Wu Sangui's change of banner has a far-reaching impact in the long run, but for the current main battlefield situation between the Ming and Qing dynasties, the impact is actually not so intuitive.

Whether it is a diplomatic posture or a righteous name, these things are all imperceptible, and the most important thing in front of us is that whoever has a hard fist on the battlefield has the last word.

If the Ming Dynasty can carry the Qing army on the front line in Xinyang and Hefei, everything is easy to say, if it can't be carried out, it is useless to have a righteous reputation, and you can only watch the Tartars lead the beasts to eat people.

Fortunately, after two and a half years of farming and resting, the combat power of the Ming Dynasty has risen by more than one step compared to before the truce!

The Qing army thought it was ready, and looked at the Ming army with the old eyes before the truce, and felt that this time they were fully prepared, so they would inevitably have to pay the price.

……

Among the three-way battlefields of the confrontation between the north and the south, the first to reopen the battle was naturally the old rivals of Azige, the prince of Qingying, and Zhang Huangyan, the governor of Henan in the Ming Dynasty.

Azig suffered a loss at the hands of Zhang Huangyan three years ago, when he attacked Nanyang City for half a year and dragged on for a whole winter.

The besieging side suffered unspeakably, but in the end they failed to break the city, nor did they cross the waterway of the Tangbai River and let the Qing warships enter the Han River. There were also countless casualties, and the exchange ratio of the troops' battle losses was far more ugly than that of the Ming army. It was precisely by virtue of his repelling Azig that Zhang Huangyan was promoted from Huguang to the governor of Henan, and now he has been promoted to the governor.

So this time the war resumed, and the two of them were also enemies, and they were very red-eyed, and they had to count the new and old hatreds together.

The identities of the two are also very suitable for being opponents-

Since the death of Dorgon, Azig is the only brother of Dolgon, who is the regent of the Qing court, and he grasps the government, military and government, and lets his brother supervise a whole front outside, and cooperate with each other inside and outside, complementing each other.

And in the Ming court in Nanjing, how similar is Zhu Shuren's current status to Dolgon's status in the Qing court?

Do you have a brother in Dorgon? When Lao Tzu has no brother? Zhu Shuren really doesn't have a brother, but it's the same to pull his cousin Zhang Huangyan out!

Fortunately, after Azig suffered a loss, he also suffered a lot of wisdom, and this time he restarted the war and did not rush into a rash manner.

He first attacked and defended the Ming army on a small scale in Yexian, Fangcheng, and Bowang, and sure enough, he soon found that the combat strength of the Ming army in Nanyang was also much stronger than three years ago.

It is estimated that the size of the troops under Zhang Huangyan's command is between 10,000 and 20,000! If you count the original early "Wuchang Zao" and the Lumi Gun and Bird Gun, I am afraid that 30,000 musketeers can easily make it up!

After one or two skirmishes between the two armies in a skirmish between Nanyang and Yexian, Azig found that the enemy was not an easy man, and quickly abandoned his illusions and switched to the second and relatively safe plan that had been conceived before the war.

Azig stationed heavy troops in Yaojinye County and Fangcheng in Tongbai Pass, so that the Qing army could mainly defend here, with high bases and deep ditches, cutting off the road for the Ming army to cross Tongbai Mountain from the Nanyang Basin, so that the Nanyang Ming army could not directly communicate with the Ming army of Xinyang Prefecture north of Tongbai Mountain.

Then, Azig moved the main force to the east, preparing to take Xinyang Mansion with all his strength first, seize and digest the Ming army occupied areas north of Tongbai Mountain and Dabie Mountain, and then slowly consider breaking through the Dabie Mountain to the south in the future.

The first time after Azig switched to defense, Zhang Huangyan didn't dare to make a mistake, he couldn't judge whether Azig really shifted the strategic focus, or made a false shot.

Therefore, for the sake of safety, Zhang Huangyan of course has to observe for ten more days and half a month, and only after confirmation can he change his moves.

