"If you can escape the first day of junior high school, you can't escape the fifteenth, first take Geng Zhongming down for treatment, and then escort him back to Nanjing, and then deal with it strictly after the war is decided!"

Zhu Youzhen has not yet interrogated Geng Zhongming, and at this time he is still concerned about whether the Ming Guards can annihilate the Qing army's Duoduo Department under Yangzhou City.

Today's battle to defend Dingyuan made Zhu Youzhen realize that even if well-trained infantry and artillery work together, they may not be able to completely defeat an army that is all iron cavalry.

The 10,000 iron cavalry divided into several routes to attack and make various breakthroughs to the battalions of the Guards would indeed cause a great deterrent to a corps of the Guards.

Moreover, if at that time, the Guards fought with the main force of the Qing Army's Duoduo Division, and the main force of the Qing Army's Duoduo Division had nearly 100,000 iron cavalry, and when the time came, if the time came to attack one corps of the Guards, one corps of the Guards would definitely not be able to parry.

Fortunately, Zhu Youzhen mobilized three guards and six corps that could fight independently, totaling more than 400,000 people.

Therefore, there is still hope for the total annihilation of the main force of the Duoduo Division.

But when the time comes, how to command these more than 400,000 people to annihilate the main force of the Duoduo Division, Zhu Youzhen is at a loss at this time.

Of course, now Zhu Youzhen not only needs to think about this, he also needs to wait for news from Xuzhou, Abatai suddenly let Zhun Ta lead 5,000 iron cavalry south to attack Xuzhou, if Xuzhou is captured, it will undoubtedly affect his plan to completely annihilate the Duoduo Department in Yangzhou.

Although because the main force of the First Army of the Guards Army was stationed in Xuzhou and Zaozhuang, the Abatai Division of the Qing Army was able to take the opportunity to seize the Ming occupation part of the Northern Zhili.

But Shandong is still in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, Abatai dared to let the Zhun Tower lead 5,000 iron cavalry directly across the Shandong Mansion, go deep into the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, and attack Xuzhou.

It is estimated that Abatai, as the king of Doluo County of the Qing court, also wanted to take advantage of the order of Dolgon to go south to attack the northern Zhili part of the Ming Dynasty and the Shandong region, so that he could also enter the Jiangnan in front of Duoduo in the future, and make the first contribution to the destruction of the Ming court.

Commander Abatai was arrogant, and his subordinate Zhun Ta was even more arrogant as a young general of the Manchu Dynasty, and went all the way south from Baoding Mansion, neither sending people to explore the truth of Xuzhou, nor sending troops to occupy important places, leaving a way back for himself, so he smashed into the southeast of Shandong like an awl.

But Zhou Yuji, the Marquis of Daming Ning, would quickly let him know that the awl of the Zhun Tower hit the iron plate, not the window paper that would break at the slightest poke.

Zhun Ta was a first-class marquis and a first-class cloud cavalry lieutenant of the Qing court, and his status was also a relatively respected Manchu noble.

Of course, in the Qing court, he was naturally not satisfied with this, and now he also thought that he could easily break through the gate of Xuzhou, and as soon as he arrived near Xuzhou, he wantonly tortured and killed, so as to create a terrifying image, and wanted to scare off the officers and soldiers defending the city in Xuzhou.

Unlike the 5,000 Qing army iron cavalry led by Zhun Ta to light the enemy's rapid advance, Zhou Yuji began to prepare for the siege and annihilation of Zhun Ta when he learned that Zhun Ta had passed Tai'an.

Even though Zhou Yuji had not received the instructions of Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youzhen at this time, he did not rigidly wait for the instructions to be issued before deciding whether to completely annihilate the tower.

The meat delivered to the door, don't eat it for nothing.

Zhou Yuji had already sent a sentry directly under the corps to keep an eye on the movements of the Zhun Tower, where to station, which villages to plunder, a few days away from Xuzhou, and where he would arrive next, almost all of them were clear.

