Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 404 Returning to the Army
"Confused!"

Yang Chao's thinking was exactly the same as Huang Degong's thinking when he heard the news. A fortified city like Nanjing did not rely on it, but fled to the wilderness before the enemy army approached the city, and the emperor fled. How can Nanjing stop the enemy.

But Yang Chao is not Zhu Cihong. If he thinks about it from Zhu Cihong's point of view, he should understand him. Emperor Chongzhen did not escape from the city in advance, so what happened in the end.

When Li Zicheng's army attacked Beijing, Zhu Cihong, who was still the prince at that time, was like other princes, fidgeting in the palace all day long and suffering from fear. Now let him put himself in the situation of being surrounded again, and experience that whole Zhu Cihong really didn't dare to face the fear that hovered between life and death every day.

In history, King Fu fled Nanjing before the Qing army crossed the river. Unexpectedly, Yang Chao tried his best to make Zhu Cihong the emperor, but he still couldn't change the ending of the emperor's escape.

Of course, King Fu's escape must have been affected by the fall of Beijing. Everyone knows that the city of Beijing is thicker than Nanjing. Wasn't it captured in World War I? I would agree, even Zhu Cihong didn't dare to trust these civil servants at all. It's okay to use them to govern the place, but when the enemy besieged the city, too many of these civil servants surrendered. In Beijing, even the capital and assistant surrendered to Li Zicheng .

Yang Chao was only from a strategic point of view, knowing that the emperor's abandonment of Nanjing would greatly reduce the defensive spirit of the army and civilians in Nanjing.

But from Zhu Cihong's point of view, even if he stayed in Nanjing, he didn't dare to hold the city of Nanjing.

Go south!

Unexpectedly, this kind of thing happened, Yang Chao had to go south. If the Qing army captured Nanjing, Yang Chao's army of more than [-] troops would be cut off. What made Yang Chao even more worried was that his family members were still in Nanjing. Well, in case of Nanjing City Slope, how the Qing army would treat his family, and in case the family was captured by the Qing army, Yang Chao couldn't even imagine whether he still had the determination to resist.

In order not to let himself fall into this dilemma, Yang Chao chose to keep Nanjing, at all costs.

Immediately issued an order: "All generals listen to the order! From now on, we will continue to attack from all sides, rotating every half an hour, so that the Tartars will not have a moment to rest. Shugang must be taken within three days."

Yang Chao immediately issued an order to let all the armies under him take turns to attack the Qing army non-stop. His own force is more than three times that of the Qing army, which is enough to continue attacking the Qing army, but the Qing army has no way to rest. If three days later If the Qing army did not surrender and did not break through, Yang Chao ordered the whole army to attack.

As for Yang Chao: "Lv Mo listened to the order, and immediately went south with my lord, and rushed to Nanjing to stop Duoduo!"

Lu Mo's headquarters has 1 soldiers and horses, and there are only [-] left at this time. Although he has suffered the most, his army has rich experience in field battles with the Qing cavalry, and it is not appropriate to deploy too many troops, otherwise Duoduo will run away. The loss outweighs the gain.

Moreover, with the current capabilities, Yang Chao's transportation capacity cannot guarantee the transportation of tens of thousands of troops in emergencies, and five thousand is already the limit. Like the last time he went to Zhejiang to suppress the rebellion, he had been preparing for a long time and had the cooperation of the Wang family. Yes, there are no conditions, no time, and if you can only rely on your own ship, you can only send 5000 people first.

An hour later, a hundred tank boats, crowded with 5000 people, set off.

On the [-]th, the boat sailed on the river and intercepted a river boat going to Yangzhou to convey news. It was sent by Zhang Dawei. He had new news to inform Yang Chao.

It turned out that the Qing army had already approached Dasheng Pass, but they had not yet attacked, but instead sent people to surrender to Nanjing.

However, civil and military officials in Nanjing, who had lost the emperor and had no soldiers to use, were inclined to accept surrender.

Xinjiangkou.

Affected by the approach of the Qing army to Nanjing, the 20 captives held here were also somewhat unstable.

But they never dared to make trouble.

