Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 491 People from the East Bank on the Yangtze River ([-])

On July 1645, 7, a fleet of black smoke appeared on the mighty Yangtze River flowing eastward.Obviously, this is the fleet of the East Coasters.

The fleet consisted of six large ships, all of which were fast steam ships, loaded with about thousands of soldiers from the east coast, and were sailing to the river near the Guazhou Ferry in Yangzhou in later generations.It took ten days for the East Coast army to rest on Rishiri Island for five days before sailing to the Yangtze River Basin. In order to hurry up, the five slow-moving sailboats sailed separately from the steam boats from the beginning, so At this time, only these six clippers are here.

Many small boats were put down on the fleet, and the No. 3 Squadron of the Standing Team took several small boats and rowed towards Guazhoudu on the shore.Behind them, some sailors also rowed small boats and began to measure the water depth on the river and mark the channel.

The No. 3 Squadron soon approached Guazhou Ferry. At this time, there was no boat on the ferry. I don't know if the vanguard of the Duoduo army had already arrived at the city of Yangzhou. This ferry, which should have been extremely prosperous, turned out to be Not many people.Maybe the boat was looted and taken away, Li Zhengang, who was standing at the stern of a small boat, thought secretly.

The No. 3 Squadron quickly occupied the deserted Guazhou Ferry. They searched the entire ferry. Except for the debris scattered in a few houses on the shore, there was no one there.Li Zhengang climbed up from the waist-deep river, his whole body was a little wet, which made him a little annoyed that he didn't put on the whale skin water jacket that Marshal Mo gave him.

"Reporting to the deputy commander, our department has searched within 300 meters of the landing point, and found no soldiers from the Ming or Qing army. We only caught two mud legs that were catching eels in the basket, but we couldn't understand what they were saying. Our department They are all from the north, and there are no soldiers who are proficient in Wu language, so there is no way to interrogate them." Pei Qin, the captain of the 1st Battalion, stood at attention in front of Li Zhengang, and then saluted.

Li Zhengang is from Shaanxi, so naturally he couldn't understand what they were talking about.

He looked at the few young farmers (or fishermen) who looked at them with some horror, sighed, and said: "Let them go, they are all innocent people, and they can't live a peaceful life for a few days throughout the year. Give them One yuan per person, paid from my special expenses, let them go. In addition, send people on board to report to Marshal Mo, and ask the security team to immediately send elite scouts to disembark to investigate the enemy's situation. To the city of Yangzhou."

Li Zhengang is now the deputy captain of the 1st Wing of the Standing Squad (acting captain is Interim Lieutenant Junior), and he can be regarded as a senior cadre of the Standing Squad system, with a monthly salary of 20 yuan and a monthly special expense of 8 yuan ( It can be considered pocket money, the welfare of senior officers).

"Who knows where Doduo's army is? Maybe it's already in Yangzhou." Pei Qin smiled with the corners of his mouth pulled, and then arranged for people to go back to the fleet to report the situation.

It is said that Duo Duo himself started to lead the main force to go south after receiving the order of Dorgon's southern expedition on April [-] (lunar calendar), which is more than a month later than in history.He himself led a group of soldiers and horses out of Hulao Pass, the group with Gushan Ezhenbai Yintu, and the Mongolian soldiers from the outer domain led by Belenikan and others went straight to Guide.Due to the rotten battles fought by the Manchus in Shandong, Duoduo's campaign to recruit and surrender soldiers and prefectures and counties in Henan did not go as smoothly as expected, so he did not arrive outside the city of Sizhou under the control of Nanming until the tenth day of June. , and crossed the Huaihe River that night, and at this time the nearby Ming army had already fled, and no one came to stop them.

After crossing the Huaihe River, Duoduo ordered Gushan Ezhenzhun Pagoda and 500 people to go eastward to collect Xuzhou, Suqian, Xinghua, Tongzhou and other prefectures and counties because of the fact that the bandits in yellow clothes were running across Qilu and "the situation was very rampant". , and then incorporated the local Ming army on the spot.While supplying food and grass to the Duduo army, on the other hand, it is connected with Shandong, which is still under the control of the Qing court, and waits for an opportunity to go north to support Shandong.

In this way, after dawdling along the way, when Duoduo arrived at the camp twenty miles north of Yangzhou City, it was already June 7th (July 8th in the Gregorian calendar), nearly two months later than in history.In history, Duoduo camped in the north of Yangzhou City on April 24th, and then waited until April [-]th because he was waiting for the red cannon to attack Yangzhou. Before that, there was no military action against Yangzhou. It can be seen from the suicide note written by Shi Kefa.

In this time and space, Duoduo's red-clothed cannons were still long overdue and did not arrive at the city of Yangzhou until this morning. At this time, all the soldiers and horses deployed by Nanming in Jiangbei had already been cleared one after another.Shi Kefa, a mediocre man with neither strategic vision nor military ability, behaved in a panic and issued inconsistent orders, which even his assistants couldn't stand it anymore.Such a person can also occupy a high position, it is really unreasonable for Nanming not to die.This is how a group of pigs can put Shi Kefa, a fool who has nothing but integrity and integrity, to such a high position as the Jiangbei governor, and then let him make almost all the mistakes he can make in more than a year. The 234 million people in the so-called four towns in Jiangbei, which cost a lot of manpower and material resources, were pushed to the side of the Qing Dynasty.

