In this way, early the next morning after Che Liliang fled to Anzhou City, An Kecheng and Cai Menheng made the decision to abandon the city and evacuate to Pyongyang, and then sent people south to report the news without waiting for Pyongyang. Agreeing, he took the troops and people of Anzhou City and fled in a hurry towards Pyongyang City.

Regarding the decision of Anju's pastoral envoy An Kecheng, before brothers Shen Qicheng and Shen Qizhou in Pyongyang Fucheng could stop him, they received news from Sunchuan City ahead and learned about the soldiers and horses of the Anzhou uprising. The people have abandoned the city and gone south.

The person sent by Sunchuan Castle to report the news also brought a letter jointly signed by the Sunchuan Castle garrison and the commanders of the rebels requesting evacuation.

The helpless Shen brothers had no choice but to hold their noses and admit all this, but they ordered the Dingzhou soldiers of Che Liliang, who had followed An Kecheng to retreat, to take over the rebel army sent by Pyongyang and stay in Sunchuan City for security. The people evacuated from the state were cut off.

Fortunately, after the Qing soldiers and horses captured Dingzhou City, they garrisoned the city to rest for two days in accordance with Huang Taiji's order. Otherwise, they might not even have a chance to evacuate.

On the afternoon of November 15, the 13th year of Chongzhen's reign, the remnants of Che Liliang's troops, who had retreated again and again, followed a group of refugees from the north and arrived outside the north gate of Pyongyang City, that is, outside Qingchang Gate.

Pyongyang Fucheng was called Jicheng in ancient times because willow trees were planted inside and outside the city. It was also commonly known as Liujing among the people.

The city is located on a high terrain and is adjacent to the Datong River. It is a strategic location for the North and South of the Dynasty, and it is also an important city in the north of the Li Dynasty.

Pyongyang Fucheng was originally a tall and large-scale city. It was divided into an outer city and an inner city, and each gate of the outer city had urns. It was considered a fortified city that was easy to defend but difficult to attack.

However, by the thirteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, or the fifth year of Chongde's reign in the Puppet Qing Dynasty, Pyongyang's capital city had long lost its former glory.

The city is still large in size, but the original tall outer city and many city defense facilities that were easy to defend and difficult to attack have all disappeared.

——They were first seriously damaged during the chaos of Dingmao when the Qing invaders invaded for the first time, and then were ordered to be completely demolished by the Qing envoys after the chaos of Bingzi when the Qing invaders invaded for the second time.

As for the permanent population of the city, which numbered over 100,000 in the inner and outer cities during its heyday, it also dropped sharply to less than 20,000 during the wars.

Of course, since November, as refugees from the two northern states have fled southward, the population of Pyongyang has returned to its peak level in just over half a month.

However, the sudden increase in population several times did not bring much benefit to the city's defense. Instead, it caused the price of food in the city to skyrocket in the past few days, beggars everywhere, and chaos.

Under such circumstances, brothers Shen Qicheng and Shen Qizhou, who had been actually in charge of the city's affairs since they raised the flag to rebel against the Qing Dynasty, felt no more panic than An Kecheng, Cai Menheng, and Che Li who had fled from Anzhou and Dingzhou. Brighten them less.

In the afternoon of that day, Che Liliang led the remnants of his troops and had just escaped into Qingchang Gate when the Qing Dynasty's vanguard cavalry appeared not far to the north of the city.

Liu Zhiman, the young general in charge of city defense, panicked and ordered the city gates to be closed, locking out a large number of refugees waiting to enter the city.

There were only a few hundred people in the Qing Dynasty's vanguard cavalry that had just arrived. When they arrived outside the city, they did not launch an attack on the city or attack the city gate. However, they frightened the large number of Korean refugees stranded outside the city and simply bypassed the city and fled in all directions.

The rebel defenders on the city, under the command of Liu Zhiman, cautiously fired the general's cannon at the top of the city and pushed back the Qing Dynasty forward cavalry who tried to approach the city wall.

However, the subsequent Qinglu vanguard cavalry reconnaissance around the city still pushed the tense atmosphere in the city to its peak.

