In Wenzhou Prefecture, after Zhu Yihai took the stage, he prepared to march to Fujian.However, before the Ming army moved, news came from northern Zhejiang, Zhang Cunren, who was sitting in Hangzhou, ordered 40,000 troops, went up the Fuchun River, and entered Yanzhou.After Zhao Ming ended his attack on the Manchus at the end of last year, the army rested in Zhoushan for nearly a year, and the Manchus also rested and recuperated during this period of time, and their strength increased.The Manchu Qing Dynasty imposed a ban on the sea along the coast, and implemented the national policy of emphasizing agriculture in the south of the Yangtze River, returning cotton to the fields and mulberry to the fields, and the army had sufficient food and wages.Zhu Yihai had already expected the actions of the Qing army in northern Zhejiang, leaving the general Fang Guoan and the town minister Li Chengdong to defend western and southern Zhejiang.Among them, Li Chengdong's defense of Yanzhou, Quzhou is the most critical, Yan and Quzhou, just located at the junction of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Nanzhili four provinces, the territory is mountainous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the south is the main road into Fujian Xianxia Pass, if Duoduo enters Fujian from here, the back road will be threatened by Li Chengdong.It is precisely because of this that Duoduo has already ordered Zhang Cunren to raise troops to attack western Zhejiang again, one is to solve the worries of the army, and the other is to contain Zhu Yihai's Zhejiang Ming army and prevent Zhu Yihai from interfering in Fujian.The Qing army stationed 100,000 troops in Zhejiang, but under the threat of the Ming army in the East China Sea from the sea, Zhang Cunren did not dare to dispatch all his men, and only mobilized 40,000 Qing troops to attack Yanzhou.Zhang Cunren is a native of Liaodong, originally a deputy general of the Ming Dynasty, and after the Qing Dynasty, he belonged to the Han Army with a blue flag, and was a famous general in the early Qing Dynasty.After the last Battle of Jinhua, the Qing army in Zhejiang rested for two years, and they occupied the rich Hangzhou region, recovering far faster than the Ming army in the poor countryside.At this time, the Qing army was well fed and their morale was high, and many Qing soldiers transferred from the north were ready to do a big job.After the Battle of Jinhua, the original elite Qing army in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Zhejiang suffered great losses, and the Manchu court could only mobilize the Qing army from the north to the south.Many of these soldiers and horses were the border troops of the Ming Dynasty, and they had never fought with the Ming army in Zhejiang, so they were very unfamiliar with the Ming army in Zhejiang and did not take them seriously.However, as soon as these Qing troops entered Yanzhou, they found that this was really not a good place, it was completely different from the northern plains, there were hills and streams everywhere, and it was difficult to see a flat land, and because the paddy fields were filled with muddy water, there was a puddle of mud under their feet.The Qing soldiers went down, and the mud was buried directly in the calves, and the war horses did not dare to go down to the fields, so they could only take the official roads and paths, which seriously restricted the advance of the Qing army.Compared with the Qing army, Li Chengdong's division stationed in Yanzhou was originally subordinate to Gao Jie's army, and it was an elite division of the Ming army that was good at field warfare and could also attack and defend cities.This group of men and horses, from the land of Guanlong, withdrew all the way to Zhejiang, and took root in western Zhejiang, recruited local people, and expanded to 30,000 people.After 10,000 of the elite soldiers were transferred to Fujian by Zhu Yihai, Li Chengdong still had 20,000 horses in his hands.Stationed in western Zhejiang for nearly two years, Li Chengdong was very familiar with the terrain of Yanzhou, and when he learned that Zhang Cunren was going upstream, he immediately and decisively abandoned the relatively flat Tonglu area to the east of Yanzhou, in an attempt to lure the Qing army into the upper reaches of the Fuchun River, near Fuchun Mountain, Wulong Mountain, Xuxi and Dongyang River.The undulating hills and dense streams in this area are not suitable for large armies to carry out operations, and the Qing army in the north will not be suitable.Zhang Cunren got the news that Zhu Yihai gathered troops in Wenzhou, immediately led 40,000 horses, went up the river, marched all the way, defeated many Ming troops along the way, and soon occupied Tonglu, crossed Xuxi, and approached Jiande.After the Qing army bypassed Fuchun Mountain and collapsed over Xuxi, Wulong Mountain blocked the road in front, Xin'an River on the right, undulating terraced rice fields on the left, and Fuchun Mountain and Xuxi in the rear.Qing general Ma Degong once fought with Li Chengdong, and the more he walked, the more he felt that something was wrong, even if Zhu Yihai took away Li Chengdong's elite soldiers, Li Chengdong should not be so vulnerable, so he reminded Zhang Cunren to be vigilant, after all, Li Chengdong and Zhao Ming entered the Yangtze River and fought Jinhua, which can be said to be one of the few fierce generals in the Southern Ming Dynasty.As soon as he finished speaking, he killed a group of men and horses on Fuchun Mountain with his back, Li Chengdong's general Yan Keyi led 3,000 soldiers to kill, and the Ming army's arquebus volleys shot countless Qing troops.Zhang Cunren was suddenly attacked, and the men and horses were not chaotic, and they were ready to attack, but they found that due to the restrictions of the terrain, the 40,000 Qing troops could not be deployed at all, and the Qing soldiers found that