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The New Year is coming, and spring is approaching!
Wang Fuzhi, who had specially asked Qin Mu to accompany the army, stood at the south gate of Hengyang, spread his sleeves, and chanted in the wind: ". Yunmeng has gone thousands of miles, Xiaoxiang is empty overnight... ... Don't lose your companion who came south, the trees in Hengyang are red."
The army rumbled out of the south gate of the city. Wang Fuzhi's move was a bit sour like a scholar, but the deputy general Qin Zuoming could not show any displeasure.
Before going to the expedition, Qin Mu personally instructed him to protect Wang Fuzhi at all costs.
The emperor's exhortation shows how important Wang Fuzhi is in his eyes.
But Qin Zuoming couldn't understand. As a scholar, why did you have to come to the army and suffer such hardship instead of staying in Nanjing and playing with your pen? With His Majesty's high regard for you, are you still worried about not having opportunities for promotion in the future
"Master Wang, it's time to set off. I have already prepared a sedan chair for you."
"No need, General Qin, just give me a horse."
Wang Fuzhi had his own ideas for being invited to join the army. His way of studying was not to hide in a small building, picking out sentences and scratching his head to write poems. He wanted to go out, and he believed that there was knowledge between heaven and earth.
The commander of this army was Liu Tichun, who was nicknamed "Flying Tiger" in the Dashun Army. He had served as General Guoyi of the Right Battalion of the Dashun Army. He had fought for more than ten years and had accumulated a wealth of combat experience. This time he commanded 15,000 troops, claiming to be 50,000. With horses whistling and flags fluttering, they marched towards Yongzhou in the south.
A few months ago, Qu Shisi took advantage of the Qin Dynasty's Northern Expedition and sent his general Jiao Lian to lead an army to launch a surprise attack, capturing Yongzhou Prefecture and the surrounding counties of Qiyang, Dong'an, Ningwan, Daozhou, etc.
As soon as Liu Tichun and Qin Zuoming's army left Hengyang, Jiao Lian received the news and sent his general Gu Xiancheng to lead 4,000 troops to set up defenses on the south bank of the Huoshui River north of Qiyang City.
If Qin Mu were here, he would definitely be in tears and laughter. Gu Xiancheng, this immortal little cockroach, had been causing trouble for him time and time again since he came to Gannan. Qin Mu once sent Yebushou to hunt him down, but he not only survived, but also became a general of the Yongli Dynasty.
To be honest, Gu Xiancheng was very determined to resist the Qin army, because he had a grudge against the Qin Emperor.
He had narrowly escaped death when being hunted down by Ye Bu Shou. Now, the hunting order issued by Qin Mu to Ye Bu Shou has not been withdrawn. If the Qin army occupied Guangxi, he would have no place to make a living.
So this time he worked very hard. He put a lot of effort into the defense line on the south bank of Huoshui River, even nailing dense barbs on the river bank, and he ordered the trenches near the ferry to be dug crisscrossed and full of trenches;
It is said that the Qin army's guns and cannons are very powerful. Hiding in the trenches can avoid the Qin army's guns and can effectively block them. In short, Gu Xiancheng racked his brains and used all the solutions he could think of.
He arranged the south bank of Huoshui River to be impervious to wind and rain. But he still felt that it was not enough, so he asked people to collect herbs and boiled a large amount of poison according to the method of making poison learned from a Miao people. Then he asked the soldiers to put all the arrowheads into the poison and boil it.
The arrows were blocked by the armor, and most of them did not penetrate deeply into the flesh. If they did not injure the person enough to be cut, sometimes he would be hit by several arrows and still be able to continue fighting.
But if the arrowhead is poisoned, it is different. Just one arrow, even if it does not hit the vital point, can quickly make the person lose combat effectiveness or even die quickly.
The spies sent out kept sending back reports on the movements of Liu Tichun's army. Gu Xiancheng stopped by the Mahu River and carefully examined his arrangements.
Wei Sanguan, a general under his command, was one of the few who had come all the way from southern Jiangxi with Gu Xiancheng. He followed Gu Xiancheng and sighed, "Brother, if we had joined Qin Mu with Ma Yongzhen and the others, we might have been granted the title of Duke by now."
It is impossible for Gu Xiancheng not to feel some regret in his heart about this matter. Even Ma Liuliang was made a marquis. However, things have come to this point and there is no point in thinking about it.
He turned around and cursed, "Sanguan, if you keep talking nonsense like this, I'll kill you."
"Brother, I'm just saying."
"What the hell, if you have the time, send some people to collect more food and money. Damn it, if we can't defend this water, we can just roll up our pens and continue to live a carefree life in the mountains. It's not much worse than him being the emperor."
"Brother, the Qin army doesn't have that many troops this time. Do you think we can't hold on?"
"Who said that? I'm going to kill him this time."
