Chapter 360 Restoring Daming and Returning to the Old Capital
Hauge returned with a disastrous defeat and had to choose to evacuate directly to Beijing.
However, the Ming army had delayed him for so long before. Wu Sangui, Jiang Yu and Li Fuming's three partial divisions were almost in place, and of course they would not let him escape unscathed.
So, on the eleventh day of the twelfth lunar month, Hauge had just withdrawn his troops from Handan and returned north. Wu Sangui, who had just captured Shahe County, came to intercept.
Hauge was also very angry, thinking that if I can't do it to Zhang Huangyan, why can't I do it to you Wu Sangui? Although Wu Sangui's men are also elite veterans of hundreds of battles, the size of Guan Ning's army is so great that they haven't received much decent work in these years.
supplement.
In Hauge's eyes, he had a confrontation with Wu Sangui a few years ago, and Wu Sangui managed to hold on solely by relying on the geographical isolation of Guanzhong. If Wu Sangui dared to fight with him in the open field, he would have been beaten to the ground long ago.
At that time, Hauge only had the combat power of one or two banners. Although he has suffered heavy losses from the Ming army, he still has the most powerful troops of the Qing Dynasty at his disposal. Can he still defeat Wu Sangui?
So out of a disbelief in evil, Hauge and Wu Sangui launched a field breakout battle in the Mingshuihuishui Basin, north of Handan and south of Shahe County.
At that time, Wu Sangui's Guan Ning Army set up defenses and interceptions south of the Ming River and north of the Fu River.
Since Shahe, Xingtai and other places have been occupied by the Ming army, Hauge's withdrawal route must detour from the east of Juluze, pass through Julu County, and retreat north of Jixian County. He cannot go west of Juluze and stick to the Taihang Mountains.
road.
Facing Wu Sangui's interception, Hauge could only choose to break through Wu Sangui directly, or cross the Fu River twice more.
Considering that he still had hundreds of thousands of troops on hand, crossing the river repeatedly would waste time and might give Zhang Huangyan a chance to pursue him, so Hauge chose to break through head-on.
The two armies fought all the way from Quzhou County to Jize County. Wu Sangui also fought and retreated, but never collapsed.
The terrain in this area is bounded by the Ming River and the Fu River. It is relatively cramped. The width of the east-west battlefield is less than twenty miles, which is not convenient for the army to make roundabouts. Therefore, although there are many Hauge soldiers and horses, there is no chance to quickly retreat.
This allowed Wu Sangui to resist step by step.
The fighting between the two sides lasted for about two days, and each side suffered thousands to tens of thousands of casualties. It can be said that both sides suffered losses. However, the war lasted until this moment, and the Han people all over the world knew that the Ming Dynasty would definitely overturn, and reinforcements would come at any time, so their morale was high. Wu Sangui's troops were the best.
It can remain undefeated despite casualties.
On the other hand, Wu Sangui's current military strength is no longer what Hauge originally thought. Since Wu Sangui officially returned to the Ming Dynasty, the Nanjing court also removed the former Li Zicheng's old troops who were originally separated from the country and later went to Hanzhong to defect to Fang Kongzhen.
Hao Yaoqi's troops also successively allocated funds to Wu Sangui to replenish his troops.
The reason why Zhu Shuren only gave Wu Sangui to replenish the old troops of Li Zicheng's Peasant Army was because Wu Sangui had a erratic history. If he was really given the excellent equipment of the front-line Ming army, he was worried that he would not be able to defeat him in the future and would once again attempt to rebuild the power of the Liaoxi general.
In contrast, it would not be so distressing to allocate Li Zicheng's old department to Wu Sangui. Anyway, it is just a waste for them. If they can really prove themselves through meritorious service, it will not be too late to give better treatment to their direct descendants.
Therefore, Hauge, Wu Sangui's people and Hao Yaoqi's former Chuang Army troops exhausted each other, and were finally caught up by Huang Degong and Li Dingguo sent by Zhang Huangyan.
The parties fought several battles from Jize to Julu. In the end, Haug once again had to choose to abandon the seriously wounded and some slower-moving troops to stay behind, and led the main force to break through at high speed.
There is nothing to elaborate on the specific battle situation during this period - it is just that after the previous battle of Neihuang, although Haoge lost 100,000 troops, he still had 100,000 troops stationed in Handan, Daming and other places and did not participate in the decisive battle of Neihuang.
The troops are filling lines and their mobility is not very good.
But Hauge wanted to abandon Handan and the name returned north. These second-line troops lacked horses and their march must be slower, which slowed down the speed of the entire army's movement together.
Now being attacked by Zhang Huangyan and Wu Sangui, he had no choice but to follow the principle of "Rather than sending these slow-moving troops away in vain and letting them surrender to the enemy as Han people, it is better to consume them on the field battlefield of Julu and let Zhang Huangyan's Han people kill more Han people."
