Deng Ming sat on the boat and galloped downstream along the river with his troops.

The subsequent information became more and more bizarre. The day before yesterday, the Ming army finally correctly judged that this was Li Guoying's large-scale attack. This Qing army's raid was completely beyond the expectations of the Ming army. Neither Deng Ming nor Yuan Zongdi had expected that the Qing army would dare to launch a large-scale attack without control of the river. The facts proved that the Ming army's control of the river was not as stable as he imagined. With the Qing army advancing water and land, the Ming army's escort fleet did not dare to fight under unknown enemy conditions, nor could the Qing army completely give up water transportation.

After seeing the latest information, Deng Ming was very worried about the war situation in Wanxian. Now the Ming army concluded that the Qing army deployed more than 15,000 armor and more than 50,000 troops, which had an overwhelming advantage for the Ming army in Wanxian. If Yuan Zongdi, like Deng Ming, despised the strength of the Qing army, the Ming army would probably suffer a great loss.

"The admiral doesn't have to worry too much," said the subordinates on the same boat as Deng Ming to comfort the chief. Zhao Tianba said to him: "Duke Jingguo is very calm and will surely discover the strength of the Qing army soon, and then properly retreat to Wanxian and wait for our support."

"I hope so." Deng Ming urgently mobilized 10,000 soldiers and 10,000 civilians from Xuzhou, and rode hundreds of warships to reinforce Wanxian. If Yuan Zongdi misjudged the strength of the Qing army, he might be in a tough battle now. As long as the reinforcements arrived, Wanxian was still in the hands of the Ming army, the Qing army's offensive would naturally collapse as soon as the Western Sichuan Navy and reinforcements arrived.

A cautious person like Li Guoying would launch such a large-scale raid, which really underestimated him. Until now, Deng Ming still regrets his carelessness. If Wanxian lost, the Qing army, which seized the Ming army's inventory, may persist for a long time, causing greater trouble to the shipping of the Yangtze River; even if the Qing army could not persist, the damage to Wanxian would cause heavy losses to the Ming army.

The situation at this time was somewhat similar to the battle in Chongqing when Deng Ming first traveled. At that time, Wu Sangui underestimated the strength and determination of the Kuidong Army, which led to Chongqing in danger. However, due to the rebellion of Tan Yi and Tan Hong, the Ming army not only failed to take advantage of Wu Sangui's mistakes to achieve results, but instead suffered heavy losses. Now, because of the mistakes of Zhang Yong and Wang Mingde, the Qing army was unable to take advantage of the opportunity of the surprise attack to cause a major blow to the Ming army. When Deng Ming was worried, the Qing army's offensive had actually ended.

The closer the Ming army's fleet was to Chongqing, the more moored cargo ships could be seen on the south bank.

Whether it is here, the Three Gorges, even Huguang, Jiangxi, the upward ships are basically driving on the near-shore channel, and when they are upwind, they will land on the water flow on the shore channel with relatively slow water flow. The main bottleneck section of shipping is the Three Gorges area, where the upward channel is very narrow and has higher requirements for wind. Only by transporting valuable cargo and official ships can you consider not stopping the ship and waiting for the wind but pushing forward. During the Second World War in Deng Ming's previous life, the Chinese X government had no time to wait and transport materials and personnel to Sichuan at any cost. Not to mention that the Ming army does not have such manpower, even Sichuan more than ten years ago could not do it.

"If you want to expand the channel, you need power other than sails to pass through the Three Gorges, but now I definitely can't build a steam engine. And even if you have power that does not rely on wind energy, the Three Gorges' channel is densely covered with reefs, so you can only use the nearshore channel. To broaden the channel, in addition to power, you also need high explosions." Deng Ming thought for a while and threw the idea of ​​expanding the channel aside. The most feasible method at the moment is the old method, which is to build a large number of ships in Sichuan to minimize the import of goods from Sichuan as much as possible. Some of the ships transporting downstream are sold downstream, and the remaining part of the ships are on the air: "I don't know how the sea ban is implemented? If the sea ban has begun to be implemented on a large scale, residents of several coastal provinces need to be resettled, including a large number of fishermen, sailors, and shipbuilders. If a group of fishermen can be recruited into Sichuan, it can greatly strengthen Sichuan's shipbuilding capabilities."

The wind has been good in recent days, but I have not seen several upward ships along the way. They are all blocked downstream. In order to avoid the war, they may return to Yunyang and may even berthed in Fengjie.

"The threat of Chongqing is greater than I thought." Deng Ming talked about this matter with his confidants around him. Although the intention of the Qing army in this war was not to block shipping, it did reveal the cooperation problem of the Ming army's navy: "If every time we see the wind direction is favorable, the Chongqing navy will come out to make trouble, and then escape back to the Jialing River before we catch them? Our cargo ship finally worked hard to get up to Chongqing, but had to hide downstream. After the Qing army retreated, the wind direction may be unfavorable again. Even if it is favorable, it will take a lot of time to walk again."

