Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

On the morning of the third day of September, Yongchuan County was still quiet inside and outside. If it weren't for the corpses still scattered outside the city, one would not be able to tell from the city walls that a great battle involving tens of thousands of people had taken place here yesterday.

The county town of Yongchuan was not big and its walls were not high, so it could not take advantage of its military strength. Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong decisively chose to hold the decisive battle in the fields outside the city.

When the retreat began, Zhang Xianzhong also did not plan to defend Yongchuan City, but chose to flee back to Chengdu.

The battle lasted from yesterday morning until two or three in the morning, and the pursuing troops reaped rich rewards.

But after nearly a day and a night of fighting, the soldiers were extremely exhausted. Zhang Shikang gave an order for all soldiers to eat and drink enough and have a good sleep.

Of course, the necessary vigilance work was still not slackened. Thousands of scouts were patrolling within the area of dozens of miles around, and of course there were also some night guards responsible for investigating the direction of the bandits' retreat.

So much so that even when Zhang Shikang woke up, snoring sounds could still be heard in the military camp.

It was not until almost noon that the smell of food wafted from the Huotou Camp and the soldiers in the barracks got up one after another.

After a great victory, the atmosphere in the military camp was very lively. The soldiers ate while bragging about their performance yesterday.

Although the war has come to an end, there is still a lot to be done.

The first thing to do is to collect the corpses, which is something Zhang Shikang cares about very much.

Although it was past the Mid-Autumn Festival, the daytime temperature was still quite high. He couldn't leave tens of thousands of corpses exposed in the wild, as that would easily cause an epidemic.

News came a while ago that the people from the Factory Guards had found the plague expert named Wu Youke, and should have started dealing with the plague in Xi'an Prefecture.

The Ming Dynasty really could not afford another plague.

Qin Liangyu organized two groups of people. One group was composed of white-pole soldiers, who were responsible for collecting the bodies of their own soldiers who died in battle, as well as the weapons and equipment of the enemy soldiers.

Another wave was composed of militiamen recruited from Yongchuan City. They were responsible for digging pits and burying the bodies of the bandits.

At the same time, the tense and noisy work of counting military merits was also underway.

This is a more troublesome matter, involving the determination of military merit for single-person kills and joint kills by multiple people, as well as the components of collective merit, which requires various comparisons and mutual corrections.

Of course, there will be situations where two people compete for kills or even fight each other.

For a war this large, it would take at least two or three days to compile statistics on military merits.

Of course, the above troubles have nothing to do with Zhang Shikang himself.

As a qualified hands-off boss, Zhang Shikang got up early in the morning, washed up and went out.

He had nothing to do, just strolling on the street.

Of course, the personal guards were a must, but with the close protection of two great masters, Ma Lingqi and Hong Xiucheng, the remaining three hundred people followed at a distance of twenty steps.

It was not until the evening of that day that the approximate casualties of both sides were finally determined.

According to statistics, more than 28,200 bandits were killed and more than 16,300 were captured in this battle.

In addition, more than 3,700 war horses were seized, more than 1,700 dead and injured horses were collected, more than 43,000 weapons, more than 500 sets of armor, more than 46,000 sets of various worn-out military uniforms, and 120,000 shi of grain and grass...

Since the imperial court had abolished the corvée system, the conscripted men would certainly not be used for free, but they did not have to spend actual money.

More than 40,000 sets of worn-out military uniforms were enough to make the working militiamen smile.

These military uniforms will be cut into patches and distributed to the working militiamen to help them supplement their family income.

Cloth was still a very expensive commodity in those days. Although the material of the bandits' uniforms was not as good as that of the imperial court, the common people did not have enough money to buy any cloth in a year.

Compared with the bandits, the imperial court's casualties were much more impressive. According to statistics, the imperial court dispatched a total of 40,000 guards and 20,000 white-pole soldiers in this battle.

More than 1,600 Guards were killed and more than 4,000 were wounded; more than 5,400 White Spear Soldiers were killed and more than 8,500 were wounded.

The casualty ratio between the enemy and us reached four to one. If prisoners were included, the ratio would exceed six to one.

Regardless, this is a big win.

Including the landing operation a few days ago, Zhang Xianzhong lost more than 50,000 troops in just ten days, and most of the dead were his elite troops.

Zhang Shikang didn’t know how angry Zhang Xianzhong was. Anyway, after this battle, Zhang Xianzhong had basically lost his fighting spirit.

Zhang Shikang immediately ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to deliver the battle report to the capital at full speed. I think Brother Chongzhen would be relieved to hear this news.

Of course, Zhang Shikang himself can also live a lot more peacefully.

These days, almost every three or two days, the Imperial Household Guards would deliver a letter from the palace, and of course, all of them were written by Brother Chongzhen.

He kept repeating the same few words over and over again, telling him not to be proud, to be careful of assassins, and to run away if he couldn't defeat them.

Once he even said that the potatoes he planted were almost ripe and the sweet potatoes were full of vines. He also followed Zhang Shikang's advice and asked the Shangshenjian to make soup with sweet potato leaves. He also wrote a letter saying that sweet potatoes were a good thing with many treasures.

Zhang Shikang was almost speechless.

You have to know that to deliver the news from the capital to Sichuan, and since it was a letter from the emperor, the people from the factory and the guards must have worked day and night and overtime to deliver it.

The mountain roads were rugged and full of ferocious beasts. Zhang Shikang didn't know how much hardship the messengers had to endure along the way, but there were several times when the factory guards' legs went weak as soon as they got off their horses.

