A century-old family that runs through the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 29 Prologue to Ping Wu
"Pa." The gorgeous wine glass fell to the ground, and a middle-aged man with a strong body and a long beard, who looked like a wealthy country squire, fell down on the luxurious dragon chair.

There were delicacies in front of him, and a group of beautiful women in gauze shivering beside him. It could be seen that he was enjoying the song and dance comfortably, but at this time, his attention was entirely on the kneeling girl in front of him. On the attendant.

This place is Gusu City, Prince Wu's Mansion.

"Impossible. Didn't Zhu Wenzheng surrender? How could it be possible... Zhu Yuanzhang could tolerate his behavior? This is an army of [-]! It's impossible!" Zhang Shicheng shook his head, with a hint of emotion in his voice. Slightly unbelievable:
"Tell me! Where did you get this news? If you hear this and disturb Gu's military morale, I will take your head!" He stood up, pulled out the sword from his waist, walked a few steps quickly and put it on the attendant's neck. On the other hand, as long as the other party doesn't agree with him, he will cut off his head.

The attendant was so frightened that he burst into tears. He hurriedly said: "Your Highness, this is absolutely true! It was said by the sergeant who escaped from Quzhou. According to him, our army fell into the traitor's conspiracy, and most of the soldiers were killed. They were burned to death in the city, and the rest were defeated by the rebel cavalry and infantry, and few of them escaped!"

Seeing Zhang Shicheng's red eyes staring with suspicion, the attendant hurriedly said: "Your Highness, the man is outside the palace. You can summon him and ask him in person."

Zhang Shicheng closed his eyes, seeming to force himself to accept this reality.

"Xuan!"

This man looked very embarrassed. The leather armor on his body had been thrown away. However, there was still a broken hood on his head.The quiver behind his back had gone somewhere, but the bow was still hanging crookedly on his body, which was so unconventional.

But this is normal. After all, heavy armor and weapons are simply a burden to the fleeing soldiers.From his appearance, Zhang Shicheng could already imagine how miserable his army was in defeat during that battle.

In that initial rout, nearly a hundred Soochow soldiers managed to escape from the encirclement due to darkness, but not even ten soldiers escaped from Quzhou all the way to Zhuquan. Most of the soldiers were basically hidden in the It's the countryside. From this aspect, this soldier is quite loyal.

Zhang Shicheng asked a few questions, and seeing that his answers were fluent and logical, he knew that the other party was not lying. The reason why he comforted himself before that "it was the enemy spreading rumors" was refuted. He suddenly felt that the world was spinning, and he fell to the ground softly. His attendants rushed over to him, shouting "Your Highness, Your Highness" and helped him up.

However, he was still staring blankly somewhere in the hall, looking in disbelief, and seemed to have lost the ability to think for a moment.

This can't be blamed on Zhang Shicheng's huge reaction. After all, Soochow has never suffered such a heavy loss with [-] troops.

Soochow Wu has indeed been beaten by Xiwu in recent years, and it has indeed lost a lot of troops and horses, but more of it is "defeated". After retreating and gathering the defeated troops, it can actually regain some strength. After all, Soochow Wu is attacking. In the battle, the main force of Xiwu is not there. Even if they win, they will not be able to continue to expand the results of the battle due to the limited military strength and their own responsibility to defend the city.

However, this time was different. According to the soldier's description, the result of the battle in Quzhou was "total annihilation." This also meant that he could not recover even a penny of the [-]-strong army, and the whereabouts of the capable generals were still unknown. .

The serious consequence of this is that Soochow now has an obvious vacuum in its military strength in the south.

In the southern part of the Soochow Kingdom, that is, in northern Zhejiang, from the ancient city of Hangzhou up, there are only less than [-] troops left. With this small army, let alone Zhu Yuanzhang, even if Fang Guozhen wants to take advantage of it, it will be easy. thing.

"Fortunately, Zhu Quan is still there. Didn't I remember that Lu Zhen left five thousand soldiers there? In the past, my army of 60 was still unable to conquer. Now Zhu Yuanzhang only has more than [-] soldiers, and he must not be able to conquer it. When I will If the troops from Gusu are transferred, they can threaten Jiangxi again!" Zhang Shicheng suddenly seemed to remember something, as if he was grasping a life-saving straw.

