Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 287 Everyone is moving

According to historical records, in the edict that Dorgon sent to Zhang Xianzhong to persuade him to surrender, not only did he forgive Zhang Xianzhong's past on the grounds that "Zhang Xianzhong's previous disturbances were all the Ming Dynasty's fault", but he also clearly stated that "if Zhang Xianzhong can judge the time and lead the people to surrender, he will be promoted and his descendants will enjoy wealth and honor forever."

Zhang Xianzhong was, after all, a great man of his time. This edict of surrender did not make him servile and begging for mercy like some other people. Instead, it became a tool for him to strengthen the determination of his entire army to resist the Qing Dynasty.

It is a pity that the Ming army in central Sichuan at that time was not only completely transformed into a warlord due to the conflict between the two governors, but also formed an interest group with local forces due to logistical supply reasons.

As a result, the position of the Ming army in central Sichuan subtly changed, and their main combat goal naturally changed from trying to maintain the rule of the Ming Dynasty to taking back their own land from the hands of the rioters.

Under such circumstances, the generals in central Sichuan, who should have regarded the best option of sitting on the sidelines and watching the fight between the two tigers, took advantage of the fact that Zhang Xianzhong was fully focused on dealing with the enemies from the north and launched an unprecedented counterattack against the Dashi Army, forcing Zhang Xianzhong to abandon Chengdu and "kill all his wives and concubines, and even his one young son, who was also killed."

There is no need to say much about what happened next. With the accidental death of Zhang Xianzhong, conflicts between several generals gradually broke out. Even though they eventually joined the Shun army in joining the Ming army in resisting the Qing, the situation in the world was already irreversible by then, and the Qing army firmly established its rule after dealing with them.

Having said that, we have to talk about the issue in more depth.

The defeat of the Dashi Army was certainly closely related to Zhang Xianzhong's accidental death, but from a broader perspective, even if he had not been hit by that arrow, this group of peasant armies would not have been able to stop the Tartars' iron hooves.

Zhang Xianzhong had probably anticipated this and regarded this battle as a life-and-death one. Otherwise, he could have followed his earlier routine and brought his wives with him to the army. Why would he have to follow Chongzhen's story?
It is said that all the results in the world are due to previous causes.

Zhang Xianzhong was ultimately far from grasping the overall situation. After entering Sichuan, he habitually regarded the landlord class as the main enemy, thus ignoring the Qing Dynasty which was already showing signs of swallowing up the world.

In the words of a great man, this kind of choice fails to distinguish between major contradictions and minor contradictions.

However, he was not completely useless. At least when he led his troops north, he finally understood who the main enemy was. Compared with Chongzhen, who had been emperor for more than ten years and was still confused until he was hanged on the old crooked tree, he could be considered a wise man.

Perhaps it was because Chongzhen received the education of a vassal king since childhood. Throughout his life, he first regarded Wei Zhongxian as a serious threat, and later regarded the Jurchens trapped outside the Great Wall as a formidable enemy.

When the people rose up in rebellion because they had no way to survive, he regarded these poor people, who should have been his loyal supporters, as the main enemies. He failed to realize that the local forces hidden behind the civil servants were the real culprits for the decline of the Ming Dynasty.

In this regard, Zhu Cilang did much better than both of them.

His views on local forces were actually the same as those of Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng. If we also take into account his awareness of the extent of their harm, his desire to eradicate local forces was even thousands of times stronger than that of the two peasant army leaders.

But what about in actual operation?
Zhu Cilang, who had the upper hand in violence, did not become reckless because of it. Without a proper reason, he would keep his minions tightly under control and would never show his disgust for the entire group in front of anyone.

Even though most of the top aristocratic families in Jiangnan had fallen to his various schemes in the past six months, both the court officials and the local families felt that His Majesty was only fighting back within the rules, and they did not hate their own emperor as much as they hated Zhang and Li.

In this way, the Ming Dynasty could basically unite around the imperial power and regard the Tatars in Jiangbei as the main enemy, but the secondary contradictions were also alleviated to a certain extent. Zhu Cilang's situation was naturally fundamentally different from that of Chongzhen, Zhang and Li.

This can actually be seen from Yue Qijie's preparations for the battle of Jiangxi.

When Zhu Cilang was returning north, he passed through Hangzhou. During that conversation, he revealed his desire to fight a war and retake the entire Jiangxi province in one fell swoop.

