The eighteenth year of Chongzhen is really a year of unrest, this is just the beginning of the year, and the land of China has been full of war. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

In the first year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1644, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), in mid-December, Wu Sangui led the army to surround Tongguan, and the Dashun army lined up to meet the battle.

In the first month of the second year of Shunzhi, Prince Azig led the main army to arrive, and bombarded Tongguan with red-coated cannons.

Li Zicheng met the Qing army at Tongguan, and after fierce fighting, the peasant army abandoned Tongguan in early February, went south to Huguang, and threatened to gather the strength of the whole army to attack Nanjing.

This is tantamount to a crooked attack, allowing Zhu Youzhen to take advantage of the problem and directly transfer to Zhenjiang to "prepare" the 15,000 new army to support Shi Kefa, and fall back to Nanjing again.

Wang Guoxing led the troops back and forth, and the general soldiers of each town, under the banner of King Qin, took the opportunity to change the route, and the army that was originally grinding and "reinforced" Yangzhou was now directly a ninety-degree sharp turn towards Nanjing.

At this point, Yangzhou has become an isolated city, and Shi Kefa's army has completely lost reinforcements.

This is not the end, because the Qing army attacked Li Zicheng at the same time, another Qing army under the leadership of Duoduo, in the middle of December of the first year of Shunzhi, divided the troops into Bozhou and Xuzhou, advanced to the south, the momentum was like a bamboo, quickly occupied Xuzhou, Bozhou, Xuyi, and took advantage of the situation to go down to Huai'an, seize Sizhou, cross the Huai River, and arrived in Yangzhou in early February of the following year.

Of course, the reason why the Qing army was so strong all the way was largely because Nanming had already abandoned these places, and as for those local rebels, or the remnants of Li Zicheng, they were simply vulnerable.

Originally, it was based on the city, relying on the strategic materials stored in the city, more than 100,000 troops, and it was not much of a problem to defend it for more than half a year.

In the early days of the war, he actually sent half of the army, and in mid-February, on the periphery of Yangzhou, he had to fight hard with one of Duoduo's vanguard troops of more than 20,000 people..........

Perhaps God blessed, this Manchu vanguard army that went south to Yangzhou was led by the Ming Dynasty general Xu Dingguo, the Han army inlaid with white flags, both sides were Han people, and the combat effectiveness was not much different.

The Art of War is cloudy: "Proud soldiers will be defeated"

When Xu Dingguo found that he was surrounded, instead of leading the army to break through in time, he led his troops to rush into the depths of the Nanming army, in a vain attempt to penetrate the formation of the Nanming army, which can be described as arrogant to the extreme.

Not to mention, the other party really has arrogant capital, plus the previous battles, are all in a regular formation to meet the enemy, this time Shi Kefa had a whim, came to a routine, wanted to encircle and annihilate this group of vanguards, but the other party was a stunned man who was carried away by victory, and he also did not play cards according to the routine, just thinking about rushing to kill in one go.

One had intentions, the other had no intentions, and the armies of the two sides launched a confused decisive battle in such an unexpected situation.

Nanming's army has long heard that the Manchu Qing Tartars are powerful, but now they are several times the enemy, but they are still "pressed and beaten" by the other party, and for a time in the Nanming army, not to mention the soldiers, even the generals have a shadow in their hearts.

Less than half an hour after the start of the war, the formation of the Ming army was rushed to pieces, and if it continued, the army of more than 50,000 people was really in danger of being scuttled through the camp by the other side.

"Hang the commander's flag, the official personally thunders and drums to cheer, this battle only has offensive drums, and there is no sound of singing gold (collecting troops)!" At the critical moment, Shi Kefa was determined to break the boat.

As soon as the handsome flag was hoisted, Xu Dingguo knew where the head of the Chinese army on the opposite side was, and at the same time knew who the other party's commander was.

Shi Kefa is an important member of the Nanming cabinet and the commander of the Yangzhou garrison, how could Xu Dingguo give up this credit.

"Brothers, rush with me! Kill Shi Kefa, reward a thousand taels of silver, and the official will be promoted to three levels! "The Han army, which had been continuously rushing but not seeing the end of the enemy's army, and was already slightly tired, was instigated by Xu Dingguo and stimulated by the promotion and fortune to launch a charge against the Southern Ming Chinese army again.

