Chapter 734: The Shun Picks Up Burma for Free

In the blink of an eye, it was already 1650 by the Western calendar.

This year was the third year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, the seventh year of Shunzhi of the Great Qing, and also the second year of Joint Rule of the Shun — three reign titles now laid before Mangdala, King of the Toungoo Dynasty, for him to choose.

Of course, he could also choose none of them and date the years from his own enthronement, in which case this year would be the third year of King Mangdala.

Unlike the neighboring Kingdom of Siam ruled by the Ayutthaya Dynasty, most of the territory of the Kingdom of Burma ruled by the Toungoo Dynasty had once belonged to the Great Ming's "Three Commissions and Six Pacification Offices" — namely the Nandian Pacification Commission, the Ganya Pacification Commission, the Longchuan Pacification Commission, the Cheli Pacification Office, the Burma Pacification Office, the Mubang Pacification Office, the Babai Dadian Pacification Office, the Mengyang Pacification Office, and the Laos Pacification Office.

In legal terms, Siam was an outer vassal of the Great Ming, while the lands under the Kingdom of Burma were essentially an inner vassal of the Great Ming — that is, of the same nature as the Shizhu Pacification Office of Qin Liangyu's family, and the present seven garrison commands of Pingxi, Shuofang, Chuanxi, Chuandong, Dongning, Jinghai, and Jin'ou: all were local autonomous regimes within the Great Ming!

Although "outer vassal" and "inner vassal" differ by only one word and look much the same — both being "vassals" — the legal distinction between them is enormous.

Oh, if the Great Ming dynasty were muddling along half-dead, then King Mangdala would have no need to pay any attention to outer vassal or inner vassal — the great Burmese Toungoo Dynasty did not subscribe to that Ming set of suzerain-vassal tributary institutions!

The problem was that although the Ming had now lost half the north and most of Sichuan and Yunnan, and looked as if it were about to collapse, it had instead erupted at sea and in the south.

First came word that the Ming army had entered Annam, propped up the Le king, enfeoffed four lords, and pulled Annam completely back into the Ming suzerain-vassal system.

Then came word that a combined Ming-Annam army had destroyed Champa, and that Ming forces had nibbled away at the Jin'ou and Jiulong River plains in eastern Chenla, and had established two garrison commands, Jin'ou and Jinghai, on the lands of Chenla and Champa!

Just as the sovereign and ministers of the Toungoo Dynasty in the city of Ava had not yet recovered from the drastic changes unfolding in the east, even more terrifying news arrived from neighboring Siam.

The King of Siam had just, under pressure from a Ming naval fleet, signed something called the "Ming-Siam Suzerain-Vassal Treaty," wholly accepting the "outer vassal obligations" put forward by the Great Ming Empire, and had further agreed to let the Ming occupy the island of Dinei, less than a day's journey from the city of Ayutthaya, along with 200,000 rai (about 480,000 mu) of surrounding land, for stationing 1,000 troops — stationing 1,000 troops requires 200,000 rai of land? The sovereign and ministers of Toungoo all concluded that the secret agents sent to Siam could not count: either they had counted too much land, or they had counted too few soldiers.

Perhaps the Celestial Dynasty troops garrisoned in Siam were not 1,000 men, but 100,000.

Was the Great Ming Celestial Dynasty thinking of pulling Siam and Annam together to launch a punitive expedition against Toungoo?

The present Toungoo Dynasty was no longer in the golden age under Bayinnaung! After Bayinnaung's death, the Toungoo Dynasty, its vitality badly sapped by Bayinnaung's warlike state policy, then encountered the rise of Siam's King Naresuan the Great, and as a result was battered into disintegration — and in the end only saved its life because Naresuan the Great died of smallpox. Even so, the country fell apart and was not reunified until more than twenty years ago by Bayinnaung's grandson Anaukpetlun.

But the reunified Burma had already been drained of vitality and no longer had the strength to push east or campaign north, so during the twenty-odd years of King Thalun, father of King Mangdala, the Toungoo Dynasty had consistently pursued a policy of peace, striving to rest and recuperate and restore national strength.

Although national strength had now recovered somewhat, it would still be a strain to resist a combined army of the Great Ming, Siam, and Annam — and now the Great Ming had picked up its seafaring skills again, so it would not only come by land, but might also come by sea.

And because King Anaukpetlun had stormed the Portuguese-controlled colony of Syriam (near Rangoon), Burma's relations with the Westerners were none too good either, and it no longer imported foreign guns, foreign cannon, and foreign officers in large numbers — so it would also be hard to rely on Western power to resist the Ming.

