Chapter 621: Punitive Expedition (I)

A muffled *thwack* sounded as a foot stepped into a puddle, kicking up a spray of mud.

Without a doubt, this was a foot belonging to the laboring masses. The dark skin was covered everywhere with scratches and wounds, and that pair of tattered straw sandals offered their owner little protection.

Following the foot upward, there were legs caked in mud. Further up, the face of a civilian laborer wearing a homespun short shirt and a rain cape, topped with a pointed bamboo hat.

A short, dark, thin man, his face bearing the flat nose and thick lips typical of the Southeast Asian peninsula. Together with companions dressed identically, he was struggling to move through the rain.

All these people wore tattered clothes and looked haggard, their faces buried under bamboo hats full of misery and numbness. They were straining their bodies forward, desperately wringing out every ounce of energy within them, just like that famous painting from later generations.

Only, their counterparts on the Volga were pulling a boat, whereas these Southeast Asian civilian laborers, using coarse hemp ropes, were dragging a large war machine weighing five tons: the Gelongde.

At this moment, the perspective pulled back, and the clamor of human shouts and horse neighs surged in from all directions. As far as the eye could see was the lushly vegetated land of Annam. At the sea's edge, a vast army column was on the march, boundless, stretching to the horizon.

Time: Late August, 164.

Location: Zhengjiang Estuary.

The "Punitive Expedition" army launched by the Northern Yue's Zheng Clan had reached the Zheng River line days earlier.

As early as 167, when the transmigrators had just appeared in this plane, the powerful minister of Northern Yue, the Zheng Clan, had launched a campaign against the Ruan Clan regime entrenched in Southern Yue, beginning the first war of unification.

This war, since neither the Zheng nor the Ruan side could claim victory, ended hastily after four months. The result of the war was the formal division of Annam into north and south: the Zheng Clan controlling the north, and the Ruan Clan seceding in the south.

The dividing line between the Zheng and Ruan sides was at the Zheng River in Guangping Province, called the Ling River in later generations. This boundary was very close to the Seventeenth Parallel North, precisely splitting Vietnam's long, narrow territory in half, and also coinciding exactly with the later North-South Vietnam dividing line.

Historically, after this war, the Southern Yue Ruan Clan began accepting military aid from the Spanish, constructing two main lines of fortifications in the area from the Zheng River to north of Shunhua.

It was these two lines of fortifications that became an insurmountable man-made hazard for the northern armies. In the years that followed, the relatively weaker Ruan Clan relied on these defense lines to resist seven large-scale offensives and countless smaller attacks from the Zheng Clan, stubbornly maintaining their regime for over a hundred years.

This time, history had been changed.

With the gradual implementation of the "Ming-Zheng Shenglong Prefecture Treaty" signed the previous year, the Northern Yue Zheng Clan group, after receiving military aid from the Ming State, formally launched a second war of unification in early 164 — a war that had never occurred in history.

Of course, the Zheng Clan, who controlled the current ruler of Vietnam's Later Le Dynasty, Li Weiqi, held the moral high ground in this matter. Thus, the propaganda slogan for this war in Northern Yue was, without a doubt, the "Punitive Expedition."

The Zheng Clan's punitive army had set out on campaign from Shenglong Prefecture at the beginning of the month. After setting out, they gathered troops from various regions along the way, marching southward by both water and land, and finally maneuvered to the Zheng River line by the end of the month.

For this campaign, the Zheng Clan had essentially committed the entire nation's strength. On land alone, they mobilized 100,000 troops. Among these 100,000 troops were 20,000 elite Northern Yue Imperial Guard under the Zheng Clan's direct command, 80,000 assorted regional troops, plus 300 elephant soldiers, and no fewer than 150,000 auxiliary troops, proclaimed as a 500,000-strong punitive army.

On the water, the Zheng Clan deployed 400 warships for inland water transport this time. At sea, they were screened by an ocean-going fleet consisting of the Dutch ships Qiwei and Kende Buke — truly advancing by both water and land with overwhelming momentum.

