In the first year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty and March of the sixteenth year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty, the siege of Ava by the Ming army had been going on for almost a month. At this time, the Sichuan army was still not the main force attacking the city, until now the Sichuan army has rushed to more than 4,000, and almost two-thirds of the Ming army's encirclement of Ava is responsible for Bai Wenxuan. At first, Deng Ming wanted to blast through tunnels, but there were many artillery pieces in Ava City, and there were also many strongholds outside the city. Deng Ming dismissed this idea and began to make wax patterns, planning to pour a few blasting trucks to use after the Ming army approached the city wall. When attacking the outlying strongholds of Burma, Deng Ming made extensive use of tunnel blasting, which in addition to the high consumption of gunpowder, played a role in training the troops.

During this period, Mang Bai tried to send an envoy to negotiate with the Ming army, but Deng Ming directly bombed away - at this stage, Deng Ming felt that there was nothing to talk about with Mang Bai, and asked the other party to hand over the Yongli Tianzi and the court officials, and the other party would definitely not agree, but this was the bottom line of the Ming army's negotiation. Therefore, only by gaining further military superiority can he return to the negotiating table - although the end of recklessness is Deng Ming's ultimate goal, he does not mind taking advantage of it if the negotiations can speed up the process, and the negotiations are also a form of psychological infiltration, which may further disintegrate the fighting spirit of those who waver.

Bai Wenxuan was in charge of the encirclement from the northwest to the south of the city, and Deng Ming was in charge of the defense line from the north to the east of the city. At present, the Ming army's siege of Ava City is actually only cutting off the avenues around the city, and controlling the villages near Ava, making it difficult for Mangbai to get manpower and grain and grass supplements; With only 20,000 Ming troops, it is impossible to surround Ava, and it is impossible to prevent news communication inside and outside Ava City.

Now both the Dian and Sichuan armies are constantly compressing the positions of the Burmese army inward, hoping to drive the Burmese army into the city as soon as possible, and then start the attack on the city wall.

Zhao Tianba was in charge of directing the attack on a Burmese stronghold in the east of the city today, and since most of the Ming army's strength was to maintain the encirclement, the attacking force handed over by Deng Ming to Zhao Tianba was only a few hundred.

"How is the battle in the east of the city today?"

"There are too many Burmese firearms." Zhao Tianba shook his head. The arquebus had many drawbacks in the field, but when it was protected by a camp wall, its power was fully demonstrated. Today, Zhao Tianba and the Burmese army in the stronghold rubbed for two hours, and finally dug the trench to the base of the fortress wall, but if he wants to dig a tunnel to blast the fortress, it is estimated that he may not be able to complete it tomorrow.

"Hmm." Deng Ming is well aware of the difficulties of the front-line troops. Burma is such a small country, but there are a lot of arquebuses, and even if the Ming army wears armor, it is not safe. With the Ming army's extensive use of demolition tactics, the Burmese also exercised some skills in the offensive and defensive battles for nearly a month, and came up with ways to irrigate water, which posed a great threat to the Ming army's operations.

Today, Zhao Tianba's attack on the stronghold outside the city led to the death of three Ming soldiers and the wounding of five people, plus other reasons such as illness, the Sichuan army would lose more than ten people every day. However, Deng Ming did not have a good way to deal with this, he did not want to add Burmese Chinese directly to his troops, and the army of the reckless regime could not be counted on at this time.

When Deng Ming, Zhao Tianba and other officers were discussing tomorrow's attack plan, a guard came to report: "Dashuai, King Gongchang has sent a messenger, saying that King Gongchang wants to invite Dashuai to come over to discuss military affairs. ”

"Okay, I'll go over here." How to distribute the tasks between the two had already been discussed, and Deng Ming knew that Bai Wenxuan sent someone to call him, so there must be some urgent military situation.

Let the officers continue the meeting, Deng Ming took a few guards and followed Bai Wenxuan's envoy to the Dian army camp in the west of the city.

After seeing Deng Ming arrive, Bai Wenxuan let his guards all withdraw, leaving only the two of them. Bai Wenxuan took out a letter and handed it to his allies: "This is something that the King of Jin just sent to send it, and I haven't announced it in the army yet." ”

Deng Ming opened Li Dingguo's secret letter and looked like it, and soon his expression became solemn. In his letter, Li Dingguo first asked about the progress of the Ming army and whether there was accurate information about the Son of Heaven -- these are all things that Li Dingguo must mention in his letters. Later, Li Dingguo talked about the movement in Guizhou, and he told Bai Wenxuan that the Shuixian family really couldn't resist Wu Sangui, who had been premeditated, and the king of Pingxi did not rest during the New Year, and captured the old nest in Shuixi on the 20th day of the first month.

Because Bai Wenxuan led the army to attack Burma, and this battle also occupied a lot of resources in Yunnan, Li Dingguo was never able to contain Wu Sangui and help Shuixi Chuangzào a chance to breathe; After escaping from the lair, An Kun, the leader of the An family, defected to the surrounding Tusi, but no one accepted him, and he was captured and executed by Wu Sangui at the end of February. This is the end of the matter in Shuixi. Wu Sangui had already written to the Qing court, requesting that the conquered Tusi territory be organized into four prefectures: Dading, Qianxi, Pingyuan, and Weining, and it was estimated that the Qing court would not refuse such a request.