Of course, the people on the east bank at this time didn't know where Duoduo's army was, and they didn't even know who controlled Yangzhou.They came here just for friendship and support, and to see if they could get some benefits by the way. As for expecting them to fight some tough battles beyond their abilities, it is absolutely impossible.

The scouts quickly landed.These Shandan hunters sat on the boat for ten days, and all of them were a little depressed. In fact, not only them, but also many of the horses that came with the boat were also in poor condition.The captain of the security team, Kurhan, selected a dozen or so horses that seemed to be able to be ridden, and then selected a few skilled men, and began to scout the north for intelligence.

After the scouts set off, the people from the east coast also sent the No. 5 Squadron of the Standing Force ashore, and then there was no other movement on the river except for the navy boats that were measuring the water depth and marking the waterway.The six steamships had already lowered their sails and lowered the temperature of their boilers to a minimum, just floating on the river, waiting for the news to come.

The news came back the next day.The captain of the security team, Kurhan, fled back with a few of his men who were almost covered in injuries, and behind them were dozens of cavalrymen from the Qing army who were chasing after them.These cavalrymen in foam nailed cotton armor seemed to be white armored soldiers of a certain banner. They were excellent in both skills and equipment, but they were immediately surprised when they chased to Guazhoudu.

Because in front of them were hundreds of infantrymen dressed in yellow clothes, wearing big hats, and holding spears. How could anyone in the Qing army not know the costumes of the famous yellow-clothed thieves?Even though these Duduo's subordinates had never fought against the people from the east coast in Shandong, they had already known the existence of this "pirate group" from the correspondence and the few words of their superiors and colleagues.But didn't these yellow-clothed pirates only make trouble in the Liaohai Sea, why are they making trouble all the way to the Yangtze River now?Zuo Ling, who led the team, was a little hesitant. After taking a bitter look at the scouts on the east bank who had caused several casualties to them, Zuo Ling turned his horse's head and led his cavalry and disappeared from the scene like a gust of wind. I was in a hurry to go back and report the military situation.

"Yangzhou City has been breached, and it only resisted for one day." Kurhan said succinctly in his not very proficient Chinese, "Duoduo bombarded the city wall with cannons. When we withdrew, the Qing army had rushed into the city first. But they Already aware of our existence, Duoduo is likely to adjust his deployment and attack the pier."

Standing on the front deck of the "Fenshui" steam engine sailboat, Mo Ming looked at the lush reeds on the river bank, and after a while, he said to Xiao Xi, the commander of the 102nd company of the army standing behind him: "The Qing army has broken through Yangzhou. , then the overall situation in Jiangbei has been determined. The Qing army, which has already incorporated more than [-] troops from Liu Liangzuo, Liu Zeqing, and Li Benshen (the remnant of Gao Jie), is powerful, and has a relatively rich Jiangbei territory to supply food and grass, so it is not a problem to support long-term operations. Then we won’t be able to do much by staying here, it’s just to disgust them.”

"It's good to be disgusted. Nanming's gang of funny monarchs and ministers are probably already planning how to escape or surrender at this time. Dorgon will inevitably divide his troops to attack other counties in Nanzhili in the future, in order to fight with him. The Qing troops from the Azig tribe that came over from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River joined together. I don’t know if Li Chuang is dead in the upper reaches, and how far the battle has progressed there. Well, I really want to take a boat aboard and have a look.” Xiao Xi lit a pipe for herself and said.

"Look at you!" Mo Ming scolded with a smile, and then said: "The most important thing for Dorgon now is how to find a way to cross the river and attack Nanjing as soon as possible. Nanjing is now extremely empty, and the soldiers have no fighting spirit, and the generals have no heart to defend." , based on the combat power of the paper-like army of Nanming, they are basically defeated at the touch of a finger, and the Qing army can occupy it during the armed march. Anyway, we have nothing to do right now, so we just hang around here for a while, and see the Qing army ships Just cross the river and go up to harass. Our steam boats can turn around almost on the spot without considering the current or wind direction, so there is no need to be afraid of those Qing Army Junk boats. So I decided to stay here for two more days to see Let’s see if there is any advantage to take advantage of.”

"That's good." Xiao Xi nodded and said.They can really only play a role of harassment here. In case the Qing army brings a large number of ships to cross the river, the six ships from the east bank with low firepower (eight medium and small-caliber artillery per ship) can basically It is impossible to prevent the Qing army from crossing the river.Here, they can really only harass them symbolically.

"It's best to send someone to Zhenjiang on the opposite side to see if we can get in touch with Zheng Hongkui." Mo Ming suddenly said to Xiao Xi again, "Forget it, I'll find someone to handle this matter myself. You get someone to go ashore first The officers and soldiers of the self-propelled team should withdraw to the boat, and it would be meaningless to stay in Guazhoudu any longer."

(End of this chapter)