Nanming Yiming

Chapter 160

In May, Jiangnan has entered the rainy season, and the heavy rain for many days made the attacking Qing troops in various places overwhelmed.The heavy rain made the roads muddy, and the rain-soaked cotton armor became extremely heavy, and the Qing army almost completely lost its ability to move.

What's even more sad is that the downpour made it impossible for them to camp in the wild, and they couldn't even make a fire to cook.

In such an environment, even soldiers with strong physiques can easily get sick, which is why the Eight Banners of Manchuria like to hide in the north to escape the heat in summer.

The sultry and humid weather in the south really affects their combat effectiveness. Let alone a war in this environment, if you don't get acclimated to the environment, dying as a guest in a foreign country is considered your ancestors' good deeds and burning incense.

I thought that the heavy rain would end in a few days, but unexpectedly it continued intermittently for nearly ten days.This also caused the fierce fighting between the Ming and Qing Dynasties to quickly cool down.

The reason is very simple. The Qing army outside the city could no longer hold on, not to mention maintaining the siege, even their own camp was almost washed away by the flood.

A lot of heavy rainfall has turned the original mountain streams into rivers full of water, and even many rivers that have been dry for many years have turned into rivers again.

And the turbulent river overflowed out of the river, carrying countless mud and stones to form a terrible mudslide.

Every day, people and horses kept disappearing. Several times, the Qing army moved the camp overnight. If it was later, the entire camp would have been washed away by the mountain torrents.

The Qing army that had besieged Huizhou had no choice but to withdraw their troops. The mountainous terrain of Huizhou was too complicated. A camp that was stationed carelessly would be destroyed by river water and mudslides, and a "flooded seven armies" would be staged for you every minute.

Years of combat experience told them that at this time, they must retreat quickly, otherwise there will be a large number of epidemics in the army. The soldiers in the south may be better. Who can stand the soldiers in the north?
The Qing army that attacked Yi County and Qimen County retreated directly to Taiping County in Ningguo Prefecture, while the [-] Manchu Zhenghuang Banner elites who were supposed to support Shi Tingzhu were forced to retreat to Guangde Prefecture.

At this time, Shi Tingzhu's army, which had penetrated deeply, became a truly lonely army, because they had no way to retreat.

Although the army is stationed on Jingai Mountain in the southwest of Huzhou, there is no risk of being submerged due to the relatively high terrain, but the living environment on this mountain is too harsh.

With the continuous downpour, the tent must be hopeless, and everyone can only look for some natural caves as shelters.

But there are 9000 Qing troops on the mountain, where are there so many caves?

The helpless Qing army had no choice but to hide under a tree to avoid the rain. At this time, they were hungry and cold, snuggling up to each other and shivering.But God seems to have trouble with them. In this kind of thunderstorm weather, the place under the big tree is the most likely place to be struck by lightning.

Sure enough, with a loud noise, a thunderbolt fell and directly hit the tallest tree. The huge sound hit everyone's heart, making them tremble involuntarily.The tall trees burned instantly, and the Qing army under the trees immediately fled in all directions.

The heavy rain quickly extinguished the fire on the tree, and a burning smell permeated the air. When everyone turned their eyes to the tree again, they found that there were still two charred corpses.

The Qing army was almost on the verge of collapse. Although as a battle-hardened veteran, it was commonplace to sleep in the open air, and it was not once or twice to get wet by the heavy rain, but this heavy rain with no end in sight really made people feel desperate.

People kept roaring into the air, venting their dissatisfaction, but in the face of nature, sometimes human power seemed so insignificant.

Especially at night, the strong wind in the mountains and the torrential rain can freeze people's souls out of their bodies; they can't sleep at all, and they dare not sleep, for fear that they will never wake up again after falling asleep.

In a relatively dry cave, the soldiers managed to light a fire, but the damp branches instantly made the place thick with smoke, and the people inside kept coughing loudly.

But even so they were reluctant to leave the cave, the torrential rain outside was really terrible.

Urtai swallowed the horse meat in his hand, and cursed angrily: "This damn rain has been falling for so many days, I don't know when it will end?"

They were rushing lightly, and they didn't carry too much dry food with them. They thought that they could get supplies if they entered Huzhou City.Unexpectedly, it rained for so many days, and the army had already run out of food.At this time, they also had to kill horses to satisfy their hunger. Although the rain occasionally stopped for a while, the sun was still invisible.

