Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 260 Another News

Since the appearance of captive soldiers in Haizhou City, the news has almost been cut off. Even though there were only about [-] captive soldiers in the beginning, news from Haizhou City and other places was still blocked.

No one is willing to investigate the news of the captive soldiers, even if they are ordered by the superiors, those scout horses often go to any place, wander around for a few days, and then come back to report some hearsay news, and it is extremely exaggerated.

At the beginning, as soon as captive soldiers appeared near Haizhou, Haizhou dared to send people to say that thousands of troops and horses were endless.

After Yang Chao’s rescue, there was no news for a long time. The scouts sent by Shi Kefa kept affirming this statement, and they often reported to Huai’an that Haizhou was surrounded by thousands of troops. In fact, they never went to Haizhou at all. In fact, there were only a few Hundreds of captive soldiers confronted Yang Chao, and in the end this group of captive soldiers was directly beaten to death by Yang Chao.

As a result, when the news spread that Yang Chao had defeated hundreds of captive soldiers and beheaded hundreds of people, everyone knew that there were only a few people in Haizhou. I often look at each other and smile, is there a reason for that, hey, you know.

No one pursued this kind of thing.

Immediately, the salt merchant became more courageous. It turned out that there were only a few captive soldiers. It turned out that they were just a group of robbers who came to fight Qiufeng, and they were beaten disabled. There is nothing to be afraid of.

So they lost more than half a year of business, holding back their energy and wanting to open immediately, and the salt merchants who made up for the loss immediately sent a boat to set off. You must know that they lost more than just profits. Although they have no way to do business in the past half a year , and was even asked to donate openly and secretly by the government. Officials such as Shi Kefa forced them to spend money to strengthen the city defense and build weapons. Salt merchants want the "routine" that should be given, so the salt merchant groups can be said to be sitting on the mountain during this period of time. No matter how much wealth they have, they will feel flustered.

As a result, the first batch of fleets sent by the salt merchants to open up wasteland had just arrived near Haizhou. After seeing it, Nima, didn’t they mean hundreds of captive soldiers? Didn’t they mean that they were all killed and maimed? The captive soldiers who filled the sky and filled the water around Haizhou could not have come from the heavens?
The first fleet of salt merchants just took a look around Haizhou, and ran back frantically, fearing that if they ran too slowly, they would be overtaken by the captive soldiers.

The captive soldiers also saw the huge fleet, but first they were besieging the city, and they had no energy left to pursue them, and the night battle had just ended. In that tragic night battle, after successfully attacking the city, Yang Chao beat down the city wall with cannons. That kind of defeat is a kind of subversive failure. The mental blow to the army that has developed the habit of belittling the Ming army and the habit of winning is much greater than that of the army that often fails, because their inherent concepts have been subverted. You will definitely experience confusion in a short period of time.

Therefore, these captive soldiers had a lot of worries about the combat effectiveness of the Jiangnan Ming Army. They were afraid that the Jiangnan Ming Army would be a vigorous guy like Yang Chao, so they didn't want to easily provoke the Jiangnan Ming Army. For a moment, instead of chasing them, they thought of running away. They took it for granted that the huge fleet of these salt merchants was the Ming army's reinforcements.

After the two groups of people startled each other, they each reacted differently. The salt merchant's fleet ran back desperately, while the captive soldiers were stunned for a moment and found that the other party had run away. This means that they are not seamen. Those guys who dared to risk their lives in Zhoucheng chased after them for more than ten miles, but Mao failed to catch up. Although these fleets were not as effective as the Ming army in the city, the ability to run one by one made the captive soldiers They were beyond their reach, and they were still under siege, so they had no choice but to give up.

The salt merchant's fleet ran back to Huai'an without any risk, and created a miracle. It took them five days to return after a journey of at least ten days.

The return of these fleets naturally brought back the situation in Haizhou, and brought panic, because their news was seriously inaccurate, and because they were too panicked, they would exaggerate what they saw hundreds of times, and even they themselves Thinking it was true, even the most prudent people told their masters that there were at least [-] captive soldiers outside Haizhou.

Shi Kefa confirmed again and again, and even personally interrogated more than a dozen salt merchants, and the news he got was similar. Only then did Shi Kefa believe that the army of captive soldiers surrounded Haizhou City, and there were at least 10 people.

The figure of [-] was regarded as conclusive news and reported to various places from the Huai'an Fatang through official channels. At the same time, together with this pond report, there were always requests for rescue soldiers sent to various places.

Shi Kefa is not an irresponsible civil servant. In private, he sent Yang Chao to Haizhou, but he was besieged by the army of captive soldiers and fell into a deadly situation. If he didn't care about it, he felt very sorry. Yu Gong let the captive soldiers besiege Haizhou. Haizhou is too dangerous for Jiangnan. You must know that after the captive soldiers captured Haizhou, all fools knew that they would go to Huai'an along the canal, then Yangzhou, and then Nanjing.

Therefore, both public and private Shi Kefa can't ignore it, but the number of defenders in Huai'an is not too large, and those generals and deputy generals, one by one, urged Shi Kefa to focus on Huai'an, or to say that so many troops besieged the sea. There must be ghosts in the state, but it must be a trick to surround the spot and help Shi Kefa. Shi Kefa is a responsible person, but he lacks decisiveness. He is prone to hesitate before major events. He also feels this What the soldiers said was reasonable, and in the end they could only desperately send requests for help to other places.

Of course, no one responded to Shi Kefa's request, and no one would send a single soldier to Huai'an.

When these news spread to Beijing, the emperor was quite sad. In his opinion, Yang Chao was dead. In just half a month, the names of Haizhou and Yang Chao had appeared in his ears twice. The [-] heads of military merit have been inspected and confirmed by the Ministry of War. Most of them are the heads of real Tartars, and a small number are also heads of Mongols.

