Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 355: The Battle of Chongming (Part )

Faced with the two suggestions given by Zhan Ding, Fang Guozhen and his brothers simply ignored the first one.

He sent out his own troops to conquer Qingyuan Road, and then offered the three roads including Taizhou and Wenzhou to Lu Jin? Are you kidding?!

So they chose the second option, to fight the Shengwu Army Navy first. If Lu Jin's navy was not good enough and couldn't even beat him, then why should he give up his territory?
You can say that Fang Guozhen didn't cry until he saw the coffin, and he was still holding on to a lucky mentality, but who isn't like this? This is almost the common trait of most human beings. Once they have got something, they will never be willing to lose it easily without paying a price.

Fang Guozhen's idea was actually very simple. I admit that you are very powerful, so I can nominally submit to you and pay tribute to you, but I will never hand over my territory. I will express my willingness to submit on the surface, but in fact I will continue to rule my own territory.

This is what he did in the original history. After he started the uprising, he defeated the Yuan court's suppression many times, and then took the initiative to seek amnesty. After the amnesty, he refused to hand over his territory and ships, but only promised to stop robbing the government's grain transport ships and help the government transport grain.

Later, after Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Zhang Shicheng and his territory bordered Fang Guozhen, Fang Guozhen did the same thing again. He immediately sent envoys to express his willingness to offer land and submit to Zhu Yuanzhang, and he also sent treasures, gold and silver, and even sent his second son to Zhu as a hostage. He also expressed his willingness to pay tribute of gold and silver every year in the future.

But you want to send officials to my territory to collect taxes? No! You want me to hand over my ships? No!
How did Zhu Yuanzhang respond? Fang Guozhen gave Zhu a saddle inlaid with gold, silver and gemstones. Zhu Yuanzhang said that this thing was useless and he asked someone to return it.
Fang Guozhen also sent his son as a hostage, but Lao Zhu also sent him back. He said, "Don't think I don't know what you are up to. You are sending a hostage, but you actually want your son to see my true strength, right? This is not a hostage, this is clearly a spy!"

But he did not formally turn against Fang Guozhen. When Fang Guozhen's second brother died in the war, Zhu Yuanzhang sent someone to express his condolences in person. When Zhu Yuanzhang was short of war horses, he asked Fang Guozhen to purchase them for him from Dadu by sea.

As long as you don't steal my territory and ship, I'll even call you dad!
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had no time to deal with him, so he acquiesced in the fact that he was a separatist and hesitant. Fang Guozhen served as an official of both the Song Dynasty (Han Song) and the Yuan Dynasty.

Later, Fang Guozhen surrendered completely and went to Nanjing. It was Zhu Yuanzhang who sent Hu Hai and Tang He to capture Taizhou and Wenzhou. Fang Guozhen saw that he could not win, so he immediately fled to the sea by boat, and then he surrendered at the suggestion of Zhan Ding.

He won't cry until he sees the coffin! He won't give up his territory easily unless you really hurt him!

After discussing with several brothers and nephews, everyone decided to have a fight first. Just like Zhan Ding said, at least they had to show their strength, so Fang Guozhen immediately called Dingding's envoy to ask.

"Do you know where the Luzhou Red Scarf navy is now?"

The messenger replied hurriedly, "Last month, after the bandit army captured Jiangbei, they occupied Tongzhou. Some people said that the bandit army's navy was in Tongzhou. Later, news came from Kunshan that the bandit army's navy was outside Kunshan's Liujiagang. The bandit army in Jiangbei might want to cross the river at Liujiagang.

"A few days ago, news came that the Jiangbei bandits did not cross the river at Liujiagang, but crossed the river north of Changshu. The bandits have a Jiangbei detachment that went east from Changshu. They may have already reached Shanghai County by now, and the navy may also be nearby."

Fang Guozhen had burned Liujiagang before, so he was quite familiar with the situation in that area. After learning the approximate range, he immediately determined the location of the Shengwu Army Navy. There was a high probability that it was in Liujiagang, because only Liujiagang and Tongzhou (Nantong) in Jiangbei had docks large enough to accommodate so many ships.

Now the rebel troops from Jiangbei have reached Jiangnan. Theoretically, it is impossible for the navy to return to Tongzhou at this time.

After confirming the location, he asked, "Do you know how many ships the enemy navy has?"

