After Zuo Liangyu's death, his subordinate generals pushed his son Zuo Menggeng to stay, detained Yuan Jixian in the ship, continued to lead troops eastward, and successively occupied Pengze, Dongliu, Jiande, and Anqing, and the troops went straight to Taiping Mansion.

The Hongguang Imperial Court received a report from the upstream governor, Fu, and town ministers that Zuo Liangyu had rebelled and led his division eastward, and it was greatly panicked, and the imperial court decided to organize the blockade and suppression by Ruan Dacheng, the secretary of the military department, together with Huang Degong, Marquis of Jingnan, Liu Liangzuo, Guangchangbo, and Fang Guoan, the chief soldier of Chikou.

Huang Degong's army was transferred to Taiping Fu south of the Yangtze River (the government was in Dangtu, which governed the three counties of Wuhu and Fanchang), and Liu Liangzuo's army was deployed on the opposite bank of the Jiangbei. After a fierce battle, Huang won a great victory and finally blocked the left army from descending the river.

But Nanming's internal bars made Zhou Xun, Xue Yong and others unable to bear it anymore. There is no time to lose. So Zhou Xun and Xue Yong decided to disobey the order, and they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to capture Nanming in one fell swoop.

On June 7, Zhou Xun ordered Zhang Biao to lead 5,000 troops (Nanyang local troops) to Nanyang, and 10,000 troops (recruits of the Huzhuang team) through Runing, a total of 15,000 men and horses, approached Fengyang and attacked eastward. Xue Qiang led all the garrison troops to protect the entire territory of Henan and Huguang and resist foreign enemies. Zhou Xun and Zhang Biao led an army of more than 130,000 troops, down the river, and the troops pointed directly at Nanjing.

Although there was no connection between the two major battlefields of Shandong and Huguang, these two units of the Daping Army coincidentally launched a three-way offensive at the same time.

In the Huaiyang area, Suqian's fight without a fight also brought a large number of surrenders to the Shandong army of Chi Ming. And among these generals, there are some ambitious people. I can't wait to be the "leading party".

And the surrender of the Southern Ming Army was not the surrender of the entire front at the same time, in order to level the front. The Shandong army will definitely send troops to attack those strategic points that have fallen into their own front.

And those Southern Ming troops who were attacked, some were still hesitating, and some even couldn't even find a way to contact the Shandong army and surrender. Therefore, as soon as the Shandong army came to attack, and those generals came to persuade them to surrender, they either fled in despair, or the whole army surrendered, and the Shandong army carried out the action of the front. It went pretty smoothly.

Especially after those generals learned that Chi Ming was originally the commander of Wu Shigong's personal army, they even touted it. In the military system of the Ming Dynasty, the commander of the pro-army team was the most trusted person by the commander. Therefore, his status is not worse than that of the leading general, and even slightly higher in status.

Therefore, those generals made a small calculation in their hearts: if Chi Ming made miraculous achievements, then these generals would also be able to climb a big tree and be able to be in Wu Shigong's new dynasty. Fight for a high position.

Therefore. These generals instigated Chi Ming to launch an offensive. As a result, these generals not only told a lot of information about the Nanming army, but also exaggerated the dilemma faced by Nanming by three points. Therefore, the enemy who inflicts the most damage on himself is often not his sworn enemy, but those former comrades-in-arms who fought back.

In fact, no one expected that although the information told by those generals had been exaggerated a lot, the Southern Ming army in the Huaiyang area was even worse, and the whole situation could only be described in four words - chaos. Even the ministers and military attaches who commanded the Southern Ming army fell into hysteria.

After learning of the emergency situation of Zuo Liangyu's eastward movement and the southern invasion of Shandong's Daping army. Shi Kefa was panicked and unassertive. According to the Huai'an magistrate at the time. Shi Kefa's army supervisor Ji Ying Tingji recorded: At that time, a part of the Southern Ming army was stationed in Gaoyou, Shi Kefa issued three orders in one day, and in the morning ordered Pisu Tuntian Dao Ying Tingji to "supervise the military weapons and money and grain to Pukou will suppress" the rebels of Zuo Liangyu; At noon, it was ordered that "the army does not have to go to Si, and return to Yangzhou as soon as possible to listen to the tune"; In the afternoon, he ordered "Xuyi is in an emergency, and Pisu Dao can supervise the army to Tianchang to respond".

So Ying Tingji said to the generals: "The cabinet is chaotic, how can there be a journey of thousands of miles, such as the salary of the promise, and the person who adjusts three times a day!" ”

It can be seen from this that even Shi Kefa is in chaos, and the orders issued are all unknown, not to mention the other civil officials and generals of the Southern Ming Dynasty. All the troops of the Southern Ming Army are like headless flies, flying around, but they don't know what to do!

The young and vigorous Chi Ming finally couldn't stand such a huge temptation. In addition, he also learned from those generals that after the rebellion of the Zuo Liangyu Department of the Southern Ming Dynasty and the internal of the Hongguang Dynasty also fell into the inner bar, he didn't care about asking Wu Shigong for his life, and he did not hesitate to throw his troops into a full-scale attack.

On June 16, Chi Ming led the main force of the Shandong Army to Xuyi, and the Xuyi defenders surrendered the city. On June 17, Shi Kefa himself rushed to Tianchang to send troops to Xuyi, and suddenly received a report that the Xuyi defenders had surrendered to the Daping Dynasty, so he almost completely lost control of the troops.

After that, Shi Kefa braved the rain and mud for a day and a night, ran to Yangzhou, and presided over the defense of this important city in the north of the Yangtze River. On the 24th, the Shandong army advanced to a distance of 20 miles from Yangzhou and camped, and the next day the troops came to the city.

At this critical moment, Shi Kefa sent reinforcements from various towns, but none of them came. In fact, the generals of Liu Liangzuo and the former Gao Jie, who were controlled by Shi Kefa, surrendered without a fight in the past few days.

On June 25, Li Benshen, the commander of Gaojie's department, led the whole army to surrender to Chi Ming, and Liu Liangzuo, the commander of Guangchangbo, also led his troops to surrender; On the 27th, the commander-in-chief Zhang Tianlu and Zhang Tianfu led their subordinates to surrender, and then participated in the capture of Yangzhou on the 2nd of July on the order of Chi Ming.

At this time, in Yangzhou City, only the general Liu Zhaoji and He Gang's Zhongguan battalion were quite weak. Due to the high city wall, the fast march speed of the Shandong army, and the siege artillery had not yet arrived, Chi Ming sent people to recruit Shi Kefa, Huaiyang Governor Wei Yinwen and others, but they were sternly refused.

On the 27th, Li Qifeng, the chief soldier of Gansu Town, and Gao Qifeng, the supervisor of the army, led 4,000 soldiers and horses into the city, but the intention of the two was to kidnap Shi Kefa and surrender to the Daping Dynasty with Yangzhou City.

But Shi Kefa resolutely said: "This is where I die, what is the public, if you want to be rich, please go your own way." Seeing that there was no opportunity to take advantage of it, Li Qifeng and Gao Qifeng led their subordinates and colluded with the Sichuan generals Hu Shangyou and Han Shangliang in the city to go out to calm down on the 28th. Shi Kefa used the reason that if they were prevented from going out of the city and surrendering, he would let it go and did not prohibit it.

In fact, at this time, Shi Kefa, he no longer had any confidence in holding Yangzhou City, and he was helpless to keep the land north of the Yangtze River, so he had completely given up his command, and he had already resigned himself to the survival of Yangzhou City. (To be continued......)