More than seventy miles northeast of Jingzhou, there is a town named Chenghuang. A few days ago, many Qing soldiers came to this town, speaking with strong Sichuan accents.
It's just that these officers and soldiers who came from Sichuan didn't feel like officers and soldiers to the local people, because they were too polite.
Aunt Wang is so scared that she dare not go out these days. She is already fifty years old, and she has never seen officers and soldiers carrying water and cutting firewood for the people.
It's really like seeing a ghost.
I heard from people in the town that these officers and soldiers were going to Jingzhou to fight some bandits. However, after seven or eight days, more and more officers and soldiers came, but they didn't even move a step.
Every day, the common people could see this group of officers and soldiers lining up at the entrance of the town, performing drills, and shouting a few slogans: "Swear to defeat the traitors and protect the Qing Dynasty forever."
At the same time, Shu Jing'an, the right deputy general of Dingxi who was leading his troops to attack Yichang City, continued to receive documents from the Sichuan Green Camp.
Wang Fu, the deputy general of Chengdu Town, said that they were constantly attacked by small groups of bandits during their march, causing their march to be slow, and asked for reinforcements to be sent quickly.
Ma Dayuan, deputy general of Chongqing Town, said that heavy rains in recent days have caused flash floods and blocked the road to Jingzhou.
It's a pity that General Shu will be scorched to death by the sun in Yichang.
The forward officer who accompanied the army, Clan Qingyao, said that the weather might be different ten miles away. The sun was shining brightly here, but it was really raining heavily at Lieutenant General Ma's place.
Zu Yingyuan, the deputy general of Jinchuan Town, reported that the march was very fast and there was no heavy rain. However, he got lost on the way and almost ended up in Jingmen Prefecture in the wrong direction.
In short, none of the three towns sent by Sichuan Green Camp arrived in Jingzhou as required, which made Shu Jing'an have to wonder whether Sichuan Green Camp was timid and fearful of fighting.
Qingyao suggested that he should take someone to see the situation. If these Sichuan Green Camp people really found an excuse to refuse to go to Jingzhou, they should report it to General Fengsheng's Military Law Office.
As a result, when Qingyao came back, he said that Ma Dayuan's troops had been blocked by mudslides; Wang Fu's troops had burned their food and grass due to a sneak attack by bandits, and the whole army was hungry, waiting for the general to send them food; Zu Yingyuan had found a guide and was rushing to Jingzhou.
I will definitely be able to reach Jingzhou in five days at the latest.
It's basically the same as what was reported in the three towns.
Can Shu Jing'an believe the clan's words?
Helpless, he ordered the Chongqing Green Camp to take a quick detour, and at the same time asked someone to send 300 shi of military rations to the Chengdu Green Camp.
Although it would take five days at the fastest to reach Jinchuan Town from Jinchuan Town, Jingzhou had six to seven thousand Eight Banners defenders, land and sea troops, and troops from Huguang, so it was impossible for the rebels to capture it in the short term.
The top priority now is to quickly capture Yichang, cut off the Fan bandits' northward retreat, and at the same time move down the river, attack the Fan bandits from the east and west, and try to catch all the Fan bandits emerging from the Jinchuan River.
Sichuan Yushi Ding Yizhen impeached Shu Jing'an to the court for colluding with the Fan thieves. It was called chasing but actually following him, and he deliberately allowed the Fan thieves to escape. In fact, he really wronged Shu Jing'an.
He really couldn't defeat the Battle of Cloud Gate.
After that, the advance was slow, indeed because they were afraid of being ambushed by bandits again.
As the saying goes, one learns from one's mistakes, and if he is ambushed by thieves again, if the emperor doesn't scold him for being incompetent, he himself will be embarrassed to live in the world anymore.
As long as the Eight Banners of Jingzhou can hold on and soldiers and horses from all directions gather from all directions, are you afraid that the bandits will not be completely wiped out under the walls of Jingzhou City?
After all, those thieves now claim to have an army of tens of thousands, but the actual number of soldiers they can fight are still their thousands of veterans in Xiaojinchuan.
In the past, due to terrain reasons in Jinchuan, the officers and soldiers had nothing to do with them. They took the initiative to abandon the geographical advantage and ran out. Even though the officers and soldiers were still inferior to them in combat power, they could not withstand the number of officers and soldiers several times greater than theirs.
It would be troublesome if he kept wandering around. If he took the initiative to attack the important town of Jingzhou, wouldn't he be restraining his own hands?
What made Shu Jing'an angry was that he couldn't capture the small city of Yichang even after attacking it for several days.
