Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 547 Li Chengdong's Concerns

Seeing that his own soldiers were so disappointing again, Nguyen Phuc Binh knew that if he delayed any further, the army would probably collapse. Without hesitation, Nguyen Phuc Binh immediately ordered the elephant soldiers to go into battle.

For a moment, the ground shook again. Wu Wenxian saw the giant beast rushing over and trampling a group of its own defeated soldiers along the way. Although Wu Wenxian knew that he had to use firearms to restrain the elephant soldiers, he was still startled.

Wu Wenxian shouted loudly, "Quick, retreat to both sides and leave room for the firearms soldiers!"

Li Chengdong looked ahead and saw that the Ruan army had once again used the same old trick, deploying an elephant formation in an attempt to use the power of the giant beasts to break through their own defense line.

Li Chengdong immediately ordered the firearms soldiers to press forward. Li Chengdong had been prepared for this move. When the battle started, the firearms soldiers were on standby not far behind the formation.

As soon as the order came down, the firearms soldiers pushed forward along the gap left by Wu Wenxian. After a rough formation, the firearms soldiers began to light the fuse. With the order from the officer, for a moment, the firearms soldiers' guns flashed, the air was filled with smoke, and the sound of small artillery was deafening.

As the fire flashed, several old muskets exploded in an instant, fragments flew everywhere, and the soldiers collapsed to the ground with shrill cries of pain, covering their faces with their hands, which were covered in blood. The rest of the firearms soldiers also had looks of fear on their faces.

Seeing their comrades' muskets explode, everyone looked hesitant. Some even threw away their muskets and collapsed to the ground, losing their desire to fight.

However, the flames shot up into the sky and the loud noises from the firearms frightened the elephants, causing them to scatter wildly. The elephant soldiers dispatched by Nguyen Phuc Binh failed to have an impact, and some even rushed back towards their own camp out of control, causing even greater chaos.

The Ruan army was caught off guard. Wu Wenxian saw this and ordered a pursuit without hesitation, "Charge!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he was the first to rush out, followed closely by his men behind him. They were like an unstoppable torrent and launched a fierce attack while the Nguyen army was being routed. For a moment, wailing was heard everywhere and the Nguyen army retreated like a tide.

Wu Wenxian laughed and said, "This is far from the Qian army, it's too common!"

Nguyen Phuc Binh was terrified. He had never expected that the carefully trained elephant soldiers could be so vulnerable. Seeing that the situation was irreversible, he immediately led his guards to flee backwards.

At this time, the Ruan army suffered heavy losses. Wu Wenxian led his troops to charge straight ahead. Ambushing and killing was the favorite thing of all generals. Even the soldiers of Li's army were excited. The corpses of the Ruan army soldiers were densely packed along the way.

Nguyen Phuc Binh retreated all the way to Guangping Prefecture, and directly retreated to the defense line when he confronted Zheng in the past. Li Chengdong's troops made a tentative attack for a while, but the garrison left by Nguyen Phuc Binh in the original station fought desperately. Li's troops lacked siege equipment, and the two armies temporarily stopped fighting.

Afterwards, Nguyen Phuc Binh sent people to ask for peace from Li Chengdong, but Li Chengdong was eager to lead his troops back to the rear to quell the rebellion. The two sides hit it off and a ceasefire agreement was immediately reached.

To be on the safe side, Li Chengdong left General Yan Keyi and 10,000 infantrymen to garrison Guangping Prefecture, while Li Chengdong led the rest of the troops and returned to Thang Long Prefecture without stopping.

With Li Chengdong's great victory, the morale of the Annan rebels dropped sharply. This temporarily formed peasant army, whose leaders mostly knew no military tactics, was completely inferior to Li Chengdong in terms of weapons and training.

After a brutal suppression, the rebels in Annan were almost wiped out.

Many of the young men from Guangdong and Guangxi who were forced to come by Li Chengdong were extremely resentful of him at first. However, as Li Chengdong suppressed Annan, a large amount of land was freed up. Li Chengdong distributed the land to these people. For a time, Li Chengdong became a wise leader in the hearts of these people.

However, Li Chengdong, who had just suppressed the rebellion, was very worried.

What he was worried about was Meng Jun. When retreating to Annan, Li Chengdong thought that if Meng Jun's ambition, that is, the traditional Han territory, was not feasible, he, Li Chengdong, could also send someone to express submission and pay tribute.

When Zhu Youlang first entered Myanmar, he sent people to Annan to find Li Chengdong, hoping that he could send troops to Myanmar to support the king. However, Li Chengdong had no interest in this at the time.

On the one hand, Li Chengdong was busy fighting with Zheng, so he had no time to send troops to pick up Zhu Youlang. On the other hand, Li Chengdong did not have much desire to take back such a big man as Zhu Youlang. There was no market for using the emperor to control the princes in those days.

As the cursed water incident occurred, Zhu Youlang was sent to Qian Dynasty by Mangbai. After that, Qian Dynasty reprimanded Mangbai and wanted to send troops to attack Mangbai. Li Chengdong was very worried.

Because according to tradition, when the monarch of the previous dynasty was abducted and sent back by the vassal state, Meng Jun would not express his gratitude, but he would not send troops to attack. Li Chengdong scoffed at the ten crimes that Meng Jun accused Mang Bai'an of. The only reason why Meng Jun wanted to attack Mang Bai was that Meng Jun was too ambitious and wanted to occupy Myanmar by force.

But as the Qian Dynasty invaded Myanmar, Li Chengdong immediately felt that with Meng Jun's huge ambition, he could not spare the time to take action now. Once the time was right, he would definitely attack him.

Li Chengdong was worried, and his subordinate Yang Dafu was very tactless. He took advantage of the fact that the rebels were all wiped out and said to Li Chengdong: "Marshal, now that we have pacified Annan, as the saying goes, the emperor is far away, why don't you become the emperor and I can be a duke to have fun!"

Li Chengdong immediately kicked Yang Dafu to the ground and yelled, "Get lost!!!"

Li Chengdong was now worried that Meng Jun would come and attack him, so how could he dare to claim the throne? This was clearly saying to Meng Jun: "Come on, come quickly, come and attack me!"

If he dared to proclaim himself emperor today, the soldiers of the Qian Dynasty would come to kill him tomorrow. Wu Wenxian was obviously much smarter. He guessed what Li Chengdong was thinking, so he said to him: "General, now Fulin and Zhu Youlang have been captured by the Qian Dynasty. Their power is irresistible. You might as well submit to the Qian Dynasty and ask the Qian Dynasty to make you a king. We can be a vassal state in Annan."

Li Chengdong frowned for a long while before shaking his head and said, "Submission is fine, it's just a matter of words. What I'm worried about is that Meng Jun won't accept it and will come to fight me. You know, we killed so many people in Jiangnan, many of whom had connections with the officials and generals of the current Qian Dynasty. Can Meng Jun let us go?"

Wu Wenxian touched his head and said hesitantly: "Marshal, why don't we give it a try? If it doesn't work, we can make plans!"

Li Chengdong nodded and said, "Okay, pick a family-friendly and smart person from among those bookworms, and have him write a memorial to declare his loyalty and send it to the Qian Dynasty to see what Meng Jun says!"

Wu Wenxian bowed and said in a deep voice, "Yes, Marshal, I will arrange it right away!"