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

Zhang Xianzhong's army of 100,000 was no match for the imperial army. He only brought more than 30,000 men with him on this expedition. Even if Zhang Kewang's 30,000 men were added, could they really be a match for the imperial army?

But if he continued to retreat and pretend that Zhang Xianzhong was gradually devoured by the government troops, sooner or later the same fate would fall on Li Zicheng.

Can neither advance nor retreat.

Li Zicheng had never felt so helpless as he did now. He had been enduring here for more than a year, distributing land to the people, cracking down on the gentry, and reorganizing the military.

It is no secret that in the thirteen years since he started the rebellion, he has never run a place as carefully as he has in the past two years.

Sometimes he thought that if he could always live in peace with the imperial court, it would be a good choice for him to live in peace in a corner.

Once they leave Sichuan, they will not only encounter setbacks everywhere, but they may not even be able to summon troops.

During all these years of the uprising, he had never worried about not being able to recruit soldiers. Basically, wherever he went, there were groups of hungry people who wanted to join him.

Even if he gathered enough people, those hungry people would follow his troops from a distance, waiting for him to recruit them at any time.

But times have changed, and the Ming Dynasty has lost the soil for the rebel army.

To be or not to be, this is the question that must be answered.

After a long silence, Li Zicheng finally said:

"withdraw."

……

At noon on October 1st, the Guards were cooking when they heard that Zhang Kewang had escaped from the north city and fled westward.

Qin Liangyu immediately ordered Sun Dasheng to lead 6,000 cavalry to chase after Zhang Kewang, but Zhang Kewang ran very fast and Sun Dasheng was blocked by more than 3,000 infantrymen who were left behind. By the time he defeated the blocking enemy troops, the opportunity to pursue him was lost.

Zhang Shikang had reason to believe that Zhang Kewang had definitely planned his escape, and he had specifically chosen the time when the army was making a fire and cooking.

But he was not angry. No matter what, he had taken Tongchuan City without losing a single soldier.

This is absolutely unimaginable in the usual conventional city attack and defense battles, it just consumes more ammunition.

The twenty-four-pound bronze cannon could be loaded with six pounds and six ounces of gunpowder at a time, which was twice as much as the ordinary old-style Francois cannon.

According to statistics, excluding the cooling time of the gun barrel, a total of more than 28,000 artillery shells and more than 190,000 kilograms of black gunpowder were consumed during the more than two days of day and night bombardment.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty had no shortage of toilets and therefore no shortage of saltpeter, otherwise it would not have been able to withstand such a tactic.

Fortunately, Tongchuan City was captured and almost all the iron shells were recoverable.

Don't underestimate these shells. Each one weighs 20 kilograms. There are more than 28,000 shells, and the pig iron alone weighs more than 500,000 kilograms.

After Zhang Kewang escaped from Tongchuan City, Zhang Shikang divided his troops into three groups and took another five days to recapture many counties and prefectures of Tongchuan Prefecture and assembled in Huaikou.

On the sixth day of October, Zhang Shikang led an army of more than 50,000 troops to set out again, heading straight for Chengdu Prefecture.

……

The capital of the Atlantis Kingdom.

Zhang Xianzhong paced back and forth in the hall anxiously. The past two months had been really terrible.

He suffered a series of defeats in battles. In the Battle of Yongchuan, he lost more than 40,000 elite troops. If Zhang Nengqi's defeat in Jiangjin is included, the total loss of troops exceeded 50,000.

The loss made him heartbroken and angry, but what made him even more angry and even frightened was the artillery and musket units of the imperial army.

He thought about it over and over again during this period of time and found that he had no way to deal with the firearms of the imperial army.

Unless his troops could defeat that group of annoying white-pole soldiers, and then smash the imperial army's musket phalanx before it retreated.

Otherwise, this tactic is almost unsolvable.

Unless he had enough cavalry, he could break free from the shackles. No matter how great the losses were, he could only rush into those musket formations to have a chance of breaking through.

But the problem is that Zhang Xianzhong doesn't have many cavalry.

During his more than ten years of rebellious career, he had always been famous for his expertise in long-distance raids, whether it was Chen Qiuyu, Sun Chuanting, Wang Qiaonian, Fu Zonglong, Xiong Tingbi, or Yang Sichang.

He has walked them all.

Zhang Xianzhong even wrote a doggerel to mock the low efficiency of the government troops.

In the past, there was Governor Shao, who often came to dance with the troupe.

Later, Liao joined the army and followed me without fighting.

Great Yang Gebu, he’s three days away from me.

At his peak, Zhang Xianzhong owned more than 20,000 war horses and more than 40,000 mules and donkeys.

However, since he entered Sichuan, he lost his source of war horses. In more than a year, many of the war horses were too old to bear the heavy responsibility of cavalry.

In addition, he lost a total of 8,000 war horses in the battle of Yongchuan, and now he has only more than 6,000 cavalry left.

Yesterday, his adopted son Zhang Kewang suddenly retreated from Tongchuan Prefecture with more than 20,000 people, which made Zhang Xianzhong even more furious. He killed several concubines in a row to vent his anger.

But he did not blame Zhang Kewang, because he could do nothing about the current imperial army.

Zhang Kewang explained to him what he guessed about Zhang Shikang's intentions. Zhang Xianzhong issued a transfer order to transfer his fourth son Zhang Dingguo, who was stationed in Jianzhou, back to the capital.

When the imperial court had absolute advantage, dispersing the troops became meaningless.

After all, the city wall of Chengdu is the strongest in Sichuan. After concentrating the troops, they can decide whether to attack or defend according to the situation at any time.

But Zhang Xianzhong was still very anxious. Even an army of 100,000 could not defeat the imperial army. Now even if all the troops were gathered in Chengdu City, there would only be a little over 80,000.

Moreover, due to a series of defeats such as the Battle of Yongchuan, the morale of the soldiers was very low.

This would not work. Zhang Xianzhong kept walking around in the hall, and his two queens sat beside him, not daring to say a word, for fear of angering Zhang Xianzhong and losing their lives.

After a cup of tea, Zhang Xianzhong finally seemed to have come up with an idea.

Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong's expression had softened a little, one of the queens boldly said:

"Your Majesty is wise and powerful. Nothing can stop you. Please have some wine."

As she spoke, she handed a bowl of wine to Zhang Xianzhong.

“What the Queen said is true. I have been fighting for many years. How could I be troubled by such a small matter?

Tell me, have I treated you unfairly in the past two years?"

Zhang Xianzhong took the wine bowl and drank it all, then spoke to the two queens in a friendly manner.

The two queens were not stupid. Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong seemed happy, they immediately replied:

"Your Majesty is so gracious and generous that he has never treated me unfairly."

"If I need your help, I think you won't refuse, right?"

Zhang Xianzhong's expression was somewhat gloomy when he said this, and that smile was very much like the look on his face when he was about to kill someone.

The two queens shuddered and almost fell down, but Zhang Xianzhong asked them to help, and it seemed that he did not want to kill them.

But the two of them looked at each other, and after thinking about it, they couldn't think of how they could help Zhang Xianzhong, but they still said:

"As long as I can help Your Majesty, I will die for you."

"Hahaha, good, good! I knew you wouldn't let me down!" Zhang Xianzhong laughed when he heard that.

"There should be more than 400 concubines in my harem, right? Go and gather them all here for me."

The two queens didn't know what was going on, so they asked:

"Your Majesty, what do you mean?"

Zhang Xianzhong did not hide it and stared at the two women and said:

"Humph, you say, if I give all my concubines to my soldiers to enjoy, their morale will definitely be boosted, right?"

……