Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 298
"What's going on in Huguang, let's talk slowly and in detail."

Zhu Yihai, who had just arrived in Chongming, was not too flustered when he heard about Huguang's collapse. In other words, he didn't have much hope for Huguang at first, but he just hoped that some Qing troops could be restrained.

It was a surprise to win Xiangyang and go to Jingzhou before.

Because the situation was too smooth, some hope that didn't exist slowly arose.

Now that he suddenly heard that Hu Da Da collapsed, he immediately woke up again.

At the beginning, when the Kongjue was released, he collected 30 soldiers a day, which inspired the entire remnant, and recruited Zhongzhenying, then recruited Zhongwu, then opened Zhongzheng, and then made a new Zhongyi, and four loyalty appeared in Huguang area, and then Zhang Kuang asked again. The Thirteenth Battalion established by He Tengjiao was also given the prefix Zhong, and Zhu Yihai also issued an order to give Zhongyong Town.

For a time, Huguang had the loyalty and righteousness reorganized by the rest of the original Shun Army, the Zhong Kai of the original Yunyang Ming Army, the Zhongwu of the original Zuo Liangyu Department, and the loyalty and bravery of the original Huguang Ming Army. The five loyalty gathered, known as 50 army.

Zhongzhen used to have thirteen town commanders. After Zhongyi was separated, each town was expanded to nine towns.

There were six battalions in Zhong Kaiben, and now it has also expanded into the general army of thirteen towns.

Zhongwu, Zhongyong and Zhongyong each recruited troops, and they were all called eighteen towns.

Anyway, there was Zhu Dadian, the governor of the seven provinces, Zhang Kuang, the governor of the seven provinces, Du Yinxi, the governor of Huguang, Fu Shangrui, the governor of Pianyuan, Xu Qiyuan, the governor of Yunyang, and Zhang Jinyan, the former minister of the Ministry of war in Dabie Mountains. , each of the five loyalists has a commander-in-chief.

There are 47 towns in Zongbing Town, plus the chief soldiers and deputy generals of Gebiao, Fubiao, and Tibiao. In Huguang, there are more than 60 general soldiers and more than 100 deputy generals.

For example, Qihuang and Yinghuo Mountains, on both sides of the Dabie Mountains, Dazhai is known as 48, and there are hundreds of small villages. Many village owners have the rank of general, guerrilla, and even the rank of general soldier.

Anyway, the number of soldiers and horses reported is quite scary.

It's not much worse than Zuo Liangyu's so-called 80 army back then.

But Zhu Yihai also knows some details. Compared with He Tengjiao's 3000th Battalion, it turned out that there were really only 800 Battalions. The stronger generals, such as Huang Chaoxuan, Zhang Xianbi, and Liu Chengyin, each had [-] men, and the rest had only [-] men. , but now it is reported that there are [-] town commanders, at least three to five thousand, and a total of [-] soldiers.

Yunyang Town used to have less than 4 remnants of the Sixth Battalion, but now it is known as the Thirteenth Town, with an army of more than [-].

As for Li Chixin and Gao Bizheng in the Zhongzhen Camp, they used to be called 20 people, but now they are divided into Zhongzhen and Zhongyi. The population obtained from the new mopping up is also counted, but the young and strong men who can really fight are counted, and there are only 10,000 to 5 people.

There are fewer armored soldiers.

But they just dare to call each more than [-] people.

Even the 48th village is headed by Zhang Jinyan, the former minister of the Ministry of War, who claims to have more than [-] soldiers and horses.

This frighteningly large force is indeed easy to make people mistakenly think that Huguang's soldiers are strong and strong, and they can even go directly to Luoyang, Henan.

But in fact, now there is an urgent report from the upstream, and the lake is collapsing.

"Isn't Luck Dehun still waiting for food and grass in Anqing, why is Huguang collapsed? Could it be that Hong Chengchou conjured up food, or Luck Dehun can fly?"

