The next day, the first day of the Lunar New Year in the thirteenth year of Yongli, perhaps because of the interference of yesterday's New Year's Celebration, the Ming army's harassment of the front line of Tiger Mountain became more and more frequent.

At noon, the main force of the Han army was the first to rush to Jiangshan County, and before the next day, the green battalion also arrived in a hurry, and the total strength of the Qing army also surged from 10,000 to 32,000 soldiers. This is not a huge number, but the problem is that in the same two days of the first and second days of the first lunar month, the Ming army's Qinding Town, Ranger Town, Left Tiger Wei Town, Right Tiger Wei Town, as well as as six towns of Rongqi Left Town and Rongqi Right Town, also came one after another, raising the total strength of the Ming army to 24,000 people.

By the night of this day, the Qing army still had an absolute superiority in strength. But in the past two days, the Ming army has become more eager to fight.

Due to the failure of the night attack on the 30th day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, Akshan, who still held the main battle view, could no longer receive much support from the Manchurian generals. And what's even worse is that because after the failure of the night attack, the officers of the Han Army Banner were saddled with a black cauldron, which caused the generals and colonels of the main force of the Han Army Banner who had just arrived to fall into the camp of the main defender faction - since you can't avoid carrying the black pot without speaking, it is better to follow the crowd, at least you can still fall into the law and not blame the public.

In this way, the main defender faction led by Mel Zhangjing A Yuxi has the right to speak in the army, and 14,000 of their 32,000 soldiers are green battalion soldiers.

However, immersed in the superiority of troops, the Ming army was helpless in the beauty of just a short night, and before lunch was delivered to the table the next day, Jidu received a news that he had lost his appetite for food. And this news happened to be specially sent by him to ask, and I don't know if this is considered to be a blockade for himself.

"Lord Wang, Lord Hadanara may have been slowed down by the Haikou to return to help, maybe he didn't go from the Guangxin Mansion City......"

Earlier, when Jidu ordered Kadahun to return to help, he specially sent people to Guangxin Fucheng and asked the local government and the green battalion to make logistical preparations for the return of the partial division. This is the proper meaning, but a few days have passed, and the Kadahun, which could have been reached in one day, has never been seen, and there is not even a flying pigeon on the side of Guangxin Fucheng. Ji Du, who felt that something was wrong, sent someone to Guangxin Fucheng to inquire again, but the news that was sent back quickly was that Guangxin Fucheng had never seen Kadahun and his subordinates at all, and there was not even news.

A big living person, or three or four thousand banner people, disappeared inexplicably, or just in time when Jidu urgently needed his help, it was difficult for him to have strange thoughts.

At this time, the Hadanara in Jueluo Yabulan's mouth naturally refers to Kadahun. Because the Nala clan is also called the Nala clan or the Nalan clan, this surname mainly comes from the royal family of the four Jurchen tribes of Haixi, for example, Nalan Mingzhu, a powerful minister of the Kangxi Dynasty, was born in one of the Yehe tribes, so he can also be called the pearl of Yeh Nala. In the same way, Kadahun was born in the Hada tribe, so he can also be called Hadana.

Because it comes from the four royal families, it is also a noble surname in Jurchen history, so the Nala clan is not a minority in the Qing army. Jue Luo Yabulan used the full name when referring to that Gushan Ezhen, which was not only to distinguish it, but also to remind Jidu that as the commander of the army, he could not pin all his hopes on his subordinates. If Kadahun doesn't arrive in time, or doesn't come back at all, he must be prepared for the worst.

Although Jidu is a day and a place compared to his father, he is not stupid, and he still lacks experience and experience. At this moment, this senior of the clan said this, what to do, and he also knew it well. But even so, questions such as "where did Kadahun go?" kept popping up in his mind.

With such doubts, Jidu spent another two days, during which he repeatedly sent people to Guangxin Mansion to inquire about the news, but there was no result. But after these two days, it was difficult for him to sit still, because the last news sent back by the messenger to Guangxin Mansion turned out to be that Yushan County had been lost. In other words, the Ming army has completely cut off the road to Kadahun's reinforcements. At the same time, the Ming army seemed to have started a new round of reinforcement, and the first to arrive was a unit called Guerran Town.

