Emperor Kangxi's visit to Dongping Prefecture occupied a villa belonging to Prince Kang Jieshu - Tai'an Mansion, where Dongping Prefecture was located, was Jieshu's vassal territory. When Jieshu was sent by Empress Yang to be the governor of Shandong, he asked someone to stay there. Dongping Prefecture, which has water and mountains and guards the main transportation road, built a city and built this courtyard by the way.
Although this villa is not big, it is extremely elegant. Especially the back garden of the villa, the Tuisi Garden, is surrounded by bamboos and trees and is quiet and quiet. Emperor Kangxi’s south study room on the east side is located in the Tuisi Garden. It is small and exquisite. In the Tuisi Pavilion.
Now that Kangxi is not in Dongping, the Tuisi Pavilion, which is located in the garden and surrounded by bamboo trees, is occupied by Empress Yang who is temporarily taking photos. On the second floor of the sun-drenched Tuisi Pavilion, Queen Yang was sitting behind a desk, her delicate face lightly painted with a look of concern for the country and the people.
Outside Tuisi Pavilion, Queen Yang's personal eunuchs were watching the surroundings nervously, and no one was allowed to approach. All this is to block two big news related to the survival of the Qing Dynasty.
"Empress, what do you think of this matter? The Ming army actually went from the west of Heze to Daming Mansion. Look, they are going to attack Beijing! Also, Yang Jianguo didn't even say hello. He led his troops to Tianjin Guard. What is he going to do? Beijing is empty now. If anything happens, the Qing Dynasty will take it."
The person who is speaking is Suo'etu, the minister of the bodyguard. The Three Banners New Army under the direct jurisdiction of Kangxi is divided into six ministers of the bodyguard. One minister is in charge of a brigade (also called a wing). If a certain banner's new army wants to go into battle as a whole, Kangxi would temporarily appoint a minister in charge of the bodyguard as the general manager. The new army under the banner that Kangxi left in Dongping Prefecture now has Suo'etu as its general manager.
At the same time, Suo'etu also got Kangxi's secret order and asked him to look at Queen Yang.
But now, Queen Yang's brother actually landed on Tianjin Guards with 30,000 troops (actually only 10,000) without saying a word, and Zhao Liangdong, the Qing Dynasty's Tianjin general, seems to have defected to Yang Qilong. What does Yang Qilong want to do?
This is not the most terrifying thing, the most terrifying thing is the Ming army brigade - at least tens of thousands of people! It has bypassed Heze and headed straight for Beijing!
Well, there are domestic thieves in the southeast of Beijing and enemy bandits in the southwest. They are attacking from both sides. Is the Qing Dynasty going to be over?
"Suo'etu, my brother is the leader of the princes of the Qing Dynasty. Now that the country is in trouble, he led his troops to help the king. Is it wrong?" Yang Xiaomi seemed relatively calm, and even the hair accessories on his head were stable. Without moving at all, "If he is wrong, what do you think he is wrong about? If he is not here to be King Qin, what do you think he is here to do?"
"This." Suo'etu was speechless for a moment.
Yang Qilong must have evil intentions! But are there still pure ministers in the Qing Dynasty today? Nowadays, most of the important officials in the Qing Dynasty are princes. The princes are ministers to the emperor and kings to the retainers below. Naturally, they are not pure. It is normal for them to have their own plans.
Empress Yang then said again: "Suo'etu, you have to understand one thing. No matter what my brother wants now, he can only ask for it from the Qing Dynasty, not the Ming Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty can give him the power to assist the government. , you can give him a fief, you can make him a powerful relative! What can the Ming give? Li Zhongshan doesn’t have a fief himself, how can he be given a fief? He is also a relative of the Ming, but the emperor of the Ming himself has no real power, a relative How can it be possible to hold great power? Therefore, it is true that my brother Qin Wang wants power and territory! And territory and real power are both negotiable!
And now the only ones who can kill the Qing Dynasty are the tens of thousands of Ming troops in Daming Mansion. What do we have to discuss with them? They have only one goal, which is to destroy the Qing Dynasty! And don’t forget, where does the Ming Army have the most soldiers now? Huaixi! "
Suo'etu trembled after hearing this.
