Anyway, Xiuwu County has completely restored the entire Huaiqing Prefecture and opened up a road to Weihui for the Shun Army.

Weihui Prefecture "connects ten provinces in the south, and arches the Shenjing in the north", is adjacent to Taihang in the west, the Yellow River in the south, Qilu in the east, and Shenjing in the north. Its area is all plains and is also an important wharf on the Wei River in the north of Henan.

The capture of Wei Hui not only allowed the Shun Army of the Eastern Expedition to meet with the Shun Army of Shandong, but also allowed the northern bank of the Yellow River to connect with Zhangde, the prominent part of the Yellow River, and also allowed the Shun Army to rely on the Wei River to transport military food and materials to support the Northern Expedition, which is of great significance.

In view of the importance of Weihui's geography, the Qing court then sent Zu Kefa, a famous Han army flag general, to guard it.

After the Shun Army entered Xiuwu, he had different opinions on whether to attack Weihui City, the First Army Admiral Gao Yigong and the Second Army Admiral Liu Tichun.

Gao Yigong believed that the entire Weihui territory was plain terrain and was very easy to fight by cavalry, so he suggested that a small number of troops be kept to monitor Weihui's Qing army, the main force passed around the city and headed straight for Zhangde, and launched a large-scale killing to the capital, "Capture the king first."

The advantage of this solution is that it is maneuvering and fast, which can greatly shorten the time it takes to visit Beijing.

However, Liu Tichun believed that Weihui City must be taken down, because if he passed around the city, the rear grain road and Weihe Wharf would be easily taken advantage of by the Qing army.

Moreover, due to the nail in Weihui City, the Huai Army on the south bank of the Yellow River could not echo the main force of the Eastern Expedition and gave certain support, and the strength would be dispersed.

Lu Si asked Gu Junen, the left assistant who was accompanying the army, and Gu Junen suggested that the First Army could go north to Zhangde under Gao Yigong's leadership, take down Tangyin, and cut off the liaison between Zhangde and Wei Hui. The Second Army and the Third Army worked together to attack Wei Hui, without giving the Henan Qing army any possibility of threatening the army's retreat.

Lu Si still had enough time, so there was no need to leave a "nail" behind him in order to take down Beijing as soon as possible. He ordered the march to Wei Hui and set the reward chart. Anyone who could capture and kill Henan Governor Luo Xiujin, and all the officials were promoted to the third level and rewarded a thousand taels of silver.

In Weihui City, the Qing army was in a worrying situation.

After Luo Xiujin abandoned Huaiqing, he and General Liu Fangming gathered the remaining troops to retreat to Weihui, but the general Zu Kefa Department had only more than 5,000 people, and the two groups of people and Luo Xiujin's fugu were only more than 12,000 people.

The morale of the army was even more sluggish due to Huaiqing's fall.

Last year, Zhang Guozhu's troops in the fifth town of the Huai Army severely damaged Zukefa's troops who crossed Henan and wiped out thousands of enemies. Later, the fifth town surrounded Zukefa in Yangwu City for nearly half a year under the command of the brigade commander Xie Jinsheng, and later led his troops to attack Weihui City twice. Although he failed to break the city, it also greatly damaged the morale of the Qing army. If it were not for Duoduo, Prince of Yu of Qing, who led his army to return from Shaanxi, Xie Jinsheng would have been forced to retreat, Wei Hui might have changed hands.

On July 16, Henan Governor Luo Xiujin sent an urgent memorial to the Qing court to send reinforcements, saying: "Shun bandits crossed north, the bandit leader secretly called the country, and took Li Ni's name, Jiyuan and Huaiqing fell one after another. The bandits were arrogant and arrogant. They saw that Shun bandits were cunning and deceitful. Weihui Town led Huaiqing Town to guard Hui. The soldiers from each county responded separately. They also reported that the bandits on the south bank of the Yellow River were peeping along the river and asked the generals of the ministers to ask the Manchu soldiers to quickly urge the horses and soldiers to work together to sweep the storm, and the war and defense were all dependent."

