Hai Rui naturally knew who Mang Yingli was. He was the son of Mang Yinglong, who had brought shame to the Ming Dynasty in the southwest.

As mentioned before, the southwestern territory of the Ming Dynasty extended deep into the Indochina Peninsula, including Myanmar, Laos, and northern Thailand. However, as the Ming Dynasty's national strength declined, the "golden red card" system was seriously challenged, and the Indochina Peninsula inevitably slid into a situation of warlords fighting each other.

As a result, during the Jiajing period, a fierce man named Mang Yinglong emerged from the Burmese Xuanwei Division and openly raised the flag of rebellion, calling himself the Toungoo Dynasty. While the imperial court was in a state of panic due to the northern barbarians and the southern Japanese, he annexed most of the three Xuanwei and six Wei states, and also destroyed the kingdom of Siam, its arch-enemy.

However, Siam's fate was not over yet. The puppet Thai king supported by Mang Yinglong actually gave birth to a little god - Panarai, known as the "Black Prince".

When Panarai was young, he was held hostage in Toungoo for a long time and suffered humiliation from the Burmese. Later, his sister was given to Mangyinglong, who was over 60 years old, as a concubine, and he was released and made the crown prince.

The humiliating experience made Panarai extremely anti-Burmese, but he knew that if he wanted to defeat the powerful Toungoo Dynasty and restore Siam's independence, it would not be enough to rely solely on Thai people who practiced vegetarianism and chanted Buddhist scriptures.

So he thought of asking for help from the Celestial Empire, and took the opportunity of Zhao Hao's meeting with the Nanyang princes to ask the Green Queen to introduce him. Zhao Hao also needed an obedient agent to control the Indochina Peninsula, so the two sides hit it off.

The Black Prince promised that after he ascended the throne, he would submit to the Celestial Empire like Annan had done, in exchange for the Jiangnan Group's support for Siam's independence.

Moreover, the heaven and earth were on his side, and luck was on his side. The following year, in the ninth year of the Wanli reign, Mang Yinglong died of illness. The crown prince Mang Yingli, who succeeded him to the throne, was 46 years old, but he was arrogant and aggressive.

Mang Yingli believed that Toungoo had strong soldiers and many brave generals and had no rivals in the southeast peninsula, so he turned his attention to the north and began to seek his own death... Oh no, he kept attacking the southwestern border of the Ming Dynasty.

He was obviously unaware of the changes in the Celestial Empire. After Zhang Juzheng's reforms, the Ming Dynasty had swept away the trend of civil laziness and military playfulness, and the combat effectiveness of officers and soldiers was greatly improved.

In the first month of the eleventh year of the Wanli reign, the Burmese army brazenly invaded Yunnan, captured cities and plundered land, killed people and set fire, and marched all the way into Shunning Prefecture, eyeing Dali and other places!

The military intelligence reached the capital, and the Ming court was shocked!

Under the strict order of Prime Minister Zhang, Duke of Qian and General of Yunnan Mu Changzuo immediately moved from Kunming to Erhai Lake. Governor of Yunnan Liu Shizeng also moved to Chuxiong, mobilized tens of thousands of troops, and ordered Generals Liu Jing and Deng Zilong to lead elite troops to the front line for a full-scale counterattack!

As a result, Liu and Deng, with the cooperation of the local Tusi army, defeated the Burmese army south of Yaoguan. After that, they won battle after battle and recovered the land previously occupied by the Burmese army. Then Liu Jing summoned the Tusi, built an altar and swore an oath, and the Tusi in the border areas returned to the Ming Dynasty one after another.

Liu Jing and Deng Zilong also became famous throughout the world and became the new generation of famous generals!

But it is not appropriate to exaggerate the victory of the Ming army, because the main force of the Burmese army was still there. Mang Yingli hastily withdrew his troops because the Thais rebelled and threatened his capital.

In the 12th year of Wanli, Mang Yingli ordered the black prince Panarai to lead the Thai army north to assist him in attacking the Ming Dynasty.

With the support of Zhao Hao, Panarai led his army into Myanmar, declared independence to his subordinates, and attacked Pegu, the capital of the Toungoo Dynasty!

Mang Yingli was shocked to learn that he was stabbed in the back by the Black Prince, and hurriedly led his army back to Pegu. Fortunately, the Thai army's combat effectiveness was not satisfactory, and the Black Prince failed to enter Pegu as he wished.

Upon learning that the Burmese army had withdrawn, he had to gather more than 10,000 Thais near Pegu and hurried back to his homeland.

Mang Yingli was very angry about the Thai rebellion and immediately led his army into Siam, wanting to eliminate the "rebel" Panarai!

Panarai was also a ruthless man. He adopted a scorched earth policy, so that after the Burmese army entered the country, they could not capture a single Thai person or steal a single grain of food. He withdrew almost all of his troops into the capital city and defended it with a strong city!

As a result, Mang Yingli had to retreat because he sent out his troops in haste, was insufficiently prepared, and could not obtain supplies locally.

But how could he give up? In the 13th and 14th years of the Wanli reign, he sent troops to attack Siam twice. Especially last year, Mang Yingli was very well prepared. With the support of Cambodia, he personally led an army of 250,000 and besieged the city from three directions. The attack lasted for 13 months!

Under the continuous fierce attack of the Burmese army, the Thai army in Ayutthaya was once in a precarious situation. The Siamese princes who habitually surrendered collapsed one after another. Even the King of Thailand, Panarai's father, felt desperate. If it weren't for the strong support of the Jiangnan Group, his father would have chopped off his head and sent it to Mang Yingli to vent his anger.

