The new book "The Rise of Great Powers 1900" seeks collection.

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Liaodong is a direction.

In September, in Dengzhou, Shandong, thousands of large and small ships gathered.

When the news reached Beijing, the Manchus couldn't help but get nervous, and they sent 10,000 eight banners to Tianjin and also strengthened the forces at Shanhaiguan.

But it is strange that they did not think of strengthening the defense of Liaodong.

Of course, there is no way to defend that place in Liaodong, with a coastline stretching for thousands of miles, and there is no ready-made good port, the ghost knows where Yang Chao will fight.

Even if Dorgon wanted to guard against something, who would he send back?

Most importantly, the Qing court itself considered Beijing to be the most important, believing that Yang Chao's Shandong mobilization of warships must have been to attack Tianjin, and then attack Beijing, or like Zheng Chenggong did last time, to attack Shanhaiguan.

Zhao Kang's cavalry boarded from Dengzhou, with a vanguard of 10,000 people, and soon crossed the Bohai Sea on a ship and easily took Juehua Island in the rear of the Manchu Dynasty.

Juehua Island used to be one of the Liaodong fortress groups built by Sun Chengzong, here and Ningyuan City across the sea, each other is offensive and defensive, Sun Chengzong operates the construction and garrison of Ningyuan City, and operates the grain hoarding and boat division of Juehua Island, thinking that the imperial defense is important in Ningyuan City, and the grain storage is important on Juehua Island.

In the past, it existed as a logistics base for Ningyuan City.

Yang Chao's purpose in laying down Juehua Island is actually Ningyuan City.

Ningyuan City is one of the most important fortresses in the western Liaoning corridor, when Yuan Chonghuan was stationed here, from Nurhachi to Huang Taiji, repeated attacks were in vain, and he could never cross the western part of Liaoning and enter the mountains and seas, if Yang Chao took Ningyuan. cut off the connection between the Manchus and Liaodong. Later they will go to Shenyang. Just like their predecessors, they had to make a detour to Mongolia.

Such an important city was naturally heavily guarded, so it was a pity that Zhao Kang's vanguard could not take it under the raid.

But then Yang Chao's standing boats landed in an endless stream, and finally gathered 30,000 horses and 1,000 cannons, blasted away Ningyuan, and rushed into the city. Then seize the time to repair the city guards, and repair the city before the arrival of Qing reinforcements.

Juehua Island is also a place where Yang Chao hoarded grain and grass, and the warehouse built here can still be used if repaired.

With Juehua and Ningyuan as a chain, stuck the passage from Liaodong to Liaoxi, if the Manchu Qing wanted to go to Shenyang either detour, or cut off this chain, it was obvious that it was the most convenient to cut off the chain, so the Manchu had to continue to transfer troops, for a time every day from Shanhaiguan to Liaodong soldiers, horses, money and grain vehicles, the war suddenly became tense.

But after attacking Xia Juehua and Ning Yuan. Yang Chao did not immediately attack Shenyang, but sent troops to attack another island. The Phi Island occupied by Mao Wenlong back then, the Phi Island is a stone's throw away from North Korea.

The North Koreans immediately became nervous.

In less than ten days, they contacted the defenders of Phi Island, and wept bitterly that they had finally waited for the arrival of the heavenly soldiers, and expressed their willingness to do so anyway, and were willing to help the heavenly soldiers crusade against the barbarians.

In this era, the loyalty of the Korean people to the Ming Dynasty is not doubtful, if it were not for the Ming Dynasty, Korea would have perished, and the Japanese invaded Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army to beat Korea to a few ports, and it was the Celestial Empire that drove away the Japanese invaders, and killed most of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's men and horses, which gave Tokugawa Ieyasu the opportunity to stay in Japan, so that he could finally defeat the Toyotomi family and become the new generation of shogunate in Japan.

So the loyalty of the North Koreans is still credible, at least much stronger than that of Sun Kewang.

Yang Chao really didn't expect to provoke North Korea, he ignored this country, the country that tens of thousands of Japanese can occupy, it is really impossible to take it seriously, at least militarily can not count on this nation, they play Confucian culture and play themselves weak, unlike the Japanese who play samurai culture, and they are always very excited mentally.

