Li Zicheng is dead!
At the end of the Battle of Tangjiashan, when he led his troops to break out of the Ming army's blockade, he was hit in the heart by a lead bullet and died!
But this incident was not later recorded in history. At that time, at least no one on the Ming side knew. Wu Guoyong and Sun Fugui didn't know that they had made such great contributions - how could killing Li Zicheng be worth a prince?
It's a pity that no one knows... Because Li Zicheng's body was lying on the horse, following the tide of Dashun old battalion cavalry, they rushed out of the blockade of the right division of the Ming army's new army - the Ming army was too small in number. There were only sixteen battalions, with a total of eight thousand men, and the front they wanted to block was too long. Therefore, there is still a gap of twenty steps between the various camps. If it shrinks again, the gap will become even larger.
Behind the three Ming infantry battalions that were attacked, there were only three cavalry companies. Facing more than 10,000 crazy Dashun cavalry, what can less than 300 armored cavalry do? Although they also launched an attack and attacked the Dashun Army cavalry who were fleeing from the side, they could not stop the torrent of cavalry in the end.
Therefore, most of the more than 15,000 elites of the old Dashun camp who ran away on horseback on the Tangjiashan battlefield that day, 12,000 or more, all escaped. Among them was the guy holding the banner for Li Zicheng.
Therefore, what everyone on the battlefield saw was that Li Zicheng ran away with the cavalry, leaving behind more than 20,000 dumbfounded infantry!
After Li Zicheng "took" the cavalry away, the battle besieging the Dashun Army's infantry continued for some time. Because not all the Dashun infantry were willing to surrender happily. Some of them were "old camp warriors" who could not forget their little properties in Xiangyang and Nanyang! There are also some "three ministers" such as Li Guoying, Lu Zuguang, and Xu Yong (Zuo Liangyu and Zuo Mengeng are also considered the number one independent force) and their close personal soldiers. Although these men were few in number, they controlled many infantry. Moreover, some of them also had horses, but they only served in the infantry and could not abandon their troops and run away, so they did not follow Li Zicheng.
Now that they saw Li Zicheng standing out, they felt a little more lucky and felt that they could also break through. And they also knew that they would not get anything good if they went to Zhu Cixiang, because they not only betrayed the Ming Dynasty and followed Zuo Menggeng to Dashun, but also escorted Zuo Mengeng and his family to hang themselves under the pressure of Li Zicheng - such a breach of trust. , how could Zhu Cixi spare them and then do it for the officials?
So they drove the troops to rush up. It was difficult to rush out, but they were able to contain Wu Guoyong, Sun Fugui and Zhang Yong who had just rushed down from Tangjia Mountain. They also learned that the reinforcements had arrived from Gongan County. Yan Yingyuan came out.
There is no unified command among the Ming army's troops - now that Wu Sanfu and Li Yan are not with Zhu Cixiang, how can Prince Zhu command so many troops? As a result, the fight became more and more chaotic, and the time dragged on a little longer. It wasn't basically over until the sun set that day.
Most generals from the Zuo family army, including Lu Zuguang, Li Guoying, Zhang Yingxiang, Xu Ensheng, Chang Deng, Xu Yong, Wu Xueli, Zhang Yingyuan, Xu Yuxian, and Ma Jiaolin, all became Dashun loyalists!
In addition, more than 20,000 people were captured, and thousands of Ming troops captured in previous battles were rescued. There were more than a thousand Dashun generals who slipped through the net and caused a lot of trouble in the territories of Jingzhou Prefecture and Yuezhou Prefecture before being wiped out by Prince Zhu's army.
...
Zhu Cixiang's side is not afraid of chaos, but Dashun Army's side is now most afraid of chaos...because their boss is gone!
After Tian Jianxiu, Gu Junen and others led the team to run for fifty or sixty miles, they finally joined forces with Liu Zongmin, who had gone to hunt down Jin Shenghuan and Qiu Lei. After the two armies joined forces, there were still about 23,000 men.
There are a lot of them, and their combat effectiveness is not weak. We can finally take a breath and discuss the matters behind Li Zicheng's death.
If Li Zicheng hadn't been killed by a gun during the breakout, this battle at Tangjiashan could have been regarded as a strategic victory for the Dashun Army!
