The deputy commander-in-chief Zheng Siwei at the top of the city had a sad look on his face. He did not expect that after he killed Meng Changgeng and surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he would be besieged by so many former comrades in the army.
Nine troops, including Li Jin, Gao Yigong, Li You, He Lan, Liu Rukui, Ma Chongxi, Zhang Neng, Tian Hu, and Yang Yanchang, gathered at the foot of Jingzhou City. They were heavily outnumbered and had a company camp of twenty miles.
Looking at the familiar flags, Zheng Siwei sighed constantly.
His hometown is Weishi in Henan. He dropped out of school due to his naughty youth and became a gangster when he grew up. When Li Zicheng moved to the Central Plains, he joined the Chuang Army and was promoted repeatedly because of his youth and bravery.
When General Ren Guangrong of Dashun Military System led his 6,000 troops to station in Jingzhou, he came to Jingzhou together as General Pianhu.
In February of the first year of the year, Li Zicheng abandoned Shaanxi and retreated to Huguang via Dengzhou in Henan, all the way to Jingzhou. However, he only stayed in Jingzhou for ten days before abandoning the defense of this important city and even transferred the chief general Ren Guangrong who was stationed in Jingzhou.
Zheng Siwei was left to assist Meng Changgeng in guarding Jingzhou.
In Zheng Siwei's view, this simply meant letting them stay and wait to die.
Seeing that Li Zicheng was defeated, Zheng Siwei secretly contacted the military officers, launched an attack, killed Meng Changgeng, captured Jingzhou and led his troops to surrender to the Qing Dynasty.
After Azig accepted his surrender, he appointed him deputy commander-in-chief and still guarded Jingzhou. He had a bright future before, but who knew that Li Zicheng was dead. Now these remnants of the compliant army surrendered to the Ming Dynasty instead of the Qing Dynasty, and even joined forces to surround him.
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The surrounding cities of Jingzhou were lost, and the Shun army fought all the way to Jingzhou City. Zheng Siwei did not dare to leave the city, so he had to send people to break out and report to Tong Yang and the governor of Wuchang for help.
"Send another person to Wuchang to ask for help, and another person to Hanzhong and Xiangyang to ask for help. If no one comes, Jingzhou will be gone!"
The general behind him looked at the company twenty miles outside Jingzhou City, all of them had sad faces, "General, if you send people out of the city now, they probably won't be able to go far, and they won't be able to escape the enemy's patrols and interception."
"Then go out of the city at night and gather a few more troops. No matter how difficult it is, we have to ask for help!"
downstream.
Wuchang.
Governor Tong Yanghe had already packed up and paid his respects, and was planning to wait for the Luo Xiujin area to hand over the work, and then return to Beijing.
He has had enough of this mess in Huguang.
After Azige returned to the north, he did not have any troops left for him. Tong Yanghe was stationed in Wuchang and had no troops in his hands, so he had to cross the river with He Tengjiao of Hunan to rule.
At that time, the remnants of Shun's army were still strong, and Tong Yanghe could not fight, so he thought of appeasement. He sent people everywhere to contact Hao Yaoqi, Ma Jinzhong, Yuan Zongdi, Tian Jianxiu and others. After Li Guo and others went south, he again
Take the initiative to contact them.
It cannot be said that his strategy of recruiting was wrong. After all, he had no soldiers at the time, and after Li Zicheng's death, the Shun army was without a leader and was in great chaos. Not only Tong Yanghe was recruiting to surrender, but He Tengjiao in the south was also recruiting.
Tong Yanghe acted faster at first. The Qing army was strong at that time, so Tian Jianxiu and others were willing to negotiate and put forward many conditions, such as demarcating territory for guarding, conferring officials and paying salaries, etc.
Tong Yanghe agreed.
But in the end, it was only one step away from success. Finally, the recruitment was reported to Beijing, which agreed in principle, but there was one condition, that is, the hair must be shaved.
Tong Yang and Ben didn't care, but who knew that Yuan Zong was the first to refuse, Hao Yaoqi also refused to shave his hair, Tian Jianxiu, who had already surrendered, also refused to shave his head, and instead accepted He Tengjiao Du Yinxi and others.
of surrender.
After Li Guo and others went south, Tian Jianxiu and others met with Li Guo and others to unite, and finally sent Li Guo, Yuan Zongdi, and Hao Yaoqi to the east in person to meet with Lu Jianguo, and then returned to join the Ming Dynasty more firmly.
Tong Yanghe's recruitment plan completely failed.
Even because of poor recruitment and surrender, hundreds of thousands of traitors defected to the Ming army and were held accountable by Beijing. The final result was that he was removed from the post of governor of Chuanhu and replaced by Luo Xiujin, governor of Henan.
Tong Yanghe held his breath, but there was nothing he could do.
"Jingzhou is besieged?"
After Tong Yanghe received the letter asking for help from upstream, he just threw it aside. "When they entered the city, didn't they encounter the Ming army outside Wuchang?"
"Is it just Jingzhou that is besieged? Wuchang is also besieged, and I want to ask Jingzhou to send troops to help!"
Just when Li Guo and other nine troops were surrounding Jingzhou, Yuan Zongdi, Hao Yaoqi, Ma Jinzhong and others also joined forces with a combined force of 200,000. They marched from Yuezhou to Wuchang and are now sweeping the outskirts.