The reason why Yang Chao hit Phi Dao is only because the three islands of Phi Dao, Dengzhou and Juehua Island can form a big triangle, Juehua and Phi Dao can attack Liaodong from both sides, and Dengzhou is the advance base, echoing each other, just like when Mao Wenlong was there, the Qing army was always uncomfortable.

But I didn't expect to provoke the Koreans who claimed to be in Cao Ying's heart in Han, and the guards did not dare to be careless, and immediately sent the Korean envoy to Jiangnan, Yang Chao met with the envoy and told him that if he wanted to see the emperor, he had to go to Burma, because we would go to the feudal kingdom tomorrow.

The North Korean envoy was directly stunned, did the great tomorrow go to Burma, why, why......

Countless question marks flashed in his mind, didn't the news he knew mean that the army had recovered the entire Jiangnan and hit Beizhili, why did the Son of Heaven go to Burma instead.

In fact, the Qing court didn't care about Zhu Cihuan for a long time, when they caught Zhu Cihong, they still showed off in front of the North Korean envoys and beat Zhu Cihuan to Burma, they didn't bother to show off, so the North Koreans didn't know about it.

If you don't know, forget it, Yang Chao told Kim Zhennan, the North Korean envoy who was dressed in a nondescript costume that neither looked like a Confucian costume nor a Hanfu, and told him that there was something he could talk about with him, and he could tell the Son of Heaven.

Kim Zhen-nam could only express the Korean people's feelings of looking forward to the Celestial Empire as if they were looking forward to the rain after a long drought, and complained about how they were oppressed by the Manchus, how to let them send troops, let them confess, and so on.

But as far as Yang Chao knows, in fact, the Manchu Qing Dynasty oppressed North Korea not ruthlessly, they just wanted to learn from the Han Dynasty to play the game of the coming of all countries, so they were not too oppressive, but there were troops stationed in the imperial court, which made the Koreans like a fish in the throat, but they did not dare to resist, like a little daughter-in-law who was obedient, and could only hope that the Celestial Empire could once again save them from the obscenity of the rough man.

Yang Chao tricked the Koreans into rising up to resist, telling them that as long as they killed the thousands of Eight Banner soldiers in Pyongyang, and then they could join forces with Yang Chao to attack Liaodong, they could drive away the Manchus, and they would no longer be threatened by the barbarians.

The North Korean envoys hesitated, and did not make a clear statement until they left, which disappointed Yang Chao, it seems that this kind of loyalty is also limited, secretly sacrifice Emperor Chongzhen, and use the name of Emperor Chongzhen in the history books, as long as they are not beaten by the Manchus, it is the bottom line of their loyalty, and it is too difficult to let them raise troops.

The North Korean envoy had just left. The Japanese actually came. They expressed their willingness to send troops to help Mingming. He also took out Emperor Longwu's edict to borrow troops.

What's going on here?

As early as when Emperor Longwu was still in Fujian, a large group of civil servants thought of borrowing troops from Japan, and also sent Zhu Shunshui as a representative to borrow troops with the emperor's credentials.

This group of scholars only knew that the Japanese were fierce and fierce described in the book, so they planned to borrow troops, but they didn't know that the Ming Dynasty did not lack soldiers, what was lacking was organization, as long as they could organize rebel soldiers. With patient training, field battles may not work, but it is more than enough to defend the city, and you still need to borrow Japanese soldiers?

But this kind of disgrace they made made the Japanese once again get great psychological satisfaction, look, the Celestial Empire borrowed troops from Japan, what does this mean? So they immediately recorded it in the history books, and narrated it with a very sensational description, saying that the Son of Heaven in the land of sunset borrowed troops from the Son of Heaven in the land of sunrise to suppress thieves.

Yang Chao couldn't refuse if he wanted to. The Japanese had arrived at the port of Shuangyu in Zhoushan on a Dutch merchant ship, and the envoy went ashore with his credentials. A generous tone, to jointly send troops.

