Bringing the Railway to Daming

The Ming army had been ransacking Cairo for five days and was still not finished.

On this day, Zhu Gang had just finished discussing military affairs with several of his commanders and several generals of the Xihai Guard, including Qin Xu, in the council hall of the royal palace when the guards outside the hall came in to report.

"Your Majesty, Captain Xie has requested an audience to report the confiscation of property."

Currently, there is only one captain surnamed Xie under Zhu Gang, and that is the deputy captain Xie Yu.

Upon learning that it was Xie Yu who requested an audience, Zhu Gang said, "Let him in."

The guard went out in response, and soon a young man who looked to be in his early twenties strode in.

Although Xie Yu was handsome and imposing, he was still young. He was able to become a deputy captain under Zhu Gang, and be in charge of internal intelligence gathering and interrogation, and become Zhu Gang's designated future commander of the Jin State's "Jinyiwei". This was not only due to his own abilities, but more importantly his identity and background.

He is the half-brother of the Princess of Jin and the fourth son of Xie Cheng, Marquis of Yongping. Although he is born out of wedlock, he is the only relative of the Princess of Jin among the overseas Jin vassal states. Naturally, he is trusted by Zhu Gang and is responsible for supervising the confiscation of property.

Xie Yu bowed politely and then said, "Your Majesty, according to the standards you set, as of today, the official property of the forty-three high-ranking Mamluk officials and nobles captured in Cairo has been confiscated."

"In total, the confiscated gold, primarily in the form of gold bars, gold coins, and jewelry, amounted to over 1.03 million taels; the silver, primarily in the form of silver coins, jewelry, and utensils, amounted to over 3.75 million taels; and various crude copper and iron coins, exceeding one million jin."

"In addition, there are more than 58,000 pieces of cloth of various kinds and more than 270,000 dan of grain of various kinds..."

Xie Yu reported a long list of the spoils of the confiscation of property before handing the written memorial to the eunuch to pass to Zhu Gang.

Zhu Gang glanced through it briefly and then asked the eunuch to pass it to Qin Xu to read. The reason why Xie Yu had to report when these generals were present was because the proceeds from the confiscation of property had to be divided with the Ming court represented by Xihaiwei.

According to the prior agreement, Xihaiwei only took 30%.

Although Zhu Gang was in charge of handling 70% of the Jin vassal's share, he certainly had to reward his many generals and civil officials. Didn't they all leave their hometowns, risk sailing 30,000 miles to follow him, Zhu Gang, to this foreign land just to enfeoff their wives and children and make a fortune?
He instructed Xie Yu in advance to report the proceeds of the house search in front of Qin Xu and others, to show that he would not embezzle the proceeds privately.

After reading Xie Yu's memorial, Qin Xu and others were all filled with inexplicable emotion.

Wang Xu, the military advisor to the imperial guards, said, "Previously, we seized only over 30,000 taels of gold from the various treasuries in the royal palace, a few hundred thousand taels of silver, and less than 100,000 dan of grain."

"But now, we have found dozens of times more gold and silver, and several times more grain, in the homes of these bureaucrats and dignitaries."

"There is little public wealth, but much private wealth. This shows that corruption among the Mamluks must be extremely serious. I'm afraid everyone acts out of personal gain, and few have a sense of public interest."

Qin Xu also sighed, "If those bureaucrats and nobles had been fair-minded, we wouldn't have been able to capture the great city of Cairo so easily. Even if we had, given our status as foreigners, it would have been impossible for us to pacify the entire city that day. There would surely be many who would resist."

Qin Xu had participated in sieges when the Ming Dynasty was pacifying the southwest. He knew that if he faced a city with a united front, it would not only be more difficult to conquer, but even if it was conquered, there would be brutal street fighting waiting.

Cairo is a large city, but after they broke through the city gates and entered the palace, they accepted the fact of being captured without much resistance. This shows that those in power must be unpopular.

After several civil officials and military generals discussed the spoils of the confiscation for a while, Zhu Gang wanted Xie Yu to leave.

Unexpectedly, Xie Yu clasped his fists and said, "Your Majesty, although the proceeds from this confiscation are substantial, they are by no means the entire wealth of those Mamluk bureaucrats and nobles."

"I believe that if we torture them severely, we will surely be able to extract more gold and silver."

"I have ordered the manufacture of one hundred pairs of clamps. We are only waiting for the king's order to begin the interrogation."

At this point, Xie Yu's young and handsome face showed excitement.

Zhu Gang knew that his brother-in-law was quite fond of torture and interrogation. Considering that these high-ranking Mamluk officials and nobles were to be executed, he nodded and said, "Okay, let's do as you say."

"Your Majesty is wise!"

Xie Yu, who was always serious, flattered Zhu Gang for the first time before leaving.

Not long after Xie Yu left, Tie Mingyi, a captain of Guangming Guards, came again to ask for a meeting.

"Your Highness, Prince Jin, Commander Qin, Rosetta's Bright Guard spies have just reported back that Barquq will lead 50,000 troops to attack Cairo!"

Zhu Gang was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. "Great! I was just worrying about how to quickly eliminate this Barkuk and the main force of his army, but I didn't expect him to show up right here!"

Wang Xu reminded him, "After all, Barquq is the founding emperor of the Tatar dynasty and a famous Mamluk general. Now he leads 50,000 troops to attack. He should not be underestimated. Your Majesty must not take it lightly."

"We can't let our guard down," Zhu Gang shouted. "But we have advanced firearms like the Shenwei Cannon, the Hudson Cannon, and the Bird Gun. We are all elite soldiers and generals, so we don't have to fear him!"

