More than 70 miles northeast of Jingzhou, there is a town named Chenghuang, and a few days ago, many Qing soldiers came to this town, speaking with a strong Sichuan accent.

It's just that these officers and soldiers who came to Sichuan don't feel like officers and soldiers to the local people, because they are too polite.

Aunt Wang was so scared that she didn't dare to go out these days, she was fifty years old, and she had never seen officers and soldiers carrying water and chopping wood for the people.

It's really a hell of a life.

I heard from the people in the town that these officers and soldiers were going to Jingzhou to fight some kind of thieves, but after seven or eight days, more and more officers and soldiers came, but they didn't even move a single step.

Every day, the common people could see these officers and soldiers lining up at the entrance of the town, performing a drill, and shouting a few slogans of "swear to calm the thieves and protect the Qing Dynasty forever."

At the same time, Shu Jing'an, the right deputy general of Dingxi, who was leading his troops to attack Yichang City, kept receiving documents from the Sichuan Green Battalion.

Wang Fu, the deputy general of Chengdu Town, said that they were constantly attacked by small groups of thieves during the march, so that the march was slow, and asked for reinforcements to be sent quickly.

Ma Dayuan, the deputy general of Chongqing Town, said that the torrential rain in recent days has caused flash floods, blocking the road to Jingzhou.

God is pitiful, General Shu is going to be burned to death by the sun in Yichang.

The forward leader of the army, Zongmu Qingyao, said that it was possible to have ten miles of different days, and they had a big sun here, but it was really raining heavily there of Adjutant Ma.

Zu Yingyuan, the deputy general of Jinchuan Town, reported that the army was fast and did not encounter heavy rain, but he got lost on the way, went in the wrong direction and almost ran to Jingmen Prefecture.

In short, none of the three towns of Sichuan Green Camp sent out arrived in Jingzhou as required, which made Shu Jingan have to wonder if Sichuan Green Camp was cowardly and afraid of war.

Qingyao suggested that he take someone to see the situation, and if these Sichuan Green Battalion really found an excuse and refused to go to Jingzhou, they would report to the general Fengsheng to engage in military law.

As a result, Qingyao came back and said that Ma Dayuanbu was blocked by a mudslide; Wang Fubu burned grain and grass due to the sneak attack of the thieves, and the whole army was hungry, waiting for the general to send them food; Zu Yingyuan has already found a guide there and is rushing to Jingzhou, and he will definitely be able to reach Jingzhou in five days at the latest.

It's basically the same as what the Three Towns reported.

The words of the clan, can Shu Jingan not believe it?

Helplessly, on the one hand, he ordered the Chongqing Green Battalion to make a quick detour, and on the other hand, he asked the Chengdu Green Operation to go to 300 stone of military rations.

Although Jinchuan Town will take five days to reach Jingzhou at the earliest, Jingzhou has six or seven thousand soldiers and horses on land and water in the Eight Banners garrison, as well as battalions from Huguang, and it is impossible for the thieves to capture it in a short period of time.

At present, the top priority is to quickly take Yichang, cut off the road for the thieves to retreat north, and at the same time go down the river, attack the thieves from the east and west, and strive to catch the thieves who have escaped from Jinchuan.

Sichuan Imperial Historian Ding Yizhen impeached Shu Jing'an for colluding with the thieves to the imperial court, and the pursuit was actually tailgating, and he deliberately allowed the thieves to run around, but in fact, he really wronged Shu Jing'an.

The battle of Cloud Gate, he really can't beat it.

After that, the march was slow, and it was indeed for fear of being ambushed by thieves again.

The so-called eating a trench grows a wisdom, and then he has to ambush the thief, the emperor does not scold him for being incompetent, and he is embarrassed to live in the world again.

As long as the Eight Banners of Jingzhou can hold on, soldiers and horses from all walks of life gather in all directions, are you afraid that you will not be able to completely eliminate the thieves under Jingzhou City?

After all, those thieves are now known as tens of thousands of troops, and the actual soldiers who can fight are still their thousands of old people in Xiaojinchuan.

In the past, due to the terrain in Jinchuan, the officers and men had no choice but to take advantage of them, so they took the initiative to abandon the geographical advantage and ran out, even if the combat strength of the officers and men was still inferior to theirs, they could not stand the number of officers and men who were several times more than them.

If you keep wandering, it's troublesome, and take the initiative to hit the important town of Jingzhou, isn't it self-tied.

