national surname chiming

Chapter 250 Blowing the Horn of Counterattack
It took more than half a month to be besieged, and after repelling two fierce attacks by Li Zicheng, causing huge damage.As the Chuangjun returned to silence, Huang Degong's mentality was also a little tired and anxious, and he urgently needed to move his muscles and bones again.

He is a very reckless person, and it is not his style to be impatient.

So, hearing that Shen Futai finally planned to take some actions on his own initiative, Huang Degong immediately became excited again, and hurriedly asked for orders: "Shen Futai, if you have a plan, hurry up and order it!"

Shen Shuren couldn't help laughing: "You don't even know where I'm going to fight."

Huang Degong was also unambiguous: "Anyway, as long as you speak, I will do it! You can fight wherever you want!"

After getting along during this period of time, his trust in Shen Shuren subtly rose several steps.

Of course, Shen Shuren was very satisfied with this attitude, he knew that he had finally succeeded in subduing the other party, and he also thoroughly understood his temperament, talent, and usage.

Huang Degong should be the most capable general under his command, and he is braver and more courageous than Liu Guoneng.

In contrast, Liu Guoneng's advantages at the military level are just more resolute, willing to pay the price, and more resolute in execution-to put it bluntly, Huang Degong is "follow me, brothers", and Liu Guoneng is more inclined to "follow me, brothers" .

It may be because of his family background as a bandit, he is used to life and death, so many old buddies have died after licking blood from the knife head, which made Liu Guoneng even more stingy with the lives of his soldiers and subordinates. Shen Shuren gave him an order, and he would do it no matter the cost.

Huang Degong cherishes the soldiers and takes the lead. When encountering absolute adversity, he may not dare to gamble with the whole army.

But in any case, these two are famous generals in history books.In particular, even if Huang Degong didn't rank in the first echelon at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he was at least the top of the second echelon.

It took Shen Shuren three years to develop so far. Except for Zheng Chenggong, the generals trained by himself are not as good as Huang and Liu in terms of pure military talent.

For example, Zuo Zixiong, who was single-handedly promoted by Shen Shuren, was originally only at the level of a thousand households. Although his personal martial arts skills are indeed unsurpassed, not inferior to Huang Degong, and his ability to command troops is not bad, but his ability to see the overall situation and be independent is worse than these two. a lot.

To put it bluntly, among the original generals under Shen Shuren's command, except for Zheng Chenggong, none of them had the ability to dominate a province alone and be as stable as Mount Tai.Now Shen Shuren's territory is only in Huguang, he can personally sit in the center, and his subordinates will implement his strategic decisions.

In the future, if the power spreads across several provinces, and even faces a struggle for power with the center of the Ming court, then there must be a few such famous generals who are willing to serve him completely.

Just like in history, when Liu Bei entered Sichuan, Guan Yu had to be left alone to guard Jingzhou.

The southern half of the country, due to the natural geographical environment, was destined to be divided into three major regions: Yi, Jing, and Yang since ancient times.

So Shen Shuren really wants to make plans for the world, even if he is in the south, he must have three governors who are absolutely trustworthy and loyal to him, plus three provincial guards, otherwise, even if he controls the emperor in the future, there will be someone who is on the side of the Qing emperor risk.

It turned out that before Shen Shuren became the governor of a province, these issues were too far away to think about, even if he wanted to think about it, he didn't have the strength, it was too presumptuous.

But now that he has officially been the governor of Huguang for a month or two, he has also begun to lay out a wider stage. The work of discovering and recruiting these talents must be put on the agenda.

This time when beating Li Zicheng, Shen Shuren never thought of beating Li Zicheng to the ground from the beginning to the end, and he didn't have the strength.

The key is to be able to fight for several years of peace in one battle, establish a prestige so that Li Zicheng is afraid of him, and he will not dare to go south easily in the future, that's enough.

Compared with military victories, for Shen Shuren, it was more important to beat Li Zicheng, completely unite Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong, and make them admire him sincerely.

It is best to make them more loyal to themselves than to Daming.

For this purpose, no matter how slow and careful work is, it is not an exaggeration.

……

Now that he is very clear about his overall plan for fighting Li Zicheng in his heart, Shen Shuren certainly knows what can and cannot be fought in the follow-up battles, and what specific goals to pursue.

Anything that is conducive to establishing prestige, attacking the mind, and deterring Li Zicheng in the future must be done decisively.

And any things that directly cause damage, purely reduce Li Zicheng's military strength, and cause a large amount of consumption of himself, we should do as little as possible, and try our best to defeat others without fighting.

Otherwise, if Li Zicheng was really beaten to death, who else would he expect to entangle Chongzhen and kill those shameless officials in Beijing by the way?

With a clear goal and program, Shen Shuren announced his plan in a logical manner:

"The thief is powerful, even if he can't afford us now, it's impossible to fight him decisively, so our goal is still to force him to give up the siege of Kaifeng temporarily before this winter and give Kaifeng a chance to breathe.

