"Confused!"

Yang Chao's thoughts were exactly the same as Huang Degong's thoughts when he learned the news, a fortified city like Nanjing did not rely on it, but fled to the wilderness before the enemy army approached the city, and the emperor fled, how much impact did this have on the morale of the army, and how could such a Nanjing block the enemy army.

But Yang Chao is not Zhu Cihong, if he thinks about it from Zhu Cihong's point of view, he should understand him, Emperor Chongzhen did not escape from the city in advance, what will happen in the end.

When Li Zicheng's army attacked Beijing, Zhu Cihong, who was still the crown prince at the time, fidgeted in the palace all day long like other princes and suffered from fear, and now let him once again put himself in a situation of being surrounded, and once again experienced the fear of hovering between life and death all day long, Zhu Cihong really did not dare to face it.

The historical King Fu fled from Nanjing before the Qing army crossed the river, but he didn't expect Yang Chao's efforts to let Zhu Cihong sit as the emperor, but he still couldn't change the outcome of the emperor's escape.

Of course, King Fu's escape, must have been affected by the fall of Beijing, everyone knows that Beijing City is thicker than Nanjing, and it was not captured by people in World War I, like King Fu, Zhu Cihong also chose not to consult with the civil officials, because he knew that the civil officials would not agree, and even Zhu Cihong did not dare to trust these civil officials at all, and it was okay to use them to govern the place at ordinary times, but when the enemy besieged the city, these civil officials surrendered too much, and when Beijing City, even the first assistant surrendered to Li Zicheng.

Yang Chao only stood from a strategic point of view, knowing that the emperor's abandonment of Nanjing would greatly reduce the defensive spirit of the Nanjing army and people.

But from Zhu Cihong's point of view, even if he stayed in Nanjing, he didn't dare that Nanjing City would be able to hold it.

South!

I didn't expect this kind of thing to happen, Yang Chao had to go south, in case the Qing army captured Nanjing, Yang Chao's back road of more than 100,000 troops was cut off, and what made Yang Chao even more worried was that his family was still in Nanjing, in case of Nanjing, how would the Qing army treat his family. In case the family was captured by the Qing army and used as a threat, Yang Chao didn't dare to imagine whether he still had the determination to resist.

In order not to put himself in this dilemma, Yang Chao chose to keep Nanjing. Keep Nanjing at all costs.

Immediately ordered: "The people will obey the order!" From now on, they will continue to be surrounded on all sides, rotating every half an hour, so that the Tartars will not have a moment to rest. Be sure to take Shugang within three days. ”

Yang Chao immediately gave an order to let his troops be under control. Constantly leading people to rotate to impact the Qing army, his own strength is more than three times that of the Qing army, enough to continue to attack the Qing army, but the Qing army has no way to rest, if the Qing army does not surrender after three days, there is no breakthrough, Yang Chao will let the whole army attack.

As for Yang Chao: "Lu Mo listened to the order, and immediately went south with Benjue, rushed to Nanjing, and intercepted Duoduo!" ”

There were 10,000 soldiers and horses in the headquarters of Lu Mo. At this time, there were five thousand left, although the loss was the greatest, but he had a lot of experience in field battles with the Qing cavalry, and it was not appropriate to draw too many troops, otherwise if Duoduo ran away, the gains would outweigh the losses.

Moreover, with the current capacity, under the emergency situation, Yang Chao's transportation capacity cannot guarantee the transportation of tens of thousands of troops, and 5,000 is already the limit, like the last time he went to Zhejiang to quell the rebellion. It has been prepared for a long time, and with the cooperation of the Wang family, there are no conditions and no time now. If you can only rely on your own ship, you can only send 5,000 people first.

An hour later, a hundred boats, crowded with 5,000 people, set out.

On the 16th, the boat sailed on the river and intercepted a river boat that was going to Yangzhou to deliver news. It was sent by Zhang Dawei, and he had new news to inform Yang Chao.

It turned out that the Qing army had approached the Great Victory Pass, but had not yet attacked, but sent people to Nanjing to surrender.

And the civil and military officials of Nanjing, who had lost the emperor and had no available soldiers, were inclined to accept surrender.

New Ekou.

Affected by the Qing army's approach to Nanjing, the 200,000 prisoners held here were also somewhat unstable.

