The Great Rebel at the End of the Ming Dynasty

Hong Chengchou guessed correctly; the troops leading the attack on Hancheng were Wang Jiayin's subordinates, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei.

These two were considered formidable generals in Wang Jiayin's army.

After Wang Jiayin divided his troops into three groups, one of them was led by Wang Zuogua and others.

First they captured Yanchang, then Yichuan, sweeping all before them. Their southward advance was extremely smooth, which made Wang Zuogua and his men arrogant. They thought the government army was nothing special and that defeating it and capturing Hancheng would be a piece of cake with their limited forces.

Once Hancheng is captured, the gateway to Tongguan will be fully open. At that point, taking Tongguan will allow us to choose between advancing west to Xi'an or east into the Central Plains.

But to their utter surprise, they encountered a tough obstacle in the small city of Hancheng.

With the enemy at the gates, Hancheng not only refused to surrender, but also attempted to shoot the men they had sent out to persuade Hancheng to surrender. This angered Wang Zuogua and his men.

Enraged, the hot-tempered Wang Zuogua could hardly contain himself. He immediately issued the order to attack the city. In his view, the small city of Hancheng was utterly insignificant, a mere mantis trying to stop a chariot, no match for him. After taking the city, Wang Zuogua would see who the defending general was, daring to do such a thing.

Wang Zuogua thought this way, and Miao Mei thought about it in a similar way.

As the rebel army expanded and progressed smoothly in its southward march, it had long since become arrogant and overconfident. Moreover, after several encounters with the government army, they believed that the government army's fighting strength was not as powerful as they had imagined.

Even if their equipment is better than ours, we have more people! With so many people attacking Hancheng, isn't it a piece of cake? Taking this place will be a breeze!

With this in mind, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei launched a full-scale attack on Hancheng without being properly prepared.

They initially thought Hancheng wouldn't hold out for long, and if everything went smoothly, they could take Hancheng that very day, lead their troops into the city, and have dinner there. But to their surprise, Hancheng's resistance was unexpectedly fierce. Even though Wang Zuogua and his men exerted almost all their strength, and even launched repeated attacks despite casualties, Hancheng remained unmoved until sunset.

This outcome is unacceptable to them.

After the battle ended, Wang Zuogua and others tallied up the losses and learned that in just half a day, the rebel army had lost more than 600 men, more than half of whom had died in battle.

Although Wang Zuogua could afford these losses, they were the greatest he had suffered since leading his troops south. Especially since Hancheng had not yet been captured despite so many casualties, Wang Zuogua felt he had lost face and his hatred for the government troops stationed in Hancheng intensified.

"We'll fight again tomorrow! Once I take Hancheng, I'll chop off the head of the Hancheng garrison commander and use it as a chamber pot!"

Wang Zuogua said through gritted teeth, and Miao Mei, standing beside him, didn't look much better.

When had either of them ever suffered such a great loss? This matter is absolutely not over! They decided to continue the siege early tomorrow morning.

In their view, although Hancheng barely held on in today's battle, the losses within the city must have been considerable, and the battle yesterday had started somewhat hastily, with many preparations left undone. They believed that with more time and preparation tomorrow, they could surely capture the small city of Hancheng.

After setting up camp, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei were preoccupied with thoughts of attacking Hancheng again tomorrow and how to vent their anger after capturing Hancheng.

Although these two were Wang Jiayin's capable generals, it had only been about half a year for them to rise from peasants to leaders of the rebel army.

Although he had fought several battles with Wang Jiayin, and had even captured Yanchang and Yichuan during this southward campaign, he had not encountered any major setbacks. The main reason for the smooth progress of the campaign was that Gao Yingxiang's troops provided support in the north, while Wang Jiayin's main force besieged Yan'an Prefecture in the west, thus containing the main force of the government troops.

Along their journey, they encountered only small groups of government troops and resistance from local county groups. How could they possibly stand a chance against the large army led by the enemy?

After several battles, Wang Zuogua and his men thought they knew how to fight. In their view, fighting was nothing more than this: lead your troops in a surprise attack, intimidate them first, then use your strength to sweep them away, and you can defeat the enemy in the blink of an eye. Isn't that how they've always done things?

When they encountered a tough obstacle in Hancheng, the contrast between their initial and subsequent setbacks immediately made them extremely unhappy.

For this reason, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei were not mature generals at all, and they did not have much battlefield experience.

They led their troops based on their own arrogance, or rather, on their own whims. As a result, their minds were filled with the thought of "getting revenge."

It's the same simple idea as when we fought with neighboring villages over water resources, and even if we lost today, we'd bring people back to fight tomorrow.

So after setting up camp, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei were only thinking about how to take Hancheng in one fell swoop the next day. As for anything else, they didn't think about it at all, and they never thought that Hancheng would have the guts to launch a night attack.

