Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 539: Yongli Change

Grand Duke Bogdan fled in panic. He had never been so miserable in many years. In the battle of Yaxica, he lost more than a thousand subordinates. He knew very well that the power of Russia in the Far East was still very weak. The loss of these one thousand people was an unbearable blow to him.

Bogdan retreated to Nerchinsk with more than 400 Cossack cavalry. This conflict might have been just a minor collision for both sides, and it was far from a large-scale conflict between the two sides.

Faced with the many strongholds of Rakshasa in the Far East, Zhao Yongping felt that if he continued to lead the main force of the Qian Army to encircle and suppress them, the cost would be too high and supply would be extremely inconvenient.

Therefore, facing this unconventional war, Zhao Yongping appointed Liu Kun as the general, and assisted him with the Jurchen tribes who were familiar with the terrain, and let them slowly eliminate the various strongholds of the Rakshasa. Zhao Yongping led the main force back to Zhenshenyang. Now that the Qing Dynasty had just collapsed, Zhao Yongping was worried that if he left for too long, ambitious people would disrupt the situation outside the Great Wall that had just settled down.

While Zhao Yongping reported the victory to the court, he also made suggestions to Meng Jun.

Zhao Yongping believed that if he wanted to maintain long-term control over the vast Northeast region, he must rebuild the city and station troops there. Only in this way could he educate the local people and maintain order in all directions.

In his memorial to Meng Jun, Zhao Yongping said in detail: "Even though the tribes here have submitted, they actually have different ideas. If we let them go on their own, in the long run, I am afraid that people with different ideas will reappear, just like Nurhaci in the past, and bring disaster to the country!"

After receiving Zhao Yongping's memorial, Meng Jun felt that his words made sense, so he agreed with Zhao Yongping's proposal to build a city outside the pass.

However, the construction of the city did not start immediately. The court only sent people to survey the terrain and design the city defense. Moreover, the most important thing was that after so many years of fighting in the interior of the country, the contradiction between people and land was greatly reduced. People could live well in their hometowns, and few people wanted to leave their hometowns.

Just when the world was at peace, Emperor Yongli, who was far away in Myanmar, made big news again.

The king of Myanmar at that time was translated into Chinese as King Bindler, or Mangda.

When Yongli Zhu Youlang and others fled to Burma, they were not surrounded by many guards, only more than 400 guards. However, even these 400 people were still forced to confiscate their weapons by Burma.

By the second year, the Qian Dynasty had unified the Central Plains and even launched a war to pacify Liao. The attitude of the Burmese monarch and his ministers gradually changed. They all agreed that if Myanmar continued to shelter Emperor Yongli, it would definitely offend the Qian Dynasty in the future.

So Mangda first sent some ministers to tentatively question Zhu Youlang.

When Zhu Youlang escaped from Yongchang, he discussed with Minister Liu Chengyin to go through Myanmar to seek refuge with Li Chengdong of Annan.

However, after Zhu Youlang had stayed in Myanmar peacefully for a period of time and the imminent life-and-death crisis was no longer there, he began to recall the past incident in which Li Chengdong had forced the two emperors Longwu and Shaowu to death.

Therefore, Zhu Youlang changed his mind again and decided to stay in Myanmar temporarily. As for how long the temporary stay would last, Zhu Youlang had not yet made a plan.

Zhu Youlang refused to leave, which made the Burmese monarch and his ministers feel a little aggrieved. In the past, when the Ming Dynasty was strong, Myanmar was a vassal and there was naturally nothing to say. But now Zhu Youlang was just a figurehead emperor, and Mangda did not want to kowtow. He wished that Zhu Youlang could leave Myanmar as soon as possible and go wherever he wanted.

Just when Mangda was feeling extremely annoyed, a special guest came to the Burmese royal palace. This guest was Meng Bian.

Meng Bian traveled thousands of miles from the capital to Yunnan just to help Meng Jun get rid of Zhu Youlang, but he didn't expect that Zhu Youlang would escape from him several times in a row.

Although Meng Jun no longer cared about Zhu Youlang, Meng Bian still decided to capture Zhu Youlang and make him publicly acknowledge that the Qian Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty, which was the will of heaven and legitimate.

Meng Bian stood in the hall, bowed slightly to Mangda, and said, "Greetings to the king."

But even so, Mangda did not feel any dissatisfaction in his heart. He knew that the man in front of him was the confidant of the current Emperor of Central Plains.

Meng Bian came to Myanmar with only one request, which was that the Burmese monarch and his ministers should hand over Zhu Youlang to the Qian Dynasty. Of course, Meng Bian had no intention of killing Zhu Youlang this time. Whether Zhu Youlang was in Myanmar or in the Qian Dynasty, as long as he died, no matter how he died, the blame would definitely be put on the Qian Dynasty.

Meng Bian felt that the Qian Dynasty was now extremely powerful, the country was peaceful and the people were safe, but it was not a solution for Zhu Youlang to stay in Myanmar all the time. The emperor of the previous dynasty was still in power, especially on the border, which was more or less a threat to the Qian Dynasty. Therefore, Meng Bian thought that he should take Zhu Youlang back and let him stay in one place safely and be monitored by the Qingluan Guards for the rest of his life.

But Meng Bian had never expected that Mangda thought that the Qian Dynasty only wanted Zhu Youlang's family, so he took it upon himself to decide to kill all the loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty.

In the third year of Zhaowu, just when Meng Jun had just returned from outside the Great Wall, the Burmese King Mangda sent someone to inform Zhu Youlang and his ministers, asking them to cross the river early the next morning and drink water with the Burmese king at the riverside to swear an oath in order to establish friendship.

Li Yuanyin saw that there was something fishy going on and therefore strongly opposed it, but Zhu Youlang was after all living under someone else's roof and was constrained by others, so he had to go. He had no choice but to send two ministers, Liu Chengyin and Mu Tianbo, and some officials to keep the appointment.

At dawn the next day, Liu Chengyin summoned more than twenty officials and escorted a hundred people across the river to the Burmese military base to prepare for the oath of alliance.

In the morning, as soon as more than 20 officials arrived at the station, they were surrounded by nearly a thousand Burmese soldiers. Mu Tianbo knew something was wrong, so he took the sword from the guards and fought back, killing six Burmese soldiers. The general Wang Sheng also grabbed a stick to fight back, but the Ming army guards were all unarmed and were outnumbered, so they were all killed by the Burmese army.

After killing the ministers who crossed the river, the Burmese army swarmed into the residence of Zhu Youlang and his ministers, killing more than 200 people and looting property and women. Li Yuanyin, Cao Bao and other generals fought back and killed more than ten Burmese soldiers in a row, but two fists could not beat four hands, not to mention that in a hurry, Li Yuanyin and others were not wearing armor, and they were all killed in the battle.

Finally, the Burmese soldiers gathered Zhu Youlang, the Queen Mother, the Empress, concubines, the Crown Prince and more than 34 people in a small house, and insulted the rest of the people and the families of the officials who accompanied them. When the Burmese soldiers had plundered everything, a Burmese minister hypocritically stopped the Burmese soldiers: "The king has ordered that the emperor must not be harmed."

After this catastrophe, Zhu Youlang was completely disheartened. All the court officials who followed him to Myanmar had died, and the Ming Dynasty had been completely destroyed.

Mangda wanted to use this to please the Qian Dynasty, so at the end of May in the third year of Zhaowu, Mangda formally handed Zhu Youlang and his family over to the Qian army in Yunnan, and submitted a letter of allegiance.