Save the Bachelor of Heaven

In the ninth year of Tianshun, Empress Dowager Sun passed away.

Xiang Nan was posthumously named "Queen of Xiaogong, Yixian, Ci, Ren, Zhuanglie, Qitian and Pei Shengzhang" and was buried in Jingling.

In the tenth year of Tianshun, Xiang Nan implemented the reform of native land in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Guangxi, and sent 50,000 troops to suppress possible civil uprisings.

As he expected, many local chieftains resisted conversion and were unwilling to give up their hereditary power and wealth.

In this regard, Xiang Nan could only say that he would drink fine wine instead of toasting, and then mobilized the army to counter the rebellion.

In the twelfth year of Tianshun, after two years of hard fighting, the rebellious chieftains in Yun, Gui, Sichuan and Gui were completely suppressed. The imperial court then dispatched officials to govern the area.

The local fields and people were registered. From then on, they were all under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, and they were no longer Huawai land and Huawai people.

With this alone, the Ming Dynasty gained nearly one million square kilometers of territory and millions of people, which was naturally a great supplement to the Ming Dynasty's strength.

…

After recovering Yun, Gui, Sichuan and Guangxi, in the 13th year of Tianshun, Xiang Nan sent a large number of troops to invade Liaodong.

The Liaodong area was originally the territory of the Ming Dynasty. It was conquered by Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, and the Nuergandu Commandery Division was established here.

However, during the Xuande period, because Nurgandusi was vast and sparsely populated, there were only a few Jurchens and Mongolians. Moreover, the area was also very cold and not suitable for human habitation. Most Central Plains people did not like to settle here.

The imperial court sent troops to garrison, which often consumed baggage, food and fodder, which was more than worth the gain and could not make ends meet. Therefore, Emperor Xuande gave up Nuergandusi and left this large area of ​​territory to the local Jurchens and Mongolians, thus leaving it to future generations. Caused great trouble.

Xiang Nan knew that Liaodong was a good place. The Northeast Plain is the largest plain in China. It has a vast territory, fertile land, and rich products, which can feed a lot of people.

Moreover, after capturing the Northeast, the imperial court could encircle Mongolia from both the Northeast and Northwest. So Xiang Nan sent a large army and invaded the northeast.

With the strength of the Jurchens and Mongolians in the Northeast at that time, it was naturally difficult to compete with the Ming army.

Not to mention that the Ming army at this time had all become a new army with a recruitment system, and was equipped with advanced artillery and long guns. Even during the Jiajing period, no matter how powerful the Ming army was, they were able to suppress the Jurchens at that time.

If Wanli, Tianqi, and Chongzhen hadn't stretched their hips too much later, the Ming Dynasty would not have given the Jurchens a chance.

Therefore, the Ming army's invasion of Liaodong was not easy to say, but it did not encounter much resistance. The army marched all the way to the northeast and fought until they reached the territory of the wild Jurchens. They stopped fighting further north.

Because if we go further north, we are already in Siberia. Even in modern times, not many people survive there. In ancient times, when heating and antifreeze measures were not in place, it was even more difficult to survive.

After conquering the Northeast, Xiang Nan immediately issued an order to recruit immigrants to reclaim wasteland in the Northeast. Each person was given 100 acres of land on a first-come, first-served basis, and the court would not levy taxes for twenty years.

In order to facilitate immigrants to the Northeast, the imperial court also actively provided travel expenses, houses, seeds, livestock, etc. Anyway, they attacked the Northeast this time and captured a lot from the Jurchens and Mongolians.

Such treatment naturally attracted a large number of people to the Northeast to reclaim wasteland. After all, in the Northeast, each person has one hundred acres of land, and is also allocated houses, seeds, and livestock, and no taxes are collected for twenty years. This is wealth from heaven.

What's more, Xiang Nan has been doing things for the people in the past few years since he ascended the throne. Abolition of military households, anti-corruption in the military, anti-corruption of civil servants, sharing the land between the peasants and their families, returning the poor to the public, all the gentry and gentry working as errands, and all paying the grain...

Various measures to benefit the people have given Xiang Nan a high reputation among the people, so the people are willing to believe that they can really receive fields, food, livestock and houses after arriving in the Northeast.

This kind of trust is hard-won, and it is precisely based on this trust that the people of Zhili, Qilu, and Sanjin embarked on the road of immigrating to the Northeast with their families.

In view of this, Xiang Nan immediately arranged for officials to guide the immigrants. He not only sent guards to escort the immigrants to avoid being harassed by bandits, but also set up porridge sheds and tea shops along the way for the immigrants to rest. They also seized the time to set up immigration settlements in the Northeast, build houses, and clear land for immigrants to live in.

Fortunately, in recent years, the imperial court has made a lot of money by opening up customs and mutual trade. Measures such as the sharing of land between tenants, the return of waste to the public, the integration of gentry and gentry as errands, and the integration of grain payments also increased a lot of taxes for the court.

Especially in the past two years, Xiang Nan launched a large-scale anti-corruption campaign and ransacked the homes of corrupt officials.

The so-called Heshen fell, Jiaqing was full. It can be said that under Xiang Nan's rule, Heshen was everywhere.

Not to mention how greedy those civil servants and military generals were, let's just say that those vassal kings and lords had both fiefdoms and salaries. They usually returned to the fish and meat countryside, harmed the people, and took advantage of them, and accumulated a fortune of millions of taels.

Therefore, just by cracking down on corruption, Xiang Nan added hundreds of millions of taels of silver to the national treasury, enough to support his war against the Northeast.

…

After conquering the Northeast, in the 14th year of Tianshun, Xiang Nan's troops left Yumen Pass and invaded the Eastern Chagatai Khanate.

The Eastern Chagatai Khanate was established by the descendants of Chagatai, and its main territory was in the Western Region, also known as Yilibali.

This khanate was founded in the fourteenth century. In the mid-fifteenth century, King Waisi Khan of the khanate died, and the Eastern Chagatai Khanate was divided into two parts: the east and the west. Part of it is centered on Gaochang, and part of it is centered on Shule.

The relationship between the Eastern Chagatai Khanate and the Ming Dynasty was good and bad. When it was good, it would send envoys to the Ming Dynasty to sue for peace, hoping to open up mutual markets and trade with each other. But in bad times, soldiers are often sent to the border to harass them.

The reason why the Ming Dynasty sent heavy troops to strictly guard Yumen Pass was to defend against the eastern invasion of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate.

Now Xiang Nan is preparing to capture the Eastern Chagatai Khanate and regain the Western Region. Moreover, after capturing the Western Region, we can invade Qinghai-Tibet to the south, Mongolia to the north, and Central Asia to the west...

It can be said that conquering the Western Regions was extremely beneficial to the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Xiang Nan did not hesitate to send heavy troops and spend a lot of money to capture the Eastern Chagatai Khanate.

A hundred thousand troops immediately set off.

After the death of Waisi Khan in the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, the eldest son Yunusi and the youngest son also split into two parts, the east and the west, in order to fight for power.

Among them, the youngest son also gained support from more nobles, while the eldest son Yunusi received support from the Timur Empire in Central Asia. Therefore, the two sides often fought internally and fought fiercely, thus consuming a lot of combat power.

It is precisely for this reason that when Xiang Nan sent an army of 100,000 to attack the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, they were invincible and invincible, not to mention that they were completely flat and devastated.

The most powerful cavalry of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate had almost no advantage in front of artillery, machine guns, and rifles. The faster they charged, the faster they died, just like mowing grass.

Therefore, the army of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate was defeated and invincible. The Ming army was unable to catch up with them.