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

Zhang Shikang only promised not to pursue Sun Kewang within three days, but he did not say that he would ignore him.

Yunnan is mountainous and forested, and the Guards are not good at mountain warfare, and firearms are of little use, but the Ming Dynasty also has troops on the border of Yunnan.

The lineage of the Duke of Qian has guarded the southwestern border of the Ming Dynasty for generations. Apart from Zhang Shikang, he is the only duke among the nobles in the current court who holds military power.

After the reorganization of the garrison, the current Duke of Qian, Mu Tianbo, and his 30,000 soldiers were incorporated into the Huben Army by Zhang Shikang.

The duty of the Tiger Guards was to guard the borders of the Ming Dynasty, and Yunnan, which was under the charge of the Duke of Qian, was adjacent to the Indochina Peninsula.

Myanmar, Siam and other countries all border Yunnan of the Ming Dynasty. These countries are not peaceful and will sometimes invade Yunnan and bully the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Although the threat from the southwest border is insignificant compared to the threat from the north, the Duke of Qian's military force is also very necessary.

Half an hour later, Li Dingguo led his 16,000 troops and formally surrendered to the court.

In order to show his sincerity, Li Dingguo confiscated all the weapons in his army and handed them over.

Zhang Shikang was also very relieved and returned the weapons again in front of all the soldiers, truly performing a drama of "If you are sincere, I will be affectionate."

This stunned Sun Weifan, Huang Degong, Ma Xianglin and others, and even Qin Liangyu was quite surprised.

After all, Qin Liangyu had fought with Zhang Xianzhong many times, so she naturally knew who among Zhang Xianzhong's subordinates was the best fighter.

Li Dingguo was the most capable officer under Zhang Xianzhong and was upright in his conduct, making him a very difficult opponent.

If this person is really determined to fight to the death with them in the mountains and forests, the imperial court may really be delayed in the mountains and forests for several days, and there will definitely be losses.

Unexpectedly, the Marshal persuaded this most difficult bandit leader to surrender with just a letter.

It can also be seen that Li Dingguo trusted Zhang Shikang very much, and Zhang Shikang also showed enough respect to him, which is really amazing.

That night, Zhang Shikang even held a simple dinner for Li Dingguo and his troops in the temporary camp.

Of course, they ate horse meat, donkey meat and mule meat, but in a major war, there would inevitably be large-scale casualties among these livestock.

Long before the dinner, Zhang Shikang inspected Li Dingguo's troops and found that although these people's armaments were very simple, their military appearance, morale and discipline were no worse than those of the White Spear Soldiers.

He was overjoyed at the time. This was completely different from the thousands of people who attended Luo Wenlong's event.

Ordinary bandits usually have soldiers with quirks, and their actual combat effectiveness is no different from that of the former garrison soldiers.

It's okay to bully ordinary people, but if you really go to the battlefield, you can only fight when the wind is favorable. Once you are defeated, you will suffer a total defeat.

But Li Dingguo's troops were different. After all, Zhang Shikang had led troops for two or three years and had fought in several tough battles. Just by looking at the expressions of those people, he knew that he had really found a treasure.

These people can be directly deployed to the battlefield to fight tough battles. Sixteen thousand elite soldiers can be obtained with just one letter.

If you need to train yourself, not to mention how long it will take to recruit soldiers, it will cost a lot to train an elite force that has experienced hundreds of battles.

So that night, Zhang Shikang incorporated Li Dingguo and his subordinates into the Imperial Guards in front of everyone.

Li Dingguo was directly appointed as the deputy general of the Imperial Guards Infantry Battalion, and his three deputies were appointed as lieutenant generals.

The deputy general and the lieutenant general were both high-ranking generals in the Ming army system. It was the first time in the Ming Dynasty that such generous courtesy was given to a surrendered general.

When we think back to Zheng Zhilong, who commanded hundreds of thousands of troops and controlled the three shipping routes to the East and South Seas, he was only appointed as one of the Five Tiger Guerrillas Generals when he was first recruited by the imperial court.

The Five Tiger Guerrilla Generals were also guerrilla generals, and guerrilla generals could only be considered mid-level generals.

Zhang Shikang was willing to give it, and Li Dingguo and his followers naturally expressed their loyalty one after another, and even repeatedly requested that they be the vanguard in the attack on Li Zicheng.

Qin Liangyu always felt something was fishy about Li Zicheng.

This guy's actions in the past two months are really hard to understand.

Even a fool should understand that this time the imperial court will definitely wipe out these two rebel forces in one fell swoop.

Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were already at a disadvantage, so she chose to attack Zhang Xianzhong first. If Li Zicheng was not stupid, he should have taken this opportunity to do something.

Either he would join forces with Zhang Xianzhong to fight against the imperial court, or he would take advantage of her pursuit of Zhang Xianzhong to cause trouble in the rear.

But for two whole months, Li Zicheng really stood still. He did nothing and just watched Zhang Xianzhong being eliminated by them.

Qin Liangyu consulted Zhang Shikang about this more than once, but Zhang Shikang just said one thing: as long as he didn't cause any trouble, just ignore him for the time being.

But now that Zhang Xianzhong was basically defeated, Sun Kewang fled to the mountains of Yunnan like a stray dog. Next, he had to consider how to deal with Li Zicheng.

On October 28, Zhang Shikang led his army back to Chengdu.

The remaining wounded soldiers' camp had already cleared out the property that Zhang Xianzhong left behind in the Shu Palace. Zhang Xianzhong had collected a lot of money during his more than one year in Sichuan.

Although a considerable portion of them were taken away by Sun Kewang, due to the hasty retreat, some valuable items that were not suitable for carrying with the army, such as calligraphy and paintings, antiques, jade articles, etc., and several large boxes of silver ingots were not moved away in time.

After checking, the value of this part of the remaining property is still around 10 million taels.

According to the inspectors' estimates, the amount Sun Kewang actually took away should not be less than this amount.

After all, what Zhang Xianzhong plundered was the wealth of the entire Sichuan Province. The property of the Shu Palace alone should not be a small amount.

Zhang Shikang directly ordered the factory guards to pack the things and load them onto trucks to be transported to the capital.

The lineage of the King of Shu, along with other royal families in the entire Sichuan Province, were all captured by Zhang Xianzhong, which was not a bad thing for the imperial court.

The army rested in Chengdu Prefecture for three days. On the second day of November, the army continued its march from Chengdu Prefecture.

Zhang Shikang did not directly attack Long'an Prefecture, which was closest to Chengdu Prefecture, but passed through Tongchuan Prefecture and went directly to Li Zicheng's old nest - Baoning Prefecture.

On November 17, the 70,000-strong army arrived at Zitong County, Baoning Prefecture. Before that, the army had not encountered any resistance.

There were only a few hundred old and weak people stationed in Zitong County. As soon as the army arrived, Zitong County opened the city gates and chose to surrender.

At this time, Zhang Shikang finally figured out Li Zicheng's thoughts.

So he ignored the surrounding counties and led his army eastward.

On November 20th, the army arrived near Baoding City. A scout reported that Li Zicheng had led his army to form a battle formation outside Baoning City, ready to fight to the death with the imperial court.

Generals such as Qin Liangyu were quite worried about this.

On the contrary, Zhang Shikang seemed somewhat relaxed. He said to Li Dingguo:

"Deputy General Li, I order you to be the vanguard and go meet Li Zicheng.

By the way, please pass on a message to me."

……