The next time Zhou Peigong went to the Ming army camp to negotiate, he did not see Deng Ming, according to the Ming army reception officer explained, Governor Deng had returned to Zhongxiang and urged Liu Tichun and others to carry out the work of suppressing bandits.

……

After the Battle of Zhenjiang, the wind direction was always unfavorable to the Ming army, or the wind was not strong enough, so it took Zheng Chenggong more than ten days to arrive in Nanjing from Zhenjiang.

The ships used by the Ming army in Zhejiang were much smaller than those of the Fujian army, but Zhang Huangyan's department also needed to use a slender man to drag the boat upstream, so the Zhejiang army did not go straight to Nanchang, Jiangxi, but first recruited the surrounding prefectures and counties in the upper reaches of Nanjing, while strengthening its strength, while waiting for a better wind.

When the vanguard of the Ming army arrived at the city of Nanjing, the governor Jiang Guozhu, the admiral Guan Xiaozhong and others, together with other Nanjing officials, asked Zheng Chenggong to surrender, but asked for a time limit.

"They demanded that they surrender after thirty days, and as long as they could hold out for thirty days, the captives would not even be involved with their families." Zheng Chenggong repeated the conditions of Nanjing to his subordinates in order to exercise their judgment. Yu Xin and Gan Hui are Zheng Chenggong's right-hand men, and Zheng Chenggong wants them to talk about their ideas.

"I've never heard of this," Yu Xin replied immediately, "Our army has been fighting with the Tartars for ten years, if there is really such a rule, how can we not hear of it?" ”

"If they really plan to surrender and save their lives, do they still care about the lives of their families?" Gan Hui also believes that this matter must be false, needless to say that the Manchu Qing Dynasty, even the Ming army will never show mercy to the families of traitors, whether they have fought hard or not, surrendering to the enemy army is an unforgivable crime: "If you are worried about your family and regard the safety of your family as more important than your own life, then they will not surrender!" ”

Many people have similar opinions, Zheng Chenggong smiled and nodded, and then ordered the Qing army envoy to come in, in front of the generals, Zheng Chenggong said that he agreed to Nanjing's request, and gave the Nanjing defenders thirty days.

After sending off the Manchu envoys, Zheng Chenggong left a group of confidant officers in the camp tent and explained to his bewildered subordinates: "A similar reason seems to have been seen in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Eastern Wu invaded Wei, a Wei general desperately resisted for 90 days, and knowing that the city was about to be broken, he asked Wu General for a time of leniency, claiming that according to the laws of Wei, if the resistance exceeded 100 rì, he would not even be connected to his family. General Wu believed it, and the Wei soldiers took the opportunity of the ten-day truce to repair the city wall and fill the gap, so that the soldiers could rest, and continue to resist after ten years. ”

"Then how could Wu Jiang believe it?" Yu Xin expressed disbelief: "Eastern Wu and Cao Wei have been at war for many years, even if the commander does not know the laws and decrees of Wei, is it not clear to all the generals and staff under him?" ”

"This is just a storytelling, but presumably someone in Nanjing City has seen it, and believes it to be true, so they use it to fool the domain." Zheng Chenggong planned to use this opportunity to complete the preliminary work of attacking Nanjing without interference: "The Nanjing Tartars have even come up with this kind of plan, which shows that they are at the end of the road and are doing everything possible to delay time. However, the more this time, the more you have to guard against them jumping off the wall. In order to pretend to be more like, they will not go out of the city to counterattack, and will not interfere with the landing and encampment of the officers and soldiers. ”

After the First Battle of Zhenjiang, Guan Xiaozhong and Jiang Guozhu both fled, and Zheng Chenggong felt that if they really wanted to surrender, they would not desperately flee at that time; If they were afraid to decide to surrender afterwards, they should have sent a letter of surrender in Zhenjiang, Jurong and other places, instead of waiting until the vanguard of the Ming army arrived at the city of Nanjing to make such a ridiculous request, which must be a delaying tactic.

Zheng Chenggong sent people to the rear team to urge them to hurry up to the city of Nanjing, and on the other hand, he led the vanguard generals to trample the terrain around Nanjing.

Unlike Zheng Chenggong, many of his generals were seeing Nanjing for the first time. After the Battle of Zhenjiang, Gan Hui also mentioned that the light army had attacked Nanjing, and after witnessing Nanjing's city defense with his own eyes today, he couldn't help but smack his tongue -- the Nanjing city wall in front of him was as high as a hill.

