In the late Ming Dynasty, rising from the grassland

Chapter 225 Twelve Route Ming General Soldiers
After finally breaking through a Baihu Fort, most of the supplies and food were burned, which made Lin Rui realize that although the Ming Dynasty had lost the support of the people, its strength was not exhausted.

It can be seen from the fact that this hundred households would rather self-immolate than surrender to him, and were worried about being pursued by Chongzhen to exterminate their families in the future, that the military attaches in the Datong area were still very optimistic about the Ming Dynasty.

In history, the reason why Li Zicheng conquered all the way from Shaanxi to Beijing was because wherever he went, he heard the news and surrendered.

That's because the Ming Dynasty was already in turmoil at that time. First, it experienced the defeat of Songjin. Later, Li Zicheng successively attacked Kaifeng, Luoyang and other politically important cities, which directly shook the foundation of the Ming Dynasty. In addition, Shanxi prefectures were the first to surrender. , formed a general trend, which made Datong and Xuanfu also surrender directly.

However, today's Ming Dynasty has not yet reached that step.

Moreover, due to the arrival of Lin Rui, many changes have occurred in history. Last year, Jiannu did not attack Shandong, break Jinan, and kill King Lu. This year, Zu Dashou and others concocted a great victory.

Not only did he recreate the slaves and kill tens of thousands of enemies, but he also captured Huang Taiji's wife and young son. In addition, the rebels in the Central Plains were also weak, which made everyone mistakenly believe that the situation in the Ming Dynasty was improving and that there was a resurgence.

Especially the civil and military officials and wealthy gentry in various places who do not know the actual situation.

Under such circumstances, the civil and military officials in the Datong area would naturally not surrender to Lin Rui. After all, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were all officials in other places, and the previous party had the responsibility to defend the territory. Once they surrendered, their relatives and relatives in their hometown would suffer, so In the past, when slaves invaded Daming Prefecture and County, civil servants usually chose to commit suicide.

It wasn't that he really wanted to die for his country, but he didn't dare to surrender because he was afraid that Emperor Chongzhen would exterminate the nine clans afterwards.

Although the military attache is not an official in another place, after all, the official position has been hereditary for dozens of generations. The ancestors have been the military attachés of the Ming Dynasty for generations, and the ancestors followed Lao Zhu to conquer the world.

Although the guard system has long been eroded, these military attaches have the strongest sense of belonging to the Ming Emperor.

I am afraid that if they are not pushed to a dead end and completely despair of Ming Dynasty, they probably will not betray Ming Dynasty and surrender.

Thinking of this, Lin Rui's heart sank.

He knew that unless he could capture Datong and defeat the 20 Ming troops who came, or go straight to Huanglong, break through the capital, kill Chongzhen, and make the military attachés in Datong completely lose confidence in the Ming Dynasty, otherwise he would probably not surrender to him. of.

After all, these military attaches and landowners are not stupid. He actually chose to win over ordinary people and military households, so he will inevitably attack the gentry, landlords and military attaches.

Sure enough, in the next few days, the Chinese army broke through several more hundred-household forts, with similar results. Those hundreds of households all chose to die when they broke the city.

The situation in Yanghe, Shuozhou, and Yulinwei is similar.

After trying to storm Datong to no avail, Lin Rui no longer tried to storm Shuozhou and Yanghe. Instead, he sent two groups of troops to directly attack small castles in various places.

"Rui Lang, although the food will be enough if this continues, the cotton cloth seized is too little, almost none. If you want to make a set of cotton clothes for 40 people to keep out the cold, you will probably have to wait until the Year of the Monkey and the Horse."

Na Muzhong was also so angry that she gritted her teeth.

Cotton and cotton cloth are both flammable, and basically they will burn almost completely once they put out the fire.

"These military officers are afraid that they will be held accountable by Chongzhen and their descendants will not be able to inherit their official lands. I don't believe that those gentry and landlords can be so decisive and not afraid of death!"

Lin Rui decided not to attack Baihu Fort, but to attack the forts of the gentry and landlords. As long as he gave them a little hope of survival, he did not believe that those landlords had the courage to die.

.........

