The Huya Mountain area, about 180 miles away from Jiangling City, was called Xiaoting in ancient times. It is the junction of the Wushan Mountains that stretches thousands of miles and the Jianghan Plain that is as flat as a tabletop. It also blocks the Yangtze River waterway.
For Li Zicheng, who intended to follow Liu Xuande's example and enter Sichuan to open up a three-thirds of the world, Huya Mountain was undoubtedly a dangerous location that must be fought for and defended. And his opponents, whether it was Jin Shenghuan who was stationed in Yiling Prefecture (west of Huya Mountain) earlier, nor He Tengjiao and Wu Guoyong who stationed troops at Hukou Ferry later, or Zhu Cixiang who arrived in early summer, did not pay much attention to this important territory.
Li Zicheng was different. After he stationed in Jiangling, he immediately sent Li Guo to lead more than 10,000 elite troops from the rear army of the old camp to march westward to seize Huya Mountain before Jin Shenghuan, and then built the Huya Mountain Camp based on the mountain.
After forcing away Jin Shenghuan (Jin Shenghuan was transferred from the dangerous area of Yiling Prefecture by Zuo Mengmei in the name of King Chu) and seizing Yiling Prefecture and Guizhou (the west of the Three Gorges, also under the jurisdiction of Jingzhou Prefecture), Li Zicheng did not give up. Instead, the Huya Mountain Camp was used as a place to store grain.
In the previous melee at Jiangling, Li Zicheng's army captured about one million shi from the Chu Palace and the Zuo Army's grain reserves! Moreover, he also devoured hundreds of thousands of taels of silver accumulated by Zuo Liangyu and Zuo Mengeng. In addition to the income he gained from "fighting landlords and profiteers" in Chengtian, Hanyang, Jiangling, and De'an prefectures, the total was more than four million taels of silver, a large amount of copper coins, and countless silks, cloths, tea, etc. Salt and other supplies were packed up one by one and transported to the Huya Mountain camp for storage.
In addition, Li Zicheng also sent people to collect many ships west of the Jiangling Floating Bridge that could pass through the Three Gorges when the river water rose in summer, and they were also concentrated in Yiling Prefecture west of the Huya Mountain Camp.
This series of actions, on the surface, seems to be an attempt to use the dangerous Huya Mountain as the base for the Dashun Army to operate in Jingzhou. But in fact, he was secretly making two preparations - of course it would be best if he won the Battle of Jiangling, but what if he couldn't win? Then we have to go to Sichuan to seize Zhang Xianzhong's inheritance.
To enter Sichuan calmly, the gains and losses in Huya Mountain and Yiling Prefecture are the key.
Guizhou to the west of the Three Gorges is now in the hands of the Dashun Army, so the door to Sichuan is not completely closed. As long as the two dangerous points of Wushan and Qutangwei can be broken in the west, Kuizhou will basically be in hand.
The Ming armies in Chongqing and Kuizhou are now surrounded by enemies on both sides. They have been fighting hard with Zhang Xianzhong for many days. Moreover, their north (north of Kuizhou Prefecture) is also threatened by the Dashun army stationed in Hanzhong and Yunyang. It is impossible to capture them. Too difficult.
But Li Zicheng couldn't ignore his head. If Zhu Cihong chased and spanked him, then why would he go to Sichuan? Are you going to help Zhu Cihong wipe out the local rich and powerful in Sichuan Province?
So if things go wrong, someone will have to guard Huya Mountain for him to resist Prince Zhu's pursuit!
In the past few days, while the Jiangling front line was still calm, Li Zicheng simply left the Jiangling Palace and went to Huya Mountain to inspect the defense situation of the camp.
As he was riding up the hillside, looking at the vast land in the southeast, and thinking in his mind about how to defeat Zhu Cixiang and then take charge of the ups and downs, someone suddenly reported: "Your Majesty, the Second Military Advisor is here!"
"Gu Jun'en?" Li Zicheng lowered his head and looked down, and saw his second military advisor Gu Jun'en being supported by two imperial soldiers, panting heavily while trying to climb the mountain, and holding a handful of paper in his hand. After a while, Military Advisor Gu Er finally arrived.
Seeing Gu Junen panting and embarrassed, Li Zicheng's heart skipped a beat - what happened again?
This Gu Junen was usually considered to be literary and elegant, and he rarely became so angry. The last time he got anxious seemed to be the time when the Tatars took Datong and took the Taiyuan side... Could it be because of the Tatars!
Li Zicheng immediately asked: "Second Military Advisor, could it be that the Tatars are here to cause trouble again?"
Gu Junen just shook his head, looking helpless and anxious, and took a long time to catch his breath. Li Zicheng's camp was located in a valley at the foot of the western foot of Huya Mountain. When Li Zicheng went up the mountain to look at the scenery, Gu Junen was squinting in the valley.
