New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 31 The Increasing Number of Students

The soldiers of the Spanish capital were able to resist the attack of the Han army in Luzon only by relying on the capital's fortifications and cannons.

When the bastion walls collapsed and the artillery became ineffective, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt.

Some soldiers tried to gather below the city wall and resist the Han army's attack in the streets, but none of them could withstand a single charge.

The attacking forces quickly seized key institutions such as the governor's mansion, the castle, and the church, and then opened the city gates.

When the Governor-General of the Philippines, Alcedo, Bishop González, and Army Regiment Commander García, saw a large group of soldiers with bayonets charging into the hall of the Governor-General's Palace, they immediately raised their hands and knelt down in surrender.

"We surrender!"

"surrender!"

"Don't kill me."

The soldiers couldn't understand what they were shouting, but since they were kneeling on the ground with their hands raised, it was considered as surrender.

So some soldiers pointed their guns at them, while several soldiers went up and restrained them, pulling their hands behind their backs and tying them up.

After Alcedo and his two companions were captured, they actually felt a sense of relief and kept reassuring themselves:

"Leaving neither chickens nor dogs is just a threat; they are still capable of surrendering."

"It's good that you can accept surrender, it's good that you can surrender..."

Around 4 p.m. that day, the main force of the Han Luzon army had basically taken control of the Spanish capital.

Of the nearly three thousand soldiers in the city, about one thousand were killed in the melee, and the rest surrendered.

The nearly 20,000 residents of the city did not collectively resist the soldiers with muskets and bayonets; they all obeyed the orders.

Chen Huacheng arranged for soldiers to escort the army out of the city first, and then stationed 5,000 soldiers in the city to control the situation.

In addition, troops were deployed outside the city to clean up the battlefield and tally up their own casualties.

After capturing the Spanish capital, the Battle of Manila was essentially over, with a total of 65 soldiers killed in action.

Five of them died in battle during the capture of Cavite, and three died in the fighting to control the city of Manila.

Twenty were killed in action while suppressing the cannons on the city walls, and thirty-seven died in the final hand-to-hand combat during the capture of the Spanish capital.

In addition, 128 people suffered injuries of varying degrees.

If it weren't for the army's exceptionally strong desire to attack and their lack of caution during charges and hand-to-hand combat, the casualties would have been even less.

The next morning, Chen Huacheng personally directed his personal guards to place all the fallen soldiers in coffins for burial.

Then, two thousand soldiers were arranged to serve as an honor guard and escort them to the south side of the temporary camp, three kilometers south of the Spanish capital.

Soldiers were instructed to dig burial pits and place their coffins into them, but not to bury them yet.

The other 20,000 soldiers split into several groups and drove all the white people in the city, their spouses, and their mixed-race children to the south of the cemetery.

He ordered everyone to line up and kneel down in front of the grave.

The adult men were at the very front, with Governor Alcedo, Bishop González, and Army Regiment Commander García being driven to the very front row.

The three men thought this was a request for them to atone for their sins to the fallen soldiers, so they knelt down in front of the graves as instructed.

Then the soldiers behind them raised their bayonets and pierced their chests.

All three felt a sudden, sharp pain in their chests. Instinctively, they looked down and saw the tip of a bayonet protruding from their chests.

"Why...why...did you try to kill me...?"

The three of them, incredulous and with eyes wide with shock, slowly collapsed to the ground.

The final thought in my mind was: the big man really kept his word.

The surrounding soldiers swarmed around and stabbed all the other adult men to death as well.

Someone pleaded for mercy in Chinese in terror:

"Don't kill me! My mother is a Han Chinese, I am a Han Chinese..."

The soldier stabbed him to death without hesitation, then kicked him again and cursed at him.

"You son of a bitch, what kind of Han Chinese do you think you are...?"

