On November 10, the army marched to Guide Province in Henan, where there was not much change from two years ago, except that it was more sparsely populated.

The Tianwu army marched at a speed of seventy miles a day, and according to the military orders of the Tianwu army, the march must be fully armored, everyone must wear armor, and be ready to deal with all kinds of sudden enemy situations at any time, and can only remove the armor when camping.

Now it is the cold winter season, and the Tianwu soldiers wear chain mail and cotton armor inlaid with iron leaves, and wear red wool coats to keep out the cold, and march quickly in the cold wind and snow.

From Fengyang Mansion to Baoding Mansion, which is vertical and horizontal of the Tartars in the north, it is about 1,500 li, and at this speed, it is expected to be reached in 20 days.

These artillery and grain and grass are the core of the Tianwu Army, the artillery is used to catch the wind and wash the dust, and the grain and grass are used to fill their stomachs and entertain the Tartars, and none of them can be left behind.

Zhu Cihong originally wanted to send Cao Bianjiao to lead 6,000 cavalry as a vanguard battalion and go north to deal with the Tartars first, but he found that the disaster situation in Henan and Shandong was even more serious than expected.

Zhu Cihong refused all the visits of the state and county officials along the way, and also ordered that they were not allowed to collect grain and grass from the local people, and the grain and grass provided by the Tianwu Army were enough to be used for more than a month.

Looking at the boundless army going north from afar, the officials and people of all states and counties along the way are excited, Daming has so many soldiers who can fight, why worry that the world is not peaceful?

Along the way, as the information that Jinyiwei and Long Xiang did not receive at night came, Zhu Cihong was very anxious in his heart, the progress of the Qing army was too fast.

At this time, the Qing army was divided into several routes, and drove south along the Taihang Mountain and the canal respectively, and had successively captured Bazhou, Zanhuang, Hengshui, Wuyi, Fucheng, Weixian, Lincheng, Gaoyi, Xianxian and other cities.

This time the Qing army entered the customs much larger than the last time, in addition to the two yellow flags of Huang Taiji and the blue flag of Haoge in Liaodong to contain the Ming army, the remaining five banners basically came, and even a few princes, including Prince Rui Dolgon, Prince Yu Duoduo, Prince Zheng Zierharang, etc., and the rest of the Belle Bezi is as many as mice.

In the past, the Qing army basically entered the customs after the summer harvest to grab grain, but this time it came when it was about to enter the winter, and it also engaged in such a big battle, which made Zhu Cihong very puzzled, could it be that Huang Taiji was Chongzhen green?

When Zhu Cihong saw the latest Di newspaper, he suddenly ordered the army to speed up the march and march to the north as soon as possible.

In this newspaper, Zhu Cihong saw the inscriptions played by several ministers, Qingdu, Luancheng, Zhaozhou, Baixiang, Tangshan and other places were slaughtered by the Qing army.

Among them, the military department copied the inscription of Gong Dingyu, a subordinate of Chali Guangping Mansion, saying: "The places where the ministers passed, such as Qingdu, Luancheng, Zhaozhou, Baixiang, and Tangshan, were all reckless...... Entering its city, there are few chickens and dogs, there is rubble but no house, and there are thorns but no fire...... It is said that the city wall is more than 20 miles wide, and the inhabitants of the city are less than 2 or 300 families...... It is said that there have always been tens of thousands of editors and reviewers, and there are more than 1,000 recently......."

That is to say: many medium-sized cities with a circumference of more than 20 miles were slaughtered by the Qing army, and only two or three hundred families remained, and there were only more than 1,000 registered people left in tens of thousands!

There is also a report of Yang Rujing: "The sixteen states and counties to which this province belongs, Wu Yin captured, all of them were damaged, and they were all ruined, and they were all lost, and the remnants of the soldiers were all lost, and the skulls were mountains and seas of blood, and there was no way to identify them...... Collect the remains of the remains, divide the men and women into two giant mounds, and bury them together in the north and south fields of the city......"

Huolu County and its surrounding 16 prefectures and counties were also slaughtered by the Qing army, and there was a sea of blood in the skull.

