On September 13th, the seventh year of Chengshun, at the mouth of Jinzhou Prefecture's Nerv River, the newly built port of Jinzhou Port was ablaze with lights and colorful decorations.
General Zuo Yingzhe led a group of generals and hundreds of civilian officials from Liaodong Province to an open space next to the dock.
At this time, many ceremonial items for receiving orders were already displayed in the open space, and the army flag with black edges and red background, a black dragon holding a sword, was fluttering in the wind.
Next to the army's flag, there are also the blue dragon holding sword flag with green border and red background and the blue dragon holding sword flag with blue border and red background of the Guards.
In the middle of the three military flags with dragons holding swords, there is an even larger flag with a red background and a yellow dragon stepping on wontons and swallowing the sun.
At the pier, a large sea-going ship with many colorful flags was also moored, and it was vaguely visible that a group of civil and military officials on board were also dressed in formal attire, waiting to disembark.
After a while, a group of Guardsmen got off the ship to protect them, and then a number of low-level Hanlin officials disembarked first to conduct various inspections. After confirming that there were no problems with etiquette, a group of officials disembarked from the ship.
The leader was a man wearing a civil official robe, a third-grade badge, and a peony flower pattern commonly used by Hanlin Academy officials on his cuffs.
This person was holding an imperial edict, and behind him there were attendants holding yellow dragon flags and other special ceremonial guards for imperial envoys. As soon as this person stepped on the ground, Zuo Yingzhe on the shore came forward with his subordinate generals, and at the same time, they saluted one by one: "Welcome Imperial envoy!"
Wang Lin, who was holding the imperial edict in front of him, had a serious look on his face. He raised his head and looked around before nodding slightly.
At this time, another attendant of the Hanlin Academy came out and sang: "The ministers of Liaodong have received the decree!"
Immediately afterwards, many generals led by Zuo Yingzhe raised their heads and held their chests high one by one, while on the other side, the Liaodong Governor Ji Dehua, the Chief Envoy, the Jinzhou Prefecture Magistrate and other civil servants from Liaodong Province all knelt on the ground.
Wang Lin took a step forward at this time, spread out the imperial edict in his hand and said loudly: "The emperor's decree is destined to be carried by heaven..."
Wang Lin read the imperial edict in his hand leisurely and almost word by word, so that others could hear it clearly.
This is an edict to express condolences to the officials, expressing Emperor Luo Zhixue's condolences to the soldiers who fought in Liaodong and to appease the people. It seems to be superficial clichés, but it means that Luo Zhixue expressed his condolences to the soldiers on the battlefield in Liaodong. Highly positive.
Therefore, there can be no mistakes when reading this imperial edict. To put it a bit exaggerated, the more than 200,000 soldiers of the Army and Navy Guards fighting in the Liaodong region, the governor's yamen of Liaodong Province who accompanied the army to Liaodong, and the officials of the yamen of various prefectures and counties can They are all eagerly waiting for this imperial edict.
Especially when they heard the sentence "I am deeply comforted", the military general Zuo Yingzhe and the governor Ji Dehua all showed joy.
Even though they had expected today's scene, they still couldn't help but be overjoyed when they actually heard the contents of the imperial edict with their own ears.
This is an important edict that sets the tone and shows the attitude.
With this imperial edict setting the tone, there will be a series of various rewards and promotions in the future.
After the long imperial edict was read out, everyone still did not step down. Wang Lin still looked serious, because at this time, Hanlin had already taken out the second imperial edict and handed it to him.
He continued: "According to the emperor's decree, the imperial court is restored to its borders, and the generals are promoted, and the ministers are respectful... The commander of the third group army, Army General Zuo Yingzhe... is loyal to the emperor... another pile of bangs... La, I have made you the Duke of Liaoxi. The original title will be inherited for three generations, and the reduced title will be replaced by the baron."
This was a formal edict to confer Zuo Yingzhe as a Duke, otherwise the scene would not have been so big.