There were also Spanish missionaries and natives who understood Chinese, and they racked their brains to use their distinctive features to beg for mercy:

"We can speak Chinese, we can serve as translators for the Han people, we are willing to abide by the laws of the Han people, we are willing to be loyal to the Emperor of the Han people, and we also want to be Han people..."

The soldiers showed no mercy either, stabbing him to death and then hurling insults at him.

"You dog-like thing, you dare call yourself a Han Chinese?"

Some of the people did appear to be Han Chinese, and they were shouting wildly:

"I am a Han Chinese, not a Spaniard. I just converted to their religion..."

The soldier, equally merciless, stabbed him to death:

"To believe in foreign religions is to forget one's ancestors, and to forget one's ancestors is to become a foreigner."

Similar things had already happened when Liu Desheng was conquering the world, and naturally, clear rules had been established.

Confucius said in the Spring and Autumn Annals: "If a feudal lord adopts barbarian customs, treat him as a barbarian; if he advances into the Central Plains, treat him as a Chinese."

The subject of this sentence is "the feudal lords," and it discusses the rules within the feudal lords' ranks.

Even if you are a feudal lord of China, you still have to abide by the Chinese rites and laws in order to be considered a part of China.

If you learn the customs and etiquette of the barbarians, you will be regarded as a barbarian.

This statement itself does not mention how people who were originally barbarians should be arranged in terms of etiquette, laws, and social status.

Barbarians are not qualified to participate in discussions about the identity of the Chinese people.

Emperor Yongzheng altered this sentence in his book "Dayi Juemi Lu" by adding the words "Yi Er" before the second half of the sentence.

It became, "If a feudal lord uses barbarian customs, treat him as a barbarian; if a barbarian advances into China, treat him as Chinese."

Emperor Yongzheng was burying his head in the sand, and even his son, Emperor Qianlong, felt embarrassed after reading it, so he banned the book.

When the army here carried out the executions, a military officer led three thousand soldiers as a ceremonial guard, reciting poems line by line:

"If the number of followers increases, the Rong and Di tribes will be subdued, and the Jing and Shu tribes will be punished, then none will dare to accept my command."

As the soldier recited a line, the honor guards around him also recited a line, their somewhat disordered but exceptionally loud voices echoing across the new cemetery.

These lines are from the "Ode to Lu" in the Book of Songs, and were originally meant to praise the achievements of the Duke of Zhou and the Marquis of Lu.

The general meaning is: A massive army is advancing with immense power, striking the northern barbarians and punishing the southern savages, so that all the barbarians will fear and submit to us, never daring to resist us again.

Liu Desheng chose these words as a general eulogy to commemorate the soldiers who died in battle.

Most soldiers initially couldn't understand the literary language, but after attending military school, they learned what it meant.

The key is that these words are often recited during memorial ceremonies, and thus they are given new meaning.

They mourned their fallen comrades, offered sacrifices with the lives of their enemies, and swore before their spirits to continue their campaigns against the barbarians who had not yet submitted.

Thousands of people roared together, thousands of people were executing enemies, and even ghosts and gods would retreat.

Children and women nearby screamed in terror, and many lost control of their bladders or even fainted from fright.

Some people tried to get up and run away, but were immediately killed by the soldiers around them.

After all the adult men were killed, all the boys were castrated.

The women, however, will not have to die; they will be kept as spoils of war and await final distribution.

The proclamation's threat of "leaving no one alive" was indeed just a threat, but the generals would not give up on retaliating against the enemy.

They just won't actually kill chickens and dogs.

After the memorial service, the honor guard picked up shovels and buried their former comrades, building as stable a grave as possible.

The heads of the barbarians killed on the spot were cut off and buried in front of the graves of the fallen soldiers.

The stonemasons in the army made tombstones and marked each person's identity so that relatives and comrades could come to pay their respects.

After doing all this, Chen Huacheng arranged for soldiers to take stock of the spoils, including gold, silver, property, land, slave laborers, and women.

All the remaining natives currently under control are also considered spoils of war, awaiting final distribution.

