"Your Majesty, this Zhu Tiesuo is from Cangzhou. He was originally a powerful local family. His ancestors once fought with the Mongolian Mu Huali to conquer the Jin Kingdom. Later, he made great contributions and has been the head of Hejian Prefecture for generations. Will."
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he frowned.
He said with an unhappy expression, "So, is this Zhu Tiesuo still a Han?"
Since the Mongols took over the Central Plains, many Mongolians who have lived in the Central Plains for generations have given themselves many Chinese names and surnames. Therefore, it is sometimes not possible to distinguish the identity of Mongolians or Hans just by relying on one name.
"Your Majesty is wise, this Zhu Tiesuo is a Han from Hejian, but they have served the Mongols for generations, and they already feel that they belong to the Mongolian category." said the small captain.
"So, this Zhu Tiesuo is a traitor. Hejian Mansion can't do it without beating him up!"
Zhu Yuanzhang's personal expedition was almost without bloodshed.
Deep down, I was already impatient.
Now that Zhu Tiesuo of Hejian Mansion has jumped out to seek death, Zhu Yuanzhang will never let him off easily.
The 100,000 troops led by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty soon arrived at the city of Hejian Mansion. In order to prevent anyone from leaving the city and surrendering, the leader of Hejian Mansion, Zhu Tiesuo, had already blocked all the city gates.
Zhu Tiesuo planned to pull the whole city to jump into the fire pit together!
Seeing the Ming army attacking the city with great momentum, the common people and soldiers in Hejian Mansion were terrified.
But only Zhu Tiesuo, the stubborn traitor, was still arrogant.
"Zhu Chongba, you rebel, Dayuan will not let you go!"
"My Hejian Mansion is full of loyal ministers of the Yuan Dynasty. If you rebels want to enter the city, you have to kill us all!"
Zhu Tiesuo stood on the wall of Hejian Mansion and shouted loudly like a mad dog.
Hearing Zhu Tiesuo's desperate screams on the wall of Hejian Mansion, Zhu Yuanzhang showed a sarcastic smile.
"Zhu Tiesuo, how can this traitor deserve to be given the same surname as us? Now to be a traitor here openly is to shame our ancestors."
Zhu Yuanzhang turned to look at Zhou Dexing next to him and asked: "Zhou Dexing gives you five days to capture Hejian Mansion. It is best to capture the traitor Zhu Tiesuo alive. Can you do it?"
Zhou Dexing heard this and immediately spoke up.
"Your Majesty, please rest assured. It doesn't take five days. Three days are enough to break through Hejian Mansion!"
"Okay, then hurry up and prepare to attack the city!"
As the first battle of the Ming Emperor's personal expedition, Zhou Dexing's credit for this first battle cannot be escaped no matter what.
In order to fight this first battle perfectly, Zhou Dexing, the founding father of the country, personally went into battle to lay out artillery positions.
Now the Ming army has a large number of newly cast artillery.
These cannons are all made of the latest brass casting!
Although it is a little heavy in terms of weight, it is definitely a well-deserved king in terms of power.
To deal with rammed earth walls like Hejian City, Zhou Dexing deployed twenty heavy siege artillery pieces.
Boom!
Boom!
Amidst the loud noise, the rammed earth wall outside Hejian City collapsed like a shoddy project.
Immediately afterwards, Zhou Dexing mobilized another 4,000 infantrymen to launch an encirclement and suppression campaign against Hejian Prefecture.
Because the firearms of the Ming army are really sharp.
In this case, it only took half a day to completely defeat Hejian Mansion's defense line.
After conquering Hejian Mansion, Zhou Dexing sent soldiers to clean up the city and search for the traitor Zhu Tiesuo.
There were a total of about 4,000 Yuan troops in Hejianfu City. After these people were defeated, they surrendered one after another. They were disarmed and not killed in accordance with the order of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty.
At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang also sent people to search Zhu's house in Hejian, and found a large amount of food and supplies inside.
At this time, the Ming army also discovered...
The big traitor Zhu Tiesuo has locked the whole family in his backyard and set himself on fire.
"If you are stubborn and consider a thief your father, you will deserve to die!"
Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty gave a twelve-word evaluation of Zhu Tiesuo.
Since the Hejian Zhu family surrendered to the Jurchens, they have been helping foreigners. Therefore, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty hated this family deeply. He immediately ordered that all the surviving Zhu family members be sent to Guangdong to guard the border and farm, and did not allow this family to People continued to be named Zhu, but they were ordered to change their surname to Wei.
"Shameless!"
"When will people with a single surname be able to report to the court and change their surname if they have a righteous man who serves the country and the people!"
