"Dang Shousu, Wang Guangxing, He Zhen......" Li Guoying counted the generals of the Ming army and muttered to himself: "It's really all here." ”

After the Ming army's ships sailed out of the Tongluo Gorge, the armies on both sides of the river had no intention of hiding their whereabouts and strength, and the Ming army on the north bank of the Yangtze River advanced to the Jialing River in a big way, and Wang Guangxing erected his banner on the opposite side of Chaotianmen, as if demonstrating against Li Guoying; Dang Shousu crossed Wang Guangxing's camp and continued to march upstream of the Jialing River, outflanking the flanks of Chongqing with great fanfare; On the other side of the Yangtze River, the Ming army under the banner of He Zhen crossed the front of Chongqing and walked west with a large number of ships, and it seemed that they had a great intention of choosing a place to cross the river west of Chongqing.

This was followed by Liu Tichun and Yuan Zongdi's troops, the former to echo He Zhen, while the latter followed in the footsteps of Dang Shousu. Until this time, Li Laiheng's headquarters was still in Causeway Gorge and did not move.

After seeing the steady flow of Ming troops, the defenders of Chongqing were frightened, and the generals who were encouraged by Li Guoying also looked worried again.

"Wang Guangxing and the rest of the Kui Dong thieves seem to have some discord." Seeing that morale began to decline again, Wang Mingde rushed to the head of the city to ask Li Guoying for advice: "The last general thinks that he can send an elite army to cross the Jialing River to attack Wang Guangxing, and other Kui Dong thieves may not be able to reinforce him in time, if he is defeated, it can boost the morale of the officers and soldiers." ”

Li Guoying turned his head to look at Wang Mingde: "Who do you think is better to send?" ”

Wang Mingde replied without hesitation: "The last general is willing to go." ”

Wang Mingde is Li Guoying's confidant, and his ability to hold on to Chongqing after Gao Mingzhan escaped also proved his courage. If he met Deng Ming, of course, Wang Mingde's fighting spirit would be greatly reduced - he was captured and released three times, and it was strange that he could have fighting spirit; However, when encountering such a life-and-death enemy as Kui Dongzhong, Wang Mingde's courage suddenly recovered a lot.

"No." Li Guoying shook his head: "You are one of the best generals in the city, and I am afraid that only you can do this kind of thing of crossing the river and attacking it, and I am not at ease at all if I hand it over to others." Only if you go will you have a chance to win. Well, it should be a good chance. As you said, Wang Guangxing is at odds with other Kui Dong thieves, Wang Guangxing used to be a Chu army, and we know him well. ”

"Then why not?" Wang Mingde was a little confused when he heard it, Li Guoying obviously supported him and thought that he could win.

"Didn't I say you, you are the number one general in the city, a native, and you know geography; Your attack will inevitably be the attention of all people. If the enemy reinforces in time and you unfortunately suffer a small setback, how should the army's morale be cleaned up? Don't forget that there are still thousands of Shanxi green battalions in the city, they are already suspicious, they are not very trustworthy to their own officials, if the battle is not good, they will be afraid. ”

"But the chances are still great." Wang Mingde pointed out to the Ming army on the other side of the river, and he observed and realized the pride of the Ming army.

"Yes, since ancient times, arrogant soldiers will be defeated, so let them be more proud, don't startle the snake, let them be cautious." Li Guoying said approvingly, very satisfied with Wang Mingde's observation: "If you succeed in attacking, it is just to let Wang Guangxing retreat for a while, and you can also boost morale." But what the official wants is to repel a strong enemy, and he doesn't care about such a small victory. ”

"Our morale," Wang Mingde was still a little unwilling: "We have to lift up." ”

After seeing the Ming army outflanked from both wings, Chongqing's military spirit floated more and more, and the banner of the commander of the Ming army had not yet appeared, but there were 40,000 soldiers and horses, of which about half were armored, which had exceeded the number of armored soldiers in Chongqing.

"Well, what this official is most worried about now is that the thieves surround the three queyi, so I'm afraid that some people will want to withdraw again." Li Guoying did not hide his worries from his henchmen.

As Li Guoying guessed, Liu Tichun and He Zhen began preparations to cross the Yangtze River downstream, and the Ming army on the other side of the Jialing River also began to build wooden rafts and bamboo rafts, and it seemed that they would also cross the river and join the Ming army west of Chongqing with the other way.

Compared with the bluff of Yuan Zongdi and Deng Ming last time, the threat of the Ming army this time is undoubtedly greater. Last time, the Ming army did not have the strength and confidence to cross the river to encircle Chongqing, but now the Ming army has obvious advantages in land and water, and the successive victories also give them a huge psychological advantage over the Qing army. The Ming army knew very well that now Li Guoying could not transfer reinforcements from the rear to flank the Ming army crossing the river.

"Their progress is too slow," after observing the movements of the Ming army for two days, Li Guoying was convinced that the other party was trying to force him to break through: "Sure enough, they want to scare our army back." ”

In Chongqing, calls for a way out are also rising. Everyone knows that the border troops of Zhao Liangdong, Wang Jinbao, and Daniel Zhang have returned to their stations, and although Chongqing has a lot of grain reserves, it is empty, and as long as there are no reinforcements, no matter how much food there is, it will be surrounded and killed by the Ming army. Although many people did not explicitly say that they would withdraw their troops, they proposed that fortresses should be established along the supply lines to ensure that Chongqing's grain route and the lifeline of the Jialing River would not be completely cut off by the Ming army.

