Knowing that Li Rusong was trapped in the Blue Hoof Pavilion, Yang Yuan, the nearest general, led a thousand elite cavalry to the rescue overnight. At this time, the battle situation was not clear, although the strength of the Ming army was far inferior to the Japanese army, but it did not collapse, and the Japanese army fought very hard. The arrival of Yang Yuanbu made Kobayakawa Takakei mistakenly think that the Ming army's large army came to help, and in his opinion, it was so difficult to fight against 4,000 people, and the opponent's large army was even more powerless to fight, so the Japanese army did not dare to fight at all, and led the army back to Seoul.

The battle of Bihuguan lasted one day and one night, and more than half of the elite cavalry of the Ming army were killed and wounded, and the Japanese army also paid the price of thousands of casualties. After this battle, Li Rusong did not dare to rush into the army, and the Japanese army gathered more than 50,000 people in Seoul and the surrounding areas at that time.

Later, the Ming army received erroneous information: the Second Army of the Japanese Army led by Kato Kiyomasa would attack Pyongyang from Hamgyong Province, and Li Rusong led the Ming army to return to Pyongyang from Kaesong, which led to the loss of Xingzhou, which had just been recaptured by the Allied Korean army. After learning that Xingzhou was lost, Li Rusong deeply regretted that he was too eager to retreat, but the battlefield is changing rapidly, and everyone will inevitably make mistakes.

The battle situation of the Ming army will be sent back to China every three days, and it will be rushed by 800 miles. This small defeat was exaggerated by a group of people in the court, who asked Emperor Wanli to condemn Li Rusong, and did not give up until the goal was achieved. Emperor Wanli knew in his heart that the purpose of these officials was not pure, and most of what he said was exaggerated, so he couldn't stand their noise, so he had to order Li Rusong not to advance rashly, and after receiving the holy decree, the Ming army could only be more cautious.

Li Rusong knew that if the Japanese army was not hurt, they would not take the initiative to retreat, unless they found the opponent's "life" and dealt them a fatal blow. He convened a meeting of all the middle and high-level generals every day to discuss this issue, but no one could come up with a reliable strategy.

In the afternoon of this day, Zhong Nan saw that Shi Changting, who had returned to the camp, was frowning again, and knew that today's discussion would definitely be fruitless, so he walked up to his boss and asked casually, "General, haven't you made a plan yet?" ”

"Yes, the Holy One requires stability as the priority, so there is no good way." The general was helpless.

"Can't you burn the grain and grass of the Japanese army?" Zhong Nan asked.

"It's not that no one has mentioned this plan, it's just that it's not easy to determine the location of the grain and grass, and second, it's impossible to send a large team of people to burn the grain and grass, and if there are too few people, the chance of success is too small, so it was denied." Seeing Zhong Nan asking such a question, Shi Changting expected that his shrewd young general should have a wonderful idea, so he asked tentatively: "Do you think this plan is feasible?" ”

Zhong Nan didn't dare to hold it up, but just said "it's possible", Shi Changting asked him to talk first, and after listening to it, he felt that it made sense, so he pulled Zhong Nan to Li Rusong's handsome camp. After the briefing, the two entered the camp tent, and Li Rusong was sitting on a chair pondering at this time, and immediately asked when he saw someone coming: "What is the good plan of General Shi?" ”

"It's not me, it's him who thought of it!" Shi Changting pointed at Zhong Nan.

"Oh...... What is the scheme? ”

"Burn grain and grass." Zhong Nan's answer was simple and powerful.

"But where is the grain and grass?"

"It's very simple, where was the big granary of the Korean army before, and now the grain and grass of the Japanese army is there." Zhong Nan replied.

"How so?" Li Rusong continued to ask.

"The Japanese army has only recently captured Korea, where is there time to transfer grain and grass on a large scale, so whether they want to or not, they can only use the previous granary; As for where the big granary of North Korea is, I believe that no one knows whether it is the king of North Korea or their generals! Zhong Nan's statement is indeed irrefutable, and Li Rusong is more and more appreciative of this guy.

"Since this plan was thought of by you, do you dare to take on the task of burning grain and grass?" Li Rusong said with a smile.

"Why don't you dare, isn't Cao Mengde's night attack on the Black Nest a precedent!" Zhong Nan was not stunned.

"Okay, good......" Li Rusong laughed, "That handsome man will give you five hundred people, waiting for your triumphant return!" ”

Zhong Nan said lightly: "Then please trouble the marshal to inquire about the location of the granary, and I will pick someone first." ”

"No problem, the people and horses in the entire Eastern Crusade army are up to you!"

"Thank you, Dashuai, please choose three hundred Liaodong elite horses for me, and I will pick two hundred brothers from the Qingzhou camp." Zhong Nan decided on the candidate in two simple sentences, and then turned around and said goodbye, not dragging his feet at all.

