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In the first year of the Hongguang reign, the change of the reign title not only failed to bring any new atmosphere to the small Nanjing court, on the contrary, the party struggles became more and more fierce. The case of the monk Dabei lasted for two months, and then the case of the real and fake prince and the case of the child concubine came, making Nanjing a mess.
At the same time, Grand Secretary Shi Kefa sent General Gao Jie to conquer Henan. On the eleventh day of the first lunar month, before Gao Jie entered Suizhou, the night guards sent by Qin Mu warned Gao Jie that Xu Dingguo had already decided to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and that he should not lead troops into the city lightly. His subordinates also advised Gao Jie not to take risks lightly.
But after Xu Dingguo sent his two sons as hostages, the arrogant Gao Jie still brought a small number of troops into Suizhou City for the banquet.
After Xu Dingguo successfully lured Gao Jie into Suizhou, he held a banquet for Gao Jie in the hall of Suizhou's military minister Yuan Keli's residence, served him singing girls and fine wine. He got Gao Jie drunk, and in the middle of the night, he mobilized his troops to kill Gao Jie. Then Xu Dingguo crossed the Yellow River to the north and surrendered to Haoge.
Upon hearing the news, the commander Shi Kefa stamped his feet and sighed: "Things in the Central Plains can no longer be done. The national affairs have been completely ruined by the traitor Xu."
In fact, although Gao Jie was plotted against by Xu Dingguo during the Suizhou Incident, his 200,000-strong army suffered no losses.
Shi Kefa should have taken advantage of the fact that Gao Jie's men were united in their hatred of the enemy after Xu Dingguo lured their commander to death and surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and changed his original plan to go west to Luoyang and join the Qing army in suppressing Li Zicheng, and to gather Gao Jie's troops to stabilize Henan.
At that time, the main force of the Qing army was divided into two routes, led by Duoduo and Ajige. One route attacked Li Zicheng in Tongguan, and the other route fought a fierce battle with Gao Yigong and Li Guo far away in Yulin, northern Shaanxi. The military strength in Henan and Shandong was extremely weak. Only a small number of Qing troops under Hauge were watching on the north side of the Yellow River. There was great potential for Shi Kefa to do something after taking over Gao Jie's troops.
However, Shi Kefa sighed that there was no way out in the Central Plains and turned around and ran away.
More than 200,000 troops under Gao Jie also fled south, and most of them were defeated during the escape.
Many of Gao Jie's soldiers were elite soldiers from Guanzhong who had defeated Li Zicheng with Sun Chuanting. After Sun Chuanting was defeated in Tongguan, these soldiers followed Gao Jie to retreat to Shanxi and fled to Henan.
Because Gao Jie's military law was not strict, although these Shaanxi elite soldiers had lax military discipline, their combat effectiveness was not bad. They had defeated Huang Degong's troops when they were fighting for territory in Huainan before.
It was a pity that Shi Kefa did not think of gathering his troops and fled south in grief, causing the army to be disbanded.
There was a scholar named Yan Ermei in Pei County, Jiangsu Province. He was Shi Kefa's aide. He urged Shi Kefa to gather the army, "cross the river to recover Shandong. He refused to listen; he advised him to march west to recover Henan, but he still refused to listen; he advised him to stay in Xuzhou for a while as a lookout for Hebei, but he still refused to listen."
In this way, Shi Kefa fled all the way to Yangzhou.
Gao Jie's army of more than 200,000 was scattered in an instant, and the area north of Yangzhou became an undefended area.
Yan Ermei, who was greatly disappointed with Shi Kefa, therefore wrote a poem to satirize him:
The people around him said something that made the Duke afraid.
They withdrew their camp and went to Yangzhou.
The heroes of the two rivers lost their ambitions.
The wailing and climbing up the shaft did not stop.
At this time, the main force of the Qing army was attacking Shaanxi in two routes, one led by Prince Ying Ajige, with Wu Sangui as the vanguard, and the other led by Prince Yu Duoduo, with Kong Youde as the vanguard.
Li Zicheng personally led an army of more than 100,000 to fight against Tongguan. In February, the Qing army brought in red cannons to bombard Tongguan fiercely. Seeing that Tongguan could not be defended, and Yan'an, which was guarded by Li Guo, was captured by Ajige's Qing army, Li Zicheng hurriedly retreated to Xi'an and burned down his house. He took his family and baggage and fled from Lantiankou to Shangzhou and Nanyang. Guanzhong thus fell into the hands of the Qing army.
