There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 353 The Han Army Attacks Hangzhou

The Southern Route Han Army split its forces in Yanzhou Prefecture and also took away all the ships at the mouth of the Yanzhou River.

Zhang Zhuo, the prefectural judge, and Li Chengduan, the county magistrate, who were holding the city of Yanzhou, could only watch helplessly as the Han army split up and left.

Don't even mention that they were just civil officials, or even assistant civil officials in local areas; they were experts in military affairs.

Even if it were Li Changgeng, the Zhejiang military commander who was knowledgeable in military affairs, he would be completely at a loss in the face of this situation.

Without boats, Yanzhou Prefecture was an isolated city. The only way out was by mountain roads, which took a lot of time to traverse.

By the time they left Yanzhou Prefecture, they estimated that the Han army had already captured Tonglu and Lanxi counties. The news that the Han army was dividing its forces and advancing from the north and south quickly reached the Zhejiang governor Ruan Yuan.

Jinhua.

"Your Excellency, the Han rebel army has already besieged Lanxi County. The magistrate of Lanxi County has sent a messenger to urgently request reinforcements. What should we do?" Zhang Ruocai, the prefect of Jinhua, ran over to report with a look of panic on his face.

Ruan Yuan remained expressionless and did not speak.

This wasn't a case of remaining calm in the face of an impending catastrophe; rather, he was simply so astonished that he couldn't make any expression.

what's the situation?
Just a few days ago, Yanzhou Prefecture was sending him a message urging him to send troops to his aid. How come in just a few days, even Lanxi County has been besieged by the Han rebels?
Because Yanzhou Prefecture is located at the confluence of three rivers, according to conventional military logic, if the Han army wanted to march south to Lanxi County, it would have to first capture Yanzhou City at the mouth of the river in order to ensure the safety of the army's supply lines.

Now that the Han army has besieged Lanxi County, does that mean that Yanzhou Prefecture has already fallen?
The more Ruan Yuan thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Otherwise, if Yanzhou Prefecture still existed, how could it have suddenly lost contact with Jinhua Prefecture and had not received any messengers for several days?

Ruan Yuan, the Zhejiang governor who knew little about warfare, could never have imagined that the Han army would completely ignore Yanzhou Prefecture and brazenly split into two routes in Yanzhou, heading north and south respectively to attack Tonglu and Lanxi counties.

The troops on the northern route have even captured Tonglu County by now.

Wu Jun personally led the main force of the northern route. They had just arrived in Tonglu County and were ready to fight when the magistrate of Tonglu County opened the city gates and surrendered without hesitation.

Like Ruan Yuan, the magistrate of Tonglu County had a similar mindset: if the Han army could reach Tonglu County, it must mean that Yanzhou Prefecture had already fallen.

If even the prefectural city couldn't stop the Han army, let alone this small county town. Even if the entire county urgently recruited local militia to defend the city, it's hard to say whether they could gather a thousand or so men.

After Wu Junbing recaptured Tonglu County without bloodshed, he had a pretty good grasp of the current situation of the Qing army in Zhejiang.

All I can say is that Ruan Yuan, the governor of Zhejiang under the puppet Qing dynasty, was truly a talented individual!

When a peasant uprising broke out in Zhejiang, this guy didn't even care about the size of the uprising or how many troops to send. He hastily gathered all the Qing troops in Zhejiang and rushed to Jinhua Prefecture to suppress the uprising.

His actions directly resulted in the entire Zhejiang province, except for Jinhua Prefecture which had tens of thousands of Qing troops, leaving Yanzhou Prefecture, Quzhou Prefecture, Chuzhou Prefecture, and even Wenzhou Prefecture, where Qu Wenguang launched his uprising, with not a single Qing soldier left.

