Jiangnan, Qinhuai River, in the evening.

A tall and palatial painting boat by the river is opening its doors to welcome guests, and seven or eight young scholars wearing Confucian costumes are boarding the painting boat one after another.

Although the twilight is heavy, but the lanterns are hanging high in the painting boat, very bright, after this group of people walked in, several maids came forward one after another to bow down and lead the guests to take a seat.

After a while, the wine and food were served one after another, and seven or eight women wearing light veils also twisted their thin waists like willows to come up and sit down one after another, pouring wine and food for the guests.

However, these students did not squint, and turned a blind eye to these light gauze women, all of them sat upright, drinking and eating while talking about world affairs.

"I heard that the thief army in the south has already marched into Fujian, alas, I don't know what the situation is over there now!" A young scholar said: "The thief army crossing the border is like locusts, and the people of Fujian are going to suffer!" ”

"Don't worry, Fujian's Yu Zongbing's thief army is unparalleled, the thief army has been defeated by Yu Zongbing in the first two years, and now the thief army is boldly attacking Fujian, Yu Zongbing will definitely be able to give them a head-on blow, calculate the time, it is estimated that it will not be long before Fujian's good news comes!"

"Yes, I heard that the thief army under the command of General Yu is a first-class elite division today, and its combat power is superior to that of Lord Zhang Shaobao!"

"That's it, my brother only went to Fuzhou to visit friends last year, during which he saw the drill of the thief army, the lineup is neat, the guns are sharp, there is such a strong army, the thief army goes to Fujian, it must be the head to be touched!"

Everyone has a word for me, and they highly respect the thief army under Yu Dayou's command, but at this time, a young student next to him said: "Although the thief army of General Yu is strong, the strength is not much, I heard that there are only 10,000 of them, but the thief soldiers who invaded Fujian, I heard that there are more than 30,000 people, and they are advancing by sea and land!" ”

However, as soon as this person finished speaking, someone on the side retorted: "It's just 30,000 thieves, what's this!" ”

Hearing this, the young student who spoke just now showed a wry smile: "But 30,000 thieves? Last year, Hengyang, Jiangxi Province fell, and more than half of the hundreds of thousands of troops under the command of Inspector Zhang were lost, and in that battle, the strength of the thief army was only about 100,000! ”

"That's because Inspector Zhang's command is wrong, and he allows the Jiangxi Huguang thief army to make peace, if An commands the army, he will not let the thieves in these two places converge, and then break each one!" At this time, another person also said: "The strength of the thief army is just the sharpness of the guns, and now the thief army is also full of guns, how can it be invincible, even if it is impossible to hit the thief army hard, but self-protection should be unharmed!" ”

Seeing that these people were all saying this, the young man no longer continued to refute, but smiled bitterly, and then drank to himself.

These classmates simply don't know the horror of the puppet Tang thief army!

But he himself has seen the terrible puppet Tang thief army with his own eyes.

He originally went to Nanchang to live at his second uncle's house last year, and was able to personally experience a series of battles of the thief army near Nanchang, Jiangxi, especially the battle to defend the city.

At that time, because he refused to take the initiative to serve the city defenders, he did some paperwork, and finally he was arrested like a large number of ordinary young people in the city to build various fortifications, and went to the city wall many times to brave the artillery fire of the officials and soldiers to repair all kinds of fortifications.

At that time, he thought many times that the official army could break through the city and liberate them, who were still interested in the Ming Dynasty.

After all, at that time, there were 60,000 or 70,000 officers and soldiers outside the city, which was several times more than the number of thieves in the city, and the officers and soldiers outside the city had sufficient guns.

The fight was also powerful, but even so, the official army failed to conquer Nanchang.

Whenever the officers and soldiers tried to launch a charge to attack the city, the thieves at the head of the city would inflict a lot of casualties on the officers and soldiers with guns and shells.

In the end, Nanchang City was still held by the thief army, and the official army took the initiative to retreat after several months of siege, and after the siege was over, he was able to leave the city, and then hurriedly returned home.

It was precisely because he had personally experienced the war between the thief army and the official army that he had a deeper understanding of the gap between the thief army and the official army.

And he also knows that the thief army is no longer the same as a few years ago, and there are real thieves and fake thieves, and it is rumored that almost all the thief armies are the same.

If there were really 30,000 thieves marching into Fujian, he was not optimistic that General Yu would be able to hold Fujian, although he also hoped that General Yu could hold it, but he still didn't think so.

Others don't know, but he has heard in Nanchang that the puppet Tang thief army has heard the evaluation of the officials and soldiers such as the Inspector and the Broken Thief Army, in the eyes of those thieves, Zhang Shaobao's supervisor is the big trouble, and the training army under the same Zhang Shaobao is secondary, the border army must be repeated, and the Jiangnan New Army is even secondary, as for the guards, those pseudo-Tang thieves did not take it into their eyes at all.

And the thief army is in their mouths, that is, it is similar to Zhang Shaobao's training army.

However, in the first battle of Huguang and Jiangxi, Zhang Shaobao's supervision and training army were defeated, and he didn't think that General Yu's thief army was stronger than Zhang Shaobao's army.

After all, it is the pseudo-Tang thief army that knows the strength of the official army best, and the pseudo-Tang thief army thinks so, this broken thief army is not as good as the superintendent.

