As Li Dingguo was relieved of his sole authority, in the next few days, he learned from the pain and finally thought clearly about some details that he originally didn't want to think about, and even pretended not to see when he saw it.
For example, before the military meeting in Prince Ji's Mansion that day, he discovered that Wang Shangli, who was under Zhang Xianzhong and equal to Feng Shuangli and Bai Wenxuan, was not present.
At that time, he didn't think it was a big deal. Two days later, he learned that Zhang Xianzhong had already decided before the military meeting that "no matter what happens next, at least we must continue to fight south to Hengzhou and cross Hengshan Mountain.
Then consider whether to go east, west or south."
In other words, regarding the first part of the decision-making, Zhang Xianzhong had no intention of asking for his opinion at all. It can be seen that before the military meeting began, Zhang Xianzhong's suspicion of him had accumulated to at least five or six points.
As for why Zhang Xianzhong was so eager to go south to Hengzhou, Li Dingguo didn't understand it at first, but it became clear later after Bai Wenxuan chatted with him in private:
What Zhang Xianzhong is most worried about now is whether he may be pursued across provincial borders after escaping from Huguang. As for this issue, Shen Shuren is too young and has too little experience in the Ming Dynasty. Even if he is very capable,
, and he is not qualified to fully display it, so what Zhang Xianzhong wants to ensure most now is to kill Yang Sichang.
Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong's current thoughts are the same as before he killed King Xianggui last year. He is still thinking about how to kill more vassal kings, and it is best to occupy the city for a while after killing the vassal kings.
Let Chen Shuren take it back immediately.
Only in this way can we fully prove that Yang Sichang's strategy is fundamentally wrong! He can't protect the place at all! It can't be blocked by encirclement! By then, even if Chongzhen doesn't kill Yang Sichang, he will still be able to scare Yang Sichang to death!
It can be said that Zhang Xianzhong was already a little obsessed with the issue of frantically hunting down the local vassal kings, forming a path dependence. The more he killed, the better he felt.
He can rob the most money, frame officials who are fighting against him, undermine the prestige of the court, and establish his own reputation.
And he was eager to attack Hengzhou quickly this time because there was a vassal king in Hengzhou who was far more important than King Rong and King Ji who had been killed before - King Gui Zhu Changying!
Regardless of Hengyang, Hunan was considered poor in later generations. After all, it was south of Hengshan. It was located in a mountainous area with inconvenient waterway transportation and an underdeveloped economy. In terms of wealth, it was not only far inferior to Changsha, but also Changde and Yueyang.
Not comparable.
However, during the Chongzhen Dynasty, King Gui of Hengzhou was very valuable, because King Gui was the biological son of the late emperor Wanli, who was also Chongzhen’s biological uncle. Although his fiefdom was poor and he didn’t have much money accumulated, he was related to the current emperor by blood.
They are so close! Killing him would be a huge blow to the court's prestige and officials' futures as much as killing several other distant vassal kings!
Chongzhen's biological father Guangzong Zhu Changluo only had two sons who lived to adulthood, namely Tianqi and Chongzhen. Therefore, there are no vassal kings who are Chongzhen's biological brothers. The closest ones to him are a few uncles who were also descended from his grandfather Wanli.
Already.
Wanli had a total of eight sons, three died young, and only five survived to adulthood. Among them, the eldest son was Chongzhen, his biological father, and the remaining four vassal kings were King Fu, King Rui, King Hui, and King Gui.
This chapter is not finished yet, click [next page] to continue reading--
[Guo surname Qi Ming] []
King Fu was killed by Li Zicheng last year. King Hui was an anomaly. He became a vassal in Jingzhou Prefecture, but he converted to Buddhism and liked to worship Buddha without caring about worldly affairs.
Jingzhou Prefecture is now the residence of Fang Kongzhen, the governor of Huguang, so Zhang Xianzhong never thought of killing King Hui, unless he could kill Fang Kongzhen first, and killing someone who already wanted to convert to Buddhism would not be a deterrent.
They all became monks and practiced Buddhism, and their relationship with their family members was cut off.
Therefore, the only uncles of Chongzhen who can be killed in the world are King Gui of Hengzhou and King Rui of Chongqing Zhu Changhao.
Chongqing is still in the hands of Shao Jiechun, the governor of Sichuan. Zhang Xianzhong is still racking his brains to think about how to take a detour to Sichuan, so he has to give it a try. In the end, the best solution that can be realized in front of him is King Gui.
Therefore, as early as a few days ago, not long after he broke through Changsha, when he learned that Chen Shuren reinforcements had arrived and cut off his retreat, Zhang Xianzhong had already made up his mind to go south to Hengzhou and kill King Gui first.