Brother Chongzhen, this is definitely a waste of public resources!

He has evidence!

Even though they were thousands of miles apart, Brother Chongzhen would nag him every three days. If there had been instant communication in later times, Zhang Shikang wouldn't even dare to imagine it.

I guess as soon as I open my eyes, I will see Brother Chongzhen’s ninety-nine+ unread messages. If you don’t reply, he will keep nagging at you.

But Zhang Shikang had no choice. The world was so big and the emperor was the greatest. He could only complain a few words in his reply and then briefly describe the current situation.

Then there were two more words at the end of the reply.

Make money!

After such a great victory, pensions and rewards are indispensable.

Zhang Shikang was also very generous in distributing the spoils of war, giving all the more than 3,000 captured war horses to the White Spear Soldiers.

As the main force guarding the southwest, the White Spear Soldiers did not even have a cavalry organization, which was really shabby.

In addition, the captured weapons, armor, etc. were also given to Qin Liangyu, so that she could use them to subsidize the equipment of the White Spear Soldiers.

Of course, this is mainly because there is no shortage of guards.

As the Ming Dynasty's ace central army, the Guards' food, pay, and equipment are the best among all the Ming Dynasty's armies.

After experiencing this battle, Qin Liangyu refreshed her old understanding of firearms. In addition, Zhang Shikang told her that he would put a lot of effort into firearms in the future and the power of firearms would only become greater and greater.

Ma Xianglin implicitly expressed the hope that the imperial court could also allocate some of those instantaneous muskets to the White Spear Soldiers.

He did not dare to take the large-caliber copper cannon, as it was said to be a new product of the imperial court. As an army guarding the interior, the White Spear Soldiers would not need it much in the short term.

Zhang Shikang was originally going to reject Ma Xianglin's request, as the production of firearms has been very low until now, and the Imperial Guards are only equipped with 20,000 of them.

As the Guards continued to expand over the next two years, the demand was enormous.

In addition to the Guards, the Tiger Guards guarding the northern Great Wall were also eagerly waiting to be equipped with new muskets.

The production capacity of instantaneous muskets will not be increased until at least the end of this year, once the important musket and artillery workshops of the General Manufacturing Administration are completed.

But after some consideration, Zhang Shikang finally decided to allocate 3,000 guns to the White Spear Soldiers.

There is no way, you have to be grateful for what you have received and be lenient with what you have received.

Although the performance of the instantaneous musket was much higher than that of the Rumi gun, this battle also exposed some problems, the most obvious of which was the high failure rate.

Either there was something wrong with the trigger or the flint wouldn't fire.

These issues were also sent back along with Zhang Shikang's reply to his brother Chongzhen, allowing Bi Maokang and others to continue to improve them.

This is expected. Before a new firearm is deployed on a large scale in the future, a series of tests must be conducted, but this time it is much worse.

But in general, true knowledge comes from experiments. A large-scale war is not just about victory. The continuous improvement of firearms is also due to the baptism of war.

Fortunately, Zhang Shikang did not ask Bi Maokang to install a bayonet on the musket, otherwise the damage rate would be even higher.

The quality of steel at that time was not very good, and the manufacturing technology could not be compared with that of later generations, and was even far behind the Hanyang-made ones. If the muskets were really used as bayonets to fight against bandits, perhaps after this battle, half of the muskets would have to be scrapped.

Three days later, the army finally finished its rest.

The scouts brought news that Zhang Xianzhong retreated to Chengdu Prefecture, Zhang Kewang guarded Tongchuan, and Zhang Dingguo guarded Jianzhou, forming a pincer attack between the three places.

Zhang Xianzhong obviously changed his strategy and planned to adopt a defensive strategy.

This gave Zhang Shikang a headache. Compared with field battles, siege warfare was naturally much more troublesome.

The reason why Zhang Shikang only brought 40,000 guards was also due to this consideration. If he had brought 80,000 or 100,000 guards at once.

It is estimated that Zhang Xianzhong would not choose to fight him in the field at the beginning. In that case, he would need to remove the enemies city by city.

But there was nothing that could be done about it. Fortunately, the Battle of Yongchuan was a good start. Zhang Xianzhong withdrew his troops to Tongchuan and Chengdu, which left more than 20 cities in southwestern Sichuan undefended.

Zhang Shikang discussed with Qin Liangyu and decided to focus on recovering the lost territory first. If Zhang Xianzhong could not help but send troops to obstruct him, then they would continue the field battle as he wished.

So over the next twenty days, the army moved to southwestern Sichuan and successively recovered large tracts of territory including Wumeng Prefecture, Xuzhou Prefecture, Zhenxiong Prefecture, Wusa Prefecture, and Dongchuan Prefecture.

On September 28th, the army marched north and surrounded Tongchuan Prefecture.

It was also on this day that another letter came from Beijing.

This time, it was not only the factory guards who came to deliver the letter, but also a eunuch whom Zhang Shikang did not know. Zhang Shikang immediately thought that it must be an imperial edict of commendation.

But he still opened the private letter from his brother Chongzhen first. He originally thought it was just some chatter, but when he opened the letter and took a look, Zhang Shikang was stunned.

He was stunned for a moment, then a look of surprise appeared on his face. He looked at the two uncles, Sun Weifan and Huang Degong, who were around him and grinned foolishly, and then he tightly clasped Sun Weifan's arms with his hands.

"I'm a dad! I'm a dad!"

……