When the tens of thousands of Burmese soldiers looked at the vanguard of the Ming army across the river, the vanguard of the Ming army stopped advancing, most of these Ming troops were auxiliary soldiers with poor combat effectiveness and poor equipment, but they were led by capable officers selected by Bai Wenxuan. When the Burmese army appeared to the west of them, the vanguard of the Ming army on the east bank of Lijiang feared that they would be attacked by an overwhelmingly superior enemy army. After stopping, the vanguard troops received the Burmese envoys and continued to bargain with them, while sending people to secretly inform the main force of the Ming army in the rear.

After determining that the Ming army on the opposite side was sparsely numbered and poorly equipped, a fierce dispute broke out within the Burmese army in the West Bank. When Mangbai easily destroyed the Yongli Imperial Forest Army and rewarded the Ming Dynasty's ministers with the property of his men, the opposition weakened, and the Burmese courtiers who got the benefits praised Mangbai for his wisdom and martial arts, and his majesty was enough to deter the Chinese court.

In the midst of the praise of merit and virtue, there were also Burmese people who were worried that the Ming army in Yunnan would raise troops to ask for guilt, but until Bai Wenxuan sent troops, most Burmese officials still believed that the Qing army was about to achieve a complete victory, and the Ming army was too busy to take care of itself under the huge military pressure of the Qing army, and it was impossible to send troops to invade Burma. The Burmese side also found that the Ming Dynasty was suspicious of each other, and it seemed that whether it was Zheng Chenggong, Kuidong Zhongjun, or Deng Ming of Sichuan, the Yongli cabinet was uneasy and regarded as a potential enemy. Since this is the case, the Burmese side judged that the pressure on Li Dingguo would be heavier, and Myanmar did not have to worry about the retaliation of the remnants.

After hearing that the Ming army actually invaded, the Burmese side became worried, and the opposition that had almost disappeared began to sound again, and some people even advocated returning the Yongli Emperor to the Ming army.

But Mangbai could not agree to any compromise because it would shake his prestige, which was not very high, and he was also worried that the Ming army would press forward step by step: what if Yongli was returned to the Ming army, and the Ming army continued to demand the return of the soldiers of the Imperial Forest Army, as well as the families of the Ming officers and soldiers, and even their property? Could it be that they were forced to return them all due to the military pressure of the Ming army? This will discredit the reckless white. Therefore, the Burmese side finally decided to adhere to the tough X position and gather troops to reinforce Bamo.

In the past few days, the Burmese have experienced a roller coaster of great joy and sorrow, first hearing that the Ming army has taken the border pass, and then they have not continued to attack for more than a month, but have obviously tried to exchange their emperor for those border passes that have little value -- the whole Burma thinks that they have completely seen through the reality of the Ming army; Not long ago, there was sad news that the Ming army raided Ba Mo, and according to those who escaped, the Ming army carried out a complete purge of Ba Mo.

If the land of Burma is lost and his people are ravaged, his prestige will still be dealt a heavy blow. Now the Burmese army is divided into radical faction and stable faction, the former believes that the strength of the Ming army is limited, and it is found that the Ming army is only lost because of a sneak attack, and the strength of the Ming army attacking the eight Mo is only two or three thousand, which should be the one in front of him, so he should quickly attack the Ming army and win a brilliant victory for the king of Mangbai; The conservative faction believes that it is better to be cautious at this moment, and it is better to observe the Ming army for a while before crossing the river to attack the opponent.

Although the two sides were arguing, the radicals had some upper hand, and finally decided to observe the Ming army for another half a month, and if they still did not find anything abnormal, they would take the initiative to attack.

At a time when there were differences of opinion within the Burmese army, the main forces of the Ming army were also discussing the latest situation

"The Burmese have not fought for almost 50 years, and Burma has followed the system of our dynasty and divided the people into military households and civilian households, with military households responsible for fighting wars and civilian households responsible for conscription." The Ming army did not think that the Burmese army would have strong combat effectiveness, more than two generations had not seen war, the fighting level of the Burmese military households should be about the same as that of the peasants, and the officers were all hereditary, and they obtained positions entirely by bloodline rather than ability, and they did not have the opportunity to be trained like the Qin and Jin border armies of the Ming Dynasty. The generals of the Ming army who participated in the discussion optimistically estimated that the combat effectiveness of the Burmese army was probably about the same as that of the Shandong and Henan troops in the year of Tianqi and Chongzhen.

"But the Burmese are familiar with geography, how many suitable crossings there are on the whole river, and how quickly they can transport large troops, these Burmese people know better than us." Bai Wenxuan was unwilling to fight a tug-of-war with the Burmese, if there was a stalemate on the territory of the other side, the unfamiliar Ming army would be at a great disadvantage, and such a long supply line from Ba Mo to Wacheng, it was impossible for the 20,000 Ming army to fortify everywhere.

Therefore, Bai Wenxuan's plan was to lure the Burmese and the Ming army to a decisive battle, and after the main force of the Burmese was defeated, the Ming army could move south with no worries - the Ming army was not afraid of a frontal decisive battle, but it could not fall into a protracted war of attrition. After discovering that the Burmese army was actually marching on the west bank, Bai Wenxuan was worried that his tactics of luring the enemy had failed, and if the Burmese wanted to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army, they would definitely not deliberately cross a river.

