Dongchang Erfu in Yanzhou in the northwest of Shandong Province is a plain of Pingchuan, bordering Xuzhou in the south, Henan Guide in the west, and the vast land of Hebei in the north.

Last year, the gentry and common people in southwest Lu also launched a rebellion against the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but because it was located in the plain and there was no danger to defend, the rebellious army was easily wiped out by the green battalion sent by Hong Chengchou. Then a small number of troops were left to defend it, and most of the Green Battalion soldiers were transferred to Jiaodong, Qingzhou, to suppress the growing rebellion there.

Therefore, after Li Yi was ordered to lead an army of 100,000 out of Xuzhou and into Shandong, he conquered Yanzhou Mansion almost bloodlessly without encountering any fierce resistance. Even if there were 5,000 soldiers in Yanzhou City, Li Benshen, the chief soldier of the Green Battalion, when the Ming army bombarded for three days with dozens of red-coated cannons, the Yanzhou city wall was broken, and Li Benshen led his troops to rush and kill for a while, and the troops suffered heavy casualties under the powerful firearms of the Ming army, and had to flee north.

Yanzhou City was broken, and Jinxiang, Yutai, Chengwu, Dingtao and other counties under Yanzhou Mansion were also captured by the Ming army.

The main force of the 100,000 Ming army, plus tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, known as the 300,000 army, under the banner of Chen Yue, the king of Qi, caused a huge shock in a short time.

The reputation of Chen Yue, the king of Qi, has resounded throughout the Central Plains, and when he heard that he led the Northern Expedition, the gentry and heroes from all over Shandong suddenly felt that the Northern Expedition of the imperial court would definitely succeed. Soon, the righteous people in the prefectures and counties of southwestern Lu, which were exterminated by the Qing soldiers, revived, and people everywhere rose up to kill the officials appointed by the Manchus to welcome the army of the Northern Expedition.

The movement of the Northern Expeditionary Army was so loud that it had already reached the ears of the Qing army. Fang Dayou, the governor of Shandong, who was in Jinan, reported to the Manchu court when the Northern Expeditionary Army had just invaded Yanzhou, and at the same time reported to Hong Chengchou, a supervisor of the university who supervised the encirclement and suppression of the Ming army in Dengzhou in Jiaodong.

Laizhou Mansion, after learning the news of the Ming Army's Northern Expedition, Hong Chengchou looked up to the sky and sighed, silent for a long time, his face full of frustration.

Hong Chengchou, the former governor of Jiliao in the Ming Dynasty, is also a commander with the same name as Lu Xiangsheng and Sun Chengzong, and has repeatedly made military exploits in the uprising to exterminate the displaced people, and was appointed by Chongzhen as the governor of Jiliao to deal with the extremely vicious Manchus.

At that time, Hong Chengchou's subordinates were all the border troops of Xuanda Jiliao in Shaanxi, and the eight generals under his command Cao Bianjiao, Yang Guozhu, Tang Tong, Wang Pu, Ma Ke, Wang Tingchen, and Wu Sangui were all famous generals, and the army under his command reached as many as 130,000. But the ferocity of the Manchurian people is not comparable to the weak peasant army, Hong Chengchou knew that it was not easy to win, so he planned to adopt a steady and steady tactics, but Chen Xinjia, the secretary of the military department, urged the war, and Emperor Chongzhen also hoped to be able to fight quickly, because the treasury of the Ming Dynasty was really difficult to support more than 100,000 troops.

The Manchu Emperor Huang Taiji was really powerful, and sent troops to make a detour to block the retreat of the Ming army, Hong Chengchou wanted to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army, but the generals under him refused to listen to him, and the grain road was cut off one by one panicked, and they all advocated breaking through. As a result, the breakthrough failed, the army of more than 100,000 was defeated, Hong Chengchou fled into Songshan City in embarrassment, and several generals were killed.

