scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 394 Bargaining
"Guangwu, you left in such a hurry, did Tian Fengji send someone to ask for help?"

Seeing his confidant Xu Wenyao hurrying to the door with a letter in hand, before Xu Wenyao could report, Prince Geng immediately asked about Xu Wenyao's purpose of coming, and seeing Xu Wenyao nodding in shock and admiration, he looked at the admiration expressions of his civil and military confidants around him.Prince Geng couldn't help but smiled, very proud of his ability to predict things like a god, and then he knocked on Erlang's leg and asked with a big face: "Where did Lu Gou fight? How is the battle going?"

"Lu Gou has already fought under the city of Shaoxing." Xu Wenyao quickly replied: "According to Tian Fengji's statement in the letter, the Man Gou garrison once mustered up the courage to go out of the city and fight Lu Gou, but they were quickly beaten to death by Lu Gou. After fleeing back to Shaoxing City and guarding behind closed doors, Lu Gou then stormed Shaoxing. The battle was fierce and both sides suffered heavy losses. Tian Fengji was worried that he would not have enough troops, and he was also worried that there would be insufficient food and grass in the city. Please send troops quickly, my lord, or Directly reinforce Shaoxing, or encircle Wei and rescue Zhao to attack Hangzhou, and cut off Lugou's food supply."

"Okay! Good! Good!" Lord Geng called out three hellos in a row, applauded excitedly, and said more proudly: "It's good to fight fiercely, and the more fierce the better, the more fierce the fight between Mangou and Lugou is." , the more beneficial it is to this king.”

"My lord, Shengming, it would be better for Wugou's East Expedition Army to fight with Mangou and die together. Then we will be more relaxed." Xu Wenyao hurriedly flattered him, then quickly picked up the letter in his hand, and said flatteringly: "This is Tian Fengji. Please read the letter of plea for help in your own handwriting, the envoy he sent is also waiting outside the Xingyuan Gate, and the prince can send it to you at any time."

"Don't read it, as long as you know the general content, Tian Fengji's envoy, the king, will not see you either." Prince Geng waved his hand to refuse, and then ordered: "Go and tell Tian Fengji's envoy, just say that the king has a minor illness, so I won't see him. He went back to Shaoxing and told Tian Fengji, let Tian Fengji rest assured, as long as he persists in defending Shaoxing City, the king's rescuers will soon set out to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao to attack Hangzhou."

Xu Wenyao agreed, and hurried out of the hall to answer, but Geng Jun general Ma Jiuyu was a little worried, and reminded: "My lord, it's best to meet Tian Fengji's envoy, learn more about the current situation in the Shaoxing battlefield, and judge whether the remnants of the Mangou army can survive." How long it lasts, our army can formulate countermeasures and make preparations."

"Why did you meet him? After seeing him, he asked the king to send troops immediately on behalf of Tian Fengji. Will the king agree or not?" Prince Geng sneered, and said grandly: "As for the specific situation of the Shaoxing battlefield, let Zeng Yanghe and Bai Xianzhong send more troops. Just go to Shaoxing to investigate carefully, and we can directly ask the Mangou messenger, can we get the truth? Mangou is not an idiot, in order to let us send troops as soon as possible, can he tell us the truth?"

Ma Jiuyu thinks about it carefully. In order to let us send troops as soon as possible, the messenger he sent will naturally not tell the truth to us, but will only do everything possible to lure us to send troops, and maybe he will be caught by his false information. Confused, Ma Jiuyu no longer insisted, but begged Lord Geng to give Zeng Yanghe and Bai Xianzhong an order to closely monitor every move on the battlefield in Shaoxing, and Lord Geng agreed without hesitation.

Prince Geng, who was determined to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, probably never dreamed that at the time when he and Ma Jiuyu were discussing the military situation, at the same time, on the afternoon of October [-], the first year of Zhaowu in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the Fatty Army's [-] Eastern Expedition The army, under the personal leadership of Yang Yingyuan, the deputy commander of the Fat Army's Suzhou Legion, has already reached Changxi Ridge, Cixi County, the west gate of Ningbo, which is less than [-] miles away from Ningbo Fucheng! (Cixi County was located in Changxi Ridge in the Qing Dynasty, and the current Cixi was called Sanshansuo in the Qing Dynasty.)
At the same time, the main force of the Fatty Army navy led by Li Guodong has directly killed Jintangshan Island across the sea from Zhenhai City, cutting off the connection between Zhenhai Port and Zhoushan Islands. The last Zhejiang Qing army in Ningbo The army was also in chaos. Some vowed to resist to the end, and some suggested surrendering to the fat man's army. There were also many soldiers who had simply become deserters. People were extremely panicked.The coach of the Ningbo Qing Army, Jill Tabu, and the coach of the Navy, Chen Shikai, were also very hesitant, not knowing how to choose.

