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Hulao Pass is named after King Mu of Zhou imprisoned a tiger here. It is connected to Songshan Mountain in the south and the Yellow River in the north. The mountains are intertwined, forming a natural barrier. It has the momentum of "one man guarding the pass, ten thousand men cannot open it", and has been a battleground for military strategists of all dynasties.
Responsible for guarding this place were Li Guo's 20,000 troops and Qin army led by Zhu Yijin.
Although Li Guo didn't know that the treasures of the Dashun Army had been secretly dug away by Qin Mu, for his own little calculations, he deliberately preserved his strength, making the easy-to-defend and difficult-to-attack Hulao Pass become precarious under Lekedehun's attack.
Zhu Yijin's status is quite special, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the "Emperor's personal soldier." He had been the captain of Qin Mu's personal soldiers for a long time, and the 1,000 cavalrymen he led were also veterans brought up by Qin Mu. Every soldier had fought with Qin Mu and eaten from the same big pot.
They were also the most well-equipped, with high morale and a fearless attitude towards death. They were also the proudest, and under the leadership of Qin Mu, they had achieved an incomparably brilliant record.
When the city was in danger, Zhu Yijin led a thousand men, shouting "Fight for the glory of the Qin Dynasty!" and rushed out of Hulao Pass again and again, disrupting the Qing army's offensive.
Even though the death toll was high, every time they repelled the Qing army's attack, they would stand on the enemy's corpses with bloody wounds, shouting "Long live the King of Qin!" "Long live the Great Qin!"
An army with faith is terrifying and worthy of awe.
Zhu Yijin led his men in heroic attacks time and time again. The soldiers under Li Guo saw it and gradually felt extremely ashamed.
Every time Zhu Yi Jin attacked, the number of people would decrease when he came back, but he would win more cheers every time. Their pride in sacrificing their lives for the country made Li Guo's men feel hot in their hearts.
Some generals began to ask Li Guo to allow them to attack together with Zhu Yijin, and some soldiers even shouted, "We are all wearing the battle robes of the Qin Dynasty!"
These changes frightened Li Guo. He knew that if he continued to be passive and lazy, he would soon lose his prestige in the army.
At the same time, he became less and less confident in finding opportunities to become independent in the future. After wearing the Qin army's uniform for a long time and fighting with the Qin army more, the soldiers under his command would gradually become proud of being members of the Qin army.
Most of his soldiers were from Guanzhong, which is also called the Three Qins. The rough accent of Guanzhong is called Qinqiang, the Weihe Plain is called the Eight Hundred Miles Qinchuan, and the winding Zhongnan Mountains are called Qinling. There are too many to list. Although two thousand years have passed, the mark left by the Qin Empire in Guanzhong is still indelible.
When Qin Mu founded the country, he claimed to be the successor of the First Emperor's legal system, and it was said that he also got the Qin King's Sword. This made it easy for the Guanzhong men under Li Guo to identify with Qin Mu, which was something Li Guo had not expected.
What was even more terrifying was the Qin army's assistant officials. These assistant officials were carefully selected and were experts in political propaganda. Whenever they had the chance, they would publicize Qin Mu's various miracles to the Guanzhong men under Li Guo. Their eloquent speeches made Li Guo's soldiers fascinated.
Li Guo's idea of raising his own army was gradually eroded. Qin Mu did not reorganize his army on the surface, but this invisible ideological transformation was even more terrifying.
Unlike Li Guo, Gao Yigong really wanted to surrender to Qin Mu. He was responsible for guarding Hangu Pass. When He Luohui was still busy suppressing the rebellion in Guanzhong, he took the initiative to send a small group of troops into Guanzhong to contact the remaining Dashun Army that had been dispersed.
The small group of people sent were originally from Guanzhong, and they were familiar with the roads and the places, just like going home to visit relatives. They knew which valleys could be crossed, which forests could be hidden, and even remembered which door the key of an old lover's house was at.
This made the He Luohui's suppression operation lose sight of the big picture and end up with one problem being suppressed but another being floated up.
Due to natural disasters, the people in Guanzhong were suffering. They could not survive and had no choice but to rebel. If they could rebel against the Ming Dynasty, they could rebel against the Qing Dynasty. What's more, General Gao had already fought as far as Hangu Pass, and everyone was greatly encouraged.
First, the people of Gong County, led by a small flag officer named Chi Sandao from the former Dashun Army, attacked the military camp in the city, killed and routed the 200 garrison troops, and then rushed to the county government office, captured County Magistrate Qing, and cooked him in a big pot. Everyone was almost starving to death, but County Magistrate Qing still thought the meat was not enough.
Gong County was soon controlled by the rebel army led by Chi Sandao, who at one point had tens of thousands of followers.
He Luohui hastily sent troops to suppress the rebellion, but before the army reached Gong County, news of rebellion came from Qingyang Prefecture. The rebels, led by a man named Qin Tong, with more than 100 people, attacked the garrison in the city at night. Although they were defeated, they successfully escaped from Qingyang Prefecture and went to Ningzhou, where they captured the weakly manned Ningzhou County in one fell swoop, greatly enhancing their momentum.
