Chapter 1193: Each One More Benevolent and Righteous Than the Last

At that same moment, more than a dozen round-bottomed oar-and-sail ships suited for navigating coastal shallows broke through the morning mist on the sea's surface and, with a boom, ran aground on the mudflats at the entrance to the Johor Strait.

The design of these round-bottomed oar-and-sail ships somewhat resembled that of Arakan sailing ships—both were twin-masted with low freeboard, capable of using oars and sails together, and very well suited for operating in shallow waters. For the Great Ming, with its long coastline, this type of vessel suited for inshore operations was extremely practical. Not only was it the mainstay warship of the coastal provinces' Naval Commandants (equivalent to coast guards), but the Great Ming Navy, which mainly carried out missions on the open sea, had also equipped itself with large numbers of these twin-masted small craft, with cargo capacities ranging from dozens to over a hundred tons—numbering as many as three or four hundred vessels!

These small craft served three main roles in the Great Ming Navy. First, they acted as mortar gunboats—naval explosive shells had actually appeared long ago, but before wooden-tube fuses and wooden shell sabots appeared, explosive shells could not be used on large ships, only on small gunboats. That way, even if an accident occurred, the loss would be relatively small. And since small boats could not carry heavy cannons, they could only be fitted with mortars.

These small craft armed with large-caliber mortars were of course useless in a fleet engagement, but they could be used to bombard the enemy's coastal cities and harbors.

Second, in a fleet engagement they served as escort vessels to guard against the enemy's fireships or mortar boats closing in.

Third, they served as landing craft. Just like now, carrying the Great Ming Celestial Dynasty's army of benevolence and righteousness as it charged onto the shores of the Johor Sultanate!

Yamamoto Shigezumi, the aged and virtuous battalion commander of the First Battalion of the Great Ming Duke of Ren'an's Guard Regiment, was now aboard a twin-masted oar-and-sail ship of seventy or eighty tons (deadweight tonnage). The moment the hull touched the mudflat, he was the first to leap from the deck into waist-deep seawater. He wore a faded red cloth short jacket, with shorts below, a breastplate over his short battle jacket, a helmet on his head, and on his back a white banner bearing four large characters—Army of Benevolence and Righteousness!

This was a true army of benevolence and righteousness!

The officers and men of the First Battalion who followed Yamamoto down from the small craft were all short, small Japanese samurai. These islanders could endure seasickness fairly well, and even after drifting more than two thousand li at sea (they had set out from Nakhon Si Thammarat), they could still summon their spirits and throw themselves into the landing operation.

Oh, it should be "throw themselves into the landing"—because there was no battle.

"Ren'an First Battalion! Form up by companies, square formation!"

Yamamoto Shigezumi raised a katana and shouted at the top of his lungs, his aged eyes brimming with tears. For ahead of the beachhead position, all was quiet and peaceful. There were no fully armed Johor Sultanate warriors, only a vast grove of coconut trees.

He turned back to look again. The mist on the sea's surface had mostly dispersed, and the silhouettes of the Ming ships carrying out the landing operation were now clearly discernible. Medium-sized "prefecture-county class" hard-sailed gunboats (bird-boat type) were patrolling on the periphery, and larger Pacific sailing ships (also hard-sailed) were transferring troops, with great numbers of soldiers climbing down rope netting into small sampans—not all landing units could ride light oar-and-sail craft directly onto the beach, for such light oar-and-sail craft were limited in number. Only a little over thirty had accompanied the landing fleet south, half of them deployed here on the northern shore of the Johor Strait, and the other half used to storm the beaches of Temasek Island.

At this moment, apart from these Ming gunboats, transports, and landing sampans, there were no other vessels on the sea!

The surprise attack on the Johor Sultanate appeared to be already half successful!

Yamamoto Shigezumi did not know that this seemingly brilliant flanking landing had in fact run straight into the fist of the enemy's heavily concentrated defenses. In the city of Johor, about one hundred thirty li from the landing site, there were stationed thirteen thousand elite warriors of the four sultanates of Johor, Aceh, Perak, and Patani, along with three or four thousand mercenaries (mainly natives) of the East India Company dispatched from the fortress at Malacca.

And nine hundred li away, at the mouth of the Klang River, a powerful Dutch fleet lay concealed!

As the assault force in this landing operation, Yamamoto's Ren'an First Battalion, along with the Yixing First Battalion belonging to the Duke of Yixing's Guard Regiment, had by this time completed their beachhead assembly and formed eight company squares on the beach.

