Near September, Deng Mingcai had no choice but to admit that Li Guoying had no military camps near Chongqing. At this time, the Ming army vanguard discovered the Qing army reinforcements down the river, and Wang Jinbao was the leader. After seeing the Ming army's troops, the Qing army quickly disembarked and turned to walk, heading towards Chongqing from the other side of the Jialing River. Just one day later, the Ming army discovered that there were colorful military flags behind the Qing army, which were obviously the military supervisors of the Eight Banners of Han.

Sun Sike led his troops to retreat to Baoning, abandoned all unnecessary equipment along the way, paid the price of discarding all animals and remaining unarmored Han soldiers, and finally saved the Eight Banners soldiers basically intact. After meeting the troops that Wang Jinbao came on a boat, Sun Sike's Eight Banners got the opportunity to supply and cultivate. Sun Sike asked Yuan Jiawenbi to bring hundreds of Eight Banners soldiers in a good state as the military supervisor, and followed the vanguard troops returning to Chongqing. If Wang Jinbao could make contributions, Sun Sike and Yuan Jiawenbi could also share the credit.

"Sun Sike and Zhao Liangdong have about 15,000 armored soldiers under him, half of whom are new recruits, and the most elite part is Zhao Liangdong's personal soldiers and the border soldiers they brought. Zhao Liangdong has not arrived yet, and the combat effectiveness of Sun Sike's troops should be poor." Deng Ming had learned from the prisoners that Li Guoying's troops were all this time. Now that he saw Sun Sike, Deng Ming understood that Chongqing was indeed empty a few days ago. The Ming army missed the opportunity to attack Chongqing: "If we cross the Jialing River to fight Chongqing, we might be attacked by Wang Jinbao behind the scenes at Dunbing City, which is too dangerous. Well, if we can defeat Wang Jinbao before Zhao Liangdong arrived and then fight Chongqing, there might be a chance."

Deng Ming's opinion was not echoed by Zhao Tianba and Zhou Kaihuang. Both of them had serious expressions. After listening to Deng Ming's words, Zhao Tianba even shook his head slightly.

Seven thousand Ming army soldiers, plus more than one thousand sailors and more than ten thousand civilians, this is Deng Ming’s full strength. These 20,000 people spread along the Jialing River and did not clench their fists. Today, we discussed the next strategy, but Li Xinghan, who was in charge of the rear army, could not arrive in time and had to guard the Jiangkou to ensure the Ming army’s retreat.

Although Ren Tang repeatedly urged and cooperated with all his strength, the three thousand reinforcements sent had just begun to disembark near the river mouth, and it would take some time to complete the collection.

The Ming army had insufficient transportation capacity and insufficient troops. As a large number of prisoners were transported back to the Xuzhou, the Ming army had to transfer a large number of civilians from the front line to prevent a riot in the prisoners gathered in Xuzhou. For this reason, Deng Ming also ordered Chengdu to urgently mobilize a group of troops, not to go to the front line but to guard Xuzhou in case of any situation, and at the same time accept the part of the manpower given to Chengdu. A large number of prisoners and civilians had to go upstream on a boat, and the time was tight, which occupied almost all the Ming army's transportation capacity, and the remaining transportation capacity was used to maintain the supplies of Deng Ming's troops, so the Ming army's mobility was greatly reduced.

With the current state of the Ming army, even if Wang Jinbao's reinforcements are not available, as long as Chongqing defends seriously, the Ming army's offensive will be quite weak.

"We never thought we would get so many prisoners at once. Our army originally planned to ensure the mobility of about 20,000 troops. Because the war was urgent, we mobilized 50,000 people at once, plus more than 70,000 prisoners. If our ships were to provide 20,000 people to move quickly, it would be more than enough to support the war. But now there are 120,000 people, so naturally they will be like snails when they move, and they will have to keep transporting food from the rear. Fortunately, we have stored some food in Xuzhou. If all of them were to be transported from Chengdu, the ship would be even less than enough now, and the army would definitely be nailed to the ground and could not move at all." Zhao Tian

Ba knew that Deng Ming was a little unwilling, and he also vaguely felt that if he hadn't been too careful the day before yesterday, he might have gained benefits under Chongqing city. Now Deng Ming was unwilling to think about the remedy - and Zhao Tianba thought this method did not exist. He did not want to see Deng Ming take risks because he regretted his previous mistake: "There are ships everywhere, and the troops cannot move, so they can only walk the mountain road like the Qing army. Now it is too difficult to cross the river to fight Wang Jinbao. Even if he is willing to fight, even if he can repel him, can he retreat in time to capture Chongqing? What if Zhao Liangdong arrives right away?"

Deng Ming sighed softly. Wang Jinbao's vanguard on the other side seemed to have not many vanguard troops, and there might be only three or four thousand armored soldiers. Deng Ming was fearless in the face of Li Guoying's army, but now he was restrained by so few enemy troops and was unable to revive. He was really unwilling to accept: "Li Guoying's main force was easily defeated. If Wang Jinbao and Zhao Liangdong can be taken down, Chongqing will be our bag."

"The Admiral is so greedy." Zhao Tianba smiled.

Due to Sun Sike's random command in this battle, Li Guoying had only a large army but could not exert his strength at all. The total casualties of the Ming army in western Sichuan were only 200 on the battlefield, but he achieved a major victory. As for the young and strong labor force, it took nearly two years to go to Jiangnan twice before, and the population he obtained was not as much as he had obtained in less than a month this time.

