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Chapter 161 Nanjing! Nanking! (below)

Upon learning of the earth-shattering upheaval in the rear of Huguang, the Ming army on the Nanjing front immediately fell into a huge commotion.

Because of the battle of the Eastern Crusade in full swing, Nanjing turned into an unprecedentedly cruel meat grinder, and all the troops that could fight a little bit were transferred to the Nanjing front, and the entire rear of Huguang was almost completely undefended. Therefore, when hundreds of thousands of rogues entered Huguang in a big way, Li Zicheng really took Xiangyang all the way, Zhang Xianzhong took Hankou Hanyang lightly, and a bunch of miscellaneous thieves such as Luo Rucai Mantianxing Lao Huihui also rushed into Huguang Province, attacked the prefecture and broke the county, and wantonly burned and looted.

Almost in the blink of an eye, half of Huguang basically fell, and the remaining half of Huguang also looked crumbling (at that time, there was no division between Hunan and Hubei, and there was only a complete Huguang province). The cabinet assistant Wen Tiren, who originally stayed in Wuchang, faced the hundreds of thousands of rogues who were surging like a tide, although he was so frightened that his soul was about to fall, but he had to stubbornly organize a defense.

However, at this time, the troops in Wuchang City were extremely empty, and the strong men who Wen Tiren sent the officials to temporarily capture had not had time to reorganize and go into battle, and the local officials in Huguang did not obey Wen Tiren's dispatch very much, either Yang Fengyin was perfunctory, or they abandoned their posts and absconded, and there were even small officials who fornicated with the officials and assassinated the officials, which made the whole city of Wuchang panic, and the exiled court stationed here was almost paralyzed.

On the other side, Zhang Xianzhong was not stupid enough to force the Wuchang River directly, but found a remote ferry to cross the river in the upstream section of the river a little farther away, and then made a big show and killed all the way along the south bank towards Wuchang! After learning of this, there was a great chaos in Wuchang City, the citizens and gentry were busy packing their luggage and running out, and no one listened to the orders of the cabinet. Wen Tiren only caught more than 1,000 soldiers and horses at hand, and he thought that he couldn't hold a big city of Wuchang's size at all, because it was far from enough to even stand around the city wall. Therefore, he had to abandon Wuchang City, escort the crown prince and a cadre of palace dependents to escape on the boat, and the families of the soldiers who stayed in the rear also looked for boats to follow, and fled all the way to Jiujiang Mansion before stopping.

At this point, the whole province of Huguang has basically fallen. This bad news reached the Ming army camp on the front line in Nanjing, and it immediately caused a riot Emperor Chongzhen and Lu Xiangsheng did not want to block the news, but in view of the extremely pathetic secrecy ability of the Ming Dynasty's military and political departments, by the time they received this, at least a quarter of the people in the whole army had heard the news from various channels! The next thing is naturally the spread of fire!

As a result, the 90,000 Ming troops on the Nanjing front line were immediately in turmoil, and some people even felt that the style was wrong, so they secretly left the team and fled.

In desperation, Emperor Chongzhen had to order a military meeting to discuss the next way out. At the meeting, everyone naturally had different opinions, and some people suggested that Nanjing should be abandoned immediately and the thieves should return to Shihu Guangping. But there are also those who insist on going the extra mile and taking Nanjing, a city of great political significance, first. Some people even said that even if they lose all of Huguang, as long as they get Jiangnan in exchange, it is still worth it.

And Emperor Chongzhen himself was also indecided. After all, in order to seize Nanjing, he had already bet too much. In the past six months, the silver treasures he had brought out from the Beijing Imperial Palace, as well as all the gains from the raid of the Luoyang Fu Palace, had been squandered in order to launch this crusade. And now he has captured most of the city of Nanjing, if he falls short like this, God knows if there is a chance to do it again.

As a traverser, he knows very well how difficult these Shaanxi rogues are, and they are by no means troubles that can be solved quickly.

What's more, this part of Jiangnan is indeed very rich, and all military food and salaries can be scavenged on the spot. Since the invasion of Nanzhili by the army, it has relied entirely on captured materials to fight, and even gunpowder can be raised near Nanjing, even if there is no logistical supply.

But the question is, when the rear is unstable and the morale of the army has been shaken, can he still beat Huang Taiji, the "Ming Monarch and Hero"?

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At the same time, another gambler, Comrade Huang Taiji, who was also red-eyed, was also arranging his final showdown.

In the battle for Nanjing in the past few days, due to the disadvantage of the terrain, climate, and popular support, the Qing army suffered heavy losses in the street battles and tug-of-war in the suburbs in Nanjing. Huang Taiji originally led 8,000 iron horsemen who crossed the river to the south, but now he has been beaten to less than 1,000 people.

In addition to the consumption in the meat grinder of the Nanjing battlefield, even transporting troops across the river to the south is a very dangerous thing in itself. Although the strength of Emperor Chongzhen's naval army was limited, it still stubbornly sailed to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and from time to time sneaked up on the fleet carrying the Qing army across the river.

Since the collapse of the Yonghe Emperor's court in Nanjing, the Yangtze River Naval Division of the former Nanjing Imperial Court, which was controlled by the Donglin Party, has also continued to mutinied, resulting in more than 3,000 Manchurian soldiers who did not know the nature of the water and fell into the river with the sinking ship to feed the fish and turtles.

