Southern Ming, my destiny is too abstract

Chapter 72 We Saw a White Horse

Muzhai Pass is thirty miles away from Xingwei City.

Wu Sangui respectfully lit three incense sticks in front of the wooden Buddha statue and then inserted them into the incense burner on the table.

He doesn't believe in gods or Buddhas.

Even when he was young and fighting under his uncle in Liaodong, he felt that the protection of gods, ghosts, immortals and Buddhas was not as safe as the sharp knife in his hand.

Every time I return to the capital, I see those temples and Taoist temples that are bustling with incense and the endless stream of pilgrims.

He sneered at them all and looked down on them from the bottom of his heart.

The dignitaries gave the money they offered to the border troops as military pay, and the lives of the soldiers at the border would be much better.

Even if we purchase firearms and repair armor, we can kill more Tartars.

But now that I'm older, for some reason, I've begun to fear these intangible things.

The Qing court conferred upon him the title of prince, and he ruled Yunnan and Yunnan for generations. He greatly expanded the palace and even built a Buddhist temple in it.

Just as the Ming Dynasty showed signs of demise during the Chongzhen period, it was still able to survive for a few decades.

Li Zicheng's rebel army was defeated again and again, and Dai Qing outside the Great Wall was never able to break through the Guanningjin defense line.

Later, Emperor Chongzhen was forced to death on Coal Hill.

Everyone thought that destiny was on Li Zicheng's side, but God gave him a choice at Shanhaiguan.

At the beginning of the Yongli period, the country rebelled. Zhang Xianzhong's former subordinates left Yunnan and defeated two famous kings. No matter how you looked at it, the Ming Dynasty was not over.

It may form the pattern of the two Song dynasties together with the Qing dynasty.

However, Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang started to fight among themselves, allowing Dai Qing to pacify the country.

Even Zhu Cixuan.

After spending so much effort, they still failed to build a defense line to Guanningjin, and because they encountered enemies from behind, they lost the sixty-mile wooden stronghold in a panic and haste.

After all, they are young and not good at military affairs. If they build strong defenses and clear the fields and continue to hold out, they can hold out until the malaria outbreak in Qingming.

Let the Qing army pay a heavy price.

This was his fate, how could Wu Sangui not believe it?

He glanced at the densely packed eternal lamps in the Buddhist temple.

Wu Sangui frowned slightly, and the uneasiness deep in his heart surged up again.

"Come here, blow out all these eternal lights to prevent fire."

I don’t know whether Hong Shawadi is really rich or Zhu Cixuan is too extravagant.

So much fragrant oil was used to win over the hearts of the people of Hongsha.

Each camp was equipped with hundreds of eternally burning lanterns, which were lit for the Hongsha soldiers.

Each wooden village has a Buddhist temple and more than ten barrels of incense oil.

Even the Buddha statues in every temple are obviously objects of worship over the years.

Burning down the entire camp?
Even if Zhu Cixuan was young, Li Dingguo, Bai Wenxuan and Ma Bao would not be so stupid.

How could you set fire to the tent that you have worked so hard to build?

It rains a lot during the Spring Equinox, and Hongsawadi is so humid, how can it burn?

The artillery, muskets and gunpowder seized from Muzhai alone were enough for Wu Sangui to build a strong army that was no less powerful than the elite troops of King Sanshun.

Whoever pretends to be defeated will lose these things.

With these firearms, it is enough for Ai Xing'a to arrive and directly penetrate Hongshawadi, driving Yongli and Zhu Cixuan to Southeast Asia.

By then, if they join forces with Zheng Yanping and cause chaos along the coast, it will have nothing to do with Wu Sangui.

"Your Highness, I have already handed over 5,000 troops from Liaodong to General Ma Ning. I estimate that we will be able to capture Xingwei City soon."

Wu Guogui came back with a happy look on his face and reported.

Wu Sangui nodded slightly.

Finally finished it before Qingming Festival.

Then he looked at the captives behind Wu Guogui.

The reason why he did not rush to Xingwei City to personally supervise the siege.

That is to stay in the rear and prevent sneak attacks from the fleeing Hongsha soldiers of the Ming army.

Wu Guogui saw this and said, "When I came back, I saw some Ming army scouts spying on our army, so I had a few of them captured."

"There were originally dozens of scouts, but they hid in the mountains and forests, and only those who ran slowly were caught."

Hearing that there were so many scouts, Wu Sangui frowned even more.

But he still wanted to ask what he was most concerned about: how Zhu Cixuan built so many passes in such a short time.

Unexpectedly, these were not Shan or Hongsha people.

It took several translators to understand the language of the Mon soldiers.

"Zhu Cixuan spent hundreds of thousands of taels of gold, mobilized a hundred thousand people, and personally directed the construction."

