The morale of these Guangdong rural troops is really high!
Wang Zhongxiao looked at the group of Guangdong soldiers below who had been ignited with anger, and he felt confident.
This Shang Kexi is really the public enemy of the people of Guangdong! Just saying that he was going to be hacked to death, the Guangdong soldiers below were already screaming to go to the battlefield. They didn't even ask for a reward!
It has not been many years since Shang Kexi forced the coastal border relocation in Guangdong. Those Guangdong soldiers whose families were destroyed because of Shang Kexi's atrocities have not forgotten the blood feud!
It's great that someone can lead them to kill him. He is their benefactor. What kind of reward do they need? It's better to set off earlier, catch that old guy Shang Kexi and execute him in Lingchi!
Seeing that everyone's morale was so high that it was about to explode, Wang Zhongxiao stopped talking nonsense and started mobilizing. He shouted: "Let's go!"
After giving the order to dispatch troops, he took a group of Jingwu School teachers and personal guards who acted as staff, and walked down to Wangxia Village. Then he got on his horse at the foot of the mountain and led the 6,000 rural soldiers below, one by one. One by one, they headed towards Gongbei City.
After walking for a while, Wang Zhongxiao felt that the atmosphere was not enough, so he opened his throat and started singing the military song "Datong Song" of the Guangdong Township Army.
"Get up, the hungry and cold untouchables! Get up, the suffering people all over the world! The blood in our hearts has boiled, and we must fight to the death for the truth of Datong."
The first thing he took out was a classical Chinese version of the lyrics of "Song of Datong", which was a bit difficult to pronounce when singing, so he changed it again, making it more "Datong"!
As soon as he took the lead, six thousand Guangdong soldiers also began to sing along. First followed by his staff and soldiers, and then the infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering and baggage teams that formed the marching column.
The high-pitched and passionate singing soon resounded through the northern part of Macau Commercial City, alarming the people in the commercial city who were busy doing their own business. Everyone was stunned for a moment, and looked back at the place where the singing came from with a surprised look on their faces.
The singing voice of Datong finally faded away!
Huang Linsheng, Mr. Huang Si, who was hiding in a hotel that had just been built and had not yet been renovated near the inner harbor of Haojiang, breathed a sigh of relief.
This Mr. Huang Linsheng and Mr. Huang Si are from Huangjia Village, Etangdu, Xinhui County. He is the son of Mr. Huang Wanlin who was supposed to stay in his hometown to observe filial piety, but did not know where he slipped away. He is also the son of Lizhou who surrendered by mistake. The elder brother of Zhizhou Huang Zhisheng.
Although he is known as "Fourth Master Huang", he is actually the eldest son of the family, and "Fourth Master" is the ranking in the clan. As the eldest son of the "Thief Hanlin", Huang Siye is of course also an examiner who has received a good education since childhood. However, he was not as powerful as his younger brother Huang Zhisheng, and he was stuck in the examination competition - his younger brother was actually the first Jinshi, but he was the "disgraced brother" and couldn't even pass the exam.
Although the Qing Dynasty still had a way to select people to become officials, it was simply impossible for a Guangdong candidate to "select" an official without losing money. A loss-making official means nothing to the Huang family. The Huang family already has two officials, Huang Wanlin and Huang Zhisheng, who are both medium and small. If neither of them can protect the Huang family's property in Etang, having him as a "loss-making official" will be in vain.
For example, in the current situation, Wang Fuchen and Wang Zhongxiao, two rebels who wanted to rebel, used the authority of the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi and the military might of 20,000 strong soldiers to seize his family's land and give him several of his possessions. My brothers, sons, daughters, nephews, and nieces were all arrested and taken away to who-knows-where? Maybe they've all been killed!
But he was not in his hometown at that time, but in Guangzhou with Shang Zhixiao, the second son of King Pingnan! Although he gave up the idea of "selecting" an official through selection, he still wanted to be an official, and a way was found for him - hooking up with the "Six Great Young Masters" (the young masters with blue flags and collars) who were quite happy )one of the. If you hook up with them, you can go through their channels and spend some money to get a coated slave with a blue flag.
