That night, Lin Xiao ordered the field ambulance team to treat the wounded Ming soldiers and the people with medicine, and transported a large amount of grain captured by the three battalions into the city and distributed it to the hungry people in the city.

The people were naturally happy, grateful to Dade, Lin Xiao's troops finally had a hot meal, before they were hungry with cold rice balls all the way from Lingshan to the north, and they had not eaten a hot meal at all, and now they can drink a mouthful of hot soup, the soldiers are happy, only Lu Hua has no appetite, and he still eats half a cold rice ball with a cup of boiling water, Lin Xiao knows that it is the first time she has really seen the bloody battlefield, and it is normal to have no appetite, and she will slowly get used to it in the future.

On the morning of the next day, Li Yuanyin organized people to clean up the battlefield, count the prisoners and booty, and bury the bodies of the dead on both sides.

Lin Xiao arranged for Duan Zhenghong to select some soldiers who could ride horses from the machine gun company to form a reinforced platoon, and with machine guns and mortars, together with Zhang Chenfeng's reconnaissance company, followed Ni Zhisheng to reinforce Xunzhou quickly, and brought Liu Xulei two mortars by the way.

After the 1st and 3rd Battalions finished cleaning up the battlefield, they rushed to the vicinity of Gantang Town and Litang Town respectively to hide and wait, and constantly sent scouts to reconnoiter the enemy situation in the direction of Liuzhou.

Lin Xiao himself led the regimental guard platoon to stay in Yulin temporarily, helped Li Yuanyin recruit troops and expand the army, and after completing simple training, they went to Litang together.

……

At this moment, more than 60 kilometers away in Xunzhou, Liu Xulei finally waited for Geng Jimao's Qing army.

Among them, the land route section starts from Wulin Town, passes through Zhenlong, Mule, and Mapi, and burns all the way to Shizui Town, 20 miles north of Xunzhou, last night, waiting for a waterway along the river, and it is estimated that it can reach the periphery of Xunzhou at noon today.

Why did the Qing army march slowly? Because Geng Jimao was unhappy.

Originally, his father Geng Zhongming, the king of Jingnan, was ordered to send troops south to attack Guangdong with Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan, and the two armies were originally cooperative, but when they arrived in Jiangxi, they committed suicide in fear of crime, and the regent of the Qing court, Dolgon, said that he was not the end of the order, and did not give sacrifices, nor allowed to attack the lord, as a result, Geng Jimao not only did not inherit the title of king of Jingnan, but also had to obey Shang Kexi's orders.

After the overall situation of Guangdong was decided, Shang Kexi invaded Guangzhou and plundered it, but ordered him to garrison Wuzhou, which had little oil and water.

In the middle of the month, they received a military order from the Qing court, asking them to cooperate with Kong Youde, the king of Dingnan, to attack Nanning, in order to defeat the remnants of the Southern Ming Dynasty in one fell swoop, Shang Kexi ordered him to lead his troops to attack Xunzhou, but made his son Shang Zhixin go straight to Yulin, and the soldiers went straight to Ning, obviously using him as a partial teacher, and when he conquered Xunzhou, whether he went west or south, he could only eat the dust of Kong Youde or Shang Zhixin's army, and he had no part in conquering Nanning to destroy the Ming.

Although Geng Jimao was full of complaints, he had to obey the order, so he was passive and slacked off, ordering his subordinates to loot property all the way, and he took two concubines to march with the sailor on a big boat, hiding in the cabin all day long to drink and have fun, and did not care about cooperating with Shang Zhixin.

Early this morning, Geng Jimao personally led more than 8,000 people along the waterway to the south of the Xunjiang River, and the land infantry army was divided into two routes, left and right, led by the general soldier Xu Degong and Lian Decheng, and went straight to Xunzhou along both sides of the Xunjiang River.

When more than 20,000 Qing troops arrived in Xunzhou at noon, Jiao Lian, dressed in white robes and silver armor, stood at the head of the city with Liu Xulei, quietly waiting for the arrival of the fierce battle.

