While Feng Shuangli was waiting for Deng Ming to return to Jianchang, the atmosphere in Jianchang gradually became a little strange.

Some time ago, when they learned that Deng Ming had gone into the city in disguise to make trouble, most of them expressed their indignation - after all, Di Sanxi was an old colleague he had known for many years, and the miserable appearance of having several teeth knocked out was very sympathetic. As for Deng Ming's courage to enter the city alone, although these people also have a little admiration in their hearts, but since this courage is aimed at themselves, their admiration for Cheng Dù will be greatly reduced, and it will cause more hostility. Many people's arguments are: What kind of ability do you have to get along with us? You have the ability to fight the Tartars. The Ming clan is all a virtuous, cowardly and incompetent to the outside, but as soon as he touches his own ability, he is all here.

Everyone also knew that this analogy was a bit far-fetched, but seeing that Di Sanxi's speech was leaky, it triggered the psychology of hatred and hatred, and this statement was widely recognized. At that time, they did not expect that only one day later, Deng Ming would really go to battle with the Qing soldiers.

When the news of the annihilation of more than 800 Qing troops came, the officers and men of Jianchang were shocked and began to talk about it, and linked the two successive incidents of being weak and strong. For Feng Shuangli's soldiers, after many years of fighting, the Qing court has always been a great enemy in their minds, especially those soldiers in their twenties......

But suddenly, everyone is about to surrender to the enemy who does not share the sky, put their lives in their hands, and also go to learn from those green camps who have forgotten their ancestors. Of course, this will cause the morale of the army to waver, but fortunately, the soldiers also understand that the enemy is too strong, so strong that even the Son of Heaven has abandoned the country and absconded, and the surrender of these small soldiers is also a last resort.

Even if there was a thought of surrender, and no one would stand up against the officers' orders, the soldiers' perception of the Qing army as a great enemy would not be completely reversed for a while, and it was exciting for them to learn that a proud Qing army, the enemy who had come to accept the surrender, had been annihilated. Not only the soldiers, but also the officers obviously had some respect for Deng Ming when they discussed this matter with each other.

As for the garrison soldiers near Jianchang, they had little loyalty to Feng Shuangli or Di Sanxi. When Di Sanxi first announced that he was going to surrender to the Manchus, the mainstream idea among these people who called soldiers and were actually farmers was to go with the flow: they were not organized, armed, or generals, and they could not and did not have the courage to fight Di Sanxi's army; Secondly, these people's thoughts are similar to Di Sanxi: The Son of Heaven has run away, do you want me to farm the land and die for Daming Sheji?

Although these people will never follow Wen Tianxiang and shed their last drop of blood for the emperor's society, they still regard the Qing court as an enemy and themselves as Ming people in their hearts. Deng Ming's victory was of course the victory of the Ming Dynasty, which brought fresh talking points to the originally very boring and dull life here in Jianchang, and the excited Tun army now discussed this battle that happened around them every day in their leisure time, and at the end of each discussion, most of them would sarcastically say a few words to the officers and soldiers of the Feng Department -- the current view of the tun soldiers is: Deng Ming was merciful to his subordinates on the day he came to Jianchang, otherwise Di Sanxi, the soft bone who advocated surrender, and his subordinates would also end up with the Tartars.

Di Sanxi has also heard of the fluctuating military heart, and now his situation is very bad, and his mood is also very unhappy.

Jianchang's defenders wanted to surrender not only to him, but from top to bottom, the opposition was not only small but also not firm, some people only verbally protested but no one thought of resisting by force. Since the surrender was discussed, there has never been a single bloodshed or suicide in Jianchang. King Qingyang, who was supposed to be the backbone and pillar of the whole army, was unwilling to bear the reputation of a traitor, so Di Sanxi had to come out and carry this black cauldron.

It is precisely because the surrender faction has become the majority of the army that Di Sanxi has not been hindered since he took power, because he is able to do things, vigorously and resolutely get in touch with Wu Sangui and Li Guoying, and quickly negotiate the terms of surrender that are not bad, so Di Sanxi's prestige has always been steadily increasing. It seems that after Feng Shuangli, who seeks benevolence and benevolence, goes to běijīng, it is only natural for Di Sanxi to take over the army.

