Daming kill

Chapter 198
Li Ping's going to see Liu Xiaohui was really unintentional, and he asked Liu Xiaohui to accompany him for a walk on a whim, just to build up momentum for her.

He knew very well that if he did nothing, Liu Xiaohui's situation might not be very good.

In this world, the most frightening thing is the human heart, and there will never be a lack of it.

Although Liu Xiaohui is now a small supervisor, most people will think that she has lost power, and that she falls directly from the sky to the ground.

Li Ping didn't want Liu Xiaohui to get into trouble because of this, he felt very sorry.

Other than that, he had no other thoughts.

However, this was not the case in the eyes of others, and the atmosphere in the small yard began to change accordingly.

Fortunately, being busy has become the best cover, and forgetting is also the best choice. After having more freedom for a few days, Li Ping went back to business as usual.

In the midst of busy work, Zhou Wen, who had been away from Jiujiang for nearly a month, finally came back. It was the beginning of March in the 16th year of Chongzhen.

In fact, Li Ping had already made preparations that Zhou Wen would not come back.

But Zhou Wen not only came back, he also brought back a large amount of various types of intelligence information as expected, especially he successfully made a lot of contacts with the Jiujiang local government and obtained a lot of valuable official information.

Seeing Fu Chi's current state, Zhou Wen was dumbfounded, but Li Ping was also dumbfounded by the news he brought back.

Zuo Liangyu's army not only continued its horrific atrocities in Wuchang area in the name of lack of payment in Jiujiang Prefecture, but even worse.

Its hundreds of thousands of troops have long been not satisfied with looting only in Jiujiang, but scattered in all directions.They even continued to attack further downstream areas along the Yangtze River, and even said that they would go to Nanjing to move the treasury.

The most vicious Wang Yuncheng's troops even broke through some counties for the purpose of looting, and his army burned and killed all the way directly along the river to Sanshan and Digang near Wuhu, [-] miles downstream of the Jiujiang River, and took the tank boats and salt there. The ship was looted.

This is no longer commonplace.

Digang is only two hundred miles away from Nanjing, and it can be reached by boat along the river in one day. However, Wang Yuncheng's department has large and small boats covering the river to block out the sun, and the momentum is extremely great. Nanjing was shaken by this, and the civil, military and common people were all frightened. Many gentry and People even started to flee.

As a last resort, the civil and military officers of Nanjing and the censor of Cao Jiangdu gathered a large number of troops and Chen Bing on the river to intercept the crazy Zuo Liangyu rebels. The formation was much larger than the previous defense against Zhang Xianzhong.

What's more frightening is that since there are continuous mountainous areas on both sides of the Yangtze River from Jiujiang to Nanjing, a large number of bandits also ran out to join in the fun, and many of them were big and famous bandits, such as Bai Gui, King Xiaoqin, and Tota Tian, ​​Mr. Liu, Hun Jianglong, Guan Taishan and so on.

These bandits all used the name of Zuo Bing to attack and suppress everywhere, and completely turned the banks of the Yangtze River into hell.

That Zuo Liangyu dared to indulge the army so crazy was completely beyond Li Ping's imagination, and it also made him unbelievable. This is basically the same name as treason.

And not only Li Ping, everyone who listened to Zhou Wen's story was shocked, even Ma Yong and Hu Zhongshan, who were used to seeing the tyranny of the officers and soldiers, were no exception, because it was too unbelievable.

But apart from looking at each other in blank dismay, everyone had to believe.

And what Zhou Wen said next shocked everyone even more, and made Li Ping understand why the Ming court was so abnormal these days, and he finally answered many questions.

The Qing soldiers entered the pass again!
The entire north has been reduced to a piece of scorched earth, countless cities have been breached, and countless people have been killed or injured. The imperial court has no time to take care of the south.

And this is also the seventh time since the Qing soldiers entered the customs for the first time in the second year of Chongzhen (1629).

Before 1644, the Qing soldiers entered the pass, and later generations generally called it the Qing army's southern strategy or the Qing (later Jin) army's entry into the fortress.

Since October last year, 10 Qing troops (12 Banners of Manchu, Mongolian, and Han, totaling about 6, plus the total of 10 Mongolian soldiers from the Outer Domain) marched from Qiangziling (Miyun East) under the command of Abatai. About 80 miles away) once again broke into the customs and carried out wanton looting.

Its Bingfeng was still divided into two wings to attack Hebei and Shandong respectively. It conquered Jizhou on November [-], entered Qingzhou, Shandong on the second day of December, and arrived in Yanzhou on the eighth day.

