Chang Yu did not show off and said calmly: "If Qingzhou does not surrender, the Tatar vanguard may attack by force, but if he wants to attack by force, he must prepare something, and whether he attacks or not, he must prepare for the main force in the rear, so in addition to the survey of the terrain and what you mentioned, In addition to collecting intelligence, they also need to cut down trees and build siege equipment. If the siege of the city by the army from the rear can frighten Qingzhou into opening its doors and offering sacrifices to the city, that's it. If they can't be frightened, they will attack by force. Those guys have to be prepared in advance, otherwise they will wait until Dorgon When it comes to rebuilding, the Ming army will arrive at the rear after the construction is completed...it will delay the fighter plane."
Chen Suole and others nodded after hearing this.
"Therefore, the Tatar vanguard may not have time to harass everywhere when they are busy with these things. Of course, the possibility of coming to Lazi is not ruled out, but they will definitely not come all at once. According to the governor's estimate, there will be dozens to more than a hundred riders. We have more than enough manpower to cope with this."
Everyone laughed.
Chang Yu said: "Secondly, you still don't know much about Jia Waixiong and Lao Jiu. Although the governor told them to just defend the city, how can they sit still in the city honestly if the Tatar army It's no problem here, the vanguard only has more than 2,000 people, and they have to go out of the city to sneak attack on many enemies, so the Tatars have no time to be around."
Everyone laughed, Chang Yu looked up to the sky, and pointed to Linzi in the night: "Last point, we are not guarding the city with just these people, but the entire city!"
Everyone is responsible for the national disaster. This kind of justice is too noble. But if their homes are robbed, any bloody people will take up arms to defend their homes and protect the lives of their families.
After listening to his words, Chen Suole and others were filled with admiration. The young eunuch was inferior to them both in terms of martial arts and resourcefulness. They secretly praised how such a young prodigy could come out of nowhere.
"Then we can rest assured and wait for General Li." The soldiers breathed a sigh of relief, but Chang Yu smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Don't worry? Don't even think about it. We can't relax at this point. Although the Tatar vanguard may not come, but When the main force of the Tatars arrives in a few days, tens of thousands of troops will be overwhelming. Linzi is so close that it is inevitable that a small group of Tatars will come to harass us. Please sharpen your knives and wait."
"If a small group of Tatars come over, we brothers will really not be afraid." Chen Ruxin sneered, and a group of soldiers nearby echoed loudly. Suddenly there was a loud noise in the city, and Chang Yu booed: "Don't scare the people, at least let them Just sleep well for the rest of the night, I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep or eat well for half a month at dawn tomorrow."
But in fact, at this time, a small number of people in the city were having trouble sleeping and eating, including those wealthy squires. As soon as the young eunuch left the county government office, Zou Fengji ordered the government servants to go to various places in the city to invite people. For a while, dogs barked outside the gates of large houses in the city.
Li Shiyuan went up to the top of the city and saw the young eunuch sitting on the ground leaning against the wall and talking to his soldiers and bragging. He was stunned for a moment. Is this really the great eunuch of the East Factory of the Ming Dynasty? But they really don’t look alike at all.
"Li Shoubei, how was their chat?" Chang Yu saw him and waved.
"It is inconvenient for me to interrupt this matter. His Royal Highness is the one negotiating. However, we have already agreed to borrow some in the name of Prince Heng's Palace, buy some and the rest will be donated by the people in Linzi City."
Chang Yu smiled slightly: "His Royal Highness may seem loyal, but he is actually a shrewd man. Is he really taking care of everything?"
Li Shiyuan chuckled: "The factory governor is very accurate in judging people. His Royal Highness also told Zou Zhixian and others that if large households are unwilling to donate grain, they can pay for it with money. The factory governor has never mentioned this before."
Chang Yu laughed, Zhu Cian had a good abacus. These days, food is more expensive than silver and gold. Some large households would rather donate silver to pay for food, but he never thought that Zhu Cian would use the money they donated to buy their food! Anyway, Chang Yu has already said that he will not be involved in money or food, so it is not up to Prince Heng's palace to decide how to make trouble in the middle.
But Chang Yu doesn't care what they do, as long as the soldiers are paid and have food rations in the end, you can do whatever you want with the rest.
After chatting in the city for a while, Chang Yu and Li Shiyuan went to the armory under the leadership of the Yamen servants. They were surprised. Although Linzi County had no guards, it was well equipped with four to five hundred knives and hundreds of bows. Yu Zhang has thousands of arrows and hundreds of cannonballs, more than Qingzhou.
