Since Shandong announced the appearance of Deng Ming's army in Jiaodong, Li Guoying has always been skeptical about it, obviously the main force of the Ming army opposite is the Western Sichuan Army, and their banner Li Guoying also knows it.

The Western Sichuan Army has never had the intention of hiding its flag, and it has been a neighbor with Li Guoying for so many years, and it can't hide the flag, but it will create chaos for itself and its allies.

"This is Zhou Kaihuang, he has followed Deng Ming since the time of the Kunming fire, as early as the battle of Huguang was in the limelight, I heard that he once repelled hundreds of town marks alone; This is Mu Tan, his person is extremely despicable, but the water master has two hands, I heard that in the early years, he followed the sea and did not go ashore for a few days and nights, and he ate fish and shrimp, and his face remained unchanged. Li Guoying pointed to the flags on the opposite side and counted them one by one.

"With such skills, he is also a water master, no wonder Deng Ming will tolerate him." Both Curb Pilon and Jie Shu couldn't swim, and their faces changed slightly when they heard this. Without Li Guoying's introduction, they had long heard that Mu Tan was an insatiable villain, and the governor of Caoyun had bribed him in the first place to return the body of the first emperor. When other governors mentioned Mu Tan, their evaluations were similar, and many times Deng Ming's withdrawal from the army was inseparable from the Qing army's bribery of Mu Tan. The imperial court also once planned to bribe Mu Tan to assassinate Deng Ming, but Mu Tan was loyal to his immediate boss, and the lobbyists were beaten and sent back - Mu Tan said that Deng Ming had told him not to kill the envoy.

"That's Ren Tang, a Jiangxi scholar, Yunwen Yunwu, Gaoyouhu charged side by side with Deng Ming when he heard about it in the first war," Li Guoying praised Ren Tang a few words, saying that he was a general under Deng Ming: "The slave once defeated him for a while." ”

"And what about their boss?" Jie Shu asked, pointing to Zhao Tianba's banner. The three people in front of them have a good reputation, and they have also heard of their deeds, it is this Zhao Tianba, and the staff members all shook their heads and didn't know.

"I've heard of this person's name, it seems to be Deng Ming's friend of wine and meat, but I've heard that martial arts are okay. Last time, Zhao Liangdong surrounded him, but Deng Ming hurriedly came to relieve him of the siege, and he couldn't kill him......" Li Guoying's understanding of the Sichuan army is obviously far above that of Jieshu and Kupilon, and carefully introduced to them the situation of the last time Zhao Liangdong and Zhao Tianba fought against him, "So Zhao Tianba has a bit of prestige in the Western Sichuan Army, and it is said that the soldiers trust him." Others, there doesn't seem to be any outstanding performance, from the Kunming fire to the last time the thieves in western Sichuan went to Zhejiang, he didn't participate. ”

"Zhao Tianba can sit in this position, maybe because he has the best relationship with Deng Ming?" Kupilon observed the lineup of the Ming army with great interest: "Then how can he serve the public?" Is it because he is a good old man who does not abandon soldiers? ”

So the slave felt that Deng Ming must not have left. Although Deng Ming is young, he wanders through six provinces and causes trouble in the world, and he is the number one giant in the world, and he will never be stupid to this extent. Maybe Deng Ming sat here under the banner of Zhao Tianba, and let Zhao Tianba lead the partial division to land in Shandong, in an attempt to disturb the morale of our army. Li Guoying thinks that his guess may be very big, doesn't Zhao Tianba have the strength? He didn't have the ability to command a large army, but it was still possible to lead hundreds or thousands of jīng soldiers to disturb in Shandong.

Since the beginning of the confrontation with the main forces of the Ming army, Kupilon was full of confidence in victory, and in his opinion, time was not a friend of the Ming army, and the advantage of the Ming army was only the ability to maneuver along the Yangtze River. This is also what Li Guoying has repeatedly emphasized, Li Guoying believes that it will be difficult to seize the opportunity of the battle along the Yangtze River, but on the contrary, the Ming army will be mobilized back and forth, taking advantage of the opportunity of the Qing army's scattered forces to break through each one -- in the first battle of Zhongxian and Wanxian, Li Guoying suffered a great loss.

And now that the Ming army has abandoned their greatest advantage and concentrated their forces to confront the main force of the Qing court's zhōngyāng army, it will be tantamount to lifting the suppression of the Liangjiang army. In the past, due to the excessive pressure on the water surface of the Ming army, the Liangjiang troops had to disperse and hold on to various fortified cities, but now they have the opportunity to assemble and come to help in the battle.

Even if the Ming army repeatedly informed Nanjing and Nanchang that the main force of the Ming army was on the Huai'an line, and it was unlikely that they would encounter an ambush when crossing the river, Jiang Guozhu and they still insisted that the Ming army still retained a strong force on the Yangtze River - but to show that the army was so strong that it could concentrate 100,000 troops to confront the Qing court and maintain its advantage over Nanjing, then he would not believe it anyway.

And with the latest report coming, Suppilon is even more incomprehensible about the battle situation.

This time, the letter sent by Běijīng included the content of Zu Zepu's recital, and seeing that Zu Zepu turned to support the peace, Ji Bilong also guessed that Zu Zepu was most likely defeated by the Ming army that landed, just like Sonny and Aobai.