"What to do? What to do? The Qing Dynasty's vanguard is coming, can their army be far away? Whether to defend or to withdraw, we have to make up our mind quickly, we have to make up our mind quickly!"

Che Liliang, who had just been escorted into the city by Liu Zhiman and taken to the government office to meet with several big shots in the city, heard someone saying this in a panic as soon as he entered the second hall of the government office.

"Retreat?"

Not long after Che Liliang escaped from Dingzhou City, he secretly regretted his decision to abandon Dingzhou, so when he heard the word "withdraw", he felt a sudden rush in his heart.

The purpose of his choice to flee was to preserve his troops, but what was the result?

In the ice and snow outside the city, they completely lost the protection of the city walls and houses.

After finally pulling up more than 5,000 soldiers and horses, they were pursued by a large number of cavalry and horsemen from the Qing Dynasty. In the end, only more than 1,000 people were left to follow him and escape into Anzhou City.

To make matters worse, he later heard from the refugees who fled to Anzhou City that almost all of the 20,000 to 30,000 people who fled to the coast with the Dingzhou Shepherd were completely wiped out.

After knowing these things, he has been thinking, what would have been the result if he had not fled in a hurry, but had held on with the determination to die?

The worst that can happen is that the entire army will be wiped out.

If tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians defended Dingzhou City, no matter what, they would definitely cause some losses to the Qing soldiers and horses.

Especially for myself, it is better to kill one Qing prisoner and earn one by killing two, than to live with endless humiliation and regret.

Thinking of this, Che Liliang looked at the speaker with great dissatisfaction and contempt.

That person is none other than Shen Qicheng, the younger brother of Bingcao Banshu Shen Qiyuan, the person in charge in Pyongyang Prefecture in recent times.

Che Liliang has very complicated feelings about this Shen Qi Cheng.

As early as late September, when they returned to their respective posts from Zhenjiang Castle and prepared to change their banners to fight against the Qing Dynasty, Shen Qicheng took action earlier than they did, and his action was also ruthless.

At that time, Shen Qicheng, by virtue of his status as the younger brother of Shen Qiyuan, the military commander, had already won over a group of people in Pyongyang City and Jiechuan Mine. As soon as he received the petition for captives from Zhenjiang Fort, he immediately started fighting

Yang Zhen, the general of the Ming Dynasty who conquered the east, ordered the plenipotentiary envoy, the banner of the loyal and loyal Ming army commander-in-chief, and pulled tens of thousands of miners near the Jiechuan mine under his banner.

Gunao

Although the miners who were deceived deserted while marching into Pyongyang City, there were still seven to eight thousand people who arrived at Pyongyang City.

Then, his identity as the younger brother of Shen Qiyuan, the military commander, came into play. The Pyongyang defenders, who were kept in the dark and confused about the situation, opened the city gate. Shen Qi succeeded in taking the city of Pyongyang, and then the war started.

The banner of resisting the Qing Dynasty and returning to the Chinese Empire.

It was not until this time that the officials of the Ping'an Road Supervision Department who were arranged by Liulin to stay in Pyongyang City realized what was going on, but it was too late.

Shen Qicheng quickly took control of the power of Pyongyang Prefecture by relying on the seven or eight thousand rebel miners at the Jiechuan Mine in his hands.

Later, Shen Qizhou led Liu Zhiman to Pyongyang Fucheng. The supervisory officials and the Liu family who were still planning a counterattack quickly stopped after seeing Liu Zhiman.

In the end, some civil and military officials who had close relations with the Shen and Liu families and could no longer get off the ship had to stay.

As for those who were unwilling to take risks and had no close relationship with the Shen family and the Liu family, Shen Qicheng was generous and sent them all out of the city with gifts.

Pyongyang Fucheng, located behind the Second North Road, thus became a banner of the North Korean people's uprising against the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese invaders.

Many small towns in Pyongyang Province and Hamgyeong Province raised their flag to rebel against the Qing Dynasty only after hearing the news about the change of flag in Pyongyang.