What's more important is that General Yu's thief army is too small, only 10,000 or 5, how can it be able to defeat the 30,000 menacing thief army.

However, these classmates obviously don't think so, this young student thinks, I'm afraid it won't be long before the thief army will take Fujian, and the next step is estimated to be able to kill Hangzhou, at that time, the land south of the Yangtze River may not be able to avoid the war, and Jinling City is probably the place where the two sides are fighting, it is very dangerous, it is better to return to the countryside as soon as possible, this Jinling is not able to stay.

He didn't want to be trapped in the city anymore, and then be captured by the official army or the thief army, there was nothing to suffer, but if he was not careful, he would lose his life.

The soldiers are in chaos, but no one cares about the life of a little Xiucai!

The next day, he said goodbye to his classmates and friends, and then returned to his hometown in a flat boat, which was the safest in the countryside in these years.

However, what he didn't know was that not long after he left Jinling City, there were rumors in the city that the thief army had broken Shaowu, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou in Fujian, and the thief army was already approaching = Fuzhou.

Two days later, it was rumored that the thief army had even taken Nanping, and now it was a heavy army attacking Fuzhou, Fuzhou was in danger, and Fujian was in danger!

At this time, many people thought that if Fuzhou fell, Fujian would be finished, and once Fujian was finished, Zhejiang and even Jiangnan would be prosperous.

For a time, both civil and military officials and gentry and wealthy families in Jinling City were panicked, and many people asked for news from King Shangshu of Nanjing's military department.

But now Wang Yiqi is also annoyed, how can he be in the mood to deal with these people in the city!

The messages in the city are all true, because these news are all spread from Fujian, and Wang Yiqi actually learned about the situation in Fujian through the 500-mile emergency report earlier than ordinary people.

But for the crisis in Fujian, he is also helpless!

Fujian can't be saved, and all he can do now is to prepare to rebuild the defense line in the southern part of Zhejiang, trying to block the puppet Tang thief army out of Zhejiang, at least in southern Zhejiang.

Because once it passes through the central and southern parts of Zhejiang, it is the North Zhejiang Plain, and this area is already a prosperous place in the south of the Yangtze River without danger, and at that time, everything will be over.

In order to build a defense line in southern Zhejiang, Wang Yiqi even did not hesitate to transfer troops from Jinling and Anqing to the south urgently, and the twists and turns of requesting reinforcements from the north were endless, he asked for money, he wanted soldiers, guns, in short, he wanted everything.

Otherwise, he would not have the confidence to defend Jiangnan at all.

At the same time, he also sent a letter to Hanyang, asking Zhang Yue to find an opportunity to launch a certain counterattack to contain the strength of the thief army, otherwise, the thief army would be able to concentrate a large number of troops to march into Jiangnan.

Of course, these letters are still on the way, and they won't arrive for a while.

What is the situation in Fuzhou, Wang Yiqi still doesn't know!

The transmission of information was too slow, so it also led to a long delay in the understanding of the situation on the front line in the rear, whether it was the Ming army or the Tang army.

At this moment, Wang Yiqi didn't know that Fuzhou City had fallen into the hands of the thief army.

Two days ago, the Sixth Infantry Division joined the 1st Mixed Regiment and the 9th Mixed Regiment, and for the first time, Lieutenant General Wang Chaohong completely controlled all the main forces of the Third Army.

But after the siege of the city, it was found that Yu Dayou did not deploy the main force in the city at all, although there were many troops in the city, but they were all guards.

On the contrary, during the siege of the city, Yu Dayou's 8,000 thief army that discovered Yu Dayou from the flank tried to attack his flank.

Immediately, the 6th Infantry Division on the flank fought an interception battle, and as a result, the first wave of about 1,000 forwards sent by Yu Dayou failed without any suspense, and the losses were more than half.

Seeing this scene, Yu Dayou didn't know that this battle couldn't be fought, so he didn't look back and directly led the main force that had not yet participated in the battle to evacuate.

Then he ran all the way to the north, leaving more than 10,000 Ming guards who were still holding on to Fuzhou City in the wind.

Since Yu Dayou has given up and they have led the army to evacuate, the more than 10,000 guards in the city are not easy to mess with, several senior generals discussed, they can't hold it anyway, and Yu Dayou has run away, what kind of strength are they fighting, just sacrifice the city anyway, it's a big deal like Qin Zhifu, the chief soldier of Nanao Island, Lao Tzu is not an official of the Ming Dynasty, he is a pseudo-Tang Dynasty, no, it is our official of the Tang Dynasty.

There is still glory and wealth, who is still fighting for life and death!

As a result, the generals of the Ming guards in the city quickly took control of Fuzhou, and then they also wanted to pull the civil officials in the city to surrender together, but the civilian officials were different from the generals of these local guards.

The families of the generals of the guard are all local, and they don't have to worry about being exterminated by the Ming Dynasty after surrendering, but those civil officials are different, and there are not a few civil officials who have been raided and exterminated because of thieves over the years.

As a result, except for a few civil officials who were willing to do the opposite, some committed suicide, some fled, and some were killed.

Just an hour after Yu Dayou led the army to retreat, the Ming army in the city surrendered to Cheng!