Southern Ming Rebel Army

As the saying goes, a horse cannot grow fat without night grass, and a man cannot become rich without unexpected wealth. When Lijiazhuang was raided, 200,000 taels of silver and 30,000 taels of gold were found in the underground treasury. This was a huge gap from the 500,000 taels that Li Quan had said. Yu An questioned everyone in the Li family's residence and looked everywhere for the money, but he had no choice but to report to Meng Jun.

Meng Jun, however, did not take it seriously. He thought, "If I get it, I'm lucky, if I lose it, I'll die." He had confiscated 200,000 taels, which was beyond his expectations. This money could last for another three or four months. He had wasted two days in Lijiazhuang, and taking over Songjiang Prefecture was the top priority.

The soldiers of Meng's army searched the entire Lijiazhuang. Li Shuo, the second son of Li Dayuan, died in the chaos. Li Dayuan committed suicide by taking poison. When scouts were exploring the surrounding area, a group of bodies of women and children were found. After identification, they were found to be Li Dayuan's eldest son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons. In other words, Li Dayuan was dead and his clan was wiped out.

Meng Jun left Yu An and a team of personal guards, five hundred soldiers, to guard the gold and silver, while he continued to march towards Songjiang with his army. If nothing unexpected happened, they would reach Songjiang City in two days.

Just as Meng Jun was besieging Lijiazhuang, Li Chengdong in Songjiang was also in crisis.

"Asshole, the Marshal treated you well, and you dared to betray him," Yan Keyi angrily accused Huang Yingjie.

"Old Yan, I'm not trying to rebel against the Marshal. Now Meng Jun's army of tens of thousands from Suzhou is about to attack us. The Marshal is undecided whether to fight or flee. We brothers only have one head. If this goes on, who can bear it? Besides, we are already eating the Ming Dynasty's food. It wouldn't be a good idea to surrender to the Tartars. Old Yan, you listen to me. Take your brothers and follow me. I will follow the lead of Zhang Guowei and Zhang Ge Lao and go to Zhejiang to enjoy the good life. Isn't this better than staying in this isolated city of Songjiang?" Huang Yingjie persuaded Yan Keyi earnestly.

Ever since Huang Yingjie was rejected when he tried to persuade Li Chengdong to return to the Ming Dynasty, he felt more and more that it was a hopeless situation for him to stay in Songjiang City alone. So he took his confidants and formed a battalion of more than 2,000 people, preparing to flee Songjiang and head to Shaoxing. Unfortunately, Li Chengdong received the news just half an hour after they left the city. Li Chengdong was furious and ordered Yan Keyi to take people to chase them.

"Go to hell! The Qing Dynasty is at its peak. Why are you thinking of returning to the Ming Dynasty at this time?" Yan Keyi retorted disdainfully.

"The Tartars will not be able to hold on to their power for a hundred years. Besides, defending Songjiang is a dead end. It's not that I, Huang, want to rebel against the Marshal, but I really can't bear to see so many brothers die in vain in this damn place. So, brother Yan, since everyone has their own aspirations, why don't you go your way and I go mine? We've been eating from the same pot for so long, there's really no need for a battle here." Huang Yingjie really didn't want to drag it on with Yan Keyi. Once the fight started, he would have no chance of winning.

Seeing that Huang Yingjie was stubborn and showed no remorse at all, Yan Keyi gave an order and his troops rushed towards Huang's troops first.

Huang Yingjie's face turned pale, and he shouted loudly, "If you don't win, you will die. Kill them!"

Afterwards, the two armies engaged in a chaotic battle, with swords and spears pointing at each other. Life was meaninglessly lost here. Most of the men in both armies were new recruits, and for a moment they were evenly matched.

In the wilderness, shouts of killing were heard everywhere, but Huang Yingjie's troops were smaller in number. After an hour of fierce fighting, Huang Yingjie's troops showed signs of collapse. Huang Yingjie saw the opportunity quickly and saw that he could not repel Yan Keyi. The longer he dragged on, the sooner Li Chengdong's reinforcements would arrive. Huang Yingjie then left the battlefield with dozens of his trusted men and fled.

As soon as Huang Yingjie fled, his subordinates quickly dispersed and fled. Except for the seven or eight hundred people who were killed or wounded, and nearly a thousand people who were captured, the rest of the two thousand people were completely dispersed.

Li Chengdong ordered the beheading of the thousand captives to intimidate the army. However, this caused almost no morale in the army. Many of those killed were acquaintances in the army. Undercurrents surged in Li Chengdong's army, and the instability of the soldiers was evident.

This internal conflict resulted in thousands of casualties, and more importantly, the morale of the soldiers in Songjiang City plummeted to the bottom. Li Chengdong originally lacked confidence in defending Songjiang City, and now he had even less desire to fight. Looking at Songjiang City under the night sky, Li Chengdong secretly made up his mind.

Two days later, Meng Jun's vanguard scouts arrived at Songjiang City. What surprised Zhang Chengsheng was that no Qing army scouts came to stop them. Feeling a little uneasy, Zhang Chengsheng arrived outside Songjiang City, only to see that the city gate was wide open. Zhang Chengsheng looked into the gate and saw some people lying in a mess, and he didn't know whether they were dead or alive.

The two scouts bravely dismounted and slowly crept towards the city gate. As soon as they entered the city, they were stunned.

The city was littered with corpses and devastation. As far as the eye could see, many houses had been burned down, and the city was in a mess.

Although Songjiang City is not a big city, there are more than 20,000 people in the city. Li Chengdong ordered his soldiers to plunder the people's property in the city. Every household was looted. When the soldiers tasted the benefits, they could not stop. Li Chengdong had no intention and even indulged the soldiers in looting. In less than a day, all the wealth that could be found in Songjiang City had been basically looted. However, these Green Camp soldiers showed no signs of stopping. They began to take up swords and guns and tortured the civilians to get their hidden property.

At this time, the killings gradually increased, and the insults to women could no longer be stopped. It became more and more serious, and soon it was completely unleashed, and finally it turned into a massacre. The sounds of killing, crying, and screaming resounded throughout Songjiang City.

Even in the end, no one knew who started to set fire to the city. Even Li Chengdong's residence was affected. Li Chengdong fled Songjiang City in a somewhat embarrassed manner. Flames shot up into the sky. Li Chengdong gradually gathered his soldiers and massacred the city for a day. The morale of the army recovered visibly. Li Chengdong didn't even look at the tragic situation in the city, as if it had nothing to do with him, and immediately led his troops to retreat to Hangzhou.

Meng Jun arrived late on the third day after the massacre. Looking at the almost deserted Songjiang City, the tragic scene made Meng Jun heartbroken. After Meng's army arrived in Songjiang City, it took two days just to clean up the corpses. Just when Meng Jun was considering rebuilding the navy in Songjiang Shanghai County, a piece of bad news came. Seeing this news, Meng Jun was speechless for a long time.

On August 1645, 43, the first year of the Hongguang reign of the Ming Dynasty and the first year of the Longwu reign, the Jiangyin City fell after being held out for nearly three months. Yan Yingyuan was captured and killed for his unyielding spirit. His family members, young and old, were all unwilling to surrender to the Qing army and were killed together. The entire Jiangyin County Government Office of people set themselves on fire. Yan Yingyuan sat in the enemy tower in the East City and left behind a suicide poem that has been passed down through the ages:

Eighty days of loyalty with hair untied, representing the characters of the seventeen dynasties of Taizu

One hundred thousand people died together, leaving the Ming Dynasty with a 300-mile territory