stubborn thief

Chapter 648 The Unlucky Prince

Since the Wanli period, the world has gradually slid into the abyss.

Human life is worthless, which is the main theme of this era.

To date, Liu Chengzong is the only one in the north who is qualified and capable of taking human lives seriously.

Zhang Yichuan does not have Liu Chengzong's ability, but the Sweeping King has his own ideals, and he is saving people in his own way.

Henan is located in the Central Plains, with endless plains, but in the western Henan region, which is transitioning from the Loess Plateau to the North China Plain, the terrain is still dominated by mountains and hills.

There is an old saying here that there are five mountains, four hills and one river.

There is no flat land.

Deserters and deserters infected with the plague, and starving exiled peasants pushed wheelbarrows and wandered around the mountain trails, spreading the plague to every place they passed because no one would take them in.

The forts and strongholds scattered all over Henan were not just for defense against invaders.

The origin of the fort was the two major floods that Henan Province experienced in the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen.

Those who survived the flood rebuilt their homes on the highlands, just as the peasant army that had invaded the North China Plain was driven back to Shaanxi and passed through Henan.

People built high walls around their villages, took up arms to protect themselves, and in the lean seasons, followed the strongest men in the village to protect their families and food in the hope of surviving the tough years.

However, the situation became more and more difficult every year. As the flood ended, the external environment deteriorated sharply, with plagues and bandits everywhere. The temporary fortresses that were built for self-protection by clans and neighbors gradually became standing armies for self-governance in the mountains and wilderness.

Then, it was divided into the distinct forts of gentry and powerful people.

But no matter what kind of village it is, no outsiders will be accepted.

No matter who they are, whether it is starving people, bandits, vagrants, rebel troops or government troops, if they want to enter the fort, the only way is to capture it.

Because in this era, people from Henan are not as lucky as people from Shaanxi.

Being the birthplace of the drought, it is hard to say that people in Shaanxi are lucky.

The severity of floods is no less than that of droughts, and may even be slightly worse than them.

Because the threat posed by large-scale drought is both profound and chronic, it takes time, a very long time, for beautiful mountains and clear water to turn into barren hills.

Drought is like a blunt knife, stabbing the warm and caring society built by humans in peacetime until it completely collapses.

When the tender skin and tenderness fade away, only a cruel skeleton of the law of the jungle remains.

Shaanxi society was forced to downgrade, and people were like pets turning back into wild beasts.

Gentleness, courtesy, frugality and modesty, those qualities that were acquired when one was a pet are no longer needed.

Fierce, cunning, cruel, the wildness hidden in the bones emerges to help people survive.

Re-establish order.

The damage caused by floods is instantaneous and short-term.

The weather changed suddenly, torrential rain poured down, floods spread, mountains and gorges collapsed, strong winds uprooted trees, sudden rains destroyed seedlings, roof tiles flew off, and houses were washed away and villages were submerged.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself in a swamp with nothing.

People don't need to be like wild animals, because wild animals will also die in floods. It all depends on luck, depending on whether people are in high ground or low ground when the flood breaks out.

If you stand low, even if you have unparalleled bravery, extraordinary wisdom, and leadership that rivals that of a god, you will still die.

A short-lived plague followed.

After a severe drought there will be a locust plague, and after a severe flood there will be a plague.

The former is because locusts lay eggs in saline-alkali land, drought aggravates land salinization, and humans no longer take care of dry land, so locusts get an excellent living environment.

The latter is because after the flood, the surviving insects, scales, hairs, feathers, and insects all ran to the high ground and came into contact with each other; the dead things floated on the water, gathered into hills, and rotted and exploded.

Therefore, plague has become a very common occurrence in Henan in recent years.

Whether the fortress was built by bad or good people, there was a consensus among them: outsiders might spread the plague, or they might be spies of the government army or bandits.

In short, the safest way is to stop them outside the fortress, and if they try to break in, shoot them to death with muskets or bows and arrows.

