After launching a large-scale attack on the Southern Ming court in Yongli, the Qing army was said to be smooth sailing, from Huguang to Guizhou and then to Yunnan, Dai Jianxiong had never seen the Ming army carry out a decent resistance.

This is mainly because of the chaos caused by the internal strife of the three kings of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and the Qing army almost certainly led troops to surrender everywhere they went, and even if no one surrendered, they should report the deployment of the Ming army and the reality clearly, so the Qing army could always attack the weak links of the Ming army. Also because of the infighting between the three kings, the Xiying also lacked fighting spirit, and the generals of the three lines of the King of Qin, the King of Jin, and the King of Shu were still hostile to each other.

Therefore, the Qing army was quite contemptuous of the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, and the battle of Mopanshan was because the Ming army of the Jin Dynasty system went to war, and there was no internal strife, so it caused large losses to the Qing army, but the Qing army did not change its contempt for the Ming army - after all, the Qing army in Mopanshan was not defeated.

At first, with contempt for the enemy, Dai Jianxiong thought that soon the attack would turn into a one-sided massacre, but he and his allies were surrounded by the swarming Xiying soldiers, and they could not be killed until the 50,000 troops in the north of the city distracted the attention of the officers and soldiers of the Xiying, and Dai Jianxiong was able to fight his way out of the siege.

Until this time, the Qing army still thought that the enemy army on the opposite side was nothing more than some trouble. But the more they fought, the more the Qing army felt that something was wrong, and the Westerners on the opposite side forgot their lives, even if the enemy was seriously wounded, they still shouted and fought fiercely, even if their arms were broken, they would pounce on you and bite you. No matter which system the 30,000 western camps that surrendered tonight came from, they only knew that the Qing army was going to kill all their western camps, just as Wu Sangui was worried about just now, now the soldiers in the western camp are full of thoughts about the old practice of killing and surrendering pit pawns, and they are not desperate for Yongli Tianzi, Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo or Liu Wenxiu, but to kill a Qing soldier on the opposite side before they die to avenge it.

If it is a moonless night, no matter how strong the enemy's fighting spirit is, they will not be able to give full play, after all, they also have to worry about the problem of accidental injury, but today the city of Kunming next to it is burning with a raging fire, illuminating the edge of the city brightly. The casualties of the Qing army continued to increase, and the morale of the officers and men began to gradually decline after realizing that they could not win lightly, while the more than 30,000 Western troops became more and more courageous, beating the Qing army, which was almost twice as large as them, and constantly retreated.

At this time, the fire has spread to the south of the city tower, the towering Kunming city tower began to burn, the Qing army became more panicked, do not know how many enemy soldiers entered the city, many Qing soldiers even more suspect that Kunming is about to be lost. Dai Jianxiong's allies on the left flank were the first to begin to retreat, and behind them they were chasing the Western army, which had already killed the red-eyed. Soon after, a friendly force on the right flank also collapsed, and some of the routed troops ran towards Dai Jianxiong, shouting that their general had been killed.

Dai Jianxiong hurriedly retreated north with his headquarters, and when he turned back, he found that the rear was also in chaos, and some troops seemed to be withdrawing from the battlefield. Seeing this, Dai Jianxiong was so angry that he scolded, and when he was a little overwhelmed, he heard someone in the distance who seemed to be shouting himself.

After a while, a subordinate brought a cavalry, this cavalry is one of Wu Sangui's cronies, after seeing Dai Jianxiong, this knight also breathed a sigh of relief, now there is no clear battle line, the east regiment, the west regiment is full of chaotic soldiers, although there is Kunming firelight, he is also finally found in front of Dai Jianxiong in this chaos.

"General Dai, where is Hong Jingluo?" This knight searched for the general Wu Sangui was looking for along the way, so he inquired about Hong Chengchou's location, but none of the people he met had ever seen Hong Chengchou.

"Hong Jingluo?" Dai Jianxiong was also confused.

At this time, an arrow suddenly flew out of the darkness, and one of the guards beside Dai Jianxiong fell off his horse before he could shout to be careful.

"The marshal ordered," the knight also knew that this was not the occasion to speak, and hurriedly took out Wu Sangui's arrow: "General Dai quickly led the team back to the camp!" ”

Dai Jianxiong accepted the order, and at the same time wondered in his heart, why did he return to the camp? Now that the fierce battle is in full swing, why don't you see Wu Sangui's headquarters coming? And he was also a little confused when Wu Sangui's herald came with an arrow, how could he still be so solemn when he sent an order on the battlefield?

