The impact of Azig's sudden death was of course immediate.
However, because this happened so suddenly, its impact will take two completely opposite forms in a short period of time.
The confidant guards around Azig and the most direct troops showed shock, anger, and then an instant burst of vengeful rage. But the ordinary soldiers farther away were at a loss and even slightly frightened.
Because there was no unified command, and no one could immediately have enough authority to take over Azig's command of the entire army, the red flag entered a brief period of inconsistent orders.
The two Jia La commanded by Zhuo Butai and Sha Er Hu were originally prepared to attack under Azig's orders.
Moreover, Zhuobutai and Shaerhu were only hit by two and three shots respectively. Unlike Azig who was shot five times, he did not have time to leave his last words. Zhuobutai and Shaerhu were probably burping after giving the order to charge.
Or unconscious, their troops rushed towards the eight hundred dragoons led by Li Yu like crazy.
The other Jia La with the red flag were slow and confused, and they hesitated for a long time before catching up. There was a disconnect within the Qing army on the issue of pursuit.
Li Yu ran so fast that his 300 rifled sniper soldiers had no time to reload on the battlefield, so of course he got on his horse and ran away immediately after firing one shot.
If you don’t run away at this time, you are still waiting for the Qing army to treat you!
The remaining 500 smoothbore riflemen made in Wuchang were ordered to cover the rifle comrades and withdraw first. This was also to ensure that not even a single shot of the new weapons would fall into the enemy's hands. They had to ensure that the battlefield was cleared.
Therefore, they calmly waited for the Qing cavalry to rush closer and enter the effective range of the muskets, then opened fire in batches one after another, then mounted their horses and retreated.
Both sides were cavalry, and the Ming army came with one man and two horses. They rested their horses for a long time before the battle. At this moment, the sprint speed was naturally faster than that of the Qing army. After firing the gun, the Qing army had no chance to catch up.
He fired arrows indiscriminately with his riding bow forward, splitting the mane, and scatteredly wounded more than a dozen Ming army horse riflemen, but only two or three people were killed.
However, the Ming army's rifle blockade caused more than ten times the Qing army's casualties. At least seventy or eighty people were shot off their horses. Moreover, the musket bullets were more powerful, and at least half of them were killed directly.
After the two sides broke away from contact, Li Yu quickly met Zhu Wenzhen and met up with him. He also lured the two Jia La commanded by Zhuo Butai and Sha Erhu into the vicinity.
Zhu Wenzhen held 3,000 musketry cavalry in his hand. Of course, he would not be polite to the Qing cavalry who had a similar number. He fired a classic double-barreled spray in the face, charged and attacked bravely, and immediately made those who came with anger
The enemy calmed down.
The specific way to calm down is, of course, to let them dump hundreds more corpses!
The elite short-barreled musket cavalry of the Ming army clashed with the Qing cavalry. Who is stronger and who is weaker under this tactic has been repeatedly verified by several classic battles over the years. There is really no need to repeat it again.
The hope of the Qing cavalry was just to keep a distance from each other and use the Ming cavalry's short-barreled firearms, whose effective range was weaker than the cavalry bow, to slowly wear out. However, this tactic would be restrained by the Ming's long-range rifles.
Today, the Ming army has very few long-range rifles, only 800. Unfortunately, the Qing army has long been in chaos. How can they use such sophisticated tactics?
After the two Jia La were stunned and maimed by the Ming army, the remaining three Jia La were already undecided. They were relieved of their desire to avenge Azig. The Qing army could only choose to temporarily retreat and rebuild the command system.
Let’s fight another day.
Zhu Wenzhen was also very calm and knew that he could not pursue deeply at this time - most of the muskets of his troops did not have far range. If the enemy wanted to escape but he pursued him, he would easily be kited. The two armies were separated.
…
However, the Manchu cavalry under the red flag was easy to retreat, and the nightmare for the entire Xinyang Prefecture and even the Qing army on the Huaixi battlefield had just begun.
Because the upper reaches of the Huaihe River were frozen in the snow, since Zhu Wenzhen was able to cross the Huaihe River on the ice last night and burn and destroy it, he could now safely cross the ice south and return to Xinyang.
When he returned outside Xinyang City, it was already late in the afternoon, and it would get dark in about half an hour.
The Qing army's siege troops outside Xinyang County had not yet received news of the accident in Azige. Seeing that Zhu Wenzhen dared to come back, they were full of fighting spirit and planned to divide their troops to attack.
Zhu Wenzhen took advantage of the speed advantage of one man and two horse cavalry, and took a circuitous route at the beginning to increase the distance so that the Qing army could not catch up with him too quickly.
