With the order from Hu Laoxiao, the armored soldiers who had been waiting outside the tent rushed in and captured all the thieves. After the armored soldiers tied up all the generals of Anqing, some of them still didn't understand and were still asking why Hu Laoxiao betrayed the court.

After clearing the tent, Zhao Tianba and others greeted Mr. Hu: "Hushang."

There were also many Zhejiang generals who came with Zhao Tianba. Zhao Tianba officially introduced to them: "This is General Li of Xingshan."

"Tiger Commander, I have long been famous." Zhejiang generals also greeted Li Laiheng politely. In the minds of these people, Li Laiheng was a remnant of the camp that disrupted the world. Needless to say, Zhao Tianba was also a member of the Western thief. However, this time they all rely on Zhao Tianba's help to lead the way. Many management regulations after the division of the camp were also formulated under the guidance of Zhao Tianba. Today, thanks to Li Laiheng's help, Zhejiang did not have to lose too many people near Anqing.

"Now all the Tartars have left the city," Li Laiheng immediately convened a formal military meeting. He proposed that the Zhejiang Army be the main force to attack the Anqing Green Camp: "I will lead the troops to plunder for you. If you can destroy Anqing Lu Chou alone, I will not take action."

The generals of the Zhejiang Army had not yet reacted and did not understand why Li Laiheng was unwilling to dispatch the more combative Kuidong Army to join the battle, but Zhao Tianba had already smiled knowingly: "The Tiger Commander's brilliant plan."

After pondering for a moment, Zhao Tianba said: "Although Lu Chou has lost command, the Zhejiang army's weapons are simple. Can the Husband Soldier send an elite soldier to the Zhejiang army, sneak to the Zhejiang army camp, and then launch an attack?"

"This matter is easy. How many soldiers do you need?" Li Laiheng agreed without thinking.

"A thousand men are enough."

Upon hearing this, Li Laiheng immediately called a deputy general and asked him to select a thousand-armored soldiers. He immediately set out to rush to the Zhejiang Army and reminded him: "It is better to go around in circles and walk more roads than to be seen by An Qing's Lu Chou."

"As for the order." The deputy general understood it and immediately left the account and went to select troops.

The generals of the Zhejiang Army were even more confused. They didn't understand why they had to do this more, and they had to turn the attack on both sides into one side. Seeing the confused look on the faces of these people, Zhao Tianba smiled and explained: "The Husband still wants to use this identity for a while, so we have to attack alone. He is on the side to hold the formation for us. If Husband Chou can still resist, Husband Chou will certainly not be on the wall. But if I expected it, Husband Chou could not stop our thunder attack at all. After the overall situation is settled, Husband Chou will board the ship and continue to advance eastward. In this way, even if the Tartars escape from Anqing, they will say that the Jingzhou soldiers will not save them when they die and escape at the last minute, and will not guess Husband Chou's true identity."

"That's right." Li Laiheng added: "Now that Anqing City is empty, you can send a soldier first, under the banner of these Tartar officials who were caught just now, pretending to be a messenger to cheat the city gate. Well, I'll let this surprise soldier be there."

As he said that, Li Laiheng called another general and asked him to take 200 people to grab the city gate, but he also had to move to the Zhejiang Army first, and then go around the city gate on the other side. The Anqing generals who came to Li Laiheng's camp just now brought some personal guards and flag bearers, and were naturally taken down. Li Laiheng asked his generals to pick up a few and force them to shout to the city gate guards.

"After we successfully seize Anqing, we should also act like confronting Hushang. After Hushang leaves, the soldiers can ridicule the Jingzhou soldiers and flee without fighting, and then deliberately let a few prisoners go away." Most of the Zhejiang Army do not know Li Laiheng's identity, nor do they know that these Hushang soldiers are friendly troops. Zhao Tianba feels that it will be impossible to hide for another day for two days: "If we capture the prefect of Anqing, we can also use his seal and name to impeach the Jingzhou soldiers who fled without fighting in the city, which is his death memorial."

"Good idea," Li Laiheng smiled: "I said that I didn't have time to send it out, so you can help him post it and send an edict to the prefectures and counties. If the Tatars learned about it, they would definitely think that it was you who couldn't catch me and wanted to kill someone with a knife."

After saying that, Li Laiheng sighed: "I thought I had been with the admiral for so long and had learned a good plan, but it turned out that I was not careful enough."

Zhao Tianba laughed loudly: "The Hushang is humble, and the humble official stays by the admiral for a longer time."

