After Zuo Liangyu's death, his generals recommended his son Zuo Menggeng to stay behind, imprisoned Yuan Jixian in a ship, and continued to lead troops eastward, occupying Pengze, Dongliu, Jiande, Anqing, and marched directly to Taiping Prefecture.
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The Hongguang court was greatly alarmed when it received reports from the governors, governors and town officials from the upper reaches about Zuo Liangyu's rebellion and led his troops eastward. The court decided to appoint Ruan Dacheng, the Minister of War, together with Jingnan Hou Huang Degong, Guangchang Bo Liu Liangzuo and Chikou's general military force.
The National Security Bureau and others organized a blockade and suppression.
Huang Degong's army was transferred to Taiping Mansion south of the Yangtze River (the government is in Dangtu and governs Wuhu and Fanchang counties), and Liu Liangzuo's army was deployed on the other side of the Yangtze River. After a fierce battle, Huang Degong won a great victory and finally blocked the Zuo army.
Down the river.
But because of the internal conflicts within Nanming, Zhou Xun, Xue Yong and others could no longer bear it. The opportunity could not be missed, and the time would never come again. So Zhou Xun, Xue Yong and others decided to disobey their orders and take advantage of this opportunity to capture the enemy in one fell swoop.
Nanming.
On June 7, the general ordered the Zhou Dynasty to patrol the south and transferred Zhang Biao from Nanyang to lead 5,000 troops (Nanyang local troops), and then merged with 10,000 troops (recruits from the village protection team) via Runing, for a total of 15,000 troops.
Force Fengyang and attack eastward. Xue Qiang led all the garrisoned troops to protect the entire territory of Henan and Huguang to resist foreign enemies. While Zhou was patrolling, Zhang Biao led an army of more than 130,000 people and marched down the river.
Directly to Nanjing.
Although there was no connection between the two battlefields of Shandong and Huguang, the two units of the Daping Army launched a three-pronged offensive at the same time.
In the Huaiyang area, Suqian's victory without a fight also brought a large number of surrendered troops and generals to Chi Ming's Shandong Army. Among these surrendered generals, there were some ambitious people who could not wait to be the "lead the way"
party".
The surrender of the Nanming Army did not mean that the entire front surrendered at the same time. In order to level the front, the Shandong Army would definitely send troops to attack strategic points that had fallen into its own front.
Some of the Nanming troops who were attacked were still hesitating, and some even just couldn't find a way to contact the Shandong army to surrender. So when they saw the Shandong army coming to attack, and when they encountered those surrendering generals who came to persuade them to surrender, they might flee.
Or the whole army surrendered, and the Shandong Army's operations to advance the front went very smoothly.
Especially after the subordinate generals learned that Chi Ming was originally the commander of Wu Shigong's personal troops, they praised him even more. In the Ming Dynasty's military system, the commander of the personal troops was the most trusted person by the commander, so his status
He is no worse than the leading general. He is even slightly higher in status.
Therefore, those surrendered generals had a small calculation in their minds: if Chi Ming performed extraordinary feats, then these surrendered generals would also be able to climb a big tree and gain a higher status in Wu Shigong's new dynasty.
Therefore, these surrendered generals encouraged Chi Ming to launch an offensive. So these surrendered generals not only told a lot of information about Nanming's army, but also exaggerated the dilemma faced by Nanming by three points. Therefore, the ones who caused the most harm to themselves were
The enemy is often not your own mortal enemy, but your former comrades who have turned against you.
In fact, no one expected that although the intelligence reported by the surrendered generals had been greatly exaggerated, the Nanming Army in the Huaiyang area was even more in trouble. The whole situation could only be described in four words - chaotic. Even even
The civil servants and military attachés who commanded the Nanming Army also fell into hysteria.
