Gao Mingzhan had no intention of defecting to the Ming Court. In his opinion, no matter how much Nanming tosses, it is just a lingering breath, although Deng Ming is invincible, but from the battle of Chongqing three years ago to the present, Deng Ming has only controlled the surrounding areas of Chengdu, and it was also received from Liu Yao and Yang Youcai, the general soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, not from the Qing army.

As for the Jiange and other places that were still under the control of the Ming army, they were also abandoned by the Ming army, so purely from the perspective of territory, at least the territory of the Ming and Qing armies in Sichuan has not changed much, and even the Ming army has shrunk slightly, and Chongqing is still in the hands of the Qing army. Although Gao Mingzhan also admitted that western Sichuan was becoming more and more powerful, and Sichuan's strategic initiative was becoming more and more controlled by the Ming army, what if the Ming army could drive the Qing army out of Sichuan? Although Deng Ming killed Shunzhi, burned Hong Chengchou, and captured two governors, it still did not change the overall situation of the rebellion of the three kings of the Southern Ming Dynasty, at most it seized a piece of territory in the Hanshui Valley, that is, the situation in the Southern Ming Dynasty did not continue to deteriorate; Moreover, the Ming army conquered Jiangnan twice, although the Qing army was not at peace, but after all, it could not gain a firm foothold in Jiangnan, let alone drive the forces of the Qing Dynasty out of Liangjiang.

Therefore, Gao Mingzhan still thinks that Deng Ming will inevitably escape the fate of defeat and death sooner or later, and what he has to do is to continue to stand on the side of the victor, that is, the Qing court, but also do not have a stiff relationship with the sharp-edged Deng Ming, Gao Mingzhan does not want to be a martyr who died on the eve of victory.

Of course, the coach's mind can't be revealed, seeing Gao Mingzhan so calm, Chongqing City, which was originally panicked, has also stabilized. There are still some petty officers below who are privately discussing, and even the governor Gao, who has a history of abandoning the city and escaping, is like a nobody, so the situation in Chongqing City may not be very bad. The news that Gao Mingzhan had sent a large number of ships to meet Zhao Liangdong quickly spread in Chongqing, and many people thought that Zhao Liangdong might arrive immediately, so there was a reasonable explanation for Governor Gao's composure.

While Gao Mingzhan inadvertently greatly stabilized the morale and morale of Chongqing's army, Sun Sike's army was still struggling with the sweltering weather and treacherous mountain roads. Spies reported that after the Qing army stopped, the Ming army's fleet also stopped. Soon after, Sun Sike received a second report that a large area of cooking smoke appeared to have risen on the opposite bank, and that the Ming army might be having lunch on the safe south bank.

"Sure enough, it's a gutless rat!" Yuan Jiawenbi and Sun Sike scolded in unison, they had just found a mountain spring, so they swallowed some dry food with the spring water. Although he is the leader of an army, Sun Sike really can't find enough manpower to chop wood and make food, and his guards are tired enough.

After resting for a while, Sun Sike learned that some of the Ming army's fleet had gone downstream, and he didn't know what to do, and the rest were still moored not far away.

"The brethren can't walk anymore," said the relieved officer, who reported to Sun Sike that many of the soldiers had fallen asleep on the ground. It's good that the green camp doesn't rest, but as soon as he rests, he says that he won't get up again, and he whips one up, and when he turns around and smokes the other, the previous one falls down again: "Why don't you camp here?" ”

"Who will cut wood and build a hedge?" The Ming army was not far away, and even if Sun Sike agreed to camp here, he could not completely ignore the issue of security.

"There is a stockade a few miles downstream," one officer reported, "and yesterday there was a battalion of armored and more than 2,000 unarmored men who spent the night there, and we can expand it, and even if we don't expand it, we can almost live in it." ”

"It's still a few miles away." Although there was no need to camp to make everyone's eyes shine, as soon as they heard that they would have to climb a few more miles of mountain roads, the Qing army began to be afraid of difficulties again.

At this time, the Qing army spies came back to report, saying that they saw the Ming army starting to land again from a distance.

"I want to lie to Lao Tzu again." Sun Sike scolded: "When Lao Tzu passes, they will get on the boat and leave again, I can't go over, see how long they can act?" ”

Now the Han Eight Banners and the Green Battalion don't want to drive away the Ming army, anyway, the Ming army will go by itself, why bother with this effort? Moreover, Sun Sike and Yuan Jiawenbi both thought that today was a big victory, and the invincible Deng Ming was repeatedly frustrated, and was driven down the river by the Han Eight Banners several times.

Now that they understood that the credit had been received, and they couldn't get the first rank if they went to the Ming army, the Qing generals naturally refused to work in vain, and they felt that they would rest for a while longer, and then set off to spend the night in the camp downstream. Tomorrow the column will be redeployed to protect the unarmored soldiers on the lines of communication. When passing by the landing place of the Ming army for a while, the Ming army will definitely hurry on the boat and escape, and the Qing army can also laugh at these rats at will.

After the landing, the Ming army quickly sent scouts to drive away the Qing spies, and these scouts also brought down the physically strong war horses from the ship, and it was not clear what was happening around the landing site before the Qing army was not clear.

"The thieves won't actually land, will they?" Seeing that the momentum seemed to be a little wrong, some of the more experienced veterans of the Han Eight Banners began to worry: "When the thieves land, it is the most vulnerable time, if they are allowed to go ashore and line up in formation, it will not be easy to fight." ”

"Afraid of what? Even if they go ashore, it is only one or two thousand armored soldiers, can such a small number of soldiers and horses be able to stop the Governor? Sun Sike retorted. I was deceived all day yesterday, and I was deceived five or six times today, and my heart almost jumped out of my throat when I ran.

