scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 369 Hard Choices
It was almost completely dark, and the large-scale battle on the Taipingfu battlefield was basically over. Only some diehards were still fighting on the hills with more favorable terrain, but they were still fighting with their arms, so there was nothing to worry about. Get up, there are fat soldiers who are eager to get rewards for their meritorious service and will go to clean them up, so Fatty Lu didn't bother to stay on the battlefield any longer, so he simply ordered the headquarters to be moved into Taiping City, where he rested overnight and took care of the battlefield aftermath issues.

The moon was sparse, and the moonlight was as bright as day, allowing Fatty Lu to see the mountains of corpses on the battlefield, and also let Fatty Lu see the blood flowing into streams on the ground, the burning bushes and woods, and hear the dying wounds. The low and painful groans of the soldiers among the corpses, the tragic neighing of the horses that lost their masters, and the sporadic screams of dying people can be heard sporadically.Although it is not the first time to see such a scene, let alone the first time to hear such a voice, Fatty Lu lamented habitually, "Do evil, full of dogs do evil, if they don't resist, if they don't resist, we will Is it necessary to kill so many people?"

"As soon as the generals are successful, we will drive out the Tartars and restore China. I don't know how many more scenes like this we will see." Han Daren next to him also felt emotional, and comforted himself: "It's okay, the dead Some of them are full of dogs and traitors, no matter how much murder we commit, we can live with our conscience."

"Yeah, fortunately, most of the dead were dogs and traitors. We can say that we have a clear conscience about how much murder we have committed." Fatty Lu sighed again, and said thoughtfully: "But if we have to sacrifice dozens Is it worth the lives of the Wan Han people in exchange for such a big victory? Can you have a clear conscience?"

"General, what do you mean?" Han Daren, who had been stationed in Taiping Mansion before, asked curiously.

"I've always had an idea." Fatty Lu didn't hide anything from Han Daren, and said frankly: "I want to blow up the Gaojiayan in Hongze Lake, and use the flood in Hongze Lake to cut off the retreat and food supply of the main force on the Mangou North Line." Dao, catch the turtle in the urn and wipe out the main force of Mangou's northern line, and strive to capture the emperor of Mangou first and capture the king first, but considering the hundreds of thousands of Huainan people, I can't bear it. , I also refused."

Han Daren was silent, and Fatty Lu asked Han Daren again: "Brother Daren, you said that I did this, is it a woman's benevolence? Or compassion? Is it right? Or is it wrong?"

Han Daren continued to remain silent, and followed Fatty Lu's horse for another half a mile before Han Daren said slowly: "General, as far as I know, Mr. Shi Kefa Shige has also encountered your problem. Man Gou Duoduo attacked Yangzhou, and the Yangzhou defenders knew that they were no match for Man Gou. Liu Zhaoji, the commander-in-chief, proposed this suggestion to Mr. Shi Ge. He dug up the Huai River embankment and Gaojiayan, and flooded Man Gou. However, Mr. Shi Ge considered The common people refused. You know what happened later, the general, so I won’t repeat it for the last general.”

"You want to say that if Mr. Shi Ge did this back then, maybe there wouldn't be Ten Days in Yangzhou, dogs wouldn't be able to cross the Yangtze River, and there wouldn't be the subsequent Jiangnan massacre?" Fatty Lu asked.

Han Daren nodded silently, and said to himself: "The last general has another idea. If Mr. Shi Ge knew that Man Gou would kill so many of our Han compatriots after he captured Yangzhou, then Man Gou would kill so many of our Han people after he entered Jiangnan. After massacring so many of our Han compatriots, I wonder if Mr. Shi Ge would choose to save hundreds of thousands of Huainan people?"