"Well, you're right," Deng Ming thought for a while and smiled: "Remind me of a joke."

"What joke?" Zhou Kaihuang immediately became energetic.

"Two friends went to someone else's house to have a meal. One of them had too much food. When he came home at night, he could only walk with his stomach. A gust of wind blew towards him, blowing off his hat. The man tried for a long time and couldn't bend down. Fortunately, his friend followed him at this time, so he asked his friend to help him pick up the hat; and his friend looked at him deeply and left with his head raised."

"Oh, why?" Zhou Kaihuang asked excitedly: "What should I do if that hat?"

"What else can I do? This guy had to go home with his hat all the way." Deng Ming replied: "The next day he asked his friend why he didn't help him pick up the hat. His friend said: 'You can't bend, so is I.' The man asked again why he didn't tell him at that time. The friend replied: 'I have a meatball in my mouth.' I can't speak."

"Meatballs?" Zhou Kaihuang nodded: "I won't vomit if I don't."

"Well, I feel like this is what Major Zhao said. With my appetite, a steamed bun is no problem, but now I have eaten two buckets of noodles, so I can only go home with a hat." After Zhao Tianba's persuasion, Deng Ming gave up the idea of ​​continuing to fight. He said self-deprecatingly: "Wang Jinbao is that meatball. Even if we can put it in our mouths, we can't swallow it."

"It's good that the admiral understands it." Zhao Tianba kept laughing after hearing the story: "This time Li Guoying mobilized more than 100,000 troops, let alone Gansu and Shaanxi, even Shanxi may have been seriously injured. He has to take good care of his injuries."

"Chongqing is a big trouble after all," Deng Ming has now made a new evaluation of Chongqing's strategic value, believing that the threat of the Qing army to Yangtze River shipping was far above the previous imagination: "Let's retreat first, don't wait for Zhao Liangdong's army. But when we have digested the results of this battle, we must come to Chongqing again."

"The admiral is completely relieved to this point. We must recover much faster than Li Guoying. We can send troops again after we have placed the prisoners, but it is not easy for him to raise another 100,000 people." Zhou Kaihuang said confidently.

"This time I disappointed Brother Zhao." Deng Ming said to Zhao Tianba with some apology: "I saw that Zhao Liangdong was coming, but I didn't have the chance to avenge Brother Zhao."

Last time when Deng Ming went to Jiangnan, Zhao Tianba stayed behind and worked hard with Li Xinghan. He always remembered the shame of being surrounded by Zhao Liangdong last time, so he told Deng Ming many times before and after this expedition that if Zhao Liangdong didn't come, he would let him avenge the arrow himself.

"It's okay, I'm so young, I have a chance. But is the admiral really planning to settle the prisoners and come to Chongqing again?" Zhao Tianba asked another question: "Chongqing has no one year, so I don't want to launch a large-scale attack, but Chongqing is still a tough bone. It may be difficult to conquer it if it doesn't siege for a year or two, right? After this war, there were 30,000 more bachelors."

"Yeah." Deng Ming responded in a low voice, speechless. There were originally 27,000 young men and 5,000 young women in Xuzhou; after the captives were resettled, there would be more than 50,000 young men, and the number of women remained unchanged. This ratio of men and women is undoubtedly extremely dangerous and is enough to cause huge social problems. Chengdu only looks a little better, and the proportion is not so disparate, but there are actually much more young men who cannot find a spouse than that of Xuzhou.

Whether workers or farmers in Xuzhou have some savings or their own land, they will rush to establish families, have children and heirs. Unlike Deng Ming’s previous life, people in his previous life have more spiritual sustenance, and the average life expectancy is long. Some people are unmarried and unmarried in their thirties. But the late Ming Dynasty was completely different. People had much shorter life expectancy for themselves, and they were eager to get married after they had the ability to support their families. This idea was also encouraged by the government. The people with stable families and property were the strong pillars of the country.

"Everything is worrying about people." Deng Ming thought of the grain prices in Chengdu, and the industry and finance industry walking on the wire rope, and couldn't help but sigh softly: "With the ratio of men and women in Xuzhou, if I had a wife, I would never be willing to serve in the military and would not follow the expedition. I just stay at home and watch my wife carefully, so as not to be stolen. I just don't feel at ease if I leave home for a long time every day."

"That's right, some of our officers have already married. If this continues, these officers would rather retire than follow the army sooner or later." Zhao Tianba added: "Fortunately, the admiral did not get married, and everyone was less resentful. The admiral set rules that he was not allowed to take concubines, so that the public would not be resentful."

"Don't worry about being weak but not being equal. But if you don't go to Huguang to buy some... No, recruiting some girls will be useless, no matter how bad people are not allowed to take concubines, it will be useless." Deng Ming's more troubles are getting. On the issue of males, Chengdu needs more labor, but males need to get married; the government needs food, so we encourage land reclamation, and factories also need manpower; strategically, Chongqing is like a thorn in his throat, but taking it down will not help resolve the increasingly serious conflicts in western Sichuan. Merchants, workers and farmers all hope to attack the prosperous Southeast: "Hurry up and end this battle. Let's think about the next action on the way back to Xuzhou."
Chapter completed!