After a vigorous artillery battle, the Tatars in Hangzhou were finally afraid.
The governor took the governor and ran away in the middle of the night, and also took away all the Manchu adults in the city. No one was left. Tian Xiong cursed his mother angrily and wanted to leave, but he didn't dare.
Only one person can carry it all.
Fortunately, after the fierce artillery fire back, the Ming army did not continue the indiscriminate bombardment.
Next, the usual siege preparations resumed, and they continued to build ladders, rams, shield cars and other siege equipment. They continued to dig trenches and walls, and were ready to start filling in the moat.
Although Zhang Cunren and the others broke out suddenly in the middle of the night, if Zhu Yihai hadn't ordered them to let go and let them run, it would have been difficult for them to really break out.
However, Zhu Yihai was not willing to fight hard with these guys who wanted to escape. The fight between trapped animals was still very fierce. Some people abandoned the city and fled, which actually helped to break the fighting spirit of the defenders in the city.
Besides, highlighting the city of Hangzhou does not mean that they can really leave safely.
After running away as governor, the city of Hangzhou became more and more afraid to go out to fight. Tian Xiong patrolled the city defenses with a sword every day and did not dare to relax day and night, but he did not dare to go out of the city at all. He even directly ordered the city gates to be blocked with stones and sandbags.
died.
This is to act like a tortoise if you are determined to do so, waiting for reinforcements.
There were too few defenders in the city, so Tian Xiong ordered one soldier from each household in the city to help defend the city.
After several consecutive days of lockdown, a food shortage occurred in Hangzhou.
Originally, an important town like Hangzhou was mainly based on industry and commerce. Like Susong, Jiangning and other important towns in the south of the Yangtze River, the local area was actually unable to be self-sufficient in food. Most of the surrounding fields were either growing vegetables or mulberry and other cash crops. Therefore, Hangzhou, which is the granary of the south of the Yangtze River, etc.
Big cities, on the other hand, rely entirely on outside supply of food.
A long time ago, because the city of Hangzhou levied taxes and donations on grain in the city, many grain merchants stored grain in Tangqi Town outside Hangzhou, thus saving a lot of taxes and fees.
Therefore, Hangzhou, like Susong and other big cities, usually only has a few days of food in the city. If there is no food in the city for several days in a row, the price of food in the city will immediately rise.
Every time there is a flood or drought in the south of the Yangtze River, food prices will rise sharply in Susong, Ning, Hangzhou and other big cities south of the Yangtze River. This is the reason.
There is food in Hangzhou, but it is outside the city.
Hangzhou also has money, but the problem is that now that the city is closed, even if you have money, you can't buy food.
There are so many people in Hangzhou.
The governor-general of the provincial capital, the governor, and even the chief envoy and the inspector-general all ran away, as did the ministers, guards, salt inspectors and other Taoist officials. A prefect became the highest civil affairs official.
Tian Xiong asked Zhu Guofan for military rations.
"Junmen, there is no grain in the city of Hangzhou. The grain is all in Tangqi Town. For many years, grain merchants have stored grain in the warehouse there to pay less. Who would have expected that now...
·”
Zhu Guofan spread his hands.
"Today, if you want food, you can only ask the army to lead troops to Tangqi to get it yourself."
Tian Xiong stared at Zhu Guofan and felt a dull pain in the place on his neck where Emperor Hongguang had bitten him. It was painful and itchy, which made him very uncomfortable.
"If I can leave Hangzhou, do you still need to tell me?"
"If you can't go to Tangqi to get food, then your official position won't be able to produce food."
Tian Xiong glared at him, "My soldiers are defending the city and fighting, but they are still hungry? You immediately send people to the city to collect food. All the food will be collected and distributed by the government."
"Junmen, those who have food in the city now are also wealthy gentry. Don't offend them easily."
"What time has it been? Why don't you offend the wealthy gentry easily? Go and check, whoever has food will be confiscated. If they refuse to hand it over, tell me and I will send troops to get it." Tian Xiong was full of murderous intent. If there was no food, they would not be able to do it.
Wait until Zhang Cunren comes back with reinforcements.
······
Huzhou.
