At this time, the people need a chance to prove themselves, a chance to prove themselves.

They longed for a way to get rid of their blood—to face the enemy, to rush forward, and to drain their blood!

To drain dry, and to drain.

This is a kind of spirit, like lime absorbing water and moths fighting fire, "a thousand hammers chiseled out of the deep mountains, and the fire burns as if it were idle." Don't be afraid of broken bones, you have to leave your innocence in the world. ”

This power is powerful, indestructible, destroys the enemy, destroys itself, destroys everything. Just like the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Korean War, everyone was in a passionate and excited mood.

This power is very dangerous, like burning life, it needs to be channeled, properly guided.

However, Wu Zheng was in Jiangbei, and he only knew about it from the newspaper sent to him, and he didn't feel this blazing atmosphere personally.

If Wu Zheng is in Hangzhou Mansion, then he will quickly realize the reason for this excitement, and take corresponding measures to guide or channel.

However, this popular movement did lay the foundation of materials and hearts for the Northern Expeditionary Army to fight a decisive battle this time, so that the General's Mansion quickly gathered the strength to fight the Qing court.

Otherwise, Wu Zheng launched this "unprepared" war in advance, and fell into Dorgon's calculations.

The world is often like this, no matter how poisonous the poison is, no matter how deep the conspiracy, when it encounters a blazing fire and enough strength to crush, it will be shattered and vanished!

Of course, that's another story.

……。

This popular movement spread to every prefecture, county, town and neighbor under the jurisdiction of the Great General's Office.

But it did create a miracle, Wu Zheng issued a conscription order, in just half a month, to recruit 100,000 recruits.

It's not so much conscription, in fact, it's all voluntary enlistment.

Of course, quite a few of these are violations.

For example, there are student soldiers, only sons, and two or more brothers serving at the same time.

This is actually a kind of profligacy and waste, and it is suspected of being reckless.

Later, Wu Zheng knew about this situation, but he did not resolutely correct it.

Because Wu Zheng at this time, he already had a plan to fight a decisive battle with the Qing court in his heart.

The decisive battle, in fact, is not one-sided, if you want to fight, but the enemy does not want to fight, it will be difficult to fight, at most it is only an offensive and defensive battle.

But now, if the enemy wants to fight, why should he retreat!

For Wu Zheng, under the nest, An has finished eggs?

No matter how precious something is, once defeated, it is the enemy's.

Rather than being an enemy, it's better to fight for it!

This thought determined that Wu Zheng was already unscrupulous at this time.

In fact, Taizhou Wei did fight to a very difficult point under Huai'an City.

Being able to put a 30,000-strong Taizhou guard into a structured, fully equipped, and Wu Zheng personally in charge of the situation, has resisted to this situation, which has already shown that there are very problems.

An army of 20,000 people, 600 artillery pieces of large and small calibers, attacked for six days in a row, and Huai'an City still did not move.

Even the casualties of the Taizhou Guard have reached three or four thousand, and the defenders in the city should collapse even if they are full of eight banners.

But in fact, the head of the city is there, and if you can see it, you can't beat it.

Whenever the artillery fire gradually subsided and the Taizhou guards attacked the city, hundreds of ironclad soldiers knocked our soldiers off the city with their bodies.

Whenever Wu Zheng organized a "death squad" to get close to the city wall under the cover of armored vehicles (wet quilts piled on board cars), digging pits and blowing up the city wall with gunpowder, there would be a rain of arrows, stones, and oil on the city.

So much so that after six days, the open space in front of the city was already full of "crops" nearly two feet high, densely packed with arrows.

At the beginning, Wu Zheng also said to the soldiers with a bad taste, if this is changed to more than a thousand years ago, then there is nothing to do with Kong Ming, look, this arrow all over the ground, you can have as many as you want, why use "borrowing"?

Wu Zheng even felt that this was a good thing, no matter how complete the equipment in the city was, there would always be a time when the arrows were used in this way.

But after three days of fighting, Wu Zheng found that something was obviously wrong, and there were really endless arrows in the city.

Huai'an and Dahe not only have their own independent shipyards, ordnance bureaus, teaching grounds, health and other facilities, but also have nearly 400 ships of more than 600 stones, which is enough to transport an army of tens of thousands of people at one time.

There are millions of people in the city alone, and as long as there is iron, it is theoretically possible to make an endless supply of arrows.

At the same time, Wu Zheng also realized that the Grand Canal could theoretically bring a steady stream of supplies and soldiers to Huai'an.

This is the main reason why Wu Zheng was reluctant to attack Huai'an before, but as a result, Jiang Quanyi's stubbornness made Wu Zheng have to face this hard bone head-on.

In fact, at this time, if you want to stop, you can't stop.

If you don't die, you will be counterattacked!

Either you don't fight, or you fight thoroughly. This is Wu Zheng's obsession.

Wu Zheng didn't know how to adapt, and he didn't have to attack the south gate of Huai'an.

The key is that the three directions of Huai'an, west, north, and east are all enemy territory, and Taizhou Wei can only break through the south gate to form a salient.

The 3,000 men who were sent by Jiang Quanyi to outflank along Hongze Lake were ambushed by the enemy's cavalry at Qingjiangpu and had to retreat by the same route.

Since then, the enemy has fortified from Wujiadun to Qingjiangpu, and there is no possibility of even wanting to sneak attack.

When the battle has reached this point, it is no longer that it can be withdrawn.

also stimulated the anger in Wu Zheng's heart.

That is to fight, fight until the mountains and rivers are exhausted!

……。

On the seventh day, Fang Guoan's detachment of 3,000 people arrived from Gaoyou.

Three thousand people will not have much impact on the situation of the war, and it will be better than nothing.

Today, Wu Zheng stopped the siege of Taizhou and only ordered a non-stop artillery bombardment of the city.

This stalemate is very depressing.

Wu Zheng could only wait, waiting for the good news from the direction of Yancheng from the Lu Zhiyu, wanting to break the deadlock.

As long as Yancheng is conquered, then Lu Zhiyu can lead his division westward and attack the east gate of Huai'an, so that the defenders in the city need to divide their troops, and naturally, the defense of the southern city will decline.

……。

However, early in the morning of the eighth day, Wu Zheng did not wait for the good news from the direction of Yancheng in the domain of Lu.

Instead, he waited for the news that Lu Zhiyu's attack on Yancheng was blocked.

According to the battle report, Wu Songwei encountered a stubborn resistance from at least 20,000 enemy troops on the front line of Fangong Dike south of Yancheng, and fought continuously for three days, with slow progress.

At the same time, Lu Zhiyu mentioned that the enemy was a formed musketeer, and the muskets used were also new-style muskets, and they were equipped with no less than 100 artillery pieces.

Wu Songwei crossed the river and headed north, lacking overwhelming firepower superiority and unable to quickly break through the enemy's pre-constructed position, and fell into a stalemate.

Wu Zheng finally realized that this might be another pit that Dolgon had dug for himself.