Chapter 503 502 Xinghua Falls

In November of the 41st year of Jiajing, Xinghua Prefecture had four doors open, and people were coming and going, and there were endless traffic.

Fujian is known as the land of Fujian. In fact, it means that the eight prefectures under Fujian are under the jurisdiction of Fujian. As one of the eight prefectures, Xinghua Prefecture, the economy is prosperous. Although the land is the smallest among the eight prefectures, the population of Xinghua Prefecture has been

The reason for the outflow is that most people here are unwilling to dig food in the land, but are willing to do business.

As the saying goes, all businessmen are not rich, so naturally Xinghua City is small and there are few people, but it is one of the richest places in Fujian.

Three months ago, Japanese pirates landed in Xinghua Prefecture, ransacked Cai's house, Hangtou and other villages, and Japanese ships filled the moat and planned to besiege the city.

In order to protect themselves, fierce battles broke out between local boatmen, hunters and Japanese pirates, and both sides had their own victories and losses. The war was in a stalemate. After defeating Zhang Lian's rebels, Qi Jiguang's troops were ordered to rush to Fuzhou. The remnants of Japanese pirates and Putian Japanese pirates gathered and stationed in the city.

In Lindun.

Qi Jiguang led his army to pursue this point, and once again attacked the Japanese pirates, achieving a great victory, beheaded, captured alive, and burned more than 2,000 Japanese pirates, and then returned to Zhejiang in October.

Only more than a month have passed since the battle to suppress the Japanese. As a result, the people of Xinghua Prefecture naturally believe that they can have peace for a while, and at least there is no problem in spending a happy New Year. Naturally, Xinghua Prefecture has been in the past few days.

When the door opened, farmers and merchants around rushed out of the Fucheng to do work and merchants.

At the north gate of Xinghua Prefecture, the city gate was open, and several city gate soldiers were bored and scattered together, ignoring the crowd coming and going.

Although the sun is hanging high at this time, it is still a bit cold as the New Year is approaching.

At this moment, there were suddenly crowds of people on the distant pipeline, and a large number of people rushed towards the city, and there were constant screams.

Seeing the chaos in the distance, the city gate army naturally could not stay there. They had to get up and prepare to suppress them so that these people could maintain order when entering and leaving the city gate.

But soon, they realized something was wrong.

The crowd used was very chaotic, everyone was panicked, and some farmers even carried large bags or carried them, and carried their families to the city gate.

Only when the chaotic crowd approached did the city gate army hear clearly what they were shouting.

"Japanese pirates, Japanese pirates are here again, run away."

The sound of Japanese pirates coming one after another made the pedestrians in front of them feel shocked and panic.

The team leader who was guarding the gate looked at the crowd running, grabbed a younger young man and asked, "Where are the Japanese pirates? Did you see it?"

“There are so many behind”

The young man replied panting.

"Where? How many people are there?"

Hearing his vague answer, the team leader was reluctant to slap him, but now he was the main thing to ask clearly the situation, so he couldn't help but continue to ask.

"There are Japanese pirates in those towns behind, and there are many, and I'm afraid there are thousands or tens of thousands of people."

This time, the young man's words were a little clearer, allowing the team leader to roughly know the situation.

A large number of Japanese pirates appeared in villages and towns outside Fucheng. Thinking of this, the team leader felt his scalp numb and quickly asked again: "Did you see it with your own eyes?"

"See, they rob and kill people."

Then later generations may have been so scared that they saw the cruelty of the Japanese pirates, so they could only answer his questions in simple sentences.

However, this was enough for the team leader to figure out the situation in front of him. Although he had not seen any traces of Japanese turmoil at the moment, he did not doubt anything else under such circumstances.

He let go of his hand and let the later generations rush into the city gate in a panic. He turned around and called two soldiers, and ordered one of them: "You, go to the city immediately to inform the generals of the sect, that the Japanese pirates are coming."

Then he called another person to instruct, "And you, please inform other city gates immediately that Japanese pirates are coming, and close the city gate."

After giving the order, he cursed and asked his subordinates to close the city gate, even as the people rushed in from afar.

