Relying on the long-term operation of the Heaven and Earth Society in the mountainous areas south of Guangxin Province, the Left Association of the Second Town of Guangdong and Jiangxi Governors quickly interspersed from Jianghushan Town, and the light troops raided Chepanyi successfully. Immediately afterwards, while the follow-up troops followed quickly, from Chong'an County on the other side of Wuyi Mountain, Zhongchong Town also quickly joined up with it and completed the encirclement of Leadshan County.

Outside the city of Leadshan County, the 4,000 Henan Green Camp was besieged in it, and the Ming army quickly built two large camps in the south of the city and the north bank of the Leadshan River as the key points of siege. In just a few days, as Houchong Town followed Zhongchong Town, the Ming army had gathered 9,000 soldiers here. Moreover, the follow-up troops and auxiliary troops transporting grain and grass are still coming one after another. On the post road, the torches stretch out like a long dragon, and there is a great posture of connecting Jianchang Mansion City and Leadshan County.

The rapid build-up of the Ming army inevitably caused panic among the Qing troops in the city. At this moment, Cai Qiao, the chief soldier of the second town of the superintendent, took the lead in expressing his attitude - this is his attitude, and it is also the attitude of Chen Kai, who is still far away in Jianchang Mansion. In this regard, Du Hui, the chief soldier of Zhongchong Town, and Ke Chenmei, the chief soldier of Houchong Town, also deeply agreed. Because they knew very well that the reason why Zheng Chenggong would send them here was because they had all followed Chen Kai to fight. Even if Chen Kai is not in Leadshan County, they will definitely resolutely implement Chen Kai's plan.

The next day, the envoy was recruited again, and as the military general who had followed Zheng Chenggong for the longest time here, Gutian Bo Duhui, who commanded the partial division of Leadshan County with the rank of governor of Jiati, expressed his attitude on behalf of the generals. For the time being, they did not accept the surrender of the Qing army in Lead Mountain. That's right, it's not accepted for the time being. As for how far this temporary period is, they are not obliged to answer for the time being.

The messenger who had to work harder was undoubtedly waved away by Du Hui, and had to return to the county seat of Leadshan in despair. In the night, he boarded the hanging basket, and soon rushed to the place where the leaders of the regimental training had a secret meeting, and told the story of what he had seen and heard along the way and the attitude of the Ming army, which caused a lot of noise when he boarded.

"You mean thieves, no, is it the Ming army that has one more Houchong Town?"

"What, we're anyway, how can there be any people in the world who don't let it anyway, didn't you explain it?"

"Have you seen the Hongyi cannon, have you seen the banner of the Hongyi artillery team?"

“……”

These regimental training leaders scrambled to ask questions, until the question about the Hongyi artillery team was spoken, and the other people's mouths were instantly silenced.

The Hongyi artillery team of the Southeast Ming Army is famous, and since Geng Jimao, the captain of the transport brigade, sent these treasures to the door, Chen Kai has destroyed the fortified city many times. According to intelligence, the Ming army has not only updated the Hongyi cannon in recent years, adjusted the proportion of artillery of various calibers, so that it can better complete the attack on the old city wall in the Middle Ages, but also carried out large-scale expansion. Even, the expansion was not limited to Guangdong, Zheng Chenggong also reorganized the old firearms force Artifact Town in Fujian into a siege force that was not inferior to the former. There are even rumors that the chief military officer He Mingxuan also went to Guangzhou to worship an apprentice of Chen Kai as a teacher, and learned the method of aiming and disintegrating artillery, which made the Qing soldiers on the battlefield in Zhejiang who heard about it a little frightened.

If it is really the Hongyi artillery team that is coming, then it doesn't matter if these guys are anyway or not. Anyway, even if they are forced to fight hard, the dead are just soldiers, and the details are just minutiae. And their heads can be used to decorate the merit books of the marshals, and the ensuing rewards and promotions are the most important.

"Don't let it anyway, just fight with them. Killing one is enough, killing two earns one! ”

One of the leaders of the regimental training shouted like this, which immediately attracted a vicious response from several other people. But after venting, these guys gradually wilted back - if they can play a good exchange ratio as they say, then why should they surrender. In other words, it is precisely because you can't beat it that you have to take the initiative to do it anyway in exchange for a better treatment.

