Daming kill

Chapter 190 Qizhou Incident
On the 16th of the first month of the 26th year of Chongzhen, the snow was still falling, and the snow gradually exceeded a foot (a foot in Ming Dynasty was about 32 centimeters).

Li Ping spent this day in a state of restlessness and hesitation.

Although he didn't understand how Zhang Xianzhong would assemble a heavy army to attack a fortified city like Qizhou under such extreme weather, Li Ping was still depressed.

Tens of thousands of people!How did Zhang Xianzhong become tens of thousands of people again?
This caused great psychological pressure on Li Ping, who was very close to Qizhou City.

As for last night, how many people in Zhang Xianzhong's army who were destined to sleep in the wild would be frozen to death was not within his concern.

In addition to checking the living and warming conditions of the officers and soldiers one by one, Li Ping also adjusted the fortification of the troops in a targeted manner, increased the strength of the troops in Fuchikou Town, and transferred most of the bird gun troops there.

Li Ping has too few troops to fight, and after dividing the troops, he is even more stretched. This is his biggest weakness, but he can't put the main force in Fuchikou Town, which is open to all directions.

However, he moved all the cannons to the big boats and stationed them in Dakou Lake next to Wujiaba. Only some small boats were left in Fuchikou Town.

Although the weather is cold, there is no thick ice forming on the lake with little flow. There are only some thin ice layers in some areas, which does not affect the passage of ships.

After finishing all this, Li Ping could only wait and see the changes. He hoped that Xu Wenqi, who is widely praised, would not disappoint him. Can leave more time for myself.

In the early morning of the 27th, Li Ping, who was in a light sleep state, woke up suddenly, and then he heard a dog barking outside.

I put on my clothes and opened the door, only to find that the snow had stopped, and the sound of horseshoes from far to near outside the yard was clearly audible in the generally quiet environment.

There are not many people coming to ride, so it should be in a hurry.

But even so, there were movements from other rooms in the yard at this time, and it seemed that everyone was sleeping in a very fake way.The stupid big man Liu Qiang who was sleeping in the miscellaneous room at the gate of the yard quickly got out with a few guards and opened the gate to look outside.

When the sound of horseshoes stopped directly outside the courtyard, Ma Yong rushed into the courtyard with a guard under the guidance of Liu Qiang.

Ma Yong was originally stationed in Fuchikou Town with Zhou Wen.

"Sir, Qizhou! Zhang Xianzhong broke through Qizhou last night."

"What? How is this possible?" Li Ping could hardly believe it.

Qizhou City is 33 steps away from Jiuli. The city is as high as [-] feet and the wall is [-] feet thick. Except for the south facing the river and being sealed by the two wings of the city wall, there are wide moats on the other three sides. It is a real fortified city, and it is extremely difficult to capture .

"It's confirmed. Yesterday's new observation post on the other side of the Qizhou River was the first to send back the news. After breaking through the city, many people in the city escaped by chance. Some of them knew that there were government troops stationed here. Those on the boat fled to seek asylum, including Jing Wang Yuanfei Guishi, his second concubine Liushi, and a prince Hezhi who had just passed away." Ma Yong answered eagerly.

Jing Wang Zhu Ciyan passed away just a month ago (this is also the last Jing Wang in the history of the Ming Dynasty), and was buried in Zhu Laotomb in Guangji County according to the ceremony of the vassal king. The officers of the inspection department learned from their mouths.

"King Jing's family! Can you confirm the authenticity?" Although Li Ping was too confused, he believed it in his heart.

"I've looked carefully, and King Jing's family should be the same! The makeup and clothing of the two concubines can't be imitated by ordinary people. Zhou Wen is further checking and checking to prevent bandits from being mixed in." Ma Yong explained.

"In the middle of the night, you can take it down with one blow! Is Qizhou City so fragile? Isn't Xu Wenqi very powerful? I don't think it's real. This siege is too simple!" Li Ping, who was gradually reacting to the taste A series of doubts were issued.

"Yeah! I can't believe it either. It seems that the huge city of Qizhou is made of paper." Ma Yong also felt emotional, and he couldn't answer these questions.

The urgent conversation between Li Ping and Ma Yong completely woke up the yard, Song Baolai, Gao Lei and Zhao Lanyue, who all lived in the same yard, opened the door and walked out, and then everyone was shocked.

While everyone was looking at each other, Li Ping ordered to Ma Yong: "Go and tell all the ships equipped with artillery to prepare for battle immediately and lead them to move to the Fuchikou Wharf. I will go to the town now, and I will meet the family members of King Jing and the fugitives. out of the people."

……

Although Li Ping kept jumping up and down throughout the whole day on the 27th, and even went to the other side of the river in Qizhou to observe in person, he did not get any information other than confirming that the family members of King Jing were real and that Qizhou had been captured by Zhang Xianzhong. How many wanted answers.

