Lanfang.
East Borneo, east of Ji Feng County, Lan Dong Prefecture, Lan Fang Province, Ming Dynasty.
The last territories of several sultanates in Borneo are also the most advanced battlefield of the Ming Dynasty Lanfang Governor-General.
Because the forest is too dense, it is difficult to completely eliminate the local indigenous people, no matter how ferocious the Japanese samurai legions under the Emperor of Heaven are.
"Zhixian Chen, is our intelligence accurate? Why do I feel something is not right?"
At the edge of the forest, behind a mound, a slightly stiff Chinese voice sounded. The accent was a bit strange, but he could hear it clearly.
"Lao Tian, don't worry. The intelligence provided above shows that a group of remnants of the Bandel Sultanate are trying to raid Jifeng County today. We can just stay here and lie down!"
The speaker was a young man with dark skin, short stature, wearing a black gauze on his head, wearing a short jacket, carrying a musket, and wearing canvas trousers with a pair of cowhide boots.
If Emperor Zhu were here, he would definitely recognize him as Chen Zhongliang and Chen Xiucai, who were responsible for decapitating people to Lanfang in Panyu County.
Chen Xiucai, who was elegant and graceful at the time, now looks similar to Tian Shanyue, the captain of the squadron of the Japanese Armed Forces Corps stationed in Jifeng County, who is shorter, darker, and skinnier next to him.
It seems that the water and soil of Borneo can transform people.
Tian Shanyue was also holding a musket, lying behind the mound, with a leaf hammer and several grenades hanging on his waist, and a rattan woven with old vines on his back.
Chen Xiucai had long suspected that Tian Shanyue was a "fake warrior".
Otherwise, why would a good Japanese samurai use a hammer and shield instead of a katana?
No matter how poor a ronin is, he should at least have a katana on him.
However, Chen Xiucai did not meddle in exposing Tian Shanyue - even the surname "Tian" may have been chosen by Tian Shanyue himself.
Because Chen Xiucai heard that in Japan, only the upper-class Chinese have surnames, and ordinary people do not have surnames.
But in fact, among the more than 40,000 Japanese warriors under Emperor Zhu's command, some were simply fake samurai - farmers who could not survive in Japan. After hearing that the Ming Emperor recruited samurai as After joining the army, he came to apply for the army.
Fortunately, when the Ming Emperor recruited warriors, they did not test their swordsmanship, but only their physical condition.
That's why "fake samurai" like Tian Shanyue can successfully join the army.
But after becoming a member of the Japanese Armed Forces of the Great Tomorrow.
If Tian Shanyue returns to Japan, no one will dare to say that he is not a samurai - he is a samurai loyal to the emperor of tomorrow. If you dare to humiliate the samurai of the emperor of tomorrow, don't you dare to challenge the majesty of the emperor?
Therefore, the soldiers who became the Armed Forces of the Emperor of Heaven became a rare channel for advancement for those lower-class Japanese people who had no hope of success.
In addition, the degree of acceptance or fanaticism of the warrior class for the "Yellow and White Race Competition Theory" promoted by the Emperor of Ming Dynasty far exceeded that of the Confucian scholars and officials in the Ming Dynasty!
Coupled with the opportunities brought by foreign expeditions, it is also fatally attractive to those samurai who can kill with one sword.
Now the great emperor has become the collective idol of the samurai class and the lower class businessmen and peasants in Japan.
Warriors dreamed of fighting and making achievements.
Some of the lower class elites who did not have the status of warriors saw the hope of advancement from the warrior corps of the Emperor of Heaven.
The Tokugawa shogunate was also very cooperative with the Ming court. After all, for the Tokugawa shogunate, the biggest threat to the shogunate's rule was the hundreds of thousands of samurai!
From top to bottom, everyone can benefit from the recruitment of the Emperor of Heaven.
If Emperor Zhu is willing, he can even expand the size of the Japanese Armed Forces at any time.
At this time, the fake samurai Tanaka Yue suddenly raised his head.
"Attention all!!"
He suddenly shouted an order.
There was a squadron of Japanese warriors under his command, that is, two hundred people.
Under the command of Chen Zhongliang, the magistrate of Jifeng County, there were 100 guardsmen recruited from Jifeng County.
Now lying behind this small hill are three hundred musketeers equipped only with muskets, and they have no heavy firepower - this is because the artillery is really inconvenient to transport in the dense forest, and Chen Zhongliang and Tian Shanyue actually have them on hand. There were a few bottles of small-caliber mortars, but all the shells had been consumed in the battles in the previous two days.
So now everyone can only rely on the muskets in their hands to fight.
In terms of equipment, some people had Liberation Year 2-type rifles in their hands, while others had muskets.
Since the large-scale production of the Guangfu 2-year-old rifle developed by the Lantau Ordnance Factory, this firearm uses a large amount of cheap materials such as steel and wood, rifling, and uses paper shells to pack expansion bullets (mini bullets) on a large scale. The low cost brought by industrial production began to completely replace the muskets in the Ming army.
However, rifled guns are now restricted weapons for export, so anyone who wants to purchase a rifled gun must go through "real-name registration" and apply for a gun license.
