After Sun Kewang was liberated by the army in Leshan, he huddled in Emei County, frantically strengthening his defenses every day, waiting for the army to launch a new offensive after crossing the Minjiang River.
He even thought that if the army really wanted to encircle Emei County on all sides, he would abandon the city and flee before the encirclement was completely completed, or at least cross the Dadu River to the north and retreat to Jiajiang County first.
If the army instead surrounded Jiajiang County on all sides, then they would gather the main force in Emei County. Anyway, they would never be able to hold on until they were completely surrounded.
This time he asked to divide his troops to stop the attack. He had originally planned to escape on his own. How could he fight for his adoptive father who had no future in vain?
However, Sun Kewang defended and reinforced Emei County for four or five days, but did not wait for Zhang Huangyan to continue the attack.
After the storm subsided a little, he sent out scouts, who came back with shocking news:
After Zhang Huangyan captured Leshan County, he continued to advance along the Min River, regardless of whether Sun Kewang was still on the flank. Within a few days, he had reached Meishan County, the next important town along the Min River.
The garrison of Zhang Xianzhong in Meishan had no strength at all, and the city of Meishan was also very weak, so it changed hands within a day under the bombardment of Hongyi artillery.
In fact, the defense facilities of these counties that have entered the edge areas of the Chengdu Plain have almost never been repaired since ancient times. The warlords in Sichuan have never thought of engaging in defensive battles after entering the Chengdu Plain since ancient times.
In addition, if you look at the map of Sichuan, you will know that there are many small counties around Chengdu and they are very dense. How can you build a city wall in so many counties? It only takes a little effort.
Zhang Huangyan's troops arrived at Meishan, and Fang Kongzhen and Qin Liangyu arrived at Jianyang. It was also the fourth day of March, and by now the gates outside Chengdu had been opened.
In addition to leaving troops to defend the city, Zhang Xianzhong could only divide his troops to block the entrance.
In order to cope with the invasion of the government's waterway army, Zhang Xianzhong ordered some of the city's defenders to fortify themselves at Xinjin Guards (today's Xinjin District, Chengdu) at the Minjiang Ferry in the southwest of Chengdu.
In order to cope with the advance of the land army, Zhang Xianzhong ordered another part of the troops to be stationed in Longquanwei (today's Longquanyi District of Chengdu). This Longquanwei was developed from Longquan Town, which is a valley mouth on the Longquan Mountains in the east of Chengdu, and is also the center of the Chengdu Plain and
The watershed of the hills in central Sichuan.
The last natural geographical barrier that the army and troops had to pass to reach Chengdu was the Longquan Mountain. After crossing the Longquan Mountain, there was a fertile plain to the west all the way to the base of the Chengdu city wall.
Even readers who don't know much about geography can probably understand Zhang Xianzhong's current predicament after seeing this situation - the counties he is currently stationed in will no longer be counties in future generations, but certain districts in Chengdu city.
, it can be seen that the distance from the old city is not far.
However, after the officers and soldiers arrived, because the defenders temporarily occupied a favorable location, they could not break through within ten or eight days. Moreover, the officers and soldiers still did not know much about the combat effectiveness and scale of Zhang Xianzhong's troops. At this point, they should fight steadily.
First find out the enemy's situation, then make a decision and then take action——
The reason for this is not that the government and army did a poor job in intelligence work before, or that they did not pay attention to intelligence. It is entirely because Zhang Xianzhong's troops on the opposite side have fluctuated too much, and he has temporarily absorbed too much cannon fodder, so before the actual decisive battle.
, it is difficult to estimate an accurate number.
More than half a year ago, when Zhang Xianzhong was defeated and fled in western Hunan, the troops of his direct lineage battalion that he took with him once fell below the 20,000 mark. However, at that time, Sun Kewang stayed in Wu County, the rear army in Zigui area, and Liu Wenxiu stayed in Changde.
The loss of men and horses was not great.
Therefore, after the three parties merge, the total number of veterans of Zhang Xianzhong's army can still be restored to between 40,000 and 50,000.
In the next six months, Zhang Xianzhong robbed homes and houses everywhere in the Central Guizhou Road, and used the gold and silver property he had previously looted in Hunan to bribe the barbarian soldiers. At the most critical moment, Zhang Xianzhong lost at least two to three million taels of gold and silver property, but he also exchanged for
After arriving, the troops and equipment were barely replenished, and an additional 10,000 or 20,000 troops were recruited.
