Chapter 277 Aiding the DPRK and fighting against the Japanese (32) Zu Chengxun was defeated
As soon as Yi Dooshou heard what Li Huo said, he knew something was wrong, and quickly advised Li Huo not to punish the prince easily for this, otherwise it would surely arouse the resentment of the army and the people and facilitate the invasion of Japanese pirates.
Li Ao thought that Yi Dooshou was accusing him of being an obstacle to overcoming the national crisis. The officials did not agree and defended Yi Dooshou one after another. Seeing this, Li Ao pretended to be sad and sighed: "Okay, okay.
Well, after all, you are all incompetent, so you should be allowed to follow the wise prince, and I will just stay here to support the prince."
This was undoubtedly an extremely serious accusation for the North Korean ministers who were deeply rooted in Confucianism. The ministers could only plead guilty again and again, but Li Huo was still unwilling to accept it. After thinking for a moment, he said to the ministers: "It doesn't matter, I just treat it like this."
The prince is commendable for his loyalty but acted recklessly. In this case, the prince's crime can be exempted, but the crime of assisting the ministers of the divided dynasty must be punished. I have ordered you to immediately pass on the order to remove all ministers of the divided dynasty from their official positions!"
The ministers were shocked, but the current situation was to save the crown prince first, and the issue of the removal of ministers from different dynasties could only be figured out later. Under the current situation, it was really not appropriate to continue to provoke the king, lest he cause trouble again, which would be worse.
When the king's order was passed to Yichuan to divide the dynasty, King Guanghae was heartbroken and sighed: "What's the fault of the ministers? It's better to depose me as the heir apparent. Now that the ministers have been dismissed, what can I accomplish by myself?"
The minister of the divided dynasty asked the prince to stick to it and not to be involved in this matter for the sake of the people of Li. King Guanghae wanted to seek clear support for the divided dynasty. He pondered for a moment and asked tentatively: "If I ignore the king's order, are you still willing?"
Follow me forward? Now the people's hearts are divided into dynasties. Only by carrying the people's hearts can we restore the country."
However, when the ministers of the divided dynasties heard this, they were all speechless, and no one dared to answer. Zheng Zhuo, the leader of the left, admonished: "My Majesty, you must not do it. If you act like this, no matter how much you bear the people's support, you will divide the country and be like a degenerate country."
He is a traitor. The king of Fuyuan has sent a letter, please join all the ministers in making excuses and thank the king. Then the king's anger can be appeased and he can continue to lead the subjects to fight against the Japanese pirates."
Lord Guanghai saw that the ministers did not respond, but Zheng Zhuo insisted again and again, and finally had to agree. So Lord Guanghai led the people to kowtow to the north to apologize, and submitted a statement to the king to plead guilty. After learning about it, Li Huo also knew that the situation was critical.
, it is not appropriate to push too hard, so he took advantage of the situation and expressed that he would not pursue the matter further.
Since the Liaodong Army crossed the river, Zu Chengxun, the deputy commander of the Liaodong Army, has been stationed at the Ping'an Road official office to rest. On this day, Ping'an Road observation envoy Li Yuanyi came again to persuade the troops to send out: "Vice-General, you have crossed the Yalu River.
We have been in North Korea for a few days, should we march towards Pyongyang?"
However, Zu Chengxun asked Pyongyang whether the Japanese pirates had retreated. Seeing that the Japanese pirates had not retreated, Zu Chengxun said: "I have given you enough steps, but the Japanese pirates do not appreciate it. As the saying goes, subduing the enemy's troops without fighting is a good thing. Since the Japanese pirates
Not knowing how to advance or retreat, the general had no choice but to go to Pyongyang to harvest the heads and eliminate harm for the people." From this, the Liaodong Army began to march into Pyongyang.
But there are some problems here. Wasn't Zu Chengxun unwilling to join the army easily at first? Why did he suddenly seem to be a different person? The reason is simple. His preparations have been basically completed.
Zu Chengxun, courtesy name Shuangquan, was born in Ningyuan, Liaodong. He joined Li Chengliang's staff as a servant very early. He started his military career as an ordinary servant. Because of his bravery in fighting, he accumulated meritorious service in the past thirty years and was promoted to the governor of the Right Army Governor's Office.