Azig began to attack on the 10th day of August, and found that the Nanyang Basin was unreliable on August 24 and changed his tactics, but Zhang Huangyan observed it all the way to the 8th day of September before confirming that Azig had really shifted his strategic focus.

Then he began to shrink part of the Ming army in Nanyang to Xiangyang in the rear, and then at the same time pulled part of the troops originally stationed in Xiangyang through Suizhou and went to Xinyang from Xinyang Valley to reinforce Liu Guoneng, the general of Xinyang.

After Azig cut off the Fangcheng Pass, the main road over Tongbai Mountain, the Ming army was not completely unable to communicate with the Xinyang defenders.

As we all know, there are still several other trails in Tongbai Mountain, but they are not as smooth and easy as Fangcheng Road, and the transportation cost is much higher.

Seven years ago, when Zhu Shuren destroyed the two divisions of He Jin and He Yilong, the five battalions of Gezuo and Suizhou, which were entrenched in Xinyang and Suizhou, they went to Xinyang Valley of Tongbai Mountain.

Further back, the Battle of Baiju, which led Sun Wu to write "The Art of War", was also in this valley, because of the difficulty of Xinyang Valley and the large loss of transportation, so that Sun Wu wrote the sentence "Therefore, the wise general will eat the enemy, eat the enemy for one minute, and be my twenty bells".

Sun Wu can calculate that one bell is twenty bells, this transportation loss can not be big, even if the Ming Dynasty's carriage and horse road engineering technology is much more advanced than the Spring and Autumn Period, that bell must still be several minutes.

Therefore, Azig on the opposite side actually understands this, and his bet is that after blocking the Fangcheng Pass, the Ming army will have to go to Xinyang Valley to turn Tongbai Mountain if they want to supply Xinyang.

However, the Qing army can directly go south from the Huai River and Ruying to supply, one side has to cross the Dabie Mountains and the other side does not need to, the loss is several times smaller than that of the Ming army, and the efficiency will be much higher if it is consumed and bloodlet to the Ming army in the Xinyang Fu battlefield!

It's a pity that people who have the same idea as Azig actually appeared a few years ago - the last person who thought like this, named Li Zicheng, thought so when Chongzhen was fifteen years old.

The final outcome was a tug-of-war between Xinyang, Chen, and Cai, and was finally defeated by Zhu Shuren in the decisive battle of Chen County, and Li Zicheng folded 200,000 peasant troops!

Azig also has no other way, his old path three years ago failed, and he must not be able to take it again, so he will take the path that Li Zicheng walked six years ago.

Azig firmly believes that it is not this route that does not work, but that Li Zicheng does not work.

How can his Azig's wisdom and martial arts defeat Li Zicheng several times? Let him make a move, with the same move, it is very likely to turn decay into magic!

It's just that Azig's strategy is destined to take a long time to see the effect - since it is a logistics war of attrition, it cannot be attacked as soon as it comes up, but it is necessary to slowly consume the materials of the defenders of Xinyang Mansion, and when the defenders' stocks are almost used up, they need to be transported from the rear so that the Qing army can seize the opportunity.

Therefore, Azig first divided his troops to try to encircle Shangcai and Chen County, and then advanced to Xinyang, dividing and encircling several major strongholds on the front of the Ming army.

The Ming army actually chose a temporary strategic contraction, and after a little resistance in Chen County for more than ten days, it retreated and contracted, shrinking the remaining defenders of Chen County to Shangcai, and calmly took away all the strategic materials when retreating, and then only held the two cores of Shangcai and Xinyang to maintain the Huaixi defense line.

In the face of the Governor Zhang Huangyan's request to reduce the number of troops, Liu Guoneng, who had been guarding Xinyang Mansion for many years, originally felt very aggrieved, and wanted to ask for war several times, but directly forcibly pushed back.

But Zhang Huangyan's orders were very strict, and he personally talked to him secretly: "Our army has temporarily abandoned Chen County, and after the front-line materials are assembled, even if Shangcai is besieged to death, it will be no problem to hold on for two months."

