Chapter 571 0566 [Nighttime Pursuit]

The person who was left by Tong Guan to defend Fuzhou was Yang Yingcheng, the deputy general manager of the Liangzhe cavalry and infantry.

And Yang Yingcheng's brother from the same mother was Yang Yingyan, who recognized Song Huizong in Quzhou.

As soon as Tong Guan left Fuzhou, Yang Yingcheng said to his son Yang Shao: "You go to Min'an Town to contact the Ming army and say that I am willing to surrender Fuzhou City."

"Why didn't father capture Tong Guan and then surrender?" Yang Shao asked.

Yang Yingcheng shook his head: "He is prepared. I have too few soldiers, and I have to beware of sudden mutiny by the Xiang army and the new army."

The military situation in Fujian is extremely complicated. Yang Yingcheng has all Zhejiang soldiers. At the beginning of the year, he followed Tong Guan to Fujian to suppress bandits.

These Zhejiang soldiers heard that their hometown was occupied by the Ming army, and they all wanted to go back.

Tong Guan was afraid of a mutiny, so he divided the Zhejiang soldiers into three parts.

One part was stationed in Tingzhou, and the other part was stationed in Jianning to prevent the rebels who fled into the mountains from coming out again. Tong Guan also promised that he would take the two Zhejiang troops back to his hometown after he returned to Fuzhou to recruit soldiers.

The remaining part was under the command of Xin Xingzong, and had previously followed the Shengjie Army to fight Jianzhou.

Yang Yingcheng, as the deputy general manager of the Liangzhe cavalry and infantry, was left without a single Zhejiang soldier, but instead commanded 20,000 to 30,000 Fujian wing troops and newly recruited local soldiers.

Tong Guan now relies on 5,000 monk soldiers.

He saw that Fujian was full of temples, so he recruited young monks to join the army. The fewer relatives they had, the more preferential treatment they received, and those whose entire family had died could directly become officers.

Yang Yingcheng could not control the troops, and Tong Guan had the protection of monk soldiers, so he could only let him flee Fuzhou overnight.

"General, we caught a spy who claimed to be the son of the Fuzhou garrison commander!"

"Bring him here."

The first thing Yang Shao said when he saw Li Bao was: "General, please send troops quickly. Tong Guan has fled with the emperor and officials. The garrison in Fuzhou has money but no food, which may cause a big chaos."

"Money but no food?" Li Bao didn't pay attention to Tong Guan.

Yang Shao explained: "Tong Guan sent troops to rob sea merchants and seized a lot of wealth. When he supported the new emperor to ascend the throne, he rewarded these wealth to the soldiers and took the opportunity to recruit a large number of new soldiers. But the soldiers got the money, but there was not enough food in the city. Now the price of rice has risen to 3,500 wen per stone!"

Li Bao immediately understood who his enemy was. It was not the fleeing Tong Guan, nor the puppet emperor, but tens of thousands of Fujian soldiers who had no food to eat!

If the food problem is not solved, Li Bao will not be able to gain a foothold in Fujian, unless he can ignore the lives of the people like Tong Guan.

Fujian is originally a mountainous country with little land, and the grain production is extremely low. Tong Guan has been suppressing bandits here for more than half a year. He has issued several orders to collect military rations, and has already collected all the food from the lower-class people.

Li Bao asked: "Are grain merchants hoarding food?"

Yang Shao shook his head and said: "Local grain merchants have no food. Although Tong Guan did not rob them openly, he forced them to sell at a low price. Those who refused to sell food were colluding with the bandits...colluding with the Ming Dynasty. Even the gentry around Fuzhou City were forcibly confiscated by Tong Guan and his troops. If they resisted, they would be arrested and killed in the name of colluding with bandits."

"Where can we get the nearest food?" Li Bao asked again.

"Quanzhou!"

Yang Shao said without hesitation: "There has not been a war there, and not only the gentry and merchants have food, but also a large amount of food is piled up in temples. Temples such as Kaiyuan Temple and Shaolin Temple have not only annexed countless lands, but also controlled the inland river business and supplied goods to those sea merchants all year round."

"Why didn't Tong Guan rob the Quanzhou temples?" Li Bao asked.

Yang Shao replied, "I heard that Liangzhe was occupied by the Ming Dynasty, and Tong Guan also sent several thousand soldiers to Quanzhou to collect grain, but was beaten back by the monks and soldiers jointly organized by various temples."

