national surname chiming

Chapter 306

After Sun Kewang was recovered by the army in Leshan, he huddled in Emei County, frantically strengthening the defense every day, waiting for the army to launch a new offensive after they crossed the Minjiang River.

He even thought about it, if the government army really wanted to encircle Emei County on all sides, then he would abandon the city and flee before the encirclement was completely completed, or at least cross the Dadu River north and retreat to Jiajiang County first.

If the officers and soldiers encircled Jiajiang County first, then they would gather the main force to Emei County. Anyway, they must not be really stupid and stick to it until they are completely surrounded.

This time he asked to divide his troops to stop him, and he originally wanted to escape on his own, how could he fight for that foster father who seemed to have no future in vain.

However, Sun Kewang defended and reinforced Emei County for four or five days, but he did not wait for Zhang Huangyan to continue his attack.

After the limelight calmed down a bit, he sent out his scouts, and when he came back, he gave him a shocking news:

After Zhang Huangyan took Leshan County, he didn't care that Sun Kewang was still on the flank, and continued to advance along the Minjiang River. In just a few days, he had already arrived at Meishan County, the next important town along the Minjiang River.

The defenders of Zhang Xianzhong in Meishan had no strength at all, and the city of Meishan was also very weak, so under the bombardment of Hongyi cannons, it changed hands within a day.

In fact, the defense facilities of these counties that have entered the edge of the Chengdu Plain have been almost unrepaired since ancient times.Since ancient times, the warlords in the Sichuan area have never had the idea of ​​​​defending the city after entering the Chengdu Plain.

In addition, if you look at the map of Sichuan, you will know that there are so many small counties around Chengdu, and they are very dense. How can they repair the city walls in so many counties?A little meaning is enough.

Zhang Huangyan arrived at Meishan, and Fang Kongzhang took Qin Liangyu to Jianyang. It was only the fourth day of March, and the outside of Chengdu was already open.

In addition to leaving troops to defend the city, Zhang Xianzhong could only divide his troops to block the entrance.

In order to deal with the advance of the waterway army of the official army, Zhang Xianzhong sent some of the city guards to set up defenses at the Xinjin Guard at the Minjiang Ferry in the southwest of Chengdu (now Xinjin District, Chengdu).
In order to deal with the advance of the army's land army, Zhang Xianzhong sent another part of the troops to station in Longquanwei (now Longquanyi District, Chengdu). This Longquanwei was developed from Longquan Town. The watershed of the hills in central Sichuan.

This Longquan Mountain is the last natural geographical barrier that the officers and soldiers must pass to reach Chengdu City.After crossing Longquan Mountain, the west to the foot of the city wall of Chengdu is the Woye Plain.

Even those who don't know much about geography can probably understand Zhang Xianzhong's current predicament when he sees this situation. The counties where he is stationed now will no longer be counties in future generations, but some districts in downtown Chengdu. , It can be seen that the distance from the old city is not too far.

However, after the official army arrived, because the defenders temporarily occupied the geographical advantage, they could not break through within ten or eight days.Moreover, the officers and soldiers still don't know much about the combat power and scale of Zhang Xianzhong's troops. At this point, they should fight steadily, find out the enemy's situation first, and then make a decision before moving——

The reason for this is not that the officers and soldiers did poor intelligence work before, or did not pay attention to intelligence.It was entirely because Zhang Xianzhong's troops on the opposite side fluctuated too much, and there were too many cannon fodder temporarily absorbed, so it was difficult to estimate an accurate figure before the actual decisive battle.

More than half a year ago, when Zhang Xianzhong fled in a disastrous defeat in western Hunan, the old battalion troops he took with him fell below the 2 mark.But at that time, Sun Kewang's rear army in Wu County and Zigui area, and Liu Wenxiu's troops in Changde did not suffer much loss.

Therefore, after the merger of the three parties, the total number of veterans in Zhang Xianzhong's army can still be restored to between 5 and [-].

For the next six months, he looted houses and homes in Qianzhong Road, and bought barbarians with the gold and silver property looted in Hunan. At the most critical moment, Zhang Xianzhong scattered at least two or three million taels of gold and silver property. The army equipment was barely replenished, and an additional 300 horses were raised.