"This guerrilla town did not appear at the end of the month, and it is likely that Haikou has just been transferred from northern Fujian."

As a first-hand witness, Ah Yuxi must have known more about the formation of the enemy in front of him than the other Eight Banner generals. And the arrival of this new force is obviously not a good thing - not only the increase in the strength of the Ming army, but more importantly, they had guessed earlier that the reason why Zheng Chenggong did not continue to increase his troops in the past few days was that the transportation capacity of Xianxia Pass was limited, and military grain and grass occupied a large amount of transportation capacity. But now it seems that the Ming army has most likely solved this problem and has the ability to further increase troops.

"In addition to the Twenty-Eight Star Camp, there are at least six towns in Haikou that have not appeared......"

Six towns means 18,000 soldiers. And that's not counting the twenty-eight star camps, even if some of them have already appeared on the ground of Jianchang Mansion and Guangxin Mansion, but after all, this is a total of 14,000 soldiers, even if only half of them come, there are 7,000 people. If you count the Ming army that has now arrived near Jiangshan County, then Zheng Chenggong will have more than 50,000 soldiers!

Obviously, this Ranger Town is likely to be the first one, and there will inevitably be more troops to cross the Xianxia Pass in the future, and their strength advantage will no longer exist.

"We can't wait any longer, even if we wait any longer, even if Allegiance and Kadahun are here, our army must fight a decisive battle with Haikou before their forces surpass us!"

Such a sense of urgency comes more from the distrust of the green battalion's combat power. Not to mention the Eight Banners of Manmeng, even if it is the Eight Banners of the Han Army, they do not think that they will be easily defeated by the Ming Army. However, the Eight Banners Army in Jidu's hands together only had 18,000 soldiers, which was already less than the current number of Ming troops. Even if Kadahun's allegiance could be successfully arrived with all the reinforcements and allegiances of the whole shadow, he would just level the troops.

But according to the momentum of the Ming army, he didn't intend to give him any chance. At that time, as long as the Ming army used the five elite plus three cavalry towns to contain the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners regardless of casualties, and the remaining towns attacked the Eight Banners of the Han Army and the Green Battalion, the probability of defeating the Qing army could be said to be so great that Jidu was absolutely unwilling to accept this battle. Once the Ming army has an absolute superiority in troops, Tiger Mountain and West Mountain will not be able to hold it at all. Either he will give up the eight prefectures in eastern Zhejiang and stick to the defense line of the Qiantang River, or he will take the risk of fighting to the death and fight to the death with the lives of thousands of Eight Banner Army, and the result of either option will be unbearable for him.

In the past four years, this was the first time that Prince Zheng Jidu had "made an arbitrary decision." In this regard, the main battle faction does not need to mention it, as the Eight Banners Army, they have long hated the passive defense for a long time, and even the main defense faction led by A Yuxi has expressed a certain attitude of desperate and bloody battle at the moment when the situation is further deteriorating. This is obviously not a contradiction in the battle and defense strategy, but the life and death of the Quzhou Eight Banner Army, they are united like never before, regardless of the color of the flag, without the division of the Manchurian, Mongolian, and Han armies.

From the fifth day of the first lunar month, the Qing army began to make a large-scale sortie to expel the infiltration of the Ming army into the southern section of Laohushan and Xishan. In this regard, the Ming army sent more troops to increase the attack on the Qing army. The scale of the battle between the two sides continued to escalate, and by the sixth day of the first lunar month, a large number of Eight Banner Army appeared in the area west and south of Tiger Mountain. At this point, Zheng Chenggong also understood the intention of the Qing army, but did not shrink the front, but mobilized more troops to participate in the battle, and even put on a posture of a decisive battle with the Qing army.

The Ming army did not choose to continue to wait for reinforcements, which was indeed unexpected by the Qing army, but since Zheng Chenggong was so arrogant, it was a good thing for them. Because the battlefield will be more favorable to them, adding a chance of victory.

Early in the morning of the seventh day of the first lunar month, the Ming army poured out of the nest and went straight to the front line of Tiger Mountain. In this regard, the Qing army naturally sent troops to meet the battle, and launched a queue in the southwest direction of Tiger Mountain.

