In the early morning of July 6, Wanxian.

Thirty-six hours ago, the Qing army navy in the Jialing River unlocked the iron chains locked at the mouth of the river and began to sail into the Yangtze River. Nearly forty hours, Yuan Zongdi, the Duke of Jingguo, still had only one vague impression of the Qing army's offensive. The report brought back by the ship was that the Qing army naval commander launched a large-scale operation; and the first batch of information sent back by Yuan Zongdi's scout were also unclear. It was only known that the strength of the Qing army in Zhongxian suddenly increased greatly. Then it was discovered that the Qing army began to dock in Zhongxian and unloaded the goods - this further strengthened Yuan Zongdi's initial judgment, that is, the Qing army was fully responsible for replenishing Zhongxian.

"Does Li Guoying want to transport half a year's grain to Zhong County in one go?" This kind of large-scale mobilization costs a lot. If Li Guoying just wanted to supplement Zhong County, then Yuan Zongdi felt that it was necessary to seriously think about why Li Guoying attached so much importance to Zhong County: "Does Li Guoying want to station a navy in Zhong County? He wouldn't be so stupid, right?"

Another reasonable explanation seems to be that Li Guoying wanted to use Zhongxian as the base to launch an attack on Wanxian, but Yuan Zongdi quickly ruled out this possibility. As Deng Ming's grain continued to pour into Wanxian, although the food consumption of each soldier under Yuan Zongdi was not as rich as that of Chengdu, it continued to increase. Now the grain quota for an auxiliary soldier is eight stones per year, which is almost twice that of the war soldiers under Yuan Zongdi during the Daning period.

All his subordinates could eat and drink enough, and Yuan Zongdi could also allow the auxiliary soldiers to engage in high-intensity work. In the past year, except for not farming, other jobs were not lost. In addition to ensuring the maintenance of ships, Yuan Zongdi also completely renovated the Wanxian walls. Not only did they make up for all the defects, but some of the originally weak walls were demolished and renovated by Yuan Zongdi. Two of the four city towers were even raised by one meter. If the good days continue, Yuan Zongdi also ambitiously planned to increase and thicken the entire city walls, and even had the idea of ​​expanding Wanxian.

The walls of Wanxian were reinforced, and there were mixed wood and stone fortifications around the dock. Yuan Zongdi believed that Wanxian's defense power was quite considerable, and he would never think that it could be shaken by a few thousand Qing troops. At this point, Yuan Zongdi still lacked understanding of the scale of the Qing army's attack. Yuan Zongdi was not a small army leader like the Qingcheng sect, but a former ruler of Dachang, who made money in Hubei with Deng Ming. He moved many residents of Daning to Wanxian and accepted Xiong Lan, which was the remaining troops of Tan Hong. Yuan Zongdi had more than 6,000 soldiers who dared to fight, and the armor popularity rate exceeded 70%. More than 32,000 strong men could also play a great role in defensive wars.

Li Guoying's impression of Yuan Zongdi was still in the past, believing that he could only raise tens of thousands of soldiers. During the last battle of Chongqing, Yuan Zongdi had just arrived in Wanxian, but he did not show any strength beyond Li Guoying's impression. However, Yuan Zong took more than 400,000 stones of food, a large number of supplies and ships from Dengming Group in the first year, and he had to provide another 50,000 stone of support half a month ago. He had long thrown his previous embarrassment out of the sky. Every day, looking at the prosperous scene around Wanxian, Yuan Zongdi's confidence continued to expand, and he was completely unaware that others would regard himself as a big bandit.

As the distance between the Ming and Qing armies continued to get closer, the information obtained by Yuan Zongdi became more and more accurate and timely. He soon learned that the Qing army in Zhongxian did not stop, but continued to approach Wanxian. Moreover, the Qing army's navy was also trying to advance together with them to transport soldiers and supplies for the army.

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

"Haha, this is just a bluff." After seeing the report sent back from the front, Yuan Zongdi smiled contemptuously: "There are nearly 40,000 soldiers in Wanxian County. How dare Li Thief fight the idea of ​​Wanxian unless there is a 100,000 army?"

"There are about 5,000 soldiers in Chongqing, 30,000 to 40,000 strong men, which are basically the same as ours. The navy is not as good as us, so Zhongxian has been in danger for a long time. Besides, there is the threat from the capital, Li thieves have to use most of their strength to defend against the offensive in western Sichuan, and now they are relying on the strong city to survive." Yuan Zongdi briefly analyzed the comparison of enemy and us. In his opinion, Li Guoying's action this time was also a dying struggle: "I just figured it out that for Li thieves, as long as Zhongxian is still in his hands, the troops of Wanxian cannot 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."

The officers around him nodded one after another. Everyone present was Yuan Zongdi's confidant, so they all knew that Duke Jingguo had some ideas about Chongqing - outside of Sichuan's capital, the most important thing was Chongqing. If Yuan Zongdi could take Chongqing into his own pocket, then he would be the most powerful prince in eastern Sichuan. If he managed his territory well, his strength would not be worse than that of Li Laiheng of Jiangling in the future.

Yuan Zongdi did not specifically propose to Deng Ming that the two families would work together to attack Chongqing, but his confidants knew that Yuan Zongdi was waiting for Deng Ming to leave Sichuan and go to Jiangnan again. If he joined forces with western Sichuan to launch an offensive against Chongqing, the troops of Wanxian would be dominated by the troops of Wanxian. At that time, Yuan Zongdi moved to Chongqing as the Duke of the State.

