As soon as Yi Dooshou heard Li Huo's words, he knew that something was wrong, and quickly advised Li Huo not to punish the prince easily for this, otherwise it would surely arouse the resentment of the army and the people and facilitate the invasion of Japanese pirates.
Li Ao thought that Yi Dooshou was blaming him for overcoming the national crisis. The officials refused and defended Yi Dooshou. Seeing this, Li Ao pretended to be sad and sighed: "Okay, okay." Well, after all, we are all incompetent, so you should be allowed to follow the wise prince, and I will just stay here to support the prince."
This was undoubtedly an extremely serious accusation for the North Korean ministers who were deeply rooted in Confucianism. The ministers could only plead guilty again and again, but Li Huo was still unwilling to accept it. After thinking for a moment, he said to the ministers: "It doesn't matter, I just treat it like this." The prince is commendable for his loyalty but acted recklessly. In this case, the prince's crime can be exempted, but the crime of assisting the ministers of the divided dynasty must be punished. I have ordered you to immediately pass on the order to remove all ministers of the divided dynasty from their official positions!"
The ministers were shocked, but the current situation was to save the crown prince first, and the issue of removing the ministers from the dynasty could only be figured out later. Under the current situation, it was really not appropriate to continue to provoke the king, lest he cause trouble again, which would be worse.
When the king's order was passed to Yichuan to divide the dynasty, King Guanghae was heartbroken and sighed: "What's the fault of the ministers? It would be better to depose me as the heir apparent. Now that the ministers have been dismissed, what can I accomplish by myself?"
The ministers of the divided dynasties urged the prince to stick to it and consider the people of Li and not to be implicated by this matter. Lord Gwanghae hoped to seek clear support for the separation of the dynasty. He pondered for a moment and asked tentatively: "If I ignore the king's order, will you still be willing to follow me? Now that the people's support is in the separation of the dynasty, only by carrying the people's support can we restore the country. "
However, when the officials in the different dynasties heard this, they were all silent, and no one dared to answer. Zuozheng Zheng Zhuo admonished: "My lord, you must not do it. If you act like this, no matter how much you bear the people's support, you will split the country and become a traitor. The Lord of Fuyuan has sent a letter. Please join all the ministers in the feast. By pleading guilty and giving credit to the king, the king's anger can be appeased and he can continue to lead his subjects to fight against the Japanese pirates."
Lord Guanghai saw that the ministers did not respond, but Zheng Zhuo persisted again and again, and finally had no choice but to agree. So Gwanghae Lord led the crowd to the north and kowtowed to apologize, and submitted a petition to the king to plead guilty. After learning about it, Li Huo also knew that the current situation was critical and it was not appropriate to push too hard, so he took advantage of the situation and stated that he would not pursue the matter further.
Since the Liaodong Army crossed the river, Zu Chengxun, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong, has been stationed at Ping'an Daoguan to rest. On this day, Li Yuanyi, the Ping'an Road Observer, came again to persuade us to send troops: "Lieutenant, it has been several days since you crossed the Yalu River and arrived in North Korea. Shouldn't you march to Pyongyang?"
However, Zu Chengxun asked Pyongyang whether the Japanese pirates had retreated. Seeing that the Japanese pirates had not retreated, Zu Chengxun said: "I have given you enough steps, but the Japanese pirates do not appreciate it. As the saying goes, subduing the enemy's troops without fighting is a good thing. Since the Japanese pirates Not knowing how to advance or retreat, the general had no choice but to go to Pyongyang to harvest the heads and eliminate harm for the people." From this, the Liaodong Army began to march into Pyongyang.
But there are some problems here. Wasn't Zu Chengxun unwilling to join the army easily at first? Why did he suddenly seem to be a different person now? The reason is simple, his preparations have been basically completed.
Zu Chengxun, courtesy name Shuangquan, was born in Ningyuan, Liaodong Province. He joined Li Chengliang's staff as a servant very early. He started his military career as an ordinary servant. Due to his bravery in fighting, he has accumulated merits in the past thirty years and has been promoted to the governor of the Right Army Governor's Palace and the title of deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong. If Gao Pragmatic hadn't intervened at the beginning, Zu Chengxun would actually have been In the early years, it was enough to truly become the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong.
