On this day, Yang Xuan was convening everyone to discuss the matter of the Eastern Expedition, when suddenly there was a noise outside, and after a while, Zhou Zheng, the secretary of the General Administration, hurriedly arrived, claiming that Li Dingguo, the governor of Liangguang, was in a hurry for 800 miles.

In ancient times, post station documents include ordinary official documents, fast horses, three hundred miles of fast horses, the fastest and fastest is eight hundred miles of fast horses, generally used to transmit urgent letters, fast horses gallop all the way, and constantly replace fast horses in each post station to pass on the most important military information.

Taking the official document from Zhou Zheng's hand, Yang Xuan was slightly stunned and opened it, his face turned pale, and handed it to Wu Yanghu, the privy envoy next to him, while he looked at the battle review.

Wu Yanghu looked at it, and said with a pale face: "How is it possible, General Ning Yu led the soldiers and horses of the two towns to attack Zhaoqing, but it was taken advantage of by the Tartars, and more than half of the whole army was killed and wounded. ”

It turned out that on the occasion of leaving Guang (west), Yang Xuan had confessed to Li Dingguo in person, in order to realize the main force of the Manchu Qing Dynasty to cut and encircle in the south of the Yangtze River, hoping that he would lead his troops into Guang (east) after Guang (Xi'an), and contain the main forces of Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and the remnants of Kong Youde.

In order to complete this strategy, after incorporating the Ming army of Chen Bangchuan's department, Li Dingguo led Gao Wengui's 12th town and Hao Yongzhong's 14th town to attack the territory of Guang (east) in order to fight the Jin Tongwu army occupying Shaoguan and occupy Guang (east) to attract the attention of the Tartars.

In April of this year, Li Dingguo led his troops to leave Guang (Xiwuzhou and enter the territory of Guang (east, the rebel army wandering in various places responded in groups, and the Song Guoxiang and Wei Yingdeng troops of Guang (Xicenxi) attacked Guang (East Luoding, Dong'an, Xining;

Guang (the leaders of the rebel army on the east coast, Jin Tang, Ye Biao, Shi Shangyi, Xiong Chaozuo, Wang Han, Deng Yao, etc., commanded tens of thousands of troops to resist the Qing Dynasty, and the righteous division sent more than 200 warships from the rivers in Xinhui and Shunde to the mouth of the Jiujiang River;

The anti-Qing forces in the Qingyuan Mountains of Shaozhou also sent envoys to contact Li Dingguo, preparing to attack Guangzhou from Conghua County to the south.

Seeing this, Du Yonghe, the former governor of Nanming and Guangzhou, who fled to Hainan, immediately led his troops back to Shiguang (east.

Hao Shangjiu, the Chaozhou general soldier who guarded Guang (east and Fu (Jianjian), thought that he was in Guang (Zhou Du Yonghe and other times before the Qing Dynasty surrendered, and had the merit of repelling Zheng Chenggong's army, and surrendered to the Manqing when the city of Guangzhou was broken, who expected that the Barbarian Qing authorities had already been wary of his capriciousness and unruliness, and was ready to revoke his official position as the chief soldier of Chaozhou, seeing such a result, Hao Shangjiu announced an uprising again and annexed to the Chinese Empire.

The rebel armies in various places were surging, but most of the equipment was extremely rudimentary, and the only ones who really had the strength to fight were Hao Shangjiu and Du Yonghe.

On April 6 of this year, the loyal and righteous army attacked the city of Zhaoqing, Li Dingguo personally commanded the troops to set up ladders to attack the city, and Xu Erxian, the general soldier of Zhaoqing in the Qing Dynasty, was originally a heavy soldier under Kong Youde, and most of the soldiers under him came from Liaodong, and the department was extremely tenacious.

The last time Li Dingguo and Kong Youde met at Yanguan, it was only because Kong Youde's troops were frightened by Li Dingguo's elephant soldiers, and before they could fight, the whole front was shocked and finally let go.

Now seeing the attack of the loyal army, Xu Erxian ordered the red-coated cannons and Franc machine guns on the east and west forts to continue to counterattack, and dispatched a group of elite soldiers to use ropes to go down to the outside of the city to counterattack the siege soldiers.

But the Tartars were condescending, and the east and west batteries were very threatening.

On the other hand, because the Loyal and Righteous Army was a partial division, with only one battalion of red-coated artillery in each town, it was defeated in the battle.

