Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 497

New book for collection: "The Rise of Great Powers 1900"

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Running away from Hong Chengchou made Xie Fei very frustrated. The reason why he was so patient with Guangzhou was because Hong Chengchou was here and had fought against Hong Chengchou many times. To capture Hong Chengchou, you must know that Yang Chao has repeatedly confessed that Hong Chengchou must be captured at all costs, but in Jiujiang, Hong Chengchou ran away from Xie Fei, and let him run away from the palm of his hand in Guangzhou. Xie Fei was extremely frustrated.

Song Kun is in a good mood, and he is very positive to continue to march. He is willing to be the vanguard to attack Wuzhou and Guangxi.

But Xie Fei only asked him to go south to capture Leizhou and other places, and capture the entire Guangdong. Xie Fei will personally lead the troops to attack Guangxi.

Song Kun was naturally a little dissatisfied with this arrangement, but Xie Fei was the coach, so he didn't dare to disobey the military order.

One after another, they took their own troops and marched towards the south.

With Song Kun's advance, most of the states and counties had little resistance, but they encountered a big setback in Xinhui.

Xinhui is just a county town, backed by mountains and water, with the Gudou Mountains in the west, and the Yamen Haikou of the Pearl River system. The Yashan naval battle in the last battle of the Southern Song Dynasty took place here. Therefore, although it is a small coastal city, its strategic position is still There are some.

However, its importance is also limited. After all, Guangzhou has been captured by the Yang family army, and the role of Xinhui as a barrier against attacking Guangzhou from the sea has actually been greatly weakened.

So Xie Fei just asked Song Kun to attack here, and he took the main force to Zhaoqing to rest and prepare to enter Guangxi to fight at any time.

And Song Kun didn't feel too dissatisfied in the end, because he had already shown enough prestige, and his record of ambushing and killing Geng Zhongming made his reputation instantly match that of Wang Pu, Li Wuliu and other veteran generals. This junior is vying for the opportunity to attack Kong Youde, and he himself can't see it.

So he stayed in Guangdong, divided his forces in multiple ways, mainly recruited surrender, supplemented by attack, and took down various prefectures and counties. Kun could only summon the scattered troops and began to gather the main force to attack Xinhui.

Back and forth, Xinhui has been besieged for three months. Song Kun was ready to attack by force at this time. He still didn't think Xinhui could last long, because he judged that three months would definitely make the city run out of food. Yes, the defenders must be hungry and have no combat effectiveness.

At this time Song Kun didn't take Xinhui too seriously, but after the battle started, he finally discovered that this was not the case. The battle of Xinhui broke out, which is extremely rare in the history of human warfare.

Song Kun first used bombardment, but as a result, the Qing army tied a large number of people to the city wall and asked him to throw rats. Although Song Kun was the hardest among Yang Chao's generals, he couldn't stop bombarding the city wall. into a shield.

Then he chose to dig a tunnel and wanted to blow up the city wall from under the city wall. Yang Chao's army with a large number of artillery rarely adopted the tactics of Li Zicheng and other peasant troops. Such a big city also exploded. If tunnels were dug, it would be difficult to dig under the city walls in less than ten days and half a month, and they were often destroyed by the enemy.

Song Kun chose to bomb the city in desperation, which could at least reduce the casualties of a large number of people when the cannons bombarded the city. However, when he dug a tunnel and blasted the city wall, and pushed a large number of cannons to the gap to prepare for a storm, the Qing army suddenly expelled the people to block the city. Fill the gap, and let these people move stones to plug the gap.

It was impossible for Song Kun to aim the cannon at the densely packed people, so he forcibly climbed under the collapsed city wall with a siege ladder, trying to climb up the city wall and launch an offensive directly from the city. At this time, the Qing army asked the people to dig a gap in the city wall to climb out , burn the ladder.

At this time, the war had reached the end of the fourth month. Fortunately, Song Kun besieged the city for a long time, directly surrounding it for a month.

Until the end of the sixth month, the Qing army suddenly began to break through. At this time, Song Kun would not allow these people to leave. He had already started the siege attack in a dense manner. Because of the emergence of cannon tactics, the level of civil engineering work of the Yang family army rose sharply. Digging trenches has become a standard tactic, and the Qing army was repulsed many times.

Feeling that the Qing army was at the end of its rope, Song Kun chose to attack the city by force. This time he successfully entered the city, because the Qing army finally lost their fighting spirit and a large number of surrenders occurred. In the end, 1000 people from the Qing and Han troops were captured. , 300 people from the Eight Banners of Mongolia, and 1 soldiers from the Green Battalion.

At this time, Song Kun could finally deliver the good news to Nanjing, but his mood was very low, and he didn't even want to send the good news.

When Yang Chao saw the good news, he was having dinner, holding his daughter in his arms. The family was eating happily, but after glancing at the good news, he immediately left the dining table and found a place to vomit in the dark.

An uncontrollable anger gushed out from the bottom of my heart.

"Kill! The Qing army who surrendered did not stay, they were all killed. That's right, the green battalion soldiers were also killed!"