"That, I don't know."

Fang Guozhen frowned, "Then do you know what tactics the enemy navy usually uses?"

"I don't know. The government has never fought a naval battle with the Luzhou bandits."

In fact, this person knew that the Shengwu Army Navy used a large number of muskets. He didn't know about other warships, but at least he had heard that Lu Jin's warships had fired when crossing the river. However, he didn't dare to tell Fang Guozhen, for fear that Fang Guozhen would find an excuse after hearing it and would be too scared to go.

"How come you don't know anything?" Fang Guozhen cursed, "How come the enemy's navy came here? You must know, right?"

"I know this. The Luzhou bandits originally came from the Chaohu pirates. They came out of Chaohu Lake and later defeated Kang Maocai, the envoy of Huaixi, and seized the imperial court's river defense force from him. They had seven three-story ships, and the rest were cargo ships on the river."

Fang Guozhen was relieved when he heard this. "The tower ship is as stupid as an ox, and it is not easy to turn around in the water. The other river ships will be vulnerable to my sea ships. So I will go there and I will definitely defeat the enemy navy in one fell swoop."

The messenger's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he quickly asked, "Can Fang Wanhu take me with him?"

Fang Guozhen stared at him and smiled, "Why, the envoy still doesn't trust me?"

The messenger quickly explained, "That's not what I meant. It's just to make it easier for me to contact Lord Pingzhang when the time comes."

Fang Guozhen knew very well that Dingding was sending someone to monitor him, fearing that he would be afraid to go. However, it was no problem to bring the messenger with him. Even if there was any accident, the worst that could happen was that the messenger would be killed. Anyway, any accidents were possible at sea. He could just say that he was killed by the enemy navy, and Dingding would have no way to do anything to him.

So he nodded and agreed, "Okay, then I'll take you with me, and let you know how powerful my navy is."

The envoy flattered him, "Fang Wanhu is invincible in naval battles. Even the former Marshal of East Zhejiang could not defeat you. Everyone knows that with Fang Wanhu on the field, the enemy navy will be completely wiped out in one battle."

"Hahahaha, you still know how to talk."

"Fang Wanhu, when do we set out?"

"We will gather the ships and soldiers today and set out early tomorrow morning."

Although the messenger was anxious, he knew there was no way to go faster, so he could only agree with a smile.

Early the next morning, Fang Guozhen assembled the fleet and set off. However, because he had a large number of ships helping Dingding transport grain, he could not gather too many ships in a short period of time. There were only 30 four-masted ships over 150 meters in length and more than smaller three-masted and two-masted ships. The fleet of nearly ships in total marched towards Kunshan Liujiagang.

Although this is not the full strength of Fang Guozhen, it is already twice the number of warships of Bai Guangtai's navy. In terms of the number of ships, the Shengwu Army Navy is indeed incomparable.
At the same time as Fang Guozhen's fleet set off, the East China Front Army was still steadily advancing the front line. On the northern front, Yu Tonghai's 40th Army captured Jiading on the 27th and arrived at the outskirts of Shanghai yesterday evening on the 29th. They were building artillery batteries and preparing to launch a general attack on Shanghai tomorrow.

The main force of the 37th Army led by Yang Jing, after conquering Wujiang on the 27th, is now marching towards Jiaxing. Wujiang to Jiaxing is only a hundred miles away, and the road is all flat, and it is connected by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which facilitates the logistics of the army. By the 29th, although the main force of the infantry had not yet arrived, Zhang Long's cavalry regiment had surrounded Jiaxing City in the evening of the 28th. In the evening of that day, Liu Ji saw the white-armored cavalry of the Shengwu Army outside the city on the top of Jiaxing City. He thought that the vanguard of the enemy army had arrived, and it was estimated that the main force was behind. He couldn't help but worry, and while patting the parapet on the top of the city, he kept muttering something like "too late, too late".

Right Prime Minister Daran Temur also heard the news and rushed to the top of the city. He happened to hear Liu Ji muttering and immediately asked, "What do you mean it's too late?"

Liu Ji looked back at him and said, "I said that Fang Guozhen's navy went too late. If he had sent his navy a few days earlier, he might have been able to defeat the enemy's navy and force them to retreat. But now the enemy's vanguard cavalry has arrived at the city of Jiaxing.