Huguang has Zhu Dadian as the supervisor, and Du Yinxi, Xu Qiyuan, Gao Doushu, Wen Anzhi, Zhang Kuang and others are all talented officials for a while, so why did they collapse?

"It's really hard to say." Chen Qianfu sighed again and again.

The original Huguang strategy was decided by Zhu Yihai. It was to recruit the remaining troops of the Shun army, integrate the original Ming army in Huguang, and launch a comprehensive counter-offensive when Huguang was empty. Go to this vast area of ​​the Han River, flatten it into a strategic buffer zone for him, protect the Hunan area, and guard the south of the Yangtze River.

There is nothing wrong with this strategy, and Zhu Dadian, Du Yinxi and others have implemented it well.

Even people like Li Chixin, Gao Bizheng, Hao Yaoqi, Yuan Zongdi, Xu Qiyuan, and Wang Guangen performed beyond expectations. They captured Xiangfan and went to Jingzhou, and quickly flattened the weakly defended Chengtian Anlu and other counties. The harvest was good.

Taking advantage of the victory, all the armies gathered in the three towns of Wuchang, and blocked the encirclement of Wuchang, Hankou, Hanyang, Xiawuchang, Huangzhou, and Qizhou.

Zhu Dadian sealed the report, and also said that the [-] main force of the Zhongzhen Camp in Jingzhou went south for reinforcements, and the soldiers surrounding Wuchang became stronger. He planned to pull out several cities in the upper and lower reaches of Wuchang's periphery in the next stage, and then finally took Wuchang.

He said that although the Qing army in Huguang is now retreating to several cities in Wuchang and resisting stubbornly, the Ming army is advancing in an orderly manner, constantly pulling out outlying strongholds, and has full confidence in taking Wuchang before the arrival of Qing army reinforcements.

It is even planned that after taking Wuchang, it will go downstream to take Jiujiang and Nanchang.

Well planned.

However, the number of Ming troops from all walks of life was frightening, and each of them desperately recruited troops, but a large number of new recruits, some of whom were freshly recruited near Wuchang, did not even have the most basic weapons, let alone armour.

And many of these soldiers and horses belonged to the original Dashun Army, and the Dashun Army was originally formed by the integration of Chuangjun, Luo Rucai and other peasant armies. Has the style of the past.

Most of the battalions established by Huang Chaoxuan and other former He Tengjiao were guest troops from the Chongzhen Dynasty who came to aid in the suppression. There were those in Yunnan, Guizhou, Henan, Guangdong and Guangxi, but there were very few local ones in Huguang.

These generals are said to be the main soldiers and generals of the imperial court, but they are almost the same as Zuo Liangyu, they are the kind of army that can't be separated from bandits.

People from all walks of life gathered, and they all regarded the surrounding area of ​​Wuchang as the enemy's territory anyway, and the common people as the enemy. If money and food were not available, they would rob them, and even if they were not short of money and food, they would still rob.

When facing Hankou and other fortified cities in Wuchang, the generals had different opinions on attacking the city and dragged their feet. After all, Zhu Dadian was also the airborne supervisor. He and Du Yinxi could barely gather these troops around Wuchang and make them obey orders It has been very difficult.

According to the plan, the Huang Chaoxuan tribes who originally attacked Qizhou should have captured Qizhou long ago, and then went to Huangzhou and Wuchang, and then took money and food from several cities and returned to Wuchang.

The three generals of Huang Chaoxuan are the strongest among the eighteen generals in Zhongyong Town. They each have 48 regular soldiers and [-] brave villages.

Zhu Dadian also specially sent the capital supervisor Zhang Kuang to oversee the army. He is familiar with General Huang Chaoxuan.

But who would have expected that the three generals Huang Chaoxuan had been busy looting around Qizhou in the early stage, and when the siege was almost finished, they drove away the 48 villages and wanted to monopolize the success of breaking the city. He fled immediately.

