Historically, Yang Sichang's "four-square, six-corner, ten-sided net" is actually a good strategic layout.

It's just that the Ming Dynasty at that time was in the midst of internal and external troubles, and it was difficult to implement it thoroughly.

At this time, Yang He was deposed, Yang Sichang's mother also died of illness, and he was worried at home, so it was naturally impossible to have the opportunity to offer this strategy.

So Feng Quan relied on this strategy to re-enter the cabinet.

Chen Qiyu, the "premier of the five provinces", controls most of the border troops.

As the governor of the five provinces, Hong Chengchou shouldered more of the heavy responsibility of suppressing bandits.

However, the combat power of the armies in the inland provinces of the Ming Dynasty is really not strong, and the main force of the thieves is now entrenched in the Fengyang line, and it is possible to go south and attack the south of the Yangtze River at any time.

Therefore, as soon as Hong Chengchou took office, he requested that the 20,000 Yulin battalion originally commanded by Cao Wenzhao be placed under his command as the main force of his southward march this time. The chief soldier He Renlong also commanded the elite of the 20,000 Yulin battalion under the recommendation of Hong Chengchou.

The Denglai area was entrenched by Zheng Zhilong, which made Hong Chengchou also feel very surprised.

However, according to Zuo Liangyu, after the White Lotus Sect's anti-thieves merged with these pirates, they were quite stable for the time being. But the more than 20,000 Yulin battalions in Qingzhou did not dare to be mobilized again.

In case these pirates echo with Fengyang's rogues, then Shandong's net will be completely broken.

On the one hand, Hong Chengchou urgently ordered Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, to increase the number of troops by 50,000 to strengthen the defense of Yangzhou, Huai'an and other places to prevent the rogues from approaching Jiangnan.

On the other hand, he asked Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, to lead 20,000 troops, Liu Zhaoji, the general of Shandong, to send 10,000 troops, and Chen Yongfu, the deputy general of Kaifeng, to lead 10,000 troops, and cooperate with He Renlong's 20,000 main force to go south to recover Fengyang.

At this time, the rebels occupying the Fengyang area had disagreements about their next move.

The reason why they became "rogues" was actually a helpless move, because the land they occupied in the city could not support so many people.

Therefore, they can only solve their supply problems in the short term by constantly raiding new areas.

To put it simply, it is to kill the gentry, the landlord and the rich household, and get a lot of money and grain.

Then use the grain to coerce the people to rebel with them!

However, now the situation has changed a little, and they have occupied the central capital of Fengyang, surrounded by the wealthy Nanzhili.

Not to mention cities like Suzhou, Nanjing, and Yangzhou, even if it is Huai'an Mansion on the edge of Fengyang, its wealth is not comparable to that of poor places like Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan.

The land and grain here can feed hundreds of thousands of horses of the rebel army.

After the seizure of a large amount of money and grain in Fengyang, the number of the rebels almost doubled.

In addition to a large number of local people in Fengyang, many people in Henan also ran over, and in less than a month, the rebel army grew to as many as 300,000 people.

At this time, the mentality of King Gao Yingxiang also changed, he believed that the righteous army could use Fengyang as a base, and then attack Huai'an, Yangzhou and other places in Jiangbei, and even crossed the Yangtze River to occupy Nanjing and Suzhou.

In this way, the economic arteries of the Ming Dynasty were completely cut off by the rebels.

Don't say it's the taxes in Jiangnan, even if the transportation is cut off, the grain in Beijing will be in an emergency.

Fengyang is the place where his Zhu family is prosperous, and it may also become the key to the rise of the rebel army.

However, Zhang Xianzhong strongly objected.

He said: "Although Fengyang is good, the surrounding Huai'an Mansion is also quite rich. But let's just plunder, this is not a suitable base for the rebels. ”

"First of all, our target is the bureaucracy and the landlords, taking away their wealth and food, and they regard our rebels as beasts of prey. You have to rely on these people to run the place, right? Now there are at most a few down-and-out scholars in the rebel army, helping to manage the materials and register the accounts! ”

"Secondly, there is no danger to defend here, I heard that Chongzhen has appointed 'Hong Maniac' as the governor of the five provinces of the Central Plains to suppress bandits, and everyone has seen his methods, even if we guard the rich area, I am afraid there is no chance to wait for the crops to mature."

"And after entering the Huainan area, the water network is dense, and we may not even be able to run away at that time."

