"Damn, Su Dingyuan, how dare he defy my authority?"

On the road leading from Yiyang County to Changsha, Sun Kewang on the march saw a messenger who rushed back with a handful of snot and tears, and the messenger cried to him about the treatment he had received in Xiangtan County, and his words were full of provocation.

But Sun Kewang didn't notice it, his eyes had been blinded by Su Dingyuan's provocative actions, he was so angry that he couldn't wait to kill Xiangtan now to arrest Su Dingyuan and humiliate him in every way.

But his reason stopped him, now was not the best time to fight with Su Yan, he had to kill Changsha City before Su Dingyuan, so that he could take over the empty Changsha City after the Qing army evacuated in time.

Therefore, Sun Kewang buried his anger and dissatisfaction with Su Dingyuan in his heart, and wanted to wait for revenge on him in the future.

Su Dingyuan did not know at this time that he had entered Sun Kewang's must-kill list, and after he occupied Xiangtan County, he did not rush to continue to go north, but sent troops to exterminate the rebel army near the county seat, and quickly stabilized the order in the city, so that the people's lives could be restored to peace.

In addition, he also instructed the nearly 10,000 Qing prisoners of war captured in the army to build a large number of buildings in the city, first to strengthen the fortifications of the city, and then to demolish the ruins of the burned houses in the city and rebuild them on the original site for those homeless people.

Su Dingyuan's actions undoubtedly won the trust of the people in the city in him and the Ming army, and the people praised each other, coupled with the fact that the Ming soldiers were all innocent, and the relationship between the two sides quickly narrowed.

During the period when Su Dingyuan's troops were stationed in Xiangtan County, the situation in Hunan was also changing rapidly.

In southern Hunan, Ke Yongsheng's order to retreat north quickly spread throughout the state capitals, causing great panic among the Qing troops and officials everywhere, who hurriedly packed their belongings and evacuated north in the face of Feng Shuangli's troops of the Qin army, who were storming Yongzhou, and Lai Xun, who had just conquered Chaling Prefecture and was preparing to continue to march towards Hengzhou.

It sounds like an evacuation, but in reality it's more like a near-runaway escape.

Just like in the original history, in 1652, Shen Yongzhong, the Duke of Xushun, fled to Changsha and then to Yuezhou after hearing the bad news of the two famous kings, so that the officials set up by the Qing court in various provinces, prefectures, prefectures, and counties fled in a hurry, and the officials of the prefectures and counties in southern Hunan also took their families and retreated north with the army.

For a time, the entire Shonan was plunged into chaos, and the rampant thieves and bandits in the Shonan region also seized this opportunity to attack the county seat, intending to make a lot of money.

Seeing that the imperial court could not count on it and thieves were rampant, the people everywhere could only organize themselves and form a militia group under the leadership of the respected squires and village elders to defend their hometown and resist the bandits.

The Qing army retreating north did not evacuate to Changsha City satisfactorily, because they were desperate to find that Xiangtan County, which was occupied by the Ming army, was in the way of their northward retreat, and if they wanted to withdraw into Changsha safely, they had to take Xiangtan County first.

Inexplicably, Xiangtan actually became the center of the whirlpool, and became a thorn in the key points of the Qing army.

This is what Su Dingyuan did not expect, and when he found out that the situation was wrong, the large Qing army retreating south had already crossed the Xiangjiang River under the leadership of the general soldier Zhang Guozhu and rushed towards Xiangtan County.

Seeing that the Qing army was coming, the city of Xiangtan County was narrow, which was not conducive to the defense of the army, and the Qing army in southern Hunan had only more than 10,000 troops, so Su Dingyuan decided to take the initiative to go out of the city to face the battle.

In order to prevent the tens of thousands of Qing prisoners of war captured in the city from rising up in the melee and threatening the rear, Su Dingyuan did not come out of the nest, leaving the White Tiger Left Brigade of the headquarters in the county seat, and only led the Qinglong Right Brigade out of the city to meet the battle.

