Chapter 282: Why Did the Qing Suddenly Collapse?

The counteroffensive launched by the Shun army on the fifteenth day of the tenth month from Huaiqing Prefecture in Henan Province was not the same thing as the local counterattack known historically as the Huaiqing Counterstrike; only the location was similar.

The historical Huaiqing Counterstrike was quite limited in scale, with the Shun army committing no more than twenty thousand troops, and those were not Li Zicheng's elite main force. But this Huaiqing counteroffensive, commanded by Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo, threw in a full forty thousand veteran camp elite soldiers!

Moreover, this Huaiqing campaign had been carefully planned and prepared! According to Li Zicheng's original plan, these forty thousand veteran camp elite troops were supposed to wait until the Qing main force had been drawn to the Great Wall at Guguan, then suddenly strike and execute a grand envelopment.

To that end, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo spent more than a month preparing, gathering intelligence on the Qing troop dispositions at Huaiqing, Weihui, Zhangde, Dezhou, and other places.

In addition, they sent men to contact the Ming court's newly appointed Governor of Henan, Lü Daqi, who was stationed at Wuping Guard in Bozhou (under Fengyang Prefecture), to request a joint northern expedition.

Although Lü Daqi did not agree to send troops, he did agree to a ceasefire and sent dispatches to Regional Commander of Henan Liu Liangzuo and Regional Commander of Guide Xu Dingguo, ordering them to consolidate their forces and prepare for battle, and to move a portion of their troops into Xiaosongji, located in Kaifeng Prefecture (north of the Yellow River), in order to overawe the Qing forces within Daming Prefecture.

Because the preparations were extremely thorough, the forces committed were numerous and elite, and Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo also employed a tactic of feigning weakness to lure the enemy. They disguised the Shun army as bandits from Mount Wangwu, and after seizing the county seat of Jiyuan and the prefectural seat of Huaiqing, they did not openly display the Shun banner, but instead raised the banner of the Ming Guard Commander of Huaiqing, causing Zu Kefa (adopted son of Zu Dashou), who was garrisoned at Weihui Prefecture, to mistakenly believe that the bandits of Mount Wangwu had accepted amnesty from the Ming Governor of Henan's office.

To clear himself of suspicion of colluding with the Ming, Zu Kefa did not dare delay for a moment, and led his troops to retake Huaiqing Prefecture. The result was the same as with Jin Yuhe: he charged straight into the ambush laid by Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo. The three or four thousand men he brought were completely annihilated, and Zu Kefa himself was taken prisoner.

Immediately afterward, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo, holding Zu Kefa captive, advanced on Weihui Prefecture, again without displaying the Shun banner, but instead flying the banners of Ming Regional Commander of Henan Liu Liangzuo and Regional Commander of Guide Xu Dingguo. This deceived the local gentry inside Weihui, who believed the Ming had counterattacked and returned, and were unwilling to help the Qing-appointed prefect defend the city. Weihui Prefecture was promptly breached by the Shun army!

After taking Weihui Prefecture, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo finally openly displayed the Shun army's banners, and led thirty-five thousand troops pouring like a tide into Zhangde Prefecture and Daming Prefecture! The Qing's Regional Commander of Zhangde, Zhu Guozhu, and Prefect of Daming, Zhang Yutian, were caught completely off guard and both were defeated. Anyang, the chief county of Zhangde, and Yuancheng, the chief county of Daming, both fell into the hands of the Shun army.

At the same time, the three Qing main columns that had invaded Taiyuan Prefecture and Datong Prefecture also encountered no small trouble.

On the Taiyuan front, because both Wu Sangui and Ajige were intent on preserving their strength, they did not pursue Li Zicheng aggressively. This allowed Li Zicheng to withdraw his entire army back to Taiyuan.

Dodo's force, advancing south from the northern route, was blocked at Shiling Pass north of the Taiyuan prefectural seat, held up for two days by Chen Yongfu, and thus lost the opportunity to envelop and cut off Li Zicheng's line of retreat.

This two-day delay caused the Qing forces to briefly lose track of Li Zicheng's main force's movements. So when Dodo, Ajige, and Wu Sangui joined forces beneath the walls of Taiyuan, they did not know whether Li Zicheng had withdrawn into the city of Taiyuan.

On the other hand, Li Zicheng used those two days to strengthen Taiyuan's defenses. He left behind the forces of Regional Inspector of Shanxi Li Ruoxing and Shanxi Military Commissioner Han Wenquan, combined with the force of General Chen Yongfu, leaving a total of twenty-five thousand troops in Taiyuan, of whom three thousand were battle-hardened veteran camp soldiers.

Because Li Zicheng left ample garrison troops in Taiyuan, Chen Yongfu not only defended the isolated city of Taiyuan, but also built fortified camps on the Eastern Mountain and on the west bank of the Fen River. He had Li Ruoxing and Han Wenquan station their troops there, forming a pincer position.