It's just that what annoys Shu Jingan is that he can't take the small Yichang City for several days.

According to the people who escaped, there were not many thieves in the city, but no matter how much he Shu Jing'an urged and rewarded him, the battalions of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and Yunnan that had just arrived from Jinchuan could not capture the city.

Although the imperial court did not investigate whether he was involved in Agui's rebellion, this person must have been terrified in his heart, knowing that he was guilty of obeying it, so he led his 4,000 Yunnan soldiers to Yichang, and immediately threw himself into the siege and personally supervised the battle.

It's a pity that no matter how hard Ren Changqing worked, he still couldn't take Yichang City in one go.

If you want to say that the green battalions of these five provinces are afraid of war and are unwilling to contribute, and they are pretending to be attacking the city, then Shu Jing'an's old army Chengdu garrison Eight Banners also participated in the siege, but as a result, they couldn't climb the city like the green battalion.

In fact, Shu Jing'an's information was wrong, and the thieves in Yichang City were not the two or three thousand people told by the people, but nearly seven thousand people in one division, and the commander was Gu Mingyuan, the nephew of Gu Shidao, the commander of the Xinghan Army.

This division also has 1,200 veterans.

The division was equipped with more than 3,100 muskets, more than 30 large and small cannons and mountain-splitting guns, and countless other ordnance, which could be said to be armed to the teeth.

All of them were captured by the Huangling Temple in the First Battle from the Qing Army's Chengdu Town, Sichuan Green Camp.

Shu Jing'an, who was anxious, knew that if this continued, his political life as the right deputy general of Dingxi might be coming to an end, and he had to give another heavy reward, and those who first climbed the city would be rewarded with 1,000 taels of silver, and the official would be promoted to three levels. Not to mention that after the city is broken, it can be set on a three-day column.

.........

Chenghuang Town.

The three giants of Sichuan Green Camp are playing mahjong, that is, leaf play.

"Everywhere we go according to the requirements of the adults, after setting up camp and setting up a village, we will do what we can for the people, and we will not rob them or eat them in vain, why are the people still very afraid of us?"

Ma Dayuan, the deputy general of Chongqing Town, who was forced to stop his march because of a mudslide, did not understand this at the poker table.

"Is there a people in the world who are not afraid of soldiers? Adults are good in everything, but some things are too whimsical, and if they are really good to the people, the people can support us in rebelling against the court? ”

The person who spoke was Li An'an, an officer in the Sichuan Governor's Mansion and the current secretary of the Green Camp in Chengdu Town, and also the nephew of Li Shijie, the governor of Sichuan.

Before the card left his hand, the deputy general Zu on the opposite side shouted: "Touch!" ”

"What kind of rebellion is not rebellion, we haven't thought about rebellion... Your Li An'an family is in Chengdu, and you don't have back pain when you sit and talk, but our whole family is in Beijing. Rebel? Do you want our whole family to die? ”

Zu Yingyuan called 40,000 as he spoke.

"Bump!"

Li An'an smiled and took 40,000 in front of him, drew two cards from his own cards, and played five more.

Zu Yingyuan, who didn't want to be opposite, touched it again, and Ma Dayuan, who was so angry that he was sitting at Li An'an's house, scolded: "It's not over, I haven't touched a card!" ”

"What's the hurry? What's the matter, you won't be allowed to touch the cards? ”

Zu Yingyuan glanced at Ma Dayuan, "My lord said, the brand is the character, and if your brand is not good, the character is not good." ”

Ma Dayuan snorted: "Nonsense, when did the adults say this?" ”

"You don't believe it, ask Commissioner Wang."

Zu Yingyuanzui went to Wang Fu, who served as both the deputy general of Chengdu Town and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Association.

"Well, Lord Jia said it when he gave Zu Yingyuan a dream last night, and I was also in a dream at the time, so I can testify."

Wang Fu's nose twitched, touched a card in his hand, did not look at the card directly with his finger on the card so back and forth, "horn" turned over: "Hu, self-drawing, all color, give money!" ”

The three of them looked at each other, and they really asked Wang Fu to touch himself, and they couldn't help but say that they were unlucky, and they were extremely reluctant to count the silver tickets.

Just counting, Wu Laoer, the Chinese officer in charge of logistics in Jinchuan Town and a good chess friend of Lord Jia Jia, ran in, and said with a smile: "Adults, don't fight, Jingzhou is liberated!" Ah, no, Jingzhou has fallen, and the city has been slaughtered by the Xinghan army! ”

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