The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 625: Loyal people, make contributions
The sultanates in Southeast Asia, including Aceh, were called sultanates, but in reality they were tribal alliances.

If it were not a hub of trade between the East and the West, the civilization of Southeast Asia during this period would have been at most at the level of China's early Spring and Autumn Period.

It is not difficult to understand why the central dynasties on the continent have never been able to rule these places. Even if they were to rule superficially or establish strongholds or even kingdoms, they could not last long.

Because Chinese civilization on the mainland has been jogging so fast that it has actually surpassed even the feudal system.

Apart from the fact that productivity has not kept up, in other aspects, the politics are even more complete and healthy than those in the early capitalist period in Europe.

The dimensional gap between these civilizations is so huge that the indigenous people of Southeast Asia simply cannot digest or understand the Chinese model.

What they could accept and understand were the Brahman culture of India and the Muslim culture of the Caliphate, which still bore the imprint of solemn religion and even whose production activities were oriented towards religion.

Based on this reality, they could not understand what an army of 100,000 meant. Therefore, the Sultan of Aceh thought he was fully prepared, but in fact, it was full of loopholes.

Only Sheikh Abdul had experienced confrontations with hundreds of thousands of troops, but his ability was at most that of a major. He was simply unable and did not have the power to make corresponding arrangements.

However, the arrival of the Dayu army did bring some small benefits to the Sultan of Aceh. Originally, he only stayed in Banda Aceh and could only control the tens of thousands of people around him.

After Dayu arrived, facing the indiscriminate treatment, the Acehnese people united closely around the Sultan, and now everyone obeyed the Sultan's orders unconditionally.

There were 70,000 people in the city and more than 200,000 people outside the city. Along the city of Banda Aceh, a large number of roadblocks and low bunkers were built, like abscesses emerging from the ground.

On the tenth day of the twelfth month, after ten days of "hunting in the wild", volunteers from the five eastern provinces brought more than seven thousand able-bodied men to the army.

However, these people were still very anxious because there were more than 2,000 people on the list, but they only captured 7,000 and killed 20,000 to 30,000. Due to the competition among them, less than 10% of the task was completed.

So, these people, with red eyes, regarded the natives outside Aceh as their biggest help in escaping from the cage and returning to their Chinese identity.

These are not natives, they are tickets to enter the Chinese class!

When Dong Jinfeng saw this situation, she knew that these people could be used.

So he ordered the 7,000 captured men and the 10,000 captured men along the way to be divided into 68 excavation teams.

Each team had 250 people, and was guarded by five volunteers from the five provinces of Japan, who were forced to serve as cannon fodder at knifepoint.

After the deployment was in place, the advancement speed was very fast. After ten days of small-scale fighting, the siege, which gave the Sultan of Aceh great confidence, suddenly intensified.

Toru Yamagami has grown from a corporal to a real officer, or in other words, his life has undergone a tremendous transformation from the moment he dared to kill Emperor Gokaku with a single shot.

It is easy to imagine how much courage it takes to take a huge risk in public and kill a former god, a god whose face was said to go blind if you looked at it.

"According to General Dong's order, if the excavation team members escape and the Yicong cannot stop them, they will be executed!
If any of you Yicong dare to retreat, I will chop off your heads with my own hands, and then reduce your entire clan to serfdom, whether you are in Nanyang or in Tangshan!
Mao Shan, you are my elder brother, and I tell you, if you dare to retreat, I will chop off your head with one blow, and then use my title to atone for the sins of your wife, children, and our parents!"

"You bastard!" Shan Tailang Maoshan nodded on the surface, but he was cursing in his heart.

This is no longer the younger brother who followed him around everywhere. It was right not to take his 10,000-koku salary as a retainer.

However, Yamataro Maoshan secretly felt in his heart that only his brother Yamagami Toru, who was so ruthless as to not recognize any relatives, could succeed.

Yamagami Toru's words were extremely frightening, because there really were slaves at that time, and their main sources were the ethnic groups in Hanchuan Province who refused to integrate, as well as the natives in Nanji Island and other places.

This was a real slave. Once the owner bought him, if he died accidentally, he only had to write a letter of explanation and pay a fine of twenty silver dollars.

If someone is killed by mistake, he can pay an equivalent amount of compensation to the owner of the manor and a fine of fifty silver dollars, or choose to open up a remote area to avoid the fine.

Not to mention now, even in the future, there are so many loopholes that can be exploited in so-called explanations of the situation and manslaughter. Therefore, once you become a slave, there is no way back.

Of course, Yamagami Toru was just trying to scare people. He used the word "degeneration" precisely because the price was so terrible.

Only the emperor had the power to degenerate a member of the Chinese clan, or even just a contract laborer, and this power would generally never be exercised.