After easily defeating the local snake in Hejian, the remaining action of the Ming Dynasty army was naturally to attack the local tyrants and divide their fields to benefit the local people.
Zhu Yuanzhang ordered to reward the three armies, and also rewarded one hundred catties of grain to each of the Cangzhou people who accompanied the army on the expedition.
In this era, one hundred pounds of grain is not a small sum of money.
Especially in this era, grain output was low, with the average yield per mu being only about one or two stones, equivalent to two hundred catties.
For a time, the people in Cangzhou Prefecture of the Ming Dynasty knelt on the ground with tears of gratitude, saying that the Holy King was merciful.
The southernmost tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, which was later known as Dalian and Lushun, is now the Liaonan Military Division of the Ming Dynasty.
Hu Dahai, the commander of the Liaonan Capital Division, had already led a large number of generals to wait on the dock.
Because the Daming East Northern Expeditionary Army, led by Zhu Han, had already crossed the sea from Shandong.
Ming Dynasty's Eastern Northern Expeditionary Army was divided into two groups: left and right.
The branch led by Zhu Han belonged to the left, mainly starting from southern Liaoning and attacking Fuzhou and Tokyo Prefecture in the north.
The other right wing, led by Mao Gui and Guo Zixing, attacked Baishan Huli Gai from Goryeo to the north.
As warships sailed into the Liaonan Gulf one after another, the 50,000 troops led by Zhu Han also began to land in Liaonan.
"The last general, Hu Dahai, would like to greet His Royal Highness the King of England." Hu Dahai bowed.
At this time, Zhu Han, who was standing at the bow of the ship, heard the sound and saw Hu Dahai, "Okay! Thank you for your hard work, Hu Dusi."
"I don't dare." Hu Dahai agreed hastily.
Hu Dahai has been operating here in Liaonan for more than half a year, and it has begun to take shape.
After Zhu Han got off the ship, he inspected the interior and exterior of Liaonan Dusi and felt quite satisfied.
"Yes, General Hu has done a good job here in southern Liaoning. We are now about to march into northern Liaoning, and southern Liaoning can already become our rear base." Zhu Han praised him.
"I am not worthy of being a general. It is all thanks to Your Majesty and His Royal Highness the King of England that I can make great achievements here." Hu Dahai quickly replied.
Hu Dahai has indeed made a lot of contributions in Liaonan.
Many forts were built here in southern Liaoning, and they also guarded the border and farmed fields, allowing the thousands of soldiers of the Liaonan Capital Division to be self-sufficient.
This time, Zhu Han personally led an army of tens of thousands, with thousands of Liaonan Dusi soldiers under Hu Dahai as the vanguard, and attacked Liaoyang Prefecture in Tokyo in the Yuan Dynasty.
Alu Timur, who was stationed in Liaoyang Prefecture, immediately fell into panic when he heard the news that Zhu Han led the Ming army to attack.
Because there were not many Mongols in Liaoyang Mansion at this time. Not long ago, Wang Baobao ordered all Mongols to move to the grasslands in the north, and almost all the people and things that could be moved were moved away.
As for the Mongolians here in Liaoyang Prefecture, there are now only more than 5,000.
More than five thousand people were unable to withstand ten times the strength of the Ming army.
And the most important thing is that the Mongols looted a large amount of gold, silver, treasures, grain, grass and baggage in Liaoyang and still hoarded it in Liaoyang Mansion.
These gold and silver treasures and grain and grass baggage that had not been transported away were what Alu Timur was most concerned about.
Therefore, when Zhu Han led the Ming army to attack, the entire Mongolian people in Liaoyang City were panicked.
Fleeing in all directions, there was no way to organize a decent resistance.
Aru Timur looked at the gold and silver treasures all over the city and felt regretful that he had not moved them away earlier.
Facing the fierce Ming army, Aru Timur could not find many soldiers even if he wanted to rely on Liaoyang City to resist.
In desperation, Aru Timur could only lead his men to take away a batch of gold and silver treasures.
Then before leaving, he set fire to the treasury and granary in Liaoyang, hoping not to leave a grain of food for the Ming army.
Aru Timur was determined to miss and ran all the way, leaving the Ming army behind him far away.
However, there are still many people in Liaoyang City who are unwilling to go to the grasslands with the Mongols.
They immediately mobilized, put out the raging fire, and then opened the city gate to welcome the arrival of the Ming army.
Zhu Han led the army to occupy Liaoyang in one go.
After capturing Liaoyang, Zhu Han immediately sent Ming troops to take over local power in various surrounding small counties.