Dorgon then ordered Prince Ajige, who had stayed in England, to continue pursuing Li Zicheng, and ordered Duoduo to lead the army back to Henan and attack Jiangnan.
The Qing army was mostly composed of cavalry, and their marching speed was astonishingly fast.
Kaifeng, Guide and other counties surrendered. Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo, two of the four towns in northern Jiang, also surrendered to Duoduo. The Qing court praised Duoduo for his contributions and gave him a sword inlaid with pearls and a golden belt.
Ajige in the west led tens of thousands of elite troops including Wu Sangui and Shang Kexi in pursuit of Li Zicheng. They defeated Li Zicheng in Shangzhou, Dengzhou and other places, and beheaded Liu Zongmin, a general under Li Zicheng. Many families of the Dashun Army were captured by the Qing army and their end was horrible.
Li Zicheng's army of 200,000 was chased like a stray dog. Fearing that Xiangyang could not be defended by the Qing army with its red cannons, he even gave up Xiangyang. After leaving a part of the troops to block the enemy on the south bank of the Han River, the army continued to flee southward, all the way to Suizhou and straight to Wuchang.
The situation was precarious, and the emperor and his ministers in Nanjing were still busy settling the case of the real and fake prince. At the same time, Ruan Dacheng also took advantage of these opportunities to overturn the case of treason. The Donglin Party was unwilling to be outdone, and at this time they joined forces with Zuo Liangyu to purge the emperor's side.
Zuo Liangyu was worried that he could not resist Duoduo, so he joined forces with the Donglin Party and marched towards Nanjing with an army of 400,000. The court urgently summoned Huang Degong and Qin Mu to serve the emperor.
The Qing army led by Duoduo took advantage of the situation and, together with a large number of surrendered soldiers, conquered Sizhou and crossed the Huai River to Yangzhou.
In the west, Zhang Xianzhong led an army of 100,000 under the banner of anti-Qing, heading north to Hanzhong, intending to seize Guanzhong while Ajige was in Jingxiang to pursue Li Zicheng and Guanzhong was short of troops. However, he was attacked by the Qing army led by He Luohui in the Fenghuang Mountain area. During the battle, Zhang Xianzhong was shot and died.
***
The situation in the world took a turn for the worse, so fast that it was dizzying. At the General Staff Headquarters of the Chu Palace in Wuchang, all kinds of news and information were flying in like snowflakes, and the atmosphere was extremely tense. The combat staff continued to demonstrate on the sand table based on the intelligence, and the intelligence personnel who worked day and night rushed in and out, bumping into each other at the door from time to time.
Even Qin Mu was only pretending to be calm on the surface, but in fact he was very confused. He only knew some major events in the history of the late Ming Dynasty. Historical books usually use the style of the Spring and Autumn Period and only record some major events.
For example, he knew that Li Zicheng would be defeated by the Qing army, but he did not know when the Qing army would march south or what specific route it would take. For another example, he had heard of the Ten Days of Yangzhou and the Three Massacres of Jiading, but he was vague about the specific month, day, and even year in which these events occurred.
Now Li Zicheng and the four towns in northern Jiangnan were like an avalanche, some were defeated and some surrendered. By the time the news of Liu Liangzuo and Liu Zeqing's surrender arrived, Duoduo had already approached Yangzhou.
Because the Qing army did not encounter any decent resistance, its speed was so fast that it was hard to keep up.
And it seems that some situations are different from the original history. Qin Mu vaguely remembers that Zhang Xianzhong did not seem to die so early... ... ...
Huh! He pressed the edge of the table hard and took a long breath. Regardless of whether history had changed, he could not cope with the current chaos by relying on the vague historical memories of his previous life. It would be better to throw them all away and rely on the actual intelligence from Ye Bu Shou to fight against the enemy with his own army and cover the flood with earth.
Almost all the important military and political officers under Qin Mu gathered at the General Staff. He Liang pointed at the sand table and said in a hurried tone: "According to the latest news, three days ago, Huang Degong defeated Zuo Liangyu's troops in Lai'an. Zuo Liangyu was already seriously ill when he started the army to purge the emperor's side, and now he has died in the army. Zhang Yingxiang, Xu Ensheng, Hao Xiaozhong, Jin Shenghuan, Chang Deng, Xu Yong and other left army generals turned to support Zuo Menggeng as the commander and led the remaining troops to flee westward, intending to take Anqing directly. Meng Ke's 20,000 troops have urgently returned to Chizhou and Jiujiang to provide assistance."
"Have you sent anyone to persuade Zuo Menggeng to surrender?" Sima An asked calmly.