According to the people who escaped, there were not many rebels in the city, but no matter how hard Shu Jing'an urged or how heavily he rewarded the city, the troops from Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and the five provinces of Yunnan who had just arrived from Jinchuan could not capture the city.
.
Chang Qing, the admiral of Yunnan, was still a member of Agui's party. Although the court did not investigate whether he was involved in Agui's rebellion, he must have been frightened in his heart. He knew that he was being punished, so he led his 4,000 Yunnan soldiers to arrive.
After Yichang, he immediately launched an attack on the city and personally supervised the battle.
It's a pity that no matter how hard Ren Changqing worked, he still couldn't take Yichang City in one go.
If we say that the green battalions of the five provinces were afraid of fighting and refused to contribute, and were pretending during the siege, then Shu Jing'an's old unit, the Eight Banners garrison in Chengdu, also participated in the siege. As a result, like the green battalion, they were unable to climb the city. Could it be said that the Eight Banners
The soldiers also work hard but don’t work hard?
In fact, Shu Jingan's intelligence was wrong. The bandits in Yichang City were not the two or three thousand people told by the people, but a division of nearly seven thousand people. The leader was Gu Mingyuan, the nephew of Gu Shidao, the commander of the Xinghan Army.
There are still 1,200 veteran soldiers in this division.
The entire division is equipped with more than 3,100 muskets, more than 30 large and small cannons and mountain-splitting cannons, and countless other ordnance. It can be said that it is armed to the teeth.
They were all captured from Chengdu Town, Green Camp, Sichuan by the Qing Army during the Battle of Huangling Temple.
The anxious Shu Jing'an knew that if he continued like this, his political life as the right deputy general of Dingxi would probably come to an end, and he would have to award heavy rewards. The first person to climb the city would be rewarded with a thousand taels of silver and be promoted to a third rank. What's more, after the city was broken,
The army can be deployed for three days.
.........
Chenghuang Town.
The three giants of Sichuan Green Camp are playing mahjong, also known as Ye Zixi.
"Everywhere we go according to your request, we set up camp and do whatever we can for the people. We don't rob them or eat their things for free. Why are the people still so afraid of us?"
Ma Dayuan, the deputy general of Chongqing who was forced to stop his advance because of a mudslide, did not understand this at the card table.
"Is there any common people in the world who are not afraid of soldiers? Sir, everything is good, but some things are too whimsical. If it is really good for the people, will the people support us in rebelling against the imperial court?"
The speaker was Li An'an, an officer in the Sichuan Admiral's Office, currently the Green Camp Commander in Chengdu Town, and the nephew of Sichuan Governor Li Shijie. He looked at the cards on the table and decisively played a three-cake.
Before the card left his hand, Lieutenant General Zu on the opposite side shouted: "Touch!"
"What kind of rebellion is there? We have never thought about rebellion... Your whole family, Li An'an, is in Chengdu. It doesn't hurt to sit and talk, but our whole family is in Beijing. Rebellion? Do you want our whole family to rebel?
All dead?"
As Zu Yingyuan spoke, he typed out Zhang Siwan.
"bump!"
Li An'an smiled and held the 40,000 yuan in front of him, drew two cards from his own cards and placed them together, and then played five more cards.
Zu Yingyuan didn't want to touch each other again, and Ma Dayuan, who was sitting next to Li An'an, was so angry that he cursed: "It's not over yet, I haven't touched a fucking card!"
"Why are you so anxious? What's wrong, you won't let me touch you when playing cards?"
Zu Yingyuan rolled his eyes at Ma Dayuan and said, "Sir, your reputation is your character. If your reputation is not good, your character is not good."
Ma Dayuan chuckled: "That's nonsense. When did your Excellency say this?"
"If you don't believe me, ask Commissioner Wang."
Zu Yingyuanzui glanced at Wang Fu, who was both the deputy general of Chengdu Town and a member of the executive committee of the Joint Development Association.
"Well, Mr. Jia told Zu Yingyuan last night when he had a dream. I was also in the dream at the time, so I can testify."
Wang Fu's nose twitched, and he touched a card in his hand. Without looking at the card, he just touched it with his fingers back and forth. He straightened it with a "bah" sound: "What a fool. Touch it yourself. If it's all clear, give me money!"
The three of them looked at it together, and Wang Fu really touched it. They couldn't help but say it was bad luck, and they counted the banknotes reluctantly.
While they were counting, Wu Laoer, the lieutenant general in charge of logistics in Jinchuan Town and a good chess friend of Lord Jia Jia, ran in and said with a smile: "Sir, please stop fighting, Jingzhou has been liberated! Ah, no, Jingzhou has been liberated.
It fell, and the whole city was massacred by the Xinghan Army!"