Chapter 64 Sixth, three battles in Kaifeng

After Chongzhen captured Luoyang at the end of the first month of the 14th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng immediately marched eastward and pushed into Kaifeng, starting the first Kaifeng siege. Kaifeng is the fiefdom of Zhou Wang Zhu Gongyun. Although he is not as rich as his neighbor Fu Wang, he is much more generous in his actions.He publicly offered a reward, and if he went out of the city to behead a peasant soldier, he would be rewarded with fifty taels of silver; if he killed a person in the city, he would be rewarded with thirty taels of silver;The prince took the lead, and other wealthy people also donated one after another, so the city of Kaifeng had sufficient food and salaries. In addition, the king of Zhou himself went to the city to assist in the defense, so the morale of the guards was particularly high.

Li Zicheng first sent 300 cavalry to Kaifeng Xiguan, pretending to be an official army, trying to trick the city gate into opening, but failed.Li Zicheng's army arrived immediately and began to storm Kaifeng City on February 20.The peasant army first used ladders to climb the city, but was severely injured by firearms, crossbows, bricks and stones on the top of the city, and failed to succeed.Li Zicheng immediately changed his tactics and ordered his soldiers to march forward after hearing the drums, and cut off those who retreated. After attacking the city, each of them chiseled a brick, and then they could return to the camp to rest and receive rewards.

Using this method, by February 14, the peasant army had dug six large holes in the city wall of Kaifeng, posing a great threat.The defenders dug down from the city wall to the cave, filled it with boiling soup, boiling juice, and even threw ignited gunpowder packets into it.In addition, hanging towers were also made to protrude from the top of the city to eliminate the dead angle of firepower at the foot of the city, so that the peasant army in the cave at the bottom of the city had nowhere to hide. The two sides attacked and defended for seven days, and both fought very hard. Chen Yongfu, the deputy general of the Ming army who was outside the encirclement, learned that Kaifeng was besieged, and hurriedly led 500 elite soldiers back to defend Kaifeng.The city did not dare to open the door, so they were let into the city with ropes.On the 17th, Li Zicheng personally went to the city to observe the terrain, and was discovered by Chen Yongfu's troops. Chen Jun used bows and arrows to snipe at close range.

Because the coach was injured, and the Ming troops from various walks of life, including Henan governor Li Xianfeng, Baoding governor Yang Wenyue, and Zuo Liangyu, were all approaching Kaifeng, the peasant army withdrew from the siege the next day. The first Kaifeng offensive and defensive battle ended. Because of the fall of Luoyang and the murder of King Fu, Li Xianfeng was arrested by Chongzhen. He knew that he would die and committed suicide.Chen Yongfu was promoted from lieutenant general to commander-in-chief because of his shooting and wounding Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng led his army to move westward, and Yang Wenyue, governor of Baoding, chased after him. The two sides encountered each other in Mingfu, north of Song County.

Chongzhen strictly ordered Ding Qirui, the governor of Shaanxi, to enter Henan to strengthen the strength of the Ming army in the Central Plains.Holding the Shangfang sword bestowed by Chongzhen, Ding Qirui led his troops slowly into the Central Plains. Seeing that Li Zicheng was in full swing, he didn't dare to provoke him, so he chased after Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai.He led his troops to Jingzhou, where there were no enemies, and wanted to cross the south of the Yangtze River.Wang Chengzhao, the governor of Huguang, said to him: "According to reliable information, a large number of rogues are in Henan. We have no enemies here. Don't bother you to come here in person." He also hid all the boats at the ferry.Governor Ding had no choice but to return north.After passing through Dengzhou, the local people closed the city gate and did not let him enter the city; when passing through the inner countryside, the local market was closed for fear of being robbed by his troops.

