There is an error in the previous text, Chen Qice is General Linghai of the Southern Ming Dynasty, not General Jinghai, because the name of the chapter cannot be changed, so it is hereby explained

On the surface of the Tanjiang River, the hundreds of warships under the command of General Linghai of the Ming Dynasty are large and small, and the slightly larger warships are divided into two layers, and there are several cannons weighing three or four thousand catties on board. The smaller ones are equipped with some copper (iron) cannons on both sides of the ship's strings, and the smaller ones are only densely packed with large poles and guns on the ship, and there are no less than 100 of them. The crew of the ship, whether soldiers or sailors, wore red uniforms and flags. From a distance, hundreds of warships full of red flags sailed against the wind, covering the river, which was very majestic.

Guarded by a group of warships, the warship with the banner of "General Linghai of the Ming Dynasty" has three floors, and at this time, there are more than a dozen generals of the Ming army wearing armor on the top floor who are looking into the river ahead, and the leader is the commander of this naval division - Chen Qice, the general of Linghai of the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Qice is a native of Baochang County, Nanxiong Prefecture, Guangdong, born in the 46th year of Wanli, Chongzhen awarded Taishan garrison in 7 years, changed to 100 general officials of Yangjiang County in 12 years, and was reappointed as a general in Leizhou in 15 years. After the fall of the Longwu regime, Chen Qice followed the Yongli Emperor to resist the Qing Dynasty, and after the Qing army invaded Guangdong, he led his troops to capture Shangchuan and Xiachuan Islands in the south of Taishan County, Guangzhou Prefecture.

After Li Chengdong was defeated and killed anyway, Shang Kexi, the king of the south of Qingping, and Geng Jimao, the king of Jingnan, waved his army to attack Guangzhou, and the former general of Li Chengdong, Du Yonghe, the governor of the two provinces of the Southern Ming Dynasty, abandoned the city and broke through, and after learning the news, Chen Qice led the department to meet in order to save the anti-Qing forces, and sent Du Yonghe to Qiongzhou to settle down. Later, Du and Yong led the troops to clear up. Chen Qice, in anger, sent troops to attack Du Bu, and severely damaged Du Yonghe on the sea surface of Qiongzhou, sinking more than half of the ships of his naval division.

Later, in order to cooperate with Li Dingguo to recover Guangdong, Lian Chengbi, the governor of Guangdong appointed by the Southern Ming court, and Guo Zhiqi, a scholar of the Inspector University, issued a document to the Ming army units that were still persisting in resisting the Qing Dynasty in Guangdong, asking them to respond to Li Dingguo's army and jointly attack Guangzhou. As a result, Ming armies and righteous teachers from all over the country sprung up. Chen Qice, who received the order, also gladly led his troops out of Shangchuan and Xiachuan Island, entered the Xijiang River from the mouth of the river to capture Jiangmen, and defeated Liang Biaoxiang, the chief officer of the Qing Guangdong Naval Division, who arrived later, and killed the deputy chief soldier Gai Yipeng. During the subsequent siege of Xinhui by Li Dingguo, Chen Qice led his troops to hold Jiangmen, until Li Dingguo's troops were defeated and the siege was lifted, and he had no choice but to lead his troops back to Shangxiachuan Island.

At this time, Chen Qice was already a white-haired veteran, and it had been 37 years since he was 21 years old, but he stood on the roof of the boat in military uniform. It still looks like he's in good spirits.

This time, Chen Qice led his troops into Tanjiang again, in order to support the Taiping army trapped in Xinhui, but at this moment, he did not have expectations about whether Xinhui City was still holding on, because a few days ago, the spies reported to him that the besieging army led by Shang Zhixin had begun to attack Xinhui. Combined with Qi Hao's previous mention of the soldiers and food situation of the Taiping Army in the city, the white-haired veteran had prepared for the worst in his heart, and at the same time regretted the months he had wasted. He was even puzzled by the inaction of the governor Lian Chengbi and the university scholar Guo Zhiqi

As early as when the Taiping army occupied Xinhui, the Ming army scattered all over the country and insisted on resisting the Qing Dynasty already knew this amazing news!

