Great time travel

Chapter 94, The Death Knell of the Ming Empire

On September 25th in the fifth year of Chongzhen, Beizhili, Shuntianfu, Jizhou

On the mottled and desolate wilderness, rolling sandstorms filled the sky and the earth, covering up the coolness of autumn.Whether it is the sky or the ground, it is a blur of grayish yellow.Dry thatch and dead trees that have been stripped of bark are inserted crookedly between the ruined walls.All kinds of scenery were distorted into broken and swaying shadows like a mirage, floating feebly.The north wind blows away the dust, revealing corpses and bones.

"...Boom boom boom..."

"... Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"

The passionate drums and the desolate horns sounded together, and two armies with similar costumes were fighting each other desperately in the heart of the capital of the Ming Empire.The sergeants on both sides wore the same style of red war jackets, used basically the same flags and drums, held almost the same weapons, and yelled with almost the same accent—just over a month ago, they were both from the Ming Empire. The official army of the imperial court, and is the most famous elite soldier in the army.But at this moment, the team in the east had shaved off their hair and took refuge in Liaodong Jiannu.

In this windy autumn afternoon, the [-] Tianxiong army of King Beishangqin and the [-] Guanning army who turned to the Tartars fought into a pot of porridge on the outskirts of Gyeonggi, which had already been ravaged by war.The muffled sound of gunfire made the ground rumble and tremble, piercing shells screamed and plowed bloody furrows in the phalanx; pieces of flying arrows pierced through the wind and dust, splashing bright blood in the crowd. Flowers and a shrill scream; the sound of guns and guns, the sound of metal colliding with limbs, and hysterical shouting and cursing are intertwined to perform a chaotic song of death.

With the passage of time, despite the superiority in strength, the Tianxiong Army gradually began to disintegrate under the repeated assaults of the Guanning Army. Daming, Guangping, and Shunde's fortunes were motley local troops recruited in the past two or three years; while the rebellious Guanning Army started from the reign of Tianqi, and the Ming court spent all the money in the world, spending 500 million yuan a year Luxurious lineage elite soldiers built with two silvers... Whether it is the quality of soldiers, ordnance equipment, or combat experience, the two are not at the same level.

Therefore, after the infantrymen of both sides fought hand-to-hand for about a stick of incense, the Tianxiong Army began to retreat slowly, while the Guanning Army was pressing harder and harder. In the end, the Tianxiong Army could no longer maintain the formation, and it evolved from a retreat to a retreat. After being defeated, they finally rushed towards the rear camp out of control.

"... Hold on! Hold on! Serve the court! Kill the traitor!"

On a chariot in the Tianxiong Army’s main formation, Lu Xiangsheng, a right-wing member of the Ming Dynasty with a white scarf on his head and a tired look on his face, forcibly raised his spirits, shouted slogans hoarsely, and at the same time drew his bow again and again. In the blink of an eye, several Guanning Army soldiers who were rushing to the front were shot down.

"...Bang bang bang!"

Several rows of three-eyed blunderbuss spewed out waves of smoke, dust, and fire, and the bloody corpses of Guanning Army soldiers twisted and rolled in the rain of bullets. For a while, there were wailing and wailing, and pieces of blood splashed, making the wind and sand even more dirty.The menacing attack wave stopped immediately.

After the firearms were fired, several heavy drums sounded in the Tianxiong army's formation. Lu Xiangsheng drew out his long sword himself, jumped off the chariot, and rushed to the enemy to fight to the death with his sword.Hundreds of equestrian servants from the Tianxiong Army's Zhongjun Biao Battalion also came out with swords and guns, galloped past the defending firearms soldiers, and rushed towards the scattered Guan Ning army on the opposite side, and immediately wiped out those Guan Ning troops who had begun to turn around and flee. The infantry of the Ning army rushed in a mess.