Ma Bao, the general of the western camp, was still fighting bravely, and the Qing army in front of him kept retreating, and some Qing troops withdrew from the battlefield without looking back, and the north retreated rapidly. Originally, Ma Bao was Li Dingguo's general, but after the loss of Kunming, his contact with the King of Jin was cut off, and his subordinates completely lost their fighting spirit, and Ma Bao surrendered to Wu Sangui when he saw that he was unable to do anything.

When Ma Bao surrendered, he was worried, not knowing what fate awaited him and his subordinates, but Wu Sangui was also quite polite to him, did not break up his army, allowed him to camp, and provided him with food. Although Ma Bao felt very humiliated by Wu Sangui's request to attack Li Dingguo's order, gradually he also planned to accept his fate, and his subordinates saw that they could have a way to live, and the consequences of refusing Wu Sangui could be imagined.

Until tonight, Ma Bao felt that the previous rìzi had been completely fooled, and Wu Sangui still didn't intend to let them go after all. Since Wu Sangui was determined to deal with them, Ma Bao thought that the other party probably had a sound plan, and the possibility of escaping from Ascension was very small, and when he rushed out with his subordinates, he didn't think that he would be able to leave Kunming alive today.

But the battle became more and more smooth, and another group of Qing troops was crushed by Ma Bao, and those Qing soldiers abandoned their armor and fled in all directions, and Ma Bao and his subordinates chased after them relentlessly, hacking and killing every enemy they caught up. When the last enemy fell, Ma Bao looked around and there were no more enemy troops nearby!

"What's going on?" Ma Bao was also confused, has the Qing army, which wanted to kill the surrender army, already been defeated? How could such a thing happen!

Seeing that there was no obstacle on the road in front of him, Ma Bao's hope for battle quickly disappeared - when would he wait if he didn't run at this time?

"Withdraw!" Ma Bao shouted, led his subordinates to quickly move away from Kunming, and at the same time did not forget to send a few heralds to inform the friendly troops in Xiying behind him, telling them that they had already opened a way to survive, and asked them to quickly escape with their own team.

……

After leaving Kunming, Deng Ming retreated to Dongchuan Mansion non-stop, and he had been careful to be vigilant at night, afraid that there would be pursuers, but he still didn't encounter it when he was about to reach Dongchuan Mansion, and he didn't hear the jǐng newspaper sent by Kunming - relying on Wu Sangui's personal guard waist card Deng Ming plundered all the fast horses of all the post stations he encountered, and galloped north without rì night.

"Why is Wu Sangui's reaction so slow?" Deng Ming was very puzzled by Kunming's delay in ordering the whole territory to arrest him, but this was certainly not a bad thing for him, before leaving Yunnan, Deng Ming took out Wu Sangui's order arrow at the last Qing army station, asked the post guard for pen and ink, and wrote more than a dozen letters with the same content in one breath.

After sealing the first letter, Deng Ming handed it to the respectful stationmaster: "Send it to Kunming quickly, this is an urgent letter to Wu Dashuai." ”

After seeing a post guard leave with letters in a hurry, Deng Ming took the other letters one by one and sent them to other prefectures and counties, including Guizhou and other places in addition to Yunnan. These priorities don't have to be very high, and Deng Ming did not specify that they should be sent to a certain person, but to the local yamen.

"What did the gentleman write? How did you write so many letters? After leaving this post station, Zhou Kaihuang asked impatiently, they also didn't know that the contents of all the letters were exactly the same.

"It's an open letter to Wu Sangui." Deng Ming smiled slightly, he first explained the meaning of the open letter to the guards, and then told them: "In the letter, I call myself a general, what do you think?" ”

Naturally, everyone has no objections, and Deng Ming will not feel excessive even if he calls himself His Royal Highness.

"Before coming to Kunming, I thought that if Wu Sangui thought that it was better for us to be Jianchang's soldiers, he would let him die to persuade Jianchang to surrender, but after we made a big fuss in Kunming, it is estimated that Wu Sangui will soon inquire seriously about our origins, and soon he will know that we have nothing to do with Jianchang." Deng Ming knew very well that even if he wasn't famous before, Kunming would be famous all over the world after that: "So I will no longer pretend to be the king of Qingyang or General Di's subordinates." ”

Although he can't continue to let Wu Sangui misunderstand that it was Jianchang's soldiers who were sabotaging in Dongchuan, but now Deng Ming feels that there is no need for this, after a fire in Kunming, Deng Ming feels that Wu Sangui will definitely not be able to look north for a while, even if he knows that he has nothing to do with Jianchang, he can't use resources and troops to threaten Jianchang. On the contrary, Deng Ming's trip was far more successful than he expected, and it must have been enough to restore some confidence in Feng Shuangli and the others to continue fighting, and to block the mouths of those main surrender factions.

