1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 544 Stalemate ([-])

On June 1645, 6, Duoduo, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army, led an army to gather by the river, and ordered Li Chengdong, Li Benshen and others to descend to collect ships along the river and prepare to cross the Yangtze River by force.

On June 6, more than a hundred ships of the Qing army forced their way across the river in the dark. They were alarmed by the Zhenjiang Navy and the Qi State Navy, so they rammed large ships back and forth across the river and bombarded them with artillery.Most of the ships of the Qing army were destroyed, more than a thousand soldiers were drowned, and the remaining ships fled back to Jiangbei in embarrassment.

On July 7, the Qing army once again gathered large and small ships and hundreds of wooden rafts, and along the river for more than ten miles, the Fen Road crossed the Yangtze River again. The small boats of the Qing army caused many casualties to the Qing army, and more than half of the ships and rafts were destroyed.Although part of the Qing army crossed the river, they were besieged several times by the Ming army on the south bank, and all of them were wiped out.

The Qing army was ashamed, and in the evening of the same day, thousands of Yangzhou people were taken to the riverside, and they were tortured to death in the face of the Ming army navy in the middle of the river.

Angrily, more than a dozen gunboats arrived at the northern bank of the near river and bombarded the Qing army's formation fiercely, causing the enemy to be defeated for several miles, and no one dared to gather on the river again.

On July 7th, Jiangren and Duoduo offered a plan based on the plan of Han Xin, Marquis of Huaiyin in the early Han Dynasty, who attacked Wei. "Attack Anyi", that is to say, it is recommended that Duoduo use the strategy of attacking the west from the east. In the open, he will use Guazhou to cross the Yangtze River. In the dark, he will send another large army to cross the river from Qiligang in the upper reaches.

Duoduo was overjoyed, so he ordered everyone in the army to carry two cases and ten sticks of fire. If he violated the law, he would be flogged with forty sticks.

In the middle of the night on July 7th, the northwest wind was smooth, and the Qing army was plundering countless folk platforms and brooms. all day.

The gunboats of the Qi Zheng coalition army mistook the Qing army to regroup the army to cross the Yangtze River at night, and immediately bombarded the fire table in the river.

The ships of the State of Qi came from afar, and there were not many shells in reserve. In order to save ammunition, they used their own powerful hulls to forcibly ram the ships of the Qing army.However, when the boats approached the flames, they suddenly discovered that the countless boats lit up with flames were fire-burning brooms tied to the legs of the table, and it was a trick.

After sending out a liaison ship to inform Zheng Hongkui's department, the ships of the State of Qi scattered more than [-] large and small ships across the river to guard against the Qing army's smuggling elsewhere.

In the middle of the night (from 03:05 am to [-]:[-] am Beijing time), the battleship "Yangwei" of the State of Qi found many Qing army boats smuggling across the Yangtze River in Qili Harbor, and opened fire.

After the smuggling of the Qing army was discovered, dozens of small boats swarmed and besieged the "Yangwei" to cover other ships and quickly landed on the south bank.

Faced with many small boats gathering on the side of the ship, the "Yangwei" ignored it and just kept bombarding the densely packed Qing army ships in the river with artillery. Countless feathered arrows, throwing axes, iron forks and torches were thrown on the ship. Officers and sailors were hit.The seriously injured were immediately dragged into the cabin, while the lightly injured continued to control the sails and the rudder while avoiding various flying weapons.For a while, the "Yangwei" fell into a hard fight.

As the navigator, Luo Shoushao became one of the few mobile personnel on the ship at this time. Holding a long knife, he struggled to cut off a lock hook that had just been put on the side of the ship, and then he heard Jiang There was a "plop" sound, and it was obvious that the Qing army climbing on the rope fell into the water.

"Ah!" Suddenly a lock hook was thrown up and hit his face, the sharp grapple cut a bloody gash on his face.

Luo Shoushao held back the pain, quickly grabbed the shackle, and threw it out vigorously.

"Sir, are you injured?" Seeing that Luo Shoushao's face was covered with blood, a sailor couldn't help helping him with concern.

"It's not a problem, it's just that my face is stained." Luo Shoushao waved his hand and wiped his face with his left hand, but the blood was smeared all over his face, looking a little hideous. Slave come up!"

"Yes, sir!" The sailor gave Luo Shoushao an admiring look, then turned and ran towards the other side of the ship.

The first to come to support were several galleys of about [-] tons. After quickly approaching the Qing army fleet, several small cannons continuously fired grape bullets at the Qing army, sweeping away the people on the opposing small boats.

When a large number of Zhenjiang navy fleets arrived, the Qing army's smuggling ships felt that they could not cross the river smoothly, and then they all returned to Jiangbei one after another with the help of the current.

That night, the naval warships of the Qi Zheng coalition forces once again thwarted the Qing army's smuggling attempt, destroying a large number of ships and rafts in the river, killing and wounding more than a thousand Qing troops.However, the battleship "Yangwei" of the State of Qi suffered serious losses. The Qing army threw torches on the ship and set it alight. , Slowly drifting towards the Zhenjiang naval camp for repairs.

The Qing army forcibly crossed the Yangtze River several times in a row, all failed, and lost thousands of troops during the period, but this would not make Duduo feel too much distressed, it was nothing more than some surrendered troops.But what made Duduo uncomfortable was that the ships near Yangzhou were almost exhausted, and he was unable to launch a large-scale forced crossing operation at all.

