New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 112: Kill All Those Who Were Different

Li Anbang arranged for the Imperial Guards to launch separate attacks, resulting in five days of low-intensity fighting.

They took control of the major towns and highlands surrounding Mexico City and captured another group of prisoners of various ethnicities.

At the same time, it brought together the indigenous young men from outside Mexico City.

From teenagers to middle-aged people in their forties, a total of nearly 30,000 people were gathered.

Before officially starting the siege, Li Anbang gave a brief war mobilization speech.

Li Anbang arranged for the local young men to dig soil and build a simple rammed earth platform, where most of the local young men gathered below the platform.

Zhang Zongyu, along with sixteen Han imperial guards and sixteen local strongmen, ascended the earthen platform.

They brought thirty-two white and black prisoners, their hands bound, to the high platform.

Zhang Zongyu arranged for Spanish-speaking interpreters to work with Spanish-speaking indigenous craftsmen to translate what he wanted to say to them.

First, translate the Chinese into Spanish, and then translate the Spanish into the Aztec language used by the indigenous people.

To avoid misunderstandings from multiple translations, Zhang Zongyu used the simplest expression: "Kill all those who don't look like us and sacrifice them to the gods."

Upon hearing the Spanish message, the bound prisoners screamed and struggled in terror: "Don't kill me—you can't kill me!"

Ignoring the prisoners' struggles, Zhang Zongyu drew his knife and stabbed the first white prisoner to death.

Then he kicked the half-dead prisoner off the platform, and pulled out his sword in the process.

The sixteen Han imperial guards surrounding Zhang Zongyu also stepped forward one by one and executed a prisoner in the same way.

Finally, he handed the knife to the local young men beside him, instructing them to learn his methods and kill all the remaining prisoners.

The indigenous youths were excited and frightened. They did as the Imperial Guards ordered, executing all the white prisoners on the platform and kicking them off one by one.

Li Anbang then ordered all the captured prisoners, both black and white, to be brought out and driven down from the platform.

This included Mexican cavalrymen who had fallen from their horses but survived on the battlefield, as well as white men captured in residential areas and nearby villages outside the city.

Zhang Zongyu stood on the high platform, raising his sword and shouting down, "Kill them!"

From the high platform, the imperial guards around him joined Zhang Zongyu in shouting, "Kill them!"

Then Li Anbang ordered the Han imperial guards around him to drive away the local young men below the stage and kill all the white and black prisoners present.

After watching these men execute all the prisoners, the Han imperial guards raised their weapons and roared, "Kill!"

"Kill them."

"Kill all those who are different from us!"

The indigenous young men who were forcibly gathered at the ceremony site by the Han Imperial Guards naturally could not understand the Mandarin shouted by the Han Imperial Guards.

But the live demonstration by the Han Imperial Guards made them understand the meaning of these words.

At that moment, thousands of guards on the scene kept shouting and had several natives shout the same words in their language.

The other ordinary indigenous men and women were timid, fearful, and bewildered.

But now he was gradually swept up in the atmosphere and began to shout along with the Han imperial guards, "Kill one!"

Li Anbang and other Han generals did not have much experience in fighting with fewer troops.

There are nearly 200,000 people in and around Mexico City, and tens of thousands more if you include the surrounding villages and towns.

The 8,000 imperial guards brought by Li Anbang might be able to breach the city, but they would have absolutely no way to control it.

However, the generals of the Han Dynasty still had a strong sense of being from the common people, and they all knew how to quickly win over the common people and thus increase their own numbers.

The simplest and most direct method is to get the apathetic ordinary people to pledge their allegiance.

Although Mexico has been independent from Spain for more than a decade, the social and ethnic class system left by the Spanish has not changed.

At the top of society are still pure-blooded white people, with mixed-race individuals of white and indigenous or black descent in the middle.

The lowest class consisted of pure indigenous inhabitants, whose status was very close to that of enslaved people.

