The generals talked a lot, but they couldn't make up their minds about whether to defend the next battle. Fighting, without the grasp of Jiujiang, defending, will become more passive.

Jin Xin, Li Yi, Lu Tai and others also expressed their views separately, some people support the attack on Jiujiang and forcibly break through the city defense with artillery, after all, there are two or three hundred red-coated cannons in the fleet, and if you bombard the city wall, you will definitely be able to break through.

Some people also think that there is no need to fight to the death with the thief army, but should refuse to defend Anqing, Chizhou and other cities along the river, block the Yangtze River with a fleet of sailors, and wait for the imperial court to recruit reinforcements from all over the country.

Seeing that all the generals had expressed their opinions, but Chen Yue only looked at the huge map under his feet without saying a word, Lu Zhenfei couldn't help but ask, "Qi Guogong, I don't know what you mean?" ”

Seeing Lu Zhenfei's question, all the generals stopped talking and looked at Chen Yue with hopeful eyes, the person in front of him was the first commander of the Ming Dynasty, and he had defeated the Ming army god who had defeated two hundred thousand Tartars! Since Chen Yue obeyed the imperial decree and sent troops to Anqing with everyone, he would definitely be able to defeat the Western Thief and save the Ming Dynasty from danger again, and all the generals were convinced of this.

Looking at the hopeful eyes of the generals, Chen Yue smiled slightly, pointed to the map and said: "Jiujiang is strong, and there are many thieves defending the city, but why should we storm Jiujiang?"

The purpose of this battle is to blockade the western thieves in Jiangxi, and then defeat its main force, and although Jiujiang City is an important town in Jiangxi, the location is not the most important, the most important thing is not Jiujiang, but this Hukou County!

In Jiangxi Province, there are many rivers, including Gan River, Fu River, Xinjiang River, Rao River, Xiu River, etc., but most of them flow into Panyang Lake, and the mouth of the lake is the only waterway that Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River are the same.

For Jiangxi, although it is thousands of miles long, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and it is very inconvenient to walk, let alone carry the army, only through Poyang Lake into the Yangtze River, it is the most convenient to communicate with the outside world.

As long as we seize the county seat of Hukou and build a fort to block Hukou, it will be equivalent to blocking the passage of the thief army from Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River, although it can go to Jiujiang by land from Nanchang, and then enter the Yangtze River from Jiujiang, but it is very inconvenient in the end.

Therefore, as long as our army captures the mouth of the lake, the western thieves will definitely attack with all their might, and that is the battlefield of the decisive battle between our army and the western thieves! ”

Lake Mouth? Lu Zhenfei looked at the map carefully and nodded, it was indeed the passage that stuck Poyang Lake into the river, as long as the mouth of the lake was occupied, the thief army would not want to enter the Yangtze River from the waterway. But?

"The circumference of Hukou County is only a few miles, and the walls are low and shallow, so they can't stop the thieves' all-out attack, right?" Lu Zhenfei doubted.

The western thieves have an army of more than 10,000 in Jiangxi, and even if they use people to pile up, they can recapture the mouth of the lake. It may be difficult to block Poyang Lake by relying on the mouth of the lake.

"Otherwise, although our army is not as strong as the thief army, the naval fleet is much stronger than them, and with the assistance of the fleet, it is not difficult to hold the mouth of the lake." Chen Yue smiled. What's more, he still has the big killer weapon of the fortress in his hand, as long as he transforms it a little and changes the county seat of Hukou to the shape of the fortress, what if the thief army has hundreds of thousands?

Since Chen Yue is so confident, Lu Zhenfei will not say more, he is now a member of the army, and his duty is to check and fill in the gaps and remind Chen Yue's strategy.

The soldiers are very fast, and since the tactics have been formulated, Chen Yue immediately arranged them. The whole army immediately began to set off, leaving Anqing and marching to Jiangxi.

And as the Ming army advanced by land and water, the news that Liu Neng Jinyi had probed the horses spread to the army. There were only more than 3,000 thieves stationed in Hukou County, and Zhang Xianzhong did not pay enough attention to it.

Think about it, Zhang Xianzhong is just a first-class thief, and where does he have any strategic vision.

On the journey of more than 300 miles from Anqing to Jiujiang, the army advanced by waterway, and it took ten days to arrive.

In order to confuse the thief army, Chen Yue did not order a direct attack on Hukou, but personally led the main fleet to the river outside Jiujiang City.

In the face of hundreds of Ming warships coming from the floating river in the river outside the city, Liu Wenxiu, who was guarding Jiujiang, sent more than 100 warships to try to block them, but the small boats of the thief army were not enough to see in front of the tall battleships of the Ming army, and they did not need artillery bombardment. Liu Wenxiu knew that it was impossible to defeat the Ming army's naval division by water warfare, so he defended Jiujiang City and sent a letter to Zhang Xianzhong in Ji'an asking for reinforcements.

After defeating the thief army, Chen Yue did not send his army ashore, but ordered the ships to line up outside Jiujiang City and launch a fierce artillery bombardment of Jiujiang City.

Of course, in order to confuse the thief army, he only ordered the guns on the three-masted ship to open fire, and did not use the Galen battleship. But even so, dozens of red-clothed cannons fired continuously, and countless shells were fired into Jiujiang City, which still made the thief army tremble.

While the main fleet was bombarding Jiujiang City, Yu Feng and his men went ashore not far from Hukou County. When the thief army at Hukou went out of the city to attack, they were attacked by dozens of tiger squatting cannons in the river, and they could only retreat to the city, and Yu Feng's troops took the opportunity to go ashore.

Hukou is just a small county town, there is no moat at all, after Yu Feng led the troops ashore, 50,000 Beijing battalion soldiers also went ashore one after another, making the small Hukou City impassable.

The thief army at Hukou never expected that the Ming army would not attack the important Jiujiang River, but would attack this small city.

Under the supervision of Shan Minglei's Fusi Supervision Team, the soldiers of the Beijing camp launched a fierce attack on Hukou County, which made thousands of thieves in Hukou County exhausted.

The means of attacking the city by the soldiers of the Beijing camp are lackluster, it is nothing more than a cloud ladder siege, but they have the shields and armor that Chen Yue got from the Nanjing arsenal, there are enough arrows, bows and crossbows, and dozens of artillery pieces to suppress the support, plus the thief army in Hukou City itself is not elite and the number is not large.

Tens of thousands of people attacked for less than half a day, and the thief army in Hukou City could not withstand it and surrendered in Kaesong.

Under the city of Ji'an Mansion, Zhang Xianzhong originally wanted to capture Ji'an to slaughter the city to vent his anger, and then wave his troops to meet the Ming army, after all, the Ming army that came to attack was less than 100,000, and it was the 50,000 elites led by his son Zhang Wenxiu who defended Jiujiang, and it was not a problem to hold Jiujiang.

Unexpectedly, the Ming army did not directly attack Jiujiang, but chose to capture the mouth of the lake and block the passage from Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River.

Zhang Xianzhong no longer knew how to use the army, and he also knew that Hukou was the main way to enter and exit the Yangtze River, once blocked by the Ming army, his army would not want to take the waterway into the Yangtze River, and in Jiangxi, where there are many mountains and rivers, the waterway is the most convenient way to march.

Therefore, it is necessary to recapture the mouth of the lake and annihilate this hateful Ming army!