All the Qing army generals in the camp were puzzled.

The golden gold was given to the people for free.

There is no need to pay for corvee labor.

Repairing borders and building walls is what the people of Guizhou should do.

If you don't obey, kill you.

A whip is not better than gold?

Wu Sangui was more concerned with something else: "You said Zhu Cixuan emptied the people of the four surrounding counties and promised them a ten-year tax exemption, and the local chieftains dismantled their own villages to build wooden walls and forts for Zhu Cixuan?"

After receiving a positive answer, Wu Sangui felt filled with a sense of absurdity.

Are you the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, or the son of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong?
The latter two were just talking.

After conquering the city and occupying the land, the court still used the same tactics.

The entire Hongshawadi was exempted from grain and tax collection for two years.

Without taxes and levies, how can you recuperate, train the army, and distribute food and wages?

Not planning to counterattack Middle-earth?

And those firearms and gunpowder were captured. If such a large batch is lost, it will take several years to prepare them again.

Is the Nanyang maritime trade so valuable?
Zheng Yanping lived overseas and it took him ten years to build an army of over 100,000.

Wu Sangui was momentarily dazed. He caught sight of the bamboo tube on the prisoner's waist and asked:

"What's that on their waists?"

Wu Guogui bowed and said, "Your Highness, it's some kind of animal oil, and it's not very edible. It seems to be used for lighting."

The Chinese interpreter asked some questions and translated it into Chinese.

Wu Sangui was puzzled: "Whale oil? Is it the whale oil from the sea?"

After getting a positive answer.

Wu Sangui's doubts grew even greater: "Each camp has more than a dozen barrels of whale oil. A single Kun can extract so much. How much do they need for lighting?"

The interpreter continued to translate in a babble.

Everyone knew that this was the tribute from the countries under the Japanese rule that Zhu Cixuan had obtained by exempting Westerners from tariffs for one year.

Wu Guogui also noticed something was wrong: "Your Highness, in addition to whale oil, they also had a bamboo tube of fierce fire oil, which I seized."

Wu Sangui took a deep breath.

Sesame oil, gunpowder, whale oil, the wooden village where they are is a powder keg.

Even if it is rainy and humid, the kerosene, which is difficult to extinguish, can easily catch fire.

Wu Sangui quickly ordered the Qing troops in the wooden villages in various places to move all the oil and gunpowder out.

However, it was obviously too late.

The personal guards had just walked out of the central military camp.

The roars of countless monkeys resounded in the mountains and forests.

Nearly ten thousand Hongsha soldiers, armed with wooden shields, walked out of the mountains and forests, rushed to the wooden strongholds, and threw burning bamboo tube pottery jars at the Buddhist temple's gunpowder depot and the place where whale oil was stored.

They don't fight too long. After one wave is finished, they make room for the next wave.

After the Qing soldiers left the village, they hid in the mountains and forests and attacked them with bows, arrows and muskets.

When Wu Sangui heard the news of the Ming army's attack, he was stunned for two breaths. He rushed out of the camp with his personal guards, repelled three waves of Hongsha soldiers, and climbed to the top of a mountain.

Climb to a high place and look out over the entire sixty-li pass.

Generals Wu Guogui, Wu Yingqi and others were all stunned.

The Luchuan jungle was shrouded in rain and fog, and the Sixty-Li Wooden Village was like a giant black snake winding among the mountains.

Those Hongsha soldiers rushed towards the black giant snake like ants devouring an elephant.

Every wooden stronghold was like the weak spot of a snake, burning under the influence of various combustible materials.

Even because of the rain, petroleum-made incendiary oil spread everywhere. The spring breeze blew gently, fanning the flames and turning them into balls of blazing flames.

They could hear all kinds of crackling and exploding sounds on the mountain.

The sixty-mile-long black giant snake was instantly cut into dozens of fireballs.

Like fire snakes devouring the Qing soldiers.

Sulfur is an essential component of firearms, and the gunpowder depot and the incense oil depot also began to burn.

The pungent smell of sulfur made the soldiers in the village completely give up on fighting the fire.

The fire spread quickly and thoroughly burned all the wooden villages. The high temperature caused the wood to deform rapidly and then collapse.

The Qing army struggled to escape from the camp engulfed in flames, only to be greeted by arrows and bullets from the Hongsha people.

There were even several organized Ming troops who used elephants to attack Qing soldiers who wanted to reorganize their defenses.

The Qing army, out of order and control, tried to flee into the mountains in panic, but they only screamed in vain.

The Qing army generals on the top of the mountain all looked pale.

Their camps were burned down and they were completely defeated.

