In the early morning of July 6, Wanxian.

Thirty-six hours ago, the Qing army sailors of the Jialing River untied the iron chains locked at the mouth of the river and began to sail into the Yangtze River. Nearly forty hours later, Yuan Zongdi, the Duke of Yasukuni, still had only a vague impression of the Qing army's offensive, and the report brought back by the ship was that the Qing army's naval division was in a big move; The first few batches of information sent back by Yuan Zongdi's scouts were also vague, only to know that the strength of the Qing army in Zhongxian had suddenly increased greatly, and then it was discovered that some Qing army sailors had begun to dock in Zhongxian and unload their goods - this further strengthened Yuan Zongdi's initial judgment that the Qing army was fully replenishing Zhongxian.

"Does Li Guoying want to transport half a year's grain to Zhongxian in one go?" This kind of large-scale mobilization is extremely costly, if Li Guoying is just to supplement Zhong County, then Yuan Zongdi feels that it is necessary to seriously think about why Li Guoying attaches so much importance to Zhong County: "Does Li Guoying want to station a water division in Zhong County?" He's not going to be that stupid, is he? ”

Another reasonable explanation seems to be that Li Guoying wanted to use Zhongxian as a base to launch an attack on Wanxian, but Yuan Zongdi quickly ruled out this possibility. Due to the continuous influx of Deng Ming's grain into Wanxian County, although the food consumption of each soldier under Yuan Zongdi is still not as rich as Chengdu, it has also continued to increase, and now the food quota of an auxiliary soldier is already eight stones per year, which is almost twice that of Yuan Zongdi's soldiers in Daning.

His subordinates can eat and drink enough, and Yuan Zongdi can also let the auxiliary soldiers engage in high-intensity labor, except for not much farming in the past year, other jobs are the same. In addition to ensuring the maintenance of the ships, Yuan Zongdi also completely renovated the city wall of Wanxian, not only made up for all the defects, but also demolished and rebuilt some of the original weak walls, and two of the four city towers were even raised by a foot -- if the good days continued, Yuan Zongdi also ambitiously planned to increase the height and thickness of the city walls, and even had the idea of expanding Wanxian.

The walls of Wanxian County were reinforced, and there were mixed wood and stone fortifications around the wharf, and Yuan Zongdi believed that the defensive strength of Wanxian County was considerable, and he never thought that a few thousand Qing troops could shake it here - so far Yuan Zongdi still lacked understanding of the scale of the Qing army's attack. Yuan Zongdi was not the small army leader of the Qingcheng faction, but the former ruler of Dachang, who followed Deng Ming to make a fortune in Hubei. After he moved many of the residents of Daning to Wanxian and accepted Xiong Lan, that is, the remnants of Tan Hong, Yuan Zongdi had more than 6,000 soldiers who dared to fight, and the armor penetration rate exceeded 70 percent; More than 32,000 strong men can also play a great role in defensive warfare.

Li Guoying's impression of Yuan Zongdi was still in the past, thinking that he could only raise 10,000 soldiers. During the last battle of Chongqing, Yuan Zongdi had just arrived in Wanxian, and he did not show his strength beyond Li Guoying's impression. But Yuan Zong took more than 400,000 stone of grain from the Deng Ming group in the first year, a large number of baggage, ships, and 50,000 stone of support just half a month ago, and he had already thrown his previous embarrassment out of the clouds; Looking at the prosperous scene around Wanxian every day, Yuan Zongdi's confidence continued to swell, completely unaware that others would still regard him as a big bandit.

As the distance between the two armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties continued to close, Yuan Zongdi's information became more and more accurate and timely, and he soon learned that the Qing army in Zhongxian County did not stop, but continued to approach Wanxian, and the Qing army's sailors were also trying to advance in coordination with them, transporting soldiers and baggage for the army.

"Guogong, does Thief Li want to attack Wanxian?" Seeing the latest information, Yuan Zongdi's subordinates finally couldn't help but guess.

"Hehe, that's just a bluff." After seeing the report sent back from the front, Yuan Zongdi smiled contemptuously: "There are nearly 40,000 soldiers in Wanxian, how dare Li Thief move the idea of Wanxian unless he has an army of 100,000?" ”

"Chongqing has about 5,000 armor soldiers, 30,000 or 40,000 strong men, which is basically the same as our strength, and the sailors are not as good as us, so Zhongxian has been in danger for a long time. Besides, there is also the threat of the capital, and the Li thief wants to use most of his strength to defend against the offensive of western Sichuan, and now he is just relying on the strong city to survive. Yuan Zongdi briefly analyzed the comparison of enemy and enemy forces, and in his opinion, Li Guoying's action this time was also a death struggle: "My father has just figured out that for Li Thief, as long as Zhongxian is still in his hands, Wanxian's troops will not be able to reach the Jialing River directly - and if our army appears on the other side of Chongqing, and the Jialing River is shared by the two armies, he will have to flee back to Baoning with his tail between his legs." ”

The officers around him nodded their heads. The people present were all Yuan Zongdi's henchmen, so they all knew that the Duke of Yasukuni had some thoughts about Chongqing -- outside the Sichuan capital, the most important thing was Chongqing, and if Yuan Zongdi could take Chongqing into his pocket, then he would be the most powerful prince in eastern Sichuan, and if he managed his territory well, his strength would not be worse than that of Li Laiheng in Jiangling in the future.

Yuan Zongdi did not specifically propose to Deng Ming that the two families would join forces to attack Chongqing, but his henchmen knew that Yuan Zongdi was waiting for Deng Ming to leave Sichuan again and go to Jiangnan. If it was to unite western Sichuan to launch an offensive against Chongqing at that time, it would be dominated by the soldiers and horses of Wanxian, and it would be natural for Yuan Zongdi to move to Chongqing as a national prince.

