Daming kill

Chapter 119 The rain is coming
In the late November of the 15th year of Chongzhen, Li Ping, Song Baolai, including Zhao Lanyue and Gao Lei were urgently recruited by Zhao Jin's fast horse into Xiangyang City to discuss matters together.

Before he went, Li Ping already had a general idea of ​​the situation. After all, collecting information and intelligence has always been something he attaches great importance to.

Although the foundation is still very weak, and there is no way to talk about establishing any network, I just found a few people to stay in the city where the news is most concentrated to collect it through observation and hearsay.

Although the method is simple, the effect is not bad. Although it is actually impossible to effectively detect the information of the high-level, at least it will not become blind or deaf.

The most important thing is that this method is very safe and will not hurt yourself.

As for setting up an intelligence station, and then sending spies to others or engaging in bribery, Li Ping never thought about it.

In this chaotic world with ulterior motives, and he has no foundation, it is not so easy to reach out for some things, let alone take it for granted.

Li Ping knew the news that Runing Mansion, an important town in southern Henan, was captured very quickly. Although the details were still unclear, it was enough for him to make a lot of judgments.

Li Ping, who has made up a lot of surrounding terrain, geographical features and historical events, is very clear about what this means.

Judging from the map, Runing seems to be some distance away from Xiangyang, and it is in the northeast direction, but this is the most deadly road to attack Huguang in the south.As long as Li Zicheng continues to attack the three passes of Yiyang, he can effectively control the Han River and the Yangtze River, and then there will be no natural dangers along the way, and he can safely lock up Xiangfan in the south of the Nanyang Basin.

Jin Shengheng, who was sent to the vicinity of Xuzhou in Henan Province to pretend to deal with the court, was also sadly reminded.

Nanyang disappeared a few days ago, and now the Runing Mansion is also lost. Jin Shengheng has been completely isolated in the Henan area, and has become very dangerous.

When they arrived in the city, Zhao Jin, Shi Ming, Wang Chengwu, Li Shengcai, Liu Shixiong, and Zhao Meiling were already waiting for them. A mosaic map with a length and width of more than 1 meter was hung on a wall in the house.

This map is very large, but there are not many marked contents, and many places are even empty.

However, because of the way of mapping from north to south, the proportion of China's terrain is basically the same as that seen by Li Ping and his later generations, and the basic cities, mountains and rivers in Xiangyang and its surrounding areas are also marked in detail. The entire map The referenceability is still very strong.

Zhao Jin should have spent a lot of thought on this map, and of course this is one of his strengths.

After a brief greeting, Zhao Jin stood in front of the map and talked about the current situation, and everyone listened seriously.

At this time, everyone understood that it was impossible for Zhao Jin to gather everyone together until the critical moment.

Of course, Zhao Jin's information will be more detailed and comprehensive, and his map that marks the general terrain and place names also makes his explanations more intuitive.

In October, after Li Zicheng defeated Sun Chuanting in Henan, he quickly captured Nanyang, slaughtered Nanyang, and then returned to Kaifeng in the north. ).

What is known for sure is that Li Zicheng once sent a small group of troops to the north, but was repelled by the troops of Shandong General Liu Zeqing.

This month, Li Zicheng led his troops from Wuyang and Shangcai in Henan to attack Runing Mansion (now Runan County), an important town in southern Henan. Lao Huihui, Ge Liyan, Zuo Jinwang and other famous peasant army leaders in the late Ming Dynasty also led their troops. join.

Guarding Runing is Zhao Jin and Li Ping's old boss Yang Wenyue.

Although Yang Wenyue had only 3000 soldiers left when he retreated from Zhuxian Town to Runing, the fighting spirit of this guy was beyond expectations.

Because of Runing's extremely important strategic position, in October, the Ming Court mobilized more than 10 troops led by Sichuan Camp General Wang Xishen and Huguang Deputy General Wen Liangyu to reinforce Runing. , Runing's preparations are said to be very adequate.