But they never dared to make trouble.

In front of the captive, there were corpses lying side by side, only one was standing, but he was already trembling, and there was a dagger stuck in his heart, and an officer pulled out the dagger violently, and blood spurted out in an instant, spraying his face, his body.

The officer looked at the captives with a hideous face, and the captives looked at him numbly, unable to see his face clearly, because it was layers of blood, some of which had dried up, and some of which were still remaining.

The hideous officer sneered, put the knife to his mouth, licked it a few times, and then licked his tongue, like a Hades.

And he does have the nickname of the King of Hades, known as Song Kun, the King of Living Hades!

Song Kun was already ruthless, so Yang Chao asked him to guard the prisoners and at the same time be responsible for defending Xinjiangkou.

He completed the task very well, this group of captives in his hands live a life that is not as good as that of pigs and dogs, often whipping, cane blowing, gouging out eyes, cutting noses, all in front of everyone, and personally executed, these are not bad, the worst thing is that he will use a knife to cut off the flesh of a person one by one, and feed a few big wolf dogs next to him on the spot.

All this, no one has the intention of resisting for a long time, and now these people just said a few more words, and they were immediately reported, and then killed, of course, if they don't report, then they will sit together, and it will not be these people who die.

On the 17th, before dark, Yang Chao finally returned to Xinjiangkou!

Immediately found Zhang Dawei to inquire about the situation in Nanjing, and was very fortunate that Nanjing City was still in the hands of the Ming army.

For some reason, the Qing army did not attack Dasheng Pass, nor did it send troops to attack the city of Nanjing, and Zhang Dawei did not know where the Qing army was.

Immediately let Zhang Dawei arrange a capable crew and drive the fastest ship to the upstream to investigate.

Then let Zhang Dawei mobilize the maximum capacity to Yangzhou, and the ships that can enter the Yangzhou waterway will go to Yangzhou to prepare to bring the Yangzhou army back, and the big ships that can't enter the Yangzhou waterway will wait in Guazhou, and at least 50,000 people will be transferred back from Yangzhou as quickly as possible.

Due to the war, except for the sea ships, most of Yang Chao's ships stopped operating, either transferring war materials back and forth, or staying in Xinjiangkou to standby, and all of them were driven by Yang Chao to hurry at this time.

Sleepless all night, Yang Chao was thinking carefully about what attitude he should take to enter the city.

I heard that the civil and military officials of Nanjing City have decided to surrender, and they are now waiting for the arrival of the Qing army. refused Yang Chao to enter the city, and it was not until the end that Yang Chao fired the cannon that they gave in.

But Nanjing is not Cangzhou, not to mention the high walls of Nanjing. There is also the number of cannons in the entire Ming Dynasty second only to Beijing, not to mention a thousand absolutely there, and there are at least hundreds of red-coated cannons, if the defenders of Nanjing City make up their minds to sacrifice the city to the Qing army, it is impossible for their five thousand people to capture Nanjing City.

I thought about it for a long time. It wasn't until late at night that Yang Chao thought of an exaggerated solution.

"Song Kun! The captives are honest. ”

In the middle of the night, Song Kun, who was guarding the captive, was called over.

"It's quite honest, but there are rumors and troublemakers, and three hundred people were killed by their subordinates, and then they are honest."

Song Kun's temperament is somewhat similar to Wang Pu, contaminated with a murderous aura, and he looks quite unreasonable.

I heard that when Song Kun was guarding the prisoners in Xinjiangkou, he often scolded the prisoners, and even committed suicide by bullying hundreds of them. Yang Chao has no mercy for these butchers, these people are not worthy of being human beings at all, since the slaughter of the city has been done, Yang Chao does not kill them, and he doesn't want to treat them as human beings, and even he specifically asked Song Kun to be stricter.

"I'm sorry for you, out of more than 200,000 captives, you have only 5,000. I'm afraid that these captives will take advantage of the chaos to make trouble. ”

Yang Chao sighed.

Song Kun sneered: "They dare! ”

Those captives fell into the hands of Song Kun, and they were tossed enough, and it is enough to say that so many people can commit suicide. When you work, you are handcuffed when you need to walk, and you are shackled when you don't need to walk. The general treatment of slaves was not pleasing to the eye, and the guards picked up whips and sticks and beat them on the head, completely ignoring them as human beings, and cutting off their ears and noses at the slightest resistance. Even gouging out their eyes, even cutting them with a thousand knives, the people who died under all kinds of torture are not a thousand, but eight hundred.