In fact, Zu Chengxun would have been the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong in the early years if Gao Pangshi had not intervened.
It is absolutely impossible for such a person to say that he does not have two brushes. In fact, Zu Chengxun has done a total of four things in the past few days.
The first thing was to urge the rear army to arrive. Since Zu Chengxun came this time, he only brought five to six hundred servants. Even if he included several other generals and his troops, there were only more than 2,300 people.
However, in addition to this, there are actually about 600 other troops recruited from various places in the Li family's army. These troops were relatively scattered, so they arrived slower. After these few days, they finally arrived.
Together, Zu Chengxun's troops finally reached three thousand.
Since the previous order Zu Chengxun received was essentially to suppress Li Hao's formation and calm the situation, there was a self-explanatory subtext, that is, to move quickly. If you want to move quickly, you must not use guard soldiers, otherwise you will not be able to make it.
, so this time they are all selected elites, and almost all of them are cavalry.
According to Zu Chengxun's knowledge, the three thousand Liaodong Li Family Army cavalry could easily sweep through the tens of thousands of Jurchen coalition forces. In his opinion, the Japanese pirates must not be any stronger than the Jurchens. Therefore, the three
Thousands of cavalrymen were in place, and Zu Chengxun's courage suddenly became much stronger.
The second thing is to urge North Korea to keep the food route from Uiju to Pyongyang open. At this point, North Korea has done its best. Zu Chengxun sent someone to investigate and found that at least so far,
The grain road has indeed been restored.
The third thing is somewhat related to the second thing, that is, it requires North Korea to build pontoons on natural barriers such as the Dading River and the Cheongcheon River between Uiju and Pyongyang, so that the Ming army cavalry can rush to Pyongyang after they are ready.
, giving full play to the advantage of cavalry raids, leaving the Japanese army unprepared.
North Korea also did a good job in this matter. After all, it was building a bridge and not fighting. The North Korean army and civilians came to the battle and mobilized more than 80,000 people to complete the construction of the pontoon bridge in just three or four days.
At this point, Zu Chengxun was not at ease, so he sent people to investigate on his own, and found that the quality of the pontoon was extremely reliable - well, this may also in turn show how much the North Koreans now hope that the heavenly soldiers will go south quickly.
The last thing was to ask North Korea to provide guides. This matter seemed the simplest to Zu Chengxun. In fact, North Korea also did it very quickly. It was not just as simple as sending a few guides, but even simply mobilized a few small teams.
The cavalry served as guides for the Ming army.
In this way, everything was naturally ready, and Zu Chengxun no longer hesitated and marched south.
At this time in Pyongyang City, Governor Konishi also received the news that the Ming army had sent troops and had crossed the Yalu River, and was holding a meeting to deal with the Ming army. Zong Yizhi said: "Although the Ming reinforcements are less than three thousand (the news of the Japanese army is delayed),
But I heard that the power of its large barrels (artillery) is formidable, which can be seen from the old barrels obtained by the navy from the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance, so our army's iron cannons may not be able to compete head-on with the Ming Dynasty."
Jingzhe Xuansu was obviously worried about this, and frowned and said: "Nowadays, there are many people in our army who are not acclimatized to the local environment, and the combat strength has been reduced. Coupled with the big tube... At present, in addition to the numerical advantage, our army has other advantages.
Almost all aspects are at a disadvantage.”
Governor Konishi said: "When our army is at a disadvantage, we need our opponents to inspire fighting spirit. This is the Ming Dynasty's first battle into Korea. I expected that they would be eager to make meritorious deeds, so I decided to show weakness to the enemy and pass on false intelligence.
Exaggerating the weakness of our army, making them arrogant and underestimating the enemy, and finally setting up an ambush in Pyongyang City to annihilate them!"
On the other side, while Zu Chengxun and Li Yuanyi were marching, they suddenly heard a report from Tanma, saying that most of the Japanese troops in Pyongyang had left Pyongyang and rushed all the way to Hanyang. Today, only a small garrison of troops is still in Pyongyang.