"There are thirteen city gates in Nanjing," Zheng Chenggong led his men to walk for a long time, and he couldn't finish half of the city wall of Nanjing: "How do you think this city should be attacked?" ”

Originally, Yu Xin had built a city surrounded on all sides, surrounded Nanjing, and divided his troops to guard various passages to cut off the transportation links inside and outside the city, but now he himself vetoed his proposal: "The big city of Nanjing cannot be encircled, so it can only be attacked from one side." ”

If Nanjing is surrounded on all sides, 3,000 armor soldiers and 10,000 auxiliary soldiers can be divided in front of each city gate, and after diluting the troops, the Ming army in front of any city gate will be at a disadvantage compared to the defenders in the city, and may be defeated by the opponent's concentrated main force; Moreover, Zheng Chenggong did not have cavalry in his hands, and the infantry could be tired and half dead when they ran around Nanjing in armor, and they could not support each other at all; Since it is impossible to even close the encirclement, it is even more impossible to isolate internal and external transportation. If the Zheng army plans to besiege the city and send reinforcements, then it needs to spread the forces more scattered, forming a two-layer encirclement inside and outside, and when the time comes, the reinforcements and defenders will be attacked inside and outside, and the various infantry units scattered in the two-layer encirclement may not only fail to help, but will be wiped out by the other side.

"Yes, it is necessary to attack, which is another reason why the clan agreed to give them thirty days." This time when he came to Jiangnan, Zheng Chenggong carried hundreds of thousands of catties of copper, all of which were red copper that he bought from rìben, and Zheng Chenggong also had a large amount of gunpowder in addition to copper. Zheng Chenggong had hoped to destroy the Qing army's fighting spirit with a field victory under Nanjing, but he also had to consider how to capture Nanjing if he failed to achieve such a goal.

After capturing Zhenjiang and other places, Zheng Chenggong ordered the collection of artillery from all over the country, all of which were loaded onto ships and transported to Nanjing. Zheng Chenggong took his generals to observe some terrain, and finally selected a few places, and ordered Yu Xin and others to be stationed separately: "This domain has thought hard many times about the method of breaking Nanjing, and I feel that there is no other way than to use artillery to break through the city wall. However, if we want to blast open the city wall of Nanjing, we will definitely not be able to rely on the kind of thousands of catties of artillery in our hands, and we must have tens of thousands of catties of heavy artillery. ”

However, such heavy cannons did not have the means and experience to transport them, and even if they could be transported by ship by sea, it was a problem to load and unload the ship and tow it intact from the landing site to the city of Nanjing.

"Therefore, this domain did not carry cannons this time, but brought millions of catties of red copper, and when the copper materials arrived, we will cast cannons under the city." The locations that Zheng Chenggong had just selected were a few places that could be used to build forts. He planned to cast dozens of unprecedented heavy cannons directly next to the fort and use them to blast through the walls of Nanjing.

Zheng Chenggong planned to send troops to garrison these locations first, and finally choose a place to work secretly, using the camp as a cover before completion, avoiding the eyes and ears of the Qing army. In the first battle of Zhenjiang, officials and green battalion soldiers from all over the southeast saw that the Eight Banners soldiers they regarded as divine soldiers were wiped out by the Ming army, and they lost confidence and surrendered to Zheng Chenggong. Now Zheng Chenggong felt that what supported the defenders of Nanjing was the seemingly impregnable Nanjing city wall in front of him. If the wall, which was seen as the last resort, suddenly collapse, the defenders could collapse in an instant.

Therefore, the construction must be carried out in secret, and the cannon must be used uniformly after casting, so as to cause the greatest shock effect to the enemy. It's just that Zheng Chenggong has never cast such a heavy cannon, and he doesn't know when it will succeed, he dragged all the cannons around him just in case, if two or thirty thousand pounds of copper cannons can't blast through the fifteen-meter-thick city wall of Nanjing, he will cast more and heavier cannons.

"It will take at least ten days to build the fort, and then it will take ten days to smelt the copper and cast the cannon." Zheng Chenggong calculated the time and said to his subordinates: "Sharpening knives doesn't require woodcutters, why does it take twenty days for the cannons of this domain to be made, so why not give thirty days to the prisoners in the city?" Save them from having nothing to do and make trouble and affect the progress of the domain. Since they knew that they were using a delaying tactic, this clan didn't really need to keep the thirty-day covenant until the cannon was cast...... Well, about twenty-five to twenty-eight days later, when the Tartars were probably pondering some reason to delay, and just when they thought that there were still a few days left in the peace, the Honfan suddenly fired a volley of artillery, blasted through the city walls in one fell swoop, and attacked Nanjing. ”

Before the arrival of the copper ships, the ships carrying the families of the Fujian soldiers had already sailed to the vicinity of Nanjing.

