In addition to the troops that had arrived in Zhong County, there were 30,000 Qing troops who had already crossed the Jialing River long ago. With Li Guoying's order, they began to march eastward. However, unlike the concealed advance team, these Qing troops advanced openly along the river bank, without any fear of being discovered by passing Ming ships. While the army that had crossed the river was advancing eastward, Li Guoying suddenly opened the iron chain barrier to block the Jialing River. The Jialing River navy, who had been hiding behind Chongqing for a year, rushed out of the river mouth and sailed into the Yangtze River without any scruples.

Before the Qing army loosened the chains and let the ships sail out of the river estuary one by one, the passing Ming army ships discovered the abnormality of the Qing army. When they saw the Qing navy sailing out of the river estuary abnormally, and there seemed to be a large number of ships following them, the Ming army's ships also chose conservative strategies and avoided the upstream and downstream respectively.

Li Guoying, who presided over the oath, would cross the river and advance east within a few days, and many Qing army ships driving out of the Jialing River were loaded with baggage. They would go straight to Zhong County under the protection of warships, where they unloaded food, gunpowder and auxiliary soldiers. Li Guoying took great pains to plan this march. In order to advance to Wanxian more efficiently and quickly, water transportation must be used. In order to protect the ships, Li Guoying sent an advance team to the preset location to build a water camp, so that the army could provide cover for the ships.

The water camps built by these army can allow the Jialing River Navy to rest, hide, obtain supplies and repair opportunities. With the cooperation of the army, if the Ming army navy is not very advantageous, it cannot pose too much threat to the Qing army's navy and water transportation. On the contrary, the Qing army's navy can seriously threaten the Ming army ships far away from the base. If they are injured and damaged, they will be surrounded by Qing army troops, and these Ming army ships may be directly captured by Li Guoying.

However, if the army appears too early, it will arouse the vigilance of Wanxian. Once the Qing army is found to build a water camp around Zhongxian, Yuan Zongdi will definitely know that the Jialing River Naval Division is planning to launch a large-scale operation, which will not only make Wanxian more vigilant, but may also lead Yuan Zongdi to ask Deng Ming for help. Therefore, Li Guoying carefully designed it and set off secretly, so as to ensure that the Jialing River Naval Division will set off when the advance team starts to build the water camp.

After seeing the Qing army advance by water and land, Wanxian and the Western Sichuan Navy felt that the visitors were not good. These warships that were originally dispatched for escort were not strong enough, and they might not be able to chew the Jialing River Navy that was advancing in groups. Moreover, the Jialing River Navy and the Ganzhou Green Camp cooperated closely, and behind the navy that went downstream was 30,000 green camps advancing east along the river bank. Even if the Ming army injured the Qing army's ships, they would easily get help and repair.

In this way, the Yangtze River shipping was temporarily divided into two parts. After seeing the first major move by the Qing army in a year, the Ming army fleet located in the west of Chongqing stopped moving downward. The escorted warships blocked the salt ships behind them, and asked the cargo ships returning to Xuzhou to report military information to the prefect of the Xuzhou Prefecture and apply for more reinforcements. The Ming army fleet, which was forced to stop, made a quick decision and established a temporary camp around Qijiang, waiting for further instructions from the rear.

However, the Qing navy that drove out of the Jialing River did not look like an attack on the upstream. They rushed to the downstream in a swarm. According to Li Guoying's order, when they unloaded the goods in Zhongxian, they had to return as soon as possible to help the Qing army advance eastward. The warships should use Zhongxian as the base to try to establish a river barrier against Wanxian.

After confirming that the Qing warships advanced eastward, the Ming army navy in the lower reaches of Chongqing continued to retreat. There was no base for the Ming army around Chongqing. Once the route was cut off, the Ming army in the upper and lower reaches would lose contact and did not know how the navy on the other side would act. In this case, a safe retreat was obviously a better choice.

The Ming army's navy had been retreating through Zhong County and found that the Qing army was building a large-scale water camp here. A few days ago, it was a post. Thousands of people suddenly appeared in the Qing army stronghold at the post station. The walls of the water camp were built at a visible speed, and even two small bronze cannons were dragged to the cannon position.

The Qing navy, which was going downstream, had a huge difference in marching speed between the Qing army and the Qing army on the river bank, and the former might even reach ten times the latter. As the continuous retreat, the Ming army also noticed that many Qing army ships were loaded, either loaded with a large amount of precious supplies or a whole ship of soldiers. After the cargo ships that needed cover returned to Wanxian at full speed, several more powerful and stronger Ming warships had the idea of ​​blocking the Qing navy. But at first they expected the Qing army's navy to separate themselves due to the difference in marching speed, giving the Ming army a better chance to attack the Qing army's ships. However, after seeing the deployment of Zhongxian, the Ming army found that the Jialing River Navy was still not far away from the cover of their army companions.

At this point, the Ming army warships gave up all their intentions to seek battle and returned to Wanxian downstream with the cargo ship at full speed. Although the Qing army's warships were relatively small, they were numerous. If the mast was damaged by the Qing navy, it would affect the speed. If the large warships were stranded, they would be destroyed by the surrounding Qing army infantry.

More than ten hours after the Qing army sent troops, the first ship that called the police rushed back to Wanxian. Not long after, Yuan Zongdi learned that the Qing army in Zhongxian had abnormal movements.

