At the end of September in the second year of Tianze (the 23rd year of Qianlong), the Northern Route Army of the Yi Army broke through Lashio, Myanmar in one fell swoop, and directed its troops towards Mogok.
Mogok is located 600 miles north of Mandalay, the royal capital of Myanmar. It connects the southeast of Shweli River, the northwest of Kyaukmei, and the northeast of Irrawaddy River.
This city not only has beautiful scenery but also has a pleasant environment. At the same time, it is also very rich in gem resources, rich in red and sapphire. And there are veins of the world's best quality rubies, such as "pigeon blood red" precious varieties.
After Mogok, there is Mandalay, the royal capital of Myanmar.
As the founding capital of the Konbaung Dynasty, Mandalay has extraordinary significance for Myanmar. If Mandalay is besieged, it will be an extremely shameful thing for the new regime's imperial court.
This time, Yong Jiya decided to lead his troops on a personal expedition. After all, Yong Jiya, as a founding monarch, was not afraid of war.
Six years ago, Yong Ji Ya, who was just a local chieftain, was able to defeat the Mon people who conquered the Toungoo Dynasty and unified Myanmar. He relied on the method of supporting war to continuously increase his strength. Therefore, fighting was nothing for Yong Ji Ya. It's a normal thing.
However, Yong Jiya has been feeling a little exhausted recently. You must know that he didn't feel this way when he was challenging a behemoth like the Manchu Empire. But now when dealing with the Yi Dynasty, which is just a new regime, Yong Jiya can feel extremely pressured.
"Am I really wrong?" Yong Jiya often asked himself involuntarily when he was quiet.
Although Myanmar is strong, it is only relative. For example, when dealing with the Mon people and surrounding poor tribes and poor small countries, Myanmar is indeed invincible. But when Myanmar faces Siam, it will feel difficult. If it were to deal with Annan, who had equal national strength, Myanmar would probably not be able to get any favors.
Although Myanmar did gain some benefits from the Qing Dynasty, if you really want to say that Myanmar defeated the Qing Dynasty, Yong Jiya knew that this was just to put money in his own face. After all, most of the Manchu and Qing forces are involved in other places, and the Manchu and Qing Dynasties just don't have time to deal with themselves.
Yong Jiya didn't know much about Yi Dynasty, after all, the two places were quite far apart. Moreover, as a new regime, the real opponent the Yi Dynasty had to face was the Manchu Qing court, so Yong Jiya did not pay much attention to it.
Now Myanmar had to face the Yijun army all of a sudden, which gave Yong Jiya a new understanding of the Yi Dynasty. A new regime with most of its military forces tied to the Manchus and Qing Dynasties was indeed extremely powerful when it was able to sweep across a country in the southeast with only a small portion of its military forces.
If Myanmar simply resists the Yijun, it can still hold on for a while. But since the war between Yi and Myanmar, the Yi Dynasty has completely ignored martial ethics and led a group of newly conquered brothers to run rampant in Myanmar.
Myanmar has to face the armies of several neighboring countries at the same time, as well as its own internal enemies. How can it have a chance to stand up? Although Myanmar is not small, it is not big either. It is difficult to use strategic verticality and horizontality to trade space for time during a single-line battle, let alone a four-front battle now? Not to mention that this war cannot be won, even if it is won, Myanmar will be ruined.
"If we can repel the enemies attacking the royal capital this time, we will have to send envoys to sue for peace." Yong Jiya said firmly in his heart.
At this time, he finally understood why Wen Lin surrendered to the enemy to sit on the throne even if he was not willing to bear the infamy.
But looking back, Yong Jiya still fought vigorously against the war.
For this reason, Yong Jiya repeatedly announced the release of more slaves to support the war. You must know that during the Toungoo Dynasty, many Ahmudan and Atai became slaves in Myanmar. The reason why Yong Jiya was able to defeat the Mon people and unify Myanmar was because of the policy of freeing slaves.
However, he can clearly free the slaves from the enemy's side. If they are the slaves of his own slave owners, the slaves can only obtain freedom through redemption.
Now that Burma has been unified under Yong Ji Ya, the enemy's slaves are gone, and all the slaves on our own side that can be released have been released, and the rest can only be redeemed by the imperial court. Otherwise, once the interests of the slave owners are affected, I believe that Yong Jiya will be directly overthrown by many powerful people in Myanmar without the Yi Dynasty attacking him.
Mogok, Damashan.
At this time, the Yi army was digging trenches here to set up defense and camp. Because most of the Northern Route Army were recruits from the Yi Army, the advice given by the staff was also based on stability.
Thirty miles away, the Burmese army was also encamped.
Soon, two miles apart, the Myanmar and Yi armies sent their respective armies to prepare for the battlefield.
When large armies fight, there is no surprise attack. Everything is based on strength.
On the battlefield, morale is the most important. Although there are many new recruits in Yijun, under the guidance of Junzheng, they don't seem to be afraid of the battlefield, but instead seem eager to try.
After all, there is a saying that has always been circulated in the Yijun army: Don't be afraid of death when you are a soldier. If you are afraid of death, don't become a soldier.
There are new recruits in the Yijun army, and there are also many new recruits in the Burmese army. Many of the new recruits were slaves released or "borrowed" under Yong Ji Ya's new policy. Although these slaves wanted to make contributions, it was their first time on the battlefield, and there was no one to guide them on the battlefield. How could they not be afraid?
But they are afraid of returning, but there are so many of them! So morale is not lacking.
Looking down from the sky, you can see that the Yi army only has a thin defensive line in a Z-shaped formation. The number is only more than 5,000, divided into the main Yi army in the middle and the entourage troops on both sides.
As for the Burmese army, in addition to cavalry, elephant soldiers, and artillery battalions, there were nearly 20,000 people in several battle formations.
On the battlefield, Yong Jiya looked at the Yi army's formation with one of the few clairvoyance eyes in the empire, and then shouted boldly: "Anuoha, push out all the cannons and let the enemy see them." Let’s take a look at the strength of our army.”
"Yes, Your Majesty." The artillery camp general Anuoha responded loudly, and then left Yong Jiya to go up to the formation.
"It's too disrespectful to send so many people here." Yong Jiya said with disdain, but he was very happy in his heart.
If the Yijun army in front of this formation can be defeated in one fell swoop, Myanmar will have more say when it seeks peace in the future.
Slowly, cannons were continuously pushed out in front of the Burmese army's formation. The wheel marks pressed out on the ground also showed the heavy weight of these cannons.
There are fifteen cannons in total, which were purchased and built by Yong Ji Yahua with a large sum of money. Although these cannons cost a lot of money, they have always brought extraordinary returns to Yong Jiya on the battlefield. Yong Jiya even forgot how many enemies were defeated by the sound of such cannons.
