I want to be emperor

Chapter 402 Xiong Wencan in the Sunset

The officials on Qiongzhou Island are neither Zheng Zhilong nor Xiong Wencan.

They don't have much political ambitions themselves, they don't want to separatize one side, they just want to be an official and make money...

How much loyalty do you expect them to the Ming court? You might as well count on Zuo Liangyu and Wu Sangui to be more reliable. Zuo Liangyu will not go to captivity, Wu Sangui... well, this is a serious traitor. Even if the army was raised later, it was purely for himself. This person should be stuffed into a gun barrel and shot into outer space...to become a cosmic ice sculpture, so that future generations will forever remember his betrayal of the nation!

But even so, Wu Sangui is much better than Shui Tailiang... He still dares to act, dare to betray the nation, and dare to raise troops to plot the world, but Shui Tailiang has no balls...

These officials on Qiongzhou Island, if they were called by foreigners, bandits, etc., maybe they would fight hard for their own lives, but these are not thieves and pirates, but serious people. The army of the orthodox dynasty of the Great Chu Dynasty.

Resistance is impossible!
Many people wanted to defect to Great Chu, and then continue to be officials. Many scholars on the island had already begun to look forward to the end of the war as soon as possible, so that they could participate in the provincial examination held by the Great Chu Empire in Guangdong.

Although the Chu army used to be a traitor, but now, they represent the orthodoxy. Didn’t you see that a large number of scholars in the south of the Yangtze River think that the Luo Chu Dynasty is the orthodox dynasty, and they only want to participate in the Luo Chu Dynasty’s imperial examination to become an official?
Not to mention the Great Chu Empire, even if the captives came to the pass, a large number of officials and scholars would shave off their hair and hug the thighs of foreigners just to become officials!

It is said that in the original time and space, after Dongyao entered the customs, a large number of Ming court officials turned around and knelt down; those scholars, when the southern provinces were still fighting fiercely with Dongyao, they could not wait to take part in the imperial examinations of Dongyao. Dong captives were killed in the imperial examination arena.

The first number one scholar after Dongyao entered the customs, this man was from Shandong, and he took part in the imperial examination in 1645. In this year, the southern provinces were still resisting Dongyao’s southward movement. The situation is far from a foregone conclusion, even in Shandong Province. An uprising and even a mutiny broke out against the captives.

It was under such a background that this person resolutely took part in the first imperial examination after Dongyao entered the customs, broke through layers of obstacles, passed all the way, and finally won the first place in the exam.

After becoming an official in captivity, this person worked hard and was dedicated to loyalty. He was very happy to be the leader of the captivity.
This is true for ordinary scholars, let alone the officials on Qiongzhou Island.

When you are an official, your face has already been thrown into the latrine. It's a trivial matter to surrender.

In addition to these, they also succumbed to reality. Since the top has changed, all they can do is obey.

Because even if they resist, they can't bear it. Even if they resist now, what about the next time, what about the next time?

If you think about it with your toes, you know that the Chu army on the opposite side will definitely organize more troops and a larger fleet to attack Qiongzhou Island.

The officers and soldiers on Qiongzhou Island are bound to be defeated sooner or later.

In conclusion, the officials on the island actually did not have a strong desire to resist, not even a symbolic resistance.

The officials didn't resist, and the guards didn't even want to resist.

They don't want to die either.

Besides, they also heard that the prisoners of war in the Chu army were treated very well, and if they could be integrated into the garrison, the treatment would be even better.

People also want a good way of life!

Ever since, when the Chu army landed, they did not encounter any resistance from the Ming army. Immediately afterwards, the prefect of Qiongzhou Prefecture led the officials and gentry in the city to go out of the city ten miles to welcome them...

The battle of landing on Qiongzhou Island was actually not fought much from the beginning to the end. However, when we went deep into the interior of the island and came into contact with the natives deep in the island, we fought a lot of small and medium-scale battles. The natives don’t care about you. Is it the Ming Dynasty or the Chu Dynasty? If you want to enter their territory and ask them to collect taxes, they will take up a wooden stick to resist...

This is a later story, let’s not mention it for the time being. After Qiongzhou Island was settled, Colonel Xie Xingfa did not stay here in Leizhou Mansion. As for Qiongzhou Island, he himself has not even been to it...

People are busy going to Lianzhou Mansion now.

At the beginning of July, Colonel Xie Xingfa led his troops into Lianzhou Prefecture.

By this time, except for some coastal islands and several coastal cities in Chaozhou Prefecture which were under the control of Zheng Zhilong, all the prefectures in Guangdong had been captured by the Chu army, or had voluntarily surrendered to the Great Chu.

The Great Chu Empire can already claim to control Guangdong as a whole.

With the general completion of military control, the administrative agencies are also quickly catching up. A large number of officials dispatched by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, together with a group of local defected officials accepted, constitute the governor’s office of Guangdong and the state capitals under its rule. The county yamen maintains the basic local administrative management as much as possible, so as not to avoid the situation where no one manages the place after the war and falls into chaos.

And this is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire recruited and used the Ming court to demote officials to a certain extent.