Scouts and rangers on both sides chased and fought in this large area, trying to obtain more intelligence and better shield their own military intelligence. The cavalry of the Qing army is superior in both quantity and quality, but the cavalry of the Ming army is by no means weak after so many years of conquest. The two sides went back and forth, and the light riding dog fight was very happy, and with the Ming army pressing forward step by step, the space for their fight was constantly compressed, until the Ming army arrived two miles away from the Qing army's main array.

"The surname of the country, the Tartar looks ready."

"Don't worry, they want to wait for their work, waiting for our army to attack."

Although he has long been canonized as a prince, Zheng Chenggong still likes his subordinates to call him the national surname. This title has a special meaning for him, not only because of the deep kindness of the former Emperor Longwu, but also because of the guilt that he can persevere no matter what the sinister circumstances.

At this time, the main force of the Qing army was already in front of him, but he was very surprised that there was no urge to kill it all at once. This restraint has been cultivated little by little over the years, and he has told himself again and again these days that he and Chen Kai have been planning for many years, and they have gradually weakened the main force of the Qing army to the current point. The rest is a kick in the door, and there must be no mistakes, otherwise the work of the past ten years will be ruined!

"Let the sons and daughters accumulate their strength and defeat the tartars in one go. Our army is going to have lunch in Jiangshan County. ”

The Ming army reacted against the formation of the Qing army, placing the most elite Rongqi Left Town, Left Pioneer Town, and Qinding Town on the left flank of the army, while the other two elite armies, Rongqi Right Town and Right Pioneer Town, occupied the central army, and Guerrilla Town and Zhiwu Town, which had just arrived yesterday, were placed on the right flank near the west bank of Jiangshan Port.

"The pirates are trying to drive us down the river."

These words popped out word by word, and Jidu was also furious.

In fact, he was not angry because of the intention of the Ming army, but because they also had the same idea, and placed the Manchurian Eight Banners and part of the Eight Banners of the Han Army with the strongest combat effectiveness on the right flank corresponding to the left flank of the Ming army, while the middle army and the left flank were defended by the remaining Eight Banners of the Han Army and the Green Battalion. To put it bluntly, the Ming army was just going to face the Manchurian Eight Banners. Otherwise, they can completely put on a layout of left defense, right attack, and middle assistance.

"Lord Wang, it seems that there are fewer Haikou than we expected."

"What?"

According to the intelligence of the Qing court, the Ming army in Fujian was dominated by infantry and mixed cavalry and artillery, and the cavalry town of the five battalions of the two associations was 3,000 soldiers, and the cavalry town of all cavalry was 1,000 cavalry. According to this calculation, the Ming army should be 27,000 soldiers. But just now, Tanma unexpectedly found that the two newly built towns of the Ming army, Left Huwei Town and Right Huwei Town, each had only about 1,000 people with swords and crossbows, and no armor. And the knife is a common lancet, and the shield is also a rattan brand used by the Ming army, but the crossbow is vaguely seen to be a pouting crossbow, and those sergeants are also all tall and strong.

These two towns also had a strength of 3,000 soldiers, but with the exception of the crossbowmen, the rest of the soldiers seemed to be twice as many auxiliaries, presumably dedicated to winding the crossbowmen. Now, they are driving the cart with a healthy ox, and there is only a big box on the cart that seems to be one with it. It's just that I found that the strange probe horse really couldn't get any closer, and I could only see so much.

"Pouting crossbow? A crossbowman alone in a town? ”

Don't say it's Jidu, even if it's a Gushan Ezhen Ashang Ge and Jueluo Yabulan, who has been leading the white armor soldiers all the year round, they can't understand what kind of medicine Zheng Chenggong's gourd is selling.

Since the Southern Ming Dynasty, the strange establishment of the Ming army has never been less. What Luo Luo and war elephants of the Southwest Ming Army, what spear phalanxes, grenadiers, iron man army, and rattan array of the Ming Army of Fujian and Guangdong, there are only what they can't imagine, and there is nothing that the Ming army can't play. However, the car and artillery battalion trained by the Guanning Army back then still used artillery and firearms as the main attack weapons, and it was still not beaten by the Eight Banners Army to the point that they didn't recognize it. It's just 2,000 crossbows, and there's really nothing to make a fuss about.