In Songshan Hong Chengchou insisted for another half a year, the city was exhausted, the Ming general Xia Chengde was cleared, Songshan fell under the combination of inside and outside, Hong Chengchou was captured, and Cao Bianjiao and others were killed.

After being captured, there is no need to say much, the Manchu Qing needs the assistance of ministers who are familiar with the internal situation of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Chengchou thought about the glory and wealth in the future, and the two sides hit it off, and Hong Chengchou descended to the Manchu Qing. And the Ming Dynasty thought that Hong Chengchou was unyielding and died, and Chongzhen even personally paid tribute to Hong Chengchou, which caused a huge joke.

After the reduction, it is natural to work for the new master and realize its own value. And because Hong Chengchou was familiar with the situation of the Ming Dynasty, the generals of the green battalion, Tang Tong and Bai Guangen, also served under Hong Chengchou, and the Manchu regent Huang Taiji entrusted Hong Chengchou with an important task, taking him as the overseer of the army, and commanding more than 100,000 green battalion soldiers to be responsible for suppressing the mob uprising in Shandong and Hebei.

After Hong Chengchou took office, he used his connections in the Ming officialdom to persuade many Ming gentry to surrender, and sent troops to exterminate many rebels in Hebei and Shandong. Hong Chengchou personally commanded to suppress the rebellion in Jiaodong.

The army of the Jiaodong uprising was divided into two groups, one was Zhao Yingyuan's Qingzhou army, which occupied the entire Qingzhou Mansion and had a strength of 1560,000 troops. The other wave was Wu Ping, who was entrenched in Dengzhou, and was said to have a close relationship with Chen Yue, the Duke of Qi in the Southern Ming Dynasty.

Fortunately, there seems to be some contradiction between the two Ming armies, and when Hong Chengchou attacked Qingzhou, Wu Ping did not send troops to support.

Qingzhou Mansion and Jinan Mansion are adjacent to each other, belonging to the mountainous and hilly areas of central and southern Shandong, hills are everywhere, which is not conducive to the march of the army, it took several months to defeat Zhao Yingyuan and attack Qingzhou City, and Wang Yongji, the governor of Shandong appointed by the Southern Ming Dynasty, fled to Dengzhou in embarrassment.

After capturing Qingzhou Mansion and killing Zhao Yingyuan, Hong Chengchou immediately ordered to continue the eastward attack and invaded Laizhou Mansion.

Laizhou Mansion is located in the Jiaolai Plain, with many mountains on flat land, which is conducive to the march and battle of the army. And Wu Ping had no intention of fighting a decisive battle with the Qing soldiers in Laizhou, and his army withdrew from Laizhou and retreated to Dengzhou City.

And the topography of Dengzhou is different from Laizhou, the mountains of Aishan, Asan and Dazeshan are vertical and horizontal, the Ming army fortifies in the mountain pass, the people of the entire Dengzhou Mansion seem to have been recovered by the Ming army, their eyes are everywhere, after the green battalion soldiers entered Dengzhou, they were repeatedly attacked by the Ming army and suffered heavy losses.

The battle was very difficult, and the combat effectiveness of the Dengzhou Ming army was not comparable to the Qingzhou rabble, it was more like a well-trained elite soldier, and the equipment and weapons were no worse than the green battalion soldiers.

The armies of both sides fought repeatedly in the territory of Dengzhou, attacking and defending, sneak attacking, and harassing, such battles occurred every day, and it was difficult for the Qing army to make every further step. At that time, Hong Chengchou knew that it was not possible to conquer Dengzhou in a short time. He then explained the situation to the Manchu court in Beijing and asked the Qing court to send the True Eight Banners warriors to come, and Guy Hong Chengchou found that the green battalion soldiers could not take much advantage when fighting the Ming army.

At that time, the Manchu court had just experienced a civil strife, and the regent Dolgon was unwilling to use the precious Eight Banners soldiers to quell the chaos on the battlefield. After several pleas by Hong Chengchou, Dolgon agreed to Hong Chengchou's request and sent Belle Kedehun to lead 3,000 Eight Banner soldiers to participate in the battle, and at the same time, Wu Sangui, the king of Pingxi, was also sent to Shandong.