The Qing army attacked on multiple fronts, trying to swallow the Huainan land north of Dabie Mountain, but the counterattack strategy of the imperial court was mainly secondary. The supply difficulties of our army on the Xinyang side are not conducive to large-scale advances, and they cannot be used as the focus of the first stage of defensive counterattacks.

The prince is in charge of the overall situation, and he sees much more than us, and the first stage he wants to focus on dealing with is the Abatai, Boluo, and Yue Le father and son on the Fengyang-Hefei line.

Hefei is on the eastern edge of the Dabie Mountain, the terrain has been flat, and the river channel is convenient for transporting a large number of soldiers, horses, money, food, and armaments, so it can be a much larger bureau. Once a decisive breakthrough is made in the direction of Fengyang in Hefei and the people of the Tatars are unstable, our Xinyang side will be able to expand the results with half the effort by advancing north with fewer troops. ”

Liu Guoneng still trusted Zhang Huangyan's statement, so he had to endure it for the time being.

Zhang Huangyan and Liu Guoneng played an auxiliary three years ago, and now they can only play the second battlefield, who let them have bad traffic conditions here.

With the resumption of the war between the Ming and Qing dynasties for more than half a month, the confrontation line of the war situation has been sorted out slightly, and people of insight on both sides of the north and south have all realized that

】

This year's main decisive battlefield is probably about to open on the northern Anhui Plain between Fengyang and Hefei.

……

The words are divided into three ends.

August 20, 3rd year of Longwu, Nanjing.

Azig began to attack on the 10th day of the first month of August, and Abatai, Bolo and others in Fengyang moved on the 15th of August, and there was a gap of five days between the two armies.

Therefore, on August 20, it was only two or three days after the news of the complete resumption of fighting on the front line reached Nanjing.

As for Wu Sangui in Shaanxi, he officially pulled the flag to help the Ming Dynasty resist the Qing Dynasty, although it happened on the first day of the eighth month, it was ten days earlier.

However, considering that the jurisdictions controlled by Shaanxi and Nanming are not able to communicate through Tongguan Road and Heluo Road, all the news needs to be conveyed by Fang Kongzhi in Sichuan across the Qinling Mountains.

Therefore, the news that Wu Sangui officially pulled the flag anyway did not arrive significantly earlier than the news from the Huaixi battlefield, almost front and back.

In the past three days, the emergency documents received in Nanjing can be said to be as dense as snowflakes.

"The Tartars are coming again! I heard that Shangcai and Shou County have been surrounded! The Tartars here in Huai'an also have a lot of movement! ”

"How many ways are there to attack at once? I finally enjoyed peace for a few years, but I couldn't escape it after all! ”

Even though the Ming Dynasty finally succeeded in winning the defensive battle in the last war and recaptured Huainan by counterattacking, the psychological shadow left by the ravages of the Qing army for decades still made many civilian officials in the DPRK and China timid.

Many civilian officials who do not know the army may have been in a panic when they heard that Kublai Khan had invaded the south again after the 13-year truce in the Ezhou Battle of the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, even if Kublai Khan committed a truce for thirteen years, the ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty also had a backbone at the beginning, that is, they hoped that Jia Nidao, who had repelled Kublai Khan in the Battle of Ezhou, would be able to turn the tide and play the role of savior again.

At this moment, those wastes who did not know soldiers in the Southern Ming Dynasty also wrote to Zhu Shuren, the prince of Hubei, to personally supervise the division and repel the Tartars.

Zhu Shuren holds the title of Metropolitan Governor and Controlling Chinese and Foreign Military, and he is indeed obliged to take charge of the overall situation.

Looking at the earnest request of the ministers, Emperor Longwu Zhu Changshu had no choice but to ask his son-in-law to discuss.