But Zhang Yichuan could take them in.

Others are afraid of bandits and government troops... Zhang Yichuan is not afraid.

He could see bandits and government troops just by peeing in the mirror.

Zhang Yichuan is one of the most powerful bandit leaders in Shaanxi. Now he has been appointed as the commander-in-chief of Henan Province by the Grand Marshal's Office. Among those things that others are afraid of, he is the scariest one.

The only thing that could make him fearful was the invisible and intangible plague.

This thing is indeed scary, but for Zhang Yichuan, who has been on the move for many years, he is only a little afraid of it.

Because it cannot be seen, touched, killed, defended or avoided, you can only go ahead with it.

Passing through the plague-ridden area is a process he must go through.

In the process, thanks to the organizational form of the peasant army that the Five Battalions of Henan were accustomed to, he was able to gather and coerce as many defeated soldiers, refugees, bandits, robbers and even the elderly, the weak, women and children as possible, and quickly organize them into a new bandit force based on their clan, occupation, region and other characteristics for coordinated operations.

The organization of the peasant army was also very tight. Zhang Yichuan, as the leader, had the Five Battalions of Henan as his main force, and then he recruited and organized twenty or thirty battalions.

In addition to his own battalion, each lieutenant general was in charge of several battalions with a minimum of 200 to 300 people and a maximum of 500 to 600 people. He would send a dozen veteran bandits from his own battalion as the captains, recruit strong men, and give them bows, horses, swords and spears to form the backbone of each battalion.

The brigade was divided into seven or eight small teams to coerce all kinds of people they met. All orders were given by the captain, and all the captains obeyed the lieutenant general, and the five lieutenant generals obeyed Zhang Yichuan.

Therefore, this kind of command will not run into the bottleneck of command ability like Liu Chengzong's command of tens of thousands of troops.

Because Zhang Yichuan didn't have to take care of so many things, he didn't need to manage the garrison or the military supplies because they had enough logistics personnel.

No one wanted to stop, as stopping meant death, so they had no choice but to follow the team and cross mountains and rivers in western Henan.

Each level of the team only knows the exact location of the superior team. They send someone to report once in the morning and evening every day. They move when they are told to move and stop when they are told to stop.

When they were moving, they just marched. When they stopped, each brigade and even each squad took care of its own business, setting up camp anywhere, and those who needed to collect horse grass collected grass, and those who needed to collect food collected food.

The infected people were organized into small teams under each team. If they could keep up, they would find a way to survive. If they couldn't, they would fall behind, lose members, and lie on the ground waiting to die.

In a short while, under the command of the lieutenant general of the Fifth Battalion, dozens of brigades were deployed all over the mountains and plains, covering an area of ​​dozens of miles in radius. The entire team expanded like a snowball, whizzing through suburban villages and mountain forts.

Wherever they passed, there were beacons everywhere, like a mobile fortress with four legs, they captured the fortresses that had once kept them out, killed and looted the rich, and took the poor with them, and then rushed to the next county town. They would capture any city they could.

If you cannot capture the city, then stop briefly, retreat when necessary, and keep moving forward.

A major characteristic of the peasant army's organizational form is that it must be mobile.

When there are few people, you have to walk. It is unsafe to stop anywhere. When there are many people, you have to walk even more. If you stop, people's hearts will be scattered.

If they fail to capture a city, they have to move on, as there is no food to eat if they stop; if they succeed in capturing a city, they have to move on even more, as there is not enough food in one place for them to eat.

Of course, Zhang Yichuan was not idle on the way. He frantically read the Grand Marshal's "Book on Famine Relief and Epidemic Control" and ordered the army to attack forts and cities along the way, focusing on searching for doctors and medicinal materials. He left the peasant army infected with the plague in the captured forts, leaving doctors and medicines to teach them how to save themselves.

As for attacking Luoyang, it was because Prince Fu's reputation as a wealthy man had long been known throughout the country. Zhang Yichuan expected that the Fu clan would arouse the envy of heaven and the resentment of the people, so it should be easy to attack.