What Zhun Ta relied on was nothing more than his Qing army's iron cavalry was highly mobile, invincible, and could come and go freely, and in this Huaiyang boundary in Shandong, most of the terrain was flat, and it could be wantonly vertical and horizontal, but it was not that there were no mountains and rivers in the plain area, and there was no suitable area for ambush.

Pei County in the north of Xuzhou is the higher place on the north bank of the Yellow River, there are two passes of Jingou Pass and Miaodaokou, and then the Feiyun Bridge in the south is the only way to cross Surabaya, not only that, there are two lakes of Dushan and Weishan in the north and south of Pei County, and the swamps are dense,

And on the south bank of Xuzhou, there is also the Yellow River moat, and it is not difficult for Zhun Tower to take Xuzhou by surprise.

In the original history, Abatai did let Zhunta defeat the Southern Ming army under Xuzhou City, but that was because Xuzhou Gaojie died at the hands of the traitor Xu Dingguo, and when Xuzhou was in turmoil, it gave Zhun Ta a chance to take advantage of the situation.

Now Abatai is still playing like this, which shows how much he regards the Ming army as nothing.

However, since the Yellow River seized the Huai into the sea, it is not easy to go from Xuzhou to Pei County.

The transfer of 70,000 people to the north bank of the Yellow River obviously required too much transportation, so Zhou Yuji decided to transfer only part of the main force to cross the river, and then transfer it back to the south bank and go to Huai'an, which could save a lot of time for crossing the river for the Second Corps of the First Army of the Guards.

In other words, Zhou Yuji had to make part of the main forces of the First Army and the Second Corps of the Guards Army in a short period of time, not only to quickly cross the river to the north to annihilate the Zhun Ta Division, but also to quickly cross the river to the south and rush to Huai'an.

Zhu Youzhen also took into account that the Yellow River had now been seized into the sea, but he also knew that the First Army of the Guards had also been stationed in Shandong for a period of time, and he should not be able to coordinate river transportation.

Although Zhu Youzhen's instructions had not yet arrived, Zhou Yuji still decided to completely annihilate the Zhun Tower, and indeed as Zhu Youzhen thought, he had been ordered by Zhu Youzhen to pass through Shandong since last year, and controlled all the ships along the Yellow River in his own hands.

Now it is easy to cross the river, and within three days, part of the main force of the Second Corps of the First Army of the Guards Army has all crossed the river and is quickly rushing to Peixian.

On 16 April, the 1st Infantry Battalion and the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the 2nd Corps were stationed at Jingoukou in Pei County.

The third battalion of the Guards Infantry has also arrived outside the county seat of Peixian.

The first battalion of cavalry also arrived ahead of time to lurk around the temple road entrance, and the artillery battalion was also stationed around Feiyun Bridge.

At this time, the Qing army's quasi-tower department was still in Guting Town, Shandong.

As soon as Zhunta entered Guting Town with 5,000 iron horses, he began to slash at the pedestrians on both sides of the street, and even directly set fire to the houses with a bow and rockets, deliberately creating chaos.

Some cavalry even dismounted directly into the inner courtyard of the high gate, slashed and killed when they met people, and dragged them out when they saw a slightly beautiful Han girl, and the whole Guting Town was crying for a while.

Shandong is not as good as Jiangbei, because it was not expected in advance that Abatai would dare to send Zhun Ta deep into the hinterland, and it was deep into the southern part of Shandong near Huaiyang, so this area did not have time to evacuate the people, so many people in southern Shandong were slaughtered by these Tartars of the Zhun Tower Department.

Fortunately, in order to fight quickly, it is not good to stay in Guting Town for a long time, in the cry of a baby whose parents died tragically and was abandoned in a dry well, and in the resentment of the surviving people, the Tartars of Zhunta continued to go south proudly after a plunder.

In Guting Town, which was destroyed by these Tartars, countless women and children hanged themselves in front of the door overnight, countless Han family sons and daughters died tragically in front of their homes, and even children died in front of the street.

Originally, Shandong and Huaiyang had already recovered some vitality after Liu Zeqing's department was eliminated by Zhu Youzhen, but now they have been ruined!

(End of chapter)