New Book Collection: The Rise of Great Powers 1900

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The situation in Yunnan, Yang Chao was not clear at first, after all, Yunnan is remote and the transportation is inconvenient, only know that after Zhang Xianzhong's death, the rest of the Great Western Army entered Yunnan with the help of suppressing the Yunnan Tusi rebellion, and the Mu Wangfu in Yunnan quickly stabilized, but what these people did afterwards, there is little news out.

Sun Kewang sent an envoy to Guangdong by sea under the banner of the Ming court, contacted Song Kun, and then came all the way to Nanjing.

At this time, Yang Chao knew that the little emperor Zhu Cihuan had already united with Sun Kewang.

The little emperor named Sun Kewang as the king of Ji, granted him the power to control the soldiers and horses in the world, and let him send troops to the Northern Expedition.

Sun Kewang immediately contacted soldiers and horses from all over the country in this name to prepare for a joint Northern Expedition.

His main force had entered Guizhou, and the Tusi and Ming warlords from all over Guizhou were co-opted, and the troops were further expanded.

In the original history, Sun Kewang used the banner of the Ming Dynasty to unite various forces, such as Zheng Chenggong, hoping that Zheng Chenggong could enter the Yangtze River, but at that time, Zheng Chenggong delayed and missed the opportunity.

Yang Chao's men were indignant about Sun Kewang's arrival under the banner of controlling the world's soldiers and horses, they simply looked down on Sun Kewang's peasant army background, let alone Sun Kewang's forces.

Why do you have the prospect of a single Yunnan, and Yang Chao sits on Shandong, Jiangnan, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, Yunnan is a remote and wild place, and Yang Chao's territory is indeed the economic center of gravity of the Ming Dynasty. Your grandson is expected to have a million soldiers. But most of them are family members. And Yang Chao has a million ironclad soldiers.

Naturally, his subordinates were not convinced.

But Yang Chao politely received Sun Kewang's envoy Feng Shuangli.

He asked politely, "I don't know what King Ji wants to do with this governor?" ”

Feng Shuangli actually didn't have hope at first. There were even some trembling, because Yang Chao's name was too big, and the Manchus were out of breath, and it also made these warlords breathless, and the task given to him by Sun Kewang really had no hope of success.

Yang Chao's attitude made Feng Shuangli overjoyed, not only entertained him well, let him see the prosperous scene in the south of the Yangtze River, but also took him to visit the military workshop in Xinjiangkou. watched the drills of Yang Chao's camp, and asked him very kindly about Sun Kewang's deployment.

"King Ji hopes that Zhongyibo can contain the Tartars on the front line in Jiangxi and Shandong, especially the elite of the Eight Banners. King Ji will divide his troops to capture Hunan and Sichuan! ”

"Hmph, King Ji's abacus is so shrewd. Our army pinned down the main force of the Tartars, so that he could benefit from the left-handed fisherman! Our army fought to the death with the Eight Banners, and he collected Huguang Sichuan? ”

Huang Fengfu, who participated in the negotiation, said coldly.

Feng Shuangli said: "Lord Huang is wrong, King Ji has belonged to the imperial court, and we all serve the imperial court. How to talk about collecting Huguang, the world is the world of the Son of Heaven, and we are just recovering the lost land for the Son of Heaven. ”

Huang Fengfu still has to argue.

Yang Chao said directly: "Okay! The governor promised the king. ”

Huang Fengfu looked bitter. He had long known Yang Chao's plans, and Feng Shuangli was overjoyed.

"Is this true?"

"Seriously!"

"Do you dare to swear?"

"No more vows. Just look at it. The governor immediately mobilized his army and feinted to attack Shandong and Huguang, hoping that the king of Ji would seize the opportunity to take advantage of the emptiness of Huguang and attack Huguang as soon as possible to regain the lost territory. ”

Feng Shuangli couldn't help but be surprised: "Okay! ”

With this negotiating agreement, Feng Shuangli could leave for his home, and he had to tell Sun Kewang the good news immediately.

Huang Fengfu lamented, hated the Hui merchants in his heart, he thought that Yang Chao was only limited to economic difficulties so that he had to give up this good opportunity, so that Sun Kewang's forces took advantage of it.