When Li Laiheng saw Deng Ming insisting on going to Nanjing, he suggested that the other party act with his army. However, Deng Ming thought that he was moving alone at a fast speed and was not conspicuous and could easily cross the Qing army controlled area. After Deng Ming left, Li Laiheng hurriedly dispatched troops and sneaked across Wuchang in groups at night. After gathering, he raised the banner of Jingzhou soldiers and walked down the river in a big way. Originally, Li Laiheng had a certain degree of resistance to shaving his head, but when he saw Deng Mingdu

Without any psychological burden, he also thought: if he could win more easily by shaving his head, there was no need to insist on stubbornly leading to greater casualties. At the order of Li Laiheng, eight thousand Kuidong soldiers shave their heads, tied up their braids, and held the real seal and confession from Zhang Changgeng in his hand. Moreover, Li Laiheng was very careful along the way, never brought troops into the city, but just sent elves to ask for defense, and if possible, they would ask for military rations.

If it were not for the purpose of supporting Zhejiang soldiers, Li Laiheng had no intention of attacking An Qing, but planned to continue disguising himself as such until he took a fatal blow to the Qing army at the most critical moment.

As Li Laiheng and Zhao Tianba expected, the Anqing Green Camp, which had lost all the commanders, was vulnerable. After the Zhejiang Army launched the charge, the Anqing Green Camp saw that the generals were not sure where they were going, and the soldiers below immediately dispersed and not many could escape back to Anqing. The prefect originally thought that there would be a big victory today, and the soldiers who did not want to escape were shouting, saying that the soldiers in Jingzhou were afraid of the enemy and did not dare to go out to fight at all, and the generals of our army did not know why they had returned.

Just when the Qing army was still in amazement, they suddenly found that the city tower was planted with red flags. Seeing that the city was about to break out, the Qing soldiers of Anqing either fled home or surrendered to the Ming army. The prefect hurriedly hung a white cloth on the cross beam and prepared to commit suicide. However, the prefect stepped on the chair and put his head into the rope circle and began to hesitate again. His colleagues in Chizhou and other places also surrendered to the Ming army, but later found another opportunity. Anyway, with these previous examples, the prefect couldn't help but think that if he didn't die, he might have any chance. When the prefect was fighting against the heavens, the Ming army rushed into the yamen, pulled him off the chair, and dragged him to see the generals of the Ming army.

In front of the prefect, the Ming generals ridiculed the timid Huguang soldiers to their hearts and told the prefect that they were the Anqing generals who were intercepting outside the Huguang military camp. However, Hu Laoxiao, who was so close, did not dare to go out to rescue people. Even after several green camp generals broke through the siege, they did not dare to open the camp gate to respond. They watched the Ming army chased the camp and dragged the Anqing general who had been smashing the door away.

The Ming army entering Anqing City quickly took over the city defense, and at the same time set up a formation outside the city, confronting Hu Laoxiao by the river. The captured prefect, county magistrate and other left-behind civil and military officials, saw that the Ming army did not have many armored soldiers, and hated Hu Laoxiao who had cheated Anqing City to the core.

Li Laiheng suggested that the Zhejiang Army use Anqing as the base to transport family members to Huguang in batches. He also sent 200 soldiers to the Zhejiang Army, which on the one hand strengthened their strength and on the other hand also acted as guides. Zhao Tianba and the other two broke up with the Zhejiang Army. With the guide given by Li Laiheng, it would be meaningless for them to stay in the Zhejiang Army. They immediately turned around and returned to chase Deng Ming.

After Zhao Tianba and others left, Li Laiheng also ordered the army to board the boat and set off to sail downstream that night. The next morning, the young general of Zhejiang Army Yu Youming dragged the prefect to the city again and pointed out the Jingzhou camp, which had been empty. Last night, the prefect did not sleep all night in the prison. Although he hated Hu Laoxiao, who had ruined the big things, the Jingzhou soldiers were his last hope. The prefect tossed and turned his mind and said that the guards had described the appearance of the Huguang army to him, hoping that Hu Laoxiao would suddenly show his power and regain Anqing to rescue him. All night, when the prefect heard something outside, he excitedly hoped that the next moment he saw a large number of Huguang soldiers rushing in. The damn deputy general of Yuezhou came to apologize to him and shouted: "Sir, I am wronged."

