After arriving in Nanjing, Yu Xin was ordered to be stationed under the city as a barrier to cover the rear army. In the first battle of Zhenjiang, Yu Xin's troops made great contributions and were praised by Zheng Chenggong, and now handing over the tasks of the front army to Yu Xin is Zheng Chenggong's trust in him.

Yesterday, a large number of ships transporting Zheng Jun's family arrived, and the families of Yu Xin's subordinates came to the camp one after another to reunite with their husbands, and Yu Xin also saw his wife. After seeing his wife, Yu Xin was naturally very happy, and his wife told Yu Xin, when the family members went up the river, they all felt that the climate here was good. Originally, these Fujian people were worried about the water and soil, but now most of them are relieved and think that this place is very suitable for living.

"Naturally, this is the Shenjing of Emperor Taizu Gao, if it is not good, how can it be settled here!" After chatting with his wife for a long time, Yu Xin not only boasted about his bravery in the Battle of Zhenjiang, but also carefully inquired about his wife's living conditions along the way, worried that his wife would feel unwell.

It wasn't until he couldn't delay any longer that Yu Xin stood up and told his wife that he had to go to Nanjing. Observing the movements of the enemy forces in the city is Yu Xin's routine work, if he finds an abnormality in the city, he must immediately prepare for battle and inform the main force behind him in time.

Coming to a place not far from Nanjing City with some personal guards, Yu Xin observed the road in front of the city gate and the traces of traffic on the ground around him, and after these were all unusual, Yu Xin looked up at the sky in the city to look for traces of cooking smoke. The scouts deployed around the city walls also came to Yu Xin's side at this time, it had been several hours since he had last come here to patrol, and they reported to the chief what they had observed in the city during this time.

"There's nothing unusual about the Tartars." Yu Xin made a judgment and walked towards another sentry with his personal guards.

After listening to the report of the sentry deployed at the second location, coupled with his own observations, Yu Xin concluded that there was no abnormality here, and no threat was found in the next few places. In the past, after discovering that a qiē was normal, Yu Xin would carefully observe it for a while, and then consult with the officers around him to see if there was anything missing. But today Yu Xin is in a hurry to return to the camp, and he still has a full stomach to say to his wife.

Not only Yu Xin, but the guards he brought with him had no intention of doing more reconnaissance, their families had already arrived in the camp, and as husbands and fathers, they were all in a hurry to go back and settle their wives and children as much as possible.

"That's all for today." After Yu Xin gave the order to return to the camp, the officers and guards who followed him cheered one after another, and Yu Xin smiled at them: "Ming rì must take a closer look, and you can't be as sloppy as today." ”

"Yes." The crowd replied in unison.

After returning to the camp, Yu Xin heard the woman's cry, which sounded quite a lot. If the soldier had such a move, Yu Xin would definitely rush over without hesitation to find the source of the sound. But today it sounds like some women and children are crying, and Yu Xin is not good at teaching other people's wives in the past, even the wives of his subordinates are not suitable.

After returning to his tent with a stomach full of doubts, Yu Xin found that his wife's eyes were also red, as if she had just cried.

"What's wrong with you?" Yu Xin asked puzzledly, "What's wrong with all of you?" ”

The wife sued Yu Xin, and after many family members rushed to the camp, they found that their husbands had been killed in the previous battle of Zhenjiang, and of course the wife cried for her husband and the son cried for his father. Mrs. Yu had a woman she knew, and her husband had also died in the Battle of Zhenjiang, which was of course a catastrophe for orphans and widows.

"Zhenjiang, we are a big victory." Yu Xindao.

In the first battle of Zhenjiang, the Ming army annihilated more than 15,000 Qing troops, and the losses of the Ming army were only more than 1,000 people, of which only 200 belonged to Yu Xin's troops. In the past, he followed Zheng Chenggong to fight in the South China Sea, and sometimes the losses were far heavier than those in Zhenjiang, and he would not cry when he returned home.

But now the situation is completely different from the past, in the past, Zheng Jun's family lived scattered, and the soldiers went home separately after the class, and they would not be affected unless their neighbors died in battle, and the grief of the bereaved family members spread very limitedly. But now Zheng Jun's family members are concentrated in the camp, and before arriving at the camp, they have lived together on the ship for a while, and they are very familiar with each other and have become friends. Now seeing the pain of losing a husband to a new friend, the other women cried together, and Yu Xin's wife cried with others a few times just now.

The next day, the sad love extended to Zheng Chenggong's entire army.

