Chapter 167: King Zhou
Ao Bai was not the first to receive the news of the emperor's death, and the first to receive an urgent delivery from the capital was Jia Hanfu, the governor of Henan in Kaifeng. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info
Ao Bai was in Zhongmu, and in the cold winter of Layue a few years ago, he deployed a big war there.
Aobai's opponents were Wu Sangui's son-in-law Xia Guoxiang and general Guo Zhuangtu.
After the defeat of Hu Guozhu and Wang Pingfan, Wu Sangui prepared for a decisive battle, a decisive battle to decide who the Central Plains belonged to. In order to raise grain and grass, orders came out from Luoyang, and grain trucks drove from Tongguan to Henan, behind the grain trucks were all the war potential of Shaanxi and Gansu, and countless families in Shaanxi and Gansu were ruined and waiting to be fed.
When Hong Chengchou died, he told Wu Sangui that the land of Shaanxi and Gansu was too barren to support a long-term war, so the Wu army must fight quickly and not be delayed, otherwise the long battle line and the grain and grass consumed by more than 200,000 troops alone would be enough to drag the Wu army into a land of no return.
However, after seizing Xi'an, Wu Sangui made mistakes again and again, first in failing to advance eastward in time to seize Tongguan, and then in failing to occupy Kaifeng with the whole army, which led to the north. Beijing's Manchurian Eight Banners came to the aid in time and blocked the Wu army west of Kaifeng.
The news of the death of the Yongli Emperor and the fall of Guizhou also made the Wu army panic, and Wu Sangui, who asked about the "will of heaven" in Luoyang, finally changed the King of Liao to the King of Zhou under the persuasion of Fang Xianting, Hu Yuxuan and other strategists. At the same time, build a high platform in Luoyang, go to the crying sacrifice Yongli, when crying, Wu Sangui cried very sadly, the surrounding civil and military officials and the people of Luoyang were all moved, all cried, and the crying shook the nine nights.
After crying and sacrificing, Wu Sangui led the army to Zhengzhou, wanting to personally lead troops to attack Aobai. In recent years, the two sides have unanimously called off their troops and cerated hostilities, but everyone knows that this is a brief lull before the storm.
Since Chongzhen, Henan has been free of disasters and chaos in every year. In the year of the catastrophe, the situation in the world is in turmoil, no one knows what will happen tomorrow, and no one knows whether waking up this day overnight will return to the Ming or the Qing. The atmosphere of the New Year can hardly be seen in the Central Plains, everyone smells the restless killing in the air, no one wants to become cannon fodder in this war, become a victim of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but they can't do anything, they can only struggle desperately in this cannibalistic world.
The large and small counties on the line from Luoyang to Zhengzhou are the whirlpool of storms. None of the rice shops were still open, and no one could buy a single grain of food. The villages and towns outside the city were mostly deserted, and the rest were in league with each other as they had been more than twenty years ago, but this time, most of these forts were thrown into the Wu army, rather than continuing to fall to the Qing army.
Wu Sangui invested 140,000 troops in the Zhengzhou area, and there were more than a dozen generals such as Xia Guoxiang, Guo Zhuangtu, Ma Bao, Hu Guozhu, and Wang Pingfan, while his opponent Ao Bai could only mobilize less than 50,000 soldiers and horses to meet the enemy. In terms of the number of troops used, the Wu army was three times that of the Qing army, so although there were defeats of Wang Pingfan and Hu Guozhu, when Wu Sangui arrived in Zhengzhou, the morale of the troops on the front line was immediately greatly improved. In particular, Wu Sangui's move to change the King of Liao to the King of Zhou made many Wu generals settle down because of the empty psychology of having no king to serve.