Unexpectedly, Deng Ming jumped out and intervened, which confused the situation at once. First of all, Di Sanxi's image as a doer and a moderate faction has been destroyed, and now when Feng soldiers and Jianchang soldiers talk about Deng Ming, the protagonist, they must bring Di Sanxi and the Qing army guerrillas. As the protagonists win one after another, the image becomes more and more wise and martial, and the image of the two supporting characters correspondingly continues to degenerate in the direction of incompetence, scumbag, and stupidity. Although the Qing army guerrillas were far ahead, Di Sanxi, who followed closely, had nothing to be happy about, after all, the difference between this race was only the first and second, and he could not retire halfway.

In the past, colleagues were not only polite to Di Sanxi, but also with respect, but now this respect is gone. In the past two days, Di Sanxi noticed that his colleagues often muttered behind his back, and the few people who spoke often did not talk calmly and loudly, but squinted at himself in the distance while talking, and covered the side of his mouth with his hand, as if he was afraid that the voice would float to his side. When Di Sanxi walked over, the person who was talking to immediately stopped talking, squeezed out an unnatural smile, and then talked to himself. This awkwardness in Di Sanxi's heart, it really can't be mentioned.

If it was just a white-nosed harlequin, it would be fine, but because of Deng Ming's victory, the main battle faction that had been silent for a long time made a voice again, and the voice was not small, and it gained support at the bottom. Those who had mentioned surrender long before Di Sanxi were now silent, because no one knew how Wu Sangui would react to this ambush, and the road of surrender was no longer necessarily feasible.

Not only Jianchang Feng Shuangli's subordinates, but even the Ming army around the city believed that Feng Shuangli was captured and imprisoned by the traitor Di Sanxi, although Feng Shuangli could find a reason to pardon Di Sanxi after regaining his rights, but Di Sanxi knew that his big white face image could not be erased. If the main battle faction wins again, won't Di Sanxi become the culprit? Feng Shuangli did not preside over any surrender work, and Di Sanxi could not count on King Qingyang to help him share the responsibility. If one day Fengjie investigates this matter, Wen Anzhi may pardon the public in order to appease the army, but maybe he will kill a few first offenders to strictly enforce the law of the imperial court and deter wrongdoing, right? Even if he only kills one, Di Sanxi knows who this person is. I don't know if King Qingyang and his colleagues will be willing to contribute to save their lives when the time comes—is it necessary not to give Wen An a little face for the sake of a well-known waste?

With a big white face and a white nose, Di Sanxi felt a lot of pressure.

……

When the officers and soldiers of Jianchang were talking and waiting for Deng Ming to return, he had already arrived at the boundary of Dongchuan Mansion with nineteen cavalrymen.

During the interrogation of several captives, Deng Ming was surprised to find that they had killed the highest commander of the Qing army in Dongchuan Prefecture in one fell swoop. But then he understood that the people of Dongchuan Mansion had fled, and after Jianchang surrendered, Dongchuan would have no value of occupation.

For example, in Baoning and Chóngqìng, the combined tax revenue of the two prefectures is only 3,000 taels of silver a year, while the civil and military officials of the Qing court in these two prefectures need 5,000 taels of silver a year. Among them, Baoning Mansion is backed by Shaanxi Province, Shaanxi's tax situation is relatively good, and there are relatively few bandits and bandits, so Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, used his authority to move some household registration from Shaanxi to Baoning.

Dongchuan Province is located at the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan, and the situation is even worse than these places. In the past, when Xiying conquered Sichuan and Yunnan, he passed by here several times, and there were many kinds of officers and soldiers who were pursued, officers and soldiers who pursued Xiying, officers and soldiers who first pursued Xiying, and then were pursued by Xiying. Then there were bandits under the banner of officers and soldiers, bandits under the banner of Xiying, and bandits who did not fight under any banner, and successively fought for the control of Dongchuan Prefecture.

After many years of chaotic fighting, the people who barely managed to save their lives either fled west to Jianchang or south to Kunming.

