Huaiyang is located in the north of the Yangtze River, which is an important barrier of the Yangtze River defense line of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and the Southern Ming Dynasty also stationed heavy troops in this area. It is conceivable that once Chi Ming's Shandong Army starts to act, a full-scale war with Nanming will inevitably break out.

And the Great Ping Dynasty will immediately face the dilemma of fighting on two fronts. Neither troops nor supplies can be arranged. That's why Wu Shigong strictly ordered Chi Ming not to act rashly.

After receiving this strict order, Chi Ming could only give up taking Yangzhou directly. But his young mind is undoubtedly full of depression. In order to vent, he can only increase the intensity of the exercise, anyway, the right should be military training! And seeing the increasingly fierce exercises of the Daping Army, and seeing that they did not dare to take a step beyond the thunder pool, the confrontation of the Nanming towns was more relieved.

This scene lasted until mid-May. When the news that the Daping army invaded Shaanxi, swept through the northwestern provinces, and chased the remnants of Li Zicheng's army and came eastward, Chi Ming and other generals of the Daping army and the generals of the towns in the southern Ming Dynasty suddenly pinched up.

……

In June, after the 130,000 Daping army led by Zhou Xun and Xue Yong annihilated the main force of the Dashun army near Jiujiang, tens of thousands of ships prepared by the Dashun army for the eastward march to Nanjing were also captured by the Daping army.

At this time, Zhou Xun, Xue Yong and others, who were strong and strong, had ships and food, also began to live their minds, and they wanted to go down the river in one go, take Nanjing directly, and completely eliminate Nanming.

At this time, Wu Shigong, who was well aware of the temper of the arrogant soldiers on the front line, was deeply afraid that they would disobey the order on the grounds of "being outside", and frequently issued strict orders ordering not to engage the Southern Ming army. And Zhou Xun, Xue Yong and others, who were about to disobey the order on the grounds of "going outside", could only helplessly stand still. Military operations to the east were temporarily stopped.

……

Judging from the two battlefields of Shandong and Huguang, Nanming seems to be able to breathe for a while under the immobility of the Daping Army. But no one expected it. The two battlefields underwent shocking changes one after another, leading to the Shandong Army and the Huguang Army launching full-scale military operations one after another.

Let's talk about the Shandong battlefield first:

On the 2nd day of the first month of June, at the junction of Shandong and northern Jiangsu, a small group of dozens of Southern Ming troops, under the leadership of a general, surrendered to Chi Ming's Shandong army in Yangji Town. At the same time, they also presented the Yangji town they were stationed in to the Shandong army.

At that time, the Southern Ming army in the towns of Jiangbei. Most of them are stationed in the city, and the soldiers of this squad are nothing more than "eyes and ears" and cannon fodder arranged at the front line, and of course they are not descendants. So the main reason for their surrender is self-evident. But. The news that the Daping Army of the Huguang Zhou Patrol was coming eastward was also a major reason for destroying the confidence of these soldiers.

I don't analyze the reasons for the surrender of these soldiers, and in these days, there are not a few fragmentary soldiers of the Southern Ming Army who have surrendered. But this time it was an exception. Because this group of soldiers actually sacrificed all the Yangji towns they were stationed in.

And this situation embarrassed the two armies facing each other. For Chi Ming's Shandong army, it is all meat sent to the door, and it must not be eaten in vain.

But for the Southern Ming Army, this Yangji Town is also important, but it is not particularly important, and it is not a matter if you really give up. However, the Shandong Army's move to take over Yangjizhen set a very bad precedent - for the first time, the Daping Army broke the tacit de facto ceasefire line between the two armies and broke into the defense line of the Southern Ming Army.

However, Nanming's officials and generals were also miserable. After all, this Yangji Town was not attacked by the Daping Army, but surrendered by its own soldiers. If you insist on saying that the Daping Army broke the tacit understanding. There are also some that don't make sense. Do you want to send someone to the Daping Army to talk to them, and let them take the initiative to return Yangji Town? This is obviously impossible.

So the two armies remained silent for five days, not knowing how to deal with this sudden situation. But on the 7th day of the first month of June, the second team of the Southern Ming army saw that there was an example, and they also surrendered, followed by the third team .......

Although Chi Ming obeyed Wu Shigong's words, he had his own little brain after all. This was sent to the door to surrender and surrender, not to take the initiative to attack, this is not a violation of the emperor's holy decree! So he took advantage of the situation to command the Shandong army, pressed forward, and occupied the territory offered by the Southern Ming army in these days.

But in this way, it made the Nanming army even more panicked, because the Daping army finally sent troops. On the tenth day of the first month of June, a general of the Southern Ming Army stationed in Suqian, with more than 3,000 people, surrendered the city. So the situation got out of control all at once.

……

And the situation on the Huguang battlefield is even more bizarre:

At the time of the national disaster, the little ghosts and demons jumped out.

In December of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Mu Hu, the servant of Gao Mengji, the Shaoqing of Honglu Temple, went south from the north, met a young man on the way, and went together. But when he went to bed at night, he was surprised to find that the young man's underwear was woven with dragon patterns, so he asked his identity, and the young man claimed to be the crown prince.

After arriving in Nanjing, Mu Hu sent the young man to Gao Mengji, who was difficult to distinguish between the real and the fake, and hurriedly sent him to Suzhou and Hangzhou to hide. It should be said that Gao Mengji still has a conscience. At this time, Emperor Hongguang had just sat on the throne and would never allow others to peep. And the crown prince Zhu Cihong's status on the throne is much more qualified than Zhu Yousong, so once this young man's identity is true, he will definitely cause death. Therefore, Gao Mengji actually gave the young man a way to live.