When Zhang Xianzhong rushed into the Sichuan Basin from Bozhou, his total force should be less than 70,000. When he attacked Chongqing, the battle was very bloody, and the number of troops was more than 10,000, mainly due to the use of a lot of cannon fodder, and the total force was weakened for a time.
However, after capturing Chongqing and massacring more than 200,000 people and looting a large amount of money, Zhang Xianzhong also managed to recruit many poor people from Sichuan area to serve as refugees and directly mobilized a team of more than 100,000 people. However, these
The quality of the team is very doubtful, and they cannot fight tough battles. There is no hope that they will defect when encountering a bloody battle.
After that, Zhang Xianzhong's veterans lost thousands when they tried to attack Kuizhou Prefecture where Qin Liangyu was stationed. Later, they were stranded in Wanxian County and were reluctant to leave. The troops in a dilemma were annihilated by thousands more veterans, and the two groups combined totaled nearly 10,000 people.
After Chongqing fell and Bai Wenxuan surrendered, a total of 10,000 more veterans were lost. Finally, more than 10,000 old battalions were taken away by Sun Kewang and intercepted on the southern front. After all, Zhang Xianzhong left 70,000 veterans when he left the Central Guizhou Road.
The number on hand is no more than 60%, which is barely 40,000 people.
In addition to these 40,000 people, there are only the refugees he brought up in Chongqing. Now there are more than 80,000 people who have been brought to Chengdu, and then there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been brought up temporarily around Chengdu.
Therefore, in early March, Zhang Xianzhong had more than 200,000 troops on the battlefields around Chengdu, but in fact only 40,000 were veterans.
Moreover, among these 40,000 people, there are less than 30,000 who are actually veteran thieves for more than five years, and more than 10,000 are barbarians obtained by slaughtering various chieftains on the Qianzhong Road, capturing prisoners and forcibly confiscating them into the army.
The remaining 200,000 are all locals from Sichuan. Some are poor and really want to make a fortune, and some are simply coerced.
Only about 10% to 20% of them have military experience. For example, they were once a guard army in the Ming Dynasty, because after the city was broken, they followed the superiors and surrendered the thieves.
More than 80% of them are pure peasants who have never held a weapon and have been thieves for no more than three months. There are at least 178,000 such people. So far, they are not even equipped with the official and military equipment.
The armor rate was almost non-existent, and only half were equipped with regular swords and guns, and the remaining half were equipped with sickles, hoes, pitchforks, and kitchen knives.
In addition, for the leaders of the peasant army, bluffing is definitely inevitable.
Zhang Xianzhong had actually recruited 2.35 million troops. Even if the cannon fodder accounted for 80% of the troops, he still had to announce to the outside world that he had 500,000 mercenaries to build up his momentum.
When Zhang Huangyan and Fang Kongzhen first advanced to Meishan and Jianyang, they were almost shocked at first. After a few days of investigation and careful calculation, they finally figured out Zhang Xianzhong's actual number. Although it was definitely still
There is an error of about 20 to 30%, but it is not bad.
As for the officers and soldiers on the opposite side, if compared to the total number of people, they would definitely be at a disadvantage.
Zhu Shuren and Qin Liangyu's troops will not be like Zuo Liangyu next door, who frantically recruit strong men to expand their numbers regardless of quality.
Historically, when Zuo Liangyu was in town in Wuchang, he was just like buying road money. After Chongzhen's death, he set up checkpoints along the river. Anyone who passed through Wuchang Prefecture from the Yangtze River could be charged a heavy tax of up to 20 to 30%, which was simply higher than Zhu Shuren's previous legal reforms.
The price was at least five times higher.
Then Zuo Liangyu relied on such violent conquests and expanded quantity regardless of quality. Before the Qing army went south, Zuo Liangyu claimed to have expanded to 800,000 people, but in fact it was estimated that there were at least 500,000 people.
Zhu Shuren was well-known for his discipline and strict military management. He brought Sichuan combat troops, a total of 70,000 people, Qin Liangyu's 20,000 troops, Fang National Security Department and Kuizhou local armed forces, adding up to about 10,000 people. In fact, the total military strength
Nearly 110,000.
Taking into account the losses suffered by the army in previous battles, and the fact that troops were left to guard the rear areas in Chongqing, the forward strongholds in Luzhou, Yibin, and Leshan each had to be divided into at least two to three thousand elite troops to clear the place and maintain food routes.