Therefore the only option now laid before the great King Mangdala was this one: the second year of Joint Rule of the Shun!

"Mang Bai!" On the throne in the court of Ava, King Mangdala pointed at his brother Mang Bai.

"Royal Elder Brother!"

Mang Bai, who was not the least bit white, hastily rose, bent at the waist as he walked to the royal elder brother's throne, and then knelt again.

Unlike the Ayutthaya courtiers' style of attending court stripped to the waist, the sovereign and ministers of Burma all wore clothes, and they did not go in for garish gold — though Mangdala still wore a thick gold chain around his neck.

King Mangdala asked: "What is the name of the envoy sent by that Great Shun state in the north?"

"He is called Huang Shu," Mang Bai replied. "Do you intend to put this rude fellow to death by elephant trampling?"

Death by elephant trampling meant being crushed to death by elephants!

Huang Shu was in a miserable position now: he had been detained by the Burmese for several months, with no good food and no good drink, and every day he might be dragged out for the elephants to trample for sport.

The reason for this was that he had been sent to Burma as an envoy by the Shun dynasty's Imperial Lord Li Guo, and had made demands that the Burmese regarded as utterly outrageous — the Shun demanded that Burma acknowledge itself a vassal, pay tribute, stop supporting Mu Tianbo in Lijiang, and allow the Shun army passage through Mengmi and Mengyang to attack Longchuan, Ganya, Nandian, and the Tengchong Guard and other places controlled by the Mu family army.

It turned out that the Mu family of Yunnan was not finished yet, but had fallen back to the northwestern part of Yunnan province with the support of Yang Weizhi, Wang Yunkai, and others.

The Mu family's main city had now been relocated to Lahezhuangsi in Lijiang Prefecture, while Yang Weizhi and Wang Yunkai had garrisoned troops in Yongchang Prefecture, relying on the rugged terrain of the Gaoligong Mountains to resist Li Dingguo's great army.

And the reason the remnants of the Mu family had been able to hold out until now was, of course, inseparable from the support of many pro-Ming native chieftains within Burma — this matter actually had little to do with the Toungoo Dynasty. The so-called unification of the Toungoo Dynasty was in fact merely the allegiance and tribute of feudal lords everywhere, not the establishment of a comprehensive and effective bureaucratic rule within Burma.

And the influence of the Ming and of the Mu family, Dukes of Qian, in northern Burma had not entirely faded; many native chieftains kept a foot in both camps, sending tribute to Ava on one side while supplying the Mu family army with provisions on the other.

On the other hand, although Li Dingguo was a formidable commander, his great army had also run into problems after entering Yunnan. First was failure to acclimatize: men of Shaanxi and Henan were not accustomed to the water and soil of Yunnan!

Second, Li Dingguo's political ability was lacking: he had crudely copied into Yunnan the two fundamental state policies that the Shun dynasty had implemented in Sichuan — "enclosure" and "land equalization."

And that stirred up a hornet's nest!

The native chieftains and headmen of Yunnan, who had originally placed high hopes in the Shun, all at once turned into loyal subjects of the Great Ming and old friends of the Mu family — and the native chieftains of northern Burma mostly supported the Mu family army for the same reason. In this day and age, who could be intimidated by border lines? The Shun's celestial soldiers would come and attack whenever they pleased.

So Li Dingguo ran into trouble in Yunnan: endless battles, and endless bandits to kill!

And the Shun court at Chongqing was unwilling to abandon the "enclosure" and "land equalization" line in Yunnan, because in the view of the deliberating princes and the hands-off Son of Heaven Li Guo, Yunnan was not some unimportant remote territory, but the Shun dynasty's line of retreat.

If they did not work hard to develop it, then if Sichuan ever fell, the Shun dynasty would be finished.

Therefore the Shun court not only refused to abandon "enclosure" and "land equalization," but also turned its spearpoint toward the Toungoo Dynasty of Burma, dispatching that unlucky fellow Huang Shu as envoy to visit Ava and demand that Burma acknowledge itself a vassal, pay tribute, and assist in suppressing the rebels!

Mangdala of course refused, and so detained Huang Shu, preparing to pick an auspicious day for death by elephant trampling.

But after picking and choosing, no auspicious day suitable for an elephant trampling was found — while next door, the sky over Siam had already changed!

Considering that both the Great Ming and Siam were enemies of Burma, Mangdala no longer dared let the elephants trample the Shun envoy to death.

"No, no, no," Mangdala said, shaking his head at his brother. "Now is not the time to kill the Shun envoy — we must become vassals of the Shun! If a combined army of the Ming, Annam, and Siam attacks, only the Shun dynasty can send troops to aid us!"

(End of Chapter)