Reborn Ming Dynasty as Emperor

Chapter 287 The Rebellion
Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, issued an order, and several fireworks broke through the sky, and the entire night sky was illuminated like daytime.

But under this dazzling light, the five thousand kings of Chu who had already assembled on the school grounds of the palace could be seen coming to the front hall one after another with their original guards and expanded soldiers and horses of domestic slaves.

At the same time, a group of personal soldiers that Zuo Liangyu brought into the city also rushed to the royal city to strengthen the defense of the royal city and put away the suspension bridge.

Because of this, the people from Dongchang were blocked from outside the Wangcheng. However, they did not intend to attack the Wangcheng, but stopped outside the Wangcheng. Xue Xianfang, the head of Dongchang who was in charge of Huguang affairs, also stopped immediately: "I am here to announce His Majesty's will. Zhu Huakui, King of Chachu Zhao, intends to rebel. He has kidnapped a large number of civil and military officials, including our Nanjing household department member Wailang Daming Daily Deputy Editor Wei Miner and Hu Guangcheng. , His intentions are truly deplorable, but because he belongs to the imperial family, he will avoid any incidents of relatives and enemies, hereby warn Zhu Huakui, and finally take the blame on Xiaoling, otherwise, the imperial court will punish him according to the law of the state!"

After Xue Xianfang read out the decree, he retreated on horseback, and the other Dongchang fans also retreated like the tide.

And here, Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, also heard what Dongchang brought, which made him very upset. Originally, he planned to get married first and then start troubles. Coming to the palace, Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, mistakenly thought that Dongchang was here to arrest him, but forced himself to start an incident in advance.

Because of this, all the pre-deployment was disrupted.

However, since the order had been issued, the arrow was on the string and had no choice but to send it. Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, had to immediately change the dragon robe, put on his own armor, and then began to take out the big tripod to worship the heaven and the earth.

At the same time, he also immediately entrusted the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs, Ruan Dacheng was directly appointed as a scholar of the Jianji Palace as the chief assistant of the cabinet, and one of his left and right long histories became the Minister of the Ministry of Officials, the other became the Minister of the Ministry of War, and the left and right ministers of Huguang. Except for Zuobu Zhengshi who refused and was killed, the right Buzhengshi suddenly became the Minister of the Ministry of Households, and the procurator directly became the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment.

The other six divisions and Jiuqing were also conferred, and Zuo Liangyu also became the King of Jingjiang, and he was added the official title of Bachelor of Wuyingdian and Shangshu of the Ministry of War.

In this way, Chu Huakui's rebel team was set up overnight, which was even more sloppy than the Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprising.

However, Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, himself did not proclaim himself emperor immediately, because his current slogan is to follow the emperor's legacy and punish traitors in the court.

Qian Qianyi, Lu Xiangsheng, Li Mingrui, Wei Zhongxian, etc. are naturally on this list, and Zhang Dai, the editor-in-chief of Da Ming Daily, is also lucky to be on the list.

But what is strange is that Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, did not immediately take down the people from Dongchang after he rebelled and actually took control of Wuchang City, and the people from Dongchang can still carry out activities in Wuchang City in peace.

What Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, is doing now is disturbing the people, yes it is disturbing the people!
Because he listened to Ruan Dacheng's arrangement, he would not use Wuchang City as the foundation after this incident, and his political slogan was to reduce business taxes and return the freedom of scholar-bureaucrats, so going to the south of the Yangtze River will undoubtedly win the masses better. support.

Therefore, Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, ignored his image in Wuchang City.

He now wants to do two things before the imperial army arrives. These two things are the foundation of his future march into the south of the Yangtze River. Even for these two things, he can't take care of destroying the Dongchang forces in Huguang.

The first thing Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, had to do was to recruit soldiers. That's right, it was conscription, not recruiting.

Zhu Huakui, King of Chu, wanted to save money and have a larger army, so he could only conscript and force young men to join the army.

In the entire city of Wuchang, all males over the age of 0 were forcibly drawn into the team by the king of Chu, Zhu Huakui, and even robbed directly in the city. If they refused, they would be beaten to death.

The second thing is to plunder people's wealth, indeed it is blatantly plundering people's wealth. In order to obtain more war resources, Chu King Zhu Huakui completely disregarded his image among the people in Huguang, allowing his own soldiers and Zuo Liangyu's Soldiers ransacked the city wantonly, breaking in and looting shops and civilian houses when they encountered them.

Many shops were looted, countless houses were burned down, and rape incidents even occurred.

