I

Before the news of Champa's "surrender" reached Nanjing, the Vietnamese Civil War started first.

Xu Ying hurried into the palace and said, "Your Majesty, war has begun in Annan!"

Zhao Han was a little surprised: "Is Mrs. Zheng so impatient? She didn't wait until the rice was harvested before harvesting."

Xu Ying explained: "Your Majesty, Annan rice can be grown in two crops, and in some areas it can be grown in three crops. If it is two-crop rice, it can be harvested every winter and replanted after spring. The Annan Zheng clan sent troops this time to harvest. Last year’s winter rice was harvested, and after the farmers planted the summer rice, they took advantage of the gap before the rainy season to send troops!”

"How many troops did Zheng send?" Zhao Han asked.

Xu Ying replied: "I'm not sure, but at least there are more than 50,000 people. Ruan's defense should be able to withstand the danger. If it drags on for two months, the rainy season is approaching, and our army will definitely not be able to send troops."

Zhao Han called the female officer in charge of the Royal Horse Supervisor, You Julian, and asked the female officer Shangbao to get the emperor's seal and draft an edict saying: "Notify the cabinet and ask the Ministry of War and the Governor's Office to order the Datong Army in Guangxi and Qiongzhou to follow the established schedule. Act according to plan!”

The established plan to send troops was to wait until the Vietnam Civil War was over and then send troops when Lord Zheng's regime was most vulnerable.

Of course, as Xu Ying said, it cannot be too close to the rainy season.

If the civil war between the two sides drags on for too long, the Datong Army will definitely not be able to move. It is very difficult to let the army enter the forest during the tropical rainy season.

In fact, it was definitely too late for Zhao Han's edict to be sent to the front line. Fortunately, a plan had been formulated long ago, and even the food and grass were in place. Li Dingguo, Liu Xinyu, and Ding Jiasheng had great autonomy.

At this moment, the cabinet received the news, and the three cabinet ministers did not say much.

Pang Chunlai was not opposed to conquering Vietnam, but he believed that the time had not yet come. At least the Tatars must be completely wiped out, and only after harvesting Hetao, Monan, and Nuergandusi can we free up our hands to use troops in other places.

Li Banghua and Song Yingxing were worried about the old practices of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di also defeated Vietnam at the beginning. Not only did he establish the Chief Secretary of Cochin, he even opened courses in Vietnam to recruit scholars. Those Jinshi in Vietnam, who had reached the highest level of Chief Envoy, should have been assimilated. However, decades later, an uprising still broke out and they forcibly became independent from the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

…

The territories of the Nguyen and Trinh clans are bounded by Hoeng Son, a mountain range at the junction of Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces.

Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty sent troops to Vietnam, destroyed Linyi State and established three counties. In the Tang Dynasty, when the Linyi Kingdom was restored, Hengshan was used as the boundary. To the north of Hengshan Mountain was the territory of the Tang Dynasty, which is now the territory of Lord Zheng; to the south of Hengshan Mountain was the Kingdom of Linyi, which is now the territory of Lord Ruan.

The Linyi Kingdom, the predecessor of the Champa Kingdom, was continuously annexed by Annan, and now only an area as big as a palm is left.

Farmers in the area under Zheng's jurisdiction were recruited in large numbers to fight as soon as they finished planting rice.

Zheng Zhi, who was very old, not only personally led the troops south, but also brought the puppet king with him. This was his Nth Southern Expedition. After repeated defeats and repeated defeats, he vowed to destroy the Nguyen family and unify Vietnam.

The Zheng family was defeated time and time again and took the initiative to start a war.

The Ruan family won every time, but they were always passively defensive.

The reason is due to national strength.

The area controlled by the Zheng family has a population three times that of the Ruan family, and the land is more developed, with a larger area of ​​land that can be cultivated.

"Fire, fire!"

"Boom boom boom!"

Zheng Zheng pressed the hilt of his sword with his left hand, stood up and looked at the results of the bombardment from a distance, turned around and said to the puppet king: "Your Majesty, this expedition will definitely be a success!"