With these two new forces joining, the situation slowly tilted towards the side of the Qing soldiers. The combat power of the Eight Banners is really extraordinary, and neither the individual combat skills nor the combat power of the Ming Army can compare.

In June, the Qing army finally attacked the city of Dengzhou, and the Ming army retreated into the city.

However, Hong Chengchou was shocked to find that the Ming army actually operated Dengzhou City like an iron bucket, although he didn't know the concept of a fortress, but from the Dengzhou city wall every short distance there was a prominent horse face, the entire city wall was like a hedgehog sticking out countless spikes to reveal a hideous face, Hong Chengchou knew that it would be very difficult to capture Dengzhou.

Moreover, the Qing army could not encircle Dengzhou at all, because Dengzhou City was originally facing the sea, and the Ming army actually had a huge fleet of dozens of sea ships on the sea. When the Qing army set up camp near the city, the Ming army fleet actually fired cannons at the Qing army camp, listening to its sound, there were dozens of red-coated cannons! There will even be Ming troops who will go around to the Qing army by boat and attack the army transporting grain, burning a lot of grain and grass.

Therefore, although the attack was under the city of Dengzhou, the battle was even more difficult. Hong Chengchou commanded the newly collected captive cannon fodder army and launched a fierce attack on Dengzhou, but he hit a head on the Dengzhou city wall, and attacked more than ten times in a month, and the ladder could not be set up on the city wall.

The firearms on the city of Dengzhou are too fierce, firearms, crossbow arrows, and hundreds of artillery, and once the Qing army attacks near the city wall, it will throw countless firearms from the city, and the violent explosion covers the city, and the Qing army near the city wall can rarely survive.

The strong attack did not work, and the various siege strategies that Hong Chengchou came up with also failed, and the lonely city of Dengzhou was like a rock, which was not damaged at all despite the wind and waves.

Hong Chengchou had no choice but to ask the imperial court again for his life, requesting that a large number of artillery pieces be sent to Dengzhou to collapse the Dengzhou city wall with artillery bombardment. Because most of Hong Chengchou's subordinates are green battalion soldiers, the number of artillery they have is limited, and there are not a few red-coated cannons in the entire Shandong.

In these days of waiting for the red-coated cannons to arrive, Hong Chengchou besieged Dengzhou but did not attack, and sent troops to attack the prefectures and counties of Denglai and Denglai, most of the Ming army gathered in Dengzhou City, and other prefectures and counties were successively captured by the Qing army.

Someone proposed to Hong Chengchou to drive the people of Denglai and the two states to attack the city, and most of the Ming troops in the city were Jiaodong people, seeing that they couldn't bear to use knives against their fathers!

But after thinking about it, Hong Chengchou rejected the proposal, because he knew that if he really did this, his reputation would be extremely bad, and the crime of a butcher would no longer be able to escape.

Although he made a move to rebel against the Ming Dynasty and surrender to the Qing Dynasty, Hong Chengchou can still comfort himself with a good bird and choose a tree to perch, and once the Manchu Qing Dynasty is real, his mistakes will be cleared, and there are many famous ministers who have surrendered in history, and they are not worse than themselves.

And Hong Chengchou, who was born as a high-ranking official, still cherishes his feathers very much, after all, even if he surrenders to the Qing Dynasty, it is Huang Taiji's repeated requests, and he does not hesitate to send Queen Da Yuer to persuade him, Hong Chengchou's face is not damaged at all. Therefore, he could not do such a thing as driving out the people. And if this is really done, the people of Shandong will have a mortal enmity with the Qing Dynasty, which is not conducive to the future rule of the Qing Dynasty.

Moreover, Hong Chengchou did not believe that Dengzhou could really be taken by driving the people to attack the city, and the guards in the city were not so stupid.

It was Hong Chengchou's "benevolence" that allowed the people of Jiaodong to escape the catastrophe, and many people were spared in the war.