The army did not move, and the grain and grass went first. Wu Sangui knew that it was impossible for Ao Bai to withdraw from the army, and no one knew how long the next battle would take, so the preparation of grain and grass became Wu Sangui's top priority. He can be defeated on the battlefield, but he must not be defeated on grain and grass. Under the orders of King Zhou, thousands of grain trucks traveled to and from Zhengzhou every day, but they still could not catch up with the consumption of the army. Fang Xianting, Hu Yuxuan and other strategists all knew that the Wu army was overdrawn in the control area, but at the moment, no one cared about it so much. In this big war, you can only win, and if you win, you can say anything, and if you lose, no matter how big the territory is, it is useless.
After Guo Zhuangtu led the army to meet Hu Guozhu's retreat, he set up the military camp in Wushui, forty miles southwest of Zhongmu, and the company camp was more than ten miles. There are nearly 4,000 cavalry in his department, half of them are his descendants, and the other half are the local tyrants and horse bandits in Henan, although the discipline is loose and the team is procrastinated, but the horse bandits are also skilled in riding, and many of them are locals who are familiar with the local terrain, so they have played a great role.
Aobai's camp is in Zhongmu, Guo Zhuangtu is facing Aobai, and he is also the closest soldier and horse to Aobai, he has to make all preparations, and constantly scatter the Tanma to ensure that every move of the Zhongmu Qing army is under his control.
Every day, the Qing army's horses and the Wu army's horses would exchange several hands, with hundreds of dead and wounded, and as few as a dozen. In order to encourage morale, Guo Zhuangtu gave a very high reward to Tanma, a Han army head can be exchanged for ten taels of silver, and a true Tartar head can be exchanged for thirty taels of silver. Thanks to the familiarity of the Henan bandits and the young men of Wubao with the terrain, the Wu army actually gained the upper hand in the battle with the Qing army, forcing the Qing army not to dare to spread the horses too far.
The army did not take any action, after all, the Spring Festival is a big festival, whether it is the Ming army or the Qing army, it is always necessary to let people celebrate the festival.
On the sixth day of the first lunar month, the Ming and Qing dynasties, who had rested for a few days, had a big battle outside a town called Jiulong.
Both sides involved in the battle were cavalry, with the Wu army numbering more than 1,200 and the Qing army numbering more than 700.
The commander of this cavalry of the Wu army was Sun Sike of the Yansui General Army, and the commander of the Qing army was Manchurian Zhenghongqi Jia Lazhen Tuzhan.
Sun Sike was originally the leader of the Han army banner of the Qing Dynasty, and he was loyal to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and made many contributions to the Qing Dynasty. Because of his Han military background, Manchu also favored him very much, and he was more valued than ordinary Green Battalion generals, and it was reasonable for him to betray the Qing court. The biggest reason that prompted Sun Sike to surrender to Wu Sangui was that when he fled from Guiyang with Wang Doni that day, he not only witnessed many people in central Sichuan and the green camp being slaughtered by the Manchurian Eight Banners, but also many of his subordinates in the Han army were captured for food. This was still not the last straw that finally made Sun Sike decide to return to Ming, and the ultimate reason for his return to Ming was the surrender of the Xi'an general Tabai. In other words, Sun Sike found that the Qing court had gone over, so he made up his mind to make a living for himself and the more than 1,000 subordinates under his command.
Sun Sike's and Zhao Liangdong and other generals of the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Battalion were valued by Wu Sangui, and he was entrusted with the post of Yansui General Army, and now he is a vanguard officer under the command of Xia Guoxiang. After discovering the Qing army, Sun Sike immediately ordered the battle formation to be launched, he observed the Qing army array on the opposite side, and found that the other party was also in full array, and couldn't help but guess whether this Qing cavalry was a decoy to lure the enemy.
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Some book friends said in a book review that the characters in the bones are all "scum", and there are no good people, and this bone has to be admitted, because I am not writing about contemporary times, I am writing about China after 1644. As for whether he is a good person, the benevolent will see the benevolent, and the wise will see the wise. The era must have the characteristics of the times, and just because the protagonist is not a person of this era, it is not necessary to forcibly promote things that do not belong to this era in this era, whether it is ideology or system, or what faith and loyalty.