New Book Collection: The Rise of Great Powers 1900

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After Song Kun sat in Guangdong, he fought with Kong Youde a lot, and he was still very clear about the combat effectiveness of Kong Youde's army.

If it is a field battle, Song Kun has a seventy or eighty percent chance of winning against Kong Youde, but if Kong Youde ends, this chance of winning will be greatly reduced to four or five percent.

In Song Kun's view, Kong Youde mobilized elite to defend Guilin, Li Dingguo could not capture it no matter what, even if he was replaced, it would be impossible for him to capture it in the short term, but he didn't expect that Li Dingguo would break through Guilin in only three days, and Kong Youde could not break through and committed suicide.

How can this kind of record not impress him.

Song Kun is not the only one who is impressed by Li Dingguo.

"That's the hero!"

Yang Chao looked at the battle report and couldn't help shouting excitedly.

"Report it immediately. Not a word. In the name of the Metropolitan Governor's Office, I wish the King of Xining a great victory in Guilin! I hope that the king of Xining will make new achievements and capture Hong Chengchou alive! ”

Yang Chao is completely goodwill, he admires a hero like Li Dingguo in his heart, in the late Southern Ming Dynasty, Li Dingguo was a man of the hour with Zheng Chenggong in the late Southern Ming Dynasty, but he was on an equal footing with Zheng Chenggong, and he was overpowered by Zheng Chenggong in power, but unfortunately he did not stick to Zheng Chenggong for a long time, but in terms of loyalty alone, Li Dingguo was even better than Zheng Chenggong.

The Jiangnan newspaper soon spread to various forces.

Dolgon saw the newspaper: "The Ming court has added another tiger general, could it be that the Ming Dynasty is immortal?" ”

The recent military transfer of Yang Chao really confused Dolgon, and he deployed the main forces of the Eight Banners in Beizhili and Henan, and for a while he didn't expect Yang Chao to make wedding dresses for others. The real main attack turned out to be the Great Western Army. Moreover, Li Dingguo captured Guangxi in an instant. Even Kong Youde was killed. He really didn't expect it.

But at this time, Dolgon was unusually calm, and strictly ordered the Eight Banners in the north to strictly guard the city, not to fight with the Ming army, at this time Guangxi has been corrupted, Hunan is also in danger, Dolgon does not dare to risk the situation that the north is also out of control, he must wait for Hong Chengchou to decide the victory in the south, before he dares to make a move with Yang Chao. At this time, if even the Eight Banners were defeated by Yang Chao, the whole world would be overturned.

"Ask Hong Chengchou, is this Li Dingguo really my confidant of the Qing Dynasty?"

Changsha, Hong Chengchou sat here, and still did not change the deployment of the center of gravity to guard against Yang Chao, even if the Great Western Army had achieved a lot of advantages in western Hunan, and even beat Shen Yongzhong and fled to Changsha, he still did not change his original intention.

As for Yang Chao's wanton campaign for Li Dingguo in the Jiangnan Daily, in Hong Chengchou's view, he just had ulterior motives.

"Such a trick, and you want to make this scripture a trick?"

Hong Chengchou believed that Yang Chao's praise of Li Dingguo was to make the Qing court pay attention to Li Dingguo. So that the attention of the Qing army can be shifted from Yang Jiajun to the Great Western Army.

At this time, Hong Chengchou did not take the Great Western Army too seriously. He used to suppress Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong to make a name for himself, and he knew what was going on with the combat effectiveness of the peasant army, although Li Dingguo defeated Kong Youde in Guangxi, but he thought that it was caused by Kong Youde's carelessness and division of troops.

"Repaying the regent, this is a bluff by the Yang thief. However, since Nikan has already gone south, let Nikan lead his troops south to defeat Li Dingguo. ”

Dolgon had to care about Li Dingguo, if Huguang lost, he would lose the most important source of food now, and without Yang Chao to beat him, his huge army would have to starve to death, so on the one hand, he ordered to ask Hong Chengchou, and on the other hand, he had already sent troops to the south, and he was named Prince Jingjin.

and gritted his teeth and asked him to lead 30,000 soldiers of the Eight Banners to the south, of which the Eight Banners accounted for 3,000 people, all of whom were the elite of the two white flags.

