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Chapter 214 Zhang Xianzhong: I slaughtered Chongzhen's uncle!

As Li Dingguo was removed from his sole authority, in the next few days, he learned from the pain, and finally gradually thought clearly about some details that he didn't want to think about, saw and pretended not to see.

For example, before the military meeting in Prince Ji's mansion that day, he discovered that Wang Shangli, who was equal to Feng Shuangli and Bai Wenxuan under Zhang Xianzhong's command, was not present.

At that time, he didn't think it was a big deal, and only learned two days later that Zhang Xianzhong had already made a decision before the military meeting, "No matter what the follow-up is, at least continue to fight south to Hengzhou, cross Hengshan, Then consider whether to go east or west or south.”

In other words, regarding the first part of the decision, Zhang Xianzhong had no intention of asking for his opinion at all.It can be seen that before the military discussion started, Zhang Xianzhong's suspicion of him had accumulated to at least five or six points.

As for why Zhang Xianzhong wanted to go south to Hengzhou so eagerly, Li Dingguo didn't understand at first, but after listening to Bai Wenxuan chatting with him in private, he figured it out:

What Zhang Xianzhong is most worried about now is whether he will be chased across the provincial border if he escapes from Huguang territory.As for this issue, Shen Shuren was too young, and his qualifications in the Ming court were too low. Even if he was capable, he was not qualified to fully display it. Therefore, what Zhang Xianzhong wanted to ensure most now was to kill Yang Sichang.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong's thoughts now are the same as before he killed King Xiang last year. He is still thinking about how to kill more vassal kings, and it is best to occupy the city for a while after killing the vassal kings. Immediately let Shen Shuren take it back.

Only in this way can it fully prove that Yang Sichang's strategy is fundamentally wrong!The place is not well protected at all!It can't be blocked even if it is blocked!At that time, even if Chongzhen didn't kill Yang Sichang, he would still be able to scare Yang Sichang to death!

It can be said that Zhang Xianzhong was already a little dazed on the issue of frantically chasing and killing local feudal lords, forming path dependence, the more he killed, the more enjoyable he was.

He can also rob the most money, frame officials who fought against him, and attack the prestige of the court and establish his own reputation.

And he was eager to attack Hengzhou quickly this time because there was a vassal king in Hengzhou who was far more important than King Rong and King Ji who had been killed before—Guiwang Zhu Changying!
Don't look at Hengyang, the later generations are considered poor in Hunan. After all, it is south of Hengshan, located in a mountainous area, with inconvenient water transportation and underdeveloped economy.Not only is it far inferior to Changsha in terms of wealth, it is even inferior to Changde and Yueyang.

However, in the Chongzhen Dynasty, the King Gui of Hengzhou, who was a vassal, had a high gold content, because King Gui was the son of the first emperor Wanli, that is, the uncle of Chongzhen. The relationship is close!Killing him is a blow to the prestige of the court and the future of officials, but it is not worth killing several other princes of the remote branch!
Chongzhen’s father, Guangzong Zhu Changluo, had two sons who lived to adulthood, namely Tianqi and Chongzhen, so Chongzhen’s brothers and vassals did not exist in the world. The closest to him were the uncles who came from his grandfather Wanli up.

And Wanli had a total of eight sons, three of whom died young, and only five of them survived to adulthood.Among them, the eldest son is Chongzhen's own father, and the remaining four vassal kings are King Fu, King Rui, King Hui, and King Gui.

King Fu was killed by Li Zicheng last year. King Hui is a different kind. He was a vassal in Jingzhou, but he converted to Buddhism. He likes to worship Buddha and not care about world affairs.

Jingzhou Mansion is now the residence of Huguang Governor Fang Kongzhang, so Zhang Xianzhong has never thought of killing King Hui, unless he can kill Fang Kongzhang first, and then killing someone who already wants to convert to Buddhism will not have a deterrent effect. They have all become monks and practiced, and they have lost their relationship with their family members.

So the only uncles of Chongzhen who can be killed in the whole world are King Gui of Hengzhou and King Rui of Chongqing Zhu Changhao.

Chongqing is still in the hands of Shao Jiechun, governor of Sichuan, and Zhang Xianzhong is still racking his brains on how to detour into Sichuan, so he had to let it go for a while. In the end, the best solution that can be realized in front of him is King Gui.

So as early as a few days ago, not long after he broke through Changsha, when he learned that Shen Shuren's reinforcements had arrived and copied his retreat, Zhang Xianzhong had already made up his mind to go south to Hengzhou and kill King Gui first.

