Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 87 Can I still learn from Fan Meng? (Subscribe)
The eleventh year of Zhizheng, the seventh day of the tenth month, noon.

Outside Chao County, Kang Maocai was defeated and killed.

When the main force was just defeated, his subordinates advised him to gather the defeated soldiers and return to Heyang first in order to fight again. However, Kang Maocai was worried that Sui Xueyi was a spy of Lu Jin. If it was true, Heyang would most likely be lost. Wouldn't it be suicide for him to go back at this time?

In the end, they could only make a temporary decision to set up camp in Hanshan and hold their ground, and then find a way to ask for help, or just run away to Quanjiao.

He encountered unexpected events and was unprepared, at a loss as to what to do, which accelerated his subsequent defeat. He was unable to even gather his defeated troops and eventually died under Lu Jin's killing order.

But his worries were not unreasonable, as Heyangcheng had indeed changed his surname to Lu!
Just yesterday afternoon, when Kang Maocai had just led his troops to set out, Bai Guangtai returned to the city while chatting with Bao Yu and Cao Liangchen.

After sending Bai Guangtai away, Cao Liangchen followed Bao Yu all the way to the government office. When there were no outsiders around, Cao Liangchen immediately spoke.

"Mr. Sui, when do we start?"

Cao Liangchen was assigned by Yang Jing two days ago to sneak into the city as an insider.

Lu Jin gave Yang Jing a letter, which only said that once he entered the city, he could go to a certain residence to find an insider, and with the help of the insider, he could sneak people in and make it easier to capture the city. However, he only said that the insider was called Sui Xueyi, and did not tell him Bao Yu's true identity.

So Cao Liangchen still thought his name was Sui Xueyi.

But it’s better this way. The two of them are not familiar with each other. If he knew Bao Yu’s real name, he might be exposed by calling the wrong name.

Seeing Cao Liangchen so impatient, Bao Yu immediately lowered his voice and spoke.

"There is no rush for this matter. Kang Mao just left. If we act now, he may not have gone far. If he comes back to attack us, won't we both be dead without a burial place?
"At least wait until tonight. It would be best if we could do it tomorrow. After he and the Marshal engage in battle, it would be difficult for him to come back even if he wants to."

"What? Tomorrow? That won't do. I am following Commander Yang's orders. We must take action tonight. The main force of the Fourth Regiment is waiting outside the city. How can you let thousands of them capture the city in broad daylight tomorrow? Even if there are two hundred people as internal support, it is not a sure thing. What if something unexpected happens, won't it ruin the Marshal's plan?" Cao Liangchen became anxious when he heard that they had to wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow Lu Jin will fight with Kang Maocai. If this guy is defeated and escapes back to Heyang, then Lu Jin’s fight will be in vain. Therefore, he ordered Yang Jing to take the city on the sixth night.

Lu Jin was taking the enemy's chances lightly, preparing for the worst, and trying to make preparations in all directions. He didn't believe that he couldn't kill Kang Maocai, so he wanted to be safe.

But Bao Yu also wanted to play it safe. The safest way was to wait until Kang Maocai and Lu Jin started fighting. That would be the safest time.

But he could understand Lu Jin's thoughts, so he frowned and looked at Cao Liangchen, thinking for a while before speaking.

"Tonight is fine, but I want to try to persuade Bai Guangtai. He is the commander of the Jiangshui naval force and is now in charge of the city defense. If we can convince him to surrender, we can not only capture the city, but also wipe out the Jiangshui naval force.

"In this way, even if the imperial court wants to raise a navy to attack us, it will have to wait for some time. This will buy more time for my lord.

"It would be easy to capture Heyang, but if the Jiangfang water admiral sees that the situation is not good and runs to the other side of the river, we will regret it."

"This..." Cao Liangchen also understood the importance of the Jiangshui Navy. It would be better if they could take them down together, so he asked.

"Then are you sure, Mr. Sui? Can this man really surrender?"

Bao Yu nodded. He had not been hiding for such a long time in vain. He also had some understanding of the situation of the generals under Kang Maocai.

"Bai Guangtai was born a Confucian scholar. He first studied literature and then martial arts. He wanted to be an official, but he had no way to serve the country, especially the imperial examinations. He had a lot of complaints about the Yuan court. Now he gave up writing and joined the army, following Kang Maocai to suppress the rebel army. He just wanted to be an official.

"As for being an official, it doesn't matter who you serve. I am confident that I can persuade him. If he really would rather die than obey, that's fine. We can use courtesy first and then force.

"This man's family is still in the city. You can capture his family first, seize the city gate, and lead the army into the city at night. Then force him to surrender. I don't believe this man is willing to die for the tyrannical Yuan Dynasty."