"Okay." Li Zhenzong nodded numbly.

Li Zhenzong was very young. A few years ago, Zheng Zhen failed in his southern expedition and placed all the blame on his father. Therefore, he deposed his father Li Shenzong and established him as the new king.

If he is defeated this time, Li Zhenzong will also have to take the blame, and another puppet king will have to be replaced.

The Annan Civil War was not large in scale, but relatively costly to the king.

The artillery was commanded by a Dutch officer.

The artillerymen of the Zheng regime were mainly Dutch mercenaries, while the Vietnamese artillerymen were all handymen.

Zheng Zhi learned from the painful experience and saved money and food for several years. This time he increased the number of artillery pieces to twelve.

After firing hundreds of artillery shells, Zheng Zhao, Zheng Zhi's son, drew his sword and shouted: "Go to the camp first and attack, break the Great Wall, break the Great Wall!"

The Ruan family built some earth and stone walls in the dangerous places of Hengshan Mountain and declared them to be the Great Wall...

The Zheng family arrived at the camp first, holding shields and cold weapons, charging desperately towards the earth and stone wall in front. In less than half an hour, the first line of defense of the defenders was breached.

It went so smoothly simply because of Zheng Zhi's foresight.

The civil war in Vietnam should break out in late winter or early spring due to climate and agricultural reasons.

Zheng Jie deliberately delayed the time to make Ruan think that there would be no war this year, so the border defenders did not have many troops.

After Zheng Jun broke through the first earth and stone wall, he continued his efforts and quickly broke through the second one, completely opening up the main mountain road going south.

Counting the civilians, there were a total of 60,000 troops, and they quickly captured several towns south of Hengshan.

Only then did the Ruan family react and hurriedly gathered troops to resist. The two sides started a confrontation on the banks of the Lishui River.

Ruan Lord Ruan Phuc Lan personally led an army of 20,000 people, and his son Ruan Phuc Bin was a general.

Zheng Jun had already crossed the river. Since he came over mountains and ridges, he didn't bring any decent naval forces. He only collected some small boats on the way.

Although Ruan Jun has few soldiers, he has an organized naval force.

In order to guard against the navy, Zheng Zhi built artillery positions along the river and asked Dutch gunners to stop the enemy navy from causing trouble.

After two days of confrontation, Ruan Phuc Bin put down his telescope and said with a smile: "Father, Zheng's artillery has been lured away by the navy, and our army's elephant soldiers can be dispatched."

"Go ahead."

Ruan Fulan waved his hand and spoke feebly. He went to the battle despite being ill this time.

Soon, Ruan Jun came out of the camp and formed a formation, and asked the navy to harass and contain the enemy's artillery.

Upon seeing this, Zheng Jun also left the camp and defected to Shadingzhou in Vietnam. At this time, he led the cavalry in formation, which was regarded as one of the main forces of Zheng Jun.

Sha Dingzhou led the Yunnan cavalry around the flanks, while Zheng Zheng, the crown prince of the Zheng family, commanded the main force of the infantry to advance.

Just when the two sides were about to join forces, one hundred war elephants from the Ruan Army came out from the other side of the camp. Before they even had time to form a formation, these war elephants were urged to kill Zheng Jun's flanking troops.

The devil knows why the Ruan family has a hundred war elephants. During the war a few years ago, there were only more than twenty.

Zheng Jing was shocked: "Quickly inform the Dutch to quickly turn the muzzle and fire at those war elephants!"

It was too late, a hundred war elephants rushed faster and faster, and rushed into the flank of Zheng Jun in the blink of an eye.

Zheng's army also had a small number of firecrackers, but whether they were shooting arrows or shooting, they aroused the elephants' ferocity even more. These war elephants ran rampant, trampling countless corpses wherever they passed, and Zheng's army collapsed one after another.

Both sides are training in secret.

Zheng's training was artillery, while Ruan's training was elephant soldiers.

"Father, leave quickly!"

