Soon after Jiang Xiang's 40,000 men and horses returned to Taiyuan, the Qing army followed closely, and Bai Zhang, the general of the righteous army in Huozhou, also surrendered to the Jin army after being defeated by the Jin army.

Haoge led the army to the north, along the way Zhou County heard that the Qing army killed people and slaughtered the city, worried that it would fall into the hands of the Qing army, after measuring, Fenzhou and other places looked at the wind and surrendered to the Jin army.

On November 29, shortly after the Qing army arrived in Taiyuan, the Jin army also slaughtered under the city of Taiyuan.

The Jin army was 40,000 people, the Qing army was 30,000, a total of 70,000 people surrounded Taiyuan, and more than 40,000 righteous troops surrounded the city.

Of course, in addition to the 70,000 allied troops, more than 200,000 civilians driven by the Qing army will also participate in the siege operation.

The Qing army did not have much supplies, and its own supplies relied on plunder, so naturally they would not care about the people who drove in.

These more than 200,000 people can be said to be extremely miserable, forced to fill in the trenches by the Qing army, but there is no food, and the women have to provide for the banner soldiers.

Not to mention the itchy teeth of the righteous army in the city, even the generals of the Jin army besieging the city were dissatisfied with the Qing army, they took in many people who fled to the Jin camp, and there were conflicts with the Qing army from time to time, and they almost met each other.

Although the Jin Emperor was a Manchu, the Jin State was actually a Han-dominated regime, and the Jin army was very dissatisfied with the barbarism of the Manchu Dynasty.

However, the war was cruel after all, and many Han generals in the Jin army, although they were dissatisfied with the Qing army's practices and felt that they had hurt their national feelings, only sheltered very few people who fled to the Jin camp, and those people who were controlled by the Qing army could not help.

Under the city of Taiyuan, there will often be such a scene, the people who fill in the trench suddenly drop their tools and run to the side of the golden camp, and the side of the golden camp will immediately open the camp gate and let them into the camp.

When the chasing Qing army chased to the edge of the Jin camp, they would stop the pursuit, acquiescing to the fact that the people were left by the Jin camp.

For this point, Lou Qin also found Haoge, hoping that the Jin army would return these fleeing people to the Qing army, otherwise it would affect the Qing army's siege operations.

Although Haoge was moving the people of Shanxi to Guanzhong, he also knew that there was something wrong with the Jin army doing this, not to mention affecting the siege operation, and it would also cause discord between the Jin and Qing armies.

It's just that there are 160,000 horses in the Jin Kingdom, less than 20,000 Manchu and Mongolian horses, and many of them are loyal to Sun Kewang and other Han gentry.

In fact, the Jin State is more similar to the Ming Dynasty to the present, and the Jin army is generally hostile to the Qing army, because the Qing army is different from them, they think they are the Central Plains Dynasty, and the Qing is a completely barbaric Hulu regime.

If the Jin army was not forced by the situation, the pattern of three points in the world made them have to help the Qing army, and the Jin army would definitely not want to get involved with the Qing army dragging braids.

Under the city of Taiyuan, although there was a gap between the Jin and Qing armies, as the Qing army filled in the moat, the attack of the coalition army on Taiyuan officially began.

Counting the 40,000 horses of the Jin army, the army used to quell the rebellion in Shanxi has reached 160,000, and the Jin-Qing coalition army has a huge advantage over the Shangshan rebel army, and the trend of the spread of the uprising has been completely suppressed.

After all, the real elite of the Shanxi Righteous Army only had 50,000 Datong soldiers, and when the Jinqing Coalition Army entered Shanxi, with their cavalry superiority, the main force of the Righteous Army could only trap Taiyuan, Lu'an, Datong, Xuanfu and other places, and the small group of Righteous Army could only drill into the mountains and forests, waiting for the turning point of the Ming Army's Northern Expedition.

……

When the surging anti-Qing tide was set off in the north, the Ming Dynasty in the south was also running at full speed, preparing for the Northern Expedition in advance.

Wang Yan's original plan was to wait for the Northern Expedition to be at least three or four years later, but the plan could not catch up with the changes, and the Qing army invaded the south, so that he used Jiang Xiang's chess piece in advance, and Jiang Xiang moved, and he had to make the Northern Expedition in advance.

The army of the Ming Dynasty was different from the Qing army, and in the areas controlled by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it was difficult to eat enough, so a knife was issued, a spear was given, and a bowl of rice could be eaten to pull up a team, and the cost of war was low.

The Ming Dynasty had a well-developed society and a wealthy economy, and the cost of war was much higher than that of the Manchu Dynasty.

A very simple truth, a young man can earn twelve taels of silver a year at home, so if he goes to join the army, he must earn at least twenty-four taels a year, and he must be given other preferential treatment, so that he will join the army and be willing to fight and die.

The 500,000 army of the Ming Dynasty cannot be inspired by the national righteousness alone, the vast majority of people are bound to care about their own interests, and they also need to support their families.

The preparation of the Ming Dynasty for the Northern Expedition was actually not sufficient, if it was only Datong, Wang Yan might think about whether to give up Jiang Xiang, but the whole Shanxi was reversed, and half of the Manchu Qing troops were restrained at once, that is, time is not waiting, the opportunity is rare, and it is necessary to take action.

From September, Jiang Xiang occupied Taiyuan, the news of the anti-Qing Dynasty and the entire territory of Hedong spread to the south, and the Ming Dynasty began to operate in full force.

The Ming Dynasty was once again heavily in debt, ordering the workshops affiliated to the imperial court to produce day and night, and the private workshops that were not qualified to make firearms were also authorized to help the imperial court manufacture new firearms.

With the expansion of the scale of the workshop, it indirectly led to the mining and smelting of iron ore and copper ore, as well as the development of transportation.

A large number of tenants who lost their land found jobs because of this, so that the Nanjing court was a little unable to react, but they did not expect that the social contradictions could be solved in this way.

The society of the Ming Dynasty is undergoing drastic changes, which has not changed for thousands of years, many things are encountered for the first time, and the Nanjing court has no experience, so it can only cross the river by feeling the stones.

They think that the social contradiction is solved, but in fact it is only temporary, the military workshop is not like textiles, porcelain, the products he produces, must be consumed by war, now there is a war, it can temporarily drive the economy of the Ming Dynasty, solve the problem of employment, but once the fight is over, bigger problems will emerge again, and even lead the Ming Dynasty astray.

In addition to building weapons, the other most important thing in preparing for war is war horses.

Because of the urgency of time, it was unlikely that the trained cavalry would be able to pass through, so Wang Yan could only transfer all the cavalry from Sichuan to Huguanglai.

In addition, in Qinghai, which was controlled by the Ming Dynasty, he recruited righteous servants and purchased war horses, not asking the cavalry to know how to ride and fight, but only to be able to use it for transportation, and strengthen the marching ability of the infantry army, so as to resist the cavalry of the Qing army.

In terms of the entire strategy, Wang Yan decided to adopt a defensive strategy against the Jin State, and transferred Li Dingguo and other elite soldiers from Sichuan.

In November, after the Jin army withdrew from southern Qinghai, Sichuan's cavalry of 8,000 people, plus 10,000 recruited Yicong, and He Tengjiao through the tea and horse trade, from Tibet and Qinghai in exchange for 10,000 war horses, were all transferred to Luzhou, and then set off from here, took the building boat south, to Huguang to assemble.

(End of chapter)