there were paddy fields and ditches everywhere.At this time, the Ming army ambushed in other directions, attacked in all directions, the Ming soldiers had already chosen the terrain, and many soldiers from western Zhejiang, drank a bowl of wine to warm up, and then beat barefoot, rolled up their trouser legs, and charged with weapons.The Qing army could not be opened, and there were people and soldiers bluffing in the mountains and forests everywhere, Zhang Cunren saw that the army was in chaos, so he could only order to retreat, but where could the Qing army run past the Ming army in western Zhejiang, many people and war horses were trapped in the mud, and the Ming army grabbed the weapons and rushed up to kill, and the corpses of the Qing army were all over the field, wailing all over the ground.Li Chengdong led the army to chase all the way for more than 30 miles before collecting troops and returning to Jiande, while Zhang Cunren retreated directly to Tonglu County to stabilize his position.When the Qing army withdrew one foot deep and one foot shallow, everyone was apprehensive, and many Qing troops sighed that the green mountains and bad waters in western Zhejiang, and the people everywhere were not suitable for the Qing soldiers to fight.Zhang Cunren ordered people to count the losses, and only 35,000 of the 40,000 horses returned, although 5,000 Qing soldiers were annihilated by the Ming army.After this battle, the morale of the Qing army in Zhejiang was greatly discharged, Zhang Cunren did not dare to be careless anymore, stationed the soldiers and horses in Tonglu County, sent scouts to investigate, groped the terrain of western Zhejiang, and prepared to find a good road and then attack again.This time the Qing army attacked Fujian, a total of three people, when Zhang Cunren was blocked, Leke Dehun urged Jin Shenghuan, led 60,000 Qing soldiers, concentrated the main force of the Qing army in Jiangxi, and directly pounced on Ganzhou.Duoduo's plan was for Zhang Cunren to contain Zhu Yihai in Zhejiang, Le Ke Dehun and Jin Shenghuan, and to contain Wan Ji in Gannan.In this way, the left and right flanks of Fujian were pinned down by the Qing army, and Duoduo could lead the main force of the 100,000 Qing army to calmly seize Fujian.At that time, whether the Qing army chose to go east and attack Zhu Yihai in Zhejiang with Zhang Cunren, or outflank Ganzhou in the northwest, or take advantage of the emptiness of Guangzhou, and drive directly to Guangzhou, all at the discretion of Duoduo.Ganzhou is an important town in the south of Jiangxi, located at the junction of Fujian, Jiangxi, Liangguang and Huguang provinces.The strategic location of Ganzhou was more important to the Ming army than western Zhejiang.Since the Qing army went south, the Ming army and the Qing army have been fighting in southern Jiangxi for nearly four years, if the Ming army loses southern Jiangnan, Huguang's connection with Fujian and Zhejiang, will be cut off, to contact can only go over the Nanling Mountains, first to Guangdong, and then detour into Fujian and Zhejiang.Months passed, and everything was over.At this time, there were more than 40,000 Ming troops gathered in Ganzhou, and these 40,000 people had a characteristic, which could be described in one word, that is, "miscellaneous"!
In the tug-of-war in the past four years, in order to defend Ganzhou, the Ming Dynasty continued to send troops from all over the country to reinforce Ganzhou, so in the city of Ganzhou, there were Zhao Yinxuan and Hu Yiqing of the Yunnan army from Yunnan and Guizhou, and there were Guangdong army boys Yizhen and Chen Ke from Liangguang, Cao Zhijian, the Hunan army from Huguang, plus the original Jiangxi defenders Wu Zhifan and Zhang Guozuo.It can be said that Ganzhou gathered soldiers and horses from the southwestern provinces.In the four-year tug-of-war, the Ming Dynasty also suffered considerable losses in southern Jiangnan, losing two scholars, Yang Tinglin and Huang Daozhou, and Guo Weijing, the secretary of the military department.At this time, it was the university scholar Wan Yuan Ji who guarded Ganzhou, and after four years of tempering, he was already a qualified commander, leading the miscellaneous Ming army to repel the Qing army's invasion of Ganzhou several times.Since the last time, Zhao Ming sent troops to Shandong, occupied Dagukou, forced the Qing army to draw troops from the south to the north, and the Qing army attacking Ganzhou also withdrew its troops, Wan Yuan Ji only did one thing, that is, to strengthen the city defense of Ganzhou.When Luck Dehun urged Jin Shenghuan to lead an army of 60,000 to enter the territory of Ganzhou again, he did not encounter any resistance along the way, and he didn't even see a single hair, and the 60,000 Qing army rushed directly to the city of Ganzhou.Since the Ming army was shrinking in the city waiting for him to attack, he immediately urged Jin Shenghuan, set up artillery, raised artillery trucks, ladders, and launched a fierce attack, but they were all blocked by the Ming army that had been on the defensive for a long time.When the Qing army took action on the left and right, Zhu Yihai also led more than 30 generals such as Zhao Ming, Zhang Mingzhen, Wu Zhaosheng, Li Yuanyin, and Fang Shiyan, and more than 53,000 people from the Mabu army.After the army marched to the water dividing pass, Zhu Yihai, as the crown prince, asked the defenders to switch on.At this time, inside the Zheng army in Fujian, the thinking was extremely confused, and the army was stationed in Guanxia, threatening to attack, and Liang Li, the deputy general of the guard, killed the guard, and switched to meet Zhu Yihai.At the end of November, 50,000 Zhejiang troops entered Funing Prefecture from the Fenshui Pass, and the army advanced towards Fuzhou.
(Thank you all for your support, it's even later, there's another chapter, let's read it tomorrow morning) ()