I

Page 450

Lianshan Pass is gone, Caohe Fort is besieged, and Phoenix City has also fallen, which means that the three cities of Tongyuan Fort have become dead!

After repeated questioning, Fu Lehun learned the specific situation. There were not many Datong troops in Lianshan Pass, and only a few hundred cavalry came to Tongyuan Fort.

Before he had time to discuss with the other two generals, Fulehui directly ordered: "The warriors of the Eight Banners, as well as the bannermen, immediately retreat north with their families. Only a few rations and livestock are taken, and all other goods are given up. Rush out before!"

This is not abandoning the city, but breaking out with Eight Banners soldiers and Eight Banners civilians.

Counting the Tartars who escaped from Phoenix City, including the old, the weak, women and children, there are more than 4000 Tartars in Tongyuan Fort.

The cries of the three castles shook the heavens, and many common people from the Tartars did not want to abandon their belongings.

Fu Lehui personally led the troops to fight, trying to drive away the hundreds of enemy cavalry and open a passage for the Tartars in Tongyuan Fort.

Seeing the Tartars coming out of the castle, Lin Zhidong smiled, and said to his soldiers: "Stay back and fight again, don't send the Tartars back to Tongyuan Fort."

The real effect of the surprise attack on Lianshan Pass was to make Tongyuan Fort panic.The Tartars of Tongyuan Fort either waited to be besieged to death, or immediately chose to break out of the siege.

As long as there is a glimmer of hope, the Tartars will surely break through. Who wants to be trapped in a castle waiting to die?

After breaking through the Lianshan Pass, the strategic significance of Tongyuan Fort will be lost in half.Even if the Tartars choose to stick to it, the Datong Army can still advance from Caohebao and Lianshanguan, but the rear may be attacked at any time.

Hundreds of dragoons retreated northward for more than ten miles.

Fulehun asked all Tartars over the age of 12 to take up arms to fight, and even Tartar women formed an army.If they want to survive, they have to rush over with all their strength.

Lin Zhidong took out the binoculars, looked at the chaotic marching formation of the Tartars, couldn't help laughing and said: "The commander of the Tartars is crazy, retreat further. The longer the march, the more chaotic the enemy will be. It's best to drag them to the vicinity of Lianshanguan beat."

From raiding Lianshan Pass to deliberately releasing the Tartars back to Tongyuan Fort, Lin Zhidong has been playing psychological tactics.

Chapter 557 [Send you to death, let me escape]

"This place is not bad, very suitable for killing Tartars."

Lin Zhidong finally chose the terrain, which is the confluence of Xihe and its tributaries.

If more than 4000 Tartars wanted to rush out, they had to cross a tributary of the Xihe River.A small river was narrow and shallow, the narrowest point was only about ten meters, and the dragoons swam across with their horses in their arms.

Hundreds of dragoons waited on the bank after crossing the river.

"Swim over with the livestock, as much as you can run!" Fullerhun ordered.

Banners and Tartar civilians had no choice but to bite the bullet and cross the river. Those who were afraid of the water were all stunned and at a loss.

Lin Zhidong slowly raised his fire blunderbuss and shot at the Tartars in the river. .

Gunshots sounded, and the Tartars were in chaos, even those who hadn't entered the river were also in chaos.Those in the river swam upstream and downstream one after another, trying to avoid the Datong army on the bank.

Is the main general, Fuller Hun, insane?

This is simply letting the Tartars go to die!

Of course he wasn't crazy.

"Come on!"

Fulehun picked up his little daughter, put his wife and son on horseback, and fled along the river bank with his entourage.

The other two Tatar generals also reacted immediately, and fled frantically with their families and relatives.

Those Eight Banners soldiers, bannermen, and civilians who obeyed the order to go down the river were all cannon fodder sent to their deaths.There are also livestock in the river and on the banks of the river, which are also left for the Datong army to rob, and the chief general Fu Lehun just took advantage of the chaos to escape.

Fu Lehun was born in the Shu Mulu clan, he was a Tazi nobleman, so he didn't want to die with the Tartar commoners!

