In October of the first year of Chenghua, south of the Acropolis of Shazhou, the camp of the Tiance Army.

With the issuance of the privateering order by the imperial court, the situation of the Ming gradually improved against the Dutch and formed an overwhelming advantage.

Immediately afterwards, Liu Juntao received good news from the Ministry of War and the Shogunate Intelligence Department:

A month ago, Zhao Fudu, the governor of Zhongfu and the general of Bai Zhengyi, led 30,000 vanguard troops south, drove straight into Guangxi, and went straight to Guilin through Quanzhou, and defeated some rebellious Miao people on the way.

After the vanguard army arrived in Guilin, Zhao Fu beheaded four derelict generals to show the public, and the Ming army was greatly invigorated.

A few days later, Zhao Fu judged based on intelligence that the thief leader Hou Dagou used Lipu and Xiuren counties as two wings to cover his core base, so he divided his troops into five routes to attack Lipu and Xiuren to isolate Datengxia. Together with the more than 100,000 soldiers of the Ming army who came later, they first defeated the main force of Xiuren's rebels with strong troops, killing more than 7,300 rebels and capturing more than 1,200 people. Subsequently, Lipu was also breached.

Since then, the gate to the north of Dateng Gorge has been opened, and Zhao Fu quickly led his army to Guiping in the south of Dateng Gorge and began to deploy encirclement and suppression.

Zhao Fu divided the 160,000-strong army into two corps on the left and right: the 68,000-strong right-wing corps marched south from Xiangzhou and Wuxuan, and attacked the north of Datengxia in five routes; The 92,000 men of the left wing corps attacked the south of Datengxia from Guiping and divided into eight routes.

After that, Zhao Fu sent troops to hold the east and west passes of Datengxia, set up ambushes, and cut off the retreat of the Yao people to the east and west.

In the face of the encirclement and suppression of the Ming army, the thief leader Hou Dagou adopted the tactics of luring the enemy that was customary in guerrilla warfare. He sent dozens of elderly people dressed as Confucian scholars and elders to kneel down to greet them on the road of the Ming army's march. They claimed that they had been troubled by the thief army for a long time and did not dare to resist, and now they were willing to take refuge in the official army as a vanguard, trying to find an opportunity to assassinate Zhao Fu.

When these people appeared around the officers and soldiers, Zhao Fu immediately ordered the soldiers to arrest them. When the hidden daggers were found, all these fine works were beheaded and hung on the branches of the mountains and forests by the Ming army.

After the two wings of the Ming army completed the encirclement and deployment, Zhao Fu immediately ordered an attack. The officers and soldiers were divided into more than ten routes, advancing by land and water, and carried out a flanking attack on the abdomen and back of the Dateng Gorge, which was like a boulder pressing the egg.

The thief leader Hou Dagou knew that this attack was extraordinary, so he transferred important materials such as old and weak women and children, money and food to the depths of the mountain, and erected several heavy wooden fences as fortifications at the dangerous places in the south of the mountain as fortifications, built camps as strongholds, and prepared a large number of light and heavy weapons such as rolling stones, sassaloms, spears, javelins, and poisonous arrows, and waited for the battle.

Subsequently, the officers and troops surrounded them on all sides and launched a fierce attack on more than a dozen cottages in Datengxia using rockets, regimental cards, firecrackers and mountaineering equipment. In the fierce battle, the Ming army had many soldiers and equipped with mountaineering weapons, so they risked death to go up the mountain and set fire to a lot of wooden fences. At this time, the rebels only had more than 10,000 troops left in the gorge, and the number of people was huge, and the thief leader Hou Dagou had to abandon the first line and move to the nine-story building and other places to guard.

The core stronghold of Datengxia is a nine-story building, also known as the Nine Cliffs. There are nine peaks at the top of the mountain, and it is named because the mountains overlap like a ladder and have a total of nine layers. The surrounding cliffs are steep, and there is only one path to the top of the mountain, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The officers and soldiers chased after them, trying to climb the mountain from the path, but were killed by the Yao people with rolling stones, sassal wood, and poisonous arrows, and the offensive was frustrated. After several days and nights of fierce fighting, the nine-story building stood still.