Chongzhen heard that Ding Qirui was holding the Shangfang sword he had given him, and instead of "suppressing thieves", he just wandered around in places where there were no enemies. He couldn't even produce a good report. Came out to replace Ding Qirui and was responsible for exterminating Li Zicheng full-time. In May of this year, Luo Rucai and Zhang Xianzhong disagreed, and went north to the Central Plains to join Li Zicheng.Li Zicheng's army is good at attacking, and Luo Rucai's army is good at fighting. His joining made Li's army even more powerful. At the beginning of September, Fu Zonglong and Yang Wenyue, governor of Baoding, joined forces in Xincai to prepare for a decisive battle with Li Zicheng between Xincai and Xiangcheng.Li Zicheng pretended to retreat to Runing and set up an ambush between Runing and Xiangcheng.On the evening of the 8th, governors Fu and Yang entered the ambush lightly, and all the ministries broke up and fled. Yang Wenyue struggled for a long time, and was dragged away by the generals in the early morning of the 9th to break through.Fu Zonglong alone led more than 6,000 remnants of soldiers to defend Majiazhuang. He sent someone to send a letter to the escaped general He Renlong and Li Guoqi to ask for help. These two guys knew it was Fu Zonglong's order, but they pretended to be stupid, saying that the letter came from a thief. Zhonglai, afraid of being fake, refused to return to rescue.They wanted to enter Shenqiu City, but the county magistrate Shenqiu ran to the top of the city and said, "Why don't you go rescue Governor Fu, what are you doing in the city?" The two had no choice but to withdraw to Chenzhou.

Li Zicheng saw that he could not attack Majiazhuang, so he dug trenches and besieged instead.Three days later, the officers and soldiers ran out of food, and the horses were slaughtered to satisfy their hunger. After another four or five days, the horses had nothing to eat.In the early morning of the 16th, Fu Zonglong was forced to break out of the siege, and Lai's army fought desperately to break out of the encirclement and fled to Xiangcheng.Li Jun pursued closely and captured Fu Zonglong eight miles away from Xiangcheng, and then surrounded him to sneak into Xiangcheng.Fu Zonglong shouted under the city: "I am Governor Fu, and I have fallen into the enemy's hands. These are all rogues around me. Hurry up and fire on the city, don't open the city gate!" Li Jun was furious, gouged out Fu Zonglong's eyes, cut Dropped his nose and threw it by the side of the road.The defenders in the city carried him into the city. Fu Yin was seriously injured and died immediately.

This is Li Zicheng's biggest victory since the uprising. After Li Zicheng won the battle of Majiazhuang, he fell into Shangshui, Ye County, Xiangcheng, Nanyang and other places, and besieged Kaifeng again at the end of December in the 14th year of Chongzhen. Ding Qirui was ordered to lead 3,000 men to help defend Kaifeng, but his military discipline was poor and his combat effectiveness was not strong. Li Zicheng was the first to defeat this part of the Ming army and seized the Urn City at the north gate of Kaifeng.Wang Xie, the county magistrate, was in charge of guarding the north gate. Some remnants of Ding Qirui who fled into the north gate were locked outside the north gate. Ding asked Wang to open the gate to let these people enter the city. Wang thought the situation was critical and refused to open the gate.At this time, the Peasant Army had already caught up and mingled with the remnants of the Ding Army under the city. The guards were going to shoot with firearms and attack with fire.Wang Xie clearly expressed embarrassment, but secretly ordered to open fire.Both the Peasant Army under the city and the remnant of Ding Qirui suffered heavy casualties. Li Zicheng saw that it was difficult to succeed and ordered a retreat.

The peasant army made some adjustments, transferred a large number of firearms to the captured Wengcheng, and fired fiercely at the north gate tower, smashing the city wall like a sieve.The king of Zhou rewarded him with a lot of money, and recruited warriors to go to the city to fight against Li Jun.At the same time, the officers and soldiers organized people to build fire-proof bunkers on the city wall, strengthened the defense of the north gate, and stabilized people's hearts. It was winter at this time, and many officers and soldiers guarding the city froze to death at night, and there was not enough food and pay in the city, and some soldiers could not eat a full meal all day.King Zhou had donated a lot of money and food during the last siege of the city. Although everyone wanted to get his idea this time, they all felt embarrassed to speak up.Wang Xie volunteered to ask the king of Zhou for money and food. The king of Zhou was an enlightened person, and when he learned of the tragic death of King Fu in Luoyang, he donated tens of thousands of taels of silver for military use without hesitation. Great shock.The vassal king actively supported it, the civil and military generals defending the city were brave and good at fighting, and the morale of the officers and soldiers was high, which determined that Kaifeng was not a city that could be easily conquered.