In the next few years, Sun Kewang planned to run Yunnan, so he sent troops to Dongchuan Mansion, not far from Kunming, to suppress bandits, searching for hukou that could be moved to Yunnan; After another two years, Liu Wenxiu began to run Jianchang, and sent troops to Dongchuan to relocate the population again.

Wu Sangui led the Qing army from Guizhou to attack Yunnan, and did not consider the plan to send a surprise army to Dongchuan Mansion to flank Kunming, and the defending Ming army never worried about the threat from the north, because both sides knew that Dongchuan was empty and could not provide the logistics of the army's movements, even if it was a small force of 1,000 people.

However, after Wu Sangui captured Kunming, he quickly recruited 10,000 strong men from Yunnan as auxiliaries to go to Dongchuan Mansion to manage Dongchuan Mansion. These auxiliaries repaired roads and built many warehouses, post stations, and beacon towers. In order to protect and monitor the 10,000 newly recruited auxiliaries, Wu Sangui also sent a combat force of 1,000 people to Dongchuan Prefecture, led by this guerrilla commander who had just been killed. According to the captives' confessions, they have been supervising the construction of warehouses by auxiliaries in Dongchuan Province for three months. According to the guerrillas who led the army, it was not yet possible to send a magistrate to Dongchuan Prefecture, and when a large number of warehouses were completed and more supplies were brought in, they could consider appointing magistrates.

From the words of these captives, Deng Ming learned that the Qing army in Yunnan was now quite short of supplies, and it stands to reason that the construction of Dongchuan Mansion should not be a high priority, after all, Wu Sangui's current priority was to continue to pursue Li Dingguo, and at the same time stabilize Dìng's rule in Yunnan and Guizhou, and try to restore production in the two provinces, so as to ensure that his subordinates and the Ming army that surrendered to him could have enough to eat. And Wu Sangui's order to Jianchang also proves this, after learning that Di Sanxi planned to surrender, the Qing soldiers stationed in Dongchuan Mansion left half of the people to look after the house, with 500 soldiers and 300 people carrying heavy baggage rushed to Jianchang, to do their best to transport the grain and people here to Yunnan.

"Wu thief didn't expect Jianchang to surrender to him soon, he just sent people to Dongchuan to repair roads and warehouses as soon as he captured Kunming, Yunnan's manpower and food are so tight that he still has to run Dongchuan Mansion, what is he for?" After questioning the captives, Deng Ming discussed the issue with the guards.

"In order to attack Jianchang!" Zhou Kaihuang was the first to shout out.

That's right. Since Zhou Kaihuang can see the importance of Jianchang, it makes no sense that Wu Sangui can't see it. As for the idea that Dongchuan was built to restore administrative rule, it was mostly an excuse for Wu Sangui or the dead guerrillas to listen to these big-headed soldiers. Dongchuan Mansion belongs to the territory of Sichuan and is Li Guoying's territory, how could Wu Sangui use his own food and manpower to solve local administrative problems for Li Guoying? Wu Sangui can't be a zealous person who helps others, even if Li Guoying used to be his subordinate, it's useless.

"How could you only send a thousand people to attack Jianchang?" Some of the guards were slow to react, and felt that if Wu Sangui really wanted to attack, he would not just send such a few people to Dongchuan - because these 800 soldiers were defeated by 20 cavalry, they felt that the opponent's forces were too weak.

"Of course not. Wu Sangui's population and grain are in short supply, so he must supply Yunnan for use first. Because Dongchuan Mansion had nothing, Wu Sangui was temporarily unable to use troops against Jianchang. But he knew that once Jianchang was captured, all Yunnan officers and soldiers would be cut off from retreat, so that they would no longer have any food supplies. Therefore, Wu Sangui first sent a thousand people to repair a warehouse in Dongchuan and transport some grain to the past, and when the soldiers and horses in his hands were rich, and Jianchang could be taken without much effort, Wu Sangui would also take Jianchang easily. ”

If Wu Sangui really sent 5,000 soldiers and horses, it would definitely be easy to take Jianchang, and only the 800 Qing soldiers who had just been wiped out could pose a considerable threat to Jianchang. But now it is not clear whether Wu Sangui has thousands of wealthy soldiers and horses in his hands, how much the warehouse has been repaired in Dongchuan Mansion, and how much grain has been transported.