In Zhu Changshu's impression, other civil officials have hardly accused Zhu Shuren in the past year or two, nor have they asked Zhu Shuren to do anything, he originally thought that Zhu Shuren had completely controlled the government.

Now that he knows that there are still so many civil officials who dare to point fingers at his son-in-law, Zhu Changshu's mood is really complicated.

On the one hand, he also hopes that his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson can firmly grasp the power and make a good transition. On the other hand, he himself is the emperor after all, and if his son-in-law is too strong and gets his word, he is also worried that he will be completely hollowed out.

After Zhu Shuren was recruited, Zhu Changshu asked him his opinion with a little apprehension: "All the ministers are trying to advise the secretary to personally supervise the teacher, what does the secretary want?" ”

Zhu Shuren took a quick look at the glimpse, and responded energetically: "Eat the king's lu, and be loyal to the king." The ministers are favored by their fathers, and the people of the world look forward to it, and they should do their best to protect my country.

This time the Tartars dare to come, not only to take the opportunity to attack, but also to take advantage of the Northern Expedition to recover the Central Plains! The minister is willing to personally lead the heavy troops of Gyeonggi, cross the river to Hefei to supervise the division, and adapt to the situation. ”

Zhu Changshu looked at his son-in-law's eyes, observed for a long time, and sighed: "When Qing said so, I was relieved." In the palace, don't worry, I will take care of it, but I can do my best. ”

After leaving the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Shuren was just about to go to Chunhe Palace to meet his wife and son, but he saw Gu Yanwu, the head of the Dadu Governor's Mansion, waiting there at the gate of the palace. Zhu Shuren stopped temporarily and casually ordered:

"Brother Tinglin, help Gu write a copy of "Out of the Teacher's Table", not to have the literary style of Wuhou, but also to be worthy of the historical records and future generations, worthy of this time, expelling the Tartars, recovering the Central Plains, and returning to the old capital!"

"The lower officials will obey Jun's orders." Gu Yanwu took the order, and went to the dance to get ink without mentioning it.

Zhu Shuren turned around a few pond attic platforms and walked into the Chunhe Palace, and the eunuch palace maid at the door was not stopped-

Although the little imperial grandson who lives in Chunhe Palace is now nominally Zhu Shuren's "nephew" (wife's nephew), theoretically the uncle should still go through the process to ask for instructions when visiting his nephew. But in fact, there is not much such thing at all.

As soon as Zhu Shuren entered the door, he saw his wife Zhu Yuchan running around with Zhu Ciyu, who was one year and seven months old. Children under the age of two are the most naughty time, and after learning to run, they want to run around, and they can't stop them at all.

As for learning to speak, when I was about seven or eight months old, I began to learn to call my parents, and at the age of one I could call most of my relatives and know something, but now I am seven or eight months old, and I can barely say some short sentences.

Zhu Shuren stopped in front of Zhu Ciyu, who was running without looking at the road, and Zhu Ciyu didn't stop until he hit it, and stumbled backwards.

The palace maid who was running next to her hurriedly jumped, rolled with the trend, and rolled to the back of the imperial grandson as a mat. Zhu Ciyu really fell backwards, and sat on the palace maid with a butt, with sufficient cushioning and no injuries.

Zhu Shuren couldn't help but shake his head, for fear that this child would die young, he had been overprotective since birth, so that he was so arrogant. In the future, I will gradually become sensible, and then do such arbitrary nonsense, I am afraid that I will raise waste, and the Ming Dynasty will be given to a waste hand, and I will work hard to build it all my life, and I am afraid that it will also be lost.

When the child is a little older, it is not easy to die, and the lesson should still be learned.

"Get up! In the future, if you run around and fall, you are not allowed to let others pad your back! If you fall a few times, you will know that it hurts! ”

Zhu Shuren had a straight face, but he didn't say anything about the crepe "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", a two-year-old child who can't read a word can understand a fart, of course, he can only tell him that "I don't know if I fall to know that it hurts" This is the most superficial common sense of survival.

