The third year of the Republic, the fifth day of July.
Yangtze.
The rain came down in torrents.
Two pontoon bridges have been erected on the river, and the cavalry, wearing cloaks, patrolled and warned in the rain and fog. The heavy rain almost formed a wall of water, and it fell continuously.
It turns out that the easterly wind that started on June 20 was the vanguard of a typhoon blowing all the way from the southeastern coast. It blew very well in the first few days, blowing Li Zhongshan's navy to the junction of Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. Martial point. But starting from June 25th, strong winds and heavy rains began to blow on the Yangtze River. In the next ten days, it rained twice in succession, one for five days and the other for four days (until the fifth day of July). The wind stopped and the rain stopped for a day—it was probably because the eye of the storm was passing from Wuxue to Chengzi Town. After God's "rest" for a day, the wind and rain continued. The wind was much lighter, but the rain was still quite heavy, and it continued to rain.
Because of this violent storm, Li Zhongshan, on Liu Guoxuan's suggestion, parked the fleet on the Yangtze River near Wuxue and did not continue westward. At the same time, he got two pieces of good news that could support each other: "Wu Sangui got sick from unknown popularity" and "Wu Sangui couldn't move in Jiujiang."
Li Zhongshan calculated with his fingers that this year was the third year of the Republic of China, and the sixteenth year of Kangxi's reign. Converted to the Western Christmas calendar, it was 1677, the birthday of Brother Tian. It seemed that Wu Sangui was about to go to Chongzhen at that time. The emperor reported his work.
Now that Wu Sangui is almost here, it is really possible that he would be provoked and lie down on the spot in Jiujiang, unable to get sick.
Then Li Zhongshan, together with Zhou Chang, Yao Qisheng, Li Zhongzheng, Liu Guoxuan and others, changed the plan slightly and divided the troops into two groups. The first group was Liu Guoxuan leading the main force of the navy plus a town (the old-fashioned town , not Model Town), the Lu Division took advantage of the east wind to continue to push a little further west, and finally captured Tianjia Town and Banbishan, the two fortresses facing each other across the river, and then used pontoons and iron cables to block the Yangtze River. . Then we will build a navy camp in Tianjia Town and Fuchi Town, southeast of Banbi Mountain, so that ships damaged by typhoons, battles, and navigation can be repaired.
The second route was led by Li Zhongshan himself. A total of eight towns of the Army Division first crossed the river and captured the town of Chengzi in Jiangxi Province. Then they built a pontoon bridge on the Yangtze River. Then the army crossed the river and entered Jiujiang Prefecture in Jiangxi Province. Within the territory, depending on the situation, decide whether to go to Jiujiang to send Wu Sangui on his way, or to go to Nanchang first to rescue Li Fuchen, and then go north to Jiujiang together to send Wu Sangui down to see Chongzhen.
After several days of hard work, the two pontoon bridges were finally erected on the wide Yangtze River.
Under the pouring rain, two teams whose heads and tails could not be seen were quickly passing through the two pontoon bridges. Each soldier wore a bamboo hat and raincoat, with a long gun on his shoulder and a musket wrapped in oilcloth, and walked quickly with his head buried in the ground. Occasionally, a bolt of lightning struck from the dark sky, and there was always a bright red flag illuminated by the flash of light.
Li Zhongshan was riding on a horse, surrounded by young staff officers who had studied in the staff class of the Jiangwu Hall, as well as Zhou Chang and Yao Qisheng, two senior soldiers who had joined the army. Li Zhongzheng was leading Li Zhongshan's cavalry regiment, and everyone was carrying The flintlock gun wrapped in oilcloth, I stood on the embankment on the south bank of the Yangtze River in the rain, watching the surging Yangtze River, rolling eastward.
The rain hit Li Zhongshan's face, almost making him unable to open his eyes. Amidst the sound of rain and wind, he could only be heard mumbling to himself.
"If this Wu Sangui dies like this, then everything will be fine. I'm afraid that this old boy won't go down to see Chongzhen and wants to struggle again. But if he still wants to struggle, where will he take action?"
Zhou Chang and Yao Qisheng had already approached Li Zhongshan at some point. They seemed to have heard him talking to himself, and they were also thinking about the same problem and had some ideas.
Zhou Chang said: "General, I also feel that Wu Sangui is probably pretending to be dead again! He has already pretended twice, and we have to be on guard. I always feel that Wu Sangui is still holding back something bad! After all, his water Although the army division is gone, he still has at least more than 300,000 land divisions! Among them, there are at least 250,000 land divisions in Jiangxi and Hunan. They are definitely capable of fighting!"