But Tong Yanghe has been removed from the post of governor, the new governor has not yet arrived, and there are not many soldiers in Wuchang city.
It is said that there are three thousand supervisors, but in fact the supervisors are not full at all, and there are not many people who can fight.
The terrible thing is that not long ago, he had just sent the Huguang General Soldier Zu Kefa, the Huangzhou General Soldier Xu Yong, and the Chengtian General Soldier Jia Sansheng to join forces to suppress the anti-Qing forces in the Forty-eight Villages in the Huangshan District of Qi.
At this time, in the Dabie Mountains, Wang Jinyan, the former governor of Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi, contacted various villages to fight against the Qing Dynasty. In the Dabie Mountains such as Luotian, Huangmei, and Huanggang, there were more than 300 small and large villages, and the more powerful 48 villages, all respected the former Minister of War.
, the governor is the leader of the alliance.
Tong Yanghe sent Zu Kefa, Xu Yong and other allied troops to encircle and suppress them. At this time, all the troops had gone into the mountainous area and could not be transferred back for a while. Only Wuchang general Zhang Yingxiang and deputy general Hao Yingzhong were left in Wuchang City.
There are no more than three thousand soldiers.
Facing the overwhelming Ming army, Tong Yanghe could only order the city gates to be closed tightly and urgently recruit strong men to go to the city to assist in defense. He could only send people everywhere to ask for help.
On the one hand, Zu Kefa, Xu Yong and others were urgently mobilized to return to Wuchang to aid. On the other hand, they sent people to Jiujiang, Anqing and Jiangning downstream to ask for help, and to rush for help to 800 miles away from Beijing.
"What should I do in Jingzhou?"
"Let Zheng Siwei hold on and wait for help. Jingzhou is an important town with high walls and strong walls. Although there are many intruders, what can be done?" Tong Yanghe waved his hands and said ruthlessly.
Jiangning.
Recruiting the Southern Governor-General's Academician Hong Chengchou from the Inner Academy of Military Affairs has been having a headache recently. Dorgon, the regent in Beijing, has been urging Jiangnan to pay taxes, money and food, saying that the funds are insufficient. Many of the newly recruited green battalions who have been surrendered and reorganized have been in arrears for a long time, and the soldiers have been unsettled.
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But Jiangnan has been unable to hand over the money and grain.
Hong Chengchou was speechless in the face of the accusations, and could only keep urging the governors and governors below, but even Tu Guobao, the richest governor of Su Song in Changzhen, kept complaining, saying that there had been a great rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River, and the money and food in various government treasury
It was completely looted, including all the money and food from local wealthy households and common people.
Now, although in accordance with the imperial decree, people have been sent to collect food and wages, and three more taxes have been collected, the results have been very little and cannot be collected at all.
He now sends troops to forcibly recruit people, but even if they demolish houses and arrest people, the effect is average. On the contrary, because the forced recruitment is too severe, rebellions in various places have intensified. He complains that soldiers now dare not stay away from towns. Once they go to the countryside,
If you are alone, you may be attacked by rebels, and even the canal may not be safe.
They also complained that most of the newly reorganized green camps in various places were not fully equipped and had insufficient food and pay. They all hoped to replenish their armaments, money and food as soon as possible, otherwise it would be difficult to suppress the increasingly fierce rebellions in various places.
Hong Chengchou originally wanted to collect taxes from various places, but now local officials and generals such as Li Yuchun, a national treasure, came to him to supplement military equipment, food and salary.
The helpless Hong Chengchou had no choice but to sit in his study and began to truthfully report the situation in Jiangnan to the regent in Beijing, and suggested that the hair shaving order be suspended to appease the people, and at the same time suspend the three-month salary collection...
Beijing.
When Prince Regent Dorgon faced the urgent request for help from Jingzhou and Wuchang in Hubei, and the report from Hong Chengchou in Jiangning, Lei Lei became furious.
Empress Azigban boasted everywhere about his achievements in the southern expedition. How he chased and annihilated the main force of the Shun Army in more than a year, annihilating Li Zicheng and his backbone Liu Zongmin, etc., and how he captured more than 60 cities in Henan, Hubei, and Jiangxi. Stand and ask for reward.
But now the reports from Tong Yanghe, Zheng Siwei, Hong Chengchou, Pan Shilin, etc. all show that the current situation in Huguang is very bad.
Dorgon was furious and ordered that Azig, the commander-in-chief of the Southern Expedition and Prince Shuoying, be demoted to the rank of county king and fined 5,000 taels of silver. In addition, Zhen Tantai of Gushan'e who accompanied the expedition was removed from the dukedom, dismissed from his original position, and demoted to the rank of prince. Angbang Zhangjing ordered him to redeem his life. The commander of the escort army with the yellow flag, First Class Mele Zhangjing and Obai, etc., were fined a hundred taels of silver, and it was specially stipulated that the merits of the soldiers who accompanied Azig on the expedition were not allowed to be discussed.
After receiving this harsh punishment, Dorgon thought of the very talented Mr. Yan who he had summoned before.
"Calling the great scholar Yan Wogong,"
Due to the chaos in Huguang, he wanted to listen to the advice of Yan Wogong, who had once suppressed the rebellion in the Wuyue area.
As soon as Mr. Yan arrived, Dorgon, who was immersed in reviewing the memorial, immediately stood up and came to the door to greet him personally.
"Mr. Yan, there is chaos in Hubei, please give me some advice!"