Looking north, the sun shone on the rolling army coming from the north, the armor and spear tips shone brightly, the snare drums, trumpets and hoops were everywhere, hundreds of large and small ships fluttered in the Xunjiang River, and the black clouds pressed towards the mouth of the Sanjiang River, and an indescribable sense of coercion pressed heavily on his heart.

Jiao Lian involuntarily glanced at Liu Xulei beside him, and saw that although he was also with sharp eyebrows and sharp facial features, the strange camouflage robe on his body was wrinkled, wearing an ugly domed eaves helmet, and black square-toe high leather boots, no matter how he looked at it, he was not very majestic.

However, a closer look found that he was calm and relaxed, raising binoculars from time to time to observe the front, the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned, and from time to time he hummed a mocking sneer, so he looked like a battle-hardened and heavy general, Jiao Lian couldn't help but secretly admire.

In just a few days, Jiao Lian witnessed that although Liu Xulei's troops were not large in number, they left a deep impression on him in terms of discipline, training methods and intensity, especially in the first battle of Jintian, where hundreds of people cleanly annihilated the Qing army Ma Jiaolin, who had pursued him all the way, in only two days, which made him even more shocked, and his heart was so admirable.

In fact, Liu Xulei sneered not for anything else, but because he saw an inconspicuous but obviously very incongruous detail in the telescope, and saw that those aggressive Qing soldiers were carrying a big burden on their backs, regardless of whether they were on foot.

"Burning, killing, looting, and looting along the way, a lot of property was softened, right? See if you dare to fight hard? ”

Geng Jimao left the two delicate concubines in the cabin, and stood in the bow of the ship, also looking at Xunzhou City not far away.

I saw that the city head was also waving flags, and the soldiers defending the city were waiting for it, and I couldn't help but secretly applaud that Da Ming could have a loyal and brave general like Jiao Lian.

"It's really worthy of Nanming Zhao Zilong! But since we are each our own masters, it is no wonder that Geng's subordinates are ruthless! ”

Not long after, the fleet sailed into the mouth of the three rivers, and the Qing army on land also began to cross the river, and the artillery on several large warships began to bombard the sandbank, but due to the insufficient range, there was basically no damage, and it was just a bold sound.

When the enemy ships sailed across the river four or five hundred meters wide and began to dock, the artillery of the Ming army finally roared.

Because Liu Xulei captured a lot of artillery, in addition to setting up enough artillery positions at the head of the city, he also placed a lot of them in the sandbar position, and the distance had been calibrated in advance, which was just used to bombard the river embankment.

Huge iron cannons, one after another sneering smoke whistling into the crowd of Qing soldiers who had just landed on the shore, suddenly people turned on their backs, severed limbs flew sideways, Qing soldiers surged in the river embankment in a chaotic manner, scrambling to avoid, Geng Jimao was furious when he saw this, ordered the war drums to be beaten, urging the front team to charge forward, and the rear team to step up to cross the river.

The Qing soldiers, who were urged by the drums of war, rushed forward under the angry rebuke of officers at all levels, and finally rushed to the front, but unexpectedly they were hit by a series of guns, and the 3,000 Ming troops lined up in six horizontal formations, each platoon of 500 people, all using firearms, under the command of a platoon commander of the volunteer army, unhurriedly took turns shooting at the Qing army.

This is the queuing and shooting tactic of Liu Xulei's pre-war assault training, which is an upgraded version of the "three-stage attack" tactic, commonly known as the "six-stage attack".

When the first row was aiming and shooting, the second row was already on standby, and the people below the third row were seizing the time to load their ammunition, and the first row quickly retreated to the last row after shooting, and the original second and third rows stepped forward in turn, and the cycle continued.

Because the soldiers used backward arquebuses, and even the models of the guns, the old and the new could not be unified, and the firing speed was too slow, so Liu Xulei increased the team to six platoons to ensure continuous and uninterrupted firepower output, which caused huge casualties to the Qing army's forwards.