, the more people can earn more, the less stress they will have in the future.”
Therefore, in this battle of Julu, Hauge changed his previous attitude of letting the main forces of the Eight Banners fight tooth and nail in the battle of Neihuang. He almost did not use the Manchu cavalry anymore. He only forced the green camp and the Ming army to lose their lives, including the previous
The same is true when it comes to consumption with Wu Sangui and Hao Yaoqi.
Unfortunately, the war has reached this point, and the green battalions who did not participate in the Neihuang Battle will not really wait to die, so their morale is extremely low.
In the first few days of the fight with Wu Sangui, we were outnumbered and still exhausted. After the main force of the Ming army sent by Zhang Huangyan arrived, only two days later, the troops collapsed one after another.
Of the 780,000 or 80,000 second-line green battalion-based cannon fodder troops of the Qing army, only 20,000 to 30,000 were killed or wounded by the Qing Dynasty. The rest either fled or surrendered.
Before the start of this round of battles, Hauge led a Qing army of 2.78 million people. By the time of the decisive battle in Neihuang, there were only 260,000 soldiers left.
After the decisive battle in Neihuang, there were only about 170,000 left. After spending a few days with Wu Sangui, there were still 156,000 left.
Finally, Zhang Huangyan sent the main force of the Ming army to catch up again. After the encirclement and annihilation battle of Julu, Hauge's total force was finally reduced sharply to more than 80,000.
In other words, in the three months starting from October, Haug lost 200,000 troops, including 30,000 Manchus, 20,000 Mongolians, and 150,000 Han armed forces.
When a military regime is finally on the verge of collapse, it weakens as quickly as an avalanche.
…
Although all the Han Green Camps were finally sent away by Hauge, in the process, these Green Camps still completed the task of delaying time very well.
After all, even if 100,000 pigs were captured by the Ming army, it would take a long time. These green camps also had mixed hearts and minds, and it was impossible for tens of thousands of people to surrender uniformly. They all surrendered piecemeal after being defeated.
Altogether, they should not be able to hold back the Ming army for ten days and a half.
In addition, the Ming army wanted to attack one after another and regain the counties in Hebei. Every time the rule was reestablished, there would be chaos. Countless bandits and bandits emerged, many of them were the former Green Camp troops who had broken up and tried to survive on their own.
Some of the cities were still stubbornly defended by Qing troops, and it would take some time to conquer them.
Therefore, the Ming army's advance will be very slow, and they need to clear the rear and flanks steadily. They are destined to be unable to reach Beijing before the end of the fifth year of Longwu.
On the seventeenth of the twelfth lunar month, the Ming army defeated Julu, on the twenty-fifth of the twelfth lunar month, they defeated Ji County, and on the twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month, they defeated Hengshui.
In this chaotic situation, the wheel of history finally quietly turned to the first month of the sixth year of Longwu.
In the first ten days of the first month of the first month, the Ming army launched a combined attack and began to encroach on Baoding and Hejian Prefecture, which were already two state capitals bordering Shuntian Prefecture where Beijing is located.
According to the advancing speed of the Ming army, the Lantern Festival of the sixth year of Longwu can be celebrated in Baoding City at the earliest, and the two prefectural cities can be conquered by the end of the first month at the latest.
At the same time, Zhang Mingzhen, the Marquis of Zhenhai on the Hailu Road, also opened up another battlefield. A few days before the Lantern Festival, he landed in Tianjin with armed forces, first captured Dagukou, and then went straight to Tianjin Sanwei.
Seeing that the situation of all Ming armies was excellent, Zhu Shuren, who was coordinating the overall situation in the rear, would certainly not miss this opportunity to establish his prestige. He did not personally participate in the command of the two decisive battles in Neihuang County and Julu County.
But in the final siege of Beijing and the city's entry into the city, he definitely had to participate in person, so as not to overwhelm his superiors with their superior achievements.
This is also to protect the people under your command and obtain a share of long-term wealth that is shared by the king and his ministers.
So on the third day of the first lunar month in the sixth year of Longwu, after celebrating the New Year in Daming County, Zhu Shuren once again personally led his guards north to inspect the governor. He arrived at Baoding Prefecture on the Lantern Festival and caught up with the siege of Baoding City in person.
war.
The morale of the Ming army was as high as a rainbow, heavy artillery was concentrated, and hundreds of artillery were firing. It was estimated that Baoding City would not be able to hold out for a few days.
…
While the Ming army was advancing rapidly, Hauge, who hurried back to Beijing at the end of the previous year, had a very difficult New Year.
But he still had to make some difficult decisions, some that were destined to "lose his power and humiliate the country."
For example, abandon Beijing.