Such a horrific practice has completely tormented these people without human appearance, and every day they are like walking corpses, working, eating, and sleeping according to other people's requirements, and there is no hope at all, and there is no spirit at all, and people who don't even think about the future really have no motivation to rebel.

"There should be some Eight Banners among the captives."

Yang Chao remembered that when he was in Yangzhou, he killed a lot at night, and caught some fish that slipped through the net during the day, although the number was not large, but there were still a hundred, and among the 30,000 Eight Banner soldiers, there were more than 100 surrenders, which is also reasonable.

Song Kun said: "Originally, there were more than 100 of them, but more than a dozen of them dived, more than a dozen of them hit the wall, and dozens of troublemakers were scraped alive in public, and now there are only 50 left." ”

These Eight Banners soldiers are the most hated, so the guards hate them very much, they don't work hard, and they may be a few sticks to beat those Han soldiers, but it depends on the mood to beat these Eight Banners, and they can fight as much as they want, and it is not easy to survive fifty of them.

Yang Chao nodded: "You go and screen it, no matter the Manchu, Han and Mongolian people, as long as they can speak Manchu and Chinese, they will be pulled out for me, Benjue needs some translation." ”

Soon Song Kun found more than a dozen people.

Yang Chao looked at these people, one by one extremely miserable, originally with most of his head bare, and a rat tail hanging from the back of his head, and now the rat tail debate is still there, but thick hair stubble has grown on the top of his head, and his beard is also messy, his body has lost weight, his eyes have sunken, and he falls to the ground as soon as he comes in, his eyes are blank, he can't see fear, and he can't see hope, this is already a completely collapsed walking corpse, even the Jews in the Nazi prisoner of war camp, and they don't despair.

Seeing this situation, Yang Chao couldn't help but soften, people can hurt people to this extent, it seems that Song Kun is even more ruthless than he imagined.

"Get up and talk."

Yang Chao spoke, and these people stood up in silence, they were used to doing whatever others told them to do.

"Benjue needs a translator to give you a chance to atone for your sins, as long as you can help Benjue do things, your previous crimes will be gone."

Yang Chao thought that after he finished speaking, these people would be very excited, but they all seemed to be very calm, no, it should be said that they were numb, and the kind of soulless empty eyes proved that they didn't seem to understand the meaning of the past, or they were no longer willing to hope.

"What? Unwillingly! ”

Yang Chao asked.

At this time, suddenly one of them knelt down: "The slave is willing, the slave is willing." ”

The man reacted, fell to his knees, and said eagerly.

"Well, what's your name?"

"Back to the master, the slave's name is Zhao Guozuo, and the Han army is inlaid with red flags."

Yang Chao said: "I am not your master, and you are not my minion. ”

"Yes, yes, the minion can't climb high, can't climb high!"

"Benjue needs a translator, you can speak Manchu, right?"

"The slave has been taking refuge with his father since he was a child, born in Liaodong, grew up in Jianzhou, and is proficient in Manchu and Mongolian!"

"Can you write a full text?"

"Minions."

"You're not a creep, are you?"

"The slave is the Red Banner Han Army Armor Lae Zhen."

Yang Chao waved his hand at this time.

Then told Song Kun: "Let them wash it, and shave their hair, not shave, but expose their braids." That's right, tartar braids. ”

"The most honest captive in the jump hundred, no matter who it is, I want the kind of wooden man who makes him not move and doesn't dare to cough for a day, there is such a person."

There are really such people, there are many, and most of the captives are walking dead.

"Pack up Duoduo's guard of honor and everything, and the official will use it tomorrow."

In the first battle of Yangzhou, Duoduo was wiped out, and a lot of things were confiscated, such as flags, dependence, armor, weapons, etc., in addition to some of them were handed in, and some of them were left as trophies to be collected for the recruits, cultivating a sense of honor and contempt for the Qing army, but I didn't expect to use it now.

Before dawn, Yang Chao, who was busy in the middle of the night, set off with his troops and took advantage of the night to detour to the south of Nanjing to camp. (To be continued.) )