In the seventh year of Yongli, after three major wars that broke out in Hunan, western Guangdong, and southern Fujian, in the second half of the year, the situation in the entire South China region also tended to calm down.

Through the efforts of Lin Qingyang, Zhou Guan, Cheng Bangjun and others, the Yongli court in the southwest reached an agreement with Li Dingguo, the king of Xining, to fight against Sun Kewang, the king of Qin; After Yao Zhizhuo and Zhu Quangu entered Guizhou, Qin Wang Sun Kewang agreed to the "Three Bureaus of Catalpa" planned by the anti-Qing people in Jiangnan.

In July, Yao Zhizhuo and Zhu Quangu arrived in Guiyang, and then went to Xingzai to pay their respects. In August and September, Yao Zhizhuo embarked on the journey back to Nanzhili with the endorsement of Emperor Yongli and the appointment of Sun Kewang. When he came, he set off in March, walked for four months, and when it was time to return, the waterways were all down the river, and in November, Yao Zhizhuo had already rushed back to Nanzhili and reported to Qian Qianyi.

"That's great!"

Yao Zhizhuo rushed back and confirmed the recognition of the three bureaus of Qin Wang Sun Kewang, and Qian Qianyi was so excited that he couldn't help himself.

"Ziqiu, in September, Zhang Mingzhen, the Marquis of Dingxi, and Zhang Huangyan, the squire of the military department, had more than 400 united front ships go north, and they are now stationed in Chongming!"

As he spoke, Qian Qianyi picked up a few reports copied from the Qing court from the case and handed them directly to Yao Zhizhuo's hands, his eyes were blazing and bright.

The people of Haiyi listened to their foolishness, and the officials of Shanghai hijacked the county order and wanted to open the door to thieves. Xu servants and others openly enclosed the net. If the people's will is, it will be dangerous to change internally. ”

"Shanghai is happy to be thieves, no one is guarding the city, all day long with a knife to the county to force the thief, the county died in a moment, soap is very fast."

“……”

Yao Zhizhuo took the report and read it carefully, some of which were the codex of Wang Jing, the chief soldier of the Su Song Water Division, some were the emergency of Yan Shaoqing, the magistrate of Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture, and Zhou Guozuo, the governor of Jiangning stationed in Suzhou, mobilized various troops and horses to Shanghai County to expel the Ming army.

It is undeniable that the Ming army's raid on Shanghai County from the Huangpu River did get a mass response from the people of Shanghai, even if what he saw was only words, and he had never seen it with his own eyes, Yao Zhizhuo's face was red, he raised his hand, pinched the report and shouted to Qian Qianyi.

"Shepherd, people's hearts are available!"

For a while, the dark room of the study was instantly brightened by the excitement of the two. Without waiting for Yao Zhizhuo to put down the report, Qian Qianyi immediately said to him: "Now, the army is stationed in Chongming's Sanjiansha, Barnyard Sand, Pingyang and other places to surround Chongming City. The old man has already sent someone to contact, and they are here to answer the three bureaus according to the arrangement of the big wood! ”

At this moment, Yao Zhizhuo brought Sun Kewang's promise, and as another indispensable participant, the Zheng group, which was alone in the southeast, also sent Zhang Mingzhen's fleet north. In addition, Qian Qianyi also sent someone to contact Wen Anzhi, the great scholar of the Governor Sichuan and E, and prepared to lead the generals of Kui Dong to the east to help the army of the Qin Domain.

Now, everything is ready, as long as Sun Kewang can break through the Qing court's Huguang defense line, and then go down the river, the Zhou division and the rebel army are there, and the recovery of Nanjing is just around the corner.

However, no better than Qian Qianyi, Yao Zhizhuo was still a little strange why Zheng Chenggong would send Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan, the diehards of King Lu, to come, instead of sending those generals who were more trusted by Zheng Chenggong, such as Zhong Zhenbo Chen Hui, Zhong Kuang Bo Lin Xishan, Zhong Zhenbo Hong Xu and others. On this issue, Qian Qianyi mentioned that Zheng Chenggong sent someone to explain to him the matter of Qing Zheng Yihe, but he didn't know it very clearly.

"So, the surname of the country and Chen Fujun want to use fake peace to calculate the Tartars?"