On the 18th, Luo Xiujin asked the Qing court again, saying: "I actually investigated the attack on the Shun thieves. There were more than 10,000 horse thieves and 100,000 thieves in the thieves. There were still 50,000 thieves and 60,000 thieves before they arrived later. Seeing that they were defeated, the Wei and other people had already arrived. Now the bandits have arrived at the clever schemes of the bandits. I want to occupy the mouth of the river and invade Beijing. Moreover, there is still a thief atmosphere south of the river. The east of the Wei is especially thief. If there is a connection between three places, it is difficult to plan. I am begging to order the Ministry of War to quickly urge the troops to come on a starry night to rescue them."

Two letters of 800 miles were issued one day after another, which shows that Henan Governor Luo Xiujin was panicked at this time.

In the secret letter from General Wei Hui, the Zu Kefa to his adoptive father, Dashou, was also pessimistic about the situation, saying: "The King of Ying went south and the King of Yu went north. The Central Plains was not full, so that thieves rose up everywhere. If Wei Hui was at the hands of the thieves, his son thought it was difficult to save the capital, and his father should go out of seclusion early. If his father had his wishes, please make an appointment early."

When Zu Kefa's secret letter was still halfway, Huojia County, the west gate of Weihui surrendered to the guards, and a dispute broke out in the city.

As Wei Hui’s western gate, the importance of Huojia is not to be said much.

Henan Governor Luo Xiujin sent Deputy General Liu Tianlu to lead 3,000 troops to guard Huojiacheng. In the city, there were also Henan Right Consort Yuan Youlong, Henan Inspector Tian Wenqi and others. Yuan, Tian and others were all surrendered to the former Ming Dynasty.

Liu Tianlu was under the command of the Han army, and was the deputy general under Zu Dashou in his early years. Later, he and Zu Dashou surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the Daling River. In order to surrender to the Qing Dynasty, Zu Dashou killed Yuan Chonghuan's beloved general He Kegang, and the one who directly attacked Liu Tianlu.

However, Zu Dashou then used the excuse of returning to Jinzhou to persuade him to surrender and return to Ming again. Liu Tianlu originally returned to Ming with Zu Dashou, but was caught by the Qing cavalry halfway. Therefore, Liu Tianlu was not trusted by the Qing court and only served as the assistant commander in the Han army. After the Henan Admiral Jin Yuhe died in the battle, he took office as deputy general from Beijing.

Tian Wenqi and others heard that the Shun Army killed all the officials and gentry who surrendered late in Wuduo. Xiuwu County took the initiative to surrender again, and they were all afraid. They saw that the Shun Army was so large that the governor led people to Weihui, so they insisted on opening the city to surrender, and prevented the officials and gentry from burning all the jades and stones from being burned by the Shun Army.

Yuan Youlong, the right-sponsor of Henan, also had the intention to surrender, but the camp soldiers were commanded by Liu Tianlu. Liu refused to surrender. If he said that surrender, he would probably land immediately.

Tian Wenqi had an idea to capture Liu Tianlu, so he bought Liu's subordinate 1,000 generals with a large sum of money, and suddenly took it while Liu was not doing anything.

After Liu Tianlu was captured, Yuan Youlong immediately sent people out of the city to contact the surrender. Because he heard that Wudou County had opened the door half an hour late, the officials and people called for killing the emperor. Therefore, before the Shun Army could not say that the officials in the city were retained, Tian Wenqi couldn't wait to lead people to open the city gate.

"From now on, the army will not threaten the city massacre, but only the officials."

"If the civil and military officials and their families do not surrender within the deadline, they will slaughter them all to serve as a warning. This will enable all the military and civilians in the world to know that we will obey the orders of our army and avoid unnecessary casualties."

In front of the city gate, Lu Si personally dismounted the horse and helped Yuan Youlong, Tian Wenqi and others surrendered to the officials, praising them for their family and country in their hearts, but were actually people with integrity.

After entering the city, he ordered Liu Tianlu and others to take him over. Yuan and Tian secretly reported to a certain official, and XX was resistant to surrendering Dashunxin.

Lu Siming brought all of them, and they went to the underworld without asking or reviewing them.

This move is to clearly tell Henan and Beizhi that the Qing government will drive officials to the Qing government and not surrender, and then kill your whole family after breaking the city. Even if the family is not in the city, after the name is recorded, the army will come to your hometown in the future and tie the knife.

On that day, Yuan Youlong was appointed as the governor of Henan and Tian Wenqi was appointed as the governor of Huaiqing.
Chapter completed!