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Chapter 58: After the Break (Part 1)

Li Guoying launched a breakthrough and dispatched 4,000 armored soldiers from the beginning. With the assistance of more than 20,000 armored soldiers, these Qing army pioneers fully tested the Ming army's front line. The remaining 8,000 Qing army's armored soldiers were left in their hands and served as reserve teams by Li Guoying. He estimated that Deng Ming would be the same, leaving the main force in his hands and staring at his main force. The comprehensive attack of more than 20,000 Qing army could disperse the Ming army's forces, create momentum, and attract the attention of the main force of the Ming army.

The governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi was covered in his body, sitting in the central army's tent, eagerly waiting for the news from the front line to be transmitted. The southern line and the central line were both under the responsibility of the Sichuan and Shaanxi Green Camp. Even if these two thousand armored vanguards encountered the main obstacle of the Ming army, they could still take advantage of their familiarity with the terrain and fight and retreat - in fact, they were not very familiar with geography, but they were always much better than the Shanxi Green Camp.

Two thousand Shanxi Green Camps were mainly attacking the north, and their troops were relatively strong, and this area was predicted by Li Guoying as a relatively easy area to make breakthroughs. When the Ming army's attention was attracted by the southern line, the Shanxi Green Camp could find the weak links on the Ming army's defense line and then open a passage.

Since the Shanxi Green Camp is relatively unfamiliar with geography, Li Guoying doesn't have to worry too much about them escaping by themselves after opening the passage. Although Li Guoying repeatedly emphasized to his subordinates that the Ming army was weak and could not stop the 70,000 troops from leaving together, if it were the Sichuan-Shaanxi Green Camp in the north, Li Guoying was still not very relieved, fearing that they would leave their main force at the critical moment. After all, they might quickly escape back to Chongqing because they were local snakes.

There was no suspense about the result of the Qing army breaking through. The Shanxi Green Camp attacked west for a day but did not find a way out. They went north and went deep into the inland mountains for more than ten miles, but they could still see the Ming army's outposts and camps. Moreover, the Ming army's defense line was quite thick, and even if they crossed the Ming army's camp, they would be blocked by the Ming army's reinforcements.

However, the Shanxi Green Camp refused to give up. They firmly believed in Li Guoying's judgment that the Ming army was short of military strength and could not form a continuous front. If the Ming army forcibly extended their defense line, the troops on the entire defense line would be diluted. Apart from believing in this judgment, the Shanxi Green Camp had no other way out, because if it were not the case, the Qing army would only be dead.

According to Li Guoying's order, the Shanxi Green Camp tried to bypass the Ming army's outposts and fortresses in the front row, and surrounded these Ming army fortresses with armorless soldiers to prevent them from coming out to interfere with the Qing army's march. When the vanguard of the Green Camp carried out such work, the Ming army fortress began to call the police with beacon fires, and soon a large number of Ming army's armored soldiers drove from behind to prevent the Shanxi Green Camp from paralyzing the Ming army's outpost fortresses with simple trenches.

The Shanxi Green Camp, which refused to give up, repeatedly attacked the Ming army's defense line and retreated unwillingly until it was almost dusk. The withdrawn Shanxi Green Camp reported the details of their failure to Li Guoying. In addition to the Ming army always had timely reinforcements, these Shanxi Green Camps also saw a lot of rangers behind the fortress. Obviously, the Ming army's strong troops were stationed behind the northern defense line. The Ming army's armored soldiers were very clear every time, just driving away the armorless soldiers who wanted to carry out civil engineering projects, or blocking the green camp's armored further in-depth armor. The Ming army only dispatched necessary troops every time without wasting their reserve forces.

The report of the Shanxi Green Camp made Li Guoying ponder. The Qing army's attack on the southern front and the central government was not successful. Wang Mingde only fought for one morning and complained that the Ming army's camp was strong and could not be broken through. The central government's Gansu and Shaanxi Green Camp also said that the Ming army was very prepared, so that the Qing army that was trying to break through had no gaps.

Li Guoying was in charge and knew that the vanguard generals dared not lie and deceive him. Since the Ming army had sufficient troops in every place, it only means that Deng Ming had obtained a large number of reinforcements.

"Isn't Chengdu the first one more than 10,000 people from Liu Yao? Later, some people from Jianchang might be asked for, and the Zhejiang people who followed Deng Ming into Sichuan were only 40,000 or 50,000?" The Ming army opposite was much stronger than Li Guoying imagined, but the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi felt it was difficult to accept this fact: "There may be more than 100,000 people left, but they were all prisoners captured by Deng Ming."

Zhao Liangdong and his Guizhou auxiliary soldiers, the troops given to Chengdu after Gao Mingzhan's defeat, and the tens of thousands of civilians abandoned by Li Guoying. These people were just captured by the Ming army for more than a year... Although Li Guoying was a military general, he was quite good at military garrison and other work, and had a good grasp of strategy and people's hearts. Therefore, he was favored by the court and Hong Chengchou. He handed over the important task of resisting Liu Wenxiu's army to him, and promoted him to the governor of several northwest provinces.