Gao Mingheng, the governor of Henan who guarded the city, saw that the peasant army was slacking off after several days of continuous attack, so he selected 3,000 elite soldiers to attack the camp at midnight, killing people and setting fire to them. Li Jun was unprepared and suffered a lot.When Li Zicheng strictly ordered to strengthen the guard and everyone was staring at the camp in the middle of the night, Gao Mingheng didn't come again—what he wanted was to exhaust the attacking party.Li Zicheng built four more forts and bombarded the city directly, while the defenders built an artillery wall on the top of the city wall to cover them.

In the blink of an eye, it's the 15th year of Chongzhen's New Year, and everyone has had a bad New Year's Eve.On the first day of the first lunar month, Li Zicheng mobilized tens of thousands of elite soldiers to storm Kaifeng City. The city was lit with reed grass and fertile oil, and thrown to the foot of the city, so that the attackers could not approach the city, and many people were burned to death.Dozens of peasant soldiers climbed to the top of the city, but did not follow up, and were all captured and beheaded by the defenders. This was the most tragic battle in the entire siege, and both the attacker and the defender paid great sacrifices that day.Next, Li Zicheng's army attacked and blasted the city, and dozens of Kaifeng city walls collapsed, but the defenders defended tenaciously, and the city was still unable to be conquered.The defenders sneaked in and sniped Li Zicheng's tent with heavy artillery. Fortunately, Li Zicheng himself was not in the tent at the time.Because Zuo Liangyu and other troops came to reinforce him, Li Zicheng withdrew from the siege on the 14th of the first lunar month, and the second Kaifeng offensive and defensive battle lasted for 20 days. Zuo Liangyu followed Li Zicheng all the time, but kept his distance and never attacked.Gao Mingheng defended the city with difficulty, so he counted on the Zuo army to come to rescue him, but Zuo Liangyu was as slow as a snail.Gao Mingheng couldn't help but question him: "General Zuo is powerful in China, and the country relies heavily on the Great Wall, but Kaifeng City is in danger. Your army is close at hand, but why are you always missing people? You have a plan, and we rotten scholars naturally don't understand—— But if Kaifeng falls, how will you thank the court?" Zuo Liangyu wrote back complaining: "My army is single and weak." This was not entirely an excuse. Although Zuo Liangyu was considered a relatively strong force in the Ming army, he really did not have much confidence in winning a decisive battle with Li Zicheng.If he attacked rashly and failed, not only would he be unlucky, but Kaifeng City would also be lost faster.He could only wait patiently for the opportunity, waiting for Li Zicheng to be exhausted in Kaifeng, and then defeat the enemy in one battle. Li Zicheng naturally understood Zuo Liangyu's intentions, so he resolutely gave up besieging Kaifeng City for 20 days, led Zuo Liangyu to Yancheng, and then suddenly returned to surround his army.Zuo Liangyu held on to Yancheng, and the two sides fought fiercely for eighteen days. Li Zicheng was still unable to eat the Zuo army, and the battle became protracted. Wang Qiaonian, the new trilateral governor, was ordered to lead Shaanxi troops to help. Wang dared not go straight to Yancheng to break the siege of the left army, so he surrounded Wei to save Zhao, and attacked Li Zicheng's old camp in Xiangcheng.Wang Qiaonian had just dug Li Zicheng's ancestral grave when he was in Shaanxi, so Li Zicheng resented him very much. After he believed him, he immediately led the whole army to withdraw from Yancheng and surrounded Wang Qiaonian in Xiangcheng.Wang Qiaonian's three generals, He Renlong, Niu Chenghu, and Zheng Jiadong, fled without a fight, leaving only Wang Qiaonian with more than a thousand infantry trapped in the city.Zuo Liangyu of Yancheng failed to rescue Wang Qiaonian who helped him after he rescued him from the siege. After Wang Qiaonian struggled for more than ten days, the city was broken and killed. In March, the last battle of the Ming and Qing Dynasties outside the pass, the Battle of Songshan, which lasted for several years, ended with the defeat of the Ming army. , Jinzhou defender Zu Dashou also surrendered to the Qing army immediately, leaving