It is absolutely impossible for such a person to say that he does not have two brushes. In fact, Zu Chengxun did four things in total these days.
The first thing was to urge the rear army to arrive. Since Zu Chengxun came this time, he only brought five to six hundred servants. Even with the addition of several other generals and their troops, there were only more than 2,300 people.
However, in addition to this, there are actually about 600 other troops recruited from various areas of the Li Family Army's defense and garrison. These troops were relatively scattered, so they arrived slower. After a few days, they finally arrived, and Zu Chengxun finally had three thousand troops.
Since the previous order Zu Chengxun received was essentially to suppress Li Hao and calm the situation, there was an unspoken subtext, which was to move quickly. If you want to move quickly, you definitely can't use the guardsmen, otherwise you won't be able to make the trip, so this time they are all elites, and almost all of them are cavalry.
According to Zu Chengxun's knowledge, the three thousand Liaodong Li Family Army cavalry could easily sweep through the tens of thousands of Jurchen coalition forces. In his opinion, the Japanese pirates must not be any stronger than the Jurchens. Therefore, with three thousand cavalry in place, Zu Chengxun suddenly became more courageous.
The second thing is to urge North Korea to keep the food route from Uiju to Pyongyang open. At this point, North Korea has shown its best efforts. Zu Chengxun sent people to investigate and found that at least so far, the grain road has indeed been restored.
The third thing is somewhat related to the second thing, that is, it requires North Korea to build pontoons on natural barriers such as Dading River and Qingchuan River between Uiju and Pyongyang, so that the Ming army cavalry can rush to Pyongyang after they are ready. , giving full play to the advantage of cavalry raids, leaving the Japanese army unprepared.
North Korea also did a good job in this matter. After all, it was building a bridge and not fighting. The North Korean army and civilians came to the battle, mobilized more than 80,000 people, and completed the construction of the pontoon bridge in just three or four days.
At this point, Zu Chengxun was not at ease, so he sent people to investigate on his own, and found that the quality of the pontoon was extremely reliable - well, this may also in turn show how much the North Koreans now hope that the heavenly soldiers will go south quickly.
The last thing is to ask North Korea to provide guides. This matter seemed the simplest to Zu Chengxun. In fact, North Korea also did it very quickly. It was not only as simple as sending a few guides, but even simply mobilized a few small groups of cavalry as guides for the Ming army.
In this way, everything was naturally ready, and Zu Chengxun no longer hesitated and marched south.
At this time in Pyongyang City, Governor Konishi also received news that the Ming army had sent troops and had crossed the Yalu River, and was holding a meeting to deal with the Ming army. Zong Yizhi said: "Although the reinforcements from the Ming Dynasty were less than three thousand (there was a lag in news about the Japanese army), I heard that the power of their large guns (artillery) was formidable. This was reflected in the old guns from the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance that the navy had obtained. The gun can be seen, so our army's iron artillery may not be able to compete head-on with the Ming Dynasty."
Jingzhe Xuansu was obviously worried about this, and frowned and said: "Nowadays, our army has many people who are not acclimatized to the local environment, and its combat strength has been reduced. Coupled with Da Tong... At present, in addition to our numerical superiority, our army has other advantages. Almost all aspects are at a disadvantage.”
Governor Konishi said: "When our army is at a disadvantage, we need our opponents to inspire fighting spirit. This is the first battle of the Ming Dynasty entering Korea. I expected that they would be eager to make meritorious deeds, so I decided to show weakness to the enemy and pass on false intelligence. Exaggerating the weakness of our army, making them arrogant and underestimating the enemy, and finally setting up an ambush in Pyongyang City to annihilate them!"
On the other side, while Zu Chengxun and Li Yuanyi were marching, they suddenly heard a report from Tanma, saying that most of the Japanese troops in Pyongyang had left Pyongyang and rushed all the way to Hanyang. Today, only a small garrison of troops is still in Pyongyang.
