Chen Long opened his mouth and found that he had nothing to say.

That's right, that's the truth, no matter whether these people can recover Nanjing and Zhenjiang Mansion or not, as long as Jiang Dahai's sailors are not eliminated, Jiang Dahai can cut off the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal at any time, and their grain routes will never want to be stable.

Not to mention that Chen Lan and Li Wenyuan on the Guangdong side are now storming Fujian, Zheng Ying is threatening Zhejiang, Xiao Ruxun's main force is steadily advancing in the Huguang area, Sichuan is also winning one after another, and the overall situation of the entire southern battlefield has been decided, and Li Hualong can't save Jiangnan even if he has three heads and six arms.

The only thing worth worrying about is that the contradictions between Xiao Ruxun and Shen are irreconcilable, so the contradictions between him and the local gentry in the southeast are also irreconcilable, if these local gentry do not support Xiao Ruxun, it will be difficult for Xiao Ruxun to gain a firm foothold here, if you want to use soldiers and horses to deter, how many soldiers and horses are needed?

Chen Longzheng reminded Xiao Ruxun to let Xiao Ruxun launch some gentle policies to appease people's hearts as soon as possible, but Xiao Ruxun said that he had other ways to let Chen Longzheng not worry, and Chen Longzheng didn't know what Xiao Ruxun was paying attention to.

There is also the clerk next to Xiao Ruxun who was newly recruited, the poor Xiucai named Xie He, who doesn't seem to be a good person, Chen Longzheng doesn't like him, but he seems to be very close to Xiao Ruxun, and he can often talk to Xiao Ruxun, which makes Chen Longzheng a little puzzled.

Xiao Ruxun has been doing things recently, and Chen Long is a little incomprehensible.

But there is no doubt that everything is moving in their favor.

On September 17, Li Hualong led the main force of the imperial army to Yangzhou Mansion, and in the first battle, Li Hualong's goal was to lift the siege of Yangzhou City.

Li Hualong made the spies find out that the strength of the Zhennan Army attacking Yangzhou was only more than 10,000 people, so he had the idea of annihilating them in a battle, so he ordered the main force under his command to outflank the rear road of the Zhennan Army in two ways, and the vanguard 3,000 cavalry troops were responsible for charging into battle, entangling the Zhennan Army marines and preventing them from boarding the ship and escaping.

As a result, I never thought that the Zhennan army seemed to have been prepared, and formed a large formation against the Jizhen cavalry with their backs against the warships.

As a result, before Li Hualong's main force arrived, all the marines boarded the boat and returned to Zhenjiang Mansion along the canal.

The Zhennan army attacked Yangzhou Mansion for more than ten days, but did not conquer Yangzhou Mansion, and Li Hualong led the main force to retreat after only a hurried battle, although the Jizhen cavalry was defeated in the first battle, losing five or six hundred men and horses, but the Zhennan Army retreated.

Li Hualong seems to have won a battle and relieved the siege of Yangzhou, and the Yangzhou prefect led the bureaucrats out of the city to greet Li Hualong and praise him, but Li Hualong felt that the situation was not so simple.

"Bastard thing!!"

Li Hualong slapped a leaflet of the Northern Expedition of the Zhennan Army on the table: "How many of this kind of things are there in the entire city?" They were all searched out and burned! This is nothing short of a rebellion! ”

Li Hualong was very annoyed by this harshly worded essay on Shen Consistently bombarding indiscriminately and expressing his refusal to recognize the little emperor Taichang, not to mention that this essay was written quite literati, and at first glance it was written by a literati, and the other party was not a general.

There are already supporters, and they are still literati! The children of the dignified saints actually colluded with a military general, which is simply a loss of face for scholars! Not worthy of being a saint at all!

The prefect of Yangzhou hurriedly agreed, and immediately asked someone to do it, and then asked: "I don't know how the superintendent plans to break the enemy?" ”

Li Hualong took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

"It's not difficult to break the enemy, the difficult thing is how to exterminate all these rebels, there is more than one rebel bandit, it is said that Ningbo Mansion has, it is said that Yunnan has, it is said that Liangguang also has, there is the main force of Xiao thieves!"

The prefect of Yangzhou swallowed.

"Inspector, could it be that the thief is really alive? How did he escape from Jingshi? ”

Li Hualong glared at the Yangzhou prefect: "Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, the governor still wants to know the reason!" Just a military general, he made such a big fuss! It is conceivable how far the entire Jiangnan has been discarded! Let me ask you, how much do you know about the rebels on the other side? ”

The prefect of Yangzhou wiped the cold sweat on his face.

"This ...... There are indeed a lot of people sent over to inquire about the news, but there are not many who have returned, and some sporadic news is that this group of men and horses is a sailor, and there must be hundreds of warships, which cover the sky and the sun on the river, and the scale is really very large, we can only guard against it, and we can't fight it at all.

Their firearms are particularly sharp, and there are a lot of them, whether they are foot soldiers on the road or on the ships, they have suffered a lot of losses, and some of the defenses on the north shore have been destroyed by their firearms. ”

Li Hualong's face was very bad.

"That's all you know? I don't know the identity of the rebels, and who is the surname of the main general? ”

"The main general is said to be called Jiang Dahai, and I don't know where he is from or where he suddenly came from, the superintendent, the lower official...... Xiaguan ......"

"Enough!"

Li Hualong shouted angrily: "What do you want!" ”

After speaking, Li Hualong stood up.

"Overseer?"

"Ben Du personally went to check the enemy's intelligence!"

Li Hualong decided to do it himself, and it was better to wait for the group of people below to find out the news, and it was better to wait for the other party to give him his weaknesses.

Li Hualong left Yangzhou Mansion with a cavalry unit, went south along the canal to check the situation, and by the way, set up outposts and alarm points along the canal, preparing for the Zhennan Army and the naval division to go north, so that they could react faster and prepare for the battle.

At the same time, in the camp of Li Hualong's department, Chai Guozhu was sighing alone in his camp.

He never expected that the enemy army he was facing was actually Xiao Ruxun's Zhennan Army, and he didn't expect Li Hualong to say to him that Xiao Ruxun did not die but fled.

So Shen has always been bluffing before, Xiao Ruxun didn't die, his coup didn't succeed, and now, Xiao Ruxun has fought back.

Chai Guozhu knew that Xiao Ruxun was powerful, and he didn't want to be an enemy of Xiao Ruxun at all, but now he was riding a tiger, and he had no choice at all, and he didn't think of any good way, Ji Zhenbing had already gone to the front line to face the Zhennan Army.

He is now a little envious that Li Rusong has a father as awesome as Li Chengliang.

Li Rusong didn't come under the pretext that there was a Jurchen invasion in Liaodong, and he stupidly brought the main force, and there is no doubt that he will become the biggest loser.

Before, Liu Guoxiang took away the most elite infantry under his command, saying that he was going to attack Nanjing in a roundabout way, but in Chai Guozhu's opinion, how could those thousands of people be sure of victory?

The cavalry under his command who had hurriedly fought with the Zhennan Army before suffered a big loss in front of the artillery and muskets of the Zhennan Army, and they were defeated and fled, watching the Zhennan Army get on the warship and leave the battlefield calmly, while their own side continued to lose a lot of soldiers and horses that did not need to be lost.

What's more, Chai Guozhu doesn't want to be an enemy of Xiao Ruxun at all!

If he knew, he would definitely have led his troops to the north to inspect the border under the pretext of the Mongol invasion of the south, and he would never have led the troops to the south and made such a senseless sacrifice in a place like Yangzhou Mansion.

That's terrible......

Chai Guozhu's mood is as bad as the current battle situation.