A.D. 1680, the nineteenth year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty.

In the Lingyin Temple outside Hangzhou, Prince Yu Fuquan has just returned from incense. As a nobleman of the Manchu court, Aixin Jueluo Fuquan was born with a golden spoon since he was a child, and his identity is unspeakably expensive. However, this does not mean that he is a straw bag who does not know anything, on the contrary, Prince Yu, who has undergone a complete royal education, is not only familiar with the poetry and classics of the Han people, but also is no stranger to the horseback archery, army management and warfare handed down by the Manchus. Otherwise, no matter how high his status is, Kangxi in Beijing is not a fool and will entrust him with national affairs.

Aixin Jueluo Fuquan's current identity is the general of the expedition to the south, commanding the Manchu and Han armies in the early 100,000s of the Hangzhou battalion, and the defense area includes Songjiang, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, etc., including many Jiangnan prefectures and counties, not only to deal with the small force of Shun soldiers and horses that may flow from Jiangxi, but also to shoulder the heavy responsibility of eliminating the Lu Wang regime, of course, the most important task of Prince Yu, everyone knows that it is to stare at the yellow-clothed thieves in Ningbo Mansion and prevent them from becoming a scourge.

Once upon a time, the yellow-clothed thief was peaceful, so that the Qing army in the Hangzhou camp had a very peaceful life. But since a few years ago, they and the former Ming and Lu king's regime attached to it began to launch a large-scale attack on the Qing army in northern Zhejiang, among which the miscellaneous armed forces under the king of Lu were the most active, and even mobilized tens of thousands of horses, although a considerable part of them were incorporated on the spot after attacking northern and western Zhejiang.

There were more than 100,000 Qing troops in the Hangzhou battalion, but the area to be defended was too large, so it often took a certain amount of time to assemble. In addition, the yellow-clothed pirates were sharp, often rampage in the coastal waters, and then choose a place to land and loot, coming and going like the wind, which was a headache, so the Qing court had to station a large number of troops in some important coastal defense towns all year round, which made their forces more dispersed and were very contained. After all, no one knows which time the thief in yellow is really going to land, and which time is a false shot.

Therefore, it took a lot of effort for the Hangzhou camp to slowly regain the advantage in the Shaoxing Mansion, and by the way, it restored the Yanzhou Mansion in western Zhejiang, so that Zhang Huangyan, the supervisor of the Third Road of the Southern Ming Dynasty, was disgraced and lost face.

However, those local chickens and dogs under King Lu's hands are easy to deal with, and it is difficult for the yellow-clothed Haikou to be entangled. When Prince Yu first came to Hangzhou, it was the time when our Qing army was marching southward, intending to recover the lost territory of the entire Shaoxing Mansion in one go. At that time, more than 40,000 people went south along the Cao'e River, quickly took Shengxian County, and pushed the soldiers to the Xinchang County town guarded by the yellow-clothed thieves.

Of course, I can only go so far in the Qing Dynasty. The 40,000 army, if placed on an ordinary battlefield, is already a very large force, but in front of the nearly 10,000 yellow-clothed thieves who have the advantage of the cannon of the fortified city, I am afraid that it is not enough, so the occupation is naturally stalemate. And the Qing army, which realized that it was impossible to capture Xinchang City, also retreated under the order of Tong Guogang. And this order, Prince Yu Fuquan, who was newly appointed to take over the position of general of Zhengnan, also acquiesced. He understood that what the emperor wanted was not to recapture Xinchang and occupy Ningbo, but to stabilize the situation, not to let it deteriorate again, and to keep half of the south of the Yangtze River for the Qing Dynasty.

Jiangnan has always been a place of wealth, and has contributed a large number of raw silk, silk, tea and other materials to our Qing Dynasty over the years, and its role is not unimportant. Fuquan listened to the emperor's uncle Prince Gong, who was in charge of foreign affairs, said frankly, "The southeast wealth and goods, the imperial court admires it", although Jiangbei is not without these, but without Jiangnan, it is always very painful, and there are fewer goods that can be used to exchange markets with foreign merchants, which is indeed a very realistic problem for the Qing Dynasty, which is extremely thirsty for foreign weapons.

Moreover, Fuquan also learned that the situation in the west and northern Xinjiang is now becoming more and more serious. Since the reunification of the Dzungar Mongols, they have shown increasing aggressiveness, and their leader Geldan has continuously sent envoys to the Mongol tribes in the upper part of the country, while sending troops to conquer cities and expand his territory. For example, two years ago, they had already entered the old land of the former Chagatai Khanate, because of their internal relationship, I heard that the road was very smooth, although they also went through a lot of fighting, but on the whole, it was a winning streak, presumably this will have completely controlled the six cities of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Yingisha, Aksu, and Ushi. And if Geldan completely digests these remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, tens of thousands of dragon spirits and tiger warriors will be added to his account, and his ambitions will only be greater.

