Guangdong is temporarily stable, and Hainan's attention turns to the western front.

The Tatars commanded the whole army in Guangxi with the line of the Confucian domain. Guangxi Tusi fought with the Tatars under the banner of the Ming Dynasty for more than ten years, the people were exhausted and tired, except for the left and right Jiangdao were still waiting, most of the rest of the Tusi accepted their fate and accepted the rule of the Tatars.

Below the line, the general army of the right wing of the Tartar army was stationed in Liuzhou Mansion, controlling the Liuzhou section (Qianjiang) and Liujiang of the main stream of the Xijiang River, and confronting He Jiuyi, the general of the Dingguo Department, on the front line of Kunlun Pass.

The left wing general soldier Ma Xiong was stationed in Wuzhou and confronted the Qinlian Theater in Teng County.

Another part is inserted between Tengxian and Nanning, occupying Xunzhou and Guixian, Xunzhou is the crossroads of the Yujiang River and the Qianjiang River, and another important place for river defense.

The Ming army and the Tatar army battle lines were staggered, the Ming army occupied Tengxian to cut off the Tatar waterway connection between Xunzhou and Wuzhou, and the Tatars cut off the water connection between Tengxian and Nanning in Xunzhou.

The army of the Kong Domain was depleted and its combat effectiveness was greatly damaged.

Hong Chengchou passed through the southwest and successively sent 13,000 additional Guangdong, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Henan green battalions to Guangxi, and these soldiers were in place in 1657 and were stationed in Wuzhou, Xunzhou and other places. Last year, the Zhongqinlian War Zone was very dangerous, and Xie Yuanbian had a plan to abandon Tengxian County and withdraw to Tianmen Pass.

After the Battle of Leizhou, Shang Kexi withdrew Li Yangzhi's 5,000 Guangdong soldiers, and immediately canceled the offensive plan when the line was safe, and held on to the place, and sent a small number of troops and materials from Guilin to attack Guizhou with Zhao Butai, the general of the expedition.

Since the Tatars weakened and suspended the offensive, the Guangxi Ming army launched a counterattack in a timely manner to respond to the Yunnan-Guizhou battlefield.

Dingguo had more than 10,000 cavalry in the He Jiuyi division in the Nanning and Hengzhou regions, and the division crossed the Kunlun Pass to attack Penn in the north.

Xie Yuanbian of the Qinlian Theater asked for reinforcements, and Zhou Luqing only left Jin Shiying in one town to respond to Guangdong, and sent He Huchen and Yang Qianqing to train troops to reinforce Yulin. Xie Yuanbian then attacked Xunzhou and Guixian in the northwest through Xingye County, trying to pull out the Tatar salient on the Yujiang River.

The attack of the Ming army had just begun, and Xie Yuanbian successfully captured Guixian, but the city of Xunzhou was very strong and could only be surrounded and fought.

He Jiuyi fought with the whole festival in Pennsylvania for days, and the victory was not scored.

It was difficult for Guangxi to make a breakthrough for a while, and Hainan was more concerned about the news on the southwest battlefield.

Nanning was under the control of He Jiuyi, and Zuojiangdao was under the control of Yuan Lijun. Hainan could still communicate with the central government of the Ming Dynasty in Kunming via the mountain road of Zuojiang Road via Guangnan Province (present-day Guangnan County, Yunnan), but the distance was long, and the news was often learned months after the incident. Moreover, judging from the feedback of the messenger, Kunming fell into chaos in the face of strong enemy pressure, which was reflected in the battlefield, that is, the Ming army in the southwest could not figure out the specific situation of Guizhou, so it needed to be supplemented by intelligence from the Tatar side.

The Qinlian Theater captured many prisoners on the Guangxi front. The information provided by the captives in Hainan corroborated with the Kunming war report and the Guangzhou intelligence, and determined that the Tatars of the three routes had all invaded Guizhou and Guiyang had been lost.