After the First Battle of Zhenjiang, Zheng Chenggong buried the war dead on the spot according to his previous habits, and everyone did not think there was anything wrong. But their families arrived, and after learning of the death, they first let out a lot of grief, and then they went to Zhenjiang together to choose a good cemetery for burial; There were also some soldiers who died of wounds and diseases on the road, and their families wore linen and filial piety and chose a cave near Nanjing for burial.

For a time, there were processions carrying coffins all over Nanjing, and when the bereaved family members kowtowed in front of the grave, the deceased's former comrades-in-arms and commanders also came to pay their respects -- this is also a normal social etiquette.

"Why is it that it was a great victory, but now it looks like a big defeat?" Zheng Chenggong also has similar questions about Yu Xin.

The continuous funeral activities have affected the routine work of jǐng, and some sentry detectives have taken leave from their superiors to go back to carry the coffins of their acquaintances who died in battle, at least to attend the funeral, and send greetings to the orphans.

It is difficult for the officers to categorically refuse such a request, and even Zheng Chenggong cannot strictly order all armies not to carry out such activities. After all, burying family members and burying the dead is a major matter for the Chinese, and the soldiers have all died in battle, can Zheng Chenggong strictly prohibit their bereaved families from burying them? Is it okay not to allow others to attend the funeral? If this is the case, not only will the officers and soldiers gossip, but even Zheng Chenggong himself will feel that it is too much.

After crying for several days, Zheng Chenggong felt that the barracks were finally quieter. However, it is far from over, the soldiers are gathering for the dead, holding a white banquet, and many people are discussing the "first seven", as if they are returning to the rear of peace, not on a dangerous battlefield.

"There will be a day in the past, and there is no way to do it." Gan Hui comforted Zheng Chenggong and said: "Anyway, in the first battle of Zhenjiang, our army has already swept away the Tatar prisoners, and when the king finishes casting the cannon, the funeral will be done anyway." ”

"Hmm." Zheng Chenggong nodded, he felt that something seemed to be wrong, but there was no particularly good way. Besides, Gan Hui is right, the cannon has not yet begun to be cast. According to Zheng Chenggong's plan, the location of the fort should have been selected a few days ago, and the construction of the fort should be started immediately, and the work of building the fort and casting the cannon was carried out at the same time, but because of the large number of funerals in the past few days, it was delayed. At present, the terrain around Nanjing has not been reconnoitred, so it is impossible to determine the best place to attack, and it is impossible to choose the specific location where to deploy artillery.

After a few more days, Yu Xin now only goes to the jǐng ring line every two days to check it, instead of going around every few hours like at the beginning. The sentinels stationed around several gates reported to him that he was safe, and he did not check on it again. The number of guards who accompanied Yu Xin to the inspection was only one-third of what they had started with, and they were all busy building houses and relocating their families.

In the past, when the army was out, the soldiers gathered in the camp and slept on armor and weapons. Now, with the arrival of a large number of relatives, it seems very inconvenient to live in the camp, and even Yu Xin himself is not willing to squeeze together with the tents of the guards. As a result, the camp of the Ming army was greatly expanded, and the old battalion, which could have accommodated the whole army, could now only accommodate one-fifth of the soldiers and their families, and the rest of the soldiers moved far away from the Chinese tent to build new shacks for themselves, their wives and children.

The style of the shed where the family members live is very different from that of the barracks. When building a barracks, safety was the first consideration, then the convenience of communication, liaison, defense, fire prevention, etc., and comfort was quite a secondary consideration. And now the Ming soldiers built houses for their families, the first consideration is comfort, and the soldiers carefully repair the roofs and walls, lest they not be able to shelter from the wind and rain and let their families suffer. The whole army was busy building houses for their families, and the Iron Man Army led by Gan Hui had not practiced for several days, and I heard that they were all going to take care of their families.

"Go ahead." Two more officers who were supposed to accompany them asked for leave, and Yu Xin waved his hand generously and let them go. He asked himself if he was a general who was sympathetic to his subordinates, and he didn't want to be unkind and make the soldiers resentful, so he just instructed a few words: "You don't need to cultivate too carefully, you can use it for half a month, at most twenty days." At that time, we were about to attack the city, and after taking Nanjing, were you worried that there would be no place to live? ”

Yu Xin said so, but he felt that Zheng Chenggong might not be able to attack the city as scheduled in twenty days. The matter of selecting the site for the fort has been delayed again and again, and I see that Nanjing has not yet been decided after seven or eight days.

