Chapter 306 Xiangluo died and camped on the back

Xiangyang is known as the "world pass" and is a heroic city between the north and the south. Its geographical location is extremely important. Yang Sichang supervised the troops of the five provinces to conquer Zhang Xianzhong, and Luo Rucai's troops and horse supplies were stored here.

The battle between bandits and officers and soldiers was mostly carried out in Sichuan, and Xiangyang City in Huguang always seemed quite calm. However, on the evening of the fifth day of the second month of the 14th year of Chongzhen, this peace was completely broken.

On the city tower at the west gate, a man with hair and hair was standing behind the chassis, looking at the fire everywhere in the city, shouting and crying in the city, standing on the city could also hear clearly. Behind him, a middle-aged man in a yellow robe collapsed there in a daze.

There were some samurai in strong clothes standing around. The man looked at the chaos in Xiangyang City for a while, turned around and picked up the jar of wine on the ground, patted the mud seal, poured a bowl of wine for himself and the middle-aged man in yellow robe, handed it to the middle-aged man, picked up the wine bowl and said in a deep voice:

"I want Yang Sichang's head, but he is far away in Sichuan. Today, he borrowed the prince's head and made this old man guilty of losing his relatives. Come, Prince Xiang, after drinking this glass of wine, go on the road!"

The middle-aged man was trembling like a sieve. A lot of wine was spilled out of the bowl in his hand. He put the bowl to his mouth stiffly and drank it down. Perhaps it was the wine that made people brave. After drinking the wine, the middle-aged man could say a few words and said in a trembling voice:

"My Zhu family's world, my family's world, just like this... that's it..."

The big man sneered a few times, raised his voice slightly and said:

"In order to feed your Zhu family, how many poor men have died in this world. Prince, please feel free to go on your way!"

Before he finished speaking, the big man threw away the wine bowl in his hand, pulled out his waist knife and slashed it, and blood spurted out.

On the fifth day of the second month of the 14th year of Chongzhen, the Eight Great King Zhang Xianzhong disguised himself as he entered Xiangyang. He rose up in the middle of the night and the whole city was in chaos. Zhang Xianzhong burned Xiangyang Prefecture, obtained all the military resources in the city, and killed King Xiang Zhu Zhu Yiming at the top of the city.

At this time, Li Zicheng broke into the camp and siege Luoyang, and the commander Yang Sichang led his army in Sichuan, while Li Meng from Shandong was still nervously preparing to send troops.

On February 19th, after Li Meng bid farewell to his family, he led 7,000 troops from the old camp to Jining Prefecture, Yanzhou Prefecture. The Yanzhou Army, which was composed entirely of Xinding, sent 5,000 troops, and Li Meng led a total of 2,200 troops to Henan.

After all the procedures that should have been passed, Li Meng went to Sun Chuanting's yard and said goodbye to Mr. Sun. Li Meng walked into the study with his clothes covered in his body.

But I found that the study room was much cleaner. At some point, two rows of bookshelves were erected by the wall, with various documents read by Sun Chuanting.

After Li Meng entered the house, what was more surprising this time was that Sun Chuanting, who spoke first, said coldly:

"Mr. Li is going to send troops to Henan!"

"That's right, the whole army will set off later."

Seeing the change in attitudes between Sun Chuanting in the room, Li Meng felt very happy. After he answered loudly, Sun Chuanting, who was sitting on the chair, stood up. Sun Chuanting was tall and not inferior to Li Mengye. After standing up, he sneered a few times and said:

"When these Shandong soldiers went to Henan, I'm afraid Luoyang City would have been lost long ago. What can I do if I go there??"

Li Meng laughed a few times and replied:

"There are so many big cities in Henan, and not just Luoyang. Could it be that Li Chuang, the Kaifeng city, won't attack? He will always have to go to rescue him."

Sun Chuanting was stunned and did not continue on this topic. He turned around and picked up a volume of this article, and said again:

"The Tartars' troops were going to besiege Jinzhou again, and Hong Chengchou also wanted to gather Jiliao's troops to rescue him. If you can't send troops to rescue Henan, the world is really interesting. There is nothing wrong outside, there is nothing wrong inside, there is nothing wrong inside, and there is nothing wrong in the outside world. The Tartars and Shaanxi thieves are really harmonious, and they will drag down our Ming Dynasty!"

Hearing this, Li Meng was stunned, but he didn't know how to interfere. The Ming Dynasty was the most unlucky dynasty in thousands of years. It was a continuous natural disaster, the uprising of large refugees, and the powerful barbarian enemies rising outside the white mountains and black waters. Various factors were superimposed together, which was how the declining Ming Empire could withstand it.

It was also under the joint efforts of several parties that decades later, the Chinese nation fell into darkness for hundreds of years and was distanced from the West in the long run of history. It was not until the founding of New China that it was breathing.

