The escape plan formulated by Wu Sangui was simply seamless. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Because of the suddenness of the incident, so that the Ming army spies in the city could not send the news in time, when Shi Lang learned the news and led the combined fleet to seal the river, Wu Sangui had already fled to the north bank with more than 500 people.

Leaving behind an army of 400,000 and fleeing, even Stilwell did not expect the commander of the Qing army to do this...........

Ao Bai is indeed the "first warrior of the Qing Dynasty", but this person's prestige in the army is far inferior to that of Haoge, the prince of Heshuosu.

When the Manchu soldiers learned that they had been abandoned, although they were dissatisfied, they had to fight hard with Ao Bai for the sake of their families in the rear.

But those Han generals don't think so, they are the generals of the Ming Dynasty, so why not switch to them again at this time?

Especially the Guanning Iron Cavalry, not to mention that they have been fighting for many years without seeing any hope, and now they have been abandoned by the boss, and they are naturally unwilling to continue fighting in order to survive.

As for the Han generals who originally stayed in Jiangxi, Hunan and other places, the main general may be afraid of punishment and dare not act rashly, but the deputy generals below and the like do not have so many scruples, and some people even began to plot to get rid of their main generals and surrender in Kaecheng.

In good conscience, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was neither Li Zicheng's courage and good fighting, nor the invincible army of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, even if it was the comparison of military strength between the three parties (Ming Dynasty, Dashun Dynasty, and Manchu Qing Dynasty), it was the Ming Dynasty that had the absolute upper hand.

Why couldn't the Ming Dynasty resist it in the first place?

The first reason is: the internal civil servants are intrigued, and the Donglin Party persecuts people with lofty ideals, either driving them to Li Zicheng's command, or forcing the other party to go away from the border and use them for the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Another major reason: the military household system of the Ming Dynasty made soldiers often take life preservation as the first element on the battlefield in order not to have no successors to their families.

Before this battle started, we should first consider the matter of surrender, and only if we can win the battle can we have ghosts!

The war-weariness of the soldiers drove the senior generals above, and some of the generals who fled before the battle, because they had preserved enough strength, and the imperial court was overwhelmed by various problems at that time, not only did they not dare to punish these generals with military power, but also commended them in turn, after all, did they "preserve their strength"!

In their opinion, even if they lose the battle, as long as they have enough military power in their hands, the court will not dare to do anything to them, on the contrary, if they do not have the strength in their hands and eat the defeat, then they will become the "chicken" that the court kills to show the monkey.

The atmosphere of self-respect has been out of control since then, and many enthusiastic generals have either been betrayed by their pig teammates, fought alone, and died on the battlefield, or suffered heavy losses, and the wall fell down and everyone pushed it, and turned to the enemy in order to save their lives.

Wenchen was squeezed out by the Donglin Party, and the military generals were plagued by the conservatives, how could such a Ming Dynasty not die?

Now that Zhu Youzhen is in power, he has the demeanor of a generation of heroes, whether he was forced before, or he followed the trend to defect to the enemy, and now he wants to switch back, it can be said that as long as Nanming can give a clear message and do not pursue the previous crimes, then the vast majority of the Han generals who see the situation clearly will choose to switch.

But who is Zhu Youzhen, when he was in danger, you each ran for a good future, and now that the situation has reversed, you still want to come back, how can there be such a good thing in the world?

However, in order to end the war as soon as possible and let the common people rest and recuperate, Zhu Youzhen listened to Li Hongfei's suggestion: Only punish the evil, and any army that surrenders to the enemy will definitely not be spared! At the same time, as long as the head of the main general can be sacrificed, then the rest of the people will be written off for their previous sins.

As soon as these words came out, it was equivalent to directly sealing the retreat of all the generals who surrendered to the army, whether you were forced or speculating, as long as you dare to be a traitor, one counts as one, and it is better to kill the wrong than to let it go!

When you come out to mix, you always have to pay it back.........

All the decisions that were made in the past to save lives must now be paid for.

Li Hongfei's move can be described as extremely vicious, what is the deputy general? That's the henchman of the Lord!

As soon as this regulation was introduced, many generals who surrendered to the army began to be wary of their henchmen, how will this battle be fought in the future?

Take the Yueyang defenders as an example, in such a grim situation, the Han defenders of Jiangxi and Hunan suddenly became subtle inside.

There are even many Han lieutenant generals who were killed by their immediate bosses who casually found an excuse, and for a while people were panicked and the atmosphere was very delicate.

The so-called catastrophe is coming, and when the lone army on the front line is deep, those Han army generals are making trouble in the rear.