It was Fatty Lu who was silent, and he also understood that Han Daren's implication was that he agreed to blow up the embankment, sacrifice the minority, and make the public happy, and use partial sacrifices in exchange for overall victory.After another moment of silence, Fatty Lu said softly: "Brother Ren, I still have a question. Back then, I suggested that the prince blow up the embankment of thousands of people to flood Jingzhou with dogs. Why did the prince refuse? Emperor Mangou, why can't you hide your eyes?" Digging up the embankment of the Yellow River without blinking, and flooding our Northern Expedition army?"

"Because the prince is a Han, he has to consider our Han compatriots." Han Daren replied quickly this time, "Kang Mazi is a man of dogs, so he doesn't need to think about our Han compatriots. No matter how many of our Han people die, the man of the dog emperor will not blink eyelid."

"But we are also Han Chinese, you are, and so am I." Fatty Lu sighed again, looking up to the sky and sighing: "It's a dilemma. On the one hand, there are hundreds of thousands of compatriots, and on the other hand, there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill Emperor Mangou. What should I do?" choose?"

With this difficult choice, on the second day, Fatty Lu led the main force of more than 3 Fatty Army and Taipingfu Navy back to Nanjing, while Han Daren temporarily stayed in Taipingfu to deal with the aftermath of the Western Front, reorganizing prisoners of war and cleaning up. On the battlefield, after three days of preparation, lead an army of [-] to Nanjing to join Fatty Lu, and join forces with Fatty Lu to rescue the most critical northern and eastern battlefields—now the elite main force of the Qing army on the western front has been wiped out , the Taiping Army, which had been entangled with the Qing Army on the Western Front for more than a year, was finally free.

The army was on fire, and the main force of the Fat Man Army only took two days to complete the 140-mile journey from Taiping Mansion to Nanjing, and arrived at the city of Nanjing on the evening of May 22.Quanjie, Qin Yong, Wang Shaobo, Xie Dong and others who stayed in Nanjing led the Chinese and military officials and gentry out of the city to greet them. They wished Fatty Lu his world-class martial arts. He wiped out the main elite of the Qing army on the western front in less than half a month, and completely resolved the situation. Fatty's army was facing a crisis on the western front, while Fatty Lu kept being modest, saying that it was all due to the hard work of the soldiers, the support of the gentry and the common people, and the luck to meet Prince Zhang, the benefactor of the great Zhou. Annihilated the main force of the Qing army on the Western Front.

Fatty Lu's words are not completely hypocritical and modest. Cold weapon wars are like this. Pre-war preparations may take a long time, but it doesn't take much time to actually fight. The three battles with the wild boar skin in the five days of Sarhu broke the sky. Compared with the Qing army, it took almost half a month for the Fatty Army to wipe out the two main forces of the Qing army, which is really not ranked well.

After the hypocrisy and modesty were over, the army entered the city and was stationed in the city. Fatty Lu also returned to the General's Mansion after he had been away for half a month. Did you send someone to contact you? Have you sent the imperial edict of the prince's ascension to the throne?"

"No." Wang Shaobo replied honestly: "Don't say that the prince didn't send anyone, even the envoys we sent to contact Hu Guozhu, none of them came back."

"Strange?" Fatty Lu was very surprised, and said in confusion: "It stands to reason that the prince's edict should have been sent long ago? Why hasn't it been sent yet? Did the envoy encounter an accident on the road, or something else happened? misfortune?"

"Students are also wondering about this." Wang Shaobo also said confusedly: "Even Zheng Jing in Taiwan knows that the prince has proclaimed himself emperor. Why hasn't the prince's edict been sent to Nanjing?"

"Perhaps this is a deliberate arrangement by Prince Pingxi." Yao Qisheng interjected, "Perhaps Prince Pingxi wanted to take this opportunity to test the general. He knew that you could spy on the general that he proclaimed himself emperor and made you king, but he deliberately Don't rush to issue the canonization edict, General, if you can't wait to call yourself the King of Yue, you will not only expose your ambitions, but in the future, after the prince and the general join forces, you will have something to lose and more excuses to find."