For a while, Wuchang City fell into chaos. Some officials and gentry couldn't stand it and wanted to dissuade Chu King Zhu Huakui, but Zhu Huakui didn't listen, and even killed several people directly.

In just three days, Chu King Zhu Huakui and Zuo Liangyu forcibly expanded Wuchang City by 10 horses. Even because the expansion was too fast, many soldiers did not have weapons in their hands and could only use sticks and poles instead.

I don't know, at first glance, this team thought it was a peasant uprising team of rogues, even worse than the rogues, because the people of the rogues participated in the rebellion voluntarily, but the peasant army of Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, was forced.

However, Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, didn't take it seriously. When he saw a mighty army of 10 people appearing in front of him, and he was under his control, he instantly became full of pride, and even couldn't help saying to Ruan Dayue, "Ruan Dayue!" Sir, you are right, as long as you think about it, you can gather [-] people in an instant, so it seems that it will not be difficult to compete for the world in the future."

"Yes, now we only need to go down the Yangtze River and drive straight in. We can drink the Jingjiang River in the morning and visit Qixia Mountain in the evening! Occupying Jinling City, we will gain the momentum of dragons and tigers. When the time is right, we will move north and force He, Zhu Youxiao, abdicated!"

Ruan Dacheng also said confidently.

……

At this time, Fu Dahai, the former commander-in-chief of the imperial guards, had also been stationed outside Luojia Mountain.

After Fu Dahai was ordered to recruit soldiers in the Huguang area at the beginning of the year, after a rigorous screening process, he recruited more than [-] new recruits for the Imperial Guard in June, and they were organized into ten battalions.

But these 10 people were selected out of tens of thousands of people. Except for a few very talented people, most of them are not illiterate, and most of them are familiar with artillery operations. After the training, they were still very disciplined, but they were a little younger than the Xuzhou Imperial Guards, and had never participated in a war. This time, it was the first time many of them actually fought to put down Chu Huakui's rebellion.

"Start debugging, the elevation angle is [-] degrees to the northwest!"

More than ten [-]-pound field guns newly developed by Daming are made of alloy materials newly developed by Song Yingxing's research group of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The range is farther, but now the Ordnance Department has just finished the experimental stage. After manufacturing [-] pieces, except for a few, they were shipped to Shanhaiguan, and most of them were shipped to Huguang Fuhai. The old artillerymen of the Fuhai Guards were the first to test and use them. .

Prior to this, the Imperial Guards of the Fuhai Ministry had already practiced on the spot several times, but now it was the first actual combat.

"The No. [-] artillery position has been debugged!"

"The No. [-] artillery position has been debugged!"

……

After all the battery gunners stood up and announced, Fu Dahai still squinted his eyes, measured the distance and angle with his thumb, and then looked at the time indicated by the Western clock before ordering: "Fire!"

Immediately, solid iron bullets flew across the sky, and when they were slowing down due to resistance in the middle, the combustible material added by the Royal Academy of Engineering somewhere behind the shells burned and exploded after air resistance friction, making the iron bullets begin to gain an acceleration. Continue to hit the city wall at high speed.

The iron bullets fired by the 0-pound gun were extremely heavy and high-speed, and they hit Wuchang City at once, and several big holes were breached in Wuchang City in an instant.

Most of the soldiers Zuo Liangyu sent to guard the north gate of Wuchang City were crushed to death, and the north gate was also smashed open by three shells.

"Send the signal flare, the cavalry and infantry can attack!" Fu Dahai couldn't help but yelled, but he clenched his fists and endured it.

Immediately, the infantry who had already ambushed outside the city of Wuchang rushed over. Most of them carried wooden boards and jumped directly into the moat, and quickly built a wooden bridge. By the time Zuo Liangyu's soldiers reacted, they had already controlled the gate of the city.

When Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, was about to order his 10 troops to leave Wuchang City, he heard the huge crash of the city wall.

But before he had time to ask Zuo Liangyu what was going on, he saw Zuo Liangyu's general Jin Shenghuan quickly running over with a group of remnants: "My lord, the imperial guards are here!"

Janissaries?Zuo Liangyu looked at Jin Shenghuan in astonishment, while Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, also looked at Zuo Liangyu in astonishment, and Ruan Dacheng also stood up in astonishment.

The three of them were still engrossed in the great cause of leading an army of [-] down the Yangtze River to capture Jinling City, but they didn't expect to know the news that the imperial guards had arrived in a short while.

Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, first asked: "What's going on here? Didn't you tell Gu that the Imperial Guard Fu Haibu is now far away in Yueyang and is being dragged by Huguang Governor Hou Xun? Why did the Imperial Guard appear again suddenly?" Wuchang city?"