When the war reached this point, not only Hauge knew in his heart, but other senior Manchu and Qing officials also knew that Beijing could not be defended, and there was no point in defending it. It would only allow tens of thousands of Manchu elites to be caught in a trap by the Ming army and all be killed.
, it is better to escape to the prairie or the dense forest of white mountains and black water in order to survive.
But who will make the decision to abandon Beijing?
Hauge originally planned to deal with the unsolved traitor Bumbutai after returning to Beijing, but now he had to face a problem: if he dealt with the traitor Bumbutai,
If the young emperor Fulin is abolished and he ascends the throne, then he will definitely have to worry about whether the emperor will explode at any time and cause trouble for him because of the revenge of killing his mother.
However, if the little emperor is eliminated, his first order after he ascends the throne is to abandon Beijing and flee, then his ruling prestige will be completely lost.
After thinking about it, Hauge could only find Han official representative Hong Chengchou again and ask him to come up with a solution. Speaking of it, Hong Chengchou was also very lucky. On the eve of the Neihuang War, he tipped off Zhang Huangyan, and he actually came back after a month.
Without cheating, Hauge didn't know that he and Zu Dashou had leaked the military plane, and he was still looking for advice from Hong Chengchou.
Hong Chengchou also lived like a year. He didn't think about the days when he could join gangs and be killed at any time. When asked by Hauge, he made plans casually:
It would be better to leave the little emperor alone, issue the decree to abandon Beijing, wait until outside the pass, and then slowly plan for it.
After much deliberation, Hauge found no better way, so he caught Hong Chengchou and asked him the last important point: "When Dorgon was alive, he failed to help the Qing Dynasty secure its territory, and he has also failed to do so since he became the regent. Now.
Why should the army still obey Gu's orders when they withdrew from the pass?"
Hong Chengchou was silent and unable to answer this question.
Hauge then said to himself: "Since the city of Beijing is about to be abandoned, Gu has given the order to allow the Manchus to launch an army and plunder, and everyone has to gain wealth, can the Eight Banners disciples be completely devoted to Gu? At least for a year and a half.
.”
Hong Chengchou was shocked: "Your Majesty...there are hundreds of thousands of living beings in Beijing city, all of them are well-dressed people. Moreover, when my Qing Dynasty King arrived, none of the people in Beijing resisted. They were willing to surrender. How could...
…This is going to completely lose the support of the people of the world!”
Hauge: "Could it be that you have second thoughts? So what if you lose the hearts of the Han people in the world? I was going to give up completely!"
…
Under Hauge's insistence, in the first ten days of the first month of the sixth year of Longwu, several changes occurred in Beijing.
First of all, on the fifth day of the first lunar month, Hauge finally claimed to have found evidence in the form of rehashing old scores, saying that Zhezhe, the wife of the late emperor who died of illness last year, and the real queen mother, was poisoned and killed by his niece, the fake empress Bumbutai.
.
The Beijing court was in chaos for a while, and each banner was forced to face internal strife again. However, Hauge hinted at the real power of the generals of each banner, saying that the traitor Bumbutai controlled the young master, and was reluctant to part with the fruits of his concubine Dorgon's decision to enter the customs, so
We must let everyone be buried with the city of Beijing.
Only when the traitor dies will the young master give the decree to abandon Beijing and return to the outside world.
In order to save everyone's lives, the powerful generals of several major banners all chose to side with Hauge. At this moment, Prince Zheng Jierhalang was also framed by Hauge, saying that he was also the one who originally appointed the master to enter the pass.
, the party attached itself to Dorgon in order to gain wealth, and now he is encouraging the traitor Bumubutai to stick to it, and he also has a share——
Otherwise, Bumbutai, a female prostitute, has no source of information from the foreign court and cannot make decisions on her own. Even if the decision is made spontaneously, she must discuss it with the ministers of the foreign court and get approval before she is determined to do so.
Confidence.
In Beijing, the last internal strife finally broke out.
On the eighth day of the first lunar month, another bloody battle broke out in the palace. Bumbutai and Jierhalang were executed. Thousands of Eight Banners soldiers were killed and injured. Only then did Hauge completely kill all his real political opponents.
On the eleventh day of the first lunar month, Hauge, in the name of the little emperor Fulin, ordered the troops in the capital to retreat northward and outside the pass. The money and food from the treasury would be shipped out immediately. At the same time, the peripheral cannon fodder troops were used to withstand the Ming army and delay it. After all, the Ming army was still separated by two
As for the government, it is impossible to fly over.
After the valuables such as gold, silver, silk and satin from the treasury were transported out of the capital, the remaining heavy money and grain were transported slowly, and Hauge probably couldn't transport them all. So he planned to use the limited transport capacity wisely and transport more gold, silver and jewelry.
Silk and satin, less copper coins and food.
Now that the gold and silver jewelry from the treasury has been shipped, let’s start looking for private gold and silver jewelry.
