Daming kill

Chapter 200 Bigger

While Li Ping was hesitating, the situation changed again.

Li Banghua, the censor of Zuodu in Nanjing (in charge of the Southern Inspectorate), arrived in Jiujiang. He wrote an essay to Zuo Liangyu in Hukou County (belonging to Jiujiang Prefecture), reprimanding him with righteousness.

What many people didn't expect was that Zuo Liangyu knew he was wrong, and not only replied quickly, but also spoke very respectfully.

Therefore, Li Banghua met Zuo Liangyu in the name of Lao Jun and had a long talk with him, and then agreed to use the special authority of playing by ear to allocate 15 taels of money from Kuyin in Jiujiang to Zuo Liangyu as military pay.

Zuo Liangyu was very moved, and vowed to kill the thieves and serve the country. At the same time, he immediately ordered all the troops not to disturb the local area. Even Li Ping received the order.

Soon, most of Zuo Liangyu's rebellious army were more obedient and obeyed orders, and basically settled down.

The Zuojun Rebellion ended in such an unexpected and inconceivable way.

But this is neither unexpected nor surprising.

If it was another big official who dared to reprimand Zuo Liangyu, Zuo Liangyu might be totally indifferent and even furious.But facing Li Banghua, Zuo Liangyu has no temper at all.

This is what I have to say about Li Banghua.

Li Banghua was a Jinshi during the Wanli period. He was a well-known upright and honest person.

Not long after he became an official, he was impeached as a member of the Donglin Party for his fair comments on Gu Xiancheng, a member of the Donglin Party, which even affected his official career.He was originally going to be promoted to the imperial censor, but in the end it was nothing.

Later, when the attack on the Donglin Party was the most serious in the central government, Zou Yuanbiao, who was from the same hometown as Li Banghua and had a mentor-student relationship, was accused of being the leader of the Donglin Party and was severely persecuted.Li Banghua couldn't see it, and came forward to defend him. This time, not only was he released, but even his father lost his official position.

Not only that, Li Banghua is also a well-known filial son who is extremely filial to his father.

He passed the provincial examination together with his father, and then the father and son worked together to go to Beijing on foot to catch the examination.

And Zuo Liangyu was politically inclined to the Donglin Party, and he was a person who valued righteousness and filial piety. Li Banghua naturally belonged to the type of people he respected the most, and he was extremely rare.

Coupled with Li Banghua's cleanliness, he can stand on the moral high ground and criticize Zuo Liangyu without shame, and Zuo Liangyu can't find faults even if he wants to.

In this way, Zuo Liangyu's respect for Li Banghua should be from the heart and without temper.

At the same time, Li Banghua's temperament also made him dare to reprimand Zuo Liangyu for taking care of this nosy matter to him.

Li Banghua can't come, he has been conscripted by the imperial court to be a saint in Beijing, he has enough reasons to ignore Zuo Liangyu's rebellion, but all the civil and military officials in Nanjing were scared to death by Zuo Liangyu's rebellion, you stare I, I stare at you, no one knows what to do.

Li Banghua sighed and said: "The only quiet land in the Central Plains is the corner of the southeast region. As a minister, how can I bear to see the internal rupture and stand by from the outside!"

Of course, Zuo Liangyu began to become honest, and there is one thing that cannot be ignored, that is, he really did not intend to rebel, and his actions for disrupting the place probably knew that he could not continue indefinitely.

However, Zuo Liangyu's rebellious army was unexpectedly calmed down, but Zhang Xianzhong continued to make troubles again.

On the evening of March 16, 23th year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong once again used the old trick to gallop from Qishui County to Huangzhou Fucheng on the edge of the Yangtze River [-] miles to the southwest, and then attacked the city in heavy fog.

At dawn on the 24th, the city fell.

Huangzhou Fucheng is about halfway between Wuchang and Qizhou, about 100 miles away from each of the two places.

The big difference between Huangzhou Fucheng and other cities is that no business is allowed in the city, and there are no shops.All businesses are located in Sha Street along the river outside the city and Shizi Street outside the south of the city.

It may be because of this that Zhang Xianzhong ordered the captured officers, soldiers, officials, gentry, family members and women to tear down the city wall after breaking through the city.

The appalling killing spread to Xingguo Prefecture, and everyone was moved by it.

At the same time as this news, there was another shockingly late news. The first thing Zhang Xianzhong did after capturing Qishui County (now Xishui) on March [-] was to kill the old enemy in the city. The entire family of Xiong Wencan, the "benefactor".