There is also this kind of operation, Yao Zhizhuo was even stunned. It's just that he doesn't pay much attention to this, after all, it is a matter far away in Fujian, he has traveled from south to north, and his footprints are all over the south, and he knows that such a long distance is beyond his reach. Even, even when Qian Qianyi proposed the three rounds of the catalpa, he was a little worried about whether the Ming army in the southwest could cooperate with the Ming army and the righteous army in the southeast, but now it seems that he is a little too worried.

"The old man has contacted Uncle Chengyi, and Uncle Chengyi said that he would immediately set off to Chongming to join the army, lead the army into the waterway of the Yangtze River, and prepare for the reception of the Southwest Wang Division."

Liu Kongzhao, the sincerity uncle, is the fourteenth grandson of Liu Ji Liu Bowen, the founding military division of the Ming Dynasty, who was praised in later generations as "five hundred years before and five hundred years later", and the hereditary sincerity uncle.

This person was the governor of the Caojiang River and in charge of the river defense in the Hongguang Dynasty, and he was well aware of the hydrological and geographical situation of the Yangtze River. Although he took the lead in surrendering to the Qing when the Qing army went south, as a former emperor who had no power in his hands, the life of a toothless tiger was not easy, let alone his rabbit with his front teeth extracted.

The days of the new dynasty are not good, and naturally he will miss the elegance of his homeland, and after coming and going, he will hook up with the anti-Qing people in the southeast, among which the least is Qian Qianyi. This time, Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan's boatmen were stationed at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and Qian Qianyi immediately found him, using Liu Kongzhao's understanding of the hydrogeography of the Yangtze River.

"What does the shepherd need to do?"

"Ziqiu, the old man plans to fund you to recruit a group of soldiers to Chongming to help in the war."

"Please rest assured, the last general will do his best!"

………………

On the seventeenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongli, on the one hand, the siege of Chongming was maintained, on the other hand, Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan and Liu Kongzhao, who came to join him with his son and the old department, according to the established plan, marched westward, and went up the river to prepare to meet the Ming army in the southwest that was said to be fighting in Huguang, and it was possible to break through the Huguang defense line at any time, and then go down the river to the southwest Ming army.

The boat division entered the mouth of the Yangtze River in batches and rushed through the flood control areas of the Qing Army River in Langshan, Jiangyin, Jingjiang, Menghe, Yangshe, and Sanjiang. On the twenty-first day of the first month, the army arrived in Guazhou, and then went ashore at Jinshan, broke the defenders of Jinshan, and captured ten cannons of the Qing army to defend the river, gunpowder, money and grain.

At this time, Jinshan was still an isolated island on the river and was not connected to the land. The Ming army won the first battle, there was no Qing army around, Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan and Liu Kongzhao led five hundred Ming troops to climb the Jinshan Temple, and went to the southwest to worship the filial piety tomb.

"Houfu and Cangshui led the Wang Division north to advance into the Yangtze River today, and the morale of the people in Jiangnan was greatly boosted! The old man looks at the mighty array of the giant ship, the invincible majesty along the river all the way, and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty is expected! ”

The host had already prepared the incense table, table and chairs, Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan and Liu Kongzhao came to the front, and the sergeants under him placed the offerings. Liu Kongzhao is the most sleek, and when he saw the Ming army so powerful at this moment, he immediately praised it and gave it a look to the generals.

"Thanks to the reception of the sincere uncle and the soldiers and civilians of Jiang Zuo, he has been waiting for the sea for many years, and he has long intended to return to Jinling, and today he can be said to have fulfilled his wish. Right now, the waiter thinks that he should worship first, in order to comfort the spirits of the emperor's ancestors and ancestors. ”

Zhang Mingzhen was born in Nanjing, and was a member of Nanjing Jinyiwei. Here, for the vast majority of the people in the army, it is only the place where the emperor is prosperous, and he is even more in the hometown of the enemy.

After that, Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan, Liu Kongzhao and all the generals under the tent immediately dressed up, together with the sincerity of Bo and others, knelt down together after the incense case, bowed a few times in the direction of the Ming Tomb in Nanjing, and recited the sacrificial text according to the ritual system, bluntly said that the Qing army was plotting against the Ming Dynasty, and the lives of the people were devastated.

This is the most normal and most relevant tribute to the current situation. After the Yao Festival, Jiao was set up for three days, and when he was leaving, Zhang Mingzhen splashed ink on the table and wrote poems.