"It only took Wu Sangui less than half a year to pacify Shuixi," the swiftness of the Qing army in Guizhou surprised Deng Ming. Bai Wenxuan once discussed this matter with Deng Ming, and he thought that Shuixi should be able to support it for a year or two: "In other words, Wu Sangui's troops are now free, and he has no worries." ”

"Sure enough, it was expected by King Jin." Bai Wenxuan's face was very bad, only Li Dingguo felt that Shuixi couldn't resist for too long, and Bai Wenxuan was skeptical at that time: "If Wu Sangui spent two or three years fighting Shuixi, then he would be exhausted after the fight, but this battle ended too quickly, and Wu Sangui didn't lose much supplies." Most likely, he also captured a lot of Shuixi's reserves from An Kun's lair, and he will definitely be able to attack again after this autumn. ”

"General Bai is right," neither Deng Ming nor Bai Wenxuan knew Wu Sangui's dissatisfaction with the Qing court in their hearts, and they definitely didn't dare to bet on Wu Sangui's failure to attack Yunnan: "Wu Sangui may need to leave some troops to monitor the land he just conquered, but it won't need too many people." Shuixi has been the king for thousands of years, and he should have saved a lot of good things, and Wu Sangui took a bite this time. ”

"An Kun, this guy is purely self-inflicted, and he can't live. At the beginning, in order to let him resist Wu Sangui in Wumeng Mountain, the king of Jin also allocated him a large amount of military rations, gold and silver; As a result, he had to betray us, and now it's okay, his head has moved. Bai Wenxuan knew that An Kun had a lot of strong men under him, and he heard that there were thousands or tens of thousands of sets of armor, and now these materials must also be surnamed Wu: "King Jin urges us to act faster, take back the Son of Heaven as soon as possible, and return to Yunnan as soon as possible." But I don't think we will be able to take the city before the autumn harvest. ”

Bai Wenxuan's attrition was larger than Deng Ming's, and in addition to his longer front, the harassment of the Burmese in the rear also intensified. As a large number of the Dian army entered the vicinity of Wacheng, the grain collection detachment in Hexi continued to encounter spontaneous resistance and attacks from the Burmese. In the first month of the first month, Bai Wenxuan's rear grain troops encountered seven ambushes, in February the number increased to eleven, and in the first ten days of March, there were as many as nine, almost once a day, and these nine attacks caused more than 30 casualties among the Dian army.

It is conceivable that the increasing number of successful sneak attacks will allow the Burmese people to further eliminate the fear of the Ming army after the Battle of Yeosu, thus making the attacks and resistance activities more frequent. Unlike Deng Ming, who had some collaborators—for example, the Sichuan army's transportation and grain collection work, which gave the collaborators a large share—Bai simply recruited Chinese into his army as a supplement. However, even the Chinese are not very reliable, they first have their own lives, and they are not willing to be dragged away by the Ming army as strong men; Some of the people's property was also damaged, and these people also had a grudge against the Ming army.

The siege of Ava, coupled with the losses in the rear, Bai Wenxuan estimated that the losses this month could be as high as six or seven hundred, which was not a small amount for the Dian army.

"In a few months, the weather will get hotter, the epidemic may still be prevalent, and I don't know how many soldiers of our army will become ghosts in a foreign land." Bai Wenxuan's face was full of worry, originally he wanted Li Dingguo to send some more reinforcements, even if it was a strong man, but now that Yunnan is too busy to take care of himself, where can Bai Wenxuan open his mouth? And if Yunnan is lost, the Dian army that entered Burma will become a lost dog, and Deng Ming may also be isolated in a foreign land together.

The two did not discuss any good way to quickly take Ava, since this was the case, Bai Wenxuan proposed to temporarily withdraw the army, and wait for Yunnan to stabilize before coming to rescue the emperor. Deng Ming couldn't find a suitable reason to object, but advised Bai Wenxuan not to rush to a decision first, and gave him a few days to weigh the pros and cons and find a solution. Bai Wenxuan would still give this face, so the two agreed not to mention the matter of retreating from the army for the time being, and each of them secretly discussed countermeasures with their henchmen and officers, and controlled the news within a very small range.

It was getting late, and Bai Wenxuan felt that it was not safe on the road, so he left Deng Ming to eat in his military camp, rest for the night, and go back during the day tomorrow. At dinner, Deng Ming asked Bai Wenxuan about the battle of his men today, and learned that the progress of the Dian army was also lackluster today, and did not take any important strongholds.

However, a force of Bai Wenxuan stormed a four-story temple in the west of the city, easily defeated the monks guarding the temple, and took the temple.

"This temple was donated by the King of Burma," Bai Wenxuan's subordinate general hurriedly explained to Deng Ming after talking about the matter without hesitation: "This is revenge for the injustice of the King of Burma." ”

"This temple was donated by Manda, right?" Deng Ming remembered that it had not been long since Mangbai usurped the throne, and it was too late to build a four-story temple.

"Well, it's Manda." Bai Wenxuan replied in a low voice, and after a little thought, he exclaimed: "But Mangda also has disrespect for the emperor. ”

"General Bai is right." Many temples in Myanmar are decorated with golden splendor, since this is donated by the previous Burmese king, Deng Ming expected that this temple probably has a lot of gold leaf and treasures, so it entered the sight of the Dian army, a few days ago the Dian army first cleared the threat of the surrounding Burmese army, and then attacked this temple.

Compared with the resistance of the Burmese, Wu Sangui's threat was more fatal to the morale of the Ming army. Although Deng Ming said that Yongli's holy decree was a false decree, the soldiers were skeptical, and Bai Wenxuan later went out. Now all the officers and men of the Yunnan army have made a small fortune, and each of them has a small burden. The Emperor of Heaven was so cowardly that few soldiers were willing to fight to the death to rescue the Son of Heaven, and they were obviously more interested in the temple than the city and fortress of Ava, which was defended by firecrackers.