Lin Zhidong on the other side of the river was dumbfounded, and took a breath: "This Tartar general, you really can do it, and split half to chase the enemy!"

The Datong army chased for about three miles across the river, and they couldn't continue their pursuit.

Because the south bank is relatively wide, you can run on horseback.But the north bank soon encountered mountains, and there were only narrow slopes along the river, so you had to lead a horse to walk.

Fulehun galloped all the way, galloping along the river for twenty miles, dismounting and crossing a small river halfway.

Then, abandon the horse and enter the mountain.

Fulehun's escape route was not a serious mountain road at all.It is so steep that it is difficult to lead a horse. Even if a person is climbing, he will be exhausted and have to climb over many mountains to get out.

Lin Zhidong led his army across the river to chase after him, only to see more than 30 horses at the end of the valley.

Alin, the guard of Lianshan Gate, was captured and finally regained his freedom, but he was fooled by Fu Lehun to send him to death.

He was lying next to a farm ox, bearing the bullets of the Datong Army, when he suddenly heard movement behind him, he turned his head and saw Fu Lehun leading his family away.

"Achina (animal)!"

Alin cursed and shouted at the Datong army on the other side: "I am willing to surrender, I am willing to surrender!"

Some Tartar soldiers swam ashore very fortunately, were so exhausted that they knelt on the ground and begged to surrender.

However, what greeted them was the blade of the dragoons.

There are only a few hundred dragoons here, and half of them went after Fulehun.They didn't dare to accept too many prisoners. After all, they were all ferocious Tartar soldiers, so killing them was the safest and least troublesome.

Seeing that the surrender was also killed, the Tartars in the river swam back one after another.Those who didn't enter the water left their livestock and food and ran into the mountains like headless chickens.

Killed all the Tartars who crossed the river, and the dragoons crossed the river with their horses.After going ashore, they chased and killed them on horseback. Only when they encountered old and weak women and children did they stop brandishing their sabers, and when they encountered young and strong Tartars, they hacked to death.

When Lin Zhidong came back with the captured war horses, the banks were already covered with corpses, and there were quite a few floating in the river.

Lu Xiangsheng was pleasantly surprised when he sent someone to Caohe Fort to contact him: "Tongyuan Fort has also been taken? Lin Zhidong is a general!"

Lu Xiangsheng shelled Caohe Fort for several days, and there were only a few hundred defenders here.When the news of the fall of Tongyuan Fort and Lianshan Pass came, the morale of the Tartar defenders was low. The defenders led the soldiers to abandon the fort and fled in the middle of the night.

After the fortress in the mountains was cleared, Lu Xiangsheng took a rest for a whole day and continued to lead his troops northward, pointing directly at Weining Camp (near Benxi).

According to legend, Fan Lihua was enfeoffed as "Marquis of Weining", with a radius of hundreds of miles as his fiefdom, so it was called Weiningying.This statement is difficult to verify, but Weining Camp did become a place name in the Ming Dynasty, instead of being called Weining Fort or Weining City.

The army was still twenty miles away from Weining Camp, when Lu Xiangsheng encountered a group of Han Chinese.

A group of Han Chinese with shaved heads.

"Li Laixiang (Ma Zude, Qiao Henian), meet the Great General of the Celestial Dynasty!" The three Han people took the lead and brought other Han people to meet.

Lu Xiangsheng sneered: "Is the braid cut?"

Li Laixiang took the lead in showing righteous indignation: "The general doesn't know, the Tartars are really hateful. Over the past few years, there have been levies and miscellaneous taxes, and the corvee has never stopped. We wait for the Han people in Liaodong, day and night, looking forward to the arrival of the heavenly soldiers, so that we no longer have to endure the cruelty of the Tartars. I, the Li Family in Weiningying, would like to donate half of the property, and the land will be distributed to the peasants in conjunction with the imperial court!"

"I, Mrs. Ma, would also like to donate half of my property!" Ma Zude said hastily.

The three expressed their loyalty one after another. Although Lu Xiangsheng was contemptuous, he still didn't lose his temper and asked, "How many Tartar defenders are there in the Weining Camp?"