Zhao Hao's support was not just lip service. Under his orders, Nanyang Shipping continuously transported food, weapons, medicines and other supplies to Ayutthaya through the Chao Phraya River, otherwise the Thai army would have collapsed long ago.

But the country of vegetarians producing transvestites was too lame, and the strong support was still frequently in urgent need. Later, even the lifeline of the Chao Phraya River was cut off. In desperation, after the rainy season this year, Zhao Hao ordered Lin Feng, commander of the Nanyang Theater, to provide military support to Siam as appropriate.

Although Ayutthaya is 80 kilometers away from the sea, it is connected to the Chao Phraya River with good water transportation, so it does not violate the "10-kilometer rule" of the Coast Guard.

After receiving the order, Lin Feng sent a fleet into the Gulf of Siam and established a naval base at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River.

Then Macron, commander of the Marine Corps in the Nanyang Theater, was appointed by Lin Feng as the front-line commander, responsible for the subsequent operations.

Macron commanded the inland support boat detachment to cover 1,000 marines and 4,000 soldiers along the Chao Phraya River for 50 miles north. According to the instructions of the General Staff, a forward base was established in a fishing village surrounded by rivers 130 miles away from Ayutthaya, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Oh, by the way, Commander-in-Chief Zhao also named the fishing village Bangkok.

Subsequently, troops, supplies, and equipment arrived at the Bangkok base in a steady stream. After a complete logistics, support, and defense system was established, the inland support fleet headed north again.

This time, the inland support fleet finally appeared at the gates of Ayutthaya, which had the Chao Phraya River as its moat.

The new "Black Dragon" type inland support boat of the Marine Corps is an improvement on the "Avenger" type that had performed brilliantly in the battle to recapture Manila. It has a full metal hull and perfect protective armor, as well as more powerful firepower.

More than two dozen "Black Dragons" fiercely broke into the Burmese army's formation. Buckshot fired by hundreds of new hand-cranked revolving cannons splashed like hail on the Burmese army that was attacking the city in dense formations. Just one wave took away the lives of thousands of Burmese soldiers!

Mang Yingli was naturally furious at Cheng Yaojin who showed up out of nowhere, and immediately ordered his men to eliminate these uninvited guests first!

However, the biggest advantage of the hand-cranked revolving cannon, a powerful weapon that combines the large falconet and the thunder gun into one, is its long-lasting firepower.

It is gravity fed through an open magazine located above the barrel. A hand crank provides power to push the falling shells into the barrel. In this way, as long as you continue to press pre-loaded shells similar to those in a blunderbuss into the magazine and keep turning the crank, you can fire continuously.

Moreover, the airtightness of this type of continuous-fire artillery is better than that of the Portuguese machine, so although it is also a breech-loading gun, its power is greater than the latter. Firing shotgun shells continuously within a range of 150 meters is a complete life-reaper.

No matter how Mang Yingli urged his troops to attack from both sides, they could not get even one step closer to the river, and his subordinates died in vain over wave after wave!

It was not until the casualties were recorded on the banks of the Chao Phraya River that Mang Yingli suddenly woke up from his dream and hurriedly ordered his troops to retreat to stop the meaningless casualties.

He decided to use artillery with a longer range against the enemy.

Myanmar had contact with the Portuguese very early, and the neighboring Arakan Dynasty, which later became Bangladesh, was once an ally of the Portuguese. The South China Sea sailors hired by Portugal were basically Bengalis. Later, the Portuguese responded to Sebastian's call and withdrew from Asia to restore their country.

Naturally, many Portuguese people did not have such patriotic sentiments and were unwilling to return to the smelly and dirty Lisbon, so they quietly stayed and basically became mercenaries in the Kingdom of Arakan.

With the terrifying Ming coast guard around, they dared not to mess around at sea, so they all tried to make a living on land. Because Mangyingli paid a lot of money, many Portuguese joined the Burmese army and brought them artillery technology.

The bronze cannons cast by the Portuguese for the Burmese army had a maximum range of more than one kilometer. However, such cannons were too heavy and could only be used to defend cities. The Western bronze cannons used by the Burmese army in field battles could fire more than 400 meters away and ensure effective killing within 200 meters. They caused considerable trouble to the Ming army in the north.

The Portuguese mercenaries had just estimated that the enemy's range was within 150 meters, far less than their field artillery.

However, when they confidently commanded the Burmese to launch artillery and prepare to set up positions outside the enemy's range, they only heard a row of crisp gunshots, and a group of them were shot down 500 meters away...

The surviving Portuguese lay on the ground and looked around, and finally found that the smoke was still rising from those iron ships.

The Wanli rifle with a scope was beyond their imagination! The poor Portuguese couldn't figure out how a musket could shoot so far and so accurately.

They tried several more times, but were still suppressed by the long-range firepower from the iron-hulled ship and had no chance of getting within the range of their own artillery.

What the Portuguese didn't know was that those hand-cranked revolving cannons could still fire farther than their 300-400-jin cannons if they were equipped with solid bullets. It was just that the coast guards didn't want to show their weakness because of their impressive accuracy.

As a result, Mang Yingli had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

The Siamese king and his ministers in Ayutthaya witnessed with their own eyes the battle scenes of the coast guard soldiers fighting like gods of war, and their dejection was immediately swept away and their morale was greatly boosted.

Panalai was even more proud. He had finally proved that his choice was correct and he no longer had to worry about being betrayed...

The Burmese army was helpless and morale was very low. Panarai also learned that the Coast Guard had set up a forward base downstream and stockpiled a large amount of supplies and troops.

He knew that this was totally hopeless...

After several days of painful struggle, Mang Yingli had no choice but to withdraw his troops with a heart full of reluctance.