Chapter 258: The Fourth Defeat (VII)
In the first year of Emperor Qianlong's reign, Huo Chong fought the Qing army for the fourth time. At the beginning of the war, he raided Linyi and captured it in one fell swoop. Taking Linyi meant that Huo Chong had captured southern Shandong.
The Qing army's northern route army that set out from Jinan was defeated in the subsequent battle. After finding that they could not return to Jinan, they decisively turned south and tried to escape to Jiangsu. The commander-in-chief in charge of the pursuit was Yang Wangfu, who was also Huo Chong's second apprentice.
Looking at the latest document, Yang Wangfu could not help biting his lip. The staff officer sighed more bluntly, "The governor is making things difficult for us. It would be better to chase the Qing army."
Yang Wangfu raised his eyes, his expression complicated. He agreed with the staff officer, but also felt disgusted by his complaints against Huo Chong. After listening for a while, Yang Wangfu shouted, "We will fight the way the governor tells us to fight!"
The commander-in-chief of the pursuit gave the order, and the staff did not dare to say much. However, after a long time of hesitating, they could not come up with any decent plan. Yang Wangfu looked at the plan that had been made, and he was even more unhappy. This plan was to mobilize the scattered battalions to pursue and annihilate all the Qing troops.
However, the troops had been chasing for several days, and they could not determine the exact location of the Qing army, let alone the location of the Han army. Yang Wangfu could not think of a good solution to the problem.
In desperation, Yang Wangfu led his cavalry and headed straight for Linzi, which was less than a day's journey away. Since it was Huo Chong who gave the order, it would be best for Huo Chong to come up with a solution. Judging from the staff's hesitant look, they might not be able to come up with a good solution even if they were given another day.
There were few people on the road at this time, and the cavalry ran very fast. After arriving in Linzi, they went straight to where Huo Chong was. When they reported, they saw some 13 or 14-year-old kids wearing military uniforms, acting as orderly soldiers to deliver the message.
Yang Wangfu called one of them and said, "Yu Qian, is the governor here?"
"exist."
"Please help me report this."
Yu Qian walked in quickly. Looking at the child's back, Yang Wangfu felt something indescribable in his heart. There were not many children in Huo Chong's army, and Yu Qian was particularly different. Huo Chong had ordered the purchase of children who were sold, but Yu Qian was one of the few children that Huo Chong personally bought after seeing them on the road.
People even thought that Yu Qian and his brother were kidnapped, because the person who sold them couldn't remember how old Yu Qian was. Among the few little ghosts who came and went, Yu Qian was the only one with such a background. The parents of the other little ghosts were all reliable people who had followed Huo Chong since the time of the Zhongfu Society.
Not long after, Yu Qian ran out and said, "Commander Yang, the governor invites you in."
As soon as he saw Huo Chong, Yang Wangfu immediately told him the problem he encountered. After explaining the problem, Yang Wangfu asked: "Sir, what should I do in this situation?"
Huo Chong did not answer immediately, but just pondered. Yang Wangfu felt uneasy and quickly added, "Sir, if you want to criticize me, please wait until the battle is over, okay?"
"Alas..., if you always pursue results when doing things, your thinking will always be limited." Huo Chong said.
Yang Wangfu felt numb all over. Being beaten was just physical pain, while being taught a lesson was mental torture. Comparing the two, he would rather be beaten than be beaten.
However, Huo Chong obviously would not hit Yang Wangfu , but continued, "If a person cannot make a decision, there are generally two reasons. The first is that they want too much, and the second is that they are not aware enough. Which one do you think you are?"
"I...can give you more details." Yang Wangfu requested .
Huo Chong did not continue to force Yang Wangfu to analyze himself, but instead asked Yang Wangfu to tell him what he knew at the moment. Yang Wangfu told him what he knew. After that, he looked at Huo Chong, waiting for Huo Chong to give an instruction.
"Yu Qian, what do you think?" Huo Chong asked.
Yang Wangfu quickly looked at Yu Qian and saw that although the child was standing, there was a different look in his eyes.
Hearing Huo Chong's question, Yu Qian answered calmly: "Since we know the position of the Qing army's commander, and they are the largest group of the Qing army, why not pursue this group of enemies first?"
Hearing Yu Qian's calm and composed words, Yang Wangfu couldn't help but ask, "Where are the other Qing troops?"
"If the commander-in-chief is annihilated, the rest of the Qing army will just become scattered soldiers. The teacher said that the Qing army cannot cooperate with each other at the same level. In comparison, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army is more important. Since we don't know where all the Qing troops are, we should fight them one by one from the largest to the smallest. In the process of fighting, we can also find out the positions of other Qing troops."
Yang Wangfu didn't know how to respond for a moment. If he praised Yu Qian, wouldn't it be tantamount to admitting that a group of men in their thirties were not as good as a thirteen-year-old kid?
Just when he was in a dilemma, Huo Chong spoke up, "If you make a plan to chase them all, it's obviously too much. This is one of the reasons why we can't make a decision."