At the same time, Zhang Huangyan, who was always paying attention in the city, saw that Zhu Wenzhen had returned safely. Although he did not know how great the results he had achieved, he still firmly believed that he must have won more or less a vote and firmly let the defenders
The troops divided up and went out of the city gate to form a formation to respond.
Of course, Zhang Huangyan would not let the defenders go too far out of the city, at least they would have to be within the covering range of the Folangji and Hongyi artillery at the top of the city. In this way, the combination of high and low cross-fire would completely defeat the Qing army.
The generals responsible for the siege of Xinyang County by the Qing army were mainly Hilgen, Haning'a and others under Azig. They were not famous generals. Mainly during this period, Azig did not originally plan to attack Xinyang, but only wanted to besiege it.
The Qing army frequently changed its defenses due to the cold weather.
Faced with the "provocative" behavior of the Ming army that dared to send troops out of the city to meet Zhu Wenzhen, Hilgen and Haning'a certainly couldn't bear this tone, and immediately organized troops to rush forward and try to fight in the field for a decisive battle.
Zhang Huangyan didn't even have time to send someone to ask Zhu Wenzhen about the results of the battle, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and face the enemy directly, which was a bit risky.
When Zhu Wenzhen saw this, he had no time to return to the city to report. He made a decisive decision:
"All rifle snipers, move 400 steps back to the enemy's left wing flag formation, dismount and fire a volley! No need to hide your firepower!"
The Ming army used rifled guns before, but they were all hidden, lest they expose their strength and lose the suddenness of the first sneak attack. But now that they have openly sniped Azig, it won't be long before the entire Qing army knows about this magical weapon.
Terrifying range and high accuracy.
Therefore, there is no value in hiding anymore. It is better to take advantage of the information gap and the time required to transmit it, and quickly maximize the surprise of the sneak attack, and get two more tickets by the way.
Even if you can only snipe a few Jia La E Zhen and Niu Lu E Zhen, it is just an added bonus. Anyway, the capital has been earned back by sniping Azig.
The Ming army snipers, who had already finished reloading on their way back, immediately followed the order, went around to the rear, and fired intensively at a key point on the enemy's second line that could not be reached by friendly artillery.
Suddenly, there were dozens more Qing army officers on horseback. The guards were caught off guard and were shot and killed intensively.
Zhu Wenzhen made this choice purely for the purpose of deterrence and telling the enemy: Our army now has the ability to kill rear officers. Don't misunderstand that it was those musket infantry who did it!
After a round of shooting, Zhu Wenzhen immediately took advantage of the Qing army's surprise, launched a charge, and let the whole army shout: "The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty have broken through Zhenyang County! Snipe Azig!"
"The divine spear pierces the Yang with a thousand steps! Every shot is sure to hit! God punishes the Tatars!"
The soldiers shouted in a chaotic manner, and some of the lines were not consistent. In short, they were all improvised to lower morale.
The Qing army on the opposite side was sniped to death at first with dozens of officers and guards. They were just stunned by the sharpness of the Ming army's new weapons. Then they were hit by such bad news that was hard to distinguish between true and false, and finally gradually panicked.
Especially Zhang Huangyan, who had been waiting for more than two months, suddenly became brave and dared to go out of the city to fight back. This was so abnormal. The morale of the Qing army could not help but become increasingly shaken, and many soldiers gradually became suspicious and believed in the Ming army.
publicity.
Encountered on a narrow road, the brave wins. The Qing army lost courage and had to retreat slowly, seeking a safe place to fight back to the camp.
Within the next day or two, the news of Azig's death apparently spread to more and more Qing troops. Even if some troops were temporarily concealed, they would at least receive orders from above asking them to shrink their troops.
After Zhang Huangyan escorted Zhu Wenzhen back to the city and formally confirmed the results of the battle, he was also in high spirits. He quickly ordered to write several victory reports and documents to the garrison everywhere, trying to request reinforcements to expand the results of the battle and at the same time try to inspire the Xinyang War Zone.
The morale of various Ming army units increased and they turned to counterattack.
…
Five days later, the Ming army finally turned to counterattack, and Zhu Shuren, who was stationed far away in Fengyang, received the good news from his cousin in an unexpected surprise as mentioned above.
Zhu Shuren really didn't expect that Huaixi could counterattack so quickly.
Since he originally planned to stalemate on the middle road and the east road to digest the results of the battle, he would use Kong Youde in Pizhou as a bait to bleed the Qing army, and at the same time rely on the sea route to reinforce Liu Zeqing and Gong Wencai to cause trouble for the Qing army.
Therefore, Zhu Shuren still had plenty of troops. He immediately made a decisive decision and transferred many reserve troops in the middle to reinforce his cousin. He went up the Huaihe River and Ruying, and surrounded and outflanked the enemy in a large area, striving to expand the results of the battle.