When Zhang Xianzhong rushed into the Sichuan Basin from Bozhou, his total force should be below 7.The attack on Chongqing was very bloody, with more than [-] troops lost, mainly due to the use of a lot of cannon fodder, and the overall strength was weakened for a while.

However, after Chongqing was captured, more than 20 people were massacred and a large amount of money was robbed, Zhang Xianzhong coerced a lot of impoverished people in Sichuan to become exiles, and he directly pulled a team of 10,000+ people, but the number of these teams The quality is very doubtful, and you can't fight a tough battle. You can't count on whether you will quit the battle when encountering a bloody battle.

Afterwards, when Zhang Xianzhong's veterans tried to attack Qin Liangyu's Kuizhou Mansion, they lost thousands of soldiers. Later, they were stranded in Wanxian County, reluctant to leave. Thousands of veterans were annihilated, and the two batches added up to nearly [-].

Chongqing fell and Bai Wenxuan surrendered, and a total of 1 veterans were lost. In the end, more than 4 veterans were taken to the southern line to intercept by Sun Kewang. On hand, no more than [-]%, which is barely [-] people.

In addition to these 4 people, there are only more than 8 refugees he recruited in Chongqing, and now there are more than 10,000 refugees who have been dragged to Chengdu, and then there are [-]+ people temporarily recruited around Chengdu.

Therefore, in early March, Zhang Xianzhong had a total force of more than 4 troops on the battlefields around Chengdu, but only [-] were veterans.

Moreover, among the 4 people, there are less than 1 real old thieves over five years old, and more than [-] are barbarians who slaughtered chieftains of various tribes in Qianzhong Road, captured prisoners and forced them into the army.

The remaining 20 are all locals from Sichuan, some are poor and really want to get a vote, and some are purely coerced.

Only about [-] to [-] percent of them have military experience. For example, they used to be the guards of the Ming Dynasty, because after breaking the city, they took advantage of the situation and followed the chief to surrender the bandits.

More than [-]% of them are pure farmers who have never held weapons. They have been thieves for no more than three months. There are at least [-] to [-] such people. So far, they still don’t even have the official and military equipment. There is almost no armor rate, and only half of them are equipped with regular knives and guns, and a small half are equipped with sickles, hoes, pitchforks, and kitchen knives.

In addition, for the leader of the peasant army, bluff is certainly inevitable.

Zhang Xianzhong has actually recruited 235 million horses, even if the cannon fodder is as high as 50%, he still wants to declare [-] mercenaries to strengthen his momentum.

When the two groups of Zhang Huangyan and Fang Kongzhang first advanced to Meishan and Jianyang, they were almost taken aback when they heard it at first. After several days of investigation, they planned to squeeze out the water before they roughly figured out the actual number of Zhang Xianzhong.Although there must be an error of about [-] to [-]%, but the difference is not bad.

On the other hand, if the army on the opposite side is compared with the total number of people, it must be at a disadvantage.

Zhu Shuren and Qin Liangyu's troops will not be like the neighbor Zuo Liangyu, who frantically recruits strong men and expands their numbers regardless of quality.

In history, when Zuo Liangyu was in Wuchang, he was just like someone who bought road money. After the death of Chongzhen, he set up a card along the river. All the people passing through Wuchang Mansion from the Yangtze River could collect a heavy tax of [-] to [-]%. The lijin that came was at least five times higher.

Then Zuo Liangyu relied on such excessive expropriation and extortionate income, and blindly expanded the quantity regardless of quality. Before the Qing army went south, Zuo Liangyu claimed to have expanded to 80 people, but in fact it is estimated that there were at least 50 people.

Zhu Shuren is famous for his discipline and strict military management. He brought a total of 7 combat troops from Sichuan, 1 from Qin Liangyu, and more than 11 armed forces from the Fang Guoan Ministry and Kuizhou. In fact, the total strength Close to [-].

Considering that the officers and soldiers suffered losses in previous battles, and that troops would be left in the rear of Chongqing, Luzhou, Yibin, and Leshan must each have at least two to three thousand elite troops to clear out the places and maintain the food roads.