Ruan Dacheng couldn't help laughing bitterly: "This is indeed a bit unexpected. Logically, there will be no imperial guards, but even if there are, there must not be too many. Maybe Zhu Youxiao sent a small team of imperial guards The army rushed over quickly to deter us, and my lord, we now have a hundred thousand troops in our hands, so there is no need to be afraid. In Yichen's opinion, it is better to kill them directly. As long as Wuchang City is still in our hands, we will still have Chance."

"Yes, now there is an army of [-] alone, and I am afraid that his little imperial guards will fail." People always struggle tenaciously when they are dying. This is a very instinctive method of spiritual victory, and it is also a human A good character, Chu Huakui is also the same at this time, he took the initiative to be optimistic that relying on his [-] troops can withstand the attack of the imperial guards.

Zhu Huakui, the King of Chu, said: "Send Gu's order, strictly guard the city gate, and look for opportunities to break out!"

"Go back to the prince, there is no need to guard, the imperial guards have already entered the city, and they are coming towards the king's city", Jin Shenghuan replied directly, but the king of Chu, Zhu Huakui, was surprised that he could stuff an egg in his mouth, but Zuo Liangyu could still Rather calmly, he immediately replaced Chu King Zhu Huakui and said: "Order all the ministries to return to the royal city immediately, and close the royal city after half an hour!"

……

Fu Dahai personally entered Wuchang City on a cannon cart supported by a four-wheeled carriage, and the cannons carried by the carriage also followed in an orderly manner behind him.

In front of Fu Dahai, the firearms soldiers of the Imperial Guard entered in a square team of 20 people holding firearms in their hands, and in front of the firearms soldiers were cavalry.

The cavalry did not pursue anymore, because the rebels in the outer city of Wuchang were wiped out in just half an hour.

At the same time, sirens began to sound on the Yangtze River outside the city. No one knew what the sirens were. Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, couldn't help asking Ruan Dacheng, and Ruan Dacheng also said he didn't know.

It wasn't until another quarter of an hour passed, when several large ships appeared outside Wuchang City, that Zhu Huakui, the King of Chu, saw the navy of the imperial guards coming from the observation tower of the Wangcheng.

Chu King Zhu Huakui also began to feel real fear at this time. The river was blocked by the imperial guards, which meant that he had no way out for Chu King Zhu Huakui, and the only thing he could do now was to hold on to Wuchang City.

There was another roar of artillery fire that pierced the sky and covered the earth, and a wall on the north side of the king's city collapsed in response. The collapsed brick wall fell into the moat, causing countless splashes.

However, Fu Dahai's order was to continue the bombardment until the thick wall of the royal city was riddled with holes, and the moat was filled with mud and rocks, making it easier for cavalry and infantry to rush in.

Chu Huakui's army did not dare to respond, and his [-]-strong army was now huddled on the bluestone slabs outside the palace, not daring to approach the king's city.

Even Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, began to ask in a panic: "Mr. Ruan, General Zuo, what should we do now?"

Ruan Dacheng couldn't help showing embarrassment, he didn't expect his side to be so vulnerable in front of the imperial guards, the outer city of Wuchang was destroyed within one night, and the royal city was breached again within half an hour. What else can I do, even if I am really Zhuge alive, it is difficult to recover.

"Under heavy rewards, there must be brave men, my lord. For the current plan, why not spend a huge amount of money in the government to reward all the soldiers to boost morale, or to repel the imperial guards, so there is a chance of survival."

Zuo Liangyu put forward a more pertinent opinion at this time, but Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, shook his head and said: "Now that I have been cut off from my salary, and I have to recruit soldiers and build weapons, how can I have any money left? All officers and men, as long as you keep this king, he will definitely reward you greatly."

Seeing that Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, was unwilling to spend money to boost morale, and only promised a piece of cake, Zuo Liangyu also regretted why he followed this incompetent prince's thief ship.

At this time, the moat of the royal city had been filled, and the imperial guards had already rushed towards the royal city like a torrent. Even the king of Chu, Zhu Huakui, could hear the mighty shouts of killing clearly.

Zhu Huakui, king of Chu, couldn't help shouting: "Quick, hurry up and block it, block it!"

Zuo Liangyu didn't listen to him, but rode away and ordered to his servant: "Go find a boat and escape from the city overnight!"

And here, Ruan Dacheng also disappeared into the crowd in desperation while no one was paying attention.

(End of this chapter)