Yongli Ming Dynasty

Chapter 119 Shock
In the lobby of the Guangzhou government office, Zhu Lang, wearing a bright yellow dragon robe covered with dirt and blood, sat at the top of the hall, looking dusty and ashen.

On the left side below sat Lu Daqi, who was still in shock, and Su Guansheng and other ministers from the central government. On the right side sat Jiao Lian, Bai Gui, Zhao Xing and other imperial guards wearing armor.
Chen Bangyan stood in the hall with his head down, his forehead covered with cold sweat.

At this time, an hour had passed since the convoy was attacked. After Jiao Lian led the front imperial guards to drive away the attacking Qing army, the convoy began to gather its men.

With the help of the Guangzhou government officials, it took more than half an hour to finally evacuate the entire convoy into the city.

Although everyone retreated into the city, the losses were heavy.
As for the civil officials, it was not so bad. During this trip, Zhu Lang and the concubines in the harem were in the middle of the team, while the civil officials and others who accompanied him were in the front of the team.

Therefore, the loss of the central government officials in this raid was not great. Lu Daqi, Su Guansheng, Wu Bing, Liu Yuansheng and other central government officials were only frightened.
However, the Imperial Guards suffered heavy losses. The Qing army directly attacked the rear formation. The more than 400 cavalrymen in the rear formation were completely unprepared and did not even wear armor. They were directly killed by the Qing army and slaughtered.
The first wave of arrows from the Qing army probably killed nearly a hundred imperial guards.
After Jiao Lian led his men to drive away the Qing army, he tried to gather the defeated troops, a total of 400 people, but in the end he only found more than 100 people.

The imperial guards who finally retreated into Guangzhou City were left with only 300 people. This was a heavy loss.
Zhu Lang looked at the civil officials who were almost in shock below, and his expression was even uglier. If he had a choice, he would rather the Qing army raided the civil officials in the front.
These civil officials were almost unscathed, but his imperial guards suffered heavy losses. He really didn't know where to go to seek justice.

In this situation, what is the use of having so many civil officials? Can they use swords? Can they defend the city? Besides eating rice, what else can these civil officials do?
Those Qing soldiers are really ignorant of the situation. If you want to kill people to gain credit, why don't you kill so many officials in front of the team? Why bother to attack Zhu Lang's imperial guards?
In addition to the loss of personnel, the team also suffered heavy losses in property.
Although Jiao Lian led his troops to arrive in time and drove away the Qing army, they did not dare to clean up the battlefield carefully. They could only clean up hastily, transport the main items in the convoy into the city, and then immediately closed the four gates.
Because of the haste of the operation, there was no time to clean up the large amount of silver spilled on the battlefield.
After a final count, they only brought back more than 800,000 taels of silver. The entire Wang Kun was left on the battlefield, which really made Zhu Lang bleed with heartache.
However, Zhu Lang did not dare to send anyone out of the city to look for them. When they were moving the convoy, the Qing army's armored cavalry had been patrolling the surrounding area. If Jiao Lian had not been leading the troops and guarding them, they would have attacked them directly.

In fact, Zhu Lang was just too nervous. The Qing army was just patrolling and spying to investigate the movement of the convoy. They would not attack or kill again.
The Qing army had no support from behind. After the surprise attack on the convoy failed, Li Chengdong even gave up the plan to surprise attack on Guangzhou City.

The West Gate was attacked, but the other gates could not have received the news so quickly. If Li Chengdong wanted to raid Guangzhou, he would have a chance to enter Guangzhou again.
But this is meaningless. After a well-organized army appeared in Guangzhou City, their invasion of Guangzhou City would only cause chaos in Guangzhou City. There is no other use for them.
Even if they entered Guangzhou City, they would most likely be completely wiped out by the army in the convoy.

Once the soldiers enter the city, they will scatter and plunder, and will no longer be controlled.

The Ming army could have waited in the city until the soldiers were exhausted from looting and killing, and then emerged to attack and annihilate them in one fell swoop.

This is equivalent to using the lives of the people of Guangzhou City to exchange for the lives of Li Chengdong's soldiers.
They could have killed and injured thousands of Guangzhou residents before that, but what would that have done?
The Ming Dynasty doesn't have much else, but it has the most people. Li Chengdong will never do such a loss-making business.

However, only Li Chengdong and others knew about these things, but Zhu Lang had no idea about Li Chengdong and others.
The Qing army attacked suddenly, and no one knew whether there would be more Qing troops coming later. So after moving most of the property, Zhu Lang directly ordered Jiao Lian to lead the army back to the city.

In this situation, he couldn't risk the remaining imperial guards just for the scattered silver.
Zhu Lang's dragon robe was no longer new, but was covered in blood and dust. However, Zhu Lang could not care about these things at this time. He looked gloomy and stared at Chen Bangyan in the hall. He spoke angrily.