Therefore, the number of troops finally drawn to the battlefield of the decisive battle was about 8.If Leshan didn't have to be wary of Sun Kewang, it would be able to pull up another 1 to [-].

But in that case, Sun Kewang's partial division might also return to the defense to fight side by side with Zhang Xianzhong, and the rebel army could add [-] veterans and a few strong cannon fodder, which may not be a good thing for the officers and soldiers.

In the current state, the only state that is most beneficial to the official army is that the entire army of the official army in Leshan can be dispatched to participate in the decisive battle, but Sun Kewang on Zhang Xianzhong's side cannot come.

In this way, a situation similar to the Battle of Waterloo was formed, where Blücher on the coalition side came, but Grouchy on the Napoleon side could not.

In the process of preparing for the war, Zhang Huangyan will of course try his best to promote the emergence of this situation. This is also the direction Zhu Shuren suggested when he wrote back to him for the second time before.

Zhang Xianzhong, on the other hand, will definitely try his best to avoid such a situation.

……

In this way, the two sides fought a few rounds between Meishan and Xinjinwei, Jianyang and Longquanyi, and made preparations for running-in, and the time came to the middle of March.

Zhang Xianzhong's troops were lucky at first, but soon discovered that although they had an advantage of more than three times the number of officers and soldiers, the nearly 20 recruits were really not good for field battles. Jie, every time there are thousands of new local Sichuan young men who directly defect, flee, and collapse.

So after a few days of contact, Zhang Xianzhong didn't get anything, and he lost more than [-] new Latin men for nothing. Fortunately, the old thieves almost didn't lose.

The process of these battles is really nothing worth mentioning, it's just chewing wax.Many recruits didn't dare to charge forward at all when they heard the continuous sound of muskets, and even fought in the field.

After being frustrated, Zhang Xianzhong would naturally become more anxious, so he sent a small number of confidant elite cavalry to detour to Emei County to order Sun Kewang to take some active countermeasures.

Zhang Xianzhong's envoys talked about it, and it was nothing more than this: "Zhang Huangyan dared to ignore our army west of Leshan, and went straight to Meishan. Between Leshan and Meishan, there is a 140-mile river. Where can Zhang Huangyan's food road not be broken? Why is he so timid? Fighting, I dare not even rob food! Could it be that there is something different?!"

Of course, the specific wording is not so straightforward, there must be some embellishments, if it is so straightforward, wouldn't it be afraid that it will directly force Sun Kewang.

After Sun Kewang felt the pressure, he had no choice but to try to poke his head out of the shrunken Emei County, look at the time, seize the next opportunity for Zhang Huangyan to transport food to the Meishan Army, and send troops to harass.

Sun Kewang prepared dozens of fire boats, and wanted to take advantage of the fact that the government and army fleet passed the Dadu River upstream, rush down the upstream and set fire to them all at the same time, and burn all Zhang Huangyan's grain boats.

At the same time, the other soldiers hid on the ordinary warships, taking advantage of the fireboats to disrupt the enemy's formation and open up the situation, they took advantage of the opportunity to follow in from the breakthrough to hide and kill, and jumped to fight side by side.

The idea is very good, but unfortunately, once entering the actual battle, Sun Kewang once again realized the difference between his landlubbers and the Shen family's navy soldiers under Zhang Huangyan.

Zhang Huangyan's grain fleet was not fully loaded with food, but each time allocated several percent of its capacity to transport escort soldiers, and prepared a large number of tough old bamboo poles with iron heads on board to support them in case of arson The attacking fireship—

Don't think this trick is innovative. Li Guangbi of the Tang Dynasty used it when he dealt with Shi Siming's rebels and set fire to the pontoon bridge.By the Ming Dynasty, it was already the basic operation of a high-quality naval general.

At any rate, Zhang Huangyan is also a national hero who has been able to deal with the Qing army in the Zhoushan Islands for nearly 20 years in history, and his military talent is still good.Having been with my uncle and cousin for the past few years, I have already practiced the basic skills of naval command.

Because of the rapid flow of the Minjiang River, Sun Kewang, who was not good at steering the boat and controlling the direction, was quickly pushed away by the bamboo pole like a thousand catties, and rushed downstream.