After seeing this report, although Li Guoying still didn't believe that Deng Ming went to Shandong, he also had a little doubt about his original judgment: "Zhao Tianba is a brave man, Vice General Zhao said that it is easy to defeat him, and it is effortless, if he leads his troops to Shandong, can he beat the governor of Shandong?" ”

……

The situation continued to be in conflict with the two rivers until November 15, and the situation still did not change in favor of the Qing army, and there was not even a shadow of the reinforcements that were worn by the curb. He had been looking forward to flanking the Ming army in front and back for more than a month, but he just couldn't achieve it. On the contrary, Zu Zepu deducted part of the northern reinforcements that should have been sent to Huaiyang, and said that the Shandong Green Battalion was already too busy to take care of itself, and it was impossible to continue to support the Jiangnan battlefield.

Today, the imperial court sent a new 800-li expedited, saying that Zu Zepu reported that Deng Ming was sweeping Jiaodong, and not long ago he seized the seal letter of Xiong Sen, the prefect of Laizhou, and sent it to Qingzhou City, and it seems that Laizhou has undoubtedly fallen. The Tianjin Navy Division that went to Laizhou and other places to reconnoiter was also defeated by the Ming army, and the unforgiving Fujian army chased them all the way to the port of Tianjin, but only two of the dozens of Qing warships escaped back. According to the officers and men of the sailor division who survived, the Ming fleets overseas in Laizhou and Dengzhou could not be seen at a glance, and if there were not 10,000 ships, there would have to be 7 or 8,000 ships. Sonny and Ao Bai squeezed the water hard, thinking that the Ming army's naval division was about a thousand ships, capable of transporting more than 100,000 troops.

Now the contact between Jinan and Dengzhou is also intermittent, and the messengers who send the letter are all from the south of the Jiaodong Peninsula, and it is said that the front-line military camp in Dengzhou Mansion is now panicked, and the officers and soldiers know that a powerful army has landed behind them. Zu Zepu also said that the envoys who escaped from Dengzhou also identified the banners of a large number of Sichuan troops, and Zu Zepu asked the imperial court to send him reinforcements immediately, or simply depose him.

Zu Zepu even said this, obviously he couldn't support it anymore. Běijīng, on the other hand, angrily asked the Huaiyang front whether they wanted to fight or retreat. Běijīng felt that Deng Ming had taken away the main force of the Sichuan army, but with the support of the officers and soldiers of Liangjiang, he still did not dare to fight the remaining Ming army, although the DPRK was a little disappointed in the courage of the Emperor, but Sony still trusted the command ability of the company, and if the company decided not to fight this battle, Běijīng would also support his judgment.

"Do you still think that Deng Ming didn't go to Shandong?" Jie Shu questioned Li Guoyingdao, and originally Ji Bilong also had the same opinion, but now the auxiliary minister's opinion has been shaken, and all the doubts have fallen on Li Guoying's shoulders.

"The main force of the Sichuan army must not have been taken away," Li Guoying said confidently: "If Deng Ming really went to Shandong, how could he only bring so many men?" ”

Now the Ming army in Jiangbei is located in the territory of the Qing army, and it is stuck by the zhōngyāng army, and it may be surrounded by the Qing army regiments rushing from all directions at any time. In such a dangerous situation, Li Guoying did not think that Deng Ming would take the sharpest troops away from the main battlefield - if there were only the Kuidong Army and the Chongming Army here, Li Guoying would also think that Deng Ming wanted to drag down the Qing army with a miscellaneous army and take his main force in western Sichuan to eat meat, but there were obviously a large number of western Sichuan troops on the opposite side.

"It's not a problem to drag it out." When he first arrived at the battlefield, Jieshu was indeed quite nervous, and he obeyed the words of Kupilon and Li Guoying, and the strategic Jieshu that they both agreed on would not object. However, now that he has been sitting quietly with the Ming army for a long time, Jie Shu has gradually overcome his nervousness, and the impatience in Běijīng's document is also obvious: "Whether to fight, or to clean up Deng Ming, who landed in Shandong, you two will give a good word." ”

"The minion thought he should wait." Li Guoying believes that the best way is to stick to the strategy proposed by Kubilong: "The veteran soldiers of the thief division are tired, and the officers and soldiers of Liangjiang will continue to regain their vitality." Sooner or later, the thieves will have to retreat or come and attack our camp on their own initiative. Shandong must not be Deng Ming, and the slave is sure that his main force is here. ”

"How long will we have to wait, five months, ten months? Or five years, ten years? Jie Shu's tone became even more impatient, and seeing that Li Guoying couldn't answer all of a sudden, Jie Shu sneered: "You really belong to a turtle, no wonder Deng Ming can't get your chóngqìng, and you haven't entered in five years." ”

Kubilong recognized Li Guoying's construction, but as Prince Kang said, how long would it take to see the officers and soldiers of Liangjiang to help in the war? If there is no movement for a few more months, and Deng Ming does go to Shandong with the army, then the impatient Běijīng may be charged with delaying the military plane in a fit of rage. The last defeat of Gaoyou Lake has already affected the reputation of Suppilon.

"I think we'd better attack," Jieshu planned to storm the camp of the Ming army, "Maybe it's all a false banner, and we will collapse as soon as we rush it." If the thieves are very strong and are indeed the main force of the thieves in western Sichuan, then we will at least be at ease in our hearts, knowing that Deng Ming must not have left. ”

After a pause, Jie Shu added: "Even if Deng Ming really goes to Shandong, and the remaining troops here are also very strong, we can fight a battle and then retreat, and we can explain to the imperial court." ”

This kind of strong attack, of course, will not let the precious Eight Banners do it, and Jieshu decided to send the Northern Green Battalion to take the lead.