Therefore, the number of troops finally drawn to the battlefield of the decisive battle was only about 80,000. If the Leshan side did not have to be wary of Sun Kewang, they could draw more than 10,000 troops, reaching 90,000.
But in that case, Sun Kewang's side troops may return to the defense to fight alongside Zhang Xianzhong, and the rebels can add 10,000 veterans and some strong men as cannon fodder, which may not be a good thing for the official army.
Under the current situation, the only situation that is most beneficial to the army is that the army's troops in Leshan can be mobilized to participate in the decisive battle, but Sun Kewang from Zhang Xianzhong's side cannot come.
In this way, a situation similar to the Battle of Waterloo was formed, where Blücher came on the Allied side, but Grouchy on the Napoleon side could not.
In the process of preparing for war, Zhang Huangyan would of course try his best to promote the emergence of this situation. This was also the direction Zhu Shuren suggested when he wrote back to him for the second time.
Zhang Xianzhong, on the other hand, will definitely work hard to avoid this situation.
…
In this way, the two sides fought for a few times between Meishan and Xinjinwei, Jianyang and Longquanyi, while making preparations for running-in, and the time came to mid-March.
Zhang Xianzhong's troops were still taking chances at first, but they soon discovered that although they had a numerical advantage of more than three times that of the officers and soldiers, the nearly 200,000 new recruits were really not good enough to fight in the field. After several encounters, the officers and soldiers fought continuously.
Lian Jie, each time thousands of Sichuan local Xinla strong men directly defected, fled, and collapsed.
So after a few days of contact, Zhang Xianzhong didn't get anything, but lost more than 10,000 Xinla men. Fortunately, the old thieves in Laoying had almost no losses.
The process of these battles was really nothing to write home about, it was just the same. Many recruits heard the intensive and continuous sound of muskets and did not dare to rush forward at all, so they did not engage in field battles.
After being frustrated, Zhang Xianzhong naturally became more and more anxious, so he sent a small number of his close elite cavalry to Emei County in a roundabout way to order Sun Kewang to take some active measures.
Zhang Xianzhong's envoy kept talking about this, and this is what he meant: "Zhang Huangyan dared to ignore our troops and horses west of Leshan, and went straight to Meishan. Between Leshan and Meishan, there is no place on the river for 140 miles that can't cut off Zhang Huangyan's food route? Why?
Chi Chi is so timid that he doesn't even dare to rob food! Could it be that he has different intentions?!"
Of course, the specific wording is not so straightforward. There must be some modifications. If it were so straightforward, wouldn't it be afraid of directly forcing Sun Kewang to rebel?
After Sun Kewang felt the pressure, he had no choice but to poke his head out of the shrinking Emei County town, watch the time, and seize the next opportunity for Zhang Huangyan to transport food in front of the Meishan Army, and send troops to harass him.
Sun Kewang prepared dozens of fire boats, hoping to take advantage of the official fleet to pass upstream through the mouth of the Dadu River, rush down the river from the upper reaches, and light fires at the same time, burning all Zhang Huangyan's grain boats.
At the same time, other soldiers hid in ordinary warships, taking advantage of the fireships to disrupt the enemy's formation, and after opening up the situation, they followed the situation from the breach to cover up the enemy, and jumped into the gang to fight on the side.
The idea was wonderful, but unfortunately once entering actual combat, Sun Kewang once again realized the gap between his landlubbers and Zhang Huangyan's Shen family navy soldiers.
Zhang Huangyan's grain fleet was not fully loaded with grain. Instead, it allocated several percent of its capacity to transport convoy soldiers. They also prepared a large number of tough old bamboo poles with iron heads on board to hold them up in case of arson.
The attacking fireship——
Don't think this move is innovative. In the Tang Dynasty, Li Guangbi used it when dealing with Shi Siming's rebels who set fire to ships and burned pontoon bridges. By the Ming Dynasty, it was already a basic operation for high-quality naval generals.
After all, Zhang Huangyan is also a national hero in history who was able to fight against the Qing army in the Zhoushan Islands for nearly 20 years. His military talent is quite good. After following his uncle and cousin for several years, he has already developed the basic skills of naval command.
Because the current of the Minjiang River was fast, Sun Kewang's men, who were not good at steering the boat, were quickly pushed aside by the bamboo poles, and rushed downstream.
