Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 180 Postwar Influence
As time went on, the benefits that the Battle of Ha Long brought to the Chinese troops became increasingly apparent.

First, troops from all over the three provinces were dispatched to escort back the seized silver, grain, weapons, ships, livestock and other supplies. After Sun Bin urgently sent a message to transfer Liang Xing from the Natuna Islands, the total amount of seized supplies was busy for several days. Among them, the treasury silver looted from local government offices and the ransom paid by captured officials amounted to 1.04 million taels. The seized tea, cloth and other surplus supplies were sold for 200,000 taels of silver.

Haiphong, Guang'an and Haining are coastal provinces. Since France occupied the southern provinces of Annam, Annam merchants in the north took advantage of the geographical advantage of being close to the French. They purchased oriental luxury goods such as tea and porcelain from the coastal areas, and then sold them to the French by sea. The French merchants then transported them back to the European continent and sold them at high prices.

Merchants are profit-driven, no matter whether they are the Shanxi merchants who collude with Liaodong or the Annan merchants, they are all of the same character. After the three provinces fell into the control of the Chinese, Sun Bin did not treat them politely. All Annan ships docked at the port were detained, and all ships with tonnage exceeding the requirements for ocean-going were confiscated. Ships with slightly smaller tonnage were redeemed by their owners.

The merchants were rich but had low political status. In addition, war was raging in Annan and the Hue court was overwhelmed. It had no time or ability to seek justice for them. Therefore, the Annan merchants had no choice but to pay the ransom as required by the Chinese troops and redeem some smaller ships.

Annan merchant ships were small in tonnage and few in number. There were eight merchant ships detained as ocean-going transport ships, all with tonnage ranging from 400 to 800 tons.

Sun Bin planned to modify the eight merchant ships and form the Nanyang Fleet with the three armed merchant ships. He would select Chinese who had surrendered and had experience at sea to serve as sailors to protect the security of Annan and the Natuna Islands.

Excluding the eight merchant ships that were left behind, the redemption of the remaining ships brought the Chinese troops an income of 300,000 taels.

After taking all the spoils of war together and deducting the rewards given to the soldiers and the young men in the camp, the battle of Ha Long brought the Chinese troops a revenue of nearly 1.2 million.

Killing people and setting fires for gold belts, looking at the mountains of real gold and silver in the warehouse, Sun Bin couldn't help but sigh that fighting and robbing were the fastest ways to make money.

With abundant silver, money and food, Sun Bin was able to carry out the tasks assigned by Li Mingyuan without restrictions and recruit Chinese on a large scale in the northern provinces of Annan and the border areas of Annan mainland.

Using the weak to defeat the strong, and annihilating the 10,000-strong Annan army in one battle, the area controlled reached three provinces. The sudden rise of Sun Bin's troops attracted the attention of most of the Chinese forces at the junction of northern Vietnam, Annan and Guangxi. From the announcement of large-scale recruitment of Chinese, Chinese in northern Vietnamese provinces such as Haiyang, Hanoi, Bac Ninh, and Taiyuan came to surrender one after another, while the small peasant army entrenched in Lang Son Province invited Chinese troops to settle in the local area and incorporated the areas they occupied into the occupied zone.

Lang Son Province has many mountains and little land. It is close to the border of Guangxi and its area is three times that of Quang Ninh Province. Most of Lang Son Province is divided and occupied by groups of peasant armies, and the Annan army only occupies a very small area. After receiving an invitation from the local peasant army, Sun Bin sent Ye Chenglin to lead a thousand young and strong men to march into Lang Son. After three or four days of emergency march-style fighting, the Annan troops in Lang Son Province were wiped out, and the peasant army along the way continued to join Ye Chenglin's troops. Finally, three-quarters of the land in Lang Son Province fell under the control of Chinese troops. Only the two border counties occupied by Liu Yongfu had an unclear attitude and did not express any intention of surrendering.

Most areas of Lang Son Province fell under control, and the two remote counties occupied by Liu Yongfu could not affect the overall situation. Therefore, under the instructions of Sun Bin, Ye Chenglin temporarily did not take armed action against Liu Yongfu's troops.

Taking advantage of the situation and going with the flow, only a few peasant armies were wavering like Liu Yongfu. Most of the peasant armies and Chinese refugees followed the trend created by the Chinese troops, abandoned the large peasant armies such as Wu Yazhong who were short of money and food, and turned their target of surrender to Sun Bin's troops.

The local peasants launched a rebellion, and the Annan troops did not dare to provoke Sun Bin's troops, who were gaining momentum at this time. They let the Chinese refugees and peasant army passing through the defense zone pass. Half a month passed as the Chinese troops expanded their sphere of influence. Compared with the recruitment of Chinese immigrants a month ago, the influx of Chinese refugees this time was even greater. The number of Chinese refugees from all over Annan exceeded 50,000. The number of people in the four provinces with large Chinese populations, Lang Son, Haiphong, Quang An, and Haining, was about 200,000. There were also 20,000 poor refugees from Taiping Prefecture, Longzhou, Pingxiang and other border areas of Guangxi who crossed the border to seek refuge.

The total number of Chinese from different regions is about 28, which exceeds the number of Chinese in Rio Grande do Sul.

Most of the 28 Chinese are distributed in the three provinces of Quang Yen, Hai Ninh and Lang Son. Except for the soldiers stationed in Hai Phong Province, ordinary Chinese are moving to the other three provinces.

Haiphong is the gateway and trading port of Hanoi, an important city in northern Annam. Forcible occupation of Haiphong would not only provoke backlash from the Annam court, but would also offend the French.

Sun Bin didn't care about the attitude of the Annan court itself, but behind Annan stood the Qing army that had just wiped out the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. If the Annan court ignored the consequences and asked the Qing army for help, the territory that the Chinese troops had just conquered would be in danger of destruction.

Considering the intervention of the Qing and French troops behind Annan, Sun Bin made arrangements in advance before occupying Haiphong. On the one hand, he reorganized the Chinese armed forces in the occupied area, and on the other hand, he sent messengers to negotiate the conditions of amnesty with the Hue court.

The real boss of the Hue court was the civil officials headed by Huang Jiyan, the son-in-law of the emperor. When Liang Xing, the representative sent by Sun Bin, brought Li Yu and a sum of seized silver to visit Huang Jiyan, the two sides reached an agreement on the conditions for the amnesty after four days of emergency negotiations:

The Chinese troops withdrew from the Haiphong Province and were not allowed to damage the city defense facilities in Haiphong City or threaten the safety of officials before the Annan troops took over.

2. Release the 10,000 captured Annan soldiers and officers.

Third, they must not secretly support the local rebels in Annan.
4. Restrain the armed peasant army under your command and do not collude with the peasant army led by Wu Yazhong.

Five: Merge the two small provinces of Guang'an and Haining into Guangning Province, appoint Sun Bin as the governor of Guangning Province, and allocate 3,000 soldiers. No private expansion of the army is allowed. ...

There were 13 conditions for recruiting the emperor, but some of them were not allowed to be seen in public. For example, the Chinese troops surrendered to Huang Jiyan, the son-in-law of the emperor, and obeyed Huang Jiyan's personal command. The Hue court acquiesced to the Chinese troops' actual occupation of Lang Son Province, and paid the Chinese troops 300,000 taels of silver in the name of military pay, hiring them to suppress the local rebel forces...

All the agreements, both overt and covert, were signed, and the Chinese troops suddenly became subjects of the Annan court. Nearly 300,000 Annan Chinese had legal status, and Sun Bin's actions in Annan were also covered with another layer of cover.

(End of this chapter)