On June 24, 1652, after successively breaking through the two county towns of Danyang and Jurong, Liu Guochang, who was old in the military, did not dare to delay much in the local area, but only hastily collected some materials, and then took a large number of storytellers, handicraftsmen, low-level scholars, and Lang Zhongjiao professionals who Liu Haiyang named, and hurried to withdraw to Xijin Gudu.

During this period, there were no Qing troops coming from the direction of Nanjing, perhaps Liu Guochang's attack on Jurong confused them, thinking that the yellow-clothed thieves were going to invade Nanjing in a big way, so they were all waiting at home. But who would have thought that the people on the east bank just shook a shot, and then led the army to withdraw to Xijindu on the Yangtze River with the spoils of war, and the emptiness of the Qing army's troops in the interior can be seen from this, so that the allies are speculating whether the Qing court will draw troops from the direction of Jiangxi and Hangzhou to aid Jiangnan, but this kind of careless approach is actually of little significance, the Jiangxi battlefield is facing the pressure of Guo Sheng (more than 50,000 people) and Wang Deren's two departments at the moment, and Hangzhou also has to maintain pressure on Ningbo and Wentai, and these two forces are withdrawn. The consequences are unpredictable.

Maybe we can only transfer elite troops from the Huguang battlefield to the east to Jiangxi, and then transfer Jiangxi's men and horses to Jiangnan? But the question is, isn't this the strategic purpose of the East Coasters? Wasn't the biggest strategic purpose of their expedition to relieve the pressure on the Dashun and Daxi regimes on the battlefields of Huguang and Sichuan? The Daxi regime was too far away to care about him, and on the Huguang battlefield in the central region, there were 1780,000 relatively elite Qing troops, and although they currently had the upper hand in the war with Dashun, once tens of thousands of people were dispatched to the east, this momentum would probably be discharged, and the Dashun regime might be able to stabilize the front. And this is obviously intolerable for the Qing army.

It's troublesome. It's hard to do! It seems that the Qing army has a difficult choice. Because Jiangnan is no better than others, it is a place that the Qing court must protect, and it cannot be saved! Otherwise, once this place is broken, the political impact will not talk about it first, and the negative economic impact will be enough to make the Qing court uncomfortable for a long time.

The troubles of the Qing court were obviously the happiness of the people on the east coast, and the Allied soldiers who were carrying supplies in full swing at the Watanabe of Nishijin were beaming with joy. It is cool to fight with the general army of Liu of the Eastern Dynasty, and every time he captures a lot, it is almost too late; Some people even exaggerated. I'm afraid the warehouses on Chongming Sand are all full, right?

From the first day of landing on 13 June to today's 24 June, with the help of more than 1,500 large and small ships, it took more than 10 days for the people on the east coast to finally return all kinds of materials and personnel captured in the battle of Zhenjiang to Chongmingsha. On the Chongming Sha Wharf, the people on the east coast and even the naval warships mobilized to use their best strength to load supplies to Ningbo Prefecture, which shows the abundance of seizures in this battle.

In these ten days, the Qing army from Suzhou and Nanjing successively "recovered" Jurong, Danyang, Dantu (i.e., Zhenjiang Fucheng) and other counties, and then gathered troops and horses and pressed towards Xijindu. The people of the East Coast were not afraid of this. They relied on the walls of Gudu and some of the temporary camps built to hold on to a large number of Qing troops. The Qing army outside the city was mostly cavalry. There are not only the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners, but also the Han Army Horse Team, with a total of six or seven thousand people. But so what? The cavalry has the ability to attack the city, and the uncle's knife has long been unbearable.

During the stalemate, Liu Haiyang also sent Ao Guanhai's heavy infantry battalion, supplementary company, and artillery company to fight, but the Qing cavalry could not rush into battle, and was killed and wounded by artillery, so they could only retreat. Before retreating, some Qing army generals scolded angrily, "Since ancient times, there is only an emperor on a horse, and there is no emperor on a ship", and the generals on the east coast who heard this laughed loudly, and Liu Haiyang secretly laughed at another time and space in 1840, wasn't there an "emperor on the ship" who killed him, and how did the "emperor on the horse" deal with it at that time?

