In mid-to-late October, the capital was calm and rainless, but there was no hint of autumn. It had been cloudy for many days, with thick clouds pressing down on the sky, and the palace above seemed within reach.
Since Emperor Zhu Gaochi ascended the throne, he had hardly ever left the palace. He moved mostly between the harem, the imperial gate, and the eastern warm pavilion. Zhu Gaochi always preferred quietness and did not like to move. He was mostly sitting or lying down. He usually rode the imperial chariot or had someone carry him in a sedan chair to go to those places.
However, Zhu Gaochi was very diligent and spent most of his time every day reviewing memorials or summoning ministers to discuss matters.
In the past, he had some resentment towards the late emperor in his heart; but after more than a year on the throne, he now understands the late emperor a little! Zhu Gaoxu personally felt that this position was really not easy to sit on, and once he s
Baoqing Mansion, about two thousand miles away from the capital, was not really a battleground among the thousands of miles of territory of the entire Ming Dynasty. At this time, Baoqing Mansion had a limited population, and the villages in various states, counties and villages were not very prosperous.There were not many civilians within a radius of dozens of miles of where the King of Han's army was stationed. Hundreds of thousands of troops had been stationed here for many days, and there was news that the army was heading south. Now all the civilians who could escape ran away!So in late October, this place seemed a little lonely.However, the battle here is undoubtedly being watched by hundreds of millions of officials and civilians in more than a dozen provinces and more than a thousand counties of the Ming Dynasty! Although the battle will break out in this place, the court and the Han Palace have been recruiting soldiers, collecting taxes, and trans
The red sun has risen above the mountains and forests in the east, and cotton-like clouds are floating in the blue sky. The breeze blows and the sky is quiet.But there was noisy turmoil on the ground. The two armies were separated by two or three miles, and had gradually begun to form a grand confrontation between the north and the south.Zhang Fu looked to the south, and his ears were filled with the impassioned speech of a civil servant not far away, "The saint is benevolent, cares for his people, treats his soldiers kindly, and is welcomed by the world! The traitor king has a reputation for being brutal, cruel, murderous, and debauched. Without restraint, wherever you go, life will be ruined, and the people will be filled with blood and tears. This is a great disaster for the country. I hope that all officers and soldiers will fight the enemy with all their strength, serve the country and the people, repay the emperor's kindness, and bring peace to the people.
The troops in front of the right wing army were the thousands of cavalry led by Wang Bin. They walked very slowly at first, not far from the infantry formation behind them, and spread forward in a sparse formation in the middle of the entire right wing battlefield.The cavalry at the front was less than a mile away from the government army’s formation!"Boom boom boom..." The enemy's heavy artillery sounded one after another. In the endless crowd in the distance, flames flashed at intervals; the flames of the exploding gunpowder sprayed out of the muzzle, very bright. The smoke was like lightning and thunder in the clouds!The huge stone bullets in the air made a terrifying whistling sound, as if they were stones falling from the clouds, and hit the ground with loud "bangs"."Hiss!" A horse not far away let out a terrifying cry and fell to the side. The man on the horse also shouted loudly, and a moment later, he was heard shouting, "My leg bones and r
In the distance, the enemy's artillery fire continued to sound like thunder. Zhu Gaoxu shouted, turned his horse and passed by the ruins of a burnt village. Soon, he led a group of soldiers to rush up the northern hillside. The hillside was bare with only charred wood and ashes.The enemy's formation was two or three hundred steps away! Dust and fog rolled in the air, and smoke filled the distance. Amid the huge roar, the enemy's artillery flashed and was extremely dazzling. In the smoke, pieces of muskets flashed, and arrows in the sky were like swarms of locusts.Although it was a sunny day, the sky above the enemy's formation in the north seemed hazy as if covered by dark clouds.The smoke was so thick that Zhu Gaoxu could not see the fighting on the front line clearly; but within his sight, he could see the cavalry of the King of Han Army falling off their horses one after another, and the scene more than 200 steps away was very tragic. He could also hea
Deep inside Xue Lu's army's formation, there were a few cries amidst the noisy voices.At this moment, a flash of fire suddenly appeared on two gentle slopes nearly a mile away! People could see the flashes through the smoke.A moment later, a burst of cannon fire was heard. By the time the soldiers heard the cannon fire, the cannonballs had already flown into the crowd!Then there were dull crashes and clanking sounds of armor in the dense formation! In one place, a long line of soldiers from three hundred-household teams fell down one after another.In an instant, a shell bounced several times on the ground, and finally rolled to the back on the ground with smoke. Only then did people see that it was an iron ball! A cloud of dust flew up among the crowd."Ah!" Cries and screams came from everywhere. Some people didn't make a sound at all, and had already fallen to the ground. The air was filled with blood mist and a fishy smell. The corpses on
The right wing of the Han army had already approached the enemy's front and was engaging in a large-scale battle.The air was filled with the sound of firecrackers on New Year's Day, and the "crackling" sound of muskets continued. On the smoky battlefield, rows of flashes appeared one after another, and the sound of people filled the space between heaven and earth.In the infantry formations of both sides, people kept falling from the ranks. Corpses could be seen lying everywhere on the undulating terrain.Zhu Gaoxu watched the battlefield and saw that the main cavalry led by Ping An was still fighting with a large number of government cavalry. Although Ping An had fewer men, he should have gained some advantages; the situation on the left wing of his cavalry was within sight, and the battle line there was gradually moving northward.When Zhu Gaoxu turned his head and looked to the left and rear, he saw an endless sea of infantry moving and spreading,
"This battle concerns the fate of the Ming Dynasty. How important is it? Can you bear it?" Xue Lu shouted with a sullen face, "Whoever runs away will be killed!"However, more and more people were fleeing and retreating, and the area within a radius of more than two miles was in chaos! The law enforcement team with machetes was too small to scare too many people in the square formation.In the distance, two law enforcement soldiers were brandishing their knives and yelling as they hacked at people, when they were suddenly pulled off their horses by the surging fleeing soldiers. After a while, after a group of people trampled over them, the law enforcement soldiers were reduced to two piles of blood and flesh.Xue Lu looked at the retreating formation, which was becoming increasingly chaotic, and stretched out his hand, unconsciously making a useless movement. His palms opened and closed, as if he was casting a spell to stop the collapse.The spell obvi
The left wing (west) of the Han army, led by Zhao Ping, was waiting in battle array, but had not yet launched an attack; however, they began to be actively attacked by the government troops.The commander-in-chief here was Zhao Ping, and his deputy generals were Lu Zhen, the deputy governor of the military governor's office, and Wang Yu, the deputy governor of the military governor's office. Among the army, Yin Desheng, the deputy commander of the Yunnan vanguard, led more than a thousand infantrymen in the second-line square group, commanding two large squares.Further to the left of the left wing army's formation is the Fuyi River; the soldiers standing on the hillside to form the battle formation could probably see the river surface if they looked west.The cavalry surged in front and on the sides of the formation, the hooves roared and the strings rang like rain. But those cavalry were definitely enemy troops! The Han army had almost no decent cavalry on