Even though Zuo Yingzhe had known for a long time that he would be canonized as a duke, when the day came, he still couldn't help but be excited. He immediately knelt down and shouted: "I kneel down to thank the emperor for his kindness, long live my emperor!"
Although soldiers have special treatment and can use military salutes instead of kneeling during daily meetings and receiving orders, on important occasions such as conferring titles, he is not only a soldier, but also a minister, so he should kneel down.
Immediately afterwards, Wang Lin, the deputy director of the Hanlin Academy, continued to be busy and read out dozens of canonization edicts in one go. All of them were edicts for canonizing nobles, half of which were for promotion of titles, and the other half were generals who were awarded titles for the first time.
By the time the edict was read out, Wang Lin's mouth was already dry, but he seemed much more relaxed. He took the initiative to come forward to Zuo Yingzhe to congratulate him.
Before the imperial edict was read out, Wang Lin was an imperial envoy and represented the emperor. Naturally, he had to stand up and not lose the emperor's face.
But after reading the imperial edict, his mission of announcing the canonization can be considered completed. Although he still needs to go to the front line to inspect and express condolences on behalf of the emperor, there is no need to be so serious.
After returning to his own identity, Wang Lin was not immune to the customs and wanted to leave a good impression in front of the fifth Duke of the Chu Empire.
Zuo Yingzhe was also in a good mood at this time, talking and laughing to Wang Lin.
After everyone laughed and talked, they continued north to station in Songshan City.
Currently, the headquarters of the Third Army and the governor's office of Liaodong Province are temporarily stationed in Songshan.
It was supposed to be stationed on the Jinzhou side, but when they besieged Jinzhou some time ago, the Chu army attacked the city too hard. Not only was the city wall badly damaged, but when they entered the city later, they encountered stubborn resistance from the Dongji people. In order to avoid a large number of casualties caused by street fighting, the Chu army simply burned most of the buildings in the city.
After the war, Jinzhou is now in ruins and is not suitable to stay at all.
Therefore, Songshan Castle, which had not been damaged by the war, was chosen as the base.
As an imperial envoy, Wang Lin attended another report meeting on behalf of the emperor after arriving at Songshan City, mainly to hear the military's war progress in Liaodong.
Lieutenant General Song Qilin, Chief of Staff of the Third Group Army, gave a detailed introduction to the current situation in Liaodong to Wang Lin, the imperial envoy, and representatives of the Gyeonggi General Staff Department, the Military and Political Department, the Logistics Department and other Gyeonggi military agencies.
"At present, the main force of our Third Army has successfully joined forces at the mouth of the Liaohe River with the Seventh Army that landed on the Liaodong Peninsula last year. In the process, it has also captured many cities west of the Liaohe River, including Yizhou, Guangningwei and all the fortresses, completely It controlled the area south of the Great Wall in the northern part of the Liaoxi Corridor. At the same time, our army also controlled most of the area north of the Great Wall in western Liaoning, including part of the Liaohetao area.
The Duoyan Sanwei and other Mongolian tribes in the area north of the Great Wall have probably surrendered to our country. At present, we are uniting the subordinate tribes to continue to eliminate the Mongolian tribes in Liaohetao and other places, so as to completely cut off the Mongolian foreign aid to the remnants of the Eastern Captives. "
"In the area east of the Liao River, our army currently controls the mouth of the Liao River, Haizhou, and Gaizhou. In the eastern area, the front line has been advanced to the Gouzi River."
"In other words, our army has completely recovered the Liaodong Peninsula."
"Our next strategic goal is to capture Liaoyang, Shenyang, and Phoenix City, and take advantage of the situation to capture Tieling and Liaohai."
"Advance the front to the Great Wall of Liaodong in an all-round way, and fully recover and control the area within the Liaodong City."
Although Wang Lin doesn't know anything about military affairs, he can tell from the map that if the military can really push the battle to the front line of the Liaodong Great Wall, then it can basically restore the border area to the early Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the east The scale was before the rise of the captives.