After hundreds of vanguard infantry landed, Deng Ming began to go ashore with three walls, and when he was busy transporting the horses off the ship one by one, Deng Ming was also a little nervous, after all, this was the most vulnerable time for the Ming army, and the reconnaissance around the landing site was also limited. If a large number of Qing troops suddenly rushed out from the surroundings, the Ming army would be caught off guard, and it would also be necessary to prevent the Han Eight Banners from interfering again.

Small boats shuttled between the shore and the big boats, bringing more and more soldiers and equipment ashore, and an hour later, 1,200 heavily armed Ming soldiers were already standing behind the improvised positions. Moreover, the Ming army also completed a preliminary reconnaissance of the terrain around the landing site, and determined that no brigade of Qing troops had passed.

At this time, the surveillance ships in the upper reaches still did not raise the alarm, indicating that the Qing army did not make any abnormal moves, and the downstream also reported that the Ming army detachment sent had successfully occupied the empty camp discovered earlier and had completed the blocking and arming. At this point, Deng Ming finally breathed a sigh of relief, the Ming army had a firm foothold, and the Qing army missed the best time to attack.

More than 3,000 people also set foot on land, after completing the camp setting, the people went to the shore to help, unloading equipment from small boats at full speed, the speed of the Ming army's landing was greatly accelerated, and soon 5,000 armor soldiers boarded the north bank of the Yangtze River.

"Opposite us is the Han Eight Banners and a large number of green battalions." Between the two landing sites, the Ming army caught a few lone Qing army baggage soldiers, and now Deng Ming is not clear about the total strength of the enemy, but he already knows who the opponent is: "These green battalions are drawn from Shanxi, and the Shanxi green battalion is the former Jin army, which is the elite army of Gongwei Jinggi, brave and good at fighting, and is known as the Xuanda Force." ”

In front of the soldiers, Deng Ming made a final pre-war speech: "Obviously, the Tartar Emperor in Beijing knew that the Ganshan Green Battalion was no longer our opponent, so he hurriedly dispatched the Shanxi Green Battalion to Chongqing to help, thinking that this would stop the pace of our army and stabilize the crisis in Sichuan -- this is wishful thinking!" Brethren and soldiers, let's go and kill these scoundrels without leaving a single piece of armor behind! ”

"Kill!"

"Kill all these bastards!"

The soldiers of the Ming army had already put on their armor and responded to Deng Ming one after another, shouting at him.

"Let's go!" Deng Ming waved his hand vigorously and led the army towards Sun Sike's direction. The Qing army on the opposite side probably has only a few thousand people left, and the 5,000 Ming army may still have a certain strength advantage. The Ming fleet had been hovering nearby, and if any large Qing army rushed to the battlefield along the riverbank, Deng Ming would have been informed in advance.

When he learned that the Ming army was coming over, Sun Sike finally reacted and hurriedly ordered the whole army to put on armor to meet the battle. The soldiers of the Green Battalion were pulled up from the ground and urgently lined up towards the Ming army.

"Deng Thief, a timid rat, actually has so many armor soldiers!" After seeing the dense Ming army soldiers on the opposite side, Sun Sike couldn't help but shout: "You have so many soldiers and horses, don't you dare to fight in a dignified manner?" ”

Sun Sike ordered the 3,000 Shanxi Green Battalion soldiers who were still following him to form a front row arc front, and 1,000 Han and Eight Banners fought in the Green Battalion reserve: "Wait until the battle with the thieves, the front row reviewer, the back row reviewer, the flag soldier cut it." ”

At the head of the Ming line were Deng Ming's 100 musketeers, who carried light strips and shoved silk-wrapped lead bullets into the chambers of their guns—the guns captured from the Praetorian Guards were of very good quality, similar to those Deng Ming had found in the Kunming arsenal. In the past, Deng Ming saw the same firebolt as the cannon, because there was a danger of exploding, so they all used lead bullets smaller than the caliber, and a large enough gap could allow the compressed gas to escape, so as to reduce the danger of exploding.

Of course, this will cause further deterioration of accuracy, and the shells and bullets are much smaller than the caliber of the gun, so they don't know where to fly as soon as they fire. The silk was very slippery, and the shooters easily sent the lead shot to the bottom of the gun without much effort, and if there was no silk wrap but a super-caliber lead bullet, it would be much more difficult to knock it in, and it was estimated that the bar would have to be knocked through with a mallet. Silk is also a luxury, but Deng Ming believes that soldiers' lives are more valuable.

The shooters raised their guns and aimed at the Green Battalion soldiers on the opposite side - the guns were filled with a large amount of charge, and the tightly wrapped silk ensured that they were airtight, allowing the buckshot to reach its highest speed, giving it a chance to penetrate the armor of the Green Battalion soldiers on the opposite side at a distance that ordinary guns lacked lethality. All the shooters were draped in armor, got down on one knee and were engrossed in aiming at the enemy. And their commander-in-chief watched the battlefield intently, observing the effects of the first large-scale use of firearms volleys.

"Fire!"

The officers of the Ming army shouted, and the Ming army gunners in a row pulled the trigger at the same time, and white smoke and dust rose into the air, which was the first shot of the Sichuan army against the Shanxi Green Battalion.