Nikan arrived in Changsha in July, and in August he went south to Hengyang, intending to exterminate Li Dingguo in Guangxi.

At this time, after Li Dingguo occupied Guilin, he originally sent troops to recruit the Qing army in Guangxi, with the cooperation of Song Kun, most of Guangxi surrendered, and Li Dingguo's troops increased, but before he had time to digest it, he learned that Nikan led 30,000 Eight Banner soldiers to the south, and he immediately couldn't wait to lead the 40,000 troops of his headquarters to the north.

On August 19, Nikan's army went to Xiangtan County and casually repelled Sun Kewang's subordinates to Baoqing. On the 21st, Nikan set off from Xiangtan and continued to march towards Hengzhou, and the next day he entered more than 30 miles away from Hengzhou Mansion (now Hengyang City).

Li Dingguo sent 1,800 generals to feign for a while, and then retreated. Nikan had just defeated the Ma Bao Division, and he thought that he understood the combat effectiveness of the Great Western Army, and he felt that he was not the elite opponent of the Eight Banners at all, so he was a little careless and continued to move forward concurrently.

The next day, it was dark and arrived at Hengzhou Mansion and met Li Dingguo's army, but after Li Dingguo's vanguard encountered the Eight Banners, he was defeated and retreated again after a little contact. Nikan immediately took advantage of the victory and pursued for more than 20 miles.

Obviously, he fell for the trick, Li Dingguo lured the enemy twice, so that Nikan did not suspect that there was a fake, of course, it also had something to do with Nikan not understanding the combat strength of the Great Western Army, if it was Yang Chao's army, even if it was defeated three times in a row, the Qing army would not dare to be careless.

After seeing Nikan enter the ambush circle, Li Dingguo gave an order, and the whole army attacked, and the killing sound shook the sky, and the momentum was surging, killing Nikan, the commander of the Qing army, on the spot, and killing many of the first-class Bochengni and Nikan's bodyguards. The Qing army did not dare to fight again, and retreated to Changsha in despair under the leadership of Dorobelle Tunqi.

Although he won, Li Dingguo couldn't help but feel pity, because his ambush was originally a joint operation with Ma Jinzhong, and Ma Jinzhong was repelled by Nikan in the first battle, which was actually part of the plan to lure the enemy, otherwise Nikan would not have been so easy to repel the Great Western Army, which had been sharpening its knives for three years.

However, when Li Dingguo ambushed Nikan, Ma Bao, who had originally agreed to attack Nikan's army from behind, did not appear, allowing Tunqi to escape with more than 20,000 people, and the main force of the Qing army was preserved.

Why did Ma Jinzhong break the appointment, it turned out that Li Dingguo had aroused Sun Kewang's suspicion because of his military exploits at this time.

Ma Jinzhong, as Sun Kewang's confidant, was strictly ordered by Sun Kewang not to cooperate with Li Dingguo.

Yang Chao naturally saw through.

I couldn't help sighing: "Pattern! ”

Yang Chao admires Li Dingguo, but is more optimistic about Sun Kewang.

To be honest, Sun Kewang may not be as good as Li Dingguo's erratic and agile level of soldiers, but he fights steadily and steadily, and has a reputation as a wall in the Great Western Army, and Sun Kewang is good at defending the city.

And in terms of governance level, Sun Kewang is far superior to other generals of the Western Army, and all the decrees in Yunnan are implemented by Sun Kewang, but it is a pity that the background of the peasant army has not given him any education, and he is psychologically defective.

You must know that Li Dingguo's army has only about 40,000 soldiers and horses, and although the level of combat effectiveness is relatively high in the Great Western Army, it has an overwhelming advantage in no battle, and Sun Kewang has an absolute advantage by incorporating the Ming army in Yunnan and Guizhou under the banner of Zhu Cihuan.