"It's coming in a fierce manner. What does Li Guoying want to do? Do you want to reinforce Zhongxian?" The Qing army near Chongqing has been doing very badly this year. Due to the disadvantage of the navy, Chongqing has difficulty replenishing Zhongxian's vanguard. In order to reduce the burden, Li Guoying withdrew most of the garrisons of Zhongxian back to Chongqing, leaving only the most basic defensive forces.

After the Sichuan Navy returned, the Qing army in Zhongxian was even more miserable. With the remaining strength, the Wanxian Navy frequently landed on both sides of Zhongxian, making the supply line from Chongqing to Zhongxian more unstable. Moreover, Yuan Zongdi also replenished the war horses obtained from Deng Ming to the scouts. The Ming army's reconnaissance forces, which were greatly strengthened, further suppressed the defenders of Zhongxian, and severely narrowed the scope of the Qing army's woodcutting and hunting when they went out.

There have been several times when Yuan Zongdi was considering mobilizing troops to attack Zhongxian and pulling out this frontier nail. It was just because of the busy shipping and the Zhongxian did not have any ships from the Qing army and the army was very limited, so Yuan Zongdi did not launch an attack immediately. Besides, Zhongxian's reconnaissance ability was extremely shrinking, and at most it could play a role in early warning for Chongqing. When the Ming army navy and scouts had huge advantages, even the warning range was very limited. Therefore, in Yuan Zongdi's view, the change of hands in Zhongxian was just a matter of time. If Li Guoying insisted on refusing to give up, Yuan Zongdi might take it down after the autumn harvest.

After learning that all the navy troops were returning to Wanxian, Yuan Zongdi was also very satisfied with the decision of his subordinates. It was not that the navy in Wanxian could not fight with the Jialing River Navy, but that it was completely unnecessary in Yuan Zongdi's opinion. He felt that once Deng Ming knew that Li Guoying dared to run out of the Jialing River, the western Sichuan Navy would flock to him, and then the Qing army navy would be held in their temporary water camp. Even if the Ming army could not kill the mice hiding in the nest, these Qing army ships would not want to escape back to the Jialing River. When the Qing army retreated, the fate of the Jialing River Navy would be nothing more than burning or being captured.

"But it will take some days for the ships to go upstream to reach Xuzhou." There are no Ming army strongholds and post stations to the west of Chongqing, so we can only expect the ships to return to report the news. However, there are post roads for horses to be prepared between Xuzhou and Chengdu. Yuan Zongdi estimated that Deng Ming would get the news before the end of the month, and then ordered the Western Sichuan Navy to be dispatched. In a few days, the Western Sichuan Navy, which covered the sky and the sun, would kill to Chongqing. There was not much time left for Li Guoying: "He must have to go back obediently. We just need to look for opportunities to chase when the navy retreats."

Two days after Li Guoying launched the offensive, Wanxian still knew nothing about the scale of the Qing army's offensive, and Yuan Zongdi was still waiting for more information.

At this time, Li Guoying had already taken his headquarters across the Jialing River and headed towards Zhongxian.

"Governor General, the bronze cannons of Zhong County have been deployed, and all the thieves' navy retreated to the east of Zhong County."

After Li Guoying's careful planning in advance, the post station system from Zhongxian to Chongqing was restored within two days. Now important downstream information can be sent back to Chongqing at full speed by post horse.

"Very good." Li Guoying nodded. When it comes to bronze cannons, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi was full of bitter tears. The first batch of super cannons used to experiment failed, but the second batch of super cannons still failed. After greatly thickening the wall of the cannon, the cavity was not exploded, but the caliber was not much larger than the previous cannons. The weight was increased by six or seven times, but the range was only increased from two to three hundred meters to three or four hundred meters. Not to mention blocking the river surface in Chongqing, it would not be possible to place it on the shore.

Moreover, because the gun wall was greatly thickened, the heat dissipation ability of the new cannon was also very poor. After several shots, the temperature began to remain high. After several minutes of firing, the barrel of the cannon was still too hot and it was absolutely impossible to fill the gunpowder again.

The range has been increased very limited, but the rate of fire has been greatly reduced. The Sichuan-Shaanxi Governor had a cannon before was to sit on the top of the city to count the passing ships. After the cannon was built, there was no change at all. The copper cannon used in the water camp is still the old model of the previous one. Although the caliber is small, the rate of fire is fast and the weight is light.

But these super cannons were also loaded onto the ship by Li Guoying. Although the memorial to the court only said to grab grain, and Li Guoying also positioned the grab grain as the lowest target, he did not intend to miss possible opportunities. As far as Li Guoying knew, Yuan Zongdi was very poor, the former territory of Daning was considered barren, and the new territory of Wanxian never had much time to operate.

"Wanxian Town was completely destroyed by Wen Anzhi, and Xiong Lan did not seriously repair it. Gao Mingzhan just dealt with it. Until Yuan Zongdi came, he was still in a dilapidated state until Yuan Zongdi came." When Zhongxian's last reconnaissance near Wanxian, he found that Yuan Zongdi had a small military camp around Wanxian, all of which were reclaimed by Xiong Lan. Yuan Zongdi continued to operate. Li Guoying believed that Yuan Zongdi could not have only such a little, and would definitely continue to accept Xiong Lan's business results and further expand the reclamation. The scale is now at least four or five times that of Xiong Lan at that time. However, Zhongxian could no longer penetrate into Wanxian, so Li Guoying's inference could not be confirmed.
Chapter completed!