As a Han Chinese, Huang Linsheng and Huang Juren were at a disadvantage if they wanted to "choose" an official. But if he becomes a coated slave, he will be "in the flag". There are not many candidates under the banner. Isn't it easy to "choose" an official?
Moreover, the prospects of bannermen who choose to become officials are better than those of Han people who are Jinshi!
Therefore, he followed the path of Shang Kexi's great military advisor Jin Guang, got involved with Shang Zhixiao, and became a master. And this also allowed him to escape the "Tribulation of Xiang Island" and not be arrested to serve Wu Sanwei on Xiang Island. Moreover, this time he also got an opportunity to "jump into the slave door" - sneak into the Macau commercial market. Internal response!
This strategy was thought up by his mentor Jin Guangjin's military advisor. According to Jin Guang's plan, the Shang family's plan to take over three counties to conquer Hao'ao was to attack both land and water simultaneously and to respond internally!
Among them, the land route was of course the more than 10,000 people led by Shang Zhixiao and Li Lan. They said they were going to make a sneak attack, but there was a high probability that they would be discovered, so the tasks Jin Guang actually assigned to Shang Zhixiao and Li Lan had upper and lower limits.
The upper limit is of course to push all the way to the Gongbei Walled City, the northern gate of the Hao'ao Peninsula, and then cooperate with Chen Shikai's navy and the insiders who ambush in advance to seize Hao'ao!
The lower limit is to attack Xiangshan County and attract the Wang family troops from Hao'ao to go north for support, creating conditions for internal forces and naval forces to join forces to seize Hao'ao.
However, Jin Guang did not expect that just Mr. Huang could mess up the Macau commercial market. Mr. Huang’s main tasks were two. One was to lead the way. When he was working as a lackey for Shang Zhixiao, he went to Hao’ao several times to replace his master. Doing business. Therefore, he could more easily lead the dead men sent by Shang Zhixiao into the mixed market of Macau.
The second is to wave the flag and shout that Huang Linsheng is a wealthy family in Xinhui. He has quite a few acquaintances among the gentry from Xinhui, Xinning and Xiangshan who have recently moved into the Macao commercial market. Once chaos breaks out in the Macao commercial market, he can mobilize a group of Xinhui fellow villagers to rebel against the thief Wang Zhongxiao!
And the real ace sent by the Jinguangjin Army into the Macau commercial market is an Oboi! Of course it’s fake Obai!
Isn't that "True Obai" located in Shenzhen Village, Xin'an County, next door to Macau? Just across the Lingding Ocean, it's normal to sneak into Macau and cause a scene while the Wang family's army is out, right?
If Ao Bai starts an uprising in the Macau commercial market, will the few defenders left by Wang Zhongxiao be in a state of morale disorder?
As long as they are in chaos, Chen Shikai, who came from the waterway, will have a chance to land in the southeast of Macau Commercial City!
Now that the main force of the rural soldiers left behind in Macau has left, it seems that the plan of "pretending to be Obai and causing trouble in Macau City" will most likely come true. Thinking of this, Huang Linsheng picked up his robe and went up to the second floor. There was little furniture on the second floor of this newly built building, and all the windows were tightly closed. A large room on the second floor was full of people, squatting or sitting. Everyone looked nervous. They were all wearing round-neck robes, holding red cloth on their heads or wearing red hoods. Almost no one was talking, just sitting there distracted.
There is not much ventilation in the room, and the weather here in Macau is very hot. The sun is shining brightly today, making the room as hot as a steamer. Everyone is covered in sweat.
A bearded man in his forties or fifties looked like he was most afraid of the heat. He was sitting there, fanning himself vigorously.
Huang Linsheng walked quickly to the bearded man, bent down and saluted: "Wang Xietai, the Guangdong Township Army in Wangxia Mountain should have left!"
The bearded man Huang Linsheng called Wang Xietai was named Wang Guodong, a lieutenant under Shang Kexi. Because of his powerful appearance, he was originally nicknamed "Little Obai", but no one calls him that anymore.
But this time he has to play Obei!
