Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 429 Muddy Waters ([-])

On November 1644, 11, in Qingzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province, the northwest wind was six, and it was sunny.

As the weather became colder, the tens of thousands of Qing troops gathered near Qingzhou had to start logging to keep warm. At the same time, the recruitment of Zhao Yingyuan's troops in Qingzhou city had recently come to a halt.After passing the initial period of psychological fear, this group of carefree armed leaders from all walks of life eased their fear of the Qing army a little. Anyway, there is a lot of food they robbed in the city, which is enough for them to build for a while, so that's it Consume it.Let's see if it's hard for the Qing army in the wild, or for them in the city!

However, the Qing army obviously would not blow the cold wind in the wild indefinitely. Since they left in a hurry when they set off, they could be regarded as marching lightly. They didn't bring many siege equipment with them, so they could only temporarily build them under the Qingzhou city.The soldiers of the Eight Banners took whips and drove groups of coats to the woods outside the city to cut wood and build siege equipment. A cold wind blew in the fields outside Qingzhou City for a while.

Looking at the plight of the soldiers of the "My Great Qing" outside the city, Zhang Wenheng in Qingzhou City was very worried. After trying to persuade the Qing army to surrender to the Qing army several times but failed, this guy has aroused the resentment and vigilance of many people.If Zhao Yingyuan didn't know what he was thinking and didn't want to touch him, Zhang Wenheng, who was eating inside and out, would have been hacked to death by those big bastards long ago.

The situation in Shandong was chaotic, and at this time, on the Shanxi and Henan battlefields, the Qingshun armies, which had been fighting for three or four months, began to gradually enter the mid-table decisive stage.After losing the important town of Taiyuan on the third day of October, Li Zicheng once again sent additional troops out of Tongguan and into Henan. He conquered Jiyuan, Mengxian, Wuzhi, Wenxian and other counties along the way, and then besieged Huaiqing Mansion.The Qing army defended the city with artillery fire, killing a large number of Shun troops.In order to deal with the powerful Qing army in Huaiqing Mansion, Tian Jianxiu, the commander of the Shun Army, urgently dispatched Guo Sheng, who was still in Hebei, to lead the army, and prepared to use yellow cannons to deal with the red cannons of the Qing army.

In order to solve the siege of Huaiqing Mansion, the Qing army organized several offensives, but they were all repelled.Among them, after the Dong Xueli Department of the Qing Army (formerly the Shun Army, which had surrendered to the Qing Dynasty) with the strongest strength was defeated and surrounded, the rear route of the Yechen Department of the Qing Army entering Taiyuan was cut off.For this reason, Luo Jinxiu, the governor of Henan Province in the Qing Dynasty, began to complain to the Qing court again and again.

In order to completely solve the problems in Henan and Shanxi, the Qing court began to form a large number of reinforcements.On October 8th, the Qing court appointed King Azig of England as the general of Jingyuan, and led an army of more than [-] troops, preparing to enter northern Shaanxi after defeating the heavy army group of the Shun Army in northern Shanxi.Accompanying Azige were the tribes of Wu Sangui and Shang Kexi. After recruiting the Xuanfu and Datong troops, the strength of this Qing army had exceeded [-].If you add the tens of thousands of Qing troops near Daizhou, it already has a crushing advantage in terms of both quantity and quality over the Shun army in northern Shaanxi.

When he saw tens of thousands of people strangled together by the Shun Army and the Qing Army, Shi Kefa, the governor of the Nanming Dynasty, was overjoyed and began to order the four towns in Jiangbei and the Henan landlords loyal to Nanming to attack the local Shun Army. The offensive of the Qing army made Dashun's troops scattered and the situation became increasingly tense.In Sichuan, Zhang Xianzhong's tribe also began to march into Hanzhong, preparing to seize Hanzhong when Li Zicheng's main force was attracted by the Qing army and the Hui people and Mongols in Qinghai and Xining, so as to complete his "conquest of the world" first. step.

At this time, on the rough and muddy road between Qingzhou City and Anqiu, a large-scale "braided army" was advancing "fast".And this fast speed obviously corresponds to the previous tortoise speed. Li Sutai's troops only marched five to ten miles a day before, and the speed was so slow that it made people laugh.But after the bad weather gradually approached, and Hetuo of Qingzhou sent people to urge him repeatedly, Li Shutai finally sighed and ordered to speed up the march.Now if Hetuo hadn't been behind his back to strictly order him to move forward, he would have led his army back.He was getting more and more uncertain about this battle. The scouts were hunted and killed in large numbers, causing the battlefield to be one-way transparent to the enemy. Now he doesn't even know how many people there are in the enemy army.

Scattered scouts who were lucky enough not to meet the enemy reported to him that the group of yellow-clothed pirates were still guarding Anqiu City, and they seemed to have sent people to the countryside to collect some food from the rich people two days ago, and at the same time coerced A few landless "rascals" followed them.However, in the past two days, it has been difficult to see them jumping around in the countryside, and most of them seem to have retreated to the city.This is also understandable, it's freezing outside, and it's only fools wandering in the wild.

When Li Sutai marched forward with tangled and complicated feelings, the people on the east bank in Anqiu County were also anxiously waiting for the arrival of the Qing army.And when he learned that Li Shuitai led an army of tens of thousands and marched at a speed of five to ten miles a day, Mo Ming even wondered if the killing was too hard in the scout battle, which scared the old fox Li Shuitai to death I dare not come to Anqiu.Fortunately, the news that came later was quite reassuring. Perhaps Li Sutai was unwilling to delay in the bad weather. He greatly increased his marching speed, and finally arrived in the afternoon of today (November 11). Three miles outside the city of Anqiu County, the short distance of a hundred miles took him six days, which is really amazing.