Can you make this darkness fade or let China avoid the hundreds of years of darkness ruled by the barbarians? This task is really heavy.

Li Meng laughed at himself. Before he knew it, his goal was to change this history from self-protection on that day, inventory in the troubled times, and living better.

Sun Chuanting's words made the atmosphere in the study very heavy, and Li Meng had no words to support him, but just hugged his fists and said:

"The world's general trend is already an irreversible situation. Li is also doing his best to go to Henan to rescue during this period. I hope Mr. Sun will consider whether he will come to help Li's plan. Let's say goodbye first."

"General Li is very confident. Let's go to Henan and return safely!"

It can be heard that Sun Chuanting still felt a sense of resentment in his heart. Li Meng, who walked to the door, laughed and said loudly as he walked:

"If I were not sure to return safely if I went to Henan, how could Li dare to invite Mr. Sun to Shandong rashly!"

On February 27th, Li Meng arrived in Jining Prefecture. According to the horse exploration report from Jiaozhou Camp, the ice on the Yellow River was already very sparse. According to the experienced boatmen, they would be able to set off in about three more days.

On the second day of March, after Li Meng held a simple ceremony, the entire Shandong army set off. It was a coincidence that the army had just set off for less than an hour.

Henan has already sent an urgent report. On February 16th, Luoyang City fell, and King Fu was trapped in the enemy and was beheaded by the thief.

In history without Li Meng, Luoyang City was already under attack by the rebel army in the first month of the 14th year of Chongzhen. Now, the army of the rebel king Li Zicheng is slightly less powerful, and it would have been a bit delayed to attack Luoyang City.

However, the defense of Luoyang City is almost a joke. General Wang Shaoyu is quite famous among the generals in Henan. However, this reputation is not the ability to march and arrange troops, but the ability to deduct military pay. Others deduct 60% of them, while he deducts 80% of them, and then 10% is sent to the personal soldiers. The remaining 10% is given to the soldiers in Luoyang City. Wang Shaoyu has a nickname "Tang Baqian". Of course, when calling him, this "Chen" is usually omitted.

Apart from being greedy and despicable, Wang Shaoyu had no ability. Yang Sichang supervised the five provinces and transferred a lot of troops from Henan, but he was not transferred. I think he had heard of this title.

Luoyang has not been peaceful these years and urgently needs troops to defend the city and guard the city. However, General Wang Shaoyu withdrew military pay. The soldiers clamored and mutinized several times for the deducted military pay, which became a major disaster in Luoyang City.

The prefect of Luoyang, the Tongzhi, and the Tongzhi, were really worried about paying wages, but most of the industries in Luoyang City were harbored under the name of King Fu, and they could not move, and they could not collect taxes. The areas outside the city were almost all of the industries of King Fu's Wangzhuang, and they had no money to collect them.

There is no extra money to pay the soldiers' wages? If you say that the civil servants such as the Luoyang prefecture are not without money, but that is private property. How can you pay the soldiers?

The only way is to ask the biggest rich man in the city to pay the money. The inside and outside the city are the property of the old man Fu Wang, so he has to spend money to protect the family.

But if this matter was not for the impending war and war outside the city, it would have almost become a huge joke. King Fu is richer than the world. There have been rumors among the people that "Luoyang is richer than the big country", but King Fu is unwilling to spend a penny of money to pay the soldiers guarding the city.

After Li Zicheng's army besieged the city and several dangerous situations occurred, King Fu Zhu Changxun reluctantly took out tens of thousands of taels of silver to pay.

The funny thing was still behind. The money was taken out, the housekeeper of the royal palace was deducted, the Luoyang magistrate and others deducted one according to the rules, and the general Wang Shaoyu deducted another one, and there was very little left in the hands of the soldiers. No one felt that they had done anything wrong, but they felt that it was just right. This is a common rule.

When Luoyang City was broken, there was no fierce battle. On February 15th, the peasant army besieged and attacked loudly in the northwest corner of Luoyang City. The officers and soldiers guarding the city wall killed the officers and civil officials who supervised the battle on the top of the city under the sound of the peasant army below.

General Wang Shaoyu jumped into the city wall to escape. The officers and soldiers opened the west gate of Luoyang City, and the peasant army swarmed in. After hearing that the city was broken, King Fu was lost and had nowhere to go. In the end, he could only go to Ying'en Temple adjacent to the Fu Palace. He was searched by the rebels that day.

The King of Fu, who is extremely majestic and known as the most noble vassal king in the world, could only kowtow repeatedly and ask for life. This was the first big city captured by Li Zicheng's camp. King of Fu is such a noble vassal, where his life would be surrounded.