The advantages of rifled guns in range, accuracy, and even shooting speed naturally prevented the Ming court from allowing the "large-scale proliferation" of such weapons.
So now the people can buy the Guangfu 2nd-year-old rifle.
But the price is very expensive.
Among the 300 people in the team, there were almost 200 people equipped with rifled guns of the Second Year of Liberation.
Only some fussy Japanese samurai still carried the old muskets issued by the Ming Dynasty. The more generous Japanese samurai paid for themselves and replaced them with rifled guns.
In fact, these three hundred people are not poor.
Everyone has at least thirty or forty acres of paddy fields.
Once the land here in Borneo is developed, it is extremely suitable for growing rice. Moreover, the river network here is dense, and the climate is warm, humid and rainy all year round.
Three seasons of rice can be grown in a year.
Just buying rice these years has made these Japanese samurai and guardsmen who migrated from Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian rich.
Of course, some people look down on the three melons and two dates of farming.
Instead, they were interested in the reward from the Ming court - if they could successfully ambush the local indigenous troops trying to plunder Jifeng County and complete the combat mission assigned by the staff of the Governor's Mansion, they would be able to gain a small collective merit.
Each soldier was given at least a dozen Ming Yuan.
This is the way to make money.
"Coming!" Chen Zhongliang also pricked up his ears and listened to the movement in the forest, holding a musket and staring at the forest ahead.
Who would have imagined that Chen Xiucai, the genius in Panyu County back then, was originally a scholar with no ability to bind a chicken.
Now he looks like a veteran.
And if it were in the mainland, who would dare to imagine.
The dignified magistrate of the county is actually dressed like this. He is not wearing any official uniform. He is wearing a military uniform similar to that of an ordinary guard soldier. If it were not for the black gauze on his head, no one would think that the dark-skinned young man in front of him is Lan. The magistrate of Jifeng County, Dongfu.
Speaking of which, Chen Zhongliang also regretted it.
Why did you get this job in the first place?
This is great.
After sending a group of people to Lanfang, they were detained by Lanfang Governor Ye Daoqi and could not leave.
But Chen Zhongliang was not the only one detained.
Most of the officials from the mainland were "seconded" by the Lanfang Governor's Office.
The reason is also very simple.
Lanfang originally had few people.
However, as the Battle of Jiangxi produced a large number of refugees, resulting in the influx of hundreds of thousands of people, Lanfang lacked officials who could serve, so Lanfang Governor Ye Daoqi sent a large number of secondment applications, cutting them off first and reporting them later. All the foreign scholar officials who sent people to Lanfang were detained.
Chen Zhongliang was unlucky to stay in Lanfang.
Now he is sent to the frontline Jifeng County as a county magistrate.
In the mainland.
The grand magistrate is very impressive.
After all, the Ming Dynasty is now a semi-feudal and semi-capitalist empire with an incomplete revolution.
Although the imperial court has abolished kneeling, the county magistrate no longer has the power to spank people at will.
But how can the thousands-year-old thought and tradition of local parents and officials replacing the emperor and herdsmen be changed in just a few years?
Therefore, being a county magistrate in the mainland is not as refreshing as it was in the Qing Dynasty. There are too many rules, too many things to manage, and there is also a lot of pressure on performance (tax collection).
But at least it is still difficult for ordinary people to talk to the county magistrate, and even if they can talk, they dare not be careless.
But it's different here in Lanfang.
There are unruly people everywhere here!
And the terrible thing is.
All the troublemakers have guns in their hands.
It has happened before that a local magistrate was shot black because he offended the settlers.
The county magistrate here not only has to control these unruly people who all carry guns.
It is also necessary to organize people to bravely expel and clean up the indigenous people in the jurisdiction.
Therefore, it is impossible to play the role of parents.
Because parents and officials have to rely on "tough people with guns" to complete the above tasks.
And the "tough people with guns" also realized this process.
The gun in his hand can make the county magistrate speak politely.
Naturally, the prestige of the county magistrate and the local parent officials will be reduced a lot.
Being a county magistrate here is really not comfortable.
Let’s talk about the biggest feature here.
It means losing dignity and inferiority, no superiority or inferiority.
How can everyone with a gun lead so easily to the evil path of equality for everyone?
In order to be able to mingle with these "tough people with guns".
Chen Zhongliang is such a talented scholar with tender skin and soft flesh.
Now I greet women in various ways when I open my mouth.
"Master Magistrate, something seems wrong!"
At this time, a "tough guy with a gun" came over.
"Old Li Tou, what's wrong?"
The magistrate asked politely.
Old Li Tou is an old local hunter.
A hunter who hunts natives.
He squinted his eyes and stared at the forest ahead: "The number of people is wrong! There are definitely more than five hundred people! This movement is probably no less than two thousand!"
Chen Zhongliang's expression changed when he heard this, and he immediately started to curse: "Mother of Diaoguilou! The people of Jinyiwei are just for food! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Dig holes, dig holes! Defend! Send for help!"
If there are only 500 indigenous soldiers on the opposite side, then the 300 people he has on hand are enough to take care of him.
But if it was two thousand, then he would not dare to launch an attack just like that.
All we can do is wait for help.
(End of chapter)