Seeing this, Zhao Fu decided to take a feint attack, set up more suspicious soldiers, and induced the righteous army to consume a large amount of wood and stone, javelins, and poisoned arrows; On the one hand, it took fire and concentrated rockets and artillery to attack the nine-story building. Under the heavy fire of the Ming army, the wooden fence on the rebel position was ablaze, and the fortifications made of stone also collapsed one after another. At this time, Zhao Fu once again ordered the death squad to assault the top of the mountain. In the face of the attack of the official army from multiple directions, the thief leader Hou Dagou finally couldn't resist, and the team was defeated one after another. The rebels fighting in the field were intercepted by the Ming blockade line and could not return to help, and the nine-story building was finally captured by the official army.

In this battle, the Ming army broke through 324 camps of thieves and robbers in Datengxia, killed 3,207 people, captured 782 people, including the thief leader Hou Dagou, and captured 2,718 women. More than 10,000 rebels were killed, fled, drowned, and fell off cliffs.

After the battle, Zhao Fu, the governor of Zhongfu and the general of Bai Zhengyi, ordered people to cut down the famous big vine in Datengxia, and covered the broken vine with cowhide to make several big drums, which were sent to the official yamen of Guangzhou, Wuzhou and Zhaoqing as trophies.

Liu Juntao saw that the news sent by the Shogunate's Intelligence Department showed that Zhao Fu changed the Dateng Gorge to "Broken Teng Gorge" in order to show his own merits after the war, and wrote an inscription engraved into the "Zhao Fu Ji Gong Monument", which was erected on the north bank of the Dateng Gorge. couldn't help but shake his head, and said secretly: "Although this person has a lot of combat achievements and is very good at fighting, he is too ostentatious!" ”

The official document sent by the Ministry of War shows that the Great Ratengxia is in turmoil, the Ming army divisions from all walks of life are triumphant, and the generals and officials celebrate each other. Governor Zhao Fu was made an earl, hereditary replacement; One of his sons was given the rank of Jinyi Guard. In addition, Emperor Chenghua asked Zhao Fu to be in charge of the military affairs of Liangguang.

Compared with the smooth battle of Datengxia, the war to conquer the Jingxiang rebellion was a little tortuous.

When Zhu Yong, the commander of the 3,000 battalion and the Shenji battalion, led the army to the battlefield, the thief leader Liu Tong and his adviser Shi Long lured the Ming army into the dangerous situation, relying on natural danger, and severely damaged the official army at Ti'er Cliff.

For this failure, Emperor Chenghua did not issue an order to reprimand Zhu Yong, but continued to mobilize reinforcements and baggage for him, which made Liu Juntao very admirable, thinking that Emperor Chenghua was very wise.

And Zhu Yong did not disappoint Emperor Chenghua, and it only took more than ten days to gather heavy troops again, and tens of thousands of soldiers divided into four routes, marching side by side, and encircled and intercepted the rebels of the thief leader Liu Tong.

This time the Ming army had an absolute advantage, and finally the four-way army surrounded the main force of the rebels, a big battle down, the rebels were killed and wounded, 10,000 people were killed, and the thief Liu Tong was also captured, only the remnants of his army division Shi Long and other remnants fled to Sichuan in a hurry, and plundered Wushan and Dachang.

Then, Zhu Yong continued to lead the army in pursuit, and finally completely wiped out the remnants of the thief Kou Baigui half a month ago.

At the same time of quelling the rebellion, in view of the severe problem of Jingxiang refugees, Emperor Chenghua has begun to pay attention to it, and also appointed the famous minister Wang Shu as the right deputy imperial envoy of the Imperial Court to pacify the refugees of the three prefectures of Jingxiang in Nanyang.

At the end of the war, Wang Shu gave relief to the hungry people in the Jingxiang area, appeased the people to return to their own business, and disintegrated the ruling foundation of the thief leader Liu Tong, and after the uprising was extinguished, he suggested that Zhu Yong set up garrisons at critical passes to strengthen regional control, and Zhu Yong also asked Emperor Chenghua to do so one by one.