The rebel army held the King of Fu to pieces in Luoyang City, and mixed the cut pieces of meat with venison and soaked them in wine. It was called "Fulu Wine". Everyone in Luoyang City fought for food.

The gold, silver and wealth in the Fu Palace were obtained by the Break Army. The Break Army used all the tens of thousands of stones of grain stored in the Fu Palace to help the hungry people. The hungry people in the western Henan ran to tell me. As a result, ten days after the Luoyang City was destroyed, the number of soldiers suddenly increased to 700,000.

When the Shandong troops led by Li Meng entered Guide Prefecture, Henan Province, the news came to Li Meng's team in Luoyang. At that time, Li Meng was discussing matters with Ma Gang and Zhao Neng on the ship, and the horses running along the coast passed the news to the ship.

The generals in the seat, when they heard the 700,000 troops gathered together, looked at each other. This number was too terrifying. Shandong soldiers only sent 22,000 troops this time. Even if they included Henan soldiers, it would not exceed 100,000, but the opponent had 700,000 troops at once.

But the reaction of Shandong soldiers was only to look at each other, afraid that they were not afraid. When Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangsheng and the rebel army fought against the rebel army, the Shaanxi chaos army had always been 100,000 or hundreds of thousands, while the officers and soldiers were only tens of thousands, but the officers and soldiers had never suffered any losses.

Hundreds of thousands of bandits were just a mob, and tens of thousands of soldiers were at least trained by some organizations, but Li Meng made a decision immediately:

"Since western Henan has become corrupt, our army does not need to target Luoyang. Since the bandits are breaking Luoyang, the next step must be to follow the Yellow River and attack Kaifeng. Our Shandong troops are limited to Kaifeng!"

Ma Gang, Zhao Neng, and Wang Hai, who was sitting in the lower head, Tang Er exchanged glances with each other, smiling without saying a word. Li Meng also looked relaxed when he said this. Yuan Wenhong, who was standing next to record, thought for a while, stepped forward and reported:

"If you want Governor Yan and Eunuch Chen who are accompanying the army to write a memorial, you can also give the big men in the capital a reason to make a statement."

Li Meng nodded in agreement. Yuan Wenhong over there had already written the resolution just now into a document and put it away and waited for it.

Governor Yan Jizu and the eunuchs sent by the capital were all following in the army. Governor led the troops as the rule of the Ming Dynasty, but Yan Jizu came this time just to go through the situation. The eunuch Chen Min is now like a prisoner in the Jiaozhou camp. Although his letter to the capital said that in order to urge the Shandong army to send troops, he was willing to take risks and go to the battlefield in person.

When the capital saw that he was willing to go to the front line, he naturally agreed. Emperor Chongzhen even praised Chen Min with Wang Chengen in private.

Who would have thought that Chen Min was completely controlled by Jiaozhou Camp. The secret memorials and secret messages could only be issued under the instruction of Jiaozhou Camp.

Controlling such a person has unexpected benefits. The pressure on Shandong was greatly reduced. No matter how Yan Jizu submitted a memorial to plead, Emperor Chongzhen felt that the Shandong governor was cheating and finding reasons to delay the dispatch of troops. However, the credibility of the eunuchs from this delegation immediately increased significantly. After the fall of Luoyang City, although he was also a harsh reprimand, his tone was lighter than when he urged to send troops.

Huang Ping's spies and sentry detectives composed of cavalry and cavalrymen follow the fleet every day to search and reconnaise along the coast, but the efficiency of this reconnaissance is far less than when he was in Shandong and Huaibei.

Henan suffered from famine and continuous wars, and thousands of miles of land. Except for some warehouses and cities on both sides of the Yellow River, it is difficult to find people in other places. When cavalrymen are spread out, they often encounter officers and soldiers and bandits. Both of these losses are quite large.

There were several days when I left the Yellow River for a day, and someone would disappear the next day and could not come back. In desperation, Huang Ping had to ask Li Meng for instructions. On the ground in Henan, whether it was officers and soldiers or bandits, the battlefield was the battleground that was the big cities on the bank of the Yellow River. All the enemies would not be too far from these points and lines, otherwise they would not be able to survive.

So Li Meng decided to narrow the scope of Jiaozhou Yingshou Investigation's search, just go on both sides of the Yellow River.

On the eighth day of March, Li Zicheng decided to take advantage of the opportunity when Governor Li Xianfeng and General Chen Yongfu led his army to rescue Luoyang City. Kaifeng City was vacant and led his troops to advance quickly, preparing to take advantage of this opportunity to capture Kaifeng City.

On March 12, 5,000 cavalry and 60,000 soldiers from the rebel army arrived at Kaifeng City and began to siege. Compared with the deterioration of Luoyang City Defense, Kaifeng City was the capital of a province after all, and Kaifeng City was one of the largest cities in the world, so it was quite effective in preventing it.