Although the Dashun Army's book losses reached more than 20,000 people, most of them were newly attached soldiers or followers of old camp soldiers. Moreover, Liu Zongmin also captured tens of thousands of prisoners while pursuing Jin Shenghuan and Qiu Lei. These people could supplement the Dashun Army. After entering and leaving, they also lost more than 10,000 people.
As for the essence of the Dashun Army, it has been largely preserved - this is the advantage of four legs, and it is also the reason why Li Zicheng dared to risk going deep behind enemy lines!
By the way, the burning cauldron and other things before were just a pretense, and by the way, they left a good name in the history of history.
Because the Jiangnan part of Jingzhou Prefecture is also flat to the east. Although there are many rivers, it is still impossible to stop Li Zicheng's army from passing through.
Moreover, as long as Li Zicheng's strategic goal of advancing eastward is achieved - that is, mobilizing Wu Guoyong's troops to aid the east, then the western part of Jingzhou Prefecture will be completely under the control of Li Guo and Li Laiheng's troops!
In order to transport supplies into Sichuan, Li Zicheng also ordered Li Guo to collect as many ships as possible on the Yangtze River. Therefore, hundreds of wooden boats are now concentrated on the Yilingzhou River west of Huya Mountain.
As long as Li Zicheng's army captures the unguarded Yidu County, they can cross the river and return to the Huya Mountain Camp, and then enter Sichuan calmly.
As for Zhu Cixiang, although the losses on the books were similar to those of Li Zicheng (if Li Zicheng himself was not counted), the losses were not from direct lineage. However, on the Jingzhou Prefecture battlefield, Zhu Cixiang's direct descendants were not many in number. If we do not count the newly formed and not very reliable Guards Division, there was only one division of Wu Guoyong and one regiment of Sun Fugui.
It was impossible for him to rely on these few people to control the vast Jingzhou Prefecture and drive away Li Zicheng's army at the same time - in fact, Zhu Cixiang had more than just Dashun's enemies in northern Huguang. The local gentry and landlords in Huguang were also enemies of Zhu Cixiang, the leader of the Beifu Army.
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang cannot count on the help of the Huguang gentry to restore the Ming Dynasty's rule in Jingzhou Prefecture, Chengtian Prefecture, Xiangyang Prefecture, De'an Prefecture, Hanyang Prefecture and other places... Therefore, Jin Shenghuan, Zhang Yong, and Qiu Lei, the three northern regions The warlord's troops were very useful to Zhu Cixiang.
At least it is much more useful than He Tengjiao and Chang Yanling's Hunan regiment training, and the combat effectiveness is not at the same level.
But now, Wu Guoyong's right division was exhausted due to traveling back and forth for hundreds of miles in a period of time. He couldn't do it without resting for ten days and a half. Jin Shenghuan, Zhang Yong, and Qiu Lei suffered heavy losses and also needed to be supplemented and rectified.
Therefore, in a short period of time, Zhu Cixiang was unable to launch a new offensive in the west of Jingzhou Prefecture. If Li Zicheng had not died, he would have been the strategic winner.
...
In a Taoist temple called Jiugongguan, which was guarded by the imperial army, Tian Jianxiu, Liu Zongmin, Gu Junen and other important ministers of Dashun who followed Li Zicheng were surrounding Li Zicheng, who had progressed to become the late emperor. With red eyes, he sighed.
"Okay, why did you become the late emperor?" Liu Zongmin looked at Li Zicheng, who was lying on a table with a pale face and motionless, and couldn't help but shed a few more tears, "I have suffered all my life, okay?" It's easy to become an emperor, but he died before he had time to enjoy it, and he didn't even have a son... What will happen next? Who will be the new emperor? "
The new emperor...this issue is really sensitive!
Tian Jianxiu and Gu Junen looked at each other, and Gu Junen said tentatively: "Although the late emperor had no children, he did have a nephew."
"You mean Bohou?" Liu Zongmin frowned slightly, as if he was thinking about something, which made Tian Jianxiu and Gu Junen both excited.
Liu Zongmin has always been the number two figure in Li Zicheng's faction. Don't think about making progress at this time... Half of the Dashun Dynasty is dead now. If there is another split, it will be completely cool. .