Zheng Chenggong had never brought soldiers' families with him before, and when he attacked Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places, there was a phenomenon of soldiers thinking of returning. There were a few times when Zheng Chenggong was leading the troops, and there were suddenly rumors in the army that the Jinxia base area was attacked by the Qing troops, and suddenly the Ming army was disheartened, and they asked Zheng Chenggong's squad to return to help.

Sometimes these rumors were deliberately spread by Geng Jimao and other adversaries, and sometimes they were made up by soldiers who missed their families. Zheng Chenggong was bound to win this attack on Nanjing, and he was afraid that a similar problem would occur, so he ordered the families of the officers and men in the army to be brought with them and brought them all from Fujian to Nanjing.

In addition to preventing the return of soldiers, Zheng Chenggong also has another layer of consideration. His sights were not limited to the capture of Nanjing, for him this was only the first step in his grand strategy, and then Zheng Chenggong had to not only hold Nanjing, but also strive to launch an attack to the north and west. Zheng Chenggong knew that most soldiers could not have the same ambitions as themselves, and if they did not bring their families to Nanjing, many soldiers might want to loot, make a fortune and return to Fujian; In the event of a strong Manchu counterattack, the soldiers may also want to sail to sea, unwilling to die in a foreign land.

And now Zheng Chenggong has moved the families of the soldiers, and as long as these families are placed in Nanjing in the future, the Fujian army will regard the southeast as the foundation and willingly follow Zheng Chenggong to fight on this land. If the Manchus threatened the safety of Nanjing, Zheng Chenggong's soldiers would also fight to the death to defend their loved ones.

Along with the families of the soldiers, there was also a new war report from Huguang. Due to the relationship between the young Tang kings, Zheng Chenggong attaches great importance to the situation in Huguang, and he will immediately look at a new report. If the captured Manchu Mansion newspaper involved the Huguang War, Zheng Chenggong would also read it at the first moment.

This report is related to Deng Ming's latest open letter, and Zheng Chenggong laughed when he saw Deng Ming once again show his might and go deep into Hu Quancai's camp with a few guards to kill him. While despising Hu Quancai for being stupid and incompetent, he also admired Deng Ming's courage and courage even more.

"The young master is so heroic, what else does Zhang Shangshu have to say in the future?" Zheng Chenggong read the report twice before he put it down. When he decided to support this person before, Zheng Chenggong was also worried that the young Tang King did not have the courage of his father and uncle, but was similar to the current Yongli Tianzi. In the future, the Manchu Qing Dynasty will inevitably counterattack southward, and if Zheng Chenggong and the Ming army soldiers were fighting on the Yangtze River, they suddenly heard that the prison state in Nanjing had fled, then this battle would not be able to be fought.

Zheng Chenggong was overjoyed by the news of the Kunming fire, and the battle in Huguang this time showed that the young Tang king had considerable prestige in the Kuidong army, rather than relying entirely on Wen Anzhi's connections.

"If the Tatar Qing Dynasty goes south in the future, the young master will come to the front line in person and put on a royal honor guard in front of the ten thousand troops......" Zheng Chenggong thought of this, shook his head again, and expelled this thought from his mind: "The loyal battalion is weak, and it is very difficult to fight the Huguang Green Battalion, and it is also a last resort for the young lord to go deep behind the enemy line alone. But our army is strong and strong, and the sailors cover the Yangtze River, how can we still let the young master take such a risk? In the future, won't I let others gossip, saying that I sit back and watch the young master take risks, and it is not the work of loyal ministers and filial sons? ”

The Min army and the Kuidong army all supported the Shaotang King, and I heard that some of Sun Kewang's old generals and the Sichuan army also supported the Shaotang King, and Li Dingguo, who supported Yongli, was greatly damaged after the war, Zheng Chenggong felt that the Yongli faction had no chance of winning militarily; The Son of Heaven abandoned the country and did not return, but the King of the Young Tang Dynasty took the lead, crisscrossing several provinces, recovering Nanjing, and was not at a disadvantage in public opinion. Besides, it is just a prison state, and it is not a blatant usurpation.

Ordered his subordinates to list Deng Ming's exploits in Huguang on a piece of paper, and Zheng Chenggong took these exploits and his sacrificial texts to the filial piety tomb to worship Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.

After leaving Xiaoling, Zheng Chenggong waved his pen and wrote a poem:

Su Linjiang swore to destroy Hu, and the male master swallowed Wu with 100,000 angers. Try to see the moat throwing the whip crossing, I don't believe that the Central Plains is not surnamed Zhu.

……

Deng Ming's achievements in Huguang have not only spread to Jiangnan, but also heard about them all over Sichuan. The Ming officers and soldiers around Fengjie were happy at first, but then they began to become uneasy, and everyone thought that Deng Ming would not return to Sichuan. This uneasiness became even stronger after Wen Anzhi's departure, and the small number of Ming troops who were left to defend Fengjie felt that Wen Inspector would definitely open a mansion in Wuchang this time, and Sichuan, which had been traumatized by the war, would probably gradually fade out of Deng Ming and Wen Anzhi's field of vision, and would no longer be taken seriously by them.

Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai from Wanxian County also felt the same sense of loss after the initial excitement. Now Qin Xiucai is already Xiong Qian's master. Qin Xiucai has been actively running Wanxian Juntun with Xiong Lan, hoping to make achievements and impress Deng Ming. But now they feel that this is all in vain, after having Huguang, Deng Ming will definitely go all the way to the east, straight to Jiangxi and Nanjing, and will never look back, or the Northern Expedition will be victorious, or die on the road of the Northern Expedition. Even if the Ming Dynasty is prosperous in the future, he will still remember that there is a thousand generals and a master in the remote Wanxian County?

The Qing army was equally concerned about the situation in Huguang, even more than in Nanjing. At the beginning, Wang Mingde thought that this was good news for the Qing army in Sichuan, because it showed that the center of gravity of the Ming army in Kuidong had shifted eastward and no longer regarded Sichuan as the direction of development -- Wang Mingde thought that this was reasonable, Huguang, Jiangxi, and Nanjing, the more densely populated and rich in materials the further east, and there was a chance to get Huguang, who would pay attention to the dilapidated Sichuan?

A few days after Wang Mingde was happy, a group of Qing troops suddenly came, led by his old boss, Gao Mingzhan, the governor of Sichuan.

"Your Excellency." Although he looks down on this coward very much, Wang Mingde will not lack courtesy. It is reported that the imperial court has been investigating Gao Mingzhan for abandoning the city and escaping, but it is only because of the protection of Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, that Gao Mingzhan has not been dismissed. No matter what happens to Gao Mingzhan in the future, Li Guoying will still be Wang Mingde's top boss, and since the governor wants to protect Gao Mingzhan, Wang Mingde will not offend him.

"The Governor has an order, let's try to capture Wanxian at once."

Gao Mingzhan did not say a few polite words to Wang Mingde, and soon got to the point. The imperial court sent a hundred Eight Banner soldiers to Sichuan, and Li Guoying, in order to show his face in front of these Eight Banner soldiers, decided to launch a new offensive against Fengjie.

Li Guoying also judged that the Ming army would shift its center of gravity eastward. He heard that Wen Anzhi had left Fengjie for Huguang, and that the strength of the Qing army in Sichuan had increased compared to a few months earlier, and he sent 100 Eight Banner soldiers to Sichuan, as well as 10,000 reinforcements from the Ganshan Green Battalion. Li Guoying planned to expand the Qing army's control area and continue to squeeze the Ming army eastward.

Taking Wanxian County would make Chóngqìng safer, and control a longer stretch of the Yangtze River waterway, and the Ming army's road to the west would become more difficult, and perhaps the Ming army with only Huguang and Jiangxi would treat Sichuan as a chicken rib and throw it away.

"And then there's Chengdu." Gao Mingzhan continued.

Li Guoying had long planned to attack Chengdu, but because Deng Ming had annihilated Tan Hong and Tan Yi successively, the Qing army in Sichuan could only defend Chóngqìng with all its might. Now that the Ming army is advancing eastward, Li Guoying has received reinforcements, and he once again has the idea of pacifying western Sichuan for the Qing court. And this task was given to Gao Mingzhan, Li Guoying asked him to make meritorious service, first take Wanxian County to block the Ming army's westward retreat, and then take the entire western Sichuan Plain, and block the Ming army in Yunnan that entered Sichuan to the south of the Daxue Mountain.

"The governor has an order, and the last general dares not to do his best?" Wang Mingde is also gearing up and leaping to try. He had already found out that there were only one thousand people and more than 2,000 soldiers in Wanxian County. In the past, they could count on the reinforcements of Fengjie's garrison, but now the main force of the Fengjie Ming army has followed Wen'an to the east, and Wang Mingde feels that this is really a credit for nothing.

……

Sichuan Xingdu Division.

The generals stationed here also learned the news of Deng Ming's departure from Sichuan, which also caused fluctuations in the hearts of the army, and after Li Dingguo returned to Kunming, he sent people several times to contact the Yunnan army of the Sichuan Xingdu Division.

But these generals of the old Qin army thought that the king of Jin would not treat them well, and they now had the support of the king of Shu and could confront Li Dingguo, who did not have the emperor in hand, so they ignored the envoys of the king of Jin.

"King Qingyang brought everyone here today, just for Mr. Deng's entry into Chu." After all the generals sat down, Di Sanxi, who was under Feng Shuangli, stood up and said to everyone.