Gu Yanwu is not a person who is good at intrigues. He only knows how to do things openly and try every means to help his lord gain a good reputation.
Zhang Huangyan's mind must be more flexible than his. After all, Zhang Huangyan was historically a hero who could lead the anti-Qing forces to fight for nearly twenty years.
Now that he has been working with Zhu Shuren for many years, he has a very deep understanding of this talented and strategic cousin.
So after listening to Gu Yanwu's narration, although Zhang Huangyan didn't think about it that day, a day or two later, he slowly understood Zhu Shuren's subtext.
"Cousin, is this because he wants to make the bandit self-respecting and keep a bargaining chip in his hand to prevent His Majesty's chaos, so he is used to put out fires everywhere?"
When he first thought of this possibility, Zhang Huangyan was startled by his own thoughts and tried to drive this terrible thought out of his mind.
But once things like thoughts sprout, they are the most difficult to eradicate and expel. There is no "Inception" or "Persona" in the real world, so if you want to change your mind, you'd better save yourself from brainwashing.
After calming down, Zhang Huangyan felt that this idea was understandable - it had been Chongzhen for sixteen years now, and there were actually far more than one general and governor who had such an idea.
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Loyalty to the emperor is not absolute, and it does not mean that he wants to replace him. There is still a big gap in this.
In particular, Chongzhen was a man who cared about face and lacked flexibility in his policies. Local governors and military commanders could easily be punished and dismissed from their posts if they made a small mistake. Therefore, many officials who had the idea of preserving their strength and raising the bandits' self-respect were just trying to protect themselves.
They did not want to replace Chongzhen, they just thought that Chongzhen could not replace them.
Zhang Huangyan thought about it over and over again and felt that his cousin had this kind of mentality at best.
Considering that Chongzhen would not allow him to be promoted to governor and also govern Sichuan, he would install Fang Kongzhen to divide the country, and would not allow him to marry Fang Ziling...
After so many operations, it can be considered that the king is suspicious of the minister first, and the minister leaves some backup for his own safety, which is understandable.
After the heart disease was gone, Zhang Huangyan finally knew what to do. And he not only had to do it himself, but also subtly taught it to his colleagues Liu Guoneng, Yuan Shizhong, and Zhu Wenzhen, so that they should not think too much about the relationship between Mr. Futai and His Majesty.
Right or wrong, just execute the order and fight the battle in front of you.
Zhang Huangyan had to appropriately borrow the theoretical weapons provided by Zhu Shuren and Gu Yanwu in previous years and emphasize the difference between "subjugation of the country" and "subjugation of the world".
A little bit of nationalism was instilled in these generals, and the idea was further implanted in the minds of these generals that "the Han people are in great danger right now, and the honor and disgrace of a family is far less important than expelling the Tartars and ensuring that the Han people are not enslaved."
This kind of rhetoric seems a little premature now, since the Tatars have not entered Beijing yet, but everyone can understand it, and it is not wrong to instill it in advance.
After a few days of this, after being fully prepared in terms of spiritual and ideological preparations as well as material preparations for the siege, Zhang Huangyan led his troops and launched an siege against Leshan County.
Today is already February 24th.
…
It has been more than ten days since Sun Kewang arrived around Leshan and blocked the waterway for the officers and soldiers to move northward.
During this time, his mood was equally uneasy and complicated.
Among Zhang Xianzhong's righteous sons, Sun Kewang is by far the most trusted one. More than half a year ago, he advised Zhang Xianzhong not to go to Xiangxi, not to go to Changsha and Hengzhou to tangle with the government and the army. This advice was ultimately proven by history to be very important.
Correct.
In contrast, both Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu were deducted a lot of impression points by Zhang Xianzhong in that decision. Li Dingguo later had a series of suspicions of incompetent combat and preservation of strength, and was further refuted by Zhang Xianzhong.
However, Sun Kewang's trust opened the first crack after successfully entering Sichuan. When they captured Chongqing, Sun Kewang also worked with Li Dingguo to advise Zhang Xianzhong not to engage in massacres. He should win over the people as soon as possible instead of "massaging an entire city."
, and used the money earned to win over the poor in the surrounding cities that were not massacred."