The Ming and Qing dynasties fought fiercely around Dengzhou, and the time soon came to autumn, and then the news came that the rest of the Shun army broke into Guanzhong to conquer the city. When he first heard the news, Hong Chengchou knew that the big thing was not good, because the Shun army was no better than the rebellion of the people, it was an organized and combat-effective army.

The rebellion of the ordinary gentry and the common people is easy to suppress, a group of rabble, there is no need to send eight banner soldiers, even a random green battalion can be easily suppressed. But the Shun army is completely different, and its combat effectiveness is no worse than that of the green battalion soldiers!

Although Guanzhong is far away from Beijing, its position is very important, if the Shun army is allowed to occupy Guanzhong, it can go east out of Tongguan to attack Henan, to the east can attack Shanxi to threaten Hebei, to the north over the border wall is the Mongolian steppe, across the Yellow River is the Yunzhong Datong, the loss of Shaanxi is too great a threat to the Manchus, Hong Chengchou knows that the wisdom of Dolgon will never let such a thing happen.

However, the current Manchu court is not rich in troops, and the failure of the Ming Dynasty has caused heavy losses to the Eight Banners, and now they have relied on the green battalion soldiers to conquer the city for them. Therefore, the Qing court may not send the Eight Banners to exterminate the Shun army so far away in Guanzhong, but most of them will draw troops from the green battalion soldiers.

Sure enough, Hong Chengchou guessed correctly, and the Qing court soon sent a holy decree to send Wu Sangui and Jiang Jiu to Guanzhong to suppress the Shun army.

For Hong Chengchou, the key is that he cannot break through the wall of Dengzhou, and tens of thousands of troops are nothing, and he still maintains an absolute advantage over the Ming army. But Hong Chengchou never expected that it didn't take long for the news of Jiang Jiu's rebellion to come.

Jiang Huang's rebellion made Shanxi a mess, and the Qing court had no energy to deal with the Shun army anymore, and had to solve the threat that was close at hand, so Dolgon led his troops to attack Datong.

However, the matter was not over, and the news that the 300,000 Ming army under the leadership of Chen Yue, the king of Qi, had reached Yanzhou in the Northern Expedition came again, and Hong Chengchou was already numb......

The Shandong rebellion was not extinguished, the Shaanxi Shun army ravaged and captured most of Guanzhong, a province in Shanxi rebelled, and the northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty occupied by the Manchu Qing Dynasty were in flames everywhere, except for the Gyeonggi region, other places were no longer under the control of the Manchu court.

Repression? With the current strength of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it is simply not possible to deal with so many fronts at the same time.

And for the current Hong Chengchou, the most important thing is where to go!

A person can mutiny once, and if he rebels again, he will no longer be trusted by others, so Hong Chengchou has long extinguished his desire to return to the Ming Dynasty, and has already died to serve the Manchu court.

However, the current situation is already very dangerous, more than 200,000 green battalion soldiers have been unable to defeat Dengzhou for a long time, while the Ming army of the Northern Expedition has attacked Yanzhou. If it is consumed in Dengzhou again, once Jinan falls, his more than 200,000 troops will be completely cut off from the back road and will be dumped by the Ming army.

Therefore, Dengzhou can no longer fight, and the most important thing now is to return to Jinan and meet the Ming Army's Northern Expeditionary Army! After thinking about it, Hong Chengchou quickly made up his mind. But you can't just retreat in a hurry, Hong Chengchou, who has experienced the Battle of Songshan, knows the consequences of the whole army's hasty retreat, if the Ming army suddenly kills from Dengzhou, I am afraid that there will be a danger of the whole army being defeated.

After consideration, Hong Chengchou decided to retreat in batches, and finally left Tang Tong and Bai Guangen with their headquarters and the newly formed army to continue to surround Dengzhou, and the other main forces went to Jinan to meet the enemy.

And Tang Tong and Bai Guangen are both generals, and it is not a problem to block the Ming army in Dengzhou!