Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 687

In the fourth year of Longwu, on February [-]th, banners flew outside the city of Nantong, filled with tens of thousands of horses from Lu Jianguo and Xie Qian, full of accents from Shandong, Lianghuai, Jiangnan, and Zhejiang.

The dispatch of troops this time is another major move by the regime of Lu Jianguo after the failure of blocking the Yangtze River. It is related to whether the King Lu Group can gain a foothold on land. The two most important ones came to sit in town.

As long as a few counties are obtained in Jiangbei, the influence of Lu Jianguo will definitely be strengthened. In order to support this operation, Lu Jianguo will ship all the more than 60 taels of silver obtained by blocking the Yangtze River to Guangdong, and entrust Wang Yan to help him go there. Nanyang buys grain.

Lu Jianguo sent [-] troops, led by General Zhang Mingzhen, and Zhang Huangyan, Minister of the Ministry of War, as the supervisor, to restrain Xie Qian's tens of thousands of horses and attack Nantong City.

Although Xie Qian has a large number of people, his quality is far inferior to King Lu's army. In addition, he has just joined King Lu, and Zhang Mingzhen is King Lu's most capable general, so he has no objection to Zhang Mingzhen commanding the war.

The army besieged the city for a few days, according to the usual practice, first shoot the book to surrender, and solve the problem with the lowest cost. You can't say that the opponent is a loathsome traitor, so you don't try to surrender, and you must attack as soon as you come up. This is a brain problem.

The law of war says that siege is the next step. If the enemy does not accept a letter of surrender, there is no loss. If you accept it, you can easily occupy the city. If the enemy is really a heinous person, it is not a big deal to find an excuse to kill him. big problem.

However, Liu Qingtai, the defender of Nantong, obviously had no intention of surrendering the city. The army had no choice but to attack by force.

At this time, Xie Qian and Zhao Shuxiang were walking between the barracks, and the siege equipment was almost built. Today, Zhang Mingzhen beat the drums and gathered the generals, calling many generals to his tent to discuss matters.

The joint operation of the two armies inevitably caused many troubles. While patrolling the barracks, the two headed for the Lu army camp at the foot of Wolf Mountain. Along the way, they passed various rebel camps. All kinds of siege equipment were in full swing in the barracks. The most conspicuous It's just a long ladder.

They passed through several simple camps, and a few generals of the volunteer army followed behind them. When they reached the camp to the east, a drum happened to be beating in Zhang Mingzhen's camp.

A few people stood outside the camp, seeing the dense banners and soldiers patrolling the camp of the Lu army, the whole camp was very organized, unlike the casual camp of the rebels, Xie Qian couldn't help feeling a little envious, and let out his confidence.

If all the people under his command were like this, then it would be no problem for him to sweep the Lianghuai and Shandong provinces, and even recover Yanyun, and become king and hegemony.

Many local leopards of the rebel army were slightly amazed in their hearts.At this time, the sound of gongs and drums suddenly sounded at the foot of Wolf Mountain, and the sound of trumpets came. Everyone looked up at Wolf Mountain, and saw a group of soldiers pulling a red barbarian cannon to the top of the mountain.

Seeing this, Zhao Shuxiang said to the crowd: "Master Zhang is going to set up artillery and look down at Nantong City. With this batch of artillery suppressing it, I don't think it will be a big problem to break through Nantong."

Everyone stayed outside the camp for a while, and then entered the big camp. Here you can see the Lu army fleet on the river. A large number of soldiers are adding guards to the ships, covering them with cowhide, and putting the long ladders on the ship tower.

Xie Qian and others came to Zhang Mingzhen's commander's tent, several elite soldiers were guarding outside, a large flag fluttered in the wind, with the word "Ming" in the middle, and next to it was written the Minister of the Military Department of the Navy Commander of the Great Ming Guanglu The supervisor Jiangnan Dingxi Hou Zhang has a scary title.

Although these official positions are just for the self-entertainment of King Lu's small court, they are enough to scare Xie Qian and others.