Seeing that the heat was almost over, Queen Yang added: "So, hurry up and take your people back to Beijing, and guard Beijing with my brother!"
"But what should we do here in Dongping Prefecture?" Suo'etu asked a little uneasily.
"What's in Dongping Prefecture?" Queen Yang asked.
"Yes" Suo'etu glanced at Queen Yang.
Queen Yang smiled and said: "I am the Queen of the Qing Dynasty. When the Qing Dynasty is here, are you still worried about not having a queen? If the Qing Dynasty is gone, do you still need a queen? Suo'etu, let's go quickly. Beijing is important. Dongping is an empty city. It doesn’t matter. Besides, there are some soldiers and guards from Prince Kang’s palace here, so we still have the strength to bluff!”
Suo'etu also knew that Queen Yang also had a golden abacus in her heart, so it was a good idea! But her words still make sense. It is necessary to save Beijing! If Beijing is gone, it will be meaningless no matter how hard Kangxi fights in Qufu! Because the Qing Dynasty's affairs in the Guan area collapsed. When the powerful Han people in the Guan area turned against each other, and the Ming Dynasty's 800,000 Northern Expeditionary Army pursued them fiercely, would Kangxi still have a way to survive with the little army he had on hand?
"Okay! Your Majesty, what you said makes sense, I will lead the troops back to Beijing immediately!"
After Suo'etu said this, he bowed to Queen Yang, then turned and left to mobilize his new army to go back to rescue Beijing.
When Queen Yang saw him leaving, she breathed a sigh of relief, then picked up her writing brush, took a yellow-covered envelope, and began to write on it, writing to Chang Ning, Ba Hai, Zhao Liangdong, Wang Jinbao, Yang Qilong and the man from Beijing. The paralyzed nine-door admiral Zhang Yong wrote his own edicts. After writing these edicts, Empress Yang arranged for her confidant eunuchs to send out all the edicts under the protection of the guards. Then she appointed Zhao Hongxie as the imperial minister and led him Bring the "Tianjin Warriors" protection to the line!
After finishing his work, he remembered that he had to inform Emperor Kangxi, so he wrote a handwritten letter and asked his subordinates to send it out.
When Kangxi received the personal letter from Queen Yang, he had already led his troops to catch the Ming army led by Hu Yiqiang by surprise. Not only did he cross the Yi River, he also recovered Zouxian, Mencius' hometown, and was swarming with troops to attack Hu Yiqiang. The regiment's commander's flag is located on the high ground of escort mountain.
The terrain around Zouxian County is roughly bordered by mountains to the east, Baima River to the west, Yi River to the north, and a boundary river to the south.
Previously, because the Ming army failed to control the Kongfu Courtyard on the south bank of the Yi River, it was unable to deploy defenses along the Yi River. Kangxi's army came suddenly again, seeming to have caught Hu Yiqiang by surprise, but Hu Yiqiang retreated quite cleanly. Something was wrong, so they burned down the camp and the food and grass they had managed to transport, and retreated in a hurry.
After Kangxi determined that the Ming army had burnt food and retreated, he immediately concluded that the Ming army was really retreating rather than pretending to retreat, so he decisively ordered a pursuit, led the main force across the Yi River, and dispersed the imperial army arranged by Hu Yiqiang in Zouxian.
Then he received a report from the scout: the general flag and the army command flag of the Ming army general Hu Yiqiang appeared on the Hujia Mountain five miles southeast of Zouxian County.
This escort mountain is part of Zou Mountain, with a height of almost 70 feet. It is not very dangerous. However, unless this point is removed, Kangxi's army will not dare to go deep south to attack Hu Yiqiang's defeated army - because in Zouxian County, In the south, Baima River, Jiehe, and Zou Mountain form a natural pocket formation. If one dives into a pocket, if it is a trap, won’t the Qing Dynasty be gone?
Of course, Hu Yigun was not willing to give up the pursuit. He had tens of thousands of men under his command! Retreating towards the boundary river!
