As a post-80s generation, Shen Shuren still remembers that when he was studying in his previous life, the junior high school geography textbook still wrote that "Dongting Lake is the largest lake in China".

However, 20 years later, when his nephew came to him with his geography homework, he found that the standard answer had actually become "Poyang Lake is the largest lake in China".

It can be seen how drastic the shrinkage of Dongting Lake was in later generations, especially after the founding of the People's Republic of China (it is estimated that Poyang Lake may also abdicate in the future and become a grassland).

However, it is still the end of the Ming Dynasty, and Dongting Lake is still a "seven or eight hundred miles" in earnest.

Of course, this "horizontal" algorithm, modern people may not be very accustomed to, this is from the northeast corner of the lake to the southwest corner of the walk, calculate the farthest lake shore distance, roughly equivalent to the later generations from Yueyang to Changde, half a circumference of 800 miles.

As for the straight-line distance, Yueyang to Changde is only more than 300 miles, and Yueyang to Xiangyin County, which is directly south of the Xiangjiang River estuary, is only more than 200 miles. From Xiangyin along the Xiangjiang River, you can't walk for seventy or eighty miles, and it is Changsha.

Such a huge lake is destined to leave plenty of room for the sailors with superior ships to play - only if you can find the enemy.

Shen Lian and Li Yu led 6,000 people, and after breaking through the mouth of Dongting Lake overnight, they spared no manpower, used both sails and oars, and rowed to the south day and night, all the soldiers took turns to rest, and those who were awake helped row.

The military rations and supplies carried on the ship were also very sufficient, and there were even precious dried meat and condensed milk, so that the soldiers could recover their strength as soon as possible, and also to boost morale before the war.

In the days of marching, training, and garrisoning in peacetime, there was no such good thing to eat, and only the seriously wounded could touch it.

In June, it is not very difficult to sail from north to south on Dongting Lake. Because the Yangtze River is flooded in the summer, there is a lot of water from the upper reaches, and the mouth of Chenglingji Lake is poured water from the Yangtze River to Dongting Lake, and this situation will not be changed until the end of the flood season to become the Dongting Lake impoundment and flow back to the Yangtze River.

Therefore, at present, the lake in the north will have a natural slow flow to the south, and it is not until it is close to the south bank that the water from the Xiangjiang River can completely offset the backflow of the Yangtze River.

In just one day, more than two hundred miles of waterway were completed, and halfway through, Shen Lian and Li Yu really found some targets.

……

The words are divided into two ends, while Li Dingguo is stubbornly resisting Shen Shuren and Zuo Zixiong in Chenglingji and Baling, the main force of Zhang Xianzhong's troops in the south has made exaggerated progress.

In fact, even as early as the day before Li Dingguo besieged Baling, that is, when Li Dingguo had just found enough ships to cross the mouth of Dongting Lake in Yuezhou Mansion, Zhang Xianzhong had already broken through Changde Mansion to govern Wuling County.

It's just that it takes time for the news to be transmitted, and later Li Dingguo crossed the lake to the east, and the military information transmission was delayed for a while when the water and land alternated, so he couldn't immediately know the progress of his father-in-law.

Therefore, the entire territory of Changde had actually fallen four days before the arrival of the Shenshu people. The entire siege lasted only a day and a half.

Zhang Xianzhong's conditions at that time were "to surrender directly, only kill the vassal kings and officials, not the people, resist for one day, slaughter 30% of the city, resist for 2 days and slaughter 60% of the city, resist for three days, and slaughter the whole city."

This condition is very harsh, one level more urgent than what Li Dingguo opened in Baling, in history they basically did it after sixteen years of Chongzhen, and now it is obviously to grab time, so they are heavy-

Zhang Xianzhong knows very well that all his means must revolve around the goal of taking Changsha as soon as possible. Anything that is conducive to taking Changsha as soon as possible must be used no matter how vicious it is.

