The Rise of the European Emperor

Duanteng Gorge, also known as Datang Gorge, is a place where Yao people live in Guangxi. It is located in the lower reaches of the Qianjiang River near Guiping. It is the largest and longest canyon in Guangxi. Legend has it that in ancient times, there were big vines like buckets, crossing the river surface, floating day and night, and workers climbed to cross the river, hence the name.

However, in the first year of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, Hou Dagou, the Yaomin leader of Datangxia, led the Yaomin uprising against the rule of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming court sent the imperial censor Han Yong and the governor of the imperial court, Zhao Fu, to lead a 160,000-strong army to suppress it, and then killed nearly 7,000 Yao civilians, including Hou Dagou. However, Han Yong felt displeased and ordered someone to cut off the big vine across the Qianjiang River and renamed the place Duanteng Gorge. Of course, later generations changed the name back to Datang Gorge and gave Hou Dagou a statue.

The Yao people in the Datangxia area did not obey the rule of the Ming Dynasty very much since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. There are continuous uprisings here and there, and there are 11 large-scale uprisings in the Ming Dynasty. From the nineteenth year of Hongwu to the sixth year of the Apocalypse at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

The most legendary is that the Hongzhi Emperor Zhu Youji, who just died, and his biological mother, Empress Xiaomuji, was a Yao girl and one of the women captured in the battle to pacify Dateng Gorge in the first year of Chenghua. After Empress Xiaomuji was captured, she and a group of Yao girls were sent to the palace as trophies and served as palace maids. Then, by chance, he was lucky enough to be visited by Emperor Chenghua and gave birth to Zhu Youji, Emperor Hongzhi.

However, Queen Xiaomuji's own life is not good. Although her son Zhu Youji was protected and survived by the eunuch Zhang Min, she was killed by Concubine Wan Guifei, the favorite concubine of Emperor Chenghua, and she failed to see the day when her son became Emperor Zhongxing of Ming Dynasty.

That is to say, Zhu Youji, Emperor Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty, actually had half the blood of the Yao people. His son Zhengde also has a quarter of Yao ethnicity. However, since Zhengde had no successor, the Yao lineage of the Daming royal family was interrupted.

Although the emperor had Yao blood, the court showed no mercy to the Yao people's uprising. Chen Jin was sent as the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi this time, specifically to suppress the uprising of the Tong clan (later called the Zhuang clan) and the Yao clan in the two counties of Maping and Luorong.

The uprising of the Tong and Yao ethnic groups is more difficult this time, why? Because the main force of the uprising is the child clan. If it is the Yao ethnic group, the Ming court can also mobilize wolf soldiers who can fight very well to suppress it. However, the wolf soldiers are the army composed of the minor people of the chieftain of the Tong clan. If they suppress the uprisings of other ethnic groups, such as the Yao ethnic group, they may work harder. But the main force of this uprising was the Tong Clan of the same clan, and those wolf soldiers were less willing to contribute. Even if a chieftain is willing to send troops, he will not kill him. After all, they are all a group.

Therefore, although Chen Jin sent 130,000 troops with Mao Rui, the chief military officer of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Fu Qiang uncle, he had no confidence. Because most of the 130,000 troops were guard soldiers whose combat effectiveness had dropped too much. As for the most capable Zhuang wolf soldiers, because they couldn't bear to fight in the face of the same clan, they lacked confidence.

Of course, the rebel army, which was a mixture of Tong and Yao people, was not too strong, and the number was only ten or twenty thousand. But the guards were weaker, so Chen Jin had to mobilize 130,000 troops to fight. After all, with the same number of guardsmen,

Where can you beat a savage brute? Only if the number of people far exceeds, there is enough confidence.

The Yao people in the Datang Gorge area, as well as the young people in other areas, had the courage to launch uprisings again and again just because they saw the weakness of the Ming Dynasty army. However, they did not know that although the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty guards were not very effective in combat, they were better in numbers, and they could be killed by stacking people's heads...

Chen Jin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Mao Rui, the chief military officer of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Fu Qiang uncle Mao Rui, obviously planned to kill the revolting Tong clan and Yao clan savage soldiers by numbers.

However, to be honest, as a civilian who understands the military, Chen Jin also knows very well what the virtues of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty guards are. Although it wasn't as bad as the Southeast Guardian's, it wasn't much better. If it weren't for the fact that there were more battles to quell the uprisings of the minorities in the Guangxi area, the guards in Guangdong and Guangxi would probably have degenerated into scum just like the guards in the rich and prosperous areas in the southeast.