However, what I didn't expect was that Li Zicheng's army arrived in Runing on the 12th and broke through the city on the 14th. The determination and attack power of the peasant army can be seen.

After Yang Wenyue was captured, he was tied up in front of the muzzle by the peasant army and bombarded to death (by shelling, "he died with a hole in the chest and bones"), and his generals Hu Dawei, Xiong Yinglu, and Mei Zhenying were shot to death .Wen Shiyi, the county magistrate, was killed at the head of the city, and Fu Ru, the magistrate, died for throwing himself into Rushui.Wang Shicong, Tongdan Zhu Guobao, deputy general Jia Ti, Chong Wang and his son were captured alive and escorted to Biyang where they were beheaded.

According to the latest news, the soldiers of Li Zicheng's coalition forces have appeared at the three passes of Yiyang.

Moreover, not only Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong's troops also appeared near the Sanguan Pass in Yiyang, and the two seemed to be joining forces.

The next step is probably Xiangyang, and it should be soon. It depends on how long the three passes of Yiyang can be guarded.

Now the entire left army has been shaken.

Zuo Liangyu convened the generals to discuss matters every day, each order followed one after another, the troops were frequently mobilized, and even adopted many strange defensive measures.Even landmines, which are currently extremely unreliable and crude equipment, have been manufactured and used in large quantities. I don't know who else this thing can hurt except for listening to it. It seems that he is a little sick and rushed to the doctor.

Therefore, the main purpose of Zhao Jin convening everyone this time is to inform the current critical situation and discuss everyone's next steps.

After Zhao Jin roughly finished speaking, Li Ping basically understood it, while Song Baolai, Li Shengcai, Liu Shixiong and others blinked and were a little confused.

Shi Ming looked thoughtful and generally understood, but he still asked questions about the three passes of Yiyang, and he still didn't fully understand the key points of these strategies.

So, Zhao Jin continued to explain on the map.

He first described the entire topographical features around Xiangyang, and then drew three passes on the map.

The three passes in Yiyang are Wusheng Pass, Jiuli Pass and Pingjing Pass.

These three passes form a triangle, which just separates the Tongbai Mountains from the Dabie Mountains.To the west is Tongbai, to the east is Dabie, surrounded by mountains with steep peaks and steep peaks. There are three narrow passages in the middle, which happen to be blocked by these three passes.

The battle must depend on the terrain. Sanguan is known as "controlling the whole Chu in the south, and controlling the Central Plains in the north". It is the west channel connecting the Jianghuai Plain and the Yangtze River Basin.

The old saying "Three passes are all destroyed" refers to these three passes.

Without these three barriers, Li Zicheng would have easily been killed in the Nanyang Basin by the officers and soldiers if he had gone south from Nanyang. That's why he slaughtered the city and returned to the north.With these three passes, he has the initiative to plot against Xiangyang in the south of the Nanyang Basin.

At present, Henan has been reduced to ruins. If the peasant army wants to survive and not starve to death, they can only leave there.

Where can I go?
To the north is Gyeonggi, where there are many soldiers and generals, to the west has been turned into hell by successive years of natural disasters, and to the east is Shandong, which is also poor and has no danger to rely on. It seems only to the south.

Xiangyang's first choice must be Xiangyang.

After all, the south of the Yangtze River is densely covered with water networks. Considering that both Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong are from the Northwest where water is scarce, they are not familiar with water warfare and have no water army, and the strength of the official army and water army is almost overwhelming. They directly attack Jiangnan The possibility is very low.

Then they will almost certainly rush to Xiangyang to control this transportation hub that runs from east to west, north to south...

Although Xiangyang's geographical location is also excellent, it is not so easy to fight down, but the problem is that Zuo Liangyu obviously has no fighting spirit, let alone courage.

The main general is like this, what is the use of a strong defense line?
After Zhao Jin's explanation, Shi Ming immediately understood that he still didn't understand the terrain.Although the others were still a little confused, they seemed to understand a little bit, and then obviously became more nervous, realizing that war and running around were really not far away from them.