"To help the Qin Domain, the teacher parked in the Golden Mountain, and worshiped the filial piety tomb from afar, and was endowed with feelings.

Ten years across the sea is a lonely minister, and the good spirit Zhongshan is true.

The quail head righteous flag is out of Chu, and Yan Yunyu has passed through Fujian.

Wang Shichao choked his heart and liver, and his father and old man cried tears.

Looking south at the filial piety of the soldiers, see the big Xuxu Longjin.

In the first year of Meng Chunyue, Zhang Mingzhen, Marquis of Dingxi, wrote with sincerity. ”

There was a feeling in the chest, and there was a feeling, Zhang Mingzhen didn't think about it, and wrote it in a hurry, Zhang Huangyan, Liu Kongzhao and others came forward and took a closer look. It not only states that they set off from Fujian in order to meet the army of the Qin Domain, but also mentions that the popular will of Nanzhili is available, which is in line with this situation.

For this reason, Zhang Huangyan wrote six rhymes and poems in Zhang Mingzhen's poems, including sentences such as "Qiantun Fengsui Lianwu Chu, Ten Thousand Waves Down Zhejiang and Fujian", "Fengjing Sanxiang First Got Shu, Miasma Eliminated Wuling and Restored Fujian", "Who Holds the Dragon Xiang Festival in the Upstream, and the Sun Hub Personally Helps Out of Hanjin" and other sentences also vividly illustrate the strategic intention of going deep into the Yangtze River.

"Maybe it will take some time for the army of the Qin Domain to arrive, let's go back first, and pull out Chongming City to stay here for a long time."

Among the three, Zhang Mingzhen is the military commander, Zhang Huangyan is the supervisor of the army, and Liu Kongzhao is only the local guide and liaison. All the way to the west, it was stationed here for three days, and it was not possible to see the Ming army in the southwest coming to converge, but the Qing army would definitely not be idle during this time. He is responsible for the safety of the army, and returning to Chongming is also a good strategy. Besides, they had already expected it from the time they were ordered to set off, the two places were thousands of miles apart, and it was not easy to bump into each other at one time.

As Zhang Mingzhen expected, during this period, Ma Guozhu, the governor of Jiangnan and Jiangxi in the Qing Dynasty, consulted with the Manchu and Han officials stationed in Nanjing, and urgently dispatched the commander of the Han army's banner soldiers sent by the Qing court to Jiangnan to assist in the defense. At the same time, the troops led by Askha Lapani Kan were rescued from Longtan to Zhenjiang.

As a result, the Ming army had already returned to the east of the boat long before the Qing army arrived. On the way back to the army, the Ming army chased Zhang Tianlu from the tail. According to Ji Liuqi, the author of "Ming Ji Beiluo", who was waiting for the test in Jiangyin at that time, witnessed it at the north gate of Jiangyin, the Ming army's sailors covered the river and went down, and the sound of artillery came and went, like a thunderbolt shaking the sky, and everyone in the audience was afraid.

When they arrived in Zhenjiang, the 500 righteous army led by Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi and his wife, led by Yao Zhizhuo, the commander of Renwubo, and his subordinate Zhang Qifen, also came to join him. The boatman went down the river and soon returned to Chongming Island.

"The army will temporarily rest and recuperate, and the correction will be over, and strive to capture Chongming in a war."

At this time, Chongming was not an island, but an archipelago composed of a number of sandbanks at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Chongming City is a county seat, located in Changsha, one of the Chongming sands, that is, the seat of Chongming County in later generations.

At this point in the Ming army, Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan had plans to be stationed for a long time, but if they wanted to be stationed for a long time and maintain this army, they must first have sufficient food and grass. At this stage, almost all of their grain and grass depend on the supply of Fujian, and the anti-Qing righteous soldiers in Nanzhili have also raised some, but compared with the more than 400 warships and thousands of troops, it is really a drop in the bucket.

