Southern Ming Rebel Army

Chapter 470: 1 Unification (1)

After escaping from Kunming, Emperor Yongli wanted to flee to Guangxi again, but he heard that Meng Jun was preparing to attack Li Chengdong, so he did not dare to go.

Especially when Liu Chengyin persuaded him privately, he gave up this idea. Liu Chengyin said: "Your Majesty, the Prince of Zhennan killed Shaozong and murdered Tang vassal arbitrarily. He was rebellious and unrighteous. His crimes were heinous. He also threatened the court to seek the title of prince. It can be seen that he is vicious, cunning and fickle.

Your Majesty is the emperor today, but he may turn against you tomorrow. Your Majesty should not rely on him as a confidant. If you go to Guangxi, you will be putting yourself in a wolf's den, which is like a sheep entering a tiger's mouth. I'm afraid this is not the best strategy."

Yongli felt that Liu Chengyin's words were mature and wise, so he immediately sent someone to ask Prince Jin to send troops to assist the king. It was also lucky that Emperor Yongli did not encounter the cavalry of Sun Wenhuan, a subordinate of Wu Sangui, on the way.

Under the protection of Li Dingguo, Yongli came to Yongchang (now Baoshan) and temporarily stayed there. However, Yongchang was a remote small city, far inferior to Kunming. When he was in Kunming, many official positions in Yongli's court were already incomplete. When Yongli fled to Yongchang City, there were less than two hundred officials in the court. By now, the Ming court was in name only.

Even so, there were still ministers in the Yongli court who did not repent for the current situation, but instead shifted the blame to Li Dingguo.

Minister Wu Chang said to Yongli: "Today's trouble is not the fault of the government, but because the Jin prince led his army to defeat. He retreated to avoid the Wu bandits, causing the court to move and the emperor to travel. The country is in danger!"

But Yongli also knew that the court now relied on Li Dingguo, so he refuted Wu Chang and issued an edict to comfort Li Dingguo.

The edict also said that as the Son of Heaven, he also had his share of inappropriate behavior, and hoped that the King of Jin would not be afraid of rumors, but would cheer up, regroup, and try to recover.

Li Dingguo received the imperial edict, expressed his gratitude to the emperor, and prostrated himself again and again.

Shortly after receiving the order, Wu Sangui's army marched south to attack Li Dingguo.

However, now the military camp system had collapsed, and Yunnan could no longer provide Li Dingguo with much military rations. In the area south of Changsha, rations could not be transported there either because Kunming was isolated by Wu Sangui, resulting in Li Dingguo's troops going hungry one day and full the next.

More importantly, in the current Yongli court, basically all the generals were reorganized from the Western Army. These people could still work together when facing the Qing army, but now that the Qing court has fled out of the country, there seems to be no need to say more about the loyalty of these generals to Emperor Yongli.

When the two armies were facing each other, Wu Sangui sent an envoy to tell Li Dingguo that he sent troops south only because he was worried that the emperor would be controlled by others. Now it seems that the Prince of Jin is not a domineering person, so the prince hopes that the emperor can return to Kunming...

In this regard, Li Dingguo bluntly said: "In the past, Wu Sangui allowed the invaders to enter the pass, and more than a million people died because of you. How can you have the face to worry about the emperor now!"

There was no point in talking to each other, so Wu Sangui immediately led his troops to attack Li Dingguo. Although Li Dingguo was not good at governing, he was no mediocre at fighting. He had to retreat last time because of a traitor. But even though Wu Sangui had a huge advantage, he still couldn't keep Li Dingguo away, and even Li Dingguo's casualties were not too great.

The two armies confronted each other. Wu's army attacked Li's army urgently for two days. Li Dingguo pretended that he could not continue to consume the enemy's strength and his main force retreated, but he had secretly arranged an ambush on the nearby mountains.