Today, three of the four battles in the southern, northwestern, and eastern seas of the Ming Dynasty have been won, and the remaining war in the northwest is still ongoing.

Liu Juntao was also excited, and on the day he received the good news from the two places, he summoned the chief military officers of all departments of the Tiance Army, as well as Niu Linghe, the chief military officer of Shaanxi Town, to discuss the affairs in the big tent of the Chinese army.

Liu Juntao announced the news to everyone, and everyone was excited, and they all asked for battle, asking for an immediate general attack on the Tartar army under the command of Gathlan.

Liu Juntao saw that the army's heart was available, so he said: "My northwest army is the peak of the Ming army's combat power!" Now that the rest of the battles have been won, our Tiance army can't lag behind! ”

"Please give the order!"

Liu Juntao looked around and said loudly: "Two days later, the soldiers and horses of Shaanxi Town will attack the east of the Shazhou Acropolis, and all parts of the Tiance Army will attack the west and south of the Shazhou Acropolis!" This battle is a decisive battle, and all the kings must fight to the death, do not break the acropolis of the sandbank, and the army will never retreat! ”

"I wish to follow the army to break through Shazhou and expel the Tartars!"

Two days later, Liu Juntao commanded more than 30,000 soldiers and horses from all parts of the Tiance Army and Shaanxi Town to besiege the Shazhou Acropolis, and nearly 100,000 troops blocked more than 200,000 Tartar troops in the city, and then launched a fierce attack.

In the battle during this period of time, the firearms of the Ming army, especially the Tiance army, made the Yan Jiaslan feel extremely shocked, and the iron cavalry battle, which has always been proud, could not take advantage of the sharp firearms of the Ming army, and even lost 20,000 troops in a short time.

The 300,000 troops at the time of the expedition have been fought until now, and only 250,000 horses are left, and they are already demoralized, and they are blocked in the city by the Ming army, which is less than half of their own troops, and they are beaten fiercely!

This kind of battle made the self-righteous Gasilan unbearable, so he concentrated the 50,000 elite iron cavalry in the city, and constantly attacked from the north gate where there was no Ming army, and launched round after round of counterattacks against all parts of the Ming army.

Seeing this, Liu Juntao did not show weakness, and directly gathered the iron cavalry soldiers attached to the various departments of the Tiance Army, and commanded thousands of iron cavalry soldiers to launch a counterattack.

Although the number of iron cavalry of the Tiance Army is only one-tenth of that of the Tartar iron cavalry, with the artillery arrays and bird gun formations of various departments, it is also very impressive, and the 50,000 Tartar iron cavalry can't even get a little cheap!

While the two sides were engaged in the battle to seize the city, they also launched one iron cavalry duel after another in the wilderness outside the city, which lasted for eight days.

In these eight days, he lost 30,000 troops, half of which were still the most elite iron cavalry soldiers, so he was the first to be unable to support it, and led the remaining 220,000 soldiers and horses to break through to the north and rush out.

The Ming army also suffered a lot of losses, and the Tiance Army lost nearly 1,000 soldiers in various departments, most of whom were iron cavalry soldiers affiliated to each department; More than 2,000 soldiers and horses in Shaanxi Town have lost more than 2,000 people, and the army has reached its limit.

Two days later, after Liu Juntao led his troops to rest in the Acropolis of Shazhou, he learned that he had withdrawn to Hamiwei with his troops.

So Liu Juntao did not hesitate, ordered Niu Linghe, the chief military officer of Shaanxi Town, to lead his troops to garrison the Shazhou Acropolis, ordered more than 20,000 soldiers of the Beijing battalion to rush to join the soldiers and horses of Shaanxi Town, and ordered Yan Hu, the chief military officer of Taiyuan Town stationed in Jiayuguan, to lead the Yingyang Army to rush to reinforcements.

Then, Liu Juntao stayed in the Acropolis of Shazhou for three days, and then led the Tiance Army to march westward, preparing for a decisive battle with the troops of Jiaslan under the Acropolis of Hami.