Since 1645, the towns of Nanming have been operating in the defense line of Xiangxi for 13 years, and there are castles and fortresses all over the line, and there are heavy troops stationed in the dangerous passes. Among them, such as Ma Jinzhong, Zhang Xianbi and other troops are He Tengjiao's old troops, familiar with geography, accustomed to mountain warfare.

Before Sun Kewang surrendered, Hong Chengchou mobilized tens of thousands of elite green battalions in Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi, and Henan and the local green battalion, and more than 100,000 people in the Eight Banners could keep the 5,000-mile long side.

Sun Kewang's surrender and the civil war of the Ming army crumbled this strong defensive line, and Li Dingguo was slow to react.

If Dingguo manages to hold Wu Sangui and the Eight Banners on the northern and eastern fronts, it will not be difficult to rely on the mountainous areas of Guizhou, and then concentrate the elite troops to attack Zhao Butai, who has the least number of troops on the southern front, and there is a great chance that he will cut off one of his arms before the Tatar division, so that the new generation of Eight Banners soldiers will be frightened, and then find other fighters later.

Dingguo did not do this, and the order can only be understood as the Ming army had just ended the civil war, and there may be many difficulties unknown to outsiders, making it difficult for Dingguo to gather a powerful army in a hurry. Doni sent Jixiha to reinforce Zhao Butai, who was weakened on the southern front, and cut off the last hope of victory for the Ming army.

This time, the Eight Banners attacking the southwest trekked through mountains and rivers in the turbulent rivers of the mountains and valleys of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and all units fought bravely to be the first. Just like the twenty-three-year-old commander of the Eight Banners, the son of Duoduo with the white flag and the owner of the White Banner Doni, the Eight Banners are not of the same generation compared to when they entered the customs, perhaps inspired by the hope of a complete victory over the Ming Dynasty, the performance of the Eight Banners on this expedition can be called excellent.

Hainan was beyond the reach of the distant Yunnan-Guizhou battlefield and was unable to reinforce, so it had to strengthen the offensive in Guangxi, and dispatched Li Yuanyin and Li Laiheng to cross the Yujiang and Qianjiang rivers and attack northward.

Time passed day by day, and when autumn came, the Ming army in Guangxi strengthened its offensive and grabbed rice in the enemy-occupied areas.

Zhou Luqing received guests from the southeast in Qiongshan.

Zheng Chenggong sent Xu Fuyuan, the imperial historian of Zuo Tuo, Zhang Zixin, and Huang Shizhong, the general soldiers, to Kunming with a large number of official and private documents to resume their lives, and passed through Qiongshan to rest temporarily.

Due to the existence of the Great Wall on the southeast sea, the connection between the southeastern Ming army and the southwestern Ming army was much closer than in history, and the envoys of the Ming army in the two places did not have to pass through Annam. The Zheng regime of Thang Long Province sided in advance and fell in favor of the Tatars, and the road from Annam to Yunnan was cut off, which again shows how valuable Yuan Lijun's painstaking efforts in Zuojiang Province were to maintain the bleak situation there.

Zhou Luqing reported to Shou Xuan the intention of Zheng Fan's envoy.

"Zheng Chenggong gathered 1,000 warships and about 100,000 families of officers and soldiers, and planned to enter the Yangtze River and attack Nanjing."

Orderly: "From Jiangyin to Shanghai, the reef and sand are knotted, and Damu has figured out the route of the Yangtze River?" ”

"Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan entered the Yangtze River three times before, although Zhang Mingzhen is dead, the officers and soldiers who are familiar with the waterway are always there."

"How did Zheng Fan's spire-bottom catch boat (a kind of lucky boat) pass through the Jiaoshan Gate?"

"Xu Fuyuan said that Zhang Mingzhen was pulled up by manpower, and Zheng Fan planned to do so."

