Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Just when Wu Shigong was waiting impatiently, he did not expect to hear from the court, but he waited for a reply from Runing.But in this letter, there is shocking news reported by Deng Qifan.

When Xue Yongli successfully eliminated the two peasant armies of Gezuo Fifth Battalion and Zhang Xianzhong with the main force of the Runing Army, he turned his attention to the last and most powerful coalition army of Li and Luo.

At this time, Fu Zonglong, governor of the three sides of Shaanxi, led He Renlong, the commander in chief, and Li Guoqi, the deputy commander in chief, to enter Henan again to encircle and suppress the coalition forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai.Yang Wenyue, governor of Baoding, also led the general army Hu Dawei to cross the Yellow River again and enter Henan.But Zuo Liangyu's troops headed straight from south to north towards Li and Luo's coalition forces.In addition, Liu Zeqing, the commander-in-chief of Shandong, led [-] troops to transport troops through the Grand Canal and the Yellow River.Li and Luo's coalition forces were immediately besieged on all sides.

In order to severely injure this last peasant army, Xue Yongli sent [-] troops to entangle the main force of Li and Luo's coalition forces with Nanyang, Runing and Guide, but the Runing army did not rush to attack, they just wanted to attack. When other Ming armies from all walks of life arrived, they pressed Li and Luo's coalition forces to the "friendly army", trying to make them lose both sides.

But at this moment, the Battle of Songjin suffered a disastrous defeat, the entire Ming army was annihilated, and the news of the disappearance of Wu Shigong and the Runing Army of the Northern Expedition came back to Runing.This news shocked everyone in the Runing army.

The wives in the inner house were crying, needless to say, but the senior civil and military officers of the Runing Army started an urgent discussion. There were two key points in their discussion: First, what is the whereabouts of Wu Shigong?Second, if something unexpected happens to Wu Shigong, who will be the future leader of the Runing Army?

In view of Wu Shigong's prestige, and in order to maintain the unity of the Runing Army, the civil and military members of the Runing Army unanimously decided that if something happened to Wu Shigong, his direct descendants would inherit the position.But then, another problem arose.Which son of Wu Shigong should inherit?

There are three candidates - Xue Chenglin, Wu Chengying and Xue Chengping.

It should be said that Xue Chenglin, as the eldest son, is the natural successor.But Xue Chenglin is not in Runing, and he is in the capital, so he can easily be controlled by the Ming court. Therefore, Xue Chenglin is not a good candidate now.

In order, the next one should be Xue Chengping.But now Xue Chengping is fostered by Li Yuenu, and Li Yuenu's background is very humble, which in a disguised way lowered Xue Chengping's status.And because Xue Chengping's identity was strictly kept secret, many civil and military personnel in the Runing Army didn't even know that Wu Shigong had Xue Chengping's son.therefore.If he is pushed out, it may be very unconvincing, and it may even arouse the suspicion of some people in the Runing Army, causing the Runing Army to split.

As for Wu Chengying, his appearance will cause the military officers from the original Xue family to strongly oppose it.It is also an unstable factor that may cause division, therefore.Not a good candidate either.

So this way.This caused a dispute among the civil and military members of the Runing Army.Represented by Deng Qifan, most of the civil and military personnel of the Runing Army remained silent.In fact, they all don't care which son of Wu Shigong ascends the throne, as long as they are direct descendants of Wu Shigong.Therefore, these people are actually neutrals.

However, civil servants represented by Zhang Zhiheng, Wu Shigong's seventh brother Wu Shili, and Li Xin's brothers strongly recommended Wu Chengying for the throne.And their reasons are also very good: first, they want to maintain Wu Shigong's surname, and second, they have Wu Chengying's mother - Li Xin, who can listen to politics behind the curtain.There will be no power left.

Because most of the officers from the Xue family were on the expedition, so in Runing at this time, Wu Chengying's voice for ascension to the throne became the highest.

And as soon as the news reached Xue Yongli, who was commanding at the front, he immediately became anxious.at this time.It has become very unimportant to wipe out the coalition forces of Li and Luo. The most important thing is the issue of the successor of the Runing Army.

So Xue Yongli immediately ordered not to fight with the peasant army, and all the troops retreated to Runing to cover one by one.And Zhou Xun and Shumo led their troops to cut off the rear, and formed a line of defense outside the area controlled by the Runing Army to resist the invasion of the Li and Luo coalition forces.In particular, Xue Yongli strictly ordered: these two troops must not be transferred at will, let alone return to Runing, Guide and Nanyang.

Zhou Xun is the No. [-] figure in the Runing Army's military system, and Shu Mo used to be Wu Shigong's book boy, so both of them have a great say in the issue of successors.Xue Yongli just didn't let the two of them show up in Runing to prevent any complications.

Then, Xue Yongli hurried back to Runing with his direct troops.And the appearance of this giant of the Runing Army suddenly turned the wind direction to one side.With Xue Yongli's strong support, Xue Chenglin was temporarily respected as Wu Shigong's successor, and the Runing Army will form a group of representatives headed by Deng Qifan, Xue Yongli and others to jointly make decisions on all affairs of the Runing Army.

Fortunately, Xue Yongli still has a sense of propriety.Although he dispatched troops to put Zhang Zhiheng and others under house arrest, he did not harm their lives.As for Li Xin and Wu Chengying, they were imprisoned in the inner house.

However, this sudden change of the Runing Army brought about a huge change in the battle situation in Henan.The first is Zuo Liangyu.

