In early June, the vanguard of the Qing court's Shanxi reinforcements arrived in Baoning. As the supervisor of this war, Sun Sike's interest seems to be quite good. The last time he followed Wu Sangui on the expedition, he brought him a lot of feats; When Zhao Liangdong and the other three generals went to Sichuan, he provoked their relationship with Wu Sangui again, so after returning to Beijing, he was privately praised by the auxiliary minister. This time, as Li Guoying's supervising army, if the Ganshan Green Battalion can make meritorious contributions in Sichuan, then Sun Sike will obviously make a great contribution. Although the imperial court demanded a first-line commitment, Sun Sike still couldn't help but fantasize about the glory of defeating Deng Ming - if Deng Ming's horse across the Yangtze River valley stumbled and was killed by Shanxi and the Ganshan Green Battalion, then Sun Sike's brilliant future would be a certainty.

Because of Li Guoying's last discouraged words, Beijing felt the need to give the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi another boost, so Sun Sike brought more Shanxi green camps than originally expected, with a total of 12,000 armor and more than 50,000 people. In addition to the green battalion in Shanxi, Sun Sike also brought more than 3,000 Han Eight Banners, compared with the green battalion, the equipment of the Han Army Banner is undoubtedly better, with the tiger squat cannon that the green battalion prohibits had, and hundreds of bird guns - although the imperial court does not necessarily have to achieve any great results, but also hopes that Li Guoying can capture the fighter plane and give Beijing some surprises.

After a large number of baggage was transported to Guangyuan and Baoning, the governor of Ganshan also sent more than 50,000 people to send supplies from the upper reaches of the Jialing River to Chongqìng.

Full of enthusiasm for making a contribution, Sun Sike rushed to Chongqìng in a hurry to inquire about Li Guoying's strategy.

"In August, the second crop of rice was almost ready to be harvested, and we set out at the end of July to raid Wanxian County and grab Yuan Zongdi's grain. Before Chengdu could react, retreat to Chongqìng at full speed, and then General Sun could return to Beijing to resume his life. Li Guoying is also a person from the Han Army Banner, although in the eyes of the Manchu master, he may not be as good as Sun Sike, an old man from Liaodong, but his position is much higher than that of the other party, so there is no need to cater to the other party's meaning at all: "This governor has explored the terrain well in the past few months. ”

Li Guoying drew a simple map on which he marked the locations of many positions. Li Guoying planned to set up a long snake formation along the north bank of the Yangtze River to ensure that the Qing army would echo each other and not lose contact with each other: "After General Zhao and General Wang go south with 20,000 Ganxi green battalions, there will be 40,000 armor and 100,000 people in chongqìng, and the governor will leave 10,000 armor in chongqìng, send 10,000 armor to rob Yuan Zongdi's grain, and the remaining 20,000 will echo in the middle, so that Kui Dong thieves will have no gaps." ”

Sun Sike brought 15,000 armor instead of the 10,000 originally promised by the imperial court, and even so, Li Guoying still transferred 20,000 armor from Gansu and Shaanxi to participate in the operation, so that the Qing army's movement would become safer. As for the border defense issues in Gansu and Shaanxi, as long as the borrowed soldiers are sent back in a timely manner afterwards.

The more Li Guoying continued, the colder Sun Sike's heart became. The imperial court did signal Li Guoying to pretend, but although the auxiliary minister said so, who didn't expect a miracle to happen? If Deng Ming was really hit hard, even if he caught one or two important generals under him, it would make the Empress Dowager and the auxiliary minister of Beijing have a bright face. But Li Guoying really didn't have any superfluous ideas, since the imperial court agreed to him to carry out an operation to grab grain, Li Guoying was really meticulous and implemented a harvest plan.

Sun Sike has an older sister who is Xuan Ye's wet nurse, who is very popular with the Empress Dowager and often goes into the palace to chat with the Empress Dowager. According to her sister, when the Empress Dowager mentioned the suppression of the four provincial capitals of Sichuan, her eyes often showed a look of expectation. After all, it is the enemy of the first emperor, and 40,000 armor is also a large army, and the logistics supply of weapons, grain, and people is also as much as possible to meet the imperial court, no wonder the empress dowager is full of hope, looking forward to an unexpected harvest.

"Why do you have to go to Dawan County?" Sun Sike tried to persuade Li Guoying to change his ways, he pointed to the location of Xuzhou on the map: "This is the descendant of Deng Thief, right?" ”

"Xuzhou? Don't go, don't go! Li Guoying glanced at it and shook his head repeatedly: "Xuzhou is too close to Chengdu, and it won't take a few days for Chengdu to get the news, and then the whole division will go down by boat." ”

Li Guoying felt that the proximity of Xuzhou to Chengdu was a big disadvantage, but Sun Sike was the opposite, he was always thinking about attacking Chengdu. On the way to Sichuan, Sun Sike met Zhao Liangdong, and Zhao Liangdong told him that in fact, Deng Ming was not a big deal, whether it was the previous defeat, or the successive defeats of Huguang and Liangjiang Green Camp, in Zhao Liangdong's opinion, it was just because of Deng Ming's luck or cunning. Zhao Liangdong said to Sun Sike that if the two armies set up a position and fought in an upright manner, he was absolutely sure that Deng Ming would be defeated.

