Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 256 Red Barbarians

After thinking it over all night, Li Chengdong decided to retreat. The risk of attacking Nanchang from the north was too great. Li Chengdong was not sure he could capture Nanchang quickly. If the army was dragged out under the city of Nanchang, and Meng Jun sent troops from Fujian to attack Guangdong, he would be attacked from both sides and he would not be able to retreat even if he wanted to.

Afterwards, Li Chengdong's troops changed direction and retreated to Guangdong. When passing through Ganzhou along the way, in order to avoid causing conflict, he rejected his subordinates' proposal to plunder Ganzhou. Lin Shiqi had not yet arrived in Nanchang at this time, so he naturally had no time to take care of Li Chengdong.

On the one hand, Jiangxi has not been completely pacified, and there are still surrendered generals and soldiers to be resettled. The most important thing is that the army has been fighting for more than half a year. Although there has been no fighting since entering Jiangxi, the long journey has made both soldiers and generals extremely tired. This fatigue is not only physical, but more mental. Since receiving the news that Jin Shenghuan was captured by his subordinates, Lin Shiqi clearly felt that the morale of the officers and soldiers relaxed all of a sudden. Soldiers are also human beings and cannot be compared with machines. Lin Shiqi has made up his mind to let the army have a good rest after entering Nanchang.

Jinling City.

In order to confirm whether this Mao Xiang was the same person, Meng Bian searched the post station where the Qing Dynasty delegation was staying on the pretext of preventing assassinations. Ostensibly out of concern for assassinations, but in fact to verify Mao Xiang's identity.

Soon, Meng Bian saw Mao Xiang. The two had not seen each other for a long time and were a little excited, but they both knew that this was not the time to talk. They just exchanged glances. When Meng Bian saw that his identity had been confirmed, he ordered the Qingluan Guards to check the post station carefully, and he turned and left. Since the person had been identified, it would be easy to contact Mao Xiang in Jinling City, Meng Bian's home turf.

The delegation rested for a day, and on the next day they formally expressed their request for peace talks to Meng Jun. Meng Jun ordered Yang En to lead the shogunate officials to negotiate with them. In response to Yang En's inquiry, Meng Jun said: "If the Eastern Tartars withdraw from the interior, we can make peace." For Meng Jun, if the high-ranking officials of the Qing court lost their minds and retreated outside the Great Wall, then after stabilizing the world, they would continue to go out of the Great Wall to attack Liaodong. Therefore, Meng Jun knew that the peace talks would fail before they even began.

At the subsequent negotiation meeting, Yang En was the first to speak: "If the Qing government withdraws from the interior, we can stop fighting and negotiate peace. Otherwise, there is no need to talk anymore!"

Feng Quan was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Lord Yang, you are wrong. Our dynasty has already occupied six-tenths of the country. It's just that the regent is worried about the people. Once the war starts, the people will suffer. To show our sincerity, we are willing to stop the war in the current area."

The shogunate officials scoffed at this remark. Afterwards, both sides held their own opinions and refused to give in to each other. It was like a boring war of words, and the peace talks broke down in less than half an hour.

Afterwards, Yang En reported the negotiation process to Meng Jun, saying: "The Qing court has no intention of negotiating peace. It is just paralyzing us. In my opinion, we should directly expel the delegation to show that the king and the Tartars are irreconcilable!"

Meng Jun touched his chin when he heard this. He wanted to adopt Qian Biao's strategy of detaining Feng Quan and telling the outside world that he had turned to the light in order to disgust Dorgon. However, this kind of operation might deceive ordinary people, but it would certainly not fool various forces. Meng Jun was a little hesitant about this, because doing so seemed to have no other benefits except disgusting the Qing court and boosting the morale of his own people.

Meng Jun hesitated and asked Yang En tentatively, "What do you think of Qian Biao's plan?"

Yang En was extremely surprised when he heard this, and then he quickly shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, this strategy is inappropriate. It has been said since ancient times that when two armies are at war, envoys should not be killed. Regardless of whether the Qing court is sincere in negotiating peace, if Your Majesty detains the envoy, who will trust Your Majesty's credibility in the future? Moreover, what good is a mere Feng Quan, a flatterer and a sycophant, to Your Majesty!"

Meng Jun felt that what he heard made sense, so he gave up the idea of detaining Feng Quan and just drove away the Qing envoy. To recover the lost territory, one must have wars and horses, and be as fierce as a tiger. How could it be accomplished at the negotiation table?

While Meng Jun and Yang En were talking, the three blond-haired and blue-eyed red barbarians looked at the Jinling city wall in shock. The city wall was so tall and huge that it seemed as if the end was not visible. The three Dutchmen had never seen such a huge city before.

Led by Willer Louis, the three tried to contact Zhou Wang Mengjun, who occupied the southeast of Ming. Willer Louis landed in Ningbo and submitted a request to the Ningbo County Magistrate to see Zhou Wang as a Dutch envoy. The Ningbo County Magistrate did not dare to make a decision on his own, so he sent someone to report to Nanjing, saying: "There is an envoy from the Red Barbarians who wants to see the king. He is dressed in strange clothes, has blond hair and blue eyes, and is very weird!"

At that time, Meng Jun was delighted to hear that a Westerner came to see him. At that time, Western warships were far ahead of the Eastern ones. If he could buy a few and imitate them, it would be great. Although Meng Jun knew that the possibility was not great, it would not hurt to meet him. If he couldn't buy ships, at least he could buy some muskets and cannons. Then he could experiment to see which was better than the firearms he made.

After the Ningbo County Magistrate received the king's consent to the meeting, he sent a team of yamen runners to escort the three ugly guys and the interpreter to Jinling, and repeatedly warned them not to leave the carriage in the city to avoid scaring the people. This order made Willer Louis and the other three suffer a lot. They ate, drank, defecated and urinated in the carriage along the way. They were only allowed to dispose of excrement when they were in the wild and there was no one around. After finally arriving in Jinling, they just pulled aside the curtain of the carriage to look at the city wall of Jinling for a while, and then they shrank back after being scolded by the yamen runners.

As the carriage arrived at the city gate, the guard entering the city was about to conduct a routine inspection and asked the yamen runner, "What's in the carriage?"

"Reply to the general, there are people inside."

"Lift the curtain and check it out." When the soldier was about to step forward and lift the curtain, the escorting officer warned the soldier who was about to check: "Sir, get ready first, don't get startled."

The soldier said disdainfully: "I've been on the battlefield, how could I be frightened? Humph!" Then he stepped forward and pulled back the curtain. The first thing he saw was so shocking that he stepped back several steps, terrified, and blurted out: "Ghost, there is a ghost!"

The noise at the city gate alarmed the city gate officer, who hurried over and yelled at the soldier, "Xiao Yi, why are you crazy? Where did this ghost come from?"

Xiao Yi pointed at the carriage tremblingly, and the yamen runner quickly explained: "No, no, it's not a ghost, it's the messengers of the Red Barbarians, and it was the king who ordered them to come to Jinling City!"

Upon hearing this, the city gate officer carefully checked the document, and seeing that there was no problem, the city gate officer could not suppress his curiosity, so he lifted the curtain, took a closer look, secretly amazed, and then signaled the carriage to leave.

Watching the carriage enter the city, the city gate officer said to Xiao Yi in a bad mood: "What nonsense, that is a red-haired man, he just looks a little weird, but he has two eyes and one mouth, he is really ignorant."

"Boss, what is a red-haired man?"

"You know, the Red Cannon is made by people with red hair!"

"That's not right. Didn't we make our own cannons?"

"I'm talking about the Red Cannon. Forget it. You won't understand even if I tell you."