For this reason, Zhang Huangyan decided to be in Chongming Tuntian. After the Ming army besieged the Qing army in the county seat, it actually began to prepare for this, and the rice production towns of Chongming were all in the east and west of Pingyang Mountain, which were all controlled by the Ming army. In the archives left by the Qing court, it is written: "Building polders and farming, ten miles away from the city, there are many thieves. The people looked at each other, and it was difficult to support hunger. For my users, we are waiting to be killed, and those who are thieves are thriving. ”

Just like in Shanghai and Jinshan, the Ming army also won the support of the people in Chongming. The people's hearts were like this, and after only a few days of rest, the army once again launched a full-scale siege of Chongming City. It's just that this time, after the first battle, not only did the city not be taken, but even Yao Zhizhuo was not in the battle.

"This is how I can explain to the shepherd!"

"Ziqiu did his best, but the army of his department was short, especially Ziqiu personally boosted morale when the army was defeated, but he was unable to return to the sky."

Yao Zhizhuo's Renwu Bo was canonized by Lu Jianguo, and when Zhang Huangyan established a village in Siming Mountain, Yao Zhizhuo organized a righteous army to resist the Qing Dynasty in Tianmu Mountain. There is not much difference between the two sides in terms of heels, and once they meet, they are very close, but unexpectedly, in this battle, the righteous army under Yao Zhizhuo that has just been formed was broken by the Qing army in person, and even with Yao Zhizhuo was killed and Zhang Qifen was captured, they did not even have a chance to rescue.

The army was defeated, and the general was defeated. The morale of the Ming army was low and they could no longer fight. Zhang Mingzhen saw this, the siege continued, and Zhang Huangyan continued to organize Tuntian in Chongming. In this way, it was not until March that Zhang Mingzhen found the opportunity to find the opportunity to directly go north to raid Lu Sichang in the southeast corner of Yangzhou Mansion, defeated the defending Qing army, and captured the garrison seal of the Dahe battalion, which finally revived morale.

On the sixth day of the first month of March, Zhang Mingzhen succeeded in a surprise attack, and revived the morale of the army by means of victory, and on March 29, Zhang Mingzhen, Zhang Huangyan and others led the water division into the Yangtze River again, and on the fifth day of the fourth month, went to the Zhenjiang River, burned the small gate, and went to Yizhen, and asked the local salt merchants for money and grain for the use of the army, but the salt merchants decided not to give it after the collegial discussion, Zhang Mingzhen burned all the more than 600 salt ships of Yizhen in a fit of anger, and then withdrew to Chongming when Ma Guozhu panicked and dispatched troops.

This is the second time that Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan have entered the Yangtze River, and the time is very short, but they still haven't waited for any news about the Ming Army in the southwest.

Speaking of which, the economic significance of this dispatch is far greater than the strategic significance, and their fleet has been in Chongming for half a year, and the consumption of grain and grass is very huge. And Zhang Huangyan's Tuntian in Chongming cannot violate the laws of nature, and it is absolutely impossible to harvest it until summer. But the problem is that the grain and grass in their hands can no longer last at that time, and if they can get this batch of money and grain, it is better to say, but now they can only find another way.

"Master Hou, our department is short of food and grass, and the combat effectiveness of the sergeants is far inferior to that of the soldiers and horses of the national surname. For today's plan, we still want to ask for help from the country, so that we can create a greater momentum in Nanzhili. ”

Zhang Huangyan said this, and Zhang Mingzhen didn't understand anything. But this expedition, he already had the intention of getting rid of the control of the Zheng group, not for anything else, King Lu had the grace of knowing him, and he consciously wanted to maintain the independence of the army just because of this kindness, so that Zheng Chenggong, a "quasi-horse" who had received preferential treatment from Emperor Longwu, was a rat thrower.

However, where is Zheng Chenggong getting along. The generals who went south with them, such as Pingyi Hou Zhou Hezhi, Yingyi Bo and Ruan Jun, have now been completely included in the battle sequence of the Zheng group, and have become military generals under Zheng Chenggong's command that can be directly commanded. Nowadays, their hard work is actually meaningless, because the grain and grass are in Zheng Chenggong's hands, not to mention that all the gunpowder comes from Fujian and Guangdong, as long as the grain ships come some time later, they will face the danger of the army falling apart in starvation.

"Let's go to Wenzhou first, buy a few boatloads of grain, and then come back."

Having said that, after sighing, Zhang Mingzhen still agreed with Zhang Huangyan's suggestion, prepared to take a trip back to Fujian, and asked Zheng Chenggong for a reinforcement army to go north to assist them in launching an offensive against Nanzhili.