Inside the city of Zhongzhou, Sun Kewang was reporting the situation to Zhang Xianzhong: "Foster father, although we successfully captured Zhongzhou this time, our army suffered significant casualties. A rough count across all units shows over five thousand dead or wounded."
Zhang Xianzhong’s face turned livid: "A tiny city like Zhongzhou has caused me such heavy losses; we cannot go on like this. Kill them all—every single one of them!"
That Zhang Xianzhong was bloodthirsty is an undeniable fact. During the transition from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, every faction resorted to killing. Zhang Xianzhong killed, Li Zicheng killed, and the thirteen factions of the Yaohuang rebels killed. As for the Manchu Qing, it goes without saying that they killed the most and shifted the blame onto others most aggressively. On the side of the Ming Army, Zuo Liangyu also killed; while his tally may not have been as high, the impact was significant.
Chapter 260