Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 243: Prince Ning's Defeat
Wang Shouren also frowned. He was not worried about Nankang City being caught in a pincer attack. What he was really worried about was that more officials and gentry who were dissatisfied with the government would ignore the fundamental interests of the country and the wishes of the people and follow Prince Ning in rebellion. That would only cause greater unrest in the world, which would not be good for either the country or the people.

"This Prince Ning claimed that he would take it as his responsibility to save the world. If he succeeded, he would rule the world together with the literati and officials. He strictly ordered the world to respect the literati and officials and not to punish them. This method of winning the hearts of the literati and officials did make many short-sighted literati believe that Prince Ning would be the good emperor they thought.
But they don't know that although the dynasty is only Your Majesty's territory, the country belongs to the people of the world. The people of the world want peace, not chaos. What they are doing is against the will of the world, and they will only be punished by the world, and it may even lead to an even worse relationship between Your Majesty and the gentry in the future!

The already relaxed relationship between the emperor and his subjects has been destroyed by this group of selfish and short-sighted people. Now we can only hope that the emperor is wise and will not blame all of us scholars for being fools!"

Wang Shouren sighed indignantly in his heart for a while, and then said:

"Don't worry about Nankang being attacked from all sides. I have been preparing for this day for several years. Nankang City is fully equipped with weapons and food. I know Jiujiang's military strength better than Xu Zan, the prefect of Jiujiang. He can only command the troops of several counties in Jiujiang, which add up to less than 10,000! Moreover, they are not well trained. My governor's standard battalion is nominally only 3,000, but in fact it is 20,000. It is not enough to be afraid of him and Prince Ning joining forces to attack Nankang. I even think he doesn't have the courage!"

"The most important thing to consider now is to put down the Ning Wang rebellion as soon as possible. The sooner we put down the Ning Wang rebellion, the better. This will allow those people in the world who have ulterior motives (Wang Yangming refers to both other princes and some civil officials and gentry here) to understand that following the thief will only lead to ruin!"

Wang Shouren then asked Zhang Lun, "Did the Jinyiwei send someone to notify Wu Wending?"

"I have already notified them, and there are also Jinyiwei in Nanchang City. I am afraid they have already received the order and went to inform them first," Zhang Lun replied.

"That's good. Wu Wendi has my order and His Majesty's decree. He can directly command our 80,000 troops to gather in Nanchang Prefecture. It won't be a problem for him to join forces with us to quell Ning Wang's rebellion. The most important thing now is to let Ning Wang stay in Nanchang for a few more days before Wu Wendi's 80,000 troops arrive. We must think of a way. Now that Jiujiang Prefect Xu Zan has surrendered to the enemy, Ning Wang will definitely know about it. I'm afraid Ning Wang will be so excited that he can't wait to lead his troops north."

Wang Shouren continued to think after hearing this: "Now we can only use the counter-espionage strategy. Let the Jinyiwei hiding in Nanchang find a way to implement the counter-espionage strategy and let Prince Ning get the secret letter from the court about Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng. It would be best to let Prince Ning believe that Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng are spies sent by the court to deliberately instigate him to rebel! And believe that the court will let Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng persuade Prince Ning to lead his troops to the north, and then Xu Zan, who pretends to surrender, will join forces with me to ambush Prince Ning. With a mixture of true and false, he will not dare to leave Nanchang City and head north easily."

"Leader!"

After Zhang Lun said this, he turned and left.

Wang Shouren continued to order the officials and citizens of Nankang City to strengthen the defense of the city walls.

……

Jiujiang prefect Xu Zan had indeed sent people to cross Poyang Lake by boat and arrive at Nanchang City via Jinxian. He informed King Ning of his intention to surrender to him and asked him to lead his troops north. He would assist King Ning in taking advantage of the opportunity to capture Anqing.

Xu Zan had long resented the court's disrespect for scholars and officials and its use of public opinion to have corrupt officials skinned and stuffed with straw. In addition, he was also extremely corrupt and had some paranoia, always feeling that he would be found out. So, when he heard about Prince Ning's rebellion, he decided to join him without a second thought. Moreover, Prince Ning's manifesto also mentioned respecting the gentry, which made him feel that he could let go and conquer the world together with Prince Ning.