In front of the captives, there were corpses lying side by side, only one was standing, but he was already trembling, with a dagger stuck in his heart, an officer pulled out the dagger, and blood spurted out instantly, spraying on him. face, his body.

The officer looked at the captives with grim faces, and the captives looked at him numbly, unable to see his face clearly, because there were layers of blood, some had dried up, and some were still dripping down.

The ferocious officer sneered, put the knife to his mouth, licked it a few times, and then licked his tongue, looking like a Hades.

And he does have the nickname of King of Hades, known as Song Kun, King of Hades!

Song Kun was already ruthless, that's why Yang Chao asked him to guard the prisoners and at the same time be responsible for defending Xinjiangkou.

He completed the task very well, the group of captives in his hands lived a life that was not as good as that of pigs and dogs, whipping, sticking, gouging out eyes, cutting noses, all in front of the eyes of everyone, and personally executed the torture, these are not bad, The worst thing was that he would use a knife to cut off the flesh of a person, and feed the big wolfhounds next to him on the spot.

For all these things, no one has thought of resisting for a long time. Now these people just said a few more words, and they were immediately reported and then beheaded. Not these few people anymore.

On the [-]th, before dark, Yang Chao finally returned to Xinjiangkou!

He immediately called Zhang Dawei to inquire about the situation in Nanjing. Fortunately, the city of Nanjing is still in the hands of the Ming army.

For some reason, the Qing army did not attack Dashengguan, nor did it send troops to attack Nanjing City.

Immediately asked Zhang Dawei to arrange a capable crew and drive the fastest boat to go upstream to inquire.

Then let Zhang Dawei mobilize the largest capacity to go to Yangzhou. Ships that can enter the Yangzhou waterway will go to Yangzhou to prepare to bring the Yangzhou army back. Big ships that cannot enter the Yangzhou waterway will wait in Guazhou. 5 people were transferred back from Yangzhou.

Due to the war, most of Yang Chao's ships stopped operating, except for sea ships. They either transferred war materials back and forth, or stayed in Xinjiangkou to wait for orders. At this time, Yang Chao drove them into a hurry.

After a sleepless night, Yang Chao was thinking about how he should enter the city.

I heard that the civil and military officials in Nanjing City have decided to surrender. They are now waiting for the arrival of the Qing army. Will they be turned away if they bring such a small number of troops? This kind of thing has happened before. This happened in Cangzhou. At that time, in order to offer the city to Li Zicheng, the guards of Cangzhou refused Yang Chao to enter the city. They didn't give in until Yang Chao finally fired.

But Nanjing is not Cangzhou. Not to mention the thick walls of Nanjing city, there are also the number of cannons in the entire Ming Dynasty second only to Beijing. Not to mention a thousand cannons, and there are at least hundreds of red cannons among them. If Nanjing If the defenders of the city made up their minds to dedicate the city to the Qing army, it would be impossible for them to capture Nanjing with 5000 men.

After thinking hard for a long time, until late at night, Yang Chao came up with an exaggerated solution.

"Song Kun! The captives should be honest."

In the middle of the night, Song Kun, who was guarding the prisoners, was called over.

"It's pretty honest, but there are those who spread rumors and caused trouble, and 300 people were killed by their subordinates, and then they became honest."

Song Kun's temperament was somewhat similar to Wang Pu's, tainted with murderous aura, quite unreasonable.

I heard that when Song Kun was guarding the captives in Xinjiangkou, he frequently beat the captives, and even forced hundreds of them to commit suicide. He has no mercy for these butchers Yang Chao. These people are not worthy of being human at all. After doing it, Yang Chao didn't kill them, and he didn't want to treat them as human beings. He even asked Song Kun to be stricter.

"I'm making things difficult for you. There are more than 20 prisoners, and you only have 5000. I'm afraid that these prisoners will take advantage of the chaos and make trouble."

Yang Chao sighed.

Song Kun sneered and said, "They dare!"

Those captives fell into the hands of Song Kun, and they were tortured enough. The fact that so many people can commit suicide is enough to explain the problem. When working, those who need to walk are handcuffed, and those who don’t need to walk are put in shackles, like slaves The treatment is not pleasing to the eye. The guards beat them head-on with whips and sticks. There are eight hundred people under torture, if not one thousand.