The defenders of Changde Prefecture, forced by local officials and local vassal kings, also symbolically resisted for a day at first.

However, when they saw the ferocity of the enemy's attack, they all rushed frantically as if they were not dying, and after nightfall, some of the soldiers were very shaken when they thought of the terrible end of the more fierce the resistance and the worse the retaliation would be in the future.

And Zhang Xianzhong did not completely surround the whole city, but only attacked the west gate of Wuling County, and the other three sides were completely open for people to run. So that night, after confirming that there was no one outside the city, a large number of defenders opened the door and fled out of the city.

Zhang Xianzhong did not pursue the deserters and fleeing people, but only entered the city and killed the whole family of the local vassal king and Rong Wang Zhu Youzhao stationed in Changde, including Zhu Youqi himself and his son and son Zhu Cizhao.

Zhu Youfang was hacked to death with a knife, his body was split and sunk into the river, and he was thrown into the water and rushed directly into Dongting Lake. Zhu Cizhao was a little lucky, but he was wiped on the neck with a knife, and he didn't deliberately dismember, so he left a whole corpse.

There is no mistake

This Zhu Yuqi is the fifth generation of King Rong, his ancestor is the younger brother of Emperor Zhu Youzhu of Hongzhi, to the Zhengde period of the domain, lived in Changde for more than 130 years, so far the country is excepted.

Of course, all the treasures of King Rong's Mansion were also robbed, and the income was worth more than one million taels of silver. Divided most of the poor to recruit the poor to expand the army, and also pocketed all the swords, guns, weapons, broken copper and iron left by the Ming army.

I have to sigh that the vassal king of the Ming Dynasty once again served as the captain of the transport brigade for the thieves.

Wuling County is the first prefecture-level city won by Zhang Xianzhong after his comeback. Although he was not very rich, he slaughtered all the vassal kings and rich landlords, which still made him fat again in an instant.

As for the intimidation of "slaughtering three percent of the city", Zhang Xianzhong did not strictly implement it, because he didn't have time, so he just hastily killed all the people who had houses in the city, and the total number of dead was about 30,000 or 40,000 people, and those who fled to the countryside without houses didn't care.

In the end, he left Liu Wenxiu to continue to search for ships, and pulled another 10,000 or 20,000 mu to come to the poorest of the strong, and three years after announcing the tax exemption, he continued to march into Changsha.

Two days later, two days before Shen Shuren sent Shen Lian and Li Yu south to intercept.

Zhang Xianzhong's vanguard successfully landed in Linxiang County, Changsha Prefecture, controlled the key point of the estuary where the Xiangjiang River flows into Dongting Lake, and also cut off the transportation from the Xiangjiang River to Yuezhou by water.

Of course, the small county of Linxiang has no resistance, with the deterrence of the slaughter of Wuling County before, plus the news that Changsha Mansion was blocked, and I didn't know that the reinforcements of the Shen Shuren would come soon, Linxiang Zhixian disguised himself in advance and ran away, and the defenders were about to collapse.

However, doing so made Zhang Xianzhong not kill in Linxiang, but only killed all the big landlords and rich people, and the poor people were too lazy to kill. In this way, the mass base after he entered the city was also better, and he took the silver he had just grabbed in Changde that had not been spent, and pulled up a large ticket of cannon fodder-

Zhang Xianzhong also had to do more cannon fodder locally, because he needed manpower to storm Changsha, and needed cannon fodder to bear the fire of the defenders, fill in pits and rivers to destroy the outlying fortifications.

The previous combat methods and marching tracks across the mountains and mountains into Changde also brought him certain sequelae - Zhang Xianzhong's army had very few ships, except for rafts and small boats, which were captured along the way in Changde.

Before crossing Dongting Lake, the lack of boats was not a big problem, and rafts could also be used to sail the army and save physical strength.