"I don't know what the imperial court thinks, let us come to Zhejiang. When Emperor Su of the Great Ming Dynasty, our ancestors had never been to Zhejiang, and they were too restrained by those crisscrossing waterways, and the combat effectiveness of our Mao Hulu soldiers could not be brought into play at all. ”

As he said, when Jiajing resisted the Japanese, he sent Mao Hulu soldiers to Zhejiang, but these mountain infantry with strong combat effectiveness were beaten nonsense by the Japanese in the mountainous Zhejiang, and their performance was sometimes even inferior to that of some guards. The reason for this is that Zhejiang is not only mountainous, but also a place where the water network is crisscrossed. In another place, such as Korea, the Japanese regular army was still facing up, not pirates who robbed houses, and their performance at that time was not much worse than that of the Liaodong Iron Cavalry, which had a crushing advantage, and the Zhejiang Ming army led by Wu Weizhong and other Qi Jiguang's old troops, which was definitely worth the money.

After such a lesson from the past, the Qing court still sent them over, but the pressure on the southeast battlefield was too great at that time, and it had reached the point where you could use a handful of grass as a dish.

Objectively speaking, during this period of time, although Jidu has lost a lot of prefectures and counties, it has at least temporarily stabilized the situation and shocked the hearts of the people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to a certain extent. In the past few years, the Qing court has also recovered from the fiasco four years ago, and thus has the confidence to simultaneously carry out the war of annihilation in the southwest and the heavy confrontation in the southeast.

This is the credit of Jidu, but as a part of the achievement of this achievement, these regimental training soldiers have no honor at all. After leaving their hometown for nearly four years, they are not green battalion soldiers, they do not have the practice of moving to the town with their families, they have been in other places for a long time, and many neighbors have died in foreign lands, so they are privately looking forward to returning to their hometowns as soon as possible. Especially at the moment when the situation in the southeast was deteriorating day by day, the Qing court also had the desire to escape from danger as soon as possible, so that once they fell into the siege of the Ming army, they quickly put the mouse in their hearts on the option of surrender.

It's not the first time that similar complaints have been made, but now it's useless to complain. Right now, Ming Jun's answer made them hang their heads. It wasn't until a long time later, when everyone was ready to disperse, that one of them asked the messenger to repeat Du Hui's answer, and then again, until he repeatedly confirmed what he was thinking.

"Uncle Du mentioned it twice for the time being, which seemed to be emphasized. I don't think it's necessarily that I don't agree with us anyway, but that I have to listen to him anyway. ”

As soon as he said that, he was even more sure that this must be the case. So he tried to persuade the people not to act rashly. Fortunately, they are outliers in the Qing army, and they are all fellow villagers when they train and arm each other, and many of them are relatives who can or cannot be beaten by eight poles, and their cohesion is far stronger than that of ordinary green battalions. In the past few years, although there are military generals from the Qing court, there is still no wind blowing and water cannot be poured in, and there is no problem for a while.

A few days later, in order to determine what the person thought, they sent another messenger to ask for Du Hui. Soon, the messenger returned the same way, and the reply sent made them breathe a sigh of relief and a trace of anxiety at the same time.

"The Ming army doesn't want to besiege the city for reinforcements, right?"

The leaders of the Mao Hulu soldiers wanted to come, and after receiving the emergency report from Tong Guoqi, Jidu, Kadahun, and Ashang Ge also wanted to come.

With such thinking, in the final analysis, it is still a lack of confidence in the combat power of the green battalion. In fact, they have already thought about and discussed this fact. As for the reason, it is not difficult to understand. This southeast Ming army, which gradually grew up from the remnants of the Zheng group, started at the end of the second year of Longwu, and the first battle took place in the next year, so they have been fighting for 12 years. Over the years, in addition to the defeat of the attack on Haicheng in the first year of Yongli, with the assistance of Chen Kai, Zheng Chenggong can be said to have won consecutive battles, even if he fails to achieve the set goal, he often will not suffer any big losses, and he can also be killed at the worst time.

In this way, the officers and non-commissioned officers under his command have accumulated combat experience for a long time, coupled with the strong financial resources of the Zheng Group, and the concept of governing the army with generous rewards and severe punishments as the core, it is not difficult to understand that their combat effectiveness surpasses that of the Green Battalion. Even if it is only about the opponent, the Ming army will clash with the Green Battalion and even the Eight Banners Army at every turn; And the vast majority of the green battalion soldiers bully and bully the common people on weekdays, and at most suppress the rebels. How to compare with an opponent who plays a high-end game every day and can still win.

