Chapter 1085 1176 Lost Soul

Chapter 1085 1176 Lost Soul

Whether you admit it or not, from everything Li Chengliang did, his overall view seemed to be better than that of generals such as Ma Fang and Yu Dayou.

Like these three famous generals in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, most of them formulated reasonable tactics against the enemy and won the war. They fought well in both offensive and defensive battles.

However, their contribution to the expansion of Ming territory was relatively limited.

Although Li Chengliang chose to abandon the six forts in Kuandian that he had built when he went to Liaodong for the second time in the later period, which made Ming's previous efforts to expand northward go to waste, many people also believed that the rise of Jianzhou Jurchen was caused by this improper order.

But objectively speaking, Ming's military strength in Liaodong was seriously insufficient at that time, and there was nothing wrong with actively shrinking the defense line.

The Ming Dynasty's war to aid Korea caused huge losses to Liaodong's elite troops, and there was no time to make up for it. Therefore, the Ming army was indeed stretched to its limits in terms of manpower to deal with the expansion of Jianzhou Jurchen.

Looking at Li Chengliang's military career, perhaps the only mistake he made was to misjudge Nurhaci and give him an opportunity.

From this, it can be concluded that the old saying "cut the grass at its roots" is really reasonable, even if it seems a bit cruel at times.

After saying goodbye to Xian Gui, Li Rusong boarded the boat and sailed to the other side of the river.

Behind the boat, a large number of large and small boats were also full of Tengchong soldiers and civilians following the boat.

"Let's go back to the city."

Xian Gui stood on the dock, watching Li Rusong's boat pass the center of the river, and then gave an order.

A soldier led the war horse, Xian Gui took the reins and grabbed the saddle, then stepped on the stirrup with his left foot and climbed on the horse.

He took the whip from the hand of the personal soldier, swung it and whipped the horse's buttocks, and the war horse trotted away in pain.

Behind the horse, a team of personal soldiers quickly followed and headed towards Lujiang City.

The wall of Lujiang City is not tall, far inferior to the wall of Tengchong City, and the one-month period is actually a bit difficult.

Fortunately, the east gate was less than a mile away from the dock, and there were Ming army warships waiting on the river, so Xian Gui was not worried about his safety.

It was easy to rush out at such a short distance.

As long as he concentrated the firearms at the east gate and bombarded the Burmese army, he could lead his troops out of the city.

Xian Gui soon entered the city. At this time, the originally bustling streets were empty except for the soldiers carrying supplies.

When the Burmese army reached the city, most of the people in the city chose to cross the river to the east and flee to Baoshan City.

Some of the wealthy families in the city chose to go directly to Kunming.

After all, they knew the situation in Lujiang City, and Baoshan City behind them might soon become a battlefield.

"Have you checked everything? How many people are there in the city?"

Xian Gui asked when he arrived at the prosperous streets in the city.

The personal soldiers behind him stepped forward quickly and replied: "Sir, there are soldiers in the city now, and there are no civilians.

Some civilians did not want to leave, so we forced them out of the city.

Mr. Xian Sanye and his men should have started searching every house in the east of the city."

"Well, very good."

At this time, Xian Gui's face did not show any worry about the upcoming war, but a look of joy.

The outbreak of the war with Myanmar this time was a bit sudden. Of course, this was only at the civilian level. In fact, the government and big merchants had already heard about it and made corresponding preparations.

But even so, the property left in the city by those small and medium-sized merchants and big families was very huge.

The purpose of expelling the people on the grounds of war was naturally not for their safety, but to make it easier for the Xian family to collect the remaining property with their personal soldiers.

Gathering the things together and transporting them out by boats on the river would be a huge fortune in the future.

Lujiang City could not be saved anyway. At that time, those merchants and big families would go to Mang Yinglong to collect debts. What did Xian Gui have to do with it?

Lujiang City is an important transportation route in western Yunnan. He believes that the wealth he has harvested this time will not be less than 100,000 taels of silver.

Looking at the closed doors and windows on the street, Xian Gui is in a better mood at this time. There are a lot of things stored here. At the beginning, when the two Burmese troops were at the gates of the city, these merchants were scared away. They didn't have time to pack the goods. At most, they left with gold and silver.

Through the gaps in the doors and windows, you can still see the goods on the shelves.

"Let's go back to the mansion."

Xian Gui shouted and rode his horse to his pacification envoy's mansion.

The mansion is in the center of Lujiang City. The traffic is convenient on all sides. Through the heavily guarded mansion gate, Xian Gui quickly entered the second gate.

"Twenty pieces of cotton cloth and three pieces of brocade."