But only 10 minutes later, the sound of rolling horseshoes sounded on the other side of the battlefield again—in terms of the number and combat effectiveness of the cavalry, the Tianxiong Army is definitely not the opponent of Guan Ning's iron cavalry.After the skirmish of mutual testing was over, the Guan Ning army finally released their trump card: After retreating for a while and successfully opened the distance, nearly a thousand Guan Ning cavalry were assembled to attack the already scattered Tianxiong army phalanx. An imposing assault was launched.

Accompanied by the dust splashed by thousands of horseshoes, the cavalry of the Guanning Army, who could not see the edge at a glance, made a circle on the battlefield, and easily tore apart the side of the Tianxiong Army's formation. Trampled on, let the Tianxiong army who had just stabilized the decline be killed and wounded again,

Facing the approaching Guanning iron cavalry, the Tianxiong army fired a salvo of bows and crossbows, and all the artillery roared.Sharp crossbow arrows and deadly projectiles buzzed past the cavalry's ears, and some people kept screaming and falling off their horses, or were trampled into flesh by the robes because their horses were injured and fell to the ground.However, shells and arrows could not stop all the cavalry after all, and the Tianxiong Army did not have heavy infantry with large shields to confront the cavalry head-on.

As a result, like a sharp knife cutting through butter, the already crumbling Tianxiong army formation finally pierced through and tore apart from the left wing with Guan Ning cavalry, and the entire army collapsed in an instant.And the cavalry of the Tianxiong Army who launched a countercharge before was overwhelmed by the enemy cavalry several times their own in an instant.

Next, Guan Ning's iron cavalry rushed directly into the Tianxiong barracks, which was empty of troops, and set fire and hacked wantonly!

"...Kill! Kill! Kill! Our army is victorious!"

"... Hold on! Don't retreat! Anyone who retreats will be killed!"

"... How can I stand it... Lost! Lost! Run away!"

The Tianxiong army did not expect the enemy to break into the camp so soon. The soldiers who retreated before had not had time to rest, and the soldiers and auxiliary soldiers were mixed together, and there was no army organization at all.Facing the sudden attack of the Guanning Army, the Tianxiong Army, which had been exhausted from fighting for a long time and had low morale, fell into chaos in a blink of an eye.A few brave soldiers were busy piercing their armor and getting their guns, and more people fled back after shouting.

When the Guanning Army set fire to the supplies, the Tianxiong Army fell into complete chaos. Some officers wanted to fight back, some wanted to form defensive formations, and some wanted to retreat and reorganize.In this chaos, the entire army was completely disintegrated from top to bottom, soldiers could not find generals, and soldiers would not be found.Eventually it fell apart.And the swarm of people fleeing in disorder also overwhelmed the soldiers and servants brought by coach Lu Xiangsheng to try to reinforce them...

"...My lord! The front army and the left army have been dispersed, and the cavalry has also been defeated! The camp and supplies are all gone! We are almost unable to support here!"

An officer with disheveled hair and blood on his face ran out from the chaos, almost rolled off his horse and knelt in front of Lu Xiangsheng, buried his head deeply on the ground, and shouted in despair, "...Let's withdraw. If we don’t withdraw, the way back to the capital will be cut off!”

"...I can't retreat...I can't retreat...If I retreat at this time, the whole army will be defeated! How can I face the Holy One..."

Facing the irreversible defeat and the fleeing Tianxiong Army, a cloudy tear flowed from the corner of Lu Xiangsheng's eyes, but the sword in his hand was still pointing stubbornly at the battlefield ahead—at the end of Ming Dynasty, Lu Xiangsheng was He is famous for his good command of the army, but the Tianxiong army he has trained still cannot change the bad habit of bullying the weak and fearing the strong, and it will collapse at any time.Moreover, logistics support and food supply are always very difficult. Faced with such difficulties, Lu Xiangsheng can only infect his subordinates with his personality charm.