On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, Hauge ordered the remaining Manchus to plunder and plunder the city. The city of Beijing would not be sealed for three days. At the same time, Tianjin, Baoding, Hejian and other places could also plunder and raid grass valleys at will.
Xuanfu, Yanqing, Huailai and other places that were still under the control of the Qing army were treated in the same way, especially the wealthy businessmen who wanted to rob Zhangjiakou——
After the Manchus entered the customs, the "Eight Great Locust Merchants" in Zhangjiakou and Datong were the traitor merchants who helped the Manchus smuggle prohibited materials and obtain steel, gunpowder and other items during the Ming Dynasty.
Their identities have been cleared and disclosed. For example, the famous Shanxi businessman Fan Yongdou family.
At that time, the Qing government also felt that it had secured its position, so there was no need to hide the identity of the traitors who were sponsoring them. It should give them plaques and names to honor their ancestors.
Unexpectedly, now that the Ming army has pushed back, the identities of these traitors have been exposed. If they stayed in the Ming Dynasty, they would definitely be liquidated by the Ming court and their property would be confiscated. The Qing court would not be able to use these exposed traitors to smuggle in the future.
Salt iron gunpowder.
Since these people have completely lost their use value and possibility, it would be better for the Qing army to rob their homes if they were left to the Ming army.
As for completely losing the hearts of the Han people and letting the Han people know that the Manchus will fatten and kill their own running dogs for meat, so that no one will dare to work for the Tatars in the future, this is no longer something Hauge needs to consider.
What he wants now is to maximize his profits in the last deal! He will never do business again!
In game theory terms, this is a one-time game, not a repeated game.
As a result, Fan Yongdou and other eight major Shanxi merchant families have suffered eight lifetimes of bad luck. They finally secretly became traitors and made millions in wealth. They had just cleared their identity and honored their ancestors for six years. However, they met their master who wanted to retreat to the outside world.
They directly arrested all the eight major Shanxi merchant families, ransacked all their property, and killed anyone who resisted.
The only humanity that Hauge retained was that he did not directly order the physical destruction of the eight major Shanxi merchant families. All he wanted was to steal gold, silver, jewelry, silk, tea, and not their lives.
The fate of these eight major families should be left to Wu Sangui and Jiang Yu's Shanxi Ming Army to hunt down and kill them when they regain Datong, Zhangjiakou and other places in the future.
…
The news that Hauge abandoned the city of Beijing and randomly burned, killed, looted and made a profit before leaving was, of course, quickly learned by the Ming army.
The news reached Baoding two days after the Lantern Festival.
After Zhu Shuren learned about it, he did not bother to attack Baoding and Tianjin first. Instead, he directly asked Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen to use most of the Ming army's cavalry to chase north to expel the Qing army as soon as possible and reduce losses.
Although the cavalry strength of Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen was not enough to compete with the entire remaining main force of the Manchus, Zhu Shuren knew very well that Hauge had begun to retreat in batches and would not leave all the soldiers behind to transport property.
Huang Degong and Zhu Wenzhen's pursuit could not hit or even bite Hauge's absolute main force.
Under the rapid advance of the Ming army regardless of logistics, three more days passed. On the 20th of the first lunar month, the Ming army's cavalry vanguard finally arrived at the gates of Beijing. On the 22nd, a complete encirclement of all gates in Beijing was finally completed.
The Qing army had thousands of Manchu cavalry and some second-line Manchu men. Because the Ming army advanced too fast and had no time to withdraw from Beijing, they were surrounded in the city. In fact, these people were also to blame for being too greedy. They were
After Hauge assigned the robbery task, he always wanted to grab more and rob for a few more days. He felt that before the Ming army broke through Baoding, they would not bypass Baoding and go north, so he did not calculate the time to retreat.
There will always be people who die from greed, that's normal.
They carried out the massacre and plunder of innocent Han people in Beijing, and they would naturally receive retribution at this moment. Although the Ming army only had cavalry and could not attack the city, the remaining Han people in the city who had been slaughtered for seven or eight days directly rose up to resist.
Seize the city gate to welcome the king, and lead the way to kill the looting Manchus in the city.
In the end, the Battle of Beijing broke out unexpectedly in a gesture of "no escape". The Ming army broke through the city the day after the encirclement, and successively killed tens of thousands of Manchu soldiers, strong men, civilians who participated in the looting, and
Several times the number of family members. It was barely avenge for the hundreds of thousands of Han people who were innocently murdered in Beijing.
Three days after the city was broken, on the twenty-sixth day of the first lunar month, the fighting in Baoding and Tianjin battlefields in the south had also ended. After Zhu Shuren learned of the situation, he led thousands of cavalry guards and Zhang Huangyan and others to rush to Beijing in person to prepare for the military parade.