As you said just now, you have found out that the Chuang army gave up and continued to attack the city, and there is still a shortage of food.Although it is up to you where to go, you haven't detected it, but if you think about it casually, I can guess the general direction——

The intruders came from the west, and the west has been eaten up and wiped out for hundreds of miles. Luoyang is even more dilapidated, and there is Sun Chuanting in the direction of Tongguan.

The Huaiqing Mansion and Weihui Mansion in the north were just slaughtered and plundered by Li Zicheng at the turn of summer and autumn. Now the population is estimated to be insignificant. Li Zicheng couldn't survive this autumn and couldn't keep the siege of Kaifeng.

And there is Zuo Liangyu in the southwest, and we are in the south and southeast. Therefore, the only direction for Li Zi to divide his troops to go out to get food is probably the Guide Mansion in the east (Shangqiu). Although it is also poor there, it has not been systematically slaughtered. However, there may be some autumn grains harvested.

Even if the food is not enough for the people to eat until next year, as long as most of the local people are killed and all the people's living food is robbed, it will definitely be enough for hundreds of thousands of troops to feed for a while. Li Zicheng can definitely do this kind of thing.

In this way, if we want to go out of the city to actively seek fighter opportunities, the most important direction is to divide our troops to the east, and advance to the east of the intruders and the northeast of our army.If we can attack the lone troops who have broken into the army and defeat them one by one, we will be able to gain considerable results.

If we don’t encounter trespassers, we can also gradually attack and recover some key counties, or assist in the defense of some counties in Yingchuan and Henan along the Shahe River that are still under the control of the government and the army, and continue to fight steadily and steadily.

If the Chuang army comes to intercept, we will copy the tried and tested Knotty Stronghold at Shangcai and fight in a daze. If the Chuang army does not intercept, we can approach Kaifeng all the way along the Yingchuan and Shahe..."

Shen Shuren just talked about this here, and there is still a lot to explain, but Huang Degong felt a little uneasy when he heard it, and couldn't help interrupting: "My lord, if you don't take down Yancheng, divide your troops to the northeast and pass around the city, then what will happen?" How to solve our army food road?
Yancheng is blocked at the mouth of the Qulu Canal that communicates with Ruying. Our previous grain ship came from Rushui. To bypass Yancheng, we had to unload the ship at Shangcai and load it to Yingchuan by land. When unloading the truck and loading the ship, every flaw will be seriously threatened by the army.You wouldn't have prepared otherwise..."

Shen Shuren nodded: "Of course, do you still remember that when the intruders had just retreated and stopped attacking the city a few days ago, I asked you to send people to make trouble and ask Ma Shiying, the prefect of Fengyang, to deliver food for us? Didn't you also follow me?" The request has been sent."

Now it has been four or five days since Li Zicheng's second siege failed, so this time is enough time to send people from Xinyang to Fengyang Mansion in Nanzhili next door to do something and make a round trip.Shen Shuren arranged this idle move the day after Li Zicheng gave up the strong attack.

Hearing this, Huang Degong also remembered this matter. He actually already knew the result of the coordination, but he was too embarrassed to speak to Shen Shuren and didn't know how to report it.

At this moment, he was actively mentioned, and he could only say ashamedly: "This matter is unreliable. Your lord, you asked the general to send someone there, but you prepared the letter yourself. The wording is too blunt. Ma Shiying can definitely do it." If you play in an official style, according to the rules of the officialdom, he doesn't have to cooperate with you.

If you had asked me to prepare some gifts and say some kind words, the situation might have been different... The General Mo heard that you had some quarrel with Ma Shiying's close friend Ruan Dacheng, but this is not unresolved. "

Shen Shuren listened, but smiled triumphantly: "I didn't intend to ask Ma Shiying to raise food for us, what I wanted was his non-cooperative attitude.

Fengyang is where the Central Capital is, and the officialdom must have been infiltrated by thieves. You said that if the news spread that Ma Shiying and I were not dealing with each other, wouldn't Li Zicheng relax his vigilance even more?

As for how to deal with the grain road after we bypassed Yancheng, of course, the official raised the transportation capacity himself, and used sand boats from Huaihe River from Shouxian County to Yingchuan to the north, and there was always a waterway all the way to Kaifeng.

Our Shen family is responsible for changing water transportation to the sea for the imperial court. A landlubber like Li Zicheng has no idea of ​​our Shen family's power on the water.

We can even transport the rations consumed by millions of people every year around the capital and even the garrison in Liaodong. Even if we divide the rations into several routes and reserve enough capacity for each route, it is more than enough.

Before I dispatched troops last month, I had secretly discussed this with my father, asking him to keep enough sailors, sailors, warships, and transport ships at any time.Because there were very few people who handled it, I didn't tell outsiders and kept it very secret.

The two ends of the Qulu Canal that communicates with Ruying are Yancheng and Chen County respectively. Yancheng is at the intersection of the Qulu Canal and Ru River, and Chen County is at the intersection of the Qulu Canal and Yingchuan.

