At the end of July and the beginning of August, although the harsh climate of the Central Plains that had been dry for more than ten years had improved, it was an unprecedented disaster for the northwest of Hubei in the second year of Longwu.

Different from the natural disasters in Shaanxi and Hebei, northwest Hubei is a real **, starting from the beginning of Jiashen, first the Shun army passed the army, the Qing army followed, and then the Ming army continued to recover the lost territory, and then the Ming army and the Qing army Xiangyang battle, so that the production in northwest Hubei was completely destroyed.

As the old saying goes, "Bandits come like combs, and soldiers come like grates." ”

The land of Hubei suffers from military disasters almost every year, and the successive local conquests have made the fields basically barren, and the people can not continue.

After the Qing army occupied Hubei, it did not resume production, which is why Chen Zilong attacked Suzhou and seized the grain and grass that the Qing court wanted to transport to Huguang, and Luckedhun immediately retreated to Wuchang.

Hubei had no rice grain to collect, and the Qing army had to transport grain from Jiangnan, and when the grain supply in Jiangnan could not be supplied, Tong Yanghe in order to shrink his strength, he insisted on Wuchang and carried out a raid on the Hubei provinces, and even took away the people's rations.

The people have no rations, they can only eat the seeds, plus this year's summer planting, there was a big war between the Ming and Qing dynasties, the summer planting was interrupted by the military disaster, and the autumn basically did not harvest, so that the people immediately ran out of food and fell into despair.

In addition to the food cut off, the Qing army plundered the northwest of Hubei, but also brought a devastating disaster to the people of Hubei, hundreds of people in the Xiangyang War as cannon fodder by the Qing army as cannon fodder, and lost their lives, countless villages were burned by the Qing army, rations were taken away, so that the people lost their way of life.

In the face of despair, nearly one million refugees swept more than 30 counties in the four provinces of northwest Hubei Province, began to flee for survival, the direction of refugee escape is not much, the north and east are occupied by the Qing army, it is useless to go, the west Emperor Daxi is fighting with the Qing army in the dark, and the refugees can only flee to Wuchang Mansion, which has just been recovered by the Ming army.

Compared with the Qing court and Zhang Xianzhong, the refugees still chose the government, they ran to the provincial capital, did the governor and the officials not care about the life or death of the people? With a sense of hope, nearly a million refugees flocked to Wuchang.

At this time, the battle of Xiangyang has ended, Wu Sangui and Azig retreated to the north bank of the Han River, and the Ming army across the river for a few days, then pulled out the camp and returned to Henan to eat, Wang Yan after getting the exact news of the horse, then let Hao Shaoqi send his troops to cross the river to occupy Xinye, choke the main road, and leave Hao Shaoqi, Ma Jinzhong and other officers and soldiers, in the northwest of Hubei Province, he led only forty percent of the troops left Gao Yigong Division, with He Zhen and Sun Shoufa Department withdrawn from Hanzhong, and returned to Wuchang along the Han River.

The place where the army passed was desolate, and it would take at least twenty years for the Qing soldiers in Xiangyang to recover from the damage caused to Hubei by the Qing soldiers in the First World War.

The army went down the river, and in just half a month, 600,000 refugees flocked to Wuchang.

Seeing this, Wang Yan was glad in his heart that he ended the battle of Xiangyang ahead of schedule, otherwise after a long time, I am afraid that the entire Huguang will be dragged down by the damage caused by the war.

Looking at the people who escaped from Yunyang, De'an, Xiangyang, Chengtian, Jingdusi, and other places, there was an endless stream on the official road, helping the old and the young, carrying burdens, and walking hard with crutches.

After He Tengjiao occupied Wuchang, he was full of joy, but the ensuing wave of refugees made him feel panicked.

He wants to run the land of Hubei, but he can't let the people of Hubei starve to death, and if there is no one, he can't collect taxes and recruit troops, but he, as the governor of Huguang, can't ignore it.

Although He Tengjiao was greedy for small profits, in the face of the surging nearly one million refugees, he had to take out the hundreds of thousands of stone rice grains he got from Wuchang to help the refugees, and sent his staff to Changsha to find Yinxi to borrow grain.

After the refugees rushed to Wuchang through Hanchuan County, one after another porridge sheds began to appear along the way, and there were soldiers and officials busy in the greenhouses, and the refugees finally saw the hope of survival.

Food is people's hearts~

The porridge shed was hope, and it also let the refugees know the attitude of the government, so the refugees continued southward and converged on the Yangtze River on the other side of Wuchang.

On the north bank of the Yangtze River, refugees are blocked by the river, and the wilderness along the river embankment is covered with endless grass huts, stretching for dozens of miles, and more than 600,000 victims have gathered.

After Wang Yan led the army back to Wuchang, he was originally going to immediately send troops south to Jiangxi, but because of the problem of refugees, he had to delay sending troops.

Originally, there were 400,000 stones of grain and grass looted by the Qing soldiers in Wuchang City, and Wang Yan could borrow a little first to send troops to Jiangxi, but now that the refugees are flocking to Wuchang, He Tengjiao is going to borrow grain from him.

Wang Yan thought that Hunan would not have to worry about the problem of grain because it was ripe this year, but now it seems that there is still not enough grain, and he will even have to transport grain from Guangdong to tide over the current crisis.

The time has reached August, and if the refugees want to resume production, they need to wait at least until the next year, after sowing and summer harvest, and in this half a year, the money and food consumed will undoubtedly become a great pressure for the Ming Dynasty, which is not rich.

After this battle of Huguang, Wang Yan's soldiers and horses have shrunk by more than 20,000 people, especially the Gao Yigong Department has lost almost sixty percent, and there is no strength to fight again.

Wang Yan then adjusted the soldiers and horses, and incorporated the Hanzhong Righteous Army into the two armies of Zhongyong and Loyalty, and slightly made up the difference, while the Gao Yigong Division, which had been disabled, and the three Wang brothers who were about to be incorporated into the Houyong Battalion, led their troops to Changsha for repairs, and sent Chen Hongxu to Hunan to recruit new soldiers.

At this time, although the loyalty, loyalty, and supervision standards left by Wang Yan's side were still dissatisfied, after absorbing the Hanzhong Righteous Army, the strength reached 60,000 and was restored to a certain extent.

At this time, the 60,000 troops were successively engaged in disaster relief, setting up grass huts and tents for the refugees, maintaining law and order, and then carrying out some drills and minor repairs.

Wang Yan took a leave of absence to block Yinxi, asked him to send a batch of grain and grass from afar, and once again seconded the Manda Zhuang naval army, requisitioned ships, and prepared to attack Jiujiang and open the passage to Jiangxi.

At this time, Wang Yan was preparing for the southern expedition to Jiangxi, and at the same time discussing with He Tengjiao the strategy of relieving the refugees, as well as the plan to deploy Huguang to defend against the Qing troops in the future, which can be said to be very busy.

Jiang Yueguang once told Wang Yan that the Qing army had been weakened, and Wang Yan wanted to make a difference, but the occurrence of the refugee wave and the destruction of production in Hubei made the Ming army lose the ability to launch a large-scale battle and would once again go on the defensive.

In the fall of eastern Zhejiang, Zheng Zhilong was about to surrender to the Qing situation, the entire Southern Ming Dynasty in the early stage of Longwu, Changshan a snake, the grand strategy of attacking head and tail at the same time, has failed, so it is urgent to contact many governors and anti-Qing forces to reformulate the grand strategy covering the world.

(Thank you for the reward of the Death of the Special Battle, Yue Liang Nest Core, and thank you for the recommendation of book friends.) ）

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