Chapter seven hundred and seventy-eight of Jinling City
Jiangnan, Qinhuai River, evening.
A tall and magnificent boat by the river was opening its doors to welcome guests, and seven or eight young scholars in Confucian uniforms boarded the boat one after another.
Although dusk had fallen, the lanterns were hanging high in the boat, which was very bright. After the group of people walked in, several maids came forward one after another and bowed to invite the distinguished guests to sit down.
After a while, the wine and food were served one after another, and seven or eight women wearing gauze, twisting their slender waists like willows, came up to take their seats one after another, pouring wine and food for the guests.
However, these students turned a blind eye and turned a blind eye to these women in gauze. They all sat upright and talked about world affairs while drinking and eating.
"I heard that the rebel army from the south has already marched into Fujian. Alas, I don't know what the situation is like there now!" A young scholar said: "The rebel army is passing through the border like locusts. The people of Fujian will suffer!"
"Don't worry, the bandit army under the command of Commander Yu in Fujian is unparalleled in combat capability. The bandits have always been defeated by Commander Yu in the past two years. Now that the bandits boldly invade Fujian, Commander Yu will definitely give them a head-on blow.
Calculating the time, it won’t be long before good news comes from Fujian!”
"Yes, I heard that the bandit-breaking army under Commander-in-Chief Yu is a top-notch elite division today, with superior combat power than Lord Zhang Shaobao's superintendent!"
"That's right, my brother just went to Fuzhou to visit friends last year. During this period, he saw the bandit army training. The lineup was uniform and the guns were sharp. With such a strong army, the bandit army will definitely be beaten to death when they go to Fujian!"
Everyone spoke highly of Yu Dayou's bandit-breaking army. However, at this time, a young student next to him said: "Although General Yu's bandit-breaking army is strong, it does not have many troops."
I heard that there were only 50,000 in number, but I heard that there were more than 30,000 bandit soldiers who invaded Fujian, and they were advancing by both sea and land!"
But as soon as this person finished speaking, someone retorted: "It's just 30,000 thieves, what's the big deal!"
Hearing this, the young student who just spoke showed a wry smile: "Only 30,000 rebel soldiers? Last year, when Hengyang, Jiangxi Province fell, more than half of the hundreds of thousands of troops under Zhang's command were lost, and in that battle, the rebel army's strength
It’s only around 100,000!”
"That's because Inspector Zhang made a mistake in his command and allowed the Jiangxi and Huguang bandit armies to join forces. If An Mou commanded the army, he would have prevented the bandit armies from these two places from converging and then defeated them one by one!" At this time, another person also said the same thing: "Thieves.
The strength of the army is only due to sharp guns and cannons. Now the bandit army also has many guns and cannons. How can it be defeated? Even if it cannot severely damage the bandit army, it should be safe to protect itself!"
Seeing these people saying this, the young scholar no longer continued to refute, but smiled bitterly, and then drank by himself.
These classmates simply don’t know how terrifying the puppet Tang bandits are!
But he himself had seen with his own eyes the horror of the puppet Tang bandit army.
He originally went to Nanchang to stay at his second uncle's house temporarily last year, and was able to personally experience a series of battles fought by the rebels near Nanchang, Jiangxi, especially the city defense battle. He had seen how the puppet Tang rebels used their weapons on top of the city.
Guns, artillery, and explosive shells defeated the offensives of the government troops outside the city time and time again.
At that time, because he refused to take the initiative to serve the bandits defending the city, he did some paperwork. In the end, he was arrested like a large number of ordinary young men in the city. The young men built various fortifications and went to the city wall many times to brave the artillery fire of the army.
Various types of fortifications.
At that time, he thought many times that the army could break into the city and liberate those scholars who still yearned for the Ming Dynasty.
After all, there were 60,000 to 70,000 officers and soldiers outside the city at that time, which was several times the number of rebels inside the city. Moreover, there were plenty of guns and cannons outside the city. I heard that there were dozens of heavy cannons weighing more than five kilograms.
The fighting was fierce, but even so, the army failed to capture Nanchang.
Whenever the officers and soldiers tried to launch a charge to attack the city, the bandits on the city walls would use their guns and cannons to inflict massive casualties on the officers and soldiers.
In the end, Nanchang City was still defended by the rebels. The official army retreated voluntarily after being besieged for several months. After the siege was over, he was able to leave the city and hurriedly returned home.
It was precisely because he had personally experienced the battle between the rebel army and the official army that he had a deeper understanding of the gap between the rebel army and the official army.
Moreover, he also knew that the thief army was no longer what it was a few years ago. There were still real thieves and fake thieves. It was said that almost all the thief armies were exactly the same.
If the number of thieves who marched into Fujian really numbered 30,000, he was not optimistic that General Yu could hold Fujian. Although he hoped in his heart that General Yu could hold Fujian, he still didn't think so.
Others don't know, but he has heard in Nanchang what the puppet Tang rebels said about the governor, the bandit army and other officers and soldiers. In the eyes of those rebels, Zhang Shaobao's governor is a serious problem, and Zhang Shaobao's subordinates are also
The training of the army was second to none, the frontier army was to be trained again, and the new army in the south of the Yangtze River was to be trained again. As for the guardsmen, those puppet Tang rebels did not pay attention at all.
In their words, the bandit-breaking army is similar to Zhang Shaobao's training army.
However, in the battles between Huguang and Jiangxi, Zhang Shaobao's supervision and military training were defeated. He did not think that Yu Zongbing's bandit-breaking army was stronger than Zhang Shaobao's army.
