On the evening of December 14, Tan Wen came to Tan Yi's camp in a rage, and as soon as they met, he asked loudly: "Why don't you attack the city?" ”

For so many days, the Ming army under Tan Wen and Yuan Zongdi kept attacking, just to make the Chóngqìng defenders become tired soldiers. But it has been two days since Tan Yi took over Tan Wen's position, but he has not moved. Seeing that his colleagues inexplicably gave the enemy a chance to breathe, Tan Wen couldn't bear to run to urge Tan Yi to hurry up and fight, he estimated that the other party must have the idea of preserving his strength in his heart, and most of them would also find excuses such as some soldiers needing to rest.

But now that the shape of the world is so critical, where can we still preserve our strength! Tan Wen made up his mind not to let Tan Yi be fooled.

Facing Tan Wen without concealing his anger, Tan Yi was not nervous at all, and spoke slowly: "Can we really defeat chóngqìng?" ”

"Why not?" To Tan Wen's surprise, the other party didn't use the excuse he guessed, Tan Wen replied without thinking: "Our current strength is more than twice that of the chóngqìng guards, and the army of the Wen Inspector can arrive overnight, how can there be a reason why we can't capture chóngqìng?" ”

"Yes, once you take Chóngqìng, you will be separated from the north and the south, even if the imperial court is unfavorable in Yunnan, in the worst case, at least the imperial court can move to Sichuan. The remnants of the camp can also go south to merge with the remnants of the western camp, and the momentum is very strong. ”

Tan Wen and Tan Yi used to be the Sichuan army of the Ming Court, and they fought a lot of battles with Li Dingguo in Xiying, and they also had a lot of friction with Yuan Zongdi who broke into the camp. Tan Wen thought to himself, Tan Yi probably didn't want to watch these former rebels make meritorious contributions, and he was not happy so he didn't want to contribute, so he persuaded him: "Alas, now that the society is in danger, let's unite with them for the time being and try to survive, and after the Ming Dynasty is prosperous, it will not be too late to cut these thieves with a thousand knives." ”

"At most, it's just trying to survive, even if it is defeated, ZTE is probably hopeless." Tan Yi still looked unhurried: "I think that while we can still defeat Chóngqìng, and we still have troops in our hands that can isolate the Yangtze River, it is better to surrender......

"What kind of gibberish is this!" Tan Wen slapped the table with a heavy bang and shouted.

"The Qing court has always not changed the original lord, the marquis on the side of the Ming Dynasty is still a marquis, the earl is still an earl, Sun Kewang was originally a word king on the Ming side, and he is still a word king after he votes in the past. We are better than the Ming Dynasty, right? Tan Yi didn't seem to see Tan Wen's excited expression at all, and his speed of speech remained the same: "Even if the Qing court demotes us in the past, being an earl of the Qing Dynasty is better than the Marquis of the Ming Dynasty, right?" Even if it's a baron or a viscount, it's much stronger than here. ”

"Is this still human talk?" Tan Wen was even more angry in shock: "We must not surrender!" ”

"Really?" Tan Yi immediately clapped his hands, and suddenly a large group of armor soldiers poured in, everyone unsheathed their swords, and the Chinese military tent was crowded, and Tan Wen and several of the guards he brought were surrounded in a small circle that was difficult to turn around. Tan Yi took advantage of Tan Wen's surprise moment, quickly took two steps back, and hid behind the armor soldier.

Tan Wen's face became very pale, the other party had obviously made up his mind, if he didn't agree with Tan Yi's proposition, I was afraid that he would be torn apart by a knife in a moment. The breathing of several guards around him also became very short, these people were Tan Wen's strong guards, but with the strength of a few people, they would definitely not be able to fight their way out of the encirclement.

"I was born a Ming person, and I died a Ming ghost." Tan Wen finally said his determination.

"Everyone has their own aspirations, I don't force it, just as you wish." Tan Yi, who was hiding behind the armor, laughed: "However, it's useless to be a ghost and ask for a head, just give it to me." ”

……

Wang Mingde looked at the messenger in front of him in a daze, he listened to the other party's words, and it took a while to understand from the shock. Seeing that there were more and more Ming troops under the city, he didn't think that he would be able to survive after the siege outside the city two years ago, but he resisted with the idea of dragging on for one more day. After nightfall today, the city gate guard reported that a messenger from outside the city came, and Wang Mingde experienced a battle between heaven and man in his heart, and he estimated that most of the other party had come to persuade him to surrender. Although he thought he had made up his mind to die, he hesitated a little when it came to the moment. In the end, I thought that it would be better to make a mistake for the time being, see if I could delay some time, and at least not completely cut off the road to surrender.