"So there must be no nostalgia here, for the rebels, this is actually a Jedi. How great was the Fangla uprising in the Song Dynasty? In the end, it was quickly pacified by the imperial court. ”

Li Zicheng also agreed with Zhang Xianzhong's view.

He said: "What the Eight Kings said is not wrong, although Jiangnan is rich, it is not suitable for our righteous army for the time being, and Fengyang is definitely not a place to stay for a long time. Moreover, Nanzhili is relatively wealthy, and the support of the people here for the rebels is not as high as in other places. ”

"But the strategy of the rebel army must be changed, after all, in the future, we will also overthrow the Ming Dynasty and seize the world, so we must be prepared now. Let's let the military division talk about it. ”

Chong Guangdao saluted Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong, and said: "First of all, the gentry and scholars should be treated differently, and those gentry officials who are rich and unkind are naturally killed. But for some relatively poor scholars, especially those who are poor, we can still fight for it. ”

"These people have a certain amount of knowledge, and the road to the imperial examination is not smooth, so they can be used by our righteous army."

"In addition, I summarized the strategy of the rebel army as 'regardless of the high and low, the land is free of grain'!"

At present, the rebel army still adopts the tactics of "rogue gangsters", and the fields are useless to them, because they cannot take them away, and they rob the land of the gentry and landlords and distribute it to the people, which is a favor.

In this way, more people will rise up and rebel and support the rebels.

Juntian can, the money and grain are naturally in their own hands, where will the people rebel against you without money and food?

To put it bluntly, you just gave them fields for those people who couldn't eat, and they couldn't survive the autumn harvest either, and they had to rebel with themselves.

However, this slogan of 'regardless of the high and low, the land is free of grain' is really good, and it is easy for the common people to understand.

Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong also applauded again and again, and then asked the righteous army to publicize this eight-character slogan.

As for those poor and sour talents, although these people have fame on the surface, they do not have much substantive rights.

These people can indeed be co-opted, Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong also collected a few Xiucai as their "masters", and these people usually help them come up with ideas.

They killed the gentry to rob them of money and food, and these people had no property in their hands, so it didn't matter if they didn't kill them!

Soon, these two recommendations were implemented.

In addition, the target of the rebels' next attack has also been determined, since Fengyang is not in danger to defend, then they will first find a city suitable for holding.

Chuzhou, south of Fengyang, naturally entered their field of vision.

Chuzhou is surrounded by mountains on three sides, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and has been called "Jinling lock and key" since ancient times.

In the decisive battle with the officers and troops led by Hong Chengchou in Fengyang, Gao Yingxiang and others were not sure.

But if it is replaced by Chuzhou, it is different.

Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong agreed that if they could take Chuzhou, the righteous army would be able to compete with the officers and troops of the "Hong Maniac" here.

After all, according to intelligence, the officers and troops of several provinces in the Central Plains commanded by Hong Chengchou this time only add up to 60,000 people.

Even if you count the soldiers and horses of Nanzhili, the official army is more than 100,000.

Now there are 300,000 people in the rebel army, and if they are still the same as before, they are driven away by tens of thousands of officers and soldiers, it is really too aggrieved.

300,000 against 60,000, no matter how you say "the advantage is mine"!

Zhang Xianzhong said to Li Zicheng: "Isn't there still a team of men and horses equipped with sophisticated firearms under General Chuang, whether they can stop the official army this time, it all depends on them!" ”

Li Zicheng said: "These things were originally brought by those Jin merchants, and it is said that they came from Liaodong. These things are good, but unfortunately the gunpowder and guns are different from those used by the officers and soldiers, so I hit a little less. ”

"If this thing runs out of ammo, it's better to use a burning stick!"

Then he looked at the light path helplessly, and said, "Seed Army, can you try to replenish these ammunition?" ”

Chong Guangdao said: "This matter is already clear, do you know Zheng Zhilong?" ”

The Haikou led by Zheng Zhilong directly occupied the second mansion of Denglai, who doesn't know!

To be honest, they were able to easily occupy Fengyang this time, thanks to Zheng Zhilong, who dragged Zuo Liangyu's tens of thousands of horses in Qingzhou.