Of course, when Longwu borrowed troops, Japan did not agree, nor did they agree, they kept saying that they were considering, and after seeing that Yang Chao had recovered most of China, they thought about it and agreed to borrow troops.

Soon these Japanese armies will come to Nanjing, and will receive the people of Nanjing, and most importantly, the Hongguang Emperor, and then they will go straight to the front.

The Japanese had 800 troops, all of them in extremely gorgeous armor, wearing ghost masks, and riding short Japanese horses, which looked decent.

When it arrived, Nanjing was empty of thousands of people, because Yang Chao had already publicized it, and the Japanese would come to the Ming Dynasty, so that interested people would welcome them on the designated route.

The people of Nanjing were indeed shocked by the gorgeous armor and hideous masks of the Japanese, and some people said that it was no wonder that the Japanese were so cruel.

Yang Chao stood with his brother-in-law Zhu Cihong in Chengtianmen, watching the Japanese ride horses slowly from Hongwumen into the thousand-step corridor.

Yang Chao is very satisfied, that is, he wants to promote Chinese culture to the outside world through horses like Japan and North Korea.

Finally, under the Chengtian Gate, they collectively dismounted and bowed to the late emperor in the city, and then carefully led the horse to retreat a few hundred steps before riding the horse away.

As soon as they left Nanjing, they marched north.

Japanese samurai are also hierarchical, Yang Chao believes that since these samurai have horses, they are samurai with higher status, and in fact it is true, these are the elites selected from all over Japan.

But what is surprising is that their desire to fight is really strong, under the banner of respecting the king, they still have the story of Qi Huan Gong in the Spring and Autumn Period, as if they Japan became the Qi State at that time, this is the status of the hegemon, but their strength is indeed unexpected, beyond their own expectations, and also beyond Yang Chao's expectations.

Eight hundred Japanese cavalry, as soon as they arrived in Cangzhou, actively asked for battle.

Then he sent troops without authorization, and as a result, he encountered three hundred Manchu Eight Banners, and more than 100 people were killed by cavalry shooting, and then they flickered away, and they chased for a while and found that they couldn't catch up, and they went back angrily, but the Eight Banners soldiers stuck up like a dogskin plaster, and killed more than 100 people with another round of cavalry shooting.

Before touching the other party's hair, 300 people were killed, the Japanese did not do it, crazy horse attack, and finally was surrounded, all dismounted and fought, and then the corpse of the horse was used as a cover, so that the whole army was not wiped out, and the rescue of Cangzhou reinforcements was supported.

The leading Japanese flag was ashamed to cut his stomach, and was persuaded by Li Wuliu, because he knew that Yang Chao had a deep meaning in sending these people, and he definitely didn't let these goods come to fight the Eight Banners, because Li Wuliu had already discovered that these people had fallen behind the Eight Banners for an era, and the equipment of these Japanese was almost the equipment of Genghis Khan and Mongolia back then.

Of course, Li Wuliu would never have imagined that Japan actually had advanced muskets, but after Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power, it was banned, and only a few people could play muskets, but this did not include these fanatical samurai, these people also looked down on the kind of weapons used by civilians, and they were proud of the katana.

In fact, they do have two brushes, the elite who jumped out of all Japan, and the absolute master of swordsmanship, but unfortunately they have never fought.

The Japanese record Yang Chao was first unexpected, and then he couldn't laugh or cry, because the reason for the defeat of the Japanese was analyzed, and they lost in the armor, their seemingly gorgeous armor, the elite is not made of iron, but made of bamboo and wood, dyed with lacquer, a piece of exquisite like a work of art, but it can't stop the Eight Banners' clear bow and heavy arrows.

Yang Chao suddenly realized that when he first saw these Japanese cavalry, he also wondered that the elite ponies of the Japanese could carry heavy armor, so it seemed that eighty percent of their horse armor was also made of bamboo.

Wearing gorgeous bamboo armor and waving the banner of respecting the king, he was beaten by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Yang Chao couldn't help but feel a kind of funny humor, as if the Japanese were coming to act. (To be continued......)