Ming Dynasty: Is a mere unruly commoner rebelling against heaven?

The various orders issued by Zhu Youcheng were passed down layer by layer. The first to act was the Ministry of Works in Beijing.

The army in the Xishan military camp outside Beijing dispatched soldiers to transport all the firearms and ammunition produced by the Ministry of Works' artisans back to the Xishan military camp.

These advanced firearms were distributed to the soldiers of the Divine Machine Camp.

The first batch of flintlock guns numbered only five thousand, so they were given priority to the elite soldiers in the Divine Machine Camp.

Those soldiers who received the new flintlock guns were overjoyed.

Those who didn't receive them could only look at them with envy.

After this, the nine generals of the nine border towns received Zhu Youcheng's war mobilization order.

Since Zhu Youcheng's last personal expedition and inspection of the nine borders, the entire north has been under Zhu Youcheng's actual control.

Zhu Youcheng used the most direct and thunderous means to regain military power in the north. Now, the nine generals of the nine border towns are all Zhu Youcheng's staunch confidants.

The General Officer of Xuanfu, the gateway to Beijing, Dragon-Tiger General Wang Chun, was the first to receive Zhu Youcheng's military mobilization order.

"Military mobilization, preparing ten thousand troops, ready to go south at any time?!"

Wang Chun looked at the imperial edict in his hand, his face showing incredible shock.

You must know that the war in the north had not stopped for a few months. He had only been the General Officer of Xuanfu for less than three months, and Zhu Youcheng was about to start a war against the south again?!

The Ming Dynasty still has an army of 100,000 men fighting in Annam!

With such reckless use of soldiers, can the Ming Dynasty's finances support such frequent military mobilizations?

A trace of worry appeared on Wang Chun's face. Since taking over the position of General Officer of Xuanfu, he had deeply experienced the difficulty of training and leading troops.

Just supplying the nearly 100,000 border troops, the daily consumption of food and grass is an unimaginable astronomical figure.

"Brother, what's wrong? You look terrible."

While Wang Chun was thinking, his younger brother, Wang Shi, stood aside and asked with concern.

Wang Chun came back to his senses and took a deep breath.

He knew that these things should not be considered by him.

The only thing he needed to do was to unhesitatingly obey Zhu Youcheng's decree, mobilize troops, and prepare to go south!

Wang Chun's face became solemn: "Pass down the order, immediately select ten thousand elite soldiers, listen to His Majesty's will, and be ready to go south at any time!"

As soon as he heard that it involved the major event of mobilizing troops, Wang Shi's face also became serious.

"Yes, General!"

After Wang Chun became the General Officer of Xuanfu, Wang Shi's status also rose, becoming a Lieutenant General in Xuanfu.

After Wang Shi received the order, he quickly left to carry out Wang Chun's orders meticulously.

After Wang Chun took office, he quickly won over a group of veterans and developed them into his personal soldiers.

However, the number of Wang Chun's personal soldiers was far from enough to reach ten thousand.

In addition, his foundation was weak, and his prestige in the border army was not enough.

Therefore, Wang Chun racked his brains to select these ten thousand soldiers to go south.

First of all, Zhu Youcheng made it clear that he wanted elite soldiers, so Wang Chun could only give priority to selecting those veterans who had participated in many battles, had rich combat experience, and were powerful in combat.

Secondly, in order to better improve the army's obedience, a certain number of personal soldiers were needed.

But the number could not be too large, and he still needed to leave some personal soldiers to manage these veteran soldiers in Xuanfu...

In the end, ten thousand carefully selected soldiers gathered on the drill ground of Xuanfu.

This drill ground had just experienced a major cleansing a few months ago.

At that time, the people executed by Zhu Youcheng had their blood flowing all over the drill ground, and the stench lasted for several months.

Even those veterans who had been on the battlefield and killed enemies felt fear in their hearts when they saw that scene.

It was precisely by relying on the remaining power of Zhu Youcheng that Wang Chun completely controlled the military affairs of Xuanfu in a very short period of time.

Wang Chun walked onto the platform and began to mobilize: "Soldiers, His Majesty has ordered that the nine border towns will send troops south at any time!"

"Eating the King's俸禄(Feng Lu), sharing the King's worries, with a great battle imminent, what should we do as subjects?!"

After Wang Chun finished speaking, a murderous voice resounded throughout the audience.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

...

The scene in Xuanfu was being staged in every one of the nine border towns.

With Zhu Youcheng's order, an army of 100,000 was ready to go south to fight!

On the other side, a large amount of grain and grass from various provinces in the north was also being continuously transported to Beijing.

However, transporting grain is a time-consuming task. Transporting grain and grass from granaries all over the country to Beijing can basically only rely on animal power such as donkey carts and ox carts.

This takes a lot of time, waiting for the grain and grass from all over the country to enter Beijing.