After hearing this, Zu Chengxun was overjoyed and said with a smile: "The Japanese pirates were timid. Seeing that our army was approaching, they finally couldn't hold on and fled! If I had known this, I would have rushed to Pyongyang and killed the enemy general to achieve merit."
Li Yuanyi smiled apologetically and said: "Deputy Rong Yingming, according to our military report, there were not many troops stationed in Pyongyang, and now most of them have been transferred. It seems that there are only about a thousand troops left in Pyongyang city. This is a great contribution! "Zu Chengxun was convinced.
Later, Zu Chengxun wanted to send an order to the entire army to march forward, but Liu Chenglong rushed to stop him. Liu Chenglong advised: "Deputy Rong, wait a minute. I have also heard rumors that only some of the Japanese pirates are stationed in Pyongyang, but I still ask the Deputy Rong to Be careful, this may be a ploy by the Japanese pirates to lure the enemy."
Zu Chengxun disagreed, shook his head and said: "A tactic to lure the enemy? Well, what Mr. Fuyuan said may be true, but whether it is a tactic to lure the enemy, I actually don't care much about it - see what this group of Japanese pirates can do." Supernatural power, that is my long-cherished wish."
In front of Liu Chenglong, Li Yuanyi's tone was a little different from before, and he also advised Zu Chengxun that even so, it was best to win with minimal casualties.
Since both of them advised him, Zu Chengxun could not take it seriously, so he sent people to find people in Pyongyang and bring him for questioning. After cross-examination, we learned that in the early hours of this morning, a large group of Japanese troops withdrew urgently and disappeared without a trace. They did not even have time to take away their food, grass, ordnance.
Liu Chenglong still had doubts about what the people of Pyongyang said. Seeing that Zu Chengxun had relaxed and rushed to march, he quickly suggested that the remnants of North Korea's troops behind enemy lines could be sent to Pyongyang to investigate the details before making a decision.
Liu Chenglong's persuasion after persuasion was originally a good intention, but instead made Zu Chengxun, who looked down on the combat effectiveness of the Korean army, unhappy, and asked Liu Chenglong if he was unwilling to let the Ming army break the city first and perform meritorious service.
How dare Liu Chenglong take such a charge? He quickly defended that everything he did was for the safety of the Ming army and would never compete with the Ming army for the recovery of Pyongyang.
Zu Chengxun's face softened a little, and he nodded and said: "I am not someone who takes credit from others. Since you have no such intention, our army will break into Pyongyang. The Korean army please wait outside to prevent the Japanese pirates from attacking back from outside the city." Bar."
The plan was made, but the weather did not go as expected, and it suddenly rained heavily that day. Zu Chengxun had never seen any storms, especially in the past few years under Li Rusong, the "Magical Taibao" who had been trained to ignore the wind and rain, so he directly ordered the entire army to march in the rain without rest.
Zu Chengxun was confused and said: "Heavy rain is coming and the road is difficult to travel. This is a bad thing. But because of this, the Japanese pirates must have believed that our army was blocked and could not move forward, so they neglected to take precautions. But our army is all the same." Are you elites afraid of wind and rain? As long as you advance in the rain, when you reach Pyongyang, the enemy will be caught off guard, and Pyongyang will fall in one blow."
As the servants of the Li family's army, the officers and soldiers have always regarded themselves as elites. Since they received the military order from Zu Chengxun, no one said anything. The three thousand Liaodong Army immediately rushed towards Pyongyang without stopping, despite the rain.
In the early morning of the 16th, the Liaodong Army, which was advancing rapidly despite heavy rain, suddenly arrived outside Pyongyang. Zu Chengxun ordered the guerrilla general Shi Ru to lead 500 cavalrymen directly into the Seven Star Gate. Zu Chengxun himself led the guerrilla general Wang Shouguan and 500 cavalrymen. Subsequently, the generals Dai Chaobian and Guo Mengzheng led the remaining troops to stay outside the city and wait for orders.
At this moment, Konishi Yukinaga's general Matsuura Nobumasa and more than ten Japanese troops were patrolling the Seven Stars Gate. Suddenly, they saw an arrow shot, and Matsuura Nobumasa was wounded by the arrow. He found out that Ming troops were coming, and hurriedly led everyone to withdraw into the city. And immediately notify all parties as planned.