Wu Guogui trembled and knelt. "Your Highness, the entire army has collapsed. Only by recalling the over ten thousand men of Ma Ning's corps from Xingwei City can we stop the collapse and gather the remaining troops." "Let's reorganize our troops and retreat directly to Hanlong Pass."

The voice just fell,

At the end of the Sixty-Li Pass, a raging fire broke out at the pass, and then it directly swept across the tail of the entire Sixty-Li giant snake.

When Wu Guogui saw this, his mind went blank.

The mountain is burning.

They even burned the last two or three miles of the sixty-mile area.

Ma Ning's 15,000 soldiers and horses will never come back.

Wu Sangui took two deep breaths of the rain air mixed with the smell of gunpowder.

Fifty thousand troops.

Is this the Battle of Sarhu during the Wanli period?

At that time, the old general Liu Ying was defeated and died at the border. Now, the place where he started his expedition to Burma was the place where Dai Qing Gulun suffered an unprecedented defeat.

From northeast to southwest.

The situation in the world is about to be reversed.

Forcefully suppress the sadness in your heart.

Wu Sangui managed to say, "We deserved to lose."

"Ten years of taxes made the people help him build the border, two years of taxes made the people in the temples provide incense and oil, and one year of customs duties made the Westerners provide whale oil and fierce incendiary oil, and also tribute from the southern barbarians and the countries of the South Seas."

"Zhu Cixuan spent more than a few hundred thousand taels of gold."

"Just this preparation, I'm afraid it will cost no less than six or seven million taels of silver."

"Hongshawadi's savings over the years."

"One quarter of the annual tax revenue of Middle-earth."

Wu Sangui looked up at the drizzle in the sky, which had begun to become just a drizzle, and sighed:
"Since ancient times, wars have been fought with money and silver."

"The Qing government only offered a little over three million taels. How could it possibly defeat an enemy twice its size?"

After saying that, Wu Sangui directly called Yang Wu who had returned from Tianma Pass.

"Yang Wu, the wooden fort and the second wooden wall thirty miles behind us are likely to have fallen into the hands of the Ming army. In addition to your own two thousand men, I will give you another one thousand soldiers and horses."

"Go and break through the second wooden wall. I will gather the defeated soldiers and reorganize them, then follow right behind you. Before nightfall tomorrow, break through the first wooden wall and return to defend Hanlong Pass."

Yang Wu hesitated for a few moments, nodded heavily, took the token and went down the mountain.

"Father, are Yang Wu's troops too few?"

Wu Yingqi spoke out.

Of their 50,000 mixed civilian army, nearly 20,000 were under Ma Ning's command.

Twenty thousand troops were divided into two groups and stationed at the Sixty-Li Muzhai Pass.

Five thousand soldiers and horses patrolled everywhere to prevent the Ming army from attacking the camp.

The central army had only 5,000 men.

There are so many flood soldiers and elephants in the mountains and forests along the way.

Instead of dividing into groups one after another, it would be better for the entire army to march out together, gather up the remaining soldiers along the way, and break through the wooden wall.

Wu Sangui shook his head repeatedly and said in a hoarse voice, "I can't go back."

"Not to mention that our forces are scattered, even if we had 10,000 elite soldiers, we wouldn't be able to return to Hanlong Pass."

"The return journey is over a hundred miles. Zhu Cixuan must have prepared two wooden walls to stop us."

"We'll take Wu Guogui's detour and retreat directly back to Tengyue from Mangsi Tusi."

Wu Yingqi was shocked for a moment.

He didn't care whether Yang Wu was going to die or not.

The key point is that my father actually wants to give up Hanlong Pass directly.

He gave up the three passes of Ganya in Nandian, Longchuan, and handed over the eight passes of Tengyue directly to Zhu Cixuan.

That was a huge pass built by the Ming Dynasty in western Yunnan specifically for the Hongsha Nanman, which was used to repeatedly resist the invasion of Hongsha.

Even they were able to completely conquer the Three Xuans only after Yang Wu surrendered and offered Tengyue.

As long as they controlled the eight passes, it would be difficult for the Ming army to enter western Yunnan.

If Zhu Cixuan took over the Three Xuans, together with Mu Tianbo in southern Yunnan, they might not even be able to defend western Yunnan.

"Cut down the general's flag."

Wu Sangui's order startled all the guards.

Wu Guogui understood that the prince did not want the Ming army to chase him, so he strode forward, drew his sword and cut down the big flag with the word "Wu" on it.

Wu Sangui also drew his sword and took advantage of the imperial military supervisor behind him not paying attention to stab him in the heart.

Sheath the knife.

Wu Sangui took two thousand elite troops with him, ignoring the fleeing soldiers on both sides, and went straight into the mountain trails and returned north to Zhenkangzhou.

……

A little earlier.