Li Zhongshan nodded slightly. He also felt that Wu Sangui was probably holding back his ultimate move!
Yao Qisheng said: "General, I feel that the half-dead Wu Sangui in Jiujiang City is probably a fake. If I am Wu Sangui, I am sure that the water battle cannot be won. The Yangtze River waterway will soon be owned by the enemy, and it will be difficult for the main force of the Zhou army to be fully occupied." After returning to Wuchang, I will lead my army to deal with the Ming army in Jiangxi. At the same time, I will let Wu Yingxiong and Wu Shifan return to Xiangyang to take charge, and mobilize troops and horses to strengthen the defense of Jiangxia, Hanyang, and Hankou to prevent me from advancing westward to regain Hubei.
In this way, even if he is defeated in Jiangxi, Wu Zhou can still control Huguang, Yunnan-Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi-Gansu and part of Henan. No matter what, he can maintain the situation of Shu Han after Zhaolie, allowing Wu Yingxiong to become Wu Adou. "
Li Zhongshan wiped the rain from his face and said, "Pei Gong, Xi Zhi, where do you two think Wu Sangui will fight us?"
Zhou Chang thought for a while and said: "The most likely possibility is around Nanchang. He surrounded Nanchang for so long, wasn't it just to besiege the city and get reinforcements?"
Yao Qisheng said: "If Wu Sangui does not fight us in Nanchang, he will lead us to Yuanzhou Prefecture to ambush us. Yuanzhou Prefecture is full of mountains and forests, making it easy to ambush. Moreover, Yuanzhou Prefecture is close to Hunan, Even if the battle is unfavorable, we can still retreat to Hunan."
"Then how should we deal with it?" Li Zhongshan asked next.
Zhou Chang said: "First of all, if we don't capture Jiujiang Prefecture, our control over the Yangtze River will be a bit weak. If we don't fight well on the Yangtze River in Hubei, we may have to retreat to Anqing."
He paused, "Secondly, we still have to break the siege of Nanchang and rescue the old prince's army from Nanchang City. After joining forces with the old prince, our military strength will be much stronger. The next step is to march towards Hunan. Let’s march towards Wuchang Mansion, then the initiative is all in our hands.”
Li Zhongshan thought again, "In other words, the key is to attack Jiujiang and relieve Nanchang! Our troops seem to be a bit insufficient, right?"
"It is indeed not enough," Zhou Chang said with a smile. "If we want to conquer Jiujiang or fight Wu Sangui around Nanchang, it will be enough for the more than 100,000 of us. But if we want to do these two things at the same time, we still have too few troops. a little."
Yao Qisheng added: "If we solve Jiujiang first and then solve the siege of Nanchang, we are afraid that the old prince will be surrounded and his food will be exhausted!"
If we ignore Jiujiang and directly attack Nanchang, we might be attacked from both sides by Wu Zhoujun from outside Nanchang and Wu Zhoujun from Jiujiang! "
Li Zhongshan smiled and said: "It seems we have to send someone to Mubu Mountain to find Li Zicheng to surround Wu Sangui in Jiujiang!"
As he spoke, he looked back at his good brother Li Zhongzheng and said with a smile: "Brother Zhongzheng, please work hard and go to Mubu Mountain!"
east! Head east to capture Wu Sangui!
In the darkness of the night, troops in large groups were rolling forward along several mountain roads in Mubu Mountain at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces. There was a sound of people shouting and horses neighing. This army that came out from the "Anti-Wu Base Area" in Mubu Mountain was of course the army of Prince Zhong's Mansion led by the old Chuang King Li Zicheng, whose pseudonym was Li Fengtian, and was entrenched in Mubu Mountain. Because Wu Sangui's army absorbed many Hubei local tyrants and evil gentry who lost their land because of Li Zicheng's faithful implementation of the "Chinese Land Acquisition System" and made them serve as returning regiments, events occurred in Wuchang, Hanyang, Anlu, Dehua, and Huangzhou in Hubei. The war between Wu Zhou's army and Prince Zhong's army in the Fifth Prefecture actually has some meaning of a "land and life war"!
Since it is a "Land G Life War", there are many people involved! This is no longer a war between two warlord groups or two feudal lords or two feudal dynasties, but a war between the Wu and Zhou feudal dynasties and the local tyrants and evil gentry in eastern Hubei and the working people of the five prefectures in eastern Hubei! Moreover, the "Celestial Land Acquisition System" implemented by Li Zicheng's group in the five prefectures in eastern Hubei was endorsed by the "Republican Ming Dynasty".