The people near the city gate were undoubtedly lucky for the time being. They ran into the city before the city gate was closed, while the people behind could only slap the thick city gate desperately, but at this time the Ming army no longer cared about their life or death, so they could only do so.

They were locked outside the city.

Soon, hundreds of households went up to the city tower. Seeing that they were gathering more and more people, they could only call for them to find a place to hide from the Japanese pirates, and advised them to leave here as soon as possible and head to the direction of Xianyou County.

The news of the attack of the Japanese pirates was quickly informed by the soldiers at the city gate.

At this time, the highest official position in Xinghua Prefecture was naturally Weng Shiqi, the deputy envoy of Xingquan Dao, Bi Gao, and Xi Shiliang, who became the de facto prefect in Xinghua Prefecture because of the affairs of the prefecture.

Soon, the three of them gathered together to discuss the matter.

In fact, in the face of the attack of Japanese pirates, the coastal prefectures and counties had already established a strategy, which was to close the city gates and seek emergency assistance.

This discussion was naturally arranged according to this arrangement. Xi Shiliang was responsible for recruiting the strong men in the city to assist in the food of the defenders and soldiers. At the same time, martial law was strictly followed in the city and the identity of the people in the city was strictly investigated.

The Baojia system formed after the founding of the Ming Dynasty made great advantages at this time, and it was easy to identify the people in the city. Those who could not confirm their identities would naturally be temporarily detained.

General Bi Gao was responsible for defending the city, and at the same time sent a post to detect the situation with a hanging basket out of the city to detect the false and real Japanese pirates.

Weng Shiqi hurriedly wrote official documents, and was shocked to the governor of Fujian. The governor of Fujian and Guangdong, Zhang Nie, reported to him and asked for reinforcements.

The entire Xinghua Prefecture City soon entered a state of war readiness, because Japanese pirates were attacked from time to time, whether it was the people or the soldiers, they all completed their work step by step.

When the city guards saw the Japanese pirates, it was too late and the Japanese pirates did not attack the city that day.

Just kidding, after all, it is a prefecture city, and the city wall is significantly higher than that of the county town, so it is not easy to attack rashly.

In fact, there were many cities in the Ming Dynasty that were captured by Japanese pirates, but not many were captured in real siege battles. Most of them were disguised and mixed in to capture the city in one fell swoop. When the Ming army was already prepared, such a city attack and defense battle,

Even Japanese pirates who can fight well will not be able to get it.

In the following days, the Japanese pirates chose to siege the city and loot the surrounding villages and towns.

Although sneak attacks on the city were launched from time to time, they were discovered and repelled by the Ming army guarding the city.

Seeing this situation, Weng Shiqi, Bi Gao, Xi Shiliang and others naturally relaxed their vigilance. The situation is very good now, and you only need to wait for reinforcements to expel the Japanese pirates.

At this time, after receiving the news that Japanese pirates attacked Xinghua Prefecture City, Fujian Governor You Zhen thought of receiving a document sent by Weng Zhang Nie, the governor of Fujian and Guangdong, two days ago. He knew that the Governor had sent Liu Xian to lead troops to rescue Xinghua Prefecture, so naturally he also

He was not panicked, but sent someone to send official documents to Liu Xian, asking him to speed up the marching and arrive at Xinghua Prefecture as soon as possible to rescue the siege.

After receiving the official documents sent by Zhang Nie, he had sent official documents to prefectures along the way, and naturally informed Liu Xian's army of his way and asked the officials along the way to provide food and supplies.

However, whether it was Zhang Nie or You Zhende, they overestimated the number of people around Liu Xian at this moment, and the provos sent by Xinghua Prefecture City also underestimated the Japanese pirates this time.

According to the official documents of Xinghua Prefecture for help, more than 2,000 Japanese pirates attacked the city, and at this time Liu Xian led only 700 soldiers to Xinghua Prefecture.

On the way, Liu Xian received a document sent by Zhang Nie and You Zhende, which gave him a general understanding of the situation of the Japanese pirates around Xinghua Prefecture.

Xinghua Prefecture City has been surrounded, so it is impossible for him to lead his troops into the city.

A brief comparison of the hundreds of people around him and the more than 2,000 Japanese pirates shows that he could not go straight to Xinghua Prefecture, and because of the Quanzhou plague, Liu Xian had to lead his troops to take a detour.