"Okay!" This "fake Obai" grinned, "Let's wait for two more days. When those Guangdong soldiers have gone away, it will be time for Obai to cause a big fuss in Macau! Hehe, that Wang Datou's heart It’s really big, Obai lives right in front of his house, and he actually dares to lead troops to fight against Zu Zeqing!”
Huang Linsheng smiled: "The father and son surnamed Wang are already dizzy now. They were just Ao Bai's mortal enemies, and their relationship with Prince Ping Xi was okay, but the emperor let the two brothers Wang Zhongxiao and Wang Jizhen have Wu Shilin's blood on their hands! Now that they couldn't vote for King Ping Xi, they had no choice but to try their best to get bigger. The purpose of leveling land and building rural armies was just to get bigger, regardless of offending the gentry all over the world! The reason for sending troops to attack Zu Zeqing was also to grab some territory as soon as possible. Make it big!”
Wang Guodong laughed: "Master Huang, you are right that Wang is dizzy, we will definitely win this time!" As he said, he looked around again, "Brothers, recharge your batteries, we will be ugly the day after tomorrow. We are about to have a big fight! The second young master said that after the incident is completed, we can rob that bank in Guangdong Customs Road!"
When Wang Zhongxiao gathered a brigade of rural soldiers singing "Datong Song" with a Cantonese accent, they drove out of Gongbei Walled City with high morale and rushed to Xiangshan County at a rapid march. Yu Deshui, who is acting in charge of Xiangshan County, and Lu Yijia, the senior military officer of Xiangshan County, have also left the city to meet the enemy!
That's right, it's to go out of the city to meet the enemy, not to defend the city!
Of course, the Xiangshan Township soldiers want to protect the security of their hometown, and the best strategy is to defend the enemy outside the "county gate" - this is Wang Zhongxiao leading his Jingwu School teachers to conduct a thorough investigation of Xiangshan's terrain, folk customs, and people's hearts. The conclusion reached after careful and careful investigation.
The topography of Xiangshan makes it too easy to defend the enemy from outside the county gate. And I can’t say how anti-Qing the people in Xiangshan are, but 80 to 90 percent are “anti-Shang”. Fortunately, Xiangshan is an enemy of the people!
As long as Principal Wang's three-county township army can give everyone hope of defeating the public enemy of the people, then the people of Xiangshan will definitely be on Principal Wang's side.
But if Principal Wang's troops don't seem to be very capable, then it's hard to tell how popular they are.
This is because Shang Kexi liked to kill innocent people indiscriminately when he used troops in Guangdong. The feudal troops and green battalions under his command did not do anything to human affairs. They just killed and looted wherever they hit, and he especially liked to massacre cities. !
Any city that dares to resist the Shang family army will be massacred after being broken! Even Guangzhou, the largest city in Tiannan, was massacred without blinking an eye, let alone other cities?
Historically, when King Li Jin met the people in Xinhui, the people helped him to defend the city. Most of the reason was that people lacked confidence in Li Dingguo and were afraid that Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao, two inhuman things, would come back and massacre Xinhui City - Li Dingguo besieged Xinhui. At that time, it was called an army of 200,000, but in fact it was only a few thousand veterans plus some Guangdong rural soldiers who responded to him. If there were really 200,000 old soldiers from the Western Army, Xinhui City would not be able to defend it.
And this time is the first battle between the Shang Jiajun and the Wang Jiajun. If the Shang Jiajun is really allowed to drive all the way south to outside Xiangshan County, it is hard to say whose side the people of Xiangshan County will choose to side with!
After all, the Shang family’s killing knife is too fast!
Therefore, Yu Deshui and Lu Yijia only left a small number of rural soldiers to guard Huatuo Village and Xiangshan County. Then they led the rural soldiers gathered from around Xiangshan County and marched in a hurry. There were many people living in the villages along the way. The "rural soldiers" in the army joined the team under the leadership of their respective "captains".
Although the Shang family's swords are fast, the Wang family's spears and muskets seem to be more powerful!
When the soldiers in Xiangshan saw the Wang family's troops coming out of Xiangshan to meet the enemy, they all felt that the opportunity for revenge had come. So there is no need to mobilize like this, just follow each other's leaders and come to support.