After hearing this, Zu Chengxun was overjoyed and said with a smile: "The Japanese pirates were timid. Seeing that our army was approaching, they finally couldn't hold on and fled! If I had known this, I would have rushed to Pyongyang and killed the enemy general to achieve merit."
Li Yuanyi smiled apologetically and said: "Deputy Rong Yingming, according to our military report, there were not many troops stationed in Pyongyang, and now most of them have been transferred. It seems that there are only about a thousand troops left in Pyongyang city. It is a great contribution to the door!
"Zu Chengxun was convinced.
Later, Zu Chengxun wanted to send an order to the entire army to march forward, but Liu Chenglong rushed to stop him. Liu Chenglong advised: "Deputy Rong, wait a minute. I have also heard rumors that only some of the Japanese pirates are stationed in Pyongyang, but I still ask the Deputy Rong to
Be careful, this may be a ploy by the Japanese pirates to lure the enemy."
Zu Chengxun disagreed, shook his head and said: "A plan to lure the enemy? Well, what Mr. Fuyuan said may be true, but whether it is a plan to lure the enemy, I actually don't care much - see what this group of Japanese pirates can do."
Magical power, that is my long-cherished wish."
In front of Liu Chenglong, Li Yuanyi's tone was a little different from before, and he also advised Zu Chengxun that even so, it was best to win with minimal casualties.
Since both of them advised, Zu Chengxun could not take it seriously at all, so he asked people to find Pyongyang people and bring them for questioning. After questioning, they learned that in the early hours of this morning, a large group of Japanese troops withdrew urgently and disappeared without a trace. Even the food and grass were missing.
All the weapons and weapons are coming and being taken away.
Liu Chenglong still had doubts about what the people of Pyongyang said. Seeing that Zu Chengxun had already relaxed and rushed to march, he quickly suggested that the remnants of North Korea's troops behind enemy lines could be sent to Pyongyang to investigate the details before making a decision.
Liu Chenglong's repeated persuasion was originally well-intentioned, but instead it made Zu Chengxun, who looked down on the combat effectiveness of the Korean army, unhappy and asked Liu Chenglong if he was unwilling to let the Ming army break the city first and perform meritorious service.
How dare Liu Chenglong take such a charge? He quickly defended himself by saying that everything he did was for the safety of the Ming army and he would never compete with the Ming army for the recovery of Pyongyang.
Zu Chengxun's face softened slightly, and he nodded and said: "I am not someone who takes credit from others. Since you have no such intention, our army will break into Pyongyang. The Korean army please wait outside to prevent the Japanese pirates from attacking back from outside the city."
Bar."
The plan was made, but the weather did not go as expected, and it suddenly rained heavily that day. Zu Chengxun had never seen any storms, especially in the past few years under Li Rusong, the "magic Taibao" who had been trained to ignore the wind and rain, so he directly
The entire army was ordered not to rest but to march in the rain.
Zu Chengxun was confused and said: "Heavy rain is coming and the road is difficult to travel. This is a bad thing. But because of this, the Japanese pirates must have believed that our army was blocked and could not move forward, so they neglected to take precautions. But our army is all the same
How can the elite be afraid of wind and rain? As long as they rush forward in the rain, when they reach Pyongyang, the enemy will be caught off guard, and Pyongyang can fall in one blow."
As members of the Li family's army, the officers and soldiers have always regarded themselves as elites. Now that they had received the military order from Zu Chengxun, no one said anything, and the three thousand Liaodong Army immediately rushed towards Pyongyang without stopping, despite the rain.
In the early morning of the 16th, the Liaodong Army, which was advancing rapidly despite heavy rain, suddenly arrived outside Pyongyang. Zu Chengxun ordered the guerrilla general Shi Ru to lead 500 cavalrymen directly into the Seven Star Gate. Zu Chengxun himself led the guerrilla general Wang Shouguan and 500 cavalrymen.
Then they followed up, and the generals Dai Chaobian and Guo Mengzheng led the rest of their troops to stay outside the city and wait for orders.
At this moment, Konishi Yukinaga's general Matsuura Nobumasa and more than ten Japanese troops were patrolling the Seven Stars Gate. Suddenly, they saw an arrow shot, and Matsuura Nobumasa was wounded by the arrow. He found out that it was the Ming army who had arrived, and hurriedly led everyone to withdraw into the city.