However, as long as the grain enters Beijing, the rest of the matter will be easy to handle.

The Canal Transport Soldiers will use the Grand Canal to quickly transport the grain to the south of the Yangtze River.

If Zhu Youcheng really wants to start a war against the south of the Yangtze River, he will no longer need those huge logistics units.

The Canal Transport Soldiers can meet the logistics supply of the army by relying on waterway transportation alone.

Subsequently, the three provinces of Luzhou, Yuzhou, and Ezhou took action to block the Jiangnan area.

These three states are adjacent to Jiangnan, are the main transportation routes in and out of Jiangnan, and are extremely important in geographical location, and are also the most prone to change.

There is no certainty as to how much of Zhu Youcheng's order to blockade Jiangnan will be carried out.

As expected, Zhu Youcheng's order to blockade Jiangnan ran into problems at the implementation level when it reached Luzhou, Yuzhou, and Ezhou.

The Commandery Guard of these three states had actually been replaced by Zhu Youcheng once before.

The high-level military officers of the Commandery Guard did not dare to disobey the order and carried it out.

However, problems arose in the lower-level Thousand Households.

These Thousand Households, firstly, were very close to these Jiangnan aristocratic families.

Secondly, the amount of land they encroached on was also in the hands of Wang Yan and others.

Zhu Youcheng's strategy for dealing with these Commandery Guard officers was to fight tigers first and then flies.

Once a problem is discovered with the Commander of a state, he will be immediately arrested and interrogated. Those who should be skinned will be skinned, and those who should be executed by dismemberment will be executed by dismemberment, without any delay.

The Commander of a prefecture will be judged according to the circumstances of the case. If the circumstances are serious and outrageous, he will be arrested and interrogated immediately.

If the circumstances are minor, they will be temporarily ignored and dealt with slowly after the situation stabilizes.

Finally, the Thousand Households at the county level will be temporarily ignored and settled after the autumn harvest.

Because there are too many of these people, if they are to be dealt with immediately, I am afraid that all the Thousand Households in the Ming Dynasty will be in chaos.

The Commandery Guard system of the Ming Dynasty is already terminally ill.

Only by completely abolishing this system and re-establishing a centralized local army system can the loyalty of the local army be completely resolved.

The military strength of the Thousand Households in these three states still put on a good show.

A large number of troops came to the roads leading to Jiangnan and blocked the roads.

However, most of the officers and soldiers of the Thousand Households were just putting on a show and fooling the imperial court.

In a real battle, these people can definitely not be relied upon.

Furthermore, such a large movement by the garrison troops of these three prefectures naturally alarmed all the forces in Jiangnan.

They didn't even need to report; all the forces in Jiangnan accelerated their actions.

In recent days, some disturbances had appeared sporadically in various parts of Jiangnan. Some county governments actively mobilized garrison troops to quell them, while others remained indifferent, watching the situation escalate.

Most strangely, the entire officialdom of Nanjing was plunged into a deathly, eerie silence.

And Zhu Youtang did not send anyone to Nanjing to investigate.

The officialdom in both the northern and southern capitals of the Great Ming seemed to have fallen into a tacit silence, creating a bizarre calm before the storm.

Finally, the order reached Wang Yue's army, far away in Annam.

At this moment, Wang Yue's army had completely recovered the Xuān Huà Prefecture and continued to advance towards Duobang City.

Outside Duobang City, Wang Yue encountered Annam's most elite elephant cavalry.

Annam had many elephants. From very early on, the Annamese captured and tamed some elephants for manual labor such as transportation, construction, and road opening.

Later, the Annamese even deployed the trained elephants in battle.

Elephants were enormous, thick-skinned, and unafraid of warhorse charges and long-range arrow attacks, making them invincible on the battlefield.

During the Great Ming's expedition to Annam in the Yongle years, these Annamese elephant cavalry had shone brightly on the battlefield.

When Wang Yue first encountered the elephant cavalry on the river滩 outside Duobang City, his offensive was thwarted due to a lack of experience.

Faced with the elephants' massive size, the warhorses of the Three Thousand Camp shrank back in fear.

The Shenji Camp's arquebuses had too short a range, too slow a reloading speed, and limited attack power, so the damage they inflicted on the elephant cavalry was negligible.

However, the Five Army Camp's arrows, dipped in venom, played an unexpectedly effective role.

The venom on an arrowhead might not immediately kill those enormous elephants.

But when they were hit by enough arrows, even the elephants couldn't withstand the potent venom and fell to the ground and died.

Later, Mu Cong suggested using fire attacks to counter Annam's elephant cavalry.

Mu Cong had people find a hundred horses, blindfolded them with cloth, and then used wooden frames and paper to create many lion figures, covering the horses with these painted lion skins.