These rural soldiers are equipped with weapons at home, but they do not have flintlock guns and artillery. However, bamboo guns are still easy to obtain, and various matchlock guns are also easy to obtain here in Guangdong. So these people came with weapons!
As Yu Deshui and Lu Yijia's team headed west, the number of people increased. At the beginning, there were less than 2,000 people. Later, the number was close to 5,000!
They walked for dozens of miles and finally arrived at Xiaolan Village, which is on the south bank of Xiaolan Waterway, close to the Xijiang River - it is said to be a village, but it is actually a quite large commercial town. There is a ferry terminal outside the town, which is located on Xiaolan Waterway. Important crossing. To the north of the waterway is the territory of Shunde County.
As long as they seize the ferry, it will be a bit difficult for Shang Zhixiao and Li Lan's army to cross the waterway - Xiaolan Waterway is an estuary of the Xijiang River!
How big is the water in the Xijiang River!
Therefore, the Xiaolan Waterway is not only rich in water and deep, but also very wide. Most sections of the river are seventy or eighty feet long!
It's a pity that Yu Deshui and Lu Yijia arrived half a step too late. Xiaolan Village with its tall outer walls was not occupied by the Shang Jiajun who came from afar to "sneak attack", but the ferry at Xiaolan Village had already fallen to Shang Zhixiao's troops. hands.
However, not all of Shang Zhixiao and Li Lan's troops crossed the waterway. Only a few hundred people crossed the river and occupied the ferry.
These Shang Jiajun who were crossing the river saw the Guangdong Rural Army troops coming over in a mighty manner, wearing bamboo hats, carrying bamboo guns, matchlock guns, and carrying bags of dry food. Some of them also carried shovels. Startled.
Because these Guangdong rural troops are not only large in number, but their morale looks and sounds even higher! You can hear them shouting from a distance: "We have reached Guangzhou City, it will be gratifying to capture him alive!"
Well, this force is comparable to that of King Li Jin’s old Western Army that came to Guangdong back then!
In addition, the marching ranks of these roaring Guangdong rural troops also look very orderly! A team of several thousand people, with seven to eight hundred people in one group, formed a column as wide as possible, drove into the battlefield at a brisk pace, arrived near the Xiaolan Village ferry, and then relied on the official road , The ridges of the fields quickly expanded into phalanxes lined with spears.
After deploying the square formation, the Guangdong soldiers did not immediately launch an attack, but they had no intention of taking a breath either. Instead, they used pikemen standing in formation with guns as cover, equipped with various old-fashioned matchlocks (a large number of Guangdong civilians scattered Matchlocks (the Macau Portuguese also had many matchlocks in their warehouses), the shotgun soldiers began to use the shovels, sacks, and straw bags they carried with them to dig, fill, and build parapets!
He was still working enthusiastically and looked like he was hard-working.
This operation really opened the eyes of the Shang Jiajun on the opposite side - is there anyone who builds a fortress before the battle?
This also built the earth wall right under the eyes of the enemy!
Moreover, they also filled their pockets with soil, and then piled up the filled pockets one by one. This method seemed to be good, but it was a bit taxing on the pockets!
Just when Shang Jun on the ferry side was suppressed by the Guangdong Township Army, Shang Zhixiao and Li Lan also took the ferry across the Xiaolan Waterway and arrived at the ferry on the south bank.
"What's going on?" When Shang Zhixiao saw a military officer from the royal vassal army coming up to salute, he asked with all his face, "Why are you still cowering at the ferry and not attacking? There are only a few thousand Guangdong rural troops, what are you afraid of?"
"Second Master, they don't seem to be easy to deal with. They drove all the way without even taking a breather. They just blocked them and built forts and dug holes. The marching queue was also relatively strict. They looked like elite soldiers at first glance!"
This vassal army commander is elderly and has seen Li Dingguo's soldiers - it seems that this is nothing more than this!
Shang Zhixiao snorted: "What are you elites? I have already observed it. Aren't these just Guangdong soldiers? They are just a group of Guangdong barbarians and are vulnerable to attack. I order you to attack immediately!"
(End of chapter)
