Chapter 484: The southeast of the bottom

The news of the capture of Nanjing by the Chongming army spread rapidly, once again causing a great shock in the south of the Yangtze River. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Encouraged by this, countless people rallied and launched an attack on the county seat that the Qing army had still occupied.

There are quite a few green battalions in the south of the Yangtze River, Wusong Songjiang, Suzhou and Changzhou, there are thousands or tens of thousands of green battalion soldiers, but when the news of the fall of Nanjing and the execution of Hong Chengchou came, the Qing troops everywhere fell into panic.

Matsue

Ma Yingkui led more than 10,000 Chongming troops to confront Wu Songcheng, and Wu Shengzhao, the commander of Susong in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, went out of the city many times to attack Ma Yingkui's camp, but returned in vain under the muskets and artillery of the Chongming army. There is Ma Yingkui to contain Wu Song's Qing army, Ma Liangbing out of Dianshan Lake, began the journey to sweep Songjiang Mansion, Qingpu, Huating, Shanghai counties have fallen into the hands of the Chongming army, the Manchu Songjiang prefect Kaicheng surrendered marks the Chongming army to recover the entire Songjiang Mansion.

After recovering Songjiang, Ma Liang led an army of 10,000 to the city of Wusong, and cooperated with Ma Yingkui to besiege Wu Shengzhao to death in the city.

Wu Shengzhao's green battalion soldiers were only more than 5,000 people, where was the opponent of more than 20,000 Chongming troops, when the news of the fall of Nanjing came, Wu Shengzhao decisively ordered Kaicheng to surrender.

According to Ren Siqi's prior arrangement, Ma Yingkui led the army to defend Wusongkou, and Ma Liang led his subordinates to attack Jiading, and cooperated with Ren Xingfan in Taihu Lake to attack Suzhou Mansion.

Suzhou

After more than half a year of development, Ren Xingfan's army has been very large, and after uniting with Wu Risheng, the army under his control has reached more than 30,000 people. Of course, most of them are fishermen who have not been trained much, but with 5,000 Yuan Chongming troops as the backbone, they are still a very powerful force.

In the past six months, in accordance with the instructions of Chongming Island, Ren Xingfan has developed in Taihu Lake with peace of mind, uniting the gentry around Taihu Lake while cultivating and farming, and uniting the gentry around Taihu Lake, and has not acted too out of line.

On New Year's Day, Ren Siqi attacked Nanjing for thousands of miles, and Ren Xingfan also joined Wu Risheng to send troops from Taihu Lake and began to attack Suzhou Mansion.

However, the garrison of Suzhou was very strong, and its main force was Li Shutai's 3,000 Eight Banners, as well as the Green Battalion's more than 10,000 Green Battalion soldiers of Tu Guobao, which showed that the Manchu Qing Dynasty attached great importance to Suzhou, an important town in the south of the Yangtze River.

Although Ren Xingfan's troops were above the Qing army, it was impossible to capture Suzhou easily. He and Wu Risheng divided their troops and stationed their troops outside Suzhou to threaten Suzhou, and Wu Risheng led troops to attack Wujiang and other counties.

When Nanjing's order to return to Suzhou for Qing troops from all over the country to come to Suzhou, Li Shutai ordered Tu Guobao to lead the green battalion to defend Suzhou, and he himself took 3,000 eight banners to Nanjing overnight to reinforce Nanjing.

Li Shutai's subordinates were all cavalry, and Ren Xingfan had no way to take him, so he began to attack Suzhou wholeheartedly.

Without the Eight Banners, the green battalion soldiers in Suzhou City were disheartened, and the gentry in the city took the opportunity to unite, bribed some of the officers of the green battalion, opened the west gate of Suzhou, Ren Xingfan led the troops to rush in, and the entire green battalion suddenly collapsed and had no intention of resisting, and surrendered one after another. Tu Guobao occupied the mansion and tried to resist stubbornly, but was beheaded by his subordinates and sacrificed his head in front of Ren Xingfan's horse.

After occupying Suzhou, Ren Xingfan divided his troops to seize the counties of Kunshan, joined forces with Ma Liang in Jiading, and joined forces to attack Changzhou Mansion.

Most of the green battalion soldiers in Changzhou were recruited by Hong Chengchou's order to reinforce Nanjing, and the Ming army's offensive was like boiling soup and melting snow, and there was not much resistance at all where they passed. On February 15, the combined forces of Ren Xingfan and Ma Liang captured the Changzhou Mansion and captured the Manchu Qing prefect Zongjing. Su Songchang's three mansions were completely recovered and returned to the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Shutai led the 3,000 Eight Banners cavalry up the canal and met Ma Degong and other green battalion soldiers who were attacking Yan Yingyuan in Danyang. After Ma Degong abandoned Zhenjiang and fled, he was worried that he would be punished by the Qing court, so he led his army to linger in the Zhenjiang area and watch the form. At that time, if he rushed to Nanjing overnight, he would definitely be able to reinforce Hong Chengchou, but Ma Degong was frightened by the earth-shattering artillery of the Chongming army, and he did not dare to fight against the Ming army at all.

