Almost as soon as he heard the news of the fall, Emperor Zong knew that he was once again faced with a decision: whether to continue to be a vassal of the Ming Dynasty or to change his allegiance and become a vassal of the Tang prince. After thinking it over again and again, Emperor Zong finally realized that he actually had no other choice, because Tang Yu's army was powerful, and it was not something that his small Korean country could resist. Besides, Tang Yu was also a Han Chinese, and the country he would establish in the future would still be the Han Chinese Celestial Empire. It was legitimate for him to become a vassal of Tang Yu, but it was just a little early. Therefore, Emperor Zong asked Tang Yu to deal with the Dorgon incident and then become a vassal of Tang Yu.
The thought of Dorgon being mauled to death made Tang Zong tremble with fear all over. He was afraid that he would be too slow to submit and would also be treated like this by Tang Chen. When Tang Chen received Tang Chen's letter of surrender, he was a little surprised. Although the Goryeo Koreans in later generations were a group of arrogant people, Tang Chen did not have much aversion to such arrogant people. After all, it was pitiful and sad that a group of people suffered from mental paranoia. Tang Chen had no intention of using force to conquer Tang Chen at the moment.
Of course, Tang Yu felt very comforted that Emperor Zong was so self-aware. He still had two daughters in his family, so they were half his family after all. Out of comfort to the Korean people and for the future strategy, Tang Yu decided to go to Korea in person. Firstly, he wanted to meet the man who was his father-in-law. He had never met Emperor Zong before. Secondly, although Tang Yu had accepted Emperor Zong's letter of surrender, the two sides still had many issues to discuss.
Tang Qi's goal was to abolish the name of Korea and make it an autonomous region. Relatively speaking, the administrative power of the autonomous region would be slightly higher than that of the province. Some of the low-level officials in the autonomous region would be Koreans. Moreover, Tang Qi had no plans to relocate the people here. In this era, this place was also a poor and remote place, not much better than Japan. Tang Qi estimated that not many people from the Ming Dynasty would be willing to come here.
Since they were not going to fight, Tang Qi did not bring a large army with him. He only brought 5,000 regular soldiers and 10,000 Japanese auxiliary soldiers. However, there were many women following Tang Qi, including Er, Xiangjun, Dong Xiaowan, Kou Baimen, Dayuer, Hailanzhu, Bilian, and the two daughters of Zong.
Now the four daughters, Er, Xiangjun, Xiaowan, and Kou Baimen, have grown into charming young ladies. Er's appearance is the most beautiful among all the girls, while Xiangjun is petite and exquisite, and Dong Xiaowan has the demeanor of a lady from a noble family. However, Baimen prefers martial arts and behaves like a chivalrous woman. Although the four girls are outstanding in appearance, Tang Yu is now surrounded by beautiful women of all kinds, so the four girls are not very attractive to him. In addition, Tang Yu is now in a high position and has a lot of things to do, so these four girls don't have many opportunities to stay with him.
Although the Goryeo people later boasted about the long history of their country, at that time, Seoul was not as prosperous as a medium-sized city in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty. As for the palace of King Jong, it was not as luxurious as the manors built by the Tang Dynasty in Southeast Asia.
Tang Qi and his entourage came to Seoul, which was also called Qiongcheng in that era. Although they brought a total of 15,000 troops, for Tang Qi and his entourage, it was more like a trip. In order to comfort the emperor, Tang Qi did not enter Seoul with his troops, but camped outside the city. Tang Qi also built a temporary meeting platform outside Seoul, and both sides would use this place to negotiate on surrender.
The two daughters of the clan went to the city to visit their father, the king, and his wife.
Daughters were not taken seriously. After all, they were only concubines and had no qualifications to be princesses in their past lives. However, their current status was different. Although they were only concubines of very low status around Tang Yu, because of their relationship with Tang Yu, their status in front of the Emperor (Zong Zong) and others rose. Once the Emperor (Zong Zong) reached an agreement with Tang Yu, his status in front of them was just a minister. According to the rules, the Emperor (Zong Zong) had to greet them.
This time the two of them came back, it was considered a return home in glory. Tang Qi had always been very generous to the women around him. Not only were the restrictions on their personal freedom less than in this era, but in terms of material things, Tang Qi also tried his best to satisfy them. So this time they brought a lot of gifts back to their parents' home, not to mention those rare Western products and South Asian spices, not to mention things like glass mirrors that are still rare nowadays, just those common pearls, agates, corals, and trees, the two of them brought back a lot. Although these things were very precious, Tang Qi had most of them in his hands, and he didn't want to sell them in large quantities to avoid the price depreciation of these things, so that in the Tang family's warehouse, these things were piled up like a mountain.
