The Yang Yingnai mentioned by Zheng Tai is a household official in Zheng Chenggong's army, and can be regarded as a diehard loyalist of Zheng Chenggong, and his later compilation of the "Records of the Conquest" is an important historical material for the study of Zheng Chenggong, but the ambiguity and errors in some historical events have also been criticized by later historical researchers. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Fujian Ming army needs time to recover before they can fight again, and they are no longer just facing Fujian's green battalions, which has made Zheng Chenggong have been on the defensive for the past year and a half.

In fact, this was not the result of Hong Chengchou's hope for Shunzhi, at least in his eyes, the 10,000 soldiers of the Jingnan Domain were the leaders of the Manchu Han army, and should play a greater role in the future, such as completely suppressing the anti-Qing movement in the four southeastern provinces.

After officially taking up the post of governor of the four southeastern provinces, Hong Chengchou stayed in Nanjing for a few days, and after finishing the things that needed to be determined there, he set off for Nanchang, naturally so as not to provoke Ma Guozhu's displeasure. However, in the few days in Nanjing, Hong Chengchou not only summoned Wang Jiang, the former civilian official of Chen Wen's prison army, but also had a meeting with Jin Li and Li Zhifang, who were about to be escorted back to Beijing, without the slightest fear of arousing anyone's dissatisfaction because of this.

After seeing these two people, Hong Chengchou didn't plan to ask for anything for them in Shunzhi, because there was no need for him at all, but some of the realities of the Ming army in Zhejiang that the two mentioned to him still caught his attention, especially a crucial issue mentioned by Jin Li, which made him send a cronie to return to the capital quickly.

After arriving at the Jinglu Yamen in Nanchang, Hong Chengchou summoned Liu Guangbi, Yang Jie, Wang Zhigang and Zhang Guoxun's generals in batches, and issued documents to Hangzhou and Wenzhou asking the generals to strengthen the training of soldiers and the repair of city defenses in preparation for the attack of the Ming army.

A series of plans a few years ago bought a few months for the southeast war situation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the green battalion soldiers in the north and the elite troops that were squeezed out had set off, but now it was almost March, and there was not much time left for the Ming and Qing armies in the southeast.

In the first half of this year, there will be a battle in southwest Zhejiang, Hong Chengchou is very clear, even if the Qing army fails to launch an encirclement and suppression, the Zhejiang Ming army will inevitably launch an attack after resting, and the report of the northern green battalion reporting the speed of the army's march and arrival position will be sent to Hong Chengchou's case every day, but in such a tense atmosphere, a secret report still made him leave all his official duties to pay attention to the progress of the situation.

In late February of the seventh year of Yongli, in Yongzhou, south of Huguang, Li Dingguo had been stationed here since December last year when he abandoned Hengyang when he found that his army was alone.

The previous year, compared to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, was a year worth celebrating for the Ming court and the anti-Qing people everywhere. On the southeast battlefield, Chen Wen and Zheng Chenggong defeated the Qing army many times in southwest Zhejiang and southern Fujian respectively, and on the southwest battlefield, there were not only two great victories in Jingzhou and Chenzhou, but also Li Dingguo's two famous kings, which was very exciting.

However, not long before the victory in Hengyang, Liu Wenxiu's troops, who had won successive battles on the battlefield in Sichuan and had the potential to recover the whole of Sichuan and go north to Gansu and Shaanxi, were defeated under the city of Baoning in October. The general Wang Fuchen, the chief military officer Yao Zhizhen, Zhang Xianzhen, Wang Jiye, Yang Chunpu and others were captured and killed by the Qing army, losing most of the soldiers, three war elephants, more than 2,300 horses and mules, and even Liu Wenxiu's Funan Wang Jinyin was also captured by the Qing army, and the large area of lost land that had been recovered was also reoccupied by the Qing army.

Liu Wenxiu's defeat was mainly caused by his people's eagerness for quick success and quick gain and the light of the enemy, Wu Sangui, Li Guoying and other Qing troops took advantage of this, and gave priority to defeating the weakest Yuan Guogong Zhang Xianbi's troops in the Ming army, and then drove the rout army to completely crush Liu Wenxiu's army. Afterwards, Sun Kewang gave up the Sichuan battlefield and took advantage of this defeat to seize Liu Wenxiu's military power and scatter him.

As a result, the missed opportunity in Hengyang, the fiasco in Baoning, Sichuan, and the fall of Guangxi again, if you look at the map, the large areas of lost territory once recovered by the Ming army were reoccupied by the Manchus, and there are not many that can really be transformed into stable base areas.

Until recently, with the end of months of rest, the Southwest Ming Army also recovered from the fatigue of last year's successive campaigns. For this reason, Sun Kewang strongly invited Li Dingguo to Jingzhou to discuss the dispatch of troops. Li Dingguo did not doubt him, so he got up and went. But while walking on the road, there was a secret report that Sun Kewang intended to take this opportunity to murder him.