The reason why the Fatty Army was able to fight from Shaoxing City to Changxi Ridge in six days was due to the surrender of the Qing army and the party leading the way. In the early morning of October 600th, Yang Yingyuan's army first caught up with Cao'e River and was blocked by the river. It took more than an hour for Lang Su's team, which was a remnant of the Qing army in Shaoxing, to wipe out the remnants of the Qing army, which had less than [-] soldiers, and cut off Lang Su's head in the battle, and then rested by the Cao'e River After a day, I rushed to build a pontoon bridge across the river.

Immediately afterwards, Li Tianzhi sent another rear army to bring Tian Fengji, the governor of Zhejiang who had just surrendered, and some local Qing soldiers in Zhejiang who voluntarily surrendered. With the help of Tian Fengji and these local Qing soldiers, the fat soldiers recruited Shangyu without bloodshed. The two counties of Yuyao and Yuyao easily opened the road to Ningbo.The Qing army in Ningbo was caught off guard, and only gathered the troops back to the city to prepare for the battle. It was too late to send troops to block the fat man's army outside the Ningbo government.Seeing that the victory was decided, Li Tianzhi simply acted as a hands-off shopkeeper and handed over the mission of the Eastern Expedition to Ningbo to his deputy Yang Yingyuan, who stayed in Shaoxing to reorganize and surrender the army, supervise the transportation of food and grass, and prepare for the next stage of the battle with Geng Jingzhong's army.

The dangerous highlands of Changxiling Mountain are the only way for Shaoxing to enter Ningbo. It has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times. Keeping Changxiling is equivalent to keeping Ningbo City. Jiltab still left his deputy Chanbai and led [-] troops to guard Ningbo City, while he personally led the last [-] troops to Changxi Ridge for reinforcements, preparing to use the natural danger of Changxi Ridge to block the Fatty Army, and then consider whether to surrender .As for the Fatty Army, Yang Yingyuan also adopted Tian Fengji's suggestion to postpone the attack on the natural danger of Changxiling, and sent Tian Fengji to the Qing army camp to surrender.

Giltab was originally a general of the Qing army who was stationed in Jinhua to resist Geng Jingzhong's army going north. Later, because of Yue Le's order, he gave up Jinhua and withdrew to Shaoxing and Ningbo. Then he came to Ningbo to be stationed. When Tian Fengji supervised the south line, he fought side by side with him. For more than a year, they are very familiar with each other, and they can barely be regarded as friendship. When they meet again after a few months of separation, the two of them are naturally very sad, and they agree that the change of life is too unexpected.

After sighing and sighing, Tian Fengji naturally had to explain the purpose of coming to his old comrade-in-arms Giltab. First, he talked about the policies of the fat army, such as preferential treatment of prisoners and not killing evil slaves who are not of the fourth surname, etc., and then analyzed the situation to Giltab, pointing out that The Mangou court is about to fall, that is to say, if Jiertabu resists stubbornly, he will die. The only hope for survival is to surrender to the fat army, and by the way, he can save the lives of his wife, children and family property.Otherwise, even if the fat army can spare Giltabu from death, the people in Jiangnan will not be able to spare Giltabu.

In fact, there is no need for Tian Fengji to explain why he came, just seeing his old comrade-in-arms come out of the fat army with a white flag, Giltabu has already guessed his purpose, after listening to Tian Fengji's statement, he looked at the huge fat army at the foot of the mountain With the muzzle of the black hole, Giltab, who was already shaken, was inevitably shaken even more. He almost wanted to agree to Tian Fengji's request, open the gate of the village and descend the mountain to surrender.

Sometimes traitors are indeed more hateful than full dogs. When Giltab was completely shaken, a traitor staff member named Lu Kongzhao in his shogunate stood up and urged Giltab not to surrender to the fat army.Lu Kongzhao, the die-hard traitor who recruited Geng Jingzhong’s general Bai Xianzhong’s entire army for Jieshu in history, is most likely a seed left in Zhejiang when the Qing army entered the customs. Giltab pointed out that the Qing army in Ningbo would rather surrender to Geng Jingzhong than the Fatty Army, because not only Giltab's family members were in the north of the Yellow River, but also the families of several important generals Chanbai and Huang Lan in the north. Once they surrendered to the Fatty Army, Their family members will inevitably escape the law. The only way is to surrender to Geng Jingzhong, which can not only save the family members of the generals of the Qing army such as Giltab, but also join hands with Geng Jingzhong to resist the fat army and save the lives of Giltab and others.