Under the leadership of the inspector and the prefect, the armed personnel in the city were mobilized and defended the city walls desperately until March 15th that Kaifeng City was not captured.

However, Chen Yongfu, the general of Henan in Luoyang City and Li Xianfeng, the governor, had already led his troops back. However, except for those who stayed in Luoyang, there were only more than nine thousand people. Li Zicheng came with the elite troops of the rebel army but was not afraid.

Sure enough, General Chen Yongfu did not dare to lead his army to fight in the camp, so he could only enter the city at the west pass of Kaifeng City and re-arrange his defense. The camp dug trenches outside Kaifeng City, built fortifications, and prepared to siege Kaifeng City for a long time. The aftermath of the death of King Fu of Luoyang did not dissipate, and the news of the siege of Kaifeng's army shocked the world again.

On March 19th, Li Zicheng inspected the city defense surrounded by his subordinates. He was shot at the front door by Chen De, a garrison hiding at the top of the city. Chen De was the son of Henan General Chen Yongfu. He was called a young general in Kaifeng City. He was known as a archer and horse. Li Zicheng hastily raised his left arm to cover the door.

The arm was shot into by an arrow, and he quickly pulled the person down. The people in the city couldn't see clearly, but they thought they had shot Li Chuang in the face. For some reason, news came out that Li Zicheng was shot blind in one eye, but King Chuang got the nickname "Blind Man".

The situation in Kaifeng City was so critical that Zuo Liangyu's tribe, in the direction of Nanyang Prefecture, rushed north, and Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding in northern Zhili, also led the troops from the capital to reinforce in the direction of Kaifeng City.

In this situation, the Shandong Governor Yan Jizu was a little amused and crying on the ship. He was urging so hard by the imperial envoy, but looking at the various troops supporting Henan, it was actually the first Shandong soldiers to arrive.

On March 22, Shandong soldiers landed on the Zhaopizhai Ferry in Lanyang County. After they got ashore, five thousand soldiers advanced about ten miles to set up a defensive formation. After the rest of the soldiers came ashore, they began to excavate fortifications and build military camps with the civilians and auxiliary soldiers on the ship.

Camping with the back water is the most taboo way to camp in military tactics. If the enemy comes, the soldiers will have to be drowned. When Liu Zeqing, the general of Caozhou, went to Henan to pacify the thieves, he did such stupid things, but was pushed by the rebel army, and the camp was defeated and many drowned.

But Jiaozhou Camp must do this. When the army operates, the military rations and supplies must be guaranteed. The Jiaozhou Camp's supply is carried out through the waterways of the Yellow River and the canal. Fortresses and warehouses that can resist the besiege must be built here on the shore to maintain the logistics of the army.

However, it seems that the soldiers in Jiaozhou camp are delicate and must be well fed. Why don’t the soldiers led by the general Zuo Liangyu, the governor of Baoding, do not need these?

But Jiaozhou Camp never relies on looting and remittance as a means of logistics supply, and his soldiers never eat human flesh...

Although Lanyang County has not fallen, the camp's provocate and sympathizers are also spread throughout the territory. At present, in Henan Province, except for the civilians in the big city, the rest of them are extremely hated by officers and soldiers, sympathized with or supported the riots.

Just eight hours after the Jiaozhou camp landed, news came from the Exploratorium that Li Zicheng had 20,000 troops, led by general Hao Yaoqi, rushed towards Lanyang County, preparing to drive Shandong troops into the river.

For Li Zicheng, the record of Shandong's troops dispersing the bandits "Song Jiang" troops last year was nothing. Song Dagang was completely a mob, and his current troops were all real elites. Moreover, he had a strong morale to break Luoyang City, and it was a good idea to defeat the official army.

Hao Yaoqi was one of Li Zicheng's most trusted generals. When Li Zicheng was killed by Sun Chuanting in Tongguan, more than a dozen cavalry fled into the mountains, but was besieged by the townspeople. Hao Yaoqi fought bravely and scattered the townspeople and rescued Li Zicheng. Hao Yaoqi was famous for fighting for his life. Hao Yaoqi never stings on his subordinates' lives. This desperate fighting style gave the Ming army officers and soldiers who were trying to preserve their strength a headache.

Except for 4,000 people in Jiaozhou Camp, the rest of the officers, soldiers and civilians were ordered to rest. The reason for using the word order was that many new recruits could not sleep at all, especially the 20,000 troops of the bandits were coming, which was even more nervous.

In fact, at night, the troops led by Hao Yaoqi did not dare to march. The soldiers who were mainly refugees were not very nutritious. Most of them had serious night blindness. Moreover, they marched at night, and in this uninhabited environment in Henan, the soldiers could easily not keep up with the soldiers.
To be continued...