Zhu Yuan knew the reason after hearing Yu Chenglong said this, but as a prince, he did not dare to oppose himself. But Zhu Yuan secretly swore in his heart that if he had the day he took power in the future, he would suppress those Qiu Ba and let those military generals spit out all the silver.

After leaving these refugees, the team continued to travel south. After passing Gaoyi County, the situation became more and more serious. There were more and more refugees on both sides of the official road. Ding Changsheng was afraid of problems on the road, so he tried to shorten the distance. He only traveled forty miles a day and would never rush after dark.

In this way, I passed Zhending Prefecture and Shunde Prefecture without any danger, and entered Zhangde Prefecture, Henan Province, which is the later Anyang City.

Zhangde was the western route of Zhu Hongsan's Northern Expedition, and more than 100,000 Manchu and Han troops were concentrated here, so there were many battles outside Zhangde City. Zhu Hongsan's new army was a full firearm army and had great destructive power to the city wall, so the city wall of Zhangde Mansion has not been rebuilt yet, and it is still a piece of ruins.

According to the imperial court, the local government was responsible for the replenishment of grain when traveling, but Zhangde was like this, but there was no food left. In the end, Ding Changsheng had no choice but to force the prefect Zhangde to hang himself, so he finally got hundreds of kilograms of corn, which would be enough to support Kaifeng.

Zhangde is already a place in Henan, and the situation in this place is even worse than that in Northern Zhili. There are less than 3,000 people in Zhangde Mansion now, and most of them either flee or die in troubled times. Even the fourth-rank high-ranking prefect of Zhangde can only work in a dilapidated temple. There is no way, the yamen were burned by the war that year, and it would be nice to have a dilapidated temple shelter from wind and rain.

Zhu Yuan was no longer surprised by what he saw along the way, and he didn't enter Zhangde's mansion. Anyway, he had no place to live in. After getting the food, he passed by Zhangde and headed towards Kaifeng.

Starting from Zhangde, a large number of white bones appeared on the left and right of the southern official road. Zhu Yuan asked someone to ask about it and found out that these white bones were left by the new army's capture of Zhangde five or six years ago.

When Zhu Hongsan made a Northern Expedition, Jinan was the main battlefield, but Zhangde also concentrated more than 100,000 Manchu and Han troops here. The Qing Dynasty general Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hanyang retreated troops were all concentrated in the areas of Zhangde and Daming Prefecture, in order to prevent Zhu Hongsan from entering Shanxi from here and threaten Beijing's flanks.

At this time, Ding Changsheng's loud voice came from the front of the team: "See, this place is where I fought to the death. Twenty miles ahead is Tangyin County. I was the first to climb to the city, so after the war, I was promoted to deputy commander!"

When Zhu Yuan heard Ding Changsheng bragging that he had participated in the Battle of Zhangde, he was very curious and asked the guard to find Ding Changsheng to ask for details.

After Ding Changsheng came, he heard Zhu Yuan ask about what happened back then, and he felt very honored. This is one of the few places he could boast about.

Ding Changsheng cleared his throat and said, "Your Highness, King Yan, back then... the senior official followed Commander Ma from Wuchang to the north. He was originally going to Shaanxi, but he knew that the Qing army in Shaanxi had been transferred to Zhangde to defend our army to the north, so His Majesty the Emperor ordered our fourth division to attack Zhangde directly!"

In order to deal with Zhu Hongsan, the Qing Dynasty, in order to deal with the Northern Expedition, the troops in the central country formed a defense line in Zhangde, Daming, Dongchang and Jinan, hoping to organize the advancement of the Northern Expedition Army. Zhangde is the westernmost front, and concentrated 70,000 to 80,000 Manchu and Han troops from Shaanxi and Shanxi, as well as 50,000 to 60,000 troops from Pingxi King Wu Sangui retreated from Hanyang to Henan. For a time, Zhangde gathered Prince Doro Mandahai, Prince Doro Wakeda, Prince of Duoluo, Meng Qiaofang, the governor of the Three Borders of Shaanxi, and Li Guohan, Gushan Ezhen, were really full of talents.

However, Yue Le, commander-in-chief of the Western Front of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, misjudged the situation. He believed that he could lead the Manchu and Mongolian cavalry through the gaps of the Ming army and eliminate the central army, the imperial guards led by Zhu Hongsan, in one fell swoop. This would also allow more than 200,000 Ming army troops to be left without a leader and then defeat them in division.

Therefore, Yue Le handed over the task of restraining the Ming cavalry to Wu Sangui's Liaodong Iron Cavalry. Yue Le originally thought that even if Wu Sangui's 30,000 Liaodong Iron Cavalry was not as good as the elite of the Eight Banners of the Manchus, he still had some competition with the Ming cavalry, but he knew that Wu Sangui was defeated by the Ming army's heavy cavalry within half an hour. Wu Sangui's failure also caused a complete defeat on the front line, and Yue Le's 80,000 Qing cavalry also failed.

However, although Wu Sangui failed, he did not die. Instead, he fled to Zhangde with thousands of defeated soldiers. After all, there were still tens of thousands of troops here.

After defeating Yue Le's cavalry, Zhu Hongsan divided the army into two parts and led his main force to capture Beijing from Jinan to the canal. The partial division was handed over to Ma Kun to lead him, and went north from Zhangde to Shanxi to attack Beijing's flanks.