He was afraid of long nights and dreams, and he was also afraid that after a long delay, King Gui heard that Changsha had fallen and the bandits would continue to go south. He was afraid of running away in advance, so he didn't wait too long, and directly asked Wang Shangli to lead an elite old battalion and a small number of people to go first. Go straight to Hengzhou.

In addition, he also took advantage of the fact that Changsha City fell too quickly, the officers and soldiers did not resist much, and the surrounding areas had not yet reacted. He directly collected the seal and all official documents and tokens of the surrendered Changsha General Soldier Yin Xianmin, and even used A group of Yin Xianmin's soldiers who surrendered to the Ming Army led Wang Shangli to deceive the defenders of Hengyang Pass——

Hengzhou is to the south of Hengshan Mountain, and Changsha Prefecture is to the north of Hengshan Mountain, so there are some traffic arteries in between, and they have to cross certain valleys in Hengshan Mountain.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court did not directly build a solid checkpoint in the Hengshan Valley, but at least there was a camp of the Guards, and a garrison camp was stationed there.Theoretically, it is under the control of the commander-in-chief of Hengzhou and other states, not the commander-in-chief of Changsha.

However, when the surrendering troops of the Ming army, under the banner of the unflinching Changsha General Soldier, declared that "Changsha has been surrounded, the former Yin General Soldier feared that the bandits would surround the city and threaten Hengzhou and other places. So send us to assist in the defense of Hengshan Pass."

The defenders of the Hengshan camp did not take precautions at all, so they put Yin Xianmin's soldiers into the camp, and then the old battalion soldiers under Wang Shangli who were mixed in Yin Xianmin's department suddenly launched an attack and took control of the Hengshan guards. Didn't even have time.

Everything is exactly the same as it was in Xiangyang City back then.It can only be said that when a general at the general level of the Ming army surrendered directly, handed over the token, and even took the troops to steal it, the impact on the local area was really bad.

Hengshan Guard said that there was a battalion with a full staff of 4000 people. Wang Shangli actually counted it after it was incorporated. What's more, there were only more than 600 people in the garrison at that time. The vacancy rate of Ming Dynasty was also terrible to a heinous level.

It can only be said that there has been no war in the southern region for hundreds of years, and even since the riots between the Tartars and the thieves, the border between Huguang and Guangdong has never encountered war.The military equipment here is slack, and the courage of the generals to eat empty wages is so great that it has no bounds.

When the Hengshan Guard was easily taken down, Wang Shangli couldn't help feeling in his heart: How good would it be if the governor and general soldier of Ming Dynasty were as good as these people?Why is there such an outlier as Shen Shuren!
……

While the bandit army had captured the Hengshan Guard without anyone noticing, there was still no reaction in the city of Hengzhou.

On the contrary, some rich and powerful gentry were discussing "I heard that Changsha was under siege, should we pack up and run south", but most people felt that Hengshan Mountain was steep, and even if Zhang Xianzhong took Changsha, given the wealth of Changsha, he would definitely have to stay for a long time Time, after eating and wiping it off, how could he suddenly fall in love with Hengzhou, which is much poorer than Changsha?

To be honest, this view is not wrong, if Shen Shuren hadn't been chasing Zhang Xianzhong, Zhang Xianzhong would definitely have stayed in Changsha for a long time.As for whether Shen Shuren pursued Zhang Xianzhong or not, how could the common people in the prefecture who are hundreds of miles away know about such a military event?

On this day, it was already the 45th of June. In the mansion of King Gui, the [-]-year-old King Gui Zhu Changying was having dinner with his three sons, so they talked about it.

Zhu Changying had five sons in total, but the first two died young, so the third son Zhu Youchen was the prince's son. He is 22 years old this year.In addition to Zhu Youchen, the other two sons are Zhu Youlang, who is only 19 years old, and Zhu Youzhen, who is 15 years old.

Zhu Changying had been ill for a long time in the past few years, so he couldn't get enough energy to do anything. When his fourth son Zhu Youlang talked about "whether he should prepare to flee south", he was a little unhappy.

The eldest son Zhu Youchen is also not in good health, and he also feels that it is better to be still than to move. In addition, he is reluctant to part with the wealth of the palace, and he always feels that the matter will not reach this point.

"Why don't you wait and see? Changsha is only besieged, but Zongbing Yin is considered a mighty general, and he will be able to defend for a long time. As long as Changsha holds up, Governor Fang will definitely ask for reinforcements immediately. Zhang Xianzhong's sudden attack is just an occupation. It's just cheap for the officers and soldiers to be caught off guard.