While he was taking a nap in his tent, he received an urgent military report sent by Yuan Zongdi, who was sent six hundred miles to Tangma. After looking through it, I ran all the way here before I was fully dressed. I couldn't survive until I reached the mountainside. Fortunately, I met two soldiers from the imperial camp and asked them to help me get to the top of the mountain.
"Your Majesty! The Ming army has invaded Xiangjing Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture!"
When Li Zicheng heard this, he was more than half relieved, "It's no big deal, Xiangjing is not an ordinary city, it is a fortified city made of iron. Even if Zhu Cixiang had the Hongyi cannon, he could break it in a hurry. Can't reach the city.
There is no need to worry about Nanyang. Although it is not a fortified city, it is in the dry land of Zhongzhou. Unless Xiangjing is captured, there is no waterway to go. How can the cannons of the Red Thieves be transported? "
Gu Junen still shook his head, took another breath, and said in a deep voice: "The memorial from Lord Yuan said that after the vanguard of the Ming army broke into Biyang County and Zaoyang County, they posted notices everywhere, announcing that they were going to attack Xiangjing. In the territory of Nanyang Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture, the land was distributed equally, and people were also asked to sing songs: the gates were opened to welcome the prince, and the fields were divided when the prince came..."
"You, you, you, what did you say?" Li Zicheng was so shocked that he couldn't speak clearly. He just raised his finger and pointed, meaning to quickly show him Yuan Zongdi's memorial.
Gu Junen hurriedly handed over the memorial, "Your Majesty, I really didn't expect Zhu Cixiang to be so despicable. A prince of the Ming Dynasty would actually use his land to incite the common people!"
Li Zicheng took Yuan Zongdi's memorial, unfolded it and read it carefully, and then sighed: "Oh, Zhu Cixiang is a thief more treacherous than a traitor, more ferocious than a Tatar, and more deceptive than Li Zicheng!"
"Your Majesty," Gu Junen looked at Li Zicheng with his face confused, "What should we do?"
"What should I do?" Li Zicheng stamped his feet, "If the prince of the red thief goes to other places to incite the division of land, he will not be afraid at all, but the common people in Xiangjing and Nanyang cannot withstand such incitement. ah!"
What Li Zicheng did in Xiangjing and Nanyang was to enclose and grant farmland. Regardless of whether the land belonged to the landlords, gentry or poor and lower-middle peasants, all the land was enclosed and then distributed to his veteran soldiers and generals.
And although those old soldiers and generals all came from a poor background, once they turned over and became landlords, they were all more vicious than the original scholar-bureaucrats!
They all came to be landlords with their fists clenched and their eyes were red. How could they be polite to the tenants?
Besides, Li Zicheng didn't allocate land to his subordinates for free. He allotted the land to them because they had to bear feudal military service! This feudal military service is not something you can go into empty-handed. You have to prepare your own weapons, armor, horses, servants and a certain amount of food and grass.
While Li Ziyi gave the soldiers their own land, he also dumped the financial burden.
In this case, can the old brothers below go searching without red eyes? If you don't scratch it hard, how can they buy equipment? What to use to start a family and start a business? What to buy horses and hire servants for?
And who are they? They are outlaws who have rebelled and killed people, and their ability to suppress them is many times stronger than that of the original scholar-bureaucrats and landlords... They are not afraid of the poor and lower-middle peasants in resisting rent and interest.
So in the past year or so, the poor and lower-middle peasants in Xiangjing Prefecture have suffered a lot!
So much so that Li Zicheng couldn't bear to sympathize with the working people. After taking Jiangling, he simply stayed in Jiangling and never returned to Xiangjing. This is called out of sight but out of mind.
But now Prince Zhu directly took Li Zicheng's "script" to Xiangjing and Nanyang, and used the story of dividing the fields to mobilize the poor people who had been oppressed by the old camp owners for more than a year. This hit Li Zicheng's weakness. .
"Your Majesty," Gu Junen gritted his teeth, "How about we quickly return to the army and fight to the death with the Zhu Thief's troops!"
"Second Army Advisor, don't mess up the situation!" Li Zicheng glared at his messed up Second Army Advisor, feeling a little helpless in his heart.
During this time, he also read a lot of history books, including "The Romance of the Gods", "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "The Chronicles of the Sui and Tang Dynasties". The more he read, the more he felt that his life was miserable! Why would someone else be the founding emperor and have so many advisers and counselors to help him, but why would he only have counselors like Song Xiance and Gu Junen who are not very bright?
He sighed: "Second Military Advisor, let me ask you, who else knows about this?"
"What's going on?" Gu Junen asked.
Li Zicheng lowered his voice: "It's about Zhu Cihong's land allocation in Xiangyang!"
"No, there's no one left." Gu Junen looked around and saw that everything he knew was here, and they were all Li Zicheng's confidants.
Li Zicheng looked around and raised his voice: "None of you are allowed to tell anyone about what the Second Military Advisor and Er just said!"
