Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 626: The Situation Seems to Be Reversed
"My two great generals, I am back."
"The pacification envoy has worked hard. What does the other party say?"
"The other party certainly wouldn't agree to all of our conditions. But they didn't completely refuse to talk. On the contrary, they seriously made corresponding amendments to the nine points we proposed. From this perspective, they really don't want to fight anymore."
The Mughal response to the nine points of the armistice proposed by the Ming Dynasty was as follows: First, the Mughal never admitted to killing the Ming Dynasty's envoy, believing it was a misunderstanding. Second, it agreed to make Calcutta, Nellore and Chennai into Ming Dynasty concessions, and Ming Dynasty enjoyed complete administrative, judicial and garrison rights in the concessions. However, it refused to cede Bengal and Bihar. Third, it agreed to pay compensation, but refused such a huge amount.
The Ming Dynasty was still implementing the silver standard at that time, and the actual silver content of a silver dollar was only 35 grams. 300,000 tons of silver was equivalent to more than 8.5 billion silver dollars, which was nearly 40 times the annual income of the Ming Dynasty court. There is no doubt that for a medieval country like the Mughal, it was simply unaffordable.
This number was certainly not set by Zhu Youdong: the emperor was thousands of miles away, so he couldn't decide it. This number was purely Luo Sigong's free choice: at first he wanted five years of annual revenue for the court, but then he thought, why not ten years? And then... he finally shouted out a number that the other party would never agree to.
Finally, the Mughal’s opinion on this point was: compensation is acceptable, but the maximum amount is only 300 tons of silver, no more than that.
The governor jumped up on the spot: "As the saying goes, if you ask for a high price, you should pay it back." I don't mind if you cut my price in half, after all, I know it's too high. But what does it mean that you pay me back one thousandth of it?
In short, we didn't reach an agreement on this point.
The Mughals readily agreed to the fourth tariff quota and the fifth most-favored-nation treatment. But they were not happy with the sixth one: the Portuguese had landed in Goa for nearly a hundred years, and they could not enter the interior of the empire at will. The result of this one was that merchants could only trade with Mughal merchants at the port. However, scientific researchers were allowed to enter the interior for scientific research activities on the premise of reporting to the local authorities.
Article 7: Extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Mughals basically agreed, but they required that when Ming people who committed crimes in Mughal territory were interrogated by Ming officials, Mughal officials must be present.
Article 8: Exchange of ambassadors, Mughal agreed.
For the Ming Dynasty, Article 9 was the most important one, and the other party agreed to it without hesitation: In the eyes of the Mughals, sending a prince who was not an heir to another country was really nothing - Shah Jahan had 14 children.
"That's basically it. In my opinion, the cession of territory should be negotiable. The other party's senior officials told me privately that Bihar is out of the question, but Bengal is definitely negotiable. After all, that place is a disaster during the rainy season. As for the first point, what the Ming Dynasty needs is a name. So I think as long as the other party is willing to apologize publicly and pay a symbolic compensation of money for burning and burying the dead, it will be fine."
"Hmm." Liu Zhaosun and Cao Wenzhao looked at each other, and then Liu Zhaosun asked, "How is the other side's war preparation?"
"Speaking of this." Luo Sigong also put away his relaxed expression: "The other side is still mobilizing. I saw in Agra that troops and civilians drawn from various places are constantly gathering in Agra."
"Ah, it is a big country after all." Cao Wenzhao sighed. Just as he was about to say something, Luo Sigong said, "By the way, I have good news to report to you two. There is news about General Man's troops..."
"Huh, this is really good news. However," Liu Zhaosun forced a smile, "We have bad news to tell you."
"Hmm? What's wrong? Is there a problem in our rear? Is it Patna or Calcutta? Or Asansol?"
"The pacification envoy is someone who knows military affairs. It's Patna. The story is probably like this..."
"These damn Koreans, I was too kind to them in Liaodong back then!"
On March 18, Aurangzeb rushed out of the Deccan Plateau and marched straight to the city of Patna, an important node for the Ming army's logistics transportation. Mao Wenlong organized his troops to defend the city, and the two sides fought extremely fiercely.