As for the money needed to win over the people and strong men at that time, Sun Kewang also felt that there was no need to rob, because when Zhang Xianzhong fled western Hunan before, he still had a large amount of gold and silver on hand that he had obtained through massacres in Hunan.
After the Battle of Hengzhou, Zhu Shuren asked Zhu Wenzhen to pursue with cavalry, and he recovered property worth millions of taels, but after all, he could not recover all of it.
When Zhang Xianzhong was in Hunan, he carried out massacres and looting. At his peak, he earned more than 10 million taels. Even if Zhu Shuren later intercepted and recovered about half of it, Zhang Xianzhong still had at least several million taels of gold and silver when he arrived at the Central Guizhou Road.
If all the remaining money from the massacre in Hunan is used to spread wealth and bribe people in Sichuan, maybe we can completely establish a foothold in Chongqing.
But Zhang Xianzhong was obviously afraid of poverty. He always felt that if he didn't even have more than three to five million taels of wealth around him, it would be easy for him to "lose all his troops and then lose all the capital to make a comeback at any time next time."
His miser mentality forced him to ensure that the wealth in his army snowballed and he could not spend it all. This mentality eventually led to the massacre of more than 200,000 people in Chongqing and robbed them all.
During that remonstrance, Sun Kewang left some rifts with his adoptive father. He also lamented: It took a lot of effort to reach a place where the people are isolated and simple, and don't know about our bad deeds in other places. If we don't take the opportunity to pretend to be benevolent and win people's hearts, we will still slaughter people in the same old way.
How can you win people's hearts for a long time?
(Note: This is a historical fact. Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo both criticized Zhang Xianzhong's massacre after he first entered Sichuan. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that it was because they finally reconciled with Nanming and recognized Yongli as Zhengshuo, so "History of Ming Dynasty" gave them
Save face and say nice things)
Of course, this kind of rift was shared by Zhang Xianzhong and his three adopted sons, and was not just directed at Sun Kewang. But in the following month or so, some new contradictions emerged within Zhang Xianzhong's army, and undercurrents surged.
People are panicked.
When Zhang Xianzhong's army massacred the city of Chongqing, he said that "more than 200,000 people were wiped out." However, in actual operation, they did not kill everyone. They mainly killed men, the elderly, and boys.
For those young girls, in any era of massacre, they will not kill them all, because people are all animalistic. The tens of thousands of old soldiers under Zhang Xianzhong have been tossed around for many years, and they are basically all bachelors. Those who once had wives and children, in
They have all become separated over the years.
Now, after such a long and hard life, I have finally entered the Kingdom of Abundance. How can I be willing to kill all the women I see? Of course, I was treated as a soldier and concubine, and was taken with the army.
However, because of several massacres after Zhang Xianzhong's army entered Sichuan, many of these young women had their families slaughtered, and they harbored a deep hatred for Zhang Xianzhong.
After following ordinary soldiers for a month or two, some of these women accepted their fate, and those who served as soldiers began to loosen their will. Some fell in love with each other over time and no longer treated them as slaves. They really wanted these women to have children.
Live a good life.
As a result, under such circumstances, the government troops entered Chongqing and began to counterattack. When news came, the old soldiers in the army who married Bashu women also began to become unstable internally.
Many women began to spread the rumors, secretly rumoring that General Qin Liangyu had received reinforcements from foreign troops and would be able to recover soon. However, these women had a grudge against Zhang Xianzhong and had their whole families killed, so how could they not take the opportunity to encourage men to find another way out?
, don’t follow the butcher’s path into darkness?
However, Sun Kewang's army had been the most vigorous in admonishing Zhang Xianzhong not to massacre, so his army's lieutenants also had the highest rate of privately accepting Sichuan women.
After Zhang Xianzhong noticed that the morale of the army was unstable, he quickly issued a strict order: it is strictly forbidden for soldiers entering Sichuan to marry local women. Anyone who violates the order will be subject to military law! (This order is also a historical fact)
At most, it is only allowed to ratify the existing fait accompli and use these snatched women as slaves to vent their humiliation, but they are absolutely not allowed to marry and have children.