Let's make it clear, that is, it is not that the combat effectiveness of the green battalion has declined, but in the past ten years, the Southeast Ming Army has been from bronze to diamond step by step, and now it is about to challenge the strongest king on the East Asian continent.

With this understanding, turn your head and look at the current battle situation. There is no doubt that the Ming army will inevitably send a large army to attack Guangxin Mansion when it masters the lead mountain post road. And Tong Guoqi's urgent report mentioned that he found the banner of the second town of the Ming army supervising the second town and Zhongchong town in the process of trying to relieve the siege of Leadshan County, which is also clear evidence.

With only 6,000 soldiers and horses, the Ming army dared to bypass a city garrisoned by 4,000 green battalions, which not only showed the arrogance of the Ming army, but also confirmed from the side that the follow-up troops were constantly following up. In the past few days on the road, the strength of the Ming army has been further improved.

Like many Ming troops, it should be easy to take a county seat, and even Jidu they doubted whether the green battalion soldiers in the city still had the courage to hold on when they saw so many Ming troops passing outside the lead mountain city. However, Tong Guoqi's urgent report almost every day proved that Leadshan County was still in the hands of the Qing army, and the Ming army did not capture the city, so it is likely that the Ming army planned to besiege the city and send reinforcements.

Once such an idea is generated, a question mark arises in Jidu's mind about whether or not to rescue and at what scale. However, the battle-hardened Kadahun and Ashange had no such superfluous thoughts at all, and they knew far better than the little Prince Zheng in front of them.

"Master, whether it is besieging the city or not, we must not let the pirates pass through. Once they are allowed to threaten the city of Guangxin Fucheng, the army will face the danger of being flanked by the two barbarians Zheng Wei and Chen Wei. ”

"This prince knows, but how many soldiers and horses should be dispatched?"

This is indeed a problem, and if there is too much deployment, it will undoubtedly divide the troops on the main battlefield in Quzhou; If there is less deployment, it will not be able to stop the offensive of the Ming army, and the gains will outweigh the losses. Of course, the best thing is to be able to win the battle, so that the siege of the Ming army will become the internal and external attack of the Qing army. But in order to achieve such a result, it is undoubtedly necessary to have a large number of elite soldiers. And this is also the biggest problem for them at the moment.

"Master, this time it's still a slave to lead the troops to Lead Mountain."

Kadahun and Ashangge are the right and left hands of Jidu, and the indispensable characters of Sumeru. At this moment, the former took the initiative to ask for help, not only Ji Du was stunned, but even Ah Shangge shook his head again and again.

However, the strength of the Ming army in Leadshan County is obviously increasing day by day, and if you want to counter this new heavy army group that is now flanking, you naturally need a strong enough force to do it. The commander in command of this army also needs to have great prestige and ability, otherwise it will be difficult to achieve it with the overall situation of being weak and bright and strong in the southeast battlefield at this stage, especially the embarrassing situation that they are still on the front line. And such candidates are also among the few under Jidu.

Several candidates were mentioned in succession, and they were quickly rejected by them for one reason or another. After all, according to the report from Jiangxi, there are not only Chen Kai's favorite general Lin Dezhong in Jianchang Mansion, but also Wang Xiuqi among the five commanders under Zheng Chenggong. And on the side of Leadshan County, which is about to develop into another heavy army group of the Ming army, the commander of the army is only Du Hui, a chief military officer, and then think of the fact that even the second town of the superintendent is there, it is very likely that the commander who goes to the aid will need to face no one else, it is the initiator of all this, Chen Kai!

At this moment, they couldn't help but think of Tong Guoqi, although that guy was suspected of being afraid of war, but he obviously had already foreseen their embarrassment at the moment, so he would try his best to ask Jidu to ask the Qing court for help, which was still worthy of affirmation at this point.

It's a pity that even if he has already mastered the command of the Qing army in Guangxin Mansion at this stage, not to mention his ability, he can't pass the prestige alone. In the final analysis, his palace status is also to bluff the Han generals, even if it is the Han military banner, he may not eat the so-called "uncle of the Tang Kingdom", let alone the Manchurian Eight Banners. Aside from this, he is just a defeated subordinate who has been defeated by Chen Kai twice, and he can't rest assured that the safety of the flanks will be handed over to him.