Ignoring the weak clamor of the Qing army outside the city, the people on the east bank acted at their own pace. On June 27, the whole army rested for three days inside and outside Xijin Gudu, and then after discovering that the number of Qing troops outside the city was slightly larger, Liu Haiyang decided that the whole army could pull anchor and set sail towards the next goal. In the past few days, the sun in the south of the Yangtze River has gradually become scorching, the temperature has risen rapidly, and in such a hot weather, tens of thousands of Qing troops have been mobilized by the people on the east coast in the field.

As for the goal of the next battle, Liu Haiyang also had a plan after discussing with the generals, that is, Taiping Mansion, Chizhou Mansion and even Luzhou Mansion and Anqing Mansion a little further upstream of Jiangning Mansion. Although these prefectures and counties that also belong to Jiangnan Province are not as rich and prosperous as the five southeastern provinces, in ancient times, they were also rare land of fish and rice, coupled with the emptiness of troops and weak defense, it was an excellent place for Liu Haiyang to play the tens of thousands of allied troops at hand.

Before setting off, Liu Haiyang and the others decided to play another small trick, that is, to send Ruan Jin and Hong Xishan to lead thousands of officers and soldiers of the naval division down the river, to the banks of the rivers around Suzhou and Changzhou Prefecture, and make a posture of landing. Liu Haiyang instructed them to move slowly, and to leave enough time for the Qing army to "discover" them, so that they could attract and mobilize part of the Qing army's forces, and use this to cover up the true combat intentions of the allied forces.

Anyway, the troops of these two people are mainly naval divisions, and they are not very resistant to war, and they will not be of much use when they really go into battle, so it is better to let them confuse the Qing army and create a good surprise opportunity for the main fleet led by Liu Haiyang and others.

The combat operations of organizing an army of 30,000 or 40,000 are quite complicated, and the consumption of materials is not a small amount. Fortunately, the daily needs of the army, rice, vegetables and vegetables can be raised on the spot - in fact, they have captured a lot in the battle a while ago, and a lot of grain and rice have been transferred back to Chongmingsha for temporary storage - meat (fat supplement) is partly collected on the spot, and partly transported from the rear; As for the protein supplement, this can only rely on the barreled salted fish that is transported in large quantities from Chongming Sand.

These fish are mainly Pacific softfish, saury, sardines and salmon, which are accumulated in the Heishui area over the years, and this Yangtze River operation, 40,000 troops fought for several months, and the consumption was extremely huge. If it weren't for the rapid expansion of the fishing fleet in the Heishui area every year, perhaps the stock of salted fish in the ice cellars in Heishui and Dabo would have been reduced to a dangerous warning line from next year.

In addition to these foods, gunpowder, lead, shells, arrows, and coal, which were consumed in large quantities in the battle, were also transported from Chongming Sand. The transport ships on the east coast are transporting all kinds of materials from Yantai, Ningbo, Jeju and other places to Chongmyeongsha day and night. Then some naval ships (a total of 6 armed transport ships and flute-type ships) and the sailors of Nguyen Tan and Hong Xi Son were transferred to the front line. Of course. As the fighting spread upstream. Liu Haiyang is also considering transferring the last four gunboats that are still parked in Dinghai Port, and together with the eight gunboats that have already gone to battle with the army, they will take advantage of their fast speed to transfer supplies (each ship can carry more than 50 tons of additional supplies without removing the necessary coal and supplies), and at the same time patrol the river to attack the small boats of the Qing army that may appear.

And just like that, after most of the supplies were in place. On June 28, Ruan Jin and Hong Xishan led some small boats (about 500 boats) down the river, preparing to go to Suzhou and Changzhou to confuse the Qing army; On the night of the 28th, the main force of the Allied forces (more than 30,000 war auxiliaries) took naval warships, some sail transport ships, and more than 1,000 small offshore boats, followed the southeast wind blowing from the sea, went up against the current of the Yangtze River, and quietly killed the first target, Dangtu County, Taiping Prefecture.

On 6 July, 30,000 Allied soldiers braved the drizzle to land on the river's edge, and then marched into the city with lightning speed. Dangtu County, as the capital county of Taiping Prefecture, was originally garrisoned by thousands of people, but it is a pity that the yellow-clothed thieves wreaked havoc in the Zhenjiang area last month. The local soldiers and horses were all led by the generals of the Wuhu battalion further upstream, and went to Nanjing in the starry night. But who would have thought that these thieves in yellow were so cunning. Unexpectedly, he shot to the territory of Taiping Mansion?