Unfortunately, Yanzhou Prefecture and Xunzhou Prefecture are right next to Han territory. This Zhejiang governor didn't even consider that he had emptied his troops in these two places and hadn't made any other strategic deployments. What if the Han army suddenly attacked?
Anyway, just as Wu Jun's main force on the northern route captured Tonglu County, they immediately went down the river to attack Hangzhou Prefecture.

Ruan Yuan of Jinhua Prefecture was still debating whether or not to send troops to rescue Lanxi County. At the same time, he issued three troop mobilization orders in one day, urgently summoning Li Changgeng, the Zhejiang Provincial Commander who was fighting the Red Turban Army in Wenzhou Prefecture.

Li Changgeng was also completely bewildered by Ruan Yuan. It was Ruan Yuan who transferred him to Wenzhou Prefecture to fight the Red Turban Army, and now it was Ruan Yuan who was telling him to quickly lead his troops back.

The problem was that after several attempts to probe the Red Turban rebels in Wenzhou, he discovered that they were just a motley crew. Their fighting strength was not exactly elite, but rather extremely poor, and even their basic formations and commands were very chaotic.

After all, it was a local militia organized by landlords and gentry, and it had expanded several times in a short period of time in order to deal with the Qing army.

Apart from Qu Wenguang's 1500-strong old camp, the remaining thousands of Red Turban Army soldiers were indeed a rabble, and even his old camp was purely training troops by trial and error.

Although Li Changgeng wasn't particularly skilled in warfare, he was still capable of fighting, and was far superior to Qu Wenguang, a rural landlord.

If it weren't for the fact that most of the Red Turban soldiers were poor people, and that Qu Wenguang had followed the advice of the Han envoy and distributed land to all the soldiers and civilians under his command, then when facing Li Changgeng's army, he would have avoided the enemy's sharp edge and defended Wenzhou City, completely refusing to engage in a reckless battle with the Qing army.

Otherwise, Qu Wenguang would probably have been like the Zhejiang Red Turban Army in history, rising suddenly and then being wiped out.

Qu Wenguang's tenacious defense of the prefectural city did indeed cause Li Changgeng some trouble. This was because the people of Wenzhou all supported the Red Turban Army, who had led them to distribute land, and they also had the morale boost from defending their hometown and protecting their land.

But Li Changgeng was still confident that he could suppress the rebel army, which he saw as nothing more than a group of landlords and gentry who had taken the opportunity to rebel, and a motley crew.

The premise is that he can have more time. Even if the rebel army defends the city, he is confident that he can destroy the rebel army.

Unfortunately, he was confident, but Ruan Yuan was not! Li Changgeng was forced to lead his troops back to Jinhua Prefecture. If he didn't return, he feared that Jinhua Prefecture would also fall.

Well, Ruan Yuan couldn't confirm the news and was afraid that he couldn't stop the Han army, so he simply sent a letter to Admiral Li Changgeng informing him that Yanzhou Prefecture had fallen and the Han army was heading south down the Yangtze River to Jinhua Prefecture. He urged them to quickly return to resist the Han army.

Has Yanzhou Prefecture fallen?

This news really startled Li Changgeng. He didn't even bother to ask for the specific details before hurriedly leading his army back to Jinhua Prefecture.

What about the Wenzhou government?
That's not something he should be thinking about. With Yanzhou Prefecture lost, Zhejiang's gateway is wide open. If the Han rebels' army isn't driven out and Yanzhou isn't recaptured, the entire Zhejiang will be doomed!

If Zhejiang is doomed, every single one of them, even if they manage to escape Zhejiang, will still be held responsible.

The retreat of Li Changgeng's army gave the Wenzhou Red Turban Army a rare chance to catch their breath.

Qu Wenguang stood atop the city wall of Wenzhou, watching the Qing army that had already lifted the siege and retreated, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

After so many days of defending the city, he was truly exhausted, both physically and mentally!
Fortunately, he listened to the Han envoy's advice and distributed land to all the soldiers and civilians in advance, which enabled the soldiers and civilians of Wenzhou to unite as one and defend the city to the death.