However, he did not give Prince Ning the best strategy of taking the capital as Wang Shouren had expected. Instead, he suggested that Prince Ning go north to take Anqing and then Nanjing on the grounds that the capital was difficult to attack.

After all, he is a southerner, and his attention is more easily focused on Jiangnan.

In addition, Xu Zan also specifically ordered his people to tell King Ning: "I, Xu Zan, have heard from afar that King Ning is leading a righteous army and intends to follow the will of heaven and remove the tyrant. Today, I have specially led the troops from the five counties of Jiujiang to assist King Ning, and have prepared 30,000 stones of grain to reward the king's army. I also hope that King Ning will ascend the throne as soon as possible, correct the bloodline of the Ming Dynasty, and become the best in the world! Alas!"

Upon hearing this, Prince Ning was overjoyed and said, "I have long heard that Zhengde regarded the gentry as straw dogs, and would exterminate ten clans at will, and even threatened them with public opinion, so that loyal and good people were wronged, and treacherous people filled the court. This time, I have specially followed the Queen Mother's order to kill Zhengde who pretended to be the descendant of Emperor Xiaozong! I emphasize again that if I succeed in saving the world in the future, I will rule the world with the gentry, appoint a prime minister, and will not kill the gentry, punish the gentry, or humiliate the gentry!"

After Prince Ning's words were reported back to Jiujiang, the civil servants and gentry in Jiujiang City were all overjoyed. If Prince Ning were in Jiujiang now, they would have been eager to crown Prince Ning with the yellow robe.

Prince Ning was so delighted that he quickly appointed Xu Zan as the Minister of Personnel.

But coincidentally, at this time Prince Ning accidentally received two secret letters. The secret letters were reported by the servants of Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng, who were naturally the undercover agents planted by himself. The content of the secret letters was that Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng were undercover agents of the court, and the court told Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng to immediately find an opportunity to persuade Prince Ning to lead his troops north immediately, because Xu Zan and Wang Shouren had ambushed Prince Ning and were waiting for him to fall into the trap.

King Ning did not really believe the contents of the secret letter. He still summoned Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng and asked them what they thought of Xu Zan's suggestions.

Li Shishi was not really stupid. When he heard that Jiujiang prefect Xu Zan had surrendered, he immediately advised: "Your Highness, you should immediately capture Nankang and march north!"

"I think so too. We cannot wait until the imperial army gathers by the river before taking any action. At that time, we will have no choice but to defend Nanchang!" Liu Yangzheng replied.

If it weren't for the two secret letters, King Ning would have believed them. But now King Ning found that the advice of Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng was exactly the same as what was said in the secret letters, so he naturally became suspicious and said:
"I think it's not the right time yet. The food and fodder should be prepared before the troops move. We should continue to defend Nanchang and build warships! We should be ready to march north at any time."

The delay lasted almost a month. Wu Wending's 80,000 troops had almost passed Linjiang Prefecture and were heading straight for Fengcheng, less than 200 miles away from his Nanchang City.

At this time, Prince Ning seemed to suddenly come to his senses and realized that he might have been fooled, because he found that Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng did not continue to strongly urge him to go north. Secondly, there seemed to be no sign of the 160,000 troops of the imperial court coming from all directions. He began to realize that it must be the people of the court who were deliberately making plans to delay the time for him to march north and provide enough time for the court to mobilize the army.

then.

Almost a month later, King Ning suddenly ordered his troops to march north to take Nankang.

But as the saying goes, the first push is strong, the second is weak, and the third is exhausted. After staying in Nanchang for a long time, the 100,000 soldiers under Prince Ning's command (actually only 60,000) had long lost the morale they had when they first rebelled. Moreover, due to Prince Ning's indulgence and the lax military discipline, these soldiers of Prince Ning had almost lost their combat effectiveness after burning, killing and looting in Nanchang Prefecture. When they arrived in Nankang City, they were no more than a group of thieves who robbed and looted.

In fact, many of the soldiers under King Ning's command were indeed desperate criminals, including many notorious bandits.

Therefore, when King Ning ordered an attack on the city, the soldiers under his command had no rules at all, and it was impossible to distinguish between different types of soldiers. There were cavalrymen on horseback, archers, and bandits wielding axes.

