On October 29, the feast under Xinhui City was in full swing, and the Ming army of Chen Kai's headquarters, which had only arrived in mid-October to join the army, had already begun to withdraw their camp and leave.

Hussar Town, Tieqi Town, Qianchong Town, Houchong Town, Zhongquan Town, and Fubiao boarded the ship in batches, and Chen Kai set off with Fubiao at the end. The etiquette of officialdom, Li Dingguo and Lian Chengbi always have to send each other off, but when they arrived at the dock, when they saw Chen Kai, Li Dingguo was already noncommittal about Chen Kai's departure, but Lian Chengbi still had a straight face, as if there was a depression that had not yet been relieved.

"Time is pressing, you don't need to send it anymore."

With a salute, Chen Kai turned around and boarded Jiang Meiao's flagship. All of them boarded the ship, and the army sailed away from the military dock south of Xinhui City under the watchful eyes of the friendly forces here.

"Your Highness, this Chen Kai is too unrestrained!"

Originally, Guo Zhiqi had already chosen to retreat, but the alliance between Li Dingguo's army, the Ming army in western Guangdong, and the reinforcements in eastern Guangdong was finally realized. In the capture of Xinhui, it is not a matter of how harmonious the three parties cooperated, but even Chengbi asked himself with the principle of forbearance for the country, and could not only obey the command, but also help each other with words, in order to ensure that the military operation to recover Guangdong could be carried out smoothly.

The result of the cooperation was naturally that the Ming army did not pay too many casualties and did not spend too much time to take Xinhui County, and at the same time gained the support of the people and the gentry here.

This is a great start and a great example for the next collaboration. However, at this time, Chen Kai actually led the army to go alone, to attack the city on his own.

has been in officialdom for a long time, and Lian Chengbi is used to seeing party disputes, which is not too surprising. But this time there is already a basis for cooperation, two days ago when Wang Xing took the city, he also told the story of killing the tiger and then dividing the meat, now Shang Kexi The tiger is not doing well, at most it is just a little injured, Chen Kai can't wait to get greater benefits. Such a rat-eyed look really made him unable to believe that it would happen to Chen Kai.

In Lian Chengbi's view, Chen Kai's eyes and heart are still full of the interests of the Zheng Group, not the Ming Dynasty. This is secretly in line with their old views on the Zheng Group, Zheng Chenggong and Chen Kai, or it is exactly the same.

"This person is really not elegant."

Lian Chengbi was very angry, and in the sound of heavy breathing, what he couldn't say was that the forbearance and cooperation of these days could not awaken Chen Kai's indignation for forbearance for the country. There is no need to say anything here, he said this to Li Dingguo, he didn't wait for Li Dingguo's response, snorted coldly, and walked away.

The governor of Liangguang turned to leave, and the generals of the Ming army in western Guangdong and western Guangdong, whom he controlled, also said goodbye to Li Dingguo one after another and returned to their camps. The army will need time to recuperate and re-consolidate the newly acquired zone of control in Xinhui to ensure that it can play a greater role in the rest of the war.

The generals have their own busy places, and even the city can only be described as an inextricable one. Li Dingguo watched the generals leave, and then looked at the fleet that had already pulled anchor and moved away, and shook his head with a wry smile, which was also helpless.

"Your Highness is worry-free, isn't there still a letter from Chen Fujun." Seeing this scene happening with his own eyes, Jin Weixin stepped forward and reminded in a low voice, and then changed his words: "The contradiction between them and Chen Fujun is not a day or two, and His Highness doesn't have to be too distracted by this." Fortunately, even the army and Chen Fujun are not the kind of villains who do not hesitate to corrupt state affairs for their own selfish interests, as long as the overall situation is not affected, it is enough. As for the future, that's for the future. ”

The words came out of Jin Weixin's mouth, and when he heard it in Li Dingguo's ears, it was a different taste. His break with Sun Kewang was caused by the contradictions between the Fuming faction and the self-reliance faction within the Great Western Army. Sun Kewang still followed his original plan - house arrest of the Son of Heaven, elevation of the imperial court, support of party henchmen, and annexation of other Ming forces. On his side, he wants to join forces with the Yongli Imperial Court to counter Sun Kewang's ambitions, and at the same time realize the cooperation with the Zheng Group. However, in the past two years, the Guangdong strategy has been carried out to this day, and even he himself is no longer clear about which is more important, the military level or the political level.

As it stands, that's already the case. Of course, Li Dingguo understands what Jin Weixin said, and if he continues to let the contradictions between these two allies continue, he can indeed get bigger benefits. However, this does not fit his style, and always makes him feel awkward and even disgusting from the bottom of his heart.