And so, in late August, the rumbling of cannon fire began. The Zheng Clan's great army crossed the Zheng River, and the second campaign officially commenced.

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Sheng Nan reclined half-lying on a sedan chair, irritably fanning at the ubiquitous Annam mosquitoes with his hand, and cursed under his breath: "These pests don't even let up in the rain!"

Although it was currently the dry season in Annam, Annam, adjacent to the Pacific coast, had an average annual rainfall of up to 3,000 millimeters — the so-called dry season had no days without rain whatsoever. It was just that the dry season had less rainfall, with brief showers that came and went like a gust of wind.

As the sedan chair swayed rhythmically up and down, Sheng Nan watched the stone hill by the river grow closer and closer.

This rocky knoll, with an elevation of only a few dozen meters, was the sole high point for several kilometers around. The hill's position was excellent; from here, one could clearly observe the features of the lower reaches of the Zheng River, as well as the sea conditions at the nearby estuary.

At the foot of the stone hill, over a hundred soldiers had already fanned out into a security formation. Not long after, Sheng Nan's sedan chair broke away from the mud-slogged marching column and ascended the hilltop. The next moment, when Sheng Nan picked up the bamboo switch beside him and tapped the shoulder of the carrier, the sedan chair was gently set down.

As luck would have it, the fine, drizzling rain that had been lingering over both banks of the Zheng River also suddenly stopped. In minutes, the sun emerged, and a scene of sun-drenched, pristine subtropical landscape considerably improved Sheng Nan's mood.

Tall and lean, Sheng Nan was a Guangxi native, a former Army operations Staff Officer who had retired with the rank of Lieutenant. He never imagined that after retirement, a security training contract originally bound for somewhere in Africa would have its final destination be 17th-century Guangzhou.

For a period after first arriving, every time Sheng Nan "strolled" through a certain city that mixed the style of a later-era county town with the actual scenes of 17th-century primitive life, he could not calm down for a long time, his state of mind perpetually on the verge of exploding.

But ultimately, like the others, he could not withstand the passage of time and accepted reality.

It was then that the amiable Army Commander, Han Bo, came to have a heart-to-heart talk with him. Han Bo stated that Sheng Nan was among the first batch of transmigrators "sent over" after the Second General Assembly, the Military Chief Officer the Army most urgently needed, with a bright future ahead, and that time waited for no one — he needed to start work immediately, with no more time off granted for rest and adjustment.

What could Sheng Nan say? He could only express his obedience to the Organization's arrangements.

So Han Bo told him: there was now a perfect opportunity for the newly arrived Sheng Nan to experience a real 17th-century war scene, and so on and so forth.

Not long after, having disembarked at Shenglong Prefecture, the newly appointed "Battlefield Military Observation Group Delegation Leader" Sheng Nan sighed mournfully: Damn it, just great — the Black Uncle training fell through, and now he'd been packed off to Annam to do training instead.

Just as Sheng Nan stepped off the sedan chair and let his mind wander, a resounding cry of "Salute!" pulled him back to reality.

Surrounding Sheng Nan were several dozen young officers.

The officers had standard postures and robust, powerful physiques. They were uniformly dressed in the latest model Army iron-gray, lapel-collar uniforms, high-waisted riding boots, peaked caps, and their outerwear consisted of military raincoats made of genuine tanned leather.

As a transmigrator, Sheng Nan naturally understood certain subtle memes. In fact, the moment he had previously seen the latest model uniforms, a strong sense of déjà vu with the Waffen-SS had hit him intensely, impossible to escape.

"At ease."

Raising his hand perfunctorily in a slight return salute, Sheng Nan kept a stern face and issued the order: "Set up the Temporary Command Post. I want to receive a briefing."

