Chapter 109: Ask for a Labor Master
The Zhejiang-Fujian army went north to the soldiers and horses, divided into three roads, all the way to the west of Huzhou, in order to block the road of the Huai Eastern Army to the north, and the main will be Zheng Mingjing; besieged Liyang all the way, and the main will be Tian Chang; All the way to the right wing, the main will be Su Tingzhan.
Yue Lengqiu led the Jiangzhou soldiers to move very slowly, and even had to worry about food and grass, for the luxury family, the biggest threat was still on the left wing, so the left wing Zheng Ming Jing Department was almost all the elite of Fujian who were resentful in their hearts. On the contrary, a considerable part of the soldiers and horses besieging Liyang in the middle road were recruited from Zhejiang County, represented by Tian Chang and Fang Heshan, and they were also representative generals from Zhejiang County.
In order to make up for the lack of troops, the Huaidong Army continued to organize the troops and troops into the soldiers and horses and marching troops under the jurisdiction of the Infantry Division, and from the beginning of the year to this time, the southern front of the army expanded by 50,000 or 60,000 troops.
Ten years of war in Eastern Fujian has cultivated a large number of veterans and grassroots officers for Eastern Fujian, but in the past few years, they have also been conscripted into the army one after another.
According to the information obtained by the sentry and scouts, the strength that the Huaidong Army can finally assemble in Xiaoshan is likely to reach 60,000; In order to make up for the lack of troops, Su Tingzhan's right flank only had 12,000 soldiers and horses for his headquarters, and Haowenzhuang also incorporated all the captured 20,000 imperial battalions in Daqingxi, Yulingguan, and Huizhou, and Luo Wenhu, the commander of the imperial battalion army that surrendered at Feihuangjiao, was the deputy general, and the soldiers and horses on the right wing were almost expanded to 30,000 at once, becoming the largest force of soldiers and horses in the north.
The luxury family went north to the right flank of the soldiers and horses, in fact, the combat effectiveness was the worst, but the right flank was also the least threatened, and the luxury family also needed to further hit the morale of the Jiangning defenders in terms of the number of soldiers and horses.
Su Tingzhan led the right-wing soldiers and horses, left Ningguo on the 17th, divided the army, and directly took Xuanzhou, Yangjiang, Lishui and other cities, until the 21st, for the heavy snow to block the upper reaches of the Rouge River.
Xuanzhou, Yangjiang, and Lishui are all subordinate to Jiangning, and they have not been attacked by soldiers for nearly 200 years, and they have no experience in engaging with the enemy. After the fall of Huizhou, the opening into Jiangning from the west of Zhejiang was opened, although the imperial camp army still had 40,000 soldiers and horses, but they were all concentrated in the city of Jiangning, and even the naval army also withdrew into the city to strengthen the city defense.
Meng Yishan led the Hanghu Army into Liyang, blocking the mouth of Maoshan and Taihu Xiling to prevent the rebels from going north, but west of Maoshan to the northwest of Yangzi, in the county towns, except for the three classes of officials, sword archers and a few county soldiers and townsmen, there were only some chaotic soldiers who withdrew from the south.
It's good that there are no such chaotic soldiers, and the transit is arbitrarily burned, killed, and plundered; The uncontrolled rout of the army produces a destructive force comparable to that of the most ferocious thieves and thieves.
A character like Dong Yuan is also unique in ten thousand, and not every place can be fortunate enough to meet it; Xuanzhou, Yangjiang, Lishui and other cities, as little as three or five hundred miscellaneous soldiers, as many as eight hundred miscellaneous soldiers, in the face of the surging tiger and wolf army of luxury families, how can they have the power to parry?
Although there is a city to defend, but the city wall is dead, the enemy soldiers have a hundred ways to attack the city, the defenders do not know how to deal with it, it is useless to have a strong city, in just a few days, Xuanzhou, Yangjiang, Lishui three cities have been lost one after another.
In order to prevent the prisoners and the generals of the former imperial camp from repeating their comprehension, and in order to indulge the violence of the soldiers from killing, and in order to raise food and grass in the heavy snow weather to reduce the pressure on logistics, Su Tingzhan blocked the heavy snow in Lishui, so he received a secret order from Luwenzhuang to carry out a three-day massacre of the three cities of Xuanzhou, Yangjiang and Lishui.
Lishui is only the last hundred miles away from Jiangning, in the territory of Lishui, the source of the Rouge River in the East Lushan Mountain, is the source of Longzangpu, the rebels on the 21st to control the Rouge River news to Jiangning, Jiangning City naturally caused a panic.