After all, the people who know the strength of the official army best are the Puppet Tang thief army. Everyone in the Puppet Tang thief army thinks so. It is almost certain that the Po thief army is not as good as Supervisor Biao.
More importantly, General Yu's bandit-breaking army has too few troops. It only numbers 50,000. How can it possibly defeat the menacing bandit army of 30,000?
However, these classmates obviously don't think so. The young student is thinking that it won't be long before the bandit army takes over Fujian. The next step is probably to reach Hangzhou. By then, the land of Jiangnan will probably not be able to avoid the flames of war.
, and Jinling City is probably the place where the two sides are fighting, and it is very dangerous. It is better for me to return to my hometown in the countryside as soon as possible. I can't stay in Jinling anymore.
He didn't want to be trapped in the city again, and then be captured by the army or the rebels. It would be okay to suffer, but if he was not careful, he might lose his life.
The war was in chaos, but no one cared about the life of a young scholar!
The next day, he said goodbye to his classmates and friends, and then took a small boat back to his hometown. These days, his hometown in the countryside is the safest.
However, what he didn't know was that shortly after he left Jinling City, there were rumors in the city that the rebel army had defeated Shaowu, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou in Fujian, and that the enemy army was approaching Fuzhou.
Two days later, there were rumors again that the rebel army had even captured Nanping, and now they were attacking Fuzhou with heavy troops. Fuzhou was in danger, and Fujian was in danger!
At this time, many people thought that if Fuzhou fell, Fujian would be finished, and once Fujian was finished, the prosperous places of Zhejiang and even Jiangnan would follow.
For a time, everyone in Jinling City, including civil and military officials, gentry and wealthy households, were all panic-stricken, and many people asked Wang Yiqi, the Minister of War in Nanjing, for information.
But now Wang Yiqi is also troubled. How can he be in the mood to deal with these people in the city!
The messages in the city are all true, because these news are spread from Fujian, and Wang Yiqi actually learned about the situation in Fujian earlier than ordinary people through the 500-mile emergency report.
But there is nothing he can do about the crisis in Fujian!
Fujian cannot be saved, and all he can do now is to prepare to re-build a defense line in southern Zhejiang, trying to keep the puppet Tang rebel army out of Zhejiang, at least in southern Zhejiang.
Because once we pass through the central and southern parts of Zhejiang, we will reach the vast North Zhejiang Plain, and this area is already a prosperous and undefeable place in the south of the Yangtze River. By that time, everything will be over.
In order to build the defense line in southern Zhejiang, Wang Yiqi even did not hesitate to mobilize troops from Jinling and Anqing to rush southward, and there was a steady stream of memorials to the north asking for reinforcements. He wanted money, he wanted soldiers, he wanted guns, in short he wanted everything.
.
Otherwise, he would not have the confidence to defend Jiangnan at all.
At the same time, he also sent a letter to Hanyang, asking Zhang Yue to find an opportunity to launch a certain counterattack to contain the rebel army. Otherwise, the rebel army would be able to concentrate a large number of troops and march to Jiangnan.
Of course, these letters are still on the way, and they won't arrive for a while.
Wang Yiqi still doesn't know what the situation is like in Fuzhou!
The transmission of information was too slow, which resulted in a long delay in understanding the situation on the front line for both the Ming and Tang armies.
At this moment, Wang Yiqi had no idea that Fuzhou City had fallen into the hands of the rebels.
Two days ago, the 6th Infantry Division merged with the 1st Mixed Regiment and the 9th Mixed Regiment. Army Lieutenant General Wang Chaohong also took full control of all the main forces of the Third Army for the first time. Today he also launched a formal general offensive.
However, after the siege, it was discovered that Yu Dayou had not deployed the main force in the city at all. Although there were many troops in the city, they were all garrison soldiers.
On the contrary, during the siege, Yu Dayou's 8,000 bandit army was discovered from the flank trying to attack our flank.
Immediately, the 6th Infantry Division on the flank fought an interception battle. As a result, the first wave of about a thousand forwards sent by Yu Dayou failed without any suspense, and the loss was more than half.
Seeing this scene, Yu Dayou didn't know that this battle could not be fought, so he directly led the main force that had not yet participated in the battle to evacuate without looking back.
Then he ran all the way north, leaving behind more than 10,000 Ming army guards who were still guarding Fuzhou City in a mess in the wind.
Since Yu Dayou had given up on them and led his troops to evacuate, the more than 10,000 garrison soldiers in the city were not easy to mess with. Several senior generals discussed it and concluded that they could not hold on anyway, and Yu Dayou himself ran away, and they also fought
What's the point? Just donate the city and forget it anyway. At worst, like Qin Zhifu, the commander-in-chief of Nan'ao Island, I will no longer be an official of the Ming Dynasty, but an official of the Puppet Tang Dynasty, no, I will be an official of our Datang Dynasty.
We still have glory and wealth, but who wants to fight for life and death?
As a result, the generals of the Ming Army Guards in the city quickly took control of Fuzhou, and then they also wanted to pull the civil servants in the city to surrender. However, the civil servants were different from these local guard generals.
The families of the generals at the guard station were all in the local area, so they did not have to worry about their families being confiscated and exterminated by the Ming Dynasty after surrender. However, it was different for the civil servants. In recent years, there were not a few civil servants who had their homes confiscated and exterminated because they surrendered to thieves.
As a result, except for a few civil servants who were willing to change their ways, some committed suicide, some ran away, and some were killed.
Just an hour after Yu Dayou led his army to retreat, the Ming army in the city surrendered!