2 people were chased by 6000 people all night, no one turned back, and the 48 villages [-] miles away were washed away.

That's not enough, he was driven to the city of Huangzhou again, and broke through the Ming army besieging the city of Huangzhou.

Xu Yongzu Kefa and others broke the siege of Qihuang and Huangcheng, gathered more than 1 soldiers and horses, and rushed all the way to Wuchang like chasing rabbits.

Then Huang Chaoxuan fled all the way to the foot of Wuchang City, saying that reinforcements from the Eight Banners of the Qing Army had arrived, and so on.

Zhu Dadian didn't believe it.

During the day, an emergency military meeting was held to discuss rearming and preparing for the battle.

As a result, Ma Jinzhong, Wang Yuncai, Lu Ding, Wang Jincai, etc. from Zhongwu Town ran away without hesitation in the middle of the night. When they were still discussing the army during the day, they patted their chests and said to Zhu Dadian that they were the elites of the Zhongwu Battalion who dared to fight, and they would never If you retreat, you must defeat the Tartars.

Then they ran away in the middle of the night.

Zhongwu Town claims to have [-] town commanders in command, commanding more than [-] soldiers and horses. They were the generals of the Shun Army. After entering Beijing, he looked for an opportunity and turned around. Instead, he was recruited by the Ming Dynasty and reorganized into Zhongwu.

These people were originally less than ten thousand people, but they just swelled ten times in size within a few months.

Ma Jinzhong is called the admiral, and the rest are all general soldiers. Usually, today they ask for salary, tomorrow they need officials and nobles, and the day after tomorrow they have to divide the defense zones.

In the area of ​​Yuezhou, people's grievances are boiling.

Zhu Dadian tried his best to maintain it, and he thought about going through a comprehensive rectification after the battle of Wuchang, but who would have imagined that these people would still be unusable in the end.

Ma Jinzhong and the others in Zhongwu Town didn't even see the Qing army. He heard Huang Chaoxuan say that the Qing army had killed countless troops, so he immediately ran away and ran from Wuchang back to his old nest in Yuezhou before stopping.

After staying in Yuezhou for a while, Ma Jinzhong and others were still not at ease, so they simply ransacked Yuezhou City completely, and then continued southward to Changsha. In the city, the whole city was looted again.

After robbing for three days, he abandoned the city and continued southward.

This time, they ran directly to Hengzhou. After occupying Hengzhou, the towns divided their troops to loot counties and townships.

But under the city of Wuchang, because Ma Jinzhong escaped, other battalions collapsed or left one after another. Even Li Zicheng's brother Li Zijing and General Tian Jianxiu in Zhongyi Town saw that the Ming army was so incompetent. After thinking about it, his mother should not run away , Simply drop and liquidate.

So Zhongwu Ma Jinzhong and other 39 towns, together with the loyal Huang Chaoxuan towns, rushed to Yuezhou and Changsha, and the loyal Li Zijing, Tian Jianxiu, Zhang Nai, Li You, Wu Ruyi and others led the deputy commanders to participate in the guerrilla battles, etc. [-] people, more than [-] horse infantry soldiers, and more than [-] recruits, including Minzhuang, surrendered to Tong Yanghe, the governor of Wuchang City.

Tong Yanghe had originally recruited Tian Jianxiu, Li Zijing and others, and the talks were good. Everything was settled, including official titles and titles, but the matter of shaving their hair was not settled, and then Li Guogao and others came. , fell out with Tong Yanghe, and finally decided to vote for Ming.

At the beginning, Tian Jianxiu and the others were actually more inclined to vote clear, but they failed only because Li Guo and Yuan Zongdi firmly opposed it.Now that they saw the collapse of the Ming army, and really thought that the reinforcements from the Eight Banners of the Qing army had arrived, they simply asked Tong Yanghe to surrender.Instead of running around like a bereaved dog, it is better to surrender directly.

(End of this chapter)