The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 783 Jiaozhi is mine, and Luzon is mine too.
Quang Nam Province, Tung Binh Prefecture, Tung Binh City (Hanoi), Hoan Kiem Lake.

There is a legend about this lake. It is said that before Le Loi rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, he met a divine turtle by the lake. The turtle said that he had the aura of an emperor and gave him an invincible sword.

Later, when Le Loi's rebellion succeeded, he came to the lake to thank the divine turtle. The divine turtle didn't want anything, but only took the sword that it had given to Le Loi.

So the lake was called Hoan Kiem Lake, and the Later Le Dynasty built temples here to commemorate it.

When Mo Zibu took control of Beihe, he ordered the cruel official Deng Chenchang to dig up Huanjian Lake and drain the water so that the people of Songping could witness it. However, they did not see any divine turtle or any so-called precious sword.

Actually, there are quite a few large turtles and swords in this lake, because over the past few hundred years since the Later Le Dynasty, many turtles have been released into the lake to raise, and many swords have been thrown in to create miracles.

But the legendary divine tortoise and the invincible divine sword certainly don't exist.

After draining the water, Mo Zibu ordered the imperial chefs to kill more than 4,000 turtles and tortoises of all sizes from Huanjian Lake and add them to an old hen to make a "Farewell My Concubine" soup to reward the soldiers.

At the same time, it was also given as a reward to the people of Songping. Everyone had to drink a sip, and those who refused would be put in shackles and displayed to the public.

He then ordered craftsmen to collect all the swords and knives in the lake, cast them into a green-painted iron turtle, and placed it directly on top of Li Li's tomb.

You like turtles, huh? Well, I'll make sure you're turned into a green-haired turtle for all eternity.

However, after all this was done, Hoan Kiem Lake was filled with water again, and the name, which is indeed very poetic and charming, was preserved.

Mo Zibu simply transformed the temple built by the Later Le Dynasty on the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake for the sacred tortoise into a temple to commemorate the loyal ministers and righteous men of Annam who served the Ming Dynasty during the Ming-occupied Annam period.

The most important of them all is Mo.

This man was one of the leaders of the literati in Annam at the time, and he was also capable of leading troops into battle. After his unexpected death on the battlefield, the Ming Dynasty's rule in Annam began to disintegrate.

And this "Mo" is very likely to be Mo Zibu's uncle or ancestor.

Because the Mo family of Leizhou had followed Duke Zhang Fu of Yingguo into Annam back then, and his direct ancestor had served as the North City Inspector of Jiaozhi, an official similar to the Deputy Commander of the Five Cities Military Command. At that time, Mo happened to be in charge of the Jiaozhi City Inspectorate.

There were very few people with the surname Mo in the world. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were only more than 80,000 of them, most of whom lived in the area from the Leizhou Peninsula to the Bac Ha Plain in northern Vietnam.

Mo Zibu's ancestor, who was a student in the imperial examinations, was able to become an important official position equivalent to the deputy commander of the Five Cities Garrison, which must have been largely due to Mo's influence.

Therefore, after Mo Zibu established his state, he designated Mo Ding as his collateral uncle and ancestor.

This local official from Jiaozhi, who served the Ming Dynasty loyally, was granted numerous titles and honors during the Dayu Dynasty. He was posthumously awarded the title of Prince of Songping and given the posthumous name Zhongsu.

Right next to the temple commemorating King Chungsuk of Songpyeong is the busiest area in the entire city of Songpyeong.

Important political, educational, and military institutions, including the Guangnan Governor's Office, the Zhongsu Prince's Imperial Academy, and the Guangnan Garrison Commander's Office, were all located nearby.

Wu Wenyong, the former Privy Councilor and now the headmaster of the Imperial Academy under the Prince of Zhongsu and Marquis of Haiyang, was sitting idly by the window on the second floor of Yuexianglou, a famous restaurant on the shore of Huanjian Lake.

Compared to Li Xianwen, who is still waiting to retire in Dingxia City, Xiafan, Chen Guangyao, who has returned to the Northeast and is enthusiastically building up the Northeast, or Chen Lian, the busy Prime Minister of the Nanyang Mission, Wu Wenyong retired very early.