In general, although Lu Xiangsheng is a scholar, he is a berserker like Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu on the battlefield. The support and appreciation of Army soldiers...but this "leadership takes the lead" motivating effect.After all, there is still a limit, and now after suffering repeated setbacks, the morale of the Tianxiong Army has almost plummeted—except for the crusade against hungry people and bandits, the Tianxiong Army has not experienced a few battles, after all, It is hard to beat the Guanning iron cavalry trained on the Liaodong battlefield.

Next, the last straw that broke the camel's back was finally thrown.

"...It's not good! Your Excellency! The rebel reinforcements are here!"

In the wilderness not far from the battlefield, a long silver dragon suddenly appeared. It was a torrent of iron armor that could be called super luxurious in this era.Thousands of soldiers from the Guanning Army, perhaps mixed with a small number of post-gold and white armored soldiers, dressed in dazzling iron armor, slowly pressed towards the Tianxiong Army, which was still stubbornly resisting.Under the sunlight, the rebel battle formation on the opposite side was filled with cold light, like a silver snake twisting its body.

Seeing such a scene, Lu Xiangsheng finally had to admit that this time he was doomed, "... retreat! Go to Tongzhou!"

"... Order! Take your lord away!" The general who came to report the news gritted his teeth, turned around and jumped on his horse, and at the same time waved fiercely at the officers and soldiers of the Supervision Battalion, and then led his own soldiers, and Rush toward the battlefield in the east.

At the same time, the banner of the commander-in-chief of the army began to slowly move towards the capital in the west...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After the Guanning army defected and Liaodong Jiannu invaded Shanhaiguan, Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong army was the first to respond to the edict of King Qin of the Tianxia. After learning about this shocking sudden change, I had to turn around and head north again.At this time, the Guan Ning Army had captured the entire Yongping Mansion, but the canal was still unblocked for the time being, so the Tianxiong Army returned to the capital quickly by water.

Unexpectedly, after arriving in the capital, the imperial court neither provided food and fodder nor paid military salaries, but only urged Lu Xiangsheng to go out to defeat the enemy as soon as possible.At the same time, the eunuch Gao Qiqian was sent to supervise the army, and Lu Xiangsheng's [-] soldiers and horses were sent away, saying that he wanted to defend the capital and resist the remaining Shaanxi bandits stranded in Jifu.

Lu Xiangsheng knew that with the remaining [-] troops, he was no match for the Jin army and the Guan Ning army after more than [-]. Originally, he wanted to set up camp outside the city and fight against the defenders of the capital. camp to defend against enemy soldiers.Helplessly, a group of academics who talk about military affairs in the Ministry of War persecuted them in every possible way, and even mobilized the censor to set off a wave of public opinion, criticizing Lu Xiangsheng for being afraid of the enemy... In desperation, Lu Xiangsheng had no choice but to bite the bullet and set out to fight eastward, intending to defeat the rebels or build slaves One of the vanguards will have an explanation internally and externally, and then return to the capital.As a result, just as his Tianxiong army had just launched, Zu Dashou had already led a Guanning army into Shuntian Mansion.The two armies met in Jizhou, about [-] kilometers away from Beijing, and a battle broke out immediately.

On the Jizhou battlefield, since it was compiled, it has only fought a few grassroots bandits. The Tianxiong Army, which lacks tough battle experience, is obviously not an opponent of Guanning's cavalry. It quickly collapsed across the board, and even the old battalion was copied. He fled to Tongzhou with Lu Xiangsheng, and lost all artillery and supplies.

At the same time, Wu Xiang led another Guanning army to attack Tianjin Wei and cut off the canal leading to Beijing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The eastern suburbs of the capital, outside the city of Tongzhou
After running wildly for three days and three nights, the exhausted Lu Xiangsheng finally got rid of the pursuit of Guan Ning's iron cavalry, and led the remaining Tianxiong army to the city of Tongzhou.Then came another bad news: the [-]-day heroic army stationed in the capital had been ambushed by the Shaanxi Peasant Army under the random tossing of Gao Qiqian, the ambassador of the army, and was defeated in Xishan. Gao Qiqian rode alone Fleeing back to the capital, the army was immediately disintegrated, either surrendering to the enemy or falling into bandits, only a few thousand people fled to Lugou Qiaoli Village, and now they broke out to join the commander Lu Xiangsheng.

