Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 542 Killing the chicken to scare the monkey

In the scorching summer, Wu Sangui finally arrived at the Yunnan border. He was ambitious and vowed to wipe out Mangbai in one fell swoop. So, Wu Sangui began a series of deployments in a hurry.

Wu Sangui first led the main force to enter Dali, while the vanguard of the army of more than 2,000 people, led by Hu Guozhu, was stationed in Longchuan Xuanwei Mansion. At the same time, he ordered Hu Guozhu to recruit more local people, win over neighboring chieftains, explore the terrain, and serve as the vanguard of the army.

Wu Sangui believed that in midsummer, there would be a lot of rain and humidity in the rainforest, which would make it inconvenient for the army to move, and supply would be difficult. There was also the risk of the army contracting disease. Therefore, Wu Sangui decided to wait until autumn before sending troops south to attack Burma. It would be best if Mangbai could not wait and gave up the advantage of terrain and attacked him first.

However, Wu Sangui knew that the probability was impossible. Fortunately, Meng Jun gave Wu Sangui full authority to handle the war in Burma and did not specify a time to end the war. Therefore, even if Wu Sangui wanted to wait until autumn to fight again, he did not need to write a letter. But at Fang Guangchen's reminder, Wu Sangui still wrote a letter to Meng Jun, revealing his decision to attack after the autumn.

Meng Jun was also a horse-riding emperor who fought his way through the battlefield. He was well aware of the fact that war is dangerous. Therefore, he did not blame Wu Sangui for his strategy of delaying the war. Instead, he issued an edict to reward Wu Sangui and selected a set of fine armor from the inner treasury to give to Wu Sangui.

Wu Sangui was somewhat apprehensive when he received the gift. He privately said to Fang Guangchen: "We haven't even fought yet, and the emperor has given us such a generous gift. If we lose, I'm afraid I'll lose the emperor's favor!"

Wu Sangui was worried that if he was defeated, he would suffer the same fate as Yuan Chonghuan.

Fang Guangchen could only console Wu Sangui again and again, saying that the Burmese soldiers were quite different from the Eight Banners soldiers. He said to Wu Sangui: "The Burmese soldiers are southern barbarians, a weak country. As long as our army does not underestimate the enemy, it will be easy to defeat them. Your Majesty does not need to worry too much!"

Wu Sangui could only cheer himself up and dared not be negligent in the slightest. He set up camp and lingered in the border area, ordered the troops to assemble, counted the food and supplies, and confirmed that the equipment was intact.

At the same time, scouts were sent to investigate the enemy situation and collect intelligence. In order to seize the initiative, Wu Sangui invited various chieftains on the Yunnan border to gather in the name of the general who was going to conquer Burma. At the banquet, Wu Sangui listed the crimes of the Burmese and invited each chieftain to send troops.

Many chieftains were afraid of the Qian Dynasty, so most of them agreed to Wu Sangui's request. However, Wu Sangui was somewhat dissatisfied. As the saying goes, killing a chicken to scare the monkey, how can you scare the monkey if the chicken doesn't appear?

After Wu Sangui's investigation, he added more requirements, asking each chieftain to provide grain. Finally, opponents emerged. A local official named Dao Sijin, upon hearing that Wu Sangui had increased the supply of grain and fodder, became furious and beheaded Wu Sangui's envoy in front of the village.

Wu Sangui was overjoyed, and immediately sent letters to all the chieftains, inviting them to watch how the imperial officials and soldiers were suppressing the rebels.

The local officials knew that Wu Sangui was trying to intimidate them, but they came anyway out of helplessness.

The first battle fought by Wu Sangui, the general who led the expedition against Burma, after taking office was not against the Burmese soldiers, but against the local soldiers.

Wu Sangui's 30,000 troops had fought in Shaanxi, fought with Liu Wenxiu in Sichuan, and fought with Li Dingguo in Yunnan. Although they were not an invincible army, they were also experienced in the battlefields. Moreover, Wu Sangui was a general who conquered Burma, and he was fighting the first battle of the Qian Dynasty, which was related to the face of the court. Therefore, the court was very concerned about Wu Sangui's logistics.