"What did Mr. Deng write in the letter?" Li Xinghan couldn't wait to know the content, just now Deng Ming said that this letter would be sent to more than a dozen yamen of the Qing court in the southwest, and the chaos in Kunming would definitely shake the southwest, and even shock the world, and with Deng Ming's open letter, it would become even more eye-catching. Li Xinghan is also very excited now, he can participate in this kind of sensational thing in his twenties - he now feels that he is also a little remarkable.

"I write......" Deng Ming retold to his subordinates, in which he first mentioned himself and seventeen other people, and then declared that he was the one who had disturbed Dongchuan and Kunming. The specific actions were not written in great detail, and some of the contents were still intended to be kept secret, and Deng Ming felt that the vagueness he wrote had no bad impact on the propaganda, and the Manchu yamen in various parts of the southwest learned of the Kunming fire, and saw his own letter of vagueness about the specific process, so he would definitely be curious to inquire, and maybe he would guess blindly, and imagine himself to be more martial than the actual situation.

After finishing the first half of the letter, Deng Ming complained to some of the guards: "Your names are too simple, such as Wu San and Wu San, I don't know how many people have the same names in the world, and others will think that they are unknown people at a glance, and they can't remember your great achievements." ”

"Originally, I wanted to give myself a name after learning words," Wu San seized the opportunity and asked Deng Ming: "Then please ask Mr. to help me come up with a name." ”

"Okay," Deng Ming was in a very happy mood today, so he asked Wu Sandao, "What kind of ambitions and aspirations do you have?" ”

"My ambition?" Wu San frowned and pondered for a moment, and replied, "The ambition of the humble position is to keep Mr. De safe. ”

"Not good." Deng Ming laughed, he now felt that it was indeed a pleasant thing to be complimented, but he was afraid that he would lose his self-knowledge if he was always like this: "You should be determined to keep the world safe." ”

"What Mr. said is that after the humble post, he will take the peace of the world as his ambition."

"Well, let's call it Wu Baoping." Deng Ming nodded and named Wu Baoping.

"Mr. Xie's name." Wu Sanxi smiled.

"The ambition of the lowly is the same." Wu San's eyes were hot, and he hurriedly rushed to Deng Ming's side and shouted.

"You two have similar names, and you want to be exactly the same, no!" Deng Ming shook his head and said, "You change your ambitions, no, do you have any wishes?" Such as flowers, fields and homesteads? ”

Wu San had some misunderstanding that Deng Ming's words seemed to have the meaning of rewarding meritorious deeds, this time his credit was indeed great, although Deng Ming did not have anything now but could be remembered first, Wu San thought about it seriously, and replied: "I heard that Jiangnan is very good, the climate is good, the food is not worse than Sichuan, and the sea and seafood, if the world is peaceful in the future, I hope to go to Jiangnan for the rest of my life." ”

"In fact, Sichuan's products are no worse than Jiangnan, but it is true that there is no seafood." Deng Ming thought for a while: "Then you should call Wu Yuewang." ”

Several other guards who did not have a big name also came up one after another, all clamoring for Deng Ming to be treated equally, and also helped them give their names.

"What else?" Finally waiting for Deng Ming to finish naming everyone, Li Xinghan and Zhou Kaihuang, who were already waiting impatiently, asked at the same time: "What else is behind the letter?" ”

"There is also a challenge book," Deng Ming said with a smile, "I said: ......"

……

The atmosphere in the city of Kunming is extremely heavy, because there is no manpower to put out the fire at all, the urban area of Kunming is almost completely destroyed, even the city tower has been burned down two, the fire has been burned until noon the next day and has no intention of extinguishing at all, if it is not for a rain, it is estimated that the last point of the city will also be destroyed.

The 10,000 Qing troops stationed in the city were also swept away by the fire, and more than 2,000 were all the jīng soldiers of Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou; The 30,000 western camps in the south of the city all fled, and Wu Sangui's heart was about to break; The 50,000 soldiers and horses in the north of the city lost thousands in the melee, and then were chased and killed by the western camp in the defeat and retreat. The army, which was originally close to 100,000 inside and outside the city, is now only half of the original number.

