Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 313
One hundred thousand Qing soldiers came north and broke through Fancheng to besiege Xiangyang. The huge pressure made Wang Yan, who was in Wuchang, neither able to go east to Jinling, nor to join forces with Wanji to attack Jin Shengheng.

Azige and Wu Sangui are like a sharp sword on Wang Yan's back. He can only carry out other strategies if he turns around and completely eliminates the hidden danger behind him.

Although Wang Yan has been victorious since entering Chu, he still has not changed the situation of the Ming being weak and the Qing being strong. In the general situation of the world, the Manchu and Qing still have the absolute initiative.

On the third day after the capture of Wuchang, the Ming army only rested for a while, so Wang Yan ordered the Ming army to attack. He had 5 horses under his command, plus Ma Jinzhong, Hao Yaoqi, Chen Youlong, and Wang Guangen, a total of 8 horses were dispatched immediately. Go north across the Yangtze River and march along the Han River.

Thousands of collected boats and boats, large and small, carried groups of people and horses across the river, and then entered the Han River with luggage.

The pro-supervisor army once again became the pioneer. Yuan Zongdi and Wang Shixiu transported [-] soldiers and [-] horses to the north bank of the Yangtze River in just half a day, and then galloped on the horses, approaching Xiangyang directly.

Although Wang Yan and Yang Yanchang agreed that they must rush to Xiangyang in 20 days, and now only eight days have passed, so there is still plenty of time, but after all, if the war ends one day earlier, the loss of the Gaoyi Gong Department will be reduced by one point, Huguang And get peace sooner.

The army crossed the Yangtze River and entered the territory of Chengtian Mansion. Wang Yan urged the army to follow behind, and [-] supervisors galloped ahead. They cleared roads across the mountains, built bridges when they met the water, and soon crossed the Quanshui. It was from here , a scene of decay appeared along the way.

Yuan Zongdi and Wang Shixiu rode their horses into a small village, and the whole village was left with only ruined walls. In the middle of the village, there were still a few corpses lying on the grain drying field.

The summer weather is hot, and the corpses of these common people have obviously been killed for some time. They have long since rotted under the scorching sun. He couldn't help turning over and dismounting, and ran to the side and vomited wildly.

Seeing this, Yuan Zongdi frowned. He ordered the soldiers to burn the corpses quickly to prevent the plague from happening. Then he and Wang Shixiu led the people out of the village, and sent sentry cavalry to attack and look around.

Not long after, the sentry came back to report that almost all the villages within a radius of twenty miles had been looted, and there were no traces of people.

"It seems that Yang Yanchang is telling the truth. In order to attack the city, the Qing soldiers arrested people everywhere as cannon fodder, but they didn't expect that the Qing soldiers would run so far and rob Chengtian Mansion." Wang Shixiu frowned after hearing this.

Yuan Zongdi said with a serious face: "Yes~ I didn't expect that the range of activities of the Qing army's cavalry is so large. I don't know if there is the main force of the Qing army in front. Should we wait for the Duke to arrive, or continue to advance towards Xiangyang?"

"The final general thinks it's better to be on the safe side. The front is Chengtian Mansion. Let's enter the mansion and wait for the Duke to arrive before making a decision, so as not to be ambushed by the Qing army. What do you think?"

Although Yuan Zongdi was the chief general, Wang Shixiu was Wang Yan's confidant, so he was very concerned about Wang Shixiu's opinion, so he nodded and said, "Well, then let's go to Chengtian Mansion first."

Chengtian Mansion was to the east of the Hanshui River, so the [-] supervisors immediately turned around to find a place where the water flow was gentle, and built a bridge to cross the river.

The cavalry of the Qing army ravaged the Jianghan Plain. Although Wang Yan issued orders for the officials of various prefectures and counties to take the people into the city and stick to the city, Yuan Zongdi was not sure whether Chengtian Mansion was still in the hands of the Ming army.

When the army built the pontoon bridge, Yuan Zongdi took thirty knights to cross the river in a small boat, and then went to Fucheng to investigate.

According to the ancient system, there is a long pavilion for ten miles, and a short pavilion for five miles. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the culture was at its peak, and long pavilions became synonymous with farewell places. Basically, there will be long pavilions outside every big city.

Yuan Zongdi led thirty cavalrymen, galloped on horseback, and soon arrived at the ten-li long pavilion outside Chengtian Mansion. He saw the pavilion from a distance, and saw that there was no one around, so he led the knights to stop and prepared to rest for a while. Take a sip of water.

Everyone reined in the reins and turned off their horses. Yuan Zongdi strode to the stone bench in the pavilion and sat down. He took the water bottle handed over by the soldiers and was just about to take a sip, but he couldn't help feeling vigilant in his heart. Listening quietly and carefully, besides the cicadas' calls, he could clearly feel the deliberate breathing of many people, as well as the sound of dead branches breaking.

Is there an ambush?At this moment, he couldn't help turning his head back suddenly, but found that the voice was not coming from his subordinates, so he couldn't help squinting his eyes, stood up immediately, and walked towards the war horse.

A group of Ming soldiers who were just about to sit down immediately knew something was wrong when they saw this, but just as they stood up, a shout suddenly came out from the weeds half a person's height outside the long pavilion, and the surrounding grass and the woods on both sides of the road Nearly a hundred people stood up immediately, all of them were covered with branches and thatch, holding long knives, bows and arrows, and they didn't know how long they had been lurking here.

When Yuan Zongdi saw them, they were all Han Chinese with hair buns, but some wore armor from the Ming army, some from the Qing army, and even blue armor from the Dashun army. Obviously not Qing soldiers, it should be a latent post set up by Chengtian Mansion outside the city.

Since the Jiashen year, northwestern Hubei has been occupied by the Shun army for a while, surrendered to the Qing court for a while, and now returned to Daming again. The situation is very chaotic.It is understandable that these people wear all kinds of armor. As long as they have not shaved their hair, they are not scouts of the Qing soldiers.

Seeing this, Yuan Zongdi immediately felt relieved, he was about to ask each other, but a young general stepped out from among the other party, and shouted loudly: "Wu Gou, put down your weapons, I will spare you!"

"Wu Dog?" Yuan Zongdi couldn't help being taken aback when he heard the words, but then he realized that they were all wearing high-topped metal bowl helmets, clanging armor on their bodies, long knives, bows and arrows hanging from their waists, and they were dressed in authentic Ming Dynasty regular army uniforms. , but it happened that Wu Sangui, who was attacking Xiangyang right now, and his Guan Ning cavalry were similar in appearance, so the opponent mistook them for traitor troops.

"Hehe~" Seeing this, Yuan Zongdi couldn't help smiling and said, "This little brother, I'm going to be~~~"

Yuan Zongdi was about to sign up for himself, when the young general saw a smile on his face and he did not throw away his weapon to surrender, he thought he was cheating on his youth, his heart suddenly became angry, he bent his bow and shot.

Yuan Zongdi didn't expect that the young general had a quarrel, he bent his bow and shot, the words in his mouth were interrupted immediately, the guards at the side were shocked when they saw this, but it was too late to save him.

"Dang~" sounded, and the feathered arrow hit Yuan Zongdi's helmet in one stroke. Fortunately, as a general, he had some skill to avoid the vital point, but even so, he broke out in a cold sweat.

Shooting arrows is the signal, both sides drew their swords and bent their bows immediately, and they were about to start fighting immediately, but Zong Zongdi's helmet was shot down, and a group of secret whistles were raised just now, looking at the same bun on his head, they were all stunned down.

(End of this chapter)