……

"Why are you setting off firecrackers again?" Zheng Chenggong came to Gan Hui's camp to discuss with him, and after entering the tent, he asked suspiciously: "Didn't the first seven pass?" ”

"Your Majesty, it's a happy event." Gan Hui reported that it was the families of the two soldiers who were marrying. These two people did not know each other originally, and when they besieged the camp of Guan Allegiance to Yinshan, Soldier A saw that he was about to die under the knife of a Qing soldier, and was saved by Soldier B. When the two of them arrived, they found that the children of the two families were of the same age, so they immediately decided to get married, and invited their colleagues to drink today.

"First the funeral, then the joy, and then, what?" Zheng Chenggong had no joy on his face. After the arrival of the family, the military discipline of the Fujian army plummeted, and even Gan Hui and Yu Xin, whom Zheng Chenggong relied on the most, began to be unable to control the troops. He said to Gan Hui angrily, "It seems that all the family members should be moved back to the ship." ”

"The king can't," Gan Hui was startled: "The family is close at hand, but they can't see it, and the soldiers will definitely complain." ”

"Hmm." Zheng Chenggong has never had the experience of taking his family on the expedition, and he was undecided for a while.

"Besides, this is just the beginning, the king thinks about it, didn't they all bring their families with their families to the army back then? It's not that they can't control the army. It shows that as long as the dependents stay in the army for a long time, they will become as able to bear hardships and stand hard work as soldiers. Gan Hui said assumedly.

Zheng Chenggong nodded when he heard this. Indeed, there are two ready-made examples, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and Zheng Chenggong does not think that there will be any adverse impact on bringing military dependents. Now the chaos has reached this point, which makes Zheng Chenggong quite surprised. However, as Gan Hui said, when Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng, although he took the family members of the army, he reacted quickly and quickly, maneuvered repeatedly in the north and south, and broke the Ming troops besieging the camp one by one. It can be seen that the Min army is just inexperienced, and when this fresh energy passes, it will naturally be able to return to normal.

Zheng Chenggong put his worries aside and discussed with Gan Hui about the location of the fort.

……

"Ah......h

The Qing soldiers screamed and fell off their horses.

The knight who was chasing behind him crossed the enemy who had landed, caught up with the horse in front, took the reins of the horse and turned back, looked at the corpse on the ground, and made sure that the other party was dead, then put away his weapon and turned over and dismounted, threw the corpse on the horse's back and tied it up.

Returning along the road with the corpses and captured horses, Zhou Kaihuang saw that the other companions were ripping off the clothes of the slain enemy soldiers and taking out everything that could identify them. As before, the ambushed Qing soldiers also failed to escape a single person.

After hiding the corpses of these enemy soldiers in the depths of the woods, Deng Ming picked up the waist card of the enemy soldier and checked: "It is the general of Anqing Mansion who sent the report to the palace." Well, it's better than what I am now. ”

After finishing speaking, Deng Ming took off the old waist card from his waist and put it into the baggage, hung the newly captured waist card on his body, and tore open the official document carried by the Qing soldiers. When he watched it, Deng Ming did not recite the content to his surrounding partners, but read it silently, handed it to Li Xinghan, and asked the latter to pass it on one by one after reading it. When everyone has read it, start discussing the contents, and if there is a word you don't understand, you can also ask.

The official document said that Zhang Huangyan had arrived in Wuhu, and the Qing troops in Tongling, Chizhou, Ningguo, and Taiping had surrendered. What I saw today is Anqing's report to Jiangxi for help. Calling for help across provinces shows that the Qing rule in the upper reaches of Nanjing has completely collapsed. After Nanjing issued the order to concentrate the whole army, the Qing army that was a little more determined had almost all gone to Nanjing, and the rest of the local people were wavering duplicitous, and when they saw the arrival of the Zhejiang soldiers led by Zhang Huangyan, they surrendered to the Ming army without thinking.

In the urgent letter of Anqing Prefecture, Zhang Huangyan not only brought a large number of soldiers with him, but also followed by the families of the Zhejiang army, which shows that the Ming army did not just want to simply disturb it, but was determined to win the prefectures and counties in the upper reaches of Nanjing, and even Jiangxi. The letter asking for help claimed that if the Jiangxi Green Battalion refused to lend a hand, Anqing would definitely not be able to survive three days after the arrival of the Ming army. At that time, the fence of Jiangxi was lost, and the Ming army was bound to take advantage of the situation to attack Jiujiang and Nanchang.

"The king of Yanping has already led all the uglies to Nanjing, and when the king of the county captures Nanjing, the southeast will be decided." Mu Tan said happily to everyone.