Wu Sangui's request for food and fodder from the local officials was actually just an excuse. The Dali military warehouse now had sufficient reserves of all kinds of supplies. Grain and fodder were piled up like mountains, arrows were like forests, and gunpowder, bullets and all kinds of military resources were continuously transported from all over the place.

Although located in the frontier, there were only 30,000 soldiers deployed. Therefore, the court's strength was more than enough to supply Wu Sangui. In addition, because Meng Jun was worried about malaria raging in the army, he also specially ordered the court to organize medical officers and prepare more herbal medicines to prevent the spread of the disease.

Dao Sijin dared to oppose it stubbornly because his military strength was second to none in the local area, with more than a thousand local soldiers, and he also had the advantage of geographical location. Wu Sangui sent out 5,000 troops, equipped with eight large cannons, more than 30 small cannons of various types, and a thousand firearms soldiers.

In this battle, there was a generation gap between the fighters. In addition to when Wu Sangui's subordinates first arrived, some soldiers were poisoned and died because they stepped on a trap.

The rest suffered few losses. When they arrived in front of the village, they first used artillery to bombard it wildly. When some of Dao Sijin's local soldiers could not bear it anymore and abandoned the wall and rushed out, Wu Sangui used firearms soldiers and small cannons to take advantage of the firearms. When the local soldiers were confused, Wu Sangui ordered the armored soldiers to hold shields and sharp blades to clean up the battlefield. Wu Sangui killed all the rebels and reported to the court.

Wu Sangui ended this drama of killing the chicken to scare the monkey perfectly. Many chieftains said that it was extremely stupid for Dao Sijin to disobey the imperial court's order. At the same time, they said that if the imperial court needed soldiers and people, they would definitely cooperate.

As the saying goes, if you hit someone to death with a stick, you will be given another one. Wu Sangui, amid the assurances of a group of chieftains, stated magnanimously that the imperial court was rich and powerful, and would not be interested in their mere possessions. He asked for food and fodder just to test the attitude of the chieftains and see if there were any disloyal people. Sure enough, this test revealed a big traitor.

Later, Wu Sangui exempted the chieftains from food supplies. He only needed each chieftain to provide some people and send some people who were familiar with the terrain to lead scouts and draw maps for the army.

Although this method was a bit crude, it was still effective. All the chieftains were grateful and expressed their determination to serve the court until death, in order to defeat the traitor Mangbai.

After Wu Sangui arrived at the border, he quickly entered a state of preparation for war. He started from military assembly, intelligence collection, training, logistics and other aspects. When everything was in order and autumn came, when Wu Sangui only needed to give an order and tens of thousands of troops would be able to head straight for Myanmar, Mang Bai was already a little panicked.

After the Burmese envoy returned to Ava City and told Mangbai the conditions of the Emperor of Qian Dynasty one by one, Mangbai looked incredulous. He racked his brains but could not imagine why Qian Dynasty wanted to attack him. He thought that even if Qian Dynasty did not reward him, it would not attack him!

He couldn't believe that the Qian Dynasty would actually go to war and send troops to the western border because of such a trivial matter. The Han people often said that a country, no matter how big it is, will perish if it is warlike. It seems that the Qian Dynasty is going to perish.

Mangbai thought that his brother Mangda killed the former Ming ministers and displeased the Emperor Qian, which was already an outrageous thing. But even so, Mangbai still killed his brother for Qian, but the Emperor Qian wanted to fight him, which was a bit unreasonable! (Historically, it was Mangbai who started the water curse)

With the Burmese envoy's exaggeration, Mang Bai believed that the Qian Dynasty came to fight him purely because the Qian Dynasty emperor was ambitious and wanted to show off his powerful martial arts.

Therefore, even though Mang Bai did not want to go to war with Qian Chao, since Qian Chao had already started a war with him and would not allow him to admit defeat, Mang Bai had no choice but to fight Qian Chao.