Liu Zeqing, who was newly named Cao Guogong and appointed governor of Shandong, went down the canal and finally entered the territory of Shandong.
Behind is Wuqiao, Hebei, and in front is Dezhou, Shandong.
"This is an amazing place!" Liu Zeqing said to his nephew Liu Zhiqian and his confidants Zheng Longfang, Yao Wenchang, Li Huajing, etc. "Back then, Kong Youde sent troops from Denglai to reinforce Dalinghe, but two people were lost on the way.
In the past month, we walked halfway back by water and walked for a long time by land before we reached Wu Bridge.
And then they mutinied over a chicken!"
When he said this, he laughed with disdain.
Li Huajing and others also laughed. In fact, we are all soldiers. Who doesn't know why Kong Youde rebelled? It was said that the court did not provide food and wages, and the soldiers were starving. In the end, he robbed a chicken from the Wuqiao gentry's house.
Triggering the mutiny was actually just an excuse.
The real reason is very simple. He, Kong Youde, was from Dongjiang Town and was from the Mao family. Because Mao Wenlong was killed, these adopted grandchildren of Mao Wenlong were also implicated. Finally, Kong Geng and others followed Wang Huazhen to Denglai, Shandong, but they were
The imperial court had long harbored resentment and dissatisfaction.
We also have old grudges with the Guan Ning Army in western Liaoning.
So Zu Dashou was besieged by the Daling River, and the imperial court sent reinforcements from Denglai for reinforcements. Kong Youde was ordered to send troops. The imperial court gave him two months of food and grass, but he just tried to drag him away, first by sea, and then by land.
I haven't left Shandong for two months.
The last two months of food and grass they were given were used up, and they were still in Texas. They were urged to do nothing, so they left the border of Shandong and arrived at Wuqiao in Beizhi.
Then something happened right after leaving Shandong.
It is said that he was forced to mutiny by the gentry after robbing a chicken. How could the gentry be so capable?
In the final analysis, it was just that Kong Youde and others refused to go to western Liaoning to rescue the Guan Ning Army. It was okay to stay in Denglai with the pay from the court. It was impossible for them to go to Liaodong to work for the Guan Ning Army.
Li Jiucheng and his son were greedy for the money that the imperial court had given them to buy horses. Now they were even more afraid of what happened, so they took the opportunity to call for a mutiny. Kong Youde said that he was forced to rebel, but as soon as he rebelled, Geng Zhongming went to Dengzhou to support him, and even
Mao Da immediately led his troops across the sea to help the Liaodong Sea. This was basically a rebellion of the entire Dongjiang Maoist clique.
Liu Zeqing was a general in Liaodong back then, and later he also made contributions during the Pingdenglai Rebellion and rose through the ranks.
His hometown is Caoxian County, Shandong Province. He was born in the army. He served as a garrison in Ningyuan, Liaodong Province, and later became a general. In the third year of Chongzhen, he was promoted to deputy general by two levels due to his meritorious service in the fierce battle with Hou Jin Dynasty.
Later, Ping Denglai made meritorious service and was promoted to the rank of General Soldier.
During the Chongzhen period, Liu Zeqing was also impeached and demoted many times, but he would try his best to bribe court officials. For example, in the 14th year of Chongzhen, when Zhou Yanru entered the cabinet, he calculated Zhou Yanru's journey north from his hometown of Yixing.
In particular, he waited half way, escorted him all the way, and even gave him 20,000 taels of gold.
Zhou didn't treat him badly after the incident and reinstated him as commander-in-chief.
In the last years of Chongzhen, Liu Zeqing was stationed in Shandong, with a large number of troops, but he had already maintained his own self-respect and did not listen to the court's orders. Even before the fall of Beijing, when Chongzhen ordered him to be diligent, he lied and said that falling from his horse would not work.
In those years, Liu Zeqing looted, held back his troops, lied about his military exploits, and even killed the censor who had impeached him when he passed by the defense area. After Hongguang became emperor, he became one of the four towns, and Feng Bokai
The feudal lord became even more domineering.