Seeing that the situation was not good, Zheng Zha rode back to the Chinese army's formation and urged Zheng Zhe to cross the river and escape.

Zheng Zhi said as he ran: "Take His Majesty away. If you can't take him away, kill him. Don't let the Ruan family capture him!"

Zheng Zha quickly turned his horse around, quickly found Li Zhenzong, and helped the puppet king onto his horse.

Li Zhenzong fled on horseback in a daze, doing whatever Zheng Zha asked him to do. His father is a puppet, and he himself is also a puppet. He has long been accustomed to obeying the orders of powerful officials.

On the battlefield, 60,000 Zheng's army was killed by 20,000 Ruan's army, and the whole army collapsed.

The soldiers scrambled to get on the boats to cross the river, and there was a chaos at the ferry crossing. Many of them couldn't wait to get on the boat and simply jumped into the river, while the Nguyen navy took the opportunity to intercept them despite artillery fire.

"Boom boom boom!"

The Dutch gunners did not escape. They all stood firm in their artillery positions and fired at the Ruan family's navy warships.

They knew they couldn't run and jumping into the river would make them easy targets.

They did not intend to surrender, because Nguyen burned churches and drove the Dutch to death, and most of them were killed after surrendering.

Going around to Sha Dingzhou on the other side, he was a little stunned when he saw this. How could he be defeated inexplicably?

Sha Dingzhou led the cavalry and rushed towards Ruan's central army. He also sent people in advance to shout: "I am willing to surrender, I am willing to surrender, all the cavalry will return to Lord Ruan!"

Before the Ruan family and his son could agree, this fellow led his cavalry to turn around and actually went after Zheng's defeated troops.

The Zheng family and his son led their own soldiers and killed the defeated soldiers blocking the way. They ran very fast in the boat and the puppet king did not fall behind.

The Dutch artillery position was soon attacked by Nguyen's navy and army. More than thirty Dutch artillerymen all chose to fight and died. They knew that their death would be even worse if they were captured.

The Zheng family and his son fled all the way back to Hengshan with the remaining soldiers. Only a few thousand of the 60,000-strong army remained.

Most of the soldiers fled, because the Ruan family only captured more than 3,000 people. More than 2,000 corpses were found on the battlefield, and one or two thousand were drowned in the river.

Just when Ruan Jun was taking advantage of the victory to pursue, Ruan Fulan died of illness.

His son Nguyen Phuc Bin had no choice but to stop his troops and hurried back to officially take over the throne to avoid any trouble in the rear.

But it was said that the Zheng family and his son had not yet escaped back to Shenglong Mansion, but they started discussing it halfway.

Zheng Zha said: "Father, if this battle is defeated, the royalists in the government and the public will definitely make trouble. We must take action in advance."

Zheng Jie said: "The defeat in the war was all caused by the ruler's lack of virtue. Re-establishing a virtuous ruler can quell the criticism."

"After returning to Shenglong Palace, we can't change the country's leader for the time being until all those traitors jump out," Zheng Zha planned. "Whoever dares to join forces to cause trouble is a member of the unscrupulous king. Kill these traitors. , there is just enough reason to change the king!"

Zheng Jie praised: "My son has grown up and is capable of governing the country. After returning this time, you will start to take over the government. My father will not live for a few more years."

"My father is at his peak in the Spring and Autumn Period, and he will surely live a long life." Zheng Zha said quickly.

The father and son made a deal and looked at the thousands of remnant soldiers around them, feeling disappointed and regretful again. This was a major defeat that the Zheng family had never experienced in decades. There would definitely be royalists who would cause chaos when they returned. Historically, after this battle, the Zheng family and the Ruan family stopped fighting, and later simply chose to formally negotiate a peace.

"The Han soldiers are coming to kill, the Han soldiers are coming to kill!"

More than ten miles away from Shenglong Mansion, Zheng Zhi received the news and instantly turned pale.

How can thousands of remnant soldiers, who have just lost a battle, resist the Chinese army's attack?