However, the raft could not enter Dongting Lake, it was easy to capsize, and the lake water lacked the flow speed compared to the river water, and the raft lacked power. So from the moment they entered Dongting Lake, Zhang Xianzhong's troops had actually been divided into several units.

Only the front army had enough boats to cross the lake and reach Linxiang, and then the fleet had to sail back to Changde to receive the second group of troops.

It is estimated that it will take three or four round-trips to complete Zhang Xianzhong's 50,000 soldiers and horses and Xinla's strong men.

This led to Zhang Xianzhong only relying on the first batch of 20,000 vanguard troops, and it was very difficult to break through Changsha, at least he could not frighten the defenders of Changsha.

After landing in Linxiang, we can recruit cannon fodder to bypass the limit on the number of transit ships, so that after the troops arrive at the southeast shore of Dongting Lake, they can reproduce and split on the spot like the virus, and attack Changsha with local materials.

The subsequent transportation of people and horses is a little slower and a few more days to assemble, and it will not be a big problem.

Zhang Xianzhong's bluff still played a role after all. The day after the surrender of Linxiang County, Zhang Xianzhong forced Changsha, only besieged the north of the city, attacked with momentum, and promised the conditions of surrender, this time he gave the official army a day to consider, five days before the whole city was completely slaughtered, just like Li Dingguo in Baling conditions.

Zhang Xianzhong dared to make such a decision, but also for the sake of the vast city of Changsha and the strong potential of guarding, he was afraid that he would be too anxious and cause the dog to jump over the wall in a hurry.

The prefect of Changsha has long abandoned the city and fled, and among the civil officials, only the official Cai Daoxian is the leader, and he insists on sticking to it.

However, after only one day of fierce fighting, Yin Xianmin, the chief soldier of the defenders, decided to lead the crowd to surrender and tied Cai Daoxian and sent him to Zhang Xianzhong-

This is by no means a hang-up for Zhang Xianzhong, but in history, the guards in the southern area of Huguang are really erosive, they have not fought for a long time, everyone is cowardly, and the generals are all waste wood.

The relatively elite officers and troops in the Huguang region have long been transferred to the northern region and to Nanyang, Xiangyang, Yiling, Wuchang and other places in the conflicts of the previous years. Those who can stay in Changsha and other places in the south are originally the most erosive empty guards.

Even according to the original historical trajectory, a year later, Yin Xianmin and several other Hunan generals will collapse and surrender at the touch of a button. Now it is nothing more than a change in Zhang Xianzhong's offensive line and order, which caused Yin Xianmin to vote a year ahead of schedule.

Zhang Xianzhong himself was stunned by the erosion of the official army, and was overjoyed and immediately led the army into the city to take over. He saw that Cai Daoxian still had a little backbone, and personally persuaded him to surrender, but Cai Daoxian scolded him endlessly.

Zhang Xianzhong was furious, personally held a knife and cracked several knives, and then ordered his subordinates to make up the remaining number of knives and put Cai Daoxian Ling Chi to death at the age of twenty-eight.

Later, Zhang Xianzhong killed the entire family of Zhu Youdong, the king of Ji, who was sealed in Changsha, including the prince Zhu Cixuan, and robbed the wealth of the Ji Palace. Because Changsha is too rich and more often virtuous, and King Ji's time in the vassal is also two generations longer than King Rong (the first King Ji is the younger brother of Emperor Zhu Jianshen of Chenghua)

The savings of King Ji's Mansion are naturally far above King Rong, and all the belongings are more than three million taels. Coupled with the income from the seizure of all the slaughtered officials and gentry in Changsha, the total amount reached more than 8 million.

However, it was also when Zhang Xianzhong was on the frontal battlefield on the southern front, just proud of the spring breeze, and extremely inflated.

In the north, near Linxiang County, his supply line across Dongting Lake. The lifeline used to transport the follow-up troops stranded in Changde suddenly encountered the Shenshu Sailor who came from the entire Dongting Lake at a gallop.