According to Li Guoying's experience, these prisoners captured by the Ming army could not be digested in five or six years. Not only could they not become the help of the Ming army, but they needed to leave a considerable number of people to monitor them. The strong men captured by the Ming army from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River were not for their own use in just two years. These people probably had the intention to escape from the military camp. However, Li Guoying did not see the exiles - even if Chongqing and Chengdu were separated by a large area of ​​no-man's land, this was an abnormal phenomenon. It only shows that Deng Ming adopted a very strict warning system for his ruling area, and this system of course also needed to be maintained by manpower.

Based on his fingers, Li Guoying believed that Deng Ming's core troops were the Sichuan Army, and the auxiliary soldiers under those men might have been promoted by Deng Ming to military guards and armored soldiers; the second was the outlaws from Zhejiang. However, Li Guoying never saw Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and other Qingcheng faction generals appear on the battlefield, and never once, so Li Guoying always suspected that Deng Ming had carried out a major purge in Chengdu - this would lead to further decline in Deng Ming's control over the old Sichuan Army.

"How could Deng Ming mobilize 40,000 or 50,000 people to stop us? The reliable troops in his hands are the number of people. Could it be that Chengdu has no one to keep the guardians?"

In addition to the number of people in the core troops, Li Guoying speculated that there are about 200,000 strong men in Chengdu now, and he raised this number to 250,000 for insurance. Although it is still underestimated, it is not much different from the 280,000 male men actually controlled by Deng Ming. If Deng Ming mobilized 50,000 people to the front line, it would be equivalent to sixth-degree draws one, which is a proportion that Li Guoying absolutely could not believe. When the decisive battle in Songjin, Liaodong, Huang Taiji could achieve the three-degree draws one (including the unarmored soldiers) among the eight banners of Manchu, Han and Mongolia, it was also the limit of the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, behind the three-degree draws one by the Eight Banners, there was also the backing of millions of Han people. In order to ensure the mobilization of the Eight Banners soldiers, Baoyi could not even draw one by 30-degree draws one - in this way, the mobilization rate in Liaodong was only about one-twentieth.

Even if Deng Ming had food reserves and waterway advantages, Huang Taiji also had a large amount of reserves and local combat advantages. Deng Ming now showed a much higher mobilization ability than Manchuria during the Huang Taiji period, which made Li Guoying feel very puzzled. Huang Taiji had been in Liaodong for many years at that time, and had many Han people born in Liaodong, the second generation who surrendered to the Han army and the Han people who had been more than ten years old. These people were devoted to the Manchus, and they were definitely not comparable to those of Deng Ming's men who were collected from all over the world. If they had not had enough rule, with Li Guoying's knowledge, he could not understand how Deng Ming dared to mobilize these unreliable men on a large scale.

The worst thing is that these Ming army men who were obviously unreliable and unwilling to fight for their lack of prestige and fear were actually firmly guarding the Ming army's defense line.

"Are the thieves from the East also coming to support the thief Deng?" Wang Mingde said to Li Guoying.

"There is this possibility." Although Li Guoying did not see the banner of the generals of the Great East except Yuan Zongdi, this can explain why there were so many Ming troops opposite, and there were no large number of escape incidents: "It may also be that the thieves from Jianchang came to reinforce the Deng thief."

"What should we do?" Many generals of Shanxi Green Camp felt very nervous. They were unfamiliar with the land, and once they were dispersed and broke through, they would definitely fall into the opponent. Moreover, Wang Mingde and others were both Li Guoying's direct descendants. If the situation was so tense that someone had to cut off the rear, Shanxi Green Camp suspected that this errand of death would definitely fall on them.

"Governor General, our army's rations are only enough for three days, and we must break through!" Shanxi Green Camp was afraid of anything, and Wang Mingde said strongly: "There will only be more and more thieves, and our army must break through as soon as possible!"

Looking around the generals around him, Wang Mingde took a step, knelt on one knee, and asked Li Guoying for orders: "Governor must leave, and must leave immediately. The last general dares to ask the army to cut off the rear!"

As Wang Mingde said this, the generals of the Shanxi Green Camp changed their faces, followed by sincere touching, mixed with some suspicion.

"That's right." Another Shaanxi general, Hu Wenke, also took the lead and knelt down side by side with Wang Mingde, and made a generous statement: "It's difficult to make the entire army break through, but the soldiers must be saved! The General of the Mo begs to take the armor of the Shanxi Green Camp to take the lead, so that the General of the Mo begs to stay with General Wang to cut off the rear of the army."

"The last general is willing to stay."

"The last general is also a good man in Shaanxi, and he is unwilling to leave General Wang and Hu Guerrilla alone!"

Many generals of Shaanxi green camps jumped out and rushed to ask Li Guoying for the death penalty. They repeatedly emphasized that the Governor should quickly take all the Shanxi green camps and leave with armor, and vowed to use the five thousand Ganzhou and Shaanxi green camps and tens of thousands of armorless soldiers in their hands to hold Deng Ming tightly, and keep the Governor and most of the main forces from escape from danger.

The generals of the Shanxi Green Camp were ashamed at this time. Many people were filled with blood and asked to stay and cut off the rear. However, they were stopped by Wang Mingde and others. Hu Wenke said in an unquestionable tone: "You are guests from afar, our old Qin army... No, our Ganzhou Green Camp is the master, how can we let the guests take risks?"

In addition to the Shanxi Green Camp, the generals of the Ganzhou Green Camp also unanimously stated that Shaanxi Admiral Zhang Yong is also a very important figure and should break through with the Governor.
Chapter completed!
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