The "Republican Ming Dynasty" is not a bandit, but the world's orthodoxy that has inherited the legal traditions of the "Imperial Ming Dynasty"!
Although the working people in eastern Hubei did not think the "Republican Ming Dynasty" was very orthodox at first, when they got the land allocated in the name of the "Republican Ming Dynasty" and thought about it carefully, they all felt that the "Republican Ming Dynasty" was too orthodox. Got it!
Since it is the land that is officially distributed in the world, it is the land that they legally own, and it is just and justified! Those local tyrants and evil gentry who want to go back are rebels!
Therefore, defending the "Republican Ming" means protecting their own land. And I heard that this Republic Ming is quite rich. Once the defense is completed, they will be given military pay and rewards! Therefore, the determination of the working people in the five prefectures of eastern Hubei to defend the "republic" is so firm!
Moreover, because Wu Sangui was eager to advance eastward to Jiangxi, he failed to clear out the Zhongwangfu troops who had fled into Mubu Mountain in time, and did not even send troops to capture Xianning County on the plain at the foot of Mubu Mountain. As a result, Li Zicheng and Zhongwangfu gained valuable Taking a breather, it quickly established a foothold in Makubu Mountain and developed.
And when Wu Sangui's "million-strong army" suffered successive defeats in Xiaogushan, Balijiang, Xiaochikou, Chengzi Town, and Wuxue Town, and when the news that Wu Sangui himself was trapped in Jiujiang Prefecture reached Mubu Mountain, That’s really the whole mountain boiling! The soldiers of Prince Zhong's palace who were squinting in various valleys and mountains were all very happy. This was a lucky bet! When Wu Sangui is about to die, they will all become heroes of the Republic. After becoming heroes, why not give them dozens of acres of land as a reward?
So Li Zicheng's Zhongwangfu army doubled in size at the speed of light! Many farmers who used to be relatively honest and were still working as tenants for Wu Sangui's returning gentry abandoned their hoes and went up the mountain to join Li Chuang.
For a time, it was difficult to see young and middle-aged farmers in the countryside around Wuchang Fucheng!
Li Zicheng was even more motivated. He met Li Zhongzheng in Jiugong Mountain and learned from Li Zhongzheng that Wu Sangui, who had lost the "Battle of Xiaogushan" and lost all the main force of the navy, was trapped in Jiujiang Fucheng. , and it is very likely that he was sick and couldn't move, so he was really happy. Without even discussing money with Li Zhongzheng, he immediately issued a mobilization order and mobilized a total of 50,000 people to march east of Mubu Mountain.
Li Zichen himself was riding on a horse, marching with the troops under Sima Si, who was marching in Prince Zhong's Mansion, and Li Zhongzheng, who had come from afar, to slander and advance. Wu Sangui's "old friend" is now over seventy years old, and he is still so healthy. In addition to tasting the sweetness of power again, his whole body is filled with vitality, because he still has a great enemy to destroy the country. There are still so many old brothers who have not been avenged by Wu Sangui for being killed!
And this time, the chance for revenge finally comes! Although the journey was dusty, it could not hide the joyful look on his old man's face. Surrounding his Chinese column were large groups of infantrymen marching silently, as well as horse-drawn carts and mule carts dragging six-pound bronze cannons. Li Zicheng has done some construction in Mubu Mountain over the years, repairing mountain roads and building bridges. In the past few days, the rain has stopped, the roads have dried, the weather is cool at night, and there is a bright moon hanging high in the sky. It is a good thing for marching and fighting. In the night, in addition to the sound of marching, you can occasionally hear the voices of the generals of Prince Zhong's Mansion clenching their molars and cheering for mobilization: "Um, we are going to Jiujiang to kill Wu Sangui, the grandson of Wu! Please work harder, don't do it." Tell this old boy to run away!"
"Yes! You guys must work harder, otherwise this old boy Wu Sangui might have killed the general's troops even if he didn't escape!"
"Don't let the general kill Wu Sangui! That's our blood feud. We have to kill the man named Wu!"
Listening to this accent and the hatred in this tone, you can tell that this "second generation" - the wealth that should have been passed down from the ancestors has been destroyed by this old boy. If it hadn't been for the past two years when the world was in chaos and If you become frightened, you will really never be able to live a good day in your life!