Li Zicheng said: "Zheng Zhilong has nothing to do with us, is he willing to help us?" ”

Chongguang Dao said: "This Zheng Zhilong is said to have a monopoly on sea trade, rich in flowing oil, and all his subordinates use Westerners' warships, artillery and guns, and even the officers and soldiers are not their opponents. ”

"I have sent someone to contact them, Zheng Zhilong has captured a large number of weapons and equipment from the official army after occupying Denglai, and he is willing to sell them to us. In addition, he has ammunition from the Rumis Gun to replenish! ”

Zhang Xianzhong said: "Haikou and the Righteous Army are originally a family, and everyone should support each other when they are against the old Zhu family." We got a lot of silver this time to win Fengyang, and it would be good if we could exchange it for some equipment. ”

Li Xianzhong has been funding this group of rogues at a loss for a long time, so naturally he has to find an opportunity to return his blood.

By the way, before Hong Chengchou's army reaches Fengyang, he will arm the rogues again.

Although Denglai is not far from Fengyang, the two sides do not border.

In order to go to the beach to complete this transaction. Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng led 100,000 righteous soldiers to attack Huai'an Mansion in two ways.

Li Zicheng set out from the north of the Huai River, conquered Suining, Suqian, and Shuyang all the way, and finally occupied Haizhou.

At this time, the Zheng family's fleet had been waiting for a long time, and finally the righteous army exchanged 500,000 taels of silver for the cotton clothes and armor of more than 20,000 officers and soldiers captured by Zheng Zhilong, as well as knives, guns, and birds.

And, of course, the gunpowder and bullets of the Lumi gun that he had in mind.

Zheng Zhilong gave him another 500 strokes of the new Lu Mi Gun.

In addition, there are a number of tiger squat guns, light Franc machine guns and shells with 100,000 stone of rice.

The rebels are now 300,000 people, and these 100,000 stone grains look like a lot, even if they are used with wild vegetables and miscellaneous grains, it is enough for them to eat for more than half a month.

In the end, Zhang Xianzhong set out from Xuyi, south of Huai'an, and swept the Baoying and Gaoyou areas under the Yangzhou Mansion to replenish supplies for the righteous army.

Although the Ming army had strengthened its garrison before, there were 12,000 officers and soldiers in Huai'an Fucheng.

However, at this time, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong attacked Huai'an Mansion in the north and south.

They can only retreat in the city, where dare to go out of the city to fight in the field with the rebel army?

This is also the established policy of the rebels, on the one hand, they are to complete the deal with Zheng Zhilong to replenish supplies.

In addition, they attacked Huai'an Mansion and Yangzhou Mansion with great fanfare, making a posture of attacking Jiangnan, which just paralyzed the Ming army.

Hong Chengchou's 60,000 troops were scattered everywhere, among which the main force of the 20,000 Yulin battalion under the command of He Renlong was scattered in Shanxi, Shaanxi and the west of Henan, which was the farthest away from Fengyang.

Although Liu Zhaoji's men and horses were close to Fengyang and Huai'an, he did not dare to go deep alone before the main force arrived.

After all, he had been ambushed by Haikou once before when he rescued Dengzhou, so this time he naturally learned to be smart.

Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, personally led the army to Yangzhou, and ordered the general Yu Wenzhou and other generals to lead an army of 20,000 troops to support Huai'an.

A few days later, Hong Chengchou received news that Liukou was attacking Huai'an and Yangzhou.

Originally, he ordered several large armies to meet in Guide Mansion in Henan.

Now the men and horses from other provinces have arrived one after another, only the main force led by He Renlong has just passed Kaifeng, and it will take a day to arrive.

However, at this time, Jiangnan was in danger, and he did not dare to slack off, while ordering He Renlong's men and horses to hurry back to the division.

On the one hand, he led 40,000 troops of the alliance of the three provinces to Suzhou to threaten the main force of the thieves in Fengyang, so that they did not dare to go south with all their might.

At this time, the main force of the rebel army had already assembled around Dingyuan, the southernmost part of Fengyang Mansion.

The main force of the Ming army of Nanzhili had already been attracted to the Huai'an area, and Hong Chengchou's vanguard had just arrived in Suzhou, and they had enough time to take Chuzhou.

After all, no one could have imagined that the righteous army would leave the rich Huai'an and Yangzhou alone to attack a remote and not wealthy Chuzhou.

On 13 February, Zhang Xianzhong led 50,000 rebels from Dingyuan to the south, captured the Dagunling in Chuzhou, and approached the Qingliu Pass in the northwest of Chuzhou.

At the same time, Li Zicheng led 100,000 rebels back to the east and took Lai'an County in the northeast of Chuzhou.

The Ming army did not expect that the righteous army would go south to Chuzhou, and Lai'an County was soon conquered by Li Zicheng.

However, the Ming army on the Qingliu Pass relied on the dangerous terrain to block Zhang Zizhong's 50,000 horses outside the pass.