Since Liaodong became independent in the late Tang Dynasty, no Han government has been able to set foot here. In terms of history, Liaodong is actually more miserable than the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun.
During the Tang Dynasty, Liaodong was still under the jurisdiction of Lulong Jiedushi. When the Khitans rose, the local Bohai people defected to the Khitans. Later, when the Jurchens rose up and established the Jin Kingdom, the local Han people in Liaodong had been completely conquered by the Jurchens. They no longer regarded themselves as descendants of Yan and Huang like their ancestors, but migrated to the Central Plains as Jurchens.
Later, when the Mongols attacked Liaodong, they launched a new round of massacre and conquest of the local Jurchens.
Now that the Ming army is attacking Liaodong, there are basically no Han people living in Liaodong.
Therefore, we must dispatch our troops and officials to quickly restore control of grassroots power in various counties in Liaodong, and restore those people with a higher degree of civilization to their Han identity as soon as possible. After all, it is difficult to rely only on tens of thousands of Ming troops. A perfect ruling order was established here in Liaodong.
"Both Liaodong and the Central Plains are now severely lacking in population. If we want to hold on to Liaodong forever, we must not only drive away the Mongols, but we must drive out the barbarians and leave only the obedient ones. The Han people of the Ming Dynasty, as for those who don’t want to be Han, let them go back to the mountains and forests to become savages!”
Zhu Han did not hesitate to use cruel methods against those locals in Liaodong who were unwilling to cooperate.
Liu Bowen, who followed Zhu Han to Liaodong, also deeply agreed with Zhu Han's strategy.
"Your Highness is right. Nowadays, Liaodong is facing a lot of waste, and the most lacking thing is population. If anyone can obey the teachings of the Ming Dynasty, then the official will send people to provide them with food, grass and clothing. If anyone dares to disobey the imperial court, then the official will also I will not hesitate to use thunderous means on them!" Liu Bowen said slowly from the side.
When the Mongols planned to move north to the grasslands, they had already looted and plundered in Liaodong.
Those Liaodong people who refused to follow the Mongols to move north to the grasslands were either killed or driven away. The best outcome was to be robbed. Therefore, the local people in Liaodong are now extremely impoverished.
If the Ming army does not provide food and grass to these Liaodong natives, they will be defeated.
I'm afraid a massive famine will happen here.
After all, the spring thaw has just begun in the Liaodong region. According to the usual season, it is a critical moment for sowing. However, the food in the hands of the Liaodong people has already been looted by the Mongols, and there are even no seeds for planting. .
If the seeds in the spring cannot be sown, then when the autumn harvest comes, there will definitely be no harvest. There will be no food left to survive the cold winter in Liaodong. The only road waiting for them is death.
Therefore, the Ming army used the food in their hands to quickly re-establish a complete set of Chinese etiquette systems of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong.
Liaodong people in various counties have moved their ancestral tablets.
He told the Ming army that his ancestors were Han and that he was different from the barbarians.
Anyone who can be recognized as Han by the Ming army will receive a sum of grain for Hukou and a batch of the latest crop seeds from the Central Plains.
These strange seeds are yellow, round, and yellow. No one in the hundreds of thousands of people in Liaodong has ever seen this strange food.
"Potato?"
"This is the Ming Dynasty. The favor to you is the most productive grain in the Central Plains. As long as you plant this in the ground, your whole family will no longer have to worry about starving to death in a year!"
Officials from the Ming Dynasty, who were responsible for teaching Liaodong people to grow new crops, began walking down the streets to promote the benefits of potatoes.
The Liaodong people who were plundered by the Mongols were extremely reluctant.
But faced with such a situation, we had to sow these strange potatoes.
Zhu Han wanted to use the fastest means to establish a stable ruling order in Liaodong. His first task was to ensure that these Liaodong people had enough to eat. Only when they had enough food could they provide corvee services to the Ming Dynasty, and then build roads, water conservancy and other projects.
Potatoes, a crop that grows quickly and is resistant to drought and cold, have naturally become the first choice for Liaodong's development.
King Zhu Han of the Ming Dynasty set up the Liaodong Xuanwei Department in Liaodong, with Liu Bowen serving as the Xuanwei Envoy.
Nearly a month later, Zhu Han basically had all of Liaodong in his own hands. The scope of his jurisdiction now corresponds to the entire Liaoning Province in later generations, most of Jilin Province, and the northern part of the Koryo Peninsula. This is the Liaodong Xuanwei Division of the Ming Dynasty. of all territory.
However, if the Ming army wanted to continue northward and conquer the Jurchens in more remote areas, they encountered an insurmountable difficulty at this time.