"This kind of thing is indeed as Mr. Kim said, and it can't be resolved in a moment. It's better to try to take Guangzhou first, and let's talk about what to do when this goal is achieved. ”

"Your Highness is wise."

Li Dingguo's face was helpless, and it was quickly diluted by the next military deployment. According to the plan, the army was to go north to seize Gaoming, Shunde, and Sanshui counties, and remove the shield and nails of the Qing army in the southwest of Guangzhou. Li Dingguo has not been to these places in person, but the most important thing for the Ming army in western Guangdong is that the locals who are familiar with geography and terrain have not stopped collecting the surrounding situation during this period of time, and they have been continuously sent to Li Dingguo's case, so that he knows the situation in the west and south of Guangzhou.

"If I were Shang Kexi's traitor, Xinhui would fall, and whether Gao Ming defended or didn't defend is the same thing. The key lies in Sanshui and Shunde. ”

Chen Kai's 9,000 soldiers left here, and the decline in the strength of the Ming army here was inevitable, but it was too exaggerated to say that it had reached a certain point, such as the fierce generals were exhausted. Li Dingguo's headquarters had more than 40,000 soldiers and horses, and the Ming army in western Guangdong also had 20,000 or 30,000 troops of various departments, so Li Dingguo dared to claim that 200,000 swept through western Guangdong. Among them, there are at least forty or fifty thousand soldiers, and such an order of magnitude is by no means a frivolous way for the Qing army to resist.

The army did not participate in the siege much, and when the new meeting was launched, Li Dingguo mobilized several troops that had been recuperating for a long time and went to the battlefields on all fronts. To the southwest of Guangzhou, the flames of war quickly swept away. Chen Kai's department, which was far away, had disappeared from their field of vision, and even if they could see it, they didn't have much to pay attention to it now.

This is human nature, after all, people are always accustomed to paying attention to the things around them. The same is true for Chen Kai's army.

The fleet set out in batches, but there was no rush back to Hong Kong. Leaving the wharf in the southwest of Xinhui County, the fleet did go all the way west, through the waterways of the Pearl River Delta, heading in the direction of Lingdingyang. However, halfway through, Qianchong Town and Tieqi Town, which were the vanguards, got off the boat, and then went straight to the Xiangshan county town not far away.

At this time, Xiangshan County included Zhongshan City, Zhuhai City and the Macao Special Administrative Region. Macau was indeed under the control of the Portuguese at this time, but the real cession was only after the disguise of the old empire was torn apart by the cannons at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and before that, both the Ming and Qing dynasties and the Xiangshan County government had administrative and judicial rights over Macau.

The county seat of Xiangshan, where the army is approaching, lies in Zhongshan City in later generations. The name was changed to commemorate the leader of the revolutionary party and the father of the nation who overthrew the Manchu Dynasty.

Xiangshan County is close to the river, and it is one north and one south with Macao. As early as in the Tang Dynasty, Xiangshan Town was set up for the production of sea salt, which was the beginning of the establishment. Later, in the Song Dynasty, it was upgraded to a county, and it also once governed the coastal areas of Nanhai, Panyu, Dongguan and Xinhui counties. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the county seat of Xiangshan was built, but it was repaired with bricks and stones, which was quite solid. There was also a moat outside the city walls, which added a layer of barrier to the city guard.

However, over the years, the repairs here have always been poor. So much so that the year before last, that is, on the twentieth day of the sixth year of Yongli, a county town was captured by bandits, and Zhang Lingxian, the then governor of Xiangshan County, was unyielding and killed by bandits. And Wu Jingong, who arrived later, also regained the county seat without much effort.

This city is not undefended, but it is not too well guarded. What's more, when Li Dingguo stormed Xinhui, the Qing army in Guangzhou was in a situation of comprehensive contraction, and it was on the bank of the Lingding Ocean, which had always been a good target for the Ming army's naval division. This time, when Qianchong Town and Tieqi Town approached the city, they didn't take much effort to take down the county seat.

"Please enter the city through the south gate."

Xiangshan County gate open four, east said Qixiu, west said Dengying, north said Gongchen, south said Fumin. The officials who surrendered kowtowed to Chen Kai outside the west gate, but respectfully invited Chen Kai to enter the city through the south gate.

In this regard, he was a little unclear at first, but then the staff around him came to his ear and explained: "Fu Jun doesn't know, this north gate has the nickname of the door of death, and the south gate is the gate of life." Historically, when the officials of this county arrived, they did not get off the boat at the wharf and enter the city through Guanlan Street, Qiyangli, Huaidri, and Wufengli, but to take a detour to the south gate and take a good fortune. ”

As a rule, this is the proper meaning, Chen Kai nodded, and went around to Fuminmen before swaggering into the city, and there, the gentry and big families of the county were also waiting there.