We set off from Shangcai, the north is Yancheng, and the northeast is Chenxian. As long as the land route only takes a few days of food, and we are caught off guard and attack Chenxian, where the enemy army is sparsely garrisoned, we can switch the grain road to Shouxian County and Chen County. What's the use of Li Zicheng getting stuck in Yancheng?

Conversely, Li Zicheng's garrison in Yancheng will not be able to get the food raised from the east of the Yingchuan River Basin because we are stuck in Chen County. If he came to Yancheng, it would be meaningless for him to defend Yancheng.In this way, Yancheng has become an orphan fruit on a withered vine, so why bother to attack again, just wait until the fruits are ripe. "

While Shen Shuren was talking, he was pointing on the map, and after he finished speaking, Huang Degong was completely enlightened.

In addition, to make a digression, Huang Degong may be able to easily understand Shen Shuren's plan, but most modern people who are not familiar with history and geography may have some obstacles in understanding——

The modern Yingchuan and Shahe rivers are small rivers with small flows, so many people will be surprised "how can it be possible to take a big boat from here to Bianshui all the way to Kaifeng".But this problem did not exist in the Ming Dynasty.

This is because, since the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin Kingdom in the north was neglected to control water, the Yellow River broke its embankment and diverted its course, and seized the Huaihe River into the sea. The Huaihe River is the mouth of the sea.

At that time, Bianshui, Shahe, and Yingchuan were all one of the several rivers through which the Yellow River flowed into the Huaihe River. The water level and flow were much higher than those of later generations, and all of them could pass large ships with ease. Only the army troops could hardly intercept these rivers. most of the river.

In contrast, the lower reaches of the Yellow River that were re-diverted to the north in later generations were actually several small rivers such as "Jishui" in this era.Because the diversion of the main stream of the Yellow River only allowed the water from the middle and upper reaches to go south.However, there is still rainfall on both sides of the lower reaches of the Yellow River that needs to be confluenced. This small amount of water will still go the same way as Brother Huang, forming small water pipes such as Jishui.

Of course, most people in the 21st century don't know these geographical common senses, but Huang Degong was a person at that time, so of course he knew it well, and he didn't doubt the road passability of the grain transportation logistics plan mentioned by Shen Shuren at all.

So he said with sincere admiration: "Your Excellency's plan is like a chess game. It is really a talent in the world! However, if our army wants to attack Chen County by surprise, and then approach Kaifeng along the Yingchuan and Shahe Rivers, the road will be smoother. , no better than Shangcai who is still on the edge of the Runan Mountains.

What if you advance on the plains, there is no danger to defend, and you are besieged by the main force of intruders, seeking a decisive battle? "

Shen Shuren shook his head speechlessly: "Didn't I say, 'build a stronghold and fight a dull battle', it's not 'build a strong city', even if there is no city, we can build a stronghold, build a chariot formation, and slowly advance by relying on the big river ,

We have the advantage of a water army, and when Li Zicheng besieges us, it is impossible to cut off my food road. My food road can pass through the camp through the big river, so he can only attack by force.

You have already seen the end of a strong attack. When we have a broken city like Shangcai, it is easy to withstand ten times the enemy. Even if the city becomes an ordinary camp, it is no problem to withstand five times.

Moreover, the bandit has already lost two consecutive battles, and the casualties, attrition, and morale decline are very serious.A discouraged soldier is unavailable, and the later he gets to the later stage, the less he will dare to put all his eggs in one basket and pay a heavy price to try to attack.As long as we can support Kaifeng, our goal will be achieved, and we can give His Majesty an explanation. "

Huang Degong gritted his teeth. He finally didn't question this time. He still had courage, but he cherished his subordinates and didn't want to die, so he had to ask clearly at the beginning.

And as soon as he found out that it was feasible, he immediately became very executive like a different person, only thinking about how to achieve the goal.

Huang Degong picked up the wine bowl, took a sip of a large bowl, and asked decisively: "I don't know how many soldiers and horses will be left behind to continue to defend the Xinyang Mansion, and how many soldiers and horses will be used to attack? The final general is willing to be the vanguard!"

Shen Shuren smiled reassuringly: "The pioneer has lost his talent, and Huang Zongzhen will follow this official and lead the main force. For this battle, I will draw 2 people from the 3 defenders in Shangcai, and then from the [-] people in Ruyang. , also draw [-],

In addition to all the cavalry, the new musket troops, all the 6-jin light Francophones that are easy to move, and the transferred sailors, a total of [-] to [-] mobile troops will be dispatched.

Let Liu Guoneng continue to lead his headquarters, as well as our army's old-fashioned gunners, and all the heavy artillery units that are not easy to maneuver, to withstand the defensive front on the ground of Xinyang Mansion and drag the enemies in Yancheng.In the past two days, let Ruyang's troops slowly prepare to assemble, and then divide into a joint attack. Three days later, they will attack Chen County and fire the first shot of our army's initiative to fight. "

"The last general obeys orders!" Huang Degong accepted the order and went to prepare for the battle without mentioning it.

(End of this chapter)