But in this way, even if the troops who escaped from the Jizhou battlefield were joined together, the entire Tianxiong army would only have 5000 people left.

And the more frightening news is not the lack of morale caused by successive defeats.It was a terrifying plague that came quietly. During the bloody battle of Jizhou by the Tianxiong Army, people in the suburbs of Beijing generally suffered from symptoms such as coughing up blood, vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever, and died in large numbers. Tired.When Lu Xiangsheng arrived at Tongzhou, the terminus of water transportation, the officials and people in the city closed the city gates tightly to prevent the Tianxiong army from entering the city.

Fortunately, by the time the enemy was approaching the city, the corrupt officials in the court finally remembered that they had to feed the Tianxiong army before they could fight. The Tianxiong army who went out to the battlefield was able to feed their hunger.

In the Tianxiong army camp at night, the rice and wheat just received were thrown into a large pot, and then surrounded by hungry Ming army officers and soldiers, eagerly waiting for the rice to be cooked. The food has been heavily deducted, and the real ones are very limited, but there are not many officers and soldiers of the Tianxiong Army left, so if the expenditure is frugal, these soldiers who survived the catastrophe can still eat for seven or eight days. full meal.

In the simple tents, the lightly wounded who managed to escape were sighing, and what was even more frightening was that from time to time, people would be found to have symptoms of the plague, which made the whole building jump up and down again and again. The barracks were shrouded in a gloomy atmosphere of despair.

In the main tent of the Chinese army, each lamp is like a bean. Although the "Guangdeng" (kerosene lamps) sold from the south, because they are cleaner and brighter, they have become popular among wealthy families in Beijing and China in recent years.But Lu Xiangsheng, who used to live a simple life, still only used an old-fashioned oil lamp that was dim and dim.

Under the oil lamp, Lu Xiangsheng, who was shot in the forehead by an arrow in the Battle of Jizhou and had to wrap himself in a white cloth, was lying sickly on the couch. Looking at the map of Gyeonggi and the latest military newspaper, he couldn't help sighing, and looked up. Looking up, he stared blankly at the top of the tent, with a desolate and helpless look on his face: "... Alas, tens of thousands of southern Hebei disciples lost their troops in Jizhou, retreated in a big defeat, and owed the Holy Grace... Now Shaanxi rogues occupied Xishan (Shijingshan) and peeped at Shenjing; Guanning rebels captured Jizhou and Sanhe, and their soldiers and horses were only [-] miles away from the capital. How can this be good?"

——With the defection of the Guanning army and the founding of slaves, the situation in Beizhili collapsed instantly. The Shaanxi bandits who had been driven into the Taihang Mountains took the opportunity to rush into Jifu again, looting everywhere, and even touched Beijing at one time Under the city—According to the description of the Tang Bao of the Ministry of War, "the number of Jifu bandits has reached tens of thousands. The area around the West Mountain is full of valleys, and Liangxiang, Changping, and Zhuozhou are also burned by them from time to time."

Facing the attack of rogue bandits and slaves, the Beijing court was stretched for a while. Wen Tiren, the chief minister of the cabinet who presided over the government, had to dispatch troops to meet the invading enemies, and at the same time deal with the "non-violent non-violence" of the Dongdonglin party members. "Cooperation" was really exhausting, but all they received was one defeat after another - the Slavery Festival in the east was advancing, no matter how many officers and troops were mobilized, they would always be defeated in every battle, just like moths to a flame; The rogues in the west were not slippery, and the officers and soldiers couldn't catch up with them for a while, and they couldn't wipe them out. They often suffered a few losses from ambushes.

At this time at the end of September, as the cities of Shuntian Prefecture fell one after another, the encirclement of Beijing City was further compressed under the pressure of enemies from all walks of life, especially after the collapse of the Tianxiong Army, the imperial court had completely lost The ability to face the enemy in the field can only be trapped in a lonely city.