Xiong Wencan was the former Shangshu of the Ministry of War and the right deputy capital censor. He was responsible for conquering the peasant army. In the 11th year of Chongzhen, he recruited the desperate Zhang Xianzhong who was beaten at that time. He was considered Zhang Xianzhong's benefactor.

But later he hated Zhang Xianzhong because he extorted bribes and exploited too much.

Later, Zhang Xianzhong rebelled, and Xiong Wencan was held accountable and executed in the 13th year of Chongzhen.

But everyone is dead, but Zhang Xianzhong still remembers the hatred, and wants to kill the whole family to vent his anger.

This guy is getting more and more bloodthirsty and revengeful.

Li Ping also realized that if he wanted to do something, he had to take action as soon as possible, otherwise Xu Wenqi's days would probably be over.

Because in these two days, Li Ping ordered the reconnaissance company to follow and kidnap a peasant army soldier who was out of the city at the risk of shocking the peasant army.

This soldier of the Peasant Army was one of the defenders who guarded Xu Wenqi, and he left the city to visit his relatives.Although he is from Guangji County, he has relatives outside Qizhou City.

From this soldier, Li Ping learned a shocking news.

Xu Wenqi is contacting the officers and soldiers of the peasant army who are not willing to be reconciled to the bandits, preparing to raise their troops.In these areas recently captured by Zhang Xianzhong, there were only a few people who were sincerely willing to follow the thieves, and most of them were forced.

But the problem is that Xu Wenqi seems to have contacted a lot of people, and the scope is also a bit large, and it is no longer limited to the group of enemy soldiers who detained him.

From the perspective of confidentiality, it is almost impossible to be foolproof, and it is even a bit too careless. It will be discovered sooner or later, and it is estimated that the matter will be leaked soon.

Just as Li Ping was having a fierce ideological struggle, another shocking news came.

The overwhelmed and uninformed imperial court finally dealt with Zuo Liangyu's defeat a few months ago, and handed down the order: "Xiang and Cheng (Xiangyang, Chengtian) fell, and the Ming law is here. Zuo Liangyu sympathized with his long-term labor During this period, he was ordered to seek meritorious service and redeem himself. Fang Guoan and Chen Keli were dismissed and acted as officials to kill thieves."

Zuo Liangyu then led troops to Anqing.

Although the court's handling was very biased and a bit too late, it was not surprising.

When the Qing soldiers were still raging in the territory, and when all the armies across the country faced the general defeat of the peasant army, it was impossible for the general who led the party alone to be severely punished at this time.

Fang Guoan and Chen Keli, who were able to deal with Fang Guoan and Chen Keli who retreated without a fight in the Battle of Xiangyang, and their official positions were not low, are already very good, which also shows that the imperial court still has some majesty.

Li Ping thought a lot more after being surprised, he no longer hesitated, and decided to adopt the more radical plan No. [-].

This is neither a plan aimed at saving Xu Wenqi alone, nor a plan to save a group of people when he has to, but an extremely crazy and bold plan.

Since you want to play big, then be more courageous!

So, on the morning of April [-]rd, Zhao Dongdong brought a few scouts dressed up as peasant soldiers who had gone out of the city to chop firewood in the morning and sneaked into the city again from the north gate.

Originally they could have started two days earlier, but Li Ping was very unimpressed with April [-]st, and he refused to start the operation on this day.

Fortunately, the defense of Qizhou was as lax as ever. The successive victories made the peasant army only focus on the river, but they became less and less vigilant on the gates of the city. There is also a lot of people coming in and out.

Almost all the wealthy households in Qizhou City were killed, and many of the doves and magpies' nests were former villagers outside the city. These people always had various trivial matters outside the city.

But today, there are more people coming in and out than usual, but it still hasn't aroused the vigilance of most of the city defenders who were ordinary people not long ago.

Soon, Zhao Dongdong and the others arrived at the place where Xu Wenqi was imprisoned at the foot of Qilin Mountain. The guards there remained the same as before. They even saw Xu Wenqi who had just come down the mountain from a distance.

It appeared that the missing soldier in custody did not arouse suspicion.

Perhaps that soldier was also regarded as someone who took the opportunity to run away. This is not unusual in Zhang Xianzhong's rear battalion who was often coerced into joining the army. Many people even sympathized with this. This is what the reconnaissance company dared to do at the time. important reason.

