Defeating Duduo is much more difficult than defeating Shunzhi!
Because Zhu Cihong still doesn’t know where Duduo is? And I don’t know where he will attack? At present, there are only two general inferences, which are guessed directions.
One direction is of course around Tianjin Wei! Shi Kefa besieged the city, Duduo came to the rescue... From a purely military perspective, this is more likely. So Emperor Zhu sent Prince Kong Dai to help Shi Kefa arrange his troops. Although Shi Kefa has made great progress now and is enough to beat Fulin, Duduo is not Fulin, and he has to let the "tutor" Kong Dai personally do it. .
In the other direction, there are the Qing army's north and south camps along the Yellow River!
This time, Zhu Cihong's target in sending troops to the Northern Expedition was not Shunzhi, he came looking for him to fight himself! Emperor Zhu's goal was Zhongzhou, which is the western part of Henan Province and Shandong Province.
The key to the Battle of Zhongzhou was the north and south camps built by the Qing army on the banks of the Yellow River near Kaifeng Fucheng.
The so-called North and South Camps are actually two earthen cities built near the river. The two cities are far apart from each other, connected by a floating bridge in the middle.
The two earthen cities were built into bastions. Based on Duduo's suggestion, Shunzhi placed 10,000 elite soldiers in each of the two earthen cities, who were soldiers of the Qing army's infantry camp. It is led by Niu Hulu, Chen Tai and Ma Jia Tuhai, the chief and deputy commanders of the infantry battalion respectively. Chen Tai is stationed in the Henan camp and Tuhai is stationed in the Hebei camp.
The mission of the two people is one-to defend the camp (bastion) when the Ming army comes to attack, in order to consume the strength of the Ming army.
As long as the Ming army is almost exhausted in the Henan and Hebei camps, Duduo will lead the Manchurian fresh force to kill them!
When Duduo wins, Zhongzhou will be saved, and the confrontation between the Northern Qing Dynasty and the Southern Ming Dynasty will continue. If we can't win, we'll dig a dam and flood Henan... Huh, no one can even think about it!
The task is quite simple, but Chen Tai and Tu Hai don't know what to do after the New Year? Because bad news is coming one after another in the direction of Shandong and Beizhili! On the eighth and ninth day of the first lunar month, there was no news at all!
The saying "no news is good news" does not apply now, because Emperor Shunzhi has always maintained contact with the camps in Henan and Hebei.
Even after Emperor Shunzhi was frightened by Shi Kefa and ran back to Tianjin Guard, he did not forget to send envoys to the camps in Henan and Hebei to ask Chen Tai and Tuhai to obey the orders of the Empress Dowager Bumubutai, and also informed Fuquan of the two yellow flags. The matter of the successor of the flag leader.
This is a bit of an explanation of the aftermath!
After this, there was no news about Tianjin Wei! There is no news from Beijing (Beijing did not receive Shunzhi’s imperial edict)... No matter how you look at it, something is wrong!
Chen Tai, who was guarding the Henan camp, pretended to be in a good situation and patrolled the camp early this morning. He also casually compiled a few good news for the people below - the communication channels between the Henan and Hebei camps and the outside world. , has always been in the hands of Chen Tai and Tu Hai, so the people below have no idea that the Qing Dynasty is on the verge of ending.
But Chen Tai knew very well in his heart that if the emperor was really gone and the emperor's uncle might run away, then he, Tuhai and the 20,000 people here would be dead...
Chen Tai, who was worried, returned to his Chinese army. Just as he was about to ask his staff if there was any news from Beijing or Tianjin, there were rapid footsteps and Tu Hai's loud voice outside the door.
"Gushan Ezhen (Chen Tai is still Gushan Ezhen with the yellow flag), has Gushan Ezhen come back?"
"Linzhou, come in quickly!" Chen Tai greeted.
Then he saw Tuhai, who looked dignified and looked like a loyal minister and good general, pushing open the door and walking in. Ma Jia Tuhai started his career as a writer. He was one of the "literary weaklings" of Emperor Shunzhi. He accompanied Shunzhi to study and practice calligraphy, and also learned French together... But he was not like Suo'etu or Mingzhu. , Those young masters in Gao Sai like to show off their talents. He is an honest man. If he doesn't understand, he will just ask. He doesn't ask anyone else, just ask Emperor Shunzhi. Asking questions made Shunzhi feel that he was a gentleman who was not ashamed to ask questions.