Chang Yu was very puzzled that there was so much inventory in a small and small land without soldiers and generals. Li Shiyuan explained that there were originally garrison troops in Linzi. In the 15th year, the Qing army came to Qingzhou Prefecture to raid, and he transferred the garrison troops to guard Qingzhou. After the First World War, only 800 people were seriously damaged in the city. There were no troops to guard Linzi. The rogue bandits even took advantage of the loophole and destroyed all the county offices. The former magistrate was transferred after the county was rebuilt. Zou Fengji worked hard after taking office to achieve such achievements.
In this way, Zou Fengji is indeed a rare capable official. Chang Yu nodded secretly.
It was already early in the morning. Seeing that Li Shiyuan was tired, Chang Yu asked him to go to the county office to rest. After all, he was too busy running around this day.
one day? Chang Yu was suddenly startled and couldn't help but smile bitterly. Indeed, he had only been in Qingzhou for a day. He had been busy except for taking a nap in the afternoon, but it seemed that a long time had passed and he had done a lot of things. However, in reality, it had only been one day. .
Chang Yu slept all afternoon, and the soldiers slept almost all day. At this time, he was not sleepy, he was very energetic but had nothing to do, so he went up to the top of the city to enjoy the breeze, looked at the night sky due to the north, and talked about Li I don’t know where Yan is now.
Hundreds of miles away in the same time and space, Li Yan also didn't sleep, not because of the pain of the wound but because he was currently encountering an extremely difficult matter that left him helpless and upset.
As Chang Yu expected, the shortage of military rations became Li Yan's biggest headache. The little eunuch slapped his ass and left. He led the army to pursue Dorgon. At first, he was lucky that the food and grass could still last for three days. We should be able to get to Qingzhou. As for how to get food in Qingzhou, we will talk about it in the fields.
But the day after the little eunuch left, he realized something was wrong. He couldn't reach the outside of Qingzhou City in three days. It wasn't that he didn't want to leave, but Dorgon simply wouldn't let him leave.
Dorgon knew that the Ming army had seen through his intention to go straight to Qingzhou, so he sent a vanguard to the lower city. Then he ordered Kong Youde to lead an army of more than 10,000 people to the rear, holding back the Ming army behind and letting them come. Unable to rush to aid Qingzhou, secondly, it kept the Ming army away from the main force so that he could loot along the way.
In this way, for almost a day, the army led by Li Yan hardly moved an inch. In other words, when Chang Yu entered Wudi County and discovered the Qing army's vanguard troops, Li Yan was still in Hancun (today's Huanghua City) east of Cangzhou. Confronted with Kong Youde's troops, but Dorgon led the main force to leave all the chickens and dogs in the surrounding villages and towns along the way, and robbed them as they went.
Although Li Yan had more than 30,000 cavalry and Kong Youde only had more than 10,000, he did not want to fight with him. He even knew that even if he tried his best, he would only be half-matched, and there was no point in increasing casualties. Kong Youde obviously thought so too, so the two The armies were facing each other less than ten miles apart.
This was not an option. Huang Degong jumped up and down in a hurry and asked for a fight. Li Yan was hesitant. Zhou Yuji was also unable to make a decision. He clearly saw through Dorgon's intention, but he could only spend so much time. He watched helplessly as he grabbed and headed towards Qingzhou. As they walked further and further away, the three of them were angry and helpless.
We have to fight in the end, otherwise it will be difficult to break the siege of Qingzhou, and we will starve to death if we stay in this deserted wilderness without food or water.
But Li Yan also knew that even if he fought, it would be impossible to defeat the Qing army in one fell swoop. The best he could do was to move forward. But if he did this, he might not be able to reach Qingzhou in ten days, let alone three days. In other words, if there was no food and grass after three days, there would be no need for the Qing army to fight. I wanted to break down.
Then we have to fight!
After Li Yan, Zhou Yuji, and Huang Degong discussed it, they decided to give Kong Youde a big scene. Tu Yuan, Hao Yaoqi, and Ji Jike were the vanguard and led a frontal attack with 10,000 men. Huang Degong and Zhou Yuji each led 10,000 from the two wings. Outflank, and at the same time sent more than a thousand cavalry to the west to Cangzhou to borrow food.
Li Yan had no choice but to go to Cangzhou to borrow food. There was the sea to the east, Tianjin was too far behind, and the Tatar locusts were crossing the border in front of him. Even if he passed, there would be no one left. The only city to the west was Cangzhou.
Cangzhou is also very lucky. Some time ago, the rebel army went north. Although it was located in the east, it was affected but its foundation was not damaged. The rebel army did not enter the city. This time, the Qing army went south to plunder because they went to Qingzhou and they clashed with it. We passed by each other and were saved from disaster twice, and now our own people come to ask for food.
"What if I don't want to borrow food?" Cheng Ming, the commander of Tengxiang Guard who was responsible for borrowing food, asked Li Yan.