According to the rules set by Liu Desheng, compensation will be provided for soldiers who died in battle.

First, there would be a eunuch, a female slave, and a household registration officer from the militia command.

The corresponding militia commander was responsible for supplying the family with rations for twenty years, and then distributing land according to the newly developed land.

If you stay in your home country, you usually only have a few acres of land because there are just too many people there.

If you go to Luzon, this remote and undeveloped land overseas, you can get dozens or even hundreds of acres.

All land in the Han Dynasty belonged to the emperor. Soldiers who were allocated land only had the right to use it, and any form of private trade was prohibited.

If the soldier had a wife and children, the money should be given directly to them, and the wives of fallen soldiers were prohibited from remarrying.

Those without wives and children should be given to their fathers; those without fathers should be given to their brothers and nephews; and nephews should be adopted by fallen soldiers.

They have no relatives at all, so they arrange for an orphan to be adopted and receive these things.

But whoever receives these pensions must take the place of a fallen soldier, or at least serve as a militia member on the frontier.

They usually go directly to the place where their loved ones died in battle.

If you die in the battle of Luzon, then go to Luzon. The fallen soldiers will be buried here, and their descendants will come here to guard the new land.

As for those who have made meritorious contributions, the spoils of war obtained during the war should also be distributed in a centralized manner.

Thirty percent went into the emperor's private treasury, thirty percent was distributed equally among all participants, and forty percent was distributed to those who had made contributions according to their merits.

Meritorious soldiers could choose to take land, slave labor, or female slaves, but after taking them, they had to stay in the pioneering land. Only those who took the property could return to their homeland.

Under such a system, the army's desire to wage war abroad was extremely strong, and Liu Jin'an's demand for a ceasefire made the army very uncomfortable.

All compensation and spoils of war required the emperor's approval before they could be distributed.

Chen Huacheng and Guan Tianpei gathered together and convened a meeting of the division commanders and their officers to discuss the subsequent combat and construction arrangements.

Then the reports on the battle of Manila, the subsequent operational arrangements, the list of meritorious soldiers, and the list of fallen soldiers were compiled and sent back to the mainland along with the captured smugglers.

A month later, a total of 60,000 militiamen from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong arrived.

Leave behind 10,000 main force troops, 30,000 militiamen, and 30,000 native slave laborers to guard and expand Manila.

First, restore the city's moat and walls, and build more and larger houses.

Choose suitable locations outside the existing built-up area and construct multiple rock-built fortresses and watchtowers.

Then, more land was reclaimed around the fortress and watchtower.

On the western coast of the city, land was leveled to expand the dock to a larger scale.

Other troops set off by boat in batches, dividing their forces to capture other settlements and take control of the entire Luzon Islands.

Local Chinese and indigenous people accompanied the group separately, acting as translators for the other indigenous people.

Within the entire Luzon region, Manila is the only major city with a population of 120,000.

Then there are Cebu, Iloilo, and Zamboanga, which are small cities with populations of 10,000 to 20,000.

There were some organized colonial forces, but not enough defensive facilities, and only a few dozen soldiers in name only.

Faced with tens of thousands of Han regular troops, they had virtually no ability to resist.

When the Han fleet arrived at the coast, the Spanish and natives there were terrified.

After the attack officially began, they couldn't hold out any longer and surrendered one after another.

Apart from these few small cities, other places could only be considered "settlements" and had no ability to resist at all.

Furthermore, since Luzon is an archipelago, the subsequent actions were essentially a matter of "building a scouting network and seizing territory."

The army's main task was first to control the local inhabitants near settlements, and then to capture more wild inhabitants from the surrounding tribes.

In other words, they wanted to acquire more slaves as "spoils of war" to distribute to all the soldiers who participated in the Luzon campaign and decided to stay.

After three months of land-grabbing activities, the Han Dynasty's Luzon military force had basically taken control of the entire Luzon Islands.