Faced with this organizational model that divides classes according to ethnicity, the generals from commoner backgrounds in the Han Dynasty had a wealth of experience in dealing with it.

The big man led them in executing a large group of white prisoners, which was considered a pledge of allegiance.

After killing a white man, he no longer feared white men, but at the same time he committed a great crime. The best outcome for him afterward was to follow the big man all the way to the end.

Based on this, the differences in the image of various ethnic groups in Mexico can also be utilized.

If there are obvious differences in appearance among different groups of people in a place, then the commonalities in appearance within each group and among multiple groups become the medium for distinguishing similar groups, and also a natural medium for forming alliances.

The appearance and skin color of the Han imperial guards were obviously different from those of the local natives.

The indigenous image of Central America is closer to that of Siberia and Central Asia.

However, the difference in appearance between Han Chinese and them is not significant, much like the difference in appearance between different tribes, which is significantly smaller than the difference between them and white and black people.

Compared to white and black people, the Han imperial guards and the local natives looked like the same kind of people.

So Li Anbang had Zhang Zongyu lead them in shouting: "Kill all those who are different from us!"

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This arrangement was simple, straightforward, and clear. Even after two translations, the local indigenous people still clearly understood what they were supposed to do.

(The average face of a pure-blooded indigenous person in Central America who is not mixed with white people.)

After completing the most basic grassroots mobilization through such means, Li Anbang officially began preparations for the attack on Mexico City.

Bustamante in Mexico City made preparations for the defense of the city, dividing all his soldiers into groups to take turns watching the movements outside the city and being ready to fight at any time.

Bustamant and his officers and soldiers still instinctively felt that even if they couldn't defeat the big man with the Devil Rifle in open battle, they should be able to defend the city without any problems.

Mexico City has strong walls and fortresses, and a total of more than 8,000 regular troops and nearly 100,000 residents, which can quickly organize a large number of militia.

The Han army numbered less than 10,000 men in total, and the difficulty of capturing such a city was beyond imagination.

However, these people still haven't realized that some of the most crucial things on the battlefield have changed.

The city defense and siege systems of the past two hundred years were all formed during the era of gunpowder.

In the past, most conventional siege battles were conducted under conditions where the defending side had a relative advantage in firepower.

The Imperial Guards of the Great Han Dynasty are now equipped with breech-loading rifled cannons and picric acid exploding shells, giving them a firepower advantage as the attacking side.

The generals of the Han Imperial Guards also demonstrated their abilities, quickly mobilizing tens of thousands of indigenous laborers to help.

Once Li Anbang had finished preparing and officially began the siege, Bustamant and the others quickly realized that their assumptions were wildly wrong.

The tactics used by Li Anbang were very similar to those used by Chen Huacheng in capturing Manila.

But now Li Anbang has better weapons, and more importantly, he has an advantage in artillery range, which makes it much easier and faster to carry out tactics, and the casualties of soldiers and indigenous laborers have been greatly reduced.

First, gather the indigenous laborers, have them fill sacks with soil, and then carry the sacks forward in different directions. Along the edge of the effective range of the large-caliber cannons on the city wall, build defensive fortifications that can provide shelter for people and cannons.

Then, the artillerymen were sent forward to push the new breech-loading rifled cannons into the earthen sack fortifications, aiming the muzzles at the enemy cannons on the city wall. They fired from outside the enemy cannons' range, suppressing all the cannons and enemies on the city wall.

The first salvo was fired, and the picric acid shells exploded over Mexico City, instantly blasting a large number of artillerymen and defenders into the air.

The key was the terrifying explosion, which far exceeded that of gunpowder, causing unprecedented panic among the soldiers even at a distance.

Upon hearing the noise from inside the castle, Paredes couldn't help but tremble and roar, "The devil's cannonballs! The devil's cannonballs are coming!"

Bustamant was also watching the situation on the battlefield and was now finally witnessing the power of the so-called Devil's Shell.