"Chen Bangyan, I hand Guangzhou over to you, is this how you defend the city for me?"

As Zhu Lang finished speaking, Lu Daqi, Jiao Lian and other civil and military officials on the left and right all looked at Chen Bangyan standing in the middle.
Su Guansheng also had an unpleasant look on his face. Strictly speaking, Chen Bangyan was his man. Now that something had gone wrong, even he might be implicated.

Chen Bangyan's forehead was covered with cold sweat. This sudden attack by the Qing army not only frightened Zhu Lang and others, but also frightened him when he recalled it.

This time, the Qing army raided the convoy just four or five miles outside Guangzhou City. He even stood in front of the city gate and witnessed the convoy being attacked.
If the Qing army had not gone to raid your highness's convoy, they could have easily entered Guangzhou.

Given the current situation in Guangzhou, if those soldiers were allowed to charge into the city, the consequences would be disastrous.

Guangzhou now has no soldiers except some yamen runners, and there are not even a few yamen runners who can be used.

All the yamen runners in the city were borrowed to escort the Tang King, and now they are still in Zhaoqing and have not returned.
If your highness's convoy had arrived a few days later, once the Qing army had entered the city, I'm afraid Guangzhou would have been lost.

The leak in this incident was too big, no one could cover it up. Chen Bangyan was ready to be convicted on his way here.
Chen Bangyan was silent for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said respectfully, "The Qing army's surprise attack disturbed your majesty. I am guilty of an unforgivable crime. Please punish me, Your Highness..."

Chen Bangyan was halfway through his words when he was suddenly interrupted by a shout from above.
The Regent suddenly stood up, his face furious, and roared:
“You thought you could get away”

"You are the prefect of Guangzhou, but you let the Qing army reach the city and you were still unaware. What use do I have for you?"

"Chen Bangyan, I'm not asking you to plead guilty now. I want you to tell me where the Qing army outside the city came from."

Zhu Lang gnashed his teeth and said with anger on his face. He handed Guangzhou to Chen Bangyan because he valued his loyalty and reliability. Strictly speaking, this was the first civil official he personally appointed.
When Zhaoqing was the regent, it was he who overcame all objections, which allowed Chen Bangyan, a sixth-rank official, to be promoted two ranks higher and suddenly become the governor of a frontier.

But he didn't expect that Chen Bangyan would give him such a big surprise before he even arrived in Guangzhou. How could he not be angry?

Lu Daqi and the others listened to His Highness's roar, but no one spoke. They all stared at Chen Bangyan in the hall with gloomy expressions. They were almost killed by the Qing army today. How could they not be angry?

Chen Bangyan listened to the roar from above, his body trembled slightly, and his face became more bitter. His Highness asked him, but how did he know where that Qing army came from?

If he knew that the Qing army had infiltrated, why would he hold a welcoming ceremony in Xicheng? He would have sent someone to inform His Royal Highness the Regent long ago.
But at this moment, he had to say it even though he didn't want to. He lowered his head, bowed and apologized, and then spoke directly
"After entering the city, I urgently called for documents from the prefecture to check, but the replies from the prefectures and counties all said that the situation was peaceful and there was nothing unusual. I really don't know where this Qing army outside the city came from."

Chen Bangyan gritted his teeth and spoke. After he finished speaking, he took out a stack of documents from his sleeve and held them above his head with both hands.
Although the new dynasty was established in Zhaoqing, it had only been established for half a month, and the news might not have spread throughout Guangdong Province.
At this time, memorials from various prefectures and counties in Guangdong Province were still submitted to Guangzhou as usual. After all, Guangzhou was the capital of Guangdong Province, and the Guangdong Provincial Government was also located in Guangzhou.

Chen Bangyan bowed his head. Even if he didn't look up at this moment, he knew that His Highness was definitely looking at him.
You are a prefect of a place. When the enemy army suddenly attacked the city, you said you knew nothing about it. This is unacceptable no matter what.

Chen Bangyan held up the memorial, which was quickly taken away by Li Guoyong and handed to His Royal Highness the Regent.

Zhu Lang flipped through the five or six memorials from the prefectures and counties, and the more he flipped, the angrier his face became.

"There is no trouble in Chaozhou Prefecture, Heyuan Prefecture, Huizhou Prefecture, and on the tenth day of November, Zengcheng Prefecture also reported no trouble."

"Okay, everything is peaceful and smooth, then where did this Qing army come from? Did they fly from the sky?"

His Highness the Regent had a furious look on his face.

Wow

The memorial from above was suddenly thrown down to the hall and scattered on the ground. Everyone in the hall was even more silent, leaving only the roar of His Royal Highness the Regent echoing in the hall.

Recently, a classmate left a message saying that I was slow in this and that. I wrote and deleted some plots during the past few days, and now I don’t know how to write anymore…

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(End of this chapter)