"If Deng Ming dares to come, we will destroy him." Sun Sike had just heard Li Guoying say that the armor in Chengdu was about 20,000 people, so that the Qing army had a two-to-one advantage in armor, and he thought that it was completely possible to fight. If he didn't go to Xuzhou, Deng Ming might not be willing to fight, wouldn't there be no chance for Zhao Liangdong to break the enemy in a dignified battle? Sun Sike felt that Zhao Liangdong still had some ability, and he was not a braggart, since Zhao Liangdong thought that if he fought Deng Ming head-on, even if his troops were slightly weaker, he would not be defeated, so he still had a good chance of winning with twice the strength of his troops.

Li Guoying glared at Sun Sike, although Zhao Liangdong was full of unconvinced, but he did not have a plan to go his own way to fight Chengdu: "Our army has no ships, and all the baggage has to be transported by land, so we can't move quickly." Besides, there is not enough food, and we have besieged Chengdu for a long time. ”

"Isn't there a lot of tuntian over there in Chengdu?" Sun Sike had not yet given up his adventurous idea, and Li Guoying estimated that there would be about 200,000 troops in Chengdu, so their savings would be able to feed more than 100,000 Qing troops for several months. If Deng Ming's fortified wall Qingye did not do well, the Qing army would be able to get more captures near Chengdu. Even if Chengdu was not conquered at one time, the credit for destroying the land around Chengdu must be much higher than attacking Wanxian. Now many Beijing officials are still confused when they hear the word Wanxian: "Where is Wanxian?" ”

"There were hundreds of thousands of troops, and they couldn't be replenished along the way, and they were intercepted before they could reach Chengdu. Once the military rations run out, our army will be in big trouble. ”

"You don't have to go to Chengdu, let's go to Xuzhou first." Sun Sike still didn't give up, and was still trying his best to encourage Li Guoying: "Isn't there a thief's army in Xuzhou?" You can take Xuzhou first, and then go straight to Chengdu along the Min River. ”

Li Guoying didn't have the slightest emotion, and retorted coldly: "There are far fewer thieves in Xuzhou, maybe hundreds or thousands, and there are definitely not a few acres of military tun, which is not enough for the army to eat." And Wanxian is different, Yuan Zongdi of Wanxian County has thousands of armor and 20,000 unarmored soldiers, he must have opened up a large number of farmland; Wanxian is far away from Chengdu, reinforcements arrive slowly, there is a lot of grain harvest, and more thieves can starve, no matter how you look at it, Wanxian is better. ”

Li Guoying was too lazy to continue arguing with Sun Sike on this issue, and bluntly told the other party that he had made up his mind and would never revise it.

It will take some time for the grain from Guangyuan and Boryeong to be transported to Chongqìng, and then Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao will also arrive with troops. Li Guoying's plan was carefully formulated, there were all sentry posts along the way from Chongqìng to Wanxian, the beacon tower was also selected, and several near Chongqìng had already begun to be built, so as to ensure that the army attacking Wanxian would not be attacked by the Ming army's naval divisions.

After carefully reading Li Guoying's military plan, Sun Sike lamented again: "Your Excellency Governor, this is not an attack, this is obviously how to hold on between Chongqìng and Wanxian." ”

According to this plan, the ultimate goal of sending troops was nothing more than to rob Yuan Zongdi's crops. Li Guoying even has only a few words about the arrangement in this regard, but how to maintain the communication line from Chongqìng to Wanxian is densely covered with a large stack of paper, and it has been repeatedly verified and discussed.

"Your Excellency the Governor, is it just that our army has done everything to attack and dispatch more than 100,000 troops to prevent the soldiers from starving?" In Sun Sike's view, this plan does not talk about how to fight at all, and it is all about how to fill the stomachs of the soldiers who go on the expedition.

"Yes, the imperial court's instructions to the official are to launch an offensive, but it does not necessarily require results. Our army is going to launch an offensive, but there is no need to rush to make meritorious contributions. Isn't this an order to send the army into the territory of the thieves and then make sure that they don't starve? ”

For Li Guoying, the attack on Wanxian County was a rare actual combat exercise. Anyway, the imperial court spent so much food and salary, and Li Guoying planned to take this opportunity to train Chongqìng's troops well, so that the newly recruited soldiers and newly promoted officers would be familiar with the precautions of marching and have an understanding of how to ensure logistics.

Sooner or later in the future, Chengdu will be attacked to completely sweep away the forces of the Ming army, and with this actual combat exercise, the inexperienced subordinates will be given the opportunity to learn and the problems exposed can also be corrected. When the real attack on Chengdu is launched, it will be easier for Li Guoying to achieve the final victory: "The thieves and sailors in western Sichuan are extremely powerful, and it is very likely that we will not be able to use the waterways when we attack Chengdu in the future, and this governor needs to see with his own eyes the difficulties of land transportation in Sichuan." ”

In order to transport grain, Li Guoying also built a lot of trolleys, which are very useful in Shaanxi and Henan, but how efficient they are in Sichuan and whether they will be affected by the harshness of the climate and terrain will also have to be tested by actual combat -- the experience that can be provided by attacking Wanxian County is not comprehensive, but it is better than not having it at all.

The reason why it was necessary to disperse the 20,000 troops along the entire supply line was also because Li Guoying admitted that he had no ability to stop the Western Sichuan Naval Division at all. He spent a lot of money trying to build a huge cannon that could block the Yangtze River, but after several months, there was still no light of success.