At this time, in the Yanziji camp, Huang Taiji also had 11,000 Manchurian Eight Banner soldiers, 18,000 miscellaneous Han troops, plus a few hundred Mongols and more than 100 Korean musketeers. Almost all the remaining family resources of the entire Qing Empire are here.

As for the original soldiers and horses of the Nanjing court, they had completely collapsed at this time, and they were completely useless to Huang Taiji.

The battle for Nanjing has reached this point, and Huang Taiji has no way to retreat, and if he fails, there will be only a dead end.

Although now in the area of Xuzhou and Jining in Huaibei, there are still two white flags of the three brothers of Dolgon Duoduo and Azig, and more than sixty Manchurian warriors of Niu Lu, Huang Taiji knows very well that even if he died heroically in Nanjing, it is much stronger than going back to see the faces of these three brothers!

In fact, although Huang Taiji is known as the Ming monarch of the Qing Dynasty, his monarchical status has been very embarrassing from beginning to end.

You must know that when Nurhachi was dying, he originally wanted Dolgon to inherit the throne, and even gave him his own descendants. Therefore, the three Dolgon brothers held the two most powerful yellow flags within the entire Houjin Group at that time, while the two white flags under Huang Taiji's command were the weakest. However, Huang Taiji succeeded in uniting the other four nobles in power, and together suppressed the three Dolgon brothers, who were still children at the time, and finally forced the mother of the three Dolgon brothers, Abahai, to death, and seized the throne of the Houjin Great Khan.

Therefore, after successfully succeeding to the throne, Dolgon became the first target of Huang Taiji. With Huang Taiji's order, the two yellow flags that were once the Praetorian Guards directly under Nurhachi could not even keep their numbers, so they were directly changed to two white flags, and Huang Taiji's own two white flags became the supreme "two yellow flags". After exchanging flags with each other, needless to say, under the further joint suppression of the six flags, the various Niu Lu under the command of the three Dolgon brothers were constantly transferred and weakened, becoming the first political group to be cleaned up by Huang Taiji.

But why didn't the Emperor continue to put Dorgon to death, but gradually promoted him and Dodor Azig?

This is because, whether in military or political struggles, the roles of enemies and allies are constantly changing. After defeating the young and weak three Dolgon brothers and securing the throne of the Houjin Great Khan, Huang Taiji's main political opponents were no longer the three younger brothers who had lost their threat, but the three great beylers of Amin Mang Gultai Daishan, who helped him seize the throne of Khan. You must know that among the major forces within the Houjin at that time, Huang Taiji's lineage was the weakest, except for having the title of a Great Khan, the strength under the command of Amin Mang Gultai Daishan was stronger than him, or at least almost the same. In order to deal with Amin Mang Gurtai and Dai Shan, Huang Taiji, who lacked the strength of his lineage, had to raise the three older Dolgon brothers, and let the three brothers of the two white flags take the lead and deal with the three big Baylors through various means.

As a result, like a seesaw, after Huang Taiji knocked down the three big Baylors one after another, the power of the two white flags swelled rapidly. For example, Azig has now become the first brave general of the Qing Empire, and has outstanding prestige in the Eight Banners Army. Dolgon, on the other hand, was wise and courageous, and at the age of seventeen he was named the wise king for his military exploits. Even Duoduo has performed many miraculous feats in the war after entering the customs. The two white flags have accumulated a lot of dingkou and wealth. What's worse is that although Huang Taiji has tried every means to sow discord before, he has never been able to destroy the unity of the three brothers.

Originally, with Huang Taiji's eloquence, there must be a series of means to suppress the two white flags in the future. And he has indeed prepared the foreshadowing in the process of the three Dolgon brothers acting as lackeys for Huang Taiji and biting the three major Baylors of Amin Mang, Gurtai and Daishan, the two white flags inevitably formed a deep hatred with the two red flags and the two blue flags, and in the future, they can once again use their strength to reunite the six flags to suppress the two white flags.

Who knew that at this juncture, the Qing Empire was inexplicably devastated, and the hometown of Liaodong, which had been painstakingly operated for many years, changed hands in an instant, and the Guanning Army entrenched in Hebei erected a rebel flag and parted ways, and the road home of the Eight Banners of Manchuria was cut off, and the Han army and the Mongol allies under the banner of the Qing Dynasty also rebelled one after another...... Under this bad situation of collapse, the anxious Huang Taiji couldn't care about dealing with his own people anymore.

Next, before the Qing Empire could breathe a sigh of relief from the successive defeats, Huang Taiji suddenly learned that the situation in Jiangnan had changed, and Zhang Pu secretly crossed the river to ask for help from the Qing army on behalf of the Donglin Party and the Fushe. Therefore, Huang Taiji was afraid of missing this rare strategic opportunity, and rushed to Yangzhou almost non-stop, and at the same time ordered the whole army to go south, and at all costs to grab the richest Jiangnan in the world!

Note that at this time, Huang Taiji's plan was to go south with all the troops of the country and put the entire Eight Banners of Manchuria into the battlefield south of the Yangtze River!