My father Zhu Gaoxu

Chapter 949: Go your own way

When setting up camp last night, due to lack of preparation, nearly half of the soldiers had no tents and had to sleep in the wild without even food. At the same time, they had to endure mosquito bites.

However, the soldiers who were hungry and camping in the wild were not the worst offenders. The worst offenders were the Tongzhou Guards who arrived last. This guard arrived at Longhu Terrace last and did not bring tents or dry food, so they could only camp in the camp. Rest at the outermost edge of the camp.

But what is even more unexpected is that not only is there no room or food in the camp, there is not even enough drinking water. People can go several days without eating, but they cannot go one day without drinking water.

Especially the soldiers who went on an expedition after a day's journey. Even if they carried a little water with them, they would have drank it all long ago. Now they are all thirsty and their throats are smoking. If they don't drink water, they may die of thirst.

Although there is a water source here at Longhutai, there are too many troops on the expedition, which has caused the water source to be very tight, and there is not enough drinking water. Especially the Tongzhou Guards arrived too late, and the last bit of water was divided by other battalions.

The soldiers of Tongzhou Guard were thirsty to death, but could not find any water to drink. Finally, they got into trouble. At first, they were very sensible, but they just asked their superiors to give them some water, so that they could at least survive the night.

After Wang Zhen learned about this incident, he sent his confidant Ma Shun to deal with it. As a result, Ma Shun failed more than accomplished and failed more than he did. Facing the troubled soldiers, instead of appeasing him, he instead killed several of the leading soldiers. Arrest him and hold him accountable.

This finally broke the hornet's nest. The hungry and thirsty soldiers picked up their weapons and were about to chop Ma Shun into pieces. As a result, Ma Shun saw that something was wrong, abandoned the guards around him, and ran away on horseback. .

But the guards who came with Ma Shun were in bad luck. They were used as a vent by the angry Tongzhou guards. Except for a few who escaped, the rest were all beaten to death.

Moreover, the turmoil on the Tongzhou Guard side also affected the troops stationed around them. When they heard the shouts of killing, they thought it was the enemy coming to attack, so they jumped up to prepare for defense. However, because there was no one to command, an incident occurred in the army. There was a stampede, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands.

"My Lord, this is what happened. The lack of water caused Tongzhou Guards to cause trouble, which eventually affected other soldiers and caused riots that led to such serious consequences."

Kuang Ye finally told Zhang Fu with a wry smile.

As Minister of War, he should have been responsible for the logistics of the army, but this time Zhu Qizhen only gave him two days. To put it bluntly, two days was not even enough to prepare fodder for the livestock, let alone hundreds of thousands of troops. Food and fodder are ready.

"What to do with those soldiers who are making trouble?"

Zhang Fu was silent for a moment, and then asked Kuang Ye.

"Well, this incident has alarmed His Majesty. His Majesty personally issued an order to arrest all the soldiers who caused the trouble and hold them accountable. He also asked us to block the news. We still have to continue our journey today."

Kuang Ye replied with a sigh.

Originally, when such a big thing happened, the army should stop and rest, at least solve the problems of drinking water and food before setting off, but Zhu Qizhen didn't care about these things at all and stubbornly asked the army to continue on their way. He probably really thought that the Wala people had seen it. He would immediately run away, so he wanted to arrive in Datong as soon as possible.

"How to solve the problem of drinking water and food? There was such a big mess on the first day. If we continue like this, I'm afraid the army will mutiny in less than three days." When Zhang Fu said the last words, he also showed a sad expression. , he has been fighting for so many years, and this is the first time he has seen such a leader.

"My lord, I discussed with Wang Zuo and Wang Shangshu, and decided to requisition a batch of grain and grass from surrounding prefectures and counties. This should be able to temporarily alleviate the food shortage crisis in the army."

Kuang Ye hesitated for a moment before speaking.

Raising grain from surrounding states and counties is just a stop-gap measure. After all, the further north you go, the poorer the states and counties near the border are. Some states and counties can't even produce enough grain to feed themselves, so they need to bring grain relief from the south. Now The grain they stored was taken away. If it is not replenished in time, people in these counties and counties may also starve to death.

"That's all we can do. There's also the matter of drinking water. It's better to walk slowly and find a place with a water source to camp. This time it's just Tongzhou Guard. Next time it may be the entire camp making trouble!"

Zhang Fu shook his head at the end. He had written to Zhu Qizhen last night, but there had been no response until now. It was obvious that the other party had not paid attention to his suggestion.

But funny enough, Zhang Fu's worries about drinking water were unnecessary, because in the next few days, it suddenly rained heavily and continued for several days. The problem of drinking water was solved at once, but the roads became muddy and it became very difficult for the army to move forward.

In addition, the arrival of heavy rain also caused the climate to plummet in July. Coupled with the shortage of tents, when the army set up camp to rest at night, the soldiers could only squeeze into the tents as much as possible. As a result, a tent was full of people, let alone lying down. There wasn't even a place to sit.

Even with such a hard squeeze, many soldiers still had no tents and could only hide under the carriages and horses to take shelter from the rain. However, the drop in temperature and the rain caused these soldiers to suffer from frostbite. Coupled with factors such as hunger and fatigue, they actually As a result, many soldiers died on the road.

At the same time, many soldiers were infected with diseases such as wind and cold. Due to the conditions in the camp, these diseases spread very quickly and even began to develop into epidemics.

Faced with this situation, Zhang Fu, Kuang Ye, Wang Zuo and other ministers finally couldn't bear it anymore and wrote many times to request the withdrawal of the army. After all, with the current situation of the army, there was no possibility of winning the war even in Datong.

Even some of Wang Zhen's confidants persuaded Wang Zhen that it was raining heavily and it was not suitable for the army to move forward, so he should withdraw and rest.

However, Wang Zhen insisted on having his own way. Instead of agreeing to withdraw the troops, he ordered Kuang Ye and Wang Zuo to kneel on the grass outside to warn the officials that if Zhang Fu was not too old and his prestige in the army was too high, Maybe they will also be punished to kneel down together.

Kuang Ye and Wang Zuo knelt until dark before being helped into the tent. Kuang Ye was weaker and knelt for too long. Coupled with the rain, he caught wind and cold and became bedridden. But Wang Zhen However, someone put Kuang Ye into the car and continued to drag him forward with the army. They also claimed that Kuang Ye had fallen off his horse and was injured, completely ignoring his own responsibility.

Zhu Qizhen knew very well what Wang Zhen was doing, but he and Wang Zhen were so good that they wore the same pair of trousers, and even some of Wang Zhen's actions were tacitly approved by Zhu Qizhen.

In this way, the army braved heavy rain, walked in the mud, endured hunger and cold, and soldiers fell dead on the roadside along the way. Finally, more than ten days later, they arrived at Yanghe, where the Ming army had been defeated.

(End of this chapter)