This created considerable trouble for Wu Sangui, who was attempting to besiege the city. And Ajige and Dodo, worried that Li Zicheng was still in Taiyuan, did not dare to immediately lead their troops away, but instead stayed to keep watch on the city of Taiyuan. At the same time, they sent Wu Sangui to seize Qingyuan, Jiaocheng, Wenshui, Xugou, Taigu, Qi County, Pingyao, and other places near Taiyuan.

Dodo's delay beneath the walls of Taiyuan in turn affected the fighting to the north at Datong Prefecture. The operation that was supposed to be a pincer attack from north and south became Hooge advancing alone deep into enemy territory from the Xuanfu direction. He did not get far before he was stopped at Zhenlu Guard, on the border of Datong and Xuanfu, by Ming troops who had just been given land.

Just as all three Qing columns invading Shanxi were temporarily suffering setbacks, Tian Jianxiu and Li Guo's great army swept menacingly into Northern Zhili.

The situation, which had originally been clear, became extremely murky within just a few days!

On the twentieth day of the tenth month, Nanjing.

Wu Ruzheng, Commissioner of the Office of Transmission, arrived early in the morning carrying the just-received dispatches from the Governor of Henan's office, and went straight into the Hall of Great Merit in the Great Merit Quarter.

When he reached the Hall of Great Merit, he discovered he was not the earliest to arrive. Guard Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Zhu Chunjie, Guard Commander of the Military Orders Guard Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu, who had just been transferred to become Commander of the Capital Camps, were already there.

Zhu Cilang himself had not yet appeared, so Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu began questioning Wu Ruzheng, who had hurried in.

"Marquis Gongshun, is there a dispatch from the north?" asked the Imperial Brother-in-law Wu Sanfu.

"A dispatch from Henan. The Tartars seem to be failing," Wu Ruzheng said. He knew that Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu were the guard commanders Zhu Cilang trusted most, and that any dispatch he received had to be copied to these three, so there was no need to conceal anything.

Incidentally, the confidentiality work of the Ming court's Office of Transmission was now far stronger than it had ever been before!

All decrees, official documents, and memorials were divided into four classification levels: A, B, C, and D. Except for D-level documents, which were akin to "public notices" and could be viewed freely, the other three levels of decrees, documents, and memorials could only be viewed by designated officials.

In addition, the Military Orders Guard and the Embroidered Uniform Guard each had their own independent information transmission systems. The former was used to transmit the Grand Marshal's Office's military orders and the battle reports of the New Army of Endurance, while the latter was a secret intelligence transmission channel.

Wu Ruzheng placed the box containing the memorials that he had brought with him on the table, then took a tea bowl from a young eunuch in attendance, drank a sip of clear tea, picked up a pastry from the tea table and ate a bite to stave off hunger, then continued: "The Tartars seem to have fallen for the roving bandits' trick. Their main army has been lured into Shanxi. Meanwhile, a hundred thousand elite roving bandit troops crossed Mount Wangwu and attacked Huaiqing Prefecture, then advanced north and broke through Weihui, Zhangde, and Daming, with tremendous momentum, unstoppable. Also, according to Zu Kefa's confession, the Tartars have also sent a large force from Xuanfu to invade Datong!"

"Zu Kefa?" Wu Sanfu was startled. "What happened?"

"He was captured by the roving bandits, put in a prisoner cart, and sent to Guide Prefecture. Governor Lü went to Guide personally and interrogated Zu Kefa there."

This Zu Kefa was truly unlucky. Not only was he captured alive, he was also used to deceive the Qing troops at Weihui, and now he had been turned into a gift, sent to Guide Prefecture for Liu Liangzuo, Xu Dingguo, and others to view.

"Such a thing actually happened?" Wu Sanfu drew a sharp breath. "It seems this roving bandit force that has invaded Northern Zhili really is an elite army!"

"His Highness the Crown Prince, Regional Commander, arrives!"

The eunuch's announcing voice suddenly rang out. The several men in the hall all rose to their feet, then arranged themselves in order of rank. When they saw Zhu Cilang walk out, they all performed the prostration ceremony together.

Zhu Cilang waved at them and said with a smile, "Sit, all of you sit."

Zhu Chunjie, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu each took their seats, while Wu Ruzheng handed the box containing the memorials to Huang Xiaobao with both hands. Huang Xiaobao opened the box, saw two memorials inside, took them both out, and placed them on Zhu Cilang's imperial desk.

Zhu Cilang picked up the first memorial. It was a memorial from Governor of Henan Lü Daqi. Its contents were what Wu Ruzheng had just described, and Zhu Cilang quickly finished reading it. Then he picked up the second memorial. This was a joint memorial from Governor-General of Seven Provinces Shi Kefa and Governor of Shandong Gao Hongtu, in which the two proposed seizing the opportunity to launch a northern expedition and recover the Divine Capital.

(End of Chapter)