Such a horrible practice has completely tortured these people to the point of losing their human appearance. Every day, they are like walking corpses, working, eating, and sleeping according to their requirements. There is no hope at all, and there is no energy at all. They don't even think about the future People really have no motivation to rebel.

"There should be some Eight Banners soldiers among the captives."

Yang Chao remembered that when he was in Yangzhou, he had a good time killing at night, but caught some fish that slipped through the net during the day. Although there were not many people, there were still a hundred of them. Among the [-] banner soldiers, there were a hundred or so who surrendered. , also makes sense.

Song Kun said: "Originally there were more than 100 of them, but more than a dozen of them dived into the water, hit a dozen of walls, and dozens of others were scratched while making trouble in public. Now there are only [-] left."

These Eight Banners soldiers are the most hated, so the guards hate them very much. If they don’t work hard, beating those Han soldiers may be a few sticks, but to beat these Eight Banners soldiers, it depends on the mood. You can fight as you want. Fifty of them survived, and it was not easy.

Yang Chao nodded: "Go and screen. Regardless of Manchu, Han and Mongolian people, as long as they can speak Manchu and Chinese, I will pull them out. I need some translations."

Soon Song Kun found more than a dozen people.

Yang Chao looked at these people, each one of them was very miserable. They used to have half of their heads bare, with a rat tail hanging from the back of their heads, but now the rat tail is still there, but there are also thick stubbles of hair growing on the top of their heads, and the beard is also thick. In a messy manner, his whole body became thinner, his eyes sunken, and he fell to his knees as soon as he came in. His eyes were dull, and he could not see fear or hope. This is a walking corpse that has completely collapsed. Even the Jews in the prisoner-of-war camps of the Communist Party of China are not as hopeless as they are.

Seeing this situation, Yang Chao couldn't help but soften his heart. People can hurt people to such an extent. It seems that Song Kun is more ruthless than he imagined.

"Get up and talk."

Yang Chao said, these people stood up silently, they were used to doing whatever others told them to do.

"The lord needs an interpreter, and I will give you a chance to redeem your crimes. As long as you can help the lord, the previous crimes will be forgotten."

Yang Chao thought that these people would be very excited after he finished speaking, but they all seemed very calm, no, it should be said that they were numb, the kind of hollow eyes without souls, proved that they still couldn't understand the meaning of let bygones be bygones, or no longer Willing to hope.

"What? Don't want to!"

Yang Chao asked.

At this time, one of them suddenly knelt down: "The slave is willing, the slave is willing."

The person reacted, knelt down on the ground, and said eagerly.

"Well, what's your name?"

"Returning to the master, the slave is called Zhao Guozuo, a man with a red flag in the Han army."

Yang Chao said: "I am not your master, and you are not my slave."

"Yes, the slaves can't afford to climb high, can't afford to climb high!"

"I need an interpreter, you can speak Manchu?"

"The servant has been with the old man since he was a child. He was born in Liaodong and grew up in Jianzhou. He is proficient in both Manchu and Mongolian!"

"Can you write full text?"

"Slave will."

"You shouldn't be a soldier."

"The servant is La Ezhen, a Han army armor inlaid with a red flag."

Yang Chao waved his hand at this time.

Then he told Song Kun: "Let them wash it and shave their hair. It's not shaved, but the braids are exposed. Yes, the braids of the Tartars."

"Let's jump out of a hundred honest prisoners. No matter who they are, I want the kind of wooden man who can't stand still for a day and dare not cough. There are such people."

There really are such people, there are so many of them, and most of the captives are walking dead.

"Clean up Duduo's guard of honor and everything else, I will use it tomorrow."

In the First Battle of Yangzhou, Duoduo was wiped out, and many things were confiscated, such as flags, reliance, armor, weapons, etc., except for some of which were handed in, some were kept as spoils of war for display to recruits, to cultivate a sense of honor and respect for the Qing Dynasty. The contempt of the army, I didn't expect it to be used now.

Before dawn, Yang Chao, who was busy in the middle of the night, set off with his troops, taking advantage of the night to detour to the south of Nanjing City to set up camp.

(End of this chapter)