Because Zuo Liangyu and Wu Shigong had a deep grudge, so when he went out to fight, he always paid close attention to the movements of the Runing Army, for fear that the Runing Army would make any moves and blackmail him behind his back.

So when Zuo Liangyu learned that the Runing Army had withdrawn, he retreated without hesitation.He ignored Fu Zonglong's order at all, and only wanted to stay as far away from Li, Luo Lianjun and Runing Army as possible.

And in this way, the Li and Luo coalition forces finally got their long-lost fighter opportunity.

At that time, Fu Zonglong was still chasing the Li and Luo coalition forces, and they didn't even know that a major change had taken place in the Runing army.At the beginning of September, [-] troops under the command of Fu Zonglong and He Renlong and Li Guoqi marched to Yanling, Henan Province, and joined the General Soldier Hu Dawei led by Baoding Governor Yang Wenyue.

After the peasant army got the news, they immediately deployed a battle plan. They decided to ambush the elite troops in the pine forest, and sent another team to cross the Yinghe River westward, creating the illusion of moving to Xuchang.

Sure enough, the officers and soldiers fell into the trick, thinking that the main force of the peasant army had crossed the river to the west, so they set up camp in Chenjiazhuang to rest.Officers, soldiers and soldiers scattered into the villages one after another to collect food and fodder for the people, and there were hardly any troops to speak of.The peasant army hiding in the woods took the opportunity to attack.The officers and generals hurriedly assembled the army, but in the haste, the army's morale was confused and they couldn't resist the enemy.

He Renlong and Hu Dawei pulled up their team and fled eastward, and Li Guoqi also fled after seeing the bad situation.The remaining two governors, Fu Zonglong and Yang Wenyue, led their immediate subordinate battalions into the siege of the peasant army.

That night, Yang Wenyue fled to Wei's under the protection of deputy general Zhang.But Fu Zonglong was helpless, on the one hand he ordered the soldiers of the standard battalion directly under him to dig the moat, in an attempt to stand firm and wait for help;

He and Li were secretly glad that they had escaped the siege of the peasant army, and they were not willing to sneak in again. They refused to return to the army for rescue under the pretext of "this book came from a thief, and no one knows that it is not a fake".Fu Zonglong's troops were helpless in the encirclement of the peasant army. After a few days, all the food, mules and horses were eaten up, and they relied on organizing commandos to drag corpses from the battlefield to satisfy their hunger.

Finally, the arrows and projectiles were exhausted, and Fu Zonglong knew that it was difficult to resist, so he led 6000 remnant soldiers to break through on the evening of the [-]th.Under the interception of the peasant army, the soldiers scattered.At noon the next day, Fu Zonglong led some stragglers and was caught up by the peasant army eight miles away from Weishi and became a prisoner.The soldiers of the Peasant Army took him to Wei's and shouted: "I, the officers and soldiers of Qin Du, please open the door to accept Qin Du", and prepared to capture Wei's with a camera.

But Fu Zonglong would rather die than submit. He shouted to the city that he was already a prisoner, surrounded by peasant soldiers, and he must not open the door.The plot to defraud the lieutenant failed to materialize, and the peasant army executed Fu Zonglong on the spot in a rage.This is the first governor to die at the hands of the peasant army.

In this fiasco of Wei's official army, the coalition forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai captured a large amount of armor and equipment, especially the surrender of a group of Shaanxi soldiers from Fu Zonglong's tribe, which made their momentum more and more powerful.With the addition of such a group of veterans of the Ming Dynasty, the troops of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai immediately had the core of becoming a strong army.

But at this time, Liu Zeqing, the general soldier of Shandong, came belatedly. Hearing that the army had suffered a disastrous defeat, he did not dare to advance, nor did he dare to retreat. He only dared to form a camp on the bank of the Yellow River.

The imposing peasant army immediately rushed towards Liu Zeqing's troops. The panicked Liu Zeqing immediately boarded the boat and fled, while the Lu army, which was fighting to the death, immediately collapsed, and countless people drowned on the Yellow River.Liu Zeqing's troops suffered yet another disastrous defeat. After the war, there were less than [-] Liu Zeqing's troops on board.

And this disastrous defeat gave Liu Zeqing a deeper understanding: "Brother Chang Jing is absolutely right! We should go back to Shandong and not be able to shrink back to preserve our strength!"

At this time, Runing had also learned the news of Wu Shigong's safety, but at this time the situation of the battle had taken a sudden turn for the worse.Li and Luo's coalition forces then took advantage of the momentum to conquer Shangshui, Fugou, Weichuan, Xuzhou, Changge and other counties in central Henan.

In October, the peasant army entered Nanyang and began to besiege Ye County.At this time, Zhang Biao, who was stationed in Ye County, was a major general short of troops and could only defend the city.And Zhou Xun, who finally let go of his hands and feet, also led an army to rush to Ye County.

Knowing that the Runing Army came to help, Li and Luo's coalition forces gave up attacking Ye County and began to attack Nanyang.And Xue Yongli, who understood that he was at a loss because of the changes in Liaodong, had already ordered Zhao Degong who was stationed in Nanyang: If the Shaanxi bandits are indeed powerful, the priority should be to preserve the strength of the Runing Army, and they can give up defending Nanyang City.

So under such circumstances, Zhao Degong fled back to Runing with the soldiers of the Runing Army stationed there, regardless of the officials in the city.On the fourth day of November, the peasant army conquered Nanyang, and the new Tang king Zhu Yumao was also executed. (To be continued..)