After receiving the order of the governor of Shandong, the combined forces of Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing began to march to Qingzhou in March of the fifth year of Chongzhen. And at this time, with the addition of the people in the camp, the entire coalition army has reached more than 11,000 people.

"Brother Wu, do you think this court appeasement will be successful? Can we fight or not? ”

Now in this coalition army, of course, it should be commanded by Liu Zeqing, who has the highest rank. But unconsciously, Wu Shigong also rose to the status of deputy general in the coalition army.

Although there are many military attachés in this army who are like Yan Dingshan, who are higher than Wu Shigong's official rank, or at the same level, they are also very realistic in the army. They not only have to look at the rank of the military attaché to each other, but also look at the strength of the military attaché's subordinates.

Although the number of soldiers under Wu Shigong was small, there were only more than 2,000 auxiliary soldiers. However, the number of horses, armor, and weapons in the hands of the soldiers of Wu Shigong's Runing battalion were all first-class.

In addition, Wu Shigong's soldiers are all strong and strong. And the rest of the Ming army, except for the personal soldiers around the generals, most of them have been caused by long-term malnutrition. Where are those soldiers like Wu Shigong, they are full of muscles!

You must know that if there is no accumulation of fat in the human body, it will not be able to support long-term physical labor at all. It is no exaggeration to say that if Wu Shigong's soldiers and the kind of skin-covered soldiers come to a three-day rapid march. There is no need to fight at all, Wu Shigong's soldiers can also drag those soldiers down.

In addition, Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing have a good relationship, so if there is anything now, Liu Zeqing always has a discussion with Wu Shigong.

"Will that appeasement be successful?" Wu Shigong did not directly answer Liu Zeqing's question, he directly said his judgment, "You have tens of thousands of strong soldiers, and you have won many battles, you don't want to divide one side, so you want to accept the anger of the civil officials?" Besides, what's the benefit of accepting Zhao'an? Could it be that the emperor will give you a prince and a marquis? If we do that, wouldn't that encourage our generals to rebel and accept Zhao'an again! ”

"You can't say that! If you don't accept the appeasement, do Kong Youde and they want to be rogues? The world was so big that there was no place for them. Don't they think of a way out for themselves? ”

Liu Zeqing's words reflected the general thinking among the officials of the Ming Dynasty at that time. Because the Ming Dynasty has been established for almost three hundred years, the ideas of the Central Empire and the Ming Dynasty and the Zhu Dynasty have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. For them, even if they were slaves in the Ming Dynasty, it was better than being a king overseas. I didn't dare to think about anything about changing the dynasty.

But Wu Shigong, who is from modern times, knows how big this shijie is, so he said disapprehantly: "You think that except for the Ming Dynasty, there is no other place in the world." Do you know about the Wa Kingdom? The Franc machine man is also a large country from the far west. Anyway, you don't understand this, just say it, even if Kong Youde and them are defeated, they take a boat from Dengzhou, and there are too many places to go to the ends of the earth. ”

"Take another 10,000 steps back, even if Kong Youde and they accept the court's recruitment, then what will be their fate? Don't talk about settling accounts after the fall. Even if you don't settle accounts after the autumn, you have always heard the storytelling of "Water Margin"! Then you should know what happened to Song Jiang after recruiting An! Why don't Kong Youde know about this kind of fate? Do they want to go down this dead end? ”

Listening to Wu Shigong's words, Liu Zeqing blinked his eyes for a long time, and Zuihou sighed helplessly: "Alas-! ”

"Anyway, let's prepare for the worst, let's prepare for the worst!" Wu Shigong Zuihou emphasized.

Even vulgar military leaders like Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing understood that the possibility of Kong Youde's rebels accepting the appeasement was very small, so the civilian officials guarding Laizhou City understood this truth even more.

When Zhang Guochen ordered the soldiers and civilians in the city and reinforcements from all walks of life not to go out to fight without authorization, so as not to disrupt the situation. Xu Congzhi, who knew the nature of the rebels, immediately sent someone to sneak out of the city at night, sent a letter to Beijing, clarified the battle situation, and asked the emperor not to appease him anymore, and to go all out to encircle and suppress the rebels.

But this bloody piece of music was suppressed under the signal of Shoufu Zhou Yanru. So much so that Emperor Chongzhen never saw such an important letter at all.