In addition, Lu Kongzhao also pointed out that Geng Jingzhong's [-]-strong army was stationed in the south of Hangzhou, waiting for the main force of the fat man's army to advance eastward, while the fat man's army at the foot of Changxiling Mountain was just a division of troops, and the Qing army relied on danger to defend. In order to stop the Fat Man Army, Giltab only needs to defend Changxi Ridge, while sending envoys to ask for help from the Geng Army in Ninghai, then the Qing Army in Ningbo will be able to welcome the turning point in a short time.

In addition, Lu Kongzhao made another suggestion to Jiertabu, that is, push the traitor Tian Fengji to the camp, and execute him promptly in front of the fat army!In this way, the Fatty Army will no longer have the illusion of recruiting the Ningbo Qing Army, and the desperate Ningbo Qing Army will work together to resist the Fatty Army. At the same time, the news spreads to the capital, and the family members of Giltabu and others are bound to be treated kindly. Even if Giltab surrendered to Geng Jingzhong, his family members in the north of the Yellow River would have no worries and no shortage of food and clothing. Geng Jingzhong would definitely believe in Giltab's sincerity in surrendering and reward him generously.

Being disturbed by the hard-core traitor Lu Kongzhao, who had his head in the water, Jiertabu, who was already inclined to surrender, inevitably hesitated again, and worried about his parents, wife and children behind him, Jiertabu couldn't listen to Tian Fengji's earnest persuasion to surrender , but fortunately, Giltab didn't have the guts to execute Tian Fengji Lingchi, but sent someone to send Tian Fengji down to Changxi Ridge, planning to fight a few battles first.Tian Fengji saw Giltab's firm attitude and didn't force it, just sneered and left.

After sending off Tian Fengji, the Qing army, who knew that the Fatty Army would surely retaliate, took the time to make defensive preparations for the tide of the Fatty Army's attack, but what made the Qing army puzzled was that after Tian Fengji went down, the Fatty Army not only Instead of attacking the mountain immediately, they retreated five miles to the west and set up a camp eight miles away.Of course, Jiertabu was confused about this, while Lu Kongzhao was complacent, thinking that Fatty Army was just a paper tiger, who dared not fight tough battles except for playing tricks.

Lu Kongzhao didn't laugh for a long time before he stopped laughing. After only one day, bad news came from Zhenhai. Chen Shikai, the deputy general of the navy of the Qing army, put down his weapon and surrendered to the fat army. When the navy arrived at Longtouchang to land, Li Guodong sent another [-] navy to land, carrying a large number of light artillery and Sanhao rockets to the rear of the natural danger of Changxi Ridge, and surrounded Giltabu's team with Yang Yingyuan's [-] troops.

Being attacked from the front and back, the natural barriers of Changxi Ridge have completely lost their effect. At the same time, after receiving the news of the landing of Li Guodong's navy, Yang Yingyuan finally moved. Twenty Hongyi cannons and thirty sub-cannons were pushed to Changxi Ridge From the bottom of the mountain, there was an indiscriminate bombardment of the Qing army camp on the mountain, causing the Qing army on the mountain to cry and howl, causing heavy casualties.Forced into desperation, Giltab followed Lu Kongzhao's suggestion and desperately dispatched the last 500 elite cavalry down the mountain to make an assault, trying to destroy the fat army's artillery formation.

The result is very natural, the last more than 500 cavalry of the Qing army had just rushed down Changxi Ridge, and the fat army cavalry immediately killed five or six times the fat cavalry of the Qing army. The Qing cavalry slashed and killed more than half of the 500 Qing cavalry in one meal. Hutu, the leader of the fat cavalry, shouted to surrender in mite language, and the last 200 Qing cavalry also had With a wink, he honestly put down his weapon and surrendered in the battle. The soldiers of the Qing army on the mountain saw them, and they were all terrified and frightened.

Then, Yang Yingyuan deliberately asked the military doctor to treat and bandage the wounded soldiers of the Qing army in public, and rewarded them with meat and wine that he hadn't seen for a long time. Lu Kongzhao cursed at the soldiers of the Qing army on the mountain swallowing their mouths.And when those soldiers who surrendered from the Qing army had enough to eat and drink, they ran obediently to the foot of Changxiling Mountain to recruit their comrades to surrender, calling their friends and calling them brothers and calling their comrades to surrender by name, but they have not received a penny for more than four months. The soldiers of the Qing army who had been paid for the army rushed away and rushed down the mountain to surrender. The Qing army supervisor team couldn't stop them. More than half escaped.