At this time, Li Laiheng's headquarters was finally dispatched, and after seeing more than 10,000 Ming troops and more than 5 or 6,000 armor soldiers, the defenders of Chongqing were shocked, and the strength of the Ming army on the opposite side was at least twice that of the Qing army. Four years ago, perhaps the Qing army would have thought that they could hold on, because they had countless examples of fighting with fewer enemies and more and finally holding the city; But now the most impressive thing in everyone's minds is last year's Zhongxian fiasco. After seeing the military appearance of the Ming army, the confidence that had barely been raised because of Li Guoying's bold words disappeared at once.

"It is necessary to take the initiative to attack in order to restore the morale of the officers and men." Wang Mingde went to see Li Guoying privately and once again proposed to launch a counterattack.

"No, this official decided to let some soldiers and horses stop Kui Dong's thieves from crossing the river." Li Guoying shook his head and said, he ordered someone to call Gao Mingzhan and other generals of the lineage, and announced to them: "This official will send a thousand soldiers of the Shanxi Green Battalion out of the city, let them bring enough baggage, and the soldiers will be divided into two roads, and camp opposite the thieves who want to cross the river on the river bank." ”

"My lord, no, a thousand Shanxi green camps will not help." Hu Wenke was so anxious that he shouted: "Shanxi Green Battalion is not familiar with geography, and it is a guest army, and it also has prejudices against us. ”

After the Shaanxi Green Camp returned to Chongqing unscathed last time, the Shanxi Green Camp had a great opinion of them, and there were many complaints in private.

"We must use our Shaanxi Green Battalion to prevent the Ming army from crossing the river, so let's let the last general go." Wang Mingde felt that it could not be delayed for a while, and the Ming army had the advantage of strength and the mobility of the sailors, so he could pull the Qing army to run: "It is inconvenient to carry the baggage, but it will drag down the march, or wait for the last general to camp and then transport grain to the camp after it is safe, otherwise if the battle is unfavorable, won't it be captured by thieves?" ”

"It's because there is a possibility of being seized by thieves, so the official will let them carry the baggage to camp," Li Guoying smiled slightly: "The baggage can lure the enemy." ”

Although Li Guoying saw through the Ming army and wanted to force him to abandon the city, there was no good way, and now the Ming army had not crossed the river, but the supply line was already in danger; As long as the Ming army did not attack Chongqing, sat in place and consumed Li Guoying, the Qing army's chances of victory were not great. And the possibility of taking the initiative to cross the river to repel the Ming army, which was twice his size and had high morale, was even more remote. His generals will become more and more nervous under military pressure, and the calls for withdrawal will also become louder, and simply suppressing this voice will only gather all the resentment on Li Guoying himself. What's even more terrifying is that in case the Manchu Han Eight Banners start to retreat regardless of a single thing, Li Guoying has no way to take these masters.

Li Guoying openly and honestly told his confidants that he planned to use a small number of soldiers to lure the Ming army to cross the river and completely cut off Chongqing's retreat.

"But I need your cooperation. After the soldiers who went out of the city were defeated by the thieves, someone would inevitably be captured, and the truth of Chongqing would be known to the thieves. ”

In addition to asking the Ming army to force the Qing army in Chongqing to death, Li Guoying also hoped that the Ming army would storm the city, so that he would have the opportunity to use Guò's firm defense to consume the strength of the Ming army, so as to rely on his own strength to complete the retreat from the enemy. And if the Ming army knew that there were still tens of thousands of armor in Chongqing, it was likely that they would be inclined to rely on the siege to weaken the strength of the defenders, which Li Guoying absolutely did not want to see.

At the military meeting the next day, Li Guoying announced to the Manchu and Han Eight Banners, the Shaanxi Green Battalion, and the Shanxi Green Battalion that he intended to send troops to delay the Ming army's crossing of the river to buy time for the army to withdraw if necessary. However, this kind of task is definitely risky, and Wang Mingde and others, who were first named by Li Guoying, all made a look of fear, saying that they were unwilling to leave the fortified city of Chongqing to camp outside.

Regardless of Li Guoying's coercion and temptation, these Shaanxi bears were unwilling to obey the general's orders, and it seemed that they would rather hide in the city of Chongqing and starve to death than go out to resist the Ming army, obviously completely losing the courage and fighting spirit to fight with the Ming army.

After a morning of hysterical quarrels, Li Guoying had to retreat to the next best thing and let Shanxi Green Camp shoulder this heavy responsibility. Full of dissatisfaction with the generals of Shaanxi, Shanxi Green Camp reluctantly stepped out of Chongqing City. After they left the city, Li Guoying changed his order again and did not continue to send reinforcements, so that the more than 1,000 Shanxi Green Battalion, which was the first to leave the city, had to divide their troops into two routes, and take care of the banks of the Yangtze River and Jialing River at the same time.

After completing the initial construction of the camp, these defenders were full of hope that Li Guoying would do his best to send follow-up reinforcements, because everyone knew that the small detachment of 500 people could not play any role in front of the Ming army's army, and it was simply unable to complete the task of delaying the Ming army's crossing of the river.

However, they did not wait for reinforcements from Chongqing, but instead encountered a night attack by the party Shousu, and with deep contempt for those blind colleagues in Chongqing, the soldiers of the Shanxi Green Battalion fled from their camp with a curse.

By dawn, Dang Shousu had seized the Qing army camp near him and all the baggage in it. After discovering that Chongqing showed no signs of counterattack, Dang Shousu and Liu Tichun, who had crossed the Jialing River, continued their attack and captured the camp near the Yangtze River, where the defenders fled in the direction of Baoning long before they rushed over.