"I don't care about that prince. As long as I can kill all the dogs in the world and restore China, I don't care if I have the title of prince." Fatty Lu snorted coldly, and said with a wave of his hand: "Forget it, is the prince testing me?" , just ignore him for the time being, it would be better if his imperial edict had not been delivered, and I would save myself from wasting my saliva with those Donglin remnants all day long! Let’s take care of the current affairs first, how is the situation in Yangzhou these days? gone?"

"Not very good." Wang Shaobo shook his head and said seriously: "On the Yangzhou battlefield, Mangou blocked the Grand Canal near Shijia Bridge with sacks of earth and rocks. Our ships could not send Hongyi cannons into Yangzhou City. The advantage of the number of barbarian cannons continued to bombard the city wall of Yangzhou. Several sections of the city wall in the northwest corner of Yangzhou have been bombed down. Our army can only repair the city wall while defending the city. General Gao Dejie went out of the city several times to destroy the cannon array At the same time, Man Gou also used the tactics of besieging Wei and saving Zhao. General Gao Dejie sent a large army out of the city, and Man Gou attacked another section of the city wall, forcing General Gao Dejie to return to the rescue."

"How did Gao Dejie fight the battle like this?" Fatty Lu wondered: "In Yangzhou City, we have stored more than 4000 Sanhao rockets. Why can't we destroy the dog artillery array?"

"Restricted by the city gate, our rocket vehicles can't go out of the city quickly to assemble, and bombard Mangou on a large scale. They can only be launched with a single shot, which is greatly reduced in power." Wang Shaobo explained: "There are also Mangou who have learned to master it. A thick earth wall was built around the artillery array to resist our Sanhao rockets, and cavalry were constantly sent out to outflank and attack the wings and rear of our troops out of the city. The weird artillery array of our army's artillery shells has also consumed more than 3000 troops and more than 1000 Sanhao rockets by Mangou."

"Also." Xie Dong also added hesitantly: "Man Gou has arrested a large number of Jiangnan people, using the pretext that they have committed crimes privately, and forced them to use sandbags and stones to fill the moat of Yangzhou to make meritorious deeds. Our army was forced to Cannons were fired and rockets were fired, killing and injuring tens of thousands of people in the south of the Yangtze River.”

Fatty Lu stopped talking, and after a while he slapped his hand on the table, and said bitterly, "You bastard! It must be to open up the road to attack the city and consume our ammunition!"

"Students think so too." Wang Shaobo nodded, and said: "General, and the Chongming battlefield on the eastern front, the situation is also very critical. The Mangou Navy colluded with the Red Hair Kingdom to frequently harass and attack our coastal areas. At one time, they went deep into the city of Tongzhou (Nantong), murdered and set fire everywhere, raped and looted. Although the two generals Han Yuanren and Mao Yougui tried their best to resist, the firepower of the red-haired country's double-layer fort warships was too fierce. It’s not cheap, and the Mangou navy has tightly protected the Red-haired warship. Even if we dispatched suicide sampans, we couldn’t get close to the red-haired warship to detonate. Just today, the two generals Han Yuanren and Mao Yougui sent us another A letter of plea for help."

"It's the same on the southern line." Xie Dong said again: "Geng Jingzhong also has three good rockets and three good explosives in his hands, and he joined hands with Man Gou to attack Huzhou City. , General Guo Yingfu’s ammunition consumption is very serious, General Li Tianzhi has been forced to use the firearms stored in the Suzhou Corps in order to reinforce the Huzhou battlefield, and now the Suzhou Corps’ rocket reserve is less than [-], General Li Tianzhi asked for more firearms.”

"During the time I left Nanjing, how many firearms did the Xuanwu Arsenal produce?" Fatty Lu asked.

"Two thousand six hundred and eight rockets, one high-precision shell 610, and one thousand five hundred and twenty solid shells." Xie Dong answered fluently, "But our storage of saltpeter, sulfuric acid and pig iron is almost bottoming out, and the seaport is full again. Dog sailors and red-haired sailors are blocked, it is difficult to replenish raw materials, and it is difficult to continue mass production. At the same time, the craftsmen are already very tired, even if the raw materials are sufficient, the speed cannot be increased."

