The counteroffensive launched by the Dashun Army in Huaiqing Prefecture, Henan Province on October 15th was not the same as the local counteroffensive known as the Huaiqing Counterattack in history. It just happened in a similar location.
The scale of the Huaiqing counterattack in history was quite limited. The Dashun Army had no more than 20,000 troops, and it was not Li Zicheng's elite main force. This time, the Huaiqing counterattack, commanded by Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo, invested a total of 40,000 elite soldiers from the old battalion!
In addition, this Huaiqing battle also went through careful planning and preparation! According to Li Zicheng's original plan, these 40,000 elite soldiers of the old battalion would suddenly attack and create a large outflank after the main force of the Qing army was attracted to the Guguan Great Wall.
To this end, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo spent more than a month preparing and collected the defense status of the Qing troops in Huaiqing, Weihui, Zhangde, Dezhou and other places.
In addition, they also sent people to contact Lu Daqi, the new Ming Dynasty governor of Henan who was stationed in Wupingwei, Bozhou (belonging to Fengyang Prefecture), and requested to join forces in the Northern Expedition.
Although Lu Daqi did not agree to send troops, he still agreed to a truce and sent a letter to Liu Liangzuo, the commander-in-chief of Henan Province, and Xu Dingguo, the commander-in-chief of Guide, so that they could prepare for war and station a force in Xiaosongji, located in Kaifeng Prefecture (located north of the Yellow River). , to frighten the Qing army in Daming Mansion.
Because they were very well prepared, the troops invested were large and sophisticated, and Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo also adopted tactics of showing weakness and luring the enemy. The Dashun army was disguised as Wangwushan bandits. After occupying Jiyuan County and Huaiqing Fucheng, they did not publicly display the banner of Dashun. Instead, they displayed the banner of the chief military officer of Huaiqing Town in the Ming Dynasty and asked the garrison to guard it. Zu Kefa of Hui Mansion (the adopted son of Zu Dashou) mistakenly thought that the bandits on Wangwu Mountain were recruited by the Henan Governor's Yamen in the Ming Dynasty.
In order to clear away the suspicion of being transparent, Zu Kefa did not dare to delay for a moment and led his troops to recapture Huaiqing Mansion. However, like Jin Yuhe, he ran into the ambush set by Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo. The three to two thousand people he brought were also wiped out, and even Zukfa himself was made a prisoner.
Immediately afterwards, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo took Zukfa hostage and attacked Wei Hui Mansion. They did not use the banner of Dashun, but the banners of Liu Liangzuo, the commander-in-chief of Ming Dynasty in Henan, and Xu Dingguo, the commander-in-chief of Guide. As a result, the gentry in Weihui City were deceived into thinking that the Ming Dynasty had counterattacked, and they were unwilling to help the prefect sent by the Qing Dynasty to defend the city. Wei Hui Mansion was immediately attacked by the Dashun Army again!
After capturing Wei Hui Mansion, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo openly took up the banner of the Dashun Army and led an army of 35,000 into Zhangde Mansion and Daming Mansion like a tide! Zhu Guozhu, the commander-in-chief of Zhangde, and Zhang Yutian, the famous prefect of the Qing Dynasty, were caught off guard and both were defeated. Anyang in Zhangdeshou County and Yuancheng in Damingshou County all fell into the hands of the Dashun Army.
At the same time, the main force of the three Qing armies that invaded Taiyuan and Datong Prefecture also encountered a lot of trouble.
In the direction of Taiyuan Prefecture, because Wu Sangui and Azig both wanted to preserve their strength, they did not pursue Li Zicheng. This allowed Li Zicheng to withdraw his entire army to Taiyuan.
Duduo's troops heading south from the North Road were blocked at Shiling Pass north of Taiyuan Fucheng and were blocked by Chen Yongfu for two days. Therefore, they lost the opportunity to outflank and cut off Li Zicheng's retreat.
The delay of these two days caused the Qing army to temporarily lose control of the movements of Li Zicheng's main force. So when Duduo, Azige, and Wu Sangui met at the foot of Taiyuan City, they didn't know if Li Zicheng had withdrawn into Taiyuan City?
On the other hand, Li Zicheng used these two days to strengthen Taiyuan's defense. Shanxi patrol commander Li Ruoxing and Shanxi Jiedu envoy Han Wenquan were left behind to form the general Chen Yongfu's army. A total of 25,000 troops were left in Taiyuan, 3,000 of whom were veterans of the battle.
Because Li Zicheng left enough garrison troops in Taiyuan, Chen Yongfu not only garrisoned the isolated city of Taiyuan, but also built camps on the east mountain and on the west bank of the Fen River. Let Li Ruoxing and Han Wenquan lead their troops to establish a stronghold.