But by then, the silver seized from the Xincheng Marquis's mansion had been spent, and there was not much left from the contributions from the Hangzhou families.

Such financial conditions obviously could not support a war of such scale. Yue Qijie had great confidence in his own Majesty, so he began to actively prepare after receiving the order. If other ministers were in charge of this matter, they might have been passive and lazy because his Majesty ignored the actual situation.

Originally, Yue Qijie was just trying his best to get something for nothing. He never thought that his active preparations could turn money into money out of thin air.

But who would have thought that after he hinted to Tan Changyuan that the food needed this time might be much more than originally planned, the guy in charge of purchasing food from overseas turned around and transferred all the 20 ships of food that had just arrived in Hangzhou.

As the sea route had been cut off for a long time, the ships sent to Southeast Asia to purchase grain were all small ships of about 500 tons. Even if these twenty ships were put together, they would actually be less than one-tenth or one-twelfth of the number used in the entire war.

But this is an attitude that represents the support of local forces that hope to reopen the sea route for Zhu Cilang's court.

Encouraged by this support, Yue Qijie seemed particularly confident when begging for alms. Even though he did not make much progress in terms of food, he still managed to collect a lot of other supplies.

Therefore, when he received the news that the court had new income, he decisively called back Chang Guanlin who had gone to Quzhou.

"Guan Lin, the troops transferred from other departments have basically arrived in Hangzhou in the past few days. If we go to war directly, are you sure you can take Raozhou in one battle?"

Raozhou is located in the northeast of Jiangxi, connected to Zhejiang in the east, Fujian in the south, and Anhui in the north. Although it is not the only way to enter Jiangxi from Zhejiang, it can be considered a smooth road compared to the one to Jingdezhen.

According to the original plan, the purpose of this battle would be achieved by taking Raozhou and Fuzhou behind it. After that, it would only be necessary to maintain pressure on the Qing army in Jiangxi and maintain the connection between the east and the west. The Ming Dynasty could then rest and recuperate, and then try to retake Jiangxi after recovering its strength.

But all they do is talk and all they do is run their legs off.

Because of Zhu Cilang's idea, the battle in Jiangxi changed from being mainly land-based to water-based, so Raozhou, which was originally the main attack direction, took on a different nature.

"Minister, do you mean to start the battle in Raozhou more vigorously?"

Upon hearing Yue Qijie's words, Chang Guanlin, a veteran on the battlefield, immediately understood the deeper meaning.

In the new plan, the purpose of the Jiangxi battle changed from opening up the east-west connection to destroying as many Qing army forces as possible.

To be honest, it is very difficult to achieve this goal. Even though the Ming army is no longer a weakling, it will still feel tremendous pressure when facing more than 200,000 Qing troops in Jiangxi.

Fortunately, the Poyang Lake Plain is also densely covered with water networks like the south of the Yangtze River. As long as the Ming army navy can enter Jiangxi through the Yangtze River, with their support, it will not be difficult to win this battle.

The rest is easy.

Relying on the navy with absolute firepower advantage, it was easy for them to break through the obstacles set up by the Qing army on the Yangtze River and enter the Poyang Lake water system.

There was no disagreement among everyone about the pre-set battlefield. The Ming army would attack from east to west, and in this direction they would have to use Poyang Lake, the Yangtze River and other waters to block the Tartars' retreat.

But when it came to how to lure the Qing army into a trap, there was a subtle disagreement between the two.

According to Yue Qijie's idea, the Ming army should take Raozhou in one go, and then go straight to Fuzhou via Anren, so that the Qing army would have to deploy most of its troops there. However, in Chang Guanlin's view, if the attack on Fuzhou was used as bait to mobilize the Qing army, the supply line in the middle would be a bit long. Although this might not lead to any consequences, it was not advisable in terms of military strategy.

"I understand what you mean, but if we can't even win the first battle, I'm afraid the Tartars won't be able to send many troops to help us."

After hearing these words, even though Chang Guanlin already had an idea in his mind, he had to admit that Yue Qijie's concerns were not groundless.

After all, if you want to mobilize a large number of enemies, you must either attack them when they are needed or expose some flaws.

If they can't do these two things, then why do they want the Qing army to come to their aid in large numbers?

just
We can't reveal a huge flaw just because we want to mobilize the enemy troops.

Thinking of this, Chang Guanlin couldn't help but stare at the map.

On the surface, the Xinjiang River runs through the Raozhou-Fuzhou line. Even if the forward troops' retreat is cut off, as long as the navy can successfully rush into Poyang Lake, the Qing army's blockade here will be broken.