Zhang Yichuan's troops first attacked Yongning County in Henan Prefecture, trying to raise military supplies for the attack on Luoyang City and establish a stable rear-line food route so that they could seek talent support from Liu Chengzong in Shaanxi after the plague was over.

In Yongning City there lived a retired gentry named Zhang Lun, who was particularly knowledgeable about military affairs.

He served as the governor of Sichuan from the first to the fourth year of the Tianqi reign. During this period, the She'an Rebellion broke out, and he defended the Chengdu city with the governor's battalion. In the second year of the Chongzhen reign, he served as the governor of Sichuan, and was awarded the hereditary title of commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard for his meritorious service in suppressing the rebellion.

He built several fortresses outside the city and housed a group of old soldiers from Bashu who were wounded and disabled in battle. When he first heard the news of the enemy's arrival outside the city, he took the old soldiers into the city.

At the same time, he discussed war and defense with the magistrate Wu Dalie and the officer Ma Youyi. He also donated his family property to recruit soldiers to defend the city.

So even though there is a Wan'an Palace in this small town, the palace just does not contribute money or effort, and has not had any counter-effect.

In fact, among the princes of the Ming Dynasty, the most virtuous one is naturally Su Fan, who does not do bad things in the local area, dares to contribute money and manpower when encountering problems, and does some good deeds in normal times.

But that is something you can only encounter by chance.

Normal princes are like the Prince of Qin, the Prince of Han, the Prince of Fu, and the Prince of Lu. There are a lot of treacherous people in the palace. They are stupid and don't manage the affairs, and the ones who manage the affairs are also inhuman. They don't take responsibility when encountering big events, and they don't contribute money or effort. Basically, they are the same whether there is such a palace in the city or not.

No positive effect.

The lowest-ranking prince is the current King of Tang, Zhu Youjian.

Although the Tang vassal states were the most active in donating silver to the imperial court, often donating as much as three thousand taels, they could not match Zhu Youjian, who was almost a vassal king version of Chongzhen, who was both selfish and dogmatic.

Ai Yuchu, the magistrate of Neixiang County, had made great contributions in defending the city when the bandits invaded. However, because he did not pay his respects in the morning and evening, he was impeached according to the ancestral rules and thrown into prison.

There is also Chen Zhenhao, the prefect of Nanyang Prefecture.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, the King of Tang gave the prefect a thousand taels of silver to repair the city wall.

Chen Zhenhao was very dissatisfied with this matter and believed that it was not the duty of the vassal king, so he did not send out corvée labor to provide support.

When bandits came in the sixth year of Chongzhen, Chen Zhenhao transferred the Tang Mansion's ceremonial guards to the Nanyang city wall to guard the parapet. After the war, he was sued by the King of Tang, saying that he had taken the ceremonial guards to guard the city wall without authorization.

Now the Nanyang prefect Chen Zhenhao is lying in the Ministry of Justice’s prison.

The princes interfered in state affairs, resulting in the punishment of local officials. Since Chongzhen, only Prince Tang did this, which shocked the court and the public.

Among the many ingenious impeachments of the King of Tang, the only one who survived was Lu Xiangsheng.

When Lu Xiangsheng led his troops to suppress a rebellion and passed through Nanyang Prefecture, he did not enter the city to pay homage. The King of Tang complained to him, accusing him of failing to behave like a subject.

By this time Chongzhen had realized that the Prince of Tang had been locked up in the Flattery Department and had become stupid.

He was imprisoned by his grandfather in the Flattery Department for sixteen years. His understanding of all the rules in the world did not come from real life, but from the management methods of royal family in the laws of the Ming Dynasty.

So much so that after he inherited the throne, all his actions to seek a sense of presence had a truly counterproductive effect on the local people.

  He had gotten rid of all the local officials, and he himself could not take over the work as a vassal king. When war broke out, he could only complain. What else could he do?