At the same time, they realized that something was wrong; the range of the cannons below the city was actually farther than that on the city walls!

If the defending side loses its firepower advantage, how can this siege continue!

Bustamant instinctively wanted to run away.

Li Anbang observed the situation through binoculars in the central command post. Watching the shells explode one after another on the city wall, he instinctively praised the power of the new artillery again: "With the advantage in artillery range, the battle has become much simpler. The Institute of Physics is producing more and more excellent things."

Under the superior artillery cover of the Han army, the indigenous laborers carried sacks and continued to advance. When they reached the edge of the effective range of the enemy's shotguns and small-caliber artillery, they quickly piled up another batch of sack defensive fortifications.

At this moment, the Imperial Guard infantry, using copper-tube sealed breech-loading rifles, advanced forward and concealed themselves outside the effective range of the enemy's shotguns and small-caliber artillery, using their breech-loading rifles to suppress most of the artillery on the city wall.

Some of the artillery was also moved behind these new bunkers to suppress the firepower of Mexico City from a closer distance.

After assessing the battlefield situation, Li Anbang ordered more civilian laborers to begin filling in the moat.

Mexico City was originally an island in a lake, but the Spanish filled in half of the lake over two hundred years. Now, only a narrow moat remains around the city, no different from any other city moat.

Since the Han people had come from afar and had not brought enough sacks, they were now using all the tools they could find around them, including the local people's clothes and containers.

He carried the mound of earth to the moat, poured the earth into the moat, and then took the container back to refill it with earth.

After sensing the potential threat, Bustamant had already considered abandoning the city and fleeing, but he was still too slow to act.

Past combat experience clouded their judgment, and they failed to realize how quickly the Han army could attack a city.

A total of 30,000 indigenous laborers quickly filled in the moat to create a road, and then covered the engineers as they rushed to the base of the city wall to dig pits and plant picric acid bombs.

After the engineers had prepared the bombs and detonators, they immediately detonated them. With several muffled and violent explosions, a huge gap quickly collapsed in the tall walls of Mexico City.

Upon seeing this, Li Anbang immediately ordered the bugle to sound the charge.

The main force of the Imperial Guards had been resting and preparing for a long time. Upon hearing the bugle call, they immediately charged forward with bayonets fixed: "Kill!"

A large group of local strongmen, armed with rudimentary weapons, followed closely behind: "Kill one!"

In the previous artillery battle, the cannons and guards on the walls of Mexico City had already been blown up by the Han's artillery.

The two groups of soldiers stormed into the city with almost no resistance.

The main force of the Han Dynasty's Imperial Guard acted according to plan, first attacking and capturing the most important facilities such as the government, churches, military camps, and warehouses.

The able-bodied indigenous men stormed into the residential area, shouting, "Kill! Kill them! Kill everyone who's different from us!"

The natives roared and charged at all the white and black people.

Panic gripped Mexico City; everyone from the president to the general was stunned.

The Han Imperial Guards quickly completed their mission, capturing the Mexican president, congressmen, and generals, as well as soldiers who had lost their will to fight.

But the city descended into chaos, and the barely gathered natives scattered, embarking on a frenzied, retaliatory massacre throughout the city.

All white and black people were rounded up and killed in the street.

At that time, Mexico City had a population of approximately 100,000, the vast majority of whom were white or of mixed white descent.

So now the indigenous people kill almost anyone they see.

The Imperial Guards soldiers who came out of the Presidential Palace were also taken aback by the scene on the street.

The soldiers of the Han Imperial Guard could all be considered traditional "good family men," who were all granted land and then underwent military training and were carefully selected.

They had received collective education and were not like the chaotic soldiers who resembled bandits at the end of a dynasty.

The second-generation militia members, in particular, had never even seen the chaotic soldiers of the late Qing Dynasty. Today, they witnessed for the first time the scene of a truly barbaric army breaching a city.

Everyone was deeply shocked.

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