Many Ming court demoted officials who voluntarily surrendered, and the Great Chu Empire would basically confer official positions. Middle and low-level officials can often retain their original grades and serve, while high-level officials will also retain their grades and be appointed according to the situation.

In addition, no matter where they went, the Great Chu Empire would organize local examinations to recruit middle and low-level officials to enrich the local administrative agencies.

This move is to maintain the most basic local rule after the war.

After all, the number of officials trained by the Great Chu Empire itself is actually extremely limited, and with the gradual expansion of the territory, the number of officials required is also increasing, and when this number reaches a certain scale, it is actually difficult for the Ministry of Civil Affairs to pass The officials trained in the past, coupled with the officials selected through the imperial examination, maintain such a large administrative organization.

Therefore, it is necessary to accept the Ming court's demotion in the short term.

However, this is only a short-term behavior. These demotions will also need to undergo various scrutiny in the follow-up. If you really surrender and do a good job, then you should be promoted. Family ransacking.

Anyway, as long as the early chaotic period is over, the Great Chu Empire can maintain its basic local rule even if it relies on half-hearted scholars recruited locally. rectify.

On this point, especially after the high-level officials of the Great Chu Empire launched an action to rectify the officialdom at the beginning of the year, they paid more attention to the follow-up rectification of officials.

And Guangdong is no exception. With the establishment of government offices in various prefectures and counties one after another and the maintenance of the most basic administrative rules, they have also begun to slowly rectify local officials. This will take time, ranging from a few months to a long time. Up to one year or two years.

in no hurry.

The handling of local government affairs is naturally handled by the civil servants in the governor's office, and the military doesn't care about these things, and there is no way to care about them.

After all, under the principle of separation of government and military, the military cannot interfere with the operation of the local government system.

Now the general with the highest rank in the Guangdong area, Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin, the garrison commander of Guangdong and Guangxi, has personally led the army westward in late June, and now they have all reached the city of Wuzhou. Past tense.

Even if Zheng Zhilong's troops are still entrenched in the Xiangjiang River at the mouth of the Pearl River, it has become the main responsibility of the navy to expel Zheng Zhilong's fleet and completely control the mouth of the Pearl River. .

Therefore, the senior generals who are now sitting in Guangzhou are Rear Admiral Xia Qiuyang, the commander of the Pearl River Fleet, and Commodore Zhao Xinhou, the deputy commander of the Pearl River Fleet who defected from the uprising anyway.

In terms of the army, there is currently only one brigade commander, Major General Tang Deyuan, who is tentatively designated as the No.13 mixed brigade.

According to the order of the Ministry of Military and Political Affairs, the No. 11 Third Garrison Regiment under the jurisdiction of the No. 40 Garrison Division, which accompanied the 20th Garrison Division to Guangdong to fight south, was specially ordered to be reorganized into a regular infantry regiment because of its excellent performance in previous operations. The 13th Three Infantry Regiment, that is, the reinforced regiment that previously went south to fight in Humen, was combined into a temporary No.[-] mixed brigade.

The task of this mixed brigade is to be responsible for the defense of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Estuary, and incidentally also responsible for the war in the direction of Chaozhou Prefecture.

Of course, in such a large place, only relying on a mixed brigade that has not yet completed its reorganization, with a mere four or five thousand troops, is not enough, and there is also the No.17 garrison division that cooperates in combat.

In fact, the Seventh Division was transferred out to form a temporary unit, not only the 23rd Infantry Regiment, but also another infantry battalion, that is, the infantry battalion that went west to Leizhou Mansion, landed on Qiongzhou Island, and entered Lianzhou Mansion.

Because the battalion has been fighting independently for a long time, with the infantry battalion as the core, it was expanded into a temporary No.14 mixed regiment. The mixed regiment and a garrison brigade that cooperated with the operation were under the command of Brigadier General Xie Xingfa.

That's right, after landing and taking control of Qiongzhou Island, Colonel Xie Xingfa was promoted to Brigadier General because of a series of military exploits.

Therefore, in today’s Guangdong area, there are mainly three main forces of the army. One is the temporary No.13 mixed brigade, which is responsible for the eastern front wars in Guangzhou, Kowloon Peninsula and even Chaozhou Prefecture, and the temporary No.14 mixed regiment is in charge of Leizhou Prefecture. , Qiongzhou Island, Lianzhou Prefecture and other areas of the war.

The seventh division and the eighth artillery regiment and other main forces, while advancing westward to Wuzhou, supplemented their strength and equipment, and were led by Lieutenant General Huang Xiangbin himself, accompanied by the No.11 garrison division, with a total strength of about 5000 people.

When more than 5000 people killed Wuzhou City, Xiong Wencan, the governor of the Southwest of the Ming Dynasty, personally went to the top of the city and saw a large number of Chu troops crowded outside the city.

It's just that Xiong Wencan didn't get angry, nor did he show any desperation, he just looked at the Chu army outside the city calmly, without saying a word.

After a while, he turned around and went down the wall.

The setting sun shone on him, stretching his figure very long!

(End of this chapter)