Among them, Wang Guobin, the governor of Shandong, reported: "From the Yellow River to Jinan...... The atmosphere of slavery is scarce, and the journey is vast...... It's all ash, the roads stink, and the blood is accumulating. ”

Deng Qiannan, the governor of Shandong, reported: "The grandmother of the minister, the uncle of the minister, and the brother and sister of the minister, a total of 46 people, all died in the flames. ”

"Since you're here, let's all stay!" The more Zhu Cihong looked at it, the more angry he became, and the rampant and unscrupulous slaughter of the Qing army completely aroused his killing intent.

Since Nurhachi issued a long edict in October of the fifth year of the Apocalypse, accusing the Han people of "harboring spies, accepting Zafu, and defecting endlessly", he ordered: "Go separately, go to the village fort, and dismount and kill." ”

Nurhachi ordered the Eight Banners to prepare the imperial generals and lead the soldiers to each of the villages under their jurisdiction, and all those who resisted the Jin were executed, and carried out a large-scale massacre of the Han people in Liaodong.

After many years of repeated slaughter, the Han people in Liaodong were almost slaughtered, which led to the shortage of labor in Liaodong, and there was also a large-scale food shortage.

After years of development, "defending the city must be slaughtered" has become the military rule of the Eight Banners Army, as long as the other party does not surrender when the Eight Banners Army attacks the city, then the city will be slaughtered after the capture, so as to create deterrence and reduce its own casualties.

The slaughter of the city was not only a military rule, but even appeared in the holy decree of the Manchu emperor, as recorded in the "Qing Shilu", when Prince Zheng Jierharang went south, the holy decree ordered him: "Resist those who do not obey, kill them; Those who are not allowed to descend after him will be killed. ”

Zhu Cihong knew that this was the old rule of some northern barbarian peoples, and Genghis Khan did it at that time, but the behavior of the Qing army was even more terrible, not only limited to the slaughter of cities, but also indiscriminate massacres in some rural areas.

Even those who surrendered are not necessarily killed, such as Yongping City in the change of Chongzhen in the third year of Yisi, although it was lost and surrendered, but after the Qing army occupied it, it burned and looted everywhere, and forcibly let the people in the city shave their hair, and when the Ming army came over, the Qing army retreated, and slaughtered the city before leaving, and did not reserve population resources for the Ming Dynasty.

.......

A few days later, the army of 80,000 Tianwu Army entered the territory of Beizhili all the way, and all the Qing soldiers encountered avoided its edge.

There was a pair of 1,000 Qing soldiers who came to attack the army, trying to try the bottom, but before they could get close to the army within ten miles, they were scattered and fled by the 6,000 iron cavalry of the vanguard battalion led by Cao Bianjiao, and all of them were annihilated after chasing out 50 miles.

After the news came out, some of the surrounding Qing troops who were attacking the city immediately took the initiative to retreat and dodge, hiding far away, not daring to take advantage of their soldiers.

The army marched to Luxian County, the surrounding Qing army had already fled, the Qing army encountered little resistance from the Ming army after going south in eight ways, so it was scattered to attack the surrounding towns many times, and the troops were even weaker after being evenly divided, and no one wanted to come and provoke the Ming army of 80,000 troops.

In the south of the city of Luxian County, Zhu Cihong saw the epitaph written by Yang Rujing for the joint burial of the dead in Luxian County, which was engraved with more than 2,000 deceased people with their names and surnames, all of which were killed by the Qing army, but there were more people who died who did not know their identities and could not be engraved on the tombstone.

After entering Houlu County, Zhu Cihong held a military meeting and ordered Sun Yingyuan to lead 20,000 regular soldiers of the Tianwu Army, and the soldiers were divided into ten routes to clean up the Qing troops in the southern prefectures and counties of Beizhili, accompanied by 20,000 heavy soldiers.

The most important thing is that the smaller the number of combat units in the Tianwu Army, the more saturated the combat effectiveness will be, and tens of thousands of people fighting together will not be able to give full play to their combat effectiveness.

After the 40,000 horsemen led by Sun Yingyuan left in ten ways, Zhu Cihong set out of camp and led the remaining 40,000 troops to continue north.

Cao Bianjiao led the 6,000 forward battalion to open the way, Zhu Cihong's Chinese army followed, followed by the heavy artillery brigade and the baggage team, and the 40,000 army marched north to Baoding Mansion to join Lu Xiangsheng's Ming army.