The effect of Azig's death on the Qing army's morale and command system collapse was truly terrifying. Part of the Qing army faltered and shrank, causing the flanks and backs of friendly forces to be exposed and penetrated by the Ming army, leading to several small-scale encirclement battles.
After the annihilation, the remaining Qing troops became increasingly difficult to advance and retreat, fearing that they would be betrayed by friendly forces, so they had to retreat in a unified manner.
The Ming army chased the enemy north and spent more than half a month to recover the land south of the two important rivers Rushui and Yingchuan. Not only did they recover the entire territory of Xinyang Prefecture, they also pushed part of the vanguard into Kaifeng Prefecture.
.
The Ming army on the border of Nanyang Prefecture was originally blocked by the Qing army south of the Tongbai Mountain Pass in Fangcheng. Now, as the local Qing army defenders worried about being attacked from both sides, they abandoned the dangerous pass and retreated. The Nanyang Ming army also swarmed out to recapture Ru.
State capital.
The northern part of Xinyang Prefecture, the entire Ruzhou Prefecture, and the southern part of Kaifeng Prefecture (the part south of Yingchuan) were all recovered within a month.
After a few years, the Ming army once again advanced to the Xuchang, Yancheng, and Chenxian areas - this was basically the same extent as when Zhu Shuren succeeded in counterattacking Li Zicheng.
Compared with the Qing troops on the middle and east routes, the Azige tribe lost not a lot of land at all. The only good thing was that the troops lost less manpower.
After all, they had to retreat because of the unexpected incident of the British Prince being sniped. Most of the troops retreated out of fear that their teammates would be shaken and their flanks would be betrayed. They did not retreat after being defeated on the battlefield. At least 70% to 80% of the troops retreated.
All the strength was saved.
Azig's route also had a total of more than 100,000 troops. It suffered total battle losses in several consecutive battles and captured no more than 20,000 to 30,000 prisoners. Compared with the other two routes, it performed well.
At this point, in the four or five months of continuous bloody battles that started in the early autumn of the third year of Longwu and lasted until the twelfth lunar month, the Qing army completely lost the few small pieces of land they had in Huainan. On the West Road, they also lost Huaibei.
The land of Yingnan is in the east, and the land of Huaibei and Sinan is additionally lost (to the line of Xuzhou, except Pizhou, which is still under siege and bloodletting)
In terms of troop losses, the Central Route Army suffered the worst. A total of 1,340,000 troops were wiped out, and 80,000 were wiped out in the Battle of Feishui alone.
The East Route Army's losses are not too high, with more than 10,000 and less than 20,000 lost so far. However, considering that there are still a considerable number of troops in Kong Youde's cage who have been pronounced dead in advance. When the Ming Army withdraws the funds, the East Route Army
The total losses of the Qing army would also exceed 40,000 people.
After the death of Azig on the West Road, a total of 30,000 troops were lost.
The three fronts of the Qing army combined, in these five months of fighting and the Ming army's defensive counterattack, a total of 210,000 troops were destroyed.
There were more than 24,000 Manchu cavalry, about 17,000 Mongolian soldiers, 60,000 Han bannermen (including the 20,000 who were recorded as dead by Kong Youde), and 110,000 Green Camp.
In terms of generals, a prince, a county king, two beile, a number of beizi, and generals who served as auxiliaries were killed in total. In addition, two of the three traitorous kings (Kong Youde is waiting to die).
At this point, the Qing army's combat power was completely broken, and they were beaten to the ground and unable to get up.
Before the war, the Qing government's national combat strength was only about 80,000 Manchu Eight Banners regular troops, 50,000 to 60,000 Mongolian army flags, 100,000 Han army flags, 200,000 first-line green battalions, and 400,000 second-line reserve green battalions, plus Manchus who were not soldiers.
There are 120,000 to 30,000 young men of the right age in Mongolia, but less than 100,000 young men of the right age in Mongolia.
To put it bluntly, there are 400,000 troops that can be directly mobilized to the battlefield. 200,000 Manchu and Mongolian men can be recruited, and 400,000 Han people can be recruited (no matter how much you recruit, morale and loyalty cannot be guaranteed. These 400,000 are from the Rapture
Found among the group of traitors who are "assistants of the ruling class", the others are purely oppressed Han people)
Now the loss of 210,000 soldiers is equivalent to cutting off half of the country's front-line troops!
Even within the five months after the war, Dorgon found that something was wrong and increased the number of mobilizations. For example, he temporarily recruited another 20,000 to 30,000 men from the Eight Banners reserve men, and also transferred some second-line personnel who had only been trained for less than a year.