At this time, the Ming army had completed the formation, and the two heavy crossbow towns were hidden by Zheng Chenggong behind the Shuai banner, and the only thing they could vaguely see was the two town flags - two fierce tigers that pounced in the left and right directions with their bloody mouths open.

With the formation of the Ming army and the beginning of the final rest, Jidu's attention also returned to the field battle in front of him, nervous and excited, twisted into a dead knot, you can't pull me, I can't pull you apart, how can it be a stimulus.

It was the first time he led a large army to fight in the field with the Ming army, and the command had been entrusted to Gushan Ezhen Ashangge. At this time, looking at the first general under his command, Ashang Ge, Ji Du knew very well that this Gushan Ezhen was not good at strategizing, but he was an absolute expert in field wave battles and charging into battle.

At this time, the Ming army seemed to have completed the final rest, only to see Zheng Chenggong's handsome flag move, and Wansheng's shout came like a tsunami, and Jidu was full of iron.

It is undeniable that in the past 12 years, under the leadership of Zheng Chenggong and Chen Kai, the Fujian, Guangdong and Ming armies started from a small island, and now they are behemoths that control the territory of nearly three provinces and have hundreds of thousands of troops, and they have long become an existence that cannot be ignored in the Ming and Qing wars. However, the Manchu Qing behind him did not start from a small Jianzhou Wei, with three generations and decades of achievements, and at the peak, the Ming army was limited to Yunnan, Guizhou and some coastal islands.

At this moment, Jidu was bearing the oncoming sound, and at the end of the sound, the Ming army marched in a neat formation. Looking back, he saw that the lookout post of the Qing army on Tiger Mountain had waved the banner of "there is no abnormal movement", and when he looked back, his confidence in victory was even better than that of the enemy.

For two miles, in response to the shouts and heavy footsteps of the Ming army, the Hongyi cannons operated by the Eight Banners of the Han Army also let out angry shouts. The Hongyi cannon takes a long time to reload, and even a systematically trained artillery crew like Chen Kai's Hongyi artillery team is still inevitable, and every time the cannon whistles by, the war drums and footsteps of the Ming army will become the main theme of the battlefield again, and the cycle will start again. Even if the shells fell into the battle formation of the Ming army and stirred up flowers of blood, it still could not make the slightest change.

The Ming army made great strides forward, which made Jidu feel a little strange that the Ming army's Hongyi artillery team was prestigious, even if it did not arrive, the artillery teams of each town should still be in color. However, at a glance, the Ming army's queue did not push the artillery forward, and even the foot archers and musketeers did not step forward, it was completely a posture of directly fighting the Qing army.

On the battlefield, he still listened to his fathers talk about it more, and he saw with his own eyes that there was something strange, and it was absolutely difficult to ask with his current state of mind. It's just that this doubt did not disappear with the Ming army in the advance of the whole team again and again, they always maintained the position when they began to advance, and there was no change. Even, until it was within 100 steps, it was still the same in the face of the rain of arrows in the sky of the Qing army.

"Isn't it time to shoot back with a foot archer?"

Jidu had heard from his father that in their early years they had clashed with the Ming army, and hundreds of frontal casualties were often enough to collapse an army of tens of thousands of people, and even if it was as strong as the Eight Banners Army, there was a limit to its ability to withstand casualties. In the meantime, the Ming army was already less than the Qing army, and there were a lot less, it stands to reason that the Ming army should attack while causing as much damage to the Qing army as possible, not as it is now, but the rattan players skillfully raise the rattan cards to reduce the casualties caused by the rain of arrows as much as possible.

Such a way of being beaten and not fighting back is unheard of by Ji Du, even the veterans who have fought for decades under his command have never seen it. However, such a scene happened exactly in front of their eyes, even if the Ming army continued to be shot and fell to the ground, there would be a subsequent rattan player to fill in to ensure the integrity of the shield array.

One hundred steps, the Ming army continued to advance against the rain of arrows after a little regrouping; Eighty steps, is already the limit of the bird's range, the Qing army began to load, shooting, lead bullet crackling on the rattan card, with the stride forward, each shot is stronger, God knows how long the rattan card can last, but the Ming army is still advancing; Approaching fifty paces, the Qing army's tiger squat cannon began to splash death, Rao is the Ming army's rattan player took advantage of the previous bird gun shooting interval has changed the rattan card once, but in front of those iron sand and stones born in the flames, they were only beaten in an instant......

