carrying 600 elite soldiers." "Major Marco, I need you to select 300 elite soldiers from your lowland lads as the vanguard."

"Wu Wenyong, Chen Guangzu, each of you will select 150 men and serve as the vanguard to attack Jiading."

After arranging the battle, Mo Zibu turned his head and looked at Chen Guangyao.

"Zongshi Yan and Song Wenkui must have planted many spies in the Chen family. Try to find reliable people and send Pei Changwu, Li Quan and others to Benzhi to organize the Chen family to prepare for action."

"I'll go there myself. Dali won't listen to outsiders. He'll only believe it if I go."

At this time, the Chen family had basically been squeezed out of Jiading by clan members Yan and Song Wenkui.

Most of the direct descendants of the Chen family now live in the swampy area along the Mekong River, more than 40 kilometers from Jiading. The remaining 70,000 to 80,000 Ming Xiang people are also scattered in a state of several hundred or so people.

In other words, the Jiading Chen family still has a base of 80,000 to 90,000 people, but except for the 10,000 or so direct descendants of the Chen family, the rest are forced to scatter across the entire Mekong Plain and cannot gather together immediately.

At the same time, because they were at a disadvantage in the struggle with the clan member Yan, there were quite a few scum in the clan who bowed down and surrendered to the Guangnan people.

As for the cultivated fields along the Saigon River that they had painstakingly reclaimed, most of them have been passed on to the Guangnan people. Of course, on the surface, these still belong to the Chen family, but are leased to the Guangnan people for cultivation.

But given the Chen family's current situation, they have no way of collecting much rent from the clan members, as the land has actually been lost.

"Be careful, don't act recklessly. Even if I can't mobilize the Chen family, it doesn't matter. The advantage is still mine!"

Mo Zibu didn't mention anything dangerous. Although Chen Guangyao was his trusted cousin, he was also a military general. If he didn't want to fight because of the danger, others would naturally follow suit.

. . . .

In Jiading City, Mo Zibu still missed one thing, that is, the clan member Yan was actually very cowardly.

As for Song Wenkui, he had been transferred to another place at the beginning of the year, and Mo Zibu knew nothing about these things.

According to the Nguyen Dynasty's system, the royal family member, Nong, who was guarding Gia Dinh, was a superior official, while the newly appointed military commander Song Fuqia was simply a military general and should be under the jurisdiction of Nong, a royal family member.

However, Zhang Fuluan was in power at that time, and members of the Ruan family like Zongshi Yan, who had been stationed in the local area for a long time, were extremely unwelcome.

Therefore, the royal family members usually keep their tails between their legs and never show their heads.

"Marquis Tan En, this sudden attack by General Ou seems a bit strange. Your Majesty is a member of the royal family. In your opinion, should we send troops to suppress them, or..."

The royal family member Yan's real name was Ruan Futan, and Marquis of Tan'en was his title.

Song Fuqia was very depressed. He was originally the commander of the Longhu Camp, one of the five camps in Jiading. He recently got the position of commander by bribing Zhang Fuluan.

However, before he could start making a fortune like the clan members Yan and Song Wenkui, Ou Tianci actually said he wanted to rebel.

My heart bleeds when I think about how he was jealous of the royal family member Yan who could get 8,000 taels of silver from Hexian every year, but chose to grit his teeth and give 8,000 taels to Zhang Fuluan.

If Ou Tianci really rebelled, all his money would be wasted, so he knew that the royal family member Yan Jue had no courage to lead troops to quell the rebellion, but he still used words to pressure him.

The clan member Yan hissed as if he had a toothache. He had been pretending to be crazy and stupid for years, saying that Jiading had too much water and lacked fire. He named himself Yan in order to avoid Zhang Fuluan's political pursuit.

The Nguyen family, starting from the founder Nguyen Gan, has always used characters with the water radical. You see, he even used characters with the fire radical to betray his teacher and ancestors, which shows how cowardly this guy is.

Now that Hexian has been forced to rebel, does he have the courage to suppress it? Humph, not only does he not dare to suppress it, he doesn't even have the courage to report it.

If he dared to report it, Zhang Fuluan would take advantage of this incident to kill this big fat pig and eat his meat.

Therefore, Zongshi Yan, who was in annoyance, quickly waved his hands twice and had no energy to distinguish Song Fuqia's weird tone.

After he sent Song Fuqia away, he secretly thought that Ruan Zhongming, the commander of the left camp he sent, might have gone a little too far.

This guy still hasn't realized the seriousness of the problem.

After thinking about it, Zongshi Yan arranged several confidants to go and find out the situation in two ways, openly and secretly.

Try to meet with Lu Tianci openly. If possible, try to appease Lu Tianci, or at least get his words.

He went to look for Ruan Zhongming secretly. Only by finding out what happened could he solve the problem.

If..., if Ou Tianci was exploited too much, then... the worst that can happen is that I will return part of it to him and keep the soldiers of the Left Camp under control in the future.

Well, Zongshi Yong didn’t quite believe that the two thousand soldiers of the Zuoying Camp would be wiped out by Ou Tianci so quickly. Zongshi Yong also felt that they would soon retreat to the vicinity of Jiading.

Song Fuqia was a little more reliable. He thought that since he was always in charge of the army in Jiading, he should make some plans for the worst. So he began to gather five battalions of soldiers and improved the defense a little bit.

But that’s all he could do. This was the limit of his ability, otherwise he wouldn’t have been deceived by Ruan Yue in history.

At the same time, under the cover of night, Chen Guangyao finally led a group of elite soldiers and sneaked back to the vicinity of Ben Tre where the Chen Family Ancestral Hall was located.

Looking at the white lintel of the ancestral hall, Chen Guangyao, who had not returned to his hometown for almost ten years, was slightly stunned.

Ten years ago, the ancestral hall was still in Bien Hoa, but now it has been driven to Ben Tre, south of My Tho. If it were not for the king, what would have been the fate of myself and the Chen family?

(End of this chapter)