When Liu Xian led his troops to Yingxian Village, forty miles away from Xinghua Prefecture, Liu Xian's troops met a large number of people who escaped from Xinghua Prefecture.

Seeing the official army, the people naturally rushed to ask for help.

When Liu Xian faced these fleeing people, he heard about the atrocities of the Japanese pirates and the tragic situation in the village, but chose to temporarily station and repair them, and at the same time began to recruit soldiers to supplement the shortage of troops.

However, what he didn't know was that among the fleeing crowd, there were also a large number of spies from Japanese pirates.

In fact, most of the Japanese pirates were from Ming people, and there were not many real Japanese people.

At this time, these Ming Japanese pirates pretended to be fleeing people, and for Liu Xian, they naturally could not distinguish between authenticity.

His resident in Yingxianzhai to recruit soldiers naturally made the Japanese pirates understand the reality of their troops and horses, and their lack of troops.

In fact, the Japanese pirates who invaded Xinghua Prefecture this time were divided into two groups. The target of one group was naturally to loot Xinghua Prefecture and wait for an opportunity to seize the city. There were more than 6,000 Japanese pirates, which was the main force of the Japanese pirates this time, while the target of the other group was

It was Fuqing, who wanted to stop the rescue sent by the Ming army from Fuzhou.

The Japanese pirates also knew that Quanzhou Prefecture, south of Xinghua Prefecture, was in trouble, so they naturally avoided it. Correspondingly, the Ming army would never come to support it from this direction.

At this time, Liu Xian's order to recruit soldiers made the Japanese pirates feel relieved and also sent many spies to take this opportunity to sneak into Liu Xian's army, and all this was not prepared for Liu Xian.

After these people were involved in Liu Xian's army, they only took on the task of spying on military information. Therefore, the details of Liu Xian's army were fully discovered by the Japanese pirates.

At this time, Weng Shiqi, the deputy envoy in Xinghua Prefecture City, also received news that Liu Xian's army was close to each other, and hurriedly posted a message urging Liu Xian's troops to rescue the Prefecture City.

After receiving the official document, Liu Xian had to send 200 people to Xinghua Prefecture City for support due to insufficient troops and spy on the way to explore the Japanese pirates.

However, as soon as the reinforcements left the camp, the news was discovered by Japanese pirates.

The Japanese pirates set up an ambush halfway, almost wiped out the Ming army, and only dozens of people fled back to Yingxian Village.

Faced with the strength of the Japanese pirates, Liu Xian was even more afraid to act rashly. He had to recruit and train soldiers while sending documents to gather surrounding troops, hoping to strengthen his strength as soon as possible and rescue Xinghua Prefecture.

However, Liu Xian also knew the nature of the Ming Dynasty civil servants and was worried that the deputy envoy Weng Shiqi would impeach him, so he sent eight military soldiers to bring documents to pass on the letter to Weng Shiqi to tell the actual situation, hoping to use this to make them feel at ease.

, just wait for rescue with peace of mind.

However, these eight messengers were killed by the Japanese pirates on the way, and their documents were also robbed by the Japanese pirates.

It was the documents they carried that were used by Japanese pirates as a weapon to break the city.

On November 29, eight soldiers in uniform of Ming army appeared outside the north gate of Xinghua City, claiming that they were messengers sent by General Liu Xian.

Weng Shiqi led Xi Shiliang and Li Bangguang, the chief magistrate of the mansion, to check the official documents, and then asked someone to bring them up to the city.

Although Xi Shiliang and Li Bangguang both felt that these soldiers were suspicious and asked Weng Shiqi to temporarily detain them, Weng Shiqi was angry because Liu Xian's troops were scarce and dared not come to help. He angrily scolded Xi Shiliang and Li Bangguang, and

These soldiers were arranged to join the soldiers guarding the city in the north gate to supplement the city's defense.

And all this hit the Japanese pirates' plan.

That night, several Japanese pirates killed other Ming soldiers beside them, led the Japanese pirates to build a ladder on the north gate wall and quickly captured the north gate. When the city gate opened, the fall of Xinghua Prefecture was inevitable.
To be continued...