But after the envoy was pulled up to the city by the hanging basket, he took off his hat as soon as he saw Wang Mingde, and his dark and shiny head looked like freshly shaved hair. This envoy was Tan Yi's personal soldier, claiming that his master had killed Tan Wen, the Marquis of the Ming Court, and the whole army had shaved his hair and asked to surrender.

"This chóngqìng city is about to be breached, why did he surrender to me instead?" Wang Mingde muttered in his heart. But if this is true, it is a dead end. Wang Mingde interrogated again and again, and gradually guessed that the other party might take advantage of this opportunity to surrender, so as to make meritorious contributions and seek a fortune.

"If the general doesn't believe it, you can send someone to follow the little one to the camp to have a look, Tan Wen's head is in my family's marquis's tent." The messenger tried to explain.

Although Wang Mingde desperately hoped that it was true, he was afraid that the other party would come to deceive the city gate and surrender, so he hung the two cronies and the visitor from the city together. After more than an hour, the cronies sent finally returned, and they saw Tan Wen's head with their own eyes.

"Oh, the sky is endless, my Wang," Wang Mingde cheered in ecstasy, and hurriedly added: "The court is blessed!" ”

While waiting, Wang Mingde thought carefully again, and had to admit that the timing of the other party's surrender was extremely good, and now that Sichuan was empty, Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi in the Qing court, would be overjoyed to learn of this, and would definitely ask for credit for Tan Yi.

A few of Tan Yi's subordinates came back with Wang Mingde's two henchmen, and seeing that Wang Mingde had already believed in himself, the leader explained Tan Yi's plan and discarded: "The brigade of thieves is rushing to Chóngqìng under the leadership of the pseudo-supervisor Wen Anzhi, followed by the giant Li Laiheng, Liu Tichun, Hao Shaoqi and ......."

Hearing this list of names, Wang Mingde's spine suddenly felt cold. These are the jīng rui who broke into the rest of the camp, and they all came in order to continue the attack after conquering chóngqìng, if these horses arrived, even if Tan Yi's thousands of soldiers and horses helped in the battle, Wang Mingde would probably not be able to hold the city.

"The thieves have already transported the grain of each nest to the camp under the city, and now forty percent is in the hands of my lord, and the rest are in the camp of Yuan Zongdi's thief, as long as his camp is broken, the thieves will have no food and grass." Tan Yi's subordinates reported all the facts and falsehoods of the Ming army. If Yuan Zongdi is defeated, Wen Anzhi will not have the ability to insist even if he comes to the city of chóngqìng, and this time he will attack chóngqìng, the general mobilization of the Sichuan-Hubei Ming army, these grains are almost all of their reserves, once defeated, the Ming army will no longer have the ability to attack before harvesting grain next year: "Tan Wen's men have never escaped, and the Ming lord and the general will be able to break the thieves." ”

"Well, thieves will be killed." Since Tan Wen was killed and the news has not leaked, his army will be leaderless tomorrow.

Wang Mingde estimated that Yuan Zongdi would attack the city with the main force as usual, and most of the camps were defenseless, and if Tan Yi attacked Yuan Zongdi from behind, the possibility of success was also very great: "It's just that Yuan Zongdi still has a water master, and it is estimated that the thieves can still escape a lot." ”

"My lord also has an arrangement for this matter, and I will order the little one to discuss it with the general......"

Yuan Zongdi's sailors were anchored in the Yangtze River, while Tan Yi's ships were anchored in the Jialing River, across the city of Chóngqìng. Yuan Zongdi couldn't see the movement in the Jialing River, but the head of the city of Chóngqìng could see his situation clearly. Tan Yi planned to let his envoy use a banner to contact him at the head of the city of Chóngqìng, and after the defeat of the Ming army, he was bound to retreat, and when Yuan Zongdi's sailors withdrew halfway, his sailors suddenly rushed out of the Jialing River, dividing Yuan Zongdi's sailors into two.

"That's a great plan." Wang Mingde stroked his palms and smiled, and immediately agreed to this plan.

What was even more pleasing to Wang Mingde was that the visitor also reported that Tan Hong also planned to surrender to the Manchus, and was now camping dozens of miles away from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to block Wen Anzhi's vanguard. After the Ming defeated Yuan Zongdi's sailors, Tan Hong wanted to block the way to intercept and kill the defeated Ming army who had retreated by land and wipe them out.

