Chang Yu led nearly 100 guards to leave the main force one step ahead, the humidity was very heavy but cooler after the rain, and more importantly, the mood was more comfortable, he fought in the north and Huang Degong, Zhou Yuji, those fierce generals joined forces, whether it was marching or fighting, it was a tacit understanding, but now, the king has a bronze ...... Or scrap metal, the marching army feels really depressed.

After the rain, the road was muddy, but it did not affect Chang Yu's hundred horsemen to hurry, and there was a warning signal in front of him more than half an hour later, but he caught up with the pioneer Jin Shenghuan, at this time he led a thousand vanguard cavalry to repair on the shore of an unknown lake, and heard that Chang Yu hurriedly came to see.

"Isn't there something going on here in the middle of the night, Lord Overseer?" To be honest, Jin Shenghuan was a little nervous in his heart, after all, he was not very familiar with this side but was in the vanguard, and it was extremely difficult to escape from the ambush of the thief army unknowingly.

"Without him, the rear is boring" Chang Yu understated, asked him about the terrain, and learned that there is Jiangxinzhou in the Yangtze River in the west, and a little memory will know that at this time it has been to the later generations of Ma'anshan City, this nameless lake is very likely to be the Yuxin Lake of the later generations, which is not more than twenty or thirty miles away from the city of Taipingfu.

"Can you find the thieves in detail?" Chang Yu asked.

Jin Shenghuan shook his head: "There are many villages around, and there are many fishing villages along the river, even if there are thieves, it is difficult to identify."

Chang Yu snorted, and told him to be careful, not to disturb the people, and then hurry at dawn and he had to take the first step, Jin Shenghuan repeatedly dissuaded: "The Lord Governor must not be involved in danger, although it is said that Tu is safe, but it is not ruled out that there is a small army of thieves in his territory."

"In your opinion, this governor's nearly 100 soldiers are a small group of thieves who can do anything" Chang Yu laughed and whipped away, Jin Shenghuan sighed, and said to the soldiers around him: "Young and vigorous, with empty eyes, after all, you will suffer a big loss."

A person in the lobby of Anqing Mansion frowned and pondered, this person was Li Zicheng's subordinate general Bai Wang, who was not inconspicuous in the thief army, and was low-key and calm, which was also the main reason why Li Zicheng let his palace guard Xiangjing when he was in the Northern Expedition to Sun Chuanting.

Bai Wang acted steadily and steadily, knowing that greed for merit and recklessness would inevitably lead to misfortune, and after accidentally taking Anqing Mansion City, he decided to manage this place well, choking the throat of the Yangtze River, the high walls of the city are thick and backed by the deep mountains and old forests, but it is far better than De'an. Therefore, he personally sat in the town to operate, promoted and appointed pseudo officials to the people and surrendered officials, but to the rich gentry was tortured without a bottom line, and at the same time, he ordered his subordinates to advance along the river and approach the city of Nanjing.

In fact, Bai Wang also knew that unless there was another accident, Nanjing City would not be able to defeat at all, and the reason why he continued to send troops was actually to be exactly the same as Li Zicheng's Eastern Expedition, to extend the war and take the opportunity to consolidate the territory in his hands.

As long as Anqing's status is consolidated, and then slowly encroached on the surrounding states and counties, Nanjing will not be within reach at that time!

However, just now, an urgent report from the north disrupted his plan, and the imperial court sent reinforcements south to claim 200,000 troops, which had arrived in the territory of Luzhou and Wuhu across the river to confront each other, ready to cross the river to recover Wuhu at any time.

This news was definitely unexpected by Bai Wang, although he knew that Li Zicheng had returned, but thinking that the imperial court had killed 800 enemies and lost 1,000 of himself, plus the war disasters, locust plagues, and drought and plague over there, he was already too busy to take care of himself, not to mention that there were no soldiers available, even if there were soldiers, he was not able to rush to the aid here.

