Dominate the Country

[This chapter has 4,000 words, and today’s third update is 10,000 words. This update is powerful enough. Please subscribe, please subscribe~~]

[It has been posted to the public chapter. It is easy to mess up the new version of Qidian.]

In the thirty-third year of Qianlong's reign, the world was shaken. Because a Chen family came out of Lushan, and because Chen Ming’s army marched eastward. Amid such commotion, the braid-cutting case did not seem to cause much trouble, because the Fuhan Army could always suppress it in terms of 'word of mouth'. However, is there really no big problem with the braid cutting case?

According to the notebook in the secret camp of the Fuhan Army, from January to mid-March, when the pigtail-cutting case officially broke out, in just two months, the pigtail-cutting case spread from Zhejiang to Anhui and Shandong via Jiangsu. A total of 17 incidents of pigtail cutting occurred, 9 of which triggered crowd gatherings, commotion or hysteria in villages, streets or markets, 8 of which involved people violently attacking suspects, 2 of which The "suspect" was beaten to death; on the other hand, in local trials, there were cases that were cleared from the beginning, such as the Deqing stonemason case in Zhejiang, the beggar case in Suzhou, the monk case in Xukou Town, etc., and there were also cases where the county and government officials made wrong decisions But the provincial-level officials no longer have time to try and make judgments, such as the case of Xiaoshan monk, a fake monk who did not pay ultimatum and died in prison; and there are also cases of wrongful conviction, such as the cases of Shandong Cai Tingzhang and Jin Guanzi. The deaths of these two men did not affect anything at all in the secret camp. They were simply the result of torture and forced confessions during the trial by the Shandong local government, which led to their death in prison.

This seems to be only 17 cases with "conclusive evidence", but it has caused panic in the entire East China. Just like the White Lotus Sect has been preaching for thousands of years to purify the world and destroy the world, it seems so ridiculous to non-believers, but this theory can always make thousands of honest farmers firmly believe it. This is very much like the 20th century Aren’t those cults also threatening people with the destruction of the world? Don’t some people believe it as well?

Another very important factor in the rapid and widespread spread of braid cutting cases is: low cost.

With just one braid, you can curse people to death and attract money, which is very attractive to poor people. What's more, China has placed a cultural emphasis on human hair since ancient times, and among the ghosts and ghosts spread among the people, there are endless rumors of using hair to curse people. This has also played a huge role in promoting and promoting certain factors.

Hunyuanjiao is a veteran at doing this. Liu Song, Yang Ji, and Fan Mingde made a decision after a short discussion: they would do as the General's Office ordered. Two hundred iron armors and a thousand swords and guns were extremely valuable to the great cause of Hunyuan Sect, and they were reluctant to give them up.

On March 20, the Fuhan Army's cavalry passed through Wuxi and headed south along the Grand Canal to Suzhou, but failed. Suzhou City, where a large number of Zhejiang green battalions had already arrived, finally blocked the raging front of the Fuhan Army.

In the ten days before that, the Fuhan Army took the cavalry as the vanguard and successively captured Jingkou [Zhenjiang], Danyang, Jintan, Wuxi, Yixing and other places. The Fuhan Army's logistics troops following them really became After entering the transportation brigade, truckloads of gold, silver and food were transported back to Jiangning, as well as large quantities of sulfur and saltpeter. These were all the work of the secret camp. They purchased large quantities of sulfur and saltpeter early and put them in warehouses in various places. When the Fuhan Army came over, they would naturally seize them. The local people in Jiangnan didn't know it. When they saw the long convoy carrying large boxes, they thought they were boxes of real money. There were a lot of rumors spread.

Huang Jie led his troops northward and captured Yangzhou, the hometown of the Huaihuai salt merchants. The army swept across the north bank of the Yangtze River, and then captured Gaoyou and Baoying along the canal. When the troops entered Huai'an, they were defeated by the Huai'an Qing army reinforced by the Shandong Green Camp. Defeated, the prosperous Qingjiangpu was turned into an empty city in the war.

Huang Jie did not fight the Qing army in Huai'an, and retreated south to Gaoyou Prefecture, and then divided his troops to raid Nantong Prefecture.

Chen Ming, who was under Jiangning City, learned the old tricks of the Taiping Army in the original time and space. During the ten days or so when he was stationing troops outside the Jubao Gate, he prepared shield carts and long ladders, as if he was going to divide his troops into multiple routes and attack each gate of Jiangning City; The other side quietly organized manpower to dig tunnels at Jinghai Temple and Tianhou Temple outside Yifeng Gate in Jiangning City.

The Fuhan army did not use hole-in-the-ground tactics when attacking the city, and the Qing army in Jiangning was also unprepared. Besides, after seizing the advantageous terrain outside Jiangning, the Fuhan army bombarded the city of Jiangning day and night, and at night they set fire to the fortresses and checkpoints left by the Qing army outside the city. The fire was soaring into the sky and the momentum was so great that the Qing army in the city was frightened. Where could there be more? Are you free to think about this?