And immediately notify all parties as planned.
Guerrilla generals Shi Ru, led by Qian Commander Ma Shilong, and Zhang Guozhong broke into the Qixing Gate. Seeing no one around, they became suspicious and suddenly saw about a hundred Japanese soldiers coming to kill them with swords.
When Shi Ru and other generals saw this, they were not surprised but overjoyed. Without saying a word, they immediately led the Liaodong cavalry to meet the enemy. At this time, the Liaodong cavalry was no joke. In the blink of an eye, they rushed over a hundred Japanese soldiers to pieces.
, Shi Ru himself took the lead and beheaded ten people in a row, which was extremely brave.
The Japanese soldiers fled into the city. Shi Ru raised his sword and ordered his headquarters to continue the pursuit. Later, Zu Chengxun also led the troops into Pyongyang. Seeing that Shi Ru had already pursued him into the city, he also led his troops to pursue him because he was worried that Shi Ru would be alone.
Shi Ru's cavalry pursued them all the way, and all the fleeing Japanese soldiers were killed. Shi Ru was a little puzzled, and thought to himself: "Back then, the Japanese pirates ravaged the southeastern coast, and it took many years of hard fighting to wipe them out. I wonder how great the Japanese pirates are, but today they are all
I can't see anything, but... Is it possible that the Japanese troops in front of us are all old, weak and remnant soldiers?"
He then thought again: If the Japanese soldiers are so vulnerable, then why does the commander-in-chief himself need to do it? As long as Liaodong sends thousands more fine cavalry as reinforcements, Zu Fujun can lead a few of us straight to Busan
It’s over!”
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Just when Shi Ru was confused and proud at the same time, the walls of the houses on both sides suddenly raised troops, and Shi Ru's vanguard army was suddenly shot by 700 Japanese iron gunners.
Shi Ruxian was hit in the chest by a matchlock gun, but was blocked by the goggles. He was only injured by the shock. He was depressed and black-eyed for a while. However, the Japanese army had already seen that the armor on his body was obviously different from ordinary soldiers, and they all used iron cannons to greet him.
, finally a lucky shot came, hitting his face on the spot, Shi Ru fell off his horse and died.
Generals Ma Shilong and Zhang Guozhong, seeing the critical situation, hurriedly led troops to fight back. The Japanese iron artillerymen withdrew after three sections, but more than half of the Ming army's vanguard had been killed and wounded, with only more than 200 people left. At this time, Governor Konishi's subordinates
Nearly 8,000 people from the First Legion have fought their way out from all directions.
The vanguard of the Ming Army were all veterans, so they were not particularly panicked when the situation turned against them. Instead, they quickly reduced their forces and formed a defensive formation. Zu Chengxun and Wang Shouguan also led 500 cavalry to charge and kill the Japanese army.
This move was not random. As cavalry, the Ming army was actually very disadvantaged in defense, and only counterattack was the right thing to do. As expected, the Ming army's counterattack immediately frustrated the Japanese army, and the front was shaken, and the two armies suddenly fell into a melee.
The cavalry of the Ming army are still armored. Now they are wearing iron armor and coming and going like the wind. Every time they draw their swords, they are powered by horse power. They are extremely powerful and heavy. However, most of the Japanese are infantry and they are in a melee. It is difficult to put on a professional display.
They formed a defensive formation and found it difficult to resist for a while.
Upon seeing this, Commander Konishi immediately ordered the pike team to gather and surround, forming five rows and approaching slowly to reduce the movement range of the Ming cavalry, making it difficult for them to use the power of galloping horses. At the same time, he ordered the iron artillery team to wait for an opportunity to break the formation.
The other soldiers supported him from the side.
When Wang Shouguan saw the Japanese army's spear formation, although he knew that the spear formation was a cheap infantry formation to restrain the cavalry before the emergence of the bayonet formation, he relied on the Liaodong cavalry, which now had iron armor, and did not avoid it at all. He led the troops into the formation several times, and the spear formation
It was almost broken through several times, and the Ming army also suffered many casualties.
