In fact, the battlefield on the right wing was not as fierce as the battle described in the official history books of the Shun Dynasty in later generations. The Suwei knights only made a slight charge, and the Jiangnan soldiers died in the thousands at most. Most of the Ming army collapsed and fled one after another.
About 10,000 people fled back to the vicinity of Lulianghong's position, hoping to seize the ship and return south to Jinling. However, Liu Zeqing had already taken Shandong Town with him and took the Nanming Navy to escape. When these defeated troops rushed to the vicinity of Lulianghong,
They only managed to capture dozens of civilian ships, which were simply not suitable for the army to flee south.
The remaining 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and horses had abandoned their armor and did not even have the courage to escape. They surrendered directly at the foot of Xuzhou City to Hao Yaoqi and Xu Du who followed them to the right wing.
Xu Du was a native of Jinhua Prefecture in Zhejiang Province. According to the plan, the Northern Expedition of the Southern Ming Dynasty was to be led by Emperor Hongguang himself, so there were many Jiangnan scholars and officials in the army, including many of Xu Du's old friends.
After Xu Du personally came forward to surrender, most of them were friends who had contact with him through Fushe or several societies, or simply had a few encounters with him, or were just southeastern scholars who had heard of Xu Du's name.
, between life and death, they chose to surrender to Dashun without hesitation.
On this point, these gentlemen from Donglin and Fushe acted much more decisively than Ma Shiying.
After all, the Dashun army is completely different from the Qing army dominated by foreigners. Surrendering Dashun is nothing more than the state of Yi. For the Jiangnan scholars, since the Shun army already has Xu Du, Chen Zilong, Fang
With precedents such as Zhi Zhi and Zhang Jiayu, if they become Feng's wife again, there will be no public opinion or psychological pressure at all.
Just surrender, just surrender!
People like Huang Degong and Xia Yunyi who resisted and refused to surrender were among the last few in the Nanming army.
The personal relationship between Xu Du and Xia Yunyi was considered to be particularly close among these southeastern literati, and they were by no means ordinary acquaintances. Therefore, Xu Du was really unwilling to order the Dashun Army to launch a general attack on the last position of the Yongwei Battalion. He did not want to himself
Xia Yunyi, an old friend whom he admired very much, was bleeding on the battlefield, so he tried every means to recruit him and surrender.
However, Xia Yunyi only gave a simple answer to his old friend Xu Du. While in Huang Degong's army, he wrote a family letter to his son Xia Wanchun, and also wrote a suicide note to his friends - in the suicide note
He also asked Xu Du, Chen Zilong and other old friends to take care of his deceased son after the new dynasty pacified Jiangnan.
Xu Dou understood that Xia Yunyi had no unswerving dislike for the Dashun Army. Therefore, Xia Yunyi entrusted his son Xia Wanchun to himself, who was hostile to him. However, Xia Yunyi prided himself on his loyalty and was on the battlefield, so he could never accept it.
The result of direct surrender.
The same is true for Huang Degong.
Huang Degong insisted on not surrendering and led his troops to resist. This was mainly because Huang Degong was one of the generals personally promoted by Emperor Chongzhen. He believed that he was deeply favored by the emperor and could not live up to the late emperor's kindness, so he resisted resolutely.
Huang Degong, like Xia Yunyi, had no sworn relationship with the Dashun Army in terms of rationality, but they could not accept the result of surrender due to love and reputation.
Xu Du shook his head in pain. He wanted to directly order his troops to open a gap in the encirclement net and let Huang Degong and Xia Yunyi escape.
However, as the Shandong envoy to the Dashun court and an important general of the Shun army, he could not act willfully because of his personal feelings.
Just when Xu Du was helpless and in a dilemma, Huang Degong's deputy general Ma Degong and others led more than a hundred soldiers to split all the wooden fences set up by the Yongwei camp and surrendered.
Then more soldiers from the Yongwei Battalion saw this, and they all abandoned their positions and threw their weapons in front of the Shun Army. They knelt down in front of Xu Du and voluntarily surrendered.
In just a matter of seconds, Huang Degong and Xia Yunyi were left with only a dozen servants and guards. Huang Degong, as the commander of an army who had fought for the rest of his life, reached the final stage and could not even control most of his servants and soldiers.
, he shouted in every possible way to dissuade, but could not stop the wave of surrender of the remaining soldiers.
Xia Yunyi smiled bitterly at Huang Degong several times, and finally took out the family letter he had stuffed in his arms to leave to his son Xia Wanchun, and said helplessly:
"After such a defeat, how can Jiangnan remain in peace? It won't be long before the country is unified! Lord Marquis, forget it?"
Huang Degong's arm was injured by a rebel soldier during the collapse of the Ming army. He is now hanging his arm with a cloth strap. His face is ashen, and he no longer has the domineering and ruthless demeanor of the past. After sighing, he had to throw his sword to the ground and throw it on his butt.
He slumped down and sat down.
Xu Du breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't have to kill his old friend. Xia Yunyi's surrender would also lead to the surrender of a large number of Jiangnan gentry and literati. It seemed that the world was about to be settled!
In addition to these people, there is also Shi Kefa.
Shi Kefa has the highest reputation in Jiangnan, and he is also the old chief of Xu Du, Chen Zilong, and Fang Yizhi. Xu Du respects Shi Kefa, but after his experience in the Dashun army, Xu Du can respect Shi Kefa's
He could see his ability very clearly and knew that Mr. Shi was just a scholar after all.
Shi Kefa was captured together with Zheng Hongkui. Zheng Hongkui was a little unlucky. In fact, he had already noticed Liu Zeqing's plot after being reminded by Zheng Sen. Moreover, the Zheng family controlled many navy ships, so escaping back to Nanjing was not a big problem.
But after Zheng Hongkui learned that Liu Zeqing was preparing to "transfer", his first reaction was to discuss the matter with Shi Kefa. Naturally, Shi Kefa tried his best to persuade Zheng Hongkui not to escape with Liu Zeqing, and persuaded him to stay under Xuzhou City and wait and see the situation for a while.
As a result, this wait and see threw Zheng Hongkui into the Shunjun prison - a cell specially set up by Li Laiheng for senior generals and officials of the Qing and Ming armies. It was rebuilt from a temple in Kaifeng called Gongdelin.
become.
Zheng Hongkui originally wanted to lead his own soldiers to break out of the encirclement, but Shi Kefa persuaded him again:
"Hundreds of thousands of Dashun troops have surrounded Pengcheng. The general wants to leave. Where does he want to go? How can he go? Who can know the general's name and identity during the breakout? Any soldier can kill the general with random arrows.
Rather than die anonymously in the chaos, we should wait for the obedient soldiers to arrive here and reveal our identities, and then die calmly."
Zheng Hongkui felt deeply insulted by Shi Kefa's suggestion. He immediately ordered all the remaining soldiers to drop their weapons, and also ordered two of his closest servants to tie up Shi Kefa to prevent him from committing suicide, and then
He sent someone to raise the banner of the Ming Army Commander-in-Chief and discuss surrender with General Hao Yaoqi of the Shun Army.
Zheng Sen, who stayed in Lulianghong, was kidnapped by Liu Zeqing's Shandong town and had already left Xuzhou and fled south. Zheng Sen knew that tens of thousands of Nanming troops in Xuzhou would be annihilated when they fled south, so he could only sigh inwardly and apologize to his uncle Zheng Hongkui.
He came forward to rely on his identity as the eldest son and heir of the Zheng family to persuade the Zheng family's naval warships to assist Liu Zeqing in escaping to the south of the Yangtze River.
This grand Ming army's Northern Expedition finally ended with its final hasty visit to the north amidst the farce.
Li Laiheng stopped on the north side of Luliang Mountain. He looked at the countless Ming army soldiers prostrate and surrendering at the foot of the mountain, and sighed in his heart:
The legacy of Hongwu’s achievements has been lost to this day!
Li Laiheng withdrew his gaze to the south and looked north again——
Dorgon, I have been waiting for you for a long time!