How did he know that even if the economy was stable and the money and food were sufficient at this time, Yang Chao would still cooperate with Sun Kewang. Yang Chao has long been interested in establishing such a thing as a united front, but unfortunately he has never been able to find a suitable opportunity.

"Transfer many men back to Jiangxi, and camp on the border of Jiangxi and Hunan with Lu Mo to attract Hong Chengchou's attention."

"Transfer Sun Changfu north to Shandong and make a move of the Northern Expedition."

As soon as Feng Shuangli left, Yang Chao immediately ordered.

Although he did not have the conditions to attack at this time, it was still possible to mobilize the army, and anyway, the mobilization of the army consumed only food, and the food was sufficient, but there was a lack of silver.

Moreover, Yang Chao's purpose is not to regain lost territory, but to stabilize the place, the financial crisis just experienced has hit the economy too hard, if it is not stabilized soon, I am afraid that private money will begin to flood again.

"Fengfu, you go to Fujian. Tell Jin Shenghuan that he will either accept the incorporation of our army, and the governor will guarantee that his title will be good, and if he wants to lead troops, he can also be the general soldier of a town. But his army must be handed over. Otherwise, our army will soon march into Fujian. ”

Jin Shenghuan has been in Fujian, still under the banner of the Ming Dynasty Changguogong, and Yang Chao has never done anything to him, but there is such an alternative in the territory, which has always been like a fish in the throat, and directly attacked Fujian, causing too many evil consequences, which is equivalent to a civil war, Yang Chao has always avoided civil war.

As for Jin Shenghuan's soldiers, in fact, Yang Chao has not looked at it very much, if it weren't for him under the banner of Changguo Gong, Yang Chao would definitely destroy him, and the soldiers and ruffians who had participated in robberies and massacres several times in his hands would definitely let Yang Chao pull him to do coolies, and finally exiled him to the colony.

However, the overall situation is important, and it is for political purposes, so we can only let go of these bastards, and when the time comes, we will redouble our training and completely eliminate the bandit habits in them, and then they will be incorporated into the army.

"The Metropolitan Governor can rest assured, and he is willing to persuade Jin Shenghuan to vote in January with his three-inch tongue."

Huangfeng Mansion has set off, not a month, ten days is enough.

Jin Shenghuan has no choice, he is crazy in Fujian to recruit rebels, with 200,000 troops under his command, but he will not believe that he is Yang Chao's opponent, and Yang Chao has only a dead end, and now the east coast of Fujian is the Zheng Group, the west is Jiangxi, and the north is Zhejiang. To the south is Guangdong. Jin Shenghuan just can't run away if he wants to. They really don't have any good choice other than accepting the co-optation in exchange for a wealthy one.

However, Jin Shenghuan had a heart, and he asked to give his title to his five-year-old son Jin Lecong, who continued to serve as a military officer in Fujian, and Yang Chao agreed.

Then Song Kun's department sent 30,000 troops into Fujian to carry out the work of eliminating and integrating Jin Shenghuan's department. There are only 100,000 people left, and these 100,000 people were immediately sent to the Nanjing new barracks to start training, Jin Shenghuan can only be a bare-bones commander for the time being, even if the number of troops under him in the future is only 50,000.

On the other side, after Feng Shuangli returned to Yunnan, he immediately informed Sun Kewang of Yang Chao's attitude.

Sun Kewang was naturally overjoyed, and at the same time, his spies had also ascertained the situation and found that Hong Chengchou had indeed deployed Hunan's troops mainly at the various passes at the junction of Huguang and Jiangxi, and none of the elites of the Eight Banners in the north had moved south.

Sun Kewang was willing to let go of this opportunity, and immediately sent Li Dingguo to attack Hunan. Liu Wenxiu invaded Sichuan.

