With the appearance of Zheng Chenggong's fleet on the southern sea route, the Burmese people's will to resist finally collapsed completely.
When Mang Bai was trying to lead the remaining main force of his direct troops to withdraw south to Bago, Li Dingguo seemed to know that he was leaving in advance and sent an envoy into Ava City to negotiate terms with Mang Bai.
Mang Bai didn't want to meet him at first, but he wanted to know what other conspiracy Li Dingguo could tell him, so he finally met him.
The envoy was very straightforward and only said a few words: "Surrender now, cede territory and plead guilty, and the Ming Dynasty will spare you the immortal country. If you must resist to the end, then please do not try to set fire to the treasury when you withdraw.
General Li has said before, as long as the treasury is not burned and the city where grain is stored is not destroyed, after Ming Dynasty enters the city, I will not do any harm to the people, never massacre the city, and only seal the treasury.
If you dare to set fire in order to strengthen the walls and clear the country, then you will destroy the city and the treasury, and slaughter them all, leaving no chickens or dogs alive - our army of tomorrow is a benevolent and righteous army, and will never kill innocent people indiscriminately.
But the people also need food from the government's stockpile to feed them. If the Burmese army burns food and retreats, it will be regarded as the Burmese army massacring the people and driving the people to compete with our army for food! Any Burmese people who see the Burmese army burning food and do not stop it will be regarded as self-indulgent.
Join the army and refuse to fight with the heavenly soldiers, and no longer enjoy the treatment of civilians!"
After Mang Bai heard this, he was so angry that he wanted to kill him, but he held it back in the end.
Because he heard that twenty years ago, when the Manchus and Qing Dynasties were finally planning for independence in Hebei, they originally negotiated a truce with the Ming army for several years. Finally, they started fighting again, but the Ming army took advantage of it and shared the same hatred. It was because the general under Hauge killed
Huang Daozhou, the Ming envoy, completely gave away his rightful name.
If I kill the envoy now, I am afraid that if I lose the war in the future, I will only lose the country. What conditions are there to negotiate?
Mang Bai finally chose to lead the main force of the direct line of the Burmese royal family, break through the encirclement and go south at starry night, leaving behind the miscellaneous troops to hold Li Dingguo back.
As the heavy artillery of the Ming army gradually destroyed the walls of Ava, the final unilateral massacre was finally launched. There were still tens of thousands of defenders in Ava, and the number was still more than twice that of Li Dingguo's troops, but there were no
Combat power. Fighting in street battles with the Ming Army Musketeers is almost for nothing.
In this desperate situation, they had no place to run. They were in the capital of Myanmar. The Burmese army, whose morale had collapsed, had no choice but to surrender in despair. The Ming army captured more than 40,000 prisoners of war.
At this point, the Battle of Ava finally came to an end. Li Dingguo finally defeated enemies that were six to seven times his strength with only 40,000 Ming troops.
After breaking the city, the Ming army immediately entered the city to take over various treasuries. After combing through the city, they found that there were a few military grain warehouses and supply warehouses in Ava City, but they were still burned by the rebels.
Although some of the rebels finally surrendered, they were completely surrounded by the Ming army and had no choice but to surrender. After screening by the Ming army, it was confirmed that some of them were still performing sabotage work until the moment before they surrendered.
In this case, the Ming army had nothing to discuss. They immediately pulled out the troops who insisted on sabotage until the last moment and lined up to shoot them in public——
Of course, before the killing, all the crimes were clearly explained, and the requirements of the Ming army envoy's previous negotiation with Mang Bai were shown to show that the Ming army was not punishing without teaching, but "Don't say what you said is not true."
Prediction”.
For other ordinary prisoners of war who did not engage in sabotage work before surrendering, the Ming army fully implemented the treatment of prisoners of war and at least gave them a bite to eat.
At most, the quality of the grain and rice was just inferior, and old rice with more impurities and about to deteriorate was given priority as food for prisoners of war.
Such a combination of kindness and power, and keeping true to one's word, temporarily stabilized the situation around Ava.
Then Li Dingguo went on a horse race to capture the territory, quickly conquering cities and territories in the fertile valley plains on both sides of the Irrawaddy River. Because Avadu fell, other small cities had almost no defense, and they were all captured with overwhelming force.
Civilizations in South and Southeast Asia rarely built strong and tall city walls. Ava was only used as a companion capital and the former capital of the previous dynasty, so it had strict defense facilities. The defenses of other surrounding small towns were not as good as those of some counties in the Central Plains.
After establishing a foothold in the grain-producing areas of the river valleys and plains and driving the remnants of the Burmese army to the distant mountainous areas on both sides, Li Dingguo's military food problem was completely solved. Throughout this process, he did not forget to further implement the Ming army's "promise"
"Trust" strategy.