Qiao Henian hurriedly replied: "It turned out that there were only a few hundred. I heard that the general was attacking the city in the mountains, and all the bannermen in the vicinity entered the city. There are at least five or six thousand troops in the city, and all thirteen and fourteen-year-old Tartars are guarding the city." city."

Weining Camp is the territory of Daishan.

As for Qiao Mali, they belonged to the three traitor families.They either led troops to join Nurhachi, or helped Nurhachi receive goods and sell stolen goods, and were allowed to staking land in Weining camp.Not only did they occupy the land in the circle, but they also turned the Han people on the land into their own tenants (more like serfs).

These traitors were very quick to take refuge in the Tartars, and now they are scrambling to submit to the Datong court.

And very hard, when Lu Xiangsheng led troops to besiege the city, the three traitor families began to mobilize.The men formed regiments to help fight the war, the women's family members helped to deliver supplies, and even the tenants were organized as peasant husbands. Those who didn't know it thought they had a deep hatred with the Tartars.

……

Yaozhou.

Dai Shan was arguing with Dorgon: "Return to the army, return to the army, it's useless to confront the army here, go back and save Liaoyang and Shengjing!"

Dorgon said: "The Weining camp is only a partial division of the Southern Manzi, and it will definitely not fall again. Yaozhou cannot retreat. There are tens of thousands of Southern Manzi here. Once the troops withdraw, Yaozhou will be lost. At that time, Liaodong and Liaoxi will be cut in half by the Southern Barbarians. It will not be easy for Hauge's army to come back."

"Then I'll take my Niulu back and destroy the Nanmanzi's side teacher!" Dai Shan was in a hurry.

Weining Camp (Benxi) and its surroundings are all Daishan's territory, and he can't sit still anymore.

The owners of the Eight Banners have their own territories.

For example, Yaozhou, Haizhou, and Ximu City are all under the Xiangbai Banner; Xiuyan City, Phoenix City, and Tangzhanbao are all under the Zhenglan Banner.

In order to prevent the warlordization of the various banner forces, the city defenders often adopt a mixed formation mode, with soldiers from at least two banners in a city.

In the past few years, the expansion of the Datong Army in Liaodong has caused the heaviest losses in the two white banners and the two blue banners, and the Datong Army has occupied all the territory of these four banners.For this reason, Dorgon had to redefine the territory and divide the interests from the other four banners.As a result, new conflicts were triggered. The nobles with the two red flags and the two yellow flags are now full of anger.

If no civil strife broke out, Dorgon was considered to be very capable.

If Hauge presides over the overall situation, there is no need for the Datong Army to send troops, and the Eight Banners of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties will fight within themselves.

Dorgon said: "Wait until the outcome of the battle in Yaozhou is decided, and then come back..."

"I want to withdraw the troops and return to the Weining camp!" Daishan interrupted with a roar.

After finishing speaking, Daishan turned around and left, not giving Dorgon any face at all.

Dai Shanzhen left and forcibly took away eight thousand troops.

Daishan didn't completely disregard the overall situation, but he felt that Yaozhou couldn't fight.Tens of thousands of Datong troops piled up there, the camp was built extremely solidly, and food was brought in continuously.Encircling instead of attacking, just confronting the Eight Banners soldiers, and continuing to drag on, can consume all the rations of the Eight Banners soldiers.

The Manchu Qing mobilized too many troops to confront Tianjin and Yaozhou, which led to Lu Xiangsheng's partial division winning successive battles in the mountains of southern Liaoning.

If he doesn't return to the army for rescue, Daishan thinks that Lu Xiangsheng can fight to Shenyang.

"The Tartars have divided up and returned!"

There are hot air balloons floating in the sky, and the movements several miles away can be seen clearly.

Li Zheng said with a smile: "The time for a decisive battle has come."

Xiao Zongxian said: "There is no need to continue to besiege Yaozhou, go to the Tartar camp outside the city."

Hu Dinggui said: "Don't be in a hurry to attack the enemy's camp, surround them for time, and wait for the remaining Tartars to show their weaknesses."