Chen Ming also divided his soldiers into numerous squads, carried out tactical harassment maneuvers, and lured the Qing troops on the city wall to expend artillery fire. He also conducted feint attacks continuously at night, making the soldiers defending the city sleepless at night. According to the records of Jiangning Mansion in the future: "The army was divided into dozens of people... about half a mile away from the city. They spied on the city guards three or five times and used sharpshooters to hunt down the guards at the top of the city. When the guards saw this, they fired continuously and were alarmed... From Chen to You, there are only a few dozen thieves divided into groups, but they are all over several gates in the south, south, north and south..."

At the same time, the secret camp troops in Jiangning City continued to wreak havoc in the city and posted notices announcing the liberation of Jiangning by the Han Army, which caused panic in the city. The soldiers were jealous. "Everyone was shocked and suspicious, knowing that there was a spy." The will continues to break down. Especially after these notices appeared in the Minding Zhuangyong camp, everyone knew that there were spies from the Fuhan Army among the Minding Zhuangyong. Suddenly the soldiers were confused and suspicious of each other. What kind of army is this? ,

Zhang Fang, a scholar in the south of Jiangning City, recorded in his diary: "Spies were sent in advance to spread rumors in the city, and notices were posted saying not to kill or plunder the people, and everyone believed them. Belief leads to confusion, and confusion leads to weak intentions... Every time the party buys something, it will be doubled. "These are the old tricks used by the Taiping Army when they attacked Jiangning City. Chen Ming followed the instructions and gained a lot.

Although the two events were separated by more than 80 years, the reaction of the people was the same.

The only thing that puzzled Chen Ming was that he didn't know how many days it took the Taiping Army to conquer Jiangning City in history. Anyway, he had been outside Jiangning City for more than ten days. He dug tunnels for ten days, and the tunnels were still there. Didn't dig it well. Some of the people in the Fuhan Army's logistics camp were miners. Why is the efficiency so low?

During this period, the money, grain and materials seized by the Fuhan Army in their attack on Jiangbei were also sent to Yuhuatai one after another.

When Huang Jie was attacking Yangzhou City, an interesting incident happened in Yangzhou City. The Yangzhou city defenders not only escaped on the eve of the Fuhan Army's approach, but also made a lot of money inside and outside Yangzhou City. As a result, the Fuhan Army's leading troops laughed and drove into the south of Yangzhou City where the city gate was wide open. .

The system of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was inherited from the previous Ming Dynasty, and it was still the same for the noble and the military, but because of the addition of the special class of bannermen, many of them could serve as generals or prime ministers, which obscured this aspect to a certain extent.

In the common understanding of civil servants, military attachés have never read the sages' books on loyalty, filial piety, and martyrdom, and there are many shameless people. The Yangzhou defenders looted the city before escaping, which was extremely shameless. But as soon as they left, dozens of civil servants in the city were left alone. In Yangzhou city, there were not only the prefecture yamen and the two magistrates and county yamen of Jiangdu and Ganquan, but also the Lianghuai Salt Administration yamen. How could these government officials resist the wolf-like tigers of the Fuhan Army?

The civil servants also planned their own escapes. Now it is no better than last year. Before the Fuhan Army had not become a big thing, there were few escapees from local officials. Many of them sent their families out of the city. They either wore a white silk ribbon, or drank poisoned wine, jumped into a pool, and died in the line of duty. a lot of. But this year, there are far fewer people who are willing to die to repay the country's kindness in front of the Fuhan army. Even the Manchu Qing government no longer punished those who escaped from officialdom without mercy.

But after all, these civil servants are all people who have read the books of sages. "If the name is not correct, the words will not be smooth." Jie Tang anxiously thought of an excuse to escape. The most clever one is Lianghuai Salt Administration You, who just took office at the end of last year. He claims that if the Chen bandits have the power to invade Yangzhou, Jiangning will definitely be more dangerous. Jiangning is the capital city of the South and there is no room for failure. He himself wanted to escort the salary out of the city with a fearless spirit to support Jiangning. You Bashi escorted him out of the city in disguise, carrying 500 taels of money and banknotes with him. Li Kaiyi, deputy envoy of Huainan Salt Administration, was filled with indignation and denounced You Bashi as a huge liar who deceived the world. Li Kai said that after his own inspection, he found that hundreds of thousands of paychecks were still in the treasury, and that Yuba Shi had not escorted the paychecks at all, so he volunteered to go out of the city to recover Yuba Shi, a huge swindler, so that Lord Yan Zheng could lead them to resist the traitors. Then Li Kai dressed lightly, disguised himself and left the city, and fled. I just don’t know if he and that Yuba Shi can meet in Huai’an.

As for Jiangning, You Bashi would never go there.

Other officials were also moved and claimed that they would also contribute to the imperial court in escorting the salary. They each carried a hundred taels of salary out of the city in batches. Only Chang Qing, the prefect of Yangzhou, remained in the city.