These two Korean princesses were neglected when they were young, so this time they naturally wanted to regain their face. Moreover, this face belonged to their men, and they could not let their men lose this face. When the Queen, Princess, and Princess of the King's family saw the things they brought back, they could not help but be surprised, and became envious and jealous.
Joseon at that time was a poor place, and there were not many good things to be had. Moreover, due to limited financial resources, King Jong-sung could not afford to support too many women, and there were not many people in the entire royal palace. Compared with the very frugal Emperor Chongzhen, King Jong-sung was like a local rich man. In fact, some local rich men in the Ming Dynasty might have lived better than King Jong-sung, at least they did not have to use kimchi to make up the number of people on the table.
For his two daughters' return, Emperor Zong naturally had to entertain them well. He had never accompanied these two daughters for dinner before, but now that his two daughters were of noble status, Emperor Zong had to accompany them in person. At the banquet, these two Korean princesses who had followed Tang Yu discovered that what they thought was a life of luxury was actually just this kind.
Following Tang Yu's meal, although Tang Yu was considered very frugal, after all, Tang Yu was of such status that all his meals were prepared by famous chefs with delicacies from land and sea. He was nothing like King Zong, who only lived on kimchi. Although a large table was set up, it could not hide the fact that he was poor. After experiencing this trip back to her parents' home, the Korean princess felt fortunate that she was given to Tang Yu as a gift by her father, otherwise, she would not have such a glorious and good life.
After the council platform was built, Tang Qi had a meeting with (Jong), which was also a surrender ceremony. (Jong) led the civil and military officials of the Kingdom of Korea and submitted the letter of surrender to Tang Qi. In Korea, although there were a small number of officials who were unwilling to surrender to Tang Qi, these people were a minority after all, and the majority still advocated surrender. These people knew very well that they could not even beat the Jiannu, let alone compete with Tang Qi's subordinates. Besides, it was just a new master for themselves, and it did not have much impact on their own wealth and glory. Naturally, these people were unwilling to do stupid things such as sacrificing their lives.
Zong bowed and raised the surrender letter above his head before coming before Tang Chen. Tang Chen took it, helped Zong up, and said with a smile, "No matter what, you are my father-in-law. We are all family. From now on, we will be one big family. I hope you will take good care of this place."
"Your Highness, please let me go. I will definitely not let Your Highness down." Zong felt a little aggrieved when he said this. Tang Yu had not founded a country and proclaimed himself an emperor, so he gave himself the title of prince. Zong was a king with a king's status, and he felt a little aggrieved to be a vassal of a prince. But this was the reality. Prince Tang had the strength, so he, as a king, could only bow his head and be a vassal.
The reason why Tang Yu did not call himself the emperor was that as long as the Ming Dynasty existed, Tang Yu did not want the people of the Ming Dynasty to regard him as an enemy barbarian in the future. In addition, Tang Yu did not want Emperor Chongzhen to go to war because he hoped to continue to strengthen his own strength and decide the outcome in one battle without sacrificing too many Han people. As long as the war was short, the losses to the Han people would be small. If it was a protracted war, it would not only be detrimental to the development of Tang Yu, but it would be a huge disaster for the people of the Ming Dynasty, and the damage it brought to the land of the Ming Dynasty would be immeasurable.
Tang Qi and Zong exchanged some polite words to get through the surrender ceremony, and then both sides sent people to start preliminary negotiations. At this time, Tang Qi and Zong did not need to show up. Only when things were almost negotiated, Tang Qi and Zong would make the final decision.
The main point of negotiation between the two sides was about the degree of autonomy of Korea and the treatment and power of the royal family. Tang Yu did not want Korea to exist as a vassal state. Even if he did not interfere in the internal affairs and management of Korea for the time being, he wanted it to be nominally included in the territory under Tang Yu's influence.
In order to set an example for someone like Zong who voluntarily surrendered, Tang Yu had to give Zong some benefits. The two sides first negotiated for a long time on the treatment of the Korean royal family. Roughly speaking, Zong's title of king would be retained, and 10% of the tax revenue in Korea would belong to Zong every year. Zong had the power to appoint and dismiss prefects, but he did not have the power to appoint and dismiss officials at the level of the Korean Autonomous Region. As a prince, Zong had 2,000 personal guards, but apart from them, he was not allowed to retain any other troops. All defense forces of the Korean Autonomous Region were under the control of the autonomous region government.
As a prince, Zong was supposed to have a fiefdom. Tang Qi gave Zong a piece of land in Australia as his fiefdom. Tang Qi did this to lay the groundwork for the future, because one day, Zong would have to leave Korea. If Tang Qi wanted to truly incorporate Korea into his territory, he would have to transfer influential figures like Zong away from this place.
Although Tang Yu gave Zong very generous conditions, Zong still felt extremely disappointed.
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