national surname chiming

Chapter 450 Restoration of Daming, return to the old capital

Hauge returned in a disastrous defeat and had to choose to withdraw directly to Beijing.

But the Ming army had already delayed him for so long before, Wu Sangui, Jiang Yu, and Li Fuming's three divisions were almost in place, and of course they would not let him retreat unscathed.

So, on the [-]th day of the twelfth lunar month, Hauge had just withdrawn his troops from Handan and returned to the north, and Wu Sangui, who had just conquered Shahe County, came to intercept him.

Hauge was also furious, thinking that I can't beat Zhang Huangyan or you Wu Sangui?Although Wu Sangui's subordinates are also elite veterans of hundreds of battles, but the size of the Guanning Army is there, and they haven't received many decent supplements over the years.

In Hauge's eyes, he confronted Wu Sangui a few years ago, and Wu Sangui barely managed to hold on because of the closedness of Guanzhong's geography.If Wu Sangui dared to fight him head-on, he would have beaten him to the ground long ago.

At that time, Hauge only had the strength of one or two flags in his hands. Although he has suffered heavy losses from the Ming army, what he has in hand is at least the Qing Dynasty's all-powerful soldiers. Can he not take down Wu Sangui?
So out of a mentality of not believing in evil, Hauge and Wu Sangui still broke out in a field battle to break out of the encirclement in the Mingshui River Basin north of Handan and south of Shahe County.

At that time, Wu Sangui's Guan Ning Army set up defenses to intercept the south of Mingshui and the north of Fushui.

Since Shahe, Xingtai and other places have been occupied by the Ming army, Haoge's withdrawal route must be detoured from the east of Juluze, and withdraw north through Julu County and Ji County. It is impossible to go west of Juluze and close to Taihang Mountain. way.

Facing Wu Sangui's interception, Hauge could only choose to either break through Wu Sangui directly, or cross the river twice more.

Considering that he still had an army of 10,000+, crossing the river repeatedly would take a lot of time and might give Zhang Huangyan a chance to pursue him, so Hauge chose to make a frontal breakthrough.

The two armies fought all the way from Quzhou County to Jize County. Wu Sangui also fought and retreated, but he never collapsed.

The terrain in this area is narrowed by Mingshui and Fushui, and the width of the battlefield from east to west is less than [-] miles, which is not convenient for the army to make roundabouts. Therefore, although Haoge has many soldiers and horses, he has no chance to quickly circle back. Only then did Wu Sangui be able to resist steadily.

The fight between the two sides dragged on for about two days, with thousands to tens of thousands of casualties each. It can be said that both sides suffered losses.But the war lasted until this moment, and the Han people all over the world knew that Ming Dynasty must be turned around, and reinforcements would come at any time, so the morale was strong.Wu Sangui's troops were able to remain unbroken despite casualties.

On the other hand, Wu Sangui's current military strength is no longer what Hauge thought it was at the beginning. Since Wu Sangui officially returned to Ming Dynasty, the Nanjing court also took over the former Li Zicheng's former troops who had passed through Guanzhong and then went to Hanzhong to join Fang Kongzhang. Hao Yaoqi's troops were also successively assigned to Wu Sangui to replenish their troops.

The reason why he only gave Wu Sangui the old unit of Li Zicheng's peasant army was that Zhu Shuren considered that Wu Sangui had been erratic in history. If he was really given the first-line Ming army's excellent equipment, he was also worried that he would not be able to lose power in the future, and once again tried to rebuild power for the generals in western Liaoning.

In contrast, assigning Li Zicheng's old department to Wu Sangui didn't feel so distressing. Anyway, it was to let them waste money.If you can really prove yourself with meritorious service, it will not be too late to give better treatment to the direct line.

Therefore, Hauge consumed each other with Wu Sangui's men and Hao Yaoqi's former Chuang army, and was finally caught up by Huang Degong and Li Dingguo sent by Zhang Huangyan.

From Jize to Julu, all parties fought for several consecutive battles. In the end, Hauge had to choose to give up the seriously wounded and some of the slow-moving troops in the rear, and led the main force to break through at high speed.

There is nothing to elaborate on the specific battle situation during this period—it is nothing more than that after the previous battle of Neihuang, although Hauge lost [-] troops, he still had [-] troops in Handan, Daming, etc. who did not participate in the decisive battle of Neihuang. The troops are filling the line, and the mobility is not very good.

However, Hauge wanted to abandon Handan and return to the north. These second-line troops lacked horses, and their march must be relatively slow, which slowed down the speed of the whole army's action together.

