A few days ago, Deng Ming and Li Guoying's army had already clashed. At that time, the Ming army in western Sichuan was constantly in contact with the Ming army in Wanxian and obtained more and more detailed information. Three days ago, Deng Ming announced to his subordinates that Yuan Zongdi had eliminated a large number of Qing troops, causing the number of armored soldiers at Li Guoying to drop to about 12,000, instead of the more than 15,000 that the Ming army had guessed. In this way, Deng Ming's 10,000 armored soldiers and 5,000 armored soldiers in Wanxian had already had a numerical advantage over Li Guoying's 12,000 armored soldiers, and it seemed that he could consider laying the victory through a head-on decisive battle.

However, Yuan Zongdi was not very enthusiastic about such a decisive battle because Yuan Zongdi felt that he was a little indigestion. Originally, there were only 40,000 or 50,000 Ming troops in Wanxian. After capturing 10,000 prisoners in one breath, Yuan Zongdi felt that it would take him a long time to digest the fruits of victory. When Li Guoying came to attack Wanxian, Yuan Zongdi had no idea of ​​leaving the city to fight. After Li Guoying began to retreat, Yuan Zongdi did not pursue him.

According to Yuan Zongdi's experience, prisoners of war had to be controlled for at least one year before they could dispel the idea of ​​escape from most of them. During this period, they could not be taken to the battlefield or undertake auxiliary work. In order to monitor and control these prisoners, Wanxian needed to maintain a strong army to avoid someone taking risks, launching rebellions or causing trouble. These work is what Yuan Zongdi attaches most at present, and his strength is limited and Li Guoying's army is strong, so Wanxian watched the Qing army leave without any harassment and restraining work.

Until he contacted Deng Ming, Yuan Zongdi still had no attacks. He felt that if the number of prisoners continued to increase, he would need to use more energy to prevent them from connecting with each other; and if there were too many prisoners in Wanxian, the Ming army would be divided and disintegrated, and it would take longer to make them completely lose the idea of ​​defection. In short, Yuan Zongdi believed that he had made enough money in this gambling, and it was time to end the game by exchanging the chips for real money and silver. It would not be too late to start a new game after he digested the fruits of victory.

Deng Ming was obviously not satisfied with more than 10,000 prisoners, and Chengdu's digestive ability was much higher than that of Wanxian, so Deng Ming repeatedly sent people to urge Yuan Zongdi to send troops to fight with him.

Although Yuan Zongdi felt that Deng Ming was a little greedy and could not eat it, the two families had a close relationship and he could not ignore Deng Ming's request. Therefore, Yuan Zongdi reluctantly gathered a thousand soldiers and brought them to meet Deng Ming in person. The main camp of Wanxian did not set off because Yuan Zongdi needed them to stay at home to monitor the large number of prisoners, so as not to have an accident.

"Duke Jingguo will probably bring a thousand warriors to reinforce us." After reading the express letter from Yuan Zongdi, Deng Ming said to his subordinates.

"What is enough for a thousand soldiers to do?" Ren Tang said dissatisfiedly. The Qing army was blocked near Zhong County now, with as many as 70,000 or 80,000. Although the number of soldiers was similar to that of the Ming army, it was not something that the Ming army in western Sichuan, with a total strength of only 20,000 could be eaten.

"Duke Jingguo does have his difficulties." Deng Ming asked the envoy from Wanxian, knowing that Yuan Zongdi had already been forced to withdraw a thousand soldiers from a ship to support him. In recent years, Yuan Zongdi's strength has expanded very quickly. Many of them were brought back from Hubei, and some were accepted by Xiong Lan. The original backbone of Dachang soldiers accounted for less than half of the Wanxian army. This time he swallowed tens of thousands of prisoners... If Deng Ming had not repeatedly invited him, Yuan Zongdi would have been in charge of Wanxian and supervised his subordinates with all his energy to avoid accidents.

"Isn't our difficulties even greater?" Nin Tang said dissatisfied.

The expansion speed of Yuan Zongdi's power was very amazing in the context of the late Ming Dynasty. Although Li Laiheng, Liu Tichun, Hao Yaoqi, He Zhen and others also benefited from the emergence of Deng Ming, no one's power expansion could be compared with Yuan Zongdi. But despite this, Li Laiheng and others had not done anything for a year, and they were all busy digesting the fruits of victory. The unfamiliar territory and the sudden addition of new subordinates all took time to familiarize themselves, and it would take a long time to train cadres. Yuan Zongdi, who had eaten the most, was actually the most dangerous now. If it weren't for the continuous supply of materials in Chengdu, his logistics might have had a big problem long ago.

However, compared with Deng Ming himself, the expansion speed of these camp generals is simply not worth mentioning. In Chengdu, none of Deng Ming's 300,000 strong men in Xuzhou had followed Deng Ming for more than three years. All his generals were asked or borrowed from other generals. Soldiers joined one after another, and local officials adopted a thorough nepotism system.

There was no team, old subordinates, personal soldiers, and reliable old brothers. According to the general warlord standards, Deng Ming's internal organization is not as good as that of a long-standing bandit gang. Although Yuan Zongdi and others did not say it explicitly, they also hinted that Deng Ming was thinking that he should consider slowing down the expansion speed and integrating the internal energy to strengthen cohesion.

But Deng Ming took these good words as a warning and still swallowed them up. The people who brought back to western Sichuan enjoyed complete personal freedom. When recruiting troops, they treated fellow scholars who met the standards equally and did not consider the issue of loyalty at all. Anyway, the most reliable person was also from Liu Yao almost two years ago. Who can be much better than who?