Zhu Ciyu was also afraid of him, so he obediently admitted: "Yes, father." ”

Zhu Shuren's nasolabial folds twitched, and he whispered expressionlessly, "Call uncle." ”

Zhu Ciyu was very puzzled and didn't know how to shout. And this delay, Zhu Yuchan has also rushed over.

She hurriedly whispered: "The child is still too young to twist it, when he first learned to speak, he taught him to call his father and mother in private, and now his brain can't turn around." In the future, when you are sensible, you can change it slowly, this kind of thing is not in a hurry, and no outsiders hear it. ”

A year ago, when Zhu Ciyu was just babbling to call his parents, where would Zhu Yuchan pay attention to the court etiquette and red tape with his son and the heir of the ancestor, of course, he was taught to shout according to his natural blood.

It takes a long time for babies to learn things, and because of their natural nature, it is easier to pronounce sounds like parents and parents, which is the same regardless of race.

Once the initial knowledge has been consolidated, it is very cumbersome to forcibly reverse it. According to modern medicine, it is basically only after the age of three that a complex narrative of this magnitude can be understood.

Zhu Shuren had no choice but to give up for the time being, touched Zhu Ciyu's head, briefly preached, and asked him to play next to him. He mainly came to find Zhu Yuchan today.

"My father has already received countless folds from his ministers, and he will go out of Beijing three days later and lead his troops to supervise Hefei. Azig has Brother Cangshui and Liu Guoneng on his side, and Huaiyang has Li Fuming.

Sitting alone in Hefei, as long as Abatey and Bolo and Yue Le are repulsed, the hearts of the people in Nanjing will be able to regain stability, and it will not take long for the follow-up pursuit, and the generals will naturally be assigned and will not do it themselves. ”

Zhu Shuren casually promised, and he didn't care if he could do it or not, these words were just to reassure his wife, don't think about it.

Zhu Yuchan was really still a little reluctant, her big eyes were watery, she grabbed her husband's arm and shook it: "Do you want to be a pro-conquest again?" When you are all princes, how can you fight and do it yourself? In the past two years, I have seen that the hundreds of officials in the DPRK and China have been quite obedient, but why is it that there is a fuss again when things come to an end. ”

Zhu Shuren said awe-inspiringly: "What's so strange about this? Isn't that what you should do? If you want to talk about being in power, did Jia Rudao have little authority in the Southern Song Dynasty back then? When Kublai Khan returned, he didn't have to supervise the teacher himself.

The power of the country was established by resisting foreign insults, who can protect my Ming Dynasty, who is worthy of enjoying the gratitude of the people of the world and the support of the soldiers. What's more, I just went to Hefei, which was not much more dangerous than the last battle before the truce three years ago. ”

Zhu Yuchan thought for a while, and asked in a low voice: "Then if you win the battle, do you have to lead the troops to pursue in person?" The child is still so young, and you are still willing to stay away. ”

Zhu Shuren: "If the counterattack can take Fengyang City, then it will definitely enter Fengyang City after the war, and at least recover the central capital." In other places, even if we want to fight back, we can't just stay in Hefei because of the Huai River, right? ”

Zhu Yuchan got her husband's assurance, so she was happy and reluctantly agreed.

However, she thought about it and explained a few more questions, nothing more than about diet and daily life, so that even if Zhu Shuren was leading the troops, he didn't have to share weal and woe with the soldiers, after all, they were all princes, and they should still be specialized.

Regarding these clichés, of course, Zhu Shuren also reassured her that she would not deliberately put on a show.

Zhu Yuchan asked again: "Sister Ziling and her husband are also newlyweds, and they have only been through the door for four or five months, so let's think about how to pass her pass this level - if you go to Hefei, won't you still bring a concubine?" If you can bring it, it's good to take it, so you can take care of it, and the concubine won't be jealous. ”

Zhu Shuren was stunned by this question, and then said thoughtfully: "Mrs. said so...... You can take two of them to Hefei, and you can also take care of them. Of course, it will only be brought to Hefei City, not to the barracks.

