Fortunately, Liu Ximing had already arranged Huo Zhaowei and others as internal responses in the army in advance, although he was unable to refute this strategic direction, but the news about Li Zicheng's upcoming attack was transmitted to Nanyang in a very timely manner.

Dou Yuquan was only the prefect of Nanyang in the Ming Dynasty on the surface, but in fact, the resources he was able to mobilize were far beyond the ability of a prefect.

With his order, Mu Jingnan and others, who were in charge of leading the troops, began to quickly gather the troops.

The army of 50,000 people in the early stage successfully entered Yuzhou City when Li Zicheng's army arrived in Xiangcheng, and when Li Zicheng approached Yuzhou with his troops, 30,000 soldiers and horses in the later period also arrived.

Although the number of soldiers is only one-third of the army, Nanyang is the focus of the Liu family's operation, and in addition to the 103rd division, the other 60,000 militia regiments under Mu Jingnan's command are also well-equipped.

However, at this time, it has also reached a very critical juncture for the entire Nanyang, originally there were only 90,000 soldiers and horses in Nanyang, and 80,000 soldiers were sent to the border at this time, Dou Yuquan had to order to increase the intensity of recruiting militias, and the prefectures and counties in Nanyang had begun to be a little panicked.

Fortunately, on the fourth day of the eighth month, the news that Liu Ximing led the army to defeat Luo Rucai's department reached Nanyang, and the entire Nanyang was suddenly full of morale again as if it was resurrected with full blood.

On the fourth day of August, ten miles east of Yuzhou City.

A large camp had been built on the official road from Kaifeng Prefecture to Nanyang, where Li Zicheng and his 25th Army were stationed.

In fact, at the beginning, Li Zicheng did not take Yuzhou in his eyes, in his opinion, he already had the explosives bag, a big killer weapon to attack the city, even if Nanyang sent more soldiers and horses to defend it, it was a pipe dream.

At that time, he only needs to lead the soldiers and horses to camp under the city of Yuzhou, and then send sappers to dig tunnels to blow up the city wall, even if there are tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in the city, they are just turtles in the urn.

However, what he didn't expect was that when the Chuang army arrived near Yuzhou City all the way, he was surprised to find that the Nanyang defenders did not defend themselves in the city, but instead stationed troops in the east of Yuzhou City, directly facing the Chuang army.

The use of explosives to attack the city was originally a strategy offered by the Liu family through Huo Zhaowei, how could Mu Jingnan and the others not know the joints.

Therefore, as soon as he received the order to hold Yuzhou and prevent Li Zicheng from entering Nanyang, Mu Jingnan led the officer corps to conduct a number of tactical simulations.

In the end, it was decided to use the advantages of Yuzhou's city defense to deploy artillery on the one hand, and on the other hand, to build a large battalion outside Yuzhou to resist the attack of the invading army.

Judging from the situation of the battle in the past ten days, this tactic can be described as a complete victory.

The menacing Li Zicheng didn't think so much, as soon as he saw the defenders of Yuzhou go directly out of the city, relying on his own strength, the breaking army directly began to attack the day after setting up the camp.

First of all, Yuan Zongdi and Tian Jianxiu each led 10,000 soldiers and horses along the left and right flanks to attack the Yuzhou defenders' camp, but they were only close, and the two men were beaten back by fierce fire before they could hold out for half an hour.

The camp of the Yuzhou defenders was built along the mountains and rivers, and there were all shooting holes in the wooden walls of the front line.

After leaving behind more than 2,000 corpses, the tentative attack of the invading army was directly declared a failure.

At this time, Li Zicheng was still quite calm, and seeing that the enemy began to use firearms to defend again, the intrusive army also began to carry up a variety of artillery pieces such as the Franco machine gun and the Huzun cannon captured from the official army.

It is a pity that the Chuang army is not familiar with the geography, and the artillery of the Ming army has no quality at all, so a group of gunners have to constantly advance towards the Yuzhou defender camp to find suitable artillery positions.

As a result, the surrendered Ming gunners had just entered the range of five miles from Yuzhou City, and immediately ushered in a fierce artillery bombardment, and the artillery units of the Chuang army, which were still in the embryonic stage, were directly wiped out.

It is precisely by relying on such multi-layered defense methods that Mu Jingnan and others have been able to stalemate with the Chuang army for more than ten days without distinguishing between victory and defeat.

However, this situation was immediately broken after Liu Ximing led his men and horses into the battlefield.