Lighting a fire and cooking has become a luxury.

In the cave, they could barely make a fire to keep warm and roast the horse meat, while most soldiers could only eat the horse meat raw.

At this moment, Shi Tingzhu handed over a bowl of horse blood and said, "This water is not clean, let's drink horse blood!"

Aren't they, the Eight Banners of Manchuria, a group of ruthless barbarians before?But at this time these former savages could not stand such a life.

Wuertai took the horse's blood and drank it, opened his bloody mouth and said, "Shi Dutong, this is not going to work. We have to leave this ghost place quickly. If we stay here, we don't need the Ming army to fight. It has to be explained here."

leave here?Why did Shi Tingzhu not want to leave here, but there is a vast ocean everywhere under this mountain, if the army marches at this time, it will probably be washed away by the flood within a short distance.

Once these landlubbers who are not good at water are left alone in the mud puddles below the mountain, it is estimated that the fishermen with harpoons can clean them up.

At least Jingai Mountain will not be flooded here, and the Ming army has no chance to attack the mountain to eat itself.

But he knew that he couldn't last long on the mountain. On the one hand, he had run out of food, and he couldn't last a few days by eating war horses.

On the other hand, after long-term exposure to rain, eating raw meat, and drinking raw water, many brothers have fallen down; among the 9000 people on the mountain, 500 have died of illness, and another 1500 have almost lost their ability to move. More than 2000 people There are more obvious symptoms.

Once the plague is formed, I am afraid that none of the 9000 of them will go down the mountain alive.

This Jin Gai Mountain is really unlucky. At this time, Shi Tingzhu thought of Jin Li who was wiped out here, and couldn't help shivering!
He said helplessly: "Seeing that the rain has slowed down, everyone prepare tonight, we will retreat tomorrow morning."

Shi Tingzhu knew very well that in such an environment, it was impossible for Tan Tai's army to break through the defense line of the Ming army and come to support him.

And I absolutely can't wait until the rain stops before retreating. Once the rain subsides, the Ming army that was originally huddled in Huzhou City will definitely come out to attack me.

At that time, few of my subordinates can hold weapons, and they will be lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Although it is said that going down Jingai Mountain is a narrow escape, because the continuous heavy rain has turned the outside of Huzhou City into a swamp country, and they will be lost in this vast ocean if they venture down the mountain; but there is always a chance of survival, People's desire to survive drives them to take risks.

The Qing army outside the city was devastated by the heavy rain, and the situation in Huzhou City became worse and worse.

The sudden heavy rain at the beginning of the period made everyone very happy, and everyone shouted in their hearts: This is really a "timely rain"!
But no one expected that this "timely rain" would actually get bigger and bigger without stopping.

Ma Li, the prefect of Huzhou, soon became very busy. The drainage system in Huzhou City was overloaded in a short time. All the sewers could no longer discharge water, and the water began to pour into Huzhou City along the moat.

The whole city was flooded, and even many dilapidated buildings collapsed directly.

Ma Li had to vacate the Yamen to accept some homeless city residents.Of course, the government can't let them eat and drink for free. Now the city needs manpower everywhere.

Either the grain in the granary needs to be moved to a higher place, or the gunpowder needs to be shipped out in time, or where the ditch is blocked and needs to be dredged.

Fortunately, the magistrate prefect has always been prestigious, and the big households in the city have contributed money and efforts to help take in refugees, fight floods and rescue emergencies.

This time Wu Qi's Taihu camp played a very important role. Most of these people were fishermen from Taihu Lake before, and their water quality was excellent.

The soldiers of the Taihu Battalion braved the heavy rain to go out of the city, first built a temporary dam, and then dredged the moat that had been filled by the Qing army, which made the situation of river backflow in Huzhou City improved.

There are still many low-lying lands outside the city, and some landlords built very high embankments to prevent floods from submerging their land.Seeing that the flood would not recede, Ma Li simply asked the brothers from the Taihu Camp to sneak into the vicinity of those dams and destroy them secretly, creating the illusion that the flood had broken through the dams to release the flood, which caused the water level in Huzhou City to drop.

To tell the truth, everyone's heart is tugging. Fortunately, the city wall of Huzhou did not cut corners, otherwise it would be over if the flood washed away the foundation and caused the city wall to collapse.

Huzhou, which was temporarily relieved of the crisis, now focused on how to eliminate the Qing army instead of fighting the flood.

