Dashun Yongchang three years, midsummer, Jiangling City.
The summer cicadas were buzzing, seemingly without interruption, and the noise made all the monarchs and ministers in the main hall of Jiangling Palace upset.
Although it is said to be a main hall, it is actually not big at all. It is just the most dignified hall left in this palace after two catastrophes. But after so many people were squeezed in, it didn't feel spacious at all. Moreover, the weather is hot now. Although several basins of ice cubes were placed in the four corners of the hall, it still cannot reduce the heat inside. The senior officials in blue cloth and black gauze stood there, looking at Li Zicheng, who had not developed thick eyebrows since returning from Huya Mountain, and did not dare to breathe.
Those who were called to pay homage today were all old men from Laoying, not even Huang Shu, who was very favored a while ago - if Zuo Liangyu and Zuo Mengeng were regarded as independent forces, Huang Shu would also be among the three ministers!
And he also tricked the previous boss Zuo Menggeng's family to death... How superstitious is Li Zicheng about an emperor? How could it be possible to really trust this "obstructive master" Huang Shangshu?
So not long ago, Li Zicheng gave Huang Shu an important task. He followed Yan Xi, the right minister of Daxi Kingdom (now a kingdom) who visited Jiangling to ask for reinforcements, and went to Sichuan to meet Zhang Xianzhong - Zhang Xianzhong was much more difficult to serve than Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng is also quite cruel, but he is also reasonable and will not kill people without reason.
And Zhang Xianzhong doesn't need a reason to kill, he just kills when he thinks of it, no matter who you are?
Therefore, none of the civil and military officials who had been under Li Zicheng for a long time were willing to go to Sichuan to meet Zhang Xianzhong. Huang Shu was new and didn't know how powerful he was, so he went. Whether you can survive or not depends on fate!
However, even if Huang Shu had not gone to Sichuan, he was not qualified to appear in this sweltering hall today.
Because what we are going to discuss today must be non-proliferation!
Li Zicheng held two reports in his hand, one signed jointly by Yuan Zongdi and Bai Wang, reporting on the new trends in class struggle in Xiangjing and Nanyang... The people there had forgotten the emperor. All Li Zicheng's great kindness was bewitched by Zhu Cihong and Zhu Yujian into becoming enemies of Dashun.
Although Nanyang Fucheng and Xiangjing Fucheng are temporarily safe, other places cannot be saved!
Yuan Zongdi and Bai Wang felt sorry for the families of the old camp soldiers and did not want them to become the targets of revenge by the farmers in Xiangjing and Nanyang, so they tried their best to gather them in Xiangjing City.
And in this way, the collapse of the Dashun Dynasty's rule in the rural areas of the two prefectures was further aggravated!
But the bad news from Xiangjing and Nanyang was not what annoyed Li Zicheng the most. Anyone who knows something about military affairs knows that Xiangjing is a fortified city made of iron and copper and will not fall so quickly.
As long as Xiangjing is not lost, Dashun's situation in northern Huguang can be barely maintained.
Moreover, the road from Xiangjing to Yunyang and Hanzhong along the Han River is not easy to cut off. Therefore, even if the war situation is unfavorable, Li Zicheng's troops, supplies and family members of the old camp in Xiangjing can retreat along the waterway.
However, the memorial from Liu Fangliang, who was stationed in Hanyang Mansion, made Li Zicheng very disappointed - Hankou Town, firmly guarded by Yuan Gongdi and Guishan Fort, fell after the Ming army attacked and defended it for less than fifteen days.
Moreover...the fifteen days of city offensive and defensive battles were not intense at all. The Ming army only launched one charge in total - the charge to break Yuan Gongdi on the fifteenth day after the battle began.
Prior to this, the Ming army was digging trenches and deploying a giant cannon that could project explosive shells, and then carried out endless bombardments...
Although Yuan Gongdi could withstand direct-fire solid bullets, he could not stop the exploding bullets falling from the air along a parabola!
The continuously falling explosive shells caused heavy casualties to the Dashun officers and soldiers guarding Yuan Gongdi, and their morale was very low - they had never seen such weapons, and they could not imagine that the enemy had so much gunpowder. Inexhaustible consumption.
So when the Ming army attacked, the Dashun defenders there had already suffered a mental breakdown and were unable to resist.
The fall of Hankou Town also put the Guishan Fort within the fire coverage of this terrible "projectile artillery"! Because Guishan is less than two miles away from the dam on the north bank of the Han River, the twenty-pound mortar can be easily reached.