However, in order not to alert the enemy, the navy had to wait until all the Qing troops were mobilized before heading south to meet the enemy.

In this way, even if the navy's advance is smooth, the forward troops will be surrounded for at least more than ten days.

so.
"Minister, although our army won the battle against Duoduo, the soldiers have not had much training after all. If..."

After expressing his concerns in detail to Yue Qijie, Chang Guanlin concluded with this sentence.

To be honest, according to his original intention, these words still saved some face for his own soldiers.

After a reorganization and expansion of the army, the strength of the troops directly under the imperial court increased greatly, but this was at the cost of sacrificing quality.

What's more, the troops earlier had only experienced half of the real tough battle. The rest of the time, they relied on Your Majesty's strategies and the strategy of attacking the hearts and minds of the people to win the battle of Jiangnan.

Under such circumstances, he was not sure whether he could make his soldiers fight to the death like the thousands of guards of His Majesty.

After Chang Guanlin finished speaking, Yue Qijie couldn't help but fall silent.

He was also aware of this situation, but the troops in the court's hands were all like this. Except for Li Chengdong's troops which were still being reorganized and Hu Maozhen's troops whose commander was still in Ganzhou, the only one that could still maintain its original combat effectiveness was the Central Guard Army.

If we really want to ensure absolute safety, do we have to let Your Majesty personally lead the Royal Guards to fight this battle?
Thinking of this, Yue Qijie felt helpless.

Chang Guanlin's reasons are sufficient and conform to the laws of war, but there is a problem. No one is born a skilled warrior. If he is not tempered, he will be nothing more than a rookie on the battlefield throughout his life.

What's more, Chang Guanlin's troops had the least changes in this military expansion. Although most of his soldiers were recruited as reinforcements from the militia, they had at least experienced the crazy counterattack of the Tartars in the late stage of the Battle of Suzhou and Songjiang.

Compared with the troops of Fang Guoan and Hou Chengzu, who were also guards, such a resume made them veterans who had seen real battles.

Under such circumstances, it is natural for them to take on the main responsibility of this battle.

just
"Both Fang Guoan and Hou Chengzu's troops were expanded from less than 10,000 to 30,000. After all the calculations, only yours can handle all of them. If Guan Lin also has doubts, can His Majesty still transfer the left corps or the troops from Susong to fight this battle?"

This passage can be understood as making sense, but no one can deny that it contains a strong sense of coercion.

It was true that the two of them had dealt with each other a lot when Yingtian was besieged. After saying this, Yue Qijie finally adjusted his tone.

"You don't have to worry. This battle was ordered by His Majesty. There are always some elite soldiers among the troops transferred from various departments. When you take over Raozhou and approach Anren, our department will do its best to guard the food route."

Shangguan had already said this, and even though Chang Guanlin still had concerns in his heart, he had no choice but to agree.

After all, how can there be no risk in battle?

If everyone wants to be absolutely sure, won't they treat the enemy as dead?

What's more, Chang Guanlin's words did not necessarily mean that he was unwilling to take risks. It could be that his words also implied that he wanted Yue Qijie to pay attention to the danger.

"The last general takes command!"

In the end, the general strategy for the Jiangxi battle was determined after full discussion among the generals at the front.

Afterwards, Chang Guanlin did not stay long. After having his meal, he returned to Quzhou as soon as possible.

While Yue Qijie was making intensive preparations to launch the battle of Jiangxi, there was some movement in Huai'an, thousands of miles away.

"Has there been any reply from the Prince of England?"

While flipping through the mountain of meaningless memorials on the table, Hong Chengchou asked a question softly to the servant waiting beside him.

A while ago, he got some news about the small court in Jiangnan through an unprecedented channel, and then he prepared some side dishes for Zhu Cilang based on this situation.

However, as the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty, he still felt a little embarrassed in the Qing court. So when he told Ajige about his ideas, he also had to report to his master in Beijing first.

But who would have thought that although Beijing is much farther away from Huai'an, the Qing court's reply had arrived several days ago, and Nanchang is slightly closer to Huai'an, but there has been no movement from Ajige.

Under such circumstances, although Hong Chengchou was still handling those things that could not be called memorials as usual, he couldn't help feeling a little anxious in his heart.

"Report~~~~~~! Report to the Prime Minister, urgent delivery from Nanchang, 800 miles away!"

(End of this chapter)