If this is swallowed up, Li Zhongshan's Northern Expedition will most likely not be able to continue. Li Zhongshan borrowed one or two billion in debt and sent 800,000 troops. In the end, even if tens of thousands of troops were lost and retreated, those huge debts would have to be paid back slowly. , Huaibei is flooded like this, and we still have to find ways to fight drought, provide disaster relief, and build river embankments. Without 10 years of rest and recuperation, there will be no further northern expedition.
The Qing Dynasty took the opportunity to carve up the Western Zhou Dynasty with the Ming Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty took over the Western Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Western Regions and other places in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty took over several prefectures in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Hubei in the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Then this "Later Three Kingdoms" will become "Later Southern and Northern Dynasties"!
After some calculations, Kangxi immediately divided his troops into two groups. One group was led by Prince Kang Jieshu and Minister Laita of the South Study Room. They followed Hu Yiqiang's main force of the defeated army and advanced towards the boundary river. And he himself led the army to storm the high ground of Jiajia Mountain.
Ming Army Lieutenant General Hu Yiqiang, who had just lost the battle, obviously realized the importance of guarding the high ground and stood there personally, fighting to the death!
Escort the mountain battlefield!
The crackling gunshots kept ringing like fried beans, and the rain of bullets, coupled with the constant bombardment of 6-pound and 12-pound cannons, caused pieces of earth and gravel to fly on the hillside.
After the gunfire, there was an earth-shattering cry of killing!
The corpses of Qing soldiers wearing blue linen coats fell on the hillside like wheat that had been harvested. Near the trench line of the Ming army, there are even more layers upon layers, which is shocking.
The new army of the three banners, with nearly 30,000 officers and soldiers, like a stormy wave, repeatedly impacted the front line of the escort mountain, overlooking the main position of Zouxian County five miles away, retreating in waves and arriving again. Kangxi also knew that reinforcements from the Ming Army would arrive soon. If the Ming Army regiment in front of him could not be severely damaged before then, then it would be difficult to fight the battle when reinforcements from the Ming Army led by Li Zhongshan arrived.
At that time, I'm afraid it will be a head-to-head decisive battle!
The fate of the Qing Dynasty was at stake in this battle. If they were defeated, there would probably be no Qing Dynasty. So Kangxi had to go all out.
These 38,000 new banner officers and soldiers do not count the forceful march of more than 100 miles from Dongping, nor the battle across the river to attack and pursue the Ming army. However, it has been almost two days since the storming of Hujia Mountain, and there have been constant casualties. , advancing step by step with difficulty, biting into the Ming army's position bit by bit.
The ability of Hu Yiqiang's "Old Loyal King's Army" to fight offensive battles was indeed not very good during Kangxi's reign, but their ability to hold on to their positions was unexpectedly strong!
Kangxi, who had not slept for three or four days, had deep dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were chapped by the smoke-laden wind that constantly blew from Hujia Mountain. However, he still stood motionless on the battlefield with his telescope. superior. He just gritted his molar teeth and muttered: "Ancestors bless, Buddha bless, Immortal God bless, Sanqing Taoist ancestors bless, Wusheng Mother bless, Heavenly Father God bless the Qing Dynasty!"
Kangxi and his Qing army worked really hard this time. They tried their best, endured fatigue and casualties, exhausted their energy, and launched wave after wave of charges. However, their enemies came up with tactics that made them feel powerless - digging trenches, and then relying on the trenches to kneel down and shoot. This style of play doesn't seem like much at first glance. It can be said that you can do it at a glance. However, it does not mean that all infantry can be equipped with a lightweight, durable and easy-to-use engineer shovel.
These are hundreds of thousands of engineer shovels! They still have to rub their flintlocks, engineer shovels, sleeves and bayonets, helmets, and even cavity and minion bullets by hand.
If the scale of the blacksmithing industry were smaller and the technology was inferior, it would be impossible to produce so many good things in such a short period of time.
However, the Ming army, which relied on trenches to launch cavity bombs and Mini bombs from a kneeling position, displayed astonishing combat effectiveness and lethality when relying on high ground defense!