The Shunjun Hongyi cannons (only four) and the general cannons (dozens) deployed on Guishan had too many blind spots to reach the cleverly arranged Ming army mortar cannons.
Once the Guishan Fort is completely suppressed, the Ming Army's Yangtze River Navy will be able to pass through the blockade and enter the Jingjiang waters...
"Your Majesty, Zhu Cixiang has deceived people too much... How many troops does he have in Huguang? How dare he march in three directions to fight with us? Look at him, he is looking for death!"
The speaker was General Quan Liu Zongmin. He was really angry at Zhu Cihong's behavior of "taking the script randomly" and wished he could immediately lead his troops to kill Zhu Cihong.
"Is he looking for death?" Li Zicheng looked at Liu Zongmin, a rough guy, "Do you have any ideas?"
"This..." Liu Zongmin said, "What can I do? I only know that our troops in Huguang are no less than those named Zhu! Moreover, our troops can be gathered in one place, but Zhu Cihong must Divide your troops."
Li Zicheng nodded, this rough guy can still fight.
He glanced at Tian Jianxiu again: "Yufeng, tell me."
Tian Jianxiu said: "Your Majesty, what Jiexuan said is right, don't worry about where he comes from, just kill him all the way!"
"Which way should we kill?" Li Zicheng asked again.
"Kill Xiangjing and Nanyang!" Tian Jianxiu shouted loudly, "How dare you rob me of my land. If you don't let them know how powerful they are, my surname Tian will be written backwards from now on!"
"Remember Tian when Tian is turned upside down!" Li Zicheng reminded, and the hall burst into laughter.
Gu Junen had a solemn look on his face: "You can't go back to Xiangjing and Nanyang. That was the place of the Fourth War, sandwiched between the Tartars and the Zhu thieves. Even if we can repel the Zhu thieves, what should we do if the Tartars come after them? And? This human heart..."
Li Zicheng nodded and remained speechless.
Gu Junen continued: "And after returning to Xiangjing and Nanyang, how can we enter Sichuan? If we don't enter Sichuan, how can we form the power of three parts of the world? Your Majesty, my old brothers have followed you to fight life and death for so many years, we can't end up without ending. !”
Li Zicheng's eyebrows were tangled: "That's right... Well, I can't be sorry to my old brothers!"
This is already a bit depressing, but a leader in troubled times always has to make various plans.
Gu Junen said: "If we can retreat to Sichuan... we have to fight the red bandits in Jingzhou and Yuezhou!" He considered, "And there can be no delay. We must get there before the Guishan Fort is defeated by the red bandits. decisive battle!"
Li Zicheng frowned tightly and said to himself: "The Red Thief's camp in the south of the Yangtze River cannot be attacked... The bridgehead in the north of the Yangtze River also looks very strong. It is small, hard and difficult to attack." Very good!"
Attacking cities was not the specialty of the Dashun Army. At the same time, building and defending cities was the specialty of the New Army in overcoming difficulties. There was a special "City Building Department" in the Nanjing Lecture Hall, which taught how to build bastions.
Although they are still in a group, the knowledge they learned is enough to deal with Li Zicheng's Dashun Army.
Therefore, Li Zicheng did not expect his army to attack and capture the pontoon bridgehead south of Jiangling City.
"Your Majesty," Gu Junen said thoughtfully, "I know that there is a rocky mountain outside Shixian City, close to the Yangtze River in the northwest, about fifty feet high. If cannons are deployed on it, the river can be blocked."
Gu Junen is from Zhongxiang County, Chengtian Prefecture, Huguang. He comes from a landlord family and is an intellectual who has been a scholar. He traveled to many places in Huguang when he was young. He had to go to Shishi and was very familiar with the terrain there.
"Are you going across the river?" Li Zicheng was still a little worried.
Gu Junen shook his head and said: "Shishan occupies a small area and cannot accommodate large troops... We can first show our power to attract the Ming army's eastward reinforcements, then guard the mountain with elite troops and deploy suspicious troops in the north of the Yangtze River. Then the main force will cross the Yangtze River north. , sent his army westward to see if he could break the Hukoudu Camp and the Jiangbei Bridgehead.
If we can succeed, then the entire Jingzhou Prefecture and Shizhou Guards can be captured by the emperor, and the road to Sichuan will be smooth. "