"I have heard for a long time that Tan Hou is resourceful, and sure enough, it is not true. This will be set as Tan Hou, no, it will be set as two Tan Hou to ask for credit from the Yamen, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi. ”

Wang Mingde heard Tan Yi and Tan Hong's poisonous plans one after another, and thought to himself that he didn't know how long these two people had been discussing, and that most of Yuan Zongdi's ships would be lost under the city of Chóngqìng. Those troops who didn't have time to get on the ship naturally had no way to escape, and even if Yuan Zongdi himself could escape, he would no longer be a big trouble for the Sichuan Qing army in the future. And there were no ships and rations, and Tan Hong was in front of him, and Wen Anzhi estimated that he couldn't even see the city wall of Chóngqìng.

……

In the early morning of the fifteenth year, Deng Ming looked at the rising sun, and his heart became more and more uneasy: "After two whole nights, there was not the slightest movement, and I didn't hear that any Qing army came to reinforce chóngqìng, and the army of the Wen Inspector Division is estimated to be about to arrive." ”

In the past two days, Deng Ming reminded Yuan Zongdi to guard against the Qing army's coming to help, but the other party didn't take his words seriously at all. It's no wonder that Yuan Zongdi didn't take Deng Ming's jǐng notice to heart, Deng Ming had no idea about the deployment of the Qing army in Sichuan, the available roads and grain warehouses, Yuan Zongdi had been in Sichuan for so many years, and he knew quite well about the situation of the Qing army, and he had already sent a horse to explore the roads that might be used by the Qing army, and he didn't need Deng Ming's class to get an axe at all.

The siege of the city has reached a critical time, Yuan Zongdi went to the front line early today to supervise the battle, and asked Zhou Kaihuang and Zhao Tianba to accompany Deng Ming in the rear as usual. In the past few days, Deng Ming has kept asking about various military issues, and the two of them have always answered questions. It's just that Deng Ming's heart was heavy and became silent, and both of them were a little strange, and they didn't understand why Deng Ming showed his sorrow when the situation was getting better and better.

"Filling in the trench is something that must be done before the siege, and there are a few points that are important...... Zhou Kaihuang pointed to the formation of the Ming soldiers in front of him and explained to Deng Ming.

As he spoke, he heard an exclamation, followed by more shouts, and Deng Ming saw a person who was exclaiming with his arm pointing straight behind him, his mouth wide open and unable to speak. When he turned his head to look, he saw a thick puff of smoke rising from the camp, and in the blink of an eye, a fire rose brightly, and only then did he hear a sound drifting from there.

"The camp is on fire!" Zhou Kaihuang shouted: "Left-behind bastard, our grain and grass!" ”

At this time, the shouting became louder and louder, and it sounded not only an exclamation but a fight.

"Tartars are coming." Zhou Kaihuang shouted again, left Deng Ming and ran quickly in the direction of the camp.

Zhao Tianba was also shocked, it is said that if there are Qing soldiers to kill, the open and dark posts around the camp will definitely be discovered, and even the soldiers left behind in the camp will also send out the cannon to indicate jǐng, why did they start a fire first and then start fighting? Could it be that there is a rebellion in the camp? Regarding the military rations of tens of thousands of troops, Zhao Tianba was eager to return to the camp immediately to see what was going on, but he also had the responsibility of protecting Deng Ming, a big man, which made him hesitate.

"Do you want to send the third prince to a safe place first?" Zhao Tianba quickly thought about it and glanced at it at the same time, and found that Deng Ming had already reacted and ran striding behind Zhou Kaihuang, so Zhao Tianba also followed closely, thinking: "Although these three princes don't know how to use soldiers, they are a little bold, and they don't retreat but advance when they see the enemy." ”

Deng Ming has been following Zhou Kaihuang these days, treating the other party as a companion, and subconsciously followed when he saw Zhou Kaihuang rushing to the camp, he didn't know what was going on at this time, he was not familiar with life, and if he didn't follow someone he knew, Deng Ming didn't know where to go.

After running a few steps, the killing shouts in front of him became louder and louder, and Zhou Kaihuang suddenly stopped and shouted, suddenly realized: "How can the Tartars touch the camp and set fire?" There must be a rebellion of thieves! His face was flushed, and tears were about to come out of his eyes, and he rushed to the camp again.

