Dominate the Country

The sun sets, and the shouts and gunfire outside Jiangling City stop. The battle that started in the morning has come to an end.

For Chen Ming, this is a perfect ending. The Hunan Green Camp West Route Army was directly defeated by him, and now it has fled westward along the Juzhang River. Can half of the tens of thousands of Green Camps remain? And how many of the remaining people can escape the pursuit of the Fu Han Army?

The Jiangling defenders who were forced to attack twice were also killed and wounded everywhere, and there were 2,000 bodies of Green Camp and Banner soldiers alone.

Of course, the Fu Han Army itself was also exhausted.

The total strength of the Qing Army was only 20,000 at most. If it was a frontal battle, such a force would not be enough to form a three-fold advantage over the Fu Han Army, and the Fu Han Army's chances of winning were naturally very high. And most of them would not be as tired as they are now after the battle. This is entirely determined by the position of the Fu Han Army itself in this battle. It would be strange if they were not tired if they were sandwiched between two Qing armies and fighting on two fronts.

...

Inside Jingzhou City.

All the restaurants in the city that used to be prosperous were closed. Even if they were open, no customers would be seen. The Manchu city of Jingzhou, located in the east of the city, was even more dead silent. The people of Hancheng on the west side could hear the crying coming from the east.

It is said that three or four hundred of the two thousand bannermen who went to battle today were killed outside, which means three or four hundred households. If the tragic losses in the Battle of Gunhe were taken into account, Chen Ming would definitely become the most hated enemy of the two or three thousand bannermen in the Manchu city of Jingzhou.

The people of Hancheng were also worried. Once the war came, it was hard to imagine what their fate would be. However, the gentry families who were most afraid of the Fu Han Army and the merchants who paid donations and silver for the great cause of suppressing bandits in the "Qing Dynasty" were far less worried than the bannermen in the city.

The Fu Han Army was a team that held the banner of anti-Qing and restoration of Han. They were inherently in opposition to the bannermen. If Jiangling is lost, will the Fu Han Army, which controls 20,000 to 30,000 bannermen and their families in the city, let them go? This is nonsense!

The whole Jiangling City was dead silent, as if the city was wrapped in sorrow... No, the whole city was immersed in a sea of ​​sorrow.

But that was only the most superficial phenomenon. Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and where there are rivers and lakes, there are grievances. In Jiangling City, a city controlled by bannermen, there are too many Han people who secretly hate and resent the bannermen in Jingzhou.

Yes, bannermen cannot work or do business. According to the rules set when the Qing Dynasty was founded, bannermen are soldiers and officials, while business, farming and working are for Han people. But which bannermen with roots live on salaries?

They themselves cannot do business, but their servants can do business, right? Beijing is full of Eight Banners nobles who have participated in the business or acted as backstage agents. The ones who showed up were all their servants who signed the documents of selling themselves, or had no connection with them on the surface. But which Han people who took the money from the Eight Banners nobles dared to really defile the money of these gentlemen?

Jiangling City is not as good as the Forty-Nine City, but the market is the same. The only difference between the Banner nobles here and the Eight Banner nobles in the capital is their status, not their greedy appetite.

Therefore, the contradiction between Manchus and Hans in Jiangling City has always existed. If it were not for Chen Ming's time travel, this situation would continue until the demise of the Qing Dynasty. With the changes of the times, the boundary wall that runs through the north and south of Jiangling City was demolished, and the Manchus and Hans gradually merged. Finally, the general trend was that the Manchus even had their surnames Hanized.

Therefore, in Hancheng to the west of Jiangling City, there were people who hated the Manchus, regardless of whether they were rich or poor. It was because the rich would be taken advantage of by the bannermen, the poor would be bullied and oppressed by the bannermen at will, and the middle-class families who were neither rich nor poor would be extorted by the idle bannermen.

The Eight Bannermen of the Qing Dynasty had a fixed number of soldiers, but it was impossible for each bannerman family to have only one male. It had been 20 years since the Qing Dynasty entered the pass. Those bannermen who were unable to make up for the lack of soldiers and take iron crops could not go to business, work, or farm, so they could only be idle, rampant in the market, and extort.

Now the Fu Han Army has come, the soldiers defending the city have been beaten and cried for their parents, and the rescue reinforcements have been killed. Today, even though it has not yet darkened, all kinds of gossip and rumors have spread throughout Jiangling City, regardless of east or west.

As these gossips and rumors spread, those rumors that were deeply buried in the hearts of the bannermen and Han people in Jiangling City also "surfaced", and could not be suppressed in the hearts of each person.

After breaking through the city, the Fu Han Army never burned, killed, looted, and even raped women and children;

After breaking through the city, the Fu Han Army only troubled those merchants and corrupt officials who were rich and unkind, and those families who worked hard for the Qing government;

The Han people with ordinary family backgrounds did not seem to need to worry about the Fu Han Army's breaking of the city. Even those merchants and wealthy families who paid taxes and silver to the government would not be wiped out as long as their reputation was good. This behavior of the Fu Han Army distinguished them from the bandits in history books.

Even if the Qing Dynasty was scoundrels to them and poured basins of dirty water on them, it would not change the facts.

Besides, the General's Mansion also had its own secret camp. Some things could not be turned into what the government wanted to say. Just like the Great Heaven and the Dynasty in later generations, weren't there many citizens who did not believe what their own government said, and instead regarded the statements made by the media or governments of hostile foreign countries as the truth?

Perhaps some people would think that it was because the rabbits were unpopular. Then, was the Qing Dynasty of this era really a great and prosperous era, supported and loved by hundreds of millions of people? Qing Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, the color of foreign rule on them will never be erased.

…

As night fell, Chen Ming received the latest report from the pursuit troops in the Fu Han Army camp.

Zhang Rui fled westward along the Juzhang River with the remaining soldiers for a while, and was caught up by the pursuers in Libu Town and suffered another heavy blow. The remaining Hunan soldiers were completely scattered. Some fled to the north, and some crossed the Juzhang River by boat. On the other side of the Juzhang River, there were boats used by the Hunan Green Camp to cross the Yangtze River, which stayed by the river. Others surrendered with weapons, and the team captured more than a thousand prisoners on the banks of the Juzhang River.

Chen Ming could not calculate an exact result of the battle yet, but he believed that Zhang Rui had lost miserably in this battle. Even if he could regroup, he would not be considered a threat if he did not gather the defeated soldiers for ten days or half a month. As for how the Hunan soldiers will improve their morale, it is a matter of time. Didn't you see that the remnant soldiers in Xinyang City are still unwilling to move?

In the following time, Chen Ming has enough "patience" to deal with Jiangling City. Because neither the troops in Xiangyang nor the East Route Army of Hunan Green Camp have the ability to rescue Jiangling City in a short time. Chen Ming will even suppress his attack power and fish for fish, so that the troops in Xiangyang, Wuchang, Sichuan and even Anhui will rush to Jingzhou as much as possible.

Even if Qianlong can see through his plan, what? Does this arrogant "old man" dare not save Jingzhou?

...

Of course, don't forget the fighting in southwest Henan. Luoyang, Pengpo Town.

The camps of the Shaanxi Green Camp are one after another, filling the eyes of the defending soldiers. At this moment, the one at the back of the Qing army's camp, the shrill screams kept washing the hearts of the soldiers on duty in the camp. This is the wounded soldier who was just sent back from the front line today.

"Peng Po Town, the hammer's Peng Po Town. I've never seen such a tough woman before..."