"Even if Fang Guozhen can defeat the enemy navy in the next few days, Jiaxing will probably have been captured by the enemy by then. On the 27th, we heard that Huzhou was captured by the enemy. Once Jiaxing falls, there will be no big city left in the entire eastern Zhejiang. Hangzhou behind it will have been burned to ashes. The situation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be irreversible."

Dalan Temur remained silent when he heard this. Yesterday at noon, a fast horse came from Huzhou to report that Huzhou had been captured by the main force of the Shengwu Army's southern route. In addition, Yang Jing's cavalry regiment from the north appeared outside the city in the evening, and the entire Jiaxing city suddenly fell into panic.

The total number of soldiers defending Jiaxing now is less than 20,000, and they were recruited in the past half month. Most people have an idea of ​​whether they can hold the city. Just by looking at the speed at which the previous cities fell, we can know how strong the enemy army's siege capability is.

Now neither Dalan Temur nor Liu Ji had any good ideas, but he still told Liu Ji and comforted himself at the same time, "We have to defend it no matter what, we can defend it for as many days as possible. Since the enemy army's eastward expedition, the soldiers have been fighting for half a month, and the division is old and the soldiers are tired. Maybe they are not fighting as fast as before. As long as we hold on for a few more days, once Fang Guozhen wins, there will be a turning point, and Pingzhang will also bring troops from Shaoxing Road to help."

"I hope so." Liu Ji also knew that it was just words of comfort, so he didn't say anything else.

On the side of the Second Army led by Zhu Shou, the main force of the 41st Army and the 24st Guard Division, which he personally led, captured Changxing on the 26th and arrived at the city of Huzhou on the th.

Huzhou was also an important fulcrum city in eastern Zhejiang. It originally had 5,000 garrisons. Later, Councillor Fan Zhijing and Zuoyou Silangzhong Zhenbao brought another 10,000 new soldiers to help. However, the total number was only 15,000, and most of them were new soldiers.

On the other hand, although the Shengwu Army is also a new army that has just been expanded for less than a month, the artillery regiment and the vanguard regiment responsible for the main attack are elite old troops with rich experience in siege. The proportion of veterans in other newly expanded troops is also very high, basically reaching a ratio of one to three, with one veteran leading three recruits. With the guidance of these veterans with rich practical experience, the recruits also grow very fast. After experiencing the previous few sieges, they can already be regarded as elite soldiers.

Zhu Shou arrived in Huzhou on the 26th and immediately contacted the local intelligence station and found a guide who was familiar with the situation in the city. He distributed maps and street fighting tasks. Yang Huan's artillery regiment took the captured soldiers of the supplementary regiment to build artillery positions. Zhu Yuanzhang's st Division of the Imperial Guards' vanguard regiment was ready to capture the city first. Everything was being prepared in an orderly manner.

Then on the 27th, a general attack was launched. Under the cover of heavy artillery outside the city, the vanguard regiment led by Zhu Yuanzhang was the first to climb to the top of the city wall. Then they opened the city gate from inside and let the artillery team and the Imperial Guards musketeers into the city.

The councillor Fan Zhijing and the doctor Zhenbao, who were sent to garrison Huzhou, were also shot to pieces in the street by the musketeers of the 1st Division of the Imperial Guards in the subsequent street fighting.

At noon on the 27th, Huzhou City was broken, and Yang Jing's main force also marched from Wujiang to Jiaxing at this time. The two armies had actually surrounded Taihu Lake, and they could barely join forces. At least now they could communicate directly.

So that day Zhu Shou sent scouts to Jiaxing to look for Yang Jing's main force, and Yang Jing also sent scouts to Huzhou to look for Zhu Shou. The scouts on both sides eventually met between Huzhou and Jiaxing, and each reported the situation to the other side.

After receiving the news, Yang Jing frowned while looking at the map, and immediately sent a messenger to inform Zhu Shou to rest in Huzhou for another day, reorganize the prisoners he had just captured, and wait for Hua Yunlong and Xu Da's 42nd Army. After the 42nd Army captured Anji, it would not be too late for them to advance to Deqing.

Zhu Shou's current advance speed is a bit too fast. The entire Southern Army is now one step ahead of the Northern Army. If they continue to fight like this, Zhu Shou will most likely arrive in Hangzhou before Yang Jing.