"When the Burmese march on the west bank, they are giving us the road to Wacheng," Deng Ming said, clicking on the crude map on his desk, which looks like an impressionist work, and can only tell us the rough general direction of the large cities of the Ming army: "But we can't let such a large army go to our flanks." ”

If the main force of the Ming army does not care about the tens of thousands of Burmese troops on the other side of the river, then after the whole division of the Ming army goes south, there will always be some Burmese people who cross the river to report to the Burmese army about the reality of the Ming army, and the strength of the Ming army will be completely exposed. The Ming army did not know how many Burmese troops were still in front of them, nor did they know the garrison of Wacheng and the fortresses around it, if the Ming army built the city in a hurry, and the back road was cut off by these Burmese troops crossing the river, then the Ming army would be in an embarrassment; Even if the Burmese army was not strong enough, it could quickly retreat and rush back to Wacheng to assist in the defense, and at the same time send some people to cross the river to interfere with the Ming army's rearguard to collect grain and grass.

In short, the safest way for the Ming army to do this is to destroy one of the main Burmese forces when they see them, and rush to Wacheng with the overwhelming momentum of Mount Tai.

"We can't always stay here and do nothing, the longer it drags on, the more likely our military strength will be exposed," Di Sanxi, who participated in the discussion, thought that it was best not to delay for a day, and immediately crossed the river to engage the Burmese army: "King, Deng Shuai, since the Burmese dare not cross the river, then we will cross the river to fight them." ”

Bai Wenxuan glanced at Di Sanxi, and his face showed approval: "He is worthy of being a good man in my Xiying." After speaking, Bai Wenxuan glanced at Deng Ming: "What does General Deng think?" ”

"Do you want to cross the river to fight the Burmese?" Deng Ming didn't have this idea, but the problem was that he was not familiar with geography, if the Ming army wanted to transport thousands of armored soldiers across the river, the movement must be very big, and it would definitely not be able to hide the eyes and ears of the natives of the Burmese army, and it would definitely not have the effect of a surprise attack: "Where does General Bai plan to cross the river?" ”

Bai Wenxuan pointed out the location of the main force of the Burmese army on the map: "How about we cross the river in front of them?" ”

Under normal circumstances, the first thing to do is to find a day when the wind blows downstream, and then force the crossing from the upstream to avoid the threat from the water to the greatest extent possible - the Burmese sailors are not very strong, because there has never been an opponent on the Lijiang River, so the Burmese sailors are basically for transportation and loading, as long as you pay attention to this, the Ming army should not be a big problem to force the crossing of the river.

Next is the most dangerous part, according to the forward's report, the Burmese army is about 30,000, and it seems that there are some elephants. Even if the Burmese army has not fought for decades, it must still understand the simple truth of attacking halfway. The correct order of forcible crossing was to transport a group of infantry over first to establish a preliminary beachhead, and then a group of auxiliaries to begin to construct and consolidate the positions occupied by the first group of infantry. Then another group of infantry...... Only after the infantry has occupied a large enough position and consolidated it will the cavalry begin a mass landing, forming up with the infantry on the beachhead and then starting to engage head-to-head. When confronting Sun Sike on the bank of the Yangtze River, Deng Ming carried out it in this order.

However, at that time, the Ming army had the advantage of mobility, and the Qing army was also dragged to exhaustion, so the Ming army had plenty of time to land. Now the Burmese army has no physical problems, and the Ming army must consider the wind direction in order to ensure the safety of crossing the river, so the suitable location for crossing the river has become very limited. Unless the Burmese officers on the opposite side were idiots, they would have attacked halfway across the river by the Ming army, using a small number of infantry to resist the charge of the war elephants on the beachhead, and Deng Ming did not have much confidence in this.

However, Deng Ming knew that since Bai Wenxuan said so, there would definitely be a follow-up, so he waited patiently.

……

Everyone discussed that they would observe for another fifteen days, but only two days later, a large number of new Ming troops arrived at the upstream position, and there were some boats and rafts captured from Ba Mo that arrived with the Ming army.

After seeing that the Ming army not only had cavalry, but also that the number was as high as four or five thousand, the Burmese army put away some of its contempt and began to seriously reconnoiter in case it was taken by surprise by the Ming army -- the Ming army appeared not far upstream in such a big way, which made the Burmese army a little strange, although all the suitable ferries in the vicinity were surrounded by Burmese local eyes and ears, but the Burmese officers felt that the Ming army should try to cross the river in concealment anyway.

When the north wind appeared, the Ming army began to prepare to cross the river in a hurry, and the Burmese officers could hardly believe their eyes, and the Ming army chose to cross the river only a few miles away from the main camp of Burma, and also chose an open terrain -- which was very conducive to the deployment of Burmese troops.

"Thieves don't know how to fight at all." The Burmese officers almost immediately came to this conclusion, and they immediately mobilized their troops to meet the battle, and the generals prepared the war elephant troops to prepare the war elephant troops that once thousands of Ming troops crossed Lijiang, a hundred war elephants would cover the infantry to charge and annihilate all the invaders on the riverbank.