[238] Poyang Lake victory

After a long time, Zuo Mengeng said: "The prosperity of the Northern Army is beyond my imagination. This army alone is probably enough to sweep the world. ”

Li Guoying still said stiffly: "Don't be afraid, as the saying goes, a good man can't stand a lot of people." We have an army of 300,000, enough to fight one of four~"

Jin Shengheng shook his head and said: "The soldiers and horses are the capital of the young marshal, if the soldiers and horses are all gone, the young marshal's words will have no weight." At that time, whether it was Song Youliang or Ma Shiying, they would abandon us like a shoe. ”

"So what do you say?" Li Guoying shouted angrily

"Withdraw the troops~~" Zuo Mengeng said: "As long as we hold Poyang Lake, it will not be so easy for the northern army to go down the river to the east." ”

Therefore, Zuo Mengeng retreated to the mouth of the lake, and built six wooden fires in the waterway to block the waterway, and arranged boats full of stones behind the wooden fires. Prepare to carve into small boats and block the waterway as soon as the wooden bowl is lost.

Although Hukou County belongs to the alluvial plain area of Poyang Lake, it has prominent hilly landforms, undulating hills, and vertical and horizontal harbors. The topographic structure is surrounded by mountains in the southeast, rivers and lakes in the northwest, and small hills and ridges in the middle are undulating, and the general trend is inclined from southeast to northwest.

Hearing that Zuo Mengeng had withdrawn his troops, Song Youliang easily entered Jiujiang City. After commending Yang Tinglin and Liu Guangyin, they arrived at the camp that night.

"Hukou is also an important wharf on the south bank of the Yangtze River. It is connected to the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake, which is the import and export of Poyang Lake for 500 miles. Liu Guangyin said: "The left army still has 300 large and small ships, but our army ships are few and small, so if the left army advances by land and water, then we will be in danger." ”

Li Dingguo is now the Marquis of Shunyi of the Ming Dynasty, the battalion officer of the Dingzi battalion, he had come to Jiujiang with Zhang Xianzhong in his early years, he said: "Our army is upstream, Zuo Mengeng is downstream, he wants to go upstream, I'm afraid he can't." However, the waterway of the Yangtze River that he is now blocking is only locking the surface of Poyang Lake, so is it possible for our army to bypass Poyang Lake and fight with it again? ”

Song Youliang asked, "What does that Hongyuan mean?" ”

"Follow the example of Emperor Hongwu and break Zuo Menggeng's sailors in Poyang Lake. Opposite the mouth of the lake, Meijiazhou in the middle of the river is a large sandbar about 40 miles long and about 45 miles wide. The north of Meijiazhou is narrow, and large ships cannot pass through, and the main waterway is in the south. It was only necessary to place 10,000 horses there, build a fortress and erect artillery on the continent, block the river, and prepare to meet the attack of the sailors of the left army. ”

As soon as Li Dingguo's voice fell, a pawn came to report, saying that the left army's naval division had raided Meijiazhou and several other Ming army camps along the river and lake, and because his own naval division was inferior to the left army, it suffered a lot of losses.

Gu Junen was deeply impressed by Li Dingguo's strategy, and he said: "The left army has achieved certain results in blocking our army with danger. If our army wants to break the enemy, it must attack, and our army's naval division is currently inferior to them, so if we want to break the left army's naval division, we must outwit it. ”

Song Youliang said: "Then the matter of eliminating Zuo Menggeng's water army will be handed over to the two of you." ”

"I will not disgrace my mission~" Li Dingguo hugged his fist

Gu Junen also bowed: "Get the order!" ”

So, that night, 10,000 soldiers and horses were stationed in Meijiazhou, and a fort was set up on the sandbar to block the waterway.

Early the next morning, Li Guoying of the left army led the navy to attack again. Li Dingguo relied on the fort on the sandbar to bombard the warships of the left army. At the same time, small fireboats were released to block the entrance to the waterway.