After Su Tingzhan left Ningguo, the speed of the march was extremely fast, and there was hardly much reaction from the people in Yangjiang, Lishui and other counties, including that many ships in the Rouge River could not be withdrawn. After Su Tingzhan took control of Lishui, while plundering the city, he quickly sent troops and horses to forcibly recruit ships everywhere.
Jiang Ning withdrew all the sailors into the city to increase the defense of the city, and learned that the rebels were collecting ships in the upper reaches of Longzangpu, and in addition to suffering from gains and losses, he actually dispatched more than 2,000 sailors out of the water gate to test the enemy situation along the south of Longzangpu.
In order to fight Jiangning, Haowenzhuang drew half of the troops and horses of the remnants of the naval division on Nantai Island and eastern Zhejiang, and all of them were controlled by Su Tingzhan's right flank.
Su Tingzhan had a naval army in his hands, but from western Zhejiang to southern Jiangning, there were no streams and rivers to communicate, and naturally there were no warships available after arriving in Lishui, so he hurriedly sent troops and horses to collect civilian ships everywhere, wanting to restore part of the naval army in the periphery of Jiangning as soon as possible.
If Jiang Ning had the determination to send the main force of the naval army, Su Tingzhan would only retreat on Longzangpu. No more, no less, Jiang Ning sent two thousand sailors out of the city to the south to spy on the military situation, and Su Tingzhan naturally wanted to eat it unceremoniously.
In the shallow water beach of Bailu Lake, Su Tingzhan lured Jiangning's 2,000 sailors in, forcibly requisitioned more than 200 fishing boats, carrying 4,000 soldiers to fight on the side, and in one day of fierce fighting, Jiangning's 2,000 sailors were killed, and Baiqing Lake was dyed red.
In winter, the water is shallow and very gentle, coming out of the Egret Lake, that is, the Longzangpu is the main water, the soldiers who died in the fierce battle and the people who were slaughtered because of the plundering of the city, the corpses went down along the water, and the river water was set against the background of the bright white snow on both banks, and the color was so blue that it made people's hearts chill.
Longzangpu is divided into two strands in the south of the city, one flows around the west of the city, joins the Yangtze River, and enters the Chaotiandang of Zhou Baili from the west entrance; One stream enters the city from the South Water Gate, crosses the entire Jiangning City, exits the city from the East Water Gate, joins the Jinchuan River, and then enters the Chaotiandang.
The water gate is blocked by an iron barrage, and the floating corpses naturally cannot enter the city, but even if the river is hundreds of miles away, the color is very different from usual.
Sun Wenbing took a boat from the East Water Gate into the city to meet Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian.
Huang Jinnian sighed: "The luxury family is slaughtering in the south, it seems that the luxury family intends to break the city, and has no intention of occupying Jiangning ...... for a long time."
"Even if Jiangning City is taken away by the luxury family without damage, it will be difficult to defend it, but the luxury family can see it clearly," Lin Xuwen said, and felt sorry for the destruction of the 2,000 soldiers and horses of the Jiangning Navy in Bailu Lake, "Although Cheng Yuqian has experience in commanding troops and defense, it is limited to this, and it is difficult for people to have high hopes for him!" We tried in every possible way to withdraw the ships from the periphery of Jiangning, but he was good, for fear that the Zhejiang-Fujian army would not be able to get the warships......"
Sun Wenbing smiled bitterly, if you don't have the determination to fight, then it's better to defend the city, no more, no less, send one or two thousand soldiers and horses out of the city to try, as if he was afraid that the luxury family would choke, so that Sun Wenbing and other onlookers were quite speechless - whether Cheng Yuqian would fight or not, since the ninth year of Chongguan, he led the Jiangdong reinforcements to the north and went north to King Qin.
Sun Wenbing also went north to King Qin with Lin Jian that time, and he knew Cheng Yuqian's performance better than others. Cheng Yuqian led the Jiangdong reinforcements at that time and was always in the safe inner line, it was not too much to say that he was greedy for life and afraid of death, and in the end he still shared some of the merits of the Jiangdong Left Army, and Cheng Yuqian had some exaggerated capital.
However, in Jiangning City, after Yue Lengqiu, who really knew about the army, left, it seemed that only Cheng Yuqian was the only one on the temple to pick up the beam, which may be the most important deficiency in Jiangning City's defense.