He was afraid of long nights and many dreams, and he was also afraid that after a long delay, King Gui heard that Changsha had fallen and the bandits had the idea of continuing to go south. He was afraid of running away in advance, so he did not wait any longer and directly asked Wang Shangli to lead an elite group of old battalions and a small number of troops to go ahead.
Go straight to Hengzhou.
In addition, he also took advantage of the fact that the city of Changsha fell too quickly, the officers and soldiers did not resist much, and the surrounding areas had not yet reacted. He directly collected the seal and all official documents and tokens of the surrendered Changsha Commander-in-Chief Yin Xianmin, and even used
A group of Yin Xianmin's surrendered Ming army soldiers took the lead and helped Wang Shangli deceive the defenders of Hengyang Pass——
Hengzhou is to the south of Hengshan Mountain, and Changsha Prefecture is to the north of Hengshan Mountain, so there are some traffic arteries in between, which need to cross certain valleys in Hengshan Mountain.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court did not directly build a strong checkpoint in the Hengshan Valley, but at least there was a garrison camp with a garrison stationed there. Theoretically, it was under the control of the general military commanders of Hengzhou and other states.
Returned to Changsha General Soldier.
However, when the surrendering troops of the Ming Army, under the flawless banner of the Changsha General Soldiers, declared that "Changsha has been surrounded, and before the siege, General Yin's soldiers were afraid of bandits and surrounded the city, threatening Hengzhou and other places.
So we are sent to help defend Hengshan Pass."
The defenders of the Hengshan camp did not take any precautions and put Yin Xianmin's soldiers into the camp. Then the old soldiers of Wang Shangli's command who were mixed with Yin Xianmin's men suddenly attacked and took control of the Hengshan guards. The Ming army of the battalion surrendered directly without even reporting a warning.
There was no time.
Everything is exactly the same as when they deceived the city in Xiangyang. It can only be said that when the Ming army had a general at the rank of general surrender directly, handed over the token, and even stole it with his troops, the impact on the local area was really bad.
Already.
The Hengshan Guards said that they had a battalion with a full strength of 4,000 men. Wang Shangli actually counted them after recruiting them, and found that there were only more than 600 people garrisoned at that time. The Ming Dynasty's vacancy rate was also so terrible that it was outrageous.
.
It can only be said that there has been no war in the southern region for hundreds of years. Even since the Tatars started robbing bandits, the area at the junction of Huguang and Guangxi has never suffered from war. The armaments here are lax, and the generals are too bold to eat empty pay.
side.
When he easily captured the Hengshan Guards, Wang Shangli couldn't help but sigh in his heart: What if the governors and general soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were just like these people? Why are there such aliens as Shen Shuren!
This chapter is not finished yet, click [next page] to continue reading--
[Guo surname Qi Ming] []
…
While the bandit army had captured the Hengshan Guards without anyone noticing, there was no reaction in Hengzhou City.
Some wealthy gentry were discussing, "I heard that Changsha was besieged. Should I pack up and run south?" However, most people felt that Hengshan Mountain was steep and dangerous. Even if Zhang Xianzhong captured Changsha, Changsha would definitely have to stay for a long time given its wealth.
Time, after all, how could he suddenly fall in love with Hengzhou, which is much poorer than Changsha?
To be honest, this view is not wrong. If Chen Shuren had not pursued Zhang Xianzhong, Zhang Xianzhong would have been stationed in Changsha for a long time. Whether Chen Shuren had pursued Zhang Xianzhong is a major military matter hundreds of miles away.
How could ordinary people outside the state know?
On this day, it was already June 20th. In the palace of Prince Gui, the forty-five-year-old Prince Zhu Changying of Gui and his three sons were having dinner, and they talked about this matter.
Zhu Changying gave birth to five sons in total, but the first two died young, so the third son Zhu Youzhu was the prince, who was twenty-two years old this year. Except Zhu Youzhu, the other two sons were only ten years old respectively.
Nine-year-old Zhu Youlang, and fifteen-year-old Zhu Youzhen.
Zhu Changying had been suffering from chronic illness in the past few years, so he was too sick to do anything and couldn't muster the energy. When his fourth son Zhu Youlang talked about the topic of "whether to prepare to flee south", he became a little unhappy.
The crown prince, Zhu Youzhen, was not in good health either. He also felt that it was better to be still than to move. In addition, he was reluctant to part with the vast wealth in the palace, so he felt that things would not reach this point.
"Why don't we wait and see? Changsha is just under siege, but General Yin is also a mighty general and will be able to defend it for a long time. As long as Changsha can hold on, Governor Fang will definitely ask for reinforcements immediately. Zhang Xianzhong suddenly attacked, but he just took advantage of it.
It's just an advantage for the officers and soldiers to be caught off guard.