The imperial court was now worried that after the unification of the Oirat Mongols, the elimination of the Kashgar Khanate (both of which were estimated to have been completed), and the defeat and intimidation of the Kazakhs to the west, the center of expansion would likely be shifted to the Mongolian steppes, especially the Mongol tribes in Mobei, which were constantly in contact with it. The integration of Manchu and Mongolia has always been the basis for our Manchuria to balance China, once Mobei Mongolia is occupied, Mongol Mongolia is bound to have a storm, and the imperial court can still have Ningri at that time?

And even if it is not considered from the perspective of the integration of Manchu and Mongolia, from the military point of view alone, the emergence of a male lord and overlord on the grassland has always been an unbearable thing for the Central Plains Dynasty. The Han had the Xiongnu, the Tang had the Turks, the Song had the Khitan, and the Jin had the Mongols, and since the Qing Dynasty could not tolerate the rise of the Dzungar Mongols on the steppe, it was no longer an irreversible general trend to gradually adjust the strategic focus and strengthen the defense of the northwestern frontier.

In this situation, maintaining the general stability of the southeast has become the goal pursued by the imperial court. As Kangxi's brother, Fuquan is naturally very clear about this, so after arriving in Hangzhou to take over the camp, he ordered the army accumulated in the Xinsheng Basin to retreat in batches, only retaining the thousands of people under the jurisdiction of the Xinsheng General Army stationed in the county seat of Shengxian County as a warning, and most of the rest returned to the camps in Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou and other places to guard the place.

But now the situation has clearly turned to the side that is extremely unfavorable to the imperial court! Fu Quan actually didn't understand, very incomprehensible, why the thieves in yellow kept staring at them repeatedly, and rarely had conversations, which made him feel incredible. Just like this time, the yellow-clothed thieves first used a large number of ships to cruise around Jiaxing and Songjiang, as if they had the intention of landing on a large scale (and even sent a small number of people to land to confuse the opponent), and successfully attracted many prefectures and counties, including Hangzhou, to come to their aid, and attracted 40,000 or 50,000 people to come over at once, so that other places exposed a lot of flaws, such as Shaoxing Mansion.

Fuquan was having dinner when he received the news that Shengxian was broken, and he was speechless for a long time after listening to it, and he couldn't eat anymore, so he hurriedly convened the left and right henchmen to discuss the matter, but he couldn't say why for a long time. Some people think that the focus of the attack of the yellow-clothed thieves must still be in the northern Songjiang, Jiaxing and even Suzhou prefectures, they have always been greedy for money, goods, people, every place, will inevitably loot on a large scale, leaving not an inch of grass, and Shaoxing Mansion has been fighting and fighting for many years, and the loss of population and property is very serious, and it may not be able to enter the eyes of the yellow-clothed thieves. But at the same time, some people believe that it is precisely because the yellow-clothed thieves have used the boat division to land more times, and this time it is possible to march from the south to the north by surprise, which can be seen from the messenger who escaped from Shengxian County to report that the yellow-clothed thieves have gathered "100,000" - 100,000 is naturally an exaggeration, and everyone is not stupid, but after removing the water, there are probably 20,000 or 30,000 people, which is very eye-catching.

Prince Yu thought about it, and finally chose to believe the second theory, that is, the yellow-clothed thief did indeed gather the main force to kill from the south this time, and the large number of ships wandering around in the north were probably a trick to confuse people. Therefore, Fuquan quickly made a decision, convened his subordinate officials to discuss the matter, began to hoard supplies and gather troops in Hangzhou, and also sent a team of more than 10,000 capable men and horses to cross the river to the east as quickly as possible to reinforce Shaoxing Mansion - at this time, it has been three days since the people on the east bank besieged Shengxian, not that the Qing army is too slow, but that in this era, there is no country in the world that has a rapid reaction force that can be put into war at any time, Fu Quanneng made a large reinforcement of Shaoxing Mansion in three days (and one day of negotiation time) and prepared more than 10,000 soldiers' equipment, grain and grass and opening fees, which can be regarded as speed.

However, not long after this army marched eastward and arrived in Huiji County, the news that the yellow-clothed thieves marched lightly, went straight to the official road, and cut off the connection between the east and the west, also reached Prince Yu Fuquan, who had just returned from the incense of Lingyin Temple. There is no doubt that this news made him a little stunned, and at the same time a little surprised, how fast this yellow-clothed thief was! It only took a few days to rush to the lower reaches of the Cao'e River, surrounded Shangyu County, and cut off the connection between the Yuyao garrison in the east and the Fucheng area in the west.