"Li Guoying just wants to enrich Zhongxian and cause us greater trouble. He is just bluffing now, intending to take advantage of the situation, reconnaissance the changes around him, and even touching the reality of our Wanxian." Yuan Zongdi thought he had seen through Li Guoying's thoughts and sneered: "I must let this guy steal the chicken and lose a lot of rice."

In Yuan Zongdi's view, as long as the Qing court's attention was restrained from Liangjiang and Huguang, Chongqing was strong, but it was not difficult to obtain. As long as Wanxian and Chengdu approached east and west, and at the same time controlled 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 could be completed; as long as the western Sichuan troops from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River landed and advanced to the bank of the Jialing River, they could join forces with the Ming army in Wanxian and completely cut off the internal and external transportation of Chongqing - if Li Guoying lacked field troops, then it was possible to do this.

But if Li Guoying strengthened Zhong County, then Yuan Zongdi would have to spend more time to unplug the stronghold after Deng Ming left Sichuan. Every day that was delayed under Zhong County would cause Chongqing Fortress to fall one day late. If Yuan Zongdi did not have food or Deng Ming came back, he would not be able to successfully get Chongqing.

"Li Zhe came from afar and didn't know how to stop when he saw it. Instead, he tried to spy on our military situation. He was really a matter of his own fault." Soon another new piece of information came, and the Qing army that came out of Zhong County was moving along the river bank to the Wanxian defense line. Yuan Zongdi had already started to set up post stations and renovate roads in this area. Of course, he could not see the Qing army unscrupulously expanding the search scope and giving them time to calmly destroy traffic roads.

Yuan Zongdi ordered Wanxian to mobilize troops to fight against the Qing army. Although the harvest season was approaching, there were only two thousand acres of rice fields outside Wanxian, and four or five thousand stones of grain could be harvested. For Yuan Zongdi, harvesting these grains was obviously a trivial matter. He arranged a subordinate to take charge and hurriedly took five thousand troops out.

There were two thousand combat soldiers and three thousand auxiliary soldiers in the former army, and Wanxian would further mobilize 3,000 combat soldiers to follow. Although the number of Yuan Zongdi's combat soldiers has increased significantly, the proportion of soldiers with practical experience is far inferior to that of the Daning period. Including Yuan Zongdi, no general can use the resources of several provinces in Jiangnan to conduct high-intensity training like Deng Ming. Most generals can only let soldiers understand the battlefield through the battlefield. Therefore, this battle was regarded by Yuan Zongdi as a good opportunity to train the army, which can allow a large number of new recruits to feel the atmosphere of the actual combat.

...

Zhang Yong was the one who rushed to the front of the Qing army. As the oldest general, Li Guoying had already recommended him to the court to supervise Shaanxi military affairs. This kind of recommendation that takes into account seniority and reputation and military achievements was not even Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao, but they all believed that Li Guoying was safe.

Li Guoying personally led the rear team and handed over the command of the front army to Zhang Yong, the experienced and experienced Zhang Yong. Everyone knows that the official appointment of the court will be issued soon, so in terms of official titles, Zhang Yong is also the first person in the Ganzhou-Shaanxi Green Camp, and is naturally the commander-in-chief of the front army.

After the last battle in Chongqing, Zhang Yong's personal barracks were annihilated by Deng Ming. At that time, looking at the remaining hundreds of people, Zhang Yong was really crying without tears - these soldiers were trained by him for many years, and he had not been able to recover his vitality for a few years. Fortunately, the governor exchanged some prisoners from Deng Ming with a plowing ox, which made Zhang Yong feel a little better - Deng Ming also sent back some coupons. After understanding the meaning of the above, Admiral Zhang tore them to pieces on the spot, which was really a bully!

Before sending troops this time, Zhang Yong had already clearly understood the strength of Wanxian from Li Guoying: Yuan Zongdi had about a few thousand armored men. He suffered heavy losses when he attacked Chongqing three years ago. He followed Deng Ming to Huguang to supplement some. Last time he was dispatched, he looked like there were another three thousand warriors, more than half of them had armor.

"It depends on you to train troops." Zhang Yong said to the imagined Yuan Zongdi. There were another thousand people in his rebuilt personal military camp. If he asked him to fight Deng Lubu now, he would not dare to borrow Zhang Yong's ten thousand courage, but it would be better to use Yuan Zongdi, a soft persimmon to train troops.

"Report to the Grand Commander, General Hu has surpassed us." A messenger came to report. On the flank of Zhang Yong was Hu Wenke, and another Qing general who had suffered an annihilation attack. If it weren't for Deng Ming's greed for Li Guoying's plowing ox, Hu Wenke himself would have been included in the annihilation list.

"This guy! He ran so fast. He also wanted to use Yuan Zongdi to train his new recruits, right?" Zhang Yong cursed. In addition to his own personal military camp, Zhang Yong also led a lot of other troops, so he could not compare with Hu Wenke who ran forward with his legs.

"Master General!" A messenger rushed to report to Zhang Yong. After Wang Mingde got off the ship in Zhong County, he didn't have time to rest and hurriedly rushed to catch up with his personal military camp.

Another master who was once annihilated by Deng Ming and had a battalion of new recruits urgently needed training.
Chapter completed!