The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 186 Patience and the Front

When Heshen and Ji Yun returned, Zhu Jianxuan did not go to receive them, but asked Duan Yucai to handle it.

After Heshen finished explaining Qianlong's request, Duan Yucai waved his hand and said:
"Our king will never accept such a condition, so please go back and come back when you have made up your mind.

"We can wait patiently, and you can also continue to wait patiently. Maybe reinforcements will come to rescue you."

He Shen suddenly felt a little desperate, so he made a condition on his own initiative:

"Then...how about we retreat directly to America?"

Duan Yucai simply waved his hand:
"If you want to become a minister of the Ming Dynasty, then where should you live and what kind of title and status should you obtain?

“It was all decided by the Ming Dynasty, not something you asked for.

"So our king demands that you open the city and surrender immediately. There are no other conditions to discuss."

Heshen finally understood completely that the attitude of the King of Wu was: I can treat you according to my mood, but you can't ask for it yourself, and I won't give you anything you want.

He Shen was a little bit overwhelmed, mainly because he was not facing the King of Wu, but a minister, so he was a little bolder:
"Without any conditions or guarantees, we have no way of convincing His Majesty to surrender."

Duan Yucai also became a little impatient:
“After Hongli surrenders, everyone in your city will be able to survive. This is the king’s promise.

“If Hongli is unwilling to open the city and surrender, then your entire city will be buried with him.

"Think about it carefully, and let Hongli think about it carefully too.

"I've said before that our king is still patient now. We can continue to wait."

After Duan Yucai finished speaking, he ordered the guards to drive Heshen and the other man out.

After being driven out of Nanhaizi, where the Ming army was stationed, Heshen immediately looked at his companions with a sad face:
"Why haven't you spoken?"

Ji Yun sighed helplessly:
"I have nothing to say. We all know the character of the Ming Dynasty's King Wu.

"In the eyes of this prince, guaranteeing the lives of all the Eight Banners men in the city should be a huge concession, and there can be no other conditions.

“Other negotiations and discussions are meaningless unless there are reinforcements that can defeat him.

"Opening the city and surrendering, waiting for the Ming Dynasty's disposal, is our final fate and also our chance to survive.

"So the key issue is to find enough power to convince His Majesty to accept this condition that will allow him to survive, rather than coming here to continue to compete with the Ming people."

He Shen was silent for a while:

"It's not the right time yet. His Majesty will never accept it now, and we can't find enough forces. At least wait until the people in the city start to starve."

Heshen and his companion returned to the city and went to the palace again to report to Qianlong.

After listening to this, Qianlong was silent for a long time. Then he waved his hand to let the two leave and began to think about the situation alone.

Qianlong knew in his heart that the conditions and guarantees of the Ming Dynasty were to keep him alive. If he continued to hold out and refused to surrender, the soldiers and civilians in the city would most likely rebel.

But now is not the time. We have to wait until the situation becomes completely hopeless.
-
After Zhu Jianxuan sent Heshen and Ji Yun away, he ordered a vassal division to attack eastward and capture the main towns east of Shuntian Prefecture.

The Wu State's main force, the Fourth Division, was ordered to take overall responsibility for the garrison of Tianjin Prefecture, including the garrison of Tianjin Prefecture City and Dagu Wharf.

The Fifth Division, which was originally stationed at the dock, was ordered to sail out to sea to capture Shanhaiguan.

After making the arrangements, Zhu Jianxuan stayed in Nanhai Zi for a day, and on the next day he went to visit the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace in the north of the city.

The Old Summer Palace in this world cannot be compared with the one in the same period in history.

There is no Garden of Gardens which consisted of the three gardens of Yuanmingyuan, Qichun Garden and Changchun Garden.

There is only a single Old Summer Palace, and it is not as big as it was in history. It is just the size of an ordinary royal garden.

The situation of the Summer Palace is similar. It should still be the size of a good mountain garden from the Zhengde to Chongzhen period, and it was not further expanded on this basis.

The Qing Dynasty in this world is not as wealthy as it was in history, and does not have enough money to build it.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that Qianlong might not be in a hurry yet, but he was even less anxious now and needed to wait for the battle reports from the local areas.

We need to wait for Qing army reinforcements from northern Zhili, Liaodong and the grasslands.

After visiting the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace, Zhu Jianxuan simply went to the imperial tombs in Changping to pay simple respects to his ancestors.
-
The Seventh Division of the Wu State of the Ming Dynasty on the north bank of the Yellow River cooperated with the Ninth Division of the Wu State on the south bank of the Yellow River and the 50,000 main forces of the Yangzhou Division of the Ming Dynasty to encircle the city.

In the Huai'an section on the south bank of the Yellow River, after annihilating 50,000 Qing troops led by Hailancha and 30,000 rebel troops led by Huai'an Earl, both sides of the Yellow River east of Huai'an were controlled by the Ming Dynasty.

The 9th Division immediately handed over the local garrison to the main force of the Ming Dynasty court, and the headquarters sailed south into the Yangtze River, then went upstream through Yingtian Prefecture and landed in Tongling.

Then he went north to Liu Anzhou, originally intending to ask Huainan Hou to send troops to cooperate with the Ninth Division to cross the Huai River and march north.

As a result, the reaction of Huainan Hou was faster than that of the Ninth Division.

When the Ninth Division arrived in Lu'an, it learned from the officials left behind in the Huainan Marquis's mansion that the Huainan Marquis had already led an army of 30,000 northward.

He went to Hekouzhai, Luoshan County, on the south bank of the Huai River, preparing to cooperate with the imperial court and the King of Wu in crossing the river to the north to attack.