That night, Zhong Nan took 500 people and horses, horses wrapped in hooves, and quietly came to Longshan Dacang by night. Yongsan Daechang was the original granary of the Korean state, which stored the grain of Korea for decades, and could not be transferred after Seoul was occupied by the Japanese army, so it was requisitioned on the spot, including most of the grain and grass collected by the Japanese army after that. After Zhong Nan's death squad arrived at Longshan, he found that the Japanese army's defense of the granaries was not very tight, I don't know if it was too late or didn't feel the need, he secretly said "God help me", and then rushed in first, and shot the first rocket at one of the granaries, and the Ming army around him also hurried up, rushed into the camp and concocted the same method, and fired rockets at each granary.

In the blink of an eye, the thirteen warehouses were ablaze with fire, and the garrison generals were shocked, sending people to fight the fire while sending people to kill the Ming army death squad. Zhong Nan asked everyone to continue firing rockets, until everyone shot all the arrows they carried, looking at the fire that swallowed the sky, he knew that no matter how much the Japanese army tried to fight the fire, it was useless, and these hundreds of thousands of stone grains would be burned completely. It's just that I didn't expect this delay, and the Japanese army surrounded them, not to mention one or two thousand people, and it is estimated that they are all the Japanese troops guarding the grain.

The Japanese soldiers were well aware of the importance of the Longshan Okura, and this group of people understood from top to bottom that if the grain and grass were burned, they would definitely not be able to escape the punishment of military law, so everyone launched a madness and pestered the death squads with their lives. Seeing this situation, Zhong Nan decisively let the Liaodong elite cavalry retreat first, and after he broke off with the Qingzhou soldiers, the five hundred men and horses did not dare to fight, and they fought and retreated, and finally escaped from the city. Zhong Nan counted the men and horses, and found that there were less than 150 people left, and almost all of them survived with wounds, even his shoulder was hit by an arquebus, and there was also a wound on his forehead left by a Japanese arrow, fortunately it was not fatal. Thinking of more than 300 brothers buried in this way, Zhong Nan sighed in his heart, but now was not the time to be hypocritical, he didn't stop long, and beckoned the remaining brothers to rush back to the Ming army camp non-stop.

At the gate of the camp, Li Rusong was anxiously waiting for the news with all the high-level generals, and when the sound of horses' hooves came, everyone's spirits were shocked. Looking from afar, I saw Zhong Nan riding towards them with a small number of Ming troops, although there were few soldiers and horses, but there was no half of decadence. When the distance was approaching, Zhong Nan waved his horsewhip, sped up his speed and came to the generals, then jumped off his horse, knelt down at Li Rusong and the others and said: "Marshal, generals, I am fortunate not to be dishonored!" ”

"Good, good, good!" Li Rusong looked up to the sky and roared, "Zhong Nan, if you make miraculous achievements, this commander will never break his word, and he will personally ask the emperor for your credit!" In addition, all the soldiers who participated in the battle tonight were also rewarded! ”

"Xie Dashuai, Emperor Xie!" The rest of the death squads responded loudly.

After the battle of Longshan, the Ming army reversed the situation of equal strength, the Japanese army lost food and grass, the whole line was passive, and fell into an unprecedented predicament, although after the Ming army fought several small battles, the arrogance was far less arrogant than at the beginning. When the Japanese army first entered Korea, there were more than 96,000 soldiers on land alone, and when the teams reassembled in Seoul, less than 53,000 people remained, and more than 43,000 people were reduced, accounting for about 45 percent of the total, and nearly half of the loss rate was caused by the Ming army.

At the same time, the Japanese army did not bargain much at sea, although the Ming Dynasty did not send sailors, but they were tortured by the famous Korean general Yi Sunsin's "tortoiseshell boat", and their plan to take advantage of the sea also failed. Now that the Japanese army has been seriously reduced, coupled with the burning of the granary, the morale of the army is becoming more and more unstable, and after some weighing, Toyotomi Hideyoshi advocated that the two sides negotiate peace.

The Ming army suffered a setback after the Battle of Bihuguan, and its strength was far less than that of the Japanese army, and unless it increased its troops again, it did not have the conditions for another decisive battle. At that time, Shangshu Shixing of the Ministry of War was a representative figure of the main peace faction, and he opposed the increase of troops against the DPRK, and the emperor was also moved. Since neither side wants to continue fighting, there is a possibility of peace.

So from mid-March to mid-April, the peace talks between the two countries were almost underway at the official level, and all that remained was to wait for the approval of Wanli and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However, these things did not mean anything to Zhong Nan and the other soldiers on the front line, all they hoped was to return home as soon as possible.

On 18 April, all the Japanese troops withdrew from Seoul and returned the captured second prince of Joseon, and Li Rusong led the Ming army and the Korean army into Seoul on the 19th, and crossed the Han River to Gyeongju on 15 May. After making arrangements in Gyeongju against the Ming army, the Korean army, and the Korean volunteers, Li Rusong returned to Beijing. So far, except for part of the coastal areas of Jeolla and Gyeongsang 2-do, which were occupied by the Japanese army, all the rest of the country have been recovered.

At the end of July, the Ming army left 10,000 troops to garrison Korea, and the rest of the Eastern Expeditionary troops finally returned to China.

In mid-August, Zhong Nan and other Shandong soldiers returned to the station, and after the Qingzhou soldiers rested for a while, Shi Changting gave everyone a long vacation.