The guards' confidence in Deng Ming is stronger than that of himself, and in the past year, he has encountered too many strong enemies, and Gao Mingzhan is really not a powerful person compared to Hong Jingluo, King Pingxi, Governor of Huguang and others. Therefore, the defenders subconsciously thought that defeating Gao Mingzhan was a matter of course, and the current pre-battle preparations were just to make victory easier.

These days, Deng Ming's guards and Liu Yao's personal soldiers have seized the time to work together, and have given basic training to tens of thousands of Xiucai, thousands of recruits lined up in a dense phalanx, armed with spears, according to the officer's command, together with the action of stabbing, making a rhythmic sound of "kill, kill". Some of the recruits wore freshly crafted rattan armor, while many more carried a wooden shield on their backs. Whether it is rattan armor or wooden shield, the defense power cannot be compared with standard equipment, but it is still much stronger than a cloth coat. After training, the soldiers have learned how to hide their bodies behind their shields as much as possible in the event of a bow and arrow attack.

Hearing Deng Ming say that this time he would completely rely on his own strength to fight with the Qing army in an upright manner, the guards all showed natural expressions on their faces, and Zhao Tianba was the first to loudly agree - after he returned from injury, the army had already begun training, so Zhao Tianba's popularity in the army was much behind that of other instructors. After the burning of Kunming, Deng Ming's open letter to Wu Sangui before leaving Kunming was similar to a battle letter for a head-on decisive battle, but there was no rì period, and Zhao Tianba had been looking forward to this day; In the battles in Huguang and other places, although Deng Ming was invincible, he never had the opportunity to command thousands of troops and horses to set up a dignified formation, and Zhao Tianba also felt some regrets about this.

"Gao Mingzhan has no guts and rats, just to train these recruits." Zhao Tianba pointed out that no matter how skillful a soldier is, it is still easy to collapse when he goes to the battlefield for the first time, and if he uses a large number of recruits to fight against Wu Sangui and Zhao Liangdong's jīng soldiers, it will undoubtedly be very dangerous, and Gao Mingzhan is much easier to deal with than the recruits.

Shut down

"I don't know where Gao Mingzhan is." Zhou Kaihuang felt that if an enemy like Xiong Lan could be used to train new recruits for the first time, the subordinates of Gao Mingzhan, the governor of Sichuan, would still be much better than the garrison soldiers in Wanxian County anyway: "If we have more time, we can train the soldiers better, and the casualties will be smaller." ”

"There is no news from Jiangyou yet, maybe the enemy is far away from us." Deng Ming said, he looked at Liu Yao: "Liu Shuai's people left in Jiangyou are all right?" ”

After the garrisons of Jiangyou, Mianzhu and other places were withdrawn, the north of Chengdu was completely uninhabited, so the group of scouts left by Liu Yao made Deng Ming a little worried, worried that they would encounter big trouble, and it would be even worse if they were caught by the Qing army.

However, Liu Yao seemed full of confidence, and patted his chest to Deng Ming and reassured: "Rest assured, the sons and daughters of the last general are all locals who came out of there, and they have been messengers on the road for many years, and they can recognize the local roads with their eyes closed; And all of them are very clever, and when they hide in the woods, the ghosts can't find them; As long as you are not careful, the Tartar will never find it. ”

"That's good," Deng Ming nodded, Gao Mingzhan lacked a guide, let alone a local map, and marched in the deep mountains and old forests of northern Sichuan, and the speed was definitely not fast: "Since there is no news from Jiangyou now, then we will have almost ten days and half a month, I don't know if Gao Mingzhan can arrive before the New Year." ”

"After Gao Mingzhan arrives, I plan to divide the troops into two routes, one way to lure the enemy, and one to attack." The plan proposed by Deng Ming was similar to the deployment of the First Battle of Wanxian, and he was not as confident as the guards and Liu Yao, so he planned to take some measures to weaken the opponent's combat effectiveness. In the battle of Wanxian, Deng Ming and Tan Yi at least lined up in formation, which has a certain reference value.

"When I saw Gao Mingzhan, I waved my banner, Gao Mingzhan must have thought that I was commanding the army, so he would focus his attention on me, but in fact, Liu Shuai was commanding ......"

In Deng Ming's view, the experience of the First World War in Wanxian can be used again, just as Zhu Di used this trick again and again in history. Without an efficient communication system and media, the exact process of Tan's defeat was unlikely to be known to other Qing officials, while Deng Ming could further refine his tactics and avoid previous mistakes.

"The last general thinks it's not right." Liu Yao objected, his first reason was that this would endanger Deng Ming's safety, but this reason obviously had no effect on Deng Ming; The second reason is more convincing, Liu Yao said that he has never commanded a large army.

Whether it is Liu Yao or Yang Youcai, they followed their commanders to the battlefield more than ten years ago, but they have never fought a battle over the years, and they have never commanded thousands of troops to engage the enemy