However, it came, and it came so quickly, and it was still claimed to be 200,000!

These 200,000 are absolutely impossible, but tens of thousands of them have been confirmed in the king's body.

If it was only tens of thousands of people, and its combat power of running thousands of miles in a short period of time was discounted, the momentum and combat effectiveness of the Yiyi Army were not at all stunned, but what made Bai Wang a little puzzled was why the reinforcements of the officers and soldiers did not go south to fight Anqing, but took the risk of crossing the river to fight Wuhu?

However, he quickly found an explanation for the officers and soldiers, first of all, Anqing is farther away, the city is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and if it goes straight to Anqing, he is afraid that he will be attacked by the rebels from behind, and Wuhu is too close to Nanjing, and the imperial court can lose countless Anqing cities, but it must not lose Nanjing City, if Nanjing City is lost, the impact is too great!

So, they abandoned the pawn to protect the car! The threat of Nanjing was lifted first, and then slowly advanced southward.

It must be like this!

Think beautifully! A sneer appeared at the corner of Bai Wang's mouth, he finally got out of the mountain in De'an, how could he go back easily, and how could he spit out the Anqing Mansion again, but if you want to operate Anqing as a base, you must burn out the flames of war and fight Nanjing! Let the court be in a hurry, and there is no time for this.

Naturally, I also made a comparison in my heart, today's righteous army is not the Ameng of the past, nor is it a bandit who flees to the mountains at every turn, it is completely powerful to fight hard, in terms of troops, the imperial court's reinforcements from the north are only twenty or thirty thousand at most, and the combat power of the long-distance journey and the lack of adaptation to the water and soil and other factors is negligible, although there are tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in Nanjing City, they dare not go far away, for fear of being intercepted, in addition to this, where are the officers and soldiers around.

Jiujiang has a little bit, but Lu Daqi didn't dare to go out to fight, Wuchang Zuo Liangyu claimed to be 200,000, but he was now watching behind closed doors, and there was Yuan Zongdi and others next to his couch in Jingxiang, he didn't dare or could not come over to provoke him, he just dared to come and provoke him if he took 10,000 steps back, you must know that Zuo Liangyu had never won against him once!

After calculating, the officers and soldiers around Nanjing died only 100,000, and although he only had 20,000 elites, there were tens of thousands of cannon fodder, no matter how he was beaten, he was not afraid, anyway, the purpose was to keep Anqing, and the attack on Nanjing was a disguise.

So Bai Wang summoned a few henchmen overnight to discuss the matter again, and finally decided to go to the front line in person, leaving his general Cheng Niandong to lead 3,000 thieves to guard Anqing, and the rest went north along the river to meet the officers and soldiers.

Of course, he did not forget to tell Cheng Niandong to pay attention to the wind and grass on the west bank of the Yangtze River, and if he found that the officers and soldiers would immediately meet the attack, Cheng Niandong was very confident in this, and threatened to kill as many as he could, and not let him get close to Anqing Mansion City for half a step.

This sounds very arrogant, but in fact it is grounded, because the geographical location of Anqing is really too superior, the southeast is dependent on the Yangtze River, which is a natural risk, the west is the vast mountains, and then the west is the boundless deep mountains and old forests, and between the north and Zongyang County is full of lakes and swamps, if you want to march, you must either stick to the Yangtze River, or go to the west of the foothills, or ...... Flying over, as long as it is intercepted according to the advantages of the terrain, it is really difficult for the officers and soldiers to hit the city.

Therefore, Bai Wang was very relieved to leave 3,000 people in this new base area and led his troops to the north.

Fengyang Mansion, on the south bank of the Huai River, Wu Sangui frowned and looked at the soldiers and horses who were crossing the river: "There are many ditches and rains in the southern river, and at this speed, we don't even have any soup to drink when we get to the ground." Ma Ke next to him smiled and said: "The road is the same, we don't stop, they may have just arrived at the ground, General Wu is not in a hurry, and we don't miss eating meat when we drink soup."

