On March 5, the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, Henan returned to the Defu to govern Shangqiu.

The news that the Manchu Yu prince Duoduo led tens of thousands of troops to attack in three ways has come, pressing on Shangqiu like a dark cloud, and the more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in the entire city are panicking.

The brutality of the Eight Banners was widely spread in the north, and they entered the customs and looted several times, and the people in the area of Shandong, Tokyo and Ki were deeply ravaged and slaughtered, and the Guide Mansion was so close to Shandong, so it was natural to hear the murderous name of the Eight Banners for a long time.

In the fifteen years since Chongzhen, the forces of Shun and Ming in Henan have been staggered. Nanyang and the prefectures and counties in northwest Henan have long been captured by the Shun army, and even the provincial capital Kaifeng has not been in the boiling yellow water. The only things that the Ming Dynasty could control were the prefectures and counties in eastern Henan that were adjacent to Nanzhi. Shangqiu is the largest and most important city, and Yue Qijie, the governor of Henan, also took Shangqiu as his governing place.

And now, the Qing soldiers are marching south with the momentum of defeating the thieves, intending to destroy the Ming, and the Guide Mansion has become the first obstacle in front of them.

Duoduo had more than 40,000 soldiers under the Eight Banners, including more than 10,000 elite Outer Mongolian cavalry. In Shangqiu City, there were originally only 5,000 soldiers, and even if you add the Henan General Soldier Xu Dingguo, who came from Suizhou in a hurry, the total strength was only a little more than 10,000. The Qing army pressed the border, and it was impossible to hold all the prefectures and counties of Guidefu, so the only way to concentrate their forces was to concentrate on Shangqiu, the capital city.

In the palace, Governor Yue Qijie and Guide Prefect Yuan Shu were relatively speechless, not knowing how to solve the current situation.

"Lord Zhongcheng, did you really send a document asking for help to the Jiangbei Governor's Mansion? I wonder when reinforcements will arrive? Prefect Yuan Shu asked again.

"As early as a few years ago, I sent a letter to Yangzhou, reporting the movements of the Qing army and asking for reinforcements to defend and return to Germany. Just last month, when the Qing troops went out of Tongguan and went east, I once again sent people to Yangzhou to ask for help. Presumably, reinforcements should be arriving soon. Yue Qijie said hesitantly.

So, the two were relatively silent again. They had called for help three months ago, and not a single soldier had come to them so far, so they could not have understood what that meant. The imperial court did not take the Guide Mansion to heart at all.

"Pingnanhou has a great reputation, but he is just a mediocre person!" Finally, the prefect Yuan Shu gritted his teeth and scolded. He couldn't insult the king of the imperial court, so he could only target Chen Yue, the Marquis of Pingnan, who was holding the power of the army.

"Just a few years ago, the thieves retreated to Xi'an, the Mantars were in a hurry to exterminate the thieves, and the troops of the provinces on both sides of the Yellow River were extremely empty, if they could send an elite army at that time, it would be easy to recover Henan and Shandong. It's a pity that Pingnanhou held an army of 100,000 troops, but he coveted the prosperity and comfort of Yangzhou and missed such a great opportunity. Yuan Shu sighed.

Yue Qijie nodded, convinced of Yuan Shu's statement, since he was sent to Henan as governor half a year ago, he has been trying to restore the imperial court's rule over the whole of Henan. However, without the support of the imperial army, close to him, the empty governor, although it took a lot of effort, it was completely ineffective.

"At present, the Tartar army is pressing the border, and with more than 10,000 troops in the city, how difficult it is to hold the city!" Finally, Yuan Shu despaired.

"The matter of eating the king, the matter of loyalty. Since you and I are the courtiers of the Ming Dynasty, we should die to serve the court! Yue Qijie said angrily.

"Yes, Lord Zhongcheng." Listening to Yue Qijie's generous words, Yuan Shu's expression also became firm.

"Let's let you and me work together to organize the gentry and people of the whole city to work together to build this Shangqiu into an iron wall and a nightmare for the Tartars." Yue Qijie said, "Shangqiu City is high and deep, there are more than 100,000 people, 10,000 troops, and enough food to eat for several months, as long as we do our best, it will not be a problem to hold it for three or five months." There is such a long time, which is enough for the imperial court to be ready to resist. ”

"I am willing to be the second Zhang Xun Xu Yuan, and let Shangqiu become the second Suiyang!" Yuan Shu was deeply encouraged and said.

Guide was famous in Suiyang in the Tang Dynasty, and during the Anshi Rebellion, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan resisted the An Lushan rebels in Suiyang for ten months, making it impossible for the rebels to cross Suiyang to attack Jianghuai. At that time, Zhang Xun's subordinates only had 7,000 troops, but they were facing hundreds of thousands of rebels, which was very similar to the situation in Shangqiu today.

Both of them have studied poetry and books hard, and they all have the fame of Jinshi, and they are very familiar with this allusion of the Tang Dynasty, so they are determined to take the former sages as an example and build Shangqiu into a second Suiyang!

However, how full the ideal is, there is a backbone in reality, although the two are impassioned, but there are not too many people who think the same as them. When Yue Qijie and Yuan Shu ordered the squires in the city to donate their family's money and food to help the army in the name of the governor's prefect, they were resisted by the squires.

The squires complained one after another, and resisted the government's order to collect food and wages on various grounds such as natural and man-made disasters and reduced field production. In three days, the government only received more than 2,000 taels of silver and 3,400 quintals of grain, which made Yue Qijie and Yuan Shu stunned.

If you want to resist the Qing army besieging the city, you must organize the young and strong people of the whole city to defend the city together. And defending the city naturally needs food, and without food, don't talk about anything.

Not only did the squires turn a deaf ear to the government's orders, but even the army in the city was clamoring. Li Jiyu, the general of Shangqiu, and Xu Dingguo, the general of Henan, successively demanded salaries from the governor Yue Qijie, claiming that the army had not paid food and wages for several months, and if it continued, let alone resist the Qing Dynasty, there would even be a possibility of mutiny.

All this put Yue Qijie and Yuan Shu in deep anxiety.

Just when the two of them were at a loss, someone suddenly came to visit, claiming to be a subordinate of Chen Yue, Marquis of Pingnan.

"Are you from Pingnanhou?" Yue Qijie looked at the dark and thin young man in front of him suspiciously.

"Liu Neng, the enemy intelligence department of the Pingnan Hou Shogunate, has met the governor and the prefect." Liu Neng saluted the two respectfully.

"Enemy Intelligence Division?" Yue Qijie frowned slightly, Chen Yue's formation of the shogunate was not news, and Yue Qijie naturally heard a lot about it as a member of the imperial court. However, the details are unknown.

"Pingnanhou sent an army over?" Prefect Yuan Shu didn't think so much, and asked in surprise. He also thought that Liu Neng was the vanguard sent by Chen Yue.

"No ......" Liu Neng shook his head with a wry smile, as far as he knew, Chen Yue had no intention of sending troops back to Defu. So Yuan Shu's face suddenly became ugly.

"Without reinforcements, what did Pingnanhou send you to do?" Yue Qijie asked unhappily.

"I didn't come to see the two adults because I was ordered by my lord, but I happened to be in Shangqiu, and I heard that the two adults had encountered a problem, so I came to give advice to the two adults." Liu Neng explained.

"Advice? What do you know as a martial artist? Yuan Shu sneered, and wanted people to drive the young man in front of him away. Since he didn't come on Chen Yue's orders, there was no need to be polite to him.