Qingliu Pass, located in the middle section of Guanshan 25 miles away from the western suburbs of Chuzhou City, has been an important pass since ancient times.

It is located at the key point, looking at the Yangtze River in the south and controlling the Jianghuai River in the north, the terrain is dangerous, the mountains are high and the valleys are deep, it is the only place to enter and exit Nanjing in the north, and is known as the "key to Jinling".

Although the rebels were a sneak attack, the defenders were only a thousand men.

But in the face of this kind of dangerous pass of "one husband is the key, ten thousand people are not open", Zhang Xianzhong, who has always been scheming, is helpless.

After leaving thousands of corpses in front of Qingliu Pass, he had no choice but to withdraw his troops and find another way out.

Although Zhang Xianzhong has never read a book, he has loved to listen to the stories of those founding emperors since he was a child.

He knew that when Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, was still a general of the Later Zhou Dynasty, he also suffered defeat under the Qingliu Pass, but in the end, Zhao Kuangyin bypassed the Qingliu Pass and used only 5,000 men and horses to break the 100,000 army of the famous Southern Tang Dynasty general Huang Fuhui and occupy Chuzhou City.

In this battle of Chuzhou, Zhao Kuangyin was almost a god in the first battle.

Now the Huangfu Mountain in the southwest of Qingliu Pass was named because Huangfu Hui stationed troops here.

So he concluded that there must be a path there to bypass the Qingliu Pass.

Sure enough, under the guidance of the local hunters, the rebels found the path that is said to have been walked by Zhao Kuangyin back then.

When the rebels suddenly appeared behind the Qingliu Pass, the defenders on the pass finally gave up resistance.

Zhang Xianzhong knew the importance of Qingliu Pass, which was not only the key to Jinling, but also the retreat of 300,000 righteous troops.

And it can also block the Ming army in the direction of Luzhou.

So he left 10,000 horses, including the elite old battalion, here.

Zhang Xianzhong was delayed in Qingliu Pass for two days, and he thought that Li Zicheng might have already taken Chuzhou.

Unexpectedly, the rebels under the city suffered many casualties.

It turned out that after Liu Taigong of Zhizhou learned that the righteous army was going south, he immediately transferred the people from the surrounding counties to Chuzhou City.

And Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, took advantage of the loophole that the rebels did not block the waterway, and sent thousands of men and horses stationed in Yingtianfu into Chuzhou City in time.

At this time, the Chuzhou faced by the rebels was not an empty city, but a fortified city with nearly 20,000 defenders.

However, at this time, almost all the main forces of the rebel army had come to the vicinity of Chuzhou.

More than 200,000 rebels from seven battalions, including Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, Liu Guoneng, and Shake the Earth, gathered outside Chuzhou City.

Hundreds of thousands of righteous troops "camp around the mountains", company camps "more than 100 miles", the momentum is terrifying, and the ambition is bound to win, and they want to take Chuzhou, a strategic town known as "the key to Jinling and the barrier of Jianghuai" in one fell swoop.

With Gao Yingxiang's order, countless rebels rushed towards Chuzhou City with shields and ladders.

But they didn't expect that Chuzhou City was actually equipped with a large number of Hongyi cannons, as well as Franc machine artillery and tiger squatting cannons.

The officers and soldiers in the city fired thousands of cannons, and the rebels besieging the city fell in waves.

Although Li Zicheng dispatched a firearms battalion equipped with Lu Mi Gong, he once suppressed the officers and troops in the city.

However, the artillery crews of the officers and soldiers were well-trained, and they quickly adjusted their gun positions and directly shelled the firearms battalion of the rebels, causing heavy losses to the firearms battalion.

Although the rebels also attacked Chuzhou City for a time, the defenders resisted desperately, making the rebels helpless.

In front of Chuzhou City, there is a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Over the course of two days, more than 10,000 of the besieging rebels had been killed, forcing them to temporarily halt their attack.

In the unfavorable situation of not being able to conquer the attack for a long time and losing troops and losing generals, Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong adopted the idea of a warlock, that is, to use filthy things to face the cannon, to control the yang with yin, and to suppress the good with evil, so that the cannon on the head of the city would not be able to fire.

They ordered dozens of women who had been taken captive from the barracks to be dragged to the bottom of the city, killed one by one, and buried under the city, exposing only the cannons facing the city, hoping to suppress the flowering cannons in the city.

Although Li Zicheng tried his best to stop it, Gao Yingxiang, who had already killed the red-eyed man, had lost his mind and ignored Li Zicheng at all.