Entering the courtyard of the second gate, what came into Xian Gui's ears was the sound of the servants in the mansion counting the supplies, and the sound of the abacus.

Like a beautiful music, Xian Gui's already happy mood is about to climax.

Looking at the property that took up most of the yard, Xian Gui called a servant to ask a few questions and found out that this was what the third brother had looted from two wealthy families in the city.

"Tsk tsk, these local rich people are really fucking rich."

Xian Gui was not in a hurry to go back to rest, and walked happily to the pile of property, looking left and right.

Of course, he had seen these properties before, but it was the first time to pick up so many things for free.

"These two families also left a few people to look after the house. They didn't want to leave, so the third master asked someone to kill them."

The family was a servant who had been following the third master for a long time. At this time, they were still whispering in the ears of Xian Gui.

"Well, I know, tell the third brother to be clean."

Since this kind of thing has been done, it must be done cleanly and no one should be left alive. If word spread, it will be bad for his official reputation.

The line is expensive, but I still want to make progress. A prefect is nothing.

After you pack up the belongings in the city and put some of them into operation, it should be enough for you to get promoted.

Xian Gui made up his mind and thought beautifully.

"Also, tell the third child to move quickly. If there are not enough manpower, we will transfer people from the mansion."

"Yes, sir."

The servant nodded and bowed in agreement, then ran out.

Tengchong is lost, the next step should be to send troops to Lujiang City. Calculating the time, there is still five days.

There is a Burmese army forward outside the city. The Chinese army led by Mang Yinglong should not be in a hurry, so there is still time.

Five days is enough to catch all the big families.

As for the common people, forget it, they are all too poor to take the blame, so they can leave nothing behind.

In the direction of Tengchong City, just as he thought, the Chinese army led by Mang Yinglong himself broke out of camp and headed towards Lujiang City.

The marching speed was not very fast along the way. After all, it was a large team of hundreds of thousands of people. In order to avoid chaos in the march, the marching speed was kept low and it was not an all-out attack on Lujiang.

Now that the advantage of a surprise attack has been lost, the Ming army is already prepared.

It should be said that in addition to the successful surprise attack on Lu Liangcheng, the defense in Tengchong must be much tighter, which made the Burmese army's plan to quickly advance in vain.

Moreover, Lujiang City actually followed similar tactics, but the Ming army seemed to be well prepared and was blocked outside the city.

Because of this, Mang Yinglong would not choose to attack the city with a surprise attack at the beginning of the war.

Didn’t the Ming Dynasty say that when advancing troops, they must be murderous?

Now, Mang Yinglong has assembled the most powerful army in Myanmar's history. Following what is said in this book, the whole army is marching towards Lujiang City in unison.

He believed that the sentinels of the Ming army along the way would be frightened by the strict formation of the army when they saw such a scene.

What does that word say? To subjugate the enemy without fighting, that's what it means.

The front line of the army was an elephant troop consisting of more than twenty war elephants, followed closely by a large number of infantry.

He was standing on the hillside next to the path of the army, watching the march of the Burmese army under his command, and he couldn't help but feel proud in his heart.

With such an army at hand, the Ming Dynasty may not be able to capture it.

"Your Majesty, look at how majestic our army is. I have never thought that our army is so powerful."

Hanba saw Mang Yinglong's mood at this time and hurriedly came to his side and whispered.

"Yeah, I didn't expect that the army could show such momentum."

Mang Yinglong smiled quite proudly.

"If such an army marches to Lujiang City, Baoshan City, Chuxiong, and Kunming, we won't even need to attack the city. The generals of the Ming Army who are greedy for life and fear of death will kneel down and surrender to the king."

Hanba continued to flatter the horse, but this time his voice was much louder, so that others around him could hear it.

"Yes, send the army directly to Lujiang City, let Ming Gou see our military appearance, and ask them if they are afraid, haha"

"I'm afraid I'll be scared to death and won't be able to say anything about surrender, hehe."

"The Ming Dynasty may look scary, but in fact their officials are very timid. If you try to force them, they will be scared to death."

The derogatory words of the Burmese army monarchs and ministers caused the surrounding Burmese army to burst into laughter.

In fact, when the people standing here saw the well-organized army below, they all had the illusion that they were an invincible army, thinking that they could defeat all the invincible enemies in the world.

"Has the letter been sent?"

Seeing his generals laughing so wildly, Mang Yinglong suddenly felt that as a king, he should be more reserved, but he couldn't be like them.

So, Mang Yinglong quickly put away his smile, although he was still happy in his heart, and said seemingly casually: "Have you sent the letter?"

He was speaking to Hanba, who naturally understood what the letter was and hurriedly bowed and replied: "Your Majesty, I sent someone to deliver the letter to Lujiang City yesterday. You should see the line tomorrow. letter."