only the isolated city of Ningyuan guarded by Wu Sangui in Pingfan outside the pass. In early May, Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng again.Chongzhen ordered Ding Qirui to be responsible for breaking the siege. Ding Du led Zuo Liangyu, Hu Dawei, Yang Dezheng, and Fang Guoan to help. Yang Wenyue, governor of Baoding, also led his troops to the meeting.At the same time, Chongzhen used Sun Chuanting, who knew the soldiers, to supervise the Shaanxi troops to go out and attack Li Zicheng. At this time, the wheat was ripening outside the city of Kaifeng, and the two sides scrambled to harvest the wheat.Seeing that the defenders in the city did not dare to go out, Li Jun divided his troops and went out to occupy Zhengzhou, Xingyang, Xinzheng and other places, and Kaifeng became more and more isolated.The Ming army also went out of the city to meet it once, but the three battalions of soldiers and horses that went out of the city were wiped out, and they never dared to go out of the city to fight in the field.At this time, the reinforcements of the Ming Dynasty had joined forces in Zhuxian Town, south of Kaifeng. Li Zicheng left some troops to continue to besiege Kaifeng, and forged Zuo Liangyu's order to send arrows into Kaifeng City, so that the defenders would not go out to attack. During the battle of Zhuxian Town, not a single soldier left the city to help. Then, Li Zicheng led the main force to move closer to Zhuxian Town on May 16, seeking a decisive battle for the main force of the Ming army. Ding Qirui, the commander-in-chief of the Ming army, could not convince the crowd, and the generals had different opinions. Zuo Liangyu advocated being cautious and not fighting, while Hu Dawei and others advocated a decisive battle as soon as possible.In the end, Hu Dawei's opinion prevailed, and on the 21st, the officers and soldiers attacked.Li Zicheng concentrated his main force to attack Zuo Liangyu, and the left army was gradually exhausted. On the 23rd, he pulled out his camp and retreated.The other armies were in chaos, and Ding Qirui and Yang Wenyue also led their troops to flee one after another. Li Zicheng won a complete victory.Li Zicheng had already dug a trench two feet deep and wide on the retreat route of the left army to block it.Zuo Liangyu and other generals rode their horses across the trenches filled with their own corpses and fled to Xiangyang.Ding Qirui's escape was even worse, and he lost all the imperial edicts and seals. After Li Zicheng won the battle of Zhuxian Town, he returned to his division and continued to besiege Kaifeng.At dawn on July 15, Gao Mingheng organized a large-scale attack, dispatching more than 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, and even the pro-army of King Zhou also participated in the battle.The Ming army fought fiercely until noon, and seized more than 300 horses, cattle and mules, as well as some food and equipment, and only withdrew to the city after Li Zicheng's large army arrived. This month, the imperial court was besieged due to Kaifeng, and the Henan provincial examination was suspended. At this time, when the water was rising in summer and autumn, Gao Mingheng sent people to dig up the Yellow River in an attempt to use the river water to attack Li Zicheng's army, but was discovered by Li Jun and failed.Li Zicheng was furious and concocted according to the law, and dug the embankment in another place. The embankment was dug, but the water level was still low at this time, and only a trickle flowed in, which did not pose any threat to the Kaifeng city wall, but filled the moat ditches with water. It was not conducive to attacking the city, and the people in the city took the opportunity to catch fish from the river to eat. The city of Kaifeng was seriously short of food at this time. By the end of August, 70% of the people in the besieged city had starved to death. Some rich people exchanged pearls for rice. Small pearls fell on the ground and they were not picked up, but millet grains were picked up quickly.People in the city cannibalize people, and the officers and soldiers kill some horses, mix them with human meat, and sell them to the common people, asking for two silver per catty.If there is no fuel, the trees will be cut down. When the trees are cut down, the houses will be demolished. Some magnificent buildings will be destroyed in this