But no matter how much you regret it at this time, it is useless, it is impossible for the troops who came to aid Nanjing to come back in a short time, even if they barely rush back, they are tired, which general dares to pull them into battle? Therefore, the fate of Dangtu County is doomed!

On July 7, the army on the east bank attacked only one round, and more than 1,000 Qing troops in the city scattered and fled. Liu Haiyang got off the boat and entered the city that night, and then ordered Liu Guochang to lead tens of thousands of horses and horses to take a boat to Wuhu. Wuhu County originally had a general stationed with thousands of men and horses, but unfortunately at this moment he had gone to Nanjing to run against the sun (people on the east coast jokingly called it, meaning that the Qing army was mobilized everywhere in the field), Wuhu was simply undefended for Liu Guochang's army, and it was easy to take.

On July 13, when the main force of the allied army led by Liu Haiyang of more than 20,000 people arrived in Wuhu County by land (by the way, collecting grain, grass and livestock), Liu Guochang's army had already set off again to capture Fanchang County in the west. There are some anti-Qing forces hiding in the mountains to take the opportunity to riot, enveloping thousands of people to echo the actions of the allies.

On 20 July, the main Allied forces converged at Ogi Port, and then quickly requisitioned local masters to build a walled city, and waited for naval ships to bring supplies from downstream. In fact, in the past half a month, they have almost no intensity in the battle in Taiping Mansion (only more than 3,300 Qing troops have been killed, wounded and captured), and the consumption of various military funds is very small, and the amount of gunpowder and lead has even increased compared with before the war (because of the capture), so they can continue to sweep around without waiting for supplies to be sent downstream. But Liu Haiyang felt that it was better to wait and see the movements of the Qing army, after all, their main goal was to attract the Qing army on the Jiangxi and Huguang battlefields to move eastward, if this part of the Qing army resolutely did not move, then it would be useless for them to toss here, they could only train and train troops.

And at this time, the news of the fall of almost the entire Taiping Mansion should have spread to Chizhou Mansion and Jiujiang Mansion further upstream, right? At this time, the Qing army has to carefully weigh and judge, that is, whether to send soldiers and horses from the Jiangxi battlefield to the east to rescue Jiangnan Province; And once the Jiangxi Qing army, which is currently on the defensive, is transferred, then it is inevitable to transfer people from Hubei to fill the vacancy, otherwise aren't they afraid that Nanchang and other northern Jiangxi counties will be conquered by Guo Sheng and Wang Deren?

Therefore, this choice can be said to be related to the overall situation, and one only depends on how the commander of the Qing army judges. If he judged that he could wipe out the two or three hundred thousand horses of the Shun army before Jiangnan was troubled by the yellow-clothed thieves, then it would not be impossible to sit back and watch the erosion of Jiangnan, after all, it was also right to solve the enemy first; Of course, if he judged that he would not be able to eliminate the main force of the Shun army in a short period of time - this seemed to be a high probability event - then he would have to honestly send elite troops east to fill the vacancy in the Jiangxi battlefield, so that Geng Zhongming and Shen Zhixiang could withdraw to rescue Jiangnan, after all, the consequences of Jiangnan erosion are not something that anyone can bear. Do you want to live next year?

August 16th. Just when the Allied forces had just returned from a sweep in Nanling County, Ningguo's mansion. The news of the appearance of the Qing army in the vicinity finally came, and the first part of the dynasty that was collecting grain and grass was raided by the horse team led by Geng Zhongming, and more than 500 people were wiped out. And this immediately attracted the attention of the people on the east coast, Liu Haiyang urgently ordered all departments to retract, and at the same time sent people to continue to inquire about the news. The soldiers and horses of the Qing army came from afar against the hot weather in August, that is, tired army, tired army, if the number is not large (less than 20,000), Liu Haiyang plans to fight with a dozen people.

However, the number of Qing troops was obviously beyond his expectations. The number of Qing troops smuggled from Chizhou Mansion, Ningguo Mansion and Jiangbei was unbelievably large, and it seemed that there were almost 60,000 or 70,000 people. Moreover, naval gunboats patrolling the river reported signs of activity in the vicinity of the Qing Army's naval divisions, which attempted to drive piles in the river to prevent the east coast fleet from moving westward.

Liu Haiyang, who heard the news, was not shocked or overjoyed, because it meant that the strength of the Qing army on the Huguang battlefield was likely to be weakened, and their previous momentum of soaring was likely to be frustrated, which was of extremely critical significance to the Shun army's containment and dispersion, regrouping of troops, repairing city defenses, and adjusting deployment.