First of all, the Guanning Iron Cavalry took the initiative to surrender out of the city, although there were only more than 30,000 Guanning Iron Cavalry left, but all of them were brave and good at fighting, 30,000 Guanning Iron Cavalry, and even 100,000 Han Army Eight Banner Soldiers.

With the example of Guanning Iron Cavalry, many Han troops have followed suit, first a sentry, a team, a small defection at night, and then there is a town chief soldier Wang Zuntan, when he was drinking in the house, he was killed by his subordinate generals, and then the whole army went out of the city to surrender to the Ming army.

And Wang Zuntan's head, as well as the property in the house, were all handed over to Stilwell by this general as a "letter of nomination".

The defection of the Han Eight Banners of a town, plus the next day, these people actually appeared on the battlefield, and they were not used as cannon fodder, but only as auxiliary troops, but they brought great touch to the defenders in the city.

First, the Ming army really did what it said and only chased and killed the first evil.

Second, the Ming army will not retaliate afterwards and let them serve as cannon fodder.

This battle is about to be over, at least the Qing army is south of the Yangtze River, there is no chance of victory, if you can't make the right choice at this time, you won't have a chance to wait.

Soon, the situation on the battlefield gradually became clear, Stilwell's troops fought more and more, Aobai's army fought less and less, and the Qing army was unstable, many deputy generals, deputy commanders, were killed for no reason, even those generals who had no objection, after encountering this situation, they also began to actively plan.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty, known as a 500,000-strong army, was sharply reduced to 100,000 in less than half a month under the leadership of Aobai.

Of the 400,000 troops that were sharply reduced, only about 80,000 Manchurians died on the battlefield, and the remaining nearly 300,000 Han and Eight Banners all chose to surrender.

The "First Warrior of the Qing Dynasty" is only the courage of a horseman, even if it is a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand..........

Without enough talent to lead troops, in an army of hundreds of thousands, it is nothing at all.

Just a month after the Battle of the Yangtze River, Hauge's 500,000-strong army was wiped out, and Ao Bai was also killed by Ming artillery in the final battle.

In this westward expedition, Stilwell annihilated 600,000 enemies at the cost of 80,000 casualties, and by the way, he also disabled the Qing army's naval division.

Some people are happy and some are worried, and Dolgon, the regent of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, is anxious at the moment.

The Great Belle Daishan led the troops to the battle, but as a result, he fired a few cannons north of the Yangtze River, and then retreated in disgrace, the enemy did not kill a few, but he lost more than 10,000 soldiers (when crossing the river, the warship was sunk by artillery and fell into the river to freeze or drown), so angry that the veteran spat out a few mouthfuls of blood.

In addition, this person is old again, but on the way back to Beijing, he died violently.

Azig and Duoduo successfully escaped back to Beijing, but in this water battle, the ships of the Qing army's naval division were destroyed, and one was unified and one deputy commander, and neither of them could escape responsibility, in order to block the mouth of the ministers of the court, Dolgon had to order to remove the two princes from their positions and hand them over to the Zongren Mansion for judgment.

After Wu Sangui brought it to the north bank of the Yangtze River, Haoge understood that even if he returned to the south bank again at this time, he would not be able to return to the sky.

People are indeed not afraid of death sometimes, but if they have a chance to live, who wants to take the initiative to go back to die?

So Hao Ge thought about it and decided to return to Beijing with Wu Sangui to resume his life, but as everyone knows, Wu Sangui's conspiracy against him has just begun..........

Wu Sangui had five hundred soldiers left in his hands at this time, which could still be mixed up in the Manchu Qing Dynasty?

If nothing else, if Hauge returns to Beijing, he will definitely be the first to be unlucky.

In the past, Haoge would not move him, and he did not dare to touch him, after all, Wu Sangui had soldiers in his hands, and he was the hero who "led" the Qing soldiers into the customs, and Dolgon would definitely protect him.

But now it's different, he has no soldiers and no power in his hands, and if a prince wants to kill himself and throw the defeated "black cauldron" to himself, it's simply easy.

Under such circumstances, Wu Sangui could only choose political investment.

The regent Dolgon and Hauge have always had a disagreement, as long as Wu Sangui took the initiative to take refuge in Dolgon, and then insisted that Hauge abandoned his subordinates and fled for his life, and he was just acting on orders.

For this reason, on the way back to Beijing, Wu Sangui repeatedly asked his soldiers to pretend to be bandits, and cleared out Haoge's cronies along the way, and by the middle of February, when Haoge arrived in Beijing, he had become a loner.