Army forces of this era rarely engaged in night battles, mainly due to night blindness.

Because of malnutrition, people barely have enough to eat on weekdays, let alone a balanced diet. They can't see at night, and are almost no different from blind people.

In this situation, fighting at night is tantamount to suicide unless you are fighting with torches in the bright light.

Let alone Wang Zuo's rebel army, most of the rebels were peasants who couldn't make a living. Even if they managed to solve their hunger problem after joining the rebel army, their night blindness was unlikely to improve in a short period of time.

Therefore, night battles were extremely rare on the battlefields of this era, and even among the government troops, there were many sufferers of night blindness. This is why battles usually ended around dusk, with both sides withdrawing their troops to endure the darkness and resume fighting the next day at dawn.

For this reason, Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei never expected that Han Cheng would launch a sneak attack on them at night, let alone that Han Cheng, who had been under their fierce attack for half a day, would still have the courage to take the initiative to fight.

However, what they did not know was that the elite troops of the Beijing Garrison brought by Hong Chengchou were not from local garrisons. These elite troops were the face of the Ming Dynasty. Whether they could fight or not was another matter, but they received excellent treatment and never lacked supplies. Naturally, the incidence of night blindness in the army was much better than that of ordinary troops.

Based on this, Liang Jun selected some of the most daring and courageous men from his own ranks to form an elite team. Under cover of night, they sneaked out of Hancheng, circled around the city, and quietly arrived near Wang Zuogua's camp from the other side.

These people had been lying in ambush outside the camp for a long time after arriving at their position. By the time it was nearly midnight, the previous noise in Wang Zuogua's camp had long since subsided, and almost everyone was asleep.

Even some of the rebel soldiers on guard duty at the camp couldn't resist their drowsiness and began to slump and snore. Seeing this, Liang Jun was overjoyed and quietly led his men over. Upon reaching the camp's perimeter, his men silently dealt with the unsuspecting guards, then split into several small teams and went their separate ways once inside the camp.

Soon after, as agreed, Liang Jun's men set fires throughout the camp. As soon as the flames appeared, Liang Jun and his men shouted at the top of their lungs:

"Oh no! The government troops are attacking!"

"We've lost! We've lost! Run for your lives!"

"Help! Help! The government troops are attacking..."

"Run, everyone!"

Shouts suddenly erupted throughout the camp, waking the sleeping rebels from their slumber.

When they opened their eyes, many people were still in a daze when they saw flames shooting into the sky everywhere, and they were instantly dumbfounded.

Adding to the chaos were the constant cries for help and the screams of agony caused by Liang Jun and his men indiscriminately slaughtering the rebels throughout the camp... In a panic, the rebel camp suddenly erupted into chaos.

Wang Zuogua's camp wasn't a proper military camp; it was merely a temporary resting place for a ragtag group. Furthermore, Wang Zuogua and his men had virtually no battlefield experience or knowledge of military strategy, and even their camp's defenses were haphazard and careless. Under these circumstances, a sudden attack would have extremely dire consequences.

As the camp was blasted, countless rebels began to flee for their lives. Many of them suffered from night blindness; even though the camp was ablaze with fire, their eyesight deteriorated rapidly once they escaped and entered the darkness, making it impossible for them to see clearly.

Even worse, Liang Jun infiltrated the rebel army, constantly adding fuel to the fire and taking the opportunity to launch sneak attacks. As a result, the rebel camp was thrown into complete chaos. Even when Wang Zuogua and Miao Mei, having regained their senses, tried their best to restrain the rebels with their personal guards, they could not prevent the situation from collapsing.

As dawn broke in the east and the night finally passed, the bombing of the camp began to show signs of ending.

Even so, the blows inflicted on the rebel army were extremely heavy.

The entire camp was almost completely destroyed. In the chaos, countless rebels were killed or wounded due to fear and fleeing. Many more disappeared by daybreak and could not be found.

Much of the military equipment and supplies were destroyed in the fire. Looking at the devastation, Wang Zuogua's heart bled, and Miao Mei beside him looked extremely pale.

The two men exchanged a silent glance, both understanding that continuing the attack on Hancheng was impossible. Having suffered such heavy losses, losing so many men, they now had less than a third of their original force remaining. With this meager strength, let alone attacking Hancheng again, it was questionable whether they could even hold off a government attack.

Without further hesitation, Wang Zuogua immediately issued the order for the entire army to retreat.

He was even worried that Hong Chengchou would send troops out of the city to attack, so before he could find all the scattered rebels, he and Miao Meixian led more than a thousand people and fled north in a sorry state.

By the time Hong Chengchou learned of this news in the city, it was too late to catch up. He could only watch helplessly as Wang Zuogua and his men vanished without a trace.