After scaring a group of Japanese followers, including his own brother, until they turned pale, Yamagami Toru waved his hand.

"You don't have to look at me. If I dare to desert the battlefield, the Silver Sword Officer of the Military Court will chop off my head without blinking an eye."

"Go ahead, and clear at least half of the obstacles outside the city today!"

Mao Shan was still cursing inwardly just now, but as soon as his brother gave the order, he was the first to take out his samurai sword and scabbard and smashed it at a young native in front of him, making the native's head covered in blood.

"Forward, forward. If anyone dares to retreat, I will definitely stab you through the heart with a knife." Regardless of whether the natives could understand him or not, Mao Shan started cursing in a somewhat clumsy dialect.

Under his crazy cursing, the natives had no choice but to push the prepared shield carts and rush forward crying.

Behind these native shield chariots, the Tosa samurai with wakizashi on their waists followed behind with rifled guns equipped with Minié bullets, crouching down.

boom!
A lead bullet came from the opposite side, hitting the shield car with a bang.

Most of the natives were still at the stage of matchlock guns. They couldn't even make flintlocks properly, so naturally there were few flintlock guns, only two or three thousand.

When they heard the sound of a thud on the shield cart's board, several samurai who had been observing the situation in the back immediately showed up.

A Tosa soldier raised his hand and fired a shot, and the head of the native holding the matchlock gun on the opposite side turned red instantly.

The other natives were not much better. The rifled rifle was completely defeated by the smoothbore rifle in terms of accuracy and range, not to mention that the Chinese were professional soldiers from good families like the warriors.

"Hurry, hurry!" When Mao Shan saw the natives on the opposite side retreating after crying a few times, he immediately punched and kicked the natives pushing the shield cart to hurry up.

After advancing a distance, the natives suddenly roared, and then hundreds of people rushed towards Mao Shan and his six followers and half a company of samurai guarding the vassal state.

The natives pushing the shield carts were intimidated by the momentum of the opposite side, and many of them were unwilling to serve foreigners, so they turned around and were about to run. Mao Shan immediately shouted and dropped the samurai sword in his hand without hesitation.

Mao Shan stabbed, chopped and knocked down three people in a row in an instant.

A volunteer from Sendai who was beside Mao Shan was even more ruthless. He grabbed a native and kicked him down, then raised his spear high and pierced the native's abdomen, nailing him to the ground.

Because the native did not suffer direct injuries to his vital organs such as the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys, he did not die immediately. He struggled and cried on the ground like a frog, scaring the surrounding natives to death.

Seeing the miserable state of these people, the natives who were about to run away were frightened, and then they crawled back to the shield car.
In front, the charging natives roared loudly and looked quite ferocious.

But it was in vain. When the natives rushed to 60 meters, the captain of the samurai company roared, and more than 40 flintlock rifles fired at the same time.

Bullets, piercing with white smoke, hurled themselves at the natives, instantly knocking over a dozen of them to the ground. Then, a hail of bombs descended from the sky. The violent explosions sent limbs and arms flying everywhere. The natives, terrified by the blast, retreated without even the strength to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

The samurai of the Tosa Town Domain did not pursue them. The company captain, Yoshida Dongguang, waved his hand and said, "Bring up Grandpa Qi and pound him hard. Bombard them till all their kennels collapse."

Grandpa Qi does not refer to the resurrection of Marshal Qi, but to the Qi Jiguang 1785 type -pound mortar designed by the Jiangnan Arsenal in Tongzhou.

This is an extremely novel new type of mortar. The barrel is no longer short and thick, but has become slender.

Because Dayu had made a breakthrough in explosive bomb research, there was no need to simply increase the size of mortar shells to increase their destructive power.

Well, if the technology could be more mature and the caliber could be smaller without reducing the power, this would be a mortar close to modern times.

It can even be said that even the Qi Jiguang 1785 is no longer suitable for marking the power in pounds, but caliber can be used instead.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Grandpa Qi's cannon fired three times in succession. With a section of the barrel removed, it fired solid bullets, causing terrifying damage. In a short while, it destroyed the mud blockhouse built by the natives in front of them.

Four or five native musketeers screamed and fell from the collapsed blockhouse. The rising smoke and dust obscured their vision.

Ali is the son of a small chief and has always enjoyed great prestige among the Acehnese. Although he is a little embarrassed, he still encourages the Acehnese warriors around him.

"The Qin people only rely on their sharp guns and cannons, but they can't destroy all the hidden alleys we carefully built. They will eventually come in for hand-to-hand combat. That will be our chance."

It’s a pity that both parties thought of the same thing.

The battle lasted from 5:30 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon, with only less than two hours of intermittent rest in between. The intensity was quite high.

The battle was basically one-sided, and almost 70% of the natives' low houses, watchtowers and deliberately designed very complex alleys and streets were destroyed.