Yanzhou was subsequently destroyed, and Zhu Yipai, the king of Lu in the city, committed suicide. About a thousand members of the clan were captured and beheaded.

After that, the Qing army in Shandong divided its troops from Yanzhou, some of them went to Laizhou, Dengzhou, and Haizhou; the other part crossed the Yellow River.

Although Emperor Chongzhen added two governors-general to be stationed in Changping and Baoding respectively in response to the Qing army's entry and looting, and six governors in Ningyuan, Yongping, Shuntian, Baoding, Miyun and Tianjin, and in Ningyuan, Shanhai and Zhong The Xiexie, Changping, Tongzhou, Tianjin, and Baoding set up eight general troops, and in December they mobilized more than 39 reinforcements.

But everything has become a decoration.

At present, the Qing army is still raging unstoppably in the territory of Ming Dynasty, and causing terrible damage to the north of Ming Dynasty, including the important areas of Gyeonggi, but all the Ming army has done nothing.

It was all of these that made the Ming court completely unable to care about the civil unrest in the south, because no matter how you compare it, the things in the south are nothing compared to the north.

In 1638, which was the sixth southern strategy of the Qing soldiers in the 11th year of Chongzhen, the left-wing Dorgon "kept 34 cities and sent six cities, and captured a population of 25." The right-wing Yuetuo "captured a population of 880 three , 20 taels of gold and 420 taels of silver."

In total, two governors of the Ming Dynasty and more than a hundred officials above the garrison level were killed, and the king of Germany Zhu Youshu, the county king Zhu Cizyo, the general of Fengguo Zhu Cishang, and the eunuch Feng Yunsheng who supervised the army were captured alive.

The strength of the seventh Qing army's southern strategy is similar to that of the sixth, and the total loss is estimated to be equally huge, and no one knows when they will return.

In fact, the looting by the Qing soldiers will end in May, which is seven months, and Daming suffered heavy losses.

The Qing army successively captured five Ming generals, five soldiers, one doctor, one Kechen, five lieutenants, eight generals, and four guerrillas, a total of 27 members, all of whom were executed.

Successively conquered Yanzhou, Shunde, Hejian three prefectures, eighteen prefectures, and 64 counties, a total of 88 towns; one prefecture and five counties surrendered.

Among the properties obtained and handed over to Huang Taiji were 250 taels of gold, 220 taels of platinum, 270 taels of pearls, 440 pieces of satin of various colors, and captured 230 people The names of camels, horses, mules, cows, donkeys, and sheep are 36 unique.

Cold and shocking statistics overshadow everything in the South.

The Qing army's southern strategy is completely different in nature from the Qing army's entry into the pass in 1644.

This is a war during the reign of Huang Taiji, in order to break the stalemate of the long-term war with the Ming Dynasty, bypass the unbreakable western Liaoning defense line, pretend to go to Mongolia, break through the Great Wall Pass west of Shanhaiguan Pass and enter the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty to carry out looting.

One of its purposes is to plunder, and the other is to promote peace through war.

Not much to say about looting, just as Huang Taiji himself said: "Manchuria and Mongolia have always lived by taking money from other countries."

To promote peace through war, regardless of whether Huang Taiji wants short-term peace or long-term peace, his mentality of seeking peace is certain.As he said when he entered the customs for the first time: "I have discussed peace repeatedly but I don't agree with him. Why can't I sit and wait, and I will definitely march west with my whole brigade."

When he entered the customs for the seventh time, Huang Taiji still clearly told Abate, who was going on the expedition: "Our army has reached the Ming Dynasty, and he may send envoys to seek peace, and you will respond on the day. He has nothing to say. If he has something to say in his ears, he will tell my lord, and my lord must order the class teacher before he can retreat."

If there is a slight difference, it is only the first four proactive peace talks, the last three times have a much tougher tone, and the asking price has become higher and higher, but the general direction of the peace talks has not changed.

That is to say, these seven Qing soldiers entered the southern strategy, in fact, they entered these seven times before 1644. The Qing soldiers or Huang Taiji had no other ideas other than looting and promoting peace through war.

Although the Qing soldiers at this time did not intend to replace the Ming Dynasty, the damage caused to the Ming Dynasty by the seven entry into the Guannan strategy was huge and even terrifying.

Some scholars have counted the seven times of the Qing army's southern strategy, and Daming Guang captured more than 100 million people, and more than 100 million livestock were robbed, and this is not counted as casualties.

For example, during the sixth Qing army's southern invasion, the city of Jinan fell, and there were 13 dead bodies inside and outside the city afterward.

