"Dang Shousu, Wang Guangxing, He Zhen..." Li Guoying counted the Ming army's general flag and murmured to himself: "They are really together."

After the Ming army's ships sailed out of Tongluo Gorge, the army on both sides had no intention of hiding whereabouts or strength. The Ming army on the north bank of the Yangtze River advanced to the Jialing River in a grand manner. Wang Guangxing raised his flag opposite Chaotianmen, as if demonstrating against Li Guoying; Dang Shousu crossed Wang Guangxing's camp and continued to march upstream of the Jialing River, and went to cover the side and back of Chongqing with great fanfare. On the other side of the Yangtze River, the Ming army under the banner of He Zhen crossed the front of Chongqing and walked west with a large number of ships, which seemed to have the intention to choose a place to cross the river in the west of Chongqing.

Then the troops of Liu Tichun and Yuan Zongdi were driven out. The former went to echo He Zhen, while the latter followed Dang Shousu's footsteps. Until this time, Li Laiheng's headquarters remained in Tongluo Gorge without any movement.

After seeing the Ming army continuously driving out, the Chongqing defenders were in panic, and the generals inspired by Li Guoying also became worried again.

"Wang Guangxing and the other Kuidong thieves seemed to be a little disagreement." Seeing that morale began to decline again, Wang Mingde rushed to the city to volunteer to Li Guoying: "The last general thinks that he can send an elite soldier across the Jialing River to attack Wang Guangxing. Other Kuidong thieves may not reinforce him in time. If he defeats him, he can boost the morale of the officers and soldiers."

Li Guoying turned to look at Wang Mingde: "Who do you think should be sent to?"

Wang Mingde replied without hesitation: "I will go there at the end."

Wang Mingde was Li Guoying's confidant general. His courage was proved by Gao Mingzhan's ability to stay in Chongqing after he escaped. If he met Deng Ming, Wang Mingde's fighting spirit would of course be greatly reduced. All of them were captured and released three times. It would be strange if he had fighting spirit; but when he met the generals of Kuidong, Wang Mingde's courage was restored a lot.

"Not appropriate." Li Guoying shook his head: "You are one of the best generals in the city. You may be the only one who can cross the river and attack. I'm not at all relieved to leave it to others. Only if you go can you have a chance to win. Well, there should be a great chance. As you said, Wang Guangxing and other Kuidong thieves were in conflict. Wang Guangxing used to be the Chu army, so we know him well."

"Then why isn't it?" Wang Mingde was a little confused when he heard it. Li Guoying clearly supported him and thought he could win.

"Didn't I say that you are the first general in the city, a local, and well-versed in geography; your attack will inevitably be the focus of everyone's attention. If the enemy reinforces in time and you are unfortunately disappointed, how should the morale of the army be cleaned up? Don't forget that there are still thousands of green camps in Shanxi in the city. They are already suspicious and don't trust our officials very much. If they go to war, they will be frightened."

"But the chance is still very high." Wang Mingde gave some advice to the Ming army on the other side of the river. Through observation, he realized the pride of the Ming army.

"Yes, since ancient times, arrogant soldiers will be defeated, so let them be prouder, don't alert them, let them be cautious." Li Guoying said approvingly, very satisfied with Wang Mingde's observation: "If you succeed in attack, you will just let Wang Guangxing retreat for a while, and you can also boost your morale. But what I want is to repel the strong enemy, and you don't care about such a small victory or defeat."

"Our morale," Wang Mingde was still a little unwilling: "We must be excited."

After seeing the Ming army encircling from both wings, Chongqing's morale was getting more and more powerful. The Ming army commander's flag had not appeared yet, but there were 40,000 soldiers, of which about half of the soldiers were armored, which had exceeded Chongqing's armored soldiers.

"Well, what I am most worried about now is that the thief surrounded three queuings and one queuing. I'm afraid someone will want to withdraw his troops again." Li Guoying did not hide his worries from his confidant general.

As Li Guoying guessed, Liu Tichun and He Zhen began to prepare to cross the Yangtze River downstream, and the Ming army opposite the Jialing River also began to build wooden rafts and bamboo rafts, which seemed to be crossing the river and met with another Ming army in the west of Chongqing.

Compared with the bluffing of Yuan Zongdi and Deng Ming last time, the threat from the Ming army is undoubtedly greater. The Ming army did not have the strength and confidence to cross the river to encircle Chongqing last time, but the Ming army now has obvious water and land advantages, and Lian Zhan Lianjie also gives them a huge psychological advantage over the Qing army. The Ming army is very clear that Li Guoying cannot transfer reinforcements from the rear to attack the Ming army crossing the river.

"Their progress is too slow," After observing the movements of the Ming army for two days, Li Guoying was convinced that the other party wanted to force him to break through: "It turns out that he wanted to scare our army away."

In Chongqing city, calls for ensuring a retreat have also risen. Everyone knows that the border troops of Zhao Liangdong, Wang Jinbao and Zhang Yong have returned to their base. Although Chongqing has reserved a lot of food, it is empty. As long as there is no reinforcements, no matter how much food is, it will be the end of being surrounded by the Ming army. Although many people did not explicitly withdraw, they proposed to establish a fortress along the supply line to ensure that Chongqing's grain road and the lifeline of the Jialing River will not be completely cut off by the Ming army.