The governor of Guangdong, Lian Chengbi, did not believe it at first. But then after the news was confirmed, he immediately sent a report to Anlong's court with Guo Zhiqi, a scholar, and at the same time sent someone to inform Li Dingguo, the king of Xining, of the matter, and asked the court and Li Dingguo to take advantage of this rare opportunity to quickly send troops into Guangdong again.

While waiting for the reply from the imperial court and Li Dingguo, Lian Chengbi and Guo Zhiqi did not immediately take action to support the Taiping army in Xinhui, firstly, they did not know about the troops and horses that suddenly appeared in the territory, and secondly, the troops in their hands were really difficult to bear the heavy responsibility of rescuing Xinhui.

Last year, in order to cooperate with Li Dingguo's attack on Guangzhou. The Ming army and righteous divisions all over Guangdong suffered considerable losses. At present, the strength of the Ming army in various parts of Guangdong on paper includes the Jingxiang general Deng Yaobu in Qinzhou, the Zhenguo general Zhu Tong in Lianzhou, the Zhou Tengfeng department in Haibei Province, the Zhang Xiaoqi department of the governor of the four prefectures in Gaozhou, and the Tang Pingbo Zhou Jin Tang department in Lianjiang County, Gaozhou. Li Changrong of Hailing Island in the south of Yangjiang County, Zhaoqing Prefecture, Wang Xing, general of Enping Huben, and Chen Qice, general of Linghai on Shangxiachuan Island, and so on.

These people also have 20,000 or 30,000 people in one place, but they are scattered all over the place, there is no direct contact with each other, and there is no place for long-term stationing, and what is even worse is that most of these Ming troops are naval divisions, lacking troops that can fight on land, and often can inflict heavy losses on thousands of Qing troops on the water, but once they go ashore, they can not even cope with the Qing army of several hundred people. Therefore, knowing that the Taiping army's occupation of Xinhui City was a rare opportunity for the Southern Ming Dynasty to recover Guangdong, but because there were no soldiers and horses in their hands to undertake the task of eastward expansion, even the city wall and Guo Zhiqi could only wait patiently, after all, the only people who could defeat the Qing army in the field were the officers and soldiers of Xiying under the command of Sun Kewang, the king of Qin, and Li Dingguo, the king of Xining. If you want to go east, you can only come by the officers and soldiers of the West Battalion, and other soldiers and horses are really useless, and it will be in vain to go.

During this period, it was not without a group of soldiers and horses that had the idea of supporting Xinhui, and Li Changrong, a general stationed on Hailing Island, wanted to lead his troops ashore to support Xinhui City in July, but was defeated by the green camp of Yangjiang County. Zhou Beifeng, Haibei Province, also led his subordinates to support Xinhui from Tanjiang, but was also defeated by the Qing Guangdong Navy. These two failures made Lian Chengbi and Guo Zhiqi even more afraid to order all the troops to come to Xinhui, and Chen Qice's several requests for war were sternly refused.

After waiting for more than half a month, the envoy of the Yongli court and Li Dingguo's reply arrived at the governor of Guangdong in Leizhou one after another, and the envoy of the court ordered Lian and Guo to repel the entourage, and presented the letter of the Yongli Tianzi to the two in the secret room.

What Li Dingguo's letter said, no one except Lian Chengbi and Guo Zhiqi did not know, the only thing that was known was that the officers and soldiers of Li Dingguo's West Battalion stationed in Gaozhou were suddenly transferred and did not know where they went. In September, the situation became more and more strange, and it was rumored that Sun Kewang, the king of Qin in Guiyang, wanted Li Dingguo to go to the meeting, but Li Dingguo said that he was sick and could not resign.

Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo, the two princes from the West thieves, have something wrong with them, the Ming Dynasty civil and military forces in Guangdong actually don't care, on the contrary, they don't look down on these two pillars of the Ming Dynasty, saying a thousand ways and ten thousand, the West Battalion soldiers are a gang of anti-thieves, if it weren't for this gang of anti-thieves back then, would the Ming Dynasty have died!