Since Zuo Liangyu formed the Sailor Division, Li Guoying has never lost a battle, and he didn't expect that now he is besieged in Meijiazhou. He ordered the warships to be gathered together, avoid the batteries at both ends of Meijiazhou, attack the middle section with all their might, and force the landing, in an attempt to engage the Ming army on the continent. Helplessly, Li Dingguo's subordinates are all the old troops of the Great Western Army, and they have a deep hatred for the Left Army. Coupled with the sharp muskets and artillery of the Ming army, the left army that landed on the sandbar was almost completely annihilated.

In desperation, after Li Guoying picked up some of the defeated troops on the ship, he changed his plan to attack Meijiazhou and concentrated all his efforts to break through upstream. After rushing left and right, dropping a large number of ships and weapons, and paying a great price, they broke through the blockade and fled the battlefield.

However, the advantage of the naval army in Poyang Lake is still on Zuo Menggeng's side, so Zuo Mengeng sent the naval army several times to test it. But since then, the armies of Jiujiang, Hukou, and Meijiazhou have only held on, ignoring the attack of the left army. After Li Guoying's several attacks, they were ineffective. After resting for two days, there was no movement of the enemy. So, they ordered all sides to attack, but the Ming army only held on and did not meet the battle. After tossing and turning for two days, the troops returned to the camp tiredly. At night, when the left army was about to rest, the left army's naval division was camped on the river, and suddenly guns and cannons rang out, and countless small boats rushed into the river, shooting rockets and fireballs at the left army's naval division's boats. The left army's naval division is not fighting, and it can't sleep.

Li Guoying stood on the big boat, looking at the small ships of the Ming army coming and going like the wind, his warship was huge and slow, and he scolded angrily: "Song Youliang, if you have the ability, you will come to fight with your grandfather Li Guoying in a dignified manner!" ”

For several nights like this, the left army was really tormented and miserable.

Finally, on the morning of the tenth day, a faint mist rose on Poyang Lake, and the sentry of the Left Army suddenly found that a fleet of more than 40 small boats formed by the Ming Army suddenly appeared on the river. After learning of this situation, Li Guoying immediately discussed countermeasures with the generals.

Adjutant General Zhang Guoneng said: "It is said that our army's naval division is far better than the northern army at present, and they dare not only dispatch more than 40 boats to act on the river. Since the action is acted, there must be deception. ”

Zuo Mengeng said disdainfully: "What if there is fraud? If there is no good way to attack the enemy, we will stay in this small place at Hukou for the rest of our lives. This opportunity must not be missed. For the sake of prudence, Zuo Mengeng still ordered the naval division to be divided into two parts, and the forward deputy general Guo Jiesan led more than 90 small boats and sampans to intercept the Ming fleet, and Li Guoying led the big ships to support later

As a result, a fight began between the Left Army and the Ming Army on the Hukou River, and the Ming Army's Water Division, after suffering some losses, immediately turned around and sailed towards Poyang Lake. Nearly 100 small boats of the Left Army's naval division chased the back of the Ming Army's naval division into the lake. The Ming army in Meijiazhou immediately sealed the waterway under the command of Li Dingguo, built fortifications, sank thousands of catties of stones and sandbags, and locked them in the lake.

"Fire!" At the same time, the batteries on Meijiazhou also opened fire together, and many shells also bombarded the fleet of the left army's naval division. At this point, the naval division of the left army knew that the Ming army was in charge, but since the circuit had been cut off, he simply rowed the boat to the center of Poyang Lake to avoid the Ming army's shells. As a result, the slow-moving large ships of the Left Army lost the protection of the small boats. The light boats of the Ming army rowed back and forth like shuttles in the cracks of the large ships of the left army, throwing strings of torches and fireballs, and burned nine large ships and more than 30 medium-sized ships of the left army in a short time. Li Guoying relied on the fierce artillery fire of the big ship, so that the Ming army's clippers could not get close, so as to avoid the catastrophe.

At this time, the small boats of the Left Army, which were blocked in Poyang Lake, were fiercely attacked by the medium-sized warships of the Ming Army. The medium-sized warship took advantage of the tall hull and overturned the small boat of the left army. Some of the small boats of the left army wanted to break through to save the big ships, but they were heavily bombarded by Meijiazhou's artillery fire and suffered heavy losses. In the end, Guo Jiesan could only choose to break through to the east and give up the rescue of the big ship

During the night, the Ming army again launched a larger-scale attack on the naval division of the Left Army.