"Brother, you also said..."
"What the hell, is it wrong to leave a way out for yourself? Go and urge for food and money, tell Jiao Lian, without food and money, who will be willing to fight for their lives? If Qiyang cannot be defended, it can't be our fault."
"yes, Sir."
The New Year is approaching, but there is no festive atmosphere in Guilin. Hearing that the Qin army is coming, people in the city are in unrest and undercurrents are surging.
Qu Shisi tried to appease the people while recruiting soldiers, training them seriously, and building castles to strengthen defenses as much as possible.
Qu Shisi was a very loyal person to the Ming Dynasty. Although he was disappointed with Zhu Youlang's cowardice, after arriving in Guilin, he still devoted all his efforts to preparing for war.
Not only did he take out all his own salary, he also successfully raised thousands of taels of silver from the gentry and wealthy families in Guilin City. In short, with his personal prestige, he still won the support of many officials, gentry and common people.
However, messengers from the front demanding food and wages kept arriving at Guilin City, especially the messenger from Gu Xiancheng who was at the forefront. He cried, made a fuss, and even threatened to hang himself. When this trick didn't work, he directly threatened Qu Shisi that if food and wages were not sent immediately, the army would probably be defeated.
For the sake of the overall situation, Qu Shisi had no choice but to endure it and gave most of the money he had just raised to Gu Xiancheng.
As a result, other generals followed suit and sent people to urge for food and money, which made Qu Shisi very anxious and overwhelmed. Qu Shisi had no choice but to submit a petition to ask for food and money.
When he was halfway through writing the memorial, his attendant, the military officer Nian Baihu, rushed into the government office with a flyer in his hand: "Sir, sir, look, there are suddenly many flyers in the city..."
"Let me see it." Qu Shisi is 58 years old this year and is still in good health. He quickly snatched the flyer from the captain's hand.
At first glance, it was all propaganda about how the Great Qin was the orthodox state in the world, how good the lives of the Qin people were, how light the taxes were, and how strict the Qin army's discipline was. As long as everyone did not resist, the Qin army would not harm anyone when it arrived. If they voluntarily surrendered the city, they would be rewarded with high positions and generous salaries.
Of course, threats were inevitable in the end. Anyone who resisted the "king's army" would not only be beheaded in public, but his family would also be implicated.
Qu Shisi looked at the leaflet and his expression changed drastically. He asked, "Captain Nian, have you caught the spy who distributed the leaflets?"
"My Lord, not yet..."
"Go and search quickly. Find the Qin army spies no matter what."
"Yes, sir."
Qu Shisi paced back and forth in the yamen with the leaflet in his hand, thinking about countermeasures. The leaflet released by Qin Jun was nothing new, but it spoke with facts.
Guangxi is adjacent to Huguang, and Qin had not previously prohibited merchants from traveling there. Qin Mu cleaned up the bureaucracy in Huguang, introduced new grain, distributed land, and reduced taxes. The lives of the people in Huguang were getting better day by day, and these things had already spread to Guangxi.
So although the leaflets contained nothing new, the facts were there and one can imagine how inflammatory they were to the officials and people of Guangxi.
Qu Shisi thought hard but could not come up with many countermeasures. If he was facing the Qing army, he could use national justice to convince the people.
However, the Qin State they faced was also a Han regime, and the will of the Guangxi military and civilians to resist was not that strong. Many people even yearned for it. After all, the power of the Qin State and the prosperous life of the people in Huguang were facts right in front of the Guangxi military and civilians.
However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the government was corrupt and people were living in poverty, so the common people did not actually have much nostalgia for the Ming Dynasty.
It was not enough to argue for national justice, nor was it necessarily effective to argue for the orthodoxy of the Ming Dynasty. Qu Shisi thought about it for a long time but could not come up with a solution as to what kind of reason could inspire the military and civilians of Guangxi to resist the Qin army.
And this name is very important. If the army has no reason to fight, the soldiers will not want to fight, the people will not want to resist, and they may even hope to become citizens of Qin. Then Guangxi will not be able to be defended.
Qu Shisi couldn't think of a solution himself, so he had to call Zhang Tongchang, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War, and others to discuss the matter together.
While Qu Shisi and others were racking their brains over a slogan, Li Tichun only cared about moving forward, moving forward, and moving forward now.
From Hengyang to Qiyang, it was about 200 miles away. It took Liu Tichun's army three days to reach the north bank of Huoshui.
Huoshui is a tributary of the upper reaches of Xiangshui, and merges into the Xiangshui in the north of Qiyang County. At this moment, the south bank has already been arranged by Gu Xiancheng like an iron barrel. If they cannot cross Huoshui, they will not be able to launch an attack on Qiyang. Moreover, if they cannot demonstrate their military power in this first battle, the next ones will be difficult!
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.(To be continued..)
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