"Good idea! What should we do now?" Cao Liangchen clapped his fist excitedly, thinking that this method was very good.

“There’s a lot to do.”

Bao Yu immediately wrote him a note to transfer supplies, and stamped it with Kang Maocai's seal of the Grand Marshal, and then asked Cao Liangchen to go to the armory with the badge to get the weapons.

There is no way, with the seal you can do whatever you want
The reason was simple. Kang Maocai led the main force to the battle, and the defense in the city was unaffected. Bao Yu ordered a batch of weapons to be transferred from the armory, to arm the yamen runners, and to recruit some young and strong men from the city as soldiers. This order was quite normal.

When Cao Liangchen went over with the note and the badge, the soldier guarding the armory had no doubt at all, because there was really nothing good left in the armory's equipment.

Kang Maocai concentrated all his main forces to go into the battle, and took all the armor with him. Now even Bai Guangtai's two thousand navy soldiers had no armor. However, there were still many other swords, shields and spears left. They did not bring any weapons into the city, so now they could only use whatever they had.

So the two hundred "craftsmen" brought by Cao Liangchen were transformed into armed runners of the Xuanwei Division, and more than thirty people were sent to take over the government office.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, people generally only ate two meals a day, one at around nine in the morning and another at around three or four in the afternoon. The landlords could only have some snacks to fill their stomachs at noon. Even in modern times, some areas still call lunch "snacks."

It was not until the middle and late Ming Dynasty that people in the south began to eat three meals a day.

The soldiers defending Heyang City were all young and strong men. They had eaten at around 3:00 p.m. and were already hungry when it was getting dark. So Bao Yu used the public funds of the Xuanwei Office to buy wine and meat.

They said that they worked hard on patrolling the river defense every day, and now they had to help defend the city, so they must be rewarded well. So they asked the runners of the Xuanwei Office to guard the city for them first, and then called the soldiers from the navy to have a "midnight snack".

The navy soldiers were overjoyed, thinking that Mr. Sui was a good man and was so capable. No wonder he was a favorite of the envoy. They only cared about eating and drinking, not guarding the city. Then the West Gate was smoothly taken over by Cao Liangchen.
Bai Guangtai still had some sense of responsibility. After hearing about this, he immediately felt that it was inappropriate. The Marshal led his troops to the battle and asked them to stay behind to guard the city. How could they drink at this time?

He was just about to go find Bao Yu to ask for clarification, but before he could leave, Bao Yu's people arrived first. A clerk from the government office passed a message on Bao Yu's behalf, saying that Mr. Sui had prepared a banquet in the government office and invited Bai Guangtai to the banquet.

Bai Guangtai knew that he was a popular figure around Kang Maocai, and he had been trying to curry favor with him before. Now that he was invited to a banquet, there was no reason for him not to go, so he happily went to the banquet. Anyway, there were guards at the city gate, so nothing should go wrong.
Just after Bai Guangtai left, Cao Liangchen immediately sent someone out of the city to contact Yang Jing and asked him to bring his troops over.

In the government office, at the wine table, Bao Yu repeatedly urged Bai Guangtai to drink, and even led them to some sensitive topics. Fortunately, there were no outsiders here, otherwise if the Mongols heard what they said, it would be considered treasonous.

"General Bai, you and I are both born as Confucian scholars, but neither of us can pass the imperial examination and become an official.

"I, Sui Xueyi, have studied hard for more than ten years, but have failed the imperial examinations time and again. What can I do? The imperial court only selects 100 Jinshi in each exam, and half of them are Mongolians and Semites. Moreover, their examination papers are even simpler. How unfair is that?!
"There are so many Han people in this world. Even if we count by population, we should enroll more Han Jinshi.

“But the barbarians are in power in this world after all. Even students like you and me can only take unorthodox methods. Now I am respected as Mr. Sui. Ha, what a bullshit Mr. Sui. To put it bluntly, I am just a minor official in the Xuanwei Division.

"And you, Brother Guangtai, you also have a family background of learning, but you can only serve the Tartars and serve as a small commander of the Jiang Defense. What do you think is wrong with this world?"

Bai Guangtai was also drunk. It was a rare occasion for him to meet a scholar who was willing to talk to him and looked up to him, so he sneered and said.

"Haha, what else can we do? Can we learn from Fan Meng and do something against the will of heaven again?"

Sure enough, as soon as Bao Yu brought up this topic, Bai Guangtai immediately took the bait.

Bao Yu also knew who Fan Meng was. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there were not many people who had not heard of Fan Meng's name. He was a famous figure who successfully broke the defense of the former prime minister Bayan and indirectly led to Bayan's resignation, which allowed Tuotuo to take the throne.