On 11 August, after converging with Wei Jingguo's thousands of men and horses, after an eight-day long journey, Liu Ximing led an army of 60,000 to run 500 miles and finally arrived near Yexian.

The army led by Li Zicheng suddenly fell into the situation of being attacked by the enemy on the back of the abdomen.

"Damn cowardice, an army of more than 100,000 can't even deal with tens of thousands of people, and he was beaten by others and lost his armor, it's really a fucking shame."

In the camp of the army outside Yuzhou, after receiving the news that Liu Ximing had led his men and horses south from Ye County, Li Zicheng immediately scolded in the tent.

Song Xiance hurriedly glanced at the people in the tent, and only after finding that they were all old men who followed Li Zicheng, he breathed a sigh of relief and said:

"King Chuang, now is not the time to entangle Cao Cao's responsibility, Liu Ximing came with a big victory, and our army was blocked under the city of Yuzhou for a few days, please make a quick decision on what to do."

Li Zicheng's thick eyebrows furrowed suddenly, and now the situation is really a bit of a dilemma.

He had the intention to attack directly, but the defenders of Yuzhou were really tenacious, so he was afraid that he would fight Liu Xi's life and kill him from behind, and then he would only have to run for his life.

But if he retreated like this, when he thought that his army was twice the size of the official army, and then thought about the rich Nanyang Basin, Li Zicheng was really a little unwilling in his heart.

"You can't just leave", after more than ten minutes of fighting between heaven and man in his mind, Li Zicheng finally took the case and shouted.

"We finally won a big victory over the official army, if we just leave directly, the morale that we have gathered will be dispersed, I don't believe it, he Liu Ximing has three heads and six arms to be able to fight two times."

Niu Jinxing pondered for a while when he heard this, and said with a smile in his eyes:

"Since King Chuang has made up his mind, then let's have a fight with the official army, now that Yuzhou is heavily guarded, we can't get any benefits here, it's better to lead the troops to the north and go directly to find that Liu Xi's life."

"In this way, the defenders of Yuzhou will either follow us to the north, or they will have to continue to hold on. If they follow, then the artillery at the head of Yuzhou City will no longer be a threat, and if they don't come, then we will also make dumplings for Liu Ximing. ”

"Good"

"Good strategy!"

When Yuan Zongdi and the others heard Niu Jinxing's words, they hurriedly applauded.

Li Zicheng also nodded with his beard, Niu Jinxing's words were quite insightful, and it could be said that he had calculated all the battlefield situations.

Immediately, Li Zicheng looked at the generals in the tent, "Send an order, pull out the camp to the north, and fight a decisive battle with the new Amber." ”

"Yes!"

~~~

Outside Yuzhou City, Mu Jingnan received news from Tanma, saying that the thieves had begun to pack their luggage, and it seemed that they had a tendency to pull out the camp and go north.

Mu Jing jumped up and turned to look at the map of Nanyang hanging in his tent, and a smile appeared on his face.

"Hehe, thief, thief, you have a way to heaven, you don't want to go."

"Someone Coming"

"In"

"Hurry up and give the order, pack your bags, and let's follow the thieves to attack. In addition, he sent someone to contact the second brother to report the movements of our army. ”

The 80,000 defenders under the city of Yuzhou also moved, leaving 10,000 soldiers and horses to defend the city, and the remaining 70,000 troops began to follow the retreat of Li Zicheng and others under the leadership of Mu Jingnan.

However, unlike what Niu Jinxing and others thought, Mu Jingnan's department also specially removed a lot of artillery at the head of Yuzhou City and brought it with them.

The Liu family's artillery was all equipped with wheels, and the city walls of Yuzhou had also undergone simple transformations, which were not at all like the bulky and difficult to move things in the impression of the rogues.

50 miles south of Ye County, Liu Ximing's army, which had been marching carefully and slowly all the way, received a military report from the front, and Li Zicheng and others began to return to the north with an army of 250,000, and it only took a day to collide with their own side.

In Liu Ximing's big tent, a large number of officers were ushered in again.

On August 14, in the area at the junction of Yecheng and Fangcheng, a place called Wangjiaji, the official army led by Liu Ximing and the army under Li Zicheng finally officially faced off.

Liu Ximing rode on a horse and looked at the Chinese army, only to see the sea of soldiers and people covering the sky and the sun, and he couldn't see it at a glance.

"This is really a fucking big army fighting", Liu Ximing muttered to himself, and then ordered the whole army to camp.