There are by no means a few people who hold this idea, Chen Qice is one of them, but he can't look down on Sun and Li, and he will still try his best to do what the court needs him to do, otherwise he would not have led his troops to capture Jiangmen last year to cooperate with Li Dingguo's Xinhui campaign. He often told people that to be a courtier is to have the duty to be a courtier, and the courtier will do whatever the court asks the courtier to do.

At the end of October, an astonishing piece of news came out from the scholar Guo Zhiqi, saying that Sun Kewang was going to rebel and usurp the throne, and the Son of Heaven summoned Li Dingguo to send troops to rescue him. The truth of this news is naturally difficult to distinguish for Chen Qice, who is on the island, but one thing he is sure of is that something must have happened in the DPRK and China, otherwise Li Dingguo would not have led his troops to the east again, and why did the governor suddenly move his line to Qinzhou, which is close to Guangxi.

Because his subordinates were sailors, the order for the transfer of troops from the governor's yamen was not sent to Chen Qice. On October 3, there was no news from the governor Yamen, who had moved his line to Qinzhou, Chen Qice did not know what had happened, he tried to send people to Qinzhou, but somehow the Qing army on the shore also began to block the road, and the passers-by were extremely strict, especially those who were going to Guangxi and Guizhou, and they were found to be arrested one by one.

All kinds of changes made Chen Qice a little nervous, he didn't have any thoughts about Xinhui anymore, after all, it had been a few months, and no matter how powerful the Taiping Army was, it would be wiped out by the Qing army, and what he was concerned about now was the court and the safety of the Son of Heaven. If the rumors are right, Sun Kewang really wants to rebel and usurp the throne, then the Son of Heaven in Anlong Mansion in Guizhou will be worried about his life. If the Son of Yongli is killed by Sun Kewang, then Da Ming Ke really has no possibility of Zhongxing!

Under extreme tension and worry, a team of soldiers sent by Chen Qice's subordinates to fish got news from the fishermen at the mouth of the Tanjiang River that there were many wooden planks floating on the hulls of boats upstream in the past two days, and some fishermen had found hundreds of corpses upstream.

Estuary, upstream, planks, corpses?

These keywords made Chen Qice chuckle, and he couldn't help but wonder if this could be related to Xinhui? As far as he knew, there was no Ming army activity on the Tan River, because he was the closest to the mouth of the Tan River. Now there are a large number of corpses floating down on the Tan River, and there are a lot of wooden planks, according to which it is inferred that it is the wreckage of the warship, and then push it carefully, there is no Ming army activity on the Tan River, then these warships naturally belong to the Qing army.

Who destroyed the Qing Army's naval division, the Taiping Army?

After this thought appeared in his mind, Chen Qice was a little excited, counting from the days, it has been more than four months since the Taiping army occupied Xinhui, if the Qing army's sailors were really destroyed by the Taiping army, does that mean that Xinhui City is still in the hands of the Taiping army? If Xinhui is still in the hands of the Taiping Army, then this Taiping Army is also amazing!

If Xinhui is really still in the hands of the Taiping Army, then he will see the opportunity to act, no matter what, he will support the Taiping Army, as long as the Taiping Army can nail the nail in Xinhui, no matter what happens in the imperial court, he can always use Xinhui to do something in Guangdong in the future! If things are different from what he thinks, then it is not a big deal, whether it is on the sea or on the river in Guangdong, Chen Qice thinks that the Qing army will not be able to defeat him.

When he was old, he did what he said, and at that moment Chen Qice ordered all the generals under his command to take back all the boats that were converted into fishing boats to fish and satisfy hunger, except for leaving 500 people to guard Shangxiachuan Island, and the rest of the soldiers and horses all followed him into the Tan River. Because of going upstream, it took Chen Qice's department four days to start from Shangxiachuan Island to enter the mouth of the Tanjiang River. There were 106 ships on the expedition, including sailors, with a total of 5,200 officers and men. (To be continued.) )