After waiting in Kunming until mid-June, everything that should be talked about has been discussed, and the surrounding scenic spots have been played, and Deng Ming does not plan to wait any longer.

"Li Guoying gathered 20,000 soldiers and horses in Chongqing, and it is impossible for so many people's rations to be transferred from Guanzhong." Unaware that Beijing was supporting Chongqing, Deng Ming speculated economically that the Qing government would encourage Chongqing to become self-sufficient: "We went back to Chengdu to gather troops and horses, and before August, we went to the city of Chongqing and cut off all the crops of Li Guoying." ”

Because most of the land in Sichuan was no man's land, it was very difficult for the Ming army to reconnoiter Chongqing, and the Western Sichuan Navy Division did not detect the Qing army's legions on the Yangtze River, but Deng Ming still believed that Li Guoying would organize military cantonments in the upper reaches of the Jialing River to solve the food problem. Of course, the difficulty of intelligence gathering is not one-sided, and Li Guoying also relies on speculation about the situation in Xuzhou and Wanxian. Due to the weakness of the naval division, the Qing army had much less basis for speculation than the Ming army. For example, Tuntian in Wanxian County, Li Guoying thinks that Yuan Zongdi has more manpower and more mouths to eat, and it will not be worse than when Xiong Lan was in Wanxian.

The saddest person is Zhao Tianba, after hearing about the coup d'état in Burma, he hopes that Li Dingguo and Deng Ming will send troops to set things right, and it is also a great reputation to survive and survive, but unfortunately now the Ming army really has no spare strength to take care of the affairs of the vassals.

"Wait two more days, if Wu Sangui attacks King Jin, we will still help King Jin." Zhao Tianba said.

"Okay, just wait two more days." Deng Ming happily agreed, and in the past two days, he discussed with Li Dingguo some ways to contact each other, as well as some agreements to support each other.

Two days passed in a flash, and there was no news of any Guizhou attackers.

"Wu Sangui, he belongs to the turtle, he has been holding back for two years, and he is still shrinking in the turtle shell and not moving." Zhao Tianba was unwilling, when others followed Deng Ming out, the war would always come to the door, but every time he followed Deng Ming, he was always calm, Zhao Tianba couldn't figure out this problem.

Before Zhao Tianba and Deng Ming left, Li Dingguo met with him again.

"Your Majesty, I will go back to Chengdu from my humble position." Zhao Tianba respectfully saluted Li Dingguo again.

"Okay, but in the future, Zhao Qianhu won't call me 'king'," Li Dingguo ordered: "In the future, you will call me the king like the Sichuan army." ”

……

Tens of thousands of strong men were busy between Baoning and Chongqing, transporting a large amount of baggage to the mouth of the Jialing River, and Li Guoying carefully counted the amount of materials to be transported while seizing the time to repair the road. In the future, if the Qing court is determined to launch more than 80,000 armor to attack Chengdu, Li Guoying will also have a general impression of how many people should be requisitioned, how to allocate manpower, and which sections of the road should be paid the most attention.

In order to ensure a successful offensive suddenly launched before the autumn harvest, Li Guoying tried his best to hide the armored soldiers of the Qing army who had arrived, and repeatedly explained to them that the highest goal of this battle was to take Wanxian, but even if it couldn't be done, it didn't matter, as long as Yuan Zongdi's military cantonment was destroyed and the Ming army's dock was burned, so that Yuan Zongdi could not slow down this breath in a year and a half. As for the next strategy, if Beijing continues to increase investment, and Yuan Zongdi of Wanxian County is unable to attack, Chongqing can consider steadily threatening Xuzhou; If Beijing agrees to take a long-term view, then Li Guoying's main force will still have to return to Boryeong.

However, Li Guoying had already seen that the Qing court would definitely not give up Chongqing, so he began to build more outposts and lookouts between Boryeong and Chongqing, and once these fortifications were completed, the navigation of the Jialing River became more stable. At present, Chongqing's back road is not very stable, and the lack of a ground defense system gives the Ming army the opportunity to penetrate the rear of Chongqing by land and forcibly cut off the shipping of the Jialing River, and Li Guoying now intends to make up for these weaknesses.

After the line from Baoning to Chongqing was completely stabilized and enough warehouses were established, the Qing army had a certain threat to the line of Jiange, Jiangyou, and Chengdu, and the Ming army had to beware of the Qing army sending light troops to attack from this in any case. This also has an effect on the troops of the capital and the consumption of Deng Ming's materials.

At the end of June of the 18th year of Shunzhi, 10,000 of the 12,000 Green Battalion in Shanxi had been hidden in the north of Chongqing, and Sun Sike was stationed further north with 5,000 people. The 15,000 soldiers and horses of Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao had already arrived at the front line of Hanzhong and Guangyuan, and they could be ordered to go south at any time -- this long-distance march was also a good opportunity for Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao to train their recruits, who took the elite soldiers of their headquarters as an example and led them to practice alternate advance and field camp. Between Hanzhong and Guangyuan, Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao also conducted several night sneak attacks on camps and field warfare exercises.

It is inevitable that ships will be wrecked in the Yangtze River shipping, and recently a ship was shipwrecked near Chongqing, and Li Guoying captured several Ming sailors, and learned from them that Deng Ming seemed to have gone to Kunming. After repeated interrogation, Li Guoying felt that the authenticity of this news was very high, and couldn't help but look up to the sky and laugh: "It's God who helps me!" ”

Since this was the case, Li Guoying further quickened the pace of the operation, and ordered the troops in Chongqing to start the operation in advance in early July, so as to ensure that the main attacking force could reach the city of Wanxian in the middle of the year. If the military operation in Wanxian goes smoothly, the main force of the Qing army can return to Chongqing before August. If Deng Ming had not returned to Chengdu by then, Li Guoying could even consider another sneak attack on Xuzhou to further expand the danger zone of the Ming army's water transportation.