After digesting it for a while, Li Ping decided to add a few words.

He wanted to talk about Zhang Xianzhong's problem. He didn't know how much Zhao Jin knew about this guy's bad deeds, so he needed to be reminded.

The leaders of the peasant army in the late Ming Dynasty that most Chinese people can remember in later generations were Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong.

Why?

Because they were the two most famous peasant army leaders in the late Ming Dynasty, not one of many.

One of them established the Dashun regime and the other established the Daxi regime, and because of class education, the people of later generations may still have a lot of affection for them.

Zhang Xianzhong is almost as famous as Li Zicheng who conquered Beijing (certainly not as good as him), so it is naturally not easy.

If you know a little bit more about history, you will know that Zhang Xianzhong claimed to have killed all of Sichuan.

Although Li Ping was extremely skeptical about this point, how could a person who established the Daxi regime in Sichuan kill all his citizens, so what kind of emperor would he still be?
Moreover, it was more than ten years after Zhang Xianzhong's death that Sichuan was pacified by the Qing army.

That being the case, where did those people in Sichuan who worked with the Qing army come from?It is obviously inappropriate to throw the pot of slaughtering Sichuan to Zhang Xianzhong.

But that doesn't mean this guy isn't really a butcher.

The history of war in China is a history of massacres, especially at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The three groups of officials, peasants, and Qings did nothing less to massacre the city, but the most famous one is Zhang Xianzhong. This cannot be for nothing For no reason.

Some people think that it was all planted by the Man Qing to blame him, but there are also a lot of shocking records in the writings of the Ming Dynasty at the same time, saying that he was wronged would not stand up.

According to various records, it can be said that Zhang Xianzhong killed all kinds of tricks, such as killing women, pickling them and filling them with army rations, raw skinning methods, burying them alive, cutting off male chickens and stacking them together to expose them to the sun, and beheading women everywhere. Take a slender foot to "light the candle in the sky" and so on.

In particular, he tortured women in various names, and he definitely had serious psychological problems.

After Zhang Xianzhong entered Sichuan in the later period, there was only one case where women could be saved from death.That is, as soon as Zhang Xianzhong's soldiers entered the common people's homes, the women in the common people's homes had to pretend to be very willing to have sex with the soldiers, strip off their clothes for them to humiliate, so as to have a chance to save the lives of the whole family.

Isn't it surprising that Zhang Xianzhong is like this?Surprised or not?

Although he seems to be quite normal now, especially when the military discipline in Xiangyang was broken last year, Li Ping also has some doubts whether the history books really framed him or the butterfly effect.

But Li Ping still felt that he couldn't be paralyzed. This pervert was probably just not strong enough, and he didn't dare to play tricks.

In June, when Zhang Xianzhong was trapped in Lu'an, he cut off one arm of the people of the state and returned the men to the left and the women to the right. This matter has been confirmed, and the strangeness of this guy has appeared.

Although Zhang Xianzhong is relatively weak at the moment, with more defeats than victories, he is still being beaten and run around, and his wife and children were even arrested by Zuo Liangyu, and he himself was almost killed. His current strength is not even as good as Li Zicheng's men An ordinary general, but the potential of this product cannot be taken lightly.

Li Zicheng slaughtered Nanyang and slaughtered the officials of Runing, Zhang Xianzhong did the same thing.You guys can't have any illusions, it just depends on how Zuo Liangyu responds, and then everyone follows Zuo Liangyu where to go.

But Li Ping also reminded one point in particular, that is, how likely is it that Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong will join forces?

These two guys are both heroes. Although Li Zicheng is much stronger than Zhang Xianzhong, Zhang Xianzhong probably won't live in or obey Li Zicheng.

Then Zhang Xianzhong's movements in the later period are very worthy of careful attention. The trajectory of these two people is related to the safety of the big guy.

As soon as Li Ping finished speaking, the brows of several women were all frowned. Even the story was frightening due to the crazy slaughter and cruelty, and the hearts of others became heavier.

(End of this chapter)