At the end of the day, we will just wait for news from Changsha. If it is confirmed that Changsha is about to die one day, or if we find out that the bandits have gone south around Changsha, Hengshan Guard has been broken through, and there is no time to go back. Hengshan is dangerous, how can we say it all at once?
Can you get by?"
Both his father and brother objected, feeling that movement was worse than silence, and Zhu Youlang had nothing to say.
As everyone knows, in history, they moved so slowly, and they were able to escape from Hengzhou to Guangdong in the end, all because Liu Xizuo, the governor of Huguang at the time, was ordered by him to transfer all the main forces from Hunan to Hengzhou as much as possible and defend Hengzhou.
But in history, Liu Xizuo took office in the winter of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, and was killed after one year. Now the governor of Huguang is still Fang Kongzheng. Because of the butterfly effect, Huguang's troops have been concentrated in the north, and in Sichuan and Henan.
At the junction of , the south is extremely empty.
All this has changed, but the impatience of everyone in Prince Gui's palace has not changed, and tragedy is doomed.
…
Three days later, Wang Shangli suddenly appeared in Hengzhou with the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's army. This time they did not choose to cheat, but directly surrounded him with four gates. Zhang Xianzhong's goal was very clear. It didn't matter whether he captured Hengzhou or not.
In any case, he will continue to run away soon.
For him, the only value of taking Hengzhou is to kill Prince Gui's family so that Yang Sichang can be forced to death. It is best to let Fang Kongzhen and Shen Shuren get more charges. The second is to rob Prince Gui's palace.
With huge wealth, he took away the valuables and transported them to Sichuan to recruit troops.
This chapter is not finished yet, click [next page] to continue reading--
[Guo surname Qi Ming] []
Therefore, if we deceive the city without laying siege to it, it will give King Gui and his family time to escape, which would be bad.
After Wang Shangli laid siege to the city, people in the city immediately became agitated, and the commander-in-chief He Yide tried to defend the city and wait for reinforcements.
Wang Shangli had people shouting and cursing outside the city, and continued to promote Zhang Xianzhong's theory of "defending the city after one day of fighting and then surrendering, then 30% of the city will be massacred, and after three days of fighting and surrendering, the entire city will be massacred." This caused He Yide's troops to be unsettled and people's hearts filled with excitement.
.
It happened that at this time, King Zhu Changying of Gui knew that the city was besieged and was extremely panicked. He found the commander-in-chief He Yide and forced him to go out from the south of the city to fight in the field, breaking through the encirclement that the bandits had just formed in the south of the city, so as to cover the royal family's breakout.
He Yide argued that there were not enough soldiers and horses in the city and the bandits were strong. There was still hope for defending the city, but there would be no luck in fighting in the field.
But Zhu Changying didn't care about this at all. All he wanted was to open a hole for him to escape. As for whether the defenders would suffer too many casualties during the process of opening the hole and be unable to defend the city, he didn't care. He would have already escaped by then.
, it has nothing to do with him if all the people in the city die,
Therefore, Zhu Changying forced He Yide to "ignore the defense of the city and fight in the open field to break through the siege at all costs."
He Yide originally had no backbone. Historically, he surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong just like Yin Xianmin.
Being forced at this moment, he dared not speak out in anger, but out of the last trace of loyalty to the Ming Dynasty, he went out of the city to fight in the field.
However, he was very unlucky. He had just fought hard with Wang Shangli's vanguard of bandits. Soon Zhang Xianzhong's middle army and rear army reinforcements arrived one after another. The main force of bandits had actually given up Changsha and headed south to Hengzhou.
The defenders did not expect that the bandits would be so desperate. They did not even intend to defend Changsha for a long time, so they brought in the main force.
He Yide and Wang Shangli, who only had a fraction of his own strength, could barely manage to fight back and forth.
As soon as Zhang Xianzhong's reinforcements arrived, He Yide collapsed immediately, and then chose to surrender in front of the battle.
As soon as the general soldiers of Hengzhou surrendered, the city of Hengzhou was easily captured.
None of Zhu Changying and all three of his sons could escape Zhang Xianzhong's pursuit this time, and they were all destroyed like other vassal kings in the Huguang area.
In the entire Huguang, except for Wuchang Mansion where Shen Shuren was stationed and Jingzhou Mansion where Fang Kongzheng was stationed, the vassal kings in other places were completely wiped out.
As for Chongzhen's close uncles and kings, except for those who converted to Buddhism, only Zhu Changhao of Chongqing was still alive, and the rest were all killed.
And Zhang Xianzhong had just killed Chongzhen's seventh uncle and would soon find his way into Sichuan. Whether Chongzhen's last biological uncle who had not converted to Buddhism could be saved is a matter of speculation.