If you say you can let it go if you surrender directly, then you must let it go and don’t kill any innocent person. If you say you must kill all the defenders if you dare to burn the granary before breaking the city, you must do it——
Moreover, the Ming army even directly said that if the city where grain was stored was burned, the defenders would not have to surrender. If they surrendered, they would be killed. If they had to burn the grain warehouse and then die, the Ming army would not be able to stop them, so they would be allowed to do so.
.
True to his word, Qiu Wugui pardoned more than 20 small towns and massacred six of them. The credibility of the Ming army was completely established.
…
At the same time, in the Bago battlefield nearly a thousand miles further south, the Burmese army also failed to get any relief.
Because the main force was annihilated by the Ming army in succession, Bago's troops could only barely defend the city and had no spare power to attack and push Zheng Chenggong into the sea, allowing Zheng Chenggong to successfully establish a camp at Dagong Port outside Bago City.
Dagon Port is the Yangon of later generations, located at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River. In ancient times, because the land was low-lying and difficult to attack and defend, although the economy was developed and it was the most important river and sea transshipment port in Myanmar, it was still unable to build a city as the capital.
.
The capital, Bago, was built on the hillside opposite Dagon Port, and a fortress was built based on the terrain. Now that Zheng Chenggong is attacking, it means that the economic zone outside the capital city and the port area have all fallen.
Although Zheng Chenggong came from the sea and did not have many troops, his troops, including the crew, only numbered more than 20,000, which was less than half the number of troops used by Li Dingguo, so Zheng Chenggong was unable to launch a general attack on Bago.
However, after occupying the river mouth port, Zheng Chenggong took advantage of the fact that the Burmese were unprepared and had no time to destroy the waterway. Zheng Chenggong directly let the small and medium-sized ships in the navy go deep into the inland river and sail upstream, racing all the way.
Although sailing against the current was relatively slow, with only a few dozen miles per day, after half a month of fighting and advancing, we were able to successfully contact Li Dingguo and completely open the Irrawaddy waterway from Bago to Ava.
Many counterattacks organized by the Burmese army on both sides of the river were defeated by Zheng Chenggong's powerful ships and artillery. Facing the dual-purpose river and sea warships each equipped with more than a dozen red cannons, the Burmese's little force was simply in vain.
, the power to control the river was tightly held by the Ming army.
The Burmese army only posed a slight threat to Zheng Chenggong near Pyinmana, the third largest city in Myanmar, midway between Ava and Bago. But after hearing the news, Li Dingguo rushed down the river with his main force and quickly pulled out the nail.
Lose.
It can also be seen from this that most of Myanmar is rotten land. Only a small section of the delta plain at the mouth of the Nu River and the alluvial plains of the river valleys in the middle and lower reaches of the Irrawaddy River can support a population of hundreds or tens of millions.
As a result, the top three cities in Myanmar, Bago, Ava, and Pyinmana, are evenly distributed along the middle and lower reaches of the Irrawaddy River, with a very standard average area of 500 miles per big city, and only small remote counties in the middle.
After Zheng Chenggong and Li Dingguo reunited, the Burma Campaign completely entered garbage time.
Li Dingguo obtained enough shipping vessels on the Irrawaddy River, so he could completely complete the logistics supply route from the Yunnan section of the Nu River to Lashio, Myanmar, then from Lashio over the Jiaoshan Mountains to Ava, and finally from Ava down the river into the Indian Ocean.
get through.
In previous battles, the Burmese army's more than 400,000 combat troops have suffered a cumulative loss of nearly two-thirds, and the remaining defeated troops cannot be said to be organized resistance at all. If they want to harass Ming again,
The army's logistics routes were nothing more than being annihilated by counterattacks one after another.
The war lasted until the spring of the sixth year of the Xiaokang Period. By the late spring of March, as Bago City was captured and Burmese King Mangbai was killed in the rebel army, Burmese resistance finally collapsed.
Only a few of Mangbai's sons were left to fight on their own, begging the Ming army for peace talks. They were willing to cede land and agree to other conditions, just to avoid destroying the country.
…
Li Dingguo and Zheng Chenggong can decide military matters, but the final end of the war negotiations will definitely require a direct decision from the court.
Therefore, after Mang Bai's death, Li Dingguo could only have his sons convey their respective intentions for peace and negotiation to others as soon as possible.
Even in the plain areas where the six hundred-mile expedited route could be used, the expedited route was used. However, considering those areas that crossed mountains and ridges, the courier could only travel one or two hundred miles per day at most. In the end, it still took a lot of time to reach the destination.
The summation documents were sent.