Approaching the camp, the fire above was soaring, and the smell of fireworks could already be smelled, and some of the scattered Yuan soldiers Zhang Huang ran towards Zhou Kaihuang in a panic, he reached out and grabbed one, and his big mouth almost hit the nose of this soldier: "Which thief has rebelled?" ”

"It's Renshouhou's soldiers," as Yuan Zongdi's guard captain, almost all the soldiers in the camp knew Zhou Kaihuang, and the soldiers said with a crying voice: "Renshouhou came with a team of soldiers, and when they entered our camp gate, they began to kill people, and then rushed in a lot. ”

"This dog thief, he's descended a tartar, right?" Zhou Kaihuang roared: "These dog officers and soldiers are the most unreliable!" ”

Zhao Tianba also grabbed a soldier who had escaped, and the man spoke more clearly, he saw one of Tan Yi's soldiers take off his hat and found that they had even shaved their heads.

"Don't run, take the camp back." Zhou Kaihuang continued to advance towards the camp on the one hand, and blocked the remaining soldiers who escaped, Deng Ming and Zhao Tianba also hurried to help, the first few were more difficult, but after holding a few, more and more people were pulled, and soon dozens of soldiers were collected, and then marched to the camp.

Zhou Kaihuang had already drawn out his saber, and when he ran to the camp gate, he picked up a spear from the ground, and rushed into the camp with a spear. Deng Ming saw that Zhao Tianba also held a spear in his hand, so he hurriedly looked around, and finally found the abandoned spear, Deng Ming felt that he was not enough, and picked up another knife and pinned it to his waist.

With a knife at the waist and a spear in his hand, Deng Ming felt that his courage was doubled, so he learned the posture of Zhou Kaihuang and Zhao Tianba, and rushed into the camp with a spear. The choking smoke came to his face, and the soldiers who had gathered just now were fighting, Zhou Kaihuang's figure was reflected by the firelight, and he entered the camp two steps earlier than Deng Ming, and his face was already covered with blood at this time. Deng Ming saw him shoot into the chest of an enemy, and then stretched out his leg and kicked the enemy out of the tip of his spear, and the blood arrow sprayed into the air at once, turning into a rain of blood.

Deng Ming looked at the red rain mist in a daze, and there were dying screams all around.

"Ahh

A person in front of him let out a deafening cry towards Deng Ming, and the blade of the spear that flashed cold light followed the shout towards Deng Ming, although the fierce face made Deng Ming shudder, but he still instinctively retreated again and again, dodging the spear that came at him.

Deng Ming's movements were not as fast as the enemy soldier rushing over, and in a blink of an eye, the enemy was in front of him, Deng Ming subconsciously raised the gun in his hand, not knowing if he could block this blow. But before the stabbing enemy spear and Deng Ming's weapon intersected, a long spear suddenly came into the diagonal and picked the one that was forced into Deng Ming's chest, and the owner of the gun hit Deng Ming on the shoulder, knocking him to the side.

Then the spear stabbed into the opponent's heart, and when the enemy soldier swung his sword to meet it, the tip of the spear suddenly rose and pierced through the enemy's wide open mouth.

At this time, Deng Ming saw that the person who came was Zhao Tianba, Zhao Tianba pressed hard with both hands, pressed the enemy to his knees, and then kicked out and kicked the opponent's chest. It's just that this shot is very strong, and the tip of the blade has already penetrated from the back of the enemy's head, and Zhao Tianba failed to kick the enemy away, so he twisted the barrel of the gun.

The spinning blade rubbed against the human skull and made a chilling squeak, and the blood and white pulp spat out of the mouth of the enemy soldier who was still staring at his eyes sprayed Deng Ming's face.

Zhao Tianba pulled out the gun and grabbed Deng Ming with one free hand, and shouted eagerly: "Mr. Deng, what are you doing here?" So saying, he pushed him out of the camp gate.

The enemy soldiers near the camp gate have been killed and retreated, although Zhou Kaihuang is brave but not reckless, he does not pursue but leads people out of the camp gate. Yuan Zongdi's large camp was equipped with four gates, the central military tent and warehouse were in zhōngyāng, and there were other military tents around it, so in such a short period of time, the enemy soldiers set fire to the camp everywhere, and there was still the spare strength to seize the various camp gates, which was obviously not a few. Now the fire in the camp is getting thicker and thicker, and the smoke has obscured the vision in front of him, and it is obvious that the dozens of people around him cannot extinguish the fire, and they also have to guard against the attack of an unknown number of enemy soldiers.

Deng Ming looked in the direction of Chóngqìng, and Yuan Zongdi's general flag seemed to be moving in this direction, probably sensing the abnormality of the camp, and was anxious to rush back to recover the camp and extinguish the flames.