Due to the Mongols' discrimination and suppression of the Han people in the imperial examinations, everything from the ratio of admission quotas to the difficulty of the exams were deliberately made difficult. Even if you managed to pass the exam and become a Jinshi, Han people could not hold full-time positions as officials and could only serve as deputies to the Mongols.

Even if you are very successful and have managed to get a full-time position, the court will definitely assign you a deputy position as a Semu official, such as a Tongzhi, to hold you back.

Under this social environment, the Han people had to find other ways out.

Fortunately, there is always a way out. Although the Mongols spared no effort to suppress the Han people, there was one thing that was progressive, that is, the boundaries between officials and clerks in the Yuan Dynasty were not very clear.

A minor official could also become an official based on his seniority, which was simply unimaginable in other dynasties.

During the Yuan Dynasty, there were more Han people who were promoted from minor clerks to officials than those who passed the imperial examinations to become officials!

Therefore, many aristocratic families would rather let their children work as clerks in the government office for free when they are in their teens, so that they can gain qualifications and be promoted to officials.

This is why Bao Heng, the son of Bao Zheng, a famous official of the former Song Dynasty, would rather not take the imperial examination and instead work as a minor official in the Luzhou government office.

The well-known Fan Meng was a minor official in the government office of Henan Jiangbei Province in the city of Bianliang.

He was originally from Qi County, Kaifeng. When he was a minor official, he was fed up with the oppression of the Mongols. He worked in the provincial government office in Bianliang for 20 years and finally became a reserve official. As a result, his boss deliberately found an excuse not to pay his salary.
So in the fifth year of Zhiyuan, 1339 AD, which was 12 years ago.

During the winter solstice festival, other officials went home to feast, hugged their women and slept soundly, but he, Fan Meng, was left to stay up late on duty at the yamen.

Finally Fan Meng got angry and found an accomplice named Huo Bashi. They first stole the official horses from the post station outside the city and pretended to be the emperor's envoys. Then they made four wax ball secret letters, forged an imperial edict, and summoned all the drunken provincial government officials to the yamen to listen to the emperor's orders.

When all the first and second rank officials had arrived, they all knelt there. Huo Bashi immediately took out the iron bone flower, eighty large hammers, and forty small hammers. Brains were splattered all over the provincial government hall, and almost all the officials of Henan Jiangbei Province were caught in one fell swoop.

Who were hammered to death?
There was Yulu Temur, the Minister of State Affairs (rank one) of Henan and Jiangbei provinces, who was equivalent to the military and political chief of the four provinces of Hubei, Henan, Anhui and Shandong;
Jie Lie, the left chancellor (second rank) of Henan Province, and the director of the general office of the provincial government of four provinces;

Henan Jiangbei Dao Suzheng Lianchaoshi (third rank) Wanzhebuhua, the leader of the four provincial discipline inspection committees;

The governor of Bianliang Road (rank three) Salima, mayors of the capitals of four provinces;
The name of the Wanhu of Bianliang Road (rank three) is unknown. He was the military commander of the main field army of the Central Plains Military Region.

Liwen (fourth rank) Vajra slave;

Langzhong (fifth rank) is a bald black man;
The Dushi (seventh rank) Baizhu is all Mongolian.

The most important thing is that these people are all the confidants and reserve talents of Prime Minister Bayan. Bayan can be said to have absolute control over the entire Henan and Jiangbei provinces, and even the emperor's power cannot get in the way. Now they were all killed by Fan Meng.
It must be said that Emperor Shun of Yuan Dynasty was able to get rid of the shadow of the powerful minister Bayan and successfully rule the country, all thanks to Fan Meng!

Then you look at the area where the Red Turban Rebellion had the largest influence: Liu Futong in Fuyang, Zhima Li in Xuzhou, Zhang Shicheng in Yancheng, and the Chaohu navy in Hefei; all of them were in the territories of Henan Jiangbei Province.

If Fan Meng had not killed all the military and political leaders of these four provinces 12 years ago, the court's ruling power over this area would have been extremely weak and has not recovered until now. How could the Red Turban Army have rebelled so easily?

From this perspective, the Red Turban Army is able to have what it has today thanks to Fan Meng.
After getting drunk, Bai Guangtai actually told the story of Fan Meng. It can be imagined that this person also had resentment towards the Yuan Dynasty court.

Bao Yu was immediately delighted, thinking to himself there was hope!

This chapter has been revised and posted late. There is still one chapter. If you don’t want to wait, you can read it tomorrow morning.

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(End of this chapter)