Fatty Lu frowned. Although the Fatty Army won a complete victory in the battle on the Western Front this time, the consumption of firearms was astonishing. Now the main force of the Fatty Army has less than 600 rockets and less than [-] rockets left. The flowering shells and more than [-] solid shells, plus the old inventory in Nanjing and the full-scale production in the past half a month, the Fatty Army has less than [-] Sanhao rockets and about [-] solid shells that can be put into the battlefield. Thousands of rounds, [-] shells blooming, barely able to fight a big battle.With such a small amount of inventory, it is really stretched to cope with the three-front war at the same time.

"How about this, send [-] rockets to Li Tianzhi." Fatty Lu ordered in a deep voice: "Tell him that in a short time, the rear can only supply him with this batch of rockets, let him save and use them to defend the city." Fight with old weapons as much as possible, and don't waste firearms unless it is absolutely necessary."

"In addition, I used a fast horse to send two orders to Taiping Mansion overnight. One is to let the people of the international election organization fully mine the alum and iron ore in Ma'anshan, regardless of the cost, and hire people to mine at a high price. The second is to tell Han Daren that the He brought all the firearms stocks in Taiping Mansion with the army, and there is no need to leave any."

"Mobilize all the firearms stocks of the Taiping Army Corps? Then our west gate will be empty?" Wang Shaobo asked in surprise.

"Empty is empty, anyway, the full force of the Western Front is over." Fatty Lu said lightly: "As for the prince, he can come whenever he wants. As a grandson-in-law, the great thing about me is to give Jiangnan to him."

Xie Dong and Wang Shaobo were crying, but they didn't dare to refute Fatty Lu's decision, so they could only agree honestly.Fatty Lu ordered again: "And you, you can't be idle, we must mobilize the people in the south of the Yangtze River to collect toilet soil to refine saltpeter, and buy it at a high price. Don't be stingy with money. If we can't pass this test, no matter how much money we have , it will only be cheaper for others.”

Xie Dong, Wang Shaobo and the others hurriedly nodded in agreement. At the end, Wang Shaobo asked again: "Boss, what should we do next? Should the main force go into that battlefield first?"

Fatty Lu tapped the table with his fat fingers and remained silent, showing a pensive expression, while Wang Shaobo suggested again: "Master, since Emperor Mangou has crossed the Yellow River and personally went to Yangzhou to supervise the attack on Yangzhou, the student thinks that our army's troops will be sent to attack Yangzhou. Putting all the power into the northern front, as long as the Man Gou on the northern line is defeated, even if the intended purpose of capturing the Emperor Man Gou and the thief first is not achieved, the Man Gou on the east and south fronts will retreat without a fight, and we can also Time to regain strength."

"The students also think that the main force should be invested in the northern front." Yao Qisheng finally spoke, and said in a deep voice: "General Li Guodong's reserve team, the firearms storage has not been used, and the remaining ammunition in our hands should have enough strength Annihilate Mangou on the Northern Front, but if we put our strength into the Eastern Front first, even if we wipe out the coalition forces of the Mangou Navy and the Red-haired National Navy, the ammunition consumption will be huge, and it will be difficult to have enough power to wipe out the Mangou on the Northern Front. And the northern line where the Emperor Mangou personally sits is full of dogs, and our southern line will never be peaceful."

Fatty Lu still didn't speak, his expression became more hesitant and complicated.Yao Qisheng looked at his words and couldn't help but asked in doubt: "General, what's the matter? Do you think we should put the main force on the eastern or southern fronts?"