"The Tartars split up and leave, should we send cavalry to chase after them?" Wang Tingchen asked.

Li Zheng shook his head: "No need. The top priority is to eat up the main force of the Tartars in front of you, don't think about eating into a fat man."

On the second day after Daishan led the army to leave, the Datong Army began to move the camp and moved closer to Dorgon's camp.

At Dorgon's place, there was already a lot of trouble.

Gaizhou and Fuzhou, which were first occupied by the Datong Army, were both Dorgon's Zhengbai Banner territories.After the Tartars abandoned Beijing and returned to Liaodong, Dorgon had no choice but to redistribute and resettle Banners. In order to avoid conflicts, he could only attack the dead Duduo and Azig's subordinates.

Then they drew together and split up, and it took a few years to adjust.

This time is also interesting, the cities captured by Yang Zhenqing and Lu Xiangsheng are all Hauge's territories.

Hauge and Dorgon were the most panicked, and the other banner owners didn't have much to lose.Even if Yaozhou is brought down, it will still be Dorgon's territory, so it's none of the business of other banner owners?

The nobles with two red flags and two yellow flags are clamoring to give up Yaozhou.

Some Manchu nobles even said: "Western Liaoning is not easy to defend. Anyway, it was the boundary of the former Ming Dynasty. Let's go back and defend the front lines of Haizhou, Anshan, Liaoyang, and Weining Camp."

In fact, they just don't want to fight, because they don't have the confidence to win.

Although knowing that abandoning the city is a slow death, it is better than a quick death.

Just like a large international company, both executives and low-level employees know that the company is about to die.However, there are only a few job hoppers, and most of them just hang around until they die with the company one day.

It's a day to be able to hang out, maybe it's not so frustrating, and you can hang out longer.

This kind of situation is suitable for both the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, everyone thinks so.

Chapter 558 [Miner]

"Benxi Lake is established in the county, and Weining Camp is built in the city. There are [-] guards in Kaiyuan, and a city of [-] households in Tiechang."

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Daming set up [-] guards in Kaiyuan, and recruited and resettled a large number of nearby Jurchen people.Although Kaiyuan's grain output was only enough for its own use, the iron smelting industry prospered rapidly, and the weapons manufacturing tasks assigned by the imperial court became heavier and heavier.

Kaiyuan's weaponry soon ran out of raw materials, so an iron factory was set up in Weiningying to provide Kaiyuan with wrought iron materials.

The iron factory was set up next to Weining Yingcheng, and was garrisoned by a hundred households leading troops, and a small town was specially built.

As for Benxi Lake, it was originally called Cup Rhinoceros Lake, which was named after the cup shaped like a rhinoceros horn.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Benxi County was set up, and the county seat was set at the edge of Benxi Lake, about ten miles away from Weining Camp. .

Hearing that the Weining camp was besieged, why did Daishan rush to bring his troops back to help?

Because as early as the Jiajing period, the iron output of Weiningying Iron Works accounted for one-seventh of the entire Liaodong.

And 150 miles due east of Weining Camp, which is Pingdingshan Town, Xinbin County, is the main gold mine of the Tartars!

In addition, Xiaosiping Village in Xinbin County has an arsenal established during the Nurhachi period. "Siping" is a transliteration of Manchu, meaning "arrow shaft", and it is the arrow shaft production base of the Eight Banners Army.

Once the Weining camp falls, the iron field will definitely be gone.Gold mines and arsenals will also be threatened by the Datong Army.

Daishan had enough reasons to return to his teacher, and Dorgon couldn't stop him at all.

Li Laixiang, like a dog, came all day long to beg Lu Xiangsheng: "General Lu, the iron smelting plant in Weiningying was not built in Baihu City, but in Mingshangou and Antgou on the north bank. The son moved all the iron smelters to Weiningying City and Baihu City. But none of the miners in the valley were taken away, probably because they were afraid that the Han miners would cause trouble in the city.”

"The miners are all Han Chinese?" Lu Xiangsheng asked.