Li Bao was surprised and said, "Tong Guan's soldiers were defeated by the monks and soldiers?"

Yang Shao explained, "There are countless temples in Quanzhou, and the monks and soldiers of the largest ones alone add up to tens of thousands! In fact, there are more temples in Fuzhou, but Tong Guan's army is here, they dare not resist, and they took the initiative to provide some food, so Tong Guan did not tear his face and rob again."

Li Bao asked about Yang Shao's situation again and ordered, "Let your father appease the soldiers in the city and tell those soldiers that military rations will be delivered soon. Anyone who dares to rebel will not only be sentenced to death, but also his family will not be able to buy food. Also, immediately collect inland ships, I will lead the troops to chase Tong Guan!"

Yang Shao was a little embarrassed: "When Xin Xingzong sent troops, he took away a batch of ships outside Fuzhou City, and the rest were all taken away by Tong Guan."

"Collect as many as you can!" Li Bao said.

Half an hour later, Li Bao led a thousand people into the city, and the follow-up troops were coming one after another.

Yang Yingcheng admired this very much. If it were him, he would never dare to enter the city directly. What if the defenders set up an ambush?

The reason why Li Bao was so bold was because he made Song Huizong disappear.

How could Tong Guan control the army of a small court that had lost its emperor? There has been no mutiny until now, which can only be said that Tong Guan is very capable.

Li Bao asked directly: "How many boats have you got?"

Yang Yingcheng said: "There are only 20 to 30 small boats left, and each boat can only carry a dozen people at most."

Li Bao asked again: "How many soldiers are there in the city?"

Yang Yingcheng said: "More than 37,000, all of them are wing troops and newly recruited rural soldiers. If they are taken out of the city, they can't even beat the bandits."

Li Bao asked again: "How many temples are there in Fuzhou?"

Yang Yingcheng said: "Three or four hundred."

Of course, there are more than three or four hundred. There are 539 regular temples (excluding Taoist temples and obscene sacrifices). When the males of the peasant families came of age, they all became monks. Some officials said that half of them became monks, while others said that one third of them became monks.

Even when Tong Guan was forming an army in Fuzhou, he recruited a large number of monks. As long as he did not rob temples, the abbots were willing to send monks to join the army.

Li Bao said: "Let a few locals guide me, I will lead the troops to chase Tong Guan immediately!"

Yang Yingcheng reminded: "Tong Guan left by boat, I only collected 20 to 30 small boats."

"That's enough, there are still some river boats in Min'an Town." Li Bao said.

In the surprised eyes of Yang Yingcheng, Li Bao led the troops on board with a torch.

Due to the small number of boats, Li Bao led only more than 700 soldiers and only a small amount of dry food. How could he row a small boat to chase Tong Guan?

In addition, he took off his armor and outer clothes and only wore a single piece of clothing in the winter.

Yang Shao had an admiring expression on his face: "General Li is really a brave general!"

Yang Yingcheng muttered to himself: "Mad man."

In fact, Yang Yingcheng was also quite crazy. In history, he offered advice to Zhao Gou, wanting to send troops to land in Goryeo by sea boat and go straight into the heart of the Jin Kingdom to rescue Emperor Huizong and Emperor Qinzong.

…

On Tong Guan’s side, there were the emperor and officials, as well as five thousand monk soldiers, carrying a large amount of wealth and food, and the fleet stretched for three or four miles along the Minjiang River.

It was dark at night and the speed was very slow.

By dawn, the ship at the front had not even reached Baisha Town.

Thousands of monk soldiers were whispering on the boat. Although most of them had no family or had long lost contact with their families, this did not mean that they were willing to leave their hometown.

Moreover, the Song Dynasty was about to fall, so why would they be buried with the court?

The reason why they did not immediately mutiniate was because the leading monk officers had been bribed by Tong Guan’s crazy rewards.

Tong Guan even promised that as long as they reached Nanjianzhou, the entire army could plunder for three days.

The sky gradually turned pale, and the scenery on both sides of the Minjiang River became clearer.

The puppet little emperor behind Tong Guan was held in the arms of a woman, and the mother and son sat there trembling.

It was not a royal family at all. Tong Guan just got a child named Zhao to fill the number.