There is no shortage of "masters" in the Ming army in the city who are proficient in these, and Li Juesi, the secretary of the Taifu Temple, asked people to take hundreds of latrines to remove the shortcomings of filth.

At that time, there was no toilet paper, and tens of thousands of toilets of ordinary people relied on this shortcoming to clean up the dirt left in the "chrysanthemum".

Li Juesi used this kind of filthy shortcoming to suppress the filthy and unclean things of the rebels.

This is the so-called "method of disgust" in ancient witchcraft!

I don't know if this spell worked, anyway, the cannons in the city didn't stop roaring except for the normal cooldown.

However, the ammunition in the city was getting scarce, and the defenders had to reduce the frequency of fire.

Zhizhou Liu Taigong also wondered, when Lu Shangshu wanted to hold on to Chuzhou by himself, he said that if he held on for three to five days at most, the army led by Governor Hong would come to relieve the siege of Chuzhou.

But now 11 days have passed.

At least 30,000 or 40,000 thieves were killed in the city, and less than 6,000 of the 20,000 Ming troops in the city remained.

It stands to reason that Governor Hong's reinforcements should have crawled over even if they were climbing, why didn't they come to reinforcements yet?

Of course, Hong Chengchou was not idle, as early as six days ago, he led his army to recover the central capital Fengyang.

Of course, Hong Chengchou is not an idle person, he only has a small group of rogues on the way, and now Fengyang is an empty city, he quickly judged that the rogues will make a big move next.

So he ordered He Renlong to hurry south to support Yangzhou.

Even he didn't expect that Liukou's target would be Chuzhou.

But he soon reacted, it seems that this group of rogues wants to use this place to fight a decisive battle with him after occupying Chuzhou.

Since the rogue wants to fight a decisive battle, then he will accompany him to the end.

After all, that's exactly what he expects to see.

After Hong Chengchou sent Chongzhen a good news of recovering the central capital of Fengyang, he began to mobilize troops from all walks of life to encircle and suppress the 300,000 rebels near Chuzhou.

He first let the Ming army in Luzhou advance eastward to prevent the thieves from escaping westward, and then ordered the Ming army in the south of Chuzhou and the state to strictly block the line of the Yangtze River.

After that, he ordered Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, to lead an army of 20,000 troops to garrison Dingyuan to prevent the rogues from running back to Fengyang Mansion.

Then he ordered Liu Zhaoji, the general soldier of Shandong, to lead an army of 10,000 to quietly occupy Baita Town in the northeast of Chuzhou, blocking the escape route of the Liukou in the direction of Huai'an.

He himself took the 30,000 main forces of He Renlong and Chen Yongfu to the Lai'an River, which was only 80 miles away from Chuzhou City.

Lu Weiqi also led 20,000 people to Lu'an, east of Chuzhou.

Hong Chengchou has quietly laid a net for the rebels.

At this time, Lu Weiqi, the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department, said in Hong Chengchou's big tent: "The army has been arranged in place three days ago, why didn't Governor Hong send troops to relieve the siege of Chuzhou?" ”

"You must know that Chuzhou City is already in danger!"

Hong Chengchou said with a smile: "We have indeed deployed 100,000 troops around the hundred miles of Chuzhou, but there are 300,000 thieves there. If Hong sent troops at this time, Lu Shangshu felt that with the 10,000 or 20,000 people on each of our roads, would we be able to wipe out all the thieves and prevent them from breaking through? ”

Lu Weiqi knew that although they surrounded Chuzhou, in order not to startle the snake, their encirclement was hundreds of miles large.

With this little force, it is impossible to stop the thieves, let alone annihilate them all!

"It's simply not possible," he said. ”

Hong Chengchou said: "No, it is completely possible. As long as the rogues conquered Chuzhou City, then they would definitely slaughter and rob Chuzhou in order to vent their anger, and almost all the thieves were around Chuzhou City. The Governor will send troops at this time, and when he can annihilate the thieves in one fell swoop, he will completely solve these scourges! ”

Lu Weiqi looked at Hong Chengchou incredulously and said, "Governor Hong, you are not saving you when you see death, and you are using the 20,000 officials and troops of the Ming Dynasty and the people of Chuzhou as bait?" ”

"You're risking the world's condemnation, and that's too vicious. This soldier wants to join you! ”

Hong Chengchou sneered and said, "If these thieves are allowed to escape, then how many people will be killed and injured here?" ”

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(End of chapter)