Shou Xu was stunned, "Zheng Chenggong's large fleet, one by one, pulled the fiber through Jiaoshan, and the Tatars arrived with reinforcements from northern Jiangsu and Jingzhou Wuhan in the upper reaches, and they still fought in Nanjing?" ”

"This ......" Zhou Luqing wiped his sweat, "I don't know the lower officials." ”

Shou Xuan got up and paced back and forth in the room for two steps.

"Choose a shrewd and capable envoy, lead the way for Zheng Fan's people, and send 60 cavalry to escort them to Kunming, remember to be elite soldiers."

"Send so many guards?"

"The Tusi of Zuojiang Province are unstable, they secretly have contact with the Tatars, and it is safer to send more troops. In addition, let them bring more silver, this time to Yunnan has another mission. ”

"Yes, I'll do it right away."

Sit back in order and look at the latest foreign trade data.

"Dev," Shou Xiang called out to the governor of Guangdong, who was about to go out.

"Grandio?"

Shou Xuan didn't look up, and said softly, "There are some things that can be prepared now." ”

"Yes." Zhou Luqing's heart sank.

Zhou Luqing greeted Cai Yuanding, who was waiting outside the door and was in charge of Hainan trade affairs.

"Ji Tong."

"Futai."

Cai Yuanding walked into the orderly study, "Führer." ”

"Well, have you seen Shen Shangda?"

"Yes, this time we traded 5 shipments with the Ping Fan with goods such as pepper, sumac, and Western clocks, and the total price was about 100,000 taels."

"Well done."

Pepper is a good thing, the Ming Dynasty used the pepper brought back by Zheng He to pay the minister's salary, which was very good, so good that the officials who took the pepper home rose up to oppose the official trip to the West.

The war must be fought, and the business will be done, this is society, this is history.

"Shen Shangda tested me if I could redeem the officers and soldiers of the fallen domain in Leizhou."

"How did you answer?"

"I said maybe, but I'll come back and ask for advice."

"Well, you go back and tell Shen Shangda. The people of the Jing Domain were not allowed to redeem it, but those who did not participate in the siege of Huazhou and the cannibalism of Xinhui in the Ping Domain could be ransomed. ”

"Yes, how is the price set?"

"How many Ping Domain captives do we have?"

"Shen Shangda only asked Dingkou in the domain, we don't have many prisoners, and the number of people who are still alive is about 2,000."

Shou Xun smiled, "Shang Kexi is very rich, I heard that Shen Shangda, who is in charge of sea trade, has hundreds of thousands of family properties?" ”

"I asked him about this before, if you count the real estate calligraphy and painting, Shen Shangda has more than 300,000 yuan."

"You go and talk, even Xu Erxian, we can release people, but they can't pay less than 300,000."

"Can the goods be converted?"

"Silk is fine."

"Understood."

"You prepare, and after you finish this, go to Vientiane."

"Go to Nanzhangguo?"

"Yes, there is something important."

——————

For a moment, note:

1. "Hong Chengchou and the Ming and Qing Dynasties of the Yi Dynasty", citing 3 copies of "The Five Provinces Jingluo Hong Chengchou Revealed the Dispatch of Officers and Soldiers from Western Guangdong to Flood and Placement" and other 3 copies, Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Jiangxi, and Jiangnan reinforced Guangxi with a total of 15,000 soldiers, and the book excludes Shandong soldiers, which is estimated to be about 13,000.

2, Qing Shilu, "Shunzhi fifteen years, May Renxu." The governor of Guangxi, Yu Shiyue, reported that the puppet Baokang Hou He Jiuyi stole Nanning, and sent the puppet town Cao You and others to lead thousands of parties to raid Pennsylvania. The guerrilla Liu Yanming and other officers and soldiers were defeated, and they won a lot, and they were discussed by the army. "Looking at the map, He has crossed the Kunlun Pass.

3. Gu Cheng, "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty", "...... The sea ship is huge, and it goes up the water, but it is not downwind, and it travels by the fiber. ”

4, Shen Shangda later confiscated nearly one million family properties.