Chapter seven hundred and seventy-ninth Ru Ning army accident
Just when Wu Shigong was waiting impatiently, he did not expect to hear from the court, but instead received a reply from Runing. And in this reply, there was shocking news from Deng Qifan.
After Xue Yong led the main force of the Runing Army and successfully eliminated the two peasant armies, the Gezuo Fifth Battalion and Zhang Xianzhong, he turned his attention to the last and most powerful coalition of Li and Luo.
At this time, Shaanxi Trilateral Governor Fu Zonglong led General He Renlong and Deputy General Li Guoqi's troops to enter Henan again to encircle and suppress the coalition forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai. Baoding Governor Yang Wenyue also led General Hu Dawei's troops to cross the Yellow River again.
Entering Henan. Zuo Liangyu's troops are heading straight from south to north towards the coalition forces of Li and Luo. In addition, Liu Zeqing, the commander-in-chief of Shandong Province, with 20,000 troops, is transporting troops through the Grand Canal and the Yellow River. The coalition forces of Li and Luo are suddenly in a difficult position.
into a situation of embarrassment from all sides.
In order to severely damage this last peasant army, Xue Yongli sent 45,000 troops to entangle the main force of Li and Luo's coalition forces with Nanyang, Runing and Guide. However, the Runing army did not rush to attack.
When the other Ming armies arrived, they pressed the Li and Luo coalition forces towards the "friendly forces", hoping to make them fight and lose both sides.
But at this time, the Battle of Songjin was defeated miserably, the entire Ming army was wiped out, and news of the disappearance of Wu Shigong and the Runing Army from the Northern Expedition came back to Runing. This news shocked everyone in the Runing Army.
The ladies in the inner house cried and cried, not to mention the six gods without a master, and the senior civil and military officers of the Runing Army began urgent discussions. The key points of their discussions were two points: First, what is the whereabouts of Wu Shigong? Second, if something unexpected happens to Wu Shigong,
Who will be the future leader of the Runing Army?
In view of Wu Shigong's prestige, and in order to maintain the unity of the Runing Army, the civil and military personnel of the Runing Army unanimously decided that if something unexpected happened to Wu Shigong, his direct descendants would inherit the position. But then, another problem arose.
Which of Wu Shigong's sons should inherit?
There are three candidates - Xue Chenglin, Wu Chengying and Xue Chengping.
It should be said that as the eldest son, Xue Chenglin is the natural successor. However, Xue Chenglin is not in Runing, and he is in the capital. He can easily be controlled by the Ming court. Therefore, the current Xue Chenglin is not a very good candidate.
According to the order, the next one should be Xue Chengping. But now Xue Chengping is fostered by Li Yuenu, and Li Yuenu's background is very humble, which in disguise has reduced Xue Chengping's status. And because Xue Chengping's identity is strictly confidential,
Many civil and military officials in the Runing Army did not even know that Wu Shigong had a son named Xue Chengping. Therefore, if he were to be pushed out, it would be very dissatisfying to the public and even arouse the suspicion of some people in the Runing Army, leading to a split in the Runing Army.
As for Wu Chengying, his appearance will cause strong opposition from the officers who were originally from the Xue Mansion, and is also an unstable factor that may cause division. Therefore, he is not a good candidate.
Therefore, this caused a dispute among the civil and military personnel of the Runing Army. As represented by Deng Qifan, most of the civil and military personnel of the Runing Army remained silent. In fact, they all did not care which son of Wu Shigong ascended the throne.
, as long as they are direct descendants of Wu Shigong. Therefore, these people are actually neutral.
However, civil servants represented by Zhang Zhiheng, Wu Shigong's seventh brother Wu Shili, and Li Xin's brothers strongly recommended Wu Chengying to ascend the throne. And their reasons were very good: first, they wanted to maintain Wu Shigong's surname. Second, Wu Chengying's mother——
Li Xin can listen to politics from behind the curtain and will not let the power slip to the side.
Because most of the officers from the Xue Mansion were on military expeditions, at this time in Runing, the voice for Wu Chengying to ascend the throne became the highest.
As soon as this news reached the ears of Xue Yongli, who was commanding at the front line, he immediately became anxious. At this time, annihilating the Li and Luo coalition forces had become very unimportant. The most important thing was the issue of the successor of the Runing Army.
So Xue Yongli immediately ordered no more fighting with the peasant army, and all the troops were covered one by one. They all retreated to Runing. Zhou Xun and Shu Mo led their troops to cut off the rear and formed a defense line outside the area controlled by the Runing army to resist
In particular, Xue Yongli issued a strict order: these two troops must not be mobilized at will, let alone retreat to Runing, Guide and Nanyang.
Zhou Xun is the second-ranking figure in the Runing Army system, and Shu Mo was once Wu Shigong's school boy, so both of them have a great say in the issue of successors. Xue Yongli just doesn't want them to appear in Runing.
Prevent any extraneous branches from appearing.
Then, Xue Yongli rushed back to Runing with his own troops. The appearance of this Runing army giant suddenly turned the tide. With Xue Yongli's full support, he finally temporarily respected Xue Chenglin as Wu Shigong's successor.
In addition, the Runing Army will form a group headed by Deng Qifan, Xue Yongli and others to jointly decide on all affairs of the Runing Army.
Fortunately, Xue Yongli acted in a measured manner. Although he sent out troops to put Zhang Zhiheng and others under house arrest, his lives were not harmed. As for Li Xin and Wu Chengying, they were imprisoned in the inner house.
However, this sudden change in the Runing Army caused a huge change in the war situation in Henan. The first was Zuo Liangyu.