The Green Camp reserve team has been promoted to regular service ahead of schedule.
It can barely replenish the manpower that can be mobilized back to less than 300,000. Considering that the new recruits cannot guarantee combat effectiveness and cannot be engaged in offensive battles, the new 100,000 people are just to fill in and stabilize the defense lines.
That's all.
Regardless of whether the losses can be replenished in the future, at least Dorgon's third-line offensive was completely bankrupt. Dorgon's personal political prestige within the Qing court was also completely destroyed.
His only remaining half-brother, Azig, died, and with the death of Dodo three years ago, Dorgon completely lost "he himself presided over the center, and led the troops to perform meritorious service with his half-brother from the same mother."
Layout.
From then on, Dorgon would inevitably fall into the dilemma of "looking at the inside but not the outside", or "looking at the outside but not the inside", without any way to break the situation.
…
As the Qing court suffered successive defeats, internal conflicts gradually became more acute.
The Ming army was naturally prosperous and the ZTE was flourishing.
In the twelfth lunar month, the Ming army continued the stalemate at a slow pace, and in the end Kong Youde was not allowed to stay for the New Year. It was considered an event of the year and ended that year.
After several months of siege, there was not much food and grass in Pizhou city. The Ming army also issued a message: Kong Youde would never be spared, but other ordinary soldiers who had been thieves for a short period of time could be pardoned.
As the army rations were exhausted, the Qing government showed no intention to save them, and if they continued, the soldiers would eat each other.
Of course, those soldiers were unwilling to work for Kong Youde anymore, so finally one day in the middle of the twelfth lunar month, a mutiny broke out in Pizhou City. A few junior generals, with thousands of soldiers who wanted to take credit for the uprising, rebelled against
Kong Youde's direct troops launched a wave of sneak attacks and opened a city gate.
Listening to the cries of killing in the city, it was confirmed that there was real internal strife. Of course, the Ming army who besieged the city would not follow them and quickly swarmed in.
Kong Youde originally thought he could suppress the anti-justice army, but as the Ming army entered the city from the north gate, all hopes were shattered.
At that time, Kong Youde was personally supervising the battle on the tower of the south gate of Pizhou, also known as the Baimen Tower, to prevent the rebels from approaching the city gate. Seeing the Ming army swarming from the north, he knew that he would definitely be captured alive for being a hard-core traitor.
He died a miserable death.
Therefore, Kong Youde was determined that he could not be captured alive by the Ming army, nor could his body be found by the Ming army to prevent him from being tortured again. He asked his close soldiers to get a few torches and some firewood, hid directly in the city tower, and burned the wooden pavilion on the upper floor of the city tower.
Clicked.
He hoped that the roof of the tower would burn down, crush him to death and bury him, and then slowly burn the body so that it would be difficult to identify him. Unfortunately, the lower half of the tower was still made of stone and could not be burned at all, so the fire would not spread quickly.
The Ming army's slogan of "Capture Kong Youde alive and escort him back to Nanjing Lingchi" was getting closer and closer. Several rafters on the roof of the city tower finally burned out one after another and fell to the ground. One of the flaming rafters hit the man who was begging for death.
Kong Youde suddenly had blood spurting out from his mouth, his muscles and bones were broken, and he lost his resistance.
The rafter hit me on my back, which seemed to have broken my vertebral bone, which meant that my lower body was directly paralyzed.
However, just when he thought he was finally free, several junior officers next to him looked at each other, discussed with the soldiers below, and then made up their minds and came over to move the rafters together.
Kong Youde was stunned for a while, vomiting blood intermittently and shouting hoarsely: "Why are you saving me? It's just harming me! You're going to make me suffer more!"
However, the next second, the officers took out the hemp rope and tied up Kong Youde, who had suffered severe injuries to his broken spine.
"My lord, I'm sorry! If you are burned to death, we will also be treated as die-hard treason! If we hand you over to the court like this, we don't ask for meritorious service and we will get away with it! Just treat it as a charity to the brothers.
Take your life!"
Kong Youde is also a strong general, and his weapons and weapons are also very sophisticated. If his martial arts skills are still there, these military junior high schools will not be able to defeat him.
But now that he is paraplegic and has become a dog with a broken spine, why should others be afraid of him?
Kong Youde also wanted to bite his tongue and commit suicide, but the opponent directly hit him in the mouth with an armor-breaking hammer, smashing his jawbone and shattering his teeth. He suddenly lost the ability to bite his tongue and passed out directly.
A group of spineless soldiers who wanted to be freed carried the tied Kong Youde down, shouting surrender slogans all the way, and finally made the Ming army hold back the butcher knife.
Only then did the Baimen Tower behind him collapse in the gradually raging fire.