On March 17, Su Dingyuan led his army out of the city to meet the battle, and the Qing general Zhang Guozhu launched a fierce battle, the battle between the two sides lasted only a little more than an hour, and the Qing army was defeated by the superior firepower of the Ming army.

During the battle, the Ming artillery continued to shell the Qing army with solid and flowering shells, and with the dense rifle fire of the Cossack infantry, the Qing army was repulsed in the heavy casualties, although the Qing army charged one after another in the hope of breaking through.

After a great battle, the Qing army was defeated, and the commander-in-chief Zhang Guozhu fled on horseback, abandoning the officials of the provincial capitals and counties in southern Hunan who fled north to the chaos.

Jiangshandu and Xiangtan won two victories in World War II, and they fiercely played Su Dingyuan's prestige (this chapter is not finished!). )

Chapter 252: Hunan Pacification

, so that the Qing army in Hunan couldn't help but tremble in their hearts when they heard Su Dingyuan's name.

In Changsha Mansion, Ke Yongsheng was too sad to hear the bad news of the destruction of the Qing army in southern Hunan, so he hurriedly counted the soldiers and horses, and joined the army of Xu Yong, the general soldier of Changsha, and abandoned the city late at night on the 18th, and fled north.

The northward flight of Ke Yongsheng, the governor of Huguang, also led to the collapse of the will of the Qing army to resist in all parts of Hunan, and Changsha also fell into the hands of Sun Kewang, the king of Qin, who arrived a day later.

After Sun Kewang entered Changsha, he immediately drafted a document in the name of the King of Qin, which was transmitted to all parts of Hunan, and the prefectures and counties immediately passed it on and returned to the control of the Ming court.

Although Luo Jinxiu, the governor of Huguang who was holding Wuchang, resolutely resisted, after Su Yan ordered the city to be stormed, Wuchang City only resisted for less than five days, and its walls were overcome.

After the city was broken, seeing the Ming army entering the city in a big way, Luo Jinxiu jumped into the pond in the backyard of the governor's yamen in despair and committed suicide.

Wuchang fell, and the world shook.

It was already night when the good news reached Anlong, but Emperor Yongli still got up from the bed and read the good news sent by Su Yan word by word, he was overjoyed, and praised the attendants and the queen on the left and right:

"Su Yan is really a pillar of the country, I am the pillar of the Ming Dynasty, there are ministers like this, why should I be worried about the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty?"

Immediately, Yongli ordered people to gather all the courtiers who were still loyal to him in the small court, held a court meeting overnight, and decided to reward Su Yan and his soldiers for their meritorious deeds.

Yongli's actions and the decisions reached by the court did not evade Sun Kewang's ears and eyes, but he was powerless to stop them - after Su Yan conquered Wuchang, he did not make any intention of crossing the river, but sent troops and horses to confront Sun Kewang's Qin army on the border of their respective control areas.

If you go outside, you must first settle inside.

Su Yan naturally understands this truth, if the national thief Sun Kewang is not eliminated one day, he will not dare to worry about the Northern Expedition for a day, so before officially crossing the river and the Northern Expedition, Su Yan must first solve Sun Kewang and integrate the various forces within the Southern Ming Dynasty.

If you want to do something to Sun Kewang, you must have a valid reason, and Emperor Yongli is a good breakthrough.

Therefore, on March 25, the sixth year of Yongli, after stabilizing the situation in the control area, Su Yan openly went to the imperial court, saying that the situation in the southeast had been decided, and all the south of the Yangtze River except Guangxi belonged to the Ming Dynasty, and asked to welcome the emperor and the imperial court to the southern capital.

At the same time as the imperial court, Su Yan also secretly sent a battalion of Rogers commandos who were systematically rewarded to him after the recovery of Jiangxi, and ordered him to change his clothes and infiltrate the area controlled by Sun Kewang.

Chapter 252: Hunan Pacification