Now being flanked by Zhang Huangyan and Wu Sangui, he had no choice but to think that "these slow-moving troops are better spent on the field battlefield of Julu than sending them away for nothing and letting them surrender to the enemy as Han Chinese, and let Zhang Huangyan kill Han Chinese and kill more Han Chinese." , full of people can earn a little more, and reduce the pressure in the future.”

Therefore, in this Battle of Julu, Hauge changed his attitude of putting all the main forces of the Eight Banners in a desperate fight in the Battle of Neihuang, and almost never used the Manchu cavalry. The same is true when spending with Wu Sangui and Hao Yaoqi.

It's a pity that the battle has reached this point, and those green camps who did not participate in the battle of the Neihuang battle will not really wait to die, so their morale is extremely low.

In the first few days of fighting with Wu Sangui, relying on our outnumbered enemies, we could still spend our lives desperately. After the main force of the Ming army sent by Zhang Huangyan arrived, only two days later, the troops collapsed one after another.

Of the 3 to [-] Qing army cannon fodder troops dominated by the green battalion, only [-] to [-] were killed or injured for him, and the rest either fled or surrendered.

Before the start of this round of battle, Hauge brought 278 million Qing troops, and only 26 were left before the decisive battle in Neihuang.
After the decisive battle in Neihuang, there were only about 17 left.After spending those few days with Wu Sangui, there are still [-] to [-] left.

In the end, Zhang Huangyan sent the main force of the Ming army to catch up again. After fighting the giant deer encirclement and annihilation battle, Hauge's total force finally dropped sharply to more than 8.

That is to say, in the three months starting from October, Haug lost 20 horses, including 15 Manchus, [-] Mongols, and [-] Han armed forces.

When a military regime is finally on the verge of collapse, it weakens so quickly, like an avalanche.

……

Although the green camps of the Han people were all sent away by Hauge in the end, in the process, these green camps still completed the task of delaying time very well.

After all, even if [-] pigs were caught by the Ming army, it would take a long time to catch them.These green battalions are also uneven in people's hearts. It is impossible for tens of thousands of people to surrender uniformly and uniformly.

In addition, the Ming army wanted to attack and regain the counties in Hebei one by one. When the rule of each place was rebuilt, there would be chaos. Countless bandits and thieves emerged, many of which were the former green camps that survived after the collapse.

Some cities are still firmly defended by the Qing army, and it will take some time to conquer them.

Therefore, the advance of the Ming army will be very slow, and it needs to move steadily to clear the rear and flanks. It is doomed that it will not be able to reach Beijing before the end of the fifth year of Longwu.

On the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Ming army conquered Julu, on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, Keji County, and on the 29th day of the twelfth month, Hengshui.

In this chaotic situation, the wheel of history finally quietly turned into the first month of the sixth year of Longwu.

In the first ten days of the first lunar month, the Ming army split up and attacked together, and began to encroach on the two prefectures of Baoding and Hejian. These are already two state capitals bordering Shuntian Prefecture where Beijing is located.

According to the advance speed of the Ming army, the Lantern Festival of the sixth year of Longwu could be celebrated in Baoding at the earliest, and the two prefectures could be conquered by the end of the first lunar month at the latest.

At the same time, Zhang Mingzhen, Marquis of Zhenhai on Hailu, also blossomed in many ways, and opened up another battlefield.A few days before the Lantern Festival, the armed forces of Tianjin Wei logged in, first captured Dagukou, and then went straight to Tianjin Sanwei.

Seeing that the situation of all Ming armies is very good, Zhu Shuren, who is in charge of the overall situation in the rear, will certainly not miss this opportunity to establish his prestige.He did not personally participate in the two decisive battles in Neihuang County and Julu County before.

But in the end, he must personally participate in the siege of Beijing and the ceremony of entering the city, so as not to overwhelm the master with his generals.

This is also to protect the subordinates and obtain a share of the long-term wealth that the monarch and his ministers deserve.

So from the third day of the first lunar month in the sixth year of Longwu, after celebrating the New Year in Daming County, Zhu Shuren once again personally led his personal guards to the north to inspect the supervisors.Arrived at Baoding Mansion on the Lantern Festival, and caught up with personally supervising the siege of Baoding City.

The morale of the Ming army was like a rainbow, and heavy artillery was gathered. With a hundred artillery fires, it is estimated that Baoding City will not last for a few days.

……

While the Ming army was advancing rapidly, Hauge hurried back to Beijing at the end of the previous year, but this New Year was extremely tormented.

But he still has to make some difficult decisions, some decisions that are destined to "loss power and humiliate the country".

For example, abandon Beijing.