The next moment, several sets of folding campaign tables and chairs were swiftly set up on the stone hilltop. A large-scale, precise map of Annam's Guangping Province, brought along from later eras, along with various tools for map-based operations, were all laid out on the table. In an instant, once the *tap-tap-tap* of telegraph signals began, the tense atmosphere of a battlefield thickened intensely.

Now, although sending a newcomer like Sheng Nan to the harsh environment of Annam to serve as Observation Group Delegation Leader was a bit unkind, the military's intention to use this opportunity to train officers was absolutely genuine, without the slightest adulteration.

The young officers qualified to participate in the observation group this time were, without exception, native elites handpicked by the military from various units — all seeds intended for important future roles.

So the quality of these young men was beyond reproach. In just a few short minutes, by the time Sheng Nan sat down in a folding chair and began enjoying coffee poured from a green thermos, the Temporary Command Post was already operating normally. And the tall, straight-backed Staff Officer on duty beside him, a man with a large purple birthmark on his face, had also begun reading the briefing aloud.

"Northern Yue auxiliary troops completed the first pontoon bridge over the Zheng River at 10:30 AM today."

"A portion of Northern Yue regional forces launched an offensive at exactly 11:00 AM, sweeping the open areas south of the Zheng River."

"A portion of Northern Yue regional forces made contact with the Southern Vietnam Fortified Zone in the afternoon; the fighting is currently deadlocked."

"During this period, the Southern Yue army employed 48-caliber cannons."

"The Northern Yue Imperial Guard is expected to reach the Zheng River line this evening."

Putting down the heavy cast-iron pot lid — which served as a cup in the field — Sheng Nan raised his hand and asked: "How long until the mortar unit arrives?"

"Expected tomorrow evening or the day after tomorrow."

"Looks like the main show is still a ways off." Sheng Nan nodded at this. "That speed isn't slow, considering all the mud along the road."

Next, he reached out and measured a distance on the map on the adjacent table, then turned his head to ask the telegraph operator: "The current position of Unit 3."

The telegraph operator removed his headphones and reported a coordinate.

Very quickly, Sheng Nan found that coordinate on the map. This coordinate seemed less than ideal. Sheng Nan furrowed his brow and said: "Send a telegram. Tell Unit 3 to stop creeping forward."

"Yes, sir!"

After doing this, Sheng Nan, the Military Chief Officer responsible for controlling all Ming reinforcement weapons and Ming troops within Annam's borders, finally rose from his chair and extended his hand: "Binoculars."

He used the binoculars to observe the primitive troops locked in slaughter on the south bank of the Zheng River, the dense mass of boats on the river, and those pontoon bridges under construction. After this, Sheng Nan lazily sat back down in his chair: "Go on, all of you — speak up if you have any observations."

The young officers' eyes lit up with excitement in that moment — they knew the time for testing and teaching had come again.

Unlike Sheng Nan, who had seemed absent-minded the entire journey, these young men had realized at first contact that this Sheng, whom they had never met before, was the real deal — just like those commanding officers in their own units who knew everything from literature to geography, as if Zhuge Liang reborn.

A transmigrator's advantage is impossible to hide before these natives. The bits of knowledge they casually drop in daily conversation, the perspectives, the insights on life and the future — these are things the simple young men desperately crave. So a transmigrator easily earns their adoration among these hardworking, ambitious people.

The next moment, the young staff officers launched into a spirited discussion, all talking at once.

"The Northern Vietnam army's morale is sky-high — their local forces crossed the river and initiated contact the first moment the pontoon bridge was up!"

"What use is high morale? The Southern Vietnam army is fully equipped. Without our mortar units moving up, the Northern Vietnam army can forget about getting past the fortified zone!"

"Tch, if I were in command, I'd just use leapfrog tactics — bypass the Southern Vietnam Fortified Zone by sea and strike straight at Shunhua with the main force!"

"With the Northern Vietnam Water Army's pitiful capability, you want to leapfrog across the sea? Dream on!"

Amid the young staff officers' controversy, Sheng Nan half-closed his eyes and seemed to drift off in a daze.