"Li Guoying just wants to enrich Zhongxian County and cause us more trouble. He is just bluffing now, intending to fish in troubled waters, reconnoiter the changes around him, and even touch the reality of our Wanxian County. Yuan Zongdi thought that he had seen through Li Guoying's thoughts, and sneered: "I must make this guy steal chickens and rice." ”

In Yuan Zongdi's view, as long as the attention of the Qing court was contained in the two rivers and Huguang, then Chongqing, although strong, was not difficult to obtain. As long as Wanxian and Chengdu advance east and west, and control the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the upper reaches of the Jialing River to the west of Chongqing, the blockade of the Chongqing Peninsula can be completed; As long as the troops from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River advanced to the banks of the Jialing River after landing, they could join forces with the Ming army in Wanxian and completely cut off Chongqing's internal and external communications -- this would have been possible if Li Guoying lacked field troops.

But if Zhong County was strengthened by Li Guoying, then Yuan Zongdi would need to spend more time pulling out this stronghold after Deng Ming left Sichuan. Every day of delay in Zhongxian County will make the Chongqing fortress fall one day late, and if it is delayed until Yuan Zongdi himself has no food or Deng Ming returns, then he will not be able to pocket Chongqing smoothly.

"The Li thief attacked from afar, and he didn't know how to accept it when he saw it, but tried in vain to spy on our army's military situation, which was really self-inflicted." Soon a new piece of information came that the Qing army from Zhongxian was rushing along the river bank towards the Wanxian defensive line. Yuan Zongdi had already begun to set up post stations and repair roads in this area, and of course he could not watch the Qing army unscrupulously expand the search area and give them time to calmly destroy the traffic roads.

Yuan Zongdi ordered the general mobilization of Wanxian County and sent troops to fight the Qing army. Although the harvest season is approaching, there are only 2,000 mu of rice fields outside Wanxian County, and four or five thousand stone of grain can be harvested. For Yuan Zongdi, harvesting these grains was obviously a trivial matter, and he casually arranged a subordinate to be in charge, and hurriedly dispatched with 5,000 soldiers and horses.

There were 2,000 soldiers and 3,000 auxiliaries in the front army, and Wanxian will further mobilize 3,000 soldiers to keep up. Although the number of Yuan Zongdi's soldiers has increased greatly, the proportion of soldiers with actual combat experience is far less than that of the Daning period - including Yuan Zongdi, no general can use the resources of several provinces in the south of the Yangtze River for high-intensity training like Deng Ming, and most of the generals can only let the soldiers know the battlefield through the battlefield, so this battle was regarded by Yuan Zongdi as a good opportunity to train the army, so that a large number of recruits can feel the atmosphere of actual combat.

……

At the forefront of the Qing army was Daniel Zhang. As the oldest general with the most qualifications, Li Guoying has already guaranteed to the imperial court that he will supervise the military affairs of Shaanxi, and this kind of guarantee that takes into account seniority and fame and military exploits, that is, Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao did not have the slightest complaint, but they all thought that Li Guoying acted prudently.

Li Guoying personally led the rear team and handed over the command of the former army to Daniel Zhang, who was old and experienced. Everyone knew that the official appointment of the imperial court would be issued soon, so in terms of official rank, Daniel Zhang was also the first person in the Ganshan Green Battalion, and it was natural that he was the commander-in-chief of the former army.

After the last battle in Chongqing, Daniel Zhang's pro-military camp was annihilated by Deng Ming, and looking at the remaining hundred or so people, Daniel Zhang really wanted to cry without tears - these soldiers were all trained by him for many years, and he did not want to recover his vitality for a few years. Fortunately, the governor exchanged the ploughing ox for some prisoners from Deng Ming, which made Daniel Zhang feel a little better - at that time, Deng Ming also sent back some coupons, and after understanding the meaning of what was written on them, Admiral Zhang tore them to shreds on the spot, which was really too deceitful!

Before this dispatch, Daniel Zhang had already clearly understood the strength of Wanxian from Li Guoying: Yuan Zongdi's men originally had about a few thousand armor, and when they attacked Chongqing three years ago, they suffered heavy losses and followed Deng Ming to Huguang to replenish some. The last time the nest was out, it seemed that there were three more soldiers, more than half of them with armor.

"It's up to you to train the army." Daniel Zhang said to the imaginary Yuan Zongdi. The pro-military camp he rebuilt has another thousand people, and if he is allowed to fight Deng Lübu now, he will not dare to borrow 10,000 dares from Daniel Zhang, but it is better to use Yuan Zongdi's soft persimmon to train the army.

"Marshal Qiyu, General Hu has surpassed us." A herald came running to report. Flanking Daniel Zhang was Hu Wenke, another Qing general who had been dealt a devastating blow. If it weren't for Deng Ming's covetousness of Li Guoying's cattle, Hu Wenke himself would have to be included in the list of annihilation.

"This guy! Running so fast, he also wants to train his recruits with Yuan Zongdi, right? Daniel Zhang scolded. In addition to his own pro-military camp, Daniel Zhang also brought a lot of other troops, so he couldn't compare with Hu Wenke, who spread his legs and ran forward.

"Dashuai!" A herald rushed to report to Daniel Zhang that after Wang Mingde disembarked in Zhongxian, he did not care about resting and hurriedly rushed up with his own barracks.

Another master who had been annihilated by Deng Ming, and had a battalion of recruits in urgent need of training.

"Speed up!" Daniel Zhang shouted. (To be continued) wonderful novel [Net] remember our website: