September 11, 1642, Ming Dynasty, Tianjin Wei.

The envoy from the Kingdom of Daqi to the Ming Dynasty arrived at Tanggu Pier in Tianjin on August 11th. Three Western-style gunboats suddenly appeared at Tanggu Pier, which not only panicked many fishermen, but also made the officers and soldiers of the guard station near the shore panic.

Facing a powerful enemy.

After a small boat sailed to the shore, a Marine officer landed and negotiated with a group of guards officers and soldiers who arrived here, claiming that the Daqi Kingdom, where the Hanzhou Continent in the south was located, had sent an envoy to meet with the Ming Emperor.

When a deputy Baihu officer of the Ming army heard that foreign missions were coming for Hajj and brought two huge ships, he did not dare to take matters into his own hands and immediately sent someone to report to the Qianhu superior officer for a decision.

In the second year of Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty (1400), King Zhu Di of Yan crossed the Grand Canal here and went south to fight for the throne. After Zhu Di became emperor, in order to commemorate the "Battle of Jingnan", he launched an army on November 21, the second year of Yongle.

, the place was renamed Tianjin, which means the ferry the emperor passed through. As a military important place, a city was built and guarded in the Xiaozhigu area southwest of the mouth of the Sancha River, called Tianjin Guard. Later, Tianjin Left Guard and Tianjin Right Guard were added.

The Tanggu Pier where the Daqi Kingdom landed was under the jurisdiction of the Tianjin Right Guards. There were five Qianhu Stations on the left, right, middle, front and back below. Therefore, after the Qianhu officers of the vanguard here were reported, the Qianhu officers still did not dare to commit suicide.

Special, continue to report to the guard commander.

After reporting the matter at all levels, the Daqi Kingdom’s envoy waited on the ship for three days. The Tianjin Youwei Post dispatched a command officer (fourth grade) to welcome the envoy ashore.

Huang Zijia (formerly Prince of Bo Ni), representative of the envoy of the Kingdom of Daqi, presented the seal and credentials of the envoy of the Kingdom of Daqi to the commander, and informed the other party that he was going to Beijing to have an audience with the Ming Dynasty.

emperor.

The commander of the right guard of Tianjin was quite indifferent to the pilgrimage of envoys from foreign countries. Moreover, it was a kingdom whose name he had never heard of. Who knows if it was a Ming Dynasty living overseas who pretended to be an envoy from a foreign country.

, came to the Ming Dynasty to defraud the imperial court of grants and tributes. Nowadays, the Ming Dynasty is suffering from internal and external troubles, and no vassal country has come to Beijing for pilgrimage for a long time. Furthermore, the envoys of the vassal country for pilgrimage have never landed in Tianjin.

This so-called envoy from the Daqi Kingdom does look a bit like a native of Nanyang, and his behavior is quite decent. But how can the officers of their guard station receive and introduce him to Beijing when he is on a pilgrimage from a vassal country?

The commander politely told these envoys from the Daqi Kingdom to go elsewhere, find the formal way, and report to Honglu Temple through the local prefectures and counties, and then the imperial court would send ambassadors to escort them all the way to Beijing to complete the official pilgrimage.

Procedure. This place belongs to the Tianjin Guards, which is an important military town and has no handover matters with the Fanbang Kingdom.

However, when Huang Zijia opened his mouth and said, the Qi Kingdom came to the Ming Dynasty for pilgrimage and brought a large number of gifts. If they were moved to other places and delayed, it would be inconvenient to transfer the gifts.

The commander secretly laughed in his heart. The gifts brought by foreign countries were nothing more than jewels and jade. But if they took advantage of the Ming Dynasty, they also brought sea creatures and spices. Some gifts were transferred back and forth.

What's the trouble.

Fifty thousand dan of food!

Twenty pairs of telescopes!

Three hundred pairs of iron armor!

There are fifteen artillery pieces, and they are powerful artillery pieces, as well as four hundred advanced flintlock muskets!

After Huang Zijia gently told the few gifts he was carrying, the commander was stunned for a moment, and then said, "Your Majesty, please wait a moment." He immediately rode back to the guard command post and reported to the commander.

Less than an hour later, Gan Wenli, the commander of the Tianjin Right Guards, led a group of guards officers to the dock on horseback. After chatting with the Daqi envoy Huang Zijia for a while, he asked tactfully why Daqi brought gifts to the Ming Dynasty.

Such important military supplies, and intentionally or unintentionally hinted whether the other party indeed had such a quantity of supplies.

Huang Zi added that the entire Daqi Kingdom was of the Chinese lineage. In gratitude for the divine grace of the mother country of the Ming Dynasty, he heard that the Liaodong region of the Ming Dynasty was plunged into barbaric invasion by slaves, and that the north was experiencing refugee riots. Therefore, in order to support the Ming emperor and the court, Da Qi specially

Some high-quality ordnance and food supplies were transported in order to alleviate the current predicament of the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, Gan Wenli was also invited to take a small boat and board the gunboat of the Daqi Kingdom to inspect the gifts brought as tribute to the Ming Dynasty.

Tianjin Youwei Commander Gan Wenli and his commander Tian Chengju doubtfully took a small boat and sailed to a gunboat stationed at sea. Then they climbed onto the ship along the ladder. They saw that although there were Westerners on board, most of the officers and soldiers on board were Westerners.

They looked like Han people. A Daqi naval officer led two Ming Dynasty officers to inspect the artillery, muskets, iron armor, and a large amount of rice piled in the cabin.

The Daqi naval officer said that the artillery presented to the Ming Dynasty had different ranges and power depending on the caliber, but several of the artillery were similar in power to the naval guns on the ship. For this reason, the naval officer also specially gave them to two Ming Dynasty officers.

Demonstrated the effect of naval gun bombardment.

The spectacular scene of dozens of artillery salvos really shocked the two Ming Dynasty officers. "The sound shook their ears, the bullets hit the ground several miles away, and the sea waves were tens of feet high." The power was truly astonishing.

After Gan Wenli, the commander of the Tianjin Right Guards, disembarked from the ship, he immediately invited Huang Zijia and other envoys from the Qi Kingdom to temporarily stay at the guard station. At the same time, he immediately dispatched fast horses and rushed to the capital to report to the Capital Command and the Ministry of War and Honglu Temple.

However, the envoys from the Kingdom of Daqi have been waiting for more than a month, but no news has been sent from the capital. The three armed merchant ships waiting on the shore were impatient, so they could only transfer their supplies through the numerous small boats commandeered by the guards.

Unload it at the pier and then head east to Nanchangshan Island.

Gan Wenli, the commander of Tianjin Right Guard, was also waiting anxiously. The current situation of Ming Dynasty was not very good and it faced many difficulties.

On February 18, Songshan City fell, and the general Qiu Minyang, Wang Tingchen, and Cao Bianjiao were killed. Hong Chengchou and Zu Dalue were defeated and captured in Shenyang.

On March 8, Zu Dashou led his troops to surrender the city, and Jiannu occupied Jinzhou.

On April 22, Jiannu used red cannons to destroy the Xingshan city wall, and his deputy general Lu Pinqi surrendered without a fight.

The three cities of Songshan, Jinzhou and Xingshan were completely destroyed, and most of the 130,000 troops in the eight towns were trapped in Jinzhou and Zuojin. After this battle, all the elite Ming troops outside the Pass were lost, and the situation in Liaodong was irreversible.

At this time of crisis, some small foreign countries contributed important military weapons to the court. Although they did not have the power to turn things around, they were more or less a useful supplement to the court. But for some reason, the high officials in the court have not responded yet?

Officials from the Capital Command Department, the Ministry of War, Honglu Temple and other ministries under the Governor's Mansion of the Fifth Army in Beijing actually learned on the third day after Tianjin Youwei sent the messenger that a small foreign country came to the Ming Dynasty for pilgrimage and contributed a number of weapons.

Fifty thousand dan of rice was used to defend the Ming Dynasty against the slaves and bandits.

But at this time, things were treacherous in the city of Beijing, and the important officials of the imperial court were quarreling and discussing the secret peace talks between Minister of War Chen Xinjia and Liaodong Jiannu.

In fact, after the defeat of Songjin, the peace negotiation with Jiannu in Liaodong was not done privately by the Minister of War, Chen Xinjia. Earlier, Chen Xinjia sent envoys to negotiate peace with Jiannu because of the difficulties between the north and the south, and privately informed the former Minister of War, Fu Zonglong. Zonglong left the capital.

At that time, he informed the bachelor Xie Sheng about the matter.

Later, when Xie Sheng saw that the situation in Xinjiang was in serious trouble, he told Chongzhen what Zong Long had said. Emperor Chongzhen called Chen Xinjia to question him, and Chen Xinjia kowtowed and apologized.

Without saying a word, Chen Xinjia was soon instructed to carry out this matter secretly, without the knowledge of all the officials in the court.

Later, some officials visited Xie Sheng, and Xie Sheng said, "The Lord wants peace, please don't say too much." When the officials heard this, they were shocked and wrote letters to impeach Xie Sheng. Xie Sheng was dismissed from office and left. Emperor Chongzhen

After handing over the peace negotiation to Chen Xinjia, I went back and forth with him dozens of times and warned him not to leak it out. Although the ministers were vaguely aware of it, there was no definite evidence.

However, one day, Ma Shaoyu, a staff member of the Ministry of War, sent a secret letter from the border to discuss the terms and conditions. Chen Xinjia was put on the case. His family members mistakenly thought it was a newspaper and handed it to the provincial offices in Beijing for copying. When the matter was leaked, all officials

Wow

However, they all wrote letters to impeach Chen Xinjia. Emperor Chongzhen was furious and sternly rebuked Xinjia and asked him to sort himself out. Instead of blaming himself, Chen Xinjia boasted of his merits. Chongzhen was even more angry. Ma Jiazhi impeached Xinjia during the incident.

On July 29, Chen Xinjia was imprisoned. Xinjia wrote a letter from prison begging for forgiveness, but Chongzhen refused. Xinjia had to bribe the senior officials and rescued Liao Guolin, Yang Zhiqi and other parties involved in the matter. Xu Shiqi, the Minister of Punishment, refused, and the university

Scholars Zhou Yanru and Chen Yan also came to the rescue and said: "It is the law of the country that the enemy will not kill the great Sima unless the enemy forces thin the city."

Chongzhen said: "Leave him alone, killing and humiliating my relatives is not worse than Baocheng?".

Xu Shiqi, the minister of the Ministry of Punishment, said: "People and ministers have no border diplomacy. There is no one who is not in the imperial court and does not sue the king and father but is good at taking advantage of others. Xinjia's private money has insulted the country and he should be beheaded according to the laws of the city."

Chongzhen was hesitant about this, but he had a vague intention to kill Chen Xinjia. After the three-law tribunal held a joint trial, they ravaged Henan with thieves. Kaifeng was besieged repeatedly, and other counties and counties suffered losses. Governors Fu Zonglong and Wang Qiaonian went out to fight against the thieves.

Chen Xinjia was determined to abandon the market due to his successive deaths and humiliating the country with private money.

On September 12th, Cheng Huaili, the young minister of Honglu Temple in the Ming Dynasty, and Xue Hengchun, the master of the Ming Dynasty, finally arrived at the Youwei Command Envoy Office in Tianjin. They met Huang Zijia, the envoy of the Daqi Kingdom, and inquired about the origin and location of his country.

Huang Zijia mentioned that the predecessor of the Daqi Kingdom was the Han merchant gangs and civilian settlement forces who lived in Nanyang for decades or hundreds of years. Unable to be oppressed by the natives and Western forces, they rose up to resist and defeated the Dutch, Portuguese, and Westerners.

They were forced to retreat and suppress the natives from all sides, and then established a country on the Hanzhou continent a year ago. However, the Daqi Kingdom admired Daming Fanghua and came here to pay tribute to the divine grace of the Celestial Dynasty.

Cheng Huaili, the young minister of Honglu Temple, nodded with satisfaction. Although the situation in Liaodong is corrupt and bandits are raging in Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Sichuan and other places, there are still foreign and small countries overseas who admire the majesty of the Ming Dynasty and come to perform pilgrimage. Your Majesty, today is at the right time

The slavery issue in Liaodong has been troubled and troubled, and the Minister of War has private plans for peace. I am afraid that at this time, Your Majesty really needs some good news to deliver to you.

Immediately, Cheng Huaili handed over the handwritten edict of Zuo Youyi, the minister of Honglu Temple, to the envoy of Qi, asking him to bring gifts with the officials of Honglu Temple to Beijing. At the same time, he ordered the officials of the Tianjin Right Guards Command Envoy Department to dispatch the corresponding guardsmen.
Chapter completed!