It can be said that those civil officials in the late Ming Dynasty, for the sake of their official positions and their own parties, did not pay attention to national affairs at all. What they have done has reached the point of madness.

After sending off Zhang Guochen, who was full of Kong Youde and their promise to accept the appeasement, the rebels were ready to attack the city again, and then wiped their faces and attacked Laizhou City again with murderous spirit.

At this time, Zhou Yanru could no longer suppress it, and even some officials who advocated appeasement had differences of opinion with Zhou Yanru. This is at least to defeat the rebels, and after the siege of Laizhou City is lifted, then the court will pay less unnecessary benefits to appease those rebels!

At this time, reinforcements from all over the country also gathered in Qingzhou, but because Xu Congzhi, the governor of Shandong, was besieged in Laizhou City, there was no one to coordinate and command the reinforcements, so the reinforcements stopped. For this reason, the imperial court once again appointed Liu Yulie, the right attendant of the military department, as the governor, with full command of all reinforcements, and with him came the capital Shenji battalion and five Hongyi cannons to fight against the rebels.

But at this time, Zhou Yanru was selfish again. That Governor Liu Yulie was also a close confidant of Zhou Yanru. What's even more amazing is that Liu Yulie is also a civil official who is in charge. Well, there is a civilian official who actively seeks peace and does not know how to fight to command the army.

But for the sake of the cause of peace, Liu Yulie is indeed active. After he came to Qingzhou, he immediately gathered the 8,000 men and horses of Qiu Lei, the general soldier of Shandong, and the 11,000 men and horses of the reinforcements from other places, plus the Shenji battalion he brought from the Beijing camp, a total of 26,000 soldiers, plus more than 7,000 people, a total of 33,000 men and horses, and immediately drove towards Laizhou City.

By the way, the Henan reinforcements sent out with Wu Shigong, the two thousand men and horses led by the Shanzhai Zhao Zilongjiang guerrillas, are also in this army.

Liu Yulie is so anxious. He was simply not willing to wait for a few days for the arrival and convergence of the combined forces of Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing. Because at this time, the combined forces of Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing were only three days away from the main force of the Ming army in Qingzhou City.

Liu Yulie just sent someone to Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing to give such a military order, asking them to follow later. As the main force of the rear army to catch up with the Ming army as soon as possible.

However, although Liu Yulie's Ming army marched so rapidly, Wu Shigong's rear army had been resting in place for more than a month, and in this period of more than a month, there was enough food for the soldiers to eat, so that such soldiers had good physical strength. Therefore, the speed of the rear army of Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing was much faster than that of the main force of the Ming army. The distance between the two armies was also shortened to two days.

On March 28, fifty miles west of Laizhou City, the main force of the Ming army encountered 22,000 soldiers and horses of the rebel army led by Kong Youde, who had been sent from Laizhou City to help. At this time, Liu Yulie was still thinking of oppressing the rebels with his troops. Therefore, he ordered the whole army to camp and not take the initiative to attack the rebels.

But the rebels did not give Liu Yulie face at all. They did not let the Ming army set up a solid camp at all, and immediately launched their forces to attack the Ming army.

After the Ming army was attacked, it had no choice but to resist on the spot in a hurry. However, you must know that on the basis of the absence of modern communication conditions, and without effective command from grassroots officers, it is impossible for a commander to pass orders to everyone in the tens of thousands of troops.

And the two contradictory orders of encampment and combat issued by Liu Yulie caused chaos in the Ming army. And in a hurry, the strength of the Ming army was not fully deployed at all.

However, Governor General Liu Yulie did not understand these basic military principles. He still thought that if he had more people, he would always be able to beat those rebels with fewer people. Liu Yulie seemed to feel that he was wearing a scribe's crown, shaking a goose feather fan, a copycat version of Zhuge Liang, and the appearance of commanding Ruoding.

However, when the two armies met, it was already close to dusk, and neither side was willing to engage in a night battle, so after a short battle, both armies took the initiative to retreat and camp on the spot.

In this day's contact battle, the losses of both sides were not large. Therefore, Liu Yulie thought that the combat effectiveness of the rebels was no more than that, so he was more confident in the future battles.

Therefore, when the rebels left the camp after breakfast in the early morning of the next day, Liu Yulie also fearlessly ordered the main force of the Ming army to go out of the camp to fight.

On March 29, the battle officially began.

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