Zhao Dongdong immediately breathed a sigh of relief, he was no longer so worried about his mission.

But then, he became worried again. He knew that his part was not the most critical, but the old company commander Ma Lan and deputy company commander Ma Xiaotian were the most critical, which was related to the overall success or failure.

The experience of Huangpi County is not much applicable to Qizhou, and the two are completely incomparable.

Qizhou City faces the river on one side and is surrounded by lakes on three sides (completely different from today's terrain). Except for the two riversides near the river (which are also blocked by related cities), the only other passages that do not require boats are the two in the northeast. A narrow channel sandwiched between the Great Lakes, but Guancheng was also built to block it.

In other words, Qizhou City was built in a closed area.

And even so, it has a moat nearly 50 meters wide on the three sides that are not facing the river.

This is simply the disaster of the raid.

Li Ping's gunboat fleet was bluffing on the Yangtze River, and the peasant army paid special attention to the water surface near Qizhou City, which made support and penetration from the water impossible.

The battle they want to fight will be a highly organized and complicated battle, and it is also a battle that tries to use organizational strength and quality to overcome huge numbers. Zhao Dongdong is not confident.

Zhao Dongdong is a person who likes seeing is believing, but he has not witnessed the success under such a huge disparity, especially when dealing with Zhang Xianzhong's troops who are good at raids.

However, Zhao Dongdong knew that there was no turning back when he opened the bow.

Last night, thousands of comrades, including a large number of cavalry, smuggled across the Yangtze River with him from the lower reaches, and are currently hiding in Dali Mountain, more than ten miles away from the city.

Everything can only succeed and not fail.

When night came, Li Ping on Dali Mountain overlooked the darkness and silence around him for a while, and then looked in the direction of Qizhou City with satisfaction.

But because there are many mountain lovers in front of Dali Mountain, he can't see anything, let alone hear anything.

He was very disturbed.

He doesn't like this feeling of unknown and waiting, which makes him feel that accidents will come at any time.

And he also knows that accidents will always happen in such large-scale operations, it depends on whether it is a big accident or a small accident. He doesn't like this kind of eternal truth, and he doesn't like this kind of heart-pounding feeling.

Different from Li Ping's apprehension, Zhao Dongdong has already begun to hate him.

Lurking on Qilin Mountain, he suddenly discovered that a seemingly elite peasant army suddenly approached and began to secretly surround the place where Xu Wenqi was detained.

This peasant army with a relatively neat ranks is very concealed, probably not wanting to attract the attention of other peasant troops.

Although Zhao Dongdong quickly realized that they were not discovered, but that Xu Wenqi's story should have been leaked. The peasant guards in Qizhou probably haven't figured out what to do, but just transferred the most trustworthy elite troops here. standby.

But it's still a big problem.

Whatever the reason, Qizhou's defenders are on alert.

At the same time, Zhao Jin and Shi Ming's coalition forces are also secretly marching towards Huangmei County, and they also want to launch a surprise attack.

Their goal was not Mawei Mountain, which is adjacent to the east side of Huangmei County, although it is the only nearby place with a large mountain and can provide them with a strong shelter.

But if you want to attack Huangmei County from there, you have to cross the river that runs through the east side of Huangmei County from north to south.

Huangmei County, which should have been warned, will definitely pay great attention to Mawei Mountain and the river next to the county seat.

So Zhao Jin and Shi Ming did the opposite, and were making a big circle from the area controlled by the peasant army on the west side.

They're traveling at night, and what they want is a surprise attack.

Description:

Note 1:

"Sui Kou Jilue" said that on March 24, Zhang Xianzhong entered Huangzhou, "thieves entered, and those who were beautiful were driven to destroy the city. , It is to kill and throw it to fill the ditch.

This record should be inaccurate. It is estimated that the rumors heard are exaggerated.

Demolition of the city wall is a heavy physical labor. Driving women to demolish the city, and even beautiful women, is far from enough manpower and physical strength. It is estimated that the demolition will not be completed in 30 days, let alone three days.

Note 2:

According to Ming history records, Xu Wenqi's conspiracy was leaked, and Zhang Xianzhong ordered people to organize a search and determine the "criminal evidence". Xu Wenqi was then beheaded. This happened more than [-] days after he was arrested.

After the Ming court learned about it, they posthumously awarded Xu Wenqi as Minister of Taipusi.

(End of this chapter)