Wang Shouren's side had already been fully prepared. The artillery fired first. The huge iron-core and copper-framed cannons on the city gate fired shrapnel shells directly into the Ning Wang's front army, instantly raising dust and countless corpses, causing chaos in the Ning Wang's front army.

The troops of Prince Ning's vanguard retreated in a hurry.

Upon seeing this, Prince Ning was furious, and ordered that anyone who could climb the city wall would be rewarded with fifty taels of silver, and he also rewarded each soldier with ten taels of silver. As a result, the morale of Prince Ning's troops was restored a little, and they rushed towards Nankang City again without hesitation.

The cannons of this era were not the modern loading cannons, so after firing a shot, the reloading was relatively slow, which gave Prince Ning's troops the opportunity to rush in.

However, as soon as these troops of Prince Ning rushed in, the officers and soldiers on the city wall immediately opened fire. The bullets fired from the percussion rifles were fast, accurate, and had strong penetrating power, knocking the rebels to the ground in large numbers.

Ling Shisan, a man of the underworld who had surrendered to King Ning and had been named General Xuanwu by King Ning, even held the moon in his arms, performed Tai Chi with his toes, and shouted, "Look at my iron shirt! It will block your bullets!"

Snapped!
Ling Shisan was shot by Wang Shouren on the spot. Blood gushed out of his forehead and he fell to the ground soon after.

Another man named Liao Qingfeng boasted about his great martial arts skills. He shouted "Zhui Qingfeng!" and then jumped directly onto the city wall to perform his stunt of climbing walls and flying over eaves. As a result, he was blown into pieces by a grenade in the hands of a defender.

At this time, a group of rebels poured a bag of blood from their heads, and then one of the leading officers shouted: "Brothers, now that we are all drenched in black dog blood, we don't have to be afraid of their magic anymore. We are invulnerable to swords and guns. Charge!"

Then, a group of rebels who followed Prince Ning in rebellion but looked like bandits rushed over. They were covered in blood and looked very scary. But at this time, the government troops defending Nankang City ignited the tiger squat cannon developed by the Ming Dynasty Military Equipment Bureau. With a few bangs, these rebels who were covered in black dog blood were bombarded into a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

On the first day of attacking Nankang City, Prince Ning lost more than 10,000 men. His morale was severely damaged and he had to temporarily cease fighting.

At this time, Wu Wendi had already sent cavalry to launch a surprise attack on Nanchang City.

But after learning that his Nanchang City was lost, Prince Ning did not think of trying his best to take over Nankang City directly when the defenders of Nankang City were exhausted, but chose to lead his troops back to Nanchang, because his magnificent palace was in Nanchang and he was reluctant to leave.

Upon seeing this, Wang Shouren simply ordered Zhang Lun to lead his elite troops out of the city and engage in a fierce battle at Huangpingdu with Prince Ning's troops who were eager to retreat to Nanchang. As a result, Prince Ning's troops were defeated and lost nearly 20,000 soldiers.

Then, Prince Ning could only lead more than 30,000 remaining soldiers to prepare for the siege of Nanchang. As a result, Wu Wendi took the initiative to attack and defeated Prince Ning again.

Prince Ning had no choice but to flee to Jinxian, where he connected his warships with iron chains to form a water camp.

So, after learning that Prince Ning had escaped by turning his boat from water to land, Wang Shouren decided to set it on fire.

Once again, the plot of this chapter is adapted from historical data, and the author does not really want to lower the IQ of the villain! It is not to lower the IQ of the villain! It is because sometimes reality is really more absurd than fiction, and historical facts are sometimes more absurd than fiction. Really, I am not lying to you. Also, in the period when the firearms era had just begun, many armies did not have enough understanding of firearms, and they came up with various ways to deal with firearms. The inspiration for the above bloody plot also comes from the data in the late Ming Dynasty. However, there were more absurd battlefield confrontation methods in the late Ming Dynasty, which was to set up the Yin 0 Gate Array and the Yang 0 Gate Array. Interested readers can go and find out. Thanks to the book friend Dandan De Tinghua for the reward of 100 starting coins 294090690 100 book coins reward
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(End of this chapter)