"People inside, listen, my king has said that as long as you take the initiative to open the city and surrender, our country will only take food and supplies and will never invade you!
After the city is broken, if you are willing to put down your weapons and stop resisting, everyone in the city will be spared death, the female family members will not be violated, and some of their belongings can be kept! "

Xiami Village is located more than [-] miles south of Datong City and is under the jurisdiction of Huairen County. It is the first civilian fort selected by Lin Rui. After [-] troops surrounded the small Zhuang Fort that day, there was no rush. Instead of launching an attack, he shouted at the wall.

Sure enough, several big families in the city were already in despair when they saw the Lin family's army outside the city. In order to prevent their female relatives and themselves from being humiliated and retaliated by those mud-legged people, they all made preparations when the city was destroyed. Preparations for setting fire to the fort.

Now listening to the shouting outside the city, he hesitated.

Obviously these big players don't put their eggs in one basket.

At the beginning, it was also to prevent the invasion of Tatars. If the castle was broken, the family would be wiped out. Therefore, the nearby gentry families all agreed with each other that every time the Tatars invaded, they would send several of their sons to other castles to escape.

Once a castle was breached by the Tatars, other castles not only could not take advantage of it, but also had to help those children rebuild their homes. Over time, it became a routine.

"Father, do you think their words are credible?"

"The man surnamed Lin is also the one who wants to found the country and become the king. He has already said his word, and he should not go back on his word."

"Yes, what Brother Liu said is reasonable. That man named Lin has never broken his promise even with those mud-legged people, let alone us gentlemen?"

"Then father, should we surrender directly?"

"Well, we have more than 200 people in total. Although they have many people, they may not be able to attack them. Let's see!"

"boom!"

At this moment, there was a loud noise that frightened everyone so much that their legs softened and they almost crouched down without falling.

But the twenty red-coated cannons outside the city fired directly at the fort wall one after another.

This is also the case in Datong. The walls of the slightly larger castles are covered with blue bricks. If it were a castle in the Central Plains, the earthen walls would have to be blown down in just a few shots.

However, even though it was covered with green bricks, in the face of the continuous bombardment of the red cannons, the thin fortress wall soon collapsed and a gap opened. Several gentry and landlords simply opened the door without waiting for the Chinese army to launch an attack. surrendered.

This time Lin Rui and Na Muzhong came in person. They were overjoyed to see that the other party actually opened the gate and chose to surrender. They immediately sent a team of elite infantry to kill them, while the army stayed outside the fort.

It was not until the entire fort was under control that Lin Rui brought Namu Zhong to the fort. In the open space in the fort, 600 people had gathered. Men, women, old and young, all of them were very nervous. "Is everyone in the castle here?"

Lin Rui glanced around and saw that half of them were female dependents wearing gorgeous clothes. Then he turned to a battalion commander and asked.

"Back to your Majesty, the general has already searched carefully, and no one has been found hiding. They are all here."

After hearing the conversation between the two, the old man named Liu secretly looked at Lin Rui. He was overjoyed and quickly stepped forward and said, "Old Liu Yong, I have met King Hua. Thank you for not killing him!"

"Thank you for your grace not to kill!"

Others also knelt down and kowtowed.

"If you are sensible, please get up. I am true to my word and will leave you some belongings!"

Lin Rui waved his hand, and then ordered people to go into the house and sweep. Almost all the food, cotton, cloth, ironware, salt, tea and wine were moved out and loaded into the car. The only livestock was pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks.

As for the gold, silver and copper coins, Lin Rui really only took [-]% of them, and even left some rations and salt for them.

The families with a family of more than 200 people felt their hearts bleed when they saw the carts of supplies and money being taken away.

The old man named Liu Yong finally had the courage and said cautiously to Lin Rui: "Your Majesty, didn't you say that you would open the door and surrender without taking any property?"

The other heads of the family and the children in the family also looked at Lin Rui nervously, and even the ladies and ladies also looked over.

After all, everyone heard clearly just now that as long as you surrender voluntarily, you will only get supplies and food.

"Huh, do you call that voluntary surrender? I destroyed the wall before you opened the door, so it doesn't count as voluntary surrender. At most, it's a compromise!"

Lin Rui snorted coldly. If they were one step slower and launched an attack on his side, they would not only confiscate half of the money, but also the ladies over thirty and literate maids would also be taken away.

Naturally, everyone did not dare to refute and had no choice but to shut up. After all, what Lin Rui said was also true.

