A century-old family that runs through the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 333 War, two years

At the end of the fifteenth year of Wuxing.

The New Year is approaching, and the capital is decorated with lanterns and colorful lights, preparing to celebrate the arrival of the new year.

However, the atmosphere in the palace was as cold as ice. The eunuchs in the palace were cautious when walking, for fear that if their footsteps were louder, they would anger the Supreme Being.

In recent days, several eunuchs have been executed by rods because of trivial matters. Now they are extremely cautious.

In the imperial study room, the emperor's roar came:

"So brave, so brave! How dare you betray me in battle!"

"Liang Guogong is incompetent, incompetent! Our army clearly has the upper hand. Even if the Jisi army defected before the battle, they were able to stabilize the situation, and yet they were defeated so miserably!"

Zhu Changxun was furious and kept venting in the room. All kinds of precious porcelain were scattered on the floor. Not far away, Zhou Yanru and others knelt down in fear.

No wonder Emperor Wuxing was so angry. His army had just suffered a major defeat.

Not long ago, the 90,000 Ming army attacked the 120,000 rebel army.

The rebels at this time still deserve the title of rebels. They have not yet carried out large-scale plundering and coercion. Although the combat effectiveness of 120,000 people is not very strong, it is at least better than the hundreds of thousands of rogue bandits in the original time and space. many.

However, after all, they are not professionals in fighting, and the northwest of the area where the troops were raised is a borderland. Not only is it very close to Jiubian, but the combat effectiveness of the camp and guard soldiers there is not very weak.

The early battles of the Ming army went smoothly. The first battalion led by Zhang Xianzhong suffered a disastrous defeat in Wenxi. Wang Jiayin hurriedly withdrew eastward from Anyi, and the troops led by leader Wang Er were also pushed back southward from Xiangling in the north.

For a moment, it really seemed like this chaos was going to be settled.

Soon, a decisive battle broke out between the two armies in Ruicheng.

In this decisive battle, Lan An's layout was similar to the battle tactics of the Ming army in the past. He placed the Jisi Army and some of the border troops at the forefront.

After all, these armies have the strongest combat effectiveness. It is a fair tactic to put the front army and the enemy's forward head-on.

What he didn't know was that the governors of Jisu had secretly contacted Wang Er.

So after the battle drums sounded, they suddenly switched sides and attacked the main formation instead. Unprepared, the Ming army was in chaos.

Wang Er couldn't help but be overjoyed when he saw this situation, and immediately ordered a general attack. The Ming army was already in chaos, how could it withstand it? Soon they were defeated and retreated.

At this moment, if a commander is skilled in war, he can still be saved. When the Ming army was in chaos, the rebel army was also in chaos. And compared to the Ming army, after the rebel army dispersed, it was more difficult to reorganize and launch an attack. difficulty. If the commander-in-chief can organize his troops to resist, then they can still be saved, and maybe they can turn defeat into victory.

However, it is a pity that Liang Guogong Lan An is not such a talented commander.

More than two hundred years have passed, and he has long lost the invincible style of his ancestors who rode horses on the grassland. The background of a noble family allows him to barely command an army, but once he encounters adversity, he does not have a qualified general. Quality, let alone the ability to turn things around.

So the situation changed from a great defeat to a rout. The rebel troops were chasing after them all the way, and Lan An fled all the way from Shanxi to Shaanxi. Only then did he stabilize his position, collect the broken troops, and contact all parties. He found that of the 90,000 Ming army, only 30,000 were left, with supplies, weapons, and armor. They were all thrown on the battlefield, giving the rebels a good send-off.

Among the more than 50,000 Ming troops that were lost, only more than 10,000 actually died on the battlefield, and the rest either fled or surrendered to the rebels.

Of course, they were welcomed by the leaders of the 36th Battalion of the Rebel Army. They gathered together with their confidants, put on the armor left behind by the Ming army, and formed the "Old Battalion".

Since then, the fighting power of the rebel army has increased to a higher level, ravaging the Jin area, and no one can stop it. The peak of the army even reached the city of Taiyuan at one time, but the Ming army could only hold on to the city and find it difficult to counterattack.

As for Youdao, blessings and misfortunes depend on each other. Although the Ming Dynasty suffered such a defeat, several generals stood out among them.

Hong Chengchou, the governor of Yansui, and Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Datong, these two generals with civilian backgrounds showed extraordinary abilities. One retreated while gathering the defeated troops. When they retreated to Shaanxi and returned to Lan'an, the two thousand generals who originally led 2,000 troops He has tens of thousands of men under his command, and there is no sign of panic.

The other one was even more ferocious. As the governor of Datong, his men were originally frontier troops with strong combat power. He led thousands of his men to cut off the rear and repelled the rebel pursuers, buying precious time for the main force of the Ming army to retreat westward. , Zhang Xianzhong and Wang Ziyong led tens of thousands of troops to pursue them, but they were defeated and lost more than 3,000 people. They ran to join Wang Er in disgrace.

Zhu Changxun keenly noticed the excellence of these two people. It happened that the two of them were able to do this during the great defeat, which was a great achievement in themselves, so he promoted them as a matter of course.

In the northwest, where the rebels are everywhere, they have almost become a mainstay, greatly curbing the rebels' advances.

As for Liang Guogong Lan An, he was naturally dismissed from his position as commander-in-chief. Zhu Changxun didn't give him a good look, but he didn't do anything to him. After all, the position of Duke was with the country.

The Ming army and the rebel army also began a two-year tug of war in Shaanxi and Shanxi.

In the blink of an eye, it was the seventeenth year of Wuxing.

At this time, Hong Chengchou and Lu Xiangsheng had been promoted continuously during the two years of fighting. One became the governor of Shaanxi and the other became the governor of Xuanda, guarding one side.

The two of them worked together to suppress the rise of the rebel army. The Ming army was at a disadvantage, but relied on tactics and management to defeat them one by one. The thirty-sixth battalion was divided and disintegrated. Many leaders died in the battle, and more than 100,000 rebels were killed. , collapsed, and now, there are only more than 30,000 people left, just hanging on.

However, just as they were about to complete the final blow, something unexpected happened.

An unprecedented drought broke out in the Ming Dynasty. The "Chongzhen Drought" in the original time and space, which started in the 10th year of Chongzhen and lasted for seven years, officially kicked off.

Almost the entire Ming Dynasty suffered from severe drought, with Beizhili, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong the most severe.

Accompanied by the locust plague.

There were almost hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the court was unable to save them.

Even Zhou Yanru, who has always been cautious, fell silent for a while when he looked at the report in front of him, and then sighed softly:

"God has not regretted the misfortune, and the disasters will not stop...could it be that God is not forgiving?"

At this time, in the eyes of Yan Ling from the south, the golden dynasty's fortune had dimmed.

(End of this chapter)