This caused a lot of trouble for Wu Sangui who was trying to besiege the city. Azig and Duduo were worried that Li Zicheng was still in Taiyuan, so they did not dare to lead their troops to leave immediately. Instead, they led their troops to guard Taiyuan City. At the same time, Wu Sangui was asked to capture Qingyuan, Jiaocheng, Wenshui, Xugou, Taigu, Qixian, Pingyao and other places near Taiyuan City.
The delay of Duduo's troops at the gate of Taiyuan City also affected the war in Datong Prefecture in the north. What was supposed to be a north-south pincer attack turned into Hauge's solo attack from the direction of Xuanfu. Without going too far, the Zhenlu Guards at the junction of Datong and Xuanfu were blocked by the Ming army who had just divided their fields!
Just when the three Qing armies attacking Shanxi suffered temporary setbacks, the armies of Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo entered Beizhili territory aggressively.
The originally clear situation became very confusing within a few days!
...
October 20, Nanjing.
Wu Ruzheng, the general envoy of the General Affairs Department, went straight to the Dagong Hall of Dagongfang early in the morning with the Tang newspaper he had just received from the Henan Governor's Yamen.
When he arrived at Dagong Hall, he discovered that he was not the first to arrive. Zhu Chunjie, the commander of the Jinyi Guard, Cao Youyi, the commander of the Military Guard, and Wu Sanfu, who had just been transferred to the commander-in-chief of the Beijing camp, had already arrived.
Before Zhu Cihong himself came out, Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi and Wu Sanfu called Wu Ruzheng, who hurried over.
"Marquis Gongshun, is there a report from the North?" Wu Sanfu, the uncle of the state, asked.
"The Tatars in Henan's Tangbao seem to be in trouble..." Wu Ruzheng knew that Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu were all Zhu Cixiang's most trusted guards. The Tangbao he had just received had to be copied to these three. So there is no need to hide anything.
By the way, the confidentiality work of the General Affairs Department of the Ming Dynasty is now much better than before!
All edicts, writings and reports are divided into four confidentiality levels: A, B, C and D. Except for D-level documents similar to "announcements" that can be viewed at will, the other three levels of edicts, writings, and memorials can only be viewed by designated officials.
In addition, the Military Order Guard and the Jinyi Guard have their own independent information transmission systems. The former is used to transmit military orders from the Grand Marshal's Palace and military reports from the new army to overcome difficulties, while the latter is a secret intelligence transmission channel.
Wu Ruzheng placed the box for storing memorials that he brought with him on the table, then took the tea bowl from a waiter, Xiao Huangmen, took a sip of tea, then picked up the cakes on the coffee table and took a bite. After a while, he continued: "The Tartars seemed to have been tricked by the rogue bandits, and all the soldiers were lured into Shanxi. And the rogue bandits' 100,000 elite soldiers crossed Wangwu Mountain and attacked Huaiqing Mansion, and then went north to attack Wei Hui and Zhangde. , great name, powerful and invincible... In addition, according to Zu Kefa's account, the Tatars also sent a large army from Xuanfu to invade Datong!"
"Zukefa?" Wu Sanfu was stunned, "What's going on?"
"He was caught by the bandits and put in a prison car and sent to Guide Mansion. Lu Futai went to Guide himself and interrogated Zukefa there."
This Zukefa was really unlucky. Not only was he captured alive, he was also used to deceive Wei Hui's Qing army. Now he was even treated as a gift and sent to Guide Mansion for Liu Liangzuo, Xu Dingguo and others to visit.
"Is there such a thing?" Wu Sanfu took a breath, "It seems that the rogue bandits who invaded Beizhili are really elite soldiers!"
"His Royal Highness the Prince of Fujun has arrived!"
The eunuch's roll call suddenly sounded, and several people in the lobby stood up one after another, and then stood up according to their official positions. When they saw Zhu Cihong coming out, they kowtowed together.
Zhu Cixiang waved his hands to them and said with a smile: "Sit down, everyone, sit down."
Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu all took their seats, while Wu Ruzheng handed the box containing the memorial to Huang Xiaobao with both hands. Huang Xiaobao opened the box and saw two memorials inside, so he took them out and placed them on Zhu Cixi's imperial desk.
Zhu Cihong picked up the first memorial, which was from Lu Daqi, the governor of Henan. The content was what Wu Ruzheng said just now, and Zhu Cixiang read it quickly. Then he picked up the second memorial, which was jointly signed by Shi Kefa, the governor of seven provinces, and Gao Hongtu, the governor of Shandong. In the memorial, the two proposed to wait for an opportunity to expedition northward and conquer Shenjing.
