The situation in the Central Plains was worrisome, Li Zicheng reorganized his army in Taiyuan and fought fiercely with Dolgon, due to the lack of troops, low morale, and another defeat, he had to hastily withdraw to his hometown of Shaanxi, and at the same time draw troops and horses from Gansu, Sichuan, and Henan, and gathered 400,000 troops to set up positions on the line of Tongzhou, Puzhou, and Tongguan, preparing for a decisive battle with the Qing army. However, the Qing army was not in a hurry to fight a decisive battle with Li Zicheng, and one route was led by Dolgon to capture Shanxi, and Duoduo led another group of men and horses to attack Henan. The troops of the Dashun Dynasty in Shanxi and Henan were empty, many of them were the original Ming Dynasty's surrendered troops, lack of training, the army was discouraged, the state capitals of the two places fell one after another, and the landlords and gentry in various places and the vassals of the original Ming court were abused by the Dashun army before, and now they have jumped out to make a waste, and many simply surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Henan was occupied by the Qing army, Xiangyang has become a front line, the war is imminent, Wang Qiang is worried about loss, and decided to personally lead 20,000 Taiping troops to Xiangyang, sitting in command.

On this day, Wang Qiang reviewed the documents in the general helmsman's mansion, because he was going to lead the army to Xiangyang in two days, so he had to concentrate on handling the teaching affairs in his hands, and Li'er was on the side to help him pack his bags. Since the rescue of Chen Yuanyuan, Li'er's attitude towards Wang Qiang has been different, although she is docile and meticulous, but she has less initiative to laugh and be courteous, Wang Qiang guesses that it is because he revealed his true feelings for Yuanyuan, which caused Li'er's heart, and it is not good to ask more. He approved a stack of documents, Li'er came to help him clean up, Wang Qiang saw her depressed, took her hand and said: "Li'er, I'm going to leave in two days, but I can't take you this time, it's the front line, the soldiers are in danger, and it's a rule that you can't take women in the army." ”

Li'er smiled and said: "I know this, don't say that you can't bring a female dependent, even if you can, you shouldn't take me, what am I?" ”

Wang Qiang knew that he had recently caused a romantic lawsuit, which made Li'er feel heartbroken, and said apologetically: "You are my closest person, you help me a lot, don't worry, I will not fail you." ”

Li'er said softly: "The master is too careful, you have a great responsibility in the world, you don't have to be so childlike, Li'er doesn't ask for anything else, but it's enough to ask the master to think about Li'er in his heart." After the master left, I had a lot of inconvenience here, and I planned to move out of the house and go to the mountains to be the companion of the round girl, and we were not lonely with each other. It works. ”

"Okay." Wang Qiang said happily, he was worried that after he left, Yuanyuan would lack someone to take care of him, this Li'er was much stronger than Yuanyuan, and it would be more reassuring to have her care.

Li'er seemed to have guessed Wang Qiang's thoughts, and said: "Don't worry, master, Li'er will do her best to take care of Miss Yuanyuan, and I just hope that you will come back soon." ”

"That's what you're going to do." Wang Qiang said gratefully.

On this day, Wang Qiang led the troops to Xiangyang, Lu Xiangsheng, Li Gang, Shang Dayong and others went to the city to greet them, and in the afternoon of the same day, Wang Qiang settled down for a while, and held a meeting with Lu Xiangsheng and others to study the problem of resisting the Qing army.

At the meeting, Li Gang first introduced the military posture of the two sides. Today, the Qing army has basically cleared the armed forces of the Dashun army in Henan, and the main force of the Qing army, a total of 150,000 people, led by the Manchu prince Duoduo, is stationed in Nanyang, and is resting, and the next direction of the attack is still uncertain. In Xiangyang, there are 120,000 troops on its own side, including 70,000 Taiping troops, 20,000 officers and troops under the command of Lu Xiangsheng, 10,000 original local defenders, and another 20,000 troops who have been incorporated and reorganized from Henan, Zhili and other places, and their combat effectiveness is very poor. The Qing army was a well-trained Eight Banners force, and it was victorious in successive battles, and its morale was booming, and most of the troops had been trained by the militia regiments, with poor combat experience and uneven combat effectiveness, and their own side was slightly weaker in terms of strength comparison.

Xiangyang City is located in the upper reaches of the Han River, located in the key chong, is the gateway of the Qing army to the central and southern regions, the city defense here is strong, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the city has sufficient materials, grain and grass, if you stick to Xiangyang should be worry-free.

After Li Gang finished his introduction, Lu Xiangsheng spoke: "Everyone, now Li Zicheng has gathered 400,000 troops in Tongguan to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army, and Dolgon's Northern Route Army is only 200,000 people, and it is difficult to meet Li Zicheng in Tongguan, so it is very likely that the Qing army in front of us will go northwest to meet Dolgon and fight a decisive battle with Li Zicheng." Another choice for them was to take the middle road directly, to attack Xiangyang, and then to take Wuchang, an important city in central China. With our strength, if the Qing army comes to Xiangyang, we can fight a battle, and if they go to Tongguan, we can hope that the Qing army and the Dashun army will be defeated, and we can take the opportunity to recover the northern provinces. ”

Li Gang said: "This time the Qing army is different from the last time they invaded Tongzhou, the last time they only attacked and plundered property, so they attacked lightly and far away, without baggage and sufficient grain and grass, this time, the Qing army is for."