A loyal team means that there must be a group of people willing to obey orders unconditionally. The chain of loyalty between them and their superiors has been trained to an unbreakable period of time. Needless to say, King Jin, Prince Yanping, and other warlords also have some absolutely loyal subordinates. Whether the superiors are the emperors who turned to fight the Ming Dynasty after surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, or hold the Ming Dynasty flag to resist the Qing army, these people will not question the decision of their superiors. Feng Shuangli, Li Laiheng, Hao Yaoqi, and Yuan Zongdi have such iron-core subordinates, and even Xiong Lan has subordinates like Pu Fan. But Deng

Ming did not. Whether it was to ask the old subordinates of the Sichuan Army to go to Fengjie to find trouble for Wen Anzhi, or to ask Zhou to open up the land, Yuan Xiang attacked Yuan Zongdi, and Zhao Tianba led his troops to raid Kunming... Such orders were impossible to be implemented. There was no need to worry about the consequences, and only teachers like Chen Zuocai, and others - even Qingcheng senators like Liu Yao, although they had no real power in their hands, Deng Ming did not dare to act rashly, so as not to cause dissatisfaction among the business owners. Now most of the Xichuan merchants are from the Qingcheng senators, and Liu Yao and Yang Youcai have the most old subordinates.

Deng Ming's guard came from the three walls sent by Li Laiheng. If there was a conflict with Hushang, the guards would not say that they would be interested in the old master. If other warlords encountered this situation, they would probably not be able to sleep at night long ago, but Deng Ming had enough food and slept soundly. After fighting with Li Guoying, Deng Ming captured 12,000 prisoners and was still unsatisfied. He was determined to block the Qing army's retreat and swallowed the remaining 70,000 and 80,000 Qing troops.

Although Yuan Zongdi himself had not arrived, the envoy had once again expressed similar concerns about Duke Yasukuni, thinking that Deng Ming should stop when he was better. If the prisoners cause trouble in the rear and there was no unit that was absolutely loyal to him, the situation would probably be out of control. One bird in his hand was better than two birds in the forest. Yuan Zongdi was worried that even if Deng Ming could swallow the tens of thousands of Qing troops, he would not be able to quickly digest them. In the end, it would lead to turmoil in western Sichuan and unstable people.

"We have a different system from Duke Jingguo." Deng Ming said softly, indicating that Ren Tang did not have to complain about this issue, and it was also his answer to questions from Yuan Zongdi and others in his heart.

Whether it is Li Dingguo, Zheng Chenggong, Li Laiheng, Yuan Zongdi, they may still have a long way to go to unify the country, but internal unification has been completed. Within their respective hills, they are all dictators who are the ones who speak the same way, and the power in their hands can be regarded as a narrowed imperial power. But Deng Ming is not like this at all. The officers and soldiers in western Sichuan respect Deng Ming very much and admire his military achievements and reputation, but it may not be possible if they say they are afraid of him.

Even inside western Sichuan, Deng Ming was far from unification. He took out his interests to exchange with various people, traders and scholars, and exchanged with fellow scholars. In order to make the Mongolians raise horses honestly, Deng Ming had to treat them equally and sent the commander of the Mongolian Eight Banners to the Senate to raise them. After the last Chen Zuocai incident, everyone respected Deng Ming more and also dropped his fear of him to a new low. Liu Yao and others gradually discovered that although they could not provoke Deng Ming, Deng Ming seemed to be unable to provoke him, at least they would not provoke him for no reason.

To the outside, Deng Ming was a member of the Anti-Qing Alliance, and to the inside, he was just the leader of the alliance in western Sichuan.

"We don't need to send people to monitor whether the prisoners are working honestly, nor do we need to be wary of whether they are running away all day long. Duke Yasukuni's trouble is not a problem for us." Although Deng Ming lacks violence that is absolutely loyal to his own relatives than other warlords, it is always an exchange of interests, so it doesn't matter if there is less violence: "Since Duke Yasukuni cannot send a large number of reinforcements, it is a troublesome to block Li Guoying."

Li Guoying had many firefights with Deng Ming's blocking troops in recent days, and at the same time, he sent people to fully reconnaise the Ming army's defense line - the Ming army, which had a water advantage, had great tactical advantages in the near-shore areas, but the lack of civilians made it difficult for them to fight away from the river bank.

After just learning about Sun Sick's behavior, Li Guoying was so angry that he almost vomited blood, but he forced himself to hold on and was now trying to find loopholes in Deng Ming's defense line.

"When Li Guoying discovers the deployment of our army, he will break through from a location close to the inland, and the role our ships can play will be greatly reduced. The Qing army's strength is about four times that of ours, and we cannot fight with them in a melee." Although Deng Ming could foresee Li Guoying's strategy, he still couldn't come up with any good solutions: "If we want to form a tight line of defense and prevent Li Guoying from getting out of the way, we need at least 50,000 troops, the more the better."

Originally, Deng Ming hoped that Wanxian could send all his troops to level the forces of the two armies, but Yuan Zongdi could only provide a pitiful thousand soldiers.

"We need to quickly mobilize more than 30,000 soldiers and civilians, but Chengdu may find it difficult to provide so many troops at once." Deng Ming felt very troublesome because he could not provide too many benefits to compensate the fellow scholars who responded to the recruitment. He estimated that the business bank would definitely be even more reluctant to let their workers join the army. There was no need to explicitly oppose it. As long as you create some discussion behind the scenes and make some hints about wages and bonuses, the enthusiasm of workers to join the army would be greatly reduced.
Chapter completed!