This order has been strictly implemented for the time being, but fluctuations in people's hearts are certainly unavoidable. Those old thieves who have been wandering around the hard-pressed areas for more than ten years found that they can live peacefully in the land of Tianfu with relatively attractive beauties.
Who wants to be banned from having a wife?
On the contrary, the young newly-attached young men from Sichuan are not subject to this prohibition. They are natives, and it is natural for them to marry local women. In this way, the people in the old camps of Shaanxi and Henan will not worry about the shortage but the inequality.
It's becoming more and more obvious.
Historically, after Zhang Xianzhong entered Sichuan, he resented that "many Sichuan people were against us", so he relied more and more on massacres, and finally lost his support. This is probably the reason why.
He probably never dreamed that in an area with many beauties, he would rely on this blunt knife to break people's hearts and give his troops who had been as cold-hearted as the knife for many years to FH.
Under this series of tricks, Sun Kewang's fear became more and more obvious. He deeply felt that after Zhu Shuren's army came to the border, the future of Zhang Xianzhong's troops was really uncertain.
But after all, he was Zhang Xianzhong's most trusted adopted son, and it was unreasonable to surrender directly to the enemy. Only then did he think of a compromise method to protect himself. He led an army alone and asked for orders to intercept the official waterway army on the southern front.
Zhang Xianzhong agreed to this plan considering that he could indeed divide the military strength of the army and reduce the pressure on Chengdu, and that Liu Wenxiu and Li Dingguo were even more unavailable.
At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong was inspired by Sun Kewang's suggestion. He not only sent Sun Kewang to the southern line, but also sent Liu Wenxiu to Mianzhu and Jiangyou on the northern line.
However, Liu Wenxiu did not take many troops with him. What Zhang Xianzhong wanted was for Liu Wenxiu to defend Chengdu and retreat north to Jianmen Pass, entering the retreat route of Jinniu Road. In this way, if Chengdu was really about to fall, he could still lead a small number of his direct descendants to escape anonymously for many routes.
road.
Zhang Xianzhong himself took Feng Shuangli and Li Dingguo to defend Chengdu, and temporarily sent part of his troops to Jianyang, forming a cornering force.
I thought that if the official army was too powerful to fight in the field and could only defend the city, then I would take back the troops in Jianyang. If there was hope in the field, I would directly fight to the death with the official army in Jianyang.
…
It was under such a situation that Sun Kewang had a stalemate with Zhang Huangyan in Leshan.
At the beginning of the stalemate, he also thought about several responses and deductions - at the beginning, Sun Kewang was still whimsical, thinking that if Zhang Huangyan and his troops were ineffective, or if they attacked the city first and suffered heavy losses, he could try to counterattack.
Push, counterattack all the way from Leshan to Yibin!
It would be best if we could reach Yibin, because it is the transportation hub where the Min River and the Jinsha River converge. Not only can it further cut off the supply lines of the army and the army, so that the army does not dare to advance rashly, but it can also directly attack along the route when something unexpected happens to one's own side.
He went up the Jinsha River and fled to Yunnan.
Sun Kewang also understood the geographical conditions at the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan, and knew that the Jinsha River could be navigable smoothly until it reached Laojun Beach. After arriving at Laojun Beach, Zhang Xianzhong's army probably had to abandon the ship based on the level of its dilapidated warships.
Change to the land route and enter Yunnan via Wumeng Prefecture (Zhaotong).
But the idea was wonderful, but in fact he had no chance of executing this plan from beginning to end. During the initial days of the stalemate with Zhang Huangyan, the two also had several small-scale fights, which were not large in scale but not low in intensity.
.
Zhang Huangyan led Liu Guoneng's troops, and Zhu Wenzhen's cavalry supported him. All Sun Kewang's field battle attempts ended in failure, and it was a crushing failure.
While Sun Kewang was surprised, he also realized that the combat effectiveness of this army had definitely increased by at least several percent compared to when they met half a year ago!
It seems that the troops that were able to defeat Li Zicheng in Kaifeng have indeed grown significantly! The weapons and equipment of the troops have also been improved under Zhu Shuren's careful supervision. He is no match at all!