Fortunately, the Nanjing court had anticipated the occurrence of this situation in advance, so as early as the first lunar month of this year, the regent Zhu Shuren suggested that the emperor should tour the south to boost morale during the war.
Of course, the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats strongly opposed the emperor's request for a southern tour. Since Zhu Di, the Ming Dynasty only had one Baozong Yujia personally conduct the expedition.
In the nearly two hundred years after Baozong was arrested, the Confucian scholar-officials went crazy looking for excuses to prevent the emperor from leaving the house, and used Baozong's negative teachings as an example every time they mentioned it.
Historically, after the Qing Dynasty, Kangxi and Qianlong, their ancestors and grandsons, relied on the Manchu tradition of conquering the world with bows and horses, and were able to suppress the rebellious civil servants.
Those civil servants also typically bullied the weak and feared the strong. When they encountered the Han emperor who tried to reason with them, they would shout louder than anyone else, but when they encountered the Tartar emperor who used a knife to reason with them, they became a coward.
However, Zhu Shuren was also reasonable. He also knew in his heart that there were good reasons why the civil servants did not allow the emperor to leave the capital. The main reason was to reduce the financial burden. After all, the emperor had to bring the entire court with him when he went on patrol.
In the parallel time and space, Kangxi and Qianlong spent a lot of money on their inspection tours. The Lianghuai salt merchants and the four Jiangnan weaving houses spent a lot of money to get it done. It was all because the Qing Dynasty had one more internal affairs system than the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, during the political game, Zhu Shuren also set out a number of conditions, both positive and negative, to persuade the public opinion of the civil servant group.
First of all, he emphasized that if he went on patrol this time, the purpose was only to deal with border troubles as soon as possible. Once the enemy country in southern Xinjiang had the intention of making peace, the court could respond as soon as possible. If the war could be saved by two months, the military expenses saved would definitely be worth the emperor's money.
Went on tour.
Secondly, he also said that if he goes on patrol, he can spend money from the Ministry of Internal Affairs system, which will be borne by the balance of the Shen family and the Zhu family's imperial merchant state-owned enterprises, without spending money from the state treasury.
Once these two points were clarified, the obstruction by the civil servant group on the pretext of saving money was completely blocked. Even Shi Kefa, who was already aging and recovering from illness, rarely stood up and said that this matter was excusable and an exception could be made.
After it was approved in principle, Zhu Shuren made another arrangement to benefit the people, which was to discuss with his son Zhu Ciyu the composition of the personnel for this tour, and to reduce the number of personnel as much as possible.
On the day the dragon raised his head on the second day of February, Zhu Shuren had a showdown with his son in the Nanjing Palace.
"For nearly two hundred years before the Ming Dynasty, the emperor was not allowed to go out to the capital for hunting tours because Yingzong was captured by Wala. Now that my father has sought this opportunity, it is a grace that has not been seen in a hundred years, and he has broken through the laws of his ancestors.
But since we are on patrol, it is still necessary to save money and rest for the people, so when we go on patrol, we cannot bring hundreds of court officials with us. In this way, the number of people accompanying us can be reduced by at least 80%, and the number of escorts can also be reduced by 80%, and the expenditure will be greatly saved."
After Zhu Ciyu heard this, he was also convinced and felt that his father's concerns were right: "In this case, I don't know how to behave with my children?"
Zhu Shuren did not beat around the bush with his son: "There are two ways now, that is, you can either lead a few important officials from the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War, plus 10,000 guards, to patrol Guangzhou in the south. You can personally terminate the peace talks with the Burmese, and possibly follow up.
The emerging conflict with Vietnam.
Since the other civil servants of the imperial court will not be taken away, the daily government affairs will still be handled in Nanjing. My father will help you supervise the country for another year and a half based on the regency stories of the previous four years.
Another way is to stay in the capital in person, handle all other daily government affairs with full authority, and help your father to ‘hunt on behalf of the sky’, and then go to Guangzhou to deal with the aftermath of the Burmese and cross-border affairs.”
Zhu Shuren made it very clear: The emperor's hunting tour in the Ming Dynasty can save costs because the Ming Dynasty essentially still has a potential dual power center, so the regent and the emperor and his son can handle domestic affairs and foreign affairs, temporarily decentralizing power. This way.
As a result, the cost of the patrol and the size of the personnel were greatly reduced compared to other dynasties and other periods.
He gave his son the choice whether he wanted to go to Beijing to handle diplomacy or stay in the capital to handle domestic affairs.
"My child is willing to leave the capital in person and go to Guangzhou to patrol and handle diplomacy! Leave all internal affairs to the father and continue to supervise the country!" Zhu Ciyu didn't even think about it. Of course, he directly chose to leave the capital to handle diplomacy without any hesitation.
