This great victory in Kaifeng also gave Emperor Chongzhen and the Ming Dynasty a shot in the arm. Emperor Chongzhen immediately asked the Runing Army and the Heiyun Army in Henan to step up their pursuit. He even more strictly ordered the Qin Army of Sun Chuanting, the governor of the three sides, to speed up their departure from Tongguan and attack in a pinch.
Li and Luo coalition forces in Henan Prefecture.
At the beginning of the year, when Wang Qiaonian was defeated and died, and Emperor Chongzhen resurrected Sun Chuanting from prison, he once asked him how many soldiers he needed during the summons. Sun Chuanting had been singing "Tears through Iron Window" for three years and did not understand the situation outside.
, thinking that the strength of the peasant army was still the same as before, so he casually replied: Five thousand elite soldiers are enough.
However, when Sun Chuanting arrived in Shanxi, he realized that the peasant army was already so powerful, and the Qin army was no longer worthy of its name, so his strategic thinking immediately changed to supporting troops and refusing to defend Shaanxi, and unwilling to go out to fight at Tongguan.
In June, Kaifeng was besieged. Emperor Chongzhen repeatedly urged Sun Chuanting to come to the rescue. Sun Chuanting always emphasized that the soldiers' pay was insufficient and they could not go out to fight. He said to the emperor: "We must train 20,000 troops and pay one million."
This supervisor immediately angered Emperor Chongzhen. Starting from Yuan Chonghuan in the first year of Chongzhen, these commanders of the army repeatedly boasted about Shanghai Port and occupied the position. Then they increased their pressure on the imperial court and threatened them.
The imperial court seemed to refuse to give up until it achieved its goals. Why didn't this make Emperor Chongzhen furious?
In comparison, although Yang Sichang always demanded huge amounts of food and salary supplies, he never deceived Emperor Chongzhen. This dwarf chose the eldest son. No wonder Emperor Chongzhen trusted him so much.
Indeed, Sun Chuanting may not have deliberately deceived Emperor Chongzhen this time, but Emperor Chongzhen would not care about those objective reasons. He believed that Sun Chuanting was going back on his word, so he wrote in the memorial: "It was originally proposed that five thousand soldiers can defeat thieves, so why take it?"
A surplus of 20,000 yuan? How about a million yuan in salary? But after one month of salary, it is easy to roll up the armor and leave the country. Together we plan to annihilate, and we must not take blame for our mistakes."
Under this situation, Sun Chuanting was helpless. After killing the commander-in-chief He Renlong to rectify military discipline, he stepped up military training and prepared to use three forces to go out and fight the peasant army.
But at this time, Kaifeng was already in danger. Emperor Chongzhen was impatient and issued an edict to inspect the censor Su Jing to supervise Yansui and the soldiers from the four towns of Ningxia, Gansu and Guyuan to urge Sun Chuanting to leave. Sun Chuanting once again went to Shu and said that the soldiers were newly recruited.
He lacked training and could not fight. Emperor Chongzhen refused to consider his opinions, so Sun Chuanting was forced to leave the army.
In September, the Qin army sent General Gao Jie as the central army, and also transferred General Zuo Xing, Bai Guangen, Zheng Jiadong, Niu Chenghu and other troops, totaling more than 20,000 troops, to march out of Tongguan.
At this time, the coalition forces of Li and Luo had been frustrated in Kaifeng City. They retreated to Henan Prefecture and were somewhat uncertain about their next move. It happened that when they heard that the Qin army had left the border, Li Zicheng and Luo Ru were very nervous. They were afraid.
Attacked by the Runing Army and the Qin Army from two directions, they suffered another disastrous defeat.
But then the coalition forces of Li and Luo found that the Runing army had stopped advancing at the border of Henan Prefecture, which made them feel a little relieved. So the coalition forces of Li and Luo placed their secondary troops at the border of Henan Prefecture and Ru Ning Prefecture.
The Ning army confronted each other, and then a large number of old, weak, women and children were placed, preparing to use the old, weak, women and children to entangle the Runing army when the Runing army made a sudden attack. The main forces of the Li and Luo coalition forces were concentrated together.
