Xie Ming

Zuo Liangyu, courtesy name Kunshan, was born in Linqing County, Shandong Province.

He was orphaned at an early age and was illiterate, but he was resourceful, decisive, and able to comfort his soldiers.

When he first set up his army, he was appointed as a commander in the Cheyou Camp in Liaodong.

In the first year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty, he led his troops to aid Liao in fighting against the Later Jin army.

Soon after, he was ordered to suppress militia rebellions in Shanxi, Henan and other places, and was gradually promoted to the position of general.

Later, in the war to suppress the peasant uprising, he continued to expand his army, became increasingly arrogant and domineering, and was self-reliant.

In the spring of the 13th year of Chongzhen, he was appointed as the General of Suppressing Bandits by Yang Sichang, the commander-in-chief.

He led troops together with the Shaanxi Ming army to defeat Zhang Xianzhong's army at Manju Mountain, and was promoted to the Prince's Guardian for his merits.

In the 15th year, he fought again with Li Zicheng's Dashun Army in Zhuxian Town, Henan and other places, suffered heavy losses, and retreated to Wuchang City. He was named Ningnan Earl.

As time passed, the capital fell, and Xiao Jingchuan took the prince south to ascend the throne and established Hongguang. In the early days of the Southern Court, in order to win over his troops, Zhu Cilang was also favored and promoted to marquis and appointed as the prince's tutor.

His son was conferred the title of Chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Looking back to that time, when Li Zicheng was defeated at Shanhaiguan, Zuo Liangyu took advantage of the chaos in the world and stepped up the dispatch of troops to recover Jingzhou, De'an, Chengtian and other places west of Hubei.

At that time, Huguang Governor He Tengjiao and Governor-General Yuan Jixian were living in Jiangxi, and both of them were good friends with Zuo Liangyu.

Therefore, the Hongguang court intended to rely on him to serve as a barrier for the Hubei area.

The troops under Zuo Liangyu also expanded rapidly during this period.

Gradually, by the second year of the Hongguang reign, his tribe had rapidly expanded to eight hundred thousand men, and he even called himself a millionaire.

Among them, the first five battalions were his personal troops.

As for the last five camps, we got them by gathering together the surrendered ones.

It was early spring, and he ordered all the camps to gather on the hilltops around Wuchang for training.

Each mountain has a flag of a different color, and they are planted all over the valleys and ridges.

The exercise method is for two people to ride horses side by side and gallop, which is called "Guopui".

By then, the sound of horse hooves will be earth-shaking like thunder, and can be heard several miles away.

However, after all, Zhuxian Town had previously fought against the rebel Li Zicheng, and its elite troops were exhausted.

Therefore, most of the troops and horses that have arrived in recent years are a motley crowd.

The army looked impressive, but it was true that Zuo Liangyu found it difficult to discipline and control it as it was put together from all sides.

In addition, in the city of Wuchang, many officers and generals in various military camps were addicted to visiting prostitutes. Some of them indulged in pleasure all night long, with singing girls and dancing girls, drinking and having sex, and living a life of drunkenness and dreams.

As it stands now, although there are millions of people, their challenging power is still difficult to measure.

After a long conversation, let’s go back to the beginning of March in the second year of Hongguang.

The reason why this old villain chose today to rebel was, in fact, because of the secret conspiracy of the Qing government in the north.

In February, the Jiannu army marched into the northwest with great momentum and captured the two provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi in one fell swoop.

The regent Dorgon, who lived far away in the capital, also sent envoys to Shanxi to go south to Hubei to persuade Zuo Liangyu to surrender in order to prepare for the future.

After the Qing court took control of the north, its arrogance was high. Dorgon also wanted to achieve his goal in one fell swoop. He took over Shandong first, went south to capture Jiangnan, and unified the country.

So he prepared to instigate a rebellion and attack from both the west and the north in order to quickly capture the Southern Court.

In order to persuade Zuo Liangyu to send troops, the Qing envoy sent a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry to win his heart.

He also promised to wait for the Qing army to gather all its troops and march eastward, join forces with the Qing troops and cavalry to close the net and attack the Southern Ming together.

Afterwards, the land of Huainan was given to him for expansion, and the Qing court would never interfere with him again.