These eight companies were uniformly "red iron gunners"—three ranks of flintlock musketeers plus one rank of pikemen, the soldiers mostly samurai from Japan.

To spur them to fight hard, the Zhu Emperor had offered a great pile of viscountcies, baronies, and knighthoods—at worst one would become a knight, entitled to a fief one li square, that is, four hundred mu.

Yamamoto had by now taken his place before the four company squares of the Ren'an First Battalion and began loudly issuing orders: "First Company, Second Company, occupy the woods directly ahead, then fell trees, set up barricades, dig trenches, and prepare to hold!

Third Company, Fourth Company, follow me and advance in a search toward due north. Remember, we are all an army of benevolence and righteousness, and we must practice benevolence and righteousness. Without my order, no indiscriminate killing! No looting!"

"Hai!"

A crowd of samurai who had long been unable to restrain their killing intent answered loudly, looking indeed very benevolent and righteous!

The fifteenth year of Shun's Joint Reign, the seventh day of the seventh month, the Qixi Festival, in the city of Mrauk U.

Inside and outside the royal palace, the fighting had already ended, and a hasty cleanup had been carried out. Outside the palace walls, where fierce fighting had occurred, dense piles of corpses had once accumulated, and these had now been moved away as much as possible. The corpses inside the palace walls had been cleared out entirely and hauled outside the city for burial. Only the bullet holes in the palace walls and the scorched, smoke-blackened traces could not be concealed for the time being.

The Shun's army of benevolence and righteousness was now the master of Mrauk U. The surprise attack on Mrauk U had begun three days earlier. It had first unfolded on Poki Island at the mouth of the Mrauk U River, which was the gateway to the city. On the island stood Western-style fortresses and gun batteries, and the garrison there consisted of elite Portuguese mercenaries.

Li Jicheng knew that Poki Island would be difficult to take by direct assault, so he used a stratagem. He sent several Arakan sailing ships ahead, pretending to run aground near Poki Island to lure out the Portuguese, then suddenly struck, disarming them. Afterward, led by these Portuguese, the Shun's warriors seized the fortresses and gun batteries on Poki Island by surprise. The whole process went extremely smoothly, without a single shot fired. Thus the city of Mrauk U had no idea that disaster had already arrived!

The next step was another surprise attack, this time targeting the dam on the Mrauk U River.

The reason the city of Mrauk U in the Kingdom of Arakan was so hard to attack was not only that its citadel was exceptionally strong, built with large quantities of granite, but also that the defenders could resort to flooding when the enemy besieged the citadel!

The site where Mrauk U Citadel stood had probably originally been a wetland or lake, slightly lower in elevation than the nearby river channels. The Arakanese had built dikes to hold back the incoming water, drained the wetland, and constructed the city of Mrauk U on a raised terrace in the center of the wetland.

And once the dam was breached, the river water would flood the surroundings of Mrauk U, turning it into a city in the middle of a lake, and of course it would then be impossible to attack. More than a hundred years ago, the reason Tabinshwehti had been defeated at Mrauk U was precisely that he had not controlled the dam and had been flooded by the defending army.

Therefore, seizing the dam was the second key to capturing Mrauk U!

Because the dam's garrison was completely unprepared, the surprise attack also proceeded very smoothly! After brief but fierce fighting, the dam belonged to the Shun's heavenly troops.

However, the fighting at the dam still alerted the defenders of Mrauk U. The general defending the city rushed in panic into the royal palace, where a wedding was being held, and reported the dire news that "the Mughals have come"—this general had not figured out the situation either, and thought that Aurangzeb had attacked!

King Sanda Thudhamma had no choice but to interrupt his own wedding and, under the adoring gaze of his new bride Li Anna, don his armor and lead troops out of the city to do battle with Li Jicheng!

But the Mrauk U garrison, which had not faced battle for many years (although Aurangzeb's saber-rattling was quite frightening, he had not yet found the time to strike at Arakan), was no match for the battle-hardened Shun garrison troops. The moment they clashed, they suffered a crushing defeat, and the two or three hundred Shun death-warriors who had remained inside Mrauk U to "protect the Princess" also rose up within the city.

As a result, King Sanda Thudhamma, badly defeated in the field, was spared even the need to defend the city, and could only rely on the palace walls for a desperate resistance. But by now he had deeply recognized his own errors, was moved by the Shun's benevolence and righteousness, and had decided to join the glorious Shun Celestial Dynasty.

(End of Chapter)