At this time, Li Laiheng's headquarters finally dispatched. After seeing more than 10,000 Ming troops coming, more than 5,000 or more armoured soldiers, everyone in Chongqing was shocked. The Ming army opposite was at least twice as powerful as the Qing army. Four years ago, the Qing army might have thought that they could hold on because they had countless examples of fighting with few enemies and more, and finally defending the city. But now the most impressive thing in everyone's mind was the crushing defeat of Zhongxian last year. After seeing the Ming army's appearance, his confidence that he barely increased because of Li Guoying's bold words disappeared.

"We must take the initiative to restore the morale of the officers and soldiers." Wang Mingde privately met Li Guoying and proposed to launch a counterattack again.

"No, I decided to let some soldiers stop the Kuidong thieves from crossing the river." Li Guoying shook his head. He ordered people to call Gao Mingzhan and other direct generals and announced to them: "I will send a thousand soldiers from Shanxi Green Camp out of the city, let them bring enough supplies, and divide the troops into two groups to camp opposite the thieves who want to cross the river on the river bank."

"Sir, no, a thousand Shanxi Green Camps are not good." Hu Wenke shouted anxiously: "Shanxi Green Camps are not familiar with geography, are also a guest army, and they also have prejudice against us."

After the last time the Shaanxi Green Camp returned to Chongqing without any harm, the Shanxi Green Camp had a lot of opinions about them and had many complaints in private.

"We must use our Shaanxi Green Camp to stop the Ming army from crossing the river. Let the general go." Wang Mingde felt that it could not be delayed for a lifetime. The Ming army had the advantage of military strength and the navy's power, so he could pull the Qing army to run: "It is inconvenient to carry the baggage, but it will drag down the marching. Should the general be safe and then transport grain to the camp? Otherwise, if the battle is unfavorable, wouldn't it be taken away by the thieves?"

"It is because of the possibility of being taken away by the thief that I asked them to carry their baggage to camp," Li Guoying smiled slightly: "The baggage can lure the enemy."

Although Li Guoying saw through the Ming army and wanted to force him to abandon the city, there was no good idea. The Ming army had not crossed the river yet, but the supply line was already in danger. As long as the Ming army did not attack Chongqing and sat on the spot and consumed Li Guoying, the Qing army's chances of winning would not be great. The possibility of crossing the river to repel the Ming army with twice its morale was even more slim. Under military pressure, the generals under his command would become increasingly nervous, and the calls for retreating would also increase. Simply suppressing this voice would only gather all the resentment on Li Guoying himself. What's more terrifying is that if the Manchu and Han Eight Banners began to retreat desperately, Li Guoying would have no way to deal with these old men.

Li Guoying openly told his direct confidants that he planned to use a small number of soldiers to tempt the Ming army to cross the river and completely cut off Chongqing's retreat.

"But I need your cooperation. After the soldiers who left the city were defeated by the thieves, someone would inevitably be captured, and then all the truth and reality of Chongqing would be known by the thieves."

In addition to asking the Ming army to force the Qing army in Chongqing to death, Li Guoying also hoped that the Ming army would attack the city so that he would have the opportunity to consume the strength of the Ming army through firm defense and rely on his own strength to complete the rescue of the enemy. If the Ming army knew that there were tens of thousands of armor in Chongqing, he would likely tend to rely on siege to weaken the power of the defenders, which Li Guoying would definitely not want to see.

At the military meeting the next day, Li Guoying announced to the Eight Banners of Manchu and Han, Shaanxi Green Camp, and Shanxi Green Camp that he planned to send troops to delay the Ming army's crossing the river and buy time for the army so that he could retreat when necessary. However, this task was definitely risky, and Wang Mingde and others, who were named first by Li Guoying, all looked fearful, saying that they were unwilling to leave the strong Chongqing city to camp outside.

Leaving Li Guoying's coercion and inducement, these Shaanxi Bear Bags were unwilling to obey the general's orders. It seemed that they would rather hide in Chongqing and starve to death than go out to resist the Ming army. It was obviously completely losing the courage and fighting spirit to fight with the Ming army.

After a hysterical quarrel for a morning, Li Guoying had to settle for the second best and let the Shanxi Green Camp shoulder this important task. Full of dissatisfaction with the generals of Shaanxi, the Shanxi Green Camp reluctantly stepped out of Chongqing City. After they left the city, Li Guoying changed his orders every day and did not continue to send reinforcements. In this way, the more than 1,000 Shanxi Green Camps who left the city first had to divide their troops and look after the Yangtze River and the Jialing River banks at the same time.

After completing the preliminary camp construction, these defenders were full of hope that Li Guoying would send subsequent reinforcements as soon as possible, because everyone knew that a 500-man squad would not play any role in front of the Ming army and could not complete the task of delaying the Ming army's crossing the river.

However, before they could wait for reinforcements from Chongqing, they encountered Dang Shousu's night attack. With deep contempt for those blind colleagues in Chongqing, the soldiers of the Shanxi Green Camp cursed and fled from their camp.
Chapter completed!