In addition to Pyongyang's former status as the capital, Shen Qicheng's identity is too special. He is the younger brother of Li Chaobing Cao Shen Qiyuan.

Those who don't know the inside story take it for granted that Shen Qicheng's slogans and actions of resisting the Qing Dynasty and returning to the Chinese Empire were the intentions of the ruler of Hanyang City, Li Jian, and his ministers.

If it had been anyone else, Li Chao's anti-Qing uprising in the Northern Second Road might not have reached this stage.

Although later events proved that openly raising the banner of anti-Qing Dynasty and resisting the Japanese invaders was probably not the intention of the country's leader Li Zhu, and it was even possible that it did not have the consent of Hanyang City at all.

But it was already too late at this time. It didn't matter if we raised other banners, but the banner of anti-Qing and anti-capitalists was not something that could be raised easily.

And once it's out, this "thief ship" can't just be launched.

Therefore, although some people have realized that they have caused trouble, they can only bite the bullet and follow it.

Even now, when Che Liliang thinks about how Shen Qicheng was able to stir up troubles and accomplish such a feat without a single soldier or horse at the end of September or early October with just a sharp tongue, he is still filled with admiration.

However, his admiration for Shen Qicheng only ended there.

Because after the news came that the Qing Dynasty army crossed the Yangtze River and marched eastwards, slaughtering the capital city of Yizhou, Shen Qicheng's performance really disappointed him.

This is not because Shen Qicheng did anything. On the contrary, it was precisely because he did almost nothing.

At the beginning, when news of the massacres of Uiju-fu, Changseong-gun, Ganggye, Guseong, Yongcheon and other places came one after another, Jeongju City, which was in front of Anju, Suncheon and Pyongyang, was the first to be massacred. time to report to Shen Qicheng and discuss urgent countermeasures.

However, at that time, Shen Qicheng did not believe that the Qing army dared to leave the Zhenjiang Fort behind, which was still in Yang Zhen's hands, and marched eastward.

Shen Qicheng told those who came to Pyongyang Fucheng to report and ask for help that the Qing army had been besieging Zhenjiang Fort for a long time, but there was a shortage of food and grass. They sent troops to Yiju cities along the Ya River to harvest some grass and grain. As long as Zhenjiang Fort was not broken, the Qing forces could The army will never march eastward.

However, it turned out that Shen Qicheng was wrong.

The result of Shen Qicheng's misjudgment was that, be it Dingzhou City, Anzhou City, or other cities guarded by the anti-Qing rebels further back, the time to prepare for war in advance was wasted.

By the time the Qinglu's vanguard had appeared outside Dingzhou City, Che Liliang and the others realized that something was wrong, so they once again asked Shen Qicheng for help and discussed countermeasures.

Shen Qicheng's reply to them was to ask them to immediately send people to Yang Zhen in Zhenjiang Castle for help and ask Yang Zhen to send troops.

Shen Qicheng swore to them that Yang Zhen would not ignore death and would definitely send troops to contain the Qing army.

Facts have proved that Shen Qicheng was wrong again.

The most important thing is that Shen Qicheng not only told the civil and military officials in Dingzhou City that Yang Zhen would definitely send troops, but he also believed in it so much that everyone believed it.

Correspondingly, the abnormal situation in which the Qinglu army stayed outside Dingzhou City for many days without attacking was regarded by everyone as a result of Yang Zhen having sent troops to attack the Qinglu back roads.

So everyone continued to wait quietly for Yang Zhen's Jinhaizhen army to decide the winner against the Qinglu army, once again missing the last chance to join forces and prepare for war.

Then, Che Zhongliang came back from Zhenjiang Fort with accurate news, and then came the fall of Dingzhou City, the death of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Dingzhou, and the hasty abandonment of Anzhou City and Sunchuan City.

Now, Che Liliang has retreated to Pyongyang Fucheng, but the first thing he heard when he came to the government meeting hall was still asking whether he should defend or withdraw.

How could he not be angry?

However, just as Che Liliang was about to speak, holding back his energy and preparing to lash out at Shen Qicheng, he suddenly heard a hoarse voice saying:
Chapter completed!