This is because his body is no longer suitable for high-intensity work.

Compared to Li Xianwen, Chen Guangyao and Chen Lian, Wu Wenyong's greatest characteristic was that he always went to the front in every battle. Even as the commander of a large army, he was often on the front line, so he was injured several times more often than the others.

The most serious of these was several major hemorrhages, which caused him to suffer from frequent illnesses after the age of forty.

It is possible that excessive bleeding affected his body's hematopoietic function, so this valiant general could only resign as Privy Councilor in his forties and return to his hometown of Guangnan to become the headmaster of the Chungsuk King's Imperial Academy.

The capital of Quang Nam province, which later became the name of Hanoi at this time, underwent several changes.

Before Mo Zibu took control, it was called Tokyo. Later, Mo Zibu changed it to Xing Tang Sheng Long Prefecture. After Mo Zibu recovered the country, he downgraded Xing Tang Sheng Long Prefecture to Jiao Zhi Prefecture.

By the year before last, the population had been completely Sinicized. People from western Guangdong who spoke the Leiqiong dialect of Minnan and people from Guangfu who spoke Cantonese accounted for 60% of the population of Jiaozhi City. In addition, the original high-ranking officials from Beijing and Wuhan who spoke Cantonese accounted for almost 95%.

At this point, it would be inappropriate to still use the name "Jiaozhi".

"Cross-toed" is a derogatory term referring to feet that are barefoot with their toes spread wide apart, as if they are gripping the ground with all five toes. The name itself carries a strong discriminatory connotation.

Therefore, in the twenty-first year of Guangzhong (1796), Mo Zibu issued an edict to change Jiaozhi Prefecture to Songping Prefecture.

The name Songping originates from Songping County, which was established here during the reign of Emperor Xiaowu of the Liu Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties. It is very appropriate to use it now.

Warm sunlight streamed in through the window. Wu Wenyong, who had just eaten a whole roast goose, two servings of rice noodle rolls, and drunk a pot of plum wine, lay lazily on a deck chair, enjoying the warmth of autumn.

He has poor blood production ability and often feels cold and damp, so he loves to sunbathe.

But as he was sunbathing, Wu Wenyong heard a series of gibberish sounds, like someone holding a pebble in their mouth and pressing it against the tip of their tongue, making random, incoherent noises.

Wu Wenyong immediately snapped out of his half-asleep state. He was very familiar with this language; it was the Yue language that had once been spoken in Beihe.

And when it comes to the basic language of Beihe, that's really interesting.

Most people in later generations agree that there are few languages ​​in the world more unpleasant to hear than Annam. Even the calls of monkeys have more rhythm than Annam. This thing doesn't seem to have evolved naturally.

After all, no one wants to make their words sound so awkward and unpleasant.

The global trend in language pronunciation is towards simplicity and convenience, aiming to closely mimic the physiological functions of the human oral muscles.

Annamese, however, seems to fall outside this category.

This is because the Annamite language of later generations did not evolve entirely naturally; in many ways, it was the result of deliberate guidance.

The reason for this is that most of the Han Chinese in Jiaozhi were killed during the Nanzhao Kingdom's conquest of Annam, and the remaining Han Chinese were deeply influenced by the Mang people's language.

But actually, it's not a big deal to get here, since the Zhuang language, which is similar to this language, is quite pleasant to listen to, and even has a strange kind of beauty.

The reason why Annamese became so unpleasant to hear is that during the reign of Emperor Trần Ngợng of the Trần Dynasty in Annam, in order to break away from the situation where the high-ranking officials of the capital and Han dynasties monopolized the teaching of Chinese and controlled knowledge and official positions, he deliberately ordered all Annamese to learn the clothing and speech of the Lao, Khmer, and Cham people.

Specifically, this involved taking a large number of Chinese loanwords from Chinese and the languages ​​of the lower-level indigenous peoples, pronouncing them according to Cham and Khmer, and then translating these pronunciations back into the Mang people's native language, deliberately altering the pronunciation rules.