Isn't this nonsense? He was born as the emperor's grandson and was raised in Chunhe Palace. He lived to be twenty-one and never left Nanjing.
Although he is the emperor now, his knowledge is limited to the things in front of him. At most, when he was a child, he could go to the museum in Jiangning Town and see the rare birds, animals, flowers and plants from all over the world, but he did not know the real scenery of famous mountains and rivers at all.
I have never seen it, I have only seen the Purple Mountain and the Yangtze River.
In comparison, his father, Zhu Shuren, conquered the world all over the world by himself. He had been in Huguang for many years, and he also crossed into Sichuan, collected Guangdong and Guangxi, and went north to conquer. It would not be easy for his father to have a hard time traveling and traveling.
Is it unfilial and wasteful?
Zhu Shuren was not surprised at all by his son's choice. However, he still had to teach his son the conditions of the agreement in three chapters:
"If you choose to go on a southern tour of Beijing in person, my father will not stop you. But you have never dealt with diplomacy before, so you should not blindly pursue militarism. You must know how to accept it when it suits you. If you can agree, my father will naturally let you go on a southern tour.
Otherwise, just go and argue with the North Korean civil servants."
Zhu Ciyu also knew that his father was doing it for his own good, and as long as he could go out, he should stop as soon as he could, so he quickly asked for details.
Zhu Shuren pointed out several key points: "As for Myanmar, we cannot pursue the destruction of the Taungoo Kingdom. The final goal is to make Mangbai or Mangbai's sons surrender and cede territory as vassals. At the same time, all the lands of Sanxuan and Liuwei must be completely returned.
To Ming Dynasty.
Because Myanmar’s territory is too vast, with too many high mountains and dense forests, it is far more complicated than Vietnam. If the Mangbai flag is removed, we won’t know who to deal with. Then all the chieftain tribes in the mountainous areas will be in chaos, and whoever is beaten will be suppressed.
Hard to judge.
If the Mang family is left behind, as long as they give in, they will be responsible for restraining their subordinates.
In contrast, dealing with Vietnam in the future will not be that complicated. Vietnam now has two dynasties and four surnames, and we can pull one faction to fight another. Unlike Myanmar, which was a unified and powerful country before, we can completely wipe out any faction in Vietnam.
Yes, as long as you reach a contract with the other faction and let the other party surrender.
The specific details will be given by my father to the accompanying ministers of the Ministry of Rites. When the time comes, be sure to listen to them and take advice, and do not act arbitrarily."
Zhu Ciyu finally had some self-awareness and knew that he had absolutely zero experience in dealing with diplomacy, so he treated this time as a lesson and couldn't mess around.
He sincerely agreed to all his father's requests, and then Zhu Shuren made one last confession: "Also, during this southern tour, you are not allowed to touch women outside the palace! You are not allowed to lose the dignity of the royal family and the court.
Guangzhou has been conducting business with Hongyi many times, and it is located in a hot and miasmatic place. There may be people with internal diseases from Hongyi among the people. As the emperor, what kind of woman do you want that you can’t get in the palace? Don’t try to be new, otherwise... in the future...
Just don’t leave the palace."
Regarding his father's request, Zhu Ciyu had no choice but to accept it in full in exchange for a smooth tour.
In the end, after repeated games and thorough preparations by the court, Zhu Ciyu chose to set off south from Nanjing on February 15th.
Because the emperor was on a mission this time, there was no need for any delays on the way there. The Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War finally helped the emperor choose the sea route to go south, and sailed along the coast of the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
There is absolutely no navigation risk on this route. After all, Ming Dynasty navigation is now very developed. Zheng Chenggong allocated some sea-going ships for trial navigation in the South China Sea, and Zhang Mingzhen personally led naval personnel to escort them.
Zhu Ciyu only stayed in Changzhou, Suzhou, and Songjiang for a few days, but the journey from Nanjing to Songjiang to the sea took a full half a month. Especially when he was in Suzhou, Zhu Ciyu had a great time visiting various places.
We visited the famous Suzhou gardens and spent three days on Tai Lake.
After going to Shanghai on the first day of March, there was no conversation for the next half month, since we were all at sea anyway.
And when Zhu Ciyu lived to be twenty-one, it was the first time he saw the sea, so he was very excited. He didn't think it would be boring to see the sea and the sky every day. On the contrary, he was broadened by it.
In particular, the high-speed sailing ship that Zhu Ciyu himself rode is the only five-masted sailing warship in the Ming Dynasty today. It is more than forty feet long. It is very stable when sailing. It can also be climbed high for observation, and the field of view is very broad.
The sea-going ship sailed for half a month and finally docked at Guangzhou Port. With the arrival of the fleet, the Mang family's credential for surrender submitted by Li Dingguo was about to be delivered to Guangzhou.