"The rattan soldiers stepped forward, the chariot battalion was in the center, the archers were behind, and the fifty meters in front of the rattan soldiers were the boundary, whoever dared to step forward, no matter whether they were enemies or me, they would all be shot!" The deputy general Shi Dewei (Shi Kefa Yizi) is also seizing the time to deploy troops.

The garrison of the Southern Ming Chinese Army is currently the most elite troops under Shi Kefa, and the key to victory or defeat lies in whether it can withstand this wave of charge!

"Hit the flag, let the Hongyi cannons on the left and right fire at the front of the Chinese camp!" Stilwell was worried that the Chinese army would not be able to withstand it, so he added another insurance.

"But general, the enemy and me are stuck, and I am afraid that if I open fire, I will be injured by mistake!" The staff next to him reminded.

"I can't care so much, shoot me!" Stilwell commanded loudly.

Now the two sides are fighting in one breath, after the handsome flag is hung up, the morale of the Ming soldiers has obviously rebounded, and the enemy wants to kill Shi Kefa to receive merit, and the morale is also high, at this time it depends on who can hold out to the end.

The roar of the Hongyi cannon can be regarded as escalating the cold weapon battle of Fang Cai into a hot weapon confrontation, and the blazing shells and indiscriminate slaughter soon made Xu Dingguo sober up.

Looking at the Ming army all over the mountains, as well as the neat Chinese army camp not far ahead, Xu Dingguo finally realized that this battle could not be violated.

They are the vanguard army, mainly cavalry, no heavy artillery at all, and now the other side obviously does not care about the life or death of their own soldiers, and if they continue to fight, they will definitely not be pleased.

"Retreat! The whole army retreats! Xu Dingguo began to order a retreat.

Wars from ancient times to the present day are the same, whoever admits cowardice first loses.

Previously, Nanming's army almost confessed, but fortunately, in the end, Shi Kefa saved the situation.

Now that Xu Dingguo admits instigation, the morale of the Qing army immediately plummeted, coupled with the chiseling tactics that had been used earlier, the rush was fierce, but unfortunately it did not kill or injure many Nanming soldiers.

However, the other party has more than 20,000 people, even if it is 20,000 pigs, it is enough for the Ming army to cut and kill for a while.

In the end, this battle lasted all day, and it was not until the second half of the night that Xu Dingguo took advantage of the moonlight to lead the remaining 1,000 cavalry to break out.

This battle was the first fiasco of the Qing soldiers since they came to the south, and it was also the first crushing victory since the Southern Ming Dynasty resisted the Qing Dynasty.

50,000 against 20,000, although almost all of the other side was annihilated, but Shi Kefa's side also suffered heavy losses, 5,000 soldiers were killed, 8,000 soldiers were injured, and even the deputy general Shi Dewei was cut off on the arm during the subsequent pursuit.

Earlier, the Qing soldiers rushed to kill too fiercely, so that many Ming soldiers were red-eyed, regardless of whether the other party surrendered or not, they were all slashed and killed, which made the Qing army dare not surrender at all, and could only resist desperately, which is also the main reason for the heavy losses of the Ming army.

Originally, the victory of this battle would be a major turning point in the Southern Ming Dynasty's resistance to the Qing Dynasty, which greatly suppressed the arrogance of the Manchu Qing Dynasty while improving their own morale.

If you can stop there, it is not impossible for the Hui army to stick to Yangzhou and hold on for half a year.

However, through this battle, Shi Kefa felt that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was not too powerful, and Yangzhou had many waterways, and there were many places suitable for blocking, so instead of retreating to Yangzhou, he divided his troops to attack from all directions, hoping to consume some more combat power of the other side before the main force of the Qing army arrived.

This idea is good, but not all the armies of the Manchu Qing Dynasty are as unbeaten as the Han Eight Banners, and even the Han Eight Banners have become cautious after realizing that Yangzhou is a hard bone.

The Manchu vanguard troops, mostly cavalry, can quickly slip away if they can't be defeated, and then gather more teams to come back and find their way back.

After the Ming army lost the advantage of the city wall due to field operations, its combat effectiveness decreased sharply, so that it suffered several major defeats one after another, which made the morale that had been accumulated with great difficulty fall to the bottom again.

In this month's blockade battle, the strength of the Ming army was sharply reduced from 120,000 to 80,000, and without reinforcements, it was no longer able to go out of the city to fight.