It was not that Yang Jing was worried that Zhu Shou would steal the credit, but that if they ran too fast, several armies would easily become disconnected. If Ding Ding came from Shaoxing with the main force to block them, Zhu Shou's 41st Army would face the main force of the Yuan army alone, and it would be easy for them to resort to the tactic of adding fuel to the fire, which was too dangerous.

The best case scenario is to advance steadily, with several armies advancing simultaneously, and finally meeting at the city of Hangzhou. After defeating the main force of the Yuan army, they will split into several groups to attack the remaining cities.

After receiving the news, Zhu Shou decisively stayed in Huzhou for another day. The current situation was not only that there was some disconnection between the two army groups, but even Hua Yunlong and Xu Da's 42nd Army was also somewhat disconnected from him.

The entire Eastern Expedition army consisted of two army groups, attacking in the north and south. The north and south each had a main force and a detachment, in other words, four armies advanced in parallel.

Among the four armies, Hua Yunlong's army had the hardest fight. It was not because he had many cities and the defenders were difficult to attack, but mainly because the road was difficult to travel and it was all mountainous.
Zhu Shou’s main force is about to go to Deqing, and Hua Yunlong has just arrived in Anji.

Their 42nd Army captured Guangde on the 24th, and then turned to march southeast to Anji. The straight-line distance from Guangde to Anji is only 42 miles, and it would take at most two days to reach the destination if the troops marched faster. However, there were several mountains on this straight line, which were the remnants of Tianmu Mountain. As a result, the 120nd Army had to take a detour from the north and pass along the plain at the foot of Tianmu Mountain. This increased the distance to 42 miles. The main force of the 27nd Army took three full days to arrive in Anji in the evening of the th.

They then launched an attack on Anji on the 28th. This small mountain county had few soldiers and was easily conquered by Hua Yunlong and Xu Da. As I said, attacking a city is easy, but their march along the way was too difficult.

After taking Anji, the 42nd Army's next target was Wukang. This section of the road was even more difficult to travel, as there were mountains in all directions and there was no way around. The only way to get there was to cross the mountains and take the mountain road.

Anji and Wukang are closer, with a straight-line distance of only sixty miles, but it would take at least three days to cross the mountains, and they had to be careful of enemy ambushes in the mountains. A large force had to be sent out to search the mountains, which would slow down the march even more. By the time they arrived in Wukang, it would probably be the first day of the twelfth lunar month.

Zhu Shou also knew about this situation, so he could only wait for one more day in Huzhou and try to arrive at Deqing and Wukang city at the same time as Hua Yunlong.

On the last day of the month, at noon on the 30th, Yu Tonghai and Zhang Desheng's 40th Army had just rushed into Shanghai and were clearing out the remaining enemies in the city; the main force of Yang Jing's 37th Army also arrived at the foot of Jiaxing City and had already seen Liu Ji standing on the city wall.

At the same time, the navy led by Fang Guozhen also came to the river north of Jiading and arrived at the location of Baoshan, Shanghai in later generations. In front of the huge fleet, there were more than a dozen small boats acting as sentinels to explore the way ahead. Not long after passing Jiading, they saw several three-masted sailing ships cruising on the river ahead. When those ships saw Fang Guozhen's fleet, they immediately lit the bamboo tube cannons on the ship.

With a bang, a bullet was fired into the sky, and with a bang, it exploded again, and it turned out to be a firecracker.

After hearing the cannon fire, the ships on the nearby river also fired signal cannons one after another. Soon, signal cannons sounded one after another on the river near the mouth of the Yangtze River. At the same time, the cruising patrol boats were also retreating upstream. The news soon reached Liujiagang. When Bai Guangtai heard the news, he immediately became excited and quickly issued an order for all the warships of the 1st Regiment of the Navy to leave the port to fight!
Fang Guozhen also frowned when he heard the cannon fire. The fourth brother Fang Guoying immediately said, "Third brother, it's not good. The enemy navy is prepared."

Fang Guozhen frowned and nodded, "I know, let's see the situation later. If the enemy army has more ships, we will take advantage of the downstream and turn back to the sea. They are all river ships, and they will be inferior to us at sea. We will then turn around and fight back, just like we did before when we fought the government troops.

"If the enemy navy has few ships, we will just push over."

"Yeah!" The fourth brother Fang Guoying and the fifth brother Fang Guomin both nodded.

(End of this chapter)