When he learned that Zuo Liangyu's troops were moving eastward and Shandong's Daping Army was invading the south, Shi Kefa was panicked and had no idea. According to the Huai'an official at the time, Shi Kefa's Army Supervisor Ji Yingtingji recorded: At that time, a part of the Nanming army was stationed in Gaoyou.
, Shi Kefa issued orders three times in one day. In the morning, he ordered Ying Tingji on the Tuntian Road in Pisu to "supervise a group of soldiers, weapons, money and food to go to Pukou to suppress the rebels of Zuo Liangyu's tribe"; at noon, he ordered "all armies do not need to go to Si, but return to Yangzhou as soon as possible to listen."
"Tune"; in the afternoon, he also ordered "Xuyi is in urgent need, Pisu Dao can supervise all the troops to Tianchang to respond".
So Ying Tingji said to the generals: "The cabinet department is in chaos. How can it be possible to travel a thousand miles and pay such a salary three times a day?"
It can be seen from this that even Shi Kefa was in chaos. The orders issued were incomprehensible, let alone other civil servants and military generals of Nanming. All the Nanming army troops were flying around like headless flies.
, but I don’t know what to do!
The young and energetic Chi Ming finally couldn't stand such a huge temptation. In addition, he also learned from the surrendered generals that Zuoliangyu's tribe in the Southern Ming Dynasty rebelled, and the Hongguang Dynasty also fell into internal conflicts. So he also considered
Not allowed to ask Wu Shigong for orders, he launched his troops into a full-scale attack without hesitation.
On June 16, Chi Ming led the main force of the Shandong Army to approach Xuyi, and the defenders of Xuyi surrendered. Shi Kefa himself rushed to Tianchang on June 17 to mobilize all the troops to reinforce Xuyi, and suddenly received a report that the defenders of Xuyi had surrendered.
During the Great Ping Dynasty, he almost completely lost control of his troops.
After that, Shi Kefa braved the rain and dragged mud all day and night, rushed to Yangzhou, and took charge of holding on to this important city in the north of the Yangtze River. On the 24th, the Shandong Army marched to the camp twenty miles away from Yangzhou, and the next day troops came to the city.
At this critical moment, Shi Kefa called for reinforcements from various towns, but none arrived. In fact, the generals of Liu Liangzuo and the former Gaojie sect that Shi Kefa had controlled surrendered one after another without a fight in the past few days.
On June 25, Li Benshen, the admiral of Gao Jie's department, led his entire army to surrender to Chi Ming, and Guangchang Bo Liu Liangzuo also led his troops to surrender. On the 27th, General Zhang Tianlu and Zhang Tianfu led their troops to surrender, and then they were ordered by Chi Ming to surrender.
On the second day of July, he participated in the capture of Yangzhou.
At this time, in Yangzhou City, there were only General Liu Zhaoji and the Zhongguan Battalion headed by He Gang, and the strength was quite weak. Due to the high city wall and the fast march of the Shandong Army, Chi Ming sent people before the siege artillery arrived.
The offer to surrender Shi Kefa, Huaiyang Governor Wei Yinwen and others were sternly rejected.
On the 27th, Li Qifeng, the commander-in-chief of Gansu Town, and Dao Gao Qifeng, the supervisor, led four thousand troops into the city. Their intention was to kidnap Shi Kefa and surrender Yangzhou City to the Daping Dynasty.
However, Shi Kefa resolutely said: "This is where I died. What do you want me to do? If you want to be rich and noble, please do what you want." Li Qifeng and Gao Qifeng saw that there was no chance to take advantage of them. On the 28th, they led their troops and colluded with Sichuan generals Hu Shangyou and Han in the city.
Shang Liang went out to surrender together. Shi Kefa thought that if they were prevented from leaving the city and surrendering, it would turn into a crime, so he let it go without any prohibition.
In fact, at this time, Shi Kefa no longer had any confidence in defending Yangzhou City, and he was helpless in protecting the land in Jiangbei. Therefore, he had completely given up his command and was resigned to the survival of Yangzhou City.