Wu Zhimao, a general under Wu Sangui, was proud of his bravery and eager to achieve merit, so he led a small force deep into the enemy's territory, intending to pursue Li Dingguo. When the time was ripe, Jin Tongwu, a general under Li Dingguo, went around the mountain and blocked Wu Zhimao's retreat route. Seeing that their retreat was cut off, Wu's army became panic-stricken.

Li Dingguo immediately led his elite troops to counterattack. The morale of Wu's army dropped greatly, and the formation was in chaos. Wu Zhimao tried hard to break out but failed, and Wu Sangui's reinforcements were blocked by Jin Tongwu at the risk of his life.

The two armies fought for more than an hour, and Wu Zhimao died in the chaos. Upon seeing this, Li Dingguo ordered Jin Tongwu to lead his troops to withdraw into the nearby mountains and forests.

In this battle, the Wu army suffered heavy losses, with more than 3,000 soldiers killed. Wu Zhimao was killed on the battlefield. The news spread, shocking the Wu camp.

Li Dingguo, with a small force against a large one and taking advantage of the complex terrain, slapped Wu Sangui hard and killed his general, forcing Wu's generals to not dare to advance rashly.

At this time Lin Shiqi was also a little worried. Wu Sangui had taken advantage of Meng Qiaofang's unpreparedness and launched a sneak attack into the pass. Now the Wu army had just retreated, and it was a very tense time. All the passes were guarded tightly, giving Zhou's army no chance to launch a sneak attack.

Lin Shiqi stationed his troops at Wuguan, but after failing to capture it for a long time, he decided to divide his troops and besiege it. Lin Shiqi first wrote to Zhao Yongping, asking him not to march south, but to go through Luoyang and besiege Tongguan to see if he could enter Guanzhong from Tongguan.

Afterwards, he sent Wang Fugui, He Zhen, Wu Tiao and other generals to gather 30,000 troops and march westward from Xiangyang to seize Yunyang Prefecture and Xing'an Prefecture and enter Hanzhong. Once Hanzhong was captured, Sichuan and Shaanxi would be cut off.

Just when Lin Shiqi was full of confidence and felt that such multi-pronged attacks would surely make it impossible for Wu Sangui's troops left in Guanzhong to take care of both ends, Fang Guangchen came to Lin Shiqi's tent.

Originally, Fang Guangchen planned to leave the country from Tongguan and head north to the capital, but when he heard that Lin Shiqi was attacking Wuguan very urgently, he decided to go to the capital via Nanyang.

Fang Guangchen rode non-stop all the way, his eyes were bloodshot and his face looked tired. For Fang Guangchen, the journey was not easy, but the situation was too urgent and Fang Guangchen could not afford to walk slowly.

After declaring his identity as an envoy, Fang Guangchen came to the Zhou army camp under the leadership of the Zhou army cavalry.

Lin Shiqi was somewhat puzzled. Why did Wu Sangui send an envoy at this time? Did he still hope that he could stop the war? However, Lin Shiqi was also somewhat curious about just an envoy and wanted to see what Wu Sangui wanted to do.

As soon as Fang Guangchen entered the big tent, he said without hesitation: "General Lin, my prince has made a decision. He has decided to submit to King Zhou with all his people!"

When these words came out, it was like a bolt of thunder, which shocked Lin Shiqi's heart. How could Lin Shiqi have expected such a thing? He was sharpening his knife, intending to step into Guanzhong in one fell swoop and clear the last obstacle for the king to unify the world, but how come this obstacle suddenly disappeared.

Seeing that Lin Shiqi was so shocked that he couldn't speak, Fang Guangchen continued, "The situation in the world is changing rapidly. King Zhou has already controlled the world. The trend of unification is inevitable. The world has been at war for decades, and the people are anxious. After careful consideration, my prince is willing to surrender the three provinces of Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Yunnan to King Zhou. This is also a way for the people to survive. I hope the two armies will stop fighting and stop the killing!"

Lin Shiqi was silent for a long time, and then he said, "For such an important matter, the envoy should go to the capital to discuss it with the king."

Fang Guangchen nodded and said, "That's true, but I hope the general can postpone the attack!"