, first deal with the Qin army that just came out of the border.
On the first day of October, a battle broke out between the two armies in Ruyang County. Before the war, Sun Chuanting ordered the commander-in-chief Zheng Jiadong, Gao Jie, Zuo Xing and other troops to set up an ambush, and the commander-in-chief Niu Chenghu led the troops to fight. When the weapons were received,
The Niu tribe pretended to be defeated and retreated. As expected, Li Zicheng fell into a trap when he broke into the camp and pursued him into an ambush. The official army set up an ambush, and Niu Chenghu's tribe also turned back to fight to the death. The peasant army was defeated and withdrew eastward.
So the Qin army chased after them, and the peasant army started to repeat the old trick of throwing away a lot of property. When the Qin army saw that the peasant army had left a lot of armor and supplies, they all scrambled to grab the things, and the whole army became
Chaos.
Luo Rucai, who was responding, saw that Li Zicheng's attempt to break into the camp failed and the Qin army was in chaos fighting for property. He made a prompt decision and seized the opportunity to attack. He was worthy of the title of the First Field Battalion of the Peasant Army.
The Qin army was caught off guard. Zuo Ming and Xiao Shending's troops were defeated first, and other troops could not stand and fled. The peasant army turned defeat into victory, killing thousands of officers and soldiers, and 78 generals, and captured a large number of war horses and baggage.
The Qin army fled and captured countless people.
Sun Chuanting hurriedly collected more than 8,000 defeated troops and immediately retreated to Tongguan. In order to strictly enforce military discipline, he beheaded Xiao Shending in public. Because Zuo Xing was the son of the veteran general Zuo Guangxian, he only fined him 2,000 war horses to compensate for his crime. Sun Chuanting went to court
After Shu impeached himself, Emperor Chongzhen had no choice but to order him to perform meritorious service and redeem himself.
In this battle, the Runing Army just stood on the sidelines and watched the Qin Army's complete defeat with gloating eyes. As for Sun Chuanting's Qin Army, it was seriously damaged. And the most powerful trilateral army in the Ming Dynasty was
Just like that, it disappeared. After that, they were completely reduced to the status of local security forces and could only maintain law and order in Xi'an.
"|You guys say! How should I explain to my godmother? How will I face her in the future? Is Zhang Rubao deaf? He doesn't even dare to take my words to heart. He dares to blockade the Yangtze and Han Rivers.
Put Zhang Xianzhong in Xiangyang. Let him stop being the commander of the navy and go home to nurse his children!" Wu Shigong saw the latest battle report from Huguang and immediately became furious.
The officers of the Runing Army in the commander's tent were all silent. Seeing that Wu Shigong's anger could not be ended, Xue Yongli secretly waved his hand and asked the officers to retreat first.
"My aunt! My condolences! General Ma is also loyal to the country, and General Qin will not anger you, auntie." Xue Yongli advised.
Wu Shigong was a little tired from his anger. He slumped down in a chair, picked up the teapot on the table, took a few sips at the spout of the teapot, and then said to Xue Yongli: "Actually, Thief Zhang and Fool Zuo fell down when they fought.
It’s nothing, I’d better have them die together. But firstly, that idiot Zuo dared to withdraw the army from Xiangyang, so he left my brother Ma in the city; secondly, because Brother Ma was so honest, I had already let him run away when he saw the situation was bad.
Now that we are here in Runing, we still have to be loyal to our country, so what can we protect from the Ming Dynasty?"
When Zhang Xianzhong's peasant army made a comeback in Shucheng, it encountered a two-pronged attack by the Runing army. Fortunately, Zhang Xianzhong was as cunning as a fox and successfully led the main force across the Yangtze River and escaped from the encirclement of the Runing army in the Chizhou area.
After that, Zhang Xianzhong began to prosper without the "attention" of the Runing Army. He conquered Shitai and entered Panyang Lake in the east, and captured 300 double-gunned ships, and built a large number of ships.
