"One Hundred Years of Soldiers and Horses" 08: Song Jingshi used tactics to seize the county seat, and the five banners showed their might to attack the city and plunder the land

The eighth time: Song Jingshi used clever tactics to take the county seat, and the five banners showed their might to attack the city and plunder the land

As mentioned last time, Because his brothers participated in the anti-grain movement, Song Jingshi was arrested and imprisoned by Zhixian County, and he was severely punished and killed. Song Jingshi had no way to rescue her, and was forced to decide to take someone to smash the prison and rob the prison.

Song Jingshi is very strategic in doing things, or if she doesn't do it, she must succeed in doing it. He pondered that robbing the official prison this time would be equivalent to rebellion, so not only must we plan carefully, but we must also have long-term planning, and we can't be satisfied with setting up a shed in a circle like Yang Tai.

The time of the prison robbery was set for the night of February 19 of the lunar calendar, because it was the birthday of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and there were many people in the county town of Guanxian County, and they would not attract attention when they entered the city. In order to be foolproof, he contacted Yang Tai in advance and told him about his plan to prepare for the robbery of the prison, and Yang Tai was very happy when he saw that he finally agreed to rebel together, and promised to help him with all his strength that day.

On the morning of February 19, Song Jingshi selected more than seventy well-trained brothers, dressed up as peasants who had rushed into the city to meet, hidden weapons and mixed into the city, and found a good place to lurk. During the day, they all slept in the lurking points, nourished their spirits, and at midnight and three o'clock, these seventy or so people went out together, setting fires around the city, shouting: Run, the rebels have entered the city! At the same time, outside the city, Yang Tai led the people and horses of the five banners, holding torches, lighting firewood and grass piles, and also shouting together to attack the city. It had not been a few years since the Taiping Army had broken through the city and slaughtered it, and the officers and men guarding the city were like birds of fright when they heard the rebels entering the city, and they didn't know how many soldiers and horses had come to see this formation, so they opened the city gate and fled. After Zhu Ruiguo of Zhixian woke up, he did not intend to learn from Fu Shizhen's martyrdom, and fled with his soldiers, Song Jingshi and Yang Tai took the county town and opened the prison without much effort.

After dawn, the rebels outside the city also entered the city, and Song Jingshi led the people in the county court to turn out the county's land and acre books and tax collection books, and carried them to the street and burned them in public. Then he opened the silver storehouse and the granary and loaded it into the car and returned with a full load. Some of the remaining food and belongings were looted by the poor people outside the city. The history books record: "The poor gathered, looted by fire, looted grain and clothing and carried them out of the city, and flocked to the road."

Song Jingshi left the city to return to Liu Guanzhuang and gathered people and horses to officially announce the uprising, known as the "Black Flag Army". He consulted with Yang Tai that this time he had captured the county seat of Guan County, and the government could no longer sit idly by, and would definitely send troops to encircle and suppress it. At this time, we must not sit still and wait, but must strike iron while it is hot, take the initiative to attack, expand the territory, and create a base area. Yang Tai obeyed. As a result, the Tianlong Bagua Sect raised troops from Hancun, zhang Yuhuai led his men and horses to attack south, conquered Xinxian County, and continued to march towards Chaocheng and Guancheng; Yang Pengling led his men to attack westward and captured Guantao County; Zhang Shanji of Linqing attacked Qiu County to the north; and the surrounding Tangyi and Yanggu were also quickly occupied by rebels. Song Jingshi and his own Black Flag Army first occupied Shazhen, and then used this as a stronghold to begin to attack Dongchang Province, which was the most difficult piece of hard bone to gnaw, and the Black Flag Army with the strongest combat effectiveness was responsible.

However, Dongchang Province was, after all, a fortress in Shandong, heavily guarded, and the Taiping Army did not dare to attack when it came. Song Jingshi besieged the Black Flag Army for two months, but only occupied Dongguan, but never conquered the main city. However, he besieged the main force of the local Qing army here, and attracted and pinned down the reinforcements sent by the imperial court, and fought a large-scale battle with the Qing troops such as Mingxin, Urgon Zabu, and Qin Jilong, killing the Qing army and fleeing, Urgon Zabu and Mingxin fled to Chiping, and Qin Jilong ran to Dongchang Province, closed the city and did not dare to fight. Therefore, Yang Tai and Zhang Shan followed them in the periphery as if they were in no man's land, conquered the counties of Fan County, Puzhou, Quzhou, Qinghe, and Guangping county in a row, and besieged Daming and Wei Counties, marched into Linqing and Wucheng, attacked more than 20 counties in two months, pulled up 13 cities in a row, and played a mighty battle, and the rebel army expanded to more than 100,000 people. In particular, Song Jingshi's Black Flag Army expanded the fastest, his troops were mainly peasants who resisted grain, there was no religious color, and the slogan shouted was "I have been angry for two hundred years, and today we will also repay the injustice", the purpose of the uprising is to seek justice for the peasants, so it is very popular with the peasants. His troops did not have to be deliberately recruited, as long as they passed through the village, the east end of the village into the village is a hundred people, the west end of the village out of the village is two hundred people.

Seeing that the rebel army was getting bigger and bigger like a snowball, how would the Qing army respond? Let's listen to the next breakdown.