The person who sent the secret report was a confidant of Li Dingguo, and Li Dingguo was in a dilemma when he received the news. Li Dingguo stopped halfway, Sun Kewang issued seven orders in three days to ask Li Dingguo to go, and in the next few days, one after another people rushed to Li Dingguo to secretly report that Sun Kewang was afraid that his merits would be high, and the lord was ready to kill him during the military discussion, and then Sun Kewang himself trusted Feng Shuangli to lead the army under Li Dingguo's command, and the people who reported the news also included Liu Wenxiu's son.

Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo have long had contradictions, as early as after the death of Zhang Xianzhong, the rest of the Great Western Army in order to survive in the meeting Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo's "Fuming" advocated to the left, and later under Li Dingguo's death, the Great Western Army went south to Yunnan to occupy Yunnan by taking the opportunity of quelling the Shadingzhou Rebellion.

During this period, the Great Western Army was jointly governed by Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi, but with the Great Western Army recovering Yunnan, Sun Kewang's ambitions were extremely inflated under the instigation of some well-intentioned people, such as Ren Xian and others. In Kunming's "Flag-raising Incident in the Martial Arts Field", Sun Kewang used the punishment of Li Dingguo to determine his identity as the supreme commander of the Great Western Army, and then in the controversy between him and the Ming court over the canonization of the King of Qin, Sun Kewang completely overwhelmed Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu with the help of the authority of the Ming court. As for Enench, he died during this time.

The Yongli Imperial Court completed the merger with the Great Western Army in desperation, and the Yongli Emperor was also placed under house arrest in Anlong Qianhu, and Sun Kewang had already proclaimed himself the lord of the country, but in his opinion, the Yongli Emperor and Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu, who were of similar status to him in the Great Western Army and had heavy troops, were a great threat to his position, especially the establishment of a close relationship between the latter and the former.

In addition, Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo also had many civil officials in the Ming court who instigated discord between the two. For example, Yang Weizhi, the former deputy envoy of Yunnan, once fanned the flames in front of Sun Kewang: "If the general can win the title of 'King of Qin' in the imperial court, he can not only shock the southwest, but also suppress the two kings of Li and Liu, how majestic!" ”。 And in front of Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and others, he counted Sun Kewang arrogant, arbitrary, and did not think about brotherhood at all, and falsely reminded them to beware of the two princes' mansions replacing the banner with the word "Sun".

The civilian officials of the Ming court intended to divide the generals of the Great Western Army in order to maintain the authority and interests of the Ming court, which was understandable, but under a series of instigations, the rift between the two was even deeper.

Then last year, Li Dingguo achieved a great victory in Guilin, although he respected him, the "lord of the country" in Guiyang, in matters such as the sacrifice of prisoners, and only sent a report to the Yongli court in Anlong, Sun Kewang was very dissatisfied with this, and secretly instructed Feng Shuangli to violate the agreement with Li Dingguo in the victory of Hengyang, resulting in Li Dingguo being unable to take the opportunity to encircle and annihilate the heavy army group full of Mongolian and Mongolian Eight Banners.

Not long ago, taking advantage of the defeat of Baoning, Sun Kewang deprived Liu Wenxiu of his military power and threw him into idleness. It's not impossible to think of this move.

"Unfortunately, he was less trapped in the army, prepared for dangers and hardships, thought about his great merits, supported the royal family, and became immortal. Jinfu has to kill the king and play a great victory, and suspicion is everywhere. And I went to Yunnan with Brother Funan, and once I made a mistake, I was abandoned. Be jealous of me, especially if you are jealous. My wives are all in Yunnan, how can I run away? ”

After returning to Yongzhou, Li Dingguo still couldn't let go of this, and said to the general with grief and indignation.

Twenty years of brotherly love, but the successive news made him have to believe in Sun Kewang's conspiracy to kill his people and seize his army. Moreover, Sun Kewang is not unable to do such things, after Zhang Xianzhong's death, Zhang Xianzhong's wife and prime minister Wang Zhaoling in the Great Western Army were above the four, and it was Sun Kewang who took the lead to kill the two, and the four were able to leave Sichuan with the army. Now it seems that it is just a repetition of the old trick.

It is impossible to continue to stay in Huguang, otherwise the Great Western Army will inevitably perish in fratricide, and only the Manchus will benefit from it.

On the way back, Li Dingguo was already determined to leave Huguang with the army. However, there are two ways for him to go now, one is to return to the battlefield in Guangxi to the south, and the other is an invitation sent by a marshal of the Ming army in Zhejiang who has just been named a marquis not long ago - go east to Jiangxi and work together to recover Nanjing! (To be continued.) )