I Build an Aircraft Carrier in the Ming Dynasty

After the archers of the Qing army arrived, the messenger suddenly came with bad news. "General, Wu Jun appears in the northeast. There are thousands of people, and it is less than two miles away from us."

This news shocked several Qing army generals. The Wu army appeared too suddenly. It must not have started from Bengbu, otherwise it would not have been so fast.

Is there a connection between these two things?

Qu Youjin suddenly thought of a possibility, and immediately panicked even more.

If Wu Jun's arrival is related to the miners' riot, it means that this is Wu Jun's strategy, and Wu Jun came prepared.

Damn it, Qu You jumped with breath.

"Order the entire army to retreat, immediately, leave these mobs alone."

Qu Youjin decided to retreat to the city first, it would be too dangerous to stay outside the city. No matter how important money is, it is not as important as life.

His decision was decisive, but it was still a step too late.

When the Qing army organized their retreat, the Wu army had already caught up with them, making them unable to advance or retreat.

Continue to retreat, Wu Jun is chasing behind, and the retreat will easily turn into a rout.

Stop resisting, the strength of the two sides has a gap.

"Stop retreating, defend and counterattack on the spot, and send someone back for help."

Qu Youjin changed his mind, and he couldn't stay the same. At this time, there was no chance to retreat, so he might as well give it a shot.

Moreover, they may not have no chance if they give it a try.

Because their strength is 8,000 people, which is more than the Wu army's 5,000 people. As long as the reinforcements who insisted on arriving in the city arrived and attacked from both sides, they might even be able to eat the five thousand Wu army.

Until then, the middle plan may still be a good thing.

In theory, Qu Youjin's idea is not a problem.

However, in practice, this plan may not work.

To realize this plan requires a key factor. They must be able to support the arrival of reinforcements, and the speed of reinforcements must be fast. This tests the overall quality of an army.

Seeing that the Qing army had stopped, the Wu army immediately slowed down and kept a good formation to approach.

At the same time, those flintlock troops began to bully the Qing infantry again by taking advantage of their range and speed of fire.

In the face of Wu Jun's rogue tactics, other armies have no good response for the time being.

In desperation, they could only retreat up the hillside, trying to take advantage of the woods to offset Wu Jun's shooting advantage.

It is impossible to charge with a charge. Countless battles have shown that unless it is a death squad that is not afraid of death at all, charging against the flintlock troops is a waste of money.

Whenever the enemy rushes to the front, that is the time when the army collapses.

Retreat to the mountain, this trick seems to be effective, but in fact it is trapped on the mountain.

Unless reinforcements come to rescue, they can only stay on the mountain and wait to die.

Wu Jun ignored this army that fled to the mountain, and just left a part to prevent them from rushing down or escaping.

Others concentrated their forces and dealt with the other Qing troops under the mountain first.

The other troops of the Qing army were already at a disadvantage. After being attacked from the left and right, they lost even faster.

As soon as the Wu army's flintlock troops approached, the Qing army collapsed directly and began to flee.

Next, it is a happy chase phase.

All over the mountains and plains were the Qing troops who were desperate to find their way. Some even accidentally ran to the location of the miners and were caught and beaten.

Seeing this situation, Qu Youjin took the lead in fleeing, and he no longer counted on reinforcements.

According to the current situation, it is useless for reinforcements to come.

After a few hours, with the cooperation and help of many miners, the Wu army cleaned up the battlefield and captured most of the fleeing Qing army.

The Qing troops who had fled to the mountains, seeing that there was no hope, also surrendered one after another.

This battle was not fierce, and the number of casualties in Wu's army did not even exceed two hundred. The Qing army died a few more, but only six or seven hundred.

Of the remaining people, less than 1,000 managed to escape back to Huainan City, hundreds were scattered, and the rest were all captured by the Wu army, with a total of more than 5,500 people.

On average, a Wu army captured a Qing army, which was very efficient.

After this battle, the defenders of Huainan City dropped sharply from 20,000 to 12,000, and their defensive capabilities were greatly reduced.

The defender of Huainan, Chi Muqing, could no longer guard it. In order to preserve his strength, he took the initiative to lead the army to retreat northward overnight, and retreated to Suzhou in the north.

As for Hefei, it was given up by him.

As soon as Huainan was lost, the defenders in Hefei had no way out and became the turtle in the urn.

Chi Muqing escaped, but Lu Jinyan did not escape. He was reluctant to be the prefect of Huainan.

At the same time, he also knew that Wu Jun had always treated those who surrendered favorably.

Therefore, he planned to wait for the Wu army to enter the city, and then go directly to the Wu army anyway.

Xu Yuxian entered Huainan easily, but the next question gave him a headache.

How can the tens of thousands of miners be appeased?

Xu Yuxian will certainly not allow them to continue to hold weapons, which will become a destabilizing factor.

However, if you want to make them lay down their weapons, I am afraid they will give some benefits.

Otherwise, if they can refute the clear, they will also be able to refute the clear.

Although Xu Yuxian can use some means to divide it internally, but this does not cure the symptoms and does not eliminate the grievances in the hearts of the miners. These 10,000 people are always a hidden danger.

It is impossible for them to keep the army here all the time. Once the army withdraws, the local yamen is no match for the riots of more than 10,000 people.

To eliminate the resentment of the miners is actually very simple. Just give them a little salary increase, not too much. For every 100 catties of coal, an increase of three cents will make more than 99% of the miners satisfied.

However, the problem is that Xu Yuxian is a military general and has no right to intervene in civil affairs.

Now that they have recovered Huainan, the taxes that the coal mines hand over to the government are naturally given to them. And how much to give, this is the matter of the civil servants, and their generals are forbidden to intervene.

If you don’t have the qualifications to manage, you will naturally not dare to promise miners to increase their wages.

On the one hand, Xu Yuxian wrote an excerpt and sent it to Nanjing, asking them to quickly send the minister of civil service to deal with the matter.

On the other hand, he summoned several miner representatives and discussed with them how to deal with it.

"I've made a suggestion to the top to lower the tax so that the extra money goes to your hands."

Xu Yuxian said.

"It's just a suggestion. When will the imperial court reply. Without a definite news, it's impossible to appease the emotions of those miners."

Zheng Qiao complained.

As the leader, he made contributions to Wu Jun, but don't worry about the benefits, Wu Jun can cash in at any time.

However, in order to avoid being killed by those miners, he must obtain satisfactory benefits for those miners.

"I can't do anything about it. I hope you can bear with it a little bit and trust the government. As far as I know, the coal mines in Nanjing have a lower tax rate than here, so the tax reduction is certain, you don't have to worry about this. "

Xu Yuxian continued to persuade him with good words, but he refused to make a promise anyway, which made Zheng Qiao very helpless.

"Actually, there is another way. Lu Jinyan, the prefect of Huainan, sucked a lot of blood from the coal mine during these hours. It is better to let him spend a sum of money to appease the miners."

Zheng Qiao said.