Now the last hope is shattered. The prefect Anqing looked at the empty Yangtze River and felt a sense of doomsday. At this time, Yu Youming laughed again: "We were going to attack Hu Zhe today, but I don't want him to escape very quickly. Haha, when Hu Zhe ran to Nanjing, I wonder how he would report this battle?"

The prefect was filled with misery. He asked himself, if he was in the situation of Hu Lao and Xiao, he would definitely put all the blame on An Qing.

Yu Youming was like a devil, saying tempting words: "Do you want to take revenge? If you want, you can write an impeachment and report the true situation of this battle to the Tartars in a row, and we will pass on the letter to Nanjing for you."

The prefect knew very well that this was the Ming army's plan to kill people by using a knife, but how could he miss this opportunity? He nodded heavily without hesitation and gritted his teeth and shouted: "I'll give me some pens and ink, I'll impeach the thief."

In this impeachment, the prefect of Anqing scolded Hu Laoxiao and said that he would not save him when he was dead and fled at the battle. He was afraid of the enemy like a tiger, which implicated the officers and soldiers of Anqing City. Not only did he ask the court to hold him accountable, but he also warned Nanjing not to reuse this person, in case he did the same trick again and drag down friendly forces.

...

Compared with the great fanfare of the Zhejiang Army advancing westward, the 5,000 Zhejiang soldiers led by Deng Ming stopped and divided into several teams to foster forward carefully. They have been hiding day and out at night for several days, fearing that they would alarm the Qing army in Nanjing. These Zhejiang soldiers did not dare to walk the road, so they advanced along the border areas of Yingtian Prefecture, Ningguo Prefecture, and Guangde Prefecture. These border areas are far away from the prefectures of each prefecture, and the Qing army is not so frequent. Fortunately, Zheng Chenggong has been in chaos these days. All the elite soldiers rushed to Nanjing, and the traffic at the post station was also semi-paralyzed, so Deng Ming was not discovered in the first two days, and the farmers he occasionally met couldn't figure out whether it was the Qing army or the Ming army.

But this morning, Deng Ming's camp was discovered by a team of green camp soldiers and could not continue to hide his whereabouts.

Now Nanjing has learned that Zheng Chenggong retreated to the estuary of the Yangtze River and Guan Xiaozhong. Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng led the most combative Qing army to Suzhou and other places to guard against the Zheng army landing again. The local government also felt that the major was settled, and Zheng Chenggong's attack on Jiangnan had failed. Now the local government no longer hesitated and stood clearly on the side of the Qing court. They sent their troops out to search for the fallen Ming army around.

The green camp that Deng Ming encountered was one of them. After discovering that the green camp was close to the camp, Deng Ming immediately mobilized the Zhejiang soldiers in the camp to prepare for the war, and then led them out to fight, intending to annihilate the green camp unit with only more than 100 people. Now the green camps in Jiangnan are all extremely poor combat power. After encountering the attack of five hundred Zhejiang soldiers, this green camp was defeated almost instantly.

However, the rapid defeat of the Green Camp also made Deng Ming's plan to annihilate them. The Zhejiang soldiers were far less familiar with geography than these local soldiers. They only wiped out more than fifty Qing troops, and the rest fled in scattered.

After knowing that his whereabouts were exposed, Deng Ming quickly advanced with a thousand front army, occupied several villages and towns, and collected supplementary materials. At the same time, the entire army no longer continued to lurk during the day and acted at night, but quickly marched eastward until sunset before setting up camp.

In the evening, Deng Ming and Zhou Kaiyuan, Ren Tang and others discussed the next action: "We can enter Changzhou Prefecture after walking for another day. According to the original plan, we should advance along the border between Changzhou Prefecture and Guangde Prefecture, and then slip into Zhejiang."

Deng Ming and others originally hoped to touch the vicinity of Hangzhou but were discovered by the Qing army. Now Hangzhou's defense is quite empty. The most combat-capable Eight Banners in Hangzhou have already gone to Nanjing. At that time, the Ming army will go around the city and rush towards Ningbo Prefecture at full speed. Shaoxing, Cixi and Ningbo are all areas of Zhejiang Army's annual activity. They are not only familiar with geography, but also have close ties with local residents. Once they arrive at Ningbo Prefecture, it is easy to get in touch with Zhoushan and be able to go out safely. Even if Zhoushan does not send enough ships in time, the Ming army can still deal with the Qing army by relying on the familiar geography. After all, the Qing army's attention is mainly concentrated in the Suzhou area, and there should not be a large number of pursuers in the short term.