"We have sent someone there, but we are not sure when we will get a response."
Qin Mu then asked, "Has Li Zicheng replied?"
"Not yet."
Qin Mu clenched his fists. His eyes were a little cold. As early as last year, he sent people to contact Li Zicheng, hoping to cooperate with him to contain the Qing army. Especially when the Qing army attacked Tongguan, Qin Mu sent people to Tongguan to find Li Zicheng several times, hoping that the Dashun army would open the passage to Xiangyang and let the Qin army go north to contain the Qing army. Both sides used Tongguan to consume a large number of the Qing army's manpower.
But at that time, Shi Kefa also ordered Gao Jie to march north to Henan, preparing to join forces with the Qing army to encircle and suppress the Dashun Army. Li Zicheng himself was also blinded by defeat and did not trust Qin Mu, thinking that he wanted to take advantage of the situation to seize Xiangyang, so he refused to cooperate.
The situation was now taking a sharp turn for the worse. Li Zicheng suffered one defeat after another, even losing Xiangyang, and his 200,000-strong army was fleeing towards Wuchang via Suizhou.
What is giving Qin Mu a headache now is that he not only has to deal with the fierce Qing army, but also has to prevent Li Zicheng's 200,000 troops from rushing into Huguang. If he were to rush in, his rear would be in chaos, and there would be no need to talk about resisting the Qing.
"Report, Li Guogao Yigong's troops have arrived at Shuanghe Town, approaching Jingmen and Chengtian, and the Qing army's 20,000-strong detachment of Shang Kexi is chasing closely behind."
Chengtianfu is Zhongxiang, the birthplace of Emperor Jiajing and the location of his father Xianling. Chengtian is located at the throat of Han River and forms a horn with Jingmen.
Currently, Zhao Jian is leading 10,000 troops to garrison Chengtian, and Ling Zhan is also leading 10,000 troops to garrison Jingmen.
After hearing the messenger's report, Qin Mu immediately asked, "Where are Ajige and Wu Sangui?"
He Liang replied: "We are fighting a fierce battle with Yuan Zongdi at Yuanshui, north of Suizhou."
The current situation is that Li Zicheng's 200,000 troops are heading for Suizhou, the 60,000 troops led by Li Guo and Gao Yigong are retreating to Jingmen, Ajige and Wu Sangui are leading 60,000 troops to pursue Li Zicheng to Suizhou, and Shang Kexi is leading a 20,000-strong detachment to pursue Li Guo to Jingmen.
Li Zicheng had a total of about 250,000 troops; Ajige had about 30,000 elite Manchu and Mongolian troops, and the rest were Wu Sangui's Guanning Army and some Ming troops who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, with a total strength of between 60,000 and 70,000.
"Send another person to tell Li Zicheng that if he is unwilling to cooperate with our army, our army will immediately join forces with the Qing army to attack him from the north and south and destroy him!" Qin Mu was really angry.
At this time, Li Zicheng is still dreaming of becoming an emperor. What a bullshit!
This made Qin Mu very passive. He had to guard against his 200,000 troops rushing into Huguang to cause trouble, and he was unable to focus on dealing with the Qing army.
“Yes!”
"Everyone, tell me, how do you deal with this chaotic situation?"
Sima An pointed his finger towards Jingmen and said, "Whether Li Zicheng is willing to join forces with our army or not, Li Guo and Gao Yigong who have retreated to the Jingmen area actually have no choice. They are blocked in Jingmen and Chengtian and have no way to escape. Even if they escape to Jingshan in the west or Dahongshan in the east, their 60,000 troops have fled south in a hurry, lacking clothes and food, and will only starve to death in the mountains. So Li Guo can only cooperate with us."
He Liang also said, "Yes, it is better to cut off one finger than to injure ten fingers. My lord, my opinion is that Wuchang should abandon Anlu, Yingcheng, Yunmeng, Huangling and other counties in Jiangbei, fortify the city and clear the fields, and retreat all troops to Hanyang and Wuchang, and then use Di Zhongxing's navy to guard the Yangtze River defense line. Then concentrate superior forces and unite with Li Guo's troops to try to annihilate Shang Kexi's Qing army."
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ps: The events of the Hongguang Dynasty have been briefly explained, and there will not be too much description of what follows. The next stage will mainly be the defense of Huguang. The opening battle situation may be a bit tense. After all, the Qing army at that time was really fierce. It would be too outrageous if it was written as being vulnerable. However, there will be some local exciting arrangements. Please continue to pay attention and support.
.(To be continued..)
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