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Chapter 148

There are few monarchs like Shi Kefa who will not like such loyal ministers, but in terms of his loyalty and more practical situation, Shi Kefa's inability to deal with the situation of still existing party disputes, and even the inability to suppress the opposition within the Donglin Party shows that Shi Kefa is not too tough. Pinshu.com

At a time when the survival of the country is at stake, compromise will only make the situation more irreparable.

And the more important key is that Shi Kefa's hatred forced Chongzhen to hang and capture Beijing's Dashun army, and after the Dashun army withdrew from Beijing, he chose to sit back and watch the Dashun army face the huge pressure of the Qing army going south and see death without help.

Zhang Jiashi wanted to spit out a bad sentence, that is: "As the saying goes, there are no eternal enemies, no eternal friends, and there are eternal interests." ”

Perhaps, the situation of the Dashun Army letting the Ming Empire "ruin the country and destroy the family" is indeed unacceptable to most of the Donglin Party, but in terms of national interests, Shi Kefa's choice of this method to "take revenge" is obviously the way to bring about his own destruction.

Maybe it's because Shi Kefa thinks that the four towns of Jiangbei were quite weak at that time, and what is needed is a period of integration to maintain combat effectiveness, but many times, the ideal is very plump, and the reality is very skinny, and the four towns of Jiangbei, the pillar of the Hongguang regime in the Southern Ming Dynasty, soon after Gao Jie's death, the Qing army defeated the main force of the remnants of the Dashun army in Hebei and then went south, which soon became a historical term.

......

Huang Degong may be regarded as the most capable one of the four towns in Jiangbei.

After Gao Jie's death, in April of the first year of Hongguang, in April, Zuo Liangyu raised troops to the east, rebelled in the name of the Qing monarch's side, and the boat traveled to Jiujiang and died of illness, and his army supported his son Zuo Mengeng. The imperial court ordered Degong to hurry to the river to defend against them and garrison Ogi Port. Huang Degong defeated Zuo Mengeng at Tongling and lifted their siege. In this battle, Huang Degong was killed with three arrows, and the Hongguang court heard the good news, crowned him as the prince, and sent the eunuch Wang Zhaoji to comfort him.

Later, the imperial court ordered him to move to Taiping Town with his family, specializing in the affairs of suppressing thieves, and assessed his merits and crowned him as Zuozhuguo, and Jin Jue as the Duke of Jingguo.

At this time, the Qing army had already crossed the Yangtze River, and knew that Zhu Youxiang had escaped, so the soldiers attacked Taiping in several ways. Huang Degong was collecting troops to garrison Wuhu, and Zhu Youxiang secretly came to his military camp. Huang Degong burst into tears of surprise and said: "If Your Majesty is defending Nanjing to the death, we can still resist as much as we can, why do we listen to the words of the traitors and come here in a hurry? Besides, I am fighting against the enemy, how can I protect your chariot?" Zhu Youxiang said: "I have nothing to rely on except you." Huang Degong said with tears in his eyes: I am willing to die for Your Majesty. ”

When Huang Degong was in Ogigang, his arm was wounded and almost broken, at this time he was wearing coarse cloth clothes, hanging his arms with cloth belts, wearing waist knives and sitting in a small boat, and commanding eight general soldiers to be on standby to meet the enemy. And Liu Liangzuo had already surrendered at this time, and took the Qing army to greet him on the shore to surrender.

Huang Degong angrily shouted, "You will surrender!" Suddenly, an arrow flew and shot at the left of his throat. Huang Degong knew that everything was over, threw the knife, picked up the arrow he had just pulled out and stabbed his throat and died. When his wife, Weng, heard about it, she also committed suicide.

The chief soldier Weng Zhiqi threw himself into the river and died, so Jun Tianxiong surrendered with Zhu Youxiang.

......

And if Huang Degong is full of loyalty, and Gao Jie can be regarded as dying because of resisting the Qing army, then Liu Liangzuo is quite unbearable.

After Liu Liangzuo surrendered to the Qing army, he brutally suppressed the anti-Qing rebels in the late Ming Dynasty.

In the summer of the second year of Shunzhi, anti-Qing rebels sprung up in various parts of the Yangtze River, and anti-Qing armed activities also appeared in Jintan, Piaoyang and other places not far southeast of Nanjing. On June 28, Jintan County learned of the news that the Qing court had ordered the shaving of hair, and the county officials appointed by the Ming Dynasty abandoned the city and left, and the people of the city also fled to Sixiang.

