Chapter 154: The Situation of Repeated Jumps (I)
Two thousand troops attacked a city, and more than four hundred people were injured in one battle. Although most of the injured had many cuts on their foreheads from iron sand and gravel, this was a possibility that Li Shude dared not even think about.
The worst hit were not the government troops outside the city. The vanguard battalion that entered the city thought that the city was empty, but unexpectedly they fell into a trap. They were killed and wounded by fierce gunfire. Seeing that the situation was not right, the vanguard battalion decisively retreated. When they arrived at the city gate, Huo Chong, the bastard, actually ordered a large amount of soybeans to be sprinkled on the ground.
The vanguard camp was unstable and people kept falling down. The pursuers took this opportunity to chase them out and kill them indiscriminately. Less than thirty people escaped.
When the troops were withdrawn, Li Shude ordered all those who had come out to report the news to be tied up. When they returned to the residence, the angry officers and soldiers began to deal with these guys who had lied about military intelligence.
The gang was beaten so hard that they cried and begged for mercy. However, no matter how they were tortured, they insisted that they were not lying.
Whether he was lying or not, how could these government troops not know? The gunfire from the other side was as dense as popping beans, and it did not stop at all. It was impossible for more than 200 people to achieve such an effect. If the government troops wanted to achieve such an effect, they had to have several thousand people.
After interrogating him until midnight, they could not get anything out of him. The soldiers took a break and decided to wait until the red cannon arrived tomorrow.
At dawn the next day, what arrived was not the red cannon, but a large group of bandits. The two sides lined up to fight, and soon the government troops were dispersed by the bandits' muskets. At this time, Lord Li Shude heard the scouts running back shouting in fear: "Sir, the bandits in the city have come out to kill us."
Li Shude also had self-respect, and he immediately ordered the government troops to "retreat calmly." The government troops first walked, then ran, and then pushed and shoved each other, just wanting to escape as quickly as possible.
When the troops finally stopped fighting, they were already forced to the bank of Xiaoqing River by the enemy army. Xiaoqing River was built by Li Shude when he was the governor of Shandong. Li Shude never expected that this water conservancy project, which was highly praised by Emperor Kangxi during his lifetime, would become his own death.
A hundred or so bandits also appeared on the other side of the river. Behind them were hundreds or thousands of bandits. Li Shude and Li Da saw that they had no way out and would either be killed or captured. They could not catch their breath and fell to the ground and fainted.
The killing of the government troops was a worthy death. The people from Linzi County who had informed the government troops were already badly beaten. After the government troops were defeated, the captives identified them as those who had informed the government troops. These people were immediately thrown into the Linzi County jail and began their new adventure.
Before he was sure that Li Shude had completely lost contact, Yongzheng received another piece of news that made him furious: the Dengzhou camp was destroyed.
It is faster to enter the country by water from Dengzhou than to go to Linzi by land from Dengzhou . Therefore, Dengzhou has always been considered an important part of the defense of the capital. After receiving Xie Cilü's suicide note, it was Prince Yi who first proposed to Yongzheng to quickly reorganize the remaining troops in the Dengzhou Town Camp.
Yongzheng only remembered this after hearing it. The people sent out came back quickly. They saw that the empty Dengzhou camp was filled with nearby people demolishing houses, and they immediately arrested a few people who had not had time to escape. After interrogation, they found out that the Dengzhou camp had been destroyed.
The messenger couldn't believe it, so the captured civilians took them to the place where the bodies were buried. They dug and dug out the bodies of the Qing army, which were still very fresh. As the digging continued, more and more bodies were exposed. The messenger was so scared that he didn't dare to dig anymore and prepared to go back.
However, these people dared to demolish the Dengzhou camp. The messenger did not want to bring the dozen people he had captured with him. He selected three people, and killed the others. He cut off their heads and hung them at the gate of the empty and dilapidated camp, and wrote "This is the end of demolishing the camp" on the wall with the blood of the dead.
Yongzheng didn't care about those who were killed. Since Huo Chong was so vicious, Xie Cilu's will specifically mentioned that he must be eliminated by a large army. Yongzheng immediately asked the Ministry of War to formulate a plan to eliminate Huo Chong.
The plan was made for several days before the news of Li Shude's loss of contact reached the capital. Even an important place like Dengzhou Camp was razed to the ground. Yongzheng no longer expected Li Shude to survive. He just continued to urge the Ministry of War to work quickly!
At this time, Henan Governor Tian Wenjing sent a secret memorial, impeaching one person, Li Fu, the governor of Zhili.
Tian Wenjing was very clear about how he had gotten to his current position, so he did not hide anything in his secret reports and told the truth.
It turned out that Emperor Yongzheng transferred Li Fu, the governor of Guangxi, to Beijing to serve as the governor-general of Zhili. When Li Fu passed through Henan, he heard that Tian Wenjing treated officials harshly and governed the local area in a strict and harsh style.
Li Fu still felt he could not believe it, so he had a deep talk with Tian Wenjing. Li Fu was also a straightforward person. After he made things clear, he really could not stand Tian Wenjing's style, so he simply rebuked Tian Wenjing in person for "being in charge of the frontier and deliberately trampling on scholars."
Tian Wenjing kept this in mind. Recently, he heard that Li Fu had been constantly reporting him to the court, so he wrote a secret memorial to Emperor Yongzheng to defend himself. He also believed that Li Fu and the impeached Huang Zhenguo were both Jinshi in the same list, and that he was taking revenge for Huang Zhenguo.
After reading the memorial, Yongzheng felt that this was really a case of suppressing one problem but causing another. With a thief like Huo Chong outside, these ministers in the court were still restless. It seemed that they had to be cleaned up!
But there were still things to do, such as rewarding Xie Cilü, the former governor of Shandong who committed suicide. Xie Cilü's son Xie Jishi was the censor of Zhejiang Province at the time, so Yongzheng wrote an edict to Xie Jishi, sympathizing with his grief over the loss of his father and encouraging him to serve the country.
The Ming and Qing dynasties put a lot of emphasis on "filial piety". When parents died, it was called Dingyou. Because parents died, one had to work hard, study hard, and work hard. This did not exist in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Dingyou, just go home and stay there according to the rules of mourning for three years.
So Xie Jishi had to resign his post and return home to observe mourning. After three years were up, he would be reinstated or given a new job...
Yongzheng ordered the Cabinet to give priority to sending Xie Jishi's letter of gratitude after receiving it, and then follow the plan of the Ministry of War.
The Ministry of War came up with three plans. The first was to transfer the elite Qing troops and commander Yue Zhongqi from the northwest to suppress Huo Chong .
Yongzheng immediately waved his hand, "No. Why do we need to mobilize the northwest army to deal with a petty thief like Huo Chong?"
The people in the Ministry of War did not say anything, but they were a little dissatisfied in their hearts. When Yongzheng heard about Nian Gengyao's evaluation of Huo Chong in the petition for his life, he believed it a little. But when it came to the matter, Yongzheng immediately became fussy.
But it is understandable that Yongzheng did this. Once Nian Gengyao died, the rebels in Qinghai and Junggar would definitely want to revolt again. Taking away the elite troops in the northwest at this time would be tantamount to letting those rebels rebel.
The Ministry of War then came up with a second plan. Yongzheng was shocked just by looking at the numbers. "Mobilizing 50,000 troops? What are you going to do?"