This is a key reason why, despite most Vietnamese people appearing to belong to the East Asian race and their vocabulary containing numerous Chinese loanwords, their language is neither Chinese (a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family), nor the Zhuang-Dong or Miao-Yao language families within the Sino-Tibetan language family, but rather, quite strangely, belongs to the Austroasiatic language family.

Even during the Le Duan era, such changes were still being made, as can be seen in the differences between Vietnamese dictionaries compiled by the French in the 17th century and those used today.

This is also why the Annamese language, which is not so bad to hear in everyday conversation, becomes extremely unpleasant to listen to when they are seriously recording videos or giving reports.

Because formal occasions use the Hanoi dialect as the base language, which is equivalent to the standard Vietnamese language, and the Hanoi dialect is the one that has been heavily modified over the past few centuries.

Naturally, Mo Zibu had a strong aversion to this kind of language that was artificially created in terms of pronunciation.

After he entered Beihe and consolidated his rule, he ordered Deng Chenchang to organize a group of yamen runners to patrol the streets with thin wooden boards and randomly check the speech of ordinary people.

Anyone who dared to utter such colloquialisms would be met with a flurry of blows from the broomsticks, the bailiffs slapping them across the mouth until they bled profusely.

Initially, this practice was only implemented among officials and scholars. Later, it was gradually extended to merchants, workers, citizens, farmers, and fishermen. It took about fifteen years to change the language of most people by hitting their mouths with large wooden boards.

So much so that nowadays, in other provinces across the country, officials punish criminals by beating them with sticks, but in Guangnan, they only beat their mouths with wooden boards.

Of course, Mo Zibu did not continue to promote the Jiaozhi Han language, also known as the Han-Yue dialect, since it had become a dead language by the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, with many words missing and the pronunciation too archaic.

Fortunately, the Han-Yue dialect and the Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou during the Tang and Song dynasties were twins, so Mo Zibu personally ordered that Cantonese be chosen as the common language in Guangnan.

When Wu Wenyong woke up, his servants also woke up. When they saw their master touching the stick at his waist, they quickly put their hands on the hilts of their swords as well.

The master and his six servants listened carefully downstairs and indeed heard clearly that someone was speaking the local dialect of Jiaozhi before they rushed upstairs.

Upstairs, several men in long gowns turned pale with fright when they saw Wu Wenyong and his group rushing up. They abandoned the top-quality food on the table, which cost more than five silver dollars a meal, and turned to rush downstairs.

There was even one reckless person who was about to jump from the third floor.

The reason they were so afraid was that Wu Wenyong was the one in Songping City who liked to meddle in these matters the most. As soon as he heard someone speaking the Jiaozhi dialect, he would immediately come up and teach them a lesson.

Well, it has been twenty-four or twenty-five years since Mo Zibu took over Beihe, but the Jiaozhi dialect has never been completely eradicated.

There were even many who secretly advocated for the independence of Jiaozhi, secretly worshipped the kings of the Later Le Dynasty and the successive Trần rulers, and referred to the kings of the Ly, Tran, and Le dynasties of Annam as emperors in their books.

Even three years earlier, in 1795, there was a rebellion that affected three counties, claiming to have 100,000 soldiers, but in reality, only about 6,000 were actually fighting.

Mo Zibu specially transferred troops from Guangdong to suppress the rebellion, killing more than 20,000 people and exiling 70,000 to 80,000 before finally quelling the unrest.

The reason for this was all about interests. When Mo Zibu first entered Beihe, those who knew what was good for him, such as Chen Shaochang, Wu Shishi and his son Wu Shiren, and Pan Huiyi, quickly pledged allegiance and thus gained great benefits.

However, many people at the time judged that Mo Zibu could not occupy Beihe for long, because even when the Han people had their own Han dynasty, they could not occupy it for long. Now, the Manchu Qing dynasty, which was guarding against the Han, was ruling the north. How could Mo Zibu, a Han man, want to occupy Beihe?
Therefore, many people were not optimistic about Mo Zibu at the time. Although many did not rebel, they did not follow Emperor Mo.