Fuquan became angry all of a sudden, although he was a nobleman and was in charge of heavy troops, but after all, he was only a young man in his twenties, and he couldn't accept it when he encountered this situation, so he suddenly strengthened his determination to lead the troops eastward to rescue Shaoxing and fight a big war with the people on the east coast.

And just when Fu Quantie was determined to transfer troops and send generals, under Shangyu City on June 18, Niu Gui, the commander of the Ninth Division of the Servant Army, who had just commanded the troops to retreat, was also throwing a copy of the Qing army's surrender letter to the muddy ground, and at the same time shook his head in his heart, this Tartar is really stupid, obviously he is a turtle in the urn, but he still wants to surrender himself with an edict written by the Tartar Emperor, which is really ridiculous.

That edict, according to the master, should have been made by the Qing Emperor and sent to Hangzhou Prefecture, so that the officials of each prefecture could act according to their will and recruit more generals on the east coast. Looking at its content, what does Kang Mazi say, "Haikou mountain bandits, occupying Ningbo, entrenched for many years", what "or doing evil for a long time, there is no reason to be right; or coerced by Kou and unable to extricate himself. Drowning deeply, thinking that the sin is serious, I am afraid that it will be difficult to invite leniency, hesitating and waiting, it is inevitable" and so on, which means that you Niu Gui was coerced by the people of the east coast, and had no choice but to do a lot of evil, and then felt that he was guilty of a lot of sins, and it was impossible to be forgiven, so he went all the way to the black, and he did it with the thief in yellow - Niu Gui wanted to laugh when he heard these contents, this Qing Emperor was really arrogant, with a condescending tone, and he didn't look at the shit everywhere on his buttocks now.

The funniest thing is that this Kangxi actually has "deep compassion for people like Niu Gui, and he opened up the Internet, pardoned the past innocents, and gave them a way of fame." If you can repent of your sins and be sincere, you will be forgiven of your previous sins and rewarded with a higher reward. "This is simply a big joke in the world, Niu Gui thinks that this Qing court is really declining. If it was left twenty or thirty years ago, how could they use such an already weak tone to surrender, basically throwing off an ultimatum such as "if you don't obey, the jade will be burned", and then it will be over. How can it be like now, you actually washed the ground for Niu Gui and the others, saying that they were coerced, even if you killed how many Green Battalions and how many Manmeng Eight Banner disciples you killed before, you can now be pardoned, and you will also be added to the rank of knight, it is simply shameless!

Niu Gui finally asked people to put away the copy of this edict, and planned to send it to the gendarmes later and hand it over to them for disposal. He is a soldier, or don't be too involved in these messy things, what he should think about at the moment is how to take Shangyu County as soon as possible.

It has been two days since the army on the east bank besieged Shangyu County. Although most of the more than 30,000 men and horses have other tasks, the artillery is not less equipped with these siege troops, so Niu Gui's Ninth Division and Dong Dalang's Fifth Division, if they can't conquer the county as soon as possible, it is indeed impossible to say.

The more than 30 artillery pieces they gathered had blasted a big hole in the outer city of Shangyu County, and sent troops to break into it twice, but they were all shot out by the Qing army's hidden artillery. Just now, Niu Gui's sons organized more than 500 people, braved the artillery fire and arrows of the Qing army, broke into and occupied a forward position, and then covered several artillery pieces into the city, which defeated the Qing army in one fell swoop.

At this meeting, Dong Dalang's main regiment has been driven in one after another and occupied many key points. But what is painful is that probably because of the relationship between the location, Shangyu County has been continuously strengthened and rebuilt by the Qing court over the years, not only has an outer city, but also a small inner city, which will actually have two or three thousand remnants of the defeated army hiding in the corner and resisting stubbornly, which is very annoying. It must be known that they can't afford to delay time, and now that the Qing army on the Yuyao side has begun to retreat in a panic, the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant Colonel Junio, with the main force of the 7th Mixed Battalion and the 5th Division of the Zhejiang New Army, began to backlog to the east, and cooperated with the thousands of men and horses dispatched by Yinxian County - including 3,500 people from the 3rd Division of the Servant Army Sun Shouzheng who were urgently transferred from Cixi County, 1,450 people from the 11th Mixed Battalion and some local police and militia, with a total of about 7,000 people. I plan to take advantage of these people's panic and disunity of thought to wipe them out.

At this time, there must be no chaos! The inner city of Shangyu County must be taken as soon as possible, even if it is a pile of human lives - of course, not their own lives, but the lives of the Qing army - they must be taken!