Hearing Huo Chong start to make up the knife again, Yang Wangfu felt that he wanted to escape immediately, so he simply said, "Sir, lend me Yu Qian."
"no."
"Why?" Yang Wangfu couldn't understand why Huo Chong was so disrespectful.
"You'd better save face. If I lend Yu Qian to you, you will be more concerned about how to save face. Besides, it's not good for the child to suddenly get such an opportunity."
"Sir, I will not treat Yu Qian unfairly."
Huo Chong waved his hands. "It's two different things. You are all my students. What I don't want to see the most is that you don't discover your own strength. Yu Qian's current ability is the upper limit of what he said just now. What he wants is to increase his foundation through learning..."
Yang Wangfu immediately gave up his other thoughts and prepared to flee back to the front line to command the battle. Fortunately, Huo Chong did not make things difficult for him and agreed to let Yang Wangfu go back quickly.
After returning to the front line, Yang Wangfu immediately gave the order. He thought about it all the way. At first, Yang Wangfu's mind was still on Qian. He felt that he had lost face in front of Huo Chong. But after thinking about it, he still put his mind on the battle.
After giving the order, Yang Wangfu finally felt that he could be down-to-earth. Just like when he was with Huo Chong before, he could implement every idea. At this time, Yang Wangfu realized that the troops he controlled were very strong, but the number was far from enough to do whatever he wanted.
Perhaps this is the reason why it was impossible to come up with a plan to launch a full-scale attack on the Qing army.
General Basai, who was more than 40 miles away from Yang Wangfu, had already led his army straight south. There were no mountain roads from Qingzhou to Jiangsu, and it could be considered a flat road.
After meeting up with Banlong at Gao's village, the two troops did not join forces but continued to advance separately. After heading south, General Basai's confidant couldn't help but ask, "General, why don't you let Banlong be the vanguard? Let him be the rear guard."
"Need not."
The confidant was not relieved by General Basai's calmness and could not help but continue to ask: "If we encounter bandits, we can still take care of them."
"No need!" General Basai's expression became even uglier, and his confidants were so scared that they dared not say a word.
General Basai continued to walk forward with a stern look on his face, but his heart was not as stern as his expression.
It was easy to consider using Banlong as a shield, but General still ruled out such considerations. Before the war, the general had already considered all the possibilities of Huo Chong. He never expected that this guy would actually adopt the method of clearing the countryside.
This made the general feel the situation when he followed Kangxi to fight against the Junggar. However, the Junggars were operating in the grasslands and deserts, and Huo Chong was able to make Shandong so empty, which was really sinister.
But this method is extremely effective. The army lost its food and grass and could not move freely. Before fighting Huo Chong, it had to move to get food. Such a situation is even worse than fighting with the Junggar. After all, at that time, the rear would find ways to speed up the transportation of food and grass, and the lack of food and water was only temporary. If it really didn't work, they could retreat and shorten the distance between them and the transportation team.
If we join forces with Banlong now, we will have to carry Banlong's food and grass. It's all troublesome, it's easier to act on our own.
The general led his army southwards. He had more than 5,000 people with more than 70,000 kilograms of food and more than 7,000 kilograms of meat. Each person had one kilogram of food and two ounces of meat per day. Although they still felt hungry, it did not affect their march.
Two days after they left, General Basai's scouts saw a small group of Qing cavalrymen chasing them from behind. They stopped them and asked them, and found out that they were Banlong's men. It turned out that Banlong's side was slow to move, and was caught up by the Han army from behind, and fell into a bitter battle. Seeing that he could not resist, Banlong sent people to chase General Basai's troops and asked the general to send troops to help.
Basai's expression turned grim after hearing this. "Tell Banlong not to get entangled with the thieves and withdraw immediately."
"Marshal, we can't retreat without help!" Banlong's men pleaded.
As they were talking, there was another disturbance. Soon, dozens of cavalrymen were brought over, led by Banlong.
Seeing General Basai, Banlong fell to his knees and said, "General, I'm... I'm sorry, General, I lost the battle."
The general didn't even ask how they lost the battle, he just said, "No need to waste words. Let's go."
The Qing army had never stopped, and they did not stop at this time. Taking Banlong, who only had a few dozen cavalrymen left, General Basai continued to flee southward.
The troops that defeated Banlong's troops were led by Yang Congrong. They chased them all the way, thinking that they had captured the main force of the Qing army. After the victory, they interrogated the prisoners and found out that they were wrong. The main force was indeed there, but it was only one. The Qing army commander Basai actually ran away.
There was no time to clean up the battlefield, so Yang Wangfu continued to lead his troops to chase. These days, whether it was marching or fighting, the Han army became more and more confident in their strength. But they did not expect that the Qing army, which had little food in front, would run very fast. They could not catch up after two days of chasing.
On the third day, dead horses could be seen along the road, but the Qing army continued to advance without any sign of stopping.
Yang Congrong looked at the twentieth or thirtieth horse and howled angrily, "Can the Qing army still eat the wind and shit? What on earth did they eat to be so strong?"