So in fact, the best place to attack in the whole Henan Province right now is not Henan Prefecture where Prince Fu is located, but Nanyang Prefecture where Prince Tang is located.

While Zhang Yichuan was attacking Yongning County, the government in Luoyang, the capital of Henan Province, had already taken action.

The governor Chen Biqian, Prince Fufan, the councillor, the lieutenant general and other officials stationed here jointly issued a notice to the entire prefecture, ordering all counties to defend themselves strictly, requesting reinforcements from the court, and asking Kaifeng to be prepared.

At the same time, wealthy families outside Luoyang County and even Henan Prefecture, as well as refugees, fortress forces and local armed forces, poured into Luoyang City in the tens of thousands, and the temples and Taoist temples in the city were filled with refugees.

The government and merchants began to set up porridge stalls in the city to distribute porridge, issued number plates to refugees and civilians in the city, and arranged for trained soldiers to patrol the city to guard against petty theft and robbery and maintain public order.

The yamen runners escorted hundreds of prisoners to pull stones from the Luo River beach outside the city and transport them to the city wall, and guns, cannons and ammunition were also transported to the city walls.

Zhang Yichuan received the news on the fourth day of the siege of Yongning and sent a small team disguised as refugees to sneak into Luoyang.

But the window period for Luoyang City to open its gates had passed, and only a few of the spies he sent managed to sneak in before Luoyang City closed its four gates.

A notice was also posted, requiring all men and women between the ages of 15 and 50 in the city to participate in defending the city. Men were to climb the city walls, and women were to cook. Those who refused would be executed on the spot.

Afterwards, Luoyang City completed its defensive deployment. The men conducted defense drills on the city walls, while the women set up sheds, built stoves, ground flour and picked vegetables on the streets.

On the seventh day of the siege of Yongning, Zhang Yichuan also saw a turning point.

For the past seven days, he had been fighting according to an orderly plan, with his small battalions taking turns to attack the city every day, with his own troops also attacking in between. Even at night, he would bombard the city with artillery and disturb it from time to time, hoping not to give the defenders a chance to rotate and make corrections, leaving them without food in the morning and sleep at night.

But the defenders of Yongning County were also extremely tenacious. After all, Henan was not like Shaanxi, which was extremely short of food. The government opened the granaries and the defenders were well fed. It was actually easier to use elite troops to defend a small city than a big one.

However, no one expected that Zhang Lun, who was in charge of defending the city, contracted the plague on the way from the village outside the city to the city. He was too exhausted from defending the city and died of illness at this critical juncture.

As soon as he died, the defensive will of the defenders in the city immediately wavered.

Zhang Yichuan outside the city also noticed this change, and immediately stopped the attack. He sent people outside the city to call for surrender for half a day.

The purpose of persuading people to surrender is not to make them surrender, but to intensify their will and make the defenders relax.

On the evening of the eighth day, Ma Youyi, an officer in the city, abandoned the city and fled, but was captured by Ke Tianhu's troops who were surrounding the city.

Zhang Yichuan immediately ordered a general attack on the east and west sides. A team of newly recruited peasant soldiers from Henan attacked the west city wall. Chaos ensued in the city. People rushed to flee to the Luo River from the south of the city, and Yongning City soon fell.

On the ninth day, Yongning fell. The news that Prince Wan'an was killed first reached Yiyang. Groups of Yiyang people fled to Luoyang. Zhang Yichuan's army followed them and arrived in Luoyang in the evening. They set up camp outside the city. The sounds of people shouting and horses neighing stretched for more than ten miles.

Luoyang was shaken for a moment, and the defenders on the city became more nervous.

Even the Crown Prince of Fu, Prince Dechang Zhu Yousong, sent the royal captain to the city to buy large quantities of wine, livestock, cloth, clothing and other items in preparation for rewarding the troops during war.

Outside the city, bonfires were lit up in the numerous tents that stretched to the ground, lighting the night sky blood red.

good evening!