At this time, within and outside the capital, if you search from various corners, you can gather about [-] officers and troops, which seems to be a lot, but if it is used to defend Beijing, a city with a million people, it is barely enough to stand on the city wall. That's all.As for combat power, it can only be described as tofu.For this reason, Wen Tiren, the chief assistant of the cabinet, ordered all the ministers to guard the capital, and at the same time issued a series of official documents, urging Zhu Dadian, who was suppressing the Wenxiangjiao uprising in Shandong and Xuzhou, and Zhu Dadian, who was leading [-] Qin troops from Shandong to return to the capital. Hong Chengchou and the frontier troops from Xuanfu and Datong towns in the northwest came to help.Seeing that the situation in the capital was so critical, Zhu Dadian had no choice but to give up Wenxiang and teach the rebels, and quickly mobilized [-] officers and troops, claiming to be [-], and rushed to the capital along the canal starry night.

But even so, on the Gyeonggi battlefield, the total strength of the Ming army is still at a disadvantage, and its combat effectiveness is far from being comparable to the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners.

The most terrible thing is that the military command ability of the civilian officials in the Ming court is not even worthy of carrying shoes in front of Huang Taiji and the chiefs of the Eight Banners.

In addition, the plague that is now spreading in Gyeonggi has further weakened the combat effectiveness of the Ming army.

For such a passive battle situation, Lu Xiangsheng was naturally very unwilling, but after thinking about it, he didn't come up with any clever way to break the situation-he had never had a decent contest with the Jurchens before, but he just won many battles against the rogues, so he thought The Tianxiong army he pulled out by himself is not bad.Unexpectedly, in the battle with Guan Ning's army now, they found that Tianxiong's army was as powerless in front of Guan Ning's army as a child fighting a strong man.

And it is such a force built by the imperial court with all its treasury, which can be called brave and powerful Guan Ning Army. In the Battle of the Daling River, the Guanning Army couldn't even defend the city.

In view of the above-mentioned poor performance, many military generals in the mainland disdain the Guan Ning army, thinking that this group of people has their own appearance and is purely a show.But I didn't expect that at this moment, when Guan Ning's army turned around to help the tiger and attacked the court, it was so vicious and sharp.

The [-]-day heroic army compiled by myself is already one of the best fighting troops among the current Beizhili official army, but when it comes to the Jizhou battlefield, it is defeated by the Guanning army, the Jiannu army. In front of him, there is still no power to parry.And right now, not only do I have to fight the Guan Ning Army again under the city of Beijing, but there are at least [-] to [-] elite soldiers of the Eight Banners who are known as "Jurchens are less than [-], and they are invincible" to deal with...

Such a desperate situation can no longer be described by the words "mantis arm as cart".No matter how capable Lu Xiangsheng is, he has no power to recover.

"...Zhu Dadian is still in Jinan. For a while, it is difficult to put out the fire near the water. The Beijing camp has been abandoned for a long time, and it is completely vulnerable. I heard that the two towns of Xuanda and Dacheng have been harassed by bandits recently. I am afraid that they will not be able to enter the capital... Now It seems that we can only rely on Hong Hengjiu (Hong Chengchou)'s Qin army for the safety of the capital."

Lu Xiangsheng frowned and said in thought, "...just in this way, Shandong will be emptied of troops, not only the Wenxiang Sect will probably revive, but the Chen thief (Chen Xin) in Dengzhou may also be ready to move... Alas, whatever, now Everything is based on the safety of the capital, and the rest is ignored..."

Similar to Lu Xiangsheng in Tongzhou, the civil and military officials in the Beijing court now also regard Hong Chengchou's Qin army as the last straw.However, after waiting for several days, Lu Xiangsheng and the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty in Beijing received such a sad news:
"...Tianjin mutiny! Hong Chengchou's [-] Qin army mutinied on the way north to King Qin!"