At worst, let's wait for the news from Changsha. If it is confirmed that Changsha will die soon, or if we hear that thieves are going south around Changsha, and Hengshan Guard is breached, there is still time to leave.Hengshan is dangerous, how can it be said that it can be passed at once? "

Both father and brother objected, thinking that being still is worse than moving, so Zhu Youlang had nothing to say.

As everyone knows, historically, they were able to escape from Hengzhou to Guangdong in such a slow manner, all because Liu Xizuo, the governor of Huguang at the time, was ordered by him to transfer the main force of Hunan's troops to Hengzhou as much as possible and defend Hengzhou.

But in history, Liu Xizuo took Chongzhen's office in the winter of 15 years and was killed after working for a year. Today, the governor of Huguang is still Fang Kongxuan. Because of the butterfly effect, Huguang's troops have been gathered in the north before, in the battle with Sichuan and Henan. At the junction, the south is extremely empty.

All of this has changed, but the slowness of the people in Prince Gui's Mansion has not changed, and the tragedy is doomed.

……

Three days later, Wang Shangli suddenly appeared in Hengzhou with the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's army. This time they did not choose to swindle, but directly surrounded them with four gates——Zhang Xianzhong's goal was very clear, and it didn't matter if he took Hengzhou or not. Influenced, anyway, he will continue to escape immediately.

For him, the only value of winning Hengzhou is to kill Gui Wang's family, so that he can force Yang Sichang to death, and it is best to let Fang Kongxuan and Shen Shuren get more charges.The second is to rob the huge wealth of Gui Wang's mansion, take Xiruan away and transport it to Sichuan to recruit soldiers.

Therefore, if the city is cheated and the city is not besieged, it would be a bad idea to let King Gui's family have time to run away.

After Wang Shangli besieged the city, the people in the city immediately became popular, and the commander-in-chief He Yide tried to defend the city and wait for help.

Wang Shangli made people shout and scold outside the city, and continued to promote Zhang Xianzhong's theory of "defend the city and fight for one day before surrendering, and then [-]% of the city will be slaughtered, and after fighting for three days, surrender and slaughter the entire city".As a result, the morale of He Yide's army was unstable, and the hearts of the people were brilliant.

But at this time, King Gui Zhu Changying knew that the city was besieged and was extremely panicked. He found the general He Yide and forced him to go out from the south of the city to fight in the field.

He Yide argued that there were not enough soldiers and horses in the city, and the thieves were powerful, so there was still hope for defending the city, and if they fought in the field, they would be unlucky.

But Zhu Changying doesn't care about these things at all. All he wants is to tear open a hole for him to escape. As for the process of tearing the hole, he doesn't care if the defenders will be too dead or injured to defend the city. Anyway, he will have escaped by then Well, it has nothing to do with him if the people in the city die,

Therefore, Zhu Changying forced He Yide to "disregard the defense of the city, and fight at all costs to break through the siege."

He Yide didn't have any backbone at first, but he was like Yin Xianmin in history, and he surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong one after another.

Being forced at this moment, he dared not speak out, and went out of the city to fight in the field in the last trace of loyalty to Daming.

However, he was very unlucky. Just now he had an inextricable fight with Wang Shangli's vanguard of the bandits, and soon Zhang Xianzhong's reinforcements from the central and rear troops also arrived one after another. In fact, the main force of the bandits had already given up on Changsha and went south.The defenders in Hengzhou didn't expect the bandits to be so desperate. They didn't even plan to defend Changsha for a long time, so they pulled the main force.

He Yide and Wang Shangli, who only had a fraction of his own strength, could barely fight back and forth.

As soon as Zhang Xianzhong's reinforcements arrived, He Yide collapsed immediately, and then chose to surrender before the battle.

As soon as the Hengzhou General Army surrendered, Hengzhou City was of course easily taken.

None of Zhu Changying and his three sons escaped Zhang Xianzhong's pursuit this time, and they were all wiped out like other vassal kings in the Huguang area.

In the whole of Huguang, except for Wuchang Mansion where Shen Shuren was stationed, and Jingzhou Mansion where Fang Kongzhao was stationed, the vassal kings in other places were completely wiped out.

As for Chongzhen's relatives and uncles, apart from those who converted to Buddhism, only Zhu Changhao from Chongqing was still alive, and all the others were killed.

And Zhang Xianzhong just killed Chongzhen's seventh uncle, and will soon try to enter Sichuan. Whether Chongzhen's last uncle who did not convert to Buddhism can be kept is still in doubt.

(End of this chapter)