Wu Sangui and his men fled to Zhangde. If the Qing army here were not from Shanxi or Shaanxi, Wu Sangui, the Liaodong cavalry, was not welcomed at all. Wu Sangui had no choice but to take the military order to station in Tangyin County, twenty miles away.

The first battle of the partial division led by Ma Kun was to capture Tangyin, and Ding Changsheng also made his mark in this battle and was the first to climb to the top of Tangyin City.

Ding Changsheng became more and more excited as he spoke. He took off his military cap and rode his horse to talk about his glory back then.

"Your Highness King Yan, don't you know that the officials were the first to climb the city wall and rushed into the city, killing all the Liaodong bastards. And the prince of the Qing Dynasty and Gui, his little wife is really beautiful. I heard that she is a famous prostitute from Jiangnan, with her name round and square. She is 27 or 28 years old this year, and she looks like her fifteen or sixteen years old. Her waist and skin are much better than my yellow-faced woman!"

A guy holding his stinky feet next to him asked, "Captain, then haven't you stayed for your own enjoyment?"

Ding Changsheng sighed and said, "Hey, this is exactly what I regret the most. You know our military discipline. We are not allowed to force the robbery of the civilians. There is no way to do something happy during the war, but it is not easy to keep it until after the war? You don't know that blind man Jiang from the Second Division! I really couldn't bear to give up that Yuanyuan back then, but I had no choice but to kill him with one knife. Now I think of those tears and my heart regrets it even when I think of those tears!"

"Captain, I heard that the second division's Blind Jiang was demoted by His Majesty the Emperor because he killed the prefect's daughter!"

When Ding Changsheng mentioned the Second Division, he was angry. Now the second division is the most powerful in the army, and it has exceeded the first division. There is no way. At that time, almost all the main battles were fought by the Second Division, so naturally the official positions of the Second Division were higher than those of others. At the same time, the second division was very domineering. Seeing that other troops were born in suppression, the Second Division became rats in the army and everyone shouted to fight.

Ding Changsheng came from Makun's Fourth Division. Although his military achievements were not bad, he was much worse than the Second Division. Naturally, Ding Changsheng also suffered a lot of the aura of the Second Division in the army.

Now when we talk about the Second Division, Ding Changsheng cursed: "The bastards of the Second Division are blowing loudly every day, as if they were the entire Northern Expedition. If our Fourth Division hadn't blocked the Qing Dynasty's Western Route Army in Zhangde, the bastards of the Second Division could have captured Jinan in one day? Now, look at the bastards of the Second Division, from the commander of the division Zhao Guodong to the company platoon leader at the grassroots level, they were all as 20,000 or 50,000. It's really a damn thing!"

After listening to Ding Changsheng talking about the war that year, Zhu Yuan lost his mood and listened to him cursing the Second Division. At this time, the team happened to pass by Tangyin County. Zhu Yuan stood in the carriage and wanted to see the fierce battlefield that year.

There is no one living here in Tangyin now because no one wants to live with tens of thousands of dead people. Now there is no city wall in Tangyin County, only piles of earth, and the city walls should have been smashed by cannons. The city is completely ruined, not even a complete building, and there is a ground full of bones in the city and outside the city. From this point, we can see how fierce the battle was back then.

When he passed by Tangyin, Ding Changsheng stopped cursing the Second Division and began to tell the people around him how he climbed the city and how his comrades fought to the death with the Qing Dynasty. Zhu Yuan was not in the mood to hear Ding Changsheng bragging here, and he returned to the car to rest.

After passing Tangyin County, we arrived at Weihui, which was not far from Kaifeng. The team that welcomed the imperial envoy of Kaifeng was already waiting at Weihui five days ago. When we learned that the imperial envoy was here, we hurried out of the city to greet him.

The prefect of Kaifeng Prefecture came to greet him in person. When he saw the imperial envoy arrive, he quickly knelt down on his knees and kowtowed to salute. In fact, according to the court rules, there is no need to be a tribute, but this time the imperial envoy came to check the situation in the province. It is better not to offend this kind of eyelids, so the prefect of Kaifeng decided to follow the etiquette of the previous Ming Dynasty.

The Kaifeng prefect knelt on the ground and saw the carriage coming to him, and quickly shouted loudly: "Se Tian, ​​the governor of Kaifeng Prefecture, welcome the imperial envoy!" The civil servants in the Ming Dynasty were extremely powerful. Not to mention the prince, even if the emperor said he would not give face, he would not give face. Therefore, Zhu Yuan's identity as a prince is really not good when he left Beijing. What these officials in Henan were afraid of was the identity of the imperial envoy.

Zhu Yuan opened the curtain of the car, looked at the Kaifeng prefect kneeling on the ground, and asked, "Why didn't your governor and the governor come?" According to the interests of the officialdom, the local officials like the imperial envoy passed by the local government, so those local officials should go out of the city to welcome him thirty miles away. Why did only one prefect come today?

"Sir, Lord Zhang of the Fantai impeached Lord Wu of Futai. According to convention, both Shangguans must avoid it, so the Futai University's talents sent officials to welcome the imperial envoy!"

When Zhu Yuan heard that he was avoiding it, he was reasonable to say it. After all, he was the imperial envoy to investigate the case. It is not good to meet the two parties before the case was investigated.

"Okay, then please ask Lord Xue to lead the way. I will cross the Yellow River today and rest in Kaifeng City!"
Chapter completed!