He only hoped that the Fuzhou garrison could delay for some time so that he could escape smoothly. It would be best if the whole city was in chaos, and the Ming army generals needed to devote their energy to suppressing the rioters.

Tong Guan did not dare to defend Fuzhou at all, because the wing troops had already shown signs of mutiny. Once the Ming army began to attack, the Fujian wing troops were very likely to defect.

Tong Guan said to his personal soldiers: "Go and pass the order again. When we arrive in Nanjian Prefecture, the whole army will plunder for three days. Except for the food that must be handed in, the rest of the property and women can be kept by themselves."

The personal soldier immediately rowed a small boat and shouted to the boats along the way: "The Grand Master has ordered that when we arrive in Nanjian Prefecture, the whole army will plunder for three days..."

Hearing the reiteration of this order, thousands of soldiers finally felt safe. Even if some people wanted to return to Fuzhou, they planned to rob once and then return.

The officials taken away by Tong Guan naturally heard this passage.

Xie Ruyi, the chief judge, was furious: "This eunuch, for his own survival, did not care about the lives of thousands of people."

"Alas, he has soldiers in his hands, what can we do?" Mao Kui, the transport envoy, sighed, "We were forced to participate in supporting the new monarch, and Tong Guan has cut off our retreat. Even if we surrender to the new dynasty, we will be punished."

Zhao Yu, the deputy transport envoy, said: "We must find a way to escape. We can find a loophole to escape to the mountains while looting Nanjianzhou."

Cao Zai, the transport judge, said: "Our families are all on another boat. If we want to come to Nanjianzhou, we will also be guarded by Tong Guan's soldiers. We may be able to escape, but do we not care about the lives of our families?"

The officials were silent for a moment.

"Dongdongdongdongdong!"

A dull drum sound suddenly came from behind.

Xie Ruyi stood up suddenly: "Are the pursuers coming?"

"Not so fast?" Cao Zai muttered.

"Kill!"

"Run away!"

In the dim morning light, Li Bao led more than 700 soldiers, not even wearing armor, and came to kill in a small boat with drums.

Tong Guan robbed all the inland ships in Fuzhou. The fleet stretched for three or four miles. The number of soldiers was more than Li Bao's, and the boat was taller than Li Bao's boat.

But no one dared to resist!

The tail of Tong Guan's fleet heard the drums and shouts of killing, and no matter how many pursuers came, they were scared to shore and wanted to escape into the mountains. Some people even jumped into the Minjiang River because of excessive fear.

Tong Guan was in the front position in the middle of the fleet. He only knew that the pursuers were coming, but he couldn't figure out what was going on.

He urged the boatman to speed up, but the boats in front of him came to shore one after another, and from time to time, a boat blocked Tong Guan's boat when it was heading to the shore.

Hearing the shouts and screams getting closer, the fleet behind was in chaos. Tong Guan was so scared that he shouted: "Dock, dock quickly!"

The group of civil servants were detained on a boat, and they were all scared.

Only Xie Ruyi, the chief judge, shouted to the soldiers guarding him: "Do you want to live? If you want to live, listen to me!"

The monk soldiers looked at each other, and suddenly one of them knelt down and said: "Please save me, sir!"

Xie Ruyi said: "Hold the nearby ships and say that I have received the order of Emperor Zhu of the Ming Dynasty. Those who are willing to turn against us can tear their left sleeves and follow me to capture the traitor Tong Guan. As long as you turn against us, you can be exempted from punishment. If you make merit, you will be rewarded!"

Zhao Chen reminded: "It's too long, I can't remember it. Just shout eight words: Capture Tong Guan, there will be a huge reward!"

"Yes, capture Tong Guan, there will be a huge reward!" Xie Ruyi nodded quickly.

"Catch Tong Guan, there will be a huge reward!"

"Catch Tong Guan, there will be a huge reward!"

"..."

The shouts echoed on the Minjiang River. The soldiers who had planned to go to Nanjianzhou to plunder for three days now followed suit and shouted, treating Tong Guan as a tool for their own promotion and wealth.

Some soldiers who wanted to flee to the shore did not rush to run after hearing the shouts, but shouted slogans and rushed towards Tong Guan on the boat.

The river became more chaotic, and Li Bao's troops were blocked.

Li Bao was not distressed, as he was good at disrupting battles and was happy to beat drums to cheer on the soldiers who defected.