It is precisely because he knows that the soldiers in the guards are unusable, that Chen Jin is so keen on the guns and cannons donated by Beihai Kingdom...

Fortunately, Kong Tai was sensible and knew that Governor Chen was keen on those guns, so he sent him another 10 Fran cannons and 100 arquebuses.

And Chen Jin is also a nonchalant person. After giving Kong Tai the convenience of purchasing, he hurriedly sent these guns to the front line of pacifying the chaos in Guangxi. Moreover, these guns have been incorporated into the battalion of the Governor's personal soldiers directly under the Governor.

In this army of 130,000 people, most of them are actually soy sauce. The only ones with real combat effectiveness are actually the chief soldiers of Guangdong and Guangxi, the personal battalion of Fu Qiang uncle Mao Rui, and the governor's personal battalion that Mao Rui helped Chen Jin select. Moreover, the strongest is Mao Rui's personal battalion, followed by Chen Jin's governor's personal battalion.

Here I have to mention the military system of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty mainly implemented the guard system. In general, the military chief is in charge of all the garrison troops in one or two provinces, and the chief military officer, who is the military attache, is subject to the restraint of the civilian governor.

When there is no war at ordinary times, the chief soldier generally does not care much about the soldiers and horses of the guard post.

And in the Ming military guards, there is a very common phenomenon, that is to eat empty pay...

According to the military system of the Ming Dynasty, a guard station generally commands 5,600 troops. But in the middle and late stages, a guardhouse generally has only half of its people, or even less. During the Jiajing period, the reason why Japanese pirates were able to run rampant in the southeast had a lot to do with the serious shortage of soldiers in the southeast garrison. Moreover, the southeast has been in peace for a long time, and the guards over there are not trained very much. They are just busy helping the guard commander and waiting for the big guy to farm the land and become a farmer...

The Guangxi side is not as serious as the southeast side. After all, there are often Yao people uprisings, Miao people uprisings and Tong people uprisings here. Although the scale of some uprisings is not very large, it has never been peaceful here. Therefore, the situation of the guards in Guangdong and Guangxi is better than that in the southeast. Generally a guard, the actual number of soldiers is more than half.

But during the war, the number of soldiers and horses in the guards was insufficient, and those guard commanders who usually made enough profits would arrest some tenants to fill the front. Therefore, the 130,000-strong army led by Chen Jin and Mao Rui looked very imposing, and half of them were not bad.

Moreover, even if there are half of the soldiers, there are many old and weak here. In the end, those who can actually fight are at most 30,000 or 40,000 people. Therefore, to suppress the uprising of the young people, this side relies heavily on the help of the wolf soldiers.

But the wolf soldiers are mainly from the Tong clan, but the main force of this uprising is the Tong clan. Therefore, this time Chen Jin can get limited help from the wolf soldiers. Many chieftains, although they sent troops to help out, mostly went through the motions. Only a small number of poor chieftains, who covet the rewards of the imperial court, will work harder.

Therefore, this time the Ming army fought mainly on its own.

The two battalions with the strongest combat effectiveness in the army, the commander-in-chief battalion and the governor's personal battalion, were actually selected by Mao Rui, the commander-in-chief of Guangdong and Guangxi.

As the chief soldier, Mao Rui naturally knew the tricks in his guards. Therefore, when the army gathered in Wuzhou, Mao Rui specially selected 3,000 elites from the 130,000 army and divided them into two battalions, one as his own battalion, and the other was mainly responsible for guarding Chen Jin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. After all, in this battle, if Chen Jin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, who is the boss, has an accident, even if he wins the battle, Mao Rui will not be able to eat it. What's more, the top commander of the 130,000 army was actually Chen Jin, not the military attache Mao Rui. Therefore, it is obviously necessary to mobilize the most elite soldiers to the Governor's personal battalion.

Of course, Mao Rui must have placed the strongest battalion by his side. His personal battalion is the strongest in combat. Chen Jin's personal battalion, although not bad, is not as strong as the general's personal battalion. In fact, the biggest task of the Governor's personal battalion is to protect the safety of the Governor. As for Mao Rui's general soldier battalion, there is a great possibility of going into battle...