The two sides fought bloodily for three days without a victory, Li Dingguo saw that the strong attack was ineffective, so he changed to the tactic of digging tunnels to penetrate into the city, and ordered the soldiers to use cloth bags to pile up the soil as a wall, plant trees into a fence, supplemented by a sign as a cover, use bird guns to snipe the Qing army, and secretly organize manpower to dig tunnels.

However, Xu Erxian sensed the intentions of the Ming army, and while digging parallel deep ditches along the city wall to prevent the loyal army from attacking the city, he wanted to ask for help from Shang Kexi of Guangzhou.

Shang Kexi, the king of Qingping in Guangzhou, also knew that the situation was imminent, and when the loyal army invaded Guangxi, he not only killed Kong Youde's family, but also heard that Kong Youde's daughter Kong Sizhen was used as a prostitute.

If the Loyal and Righteous Army captured Guangzhou, it would definitely have cramps in its skin with such a tragic thing as the Canton Massacre of its own making.

In this case, Geng Zhongming was left to garrison Guang (Zhou, Shang Kexi personally led the main forces of Pingnan and Jingnan (Geng Jimao) to Zhaoqing (some say 100,000).

After arriving in Zhaoqing, Shang Kexi climbed the city wall and carefully observed the movements of the two sides before deciding to counterattack.

On the 8th day of the first month of April, Shang Kexi ordered his soldiers to dig one side door from the east and west forts, and on the other hand, set up a death squad.

In order to boost morale, Shang Kexi offered a high reward: "Those who can go out of the city to seize the thieves will be rewarded with fifty taels of silver." ”

Under the heavy reward, there will be brave men, Shang Kexi formed more than a thousand death squads to secretly come out of the side door early in the morning, and took advantage of the unpreparedness of the loyal and righteous army to swarm and kill.

Seeing that the Tartars were preparing to attack the tunnel, Li Dingguo hurriedly counterattacked and personally led the 12th town to launch a counterattack.

Although the soldiers of the loyal and righteous army are well-equipped, and the soldiers are also desperate to serve their lives, but the loyal and righteous army is still unprepared by the sudden attack, although they are struggling to move forward, but the Qing army is killing endlessly, and has already occupied the tunnel entrance is using smoke and fire to smoke the hidden loyal army in the tunnel, hearing the loyal and righteous soldiers digging the tunnel in the tunnel mouth, and the sound of the screams of the strong men around everyone is angry one by one.

When attacking the tunnel pass, Shang Kexi led 3,000 cavalry of the two feudal domains of Pingnan and Jingnan to attack the flank of Li Dingguo's department, and Xu Erxian led the main force to attack the camp of Longdinggang.

Shang Kexi led three thousand iron cavalry to kill, and the loyal and righteous army who were rescuing the tunnel entrance were caught off guard, coupled with the sudden arrival of the Tartar cavalry, the thirteen elephants on the left flank were suddenly startled by no one to take care of, and they fled in panic.

The loyal and righteous army, who were resisting the Tartars with all their might, did not expect that the elephants they raised were suddenly frightened, and although they tried their best to resist, these dozen elephants rushed into the battle like thirteen tanks, trampling and injuring countless wounded.

When the loyal and righteous army was in a panic, Shang Kexi led the cavalry to kill, and the loyal and righteous army, whose formation was already in chaos, had no time to resist the Tartars, and only stabilized the situation after retreating to Luodingzhou, which was hundreds of miles away.

Despite this, the situation was still extremely grim, Li Dingguo reorganized his troops and horses, and pleaded guilty to Yang Xuan, who was stationed in Wuchang and was preparing for the eastward expedition.

By now, everyone basically understood what had happened, and everyone talked about it, and some even claimed to punish each other.

Yang Xuan listened to them one by one, thinking carefully about the battle in the letter, and suddenly said a few times: "Everyone, what's wrong?" If you want to fight in the nest, what do you say? Severely punish General Dingyu?

Win a hundred battles, the ancient famous generals have never heard of it, why don't you blame this and that if you don't fight a battle?

The responsibility for this battle is not General Li, but me.

This time Li Dingguo invaded Guang (the east was faced with the three vassal kings of the Tartars, everyone knows that Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and others are good at casting cannons, and the Tartars have several red-clothed cannons in Zhaoqing City, although the power is not very great, but it is also condescending.

Also, I was too anxious, thinking that Kong Youde was killed, Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and others would inevitably return to their hearts like arrows, and agreed that General Li Dingguo would lead the soldiers and horses of the two towns to attack Guang (east, if he waited for a few more months, Li Dingguo would attack after the situation in Guang (west) stabilized, so Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming and others would definitely be difficult to resist.