Chongzhen confirmed it earlier than the Ministry of War, because he believed in Shi Kefa's inspection, so he had already issued a reward to Yang Chao earlier, but he didn't expect that Yang Chao, the little general, would die before he got the reward, the emperor lamented After that, he could only ask Wang Chengen to draw up a posthumous seal.

The matter of the [-] captive soldiers besieging Haizhou is also very important to the Beijing Ministry of War. They don't care much about such a small thing as a small Qianzong being besieged, but they pay attention to the direction of action of the [-] captive soldiers. It is said that there are [-] captive soldiers When the soldiers went south to Haizhou, the Ministry of War had to worry about the main force of the captive soldiers going south, so they sent an emergency police to Nanjing, asking Jiangnan to ensure the safety of Nanjing City.

When the news reached Nanjing officialdom.

Yang's mother was furious at home and scolded everyone from top to bottom. Yang's father was also extremely worried. Yang Chao was his only son, and Yang Yue was shocked three times a day. His elder brother was surrounded by [-] captive soldiers. , This must not be eaten raw.

Some poor women in the brothel were all terrified. I heard that more than one shed tears of regret for Yang Chao.

The most comical response was from the officialdom. Xiong Mingyu first received Shi Kefa’s distress letter. Of course he ignored it. The Jiangnan soldiers and horses are fighting fiercely with the rogues in Henan and Huguang.

Later, Xiong Mingyu received a strict order from Beijing to preserve Nanjing, and he even had an excuse not to send reinforcements to Shi Kefa.

Moreover, Xiong Mingyu immediately invited Gu Zhaoji to a banquet. If the captive soldiers really went south, Gu Zhaoji, a nobleman who controlled the Yangtze River navy, would be good at business, so he had to make friends with him.So he took the initiative to invite Gu Zhaoji to a banquet, and his attitude was very friendly. It seemed that there had never been any friction between the two of them. Said that it will definitely be done within a month.

Feng Kezong was invited to attend the banquet Xu Zhongxiao gave him again, and he accepted the 1000 taels of silver notes that Xu Zhongxiao obtained through extortion from nowhere.

Feng Kezong is much more courageous this time, Nima, a hundred thousand captive soldiers surrounded you to death, you can still escape, don't you know how to fly?When thinking of flying, Feng Kezong later recalled that he really looked up at the sky at that time.

Feng Kezong carefully confirmed the news that Yang Chao was surrounded and killed in Haizhou by [-] captive soldiers. When he found that even the Ministry of War in Beijing had warned Jiangnan to be careful, Feng Kezong was convinced that Yang Chao was indeed surrounded by [-] captive soldiers. I believe Yang Chao can still escape.

The army of the Ming Dynasty so far has never been able to retreat completely if it is targeted by the captive soldiers. Wan Dajun encircled a small city like Haizhou, how could he not really be attacking the city? The consideration of the Beijing Ministry of War is mature and prudent. Obviously, the soldiers intend to capture Haizhou, and then use Haizhou as a springboard to continue southward.

It was only here that Feng Kezong dared to accept Xu Zhongxiao's banquet again, and once again accepted the filial piety of Xu Zhongxiao, a thousand households who are very good at being a man.

But after Feng Kezong went there once, he suddenly didn't want to go again. Although he told himself that he didn't have to be afraid of Yang Chao in the future, he didn't have to be afraid. I still couldn't help but feel guilty and panicked.

As a rational person, Xu Zhongxiao did not believe that Yang Chao could come back from Haizhou intact anyway. How could that be possible? He had never heard of the Ming army being able to escape safely under the siege of [-] captive soldiers. Of course, except for Wu Sangui, who was the brave champion of the three armies, but Wu Sangui only saved his father among thousands of troops, and Wu Sangui had three thousand family members in his hands, all of whom rode on horses and galloped to the Liaodong that could not lose to the Tartars. hero.

As for Yang Chao, there were only a few hundred people in the area, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of captive soldiers, it was difficult to fly even with wings.

As for the number of [-], there is no doubt about it, but the news that the captive soldiers entered the bandits this time is too bizarre. Some people say that the captive soldiers have millions of infantry and cavalry. Otherwise, how could they have fought from Liaodong to Shandong?Especially Jiangnan, who had never seen captive soldiers, had no idea that Manchuria was just a small regime with a population of less than one million.

Therefore, it is not completely unbelievable to say that one hundred thousand captive soldiers appeared in Haizhou. At least everyone agrees that this is possible. Aren’t the captive soldiers always in Shandong? It's cavalry, and I'm afraid they will arrive in a day.

It doesn't matter whether others believe it or not, anyway, the official circles believe it, because the official pond newspaper from Huai'an is worth [-] yuan, which is much lower than most of the news they heard, in the hundreds of thousands to several million , the appearance of a [-]-word sentence even makes people feel that the government is deliberately concealing the facts, for fear of causing panic.

So Feng Kezong confirmed again and again that the figure of [-] is credible from the official channel and the Jinyiwei channel.

That's why he decided that Yang Chao was doomed, that Yang Chao couldn't be like before, pressing on his head like a shadow, making him breathless, but he just didn't dare to collude with Xu Zhongxiao, because when he saw Xu Zhongxiao thought of Yang Chao, and when he thought of Yang Chao, he felt chills in his heart. In the end, Feng Kezong decided that he should not get too close to Xu Zhongxiao until the real news of Yang Chao's death was confirmed. This was really tormented.

Of course, the spread of this kind of news is far slower than the real battle in Haizhou.

Because when the earliest salt ships sent from Huai'an to Haizhou arrived in Haizhou, Haizhou had been calm for ten days. No food.

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(End of this chapter)