After evacuating the necessary things, Lin Rui led the army directly to his next home, and really let Xiami Village go.

It wasn't until the Chinese army left that the people in the village dared to close the door again. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Following the example of Xiamizhuang, when the entire civilian forts near Datong faced the attack of the Lin family army, some chose to open their doors and surrender after the city walls were blown down, while others chose to open their doors and surrender directly, and never again. Choose to fight to the end.

But with food and a large amount of supplies, Lin Rui was not in a hurry. While continuing to expand his victory, he forged weapons, made cotton-padded clothes and shoes, and trained his troops.

Every time a set of cotton-padded clothes was made, a set was given to the young men, and then the young men were asked to follow the Chinese army to attack the civilian forts, and the captured weapons were also directly equipped to the young men.

The situation in Yanghe in Shuozhou was similar. In the end, for each team to attack the fort, the Chinese army only had to send dozens or hundreds of people to maintain order and organize the siege.

Since Zhou Meng's side was all military forts and there were no civilian forts, Lin Rui simply asked him to bring all his troops to Datong, and just send a pair of cavalry to frighten the military attaches from time to time.

The Lin Jiajun gave up attacking the big city, and instead turned to raiding the civilian forts in the entire Datong area. With strong force and a gentle policy, they achieved great success, which made Hong Chengchou of Xuanfu unable to sit still.

Originally, he planned to wait until the Lin family's army's attack on the big city was blocked, suffered heavy losses, and their morale was low before advancing to seek a decisive battle.

But it's good now. If this continues, the longer the time goes on, the stronger the Lin family army will become.

At this moment, in the commander's tent outside Xuanfu City, the supervisors rose up and dived. Looking at the leader, Hong Chengchou once again said: "Governor Hong, now that Lin bandit is wreaking havoc in Datong, how long will you wait before you are willing to march into the nest?" thief?

Our family is not afraid to tell you that Long Live Lord is very dissatisfied with the fact that this time you and Naping Lupp abandoned the defense line of the Great Wall without fighting, allowing the Lin thieves to easily invade Datong.

If you procrastinate any longer and Datong suffers a loss, don't blame our family for not reminding you. You cannot bear the blame. "

"Eunuch Gao, our army has traveled a long distance and it is really not appropriate to march immediately. As for Datong City, I can rest assured that there will be no losses."

Hong Chengchou had no choice but to explain that he didn't know that His Majesty had been dissatisfied with him for a long time. If Yang Sichang hadn't interceded, he would probably have been imprisoned by now.

It's not that he didn't want to march immediately. Firstly, the road was blocked by heavy snow and the march was unchanged. Secondly, he didn't know much about these eight generals, nor did he know the combat capabilities of their troops, so he went to Datong so rashly. In the decisive battle, there is really no chance of winning.

So his plan was to postpone the decisive battle until next spring, but looking at the situation now, he might not be able to postpone it.

"Humph, our family doesn't want to hear these reasons. We just want to know when Governor Hong will invade the nest of thieves?"

Gao Qiqian snorted coldly.

The eight general soldiers on the left and right were watching the battle between the two. Everyone really looked down on Hong Chengchou, the governor who retreated without fighting.

In addition to Xuanfu Commander Yang Guozhu and Shanxi Commander Hu Dawei, the eight commander-in-chiefs who came this time also included Ningyuan Commander-in-Chief Wu Sangui, who had just become a full-time official, Shanhaiguan Commander-in-Chief Bima Ke, Jizhou Commander-in-Chief Bai Guangen, and Miyun Commander-in-Chief. Tangtong's troops were led by Wang Tingchen, commander-in-chief of the former camp, and Li Fuming, commander-in-chief, with a total of 15 horse infantry.

It can be said that this time, except for Zu Dashou who was still stationed in Jinzhou, Chongzhen took almost all the border troops from Jizhen, Liaodong, to Xuanfu.

If we include Cao Bianjiao, He Renlong, Fierce as a Tiger, and Wang Pu in Datong City in the south, in order to attack Hua this time, Chongzhen mobilized all the troops of the Twelve Routes of the Ming Dynasty to participate in the battle, and its scale has exceeded that in history. The Battle of Songjin.

It can be seen that Zhu Ming was deeply afraid of the Han people tearing apart the soil and becoming king.

(End of this chapter)