And every time this happens, it means that the most brutal hand-to-hand combat is about to begin.

Yoshida Toko looked at the Tosa samurai beside him and said with a smile: "I just talked with Yamagami Toru for a while. He, as a garrison commander, already has 300,000 koku of land, and in the future he can expand the land to 400,000 koku of land.

This is simply unbelievable. Our lord, His Excellency Prince Shunzhi of Tosa, only has 220,000 koku.

I think the climate here is adaptable, and I really want to build a business here. I don't need too much, just 100,000 shi will do."

The warrior next to him nodded in agreement, but a helpless look appeared on his face, "But our identities are samurai guarding the vassal state, and this time we are here to serve as guards.

Without the Lord's recommendation and His Majesty's approval, it is impossible to come to Southeast Asia to serve as a vassal, even if it is not strictly speaking a vassal garrison commander."

"This is exactly why I want to talk to you all." Yoshida Dongguang stood up and said:
“If you want to cross over and stay in rich places like Jambi, Palembang, and Aceh to get such great benefits, you must have sufficient military merit.

Now the opportunities are before us. I hope you will not fear life and death, make more military achievements, and show the prestige of our company.

If I can become the lord of Nanyang, I will do my utmost to help you and realize your wish.

Even if some people really cannot obtain the status of a foreign immigrant, we still send money back to them every year to help them improve their lives."

Operations like Ji Dongguang's were not uncommon during the colonial era, both in the East and the West.

These Tosa samurai, who have seen the outside world, are different from the poor temperament they had in their hometown.

They saw the prosperity and became interested. Now they are just waiting to be able to participate in it.

"I agree, we must seize this opportunity!"

"Then let's form a group and agree to help each other and never betray each other even in death."

The word "wakashu" was also stigmatized in later generations in Japan and became a synonym for Nantong, but at this time it had not changed and referred to an association of young samurai who helped each other.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, after both sides had replenished their troops, the battle continued. In the smoke and dust, Yoshida Mitsuto took the lead and was the first to jump into the dark alley.

As soon as he landed, two spears and two knives stabbed at him.

But Yoshida Kōdō was very agile. He supported himself on the ground with one hand, let out a strange cry, and jumped out more than three meters like a toad.

This is a unique skill of Japanese warriors. Among the Japanese pirates in history, there were many ronin who knew this move.

Grandpa Qi described them as frogs in the mud, who could jump over a dozen feet on the beach. If you encounter them suddenly, you will be caught off guard.

At this time, relying on this toad-like jump, Yoshida Katsuto immediately approached these natives.

Because it was a dark alley, the natives had difficulty wielding their spears. Before they could retract them, they felt a sharp pain in their legs.

It turned out that Yoshida Kōto, who was only 1.55 meters tall, relied on his short stature to crouch down, swinging his samurai sword and chopping at the legs of these people.

While the natives were in pain, the following warriors came like a tide. They were there to put an end to them. With one strike of the sword and another of the twist, the natives were basically dead.

Yoshida Kōto didn't care at all. He kept his head down and used an axe to clear a path. Soon he had carved a bloody path through the dark alley. The warriors following him were so tired of chopping heads that their hands were sore.

When Ali saw the miserable state of the alley, he was furious. Although he was not tall, only 1.623 meters, he still shouted with great contempt:
"Qin shorty, Ali is going to kill you!" After saying that, Ali, holding two Malay swords, rushed over.

However, when he was about ten meters away from Ji Dongguang, Ji Dongguang used the same trick again, leaped almost four meters, and then stabbed with the samurai sword at a fifteen-degree angle.

Ali never expected that the dwarf opposite him almost teleported towards him. Before he could even react, his chest was stabbed.

Yoshida Kōto gripped the katana with both hands, twisted it cruelly, and then slashed it fiercely.

Puff! As if there was a leak of air, the broken organs mixed with flesh and blood rushed out from the gaping hole in the abdomen.

Ali, who felt that he was invincible, waved his hands twice at last, then his eyes went black and he fell to the ground with a thud. He did not even stab a single time from beginning to end.

"Hmph, you're showing off your skills in front of an expert!" Yoshida Kōdō, known as the Sword Saint of the Jingxin Tianzhi School, snorted coldly, shook off the broken flesh and blood foam on the blade, and continued to move his short legs as he rushed forward.

By dusk, more than 10,000 soldiers, with more than 10,000 native cannon fodder at the forefront, had completed their mission in excess, and the southwest side of Banda Aceh had been cleared.

The native cannon fodder, exhausted to the point of vomiting blood, were digging trenches frantically. The opportunity to attack the city was ripe.

Once the giant 48-pound mortar is deployed and the city gate is blasted open, the siege will be over.

(End of this chapter)