Yes, Quzhou itself is not a strategic location that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Compared with Zhuquan, which was repaired extremely strongly by Xiwu, although Quzhou is an ancient city, its city defense is actually just like that. As long as the soldiers of Gusu go south, It can still pose a great threat to the abdomen of Quzhou and Zhu Yuanzhang.

However, the attendant's words broke his illusion.

"Your Highness, just after our army was defeated, the bandits put on our armor and raised their flags. With General Lu as the vanguard, they tricked the city gates into opening... and the whole city was lost..."

Zhang Shicheng felt like a basin of cold water was poured on his head, and the hope he had just ignited was extinguished again. This contrast was extremely uncomfortable.

"Lu Zhen! This common man! How dare he betray me," Zhang Shicheng could only use anger to cover up his fear at this time. "Lu Zhen, where are his relatives? Put them all in jail!" He roared angrily while sweeping the things on the desk to the ground.

After venting for a while, he slumped back onto his throne.

It’s over.

Zhu Yuanzhang would not miss this opportunity.

Northern Zhejiang, lost.
-
Zhang Shicheng's guess was correct, Zhu Yuanzhang would not let this good opportunity pass by.

However, his ambition was greater than Zhang Shicheng thought.

The destruction of Soochow's [-]-strong army started Zhu Yuanzhang's final steps to pacify the southeast. Before that, he had once again defeated Zhang Shicheng. More than [-] warships were almost wiped out, and countless people drowned. Then he captured Taizhou, Tongzhou, Gaoyou, Huai'an, and Huaibei all fell into the hands of Western Wu.

In the 26th year of the Zhengzheng Period, Zhu Yuanzhang petitioned to sacrifice the River God, appointed Xu Da as the general, Chang Yuchun as the deputy general, and commanded 20 troops to attack Zhang Shicheng as the northern route.

Zhu Wenzhong commanded an army of [-] people. He attacked Hangzhou from Quzhou and went north to destroy Wu. This was the southern route.

In the Battle of Huzhou from August to November, the Soochow Army was defeated. Sikong Li Bosheng, [-] elite soldiers, more than ten generals, and even Zhang Shicheng's fifth son were all captured. In the same month, Zhu Wenzhong led his troops to approach Yuhang, and the guard general Xie Wu (Xie Zaixing's younger brother) Kaicheng surrendered, and within less than half a month, the entire northern Zhejiang Province surrendered.

In September, during the Dongqian Water Battle, the Soochow Army was defeated again and more than [-] people were captured.

In the same month, Chang encountered a spring fire that burned the Dongwu army and was severely defeated. "Military resources and equipment were all exhausted in an instant."

In November, Xu Da defeated the Dongwu army under the city of Gusu and burned more than a thousand of its warships. A large number of Dongwu troops either died or surrendered. At this time, Zhang Shicheng desperately discovered that his capital, Gusu, had It has become a completely isolated city, and there is no more "Zhang" flag within a thousand miles.

And just when Zhang Shicheng relied on Gusu to fight the final battle against the trapped beast, Zhu Yuanzhang set his sights on another prince in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. He had already planned to regain the entire Jiangnan.

This person is Yan Ling's old acquaintance, Fang Guozhen, who lives in eastern Zhejiang and uses Qingyuan as his base.

At this time, it had been ten years since he captured eastern Zhejiang.

Now he has tens of thousands of troops and occupies the three prefectures of Qingyuan, Wenzhou and Taizhou. Although he is not a big prince, he should not be underestimated.

However, Fang Guozhen was also not honest. He had actually paid tribute of gold and silver to Zhu Yuanzhang to express his surrender. But when Zhu Yuanzhang actually sent officials there, this guy turned his back and refused to admit it. Over the years, he still built ships for the Yuan Dynasty and accepted them. The canonization of the Yuan Dynasty was preceded by a rat at both ends.

Zhu Yuanzhang's patience with him reached the limit, and he decided to use force to solve it.

But before that, he decided to ask someone who knew him well.

(End of this chapter)