The information that can be obtained from long-distance observation across the river is too little, and the people who fled in a panic can't provide him with much useful information at all.

How Zhang Xianzhong's army could be so powerful, and why he had tens of thousands of people so quickly, etc., are still at a loss to Li Ping.

As a last resort, Li Ping had no choice but to continue to adjust his defenses.

He concentrated all the artillery except for the Fran cannons on Banbi Mountain to block the river, and the Fran cannons had just been concentrated on the two ships to attack the enemy smuggling boats that appeared downstream at any time.

Since the number of artillery on Banbi Mountain is too small and the quality is generally inferior, it is actually impossible to block the river.But as long as it can scare the enemy's ships down the river, it is enough. This should effectively disrupt the enemy's deployment in a short time and buy more time for Li Ping's army downstream.

In addition, Li Ping also sent personnel to set up sentries at places upstream where the mouth of the Qihe River could be effectively observed.

Since Zuo Liangyu's army went down the river a few days ago, in order to prevent the ships from being robbed and burned, all the large ships along the Qizhou River hid in the Qi River, and hid in the large and small lakes connecting the Qi River. There are only a few boats left.

Monitoring the mouth of the Qi River will effectively provide early warning of large-scale waterborne military operations on the other side of the river.

But all these measures are still too passive. Qizhou is upstream and so close, so the threat is too great.

On the 28th, Li Ping, who urgently needed to obtain detailed information about Qizhou, decided to take the risk of sending a small team to Jiangbei to carry out the capture operation.

Going deep into the enemy's territory to capture enemy prisoners is a means of effectively obtaining information about the enemy, but this type of combat organization is relatively complicated and requires extremely high requirements for combatants, and it is also directly related to the combat habits of the troops.

During the Battle of Liangshan, the 15 reconnaissance brigades of our army successively participated in the battle actively organized a large number of cross-border capture operations (the total number of combat operations was tens of thousands, and how many special capture operations were organized cannot be determined). Successfully captured 91 Vietnamese soldiers, and no one was captured, which played an important role in obtaining enemy information.

During this period, a total of 6 people from all types of troops participating in the battle of our army were captured, and all of them were captured in battle, and none of them were deliberately captured by enemy scouts.

In view of the difficulty of capturing prisoners in the enemy-controlled area and the uncertainty of success, Li Ping specially organized three small teams, led by Ma Lan, Wang Huqiang and Ma Xiaotian, and conducted a day of specialized training before their departure.

Then there is the long wait.

Since it is necessary to capture prisoners and bring them back, it is impossible to enter the city. The three teams can only choose dangerous places outside the city and wait for their luck. Don't expect big gains.

However, the Peasant Army had probably never encountered this form of hostilities, and they were caught off guard and quickly made all three squads successful.

Three days later, with the return of the last detachment crossing the river, Li Ping also got a general idea of ​​the situation in Qizhou and Zhang Xianzhong.

Although Zhang Xianzhong's troops numbered in the tens of thousands, there was a serious shortage of elite troops, and the strength of the old army was even less than a thousand.

On the evening of the 26th, Hao Chengzhong, a general of Prince Jing’s Mansion, became the inner ghost. He secretly opened the most unexpected Great West Gate (there are three gates in the west, and the Great West Gate has an urn city, which was the designated gate for imperial envoys, princes and ministers and other distinguished guests at that time. ).

Zhang Xianzhong personally led 200 elites to attack from this gate.

Due to the sudden incident and the ineffective counterattack, Qizhou City fell quickly, and most of the officers, soldiers and people in the city had no time to escape. They were either killed or captured, including Xu Wenqi.

Xu Wenqi's performance disappointed Li Pingda. It seems that many rumors cannot be trusted. At least Xu Wenqi's reputation for bravery and good at running the army is questionable.

On the second day after the city was broken, Zhang Xianzhong began to do what he was good at, which was massacres.

Prior to this, Zhang Xianzhong had dug up the dead King of Jing Zhu Ciyan at Zhu Laofen in Guangji County and whipped his corpse, and then threw him into the barren mountains.

The principle of Zhang Xianzhong’s massacre in Qizhou was that no one who was related to the king of Jing would be left behind; the officials and gentry were targeted, but not all were killed, and many people were left behind; kill.

Regarding the Qizhou massacre, many historical records say that the city was massacred,
But this statement is certainly inaccurate.

One very interesting person who escaped the massacre was Gu Jingxing, who was in the city at the time.

Those who study "Dream of Red Mansions" may know something about Gu Jingxing. This person has been suspected to be the real author of "Dream of Red Mansions". Some even suspect that Cao Xueqin is one of Gu Jingxing's aliases.