There were cheers of high morale in the queue with local Hubei accents. In addition to a few old soldiers and the second and third generations of Chuang, the troops of Prince Zhong's Mansion were composed of many young and strong men from the five mansions in eastern Hubei. Some of them had long been soldiers of Prince Zhong's Mansion and already had their own farms and citizenship, while more of them were former farmers who were eager to get their land and citizenship after victory.
It has to be said that the "Roman-style" national military system established by the Republic of China and the Ming Dynasty is really quite land-consuming. However, as long as the national identity is still highly valued and there is enough land to distribute, then this national army can , there is no opponent they cannot defeat!
If Wu Yingxiong, who was "abandoned by his father" in Jiujiang City, had seen this large army rolling forward in the dark night, and had seen the gray-haired Li Zicheng, who only had revenge for the rest of his life, he would have been frightened and surrendered to Li Zhongshan immediately.
It's a pity that Wu Yingxiong didn't know that his good son-in-law Li Zhongshan sent people to Mubu Mountain to "shake" Li Zicheng, the old devil, to attack Jiujiang Fucheng. At the same time, at this time, Li Zicheng was waiting for Li Zicheng's arrival in the Ming army camp outside Jiujiang City. Li Zhongshan didn't know that Wu Sangui would give Wu Yingxiong a hard time at this critical moment. He certainly didn't expect that Wu Sangui's situation would be so big. If he couldn't win in Jiangxi, a golden cicada would escape, leaving behind a son and more than 100,000 Wu Zhoujun. In response, he led 40,000 Wu and Zhou elites to Hunan to join forces with Wu Guogui, preparing to attack Guangdong, Li Zhongshan's "old Chinese territory"!
But Li Zhongshan was not wrong about one thing. The Emperor of Zhou Dynasty did not have much time left. He obviously had a heart problem. He had a small attack on the way to Hunan, although it did not kill him. , but he was unable to ride a horse, so he had to sit on a sedan chair and be carried into Hengyang City.
Wu Guogui's palace was originally located in Changsha, but in order to carry out the mission of raiding Guangdong assigned to him by Wu Sangui, he had moved the palace to Hengyang two or three months ago. Moreover, he also gathered 50,000 troops in Hengyang. If we add the 40,000 troops Wu Sangui brought from Jiangxi, as of the tenth day of July, Wu Sangui and Wu Guogui would have as many as 90,000 troops to attack Guangdong!
In addition, Sun Jiqing also organized a mob of 50,000 people, and the total strength of Wu Zhoujun's attack on Guangdong reached as many as 140,000!
This means that the Wu and Zhou dynasties also implemented the government army system, and also took over Shaanxi-Gansu and Huguang with relatively large populations. Otherwise, it would not be so easy to gather so many troops.
However, Guangdong, the "old area of Chinese people", also has a strong mobilization ability, so Wu Sangui was worried that the battle in Guangdong would not be easy. After arriving in Hengyang, he checked into Wu Guogui's palace. After a night's rest, he immediately summoned Wu Guogui, Li Benzhen, Wu Shijue, Wu Shifan, Liu Xuanchu, Wang Shirong and other generals and advisers to his soft couch, and began to discuss with them the plan to attack Guangdong. It's over.
"Father, don't worry, old man. Now all the troops in Guangdong have been transferred to Wuzhou. Jia Hanfu, who could have acted as a buffer, was transferred back to Guangzhou by Xiaotuo. His sixth son is leading the Hunan soldiers to guard Shaozhou. As long as we reward If he becomes a vassal in Zhili Prefecture, he will definitely switch sides!"
While Wu Guogui was reporting to Wu Sangui, he secretly looked at his adoptive father who looked very old, with purple lips and pale face. He could tell at a glance that he was not well.
"So, it's pretty safe to take Guangfu?" Wu Sangui asked Wu Guogui with all his strength, but before his adopted son could answer, he emphasized his tone and said, "Guogui, I, the Zhou Dynasty, can overwhelm the Ming Dynasty in the battle of Guangdong. This will be the key battle to unify the world in the future. Once it fails, the Ming Dynasty will be just like Cao Wei in "Three Kingdoms". No, it should be Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty who occupied Cao Wei's territory! Do you understand?"
"Father," Wu Guogui heard what the old man said and hurriedly patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, if Xiao Tu dares to lead an army to resist my great Zhou Tianbing, my son will not recognize her as his daughter!"
Wu Sangui nodded, "A noble of the country, my father also brought 40,000 people from Jiangxi. Except for 5,000 of my own soldiers, everyone else has been handed over to you. You must fight hard!"
"Yes, Father!"
(End of chapter)