There are even a small number of Franco cannons on the official and army ships, which directly shoot down at the approaching thief fireboats. As long as they hit, it will be a big hole in the bottom of the ship, and the water has flooded ahead of time.

After a fierce battle, three or four grain transport ships of the government and army were attacked and burned by saturated fire ships.

But this level of loss is completely acceptable to Zhang Huangyan. He still has enough sampans to ferry the boats to rescue the sailors on the burning ship.

Sun Kewang on the opposite side couldn't bear it at all. Every wave of loss was a real casualty. As long as the ship was destroyed, it would basically mean death, and there was no way out.

After the First World War, Sun Kewang retreated back to lick his wounds, but it was raining all night when the house leaked, so Zhang Huangyan quickly drew inferences and arranged a series of dirty tricks——

The conscience of heaven and earth, the last two tricks were all done by Zhang Huangyan himself, and had nothing to do with Zhu Shuren.Zhu Shuren was [-] miles away, so it was impossible for him to control micro-manipulation remotely.

It turned out that Zhang Huangyan pretended that Sun Kewang had succeeded the day after Sun Kewang failed to rob the food and burn the ship, and asked the officers and soldiers from Meishan County to Xinjinwei to retreat, posing as if they needed to shrink because of the lack of military supplies.

Zhang Xianzhong himself is not so easy to fall into the trick, but not all the troops under Zhang Xianzhong are under his personal command.He himself sits in the city of Chengdu, and at Longquanyi and Xinjindu, there are naturally other generals who will be in charge of the frontline command.

When Liu Wenxiu was sent abroad, Li Dingguo was refrigerated, and Feng Shuangli was sent to Longquanyi, Zhang Xianzhong really couldn't come up with any famous generals to take charge of Xinjindu.

So the guard here at that time was only Di Sanpin who had abandoned the city and fled back after the recovery of Hezhou.

It couldn't be more strange that this kind of unnamed general who didn't leave any records in history was deceived by Zhang Huangyan's show of weakness and false retreat.

He thought it was an opportunity, and when he saw Zhang Huangyan retreating, he chased down the river, but he was defeated in the ambush, lost troops and turned back.

After Zhang Huangyan turned around and fought back, he took the opportunity to let people spread rumors, saying that Sun Kewang had reached a tacit agreement with the army and was willing not to help Zhang Xianzhong in the battle in exchange for escaping and avoiding death.

Di Sanpin, the catastrophe, was lucky enough to survive again, so he inevitably brought the rumors back.

Of course Zhang Xianzhong would not believe it, but Zhang Huangyan quickly revealed to Sun Kewang that "the official army has already spread this message rumor to Zhang Xianzhong".

Sun Kewang fell into great fear. At the same time, he also heard some other meanings from the rumors spread by Zhang Huangyan: the officers and soldiers framed him, saying that he would not help Zhang Xianzhong in exchange for being hunted down...

Doesn't that mean that the commander-in-chief of the army thinks this is a reasonable condition, and if he accepts it, the foster father won't be surprised?
Zhang Huangyan was originally not good at sending envoys to negotiate with Sun Kewang, but after this indirect communication, Sun Kewang saw his sincerity and feasibility.

He finally decided to send someone to secretly contact, leave a letter, and then retreat westward, taking the Dadu River to escape.

……

This operation was delayed, and after everything was done, the time also entered late March.

Zhu Shuren, who was in Chongqing at the rear, also waited for the good news from the rear before the final battle: Chongzhen's order to promote him to the governor of Huguang had been sent to Chongqing by the prince.

Zhu Yuchan, the little princess of Luwang Mansion who Chongzhen bestowed marriage to him, had already paid homage to the high hall in Hefei, and was sent to Chongqing by Zhu Shuren's stepmother Xu to complete the final ceremony.

On the day the decree-delivering team arrived in Chongqing, there were lights and festoons in the city, which inevitably excited the crowd.Those subordinates who followed Zhu Shuren also further realized the limitlessness of Guo Xingye, and there is definitely a bright future to follow him.

(End of this chapter)