It is speculated that Gu Jingxing and Cao Yin, who weaved by Jiang Ning, are probably uncle-nephew.

Many place names, geography and customs described in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are actually Qizhou. The Gu family was one of the four major families in the city at that time. Even the Gu family was a very rare family with a tradition of building private gardens at that time. There are too many similarities with Jingwangfu Garden.

Especially since ancient times, pick-ups in China have always faced north, and only Qizhou faces west due to its special terrain, that is, walks through the west gate.When describing the story of concubine Jia visiting relatives in the Red Mansion, it is just abnormal to describe Jia's mansion picking her up at the West Street Gate.

Gu Jingxing's knowledge and life experience are more in line with the countless stories created in the Dream of Red Mansions, because many things, especially the vicissitudes of life, are difficult to write if you have not seen and experienced them.

Not to mention the Dream of Red Mansions, Gu Jingxing is famous for another thing. He wrote "Li Shizhen Biography", and Li Shizhen is also from Qizhou.

After the city was broken, Gu Jingxing, his father Gu Tianxi, and his aunt Gu Yongzhen were also captured by Zhang Xianzhong's men.

Maybe the Gu family was more famous, so the three were sent to Zhang Xianzhong for a decision.

However, Zhang Xianzhong unexpectedly decided not to kill the two men, but planned to kill Gu Yongzhen who was a relative of King Jing's mansion.

If they want to kill Gu Yongzhen, father and son of the Gu family will not do it, and they are all strongly willing to exchange their lives for their own.But Zhang Xianzhong was moved, and immediately ordered the release of the three members of Gu Jingxing's family, and sent a small leader named Zhang San to accompany them to protect the Gu family.

After that, Gu Jingxing ran out of the city to Kunshan to avoid the chaos.

"Ming Ji Beilue" said: "The next day, order the gentry, Xiaolian, and literature to take the crowns from the East Gate University, and kill them from the West Gate, and then massacre Qizhou."Leave women to destroy the city, and kill them if they are weak.

The records in Ji Liuqi's "Ming Ji Beilue" often have great discrepancies with historical facts, but they are very inaccurate.But from Gu Jingxing's history, we can see that there was a massacre in Qizhou, but it was definitely not all massacred, and the city was not destroyed. The matter of leaving women to destroy the city should be another city.

The pictures in Kangxi's "Qizhou Chronicles" also show that Qizhou City has survived.And the history of the Qing Dynasty also recorded that Qizhou City was reinforced during the Yongzheng period, instead of being directly recorded as reconstruction like Huangpi.

Although Zhang Xianzhong committed the massacre, Li Ping learned from the interrogation of the prisoners that Xu Wenqi did not die.

At first, Li Ping didn't understand that Xu Wenqi was not killed, but soon he was relieved.

Generally speaking, the peasant army rebelled because they could not survive, and when they coerced the people, they also raised the banner of righteousness.The easy killing of an official like Xu Wenqi who has a good official reputation among the people will make the peasant army's reputation among the largest support group widely questioned.

Although Zhang Xianzhong is a bit perverted, he is not stupid, and he is also a hero with many diehard fans.

According to a very valuable veteran of Zhang Xianzhong's army who was captured, some of Zhang Xianzhong's troops were even very strict in military discipline, and almost never killed indiscriminately.

Zhang Xianzhong did not kill Xu Wenqi, but tried his best to persuade him to surrender, but Xu Wenqi refused.But in this way, Zhang Xianzhong still did not kill Xu Wenqi, but continued to lock him up.

So what kind of person is Zhang Xianzhong?Li Ping was also confused.

But such Zhang Xianzhong was more vividly displayed in front of Li Ping.

Description:

Note 1:

According to "Lv Lu Jingyi" by Zhu Zaiyu, the son of the Ming Dynasty, Ming rulers mainly include the banknote ruler (that is, the tailor ruler, about 34 cm), the curved ruler (that is, the construction ruler, about 32 cm) and the Baoyuan Bureau copper ruler (that is, the ground ruler). , about 32.7 cm) three kinds.

At present, only five rulers from the Ming Dynasty have been seen so far, of which the Jiajing tooth ruler is the most accurate, with a length of 32 cm, and the other rulers are of different lengths.

Note 2:

According to historical records, Qizhou was in Chongzhen on the 16th of the first month of the 26th year, and the snow was full of feet.

Note 3:

Regarding Zhang Xianzhong's destruction of Qizhou, it is also said that Zhang Xianzhong led 200 cavalry from Guangji County to make a surprise attack, but this is difficult to explain why not many people ran out of Qizhou City, and Xu Wenqi is not an incompetent person.Therefore, this article accepts the theory of a large-scale invasion on the 25th and the victory of the city at night on the 26th recorded in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)