On the 7th day of the sixth month of the leap month, three or four hundred people gathered at the Tsz Yun Monastery in the city to prepare for an uprising, but because there was no one to lead them, they soon dispersed. Soon, officials such as the magistrate and the county of the Duoduo Commission came to Jintan to take office, and they forced the people to shave their hair, ordering that "one person does not shave the whole family, and the whole village is not shaved".

Subsequently, Jintan "the people in the city and the nearby city are all shaved like orders, and the distant villages are so calm, and the stricter the order, the more frightened the people are", and a large number of people armed forces began to appear around the county town to "uncover the pole and reunite".

He Xiangjun, the Zhusheng of Danyang, fled to the big bad mountain of Changdang Lake south of Jintan after the Qing army crossed the river, "gathered thousands of people" and insisted on resisting the Qing Dynasty. Spoon. On the night of the ninth day of the sixth month of the leap month, He Xiangjun led his troops to Jintan, and once attacked the city, burned down the county government, and "killed Xintui and trained troops in the Guandi Temple...... looting weapons and warehouses, and earthquakes near and far."

Soon after, he led the crowd again, surrounded the county seat, and fiercely attacked Beiguan in an attempt to break the city. Hu Yannian, the county governor of Jintan, fled to Zhenjiang for help in the starry night. The general soldiers of Zhenjiang then sent some soldiers to Jintan with Hu Yannian to relieve the siege. Prior to this, there were also activities in Danyang that were falsely called "Jinsha Lake Kou" by the Qing authorities.

Danyang is not far from Nanjing, and the anti-Qing forces here are naturally the first target of Duoduo in Nanjing City, and he immediately sent Liu Liangzuo to Yueyiyang to suppress it. After Liu Liangzuo's troops repelled the anti-Qing forces, they took the opportunity to plunder Douzhuang and other places east of Yueyang City.

When Hu Yannian and others led the army from Zhenjiang to Jintan, they met Liu Liangzuo, who was leading the army back to Nanjing, on the way. Liu Liangzuo then led his "three thousand horsemen" to Jintan to relieve the siege.

After the Qing army arrived at the foot of Jintan City, they quickly repelled He Xiangjun's besieging forces. Liu Liangzuo led the army to temporarily camp in the martial arts arena outside the county seat, and left Jintan a few days later. After Liu Liangzuo left, He Xiangjun led his troops to Jintan again and attacked Xicheng. Hu Yannian opened the city gate, sent troops to meet the battle, and transferred cavalry to attack from both wings.

The rebels were defeated by the attacks of the Qing regular army and fled.

He Xiangjun was captured and killed by the Qing army. Kang Sanxi, the leader of another rebel army, led the remnants of the remnants of the army to retreat to Fangshan to the west of Jintan. Later, Kang Sanxi surrendered, and Hu Yannian sent troops from Xiaodao Mountain to exterminate this anti-Qing army. After Sichuan suppressed the anti-Qing activities in Danyang and Jintan, Duoduo transferred Liu Liangzuo's troops to Jiangyin. On the second day of the sixth month of the leap month, after the people of Jiangyin raised troops to defend the city, Zong Hao, the prefect of Changzhou Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty, immediately sent 300 troops to suppress them, but these people were completely annihilated by the local people at the foot of Qinwang Mountain.

On the sixth day of the first lunar month, Zong Wei once again sent more than 1,000 men and horses from Changzhou to Jiangyin. Although the Jiangyin Righteous Army was a temporary organization of ordinary people, lacked training, and was "scattered in formation, advancing and retreating in a disorderly manner," after all, there were many people and a large number of people, and they would not be at a disadvantage in the melee. In addition, the bows, crossbows, cannons, gunpowder and other weapons left by the Ming Dynasty generals in Jiangyin City were taken out and used by the rebels, which greatly enhanced their combat effectiveness.

The Qing troops sent by Zong Wei were limited in number and did not carry siege equipment such as artillery, so they fought several battles with the Jiangyin rebels outside the city, but they did not take advantage of anything. After the shaving order was issued, there were also village soldiers outside Changzhou. The township soldiers from Buyi, Menghe and other places also came to attack the city from the southwest and northeast respectively.

Zong Wei and the others were too busy to take care of themselves, and they were simply unable to continue to transfer troops to reinforce Jiangyin. So, Duoduo sent Liu Liangzuo's subordinates to Jiangyin to suppress it. On the 21st of leap June, Liu Liangzuo's troops arrived at the foot of Jiangyin City. The Jiangyin rebels went out of the city to meet the battle, but were defeated by Liu Liangzuo and retreated into the city. Liu Liangzuo's department "went from the east gate to the north gate, and sixteen battalions besieged the city".