Sun Kewang sent Feng Shuangli and Li Dingguo to lead more than 10,000 horsemen, tens of thousands of infantry, and more than 10 war elephants, led by Tongren and Mayang. One route is Pingxi, Benshui, one route is Solo and Less, and Yuanzhou (Zhijiang) is attacked. The three battalions of the Qingyuan Prefecture garrison had a total of only 3,000 soldiers, and they retreated into the city and were "surrounded like iron buckets". Feng Shuangli bravely attacked the city, occupied Yuanzhou on the same day, and captured the Qing generals Zheng Yitong and Zhizhou Chai Gonggui alive. After conquering Yuanzhou, he moved his troops to attack Chenzhou, because Xu Yong, the general of Chenchang in the Qing Dynasty, was very tightly defended and failed to succeed, and the Hunan general Shen Yongzhong, the Duke of Shun, led 20,000 troops and tried his best to support, Feng Shuangli and Shen Yongzhong were in a stalemate in Chenzhou.

Li Dingguo led his troops south to Jingzhou, defeated 8,000 reinforcements of Zhang Guozhu, the general soldier of the Qing army, killed 5,163 Qing troops, captured 809 horses, and almost wiped out the entire army. Li Dingguo took advantage of the situation to attack Wugang and began to coerce the Guangxi Kong Youde Department.

At this time, Sun Kewang was sitting in Guizhou and constantly sent troops into Hunan.

Li Dingguo only led an army of 40,000 into Guangxi.

At that time, when Li Dingguo fought Jingzhou and Wugang, Shen Yongzhong asked Kong Youde for help, but Kong Youde ignored it, because of selfishness, at this time, the Qing court had named Kong Youde as the king of Dingnan and promised Guangxi as his domain.

Kong Youde regarded Guangxi as his own feudal state, so he made great efforts to run Guangxi, and the army was scattered and stationed everywhere, absorbing the bandits and routs in Guangxi, and did not intend to give up an inch of Guangxi's land. The main force was stationed in Wuzhou to prevent the attack of the Yang army in Guangdong, so Kong Youde had no troops to support him for a while.

And Kong Youde didn't want to support Shen Yongzhong at all, because when he first entered Guangxi, the military rations were insufficient, and he didn't want to rob his fiefdom, so he asked Shen Yongzhong for help, hoping that Hunan would secondment military rations, but Shen Yongzhong refused, so there was a personal grudge between the two.

However, Kong Youde did not expect that Li Dingguo's use of troops would be so aggressive, and after conquering Jingzhou and Wugang, he could not wait to enter Guangxi as soon as he opened the passage to Guangxi.

At this time, Kong Youde himself was in trouble.

But he still didn't take Li Dingguo too seriously, and sat in Guilin to personally stop Li Dingguo.

In late June, Li Dingguo led elite soldiers and horses from Wugang and Xinning to attack Quanzhou, and on the 28th, he annihilated the Qing army in Quanzhou, and the defenders Sun Long and Li Yangxing were killed. Kong Youde was shocked when he heard the news, and the next day he personally led the left-behind army in Guilin to Yanguan in Xing'an County, trying to strangle and refuse to defend, but was defeated by the Dingguo army, "floating corpses under the river"; In the evening of the same day, he rushed back to Guilin in embarrassment and ordered the city gate to be closed. On the afternoon of June 30, the Ming army entered the outskirts of Guilin. Seeing that the Dingguo army was very strong and knew that it would be difficult to hold Guilin with only the limited forces around him, Kong Youde flew to guard the Admiral Line Guoan in Nanning, Ma Xiong, the left wing general soldier guarding Wuzhou, and the right wing commander in Liuzhou, all abandoned the place and led the troops back to help.

Song Kun, who was guarding Guangdong, saw the Guangxi army rescuing Guilin, and he was anxious to ask Yang Chao to send troops to Guangxi.

Yang Chao told him that Guangxi was already a dish in Li Dingguo's mouth, and it was too ugly to grab the territory at this time, so let him continue to defend and cooperate with Li Dingguo when necessary.

Song Kun said that Kong Youde gathered the main force, and Li Dingguo may not have fought it, but Yang Chao trusted Li Dingguo very much, saying that Kong Youde would definitely die.

Song Kun didn't believe it at all, but within a few days, he received the news that Kong Youde had been killed, and he couldn't help but be impressed by Li Dingguo. (To be continued......)