At this time, the final result of the battle in Yueyang also came............

Wu Sangui and Haoge confronted each other in the court, Wu Sangui insisted that Haoge fled north in a cowardly fight, because most of the Manchu generals were unwilling to retreat, so they found Wu Sangui and asked him to help him leave the army and escape secretly, Wu Sangui was also forced to refute and dare not refute, so he could only obey the order.

The Qing army has only been in the customs for three years, and most of the people who have been used are Ming Dynasty vassals, and Wu Sangui is naturally a variety of maintenance, coupled with Dolgon's intentional or unintentional bias, Hauge was finally imprisoned for delaying the fighter plane and leaving his post without permission, and died in prison in early April at the age of 40.

Although Wu Sangui was exempted from the death penalty, he was also stripped of his prince because of the crime of dereliction of duty, and was demoted to the deputy commander of the Han Army's Zhenglan Banner, becoming a pioneer general from Sanpin.

As a result, Wu Sangui had already expected that it was not the first time that he had been demoted, and now he had no soldiers and no power, so he was not given an idle position, but was sent to the front line as a pioneer general, which was tantamount to giving him a chance to make a comeback.

However, this opportunity, Wu Sangui didn't want it in his heart, the Ming army was now in full swing, and the Qing army had no chance of winning when the two sides fought, and this was the way back......... I have to plan again.

The Qing army responded to the battle in a hurry, killed the two princes, withdrew the two princes, Baylor, the prince, and the general suffered countless losses, and there was really no one available in Dolgon's hands...........

Not to mention that Dolgon's side is worried, Nanming is the whole country celebrates, Yueyang War ended, since then the entire territory south of the Yangtze River, plus Yangzhou, Suqian, Yancheng and other areas, have been firmly controlled by the Ming army.

Especially the line of Yangzhou, Suqian, and Yancheng, which will definitely become the bridgehead of the Ming army's northern expedition in the future, as long as the time is ripe, the army can attack from this and counterattack the Central Plains.

It is not too happy to lay down a large area of land, after all, these lands belonged to the Ming Dynasty before, but they were just taken by Li Zicheng and the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The battle of the Western Expedition not only played the prestige of the Ming army in the past, but also wiped out more than half of the Qing army's strength.

Coupled with nearly 300,000 surrendered troops, and the 100,000 troops in the Yunnan-Guizhou region began to accept the imperial court reorganization, the army of the Southern Ming Dynasty suddenly increased from 400,000 to 800,000.

According to this momentum, even if the Northern Expedition is sent now, it will be easy to drive the Manchus out of the customs.

However, the more you get to this time, the more you can't be in a hurry, the army has a lot of trouble.

Needless to say, even the elite soldiers of Li Dingguo and others have very limited combat effectiveness, and there is a more critical problem, which is to support the troops and respect themselves.

Zhu Youzhen now has the initiative in the court, and a group of Ziwenchen are a lot more honest, but the problem of military generals is still relatively serious.

Now, except for the armies of Li Hongfei, Qi Hongying, Huang Degong, Zheng Chenggong, and Wang Guoxing, the rest of the armies still cannot be mobilized at will.

After all, these armies have just surrendered, and they are still wary of the imperial court, and they are worried that the imperial court will unload the mill and kill the donkey, so these armies are all huddled together and refuse to accept the so-called group army reorganization, and even Li Dingguo's army has the same problem.

Li Dingguo was willing to accept the title of group army, but he did not want the imperial court to parachute the military chief down, not even a staff officer, and he was also very resistant to the imperial court's proposal to dismiss some of the old and weak and recruit young and strong recruits.

There is no problem in recruiting new soldiers, as long as the imperial court can give money, the more Li Dingguo recruits, the happier he is.

However, the dismissal of his old comrades-in-arms made Li Dingguo unacceptable, thinking that the imperial court was trying to take the opportunity to weaken his strength.

With Li Dingguo taking the lead, a group of surrendered troops followed suit, and they did not cooperate with the military reform system of the imperial court at all.

If this kind of warlord power cannot be effectively resolved, the Ming army's Northern Expedition is likely to run into trouble, and even if it wins, it will lead to heavy losses because of the ghosts of each warlord.

You must know that the current military salary system of the Ming Dynasty, and the disability pension system, have increased several times compared with before, if there are a bunch of useless old and sick people, or excessive casualties during the battle, the little savings that the court has accumulated with great difficulty may be lost because of a battle.

Therefore, if you want to go on the Northern Expedition, this internal contradiction must be resolved as soon as possible!