The gentry and wealthy families of Wenzhou Prefecture also refrained from causing trouble and sabotage thanks to the persuasion of the Han envoys, and remained neutral throughout the entire war.

Even so, it took him a tremendous amount of effort, and the casualties among his soldiers were considerable; they almost couldn't hold out.

With one arm wrapped in a makeshift bandage, Captain Huang Liu gritted his teeth and looked out of the city, saying, "The Qing army has been besieging the city for so many days, but now they've finally retreated."

"The Sixth Division of our Great Han has already entered Zhejiang. If the Qing army still insists on dividing its forces to attack us, then the royal army of our Great Han will devour Zhejiang completely. At that time, it will not be the Qing army surrounding us, but us attacking the Qing army from both sides."

These words were spoken by Liu Jiye, the Han envoy stationed in Wenzhou to ensure that the Han and the Red Turban Army maintained constant contact.

As soon as Liu Jiye finished speaking, Qu Wenguang quickly cupped his hands and said, "Thanks to the timely arrival of the royal army in Zhejiang, otherwise we brothers would have really failed in our ambitions and been defeated."

“Commander Qu, there’s no need for that. Now that Commander Qu has submitted to our Great Han, Wenzhou Prefecture is Han territory. If the Qing army attacks our Han territory, our Great Han should naturally send troops to fight back.” Liu Jiye waved his hand, seemingly unintentionally.

Upon hearing this, Qu Wenguang immediately understood the meaning.

The previous sentence emphasized that it was the Han army that entered Zhejiang, which is why the Qing army hastily retreated. Now it is specifically pointed out that he was the commander of the Han army, and Wenzhou Prefecture is Han territory.

It was simply a reminder to myself not to become arrogant and develop any bad ambitions just because I "repelled" the Qing army.

Qu Wenguang had no thoughts on this. Not to mention that he never had any ambition to begin with, even if he had had any ambition before, it had probably been worn down by the Qing army by now.

He once thought that the Qing army was extremely weak and that the Han army could easily defeat the Qing army in their uprising. Within a few years, they had carved out a vast territory and earned a reputation that shook the south.

When he also rebelled, he realized that things were not like that at all; the Qing army was actually more difficult to fight than he had expected.

To be precise, the Qing army was indeed not very good at fighting, but Qu Wenguang's local militia was even worse.

At least the Qing army would occasionally conduct drills, but this guy didn't even know how to train. The local militia could at least get enough to eat, but meat was out of the question, and their weapons were all discarded by the Qing army's Green Standard Army.

Not everyone can get a copy of "New Book of Military Efficiency" at the start of the game, or acquire armor made of pure steel for industrial use, and even have meat to eat every day during training.

It's just a matter of who's worse!
Compared to the present, the Han army when it first started was indeed quite bad, but the Qing army and Green Standard Army were even worse, while the Red Turban Army and local militia, including Qu Wenguang, were the worst of the worst.

Qu Wenguang collected his thoughts and suddenly asked, "Mr. Liu, now that the Qing army has retreated, what should we do? Should we cooperate with the royal army that has entered Zhejiang to launch a pincer attack on the Qing army, so that they cannot attend to both ends?"

Liu Jiye laughed and said, "No need. General Wu has already sent word that Commander Qu only needs to hold Wenzhou Prefecture and wait for our Great Han to send troops to take over. As for the Qing army, General Wu is already on his way to attack Hangzhou, and if nothing unexpected happens, Brother Shen should also be leading our Great Han's Zhenhai Marquis fleet to attack the Zhoushan Islands, and then use that as a stepping stone to launch a joint attack on Hangzhou!"

The Han army is attacking Hangzhou!

Good heavens, even though Qu Wenguang knew that the Han envoys had special channels of communication, he was still quite shocked.

After the initial shock, he quickly composed himself, suppressing any remaining thoughts, and obediently bowed in response.

"The last general takes command!"

(End of this chapter)