Under the leadership of Azig, Wu Sangui, the king of Pingxi, Shang Kexi, the king of Zhishun, and other armies pursued Li Zicheng fiercely, and chased him all the way to Huguang.

To Azig's astonishment, everywhere they went, the gates of the city were open and there were no soldiers at all.

He immediately sent scouts to scatter to investigate, and when he learned that Li Zicheng had fled Wuchang, Azig was overjoyed.

Unexpectedly, Li Zicheng was already frightened by him, except to run away.

That being the case, Azig was confident that he would be defeated in one fell swoop.

On the one hand, he left part of the Eight Banners of the Han Army to garrison Jingxiang, and on the other hand, he personally raised troops to Wuchang to pursue Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng had already made up his mind to attack Nanjing along the river, but because Zuo Liangyu had already taken all the ships in Wuchang Mansion, Li Zicheng had to order people to make bamboo rafts so that they could go down the river.

Although bamboo rafts are easy to make, they also take time.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the bamboo raft was built, the Qing army had already chased it outside Wuchang City.

Li Zicheng had no choice but to send generals Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu to lead the troops into battle.

Not surprisingly, Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu were defeated again.

Fortunately, it was only the vanguard of the Qing army that arrived in Wuchang, and the troops were not enough to besiege the city.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Li Zicheng led an army of 200,000 to leave Wuchang and went down the river on a bamboo raft.

The speed of the Shun army's march was originally very fast, but this time it was by water, so it stands to reason that the Qing army could be easily left behind.

But Li Zicheng brought a large number of family members and grain and grass this time, and there were too many aspects to take into account, and the speed of the march could not be improved.

However, the Qing army pursued with light cavalry.

When they arrived at the mouth of Yangxin Fuchi, the Qing army caught up with Li Zicheng again. The two sides fought again, and Li Zicheng was defeated again.

After this series of defeats, the morale of the Shun army was completely weakened, and more and more soldiers fled.

Li Zicheng's harsh military execution of some escaped soldiers still could not stop the momentum.

When the Shun army marched to a distance of more than 40 miles from Jiujiang, the main force of the Qing army and the main force of the Shun army launched a decisive battle.

The battle began early in the morning and continued into the night.

The Shun army suffered heavy losses, and although Li Ziyuan himself was unhindered, the old camp was broken by the Qing army. A group of people, including Liu Zongmin, Zhao Hou, and Xiangnan Hou, were all captured.

Li Zicheng once wanted to snatch Liu Zongmin and others back, but under the persuasion of Yuan Zongdi, he gave up this idea. At present, there are two roads in front of Li Zicheng, one is to capture Jiujiang according to the original plan, and go straight down the river to Nanjing.

The second is to enter Hunan through the northern part of Jiangxi.

Li Zicheng thought about it for a whole day and finally decided to take the latter.

Because Jiujiang has Yuan Jixian, the governor of the Ming court, in charge, it will be difficult to defeat for a while. If it is glued by the Qing army again, it is likely that the whole army will be wiped out by the enemy.

However, from the northern part of Jiangxi to the southern part of Wuchang Prefecture, through Yuezhou to Changsha, there will be basically no resistance.

Now Li Zicheng no longer thinks about seizing the world, the first thing he has to do is to preserve his strength and live first.

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In the Forbidden City of Nanjing, Zhu Cihong frowned.

In the past few days, the Tang newspapers sent by Huguang and Jiangxi have piled up on the imperial case, like a hill.

Very similar to the original history, Zuo Liangyu gave up Wuchang and raised troops along the river to the side of the Qing monarch. Li Zicheng followed, while the Qing army under the command of Azig followed closely.

It can be said that this is a chain reaction.

What Zhu Cihong has to do is to change the situation in front of him.

He opened the music of Plug Yinxi, mentioned Zhu Pen and wrote in person: Plug Qing should act when he sees the opportunity, and punish He Tengjiao and Zuo Liangyu.

In any case, He Tengjiao is a hidden danger, and if he can get rid of it as soon as possible, he must not hesitate. As for Zuo Liangyu, he should have died a long time ago.

The dark chess that Zhu Cihong buried in Huguang is also time to make a move.

He believed that relying on the strength of Ma Jinzhong and Jin Shenghuan and the combination of Jiangxi's Plug Yinxi was enough to defeat Zuo Liangyu.

After writing Zhu Pi, Zhu Cihong opened Yuan Jixian's recital, raised his pen with a stroke, and warned him to stick to Jiujiang and cooperate with Yinxi to do a good job of leveling the thief.

At first glance, the current situation looks very similar to the original history, but in fact there are many differences in the details.

For example, if Zuo Liangyu raised his troops to the south a few months earlier, will he still die of illness in the army like in the original history?

For example, Jin Shenghuan and Ma Jinzhong have been bought by Block Yinxi, what role will they play?

For example, Yuan Jixian had already received Zhu Cihong's warning in advance, and he would definitely not be easily lured into the army by Zuo Liangyu.

Of course, it was not enough to do this, Zhu Cihong decided to mobilize Huang Degong to Jiangxi to reinforce Yuan Jixian.

Not long ago, Huang Degong's trip to Dengzhou returned in vain, and he was holding his breath in his heart.

Zhu Cihong adopted a cold treatment method, which relieved the tense atmosphere very well, but he knew that in order for Huang Degong to really let go of this matter, he must be allowed to make a great achievement, and Zhu Cihong would take this opportunity to reward him again.

Now is the best chance to do so.

In the original history, Huang Degong once defeated the army led by Zuo Mengeng, but not in Jiangxi.

At present, although Zuo Liangyu has not died of illness, there are cracks inside, and Zhu Cihong thinks that it will be easier for Huang Degong to cooperate with the mutiny of Ma Jinzhong, Jin Shenghuan and others.

As for Gao Jie of the Northern Expedition, Zhu Cihong did not plan to transfer back.

Duoduo's army was already on its way back to the division, and it would be difficult for Gao Jie to take Beijing before then, but he also had to capture as many cities as possible to consume the Qing army's vital forces.

What Zhu Cihong had to do was to fight with the Qing army as much as possible, relying on the wealth of the south of the Yangtze River and the advantage of the Ming population to drag the Manchus to death.

There was also a small episode in this.

Gao Jie sent someone to escort a Qing army envoy to Nanjing and handed him over to Zhu Cihong for interrogation.

Zhu Cihong was directly handed over to Zhao Xin to handle this matter.

Since entering the Imperial Prison, the messenger has tasted all the punishments of Jinyiwei, and finally admitted the fact that he was ordered to separate the relationship between Gao Jie and the Ming Emperor.

Zhu Cihong ordered the confession of the Qing army messenger to be made public and published in the Huangming Morning Post.

In this way, it is equivalent to Zhu Cihong's public statement and full trust and support for Gao Jie.

Gao Jie and Huang Degong are the most capable generals in the Nanming Formation at the moment, and Zhu Cihong will never destroy the Great Wall at this time.

Now there are still 50,000 Shence troops in Nanjing, and Zhu Cihong thinks it is enough. He was not prepared to transfer back the Shence army stationed in Shandong, because he felt that if Duoduo really returned to the Beijing division, Gao Jie would probably retreat all the way to southern Henan and Shandong to hold on. At that time, with the strategy of the divine army, Gao Jie should be able to live more steadily.

Shandong is Zhu Cihong's bottom line, and if you want to keep the enemy out of the country, Shandong must defend it.

He also firmly believes that Shandong will be able to hold on. The imperial court spared no expense to build a group of fortresses in the north of Shandong, and if the Qing army really wanted to go south, let them hit their heads and bleed.

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