Even if Wu Sangui did not know whether it was an ambush by the Jianchang soldiers, he could still express to the main surrender faction that he believed that this was an accidental isolated incident, and that it was the confrontational behavior of the remnants of Jianchang's pro-Ming forces and had nothing to do with the surrender faction, so as to further divide and disintegrate the Jianchang Ming army. And next time Wu Sangui will send more troops to come, led by more effective generals carefully, then it will not be something that Deng Ming's twenty horsemen can solve.

Deng Ming recounted his worries to the guards, and most of them were finally persuaded by Deng Ming, realizing that although the 800 Qing soldiers had been defeated in a desperate battle, the crisis in Jianchang had not been resolved, and the road for the Jianchang army to surrender to Wu Sangui was far from being blocked.

"We don't do it, we don't stop, we have worked so hard to keep Jianchang, so we can only continue to fight." Deng Ming thought for a while, and once again proposed a Jianyi: "How about we attack Dongchuan Mansion under the banner of Jianchang?" If Dongchuan Mansion is kept, Wu Sangui will be able to quickly understand what is going on here, and he will be able to continue to communicate with those in Jianchang City who want to surrender. Now the main general and half of the troops of the Dongchuan Qing army have been wiped out by us, and most of the remaining more than 10,000 people are auxiliaries, only a few hundred soldiers, and they are scattered in various warehouses...... Wu Sangui was able to pretend not to see Jianchang's soldiers rebelling and ambushing his subordinates; But if Jianchang's soldiers attacked Dongchuan Mansion, burned the warehouse he had just repaired, killed his guards, and dispersed the tens of thousands of troops he had built bridges and paved roads, would he still be able to swallow this breath? ”

"If he knew that we did it, not Feng Shuangli and Di Sanxi, Wu Thief might still be able to bear it, after all, they just didn't report it, or they were incompetent." One of the guards replied.

"As long as we burn down Dongchuan Mansion, his chances of knowing the truth will be small. If there are warehouses and reserves, he can send troops to fight even if he doesn't know the truth, and if he can't do 5,000, he can send 10,000. Without these warehouses, he would have to rebuild them, and even if he sent another 10,000 men at once, it would take three months to restore them to their current state. Deng Ming felt that Wu Sangui's pocket was not a bottomless pit, perhaps the 10,000 people and other materials were the limit that Wu Sangui could temporarily use in this strategic direction, and this blow could make Wu Sangui's attempt at southwest Sichuan impossible to realize for a long time: "What do you think? ”

"The big deal is to return to Fengjie a few days late, if Jianchang is solid, the superintendent will not be too late for the good news," and there was no objection as Deng Ming expected, Zhou Kaihuang said nonchalantly: "If you still fail to keep Jianchang in the end, you will bring this bad news to the superintendent a few days later." -- Deng Ming felt that Zhou Kaihuang's words were suspected of plagiarizing himself

Then, Li Xinghan also expressed full confidence: "Isn't it just five hundred, and they are scattered along the avenue near various warehouses." Eight hundred of them were wiped out by us, and besides, we still had the advantage of a surprise attack. --Deng Ming felt that Li Xinghan was also suspected of plagiarism.

"Then it's decided." Deng Ming immediately ordered to prepare to march to Dongchuan.

Before leaving, he returned to the battlefield, Deng Ming found the military seal of the Qing general in the military tent of the Qing army, carefully cleaned it and carefully put it away: "We must carry forward the good experience, and this time we still have to use the real thing." ”

As for Di Sanxi's big seal, Deng Ming stayed in the ruins of the Zhongjun tent, and there was no need for this seal to go to Dongchuan, Deng Ming decided to return the object to its original owner, and in order to achieve this purpose, he also worked tirelessly to erect a wooden stake in the ruins and placed Di Sanxi's seal on it.

