All these constitute an unsolvable mystery. [No pop-up novel website] It also makes the rebels always fearful of the Qimu Island forces.
Kong Youde slowly stuffed the stack of paper into his arms and asked, "Why did the owner of the village tell the officers and soldiers where the grain stand was?"
Chen Sigen smiled slightly: "If you think it is useful, use it. If you think it is useless, burn it with fire."
Kong Youde didn't give up: "To be honest, I'm still a little confused about this... Could it be that I'm asking you to put yourself in an urn?" He wanted to provoke the other party so that he could get some words out of him.
Chen Sigen still smiled slightly: "Is it necessary to invite you to enter the urn?" His expression changed and he sneered, "If so, your head had been spread all over the world a few months ago, so why wait until today? !”
This was said in a very rude manner and extremely arrogant. Kong Youde was filled with anger, but he knew that the other party was not talking nonsense, so he suppressed the anger in his heart, cupped his hands and said, "Thank you very much, Mr. Luzhuang. Kong took his leave." After that, he stood up and left.
After receiving this information, Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde discussed that they might not have much time to continue to defend the city. Among the official troops there were the elite Guan Ning Army, and among them there were 2,000 Yiding who were known to be the most adept at fighting. They were Mongolian and Houjin soldiers who rebelled and surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. They were absolutely no match for our side in the wild battles. The Battle of Beima Town had fully demonstrated that the mounted infantry they had improvised by plundering livestock was no match for the field cavalry.
As a result, a surprise attack on the grain platform to force the officers and soldiers to retreat became their only possible option other than escaping across the sea.
However, the rebels' area of activity has now been reduced to Dengzhou. If they want to rob grain in Qingzhou, they must cross the border of Laizhou. This is a very risky matter. There are now thousands of officers and soldiers led by Sun Yuanhua, Zhang Tao and others in Laizhou City - they are Shandong soldiers and Nan soldiers who are jealous of them, if they stop them. No matter whether they go or return, they will cause serious losses, and the entire sneak attack force may be wiped out.
The two discussed it over and over again, and finally decided that it was not too late. Taking advantage of the opportunity that the officers and soldiers had just arrived at the city and had not yet formed an encirclement, and it was snowing heavily, and there were very few people moving in the wild, they dispatched the cavalry to launch a surprise attack on Qingzhou. In one fell swoop, the officers and soldiers' food stands were burned down.
The plan was decided, with Kong Youde's retainers as the core, and the retainers of various former Dongjiang generals were secretly mobilized, a total of 600 elite cavalry, and each of them had a good meal. Wearing to keep out the cold. Rewarded with silver. Each person is equipped with a horse and a mule. Carrying six days of dry food and horse supplies with him, he took advantage of the heavy snowfall to quietly open the city gate and secretly march along the coastline.
It snowed heavily all the way, and the goose-feather-like snow quickly covered the traces of the people and horses. In the cold weather, the officers and soldiers' pond horses no longer conducted sentinel inspections far away. Kong Youde's 600 troops had a smooth journey. They entered Qingzhou territory without suffering any major losses.
Although Qingzhou is the third prefecture in the East, due to the success of Laizhou's city defense battle, the damage suffered in the Denglai Rebellion was much less than that of Deng and Laizhou. Except for the fact that it was plundered by the rebels who returned to Dengzhou at the beginning. Too outside. After that, it was relatively peaceful, instead of being deserted and deserted for thousands of miles. Naturally, the alertness of the officers and soldiers was also much worse.
Kong Youde led the cavalry to suddenly appear in Qingzhou and broke through a series of grain harvesting locations such as Zhuqiao and Huangshan Pavilion. After burning tens of thousands of stones of grain and grass transferred by the officers and soldiers, Yang Jin of Qingzhou Road led his army to fight in a hurry. Defeated and killed. The Shandong camp, which had planned to "take all the credit" for a while, suddenly became chaotic.
This winter was already very cold. In November, it was already snowing heavily. In addition, the sea breeze was biting and the sergeant was exposed to the snow and frost. His skin was chapped and he suffered very much from the cold winter. However, the officers and soldiers who entered the suppression campaign did not even prepare enough winter clothes. Zhu Dadian and Xie Sanbin sent people to prepare cotton clothes and leather jackets, and also collected reed mats and shochu wine to reward the sergeants. They also distributed silver rewards many times in an effort to stabilize the morale of the troops.
However, rumors that the food had been burned suddenly appeared. Before they could find out the source of the rumors, an urgent messenger from Qingzhou had already arrived at the camp.
This was like a bolt from the blue to Zhu Dadian and others - the weather was cold and the ground was freezing. Tens of thousands of soldiers were forced to retreat under the fortified city, and they were deprived of food. They were suddenly in a desperate situation where the entire army was annihilated!
After receiving this urgent letter, Zhu Dadian immediately summoned the ministers and generals in the camp to discuss countermeasures. All the generals agreed: taking advantage of the fact that there are still four days of food in the camp, we should break up the camp and retreat to Laizhou, Qingzhou and other places in order to obtain food nearby. Wait until the food road is restored and march again.
Zhu Dadian was still hesitating - he had worked hard for this siege of Dengzhou. Seeing that the rebels had become a fish in the bottom of the cauldron, something suddenly happened that the food route was cut off. According to the urgent report from Qingzhou, the rebels seemed to have sent a group of rangers to attack various grain stations in Qingzhou.