Under the leadership of Li Dingguo and Gu Junen, the Ming army pushed more than 50 small boats loaded with various firearms into the Yangtze River, and took advantage of the dim night to rush into the left army boat gang to carry out a fire attack.

When the moon was dark and the wind was high, it was difficult to distinguish between friend and foe at hand, and the small boats of the Ming army were sandwiched between the big ships of the left army, and the artillery fire of the big ships was completely useless. The fire was ignited, and the left army, which was in disarray, hung their sails and sailed downstream. Li Guoying sat on a big ship to supervise the formation and ordered not to sail the ship, but no one listened to his orders at all. In the midst of the rush, hundreds of warships that had not had time to flee were burned. Li Guoying's large ship was also unable to move, and even the rudder was damaged by the warship of the Left Army that fled in a hurry. The soldiers of the Ming army recognized that this was the ship of the commander of the navy, and shouted: "Capture Zuo Mengeng alive!" Immediately, they jumped on the command ship and started a white-knives fight with Li Guoying's personal soldiers.

Li Guoying didn't plan to be a substitute for Zuo Mengeng, so he quickly took off his armor, jumped into the river, and fled for his life

Zuo Mengeng, who was standing at the head of Hukou City, looked at the billowing smoke on the river, and saw that the sailors he had carefully built had been devastated, and the wrecked ships were scattered crookedly along the riverside, and the scene was very bleak. Seeing that the bet in his hand had disappeared, Zuo Mengeng felt that the general trend had gone, and it was difficult to clean it up, and it was better to be cold all over his body than to sink in the cold river water.

Zuo Mengeng could only take the initiative to retreat again and deploy 300,000 soldiers and horses in the area of Pengze County. The next day, Liu Tichun quickly arrived at Pengze with 5,000 cavalry, of course the 5,000 cavalry was not a siege, they did not carry siege equipment, but Zuo Mengeng's 100,000 army could not all live in the city, they set up a big village outside the city, each village is continuous for more than ten miles, from Madang Mountain in the north to Xiangkou River in the south.

Liu Tichun was also very cautious about the continuous left army camp, he first sent a thousand cavalry to cautiously approach the left camp of the left army, and once the enemy went into battle, his army immediately retreated.

The leader of the team is Liu Tichun's deputy general He Yinyuan, He Yinyuan is known for his boldness and is nicknamed "He Daring". Although he only led a thousand cavalry this time, he was not afraid of the left battalion at all, and rushed directly to the outside of the camp dozens of paces and fired three feathered arrows in a row into the camp. The left army was not blind, and he had already seen He Yinyuan's 1,000 horsemen, but he didn't expect them to be so bold that they dared to rush outside the camp and set fire, and then opened the camp gate and led his subordinates to rush towards He Yinyuan.

Seeing thousands of enemy soldiers rushing towards him, He Yinyuan was about to take his subordinates to turn his horse and escape, but he found that the left army out of the camp was out of order, the infantry and cavalry were mixed together, and the cavalry had no mobility at all. ”

"Kill!" What kind of soldiers will bring what kind of soldiers, He Yinyuan is stupid and bold, and so are his subordinates, all of whom are masters of life. A thousand cavalry followed closely behind He Yinyuan and rushed straight towards the more than 10,000 rebels who came out of the camp.

Several lieutenants of the left army thought that as long as they left the camp, the other party would be frightened away, but they did not expect that the other party would dare to counterattack themselves, and they were so anxious that they drank desperately, wanting to liberate the cavalry from the infantry to meet the enemy, but it was too late, and before their cavalry moved, He Yinyuan had already led the army to kill, swept from the flank of the rebels, as if it was a knife into tofu, only one round, the rebels on the periphery fell to the ground one after another, and a large piece was cut off by He Yinyuan, at least hundreds of rebels fell under the knife of He Yinyuan.

"Run~" I don't know who among the rebels shouted first, and the left army in the rear woke up like a dream, scattered in all directions, and ran towards the camp gate.

Seeing this situation, He Yinyuan was overjoyed, but he was not bold and stupid enough to kick the camp like this, they also didn't dare to fall into it, and could only eat away little by little on the periphery.