The Ninth Division was a little surprised and immediately continued on their way.

When they arrived at Hekou Village, Huainan Hou had already prepared a large number of boats, just right for crossing the river with the Ninth Division.

With the support of the new weapons of the Ninth Division, Huainan Hou's river crossing operation went very smoothly.

After defeating the Qing army defending the north bank, they immediately began to divide their forces to capture the surrounding areas, including the counties under Runing Prefecture and Yingzhou Prefecture. The Ninth Division discovered that Huainan Hou had some characteristics of his ancestor Huang Degong, and he was indeed brave and fearless in leading the troops in battle.

However, the quality of the army was very average. It was not even good among the traditional flintlock musket line infantry, and was even more incomparable with the main division of the Wu State.

The main reason is that most of the officers are rough and uneducated, and are unable to handle complicated matters.

If they were allowed to occupy a place, it would be a purely violent occupation. The army might rob and smash things at will, and the Marquis of Huainan would basically not care, or might not be able to control it at all.

In addition, the Ninth Division is the Wu army and has its own ideas.

So a platoon was left in each county, and the Marquis of Huainan was asked to leave a company in each county, to accept the management of this platoon of the Wu main force division, and to control these occupied areas together.

Of course, the Marquis of Huainan also had his own ideas. Theoretically, his ancestors also had fiefdoms in the northern part of the Huaihe River, and he had the right to take them back.

However, after seeing the combat effectiveness of Wu's main force, Marquis Huainan suppressed all these thoughts.

Marquis Huainan just played the supporting role obediently, doing whatever the Ninth Division asked him to do and being responsible for assisting the Ninth Division.

Of course, the officers of the Marquis of Huainan did not want to be managed by others, but if they really could not win, they could only admit defeat.

Compared with the relatively smooth Ninth Division, the situation of the Tenth Division was obviously much more troublesome.

When the 10th Division entered the Hubei border by boat, it was stopped on the Yangtze River by gunboats arranged by the Duke of E.

The officers on the gunboat claimed that in order to avoid pirates and robbers, no foreign ships were allowed to enter the Hubei area.

The Tenth Division naturally took out the order from the King of Wu and asked the Duke of E to lead his troops to cooperate with them in the Northern Expedition.

After receiving the news, the naval commanders of the Duke of E immediately made the same mistake as the troops of the Earl of Huai'an. They naturally adopted a delaying strategy and naturally avoided the question.

He even said directly: This is the fiefdom of the Duke of E, and the orders of other vassal kings are useless here.

Like the Earl of Huai'an, they greatly underestimated the impatience of the Wu army's Northern Expedition. This level of procrastination and evasion was already hindering the Northern Expedition.

The other brother troops are running fast, but we have to fight with them here. Isn't this an obstacle to the Northern Expedition?

What is more important is that Hubei has suffered constant disasters in recent years. Among the immigrants from the State of Wu, there are a large number of people from Hubei, several times more than those from Shandong. There are people from Hubei in almost every division.

These disaster victims hated Duke E to the core, as they knew why he blocked the waterway.

The purpose was to drain all the assets of the victims who came in and out, and demanded that they directly exchange their land for the Duke of E's boat tickets to send them to Yingtian Prefecture.

Most of the Hubei immigrants in the Wu State were blackmailed by the Duke of E.

The commander of the 10th Division asked his Hubei officers about this and immediately felt that the Duke of E "had already been doomed".

After hearing the introduction of their Hubei comrades, the victims from other places were also extremely angry.

Now, fighting against Duke E is as important as the Northern Expedition.

Anyway, occupying the lands of these evil vassal states should be considered a merit.

The commander of the 10th Division made a little preparation and then opened fire on the Eguogong artillery fleet blocking the river.

The 10th Division has high morale, sufficient training, superior equipment, and is full of hatred.

What Duke E did in Hubei can be said to be retrograde.

He knew that his army was his foundation, so he had no shortage of training and military pay.

But his troops were all from Hubei province, and the soldiers' relatives and friends could still receive basic protection in the first two years.

But after the disaster lasted for five years, the Duke of E no longer considered disaster relief, and even ordinary military officers found it difficult to help their relatives and friends.

Ordinary soldiers can only ensure that their own families are alive, and their relatives have been displaced like ordinary people.

Most of the soldiers nowadays continue to serve in the army just to get a salary and food and get by. They have no will to fight at all and they just do it to survive.

It's okay to bully scattered civilians, but they have no resistance at all when facing other normal and organized armies.

Therefore, there was no suspense in the subsequent battle process.

The 10th Division easily defeated the army of Duke E on the river, and then continued upstream to capture the Huangzhou Prefecture. After taking over the prefecture, it continued upstream and captured Wuchang and Hanyang at the same time.

The Duke of E had at least 50,000 troops under his command, but the 10th Division encountered basically no effective resistance.

Hubei had already suffered from disasters for several consecutive years. At least one-third of the local people had fled, and countless people had died from floods and famine.

Most of the remaining local people, except for those who are truly powerful, are struggling to survive.

Even the once relatively wealthy industrial and commercial classes suffered greatly from the continued disasters and the Duke of E's perverse actions.

The 10th Division's attack on Wuchang was similar to its attacks on most other cities. It launched a surprise attack and blew open the city gates when the Wuchang defenders were completely unprepared.

Then they launched a charge into the city, continued to raid and defeat the defenders in the city, and finally captured the officials in the city and took over the city.

However, slightly different from other places, the 10th Division received an unusually warm welcome in Wuchang City.

Because the people of Wuchang Prefecture had long been fed up with the Duke of E's evil deeds.

(End of this chapter)