However, this young man does not know how to hide, and often swaggers in public, revealing a noble appearance. This attracts people's attention, and they are all whispering behind their backs. As a last resort, Gao Mengji could only secretly play the imperial court, so Emperor Hongguang sent an internal official to hold the imperial court to summon.

On the first day of March in the first year of Qiongyuan, this young man arrived in Nanjing from Jinhua, Zhejiang, and was handed over to Feng Kezong, the guard of Jinyiwei. The next day, Emperor Hongguang said to his ministers: "There is a childish son who said that it is the first emperor's East Palace, if it is the son of the real first emperor, that is, the son of me, he should be raised and compassionate and not let him be lost." And with the order of Hou, Bo, Jiuqing, Hanlin, Ke, Dao and other officials to examine.

And the scholar Wang Duo once served as an instructor in the East Palace for three years, so he was naturally familiar with the appearance of the prince, and he could see at a glance that he was a traitor and a fake. When Hongguang was founded, many officials had served in the Chongzhen court, and Wang Duo was not the only one who had seen the crown prince Zhu Cihong. Others, such as Liu Zhengzong, Li Jinglian, who once served as lecturers in the East Palace, and Qiu Zhizhong, the eunuch who accompanied the old East Palace, all denied it.

At that time, the officials in the Hongguang court also knew that the "prince" who came to the north was purely fake, and no one raised any objections.

Originally, this fraud case was discovered, but this case was used favorably by careerists.

Zuo Liangyu, who is in the upper echelons of Nanjing, is in a strategic place, and his subordinates are relatively strong. When Zhu Yousong's edict was issued to Wuchang, he was reluctant to admit it at first, and it was only under the persuasion of He Tengjiao, the governor of Huguang, and Huang Shu, the governor of Huguang, that he agreed to read it and expressed his support.

Since Emperor Hongguang mainly relied on Huang Degong, Gao Jie, Liu Liangzuo and other town generals to support him, Zuo Liangyu did not participate, and he was not a hero of the decision. So this has also become a piece of Zuo Liangyu's heart. So he became more and more rebellious in the place where he was guarding.

And the imperial court regarded the military generals of other towns as arrogant, which also aroused Zuo Liangyu's disgust. Huguang Patrol Imperial History Huang Shu was originally a filthy villain, and in the case of growing suspicion between Zuo Liangyu and the Hongguang court, not only did not mediate, but instead used Zuo Liangyu's troops as the backing to try to improve his status in the Hongguang court.

At the end of May of the first year of Qiongyuan, when the remnants of Li Zicheng's Dashun army entered the Jiangxi region under the pursuit of Zhou Xun and Xue Yongbu of the Daping army, Zuo Liangyu did not dare to fight with the main force of the Dashun army, and repeated the old trick and led his troops to the east of the river.

At that time, Nanjing was making a lot of trouble for the fake prince, "concubine" and other cases, and the cabinet scholars in power caused strong dissatisfaction among the gentry, which provided Zuo Liangyu with an excuse to avoid the war and go east.

On the third day of the first month of June, Zuo Liangyu pretended to be sent to Nanjing for rescue by the secret order of the prince of the first emperor, and in the name of the Qing monarch's side, the whole army went east along the river by boat. Before leaving, he ordered the slaughter of the people of Ezhou.

On the fifth day of the first month of June, Zuo Liangyu's soldiers went to Jiujiang and invited Yuan Jixian, the governor of Jiang, to meet in the boat. Zuo Liangyu took out the secret edict of the "crown prince" from his sleeve, and set up an altar to torture animals, and allied with the generals.

Of course, the generals who followed Zuo Liangyu were happy to agree, and Zuo Liangyu forced Yuan Jixian to go to Nanjing to "save the prince from the side of the Qing monarch".

However, Yuan Jixian believed that the authenticity of the "crown prince" was undecided, and the secret message came from no one else, and he said sharply: "The old virtues of the first emperor cannot be forgotten, and the new grace of the present cannot be lost." and bowed down to the generals and asked them to spare the people.

Zuo Liangyu replied: "Plotting to trap the prince, what his subordinates have done, has nothing to do with today." If you cherish the people, everyone has their hearts, why should you worry? Then he took out the "oath and the text" and showed it to Yuan Jixian.

How could Yuan Jixian believe such trumped-up evidence? After he returned to the city, he ordered his troops to hold on to Jiujiang and not allow the left soldiers to enter the city. Unexpectedly, the general Zhang Shixun had colluded with the generals of the left department in private, and set fire to the whole city at night, and suddenly there was a great chaos. Zuo Liangyu's troops took advantage of the situation to enter the city to kill, kidnap and plunder. Yuan Jixian was in despair and ready to die. Zuo Liangyu sent Zhang Yingyuan to take him captive into the boat, and Yuan Jixian repeatedly committed suicide by throwing himself into the water, but he was rescued.

Zuo Liangyu tried his best to express to him that he did not mean to overthrow Emperor Hongguang, and asked Yuan Jixian to go east to "transfer the generals"; The prison army Li Youlong also repeatedly persuaded that it was useless to die in vain, so it was better to act at the opportune moment. Yuan Jixian had no choice but to agree with Zuo Liangyu and his generals that it was strictly forbidden to burn, kill and loot.

However, just as the left army was preparing to move east from Jiujiang, on the seventh day of the first month of June, Zuo Liangyu fell ill and died, ending his life of great murder. Zuo Liangyu is a "famous general" who is more powerful than killing the rebel peasant army in the Ming Dynasty! At this time, it was only three days before the Jiujiang Change. (To be continued......)