However, Liu Liangzuo's soldiers and horses were only about three or four thousand, and even with the original more than 1,000 Qing troops outside the city, the strength was very limited, and they had not yet gained a firm foothold, so they did not dare to rashly attack the city.

The Qing army first burned and plundered outside the city of Jiangyin, trying to eliminate the rebels outside the city first, isolate the county seat, and force it to surrender without a fight. On the 21st, Liu Liangzuo's troops set fire to Dongcheng, and divided their troops outside the north gate, Jiangyin township soldiers tried to resist, the two sides killed and injured each other, and the Qing army temporarily retreated. On the 23rd, the Qing army continued to harass in the north and east of the city.

A team of more than 500 township soldiers led by Ge Fubi and his son was ready to go to the city for reinforcements, but they encountered the Qing army in the area of Sanguandian in the east of the city, and the whole army was annihilated. In the following days, the Qing army set up a large camp on Junshan, the commanding height outside the north gate of Jiangyin City, and continued to "burn and plunder the houses of the four cities, day and night". On the 24th, Liu Liangzuo ordered people to shoot the letter of surrender into the city, but was categorically rejected by the rebels defending the city. Seeing that the situation was critical, the urban and rural soldiers fled out of the city one after another, and were pursued and killed by Liu Liangzuo's subordinates, suffering heavy casualties.

At the end of leap June, Changshu Zhusheng Jin saw that the Jiangyin Righteous Army was in a bitter battle, and went to reinforcements. He recruited more than 400 strong men, first stationed in the sand mountain outside the city, waiting for Yan Shi, the leader of the rebel army in Changshu City, to lead the main force to come, but Yan Shi was delayed. So, Jin Mosaic went to Jiangyin alone with more than 400 people.

After Liu Liangzuo learned that the Changshu Righteous Army was coming to help, he was very nervous, and almost all of his 3,000 soldiers and horses were transferred to the southeast of Jiangyin to block the attack. The Qing army set up an ambush in the town of Zhouzhuang, southeast of Jiangyin. The Changshu rebels marched in two groups, the front and rear, and they were heavily shelled by the Qing army as soon as they arrived at the town of Zhouzhuang. The rebels were caught off guard, and more than 200 people in the front team were all killed. Seeing that he could not win, Jin Mosaic had to lead the rebel army to retreat to Changshu.

In this way, the foreign aid that Jiangyin City had been waiting for was completely cut off.

By the first day of July, Liu Liangzuo's troops had basically eliminated the anti-Qing forces outside the city, so that the "township soldiers were cut off", and the Jiangyin rebels were trapped in the city. As a result, the Qing army began to attack the city. Although the Chengyi Army was large in number and lacked weapons, due to its lack of organization and training, it was only a scattered mess, and it was difficult to hold out for a long time without effective command.

At this extremely unfavorable time, on the fifth day of the first month, Chen Mingyu, the commander of the rebel army, sent people out of the city and invited Yan Yingyuan, the former Jiangyin County Dian Shi who lived outside the city, to enter the city and preside over the military.

Yan Yingyuan was born in martial arts, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he had pacified small-scale pirates and "salt thieves" gangs, and he was quite familiar with military affairs. After he entered the city, he began to dispatch troops to arrange for the defense of the city. He assigned the rebel army to the four gates of the city and defended it in divisions. Every twenty men defended one battlement, with teams of ten men taking turns to rest. Arrange special personnel to be responsible for logistics tasks such as lighting fires and cooking, passing bricks and tiles, etc.

Red cannons, oil lamps, masonry and other materials were also properly distributed to ensure supplies. In this way, the Chengyi Army initially had the characteristics of a regular army, with strict orders, a clear division of labor, and an orderly manner, and a great improvement in its fighting strength. Yan Yingyuan's arrangement of defending the city became a key factor in the fact that Jiangyin City was able to hold on for two months.

From the 11th, Liu Liangzuo's troops began to storm the north gate. At first, the Qing army did not use artillery as the main weapon for attacking the city, and before the attack, it was just a hasty "cannon shout", and then approached with infantry, built a pontoon bridge to cross the moat, and then took a ladder to the city. It still uses the traditional crowd tactics of the cold weapon era.

This may be related to the lack of powerful red-coated cannons under Liu Liangzuo's troops, and in the absence of siege weapons, they can only choose to rush into the city in hand-to-hand combat. However, the north gate was the key area for the city's righteous army, and Yan Yingyuan was personally responsible for the operations here, and the rebel army in Jiangyin City was well defended and had artillery and stones. Several strong attacks by the Qing army failed.