Occupy the Central Plains, so step by step, each place must be divided into officials and posts to pacify the place, and they are well prepared this time, according to our intelligence, they not only have a sufficient supply of food and grass, but also bring artillery and a large number of siege weapons with the army. When they attacked the city, they relied on artillery to help the battle, the power was doubled, and the enemy could not be underestimated, Li Zicheng and their Taiyuan defeat was the Qing army's cannon bombardment of the city wall, and the Qing army captured the city. ”

Shang Dayong said: "The Qing army is mainly cavalry and is good at field warfare, and Li Zicheng suffered this loss in Shanhaiguan, so we should still focus on defense, use the city to strengthen and consume them, and retreat from the enemy at the camera, just like the last time in the Special Administrative Region." In addition, now the common people outside spread the Qing army like a fierce god, and most of our soldiers are new recruits, and they are afraid of the Qing army. ”

Wang Qiang is not good at leading troops in battle, he is thinking about another layer of things. Seeing that everyone was looking at him, he thought about it and said: "This military matter is still up to you, there are two things I have to say, first, now we and Li Zicheng are in a relationship of lip and tooth, we can't sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, if the Manchu Qing army destroys Li Zicheng, then the next thing is to concentrate on dealing with us, so it is beneficial for us to let the Qing army divide into two forces like now." If we do not win one or two battles, we will not be able to boost the morale of the whole army, nor can we convince the people of the world that our Taiping army is a team to resist the Qing Dynasty, so we must take the initiative to seek a battle and win the first battle. ”

Wang Qiang's idea is no longer limited to the military level, but focuses on the overall situation and rises to the political level.

Lu Xiangsheng had a good relationship with Wang Qiang, but it was the first time he had formally discussed the issue of combat with him, and after listening to Wang Qiang's words, he couldn't help but be convinced, and secretly thought: "This person is really extraordinary, and his vision is so far-sighted, no wonder he has made many achievements." He said: "Lord Wang is open-minded and admired, now that the Manchu Qing Dynasty is invading, we Han people should be sincerely united with the outside world, and we should not be intolerant." I think we can take the initiative to attack and harass the Qing army in Nanyang, lure them to attack Xiangyang, so that they cannot move north. Now there are 90,000 soldiers and horses in the city who can fight, and it is enough to leave 50,000 people to defend the city. ”

"Yes, now the main force of the Qing army is concentrated in Nanyang, but the strength in other areas is weak, and the supplies of the Qing army are transported from outside the pass, and the grain road is long, we can cut off his grain route and force him to return to the army for rescue." Li Gang said.

Shang Dayong said excitedly: "Yes, we are beating the ass of the Qing army, leave this matter to me, the 10,000 people of my special zone militia have been practicing for more than two years, and it is just right to come in handy." ”

Lu Xiangsheng said: "The 10,000 iron cavalry I brought back from Shanxi are also good at field warfare and can go out of the city to guerrilla. ”

Li Gang spread out the map, pointed his finger and said: "Everyone, please see, Nanyang is three hundred miles away from us, and further north are Xuning, Ruzhou, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, this line is several joint points of the Qing army's grain road, Zhengzhou and Kaifeng are the main bases for the Qing army's material hoarding and transshipment, as long as we attack any of its points, the Qing army must return to help." Because we did not have a large force in the north, the Qing army was relatively weak in defending there, and the defenders in Zhengzhou and Kaifeng were only 10,000. But there is also a great risk in this kind of action, that is, once the siege is blocked, the Qing army in Nanyang will come back to help us in a big way, blocking our retreat, and our army may be surrounded and annihilated. ”

Everyone analyzed the map, calculated the distance of several places and the estimated time of attack and defense, and finally unanimously decided to attack Kaifeng, if the Qing army in Nanyang returned in a large way, it would retreat to the east to Shandong, while the defenders of Xiangyang would attack Nanyang.

Xiangyang to Kaifeng nearly a thousand miles away, the long-distance attack is very risky, the generals are brave, in the question of who leads the troops to attack for a long time, in the end it is Wang Qiang out of the sect leader to settle the dispute, decided to personally lead the three brothers of the Yan family and Li Gang to lead the troops to raid Kaifeng, the commander of the army has 20,000 Taiping Sect troops, and Lu Xiangsheng's Shanxi battalion 10,000, a total of 30,000 people. Shang Dayong commanded 20,000 troops out of the city to attack the Qing army near Nanyang to distract them, and Lu Xiangsheng led the rest of the troops and horses to sit in Xiangyang.

In order to ensure victory in the first battle, they decided to send 500 elite soldiers to infiltrate Kaifeng in batches in disguise as an internal response, and at the same time instructed the Taiping Sect rudder lurkers in Shanxi and Henan to collect intelligence, create some chaos in various places, and distract the attention of the Qing army.

After a few days of preparation, Xiangyang's too

In order to ensure the suddenness of the attack on Kaifeng, the Taiping army implemented strict secrecy measures for the plan to attack Kaifeng, except for a few generals who attended the meeting, the other generals did not know the real goal of the operation.

In order to confuse the Qing army, the three brothers Shang Dayong, Li Gang, and Yanlong led the Taiping army under their command to go out of the city in turn, and selected the weak places of the Qing army in the Xiangyang Zhou area to attack and harass, fighting a county town today and robbing a grain team tomorrow, and small-scale battles continued. However, the Qing army in Nanyang has not moved, but only increased the number of troops on several major grain road points and strengthened the defense.

It turned out that Duoduo had already received Dorgon's order