But at this time, the Japanese iron cannons fired continuously, and many Ming army horses fell to the ground after being hit by bullets. The Japanese army also deployed several artillery pieces and fired several solid iron bullets, killing more than a dozen Ming army cavalry.
The Ming army also suffered a surge in casualties in the blink of an eye.
Zu Chengxun was not only brave, but also experienced in many years of fighting. At this time, the encirclement had become smaller and smaller, and it was difficult to do anything on horseback. So he immediately ordered the entire army to dismount and fight, avoid the sharp edge of enemy firearms, and engage the enemy in close combat.
However, the problem is that although the Ming army is well equipped, it is outnumbered. Guerrilla general Wang Shouguan, Qian Commander Ma Shilong, Zhang Guozhong and other generals were all killed in battle. Zu Chengxun saw the iron gunners on both sides of the city walls gradually gathering, and he knew something was wrong. Now the Ming army's casualties are gradually increasing, and the Japanese army
Continuously throwing roasted jade made the fire even more intense, making people panic.
Zu Chengxun knew that this battle was unlikely to turn around, so he led a dozen of his own soldiers back to fight out of Pyongyang, and urgently ordered his generals Guo Mengzheng and Dai Chaobian to lead the remaining troops and ordnance back to Liaodong. Zu Chengxun himself took the lead.
, without stopping, they were able to cross the Yalu River and return to Liaodong within a few days.
Xiao Ruxun, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong, was guarding Jiulian City to supervise the transportation of grain and grass. When he learned that Zu Chengxun was defeated, he questioned him about the reasons for the defeat in Pyongyang. Originally, Zu Chengxun had also been awarded the title of deputy commander-in-chief, but he was in a real position, and he was currently in a false position.
Besides, there was a high-ranking elder behind him, and his ancestors did not dare to make mistakes, so he defended: "Deputy Rong Bing, there are four major reasons for this defeat in Pyongyang, and I have figured them out one by one on the way back.
.”
After all, the other party also held the rank of deputy commander. Xiao Ruxun didn't want to go too far, so he asked what the four main reasons were.
Zu Chengxun said: "The first thing is that the food and grass are not sustainable. North Korea can no longer supply enough military food to meet the needs of the heavenly soldiers, and it has to provide relief to North Korea to show the kindness of the heaven. As a result, our troops are not half full, and their combat power is limited;
Secondly, the military situation is untrue. According to North Korean intelligence, there are only a thousand Pyongyang defenders, but in fact there are more than 10,000 people. Our army was trapped in a tight siege and fought to the death. From this, we can see that the Japanese troops entrenched in various roads in North Korea may be
It has reached more than 100,000 to 200,000;
Thirdly, the officials of North Korea have always been eager to command the overall situation. They have repeatedly interfered with the deployment of our army and forced our army to send troops under unfavorable conditions. The North Korean soldiers who assisted in the attack were like sleepwalking during the war and collapsed at the first touch. The most powerful weapons to kill our army were weapons and swords used by Japanese pirates.
In addition, Korean-made bows and arrows were also found, and it is unknown how many Korean soldiers have served the Japanese pirates;
Fourth, the last general was indeed guilty of neglecting to observe the enemy and mistakenly entered an ambush by Japanese pirates. The above are the reasons for the defeat of Pyongyang. Please investigate carefully and make sure that the last general will take credit for his crime."
Zu Chengxun's words sounded reasonable and well-organized. In addition, he had been a brave general in Liaodong for a long time. Therefore, Xiao Ruxun also suspected that Zu Chengxun's words might be true or that they might be true.
Anyway, Zu Chengxun himself also had the rank of deputy commander, so Xiao Ruxun couldn't handle it, so after asking, he just let it go and just sent three letters at the same time, one to the imperial court, one to Gao Pangshi, and one to
Li Rusong.
However, he himself was not idle. In order to ensure the responsibility of defending the territory, Xiao Ruxun became more proactive in deploying defenses in the Yalu River and other places as Zu Chengxun was defeated and returned to the Liao Dynasty. He even issued military orders to Nurhachi and other Jurchen tribes, asking them to defend their territory individually.
Things are repaid immediately.
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