The main force of the Qing army soon pressed towards the small port of Ogi from all directions, and the soldiers and horses on the east coast, who were only in their early 30,000s, did not dare to fight, and retreated back one after another. Then rely on the camp and artillery to confront the Qing army. Liu Haiyang knew that if he stayed in Ogigang for one more minute at the moment, he would buy one more minute for the Ming army and the Shun army on the battlefields of Huguang and Jiangxi. The meaning has no gravity dà. So, he once again became a psoriasis on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and fought a boring battle with the Qing army through a camp built of barbed wire, large wood, cement, and rammed earth, relying on cannons, muskets, and arrows.

On August 20, Nguyen Jin and Hong Xi Son arrived at Ogi Port with hundreds of ships and a large amount of supplies. On the way, they again routed the remnants of the Qing army's Jiangnan naval division in the Zhenjiang area, and captured more than 100 small boats. At the same time, they also brought news from Chongmingsha that the long-lost Ningbo Mansion had probably left Hangzhou, and that the Qing troops stationed in the vicinity of Shaoxing, Jinhua, and Jiaxing had also been reduced, and it was self-evident where they were going.

The arrival of reinforcements and supplies greatly boosted the morale of the Allied officers and soldiers, and they made up their minds to fight the Qing army to the end. Not only that, but these guys, who had already tasted the sweetness, occasionally took advantage of their naval superiority to attack the north shore and then attacked the towns under the control of the Qing army - all of which were successful except for one loss of more than 700 soldiers, which greatly dealt a blow to the prestige of the Qing army.

After the Qing army gathered some of its forces, it began to dispatch a brigade of green battalions to attack the camp of the people on the east bank from August 24. Their offensive went from one or two thousand men at the beginning to the craziest number of 10,000 men, and they launched a total of six times, but each time they were repulsed by the East Coast army.

On September 8, in view of the rapid depletion of ammunition under the long-term fighting with the Qing army, and the food reserves also dropped to the warning line, Liu Haiyang began to order a retreat. However, due to the fact that a large number of living forces were killed and wounded by the artillery on the east coast in the siege war, coupled with the hot weather and rampant epidemics, the Qing army also fell into a state of weak attack at this time, and the general Geng Zhongming had just fallen ill recently, so the two sides ended this war of attrition very tacitly. The people on the east coast boarded the ship and left, and the Qing army took over the camp (which can be explained to the above), and both sides were happy.

After retreating from Digang, the people on the east bank did not delay any longer, they just swept away some of the Qing navy ships hiding in Guazhoudu when they passed through the Zhenjiang River, killed and wounded hundreds of Qing soldiers, and then fired artillery along the river to show off their might, and then they went down the river to Chongming Shaxia to anchor and rest, and this time it was already the end of September.

The battle began in mid-spring and ended in early autumn, more than 40,000 allied officers and soldiers traveled thousands of miles along the Yangtze River, broke through countless cities and towns of the Qing army, captured a large amount of money, food and goods not to mention (of course, there was no shortage of people), and more than 16,000 Qing troops were killed, wounded and captured (statistics on the battlefield, the Qing army's wounded, sick and dead or non-combat attrition could not be counted), and their own casualties were about 3,500-4,000 people (including wounded, sick, dead and a few captured personnel), and the exchange ratio of more than 1:4 was achieved, which was a rare victory in the battle with the Qing army. Because the battlefield basically fell into the hands of the people on the east coast, many of the wounded among the three or four thousand people later returned to the team one after another, so the actual exchange ratio was even higher, and the fate of the wounded of the Qing army is self-evident.

Of course, the greatest achievement of this battle was neither the captured money and food, nor the annihilation of the Qing army's vital forces, but the large-scale mobilization of the Qing army, which bought the Shun army on the Huguang battlefield two or three months -- during this time, the pressure they faced on the Qing army was actually reduced a lot, which was of great significance to them to take a breath to adjust their deployment and persist in resisting. As long as they do not fall, then the Qing court will always have to spend a large number of elite soldiers in the Huguang area, which is undoubtedly a major benefit for the anti-Qing form shì in the whole country.

At the beginning of October, a large number of ships on the east coast went north to Yantai for repair and maintenance, preparing to start the annual migrant transportation mission, which obviously means that the Yangtze River campaign has officially come to an end. (To be continued......)