"This time Li Guoying must have received a lot of support from Beijing." Mu Tan said, this was the unanimous conclusion. When he left Chongqing last time, Deng Ming thought that this was not bad, because Beijing's transfer of a large amount of supplies to Chongqing meant that other battlefields were weakened. At that time, the Ming army's shipping was not as busy as today. Now the amount of salt transport alone was more than ten times that of a year ago. And as the market continued to expand, the transportation volume would continue to increase. The Ming army used to think that the delay was insignificant, but now it felt intolerable, and it would definitely be even more painful in the future: "If Beijing continues to support Chongqing like this, although the Tartars will consume a lot, we will also be extremely difficult."

"Yes, after this experience, the Qing army will definitely come out more actively to harass us, and they have a certain understanding of our response speed." Deng Ming's conclusion is very different from that of a few days ago. The long-term suspension of shipping this time was much beyond the Ming army's expectations. Ten days are not long, but if it is cut off for a few days every time, Beijing's material support for Chongqing will be worth the money: "If we leave Sichuan again, then Duke Jingguo will become more difficult."

Deng Ming planned to send troops to seize Chongqing's crops this time and go to Jiangnan again. During the slack farming period, soldiers were idle in Chengdu, so it would be better to go downstream to fight the autumn wind and maintain the Ming army's deterrence against Jiangnan officials. However, now the Ming army is considering whether they should try to relieve Chongqing's threat first and then leave, so as not to have any contact between Sichuan and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

...

While Deng Ming and the officers were discussing how to suppress Chongqing, Sun Sick had already brought the Eight Banners of Han back to the west of Chongqing. Shanxi soldiers were distributed on the transportation line from Chongqing to Zhong County, and the navy had safely entered the river estuary.

"The Governor-General predicted that the thief would arrive early, but there was still no trace yet." The Eight Banners of Han were moving forward, but when they returned, they were very quick. In order to return as soon as possible, they used a lot of armorless soldiers to pull the fibers. Now that they arrived by the river, there was a boat in front of them, which was convenient for crossing the river and returning to safe Chongqing. Sun Sike was not in a hurry, but was a little dissatisfied with Li Guoying's nervousness: "I rushed back all the way, but I didn't even see the shadow of a thief. It was really in vain."

Sun Sike was still a little worried about Chongqing before, but Li Guoying analyzed it in detail to him that Deng Ming had no way to control Chongqing. If it was to monitor Chongqing, under normal circumstances, the Ming army could establish a base in Qijiang and Tongluoxia areas and build a city. However, Chengdu did not have much manpower. If a large-scale construction in Qijiang, it would seriously affect the production in western Sichuan. Moreover, the Ming army left too few troops in Qijiang, and there would be insufficient use. There was no need to worry about leaving the main force in these two places in Chongqing. If some troops were transferred back to Guangyuan, they could threaten Chengdu's safety from the north from the front line of Jiange again. Even if the Ming army fully grasped the movements of the Qing army, they would be mobilized to run. As long as the Ming army was not careful, it might leave a flaw in assault for the Qing army. If Qijiang and Tongluoxia were both strongholds for the Ming army to be vigilant and to deploy heavy troops, would Deng Ming still dare to lead the main force out of Sichuan?

Before this battle, Li Guoying believed that Chongqing should be given up and resources should be saved. Now Li Guoying's view is still the same. He believed that staying in Chongqing without an advantageous naval army was not very meaningful, and every time he went out to harass was a risk - he and Deng Ming were afraid of both ends of the wolf. However, since the court insisted, Li Guoying should try his best to play the role of Chongqing and strive to attract as many Ming troops as possible around Chongqing.

"General Zhao is walking too slowly." After Sun Sike complained, Li Guoying began to complain about Zhao Liangdong again. According to Li Guoying's plan, Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao should have arrived in Chongqing at this time, but they are still in Baoning now.

This delay is also related to the Eight Banners of Han. After sending troops, Sun Sick used all the ships in the rear to transport the Eight Banners soldiers because the bannermen were unwilling to work hard to walk the mountain roads like the Green Camp. When they retreated, all the ships were intercepted by Sun Sick, and they did not plan to assist Zhao Liangdong. In addition to the ships, many armourless soldiers who came to Chongqing should also return to Guangyuan with the ship to help the Green Camp in Sichuan and Shaanxi, but now they were detained downstream with the ship and ordered to pull the boats for the Eight Banners soldiers.

Li Guoying once mentioned the style of the old man of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty twice in an understatement. Seeing that Sun Ksi reacted fiercely, he simply pretended not to see. The Governor-General did not speak, and the others naturally could not speak. In order to curry favor with Sun Sick, Gao Mingzhan not only did not argue, but also tried his best to meet his requirements, detained all the transportation vehicles that should have returned to Guangyuan to send to the Eight Banners soldiers. In order to transport wine to the Manchu Taijun who accompanied the army, Gao Mingzhan even mobilized all mules and horses, and sent luxury goods to the front line every day, and had the highest priority of the road. When encountering these convoys and ships that sent luxury goods to the Manchu Taijun, both the Qing army's baggage and the army must give way immediately.
Chapter completed!