In addition, the cruel practices of Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yi, and Chang Wen-chang at the time also harmed many people, leading many to engage in non-violent non-cooperation in secret.

But this approach has backfired spectacularly on them.

Guangnan has developed rapidly in recent years, and those who followed the emperor to surrender to the Han have all made a fortune.

Mo Zibu also kept his promise and reserved five places for Han Chinese from Guangnan in the annual imperial examinations. As a result, there were quite a few officials from Guangnan. In fact, the Chen family of Xiangcha in Hue and the Chen family of Haiyang in Beihe even produced two Assistant Grand Secretaries.

Spurred by such enormous benefits, those who had worked back then were filled with regret. Those who could distinguish right from wrong seized the last opportunity to desperately squeeze onto the ship, while those with narrow-minded personalities or those with overly scheming Annamese people were causing trouble openly and secretly.

On the third floor of Yuexianglou, just as the man was about to jump, Wu Wenyong roared, grabbed a bench, and hurled it at him. The benches, made of fine wood and weighing over thirty pounds, whistled through the air and struck the man squarely on the back.

The man screamed, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and fell backward off the railing.

When Wu Wenyong made his move, his guards raised their scabbards and began to smash the other men, causing them to scream and wail in agony.

Moreover, these guards were all highly skilled veterans who had followed Wu Wenyong from the battlefield. They were very experienced, and they searched people while beating them.

Haha, at this time of year, if someone is still speaking the local Yue dialect, no one would believe that he doesn't have any ulterior motives or a criminal record!

"Wu Wenyong, you scoundrel, I'm going to kill you!"

With a roar, a gunshot rang out. Wu Wenyong felt a burning sensation near his ear. He knew that a lead bullet that could have killed him had missed him by a hair's breadth.

"Chen Gongguang!" Wu Wenyong showed no fear whatsoever. Instead, upon seeing the man holding the musket, he burst into laughter.

"Too bad you can't afford a high-end revolver, otherwise a rapid-fire barrage could really kill me!"

Amidst the laughter, Wu Wenyong's guards swarmed forward, dislocated both of Chen Gongguang's arms, and beat him until he bled from his mouth and nose before taking him away.

"Wu Wenyong, you are also a Yue person. Do you feel even a little bit of remorse for acting as an accomplice to evil?"

This Chen Gongguang was a student of the great Confucian scholar Le Quy Don in Annam, and later the eldest son of Chen Gongshuo, the Vice Censor-in-Chief of the Le Dynasty.

Le Quy Don was the one who invented the theory that Zhao Tuo was Vietnamese, that the Nanyue Kingdom was equivalent to Annam, and who argued that the core ruling area of ​​Zhao Tuo's Nanyue Kingdom was in the Beihe Plain.

He is also the only person in all dynasties of this time and space who was truly executed along with his entire clan.

After Mo Zibu took control of Beihe, he instructed Deng Chenchang to implicate many people.

He killed Le Quy Don's entire family and three generations of his father's clan, that is, his grandfather and his grandfather's brothers and their descendants.

The maternal lineage extends three generations down from the maternal grandfather's brothers.

The wife's family spans three generations, namely the grandfather and brothers of Le Quy Don's wife, as well as the entire family of many students.

For example, Le Quy Don's students Bui Bi and Nguyen Dinh Kien, among others, had their entire clans executed, including grandfathers, fathers, brothers, sons, and nephews, except for married sisters and direct female relatives.

Back then, they killed more than 900 people in one go along the banks of the Fulang River, making the river water stink.

However, Le Quy Don's student Tran Cong Suk and his three sons managed to escape. The court had been hunting them down for years, but they never expected to run into them here.

"Wu Wenyong, don't forget, you are also a Yue person, you can't be a Han person!" Chen Gongguang was still shouting there, perhaps thinking that this would break Wu Wenyong's defenses.

Well, Wu Wenyong really broke down. He originally wanted to interrogate him, but after hearing Chen Gongguang's words, his eyes turned bloodshot, and his two fists, as big as iron hammers, rained down on Chen Gongguang's head and body.

"Fuck your mother, how am I not a Han Chinese?"