On the 15th, Liu Liangzuo again attacked the northeastern part of the city, this time using the tactic of digging the city wall. The Qing army approached the city wall, "set up a three-layer cowhide tent, set up nine beams and eight columns, and threw arrows and stones, all of which were anti-Vietnamese and could not enter", while the soldiers hid under the cowhide tent to dig the city wall. The city defenders "took human dung and tung oil, fried and poured it". The cowhide tent was suddenly broken, and the Qing troops inside either died tragically or fled in a hurry.

Liu Liangzuo saw that it was difficult for the infantry to forcibly attack the city, so he brought in artillery to bombard the north gate and "stayed all night." (1) For a while, the city wall was bombarded for several feet, but Yan Yingyuan commanded the stonemasons to repair it in time. The rebels "wrapped the door panel with iron leaves, took the empty coffin through the iron short guard, penetrated the soil, and blocked the decadent place". The Qing army's artillery was limited, and there was nothing to be done about it.

The firearms of the Jiangyin Righteous Army were not inferior to Liu Liangzuo's troops. According to records, at that time, the city had a total of "300 urns of gunpowder, 1,000 stones of lead bullets, white bits of cannons, and 1,000 pieces of birds." These numbers may be exaggerated, but judging from the fighting between the two sides, the artillery of the rebels posed a great threat to the Qing army outside the city.

On 15 July, the Qing army in Junshan, north of the city, had to move to camp because of the attack of the rebel artillery. Liu Liangzuo's thousands of soldiers and horses besieged Jiangyin for nearly a month without any progress, so that the Qing army had to send troops to reinforcements. At first, Duoduo did not pay enough attention to Jiangyin, thinking that Liu Liangzuo's army alone could solve these "rabble".

In the sixth month of the leap month, the military situation in many places in the south of the Yangtze River was urgent, and Duoduo sent Belebolo to lead part of the Eight Banners Army in Nanjing to defend the area around Suzhou, which he thought was most in urgent need of troops, and sent Li Chengdong and other generals to Wusong, Taicang and other places, and there was no extra men and horses to transfer to Jiangyin for a while. It was not until late July that the Eight Banners Army arrived in Suzhou successively conquered the cities of Kunshan and Changshu and suppressed the local anti-Qing activities.

At this time, Duoduo was finally able to free up his hands to solve the Jiangyin problem. On the sixth day of the seventh month, Bo Luo led part of the Eight Banners army to break through Kunshan City with red-coated artillery. Subsequently, he sent Gushan Ezhen Malashi and Ahanikan and others to divide their troops to attack Changshu. After several days of burning and killing in Kunshan, the Qing army returned west on the 10th day of the first lunar month.

On the 14th, after arriving in Suzhou, Bo Luo and the others did not enter the city, but hurriedly "got up and went to Maxi", and their destination was Jiangyin. However, it rained heavily in Suzhou that day, and the ship led by Bolo was blocked, and it was not until the next day that they were able to move forward. And on the 14th, Ma Lashi and others also used red-coated artillery to conquer Changshu.

On the 17th, more than 100 artillery pieces of the Qing army were transported to Jiangyin City. (3) Liu Liangzuo under the city of Jiangyin realized that if he wanted to get the weight of the Qing court, he had to take Jiangyin before the arrival of the Eight Banners Army. On the 18th, Liu Liangzuo, who was very anxious, personally came to Jiangyin City to persuade him to surrender, but was rejected and humiliated by Yan Yingyuan and others, so he had to retreat in a huff.

The next day, Belebolo led the Eight Banners Army to Jiangyin, and the first thing he did after arriving in the city was to "tie up" the incompetent Liu Liangzuo.

Bolo saw that Jiangyin City was well defended and difficult to attack, so he decided to use a red-coated cannon to break through the city. From 20 July, the Qing army concentrated artillery on Junshan and bombarded the north of Jiangyin.

However, the defenders of Jiangyin "Nashi urn south of the city, higher than the old two feet...... and the northern city of the urn", which can always quickly seal the collapsed city wall, so that the city does not fall as easily as Kunshan and Changshu.

Bolo's siege weapons are difficult to achieve. As a result, the Qing army had to continue to increase troops to Jiangyin, and the subordinate of Yang Chengzu, who had been fighting in Jiashan, Pinghu and other places in northern Zhejiang, was also transferred to participate in the war.

After the 10th day of the first month of the month, Duoduo ordered Li Shutai, who had just suppressed the Songjiang uprising, to lead part of the Eight Banners Army from Suzhou to Jiangyin for reinforcements.

Duoduo himself also went to Changzhou City to take command.

After Duoduo arrived in Changzhou, Liu Liangzuo gradually became an accomplice in the massacre of the anti-Qing rebels.

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