Yang Chao seldom surrenders, not out of some utilitarian purpose of killing the enemy so that the enemy will not surrender again, but he insists that preferential treatment of prisoners is a kind of civilization, and he wants to inject this new atmosphere into Chinese civilization, but He had to kill this time, because he believed from the bottom of his heart that these people were no longer human.

The last time I felt this way was when I heard that Zuo Liangyu slaughtered Daming's own city, but that time was far from what made him angry and made him feel fear of human morality.

The Qing army defending Xinhui is the confidant of Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming. The participating generals are Yunlong and Wu Jinzhong, the right-wing general. They lead Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming's elite [-] Han troops, plus [-] Mongolian Eight Banners and [-] Guangdong locals who surrendered. Green Battalion.

In any case, such a force cannot defend against the attack of Song Kun's [-] tigers and wolves. Yang Chao also reprimanded Song Kun, and at the same time he also got Song Kun's feedback, that is, the Qing army wantonly drove the people into human shields. Chao can only instruct Song Kun to save the lives of the people as much as possible with the goal of killing fewer people.

Who knew that Yang Chao's order made Song Kun even more hesitant, and in the end, such a tragedy happened.

This tragedy is not just a barbaric act of expelling people to attack or defend the city, but a more terrifying and terrifying act, cannibalism!
Basically, when the city was besieged for three months, there was already a shortage of food in Xinhui City.At this time, the Qing army in Xinhui ordered the people in the city to donate one person from each household as "human rations".

At this time, in order to protect their husbands and family members, many women in Guangdong voluntarily climbed into the oil pan and let the Qing army eat it.There was a daughter-in-law surnamed Mo who depended on her mother-in-law. The guard wanted to kill and eat her mother-in-law. Mo kowtowed and begged to die for her mother-in-law. The guard said, "What a filial and good daughter-in-law!" Cooked and ate.There was another woman surnamed Li. Her husband was arrested by the guards and was about to be killed. Li cried and said: "My husband has no sons. If I kill him, I will have no descendants in his family. Even if I am alive What's the use? Please eat me!" The guard also agreed, cooked Li Shi, and handed over her bones to her husband to take home for burial.There was also a poor scholar named Liang who was about to be cooked. His ten-year-old daughter asked to replace him. The guard was moved and released them together.

Seeing this, Yang Chao couldn't help being touched by the behavior of the women in Guangdong. He had been to Guangdong in his previous life. The women in the South of the Five Ridges are somewhat different from those in the North. The more remote the women, the more they keep this custom. That is, local women love men very much. In many places, men can do nothing, while women farm and work with their children behind their backs.The local people explained that it was because men wanted to go to the sea, so all the farm work was handed over to women. Later, the fishermen's occupation disappeared, but the custom has not changed.

At that time Yang Chao was still somewhat envious of the Cantonese men, but this time he was really angry at the Cantonese men.

How can I watch my wife and daughter voluntarily sacrifice themselves and not fight? When they are about to be eaten, they don't even resist. So weak, is he still a man?

At the same time, those women did this kind of behavior not because they were so brave, but because of the culture of ethics they accepted. Ethics is what makes women give unconditionally, but men who are supposed to be protectors want women to use this kind of behavior. Yang Chao felt ashamed for acting protective.

It is one thing to be harsh on one's own people, but the culprit is still these Qing troops, including those green battalion soldiers who surrendered.

So Yang Chao insisted on killing all these 1 people. Even if Huang Fengfu and others under his command said that it was ominous to kill the prisoners, Yang Chao remained firm.

At the same time, it was the first time that righteous words were announced. In the future war, if civilian participants are expelled, on the day the city is destroyed, no matter whether it is an officer or a soldier, they will be killed without mercy!

The Jiangnan newspaper is now circulating in the south of the Yangtze River, but Yang Chao knows very well that whether it is the small court or the Qing court, they are collecting these newspapers through various channels, trying to get information about Jiangnan from them. Yang Chao said this to the small court, It is even said to the Qing court.

There are also voices of opposition, such as Liu Zongzhou, who has always stood in Yang Chao's position, but he did not get a response this time. Many scribes reprimanded him for being indiscriminate, firmly supporting Yang Chao, and supporting Yang Chao's determination that those soldiers who surrendered were no longer human beings. The common people clapped their hands and applauded, this kind of person should be killed.

Liu Zongzhou and other literati believed that the Qing army was a Tartar, and the Tartar did not obey the etiquette. They should be virtuous and should not be stopped by killing. , has reached the point of disregarding right and wrong, just like some experts in later generations, the dross of culture has been passed on all the time.

This made Yang Chao hate people like Liu Zongzhou, but he also felt very sad for such people, wondering what the meaning of their life was?Just for fame?Desperate for fame?There is no sense of mission in their hearts, or their sense of mission is to become famous all over the world and leave a name in history?Regardless of whether the name is a fragrant name or a bad name!

But Yang Chao will not take any action to suppress people like Liu Zongzhou. He has never been afraid of others' words.

(End of this chapter)