But when the Qing army marched south, this guy surrendered directly to the Qing Dynasty without firing an arrow, and nearly 100,000 troops under his command were disarmed.
It's just that after he was surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, his treatment was not good. He was kept in the capital with favor. It was said that he was favored, but in fact he was idle or even under house arrest. Even the generals under his command were treated similarly.
Sitting idle in Beijing for more than a year, Liu Zeqing has been regretting it, especially after hearing that Zhu Yihai was born in the south, how great he was, how he was revived, he regretted it even more.
Although Liu Zeqing did not rescue Yanzhou that year, which resulted in the Lu palace being breached by the Qing army, King Zhu Yipai of Lu being killed, and Zhu Yihai being injured, etc., this did not prevent this shameless fellow from Shao Tiandi from claiming to be Emperor Shao.
"Uncle has really decided?"
"If you don't do something for yourself, you will be punished by heaven and earth." Liu Zeqing touched his bald forehead.
This guy has always been a person with no bottom line.
Thinking about the matter of supporting the new king, he saw that the Donglin Party was powerful, so he supported Donglin in supporting King Lu. In the end, Huang Degong, Gao Jie, and Liu Liangzuo allied with Ma Shiying to support King Fu and proclaim him emperor. He saw that the momentum was not right.
He immediately took advantage of the situation and supported the King of Fortune.
Later, it was successfully established and became one of the four towns in Jiangbei, and even gained garrison status in Huaiyang, the richest area.
After serving as the Tu emperor in Huai'an for less than a year, he was satisfied. As a result, when the Qing army came, he surrendered again with nearly 100,000 people.
I just thought that after surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, I would be crowned the prince. After all, Wu Sangui was conferred the title of Prince Pingxi of the Qing Dynasty by Ping Xibo of the Ming Dynasty. He, the Earl of the Ming Dynasty, should also be crowned the king. Kong Youde, who was beaten by them and fled across the sea, etc.,
After surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, he was not granted the title of king.
Even the Qing court had to marry Princess Gege to him.
But he didn't expect that there would be nothing after he was cleared.
He was brought to Beijing to be fostered, but in the end he was idle. Dorgon even got two maids to be his concubines, which made him feel very disgusted. If you don't marry Princess Gu Lun and Princess Shuo, why don't you marry a princess? What the hell is a princess?
Yes, you gave me two maids as concubines. This is so disrespectful.
The gap is too big.
Not only can it not be compared with the treatment he received when he was the emperor of Huai'an during the Hongguang Dynasty, it was even worse than when he was in Shandong at the end of Chongzhen.
In Beijing, we often hear that so and so has rebelled against the Qing Dynasty and defected to the Ming Dynasty.
Including the flower horse Liu Liuliangzuo who was once one of the four towns, as well as Gao Jie's general Li Chengdong, as well as Wu Shengzhao, Tu Guobao, Li Yuchun, Zhang Tianlu and others, plus Jin Shenghuan from Jiangxi, He Zhen from Hanzhong, etc., which made him
It's getting more itchy.
Glutene
Before leaving Beijing, he was already secretly planning how to rebel against the Qing Dynasty and join the Ming Dynasty.
When Dorgon granted him the title of Admiral of Shandong and granted him the title of Cao Guogong, Liu Zeqing had actually already successfully established a relationship with Nanming.
He sent people everywhere to contact Daming, and sent his family secretly to Shaoxing, Nanjing, etc. Such actions even made Daming wonder if this guy was deliberately pretending to surrender.
After several trials, I came to the conclusion that this guy is really careless.
He is capricious and has no moral integrity. He really doesn't want to play with the Tatars and wants to join the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yihai hated this kind of person, but personally instructed him to accept him and join him.
After the Ming Dynasty finally sent a secret envoy to contact him, Liu Zeqing was very excited, so even if the Tatars finally sealed Cao Guogong and awarded him the admiral of Shandong, he didn't care at all.
He had already seen through that the Tatars were like this, and there was a lot of luck involved in entering the customs. It was just a coincidence.
Now Chuangshun has been destroyed, and Xiying is almost gone, but not only has the Ming Dynasty not been destroyed, but it has become stronger. The Tatars have been defeated by the Ming army on thousands of miles of east-west defense lines, and they are still fighting against the Tatars.