From the previously seized Di newspapers, they had already learned of Zheng Chenggong's victory in Zhenjiang. After the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion in Nanjing were all destroyed, Nanjing collected troops from all over the country regardless of the situation, including government officials and fast arresters, and everything that could be caught in the bowl was vegetables. This not only greatly weakened the strength and confidence of the local Qing army, and led them to surrender when they heard the news, but also failed to improve Nanjing's self-defense capability.

Now the Qing army in Nanjing City, from dozens of surrounding prefectures and counties, this city is 100, that city is 50, although tens of thousands of soldiers and horses but do not belong to each other, compared with the previous Nanjing garrison troops, these temporary patchwork troops are a group of rabble.

Among them, the most effective are the five hundred Eight Banners soldiers stationed in Hangzhou, but their strength is far from being comparable to the Eight Banners soldiers who were eliminated by Zheng Chenggong before.

A larger unit was commanded by Liang Huafeng. Liang Huafeng, who was originally stationed on Chongming Island, saw that Zheng Chenggong had gone to Nanjing, so he evaded Zheng Chenggong's surveillance troops and left Chongming Island to support Nanjing by land. Originally, Liang Huafeng wanted to ask Ma Fengzhi to go with him, but Ma Fengzhi, who had 3,000 iron horses, refused to send troops, so Liang Huafeng had to go alone. He had a total of 3,000 men under his command, most of whom were sailors like Zheng Jun. Along the way, Liang Huafeng collected local stagecoaches and formed a cavalry of 500 people. At present, this ground armed force, composed of officers and men of Su Songshui's division, turned out to be the largest formed unit in Nanjing.

"This is the third time, I saw that the newspaper of the Tartar's mansion said that Zhang Shangshu made the soldiers and their families mixed, and I thought it was the Tartar's exaggeration." Zhao Tianba carefully read this newspaper several times, looked up and said to Deng Ming: "Zhang Shangshu is in danger!" The art of war says: There are women in the army, and morale is not high. ”

Influenced by Zheng Chenggong, Zhang Huangyan also brought the dependents of the army with him this time, and was ready to take root like Zheng Chenggong. After the victory in Zhenjiang, Zhang Huangyan's front was even more invincible, the defenders heard the wind and surrendered, and the families of the Zhejiang army who were originally following behind also caught up with the front army and reunited with their relatives in the army.

Deng Ming said with a smile: "The army of the Tartars is attracted to Nanjing by the king of Yanping County, and Zhang Shangshu is not in danger for the time being. ”

"That's it," Mu Tan retorted on the side, "What's wrong with bringing your family?" Didn't you bring it with you back then? I didn't see a lack of morale. ”

"How is that the same?" Zhao Tianba said disdainfully: "Xiying has to bring family members, but the couple is not allowed to meet during the march. Only when there are no officers and soldiers within a hundred miles can they reunite, once they find that the officers and soldiers are approaching, they will immediately divide the camp, and the men and women will meet in private and be immediately killed! ”

Mu Tan was stunned when he heard this, and Li Xinghan and the other Sichuan soldiers also felt incredulous: "The couple is not allowed to meet when they are close at hand, won't this affect morale?" ”

"Of course it won't." Zhou Kaihuang said on the side: "My wife and daughter are in the old camp of the Chinese army, even if they are in danger, the soldiers know that if they escape, their wives and daughters will be unlucky, and they will fight with their lives, even if the soldiers who are scattered, they will do their best to rescue the old camp." ”

Zhao Tianba nodded again and again when he heard this: "That's right." ”

Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong exchanged experiences many times, and their combat patterns were also very similar, so the two armies had quite a lot in common.

Zhou Kaihuang also listened to Yuan Zongdi talk about the scene after the reunion of husband and wife. After getting rid of the officers and soldiers, the old camp will be disbanded, and military discipline will be wiped out in a few days, and the soldiers will chop wood and carry water to take care of their families, either go to the mountains to hunt for their families, or go to the river to fish, and concentrate on improving the food for their wives and children, and no one will take the safety of the army to heart.

After retelling these stories, Zhou Kaihuang asserted: "Within ten rì, Zhang Shangshu's army will become a plate of scattered sand, and at that time, maybe a group of officials will be able to defeat them." ”

"There is such a thing." Li Xinghan and the others were very surprised, they never knew that there was such a problem in mobile warfare.

"Fortunately, now the attention of the Tartars is focused on the king of Yanping County, and Zhang Shangshu will not even come to a team of officials." Zhao Tianba laughed.

He glanced back at Mu Tan, Mu Tan was stunned and motionless, Zhao Tianba's heart tightened, and he hurriedly asked, "Could it be that the king of Yanping County also brought his family?" ”