After giving up the idea of returning to Yibin, Sun Kewang settled for the next best thing. The new retreat that he had been thinking about in the past few days was to take the Qingyi River (Dado River) in the event of an adverse situation, from western Sichuan to Jianchang Road, and along the Dachong River (
Yalong River) went south, and Huichuan Guard (Panzhihua) sought to cross south into Yunnan to escape.
This road will definitely be more difficult, but in extreme cases he has no choice.
People who don't know much about geography can roughly understand this road as "going in reverse on the long Z road to Yunnan". After all, it involves the Dadu River and the Jinsha River, and it still takes a circuitous route south from the mountains in western Sichuan.
The only thing Sun Kewang is worried about is that if he really gets to that point and abandons his adoptive father and runs away alone, will the officers and soldiers pursue him just like they hate his adoptive father?
Perhaps when the adoptive father was still alive, the officers and soldiers would not be too concerned about him, but if the adoptive father really died and the Bashu officers and soldiers had no target, would they try their best to create a new target?
In such anxiety, Sun Kewang ushered in Zhang Huangyan's all-out siege.
On February 25th, the army had been preparing in Leshan for more than ten days. Of course, the siege weapons that should be prepared were completely ready.
Even because there was too much time, the officers and soldiers were too lazy to let the 42-pound bow cannons remain in use on the warships on the river. Instead, they went to great lengths to unload the cannons and set up siege artillery positions on land——
After all, the terrain of Leshan County is dangerous and steep, and the height of the city is relatively high. Although we can barely reach the city wall and gate in the west of the city from the Mingjiang River, there are hillsides on that side of the river, making it difficult to attack from above.
In comparison, the slope to the east of Leshan City is much gentler, making it easier to attack this mountain city. Moreover, placing the cannon on a temporary fort on land also avoids the loss of accuracy caused by the shaking of the launch platform, allowing for better aiming.
The city gate was bombarded.
After the battle began, the offensive of the army was very fierce. Sun Kewang initially tried to get the elite of the old battalion to set an example and defend the wall.
It's a pity that Leshan is a small city. The city walls, gates and towers are very simple. The only defense is the steep and steep mountains. It is the kind of existence where at least 80% of the defense power is maintained by the natural terrain.
Under the fierce bombardment of the army, the city gate and wall in the east of the city could not hold up for a long time. In the afternoon, Liu Guoneng's troops rushed into the city. Thousands of Sun Kewang's old battalion soldiers and more than 10,000 new strong men were annihilated in this way.
Inside Leshan City.
There were also countless die-hard officers and their confidants, old thieves and soldiers. Seeing that the city was irreversibly destroyed, they tried to seize a boat to cross the Min River and escape to the west bank.
However, the government and army had the advantage of warships on the Minjiang River, so this attempt was obviously in vain. This place is located at the intersection of the Minjiang River and the Dadu River. There are already undercurrents, rapid water, whirlpools, and countless poor water properties in the north.
The thieves were not good at handling the boat. In the chaos of the battle, the boat capsized and was buried in the belly of the fish——
As an aside, the reason why Leshan has the Leshan Giant Buddha is because before the Tang Dynasty, at the confluence of the Dadu River and the Min River, the water was so dangerous and the undercurrents were so terrifying that a ferry boat crossing here would most likely die.
Only then did monks come here to pray for a giant Buddha to be built in Zhenjiang, so as to reduce the undercurrent when the Dadu River merges into it.
(Note: In fact, when the Leshan Giant Buddha was being built, a piece of the nearby mountain was cut off, and the original sharp-angle confluence was changed to form an obtuse-angle downstream flow, so the whirlpool undercurrent was later reduced.
.This is in line with the laws of physics and has nothing to do with Buddha. Before the construction of the Leshan Giant Buddha, the water of the Minjiang River and the Dadu River were facing each other, so the undercurrent was particularly large)
Sichuan locals have to be cautious when passing through this area. Sun Kewang's migrant landlubbers still hope to control the Dadu River. They are asking for death.
Leshan County was quickly breached, and more than 10,000 partial troops were directly destroyed. Sun Kewang received a solid blow, and it also made him increasingly shaken and timid.
He huddled in Emei County on the other side, feeling anxious all day long, not knowing when Zhang Huangyan would kill him.