"What we need to consider now is how to use this battle to completely eliminate Barkuk, once and for all!"

Qin Xu said, "If we want to completely eliminate Barkuk, we must either kill him on the battlefield or annihilate his main force—it would be best to kill him."

Zhu Gang said, "If we want to kill Balkuk, we can't defend the city..."

Afterwards, Zhu Gang spent over an hour discussing with Qin Xu, Wang Xu, and others how to deal with Barquq. Seven days later, Barquq finally led an army of over 50,000, claiming to have 100,000, from Rosetta, over 300 miles away, to the outskirts of Cairo.

Barquq looked out from afar and saw that Cairo was sparsely populated. He burst into laughter, "Hahaha, these foreign enemy troops are indeed not many. Cairo is so huge, and they still need to suppress the city. I'm afraid there's only one soldier every ten steps, and they can't even cover all four walls!"

"I, Balkuk, will definitely win this battle!"

Laughing aside, as the founding emperor of the Tatar dynasty, Barquq was still cautious in his approach to war. He first sent over 10,000 men to conduct a exploratory attack to see if the defenders had any backup plans.

Seeing that the defenders were indeed exhausted and his soldiers were only one step away from capturing the city wall, he no longer hesitated and sent another 20,000 troops.

It was not that he did not want to send more troops, but the city of Cairo was not actually that big (it was just big in the eyes of Barquq and others). After deploying 30,000 troops, it would be useless to deploy more troops, which would instead make the besiegers' dispatch chaotic.

However, when the 20,000 additional troops sent by Barquq arrived at the city and joined the ant-like siege team, "iron blocks" with wooden handles were suddenly thrown down from the city wall.

The Mamluk soldiers below the city were startled by the impact, and then they couldn't help but laugh, "These foreigners must be fools. Using such a small object to hit people, even if it is made of iron, how many people can it kill?"

Just as he finished speaking, he saw the wooden handle and iron block under his feet explode with a bang, and he instantly lost consciousness.

What this man encountered was naturally a Ming army grenade, and it was one of the later ones to explode.

But most of the grenades exploded as soon as they hit the ground, or even exploded above the heads of the Mamluk soldiers before they hit the ground, and the iron pieces and nails inside exploded, killing and injuring everyone instantly.

Because of the newly added 20,000 troops, the Mamluk soldiers under the city wall were quite dense at this time, and they suffered heavy casualties from the Ming army's bombardment with grenades.

Those who managed to survive were either stunned by the series of explosions or fled in a frenzy. Even those who still retained a certain degree of rationality would not care about military law and would turn around and run away.

The few officers and warriors were unable to save the situation, and when they saw more grenades thrown down from the city walls, they could no longer hold on.

The Mamluk side also had a supervisory team, but this large-scale rout was simply beyond the control of the supervisory team.

Balquq was first shocked by the Ming army's grenades, and then saw his once brave soldiers fleeing in a panic, so he wanted to rush forward to control the situation personally and gather the fleeing soldiers as soon as possible.

Unexpectedly, when he had only taken a hundred steps forward, he heard a series of dull noises coming from the city wall.

Bang bang bang...

Then, countless "small stones" were seen shooting towards the fleeing soldiers like a fishing net, causing large numbers of soldiers to fall to the ground.

Most of these fallen soldiers did not die immediately, but instead had one or more bloody holes on their bodies, rolling on the ground and howling in pain.

Such a scene frightened Barquq and his more than 20,000 Mamluk soldiers who had not yet gone into battle.

At the same time, the gate of the city wall that Balkuk was attacking suddenly opened, and nearly three thousand elite cavalry rushed out from inside!

"It's over..."

Barkuk murmured.

Although Balquq had never heard of the Chinese phrase "a defeat as severe as a mountain collapsing", he understood this principle as he had rich experience in war.

Even though there are still more than 40,000 Mamluk soldiers on the battlefield, and even 20,000 of his men have not yet gone into battle, the enemy has only 3,000 elite cavalry out of the city.

But once morale is lost, not only will it be difficult for him to command the more than 20,000 fleeing soldiers, but even the combat effectiveness of the more than 20,000 people who have not fought will plummet.

In fact, at this moment, the army formation of more than 20,000 people behind him had already become chaotic...

···
As the heat intensifies in June, many shops in the capital start selling cold drinks such as shaved fruit drinks, iced milk, and iced sour plum soup.

In Tiangong Academy, in Liu Kuan's office, a large electric fan that was as tall as a person and had a fan wheel more than a foot long was turning slowly against the wall, bringing gusts of cool breeze into the room - because Liu Kuan placed two ice jars in the room.

Although it was not as cool as the air-conditioned rooms of later generations, it was not too hot, allowing him to handle official documents, read books and newspapers, and drink herbal tea as usual.

Not long after, a young eunuch came to summon Liu Kuan into the palace.

"I wonder what Lao Zhu has to say."

Speculating in his mind, Liu Kuan quickly rode his horse to the palace - the privilege of riding a horse in the palace was granted to him by Zhu Yuanzhang a long time ago, otherwise it would take him a lot of time to enter the palace every time.

When Liu Kuan entered Fengxian Hall, he saw Zhu Biao was also there, and both he and Zhu Yuanzhang were smiling.

After he paid his respects, he saw Old Zhu asking Li Gui to hand over a telegram.

Before Liu Kuan could read the contents of the telegram, he heard Lao Zhu say with a smile, "The third brother sent back another telegram. It should be yesterday. They won another great victory in Cairo City and eliminated the founding emperor of the Tatmadaw Dynasty!" (End of this chapter)