Everyone did not dare to neglect, and entered the tent respectfully. The tent was very large, and the handsome seat in the middle was empty, with a row of seats on each side. The supervisor Zhang Huangyan was wearing a scarlet official robe with a jade belt around his waist and a black hat on his head. Sha sat on the left, and then there was a group of officers in iron armor, red capes, plate helmets, and white feathers.

They sat neatly on the left side of the big tent, and when they saw Xie Qian and others coming in, they all turned their heads to watch, and their movements were neat.

This group of people had distinctive armor, like local rich owners, while Xie Qian's armor was different, with all kinds of tatters, just like the long-term labor of the landlord's family.

This made them feel the huge difference between classes, and made the tigers of the Lianghuai River a little bit ashamed, and a little bit uncomfortable.

Just at this time, the second drum sounded, Xie Qian hurriedly cupped his hands, and led a group of generals to sit on the right seat. The two sides sat like this, and there was no communication, and the difference was clear.

At this time, some rebel generals came in one after another, slowly filling up the seats on the right side, and almost all the people were there, just waiting for Zhang Mingzhen to come out.

After a long time, the third drum sounded. Zhang Mingzhen, wearing a fish-scale armor, a tiger headband around his waist, a phoenix-winged helmet on his head, a three-foot-long red feather, and a big red cloak, strode out from behind the screen. , sitting on the handsome seat in the middle, two elite soldiers stood behind him holding their sabers.

The same is Hou Ye, looking at his posture, he is authentic.

As soon as Zhang Mingzhen came in, the generals on both sides stood up together, and when he sat down, they saluted in unison: "See the supervisor!"

Xie Qian was conferred the title of Marquis of Gao Yuan in terms of title, but his title was much lower than that of Zhang Mingzhen, and in order to regain Xie Qian's team, King Lu specially added the title of supervisor to Zhang Mingzhen in order to control Xie Qian .

Zhang Mingzhen looked calm, waved his hands and said: "There is no need to be polite, generals, please take a seat!"

After hearing the words, all the people sat down together, and then the governor of the town began to roll their names one by one, starting with many generals of the Lu army, Ruan Jin, Ruan Mei, Liu Shixun, Zhang Mingyang, Ma Tai and other fifteen officers with more than a thousand households were present. , Xie Qian couldn't help but look to the end of the right row, there were still two empty seats, and he became anxious.

The rebel army developed too fast and its organizational structure was scattered. Xie Qian was the leader of the rebel army, but his subordinates also had their own troops, so it was difficult for him to enforce strict military regulations.
After the Fuguan ordered the Lu army, he began to order the rebel army. After the three-way drum, the count was just finished. It happened that the two generals of the rebel army outside the west city did not come. Xie Qian was about to stand up and explain, but the curtain was suddenly lifted. The general of the army hurried in and stood at the end of the rebel army.

Zhang Mingzhen gave the two of them a cold look, and asked, "Ding Mingwu, Wang Kuiguang?"

Zhang Mingzhen didn't know the generals of the rebel army, and he was talking about the two people he hadn't mentioned just now.

After hearing this, the two of them felt that the atmosphere was not right, so they came out a little timidly, and saluted Zhang Mingzhen, but Zhang Mingzhen waved his hand and said indifferently: "The governor beat the drum and gathered the generals, but the three links failed. I think you two are new. I don't know if you are in the army." General order, death penalty can be avoided, but the military order is like a mountain, go out and get fifty army sticks!"

The rebels are used to being careless, so how did they expect that when they came out like this, the two of them showed fear on their faces, and hurriedly explained: "Master, the two of us are outside the west city, and the distance is the farthest, so we came late. "..."

Zhang Mingzhen didn't listen to the explanation, he had to fight this board, there were tens of thousands of rebels, the military discipline was scattered, and there were many hills, if he didn't fight him, he couldn't build his prestige, if he didn't fight him, how could he lead these troops to attack Nantong.

Zhang Mingzhen waved his hand, "Supervisor, pull out!"

Seeing this, Xie Qian wanted to speak, but Zhao Shuxiang stopped him with his eyes.

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(End of this chapter)