"My ancestors were from the Bai Bo Wu family, descendants of Empress Wu Zetian's brothers. I married Her Majesty's cousin, Princess Qinghua, a member of the imperial family. How can I not be a Han Chinese!"

"what!"

"Tell me, how am I not a Han Chinese?!"

Upon hearing Chen Gongguang's words, his bodyguard knew things were going to get bad and quickly rushed over to hug Wu Wenyong, pleading with him:

"My lord, my lord, this guy is deliberately provoking you. He wants to die. He must have many secrets!"

Upon hearing this, Wu Wenyong calmed down and refrained from killing Chen Gongguang on the spot.

"Report to His Majesty, requesting that Mo Shanyun come to Guangnan. He must conduct a thorough investigation of Guangnan Province and Vientiane Kingdom, and find all these traitors and rebels!"

His anger came quickly but also subsided just as fast; Wu Wenyong quickly calmed down.

The Mo Shanyun he mentioned was the Zhenfu of the Northern Garrison of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. In the Great Yu Dynasty, the term Zhenfu in the Embroidered Uniform Guard was the same as the Dangtou of the Eastern Depot in the Great Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, Mo Shanyun was also Wu Wenyong's brother-in-law and Jiao Jilang, who was deeply trusted by the emperor.

"My lord, are we really going to make a big fuss about this?" the guard asked hesitantly. These trusted guards naturally knew what Wu Wenyong was planning to do.

The Marquis himself, along with a large group of nobles and wealthy merchants, actually intended to capture the natives of Guangnan and Rinan provinces and Vientiane and send them to Koh Samui (Sumatra), Xinglong Peninsula (Malay Peninsula), and the Great Spice Island (Suwerah) and Nanji Island (Java) to tap rubber.

After nearly a decade of development, rubber harvesting in Southeast Asia has reached its peak. At the same time, further industrial development has created an enormous demand for all types of rubber, including vulcanized rubber.

They had captured almost all the natives on the islands of Southeast Asia, so they set their sights on the natives in the high mountains near Guangnan Province and the Vientiane Kingdom.

But the emperor did not budge on this matter, which made the nobles very anxious. However, it seems that they have now found the most suitable excuse.

"It is said that the Fourth Prince is coming back from Bangladesh. He is still the Prince of Vientiane, so this matter requires his approval."

The Fourth Prince, naturally, was in India urging the British Indian Army to help the Great Yu deal with the fourth prince of the Gurkha, Mo Zhouzhe. His fiefdom had not yet been changed to Hanchuan (lower Myanmar), and he was still the Prince of Vientiane.

"I understand, and of course I will inform the Fourth Prince." Wu Wenyong nodded and then waved his hand.

"You brazenly lock these people up and parade them through the streets, claiming that I, your master, have caught a few more shameless scoundrels who speak the Yue dialect!"

The veteran guard chuckled. This tactic was called "luring the snake out of its hole," giving Chen Gongguang's accomplices hiding in the shadows a false signal that Chen Gongguang had not been exposed, thus drawing them out to rescue him.

After all, no one would have guessed that Wu Wenyong came with a mission; he had already seen the wanted posters of the Chen brothers at the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

There were even people within the Embroidered Uniform Guard who dressed up according to the portraits, and their appearances were very similar. Wu Wenyong and others had been asked to identify them hundreds of times.

Hearing this conversation, Chen Gongguang, who had been beaten unconscious by Wu Wenyong, felt a deep regret that bled through his heart.

The uprising two years ago was too overconfident; they never expected that even the provincial garrisons at the third level would be so capable.

So much so that the uprising, which involved dozens of tribes and powerful clans and had been brewing for over a decade, with five or six thousand soldiers, was suppressed in less than three months.

Moreover, although Deng Chenchang is dead, Li Quan, the younger brother of Li Bao from Haiyang, has taken his place.
This man, who followed Mo Zibu back in Rong City, was Li Quan, the younger brother of Li Bao, a meritorious official from a small number of Yue people. He was practically a carbon copy of Deng Chenchang.