way.Changing children to eat, dissecting bones to cook, rice beads to pay for osmanthus—this is the tragic situation in Kaifeng. The situation outside the city was not much better. Luo Rucai's troops had also run out of food and were about to move.Li Zicheng still had food in store, so he helped him some, and promised to hand over the East City to him after Kaifeng was captured, so Luo Rucai reluctantly stayed. Gao Mingheng stood firm and did not surrender, and sent some elites out of the city to rob the camp from time to time at night, but Li Zicheng could not be allowed to retreat.Some people suggested that the city wall of Kaifeng was strong, and the camp of the peasant army was close to the embankment of the Yellow River. Digging the river and breaking the embankment could cause serious damage to the peasant army, but the city wall would not be seriously damaged.Gao Mingheng and others, who had nowhere to go, decided to flood the enemy again.On the night of September 15th, the water of the Yellow River rose sharply. The Kaifeng defenders dug the embankment of the Yellow River in Zhujiazhai. Li Zicheng noticed that the main force had moved to a higher place in the camp, but more than 10,000 people were still submerged.In retaliation, Li Zicheng also ordered Yu Majiakou to burst the embankment and flood Kaifeng City with water.Floods rushed into the city of Kaifeng, and hundreds of thousands of residents drowned.King Zhou's mansion was also submerged, and King Zhou had to take his family and young princes to sleep on the top of the city for seven days.There were ten court ladies, carrying a big log, floated into the main hall, the water continued to rise until they reached between the beams and tiles of the hall, they had to dig out the roof and climb out, and walked away with the current, and they were not rescued until ten days later. The former Tokyo Bianliang was destroyed in the man-made torrential flood.For hundreds of years, this great city that countless skilled craftsmen poured out their wisdom and painstaking effort into was destroyed like this.Since then, Kaifeng City has never regained its former glory. Until today, the urban area of ​​Kaifeng is still far from the scale before the flood. Therefore, the Kaifeng we can see today is not the prosperous Bianliang of Tokyo in those days. The once glorious capital has been buried in the thick loess under our feet. On the 23rd, the general Bu Congshan came to the city of Kaifeng with his navy. Governor Gao Mingheng, Tuiguan Huang Peng and others protected Zhou Wang's family and escaped. The number of scholars and people who helped them was less than 20,000. Chongzhen knew Gao Mingheng's difficulties, so he did not punish him severely, only dismissed him from office.Although it seems to us that it is somewhat difficult for others, compared to the fate of Gao Mingheng's predecessor Li Xianfeng, Yang Sichang, Xiong Wencan, and Sun Chuanting, this is already a great gift.Gao Mingheng returned to his hometown in Yizhou, Shandong after resigning from office. Gao Mingheng, Wang Qiaonian, and Duan Zenghui, who guarded the mall unyieldingly and died, were all disciples of Qian Qianyi, a great Confucian in the south of the Yangtze River. Qian Qianyi wrote "Three Good Poems" to commemorate their sacrifices, praising them painfully. Three years later, that is, in 1645 in the Western calendar, the Hongguang small court perished. Qian Qianyi took the lead in meeting the Qing army and was ordered to bring twenty soldiers into the city for inspection. The soldiers who led the team were a little mischievous and joked: " Is there no ambush?" Mr. Qian turned pale with shock, and knocked someone with the fan in his hand, "This is not a joke!"I surrender very seriously, please don't joke, little brother, okay? A few days later, the Qing army ordered "keep your hair but not your head, keep your hair but not your hair", and everyone is still waiting and watching.Mr. Qian suddenly yelled "scalp itchy" at home, and ran away. The family thought he had lice on his head, so they went to comb his head and ignored him.As a result, after a while, the old man came back to everyone with a completely new look: the hair on his forehead had been shaved and the braids were tied up. No wonder Zhao Yi from the Qing Dynasty sighed: "Although there were many martyrs in the Ming Dynasty, there were very few people in Yiyou!"