During the Qing army’s seventh southern strategy, Xu Biao, the governor of Baoding, said his experience when he entered Beijing in May: “I have traveled thousands of miles from the Jiang and Huai Rivers, and when I saw the city sinking, it was completely empty; There are only four walls left in the city. The roads are covered with weeds, chickens and dogs are silent, and no one has ever met a farmer. How many people are there in the land now? How can the emperor manage it?"

Of course, what he said included not only the destruction by the Qing army, but also the destruction by the peasant army. He outlined the tragic situation in the entire northern region, but the Northern Zhili and Shandong regions were mainly destroyed by the Qing army.

And that's not the scariest thing.

The most frightening thing was the blow to Da Ming's spiritual level. It is not an exaggeration to describe it as catastrophic.

The seven southern strategies of the Qing soldiers basically took Beijing as the axis, rampaging in the core area of ​​the Ming Empire, and then it was like entering a no-man's land.Many Xiaobai writers of later generations dare not write such exaggerated essays, and the spiritual impact on the ruling class and the highest power center of the Ming Dynasty can be imagined.

The fig leaf of Ming's foreign powers and middlemen was also completely torn off, and the prestige of the empire almost fell to the bottom.

All classes in the Ming Dynasty experienced a series of psychological changes from disbelief and desperate resistance, to strict defense but helplessness, to complete abandonment and extremely negative. Make secret peace talks.

Although this incident completely failed because Chongzhen was too embarrassing and killed the scapegoat Chen Xinjia, which is the famous Chen Xinjia incident.

But it is still enough to see the earth-shaking changes in the mentality of the entire Ming society during the process of the Qing army's southern strategy.

That is to say, this time the Qing army made a southern strategy, hundreds of thousands of Ming troops followed behind the Qing army but avoided fighting, and even during the period, the Qing army unsaddled and herded horses in Juzhou, Shandong, without any defense for more than a month.

When Abatai returned to the north and left the customs, his carts were packed in a team, more than 30 miles long, and it took ten days to finish crossing the Lugou Bridge.However, divisions from all walks of life of the Ming army gathered in Tongzhou at this time, and no soldier dared to come to stop or even harass them.

Such a wonderful scene, although it is difficult to understand, is the real history.

This is a completely different and fundamental change from the previous six times when the Qing army fought in the south, when the Ming army dared to make some moves.

Compared with Zuo Liangyu's absurdity, it suddenly didn't look outlandish at all.

Freezing three feet is not a day's cold.

There is always a process from quantitative change to qualitative change of anything. The Qing soldiers’ ability to quickly occupy the northern area of ​​the Ming Dynasty after entering the customs in 1644 is directly related to these seven southern strategies.

The guts have been broken, and the soil has been scorched.

And it was the seven ins and seven outs of the Qing soldiers during the 14 years that made many soldiers and civilians of the Ming Dynasty hold the incomprehensibly naive idea of ​​uniting the Qing soldiers to eliminate the peasant army for a long time after 1644.

They mistakenly believed that the Qing soldiers would always leave based on old experience.

Therefore, many incredible stories between the Ming and Qing Dynasties can actually find the answer or source from the Qing Bingnanlue.

Although such a big incident happened in the north, Zuo Liangyu didn't know the accurate information for a long time because of the peasant army blocking the traffic, and he didn't seem to intend to compare.

According to Zhou Wen's understanding, Zuo Liangyu is very worried about giving up Xiangyang and Wuchang. He has been complaining about illness, and he is actively contacting the big bandit leaders, hoping to recruit them to make himself seem less accomplished.

And his focus is also very cleverly placed on Henan, which he is more familiar with, which is the occupied area of ​​Li Zicheng. There are a large number of famous and powerful bandits in the mountainous area there. Liu Hongqi flirtatiously.

It is estimated that this old fox knows that once the Qing soldiers who entered the customs leave, the Ming court will no longer be fooled. After all, the Ming Dynasty has established its power for more than 200 years, and it has always been a deterrent to Zuo Liangyu.

At the same time, Zuo Liangyu also recently approved Zhao Jin's request to unite with Shi Ming to attack Huangmei County, which was occupied by Zhang Xianzhong's troops.

The actions of Zuo Liangyu and Zhao Jin surprised Li Ping, and at the same time made Li Ping realize that he seemed to have to do something.

While Li Ping was hesitating, Zhang Xianzhong's army took action and once again raided Qishui County (now Xishui County), which is nearly a hundred miles northwest of Qizhou.

Li Ping knew he could do something.

(End of this chapter)