When the green battalions from all over Changzhou were ordered to reinforce Nanjing, they were stuck on the canal by Yan Yingyuan, who was stationed in Danyang. Ma Degong led his troops to join them, taking the opportunity to take command into his own hands, and his troops reached more than 10,000 people. Danyang is located in the main channel of the canal, if it is not defeated, it will not be able to transport logistics through the canal, and if Danyang is discarded, he is afraid of being attacked by Yan Yingyuan. So Ma Degong was in a dilemma.

At this time, the news of the fall of Nanjing had not yet come, and Ma Degong had already been frightened by the might of the Eight Banners, and he did not dare to betray at all. In order to make up for the mistake of leaving Zhenjiang, he began to lead his troops to launch a fierce attack on Zhenjiang.

Although Yan Yingyuan's subordinates were recruits from a town, after several months of training, their combat effectiveness was much better than that of the original township soldiers in Jiangyin. Danyang is also a very small county seat, and it is natural to have 5,000 troops to defend such a small city.

No matter how Ma Degong attacked, under the command of Yan Yingyuan, Danyang remained immovable.

After Li Shuotai arrived at Danyang, he had no good impression of Ma Degong, who had lost Zhenjiang and could not take Danyang, and after scolding, he forcibly took away Ma Degong's cavalry, crossed the canal and went to Nanjing, leaving Ma Degong to continue the attack on Danyang.

Although Li Shutai was originally a Han Chinese, his family surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty too early, and he had already been regarded as his own by the Manchu nobles.

Li Shutai led his subordinates to stay overnight all the way, and did not carry supplies, relying on local looting, and the speed was very fast. However, he received the news of Nanjing's request for help too late, and when he arrived outside Nanjing, he could only see the Ming banner fluttering on the city wall and Jia Yuanyin's cavalry waiting for him.

The cavalry under Jia Yuanyin is the only cavalry of the Chongming Army, which is highly valued by Ren Siqi, and its weapons and equipment are no longer under the Eight Banners, and a three-eyed fire gun for everyone makes up for the lack of its long-range shooting ability. The raid on the outer city of Nanjing made the morale of this cavalry even higher.

In the face of Li Shuotai's cavalry, which had traveled hundreds of miles, the cavalry of the Chongming army, which had been corrected for many days, was not afraid, even if the opponent's number was twice as large as his own.

Under the leadership of Jia Yuanyin, 1,500 cavalry launched an attack on the Eight Banners cavalry, which had not yet established itself. Just under the city of Nanjing, the two cavalry started a fight, Jia Yuanyin led the troops to fight bloodily, and in the end it was still not the enemy's Eight Banners whose combat strength was above his own. Ren Siqi sent two infantry out of the city to fight, which forced back the Eight Banners under Li Shutai.

After a battle, the Eight Banners under his command also suffered heavy casualties, sharply reduced to less than 2,000 people, Li Shutai was helpless, and could only lead his troops away from Nanjing, but the nearby prefectures and counties have been captured by the Ming army, or the rebellion returned to the rule of the Ming army, Li Shutai led the troops to enter the city to rest and recuperate. Jia Yuanyin led the light cavalry like a maggot on the tarsal bones to follow behind Li Shuitai, and whenever Li Shuitai led his troops to fight back, he retreated, and always gave Li Shuitai cavalry a look.

The whole Jiangnan seems to be full of Qing soldiers, whether it is day or night, there will always be a small group of Ming troops from the mountains and dense forests suddenly appeared, to the Eight Banners cavalry who were resting, and the Eight Banners soldiers were exhausted. The number of Eight Banners was sharply reduced by the repeated attacks, and when Li led his troops back to Danyang, there were only about 1,500 cavalry left under his subordinates.

Although Danyang still hadn't been defeated, when they saw the Qing army camp outside the city, more than 1,000 Eight Banner soldiers were still relieved.

Ma Degong received them with great hospitality, prepared boiling water, prepared wine and meat, and a warm camp for them. When the soldiers of the Eight Banners, who had been tired and running for several days, were lying on their warm beds and sleeping soundly, they did not notice that the sinister poisonous snake was coldly peeking at them.

On 25 February, the commander-in-chief of the Green Battalion raised his troops to attack Li Shutai's Eight Banners cavalry at night, killing 1,500 Eight Banner soldiers and capturing the traitor Li Shutai. At this point, there was no Manchu army in the entire southeast region except Hangzhou!