Then, Mu Cong ordered people to set fire to the paper skins on the horses' bodies. The horses, terrified, charged madly into the elephant cavalry's formation.

The burning horses charged towards the elephant cavalry, heedless of their lives. The elephants, frightened, disobeyed commands and fled in all directions, throwing the elephant cavalry's formation into complete chaos.

At this moment, the Ming army took advantage of the chaos to attack, raining arrows and arquebus fire on the elephant cavalry's formation as if they were free.

Although the arquebuses did not cause fatal damage to these thick-skinned elephants,

the loud noise they made further panicked the already frightened elephant cavalry, even to the point of desperation.

Moreover, the arquebuses had a great deterrent effect on the soldiers riding the elephants.

In this way, the Ming army decisively defeated the Annamese elephant cavalry, and Wang Yue pursued his victory by attacking Duobang City overnight.

By daybreak, Wang Yue's army had already captured Duobang City.

The Duobang City commander died in battle, and the prefect led his officials to disarm and surrender.

After Wang Yue led his troops into the city, fearing a repeat of the Xuān Huà Prefecture incident, he launched a thorough purge of Duobang City.

After another round of bloody executions, the Great Ming completely recovered Duobang City.

In this way, if they recovered Guī Huà Prefecture to the west and then recovered Liàng Prefecture to the east, the entire northern part of Annam would be within the Great Ming's sphere of influence.

But at this moment, Wang Yue was not considering the issue of recovering Guī Huà Prefecture and Liàng Prefecture.

Because the capital of Annam, Shēng Long, was now only two rivers away from Duobang City.

Seizing the capital of Annam in one fell swoop, capturing Lê Hao's entire family alive, and escorting them to the capital for execution was Wang Yue's priority!

Duobang City.

Wang Yue and Mu Cong walked together onto the city wall, looking at the war-torn, scarred Duobang City, feeling great joy, and laughing loudly.

“Hahaha, Duke, today's battle was all thanks to your lion fire attack plan, which allowed us to capture Annam's elephant cavalry without any effort.”

“Otherwise, even the Trapping Camp would have faced a bitter battle against those enormous, thick-skinned, and incredibly strong elephant cavalry.”

“Duke, you are truly a god of war, resourceful and wise!”

Wang Yue cupped his fist towards Mu Cong, sincerely convinced.

Mu Cong waved his hand slightly, smiling modestly: "General Wang is too kind. This plan was not my idea, but General Zhang Fu, the Prince of Dingxing, came up with it."

“When my ancestor Mu Sheng and General Zhang Fu were campaigning in Annam together, they also encountered Annam's elephant cavalry here in Duobang City.”

“General Zhang Fu painted lions on horses to charge, and also used Shenji firearms to break the defending army's elephant formation, taking advantage of the victory to conquer Duobang City.”

“When my ancestor told me about his southern expedition, he mentioned this battle, and I remembered it, and it just so happened to be useful today.”

“What I didn't expect was that these Annamese people have not made any progress after so many years, and have been defeated twice in a row by the same method, hahahaha…”

Mu Cong and Wang Yue laughed loudly, releasing the joy in their hearts.

The capital of Annam, Shēng Long, was right in front of them, and they were about to recover Jiaozhi, which had been independent for decades, fulfilling the regrets of generations of emperors.

How could they not feel excited? How could they not feel happy?

Just then, the supervising eunuch Zhang Yong came to the city wall: "The imperial edict has arrived! Mu Cong, Duke of Qian, and Wang Yue, the Southwest Governor, immediately receive the edict!"

Mu Cong and Wang Yue straightened their faces and knelt down to receive the edict: "Your ministers listen to the edict!"

"By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Appoint Mu Cong, Duke of Qian, as the Left Deputy General of the Pacification, to assist General Wang Yue in pacifying Annam!"

"General Wang Yue, after quickly recovering Annam, immediately lead your troops to Jiangnan, lest Jiangnan changes!"

After the imperial edict was read, Mu Cong and Wang Yue respectfully saluted and carefully took the edict from Zhang Yong's hand.

“Your ministers respectfully obey the imperial edict!”

After getting up, Wang Yue first congratulated Mu Cong: "Congratulations, Duke, on getting your wish. His Majesty's appointment has finally come down."

Mu Cong smiled slightly, but his face was filled with worry: "What does His Majesty mean by saying that Jiangnan might change?"

"His Majesty also wants us to quickly pacify Annam and then lead troops to Jiangnan. Could it be… that His Majesty is going to use force against Jiangnan?"

Wang Yue shook his head, his face also somewhat worried: "It seems that our speed is not fast enough!"

“Pass down the order to rest in Duobang City for one day tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, attack Shēng Long early in the morning and capture the Lê family of Annam alive!”

Zhang Yong cupped his fist and accepted the order: "Yes, General!"