"Of course not." Fatty Lu shook his head and said, "Although Geng Jingzhong and Zhejiang Mangou are aggressive, they bypassed Hangzhou to attack Huzhou. Taking advantage of the opportunity of our army being attacked from all sides, we will join hands with Mangou to fish some oil and water from our territory. If we repel the Mangou on the northern line and the main force is freed up to go south, Geng Jingzhong can escape faster than anyone else, maybe It is very possible that he will stab the dog in the back again, and then brazenly ask us for peace."

"On the eastern front, the main force of our navy is very well preserved. The combined naval forces of the Mangou and Red-haired countries are just trying to harass our coastal areas. They will never dare to attack our hinterland. Destruction, when you free your hands, it is easy to clean them up. So you proposed to put the main force on the northern front, which is very correct, and I think so too."

"Then why does the general look so hesitant?" Yao Qisheng asked even more strangely.

"What I'm hesitating about is, do I want the common people? Or the pockmarked head of Mangou Emperor Kang Mazi?" Fatty Lu said slowly: "The main force of our army goes north to the Yangzhou battlefield. It may be easy to defeat the main force on the northern front that defeated Mangou, but It is extremely difficult to take the head of Emperor Mangou. The first is that the Mangou army will definitely protect Emperor Mangou at all costs. The second is that the goal of Emperor Mangou is too small, so it is easy to Escape from birth—the only sure way to kill Emperor Mangou is... that is the embankment."

Yao Qisheng, Wang Shaobo and the others dared not speak anymore. They dared not open their mouths to encourage Fatty Lu to blow up the embankment, cutting off the retreat of the main force of the Qing army, and falling into eternal infamy.

It was so quiet for a long time, Fatty Lu shook his head, stood up and said: "Well, let me think about this matter again, let's make this arrangement first, one is to do our best to prepare for the Northern Expedition, and the other is to give tomorrow Li Jiyang's Taiping Palace navy added [-] infantry and asked him to move to the south bank of Jiangyin. The river there is narrow and not conducive to the warships of the Red-haired Kingdom. It is a good place to prevent the enemy's navy from invading our hinterland. As long as we hold it, we will You don’t have to worry about the hinterland for the time being. As for the two dikes, let’s talk about it slowly, we still have time.”

Yao Qisheng agreed with Wang Shaobo and others, and left.The preoccupied Fatty Lu also felt that he was exhausted, so he also stepped out of the signing room and returned to his study to rest. Come out, stand in front of Fatty Lu, look at Fatty Lu coldly and don't speak.Fatty Lu knew that the person who called for the payment of the public grain came, so he smiled wryly and begged for mercy: "Yu'er, I'm very tired."

"Stop doing this!" Line Yu'er gritted her teeth and said, "I went there for half a month, and was emptied by a woman from the Taiping Mansion. When I came back, I pretended to have business and sneaked into the bond room, so I didn't dare to see me, did I?"

"Heaven and earth conscience, I have never even touched a woman's hand in Taiping Mansion." Fatty Lu cried out.

"Sophistry!" Line Yu'er gritted her teeth even more and said, "How long have you been in my room? Do you think I'm old and ugly, and want to marry more younger ones?"

"No, no, I'm afraid." Fatty Lu hurriedly shook his head desperately.

"What are you afraid of? Afraid that I will eat you?" The blood vessels on Ling Yuer's Bai Nen's forehead began to congest.

"I'm afraid of the wind!" Fatty Lu finally told the truth, "Kang Mazi's full dog has really bad luck in this area! If I accidentally get that kind of bad luck, I will lose everything." It's over!"

What Fatty Lu said this time is the truth. Among several important opponents in history, Kang Mazi, Oboi Yuzhong committed suicide, Wu old traitor died of a sudden stroke, Zheng Jing was 38 years old and was pissed to death by his own mother. Zheng Kezang, who could have taken over the banner of the Zheng family, was killed by his grandmother again. Ge Erdan simply died on the belly of a woman out of nowhere. The shit is so lucky!Now it was Fatty Lu's turn to stand opposite Kang Mazi and prepare for a life-and-death fight, so he couldn't afford to be careless.

(End of this chapter)