Because of the blocking of the Ming army navy, the Qing army going south was temporarily blocked on the north bank of the Yangtze River in Yangzhou, forming a stalemate with the Ming army.
-
In mid-May, Li Zicheng personally commanded an army of 5 and the prefectures and counties of the four prefectures of Xiangyang, Chengtian, Jingzhou, and De'an in Huguang originally set up 13 defenders.Azig of the Qing army led the land and water armies to follow.

In June, the Qing army pursued the Shun army in Dengzhou, Chengtianfu, De'anfu, Wuchang, Fuchikou (now in Yangxin, Hubei), Sangjiakou, Jiujiang and other places. All thirteen battles were victorious. To punish him, he chased him to Li Zicheng's old camp and broke him.Li Zicheng escaped with only 6 infantry and fled into Jiugong Mountain to serve. The Qing army captured Zhaohou Zuoguangxian of the Shun Army and Song Xiance, the military advisor, and killed Li Zicheng's two uncles and Ruhou Liu Zongmin.

On June 6, Li Zicheng led the Dashun East Route Army with more than 25 people, rushed out from the mountainous area, and then went north to Yuezhou (now Yueyang, Hunan), and conquered the city in one day.Meile Zhangjing Tong Yanghe of the Qing army stationed in Wuchang was greatly shocked when he heard the news, and rushed to report to Azig, the coach of the Qing army temporarily stationed in Anqing.

It seems that there has been another deviation here. Although Li Zicheng was beaten all over his head by the Qing army and was in a mess, he still tenaciously escaped from the Qing army's pursuit, turned around and rushed into Hunan, and occupied the Dongting Lake. of Yuezhou.

After Azige stationed in Anqing defeated Li Zicheng's Dashun army, he felt that the war was over, and because he couldn't bear the hot temperature in early summer, he ignored Beijing's reassignment order, so he returned north without permission, preparing to go back to Beijing to escape the summer heat.
-
"I'll go with you!" Wang Zhongyi said loudly, standing in front of several officers and soldiers of the Qi State Navy.

"We want to recruit craftsmen, entertainers, scholars, or people with special skills. What do you know?" a naval officer asked.The young man in front of him was disheveled, his clothes were dirty, and he had a shoe off, looking very embarrassed.However, almost all the refugees on the sandbar in the river were like this. Those who had a little money were directly transferred to the south bank of the river by Zheng's boat, and those who landed here were basically starving people with nothing else.

"I have read books, and I can read....Moreover, I have dabbled in astronomy, geography, and even Baigong machinery." Wang Zhongyi only felt that his stomach was uncomfortably hungry. In the past few days, he only ate two bowls of rare rice. Congee, his whole body was straight and weak, but he still insisted on standing in front of those Qi soldiers dressed in black.

In the eyes of many refugees, these officers and soldiers of the Qi State Navy in black military uniforms have a much better reputation than the officers and soldiers of the Zhenjiang Navy of the Ming Dynasty. During these 20 days, at least they will not take advantage of the fire and extort money from the refugees. They will line up honestly according to the rules , the man took off his clothes to show that he was not threatening, and basically everyone, rich or poor, high or low, could board the boat and leave the north bank of the Yangtze River in an orderly manner.

Although these refugees were only transported to the sandbar in the middle of the river, at least they would not be tortured and killed by Jiannu.The massacre that happened in Yangzhou city more than ten days ago has been spread by word of mouth among many refugees. Everyone is full of incomparable resentment towards Jiannu, but more of it is deep fear.

Counting 10 people, these beasts have almost been slaughtered. Yangzhou City, which was prosperous and dreamlike in the past, has probably become a ghostly place now.

"Can read and write?" The officer of the Qi State Navy looked at Wang Zhongyi carefully, then pointed to a book on the table, "Read a passage to me."

Wang Zhongyi picked up the book on the table, flipped through the pages, swallowed a few times, and then gently read the words on the page to the black-clothed officer in front of him.

"...All right." The officer only listened for a moment, then said with a smile: "Since you can read and write, then follow us on board. First go to the river to clean yourself, and then follow us The people who go to the boat to get a piece of pancake... From now on, you will be a member of our Daqi Kingdom!"

For several days, they continued to swim back and forth on the river. During this period, they repelled two sporadic smuggling operations by the Qing army. In the end, it may be that the loss of ships was too large for the army to continue crossing the river. The Qing army died down and separated. Several armies attacked and plundered Jingkou, Dantu, Taizhou and other places near Yangzhou.

And on July 7, Jingnan Hou Huang Degong led 10 troops from Wuhu to the outskirts of Nanjing and stationed troops in Yanziji. Guangchang Bo Liu Liangzuo led an army of [-] troops to Zhenjiang, which was considered to have slightly stabilized the defense line in the south of the Yangtze River.In view of this, the ships of Qi State were preparing to leave the Yangtze River and return to Shandong.

But when he came to the south of the Yangtze River, he would naturally not return empty-handed, so Niu Jinming dispatched dozens of naval officers and soldiers to disembark to the temporary refugee gathering place on the sandbar in the middle of the river, and began to recruit useful talents.After two days, more than [-] talents of all kinds were recruited.

On July 7, the fleet of the Qi State Navy gathered some grain at Zheng Hongkui, filled it with migrants, and sailed smoothly toward the estuary of the Yangtze River.

(End of this chapter)