"This is a letter from Xiaoshan," Sun Wenbing took out the secret letter from his arms, handed it to Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian, and said, "The soldiers and horses on the right wing of the luxury family seem to be blocking the heavy snow in Lishui and unable to advance north, but they are actually waiting for the results of the battle in Liyang." As soon as Liyang is broken, the soldiers and horses of the luxury family will move extremely fast. From the current point of view, Yue Lengqiu has no intention of leading the Jiangzhou soldiers to enter the periphery of Jiangning prematurely to fight with the luxury family. Although there is a waterway in Jiangning that connects with Chaotian, the luxury family soldiers and horses surround it, and the waterway is inevitably safe. Now the emperor has placed the last ray of hope on the Hanghu army's resistance to the rebels in Liyang, Lin Xiang and Lord Huang can leave the city, and they should leave the city as soon as possible......"
The right wing of the luxury family is only more than 100 miles away from Jiangning, although Jiangning has not completely closed the city, it is precisely like this, every day a large number of displaced people flee into the city to take refuge - luxury in the periphery of luxury, but also to drive the people into Jiangning meaning, the influx of more and more refugees into Jiangning, once the siege of the city, cut off the contact with the periphery, the city's food stocks will soon be consumed by more than one million people.
In Sun Wenbing's view, Jiangning City is already in danger, and the reinforcements have not come for a long time, so I am afraid that Emperor Yongxing's heart will also begin to waver.
Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian have no intention of coexisting and dying with Jiang Ning, after reading the secret letter sent by Lin Jian from Xiaoshan, Lin Xuwen said to Huang Jinnian: "I think so, Lord Huang and I immediately went to the palace to ask for orders, Brother Jinnian went out of Dongcheng with Wen Bing to Zhao Hu's army, and the old seventeen said that someone should go to see Yue Lengqiu, or I should go!" ”
****************
Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian entered the palace and went to the Wenhua Hall to face the saints, and Zhang Yan and Chen Xiyan were also there.
Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian had already thought of an excuse and played together: "The reinforcements have not arrived for a long time, and they are hindered by the wind and snow, and the imperial court should also send important ministers to comfort them to boost the morale of the generals." In addition, Jiangzhou and Huaidong, the first army came from the southwest, the first army came from the southeast, the mountains and rivers in the middle were blocked, and the rebels blocked the channel, and the communication was not smooth, so naturally they could not cooperate with the tacit understanding to rush to attack the rebels.......
Yuan Jianwu's face was cloudy, the reinforcements from all walks of life came so slowly, he did gradually lose patience, Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian came to ask for orders to go out of the city at the same time, of course he would not believe that he had any good intentions.
Chen Xiyan said: "For the sake of the imperial court, Lin Xiang and Lord Huang are willing to take this position, which is very good." The old minister also implored the emperor to allow Lin Xiang and Lord Huang to go to the two divisions to work the army. ”
Zhang Yan thought that Chen Xiyan would stop Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian from going out of the city, Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian's heirs all stayed in Chongzhou, and only took their wives and concubines to Jiangning to take up their posts.
Zhang Yanzheng secretly felt that Chen Xiyan was so unwise that he would deceive Lin Xuwen with such a simple lie?
Chen Xiyan said: "In addition to the heavy snow to close the road, the Jiangzhou army sent personnel into Jiangning to play the shortage of food, so it is necessary to raise enough food in Chizhou before leaving, and now Jiangning's grain cannot be wiped out, so it can only be temporarily transferred from Dongyang Mansion, and Lin Xiang is also needed to coordinate!" ”
Zhang Yan only understood Chen Xiyan's subtext at this time, Yue Lengqiu was slow, but he would never want to see Jiangning City broken by the rebels. The Jiangzhou army was in a hurry, and it was indeed a shortage of food; Second, and the main thing, Yue Lengqiu was worried that he would give Huaidong a pit, afraid that he would enter the periphery of Jiangzhou first and face the rebels alone.
At this time, Yue Lengqiu would no longer particularly care about the promise of the imperial court, but would care more about Huaidong's promise.
Now Lin Xuwen went to the Jiangzhou Army Labor Division, urging Yue Lengqiu to go quickly, and became a hostage in Yue Lengqiu's hands in disguise; Lin Xuwen can't pit himself, which can make Yue Lengqiu feel a little more at ease with the Huaidong Army.
Now that it is snowing heavily, it can still prevent the rebels from approaching Jiangning quickly, but it can't afford to delay. Even if Huaidong delays, Zhang Yan, Chen Xiyan and Emperor Yongxing also hope that the Jiangzhou army can go faster, and the Hanghu army is now a little precarious, but if Yue Lengqiu can lead 40,000 Jiangzhou troops to the periphery of Jiangning, the situation will be much better, and Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian can only be let out of the city.