Although there is a country outside Huzhou City, it is still not possible for a large ship. Soldiers from the Taihu Battalion took small boats and bamboo rafts to Jingai Mountain to investigate the enemy's situation.

Weng Zhiheng also estimated that most of the Qing army on the mountain would risk breaking out due to lack of food and grass, so the Ming army was also ready to attack.In this environment, firearms are definitely unusable, and bows and arrows are not easy to use.

On the contrary, throwing weapons such as crossbows and harpoons are better.

Crossbows have always been a rare item, and the Ming army didn't use them very much, but they finally found 100 handles in the arsenal.

Weng Zhiheng also knew that this battle was not about having many soldiers, but about being good at water and being good at water warfare.

So it was decided that Wu Qi would command the battle.

Wu Qi himself did not expect that his Taihu Battalion would become the protagonist of this Huzhou battle by such a coincidence.

On the basis of the 2500 people in the Taihu Battalion, Wu Qi selected 500 soldiers with excellent water skills from other battalions to form a vanguard battalion of 3000 people, preparing to wipe out the invading Qing army.

At the foot of Jingai Mountain, the Qing army has completed its assembly and is preparing to evacuate here.

The current situation is not optimistic. In addition to the 700 people who died of illness, there are still a large number of people who can no longer follow the army. Now they can only stay on the mountain.

These Qing troops were not stupid, they knew that the army was about to withdraw, and staying here would be a dead end.So even though they were already weak, they still gritted their teeth and said that they could still follow the army.

Shi Tingzhu is not a fool, it would be difficult to get through the land of Zeguo under the mountain, at this time with this group of burdens, how can he still run away?
At this time, no matter whether you are the Zhenghong flag or the Han army flag, you will not bring those who cannot carry the weight down the mountain.In fact, there is no need to deliberately identify them, those who are physically weak cannot keep up with the pace of the army.

When they assembled on the mountain, there were still nearly 7000 people in their team. After they really went down the mountain and entered the muddy pond, there were only less than 4000 people left. There were stragglers and stragglers along the way, and many soldiers were even on the way. Burp.

Those Qing troops who fell behind were full of wailing, just like a funeral procession.

At this time, the sentinels of the Taihu Battalion came to report: "The Qing army has already descended the mountain and broke out towards the west. There are about four to five thousand people, and they are all laggards along the way."

Wu Qi said: "The army stands by and waits for orders. Let them struggle for a while in the quagmire. With their speed, can they run away?"

Ming Jun burst into laughter after he finished speaking!
It has to be said that Wu Qi's move is indeed very vicious.

Although the water level at the bottom of the mountain is different in depth, the shallow part reaches the knees, and the deep part reaches the chest level.What's more, the Qing army wore wet cotton armor and marched in the mud with heavy loads; not to mention these remnant soldiers who had been trapped for many days, even soldiers who had recharged their batteries could not go far.

The soldiers of the Taihu Battalion, holding simple bamboo rafts, can be said to be like ducks in water in these waters and mires.

About an hour later, Wu Qi led the Taihu Battalion and caught up with the fleeing Qing army.

Seeing the Ming army with bamboo rafts everywhere, Wuertai quickly ordered the soldiers to draw their bows and set up their arrows.At this time, the Qing army, which had struggled in the quagmire for a long time, was already exhausted, and many people even lost their bows and arrows and quiver.

Only sporadic arrows flew towards the Ming army, and most of them seemed weak, and only a small number of Ming troops hit the arrows in response.

Following Wu Qi's order, the Ming army began to shoot the Qing army with hand crossbows. At this time, the Qing army was inconvenient to move, and it looked like a group of arrow targets.

Seeing the surrounding Qing troops falling to the ground with arrows, Urtai became angry, and forced his horse to charge towards the Ming army.After the horse was shot and killed by the Ming army, he rushed towards the Ming army with a big knife in his hand, and successfully beheaded several Ming soldiers.

The Ming army didn't talk nonsense, and directly shot a large number of hand crossbows at Wuertai, but although he was pierced into a hedgehog in heavy armor, bleeding, he still waved the long knife in his hand and let out a roar.

But soon he was exhausted, and the last harpoon that flew pierced his throat.

The battle progressed quickly, and the Qing army lost the strength to resist. In the end, more than 2000 Qing troops including Shi Tingzhu became prisoners.

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(End of this chapter)