Recruiting sailors and training the navy in Panyang Lake. At this time, Zhang Xianzhong's infantry also had the 32nd Battalion of Laoshao and the 24th Battalion of Xiaoshao, with a strength of more than 100,000.
In July, in order to curb the wanton rampage of Zhang Xianzhong's troops, Nanjing sent General Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo's troops with a total of more than 30,000 men. Afterwards, they fought fiercely with Zhang Xianzhong's troops and were defeated by Zhang Xianzhong's troops on the frontal battlefield. In this battle, the officers and soldiers suffered more than 10,000 losses.
People and the whole Jiangnan were horrified by the powerful strength of Zhang Xianzhong's troops.
Afterwards, Zhang Xianzhong was unwilling to stay here and was besieged by the officers and soldiers gathered in the southeast. Therefore, he began to move to other places to open up a new situation.
After careful consideration, Zhang Xianzhong decided to lead his troops westward into Hubei, so he sent military adviser Pan Duao to sneak into Wuchang in advance to "response internally." In late August, Zhang Xianzhong's troops had already entered the border with Hubei, and had joined forces for more than 20 miles. In early September, some troops were sent
The army attacked Huangmei, Hubei Province to prepare for the entire division to enter Hubei.
The Runing Army's troops in Huguang strictly implemented a conservative strategy. They only stationed themselves on the Runing Army's own territory in Huguang and South Zhili areas, and covered the southern part of Runing, while attacking other areas.
During the battle, they did not attack at will. In addition, the Hubei area was basically Zuo Liangyu's territory, so the Runing Army was happy to see Zhang Xianzhong's westward advance.
However, Zuo Liangyu did have two tools. He concentrated his main force and fought with other officers and soldiers in Huguang to block the westward advance of the peasant army in the Huangmei area and defeated Zhang Xianzhong's troops.
Due to the defeat in the battle, Zhang Xianzhong was forced to return to the Tiantangzhai Mountain area of Qianshan County and wait for the battle. Pan Duao, who was lurking in Wuchang, was also captured and executed by the government because of Shen Huilin's informant. As a result, Zhang Xianzhong's plan to march into Hubei was temporarily blocked. Then, he followed.
Huang Degong, Liu Liangzuo and others led their soldiers to hide in the mountains without flags and drums, set fire to the woods in the middle of the night, and attacked the peasant army camp. The peasant army became hasty and the mountainous terrain was obstructive, and the troops were in chaos for a while and were defeated by the official army.
The successive defeats put Zhang Xianzhong in a dilemma. However, at this time, a partial division he had sent before completely disrupted the good situation of the Huguang official army.
In order to support the main force's westward advance, Zhang Xianzhong sent Li Dingguo to lead 5,000 people to the south. However, Li Dingguo quickly mobilized his troops and immediately rushed into the weak areas of Huguang's official army. After that, he defeated Tongshan and Chongyang, and captured two units.
With the defection of the peasant army and the poor people who surrendered to the army, the number of troops suddenly exceeded 30,000.
Then, Li Dingguo's troops crossed the river in the Honghu area and defeated the Qianjiang River. The main force of Zhang Xianzhong's troops immediately switched to the main force and followed Li Dingguo's troops towards Xiangyang.
In October, Zhang Xianzhong's troops arrived at Jingmen, and their troops suddenly expanded to 200,000. Xiangyang, where General Zuo Liangyu's mansion was based, became a chaotic situation.
Before that, in order to be ready to escape at any time, Zuo Liangyu built a large number of warships in Xiangyang, and the money, food, and civilian labor for the shipbuilding were plundered from the people near Xiangyang. The people in Xiangyang hated the Zuo Army to the bone, and they secretly
He set fire to all the ships built by Zuo Liangyu. Zuo Liangyu was furious after hearing the news. He simply let go and plundered Xiangyang. He immediately ransacked Xiangyang City and plundered a group of merchant ships loaded with military supplies and captured women and money.
After being transported away, he led the army to defend Xiangyang and Fancheng, preparing to block the advance of Zhang Xianzhong's troops.