On the 25th, the messenger sent by Mao Wenlong sailed up the Ganges for more than 500 kilometers (the straight-line distance between the two places is more than 400 kilometers) and arrived at the Kanpur front. Cao Wenzhao and Liu Zhaosun were furious when they received the news , and they had to urgently dispatch two divisions to provide support.
However, it takes a long time for one person to pack for a long journey, let alone the movement of an army of 30,000 people. Therefore, even though the efficiency of the Ming army was already first-class in this era, under such an urgent situation, the reinforcements of the two divisions were delayed until the afternoon of the 26th.
"It's March 28th now, and our reinforcements have only been on the move for a day and a half. Even though they are downstream, they probably haven't arrived yet. So we don't know what the battle situation is like over there."
"Well, this is indeed a problem." Luo Sigong wiped his beard and said, "So the enemy has been besieging Patna for ten days. What if they fail to hold it?"
"If we fail to hold on, we will be in trouble. Besides..." Liu Zhaosun gave a bitter smile: "If the Mughal leaders in Agra get this news, their attitude towards us will definitely change, right?"
"That's for sure." Luo Sigong paced back and forth twice and made up his mind: "My two generals, I will set off immediately and go to Patna in person."
"Okay, I'm about to trouble the pacification envoy. We have already mobilized multiple scouts to spread out and try to kill the messengers of the enemy downstream. But after all, we are in enemy territory, and the effect of intelligence concealment must be very poor. I think the enemy in Agra should have known the situation in Patna. Therefore, we are likely to face an active attack from the enemy. Therefore, two divisions are the limit of what we can send out."
"Hey, Patna City can get reinforcements within ten days, Zhang Hong's Marine Division is one of them. As for Luo Xiong's Bengal Group, I don't know if they can catch up..."
…
“Boom boom~!”
After the sound of the shell breaking through the air, there was a violent explosion on the ground, which splashed up a lot of dust and also caused several soldiers at the center of the explosion to fly into the air.
"Hualala." A rain of blood mixed with dust fell from the sky, landing squarely on Sanada Yukimasa's helmet. The crimson blood flowed down the helmet and covered his eyes.
"Pah." He numbly stretched out a hand to wipe the blood plasma off his face without caring about the fishy smell of the blood plasma. After doing this, he paused, then stretched his hand a little further away, and took away the broken arm that had just fallen not far from him, blocking his shooting line of sight. He then took his hand back and put it on the gun body of the heavy machine gun.
It was March 29, 1633, eleven days after the siege of Patna by enemy forces.
During the eleven days, one side needed to take this place to turn the tide of the war. The other side had to stay here to ensure the safety of the frontline army. So the two sides, with no way out, fought a brutal offensive and defensive battle here.
After 11 days, the Korean division blocking the southwest defense line of Patna had suffered heavy casualties, with more than 13,000 soldiers killed, more than 4,000 killed, and more than 3,000 seriously injured and unable to fight . In addition, more than 2,000 Korean soldiers retreated without authorization and were killed by the Japanese in the rear.
But on the eighth day, the Korean division could no longer hold out, so Sanada Yukimasa led the remnants of the Japanese division to take over.
Looking at a small mound a little further behind, where a special national flag was still flying tenaciously, Yukimasa Sanada breathed a long sigh of relief.
The national flag of the Ming Dynasty is a red background with a yellow sun and moon, while the national flags of the vassal states are based on the Ming flag, with a small area in the lower right corner to represent their own country. For example, the national flag of Fukukoku is very simple and crude: a big Fuku with red characters on a white background. The national flag of Japan is embroidered with the five-seven-paulownia of the Toyotomi family.
This is an honor, but it is also a goal: the clever Aurangzeb specifically chose to attack the positions with special patterns in the lower right corner: there is no doubt that the combat effectiveness of the vassal state’s army is definitely worse than that of the Ming Dynasty’s own army.
Therefore, during these eleven days, the Koreans and Japanese endured at least 70% of the Indian army's firepower - and what made the Japanese even more annoyed was that at least half of these shells were originally thrown at the Indians by the Koreans!
The ground began to tremble slightly, and a few hundred meters ahead, there were figures of people. Sanada Yukimasa tightened the heavy machine gun in his hand, touched the grenades on his body, and then shouted at the top of his lungs: "The enemy is coming, gentlemen, don't retreat, fight to the death!"