"What does this traitor do to him?" Zhou Kaihuang felt that Di Sanxi was finished this time, and after the failure of the surrender operation, as the mastermind of planning the surrender of Jianchang, Wen Anzhi would not spare Di Sanxi; Even if Feng Shuangli didn't want to clear himself, in order to express his determination to continue to resist, he had to clean up the morale of the Jianchang army; As for the other officers who seconded the surrender, in order to show their hearts, they also had to draw a line with Di Sanxi.

"General Di has been resisting for more than ten years, and it is only now that he is shaken at this last moment." Deng Ming admired the people in history who could persist in resisting to the end, and he felt that it was not easy to support the people who surrendered until Yongli fled. Unlike Tan Hong, Di Sanxi did not kill his companions to curry favor with the Qing court: "The surrender is a matter in which all the Qingyang army participated, and the king of Qingyang himself did not pay attention to it, I think it is inappropriate to kill General Di, he did not kill his own people." ”

……

"Wu Sangui, he's going to beat us." After further interrogation of the Qing prisoners, Di Sanxi came to the same conclusion as Deng Ming. If Wu Sangui was to help the magistrates to carry out construction, he should first repair the yamen, but the Qing army did not repair the yamen well in the past three months, but built a beacon tower and warehouse along the avenue, what did he plan to do?

Several days have passed, and there is still no trace of Deng Ming and his party, Di Sanxi suddenly had a thought: Will they go to fight Dongchuan Mansion? If the warehouse that Wu Sangui worked so hard to build was ignited by the people from Dongchang, it would undoubtedly be like thunder, and even if there were still people who wanted to surrender, they had to calculate whether Wu Sangui would kill people and vent their anger. Di Sanxi recalled the steadfastness he saw in Deng Ming's eyes, this bold guy would undoubtedly try his best to prevent the Qing army from attacking Jianchang, and going to Dongchuan to sabotage was obviously a move to draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle.

Rìzi became more and more difficult day by day, and Di Sanxi watched himself become a typical example of stupidity in the mouths of everyone. On the one hand, Di Sanxi hopes that Deng Ming will clean up more generals, the more the better, in this competition of ranking big and small fools, the more athletes Di Sanxi will become; But the paradox is that Di Sanxi's name will always be mentioned together with Deng Ming's, if the latter succeeds repeatedly, it will cause more discussions, and Di Sanxi's supporting role will have to appear again and again, from this point of view, Di Sanxi hopes that Deng Ming will be forgotten by everyone immediately.

"I became a traitor, a fool, did everything, carried all the black pots, and was finally ridiculed by everyone......" Di Sanxi sat on the chair and thought about his thoughts, the more he thought about it, the more sad he became, and two tears almost fell out of his eyes - the man didn't flick his tears when he had tears, but he didn't reach the sad place - Di Sanxi touched his cheeks sadly: "I lost four teeth." ”

"Dongchuan is a little bit lower than Kunming, if His Royal Highness goes to Kunming by the way, let Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui, Zhao Liangdong and them eat a deflated, even if only one of them suffers a big loss." No matter how beautiful Deng Ming played in Dongchuan, he still had to be pointed at, Di Sanxi fantasized that it would be best for Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui and Zhao Liangdong to also participate in this competition, with this kind of star-level athlete, then the audience's eyes will no longer be focused on him Di Sanxi: "It's better to be bigger than the loss I suffered." ”

However, Di Sanxi also knew that he was dreaming in vain, not to mention that there were only twenty people, even twenty thousand people would be difficult to make these three old fritters suffer. Let them be disgraced, that is something that the King of Jin with an army of 100,000 has not been able to do, can you still expect Deng Ming, who only has nineteen subordinates? Di Sanxi knew that his dream would not become a reality.

"If he really goes to Dongchuan." Thinking about it, thinking about it, Di Sanxi felt his heart beating faster, he hadn't shared his guess with other colleagues or even the old chief Feng Shuangli, but pondered by himself if he could do something to improve his current bad image in one fell swoop. If Dongchuan was successfully attacked by Deng Ming, it is estimated that the surrender faction would completely collapse, and the Qing army would not be able to look north in a short period of time.