The people from the east bank on the top of the city used binoculars to roughly observe the Qing army camping outside the city. Due to the long distance, they could not see very clearly.I only know that they seem to have cut some wood from a distance and came back (the nearby ones have been cleaned up) to set up camp. Although the whole camp is noisy, it is still orderly, and it can be seen that it has a certain military quality.The Jiaozhou Army and Li Shiyuan's Qingzhou Army that the people from the east bank encountered a while ago were simply incomparable.

"It's the Han Army Banner after all. I've fought against the Eight Banners outside the pass, and I'm quite disciplined. This Li Suitai has fought for so many years, so he should be a veteran general. It may not be easy to fight tomorrow." General Mao Desheng He took off the binoculars in front of him, shook his head and asked: "Do you want to do it tonight? In ancient dramas, there were plots of stealing the camp when the enemy first arrived and their foothold was unstable. I think they got a I can't finish it in the middle of the night today, it seems that I can steal it."

"Steal a fart!" Mo Ming also put down the binoculars, wrapped himself in the cotton coat, and said: "Let the North Korean soldiers of the military team ride out to harass at night, it's pitch black outside, it's dark and freezing Well, most of the braided troops who just arrived are not going to attack. They don’t need to fight, so they bring some bugles to the camp not far away to blow, and then steal a few bombs to listen to the sound. Fire a few random shots, and then change places. Let the military men start their shifts in the second half of the night. In the first half of the night, these people are expected to build camps, try to make them sleep well, and let them die in the decisive battle tomorrow. one strike."

At this time, Mo Ming was not sure about the fighting power of the Qing army outside the city. According to the information sent by several scouts a few days ago, the number of this Qing army was about 4000. Among them, the well-equipped and high-morale soldiers There are about 2000 soldiers, and about [-] troops with no combat effectiveness such as coats and followers. In addition, there is a Ming army that has not even had time to shave its hair and is still dressed in rags. Clothes for the [-]-strong force.After a collective discussion, the east bank officers in Anqiu City thought that maybe they could go outside the city and fight against the city to test the quality of these people, just like Hetuo of the Qing army wanted to test the quality of the people on the east bank.

In the early morning of November 11, the Qing army, which had been tossed by the people from the east coast for half the night last night, began to line up outside the camp gate that had been hastily built.The auxiliary soldiers who hadn't slept all night forced themselves to put on armor and feed the horses for the soldiers, preparing for the battle that might break out next. They were already very familiar with doing these things, but today was a little different.The relaxed atmosphere in the camp was no longer there. According to the gossip circulated by some officers, these pirates in yellow seemed to be harder to fight than the elites from the old camp of the Shun Army.Fortunately, they were not the ones leading the battle, but those ex-Ming troops from Zhang Ruxing's department who had just surrendered not long ago.

The officers and soldiers of the Han army banner under Li Shutai looked at the officers and soldiers of Zhang Ruxing who had not shaved their hair with complicated eyes, and a strange pleasure surged in their chests.Let you not shave your hair!Let you not be a cow to the masters of the Qing Dynasty!Let you look at the braids on our heads with strange eyes!Hmph, I'll let you take the lead today, that's how I came here back then!

Zhang Ruxing frowned and looked at the gate of Anqiu County, which had been opened, and saw the soldiers in yellow clothes coming out of the gate. This group of people was going out of the city to fight!Zhang Ruxing suddenly felt that something was not going well today. He knew very well what Li Sutai meant by letting his troops take the lead. Didn't he just want to try out the strength of those yellow-clothed thieves by himself?People like myself are new affiliated troops, and it is normal to be driven as cannon fodder, but it would be bad if the opponents are pirates from the east coast.

As a former Ming general who had surrendered to Dashun, Zhang Ruxing, who served as a general of Guo Sheng for two or three months in Shandong, understood that the people on the east coast were "sharp guns and cannons" and "resolute and brave to fight", and they were definitely not good people.Now let me lead my troops and the people from the east coast to take the lead, and the 2000 people I have on hand are likely to be exhausted.

As a small army leader who has initially awakened the consciousness of warlords, Zhang Ruxing deeply understands that the army is his capital in this troubled world.Warlords who have lost their army are no farts. Li Shiyuan, who was beaten to death by the people on the east bank a while ago and left in embarrassment, is a good example.But thinking about this, Zhang Ruxing became even more entangled. Li Shiyuan couldn't defend the city with two to 3000 people. How strong are these people from the east bank!

But there was no time for him to think further.The people from the east bank on the opposite side have already finished their formation and are slowly moving forward, while their side, who came out earlier than the people from the east coast, are still noisily forming a formation. Why is there such a big gap.Behind his formation was Li Shuitai's central formation, where he led about [-] elite cavalry to oversee the battle, while the left and right flanks each had a thousand soldiers and about [-] auxiliary soldiers lined up in two formations. A large horizontal array.

From the formation, it can be clearly judged that Li Soltai wanted to test himself against the people on the east bank. If the battle went well, he would then join the battle group with two foot formations on the left and right; if the situation was not good, he would analyze it in detail. Or Li personally led the main cavalry to come to the rescue, or simply put the whole army together to try to save the defeat; or simply left Zhang Ruxing's troops on the battlefield, and Li led the army back to the camp to stand firm, Zhang Ruxing thought more and more. I think maybe the last option is what Li Soltai will do.

(End of this chapter)