Ruthless and cunning, he was also particularly adept at unraveling complexities and meticulously investigating, eventually uncovering most of Chen Gongguang's clandestine foundations.

More than 20,000 people were killed and more than 70,000 were exiled, which essentially destroyed the Chen family's business of more than a decade.

His father, Tran Cong Suo, was trapped on a high mountain near Mong Thien Gang (around Dien Bien Phu) and died suddenly from anger and frustration. He was forced to come down the mountain to try to get some help, otherwise the people on the mountain would not be able to survive.

As fate would have it, they were upstairs singing softly in their local Yue language, tears streaming down their faces. Wu Wenyong happened to be downstairs eating roast goose and drinking fine wine, and he overheard everything.

The guards grabbed the men, gagged them, tied their hands with ropes, and led them downstairs.

Downstairs, some busybodies were already waiting. As soon as they saw the person coming down, they rushed up and started hitting them with bamboo sticks and shouting insults.

Currently, within Songping City, those at the very top have received the greatest benefits, while those in the middle and lower classes are simply imperial retainers who were relocated from western Guangdong and other places.

Even the original Yue people lived much better than during the Beizheng period.

After all, at that time, the Northern River region was fighting against the Southern Nguyen outside, the Le Dynasty king and the Trinh lord inside, and the Three Prefectures Army and the Trinh lord in the deepest part. One can imagine what life was like for ordinary people.

So when they arrived in Mozibu, even if they had to work like slaves, at least they could survive if they were willing to do so. At least the policies were stable and the laws provided some protection, so they wouldn't be beaten to death or their whole family starve to death for no reason.

Therefore, those who truly oppose it are only the middle and upper classes, a small number of people whose families were originally at the top but have fallen to a lower class because they made the wrong bet.

. . . .

At the Guangnan Governor's Office, Wu Wenyong had someone briefly announce his arrival before entering the inner hall.

Of course, he was not required to report this. As a minor governor of Guangnan, he was only a second-rank official in Dayu and had always been the one to curry favor with him, the former Privy Councilor.

The reason given today is that Wu Renjing, the Governor-General of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guangnan, is here.

Wu Renjing was born in Mingxiang. His mother came from the Chen family of Jiading. His ancestors were river pirates in the Lianzhou area. After their resistance against the Qing failed, they followed Chen Shangchuan, the maternal grandfather of Emperor Mo Zibu, to Southeast Asia.

In the Great Yu Dynasty, this was simply the most upright and righteous of all.

Therefore, this historically renowned scholar and politician, Nguyen Phuc Anh Nguyen Xiao Quang, who was instrumental in the restoration of Nguyen Hut Anh Nguyen, enjoyed a very successful official career in the Dai Ngu Dynasty.

"Rushan, the memorial can be submitted now. Let's sign it together. This whole of Southeast Asia belongs to our Great Yu. Only the Spanish are occupying Luzon. They should have been kicked out long ago."

Wu Wenyong said with a smile that what he and the people behind him were actually eyeing was not the local people of Guangnan and the tens of thousands of people of Vientiane, but the six or seven hundred thousand people on Luzon Island.

These people had long been trained by the Spanish to be quite obedient, so they were captured and sold to rubber plantations in various parts of Southeast Asia to tap rubber, or sent to the large islands of Australia and New Zealand, which were in dire need of manpower, to help Chinese plantation owners reclaim land.

“Alright, let’s nip it in the bud. Congratulations on your fortune! It would be perfect if both came together.” Wu Renjing also seemed very happy.

Originally, the imperial court needed Spain to import a large amount of silver from Beihezhou, but now the situation in Europe has changed suddenly, and the Spanish are following the French Directory, so it is a good opportunity to take over their territory.

As for the annual shortage of silver, on the one hand, the Great Yu Dynasty was about to shift to the more stable gold standard.

On one hand, the Great Yu Dynasty is also about to make a big move in Beihezhou. The fifth prince, Prince Moshu Zhen of Edo, has obtained the emperor's permission to start a large-scale recruitment of samurai in Edo and the five provinces of the East, preparing to go to Beihezhou to take charge of the government.

(End of this chapter)