Lone is not lustful, and he will not decide who to bring with his appearance, so he only takes Ziling and Yujing, after all, they are good at words, and they have also made meritorious contributions to the imperial court, and have made achievements in propaganda and disturbing the hearts of the enemy. If you stay around, you might be able to do some propaganda work.

In the past few years, the government affairs of the DPRK and China have been reformed and renewed, and they have been a lot more enlightened, since the secret brother sent Ziling to the Jiangning Research Institute, and the follow-up ladies and beautiful women have gradually been allowed to participate in these closed-door research and academic exchanges. In the future, there will definitely be more and more female officials who can open up, and it would be good to set an example for the world. ”

Of course, Zhu Shuren also knows how strict and cruel the etiquette and religion of the Ming Dynasty are now, so he didn't expect to take too many steps, although this kind of thing was a female official, although it was there in the early Ming Dynasty, it is also difficult to restore it now.

Therefore, in the past few years, Zhu Shuren only used some transactional female officials in some academic and naturalist research positions and some cultural propaganda positions.

The general principle is not to let women coordinate things and manage others, but only let them do things and ignore people.

The male officials of the Ming Dynasty had a hard time tolerating women commanding them on top of their heads, but if they were asked to command women and women to do specific things, there would be less resistance.

Of course, in the future, if there are more and more women on certain fronts, or if they are mainly women, then you can still choose management posts from among women, and then make sure that their subordinates are also women. If women are in charge of women, there are not so many people who oppose them.

Any reform must start with soft persimmons.

Zhu Yuchan also knew about these recent situations, so she didn't think much about it, and let her husband take Shang Ziling and Bian Yujing to Hefei, so that she could take care of her life.

……

After three days of emergency rectification, Zhu Shuren dispatched 100,000 central troops stationed around Nanjing and in various parts of the south of the Yangtze River to cross the river from Quarshiji to the north to reinforce Hefei.

Of course, there were more than 100,000 troops in the war. The Ming Dynasty had heavy troops stationed on the Huainan Front all year round, and the troops spread out on the entire defense line all added up to 300,000.

There are tens of thousands of people stationed on the front line in Hanzhong and Baoji in Sichuan.

Nearly 100,000 people are stationed in Xiangyang-Nanyang-Xinyang on the middle road all year round.

Hefei and its surroundings on the middle road, including Shou County, Chaohu and other military important places, also live more than 80,000 people.

To the east, Yangzhou and Huai'an also have 60,000 or 70,000.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren pressed the 100,000 strategic reserves in the south of the Yangtze River to the front line of Hefei, and combined with the original 80,000 troops in the Hefei Theater, there could be 180,000 people to deal with Abatai, Yue Le, and Bolo.

If it is not enough, it can continue to draw reinforcements from Huguang and Jiangnan in the rear. At the beginning, when Zhu Shuren was in Huguang and Sichuan, he was able to support 300,000 troops.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has been farming for several years, the imperial army that originally belonged to Nanzhili, as well as the soldiers and horses of Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Fujian have also been reorganized and retrained by Zhu Shuren to make up for the vacant salary shortage, and the total regular army strength he can mobilize has at least doubled, with a total number of no less than 600,000.

This mobilization ratio is quite low, and to a certain extent, it has taken the line of elite troops, and it has also taken into account the speed of follow-up of military production. If it is mobilized like the Qing court in the north, it will not be difficult for Zhu Shuren to mobilize one million cannon fodder.

After all, there are new weapons that can be used, but it is not in line with Zhu Shuren's style to take the tactical route of crowds and get a large number of soldiers to fight with inferior weapons. If there are too many people, it is easy for people to be discouraged, morale is unstable, and they do not suffer from inequality.

Imagine what those soldiers who can't be assigned good weapons would think if the imperial court could produce rifles and produce steel armor forged by water in large quantities, but let more soldiers go to war without rifles and steel armor.