Since the enemy's attack is just a sneak attack without rear support, it will not last long. There are still four days of food in the camp. If emergency preparations can be made, the situation of besieging Dengzhou can still be maintained. At this time, he thought of the owner of the Deer Village. He had already promised to send a thousand shi of food. If he thought about it, he could ask him to send another several thousand shi more. It is said that he recruited tens of thousands of people into exile in the Zhaoyuan area, so he must have a large amount of food in stock. Huang County is not far from here...
Therefore, he did not immediately order the troops to retreat. Instead, he asked the generals to return to their respective camps temporarily and guard the camps, waiting for orders.
After the generals resigned, Zhu Dadian immediately sent a flying horse to Laizhou and asked Sun Yuanhua to send troops to first raise a batch of grain in Laizhou City and transport it to the camp to stabilize the morale of the army. He continued to discuss with several important staff, estimating various difficult situations that might be encountered and thinking of some ways to deal with them. During the discussion, I suddenly heard the firing of cannons in Dengzhou City, and bursts of cheers.
Zhu Dadian frowned and asked:
"Why all the noise?!"
For a moment, the noise in the city seemed to spread to the camp, with people shouting and horses neighing, and it was chaos. Jin Guoqi, the commander-in-chief of the Liao army in the Dengzhou campaign, suddenly came into the tent and said hurriedly:
"My lords, please mount your horses quickly, the situation is not good!"
"Why are you so alarmed? Tell me!"
"For some reason, all the camps learned that the food route was cut off, and the soldiers started clamoring to leave. The generals could not hold them back, and were being dragged away by the rebels. Now the battalions are frightened and their momentum is collapsing. The situation is extremely critical. Please hurry up, sir. Mount your horse, just in case.”
Zhu Dadian forced himself to calm down: "Go quickly and issue a strict order. The men and horses in each camp are not allowed to panic or move. They must stay calm and guard the camp. Anyone who dares to abandon the camp and flee will be killed without mercy!"
"Yes, follow the order!" Jin Guoqi turned around and left.
While Zhu Dadian was anxious, Zu Dashou came on horseback with a group of soldiers, dismounted in front of Zhu Dadian's tent, hurriedly saluted with his hands, and said loudly:
"My lord, please move the camp immediately! The rebels have rushed out of the city, please lord, please leave quickly!"
"The rebels have become a fish in the bottom of the cauldron, don't worry." Before he finished speaking, he heard the rumble of artillery in the city - the rebels in the city rarely fired artillery these days, but now they suddenly started firing intensively, and the shells roared and flew. Towards the main camp, the chaos in the camp increased.
Just as Zhu Dadian was about to speak, the sound of war drums, trumpets, and conch shells suddenly sounded from the enemy camp. Then, there was the sound of thousands of troops galloping and shouts of killing. Everyone could hear it: the rebels in Dengzhou City had already mobilized to rush towards the camp. Zu Dashou urged: "My lord, please move the camp quickly before we make any further calculations."
The day after Kong Youde's successful sneak attack, Li Jiucheng received a message in the city from the emissary sent by the owner of Luzhuang that the sneak attack was successful. He was still doubtful and did not take any action. However, he ordered his generals to be vigorous and ready to go out of the city to fight at any time.
On this day, it was suddenly reported that people in the officers and soldiers camp were shouting and neighing, and it was a mess. I knew that something must have happened in the camp - the news that the food route was cut off had probably spread to the camp. Li Jiucheng himself was a former Liaodong general and knew Guan Ning's behavior very well. He knew that this must be General Guan Ning running away in a critical situation. He laughed evilly and said: "God is really helping me!" He immediately ordered the whole city to beat drums and fire cannons, and sent many soldiers all over the city to shout: "The food route for officers and soldiers has been cut off!"
Then he fully clothed himself, personally led some elites as the vanguard, and led 30,000 infantry and cavalry to attack the camp, hoping to take advantage of the chaos to defeat the main force of the Shandong camp in one fell swoop.
At this time, the Guanning battalions, which had the strongest combat power in the camp, had already begun to flee, and the remaining troops from the towns in Sichuan, Hebei, and Shandong also fled. For a time, the battalions were in chaos and scrambled to flee. Zhu Dadian, Xie Sanbin and others He was held hostage and helped onto the horse's back, and they fled together with the horse.
It was snowing and the ground was freezing. Most of Guanning's troops were cavalry and had already escaped first. Most of the other towns were infantry. They could hardly move on foot in the snow. When the rebels caught up with them, they suddenly fled like birds in fear. No resistance. The rout and pursuit continued into the night. Many officers and soldiers were killed or captured, and countless more were scattered in the chaos.
Zhu Dadian and others were almost caught up by the rebels during their escape, and they had the idea of committing suicide several times. The most critical time was when all the soldiers around him were scattered. Fortunately, at this time, a cavalry group under the banner of Qimu Island Suddenly appeared, a row of muskets fired over, killed the rebels, and picked them up.
Zhu Dadian was in shock. He saw that there were only more than a hundred people on the other side, and the leader was just a young officer. Fan Yangli wore a thick felt on his head, a cotton robe, and a cloth belt around his chest and waist. The hundred knights around him were all dressed in the same attire as him, with muskets on their backs and sabers on their waists. Although he was not wearing armor, he looked heroic and very brave.
"Little man Huang Ande, please give your regards to the adults!" Hearing that the rescued person was the governor of Shandong, the visitor immediately rolled off his saddle and dismounted, came to Zhu Dadian's horse and saluted with a thousand salutes, "The adults are frightened!"
"It doesn't matter." Zhu Dadian felt reassured when he heard that the other party had a Shandong accent, and forced himself to calm down, "Thanks for the help, brave man!"
"My lord, please feel at ease. Lord Sun has personally led General Zhang to meet you from the front. I will escort Lord Zhu there!"