"Um."

Mang Yinglong replied lightly. He felt that this seemed to give people an unpredictable and profound meaning. He thought that the Prime Minister Cao written in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" should be nothing more than this.

No matter how you tell the story of the Three Kingdoms, in the end it was Cao Wei who won the world and became the final winner.

Therefore, Mang Yinglong did not look down on Cao Cao at all because he only became prime minister. Without the foundation he laid for Cao Pi, how could the Wei Kingdom be established.

What about yourself?

It seems that even if he cannot destroy the Ming Kingdom with his own hands in the end and annex it, he will still be conquering the country and creating a foundation for his descendants.

Perhaps, when he arrived in Mangyingli, he could sit in the Jinluan Hall in the capital of the Ming Dynasty and give orders to the Ming Dynasty emperor.

Thinking of this, Mang Yinglong raised the corner of his mouth and put on a meaningful smile.

At this time, a post horse came quickly outside the city of Chengdu. Immediately, the post guard looked at the endless flow of cars, horses and pedestrians blocking the road at the city gate, and shouted loudly: "Hurry up for 800 miles, and anyone who blocks the road will die."

The shouts of the postmen alerted the gatekeepers, who rushed to the city gate and waved their spears to drive passers-by to the side of the road and make way for the area in the middle of the avenue. They quickly rushed to the city gate and passed directly through the gate.

This is the urgent military information sent by the Ministry of War to Yunnan. The postmen set out from Beijing, passed through Baoding, Laishui and other places, then continued southward through Yangquan and Taiyuan, passed through Xi'an and entered Hanzhong into Sichuan.

Climbing mountains and wading through rivers, not daring to stop for a moment, you can reach Yunnan through Jianchang Prefecture.

It was really a desperate way of running. He kept changing people and horses along the way, just to deliver the official documents to Baoshan as quickly as possible and hand them over to Li Chengliang.

In total, it would take only three or four days to end this arduous journey.

At this time, Li Chengliang had no idea that the situation had changed. The fast horses sent from the capital were rushing to come.

He had received news that the remaining 2,000 remnants of Tengchong Guard had passed Lujiang City and would arrive in Baoshan City in a few days.

He would certainly not stay in Baoshan City with such a defeated army, even if it could increase a defensive force.

The combat effectiveness of the Tengchong Guard army was so low that he was afraid that he would collapse other armies if he stayed in Baoshan City.

Therefore, he just summoned Mu Changzuo, the general of Yunnan, and asked him to send this remnant to be responsible for escorting grain and grass in the future.

In this regard, Mu Changzuo was naturally happy to obey and agreed happily. In his heart, he had a good impression of Li Chengliang.

Timely rain, just right.

Tengchong Wei suffered a defeat, and he should have severely punished the commander of the guard, but after all, there was a relationship. The commander's sister was his favorite concubine.

It was actually difficult for him.

Arranged to go to the rear, well, it was actually quite good.

Everything seemed to be going in the direction that Li Chengliang had planned, so Li Chengliang was actually very happy.

But he didn't know that his good mood would soon disappear.

A few days later, before he had time to respond to the urgent report from the Ministry of War, bad news came from Lujiang City.

But sometimes fate is so strange that it takes the initiative to send opportunities to him.

At this time, in the Lujiang City Garrison, Lujiang Appeasement Envoy Xian Gui was sitting in the study in a daze, and a piece of letter paper fell to the ground under his feet without noticing.

That letter was naturally sent by Hanba, a letter threatening Xiangui.

If it were normal times, Xiangui would only sneer at it, but now is different. When the two armies were fighting, it was revealed that he had secretly sold a batch of weapons and armor to Myanmar more than three years ago. You can imagine how serious the consequences would be.

But the trouble is that he did have two letters with Xiangui because of this business.

Xiangui couldn't remember whether the letter explicitly mentioned this business.

But since the other party sent the threatening letter to him, it was obviously fearless.

Ming and Myanmar, those lawless chieftains certainly didn't care about how to choose, but he couldn't.

He knew the strength of Ming. If he really fought with Myanmar, Myanmar would definitely lose. The difference was just the price Ming had to pay.

Moreover, he was not an ordinary official. Because of the special location of Lujiang City, he knew that the court had been prepared for a long time. Li Chengliang's arrival was not an accident, but an arrangement of the court.

He even knew that the troops from Sichuan and Guizhou had entered Yunnan, but he had no idea where they were deployed.

Therefore, Xian Gui had never thought of surrendering to Burma.

At this critical juncture, the other party produced such a fatal piece of evidence, leaving him with no choice for a while.