Entering the city, this area has long been controlled by the Ming army, the battle is not fierce during the siege, the damage is not great, the defenders who are at a serious disadvantage only symbolically resist, and even the struggle did not waste that strength. The notices of the people in the city have already been plastered, and they are in order, and there is no need for Chen Kai to make more arrangements, so he simply sent a staff member to act as the county commander here.

The gentry and the big clans came to greet them, and Chen Kai also sat down with them at the county school to talk to them. At first, it was nothing more than a good cloud to promote the reconquest of the lost territory by the Ming Dynasty and the current counteroffensive situation in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. When the Ming army comes, they will say this, and when the Qing army comes, they will do it again according to their tone, and the gentry and clans are tired of hearing it. It's just that Chen Kai never had the intention of disappointing, and after a moment of talking, he only waved his hand, and as a middle-aged man in a scarf shirt but shaved his hair walked in, someone immediately recognized his identity.

"It's Brother Mo of Xinhui!"

"How could Brother Mo be so thin?"

Mo Zhilian is a person from Xinhui County, Xinhui and Xiangshan County are adjacent to each other, and the gentry of the two counties have a lot of contacts on weekdays, where can they still recognize Mo Zhilin's appearance.

It's just that Mo Zhilian, who has seen this time, doesn't mention the net scarf, shirt or anything, and the braid on the back of her head is gone, and she doesn't say much. However, the body shape is completely skinny, which still startles the dignity of this old acquaintance, who has always attached importance to health and is not fat on weekdays, but is also of a normal size.

"Don't hide it from all the brothers, if it weren't for Chen Fujun helping the King of Xining break through Xinhui County, I'm afraid that even the foolish brother would be made into bacon by those feudal soldiers who killed a thousand knives like Lu Xiucai in this county!"

Xinhui County was captured by the Ming army, but in three or four days, there was a blockade by the Ming army's water division, and they didn't know very well. But with the entry of this Ming army into the city, the news of Xinhui's return to the Ming Dynasty spread quickly, but it was more spread that Chen Kai and the giant cannon that "collapsed the city wall with one cannon", but not too many people noticed the situation inside.

Mo Zhilian was specially invited by Chen Kai, and in his words with Li Dingguo and Lian Chengbi, if the vote is regarded as standing in line, then voting represents a personal opinion, and it is natural to do things for the Ming army, and it is natural to go out to publicize and publicize the "new meeting on the tip of the tongue" performed by the feudal soldiers.

At this moment, Mo Zhilian told in detail that since May, the vanguard of the Ming army had not yet arrived in the county seat, and the feudal soldiers had launched a large-scale plundering and exploitation of the gentry and people in the city. After the siege of the city, it became even worse, and in the past six months, countless people of Xinhui have been killed and starved to death.

"Lu Ao, a student in this county, has always been a very outstanding scholar in our county, and the possibility of being promoted in the future examination is not small. But those feudal soldiers, completely ignoring their fame and status, killed Lu Xiucai's father and son because they couldn't pay the money and food. His lady was a festival woman, and when she saw that her husband and son were dead, she simply died by the well, which was a tragic ......."

"Besides, Huang Zhizheng, how much benefit he received from me on weekdays, but when the feudal soldiers came, he didn't even dare to let out a fart. Lu Xiucai's family is dead, and I don't see him say a word for us reading seeds, let alone ordinary people. After this incident, the foolish brother can see that in the eyes of the Imperial Court, there are no disciples of the Holy Sect like us, and if the Imperial Court is allowed to win the world in the future, we will also have to be tossed by those minions under the Tartar Emperor and have no way to live! ”

The more she continued, the more Mo Zhilian burst into tears, and everyone present was dumbfounded. Chen Kai was beside them, they didn't dare to question it, so they had to echo it, and vigorously condemned the inaction of the Qing court officials, but they were secretive about the identity of the Qing court's alien colonists.

They didn't dare, not only because they weren't optimistic about the Ming army, but also because they didn't know whether what Mo Zhilian was talking about was true or not.

However, the two counties are adjacent to each other, and the relationship has always been inextricably linked. After listening to it this time, once they left the county school, even if they sent someone to investigate, how did they know that the results they found were even more exaggerated than Mo Zhilian said, and they ran to Chen Kai's line one by one more diligently.

Xiangshan was recovered, and the centripetal force of the gentry and the big clans was still slowly cultivating, but with the tragedy of Xinhui, I believe they can see the current situation more or less. At the very least, as long as the city is not besieged by the Qing army, there will still be a popular and morale of the people, more or less.

After all, the death of a rabbit and a fox is sad, and things hurt it.