Although for the upper echelons of the empire, recovering the Liaodong region is not the end, but a starting point, but food must be eaten bite by bite. Only by winning Liaodong first can we talk about recovering the entire Northeast region.
Although Wang Lin is only a third-rank official, as one of the deputy directors of the Hanlin Academy Secretariat, he has daily access to many important military and political documents. Naturally, he knows the empire's high-level officials, or to be precise, His Majesty's huge ambitions for the northeast.
In the Emperor's Imperial Study Room, on the large area hanging on the wall, there is a dotted line in the northeast direction, which was drawn by His Majesty himself.
This virtual link was drawn directly to the ice cap in the north...
Then he asked people to list all the many guard posts set up by the Ming Dynasty in the Northeast region, and then put them on the map one by one. As for whether the location is accurate or not, it doesn't matter. What is important is to prove that the Central Plains Dynasty once had great control over these places. It has actual power to rule.
This is not only done in the northeast direction, but also in the Monan direction.
In short, according to the official statement of the Dachu Empire, all the way from the Central Plains to the Arctic Ocean has been the territory of China since ancient times!
Therefore, this time the king's army went to the northeast and even to the Mongolian grassland in southern Mongolia. The official wording of the Chu Empire was never in terms of external expansion or revenge, but in the name of regaining lost territory.
The important thing is that a teacher has a reputation!
Specific to the Northeast, the recovery of Liaodong Town is just the beginning. If nothing unexpected happens, Wang Shi will continue to fight in the Northeast to completely wipe out the Donglu. At the same time, he will regain a large area of land in the Northeast, and even cross Heilongjiang and fight all the way to Waixing'an. ridge.
In short, we want to take the entire Northeast region into our hands.
Moreover, the Chu Empire and the Ming Dynasty mainly played appeasement. The Chu Empire basically did not play appeasement. Even if it surrendered, it would be completely integrated and annexed. It would not allow these barbarians to maintain any independence and autonomy, engage in hereditary inheritance, and pay tribute. That set.
After all, after the Dongjiu people are killed, continuing to fight north will not be considered a large-scale war. At most, it will be a small fight, and there is still a generational difference.
In the Northeast, barbarians are not just like the Dongluo people who can fight with their numbers. In many places in the north, especially the barbarians in the outer Xing'an Mountains and even further north, the population is actually very small, and many of them are still here. In the savage stage, there is no sense of civilization at all.
Even the eastern captives did not regard the many barbarians in the north as human beings, and often robbed people and livestock as slaves.
Therefore, after killing the Dongjiu people in the northeast, we actually won't encounter any large-scale enemies. The follow-up will be a small fight, which won't cost a few military dollars.
However, the focus of expansion in the Xing'an Mountains lies not in early military conquest, but in subsequent actual control.
That place was covered in ice and snow, sparsely populated, and thousands of miles away from the Central Plains!
Maintaining physical control in these places is difficult.
How to maintain actual control is a key issue that the Chu Empire needs to consider after the Northeast Campaign.
The ministers under his command did not know this, but Luo Zhixue was already pregnant.
Simply relying on border garrisoning is not enough. Pure garrisoning has no other function except consuming military expenses. Sooner or later, it will not be able to persist. In the past dynasties, when they were strong, they stationed troops on the border, but when they ran out of money and food, they voluntarily abandoned the border. A lot.
The Ming Dynasty is a typical example... In the early days, the expansion was extremely fierce, but soon it was voluntarily given up due to economic factors.
If you want long-term actual control, there is only one way, and that is to immigrate!
Although the Far East of Siberia is bitterly cold, some areas along the coast and rivers can still support a certain population. Luo Zhixue plans to mobilize immigrants to build immigrant settlements in the future.
When there are more immigrant settlements, actual control will become a matter of course.
This is much better than appeasing the barbarians, surrendering in name only, and paying tribute regularly!