In addition, there are numerous small-scale rebellions in various places. He Luo will be very clear that the best way to suppress them now is not with swords and guns, but with food. As long as the people in Guanzhong can be well fed, there will not be so many rebellions.
But what he lacked most was food. Except for the south of the Yangtze River, the entire area occupied by the Qing Dynasty was a region plagued by natural disasters and wars year after year. In the Central Plains, bones were exposed in the wild and no roosters crowed for thousands of miles.
How easy was it to transport grain from Jiangnan to Guanzhong? It is said that Haoge at Wuyang Pass had to retreat to Xinyang due to lack of food, not to mention that Guanzhong in Luoyang was cut off by the Qin army.
The people are not well fed, and the Qin army is constantly instigating them. It is difficult to suppress the rebellion in Guanzhong!
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Su Jin left Yuan Zong's 10,000th cavalry to fight in Tuzhou and Pukou areas, always exerting tremendous pressure on Jinling, which was separated by a river.
He led an army of 10,000, bypassed Yangzhou from Shangguanqiao, broke Wanshou Town, seized food and grass supplies, and then sent a thousand troops to pretend to be the main force of the army and rushed straight to Qinzhou in the north, pretending to attack Qinzhou. The Qing army chasing from Yangzhou was led to Taizhou, but Su Jin's 9,000 troops tried their best to conceal their whereabouts and killed their way to the north bank of Jiangyin in one fell swoop.
At this time, Jiangyin City had been under siege for two months and the situation was precarious. When the soldiers and civilians on the city walls saw the dark mass of Qin troops appear in the north of the river, they were like bullied children seeing their parents. Some cheered, some burst into tears, and the whole city was filled with thunder.
But what lay before Su Jin was the vast river. How to cross the Yangtze River and head south became his biggest problem.
Liu Liangzuo and the Qing army that came to support Jiangyin City saw the Qin army approaching and felt the situation was urgent. They launched a more fierce attack on Jiangyin City in an attempt to capture it as soon as possible.
The people of Jiangyin saw hope and their morale was boosted. Even three-foot-tall boys and weak women came out to help carry bricks and stones under the enemy's rain of arrows.
There was a girl named Jing Niang who was shot by three arrows, but she held her breath and struggled to move her body to the top of the city wall. When a soldier of the rebel army turned back and took a stone from her hand, she left the world with a smile.
There was also an old woman named Lu, whose two sons had died in the battle on the city wall. She herself was shot in the face by an enemy arrow. She hugged the enemy who had just climbed up the city wall and rolled down to the bottom of the city wall, dying together with the enemy.
Under the selfless counterattack of Jiangyin's soldiers and civilians, although Jiangyin City suffered countless casualties and was on the verge of collapse, it still stood firm. The corpses of the Qing soldiers were piled up layer upon layer under the city, with their heads and feet resting on each other, and the river was dyed with blood.
Seeing that Jiangyin might be breached at any time, Su Jin sent people to collect boats everywhere, but they only collected a small number of small boats, which were not enough for the army to cross the river. Su Jin was so anxious that his hair almost turned white.
At this time, the Qing general Aksu led the Yangzhou troops to Taizhou, but after realizing that they had been tricked, they turned around and chased after them. Su Jin's troops were unable to cross the river for a while, and they had no place to vent their anger. When they heard that Aksu was chasing them, they all asked to fight.
Su Jin immediately ordered an attack and fought a decisive battle with Aksu outside Datong Town in Jiangbei. Aksu had 500 flag soldiers and 6,000 green camp soldiers. The two armies fought fiercely for an afternoon. The 9,000 Qin soldiers rushed back and forth with full of anger, and the 6,000 green camp soldiers were killed and routed.
The morale of the Banner soldiers was greatly damaged by this, and Aksu had to fight and retreat. However, the Qin army refused to let go. Nine thousand soldiers took turns to attack and fight to the death, all the way to Taixing County in the west. Aksu only gave up after he retreated into the county with a few hundred remaining soldiers.
Su Jin knew very well that although the army could not cross the river, it was necessary to give Jiangyin actual support, even if it was just formal support.
Otherwise, once Jiangyin City was broken, it would be a huge blow to the Qin army both militarily and politically.
That night Su Jin found Lieutenant General Yuan Biwu and asked him to take 300 men to abandon their horses and cross the river on small boats. Yuan Biwu resolutely accepted this life-threatening mission.
The wind is whistling and the Yi River is cold; the hero will never return once he leaves.
It was with this kind of tragic and heroic mood that the three hundred Qin soldiers boarded the small boat in the night and sailed towards the south bank of the river without hesitation.
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ps: There will be at least four updates today, no more, no less. I would like to ask my brothers for the guaranteed monthly votes. I bow my head and pay my respects again!
.(To be continued..)
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