Therefore, after Shunzhi took office, he had the best official career among the "weak factions". He was now the deputy commander of the infantry battalion, and his status was second only to the six internal ministers.
This is called humility making people progress!
Chen Tai also valued this deputy who could do things well, speak well, and was good-looking. When he saw him coming in and asking for a thousand dollars, he waved his hand and said: "Don't bother with this red tape. If you have anything to say, please tell me." Tell me."
"Gushan Ezhen, there is an urgent military situation!" Tu Hai said in a solemn tone, "The cavalry sent by the humble post to the east to search for the enemy has returned... There were more than 300 cavalry when they went, but only less than 100 came back. The loss was How tragic!”
Chen Tai was stunned, "What's wrong with a cavalry team of more than 300 people? Could it be that they were accidentally ambushed?"
Tu Hai shook his head, frowned and said: "It would be worse than being caught in an ambush!
My humble position was because I was worried that the small group of cavalry would be ambushed, so I sent a large group of more than 300 cavalry. I also gave special instructions not to pursue the Confederate horse archers, and to be careful when passing through villages and woods. But who would have thought that they would encounter thousands of armored cavalry, all riding extremely majestic war horses. They attacked our cavalry like a storm... I don’t know where they got so many. A good horse? "
They met Emperor Zhu's Guards Lancers! It was an elite, one-water Tianzhu fold-eared horse that cost an unknown amount of money and seven or eight years to raise. When it launched an attack, it was certainly not something that the Green Flag Troops and Horses, which relied on Mongolian horses to support the market, could carry it.
So Tuhai's 300 cavalry were able to kill more than 200 of them with a single charge... However, it was precisely because of this 300-cavalry group that it was difficult for the "black gun mule soldiers" who moved in units of dozens of cavalry to attack. , forced the Ming Army brigade that was advancing along the north bank of the Yellow River to send out its trump card-the Guards Lancers!
"They must be riding Oceanic horses bought from the West!" Chen Tai's face turned livid, "Thousands of Oceanic horses transported from the West must be extremely expensive. No matter how rich the Southern Barbarians are, they can't have many. .....Their main force is here!"
"The wise leader!" Tu Hai flattered him again.
In fact, he already knew that the cavalry he sent had hit the main force of the Ming army!
"Another brigade, another ocean horse cavalry, and thousands..." Chen Tai took a breath, "They are coming with bad intentions! Linzhou, please send someone to tell the news quickly, especially to the Nanman Report the news that you have thousands of Yangma cavalry to Beijing!"
"Hey!" Tuhai said, "As soon as I get back from my humble post, I will arrange for someone to go to Beijing to deliver the letter."
In fact, the team delivering the letter has already set off! Tu Hai did not dare to delay at all - he was afraid that the Ming army's cavalry would block the roads near the Hebei camp. Now the Ming army not only has "black gun mule soldiers", but also "long gun foreign horse soldiers". The cavalry of the Qing Dynasty is no longer useful...and the cavalry returned to the camps in Henan and Hebei are not good soldiers. They are all the original Green Banner or Old Eight Banners Han Army cavalry. If there are no good people, there will be no good. horse.
If the Ming army's black spearmen and foreign horse soldiers really blocked the road, then the two battalions in the north and south of the Yellow River would really have no way to contact their superiors!
...
When Tu Hai reported to Chen Tai that his subordinates encountered the Ming army's foreign cavalry, Yan Yingyuan, the admiral of Henan Province who sent these foreign cavalry, was leading the Western Expedition of the Northern Expedition consisting of eight infantry divisions, an artillery regiment, a cavalry regiment and a large number of heavy militia regiments. The army marched on the ice-covered bank of the Yellow River.
The Yellow River is invisible, because Admiral Yan's army marches below the banks of the Yellow River. The surface of the Yellow River "hangs" above Admiral Yan's head. It is not too high, but only one or two feet above the ground. This is still the situation when the water is shallow in winter. If there are floods in summer, it will be much higher. At that time, if the dam on the south bank breaks, the flood will rush all the way to Huaibei and submerge more than a dozen counties along the way. If there is too much rainfall on both sides of the Huaihe River and the water level is too high, and the Hongze Lake flood storage area cannot handle it, then there will be heavy losses!
Therefore, Zhu Cihong has given Yan Yingyuan a death order, and he must not let the Yellow River flood the Henan capital.