At this point in the battle, not only Hauge knew in his heart, but also other high-ranking Manchu and Qing officials knew that Beijing would definitely not be able to defend, and it would be pointless to defend Beijing. It would only make tens of thousands of elite Manchus be captured and killed by the Ming army. , it is better to escape to the prairie or the dense forest of white mountains and black waters in order to survive.

But who should make the decision to abandon Beijing?
Hauge originally planned to dispose of Bumbutai, who had been procrastinating, after he returned to Beijing, but now he had to face a problem: if he got rid of Bumbutai, he would not If the little emperor Fulin was abolished and he was enthroned, then he must worry about whether the emperor would detonate the explosion at any time and make trouble for him for killing his mother.

However, if the little emperor is lost, after Hauge ascended the throne, his first order is to abandon Beijing and escape from customs, then his ruling prestige will be completely lost.

After thinking about it, Hauge could only find Hong Chengchou, the representative of the Han officials again, and ask him to think of a way—— Hong Chengchou was also fateful. Hauge didn't know that he and Zu Dashou had leaked the military plane, and he was still asking Hong Chengchou for advice.

Hong Chengchou also lived his life like a year. He never thought about the day when he might be killed at any time. When Hauge asked him, he just planned casually:
It's better to stay with the little emperor and give the order to abandon Beijing, and wait until it is outside the pass, and then slowly plan it.

Hauge thought about it, but there was no better way, so he caught Hong Chengchou and asked the last important point: "When Dorgon was alive, he failed to help the Qing Dynasty defend the territory. Why do you let the army still obey Gu's orders when they withdraw from the pass?"

Hong Chengchou was silent, unable to answer this question.

Hauge said to himself: "Since the city of Beijing is about to be abandoned, and Gu ordered that the Manchus be allowed to plunder, and everyone will get a bet of wealth, can the Eight Banners be completely devoted to Gu? At least for a year or so. .”

Hong Chengchou was shocked: "My lord... there are hundreds of thousands of living beings in this Beijing city, all of them are well-dressed people, and when my master of the Qing Dynasty arrived, none of the people in Beijing resisted, but they were sincerely obedient, how could... ...This is to completely lose the hearts of the people of the world!"

Hauge: "Could it be that you have two minds? So what if you lose the hearts of the Han people in the world, you are about to give up completely!"

……

Under Hauge's insistence on going his own way, in the first ten days of the first month of the sixth year of Longwu, several accidents happened in Beijing.

First of all, on the fifth day of the first lunar month, Hauge finally claimed to have found evidence in the form of turning over old accounts, saying that Zhezhe, the first emperor's wife who died of illness last year, was also the real empress dowager, and was poisoned and killed by his niece and false empress Bumbutai .

The Beijing court was in chaos for a while, and the banners were forced to face infighting again.However, Hauge hinted at the powerful generals of the various banners, saying that it was the fruit of the decision made by the traitor Bumbutai to control the young master, and he was reluctant to let his concubine Dorgon enter the customs, so everyone should be buried with Beijing.

Only after being raped and dead, the young master will decree to abandon Beijing and return to outside the pass.

For everyone's survival, the powerful generals of several main banners all chose to side with Hauge.And Prince Zheng Jierhalang, at this moment, was also framed by Hauge, saying that he was also the one who established the master and entered the customs, and the party attached Dorgon in order to get rich, and now encourages the traitor Bumbutai to stick to it. ——

Otherwise, Bumbutai is a female stream, without the source of information from the foreign court, it is impossible to make a decision on her own. Even if the decision is made spontaneously, she will have to discuss it with the important ministers of the foreign court and obtain approval before she can be determined to do so. Confidence.

In the city of Beijing, the last civil strife finally broke out.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, another bloody battle broke out in the palace. Bumbutai and Jierhalang were executed, and thousands of Eight Banners soldiers were killed or injured. Only then did Hauge completely kill all the real power and political enemies.

On the [-]th day of the first lunar month, Hauge, in the name of the little emperor Fulin, ordered all the troops in the capital to retreat to the outside of the pass.After all, the Ming army is still two mansions away, so it is impossible to fly over.

After the treasures such as gold, silver, silk and satin from the treasury were shipped out of the capital, the remaining heavy money and food were transported slowly, and Hauge probably could not transport them all.It is planned to use the limited transportation capacity wisely, to transport more gold, silver, jewelry and satin, and to transport less copper coins and food.

Now that the treasury gold, silver and jewelry have been shipped out, let's start with private gold, silver and jewelry.

On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, Hauge ordered the remaining Manchus to plunder. The city of Beijing would not be sealed for three days.