As a bannerman, Changqing knew that he could not do anything, so he committed suicide after leaving a suicide note. Huang Jie, who entered Yangzhou City without any bloodshed, seized 500,000 taels of silver, 140,000 strings of money, and rice from the Yangzhou government treasury and the Yanzheng Yamen warehouse alone, not counting the wealthy salt merchants' mansions in Yangzhou city. There are more than 70,000 stones of grain, forty-three large and small bronze and iron cannons [connected to the city head], and countless gunpowder cannons.

These things were told by the Yanzheng Yamen clerk who was captured by the Fuhan Army who entered Yangzhou City. Huang Jie took it as a joke and passed it to Chen Ming. Chen Ming turned around and publicized the matter to everyone inside and outside Jiangning. , which greatly entertained the Fuhan army and suppressed the morale of the Qing army.

Chen Ming is playing a big game in Jiangning.

Now the Shandong troops are stationed in Huai'an, the Zhejiang troops are stationed in Suzhou, and the reinforcements from Fujian have not yet reached Hangzhou. The Qing army's offshore navy stopped in Jiangyin. The person leading the offshore navy is Admiral Wu Bida of the Fujian Navy, who is already sixty-four this year.

His fleet is quite strong. There are six large sailing ships alone, with a length of nine feet and six feet [29 meters], a thickness of three inches and one minute, a width of two feet and one foot [about 7 meters], and 24 The cabin can carry 1,500 stones. Each ship is equipped with more than 30 sailors and boatmen, and 80 sailors. There are ten medium-sized shuttle boats, with a length of seven feet and a width of one to eight feet. They are equipped with more than 20 sailors and boatmen and 60 sailors. Large and medium-sized boats are all equipped with double masts, double rudders and double iron anchors. They are the main battleships of the Qing Navy.

There are also two large boats, the Ansuo boat, with a length of seven feet and two feet and a width of one foot and nine feet. They can carry 60 sailors and are similar to medium-sized shuttle boats.

These eighteen warships were the main force in Wu Bida's hands, and they carried different numbers of guns. The large ships had either thirteen or four guns, or eight or nine guns. The medium-sized Zenghuan and Tongansuo ships have six or seven cannons, or four or five cannons.

In addition to these eighteen main warships, the Qing army's overseas navy in Jiangyin also equipped thirty-seven watercraft, double-tented ships and fast sentry ships. There were a total of fifty-five warships, nearly three hundred cannons, two thousand sailors, and seven to eight hundred sailors and shipwrights.

If it were just a duel of surface combat power, Wu Bida would have already sailed up and led the warships directly to the Jiangning River.

Chen Ming's Fu Han Army now has only 2,000 surface ships, and more than 200 ships specifically used for combat, but what kind of ships are those? Compared with the special warships of the foreign navy, they are not worth mentioning. However, the surface warships of the Fu Han Army are not worth mentioning, but their cannons are very powerful, especially after sweeping across Jiangnan. It is rumored that the Fu Han Army has more than 500 cannons.

Whether in Wuchang, Jiujiang, Anqing, or southern Anhui, the Fu Han Army has built furnaces to refine the copper and iron cannons captured from the Qing Army and re-made them. The new cannons are mainly three-jin cannons and five-jin cannons, and the two-jin cannons have gradually been eliminated in the Fu Han Army.

The number of artillery in Chen Ming's army is now much more than when the army went down the Han River in Xiangyang. In addition, his troops swept across the Yangtze River, and the secret camp sent warehouse after warehouse of sulfur, saltpeter, and even barrels of gunpowder - bought from the Qing soldiers, which greatly increased the gunpowder reserves in the Fu Han Army, and the artillery units expanded again and again. But no matter how much it expanded, the number could not reach 500. Those were all rumors spread by the Qing soldiers, and they ended up scaring themselves.

Wu Bi Da is a typical example, who was frightened by rumors. Moreover, the Yangtze River waterway is very narrow when it continues to move up in Jiangyin. In many places, the width of the river is less than three miles. Especially in the Jingkou area, there are islands in the middle of the river one after another. After the Fu Han Army took Jingkou, it sent artillery to deploy there strictly, and also drove the captives to drive wooden stakes and place rafts in the river. In the future, more and more foreign navy of the Qing army will gather in Wusongkou and Jiangyin. But how do they go upstream?

With the power in Wu Bi Da's hands, if he wants to lead his troops to reinforce Jiangning, he has to lead his troops to attack Yanziji, the naval camp of the Fu Han Army. He can't even get through Jingkou with this power. If he wants to reach the Jiangning River, the Qing army's land forces must first clear out the Fu Han Army in Jingkou.

...

Henan battlefield.

Xiping, southwest of Yancheng, is the intersection of Tangjiang River and Yu Ni River. Two years ago, this was a densely populated town, but now there is no civilian here. There is only a team of Fu Han Army stationed here.

Xiping is a county of Yancheng, located in the south of Yancheng. This county is a severely affected area by the war. Those who can escape have fled to other places, and those who can't escape have only one way to die.

Since late autumn last year, the General's Mansion has built a series of fortresses in Xiping County. One by one, the solid fortresses are connected into lines and pieces, forming a most meticulous defense network.

Now, this defensive network is facing the greatest test and is being torn apart by the Qing cavalry, which is its biggest, strongest and most important enemy.