The morale of the army has collapsed to such an extent that Giltab has no choice but to surrender. Unfortunately, the Fat Man Army no longer intends to give him a chance to revolt and surrender. Yang Yingyuan waved the flag, the Fat Man Army's artillery fired again, and the infantry of the Fat Man Army flooded in. , overwhelmingly rushed to the top of Changxiling Mountain, shooting and shooting arrows to kill the Qing soldiers. The morale of the Qing soldiers on the mountain was already depressed, and they had no intention of resisting. They either put down their weapons and surrendered or fled in all directions. Killed and set fire in the Qing army camp.Seeing that the general situation was over, Giltab had no choice but to order his soldiers to put down their weapons and kneel down in front of the fat man's army to surrender.

"General Yang said, shame on you, if you want to surrender, it won't be so cheap!"

Amidst the roar, the soldiers of the Fat Man Army rushed up again, dismembered Jiertabu who had voluntarily put down his weapon, tied up Lu Kongzhao tightly, and dragged him down the mountain to hand over to Yang Yingyuan. The soldiers of the Fatty Army were forgiven, as long as they were not the soldiers of the four evil slave families, they were all pardoned and allowed to surrender by the Fatty Army.The soldiers of the Qing army from the four evil slave families and more than [-] soldiers of the Qing army who resisted fiercely were dragged by the fat man's army to the foot of Changxiling Mountain and buried alive in public. ——But naturally, Yang Yingyuan was punished by Fatty Lu for half a year because of his bad temper, which violated the military order of Fatty Lu, which means that all Qing army generals with family members in the north will not die even if they resist and surrender. .

With one gram of Changxi Ridge, Ningbo Fucheng and Cixi County are completely safe to defend. As soon as the fat man's army approached the city, Li Siquan, the magistrate of Cixi County, opened the city gate very honestly, and led hundreds of townships in the city to surrender bravely; those stationed in Ningbo Fucheng The agent of the Qing army participated in the meditation and heard about Giltabu, and saw that the fat man's army was besieging the city. Before the fat man's army sent envoys to surrender, he took the initiative to open the city gate, led the city's Chinese and military officials and the last [-] defenders to fight against the fat man. Surrendered, and the Ningbo war basically ended.

At this point, the last remnant army of the Qing court in Zhejiang was uprooted by the Fat Man Army, and more than [-] of the nearly [-] Qing army, navy, and army troops surrendered, and the rest were either killed or dispersed, and fled back to their hometowns As a big Zhou Liangmin, there are still a small number of evil slaves and mite soldiers with four surnames who fled into the deep mountains and old forests, and lived in incognito. The three county towns are still controlled by the local officials of Miqing, but they are also bastards in the jar, unable to escape the clutches of the fat army.

By the way, I would like to introduce the whereabouts of a hard-core traitor. When Tian Fengji offered Shaoxing City to the fat army, Xu Hongxun, the prefect of Shaoxing who had miraculously defeated Geng Jingzhong's army at Guimen Mountain in Changling, Shengxian County, was sent by Mahada to Xinchang to lead the township soldiers to monitor him. Wenzhou Geng Jun was not in Shaoxing City at that time.After the fall of the Qing army in Zhejiang, Xu Hongxun, who knew that Geng Jun and Fatty Army would definitely not take him in, had no choice but to hang himself, ending his sinful life of betraying and massacring his compatriots in exchange for glory and wealth.But even so, Fatty Lu, an angry youth from the former Qing Dynasty, still did not forgive Xu Hongxun's family members who remained in Shaoxing City. His two sons were skinned, and his wife and daughter were sent to the Fatty Army's prostitute camp to accompany Cao Yin's whole family of women.

It took less than half a month to end the war on the Eastern Front. Li Tianzhi immediately ordered Yang Yingyuan to transfer [-] troops back to Hangzhou, and he personally led the Shaoxing army, which had been expanded to more than [-] through the reorganization of prisoners of war, to withdraw to Hangzhou first. Start the war against Geng Jingzhong's army on the western front.It was not until Li Tianzhi's army withdrew from the Qiantang River and was stationed in Fuyang County in the south of Hangzhou that Geng Jun's generals Zeng Yang and Bai Xianzhong, who were still flirting with the fat army in Xincheng, woke up like a dream, knowing that they had missed the only way to contain them. Fatty's army's precious fighters hurriedly prepared for the battle, while dispatching fast horses to call the police to Geng Jingzhong, asking for instructions on the next move.