Zhang Quan, the commander-in-chief of Yongwei Town, received the order to supervise the country in Tianmu Mountain and immediately summoned the officers of the Biaoxie Battalion of Yongwei Town, as well as the Huzhou Battalion of Zhejiang Town and the officers of the regiment training armed forces.
"The Jianguo is besieging the city of Hangzhou and is already at war with the Tatars."
Although it is in the mountains, Zhang Quan's conditions are not bad. Although the county seat of Huzhou Prefecture is now in the hands of the Tatars, the countryside of Huzhou is controlled by Yongwei Town and Tuanlian. Not only Huzhou, Yongwei Town has now penetrated into
Guangde, Ningguo and other places in the east.
Zhang Quan, the commander-in-chief of the imperial camp, not only directly leads the elite of the imperial camp in a town, but also has several Zhejiang town battalions below who also cooperate with the orders. There are also many regiments and armed forces in various counties and townships, which makes him now well-informed and able to provide timely information.
Zi occupied the county seat and several large towns, but usually he did not dare to leave the city at all.
Yongwei Town occupied the countryside, suppressed bandits and quelled the chaos, organized troops and practiced martial arts in the countryside, trained regiments, set up checkpoints everywhere, and levied fines. The people also paid the imperial grain and land tax to Yongwei Town, but those in the city were the Qing Dynasty.
Life is hard in Army Green Camp.
"The Tartar Governor of Zhejiang, Zhang Cunren, Governor Xiao Qiyuan and others were afraid of the power of the Supervisor. They fled in the middle of the night, leaving Tian Xiong behind, and are now heading north. We can't let these two bastards pass through our defense area, we must stop them.
.”
Jin Gongyu, the commander-in-chief of Huzhou, stood up immediately when he heard the sound, "The superintendent of the country personally proposed a large army to besiege Hangzhou. It's time to counterattack. We have strong troops here, how can we just sit back and watch? I suggest that we not only stop these two thieves, but also take the opportunity to attack
Prefectures and counties were restored, and all areas were recovered in one fell swoop, cooperating with the Jianguo's offensive."
The deputy commander-in-chief of the Huzhou Battalion, Bo Xiangfu, the generals Zhu Hongyu, Zhao Liangbi and other fierce generals also loudly agreed. They were locals in Huzhou and hoped to restore their hometown as soon as possible more than anyone else.
Superintendent Shen Wenzhong nodded, "The superintendent has asked our Yongwei Town to develop activities in the Ningguo area of Guangde, Huzhou. We don't need to go south to Hangzhou to fight, but we really can't be idle. If we want to fight this time, we will turn him upside down. Brother
We have been reorganizing and training during this period and have been recuperating for a long time. Now it’s time to take it out for a walk and see the results of the training.”
Yongwei Town is based on Tianmu Mountain and has been developing here for several months. Now it has sufficient troops and food. It has also supported and trained Huzhou Town camp soldiers and many local regiments to train local braves. The total number of people from all walks of life is enough
There are tens of thousands of them. After staying in the countryside for so long, they have always wanted to attack the towns.
"Multiple factions stayed up all night to find Zhang Cunren and others' northward escape routes and find favorable positions. We mobilized troops to ambush. This is a big fish. If we can capture it, it will be a great achievement."
Shen Wenzhong, a once down-and-out beggar scholar, has stayed here as a military supervisor during this period and continues to partner with Zhang Quan. After experiencing the Northern Expedition and being left behind, he is no longer the scholar he was before.
Zhang Quan admired him very much.
On several occasions when suppressing bandits and attacking the Qing army, the governor always went into battle with his sword in hand.
······
After Zhang Cunren and his party broke out of Hangzhou at night, they ran all the way north. They did not go along the canal. The canal had not been safe in the past few months. Wu Yi, the water transport governor appointed by the puppet Lu supervisory state, took his water mark and crossed the canal.
, relying on Taihu Lake, it is mysterious and mysterious, and it is very unsafe to walk through the canal.
They headed directly to Huzhou, planning to take the west bank of Huzhou and go straight to Jiangning via Changxing and Yixing.
This road is all plain and flat.
More than a thousand people ran very fast, not daring to stop along the way.
After entering Huzhou, Zhang Cunren was still very anxious. There were rivers and lakes everywhere, making it difficult for Zhang Cunren to speed up, which made him very anxious.
