Chapter 54 The General Soldier of Twenty-eight Towns
Time soon came to mid-May of the 17th year of Chongzhen.
At this time, Zhang Xianzhong's Western Army was blocked by Chongqing, an important town in eastern Sichuan. They were digging tunnels and preparing to use gunpowder to blow up the Chongqing city wall.
Chen Shiqi, the governor of Sichuan in the Ming Dynasty, was struggling to support it.
Zhu Zhishu, the king of Shu, was still drunk and dreaming of death, unaware that his death was coming.
Li Zicheng had retreated to Shanxi from Jingxing, one of the eight towns in Taihang.
Unfortunately, of the hundreds of thousands of old soldiers who followed Li Zicheng out of Shaanxi, there were only less than 20,000 left, and all 60,000 of them, the cavalry, were wiped out.
The Dashun Army was actually still able to fight, and these cavalrymen fought hard to the end.
For Li Zicheng, the only good news was that thanks to the natural security of Guguan, Dashun's army finally blocked the pursuers. Wu Sangui's Guan Ning army had been attacking Guanguan for several days, with thousands of casualties but they could not advance even an inch.
Li Yan proposed that Li Zicheng transfer Shaanxi's troops to Shanxi to strengthen the defense of Shanxi and Datong.
Li Yan believed that Shanxi and Shaanxi were closely related to each other, and if the lips were broken, the teeth would be cold. Therefore, only by holding on to Shanxi could the Dashun army ensure that the hinterland of Shaanxi would not be attacked and have a chance to recuperate.
But Li Zicheng was eager to return home and rejected Li Yan's suggestion.
After leaving a small number of troops behind, Li Zicheng set off back to Xi'an.
As a result, as soon as Li Zicheng stepped forward, Datong General Jiang Xiang and Tiancheng Guard Deputy General Wang Daye stepped back.
Zhang Tianlin, the general who Li Zicheng left behind to guard Datong, and more than 10,000 soldiers were all massacred.
On the Jiannu side, facing the sharp butcher's knife of the Eight Banners soldiers, the officials and gentry people in various prefectures and counties in Gyeonggi did not surrender. Instead, they launched a larger-scale resistance. Not only Gyeonggi, but almost the entire Beizhili rebelled.
For the Han officials, gentry and common people, it is okay to change the court, but not their clothes! Even if they risk their lives, they will not change!
As soon as Dorgon saw that the situation was not right, he quickly transferred Wu Sangui's Guanning Army and the main slave-building force led by Duduo back from Guguan, and launched a more bloody suppression and massacre against the rebellious officials, gentry and people.
On the Ming side, Chongzhen has successfully arrived in Xuzhou with the general soldiers of ten towns including Qian Yiding and Wang Zuntan, and has joined up with the general soldiers of eight towns including Li Chengdong and Hu Maozhen who arrived in Xuzhou first.
At this time, the Ming army gathered in Xuzhou had a total of eighteen border troops.
Huang Degong also sent flying cavalry to report that he had killed Liu Liangzuo and incorporated Liu Liangzuo's troops.
In as many as ten days or as little as five days, Huang Degong's 60,000 people will arrive in Xuzhou. By then, there is a high probability that they will be able to gather 28 total soldiers.
Twenty-Eight Towns may sound like a huge lineup, but in fact it only has 120,000 troops.
In the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the four towns in Jiangbei had a total population of 120,000 people, and dogs and cats were basically all here.
In addition, there are more than 5,000 guardsmen under the command of Wang Wenming of the Xuzhou Guard, as well as the brave people and strong people of the nearby counties of Xiaoxian, Peixian, Fengxian and Dangshan, totaling about 20,000 people.
With these 20,000 people, the combat effectiveness is really hard to describe.
Of course, the 120,000 troops in the four towns in Jiangbei are not much stronger.
These 120,000 people are still enough to deal with bandits and bandits.
But against the Dashun Army or the Daxi Army, there is basically only one word - run!
If you are even more unlucky and encounter Jiannu, you won't even have a chance to escape, and you will have to surrender.
Historically, the armies of Gao Jie, Liu Zeqing, Liu Liangzuo and Zuo Liangyu basically followed this pattern. When the Dashun Army came over, they could still run away. But when the Jian Nu came over, they had no chance to escape and could only kneel down and beg for surrender.
, and then after surrendering and establishing slavery, he suddenly became very capable of fighting, and the strong wind swept away fallen leaves and attacked most of China.
Therefore, with the current 140,000 people, if they face the Dashun Army in the field, they will have no choice but to run away. If they face the Jiannu, they will most likely end up kneeling down and begging for surrender. There will be no other possibility.
Chongzhen still had a clear understanding of this point.
Chongzhen would not naively think that because he, the emperor, was personally in charge, this group of rabble could immediately turn aside and become elites. This was a dream.
The real elite is only a thousand Yiding.
These thousand Yiding can compete with the white-armored soldiers who established the slaves.
Some people may ask, can these 140,000 people improve their combat effectiveness through reorganization and training?
The answer is no. Even if the Ming Dynasty could provide sufficient food and wages to ensure physical consumption, it would be impossible for these 140,000 people to become a strong army through training.
The only effect is to make them run faster.
Originally, they couldn't outrun the Mongolian cavalry, so they had no choice but to kneel down and beg for surrender when facing the Jiannu. However, if the logistics support could keep up and their physical fitness was guaranteed, they might be able to create a miracle and outrun the Mongolian cavalry.
Correction is useless. Changing the soup without changing the medicine will never lead to radical changes.
In a word, this army, from senior generals to junior officers to top soldiers, has become accustomed to rout in the field. If there is the slightest disturbance on the battlefield, they will be defeated like a mountain, and they have tried again and again.
To put it more bluntly, this army is mentally broken and there is no cure.
Some people will say that what you said is wrong. You said that they are hopeless and will collapse at the first touch. But why did they become a strong army after they surrendered and became slaves?
The answer is actually very simple. One is because after surrendering to the slave establishment, I can finally eat enough and my physical fitness can keep up. The other is because there are supervisors behind my butt!
Behind these surrendered troops were guarding the slave-building supervisors!
Didn’t you see that Duduo has been escorting Wu Sangui to beat the Dashun Army to death?
So unless they have the courage to rebel, they can only move forward desperately.
Otherwise, if the slave-building and prison army really dared to kill people, their heads would fall to the ground one by one.
In fact, there were some who could not stand the oppression of the slave-building army and rebelled in anger. For example, Li Chengdong, Jin Shengyuan and Jiang Xiang all rebelled in the end, but after the rebellion, their troops immediately revealed their true colors.
Wu Sangui's Guan Ning army has better foundation, so they can only hold on for a few more days.
The border troops in various towns in the Ming Dynasty have knelt down mentally and are a kneeling tribe.
Then some people may ask, couldn't the Ming Dynasty set up a supervisory army?
Of course, there is no problem in setting up a supervisory army, but the supervisory army who established the slaves was backed by 130,000 eight-banner soldiers. What was behind the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty's supervisory army? There was only one polished emperor, so what's the fuss about?
So, is this army really hopeless?
Yes, this army is really hopeless.
They couldn't defeat Dashun's army in the field, let alone Jiannu.
In other words, defending a city or holding on to a fortress can still be done.
Of course, just because this army is hopeless does not mean that the Ming Dynasty is hopeless.
The Ming Dynasty is still worth rescuing. The prescription is to imitate Marshal Qi in training Zhejiang troops and start a new army from scratch to create a new army that has nothing to do with the frontier army in the Twenty-Eight Towns.
Of course Chongzhen also wanted to start a new army and train a new army.
But unfortunately, firstly, there is no money, secondly, time does not allow it, because the slaves are about to go south, and thirdly, there is a lack of excellent officers. If you want to train a new army, in addition to having soldiers with clean family backgrounds, you must also
There must be a large group of outstanding officers who have experienced hundreds of battles or received higher education.
Marshal Qi's Zhejiang army has a group of hard-blooded veterans who fought hard on the anti-Japanese battlefield as officers.
Yuan Gongbao's Beiyang New Army also had a large group of new-style cadet soldiers who graduated from the Tianjin Military Academy.
Not to mention the Northern Expeditionary Army. Without the thousands of students from Huangpu Military Academy, there would be no Northern Expeditionary Army.
Before cultivating such a group of high-quality officers, training the new army is purely a matter of looking at the moon in the mirror.
So, can a group of veterans who have fought in the twenty-eight towns be selected from the frontier army to serve as officers of the new army?
The answer is still no. The so-called soldiers are the courage of the generals and the soul of the soldiers. If we find such a group of mentally "uncompetitive" frontier army veterans to serve as officers of the new army, what kind of good soldiers can we train?
It's nothing more than another fleeing army that's about to collapse.
Therefore, there is no need to consider the training of the new army for the time being.
Having said so much, I can summarize it in four points.
First, the current situation is extremely serious, but there is still time.
Second, the conditions for organizing and training a new army are not currently available.
Third, Xuzhou’s 28-town border army is rubbish, but for now we can only rely on them to support our national defense.
Fourth, Xuzhou's 28-town border army's field operations were basically on the verge of collapse, so emergency repairs of the barracks and fortifications must be stepped up to provide them with a sense of security, otherwise the Huanghuai defense line would only be a mirror image.
However, before Chongzhen could send these proud soldiers to build fortifications, a pay dispute suddenly broke out.
The pay dispute started with Li Chengdong Town, Gao Jie's old unit, and then quickly spread to the remaining seven towns and the general soldiers of ten towns under Liu Zeqing's old unit, eventually evolving into a large-scale mass incident.
The Ming Dynasty can be said to be the poorest among the twenty-four dynasties, so it often defaulted on military pay. The Zhejiang Army created by Marshal Qi was the afterglow of the pay dispute.
For Guan Ningjun, making money is a traditional craft.
Facing the angry soldiers in the border town, Chongzhen instantly became vigilant.
I don't think the salary is big, but I just want money, and what I want is money for selling my life. It doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with it.
In fact, it is completely wrong, because this is a threat to the imperial court. Once this is started, there will be no way to manage it in the future. If there is any dissatisfaction, people will make trouble.
If you compromise this time, you will go even further next time.
When Jiannu went south, these proud and powerful generals dared to demand a southern expedition.
So how to deal with this payment dispute has become a difficult problem, it is really tricky.
Comprehensive compromise is definitely not possible. If we really compromise, these arrogant soldiers will only go too far when they taste the sweetness. The emperor's authority will be fatally weakened, and the Huanghuai defense line will still be defended.
But it is impossible not to compromise at all, otherwise the dispute over pay will brew into a mutiny.
The balance in the middle must be just right. It must be a strong shock to these arrogant and powerful generals, but it must not let the pay riot turn into a mutiny. Time cannot be delayed yet, it must be fast and accurate!
First of all, analyze calmly. Is there any involvement from the Dashun Army and Jiannu behind this incident?
It is impossible for the Dashun Army. Li Zicheng has been beaten into a dog by the Jiannu and cannot protect himself. At this time, it is impossible for him to have the energy to infiltrate the Ming Army.
It is impossible to create slaves.
Because according to the historical process, the Jiannu army was already devastated by the Beizhi rebellion at this time, and even Duduo's main force of the Jiannu army and Wu Sangui's Guan Ning army were transferred back.
Moreover, the tentacles of Jiannu were far from reaching Xuzhou.
After confirming this, Chongzhen felt confident.
As long as the commander-in-chief of each town does not want to rebel, it will be easy to handle.
This is a crisis, but isn't it an opportunity?
Crisis is always an opportunity within a crisis, it depends on whether you can grasp it!
At that moment, Chongzhen ordered Gao Qiqian and Lu Jiude: "Gao Banban, Lu Banban, prepare twenty thousand taels of silver and follow me to Li Chengdong's camp."