Therefore, with this advantage as a support, Zuo Liangyu finally made up his mind to rebel!
Regardless of his own old age and illness, he took advantage of the suspicion that powerful officials in the Southern Court, such as Qiu Weizhen and Ma Shiying, were disrupting the government, and in the name of clearing the court of corrupt officials, he led a large army to the east.

Along the way, they issued proclamations to punish Chou and Ma, and from Hankou to Qizhou, the army was very large. A large battleship array of more than 200 miles long was lined up, and it marched eastward along the river.

Because Zuo Liangyu's power was so great, when the Southern Court heard the news, the government and the public were shocked and terrified.

At the beginning of March, four days later, in order to urge Xiao to rush to block the enemy's advance, Emperor Hongguang issued three urgent orders in one day, fearing that there would be any mistakes.

When Xiao Jingchuan and his army set out, they marched as fast as they could, racing against time and creating an extremely urgent scene.

No more details
It was not until the eighth day of the first lunar month that Yuan Ping's troops, after two days of rapid journey day and night, arrived at Jiujiang Town at full speed.

However, things went against our wishes and it happened a step too late.

Just now, Yuan Ping knocked on the gate and entered. He had to rush to block the river defense without resting or even stabilizing his horse's hooves.

However, it was only half an hour before Zuo Liangyu's warships and army arrived in full force.

After a brief contact and several rounds of artillery fire, Jiujiang was ultimately left alone in the midst of suffering.

However, Yuan Ping's army consisted entirely of northern cavalry, which put them at a disadvantage in naval battles, offense and defense.

As a result, at the critical moment, Yuan had to seize the opportunity, take all the cavalry, escape from the city and flee eastward by the water.

He was forced to go to Anqing, 300 miles to the northeast, to do business, intending to stay there and continue to reorganize the river defense.

Two days later, Xiao, Li Huchen and Wang Chuanwu arrived on horseback.

As Yuan Ping, the vanguard army, had reported the news to Jiujiang, Ye had no choice but to rush to Anqing with his entire army.

By the time these 10,000 soldiers had stationed at the foot of the mountain outside the small city of Anqing, it was already near the end of the evening (around 7 p.m.).

There are many towering mountains in the south, which look like they were cut by knives and axes, and they penetrate directly into the banks of the river.

The sun sets in the west, blocked by the long mountains, so in the valleys at the foot of the mountains, it becomes dark early most of the time around twilight hour.

That night, at the beginning of the Xu hour.

On the city wall of Anqing overlooking the river, Xiao Lang had just settled his troops and was able to take Hu Chen and Chuan Wu with him to find Yuan Ping, who was reinforcing the city wall to defend against the river.

At this time, Yuan Lai entered the city two days earlier and supervised the people in the city. He was lighting bonfires day and night to quickly fortify the city.

Generals Xiao, Li and Wang climbed up the narrow path, amid the noisy coming and going of the workers, and gradually arrived at Yuan's place nearby.

"Brother Yuan?"

"Brother Yuan!"

"Here, here!"

Not more than ten steps away, Xiao raised his hand and squeezed past Ding, the foreman who was moving mud.

There were Yuan's troops stationed on the border. In the dim light of the fire, they could see clearly that it was the commander-in-chief who had arrived. They hurried to greet him, but Xiao Zuo stopped them and told them to do as they pleased.

After searching for the sound, Xiao, Li and Wang squeezed in front of Yuan Ping.

"Brother Yuan, how much work is left for the city defense?"

"Why don't you let Hu Chen, Chuan Wu and other soldiers know and ask them to come and help? Wouldn't that be faster?!"

Amid the noisy shouts of the craftsmen, Xiao Jingchuan approached and reached out to grab Yuan's shoulder.

At this moment, Yuan Ping, wearing a single shirt with his sleeves rolled up, was helping others to stack bricks and stones. It was not until his shoulder was bent that he turned around in surprise.

Seeing that Xiaochuan, Hu Chen and others had arrived, he put down the work at hand, knowing that the most important thing was the important business.

Then he rubbed the mud on his hands on his trouser legs and stood up.

"Hey, you just arrived, the road must be difficult."

"We should at least let our men and horses take a break. This city is very small and we can't be busy here."

(End of this chapter)