There are even a small number of Folan cannons on the army ships, which can be fired directly at the approaching pirate fireships. Once they hit, there will be a big hole in the bottom of the ship, which will be filled with water in advance.
After a fierce battle, three or four grain transport ships of the army were attacked and burned by saturated fire ships. They were so overwhelmed that they had no time to evade and block.
However, Zhang Huangyan could completely accept this level of loss. He still had enough sampans and ferry boats to rescue the sailors on the burning ship.
Sun Kewang on the opposite side couldn't bear it at all. Every wave of losses was a real casualty. As long as the ship was destroyed, it was basically equal to the loss of life, and there was no way out.
After the battle, Sun Kewang retreated back to lick his wounds, but it rained all night. Zhang Huangyan quickly drew inferences from one example and arranged a series of dirty tricks——
The conscience of heaven and earth, the last two moves were entirely performed by Zhang Huangyan himself and had nothing to do with Zhu Shuren. Zhu Shuren was seven hundred miles away, and it was impossible to remotely control micro-control.
It turned out that Zhang Huangyan pretended that Sun Kewang had succeeded the day after Sun Kewang clearly failed to rob the grain and burn the ships, and asked the army from Meishan County to Xinjinwei to retreat, pretending that they needed to shrink due to the lack of military rations.
Zhang Xianzhong himself was not that easy to fall into the trap, but Zhang Xianzhong's troops were not all commanded by him personally. He himself was stationed in Chengdu, and naturally there were other generals responsible for frontline command at Longquanyi and Xinjindu.
When Liu Wenxiu was also sent abroad and Li Dingguo was refrigerated, Feng Shuangli was sent to Longquanyi. Zhang Xianzhong really couldn't find any famous generals to take charge of Xinjin Ferry.
Therefore, the guard here at that time was Di Sanpin, who had abandoned the city and fled back after Hezhou was recovered.
It couldn't be more strange that this kind of unknown general, who has not left any records in history, was deceived by Zhang Huangyan's show of weakness and false retreat.
He thought the opportunity was too good to miss, so when he saw Zhang Huangyan retreating, he pursued him down the river. As a result, he was defeated in an ambush and retreated with the loss of his troops. He easily lost one or two thousand old battalions and nearly 10,000 strong men and cannon fodder.
After Zhang Huangyan turned around and fought back, he took the opportunity to spread rumors that Sun Kewang had reached a tacit agreement with the army and was willing not to assist Zhang Xianzhong in exchange for escaping and avoiding death.
Di Sanpin, the disaster star, once again had good luck and survived, but he inevitably brought the rumors back with him.
Of course Zhang Xianzhong would not believe it, but Zhang Huangyan soon revealed to Sun Kewang the news that "the officers and soldiers had spread this rumor about Zhang Xianzhong".
Sun Kewang fell into great fear. At the same time, he also heard some different meanings from the rumors spread by Zhang Huangyan: the officers and soldiers framed him, saying that he was willing to not help Zhang Xianzhong in exchange for avoiding being hunted down...
Doesn't that mean that the army commander thinks this is a reasonable condition, and if he accepts it, his adoptive father won't be surprised?
Zhang Huangyan originally had difficulty sending an envoy to negotiate with Sun Kewang, but through this indirect communication, Sun Kewang saw his sincerity and feasibility.
He finally decided to send someone to contact him secretly, leave a letter, and then break camp and retreat westward, escaping across the Dadu River.
…
This operation was delayed, and after everything was completed, it entered late March.
Zhu Shuren, who was in Chongqing at the rear, also waited for good news from the rear before the final battle: Chongzhen's decree to promote him to the governorship of Huguang had been sent to Chongqing by the prince.
Zhu Yuchan, the little princess of Prince Lu's palace whom Chongzhen had betrothed to him, had also paid her respects to Gaotang in Hefei and was sent to Chongqing by Zhu Shuren's stepmother Xu to complete the final rituals.
[To be honest, I have been using Yeguo Reading recently to catch up on books, change sources, and read aloud with many sounds, and it can be used on both Android and Apple.]
On the day the mission team arrived in Chongqing, Chongqing was decorated with lights and colorful decorations, and the crowd was inevitably excited. Those subordinates who followed Zhu Shuren also further realized that Guo Xingye was limitless, and following him would definitely lead to a bright future.