The decision to invade Guang (The decision to invade the east was made by me, do you also want to investigate my decision-making mistakes?) ”

Zhao Ronggui, the secretary of the Ministry of War, said: "Your Majesty was born in martial arts, cherishes the soldiers in the account, and the soldiers are grateful to Dade for not forgetting it."

His Majesty rectified military discipline, and all departments even realized the method of joint sitting, and no one on the battlefield dared to retreat privately.

Li Dingguo's two famous kings, in less than two years, the number of closed households is as high as more than 2,000 households, His Majesty treats his generals so well, there has never been a case in ancient and modern China and abroad.

Since ancient times, this has been the case for scribes and samurai.

I will lead a large army to the east, if the march goes well, of course, Nanyue is still gratifying, Geng Zhongming and others are insignificant. ”

Right Prime Minister Yin Chengqi shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, don't you often say that the enemy is lenient, if our Eastern Expeditionary Army is in a stalemate, if that happens, we still need the Nanyue Army to open up the situation."

This time, Zhaoqing was newly defeated, and the troops were lost, and the strength of Nanyue still needs to be strengthened no matter what. ”

Yuan Zongdi, director of the General Staff Department, arched his hand and said: "Your Majesty, we are from the righteous army, and we are the leaders of our army for thousands of miles of raids, surprise attacks, and ambushes,"

Just to summarize the gains and losses of the battle of Zhao (Qing), it is nothing more than the following points:

First of all, after successive victories, the generals of all departments came up with the idea of underestimating the enemy, thinking that the soldiers and horses of the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the soldiers and horses of the Green Battalion were nothing more than that.

Second, the intelligence was insufficient, Shang Kexi led the main force to enter Zhaoqing, Li Dingguo didn't know, and Shang Kexi led the main force to launch a counterattack.

Third, the newly formed towns, most of the middle and lower-level officers were reorganized from various subordinate departments, and most of the marching and fighting relied on past experience, and they were able to swallow thousands of miles like a tiger in a good battle, and if the war was slightly unsmooth, they would immediately flee, instead of fighting desperately for the main force.

Fourth, the training of new recruits is insufficient, especially in the various units of Guishun, although the proportion of firearms has increased greatly, most of them are soldiers with firearms, and the summing up of the experience of marching and fighting in the past few years has not been carried out in all front-line units.

For example, when a large corps fights, it is necessary to set up a hard camp, guard the perimeter, build fortifications through trenches and chariots outside the battalion, and establish self-defense fortifications extending in all directions inside the battalion.

When fighting, you need to hide your strength and disrupt the fortifications with artillery before the opponent launches an offensive.

When you lead the opponent closer, you will suddenly break the opponent's will with fierce firepower, and then defeat the opponent by fighting hard.

…..。

Yang Xuan intended to guide, and then listed the corresponding combat regulations, and issued them to all towns and associations.

Re-study Li Dingguo's past battle examples, whether it is shooting the divine crossbow Zhang Linggong, leading 26 horsemen to attack Xiangfan, the two famous Manchu kings in history, or setting up an ambush on Mopan Mountain, it is really mostly an ambush and a surprise attack.

In history, the best battle was to besiege Shadingzhou, but the next few battles, whether it was an attack on Zhaoqing or Xinhui, as long as the opponent's heavy fortification was in a stalemate, and finally was defeated by the opponent.

But this defeat of Zhao (Qingzhi was the biggest fiasco since the establishment of the Loyal and Righteous Army, and the ancients paid attention to rewards and punishments, even Li Dingguo, he had to do the same.

After some consideration, Yang Xuan decided to adjust the Southern Front Corps.

Li Dingguo was demoted from the governor of Liangguang to the governor of Guang (Dong), reduced his 200 feudal households, and ordered him to reorganize his troops and horses to prepare for another war.

In order to strengthen the Guang (east) army, Fan Mingshan, the chief soldier of the first town, was appointed as the supervisor of the department, and Liu Daozhen was the governor of Guang (state), leading 2,000 soldiers and horses to gallop to the aid of Guang (east.

The soldiers were fast, after receiving the order, Fan Mingshan hurriedly went on the road, this day by boat passing through Wuchang to meet, worried that the two would be unhappy, Yang Xuanqian told Wan to advise, and repeatedly claimed that Li Dingguo had full authority in the military.