"That's the best, otherwise it's in vain" Wu Sangui snorted, raised his eyes and glanced into the distance to see Tu Yuan and Jia Waixiong had just come ashore: "Two brothers, we don't have much grain and grass left, do you want to go to Fengyang Mansion to ask for some?" ”

Tu Yuan raised his eyebrows and thought for a while: "The people in the middle of the night don't open the door, and they delay the trip until dawn, everyone endures, but we will be at the end of the ground for hundreds of miles."

"Shall we go straight to Nanjing or ......" Ma Ke asked, he and Wu Sangui were both black-eyed along the way, where to go, which way to go is Tu Yuan and Jia Waixiong's decision, because the information is in their hands.

"I also want to go to Nanjing to drink flower wine, but the problem is not right now" Tu Yuan laughed: "It's time to fight Wuhu, let's go straight to the southeast from here to Chaohu Lake to cross the river!" ”

Ma Ke and Wu Sangui glanced at each other, but neither spoke.

Imperial capital, Forbidden City.

Although it is late at night, Emperor Chongzhen is still working on state affairs, although the war in the north has been peaceful, but a mess is sometimes more difficult than fighting, natural disasters and famine everywhere continue, where there is a shortage of food and rice, people starve to death every day, even the capital is a day to die of hundreds of people, some are infected by the plague and some are starved to death, the white bones on the roadside are normal.

In the past, the treasury had no money, and the little eunuch copied the homes of those Jin merchants in Shanxi to make a large sum of silver, but there were too many places for the imperial court to use silver, and what was even worse was that you couldn't buy food even if you had silver these days.

Can only transfer grain from the south of the Yangtze River, but not to mention the war in the south, on the logistics speed of this year, it is difficult to quench the thirst of the distant water, and when the food arrives, I don't know how many people will starve to death, in this most difficult time, Chang Yu once again became a bodhisattva who saves the suffering, Octopus came back from the grain ship in the south, and the food donated by King De of Shandong has also arrived, although it can not completely solve the famine, but it can make people take a breath.

Emperor Chongzhen breathed a sigh of relief, and even wrote a letter of commendation to the German king Zhu Youli, which made Zhu Youli fly into the sky happily, and he was grateful for Chang Yu's natural advantages.

It's just that how could Ma Shiying, the governor of Lufeng, suddenly die, Lu Zhenfei's excerpt said that he had lost his footing and fell into the city, and Chang Yu's secret letter said the same, but how could a little old man climb up the battlements with such a big heart, this matter is too strange, and the courtiers privately discussed it.

If Emperor Chongzhen hadn't thought much about it in the past, but as soon as something came to Chang Yu, he couldn't help but think about it, would Chang Yu kill him, but why did they kill Ma Shiying without injustice?

Yes, die or die, Emperor Chongzhen will not mourn for Ma Shiying, in addition to the civil affairs in the north, what he is most concerned about is the war in the south, Jinyiwei's latest intelligence shows that the thief army has reached Wuhu, one step away from Nanjing, which shocked him but secretly breathed a sigh of relief, because Chang Yu also arrived in Nanjing at this time, as long as the thief army did not break Nanjing City before he arrived, there would be no chance to break it.

Of course, he also knew that he would soon receive an excerpt from Nanjing to impeach Chang Yu, if not, it would be too rare.

Thinking about this southward reinforcement, the grain and grass of tens of thousands of troops all rely on this guy all the way to be abducted and deceived, looking at the entire Ming Dynasty, there is no second person who can do such a thing, Emperor Chongzhen can't help but raise the corners of his mouth while rejoicing, now Chang Yu is in Nanjing, Gao Jie and other pioneers are on the other side of Wuhu, Li Yan's main force has also passed Nanjing, he believes that there will be good news soon.