During this period, the Ming army was still suffering from artillery fire, even the gunners of the Eight Banners of the Han Army learned their aiming skills from Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming's two knives, and the accuracy was far from being compared with the systematically trained gunners of the Ming Army in Fujian and Guangdong, but there were still some shells that hit the battle formation of the Ming army. And each hit will cause several or dozens of casualties of the Ming army. , but even so, the Ming army is still advancing!

The tenacity of the Fujian Ming army made Jidu feel uneasy. Perhaps, after more than ten years, this army has been tempered into steel, and the threat to the Manchus may be far greater than they previously imagined.

This was definitely not good news, but fortunately, he quickly noticed something unusual. The left, center, and right flanks of the Ming army seem to have begun to show a degree of disconnect as casualties continue to occur. To be precise, the left flank of the Ming army still maintained a general pace, while the central army was already a little slower, and the right flank was even slower.

In this way, when the two sides enter the stage of hand-to-hand combat, the first battle to break out will naturally be the left flank of the Ming army and the right flank of the Qing army. The Chinese troops on both sides will start throwing javelins and throwing axes after hand-to-hand combat breaks out at the northwest end of the battlefield, and the side near Jiangshan Harbor will have to wait for a second.

"Fortunately, the combat power of the towns of Haikou is uneven."

Five fingers are not the same, let alone the combat effectiveness of the army. Thinking of this, Ji Du also strengthened his conjecture at the beginning that Zheng Chenggong was going to face the Manchurian Eight Banners. However, for the combat power of the Eight Banners of Manchuria, it is precisely where he is most assured.

The Ming army was still advancing at a uniform pace, and the battle was bound to break out first in the northwest direction. Ji Du picked up a monocular, which was the most sophisticated of the first batch built by the Qing court after the Qing court discovered that many of the high-ranking officers of the Fujian, Guangdong and Ming armies used such sharp weapons. At this time, looking sideways, the battle formation of the Ming army, which was originally like red clouds, could already see the general situation. In his sight, the casualties of the Ming army increased dramatically after stepping into fifty steps, and almost every step of the Ming army would fall more or less, and it seemed that there were more than the previous nearly two miles combined.

The casualties of the Ming army were increasing dramatically, but the Qing army was unscathed, and Jidu felt that even a three-year-old child could see that the Qing army was already victorious. In his opinion, this stupid tactics of passively being beaten were more due to Zheng Chenggong's being too arrogant, especially when he broke through three lines of defense in a row before, which made the Ming army generally have a mood of "the Qing army is just like this". It is precisely because of this emotion that the Ming army will appear extremely active in the next attack, even if the strength is at a disadvantage, it will have to confront the Qing army, or even a decisive battle. And now, it's time for them to pay the price.

"The pirates won't last long."

The Ming army moved forward step by step, and the smile on the corner of Jidu's mouth became thicker. As far as he knew, when the Ming army approached thirty paces, their sword and shield soldiers would throw javelins and throwing axes, and then rush forward with a bang. Thinking that the Ming army endured it for so long, it would obviously be full of strength, and the more they were like this, the more they would hit their heads and bleed in front of the Eight Banners of Manchuria.

In an instant, the Ming army was close to a distance of thirty paces, and Ji Du stared at the left flank of the Ming army through the monoculars, refusing to let go of any detail that the Ming army was about to be defeated.

However, at this moment, when everyone thought that the Ming army would continue to advance to a distance of thirty paces, the Ming army in the three towns actually stopped. At the moment when the word strange just popped up in his mind, he saw a series of explosions suddenly erupt in the battle formation of the Qing army on the right flank.

Such a change came so suddenly that before he could react, after only two or three breaths, the explosion sounded in a series of sounds. Among them, the most dense moment was as if countless small explosions were detonated together in the battle formation of the Eight Banners Army. At this moment, Jidu even had the illusion of a heat wave mixed with gunsmoke and blood.

"Yes, it's a grenadier, it's a grenadier of the pirates!"