Mao Gui, the deputy governor of Korea in the Ming Dynasty, came to Liaoyang in person and reported the difficulties encountered to Zhu Han.
"Your Highness, now Guzhou, Kaiyuan, Huli Gai, and Yalan have been captured by our Ming army, but if we go further north, those Jurchens will be much more difficult to deal with. This does not mean that they are more remote. The fighting ability of the Jurchens in the area is so strong, but the place where they live is not only deep in the mountains and old forests, but also covered with lakes and swamps. Once the spring and summer come, they immediately turn into swamps and dark pits that swallow human lives, and in the autumn and winter , it’s all a vast snowfield. Once people and animals walk up there, they can’t even tell the direction. Even if our Ming army is brave and good at fighting, I’m afraid they won’t be able to successfully pass through these swampy areas.”
Mao Gui served as the pioneer officer of the Ming Dynasty in the Goryeo area of Liaodong.
He has fought with the Jurchens no less than a hundred times, large and small, and has already figured out the strength and distribution of the Jurchens.
The Jurchens closer to the south are more civilized, while the Jurchens further north are more barbaric and backward because of their remoteness.
Moreover, the Northeast became the black land Beidacang in later generations, which actually happened after entering modern society.
In ancient times, the Northeast Plains were covered with lakes and swamps, without even a decent road.
Unless the local Jurchens lead the way in person, once outsiders step into it, they will easily lose their way in the swamp, or sink directly into the swamp and lose their lives.
In modern times, as millions of Han Chinese from the Central Plains immigrated to the Northeast, a series of land reclamations and land reclamations were carried out, eliminating a large number of swamps.
It was not until the founding of the People's Republic of China that millions of workers and peasants built the Northeast Plains, turning the Northeast into a real big granary.
From the perspective of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties where Zhu Han lives today, the Northeast is a forest, sea and snowy plain that is daunting to everyone.
The front line of the Ming army's attack could only stop near Huli Gai Wanhu Mansion.
That is the southern region of Jilin Province in later generations.
"Your Highness, I feel that the Jurchens further north are weak, their numbers are not very large, and the land is so cold and barren. It would be better for Ming Dynasty to set up a border fortress here in Huli Gai for defense." Mao Gui finally proposed. own suggestions.
Not only Mao Gui felt this way, but Liu Bowen and others also agreed with his point of view.
But even though everyone agreed with this view, Zhu Han expressed his firm opposition.
"General Mao, you said that the Jurchens in the north are weak. That is actually just an appearance. They are simply too isolated and backward and lack powerful weapons such as iron and armor. And if our Ming Dynasty sets up frontier fortresses in Liaodong to develop towns, the north These Jurchens will definitely develop through this. When they obtain these weapons from Liaodong, they will not be under the control of our Ming Dynasty. Over time, they will definitely grow into a force that is difficult to stabilize." Zhu Han said slowly.
"The Romance of Fairy Wood"
Trade and exchange are almost inevitable for human society.
Even the backward Jurchens in the north still understand this truth.
Once the Ming Dynasty's rule in Liaodong is stabilized, the Jurchens in the north will definitely use their special products to trade with the Han people in Liaodong. Over time, the Jurchens will gradually master the use and manufacture of iron tools and other weapons. Once When they have the idea of invading the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty may repeat the history of the Jurchens establishing the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, Zhu Han's strategy for the Northeast was the Greater Liaodong Strategy.
Conceptually, Little Liaodong only includes the Liaodong Peninsula, and then adds parts of Jilin and Gaoli.
And Zhu Han wanted to implement the Great Liaodong.
This is the entire northeastern land outside the Great Wall Pass that belongs to the established Liaodong Province or Xuanwei Division.
"Your Majesty and I have already discussed that our Ming Dynasty will implement the Great Liaodong Strategy in Liaodong. As long as it is all the land from the north of Liaodong to the Ice Sea, whether it is barren mountains or frozen soil plateaus, all of it will be taken over. It belongs to our Ming Dynasty. !”
"So these Jurchens in the north must not ignore them, and must bring them back under the direct rule of the Ming Dynasty."
Zhu Han knew it.
This vast land from the Northeast to Eastern Siberia is not only the granary of the post-future, but also covered with countless timber, gold, silver, copper mines, iron mines, coal mines and other minerals.
It is no exaggeration to say that this piece of land is priceless.
If the Ming Dynasty was unable to conquer this land during the peak period of expansion after the founding of the country, then future generations may be even more powerless.
Zhu Han knew that from the moment the Ming Dynasty was established.
The entire world's structure has entered a moment that is about to be turned upside down.
This change is not only in the East, but also in the West!