Guerrilla general Shi Ru, led by Qian Commander Ma Shilong and Zhang Guozhong, broke into the Qixing Gate. Seeing no one around, they became suspicious and suddenly saw about a hundred Japanese soldiers coming to kill them with swords.
Shi Ru and other generals were not surprised but overjoyed when they saw this. Without saying a word, they immediately led the Liaodong cavalry to meet the enemy. At this time, the Liaodong cavalry were no joke. In the blink of an eye, they rushed over a hundred Japanese soldiers to pieces. Shi Ru himself took the lead and beheaded ten people in a row. His bravery was unmatched.
The Japanese soldiers fled into the city. Shi Ru raised his sword and ordered his headquarters to continue the pursuit. Later, Zu Chengxun also led his troops into Pyongyang. Seeing that Shi Ru had already pursued him into the city, he also led his troops to pursue him because he was worried that Shi Ru would be alone.
Shi Ru's cavalry pursued them all the way, and all the fleeing Japanese soldiers were killed. Shi Ru was a little puzzled, and thought to himself: "Back then, the Japanese pirates ravaged the southeastern coast, and it took many years of hard fighting to wipe them out. I wonder how good the Japanese pirates are, but today they are all I can't see anything, but... could it be that the Japanese troops in front of me are all old, weak and remnant soldiers?"
He then thought again: If all the Japanese soldiers are so vulnerable, then why does the commander-in-chief himself need to do it? As long as Liaodong sends thousands more fine cavalry as reinforcements, Zu Fujun can lead a few of us straight to Busan Yeah! "
Just when Shi Ru was confused and proud at the same time, the walls of the houses on both sides suddenly raised troops. Shi Ru's vanguard was suddenly shot by seven hundred Japanese iron gunners. Shi Ru was first hit in the chest by a matchlock gun, but was blocked by the goggles. He was just shocked and his eyes were dark for a while. However, the Japanese army had already seen that the armor on his body was obviously different from that of ordinary soldiers, and they greeted him with iron cannons. Finally, a lucky shot came, hitting his face on the spot. Shi Ru fell from his horse and died.
Generals Ma Shilong and Zhang Guozhong, seeing the critical situation, hurriedly led troops to fight back. The Japanese iron artillerymen withdrew after three sections. However, more than half of the Ming army's vanguard had been killed or wounded, with only more than 200 people left. At this time, Governor Konishi's subordinates Nearly 8,000 people from the first legion have fought their way out from all directions.
The vanguard of the Ming army were all veterans, so they were not particularly panicked when the situation turned against them. Instead, they quickly reduced their forces and formed a defensive formation. Zu Chengxun and Wang Shouguan also led 500 cavalry to charge and kill the Japanese army.
This move is not random. As cavalry, the Ming army's defense is actually very disadvantageous. Only counterattack is the right way. Sure enough, the Japanese army was immediately frustrated by the Ming army's counterattack, and the front was shaken, and the two armies suddenly fell into a melee.
The cavalry of the Ming Army are still armored. Now they are wearing iron armor and coming and going like the wind. Every time they draw their swords, they are powered by horse power. They are absolutely powerful and heavy. However, the Japanese are mostly infantry and they are in a melee. It is difficult to put on a professional display. They used a formation to defend themselves, which was hard to resist for a while.
Upon seeing this, Commander Konishi immediately ordered the pike troops to gather and surround, forming five rows and slowly approaching, in order to reduce the movement range of the Ming cavalry and make it difficult for them to use the power of galloping horses. At the same time, he ordered the iron artillery team to wait for an opportunity to break the formation, and the other soldiers supported him from the side.
Wang Shouguan saw the Japanese army's spear formation. Although he knew that the spear formation was a cheap infantry formation to restrain the cavalry before the emergence of the bayonet formation, he relied on the Liaodong cavalry, which now had iron armor protection, and did not avoid it at all. He led the troops into the formation several times, and the spear formation It was nearly broken through several times, and the Ming army also suffered many casualties.