Ma Ning, who was preparing to attack the city, felt relieved when he saw that Ma Weixing on the mountain had used fire to force the Ming army in the camp to flee.

Looking back at Xingwei City, Ma Ning showed some doubts on his face.

"Has anyone seen the banner of the fake Crown Prince Zhu Cixuan?"

"General, it was on the city wall yesterday, but it seems it's gone today?"

Ma Ning frowned and glanced at Di Sanpin on the other side of the Ava River.

There are Qing troops patrolling on both sides of the river, so Zhu Cixuan should not be able to escape.

Ma Ning shook off the confusion in his head.

Never mind. King Pingxi only allowed me to take Xingwei City.

When he heard that Zhu Cixuan had captured Wang Fuchen alive, he was afraid that Zhu Cixuan would come out of the city to find him and kill him.

Numerous obstacles were set up in Xingwei City to prevent Zhu Cixuan from leaving the city to attack.

"General, several thousand cavalry are approaching from the direction of Lashio City. They must be Bai Wenxuan's troops, numbering no less than two or three thousand."

The scout's hurried report disrupted Ma Ning's preparations to order an attack on the city.

Ma Ning hesitated for a moment, then said, "Let Sun Chongya lead 3,000 soldiers to stop them."

"Ma Weixing has a thousand soldiers on the mountain, which is enough for him to hold Bai Wenxuan back."

Ma Ning still focuses on Xingwei City.

The city wall was not high. Apart from a dozen light cannons, there were only one or two thousand defenders. He could take it down in half a day at most.

At that time, whether Zhu Cixuan fought or fled was none of his business, and Bai Wenxuan could only return empty-handed.

Ma Ning ordered two or three thousand civilians to hold wooden shields and carry the battering rams, siege towers and ladders to the foot of the city gate.

However, just as the laborers set out, Ma Ning received another piece of bad news.

"General, the wooden forts in the direction of Hanlong Pass were attacked by the Ming army. All the wooden forts within 20 miles of us were attacked."

Ma Ning was shocked and puzzled: "They are guarding the camp pass, why would they report it to me?"

They had long anticipated a surprise attack by the Ming army, and the King of Pingxi even left two thousand reserve troops in a wooden village near Ma Ning, just to prevent him from being distracted.

The scout gasped, "Sir, the Ming army specifically set fire to the gunpowder depot. There was so much fuel in the wooden forts that they all caught fire in no time."

Ma Ning was startled when he heard the voice.

Thinking of the incense, oil and gunpowder he had seized from several camps, he was happy that Zhu Cixuan was a boy who brought wealth.

Sesame oil can be eaten and can also be used to treat burns and abrasions.

There were so many of them, so he moved more than twenty barrels and asked his confidants to look after them for him.

But dozens of barrels of fuel and gunpowder were enough to burn down a wooden village.

If this were the case for all the sixty-li passes, then Zhu Cixuan would be on fire.

Both the King of Pingxi and he were undoubtedly defeated.

Not to mention that Zhu Cixuan was in Xingwei City, even if Zhu Youlang and Li Dingguo were there, it would be of no use.

Even if they did not withdraw immediately and were held back by Bai Wenxuan, most of their troops would have died on the journey of more than a hundred miles back to Hanlong Pass.

The King of Pingxi sent all his troops under his command, and the King of Pingxi himself was in danger.

Ma Ning calmed down, gave up attacking the city, and planned to withdraw his troops to rescue the King of Pingxi who was attacked.

However, the personal guard general in front of him stared blankly at the camp on the mountain.

Ma Ning instinctively turned his head to look back, only to see that the pass that Ma Weixing had set fire to was actually on fire.

Moreover, the fire, with the help of some flammable material, spread across the entire mountain in the blink of an eye and directly attacked the camp at the foot of the mountain.

Ma Ning completely lost his luster.

The mountains were ten miles behind them, but they were the exit of the sixty-mile wooden village from Hanlong Pass to Xingwei City.

"how is this possible?"

Ma Ning was in a panic.

The hill is just a gentle slope of a mountain with two small streams. How could it burn so badly?

The raging flames forced Ma Weixing's troops to go down the mountain to avoid the fire.

Bad news came one after another. Some of the troops under Sun Chongya who had just been sent out suddenly fled back in panic.

"Sir, our general Sun Chongya was killed in battle by the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty."

Ma Ning angrily kicked the man down and shouted, "Zhu Cixuan is in Xingwei City, how can he kill Sun Chongya in battle?"

Sun Chongya's captain nodded and then shook his head: "General, we don't know how Zhu Cixuan appeared in Bai Wenxuan's army."

"I only saw a white horse and a yellow horse pulling a chariot, with the sun, moon and dragon flag of the Great Ming Crown Prince hanging on the chariot."

(End of this chapter)