Xuanfu, Yanqing, Huailai and other places still under the control of the Qing army are also treated in the same way, especially the wealthy businessmen who want to rob Zhangjiakou——

After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the "Eight Great Locust Merchants" in Zhangjiakou and Datong, that is, the traitor merchants who helped the Manchus smuggle prohibited materials and helped the Manchus get steel, gunpowder and other things during the Ming Dynasty ruled, His identity has been revealed.For example, the family of the famous Shanxi merchant Fan Yongdou.

At that time, the Qing court also felt that the country had already been firmly established, so there was no need to hide the identity of the traitors who funded them, and they should be given plaques and names to honor their ancestors.

Unexpectedly, the Ming army has pushed back now, and the identities of these traitors have been exposed. If they stayed in the Ming land, they would definitely be liquidated by the Ming court and confiscated their property. It is impossible for the Qing court to use these exposed traitors to smuggle them in the future Salt Iron Gunpowder.

Since these people have completely lost their value and possibility of being used, it is better for the Qing army to rob them themselves than leaving them to the Ming army to raid their homes.

As for completely losing the hearts of the Han people, letting the Han people know that the Manchus would fatten up and kill their lackeys to eat meat, so that no one would dare to work for the Tartars in the future, this is no longer Hauge's concern.

What he wants now is to maximize his profits in the final deal!I will not do business in the future!

In game theory terms, this is a one-shot game, not a repeated game.

As a result, Fan Yongdou and the other eight Shanxi merchant families have suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck.After finally being a traitor in the dark and earning tens of millions of fortunes, he just washed his identity and honored his ancestors for six years, but when he met his master, he wanted to retreat back to the outside of the customs, and directly arrested all the eight major Shanxi merchant families, and ransacked all their properties. Kill.

The only humanity retained by Hauge is that he did not directly order the eight major Shanxi merchant families to be physically exterminated. What he wanted was to snatch the gold, silver, jewels, silk, satin and tea leaves, not their lives.

The fate of these eight families will be left to Wu Sangui and Jiang Yu's Shanxi Ming army, and when they recover Datong, Zhangjiakou and other places in the future, they will come to investigate and kill them.

……

Regardless of the news that Hauge abandoned the city of Beijing, burned, killed and looted indiscriminately before leaving to earn a ticket, of course, the Ming army soon learned of it.

The news reached Baoding two days after the Lantern Festival.

After Zhu Shuren learned about it, he didn't care about fighting steadily to break through Baoding and Tianjin first. He directly asked Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen to chase northward with most of the Ming army's main cavalry force, so as to expel the Qing army as soon as possible and reduce losses.

Although the cavalry forces of Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen were not enough to compete with the rest of the main force of the Manchus, Zhu Shuren knew very well that Hauge had already started to retreat in batches, and he would not leave all the soldiers behind to wait for the transportation of property.

It is impossible for Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen's pursuit to hit or even bite Hauge's absolute main force.

Under the rapid advance of the Ming army regardless of logistics, another three days later, on the 22th of the first lunar month, the vanguard of the Ming army cavalry finally arrived at the foot of Beijing. On the [-]nd, the complete encirclement of all gates in Beijing was finally completed.

The Qing army had thousands of Manchu cavalry and some second-line Manchu men. Because the Ming army advanced too fast, they had no time to withdraw from Beijing, so they were besieged in the city. After Hauge assigned the task of robbing, he always wanted to get more and rob for a few more days. He felt that the Ming army would not bypass Baoding and go north before they broke through Baoding, so he didn't count the time to retreat.

There will always be people who die of greed, and that's normal.

They slaughtered and looted innocent Han people in Beijing, and they will naturally suffer retribution at this moment.Although the Ming army had only cavalry and was unable to attack the city, the remaining Han people in the city who had been slaughtered for seven or eight days rose up to resist directly, snatching the city gate to meet Wang Shi, and led Wang Shi to kill the Manchus who looted in the city.

In the end, the Battle of Beijing still broke out unexpectedly with a gesture of "can't escape". The Ming army broke through the city the next day after the encirclement, killing tens of thousands of Manchu soldiers, strong men, civilians who participated in the looting, and Multiple family members.It can be regarded as barely avenging the hundreds of thousands of Han people who were innocently killed in Beijing.

Three days after the city was broken, on the 26th of the first month, the battles in Baoding and Tianjin in the south had also ended.After Zhu Shuren learned of the situation, he brought thousands of cavalry guards, Zhang Huangyan and others, and rushed to Beijing in person to prepare for the parade into the city.

(End of this chapter)