"Don't worry, master, the slave will do his best!"

There are only a few people in the Quzhou Qing army who have the prestige of commanding tens of thousands of troops, and Jidu can't move lightly, but he can't be a Shangge as a solid mountain. But if it's really Chen Kai, that muscular general will be played around even if he goes, let alone others.

After making a big salute and getting up again, Kadahun mentioned Tong Guoqi's earlier suggestion to ask for help from the Qing court to Jidu.

Judging from the actual situation of the Qing court at present, the army in the southeast and southwest, the garrison of the Eight Banners in several major cities, and the heaviest garrison of the Eight Banners Army in Beijing City are not eating white rice. In addition to guarding the center, they also have the role of deterring the Mongol tribes in Southern Mo - it is said that it is a Manchu and Mongolian marriage, but if Beijing is empty, the Ministries in Monan will not have any breaches to enter the customs, and then rebuild the mind of Dayuan.

The strength of the Eight Banners Army was already limited, and now it has maintained such a large front, which is already overstretched. If they asked the Qing court to transfer troops from Beijing, even if they received a positive answer, it would certainly be difficult to meet their demands in terms of quantity and quality.

However, Tong Guoqi proposed to transfer the Han army stationed in Jiangnan to the south, which was a large army composed of thousands of Han military flags, and it was different from the troops stationed in the local area like the four banners of the left wing of Jiangning in Jiangnan, which was transferred to Jingkou in the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, that is, two years ago, to assist the Nanjing garrison of the Eight Banners to deter the locality. Even if there is no them, the situation in Jiangnan is not a problem for the time being. And once they go south, for Jidu, it is not only equivalent to an additional force of the scale of the Eight Banners garrisoned in Hangzhou, but the commander of that army, the commander of the Jiangnan Han Army, Guan Zhongzhong, is also one of the most trusted generals of the Han Army at the moment.

There is still a great chance that the Qing court will fully agree to such a request for help. And the most important thing is that as long as Nanjing is not transferred to garrison the Eight Banners, there will not be too much rift on the side of the Qing court, and because it is starting from the vicinity of Nanjing, the southern section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the whole waterway transportation of the Qiantang River, they will be able to rush to the Quzhou front line in a few days after receiving the holy decree.

The total strength of the Qing army in Quzhou was much smaller than the main force of the Ming army gathered in northern Fujian, and it was only by relying on the strong combat power of the Eight Banners Army and the difficulty of the Ming army from Xianxia Pass that it was difficult to deploy due to terrain restrictions, so that it could continue to maintain balance. Once the Qing army transferred some troops to the west, it was bound to be even more empty, and it was impossible to say that the scales might be overturned if one mistake was made.

The question returned to the idea of how much to move westward, and after the discussion of the three of them, it was finally decided that Kadahun would lead 1,000 Manchurian Eight Banners, 1,000 Mongolian Eight Banners, 3,000 Han Army Eight Banners, and a Shanxi Green Battalion composed of 3,000 soldiers to rescue Guangxin Mansion.

With such a ratio of soldiers, the Eight Banners Army is even more than the Green Battalion, which is really not very conventional. However, on the one hand, the combat effectiveness of the green battalion is no longer favored by them, and on the other hand, the Qing army in Guangxin Mansion still has no less than 7,000 green battalion soldiers, and there are already many partial divisions as the flank of the defense. Moreover, this will not weaken the strength of the main battlefield in Quzhou too much. After all, due to the threat to the eastern part of Guangxin Mansion and Quzhou Mansion, Jidu has already dispatched nearly 10,000 green battalion soldiers.

"Now there are 6,000 Manchurian Eight Banners, 3,000 Mongolian Eight Banners, 10,000 Han Army Eight Banners, plus 20,000 Green Battalion soldiers. The strength of less than 40,000 troops is still much less than the total number of troops assembled by the Haikou in northern Fujian. Fortunately, as long as the imperial court agrees, as soon as the Han army stationed in Jiangnan arrives, more than 40,000 soldiers, and the Haikou on the opposite side will be able to deploy so many people at most, and it will not be a problem to hold Quzhou. ”