A few years ago, the Qing army in Kunming was still arrogant, and Zhao Liangdong was also ambitious, planning to pursue Li Dingguo, even if he went deep into Burma. And now the morale of the 50,000 Qing troops is low, there is no smile to be seen in the barracks, no joy can be heard, Zhao Liangdong does not have to go on the expedition, and now the only job in Kunming is to try to collect grain, and the fire has burned all the grain and grass stored in Kunming, and the military rations placed outside the camp are only enough for the army.

Although some grain that the western thieves did not have to take away from the battalions in the south of the city was turned out, this was still a drop in the bucket for Wu Sangui, and he knew that the grain collection work would definitely not go smoothly, and Wu Sangui had already carefully collected it before—he was afraid that the people would have grain that would help the remnants of the Ming army walking all over Yunnan; Moreover, the fire in Kunming shook a radius of 100 miles, and the people nearby fled Kunming as far away as possible when they saw that there was another big war. There were also those who escaped from the west, who ransacked the Qing army post stations and small warehouses along the way, and Wu Sangui was unable to send troops to pursue them because of the lack of military rations.

After summoning the Qing generals back, all of them said that they had not received orders from Hong Jingliu at all, but that a group of Wu Sangui's personal guards had carried his arrows to convey the order. These generals confessed in pairs, and found that they all received the same orders, all of which were "acting cheaply".

At first, Wu Sangui didn't believe it, and even became angry, but everyone said so, so he couldn't believe it.

In the afternoon and evening of the next day, Wu Sangui was busy reorganizing the troops, and at the same time continued to look for clues about the mysterious personal soldier - he and Zhao Liangdong completely sobered up, and began to suspect again that Baoning Qianzong, the personal guard who brought "Li Ming" reported that there were a total of eighteen people in the team plus Baoning Qianzong himself, and the generals in the north of the city saw more than a dozen cavalry, and one of Dai Jianxiong's subordinates came out to testify, he also counted the number of people at that time, and it was indeed eighteen.

However, Wu Sangui still found it hard to believe that such a big mess was all caused by that guy. At this time, the two of them wanted to see Hong Chengchou the most, so as to ask him what he had learned. But the old man seemed to have evaporated from the world, and he never disappeared, and finally found a few guards who had followed Hong Chengchou to fight the fire, and they said that the last place to see the old man was the grain depot. These guards either fled on their own, or they were ordered to look for troops but did not return at all, and the few who followed the old man were also not heard from.

After listening to their descriptions, Wu Sangui and Zhao Liangdong both had a sense of foreboding, and when the fire was extinguished after the rain, Wu Sangui sent a team of soldiers to escort the few Hong Chengchou's personal guards who escaped from the battle to the grain depot to find someone, but they had not found Hong Chengchou until the third day.

On the morning of the third day, Wu Sangui received another report that his guards had asked from the original guards of the Xicheng Tower that before the explosion, a group of cavalry armed to the teeth had gone out of the city, holding Wu Sangui's personal guard waist card and his arrows. Wu Sangui and Zhao Liangdong went on the field together, and after carefully interrogating the city guard, both of them confirmed that the guy in the lead was Li Ming, the general manager of Baoning, and his outfit was quite consistent with the description of the generals in the north of the city.

"This guy!" After figuring out a qiē, Wu Sangui was so angry that he smoked and scolded: "Most of Dongchuan was also burned by him, right?" Then burned to the territory of Yunnan, and it happened that a fool went to find him, and he wanted to be idle, so he went to Kunming to reconnoiter the terrain; Then, as soon as he saw that he could blend into the arsenal, he lit another fire; The person who killed me snatched the order arrow and went out of the city, and after leaving the city, he was still unsatisfied, and by the way, he faked an order! This thief will not fall into my hands! ”

"I'm afraid, the people who went to Jianchang were also ambushed by him." After Wu Sangui finished scolding, Zhao Liangdong said in a low voice, now that in retrospect, Mr. Baoning Qian's account of the first battle of Jianchang is too perfect, but if he is the attacker, then it makes sense.

"Dog thief!" Wu Sangui was furious about the case, and Hong Chengchou has not been found until now, and it seems that he is more than lucky.

"Dashuai," at this time, a personal guard came in, still holding a letter in his hand: "Urgent report, saying that one of your personal guards sent it to Kunming." ”