After receiving the battle report that the Fatty Army wiped out the remnants of the Qing army in lightning speed, our Lord Geng could hardly believe his eyes. After being stunned, he quickly cursed again, "Zeng Yangxing! Bai Xianzhong! You two trash! My lord!" Let you closely monitor the battle between Lu Gou and Man Gou until Lu Gou wiped out Man Gou and returned to the division and crossed the Qiantang River before you can report! What are you doing for food?! Trash! Idiots!"

"My lord, it's too late to say anything now." Ma Jiuyu was calmer, and quickly suggested: "My lord, please issue a decree immediately, so that the two generals Zeng Yang and Bai Xianzhong will make amends, and immediately send troops to take the initiative to fight. The soldiers who returned from the Eastern Expedition were exhausted, and the expeditionary force had not yet had time to join forces, so we must first win a battle to stabilize the morale of the troops.”

"My lord, absolutely not." Xu Wenyao jumped out to stop him, and said loudly: "My lord, Man Gou has been wiped out now, our army is fighting against Lu Gou's main force alone, and Zheng Jing's son is taking advantage of the fire to rob us at the rear. At this time, we can only attack Lu Gou Sue for peace, never go to war! Once we start a war, even if we win a battle, we will not be able to hurt Lu Gou's muscles and bones, and we will not be able to get rid of the dilemma of Lu Gou and Zheng Jing'er. On the contrary, we will completely offend Lu Yifeng as a thief All hope for reconciliation!"

The sycophant Xu Wenyao finally hit the point. Even Ma Jiuyu, who proposed to send troops immediately, had to admit that even if he could defeat Li Tianzhi's army who had just withdrawn from the Shaoxing battlefield, he would definitely not be able to hurt the fat man's army if he sent troops to a decisive battle at this time. On the contrary, it will completely irritate the Fatty Army and invite the Fatty Army's full retaliation, making the already passive situation of Geng Jingzhong's army even more passive.Xu Wenyao then said: "Your Majesty, right now our army should send envoys to Hangzhou to meet Lu Yifeng, congratulate him on the pretext, and take the opportunity to propose an alliance. The two armies will stop all hostile actions and join hands to deal with Zheng Jingxiaoer."

"Lu Yifeng's thief, can you agree?" Geng Jingzhong hesitated, and said worriedly: "What if he asks for the whole of Zhejiang again?"

"My lord, I think it's worth a try." Military Counselor Jiang Yuanxun was also very calm, and analyzed for Geng Jingzhong: "The reason why Lu Yifeng's dog thief sent troops to the south is to relieve the crisis on the southern front and free up his hands for the northern expedition against Mangou and Hebei. Lu Yifeng doesn't really care about whether Guo Zhuangtu can annihilate our army in the westward expedition. At the same time, Lu Yifeng doesn't want to see our army fall and let Zheng Jing's thieves sit on the throne. Therefore, the humble official believes that our army seeks peace It is in the interest of Lu Yifeng's dog thief to return the main force to Fujian to fight Zheng Jing's son, as long as he pays some price, there is a good chance of success in the peace."

"These kings know, but what if Lu Yifeng's dog thief insists on asking for the whole of Zhejiang?" Geng Jingzhong said with a sad face: "The half of Zhejiang that this king has paid so much to get, is it necessary to give it to Lu Yifeng's dog thief for nothing? No?"

"Arguing with him!" Jiang Yuanxun said loudly, "It took our army nearly three years, sacrificing 10,000+ soldiers, and countless food and supplies to take the land. Lu Yifeng's dog thief is about to take it away. Cheap thing? I would like to go to the envoy, go to Hangzhou to argue with Lu Yifeng, persuade him to make concessions, and form an alliance with our army to fight against rebellion!"

"Are you sure?" Geng Jingzhong asked happily.

"Don't dare to say for sure, I will do my best." Jiang Yuanxun said helplessly: "Lu Yifeng's eloquence is very good. I may not be able to argue with him. I can only say that I did my best. Also, Lu Yifeng The dog thief is extremely treacherous, and has already seen through the dilemma of our army being confronted by enemies on both sides and eager to seek peace, so you still have to pay the price of sacrifice, my lord."

"The only thing left is to try." Geng Jingzhong was more helpless than Jiang Yuanxun, nodded and said: "Well, you can go to Hangzhou, as long as Lu Yifeng agrees to stop the war and form an alliance, half of Zhejiang will be one person, and he will conquer Guo Zhuang in the future This king can lend him the way when he is looking for a dog thief. Remember, half of the people in Zhejiang is the last limit of this king. If he is not greedy enough, this king would rather fight him to the death than give in!"

(End of this chapter)