It is precisely because of this advantage that Sun Kewang dared to boldly let Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu lead the troops.

But as Li Dingguo captured Guangxi and killed Kong Youde, he felt that Li Dingguo's strength was too great, so he began to be suspicious.

In fact, this is not that people cannot be tolerated, but that there is no self-confidence, and there is no confidence that he can always lead a general like Li Dingguo.

Compared with Yang Chao's self-confidence that he has always boldly made his subordinates have a total of 100,000 soldiers, Sun Kewang still can't get rid of the limitations of a small farmer's background.

If the political level is high enough, in fact, Li Dingguo and Li Dingguo's generals should be greatly rewarded.

Sun Kewang was appointed by Zhu Cihuan at this time to control the world's soldiers and horses, and Li Dingguo was just a pioneer under him.

Li Dingguo can fight, he should not be suspicious, but should be happy. Since Li Dingguo can fight, then appoint him as the vanguard, constantly let him attack the Qing army, and then follow behind and send his henchmen to occupy the city to defend, the more Li Dingguo wins, the more benefits Sun Kewang can obtain, as for Li Dingguo to gain prestige, so what? Zhu Yuanzhang's victory, where can he compare to Xu Da!

However, Li Dingguo obviously has not yet come to his senses, he is still in the joy after the victory, and the morale of his subordinates is extremely high.

Killing the two kings of the Qing army in a row made Li Dingguo's reputation skyrocketing, and through the propaganda of Jiangnan Daily, the whole world knew his name, and he was already the most famous general under Yang Chao.

As a general who admired Wei Qing and Huo Quai, Li Dingguo was full of spirit at this time, and he didn't find that a crisis was approaching at all.

Yang Chao could see that Sun Kewang was suspicious of Li Dingguo, and an old fox like Hong Chengchou naturally seized this opportunity.

At this time, Hong Chengchou no longer dared to underestimate Li Dingguo, and he was surprised to find that Yang Chao was really cooperating with Li Dingguo's actions.

This made Hong Chengchou begin to deploy a trap, he withdrew many troops from western Hunan that had been transferred to defend Sun Kewang, and at the same time sent Shang Kexi, the general sitting in Changsha, to the south, and gathered 200,000 troops, led by Shang Kexi, to destroy Li Dingguo in a battle.

At this time, Li Dingguo divided 30,000 troops to attack Baoqing.

Shang Kexi's vanguard troops marched south along Xiangshui to Hengzhou Mansion, and soon surrounded Hengzhou Mansion, which was empty of troops.

But at this time, suddenly Li Dingguo himself appeared in Xiangtan and raided the Tunqi Eight Banners of the Qing army.

At this time, the Eight Banners of the Qing Army had moved away from the front line, and Dolgon issued a strict order, requiring the Eight Banners to only be used as a strong force for attack, and not to use the Eight Banners until absolutely necessary.

But who would have thought that Li Dingguo would suddenly go north from Baoqing, bypassing Shang Kexi's main army, and sneaking up on the Eight Banners of Xiangtan, Tunqi was defeated all of a sudden, and almost fled back to Changsha alone, and Xiangtan was occupied by Li Dingguo.

Hong Chengchou was inevitably a little shocked, where did he think that Li Dingguo's use of troops would be so wide open, and he didn't care about the gains and losses of one city and one place at all, in addition to secretly scolding "Liukou", he could only grit his teeth and dispatch Shang Kexi to send troops back to help.

Hong Chengchou thought that Li Dingguo's sneak attack on Xiangtan was aimed at defending the empty Changsha, but he was wrong again, Li Dingguo actually gave up Xiangtan, and did not lead troops to attack Changsha, but went south again, bypassed Baoqing Mansion again, and attacked Shang Kexi's army besieging Hengyang.

In this battle, Li Dingguo destroyed another king, and in the chaos of the army, he killed the head of Shang Kegming! (To be continued......)