But at this time, the Japanese iron cannons fired continuously, and many Ming army horses fell to the ground after being hit by bullets. The Japanese army also deployed several artillery pieces, firing several solid iron bullets, killing more than a dozen Ming army cavalry. The Ming army also suffered a surge in casualties in the blink of an eye.
Zu Chengxun was not only brave, but also experienced in many years of fighting. At this time, the encirclement had become smaller and smaller, and it was difficult to do anything on horseback. So he immediately ordered the entire army to dismount and fight, avoiding the sharp edge of enemy firearms and engaging the enemy in close combat.
However, the problem is that although the Ming army is well equipped, it is outnumbered. The guerrilla generals Wang Shouguan, Qian Commander Ma Shilong, Zhang Guozhong and others were all killed in battle. Zu Chengxun saw that the iron gunners on both sides of the city walls were gradually gathering, and he knew something was wrong. Now the casualties of the Ming army were gradually increasing. The Japanese army repeatedly threw baked jade, and the fire was even bigger, making people panic.
Zu Chengxun knew that this battle was unlikely to turn around, so he led a dozen of his own soldiers back on horseback to fight out of Pyongyang, and urgently ordered the generals Guo Mengzheng and Dai Chaobian to lead the remaining troops and ordnance back to Liaodong. Zu Chengxun himself took the lead and worked non-stop. Within a few days, he was able to cross the Yalu River and return to Liaodong.
Xiao Ruxun, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong, guarded Jiulian City to supervise the transportation of grain and grass. When he learned that Zu Chengxun was defeated, he questioned him about the reason for the defeat in Pyongyang. Originally, Zu Chengxun had already been awarded the title of Deputy Commander-in-Chief. However, he had a real job, and he was currently in a false position. Moreover, there was a high-ranking elder behind him, and his ancestor did not dare to make a mistake, so he defended: "Deputy Commander." Rong Rongbing, there are four major reasons for Pyongyang's defeat, and I have figured them out one by one on the way back."
After all, the other party also had the rank of deputy commander. Xiao Ruxun didn't want to go too far, so he asked what the four main reasons were.
Zu Chengxun said: "The first problem is that food and grass are not available. North Korea can no longer supply enough military food to meet the needs of the heavenly soldiers, and it has to provide relief to North Korea to show the kindness of the heaven. As a result, our soldiers and horses are not half full, and their combat power is limited;
Secondly, the military situation is untrue. According to North Korean intelligence, there are only a thousand defenders in Pyongyang, but the actual number is more than 10,000. Our army is trapped in a tight siege and cannot escape in a desperate battle. It can be seen from this that the number of Japanese troops entrenched in various provinces of Korea may have reached more than 100,000 to 200,000;
Third, the North Korean ministers have always been eager to have them take command of the overall situation. They have repeatedly interfered with the deployment of our army and forced our army to send troops under unfavorable conditions. The North Korean soldiers who assisted in the attack seemed to be sleepwalking during the war and collapsed at the first touch. In addition to the Japanese pirates' firearms and swords, the weapons used to kill our troops were also found to be Korean-made bows and arrows. It is unknown how many Korean soldiers have served the Japanese pirates;
Fourth, the last general was indeed guilty of underestimating the enemy and mistakenly entered an ambush by Japanese pirates. The above are the reasons for Pyongyang's defeat. I ask the Vice-President to take a closer look and make sure that the general will be punished and make meritorious service. "
Zu Chengxun's words sounded reasonable and well-organized. In addition, he had been a brave general in Liaodong for a long time. Therefore, Xiao Ruxun also suspected that Zu Chengxun's words might be true.
Anyway, Zu Chengxun himself was also the deputy chief of the military, and Xiao Ruxun couldn't handle it, so after asking, he forgot about it. He just sent three letters at the same time, one to the imperial court, one to Gao Pangshi, and one to Li Rusong.
However, he himself was not idle. In order to ensure the responsibility of defending the territory, after Zu Chengxun was defeated and returned to Liao Dynasty, Xiao Ruxun became more proactive in deploying defenses in the Yalu River and other places. He even issued military orders to Nurhachi and other Jurchen tribes to let them defend their territory. Things are repaid.
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