But after the whereabouts were exposed, it would be difficult to say that this plan could be successfully implemented. If the Ming army was discovered near Hangzhou, it would be a problem that the Zhejiang government needed to solve. Even if Zhejiang explored the strength of the Ming army as quickly as possible and then asked Nanjing for reinforcements, Nanjing would need a certain amount of reaction time. It would be difficult to say whether the troops would be drawn from Suzhou and other places to Zhejiang before Zheng Chenggong left.

But now Deng Ming and others are still in Jiangsu. To be precise, it is in Yingtian Prefecture, the nearest prefecture to Nanjing. Nanjing will definitely not sit idly by and watch a large number of Ming troops active here.

"The Tartars probably don't know our strength. We only dispatched a few hundred people this morning." Zhou Kaihuang said with some disconfidence: "Maybe they won't send a large army to chase us. We should continue to move forward as planned."

"Yes, the Tartars didn't know, so they might have sent hundreds of people to chase us, but now they already know that we are here, they will not be ambushed, and they will deliberately observe the traces left by us and judge our number." Ren Tang immediately pointed out: "It won't take long to see our strength completely exposed."

To the east is Changzhou Prefecture, and to the east is Suzhou Prefecture. It is the area where Guan Xiaozhong and Liang Huafeng and others stationed. If they heard that there were thousands of Ming troops around them, they would definitely come to encircle and suppress: Zheng Chenggong is still on the sea, but there is only the possibility of landing again, while the Ming army in Changzhou Prefecture is a real threat.

"Even if Guan Qizhong and Liang Huafeng don't come, there will be Ma Fengzhi from Songjiang Prefecture," Ren Tang mentioned another threat. Ma Fengzhi, who was stationed in Songjiang, had an ambiguous attitude in this war. Now that Zheng Chenggong is defeated, he must be in panic. Maybe he is regretting why he didn't send troops to reinforce Nanjing like Liang Huafeng: "Ma Fengzhi holds 15,000 green camps, 3,000 of which are cavalry, which is much better than Liang Huafeng's troops. Maybe he will think that our five thousand people are his last chance, and will want to use our heads to wash away the crimes at both ends of his head and rats, begging for a way out from the Qing court. If he only comes with cavalry, he will catch up with us before we escape from Changzhou Prefecture, and even if we escape into Zhejiang, he will chase him relentlessly."

Deng Ming looked at the map and continued to advance into Changzhou Prefecture, they would be sandwiched between Nanjing and Suzhou, with heavy troops from the Qing army in front and behind. Unless the Qing army in both places held their troops unresponsively and did not even send a single reconnaissance force, the Ming army would be bitten by the Qing army, dragged it down, and be investigated clearly, and then destroyed by the Qing army's front and back attack.

"It's time to rethink it." Deng Ming raised his head and said to Ren Tang and other Zhejiang officers who came to attend the military meeting: "We can bet that the Tartars turn a blind eye to us and do not react in two days so that everyone can go home safely, but do you really dare to bet like this? Once the Tartars chase after them, not to mention going to Ningbo."

Even the most homely officer of Zhejiang was silent at this time. Deng Ming continued: "We have worked hard, but the road home looks blocked. I suggest we should look back as soon as possible. It may be too late to rush back to Huguang now."

Now turn around and run back. Although you may still be pursued by the Qing army in Nanjing, you can at least distance from the Qing army in Suzhou.

"As long as we move west quickly, the Tartars in Nanjing may not be willing to pursue them relentlessly. The Prince of Yanping can still attract the attention of the Tartars for us." Deng Ming pointed out that the Qing army has now repelled Zheng Chenggong's attack on Nanjing. At the moment of victory, the Qing army's strategy may become conservative.

...

Chongming Island.

It has been two days since I landed, but the defenders are still holding on to the camp.

After losing a large number of senior generals, Zheng Chenggong transferred the soldiers who lost their leaders to other battalions, but the soldiers are far from adapting to the new generals, and the generals are completely unfamiliar with these soldiers.

The generals who returned from the battlefield today knelt in front of Zheng Chenggong without saying a word. Although they personally supervised the battle, the Fujian army, which had a mess of morale and organization, still had no choice but to have the defenders.

"Let's have dinner first." Zheng Chenggong said calmly, greeted his subordinates and asked the guards to bring the supper in.

"Shangshu Zhang can only ask for more blessings." While everyone was eating silently, Zheng Chenggong made up his mind to withdraw his troops.

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