He didn't know why the situation suddenly deteriorated like this.
How long had Bolo been gone? Why was the situation so bad that he had to abandon the city?
But the reality is there. Zhu Yihai's tens of thousands of troops are not just a mob. They will never lose to his Green Battalion, not to mention the cannons deployed by the opponent. They bombarded the city of Hangzhou indiscriminately, although the city wall was not destroyed.
, but Zhang Cunren was General Guan Ning back then.
On the Guanning front line, both the Guanning army and the Qing army had many artillery. He knew very well the power of the red cannon. No matter how hard the city wall fortress was, it could not withstand bombardment for too long.
Unless there are enough troops and horses, a decisive victory can be achieved outside the city. If you expect to be safe in a fortified city, it is a dream.
Because he knew this, he ran away very decisively.
Along the way, he kept thinking, how did it get to this point?
Finally, I summarized a few points. First, he was careless. Since Zhu Yihai had always been defensive in Qiantang Jiangnan and had never even launched an attack, they didn't pay much attention to Lu Jianguo of Shaoxing.
Another one is Yuhang, the breakthrough point this time. There was no warning at all. In the past, there were repeated battles for Fuyang, Lin'an and other cities, but they were all small fights and never threatened Hangzhou.
This time, they suddenly attacked all the way to the city of Hangzhou without any warning. It can only be said that there is a big problem with the green camp guards in Yuhang. Of course, this may also be related to the serious smuggling there.
In addition, he felt that the troops in Hangzhou were too scattered. After Boluo left, Zhejiang's green camp had not yet been fully reorganized. Especially after the two capable generals Yan Wogong and Li Yuchun left, Zhejiang's army was even weakened.
The strength of the West.
The bandits and rebels in Jiahu and other places previously caused them to send several groups of troops to raid and suppress, further weakening the defense force in Hangzhou.
In the end, this was the result. I thought that there were hundreds of large and small artillery pieces in the city of Hangzhou, plus thousands of soldiers defending the city, and then there were five or six thousand soldiers and horses outside the city. In total, there were tens of thousands of green battalions. It was enough.
.Not to mention that there are also soldiers and horses from the two associations in Huzhou and Jiaxing.
Of course, the most important point is that everyone made a mistake in their judgment of Nalu Supervisor. No one could have imagined that he could quietly integrate so many people and even possess so many artillery. And these, they
I didn't know anything about it before, so I have to say it was a serious intelligence failure.
This situation seemed to take him back to the time of the Songjin War.
He comforted himself in his heart and went to Jiangning to borrow troops, and then came back to wipe them out and atone for his sins.
Another lake blocked the way ahead, so Zhang Cunren had to stop and send people to search for ships nearby.
Looking at the reed swamp connecting to the sky, Zhang Cunren was annoyed. This Jiangnan water town is such a troublesome place. "Rest on the spot, and as soon as I find the boat, I will cross the river and leave immediately. It is not suitable to stay here for a long time."
The more than a thousand horses and horses who had been galloping all day and night were also very tired. After hearing the order, they all began to rest on the spot, drinking water and eating dry food. Many people lay down on the ground and snored as soon as they got off their horses.
"call out!"
Suddenly an arrow shot out of the reeds and shot down a Qing soldier.
Immediately afterwards, more feather arrows were shot out.
The Tatars screamed.
"Ambush, there is an ambush!"
Panic rang out, and Zhang Cunren, who was resting on the ground with his eyes closed, jumped up in fright, and saw countless arrows shooting out from the reeds.
"Get closer, gather."
"Fight!"
Zhang Cunren quickly drew his sword in his hand and shouted an order.
There was no telling how many ambushes there were at that moment. The wind blew through the reed swamps, and it seemed as if the grass and trees were all in ambush.
Zhang Cunren directed the soldiers to gather together. He quickly calmed down and gritted his teeth with a ferocious look on his face. Does anyone want to beat me?
Do you really think that a tiger that doesn’t show off its power is a sick cat?
"The shield is in front, the spear is behind, and the rest of the men have their bows strung, kill!"
Faced with the sudden ambush, Zhang Cunren did not flee in panic, but showed his true colors as a warrior, quickly gathered his troops and charged towards the ambush Ming army!