What are you playing with? The Tatars won’t reuse him anyway.
"Uncle, what should we do now?"
"Once we enter Shandong, it will be our territory. However, if we want to become successful in the future, we must rely on our ability, and we must have people and territory."
Liu Zeqing strokes his beard and looks confident.
"Li Huajing, you go back to Caozhou first, which is our home base. You go there as my bidding general. In name, you recruit the township party members to join the army. In secret, you contact the various rebels and Tuzhai forces west of the canal.
.”
"Yao Wenchang, Zheng Longfang, you two will also go to Yanzhou and Xuzhou on the west side of the canal to contact various rebels, Tuzhai, and the Ming army as my generals."
"Zhiqian and I will go to Jinan. Then we will raise an army together and retake Shandong. Then we will command an army of 100,000 and occupy the land of Shandong. Emperor Shaotian will not be able to put us to good use?"
"What uncle said makes sense."
"We have to act quickly before Duduo goes south to Jinan. If we wait until Duduo arrives in Jinan, it will be difficult to deal with it. We need to hurry up."
Li Huajing patted his chest and said, "Commander, don't worry, many people in Shandong are our old troops. As long as the flag is raised and slogans are raised to oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty, with the prestige of the commander-in-chief, there will definitely be a crowd of responders."
"Beware of Xu Dingguo in Henan, this guy has a dark heart." Liu Zeqing and Xu Dingguo were appointed admirals at the same time. One was the admiral of Henan and the other was the admiral of Shandong. They were both military leaders who hung out in the Central Plains during the Chongzhen period. Their subordinates all had some real skills.
Each land also has considerable prestige.
"But there is good news. Li Jiyu from Dengfeng, Henan has secretly surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. When we raise the flag, he will also raise his troops there. When Xu Dingguo arrives, there will be a fire in the backyard and he will be too busy to take care of himself."
"The commander-in-chief strategizes and wins a thousand miles."
"Hahaha!"
Liu Zeqing smiled very proudly, feeling as if a dragon had returned to the sea.
······
In Cangzhou, on the canal.
The busy canal in the past has become particularly deserted due to the cutoff of water transportation from the south. Moreover, due to the recent raids by pirates on the coast and intrusion into the inland, the situation in various places is even more tense.
Cangzhou produces salt and is also the hometown of martial arts.
However, the Cangzhou Saltworks had been attacked by Nanming pirates before, causing people to panic.
Among the reeds by the canal.
There is a group of people hiding among them. They are the same people who came from the sea and attacked several salt fields.
At this time, the leader was none other than the former governor of Jiangning in the Qing Dynasty. At this time, he was leading a group of people to hide in the reeds and stared at the canal. It was obvious that he was planning something else.
"Hong Chengchou's ship will pass by here today. It will be accompanied by about a dozen ships, all of which are merchant ships coming out of Beijing. They are traveling together. Hong Chengchou is on their ship, not a warship. There are about thirty people on his ship.
There are three accompanying servants, and about twenty dozen staff and scribes accompanying him."
"Our whereabouts have not been exposed yet. No one knows that we are here. We can easily intercept them and capture the newly appointed governor of the Tatars, the governor of Henan and Shandong provinces and the governor of Shandong in one fell swoop."
The speaker was Yang Guohai, Tu Guobao's nephew. This guy used to sell private salt and was very familiar with the salt farmers in Cangzhou. He was the one who led the way for this landing and harassment.
"Xianggong Hong is my old boss and my benefactor. I can't let him go further and further down the wrong path. I have to help him." Tu Guobao held up the knife, "Except for Xianggong Hong, everyone else will
Not a single one will be left alive!”
"What if Hong Chengchou doesn't know what's good and doesn't want to come with us?"
"Beat him unconscious, or tie him up and take him away." Tu Guobao said bluntly.
"What if he fights to the death?"
Tu Guobao said impatiently, "As long as the ship is robbed, can he still fly? Try to capture him alive. Mr. Hong is definitely worth more alive than dead!"