Even if the Qing army could withstand huge casualties and rush in front of them, they could still use bayonets and engineer shovels to fight them into a melee! Time and time again, they beat down the Qing officers and soldiers who thought they were about to break through!
However, the stronger the resistance of Hu Yiqiang's troops, the more Kangxi felt that Hujia Mountain might be a key point in determining the rise and fall of the Qing Dynasty!
If the enemy defends desperately, it must mean that this place must not be abandoned. As for the reason, Kangxi has not figured it out yet.
In the field of view of his telescope, another wave of loyal and brave men of the Qing Dynasty rushed up against the rain of bullets and grenades, as if they were swallowed up by the trenches of the Ming army.
Cries of death, screams, explosions, and ground-to-earth noises. One by one, the Qing officers and soldiers wearing hats were knocked down in various postures. Some rolled down the hillside, and some fell motionless to the ground. A small officer of the Qing army wielding a broadsword bravely took the lead and was the first to rush into the trenches of the Ming army. But soon there was no sound, and Chengren probably died for his country.
In other places, Ming troops fought back from their trenches, stabbing Qing soldiers at each other with sharp bayonets. After a while, the front of the trench was covered with corpses.
The resistance of the Ming army was so tenacious, which only shows that this escort mountain must be very important in Li Zhongshan's deployment!
"Retreat quickly, retreat quickly... It's not worth it for a Chinese identity and dozens of acres of land..."
Kangxi's hands trembled violently, shouting silently in his heart. But what he saw next was his own Qing soldiers who were kicked out of the trenches by the enemy and fled back crawling.
"Keep beating...beat me hard!"
"嗻!"
Just as he gritted his teeth and issued a new attack order, Li Guangdi's panicked voice suddenly sounded in his ears.
"Your Majesty, it's not good... the Ming army of tens of thousands of people has really bypassed the west of Heze! Now it has entered the territory of Daming Mansion and has even broken through Kaizhou City!"
In fact, Kangxi's "Nan Shufang Staff" had long expected that the Ming army might make a major detour, bypass the four hundred-mile-long defense line, and directly attack the city of Beijing.
Emperor Kangxi was certainly prepared for this.
A Mongolian cavalry from Horqin is now stationed in Beijing and is personally controlled by the Empress Dowager Bumubutai.
However, Li Guangdi is still very frightened.
Do you not believe in the combat effectiveness of the Mongolian cavalry?
"Why are you panicking?" Kangxi said with a relaxed face, "Li Zhongshan was good at using surprise troops. Seeing the difficulty of making a frontal breakthrough and not having enough food and grass on hand, he gathered tens of thousands of elites to make a roundabout move. What's so strange about that? of?
And now he has divided his troops into six groups to attack my fortress, and sent out tens of thousands of troops to make a major roundabout... How many more usable troops does he have on hand?
No wonder that Hu Yiqiang was guarding Jiashan Mountain... It seems that he had received Li Zhongshan's strict order to guard Jiashan Mountain to delay our army so that Li Zhongshan could deploy defenses on the south bank of the boundary river! "
"Your Majesty!" Li Guangdi still frowned, took out another envelope and handed it to Kangxi with both hands.
"This is……"
"Your Majesty, this is a letter written by the Queen...According to the guard who delivered the letter, it is very urgent."
"Urgent?" Kangxi quickly took the envelope, tore off the seal, took out the letter paper inside, and read it at a glance.
After just looking at it for a while, his expression had already changed drastically.
"Your Majesty..." Li Guangdi asked cautiously, "What happened to Dongping?"
Kangxi shook his head, gritted his teeth and said word by word: "It's Tianjin... Yang Qilong landed in Tianjin with 30,000 troops."
"Huh? What does he want to do?"
Kangxi sneered: "No matter what he wants to do, I just want to protect the mountain!"
At this moment, earth-shattering cheers suddenly sounded from the convoy mountain ahead.
Kangxi quickly looked around and saw the scene that had ruined his life.
A yellow triangular dragon flag was planted on the top of Huojia Mountain at some point!
(End of chapter)
