Chapter 2456
The Haihan Army's landing operation in the Siriya area was very smooth. There was no big city in the area, and no army could be organized to resist the foreign invaders. In just two days, the Siriya area was completely under the control of the Haihan Army.
After hearing the news, the Bo Ni Kingdom sent an envoy to negotiate. Qian Tiandun met with him and stated Haihan's position, hoping to purchase or lease the Silia area from the Bo Ni Kingdom at a "reasonable price." Of course, if the Boni Kingdom does not agree to such a transaction, the Haihan Army will not retreat and return this place to the Boni Kingdom. What is more likely to happen is another larger-scale war that will even destroy the Boni Kingdom. The whole country was involved in the war.
Qian Tiandun would not mind threatening the other party with harsh words like this. Haihan was determined to win the underground oil fields in this area. If the Boni Kingdom refused to submit, then what awaited them would be a war to destroy the country.
Fortunately, with the increase in trade exchanges between countries in the South China Sea in recent years, Bo Ni Country is no stranger to Haihan, and many dignitaries have even visited the Gold Selling Cave in the South China Sea, Amborna Island. Therefore, the rulers of Bo Ni also had a relatively clear understanding of Haihan's national and military strength. They did not rush into military confrontation and started negotiations honestly.
The final result of the negotiations was no surprise. Silia still nominally belonged to the Bo Ni Kingdom, but this area would be leased to the Haihan Kingdom for a long time. The so-called long-term means that Haihan State has the power to extend the lease indefinitely. As a condition of cooperation between the two parties, Bo Ni will also receive military protection from Haihan, and will no longer have to worry about armed invasion by European colonists in the future.
This condition is simply irresistible to the Boni Kingdom. They have been invaded many times in the past two centuries, and the Western colonists will not sit down and negotiate like the Haihan people. What they demand is absolute Surrender, otherwise they will kill and plunder. For the Boni Kingdom, if long-term peace and stability can be obtained with only the Silia area, then the deal is actually very cost-effective.
As for what the Haihan people would use this place for, Boni Kingdom didn't really care. The local coastline is flat and there is no natural harbor, so it is not suitable for building a trading port or a military port. The nearby inland is full of virgin forests, and there are no particularly valuable products. For the Boni Kingdom, it is not suitable to hand over this area to Haihan for management. There is no loss at all, not to mention that the rent Haihan promised to pay is several times more than the taxes paid to the national treasury here.
Accelerating the occupation and development of mineral and energy resources in East Asia is the tone set by the Executive Committee for the next development direction. The precious resources obtained through these places will become the necessary guarantee for Haihan to take the lead in entering the industrial society in this world. In particular, mineral energy such as the Siya Oilfield, which is located in the shallow layer of the earth's surface and is easy to exploit and utilize, has naturally become a priority development target.
Although steam engines will remain the backbone of Haihan's industrialization now and for a long time to come, as the manufacturing technology of internal combustion engines becomes increasingly mature and the chemical industry develops rapidly, Haihan's demand for petrochemical products is also increasing. Large, the production capacity of Taiwan's Miaoli Oilfield alone can no longer meet demand, and the development of new oil fields is also a general trend. Haihan's petrochemical industry is two centuries ahead of its time, which will also accumulate more advantages for Haihan's future rise on a global scale.
In January 1641, Li Zicheng gathered tens of thousands of peasant troops to attack Ruzhou, Henan. But he failed to successfully conquer the target as in the original history, because waiting for him and his men here were the Guanning cavalry secretly transferred back to the Central Plains from the northern border.
Five thousand experienced and well-equipped cavalry attacked in the early morning and broke through the peasant army camp in one fell swoop. Li Zicheng's troops were defeated before they had time to organize resistance, and suffered numerous casualties under the impact of Guan Ning's cavalry. Li Zicheng, who hastily accepted the challenge, failed to escape as he had done in the past few years. There were still tens of thousands of Ming troops chasing and intercepting him outside Ruzhou. In the end, Li Zicheng was overtaken by the Ming army in a ravine twenty miles away from Ruzhou. He knew that he was in danger. Without any reason, he stubbornly refused to surrender, and all his dead soldiers were killed by random arrows. Most of Li Zicheng's leaders were also killed in this raid. The peasant army he formed dispersed after a few days, and there has been no chance of a comeback since then.
Almost at the same time, Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of another peasant army, was intercepted by the army in Kaixian County, Kuizhou, in the southwest hinterland. Yang Sichang, the Minister of War, personally took command of the encirclement and suppression in nearby Yunyang County.
For this battle, Yang Sichang mobilized tens of thousands of troops from Sinan Prefecture and Tongren Prefecture in Guizhou, Baoning Prefecture, Kuizhou Prefecture, Shunqing Prefecture, Chongqing Prefecture in Sichuan, Hanzhong Prefecture in Shaanxi, Jingzhou Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture in Hubei and other places in advance. Make sure to complete your work in one battle. The actual situation was just as he wished. Zhang Xianzhong's troops were trapped in the mountains and forests of Kaixian County. Although they tried to break out many times, they all failed due to the disparity in strength.
In late February, as the encirclement tightened step by step, the scope of activities of Zhang Xianzhong's men became smaller and smaller, and more than half of his men and horses were consumed in constant small-scale battles. Finally, his men rebelled at night and killed Zhang Xianzhong and his staff. The head of the confidant asked the Ming army to surrender.
Since then, the two main peasant armies that had plagued the Ming Dynasty for many years were both destroyed, and the civil strife of the peasant army that worried Chongzhen was finally over.
Haihan did not directly participate in the Ming Dynasty's handling of civil strife, but the thousands of muskets and more than 200 artillery pieces sold to the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of War played an obvious role in these two wars. For well-trained firearms troops, the peasant army's charging method is equivalent to death. As long as the three conditions of fine weather, open terrain, and sufficient ammunition are met, the winning rate of the Ming army's firearms troops against the peasant army is basically hundred percent.
Although his troubles were finally solved, Daming's luck did not seem to improve immediately. In the summer of that year, large-scale droughts occurred in Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, Huguang and other places in the Ming Dynasty, followed by a locust plague. Shandong has experienced major disasters for the third consecutive year, and most state capitals have been involved. The government was unable to provide relief to so many places, causing a large number of people to flee for survival. Fushan County in Dengzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang controlled by Haihan have become areas where refugees are rushing in because they have relatively complete resettlement institutions and measures.
Many local governments in Dengzhou fell out of control during this round of disasters. Chen Yixin took this opportunity to gradually bring Muping, Wendeng, Rongcheng, Rushan, Haiyang, Qixia, Laiyang, Zhaoyuan and other places near Fushan County under his control. , the only areas in Dengzhou directly controlled by the Ming Dynasty were Dengzhou City and the adjacent Huang County. The Ming Dynasty's rule over Dengzhou began to exist in name only.
(End of chapter)