However, in this way, Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao's troops may not be able to arrive in time, but Li Guoying is not very worried, because Deng Ming is not there, Chengdu's response will definitely be slow, and it will not be able to mobilize a large army to reinforce Wanxian or threaten Chongqing in time. The opportunity could not be lost, and the time would never come, Li Guoying asked Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jin to set off on the BMW and go south along the Jialing River as much as possible to take over the attack force to defend Chongqing.

When the Qing army was in full swing, Deng Ming rushed to Jiading Prefecture with Zhao Tianba and his guards - his 200 guards did not accompany but lagged behind, and on the return journey Deng Ming had only a small number of guards with him, and he changed horses all the way and rushed back to western Sichuan at a very fast speed, so as to finalize the plan for the autumn offensive.

"In the past two months, the Tartars in Chongqing seem to have increased their troops again." When Deng Mingcai arrived in Jiading Prefecture, he saw the information sent from Xuzhou. Although Li Guoying carefully hid the army, when the Ming ships were traveling next to Chongqing, they still noticed that the number of strong men around Chongqing had increased significantly, and the freight of the Qing army in Chaotianmen had also been several times busier.

"Li Guoying really still doesn't give up." Deng Ming carefully read the report and judged that Li Guoying wanted to further expand the warehouse in Chongqing, accumulate more materials on this point, and finally prepare for the attack on Chengdu.

With these reports in mind, Deng Ming rushed back to Chengdu on June 26, and Zhou Kaihuang and Li Xinghan, who stayed behind, also agreed with Deng Ming's judgment, estimating that the total number of Qing troops around Chongqing had reached 40,000 or 50,000 people, but the number of armor soldiers did not increase, and the extra soldiers seemed to be unarmoured.

"Li Guoying wants to expand the warehouse and reserve more supplies, and there is no need to gather a large number of soldiers and horses in Chongqing before he completes his preparations." Deng Ming judged that Li Guoying would not let these unarmored soldiers sit idle, and he may have reclaimed a lot of cultivated land, and when the grain is ripe in a month, he will go to harvest: "Maybe since the beginning of this year, Li Guoying has opened up a large number of military cantonments in the north of Chongqing, and if he is allowed to put this year's harvest into the warehouse, then the Qing army's attack on Chengdu will be launched early." ”

If Li Guoying now has 50,000 people and wants to rely on the army to solve half of the grain and grass, he also needs to reclaim 100,000 mu of land and harvest more than 200,000 stone of grain. If the Ming army rushed to cut Li Guoying's grain, then the cost of sending troops to Chengdu would make up for a lot, and it would also make Li Guoying miserable.

"Let's set off again in mid-July," although Deng Ming felt that now was the best time to attack, but when he thought of the huge attrition of the army, he still changed his mind about sending troops immediately: "As long as we can suddenly attack the city of Chongqing before August." ”

Although the total manpower in Chongqing is quite large, it is estimated that there may be only 5 or 6,000 armored soldiers, and as long as Deng Ming mobilizes 10,000 soldiers, the Qing army can only hold on to the city and let the Ming army cut off all their food. There was not much pressure, so Deng Ming did not plan to mobilize too early or too many troops in order to minimize Chengdu's economic costs.

In the end, Deng Ming decided to mobilize 10,000 soldiers and 20,000 auxiliaries first, and immediately assembled in Xuzhou, scaring Li Guoying back to the city first. The second step was to mobilize the same number of troops in case Li Guoying transferred reinforcements from Boryeong. The Ming army, numbering as many as 60,000, should be enough to resist the hastily assembled Ganshan Green Battalion, and it is not too far from Chengdu, which will also bring convenience to the Ming army in terms of transportation and mobilization.

What to worry about now is that Li Guoying has already taken precautions or simply deployed a trap, Deng Ming instructed Liu Jinge to prepare for further mobilization, and in case the situation changes, immediately send reinforcements to the front line. If there is no accident, the reserve personnel will stay in Chengdu to continue to engage in production.

When he returned to Sichuan, Deng Ming brought some of Yunnan's specialty, chicken brown. Because the chicken palm is difficult to preserve, according to the instructions of Li Dingguo's guard, it was put in a small clay pot, pickled in tea oil, and carefully brought back to Chengdu all the way. Deng Mingxian sent someone to Fengjie to send a part to Wen Anzhi, Zhou Kaihuang, Mu Tan, Liu Jinge, and He Daoning everyone got a little, and left a copy for Ren Tang, so that the people who went to Xuzhou could give it to him.

Wen Anzhi lived in Yunnan for a period of time and had seen this kind of fungus, so he had people steam an egg custard that day, put a little chicken brown in it, and taste it carefully. Ren Tang, who was far away in Xuzhou, also asked someone to talk about it in the future, saying that he had never eaten such a delicious thing. Only Zhou Kaihuang didn't take it seriously, he was indiscriminately sandwiched in dry food, taken to the training ground to practice, and swallowed his stomach in two bites when eating.

When Zhou Kaihuang saw Deng Ming again, he seemed to be polite when he thought about it.

"The pickles given by the Admiral are good," Zhou Kaihuang asked, "Is there anything else?"

"What do you say? Pickles? Deng Ming was stunned for a moment: "Oh, thank you for the compliment." Don't worry, I won't bring you this kind of pickle in the future. ”