Because Zuo Liangyu and Wu Shigong had a deep grudge, he always paid close attention to the movements of the Runing Army during the expedition, for fear that the Runing Army would make some moves and plot against him behind his back.
So when Zuo Liangyu learned that the Runing Army was withdrawing, he retreated without hesitation. He ignored Fu Zonglong's order and just wanted to stay as far away from the Li and Luo coalition forces and the Runing Army as possible.
And in this way, the Li and Luo coalition finally got their long-lost fighter plane.
At that time, Fu Zonglong was still pursuing Li and Luo's coalition forces. They did not know that a major change had occurred in the Runing army. In early September, 20,000 people from He Renlong and Li Guoqi commanded by Fu Zonglong entered Yanling, Henan.
He joined the General Hu Dawei Division led by Baoding Governor Yang Wenyue, and then all went to Weishi, intending to encircle and annihilate the coalition forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai.
After the peasant army received the news, they immediately deployed a combat plan. They decided to ambush their elite troops in the pine forest, and sent another team to the west to cross the Yinghe River to create the illusion of moving to Xuchang.
Sure enough, the officers and soldiers fell into the trap, thinking that the main force of the peasant army had crossed the river to the west, so they set up camp to rest in Chenjiazhuang. The officers and soldiers dispersed into the village to search for the people's food and fodder, leaving almost no troops left. The peasant army hidden in the woods took the opportunity.
An attack was launched. The officers and generals hurriedly rallied their troops, but in the haste the troops were confused and unable to withstand the enemy.
He Renlong and Hu Dawei pulled up their troops and fled eastward. Li Guoqi also fled when he saw that the situation was not good. The two remaining governors, Fu Zonglong and Yang Wenyue, led their direct Biao battalion and fell into a tight siege by the peasant army.
That night, Yang Wenyue fled to Weishi under the protection of deputy general Zhang. Fu Zonglong had no choice but to order the soldiers of the Biao camp directly under him to dig into the trench in an attempt to hold on and wait for help. At the same time, he sent someone to congratulate Renlong with a personal letter. Li Guoqi came quickly.
save.
He and Li were privately rejoicing that they had escaped the siege of the peasant army. They were unwilling to get in again. They used the excuse that "this book came from thieves, and it is common sense to know that it is not a forgery" and refused to return to the army for rescue. Fu Zonglong's troops were in the peasant army.
There was nothing they could do in the encirclement. After a few days, all the food, mules and horses were eaten, and they relied on organizing commandos to drag corpses from the battlefield to satisfy their hunger.
Finally, all arrows and projectiles were exhausted. Fu Zonglong knew that it was difficult to resist, so he led 6,000 remaining soldiers to break out on the evening of the 18th. Under the interception of the peasant army, the soldiers scattered. At noon the next day, Fu Zonglong led some stragglers.
, he was overtaken by the peasant army eight miles away from Weishi and was taken prisoner. The peasant army soldiers took him to Weishi and shouted: "I, the officers and soldiers of the Governor of Qin, please open the door to accept Governor Qin" and prepared to capture Wei with their cameras.
Shi.
But Fu Zonglong would rather die than give in. He shouted to the city that he had become a prisoner and was surrounded by peasant soldiers. He must not open the door. The plan to defraud the lieutenant failed to come true. The peasant soldiers were furious and executed Fu Zonglong on the spot. This happened
It was the first governor who died at the hands of the peasant army.
In this disastrous defeat of the Wei family's army, the coalition forces of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai captured a large number of armors and equipment, especially a group of Shaanxi soldiers from Fu Zonglong's tribe, which made them more and more powerful. And with this
With the joining of a group of Ming Dynasty veterans, Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai's troops immediately had the core of a strong army.
At this time, Liu Zeqing, the commander-in-chief of Shandong Province, arrived belatedly. Hearing that the army was defeated, he did not dare to advance or retreat. He only dared to build a stronghold on the bank of the Yellow River.
The powerful peasant army immediately pounced on Liu Zeqing's troops. The panicked Liu Zeqing immediately boarded the boat and fled. The Lu army, which had fought with its last resort, immediately collapsed and countless people drowned on the Yellow River. Liu Zeqing's troops suffered another disastrous defeat. After the war,
An inventory showed that less than 10,000 people under Liu Zeqing's command had boarded the ship.
This tragic defeat gave Liu Zeqing a deeper understanding: "Brother Chang Jing is absolutely right! It's better to go back to Shandong and preserve your strength if you can't shrink!"
At this time, Runing had also learned that Wu Shigong was safe, but at this time the war situation had taken a turn for the worse. The coalition forces of Li and Luo then took advantage of the situation and captured Shangshui, Fugou, Weichuan, Xuzhou, Changge and other counties in central Henan.
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In October, the peasant army entered Nanyang and began to besiege Ye County. At this time, Zhang Biao, who was stationed in Ye County, was short of major generals and could only hold on to the city. Zhou Xun, who finally let go, also led a large army to assist Ye County.
After learning that the Runing Army was coming for reinforcements, the coalition forces of Li and Luo gave up the attack on Ye County and began to attack Nanyang. Xue Yongli, who understood that due to the incident in Liaodong, had made his arrangements at a loss, he had already ordered Zhao Degong, who was stationed in Nanyang:
The Shaanxi thieves are indeed powerful, and the first priority is to preserve the strength of the Runing army, so they can give up the defense of Nanyang City.
So under such circumstances, Zhao Degong fled back to Runing with the garrisoned Runing soldiers, regardless of the efforts of officials in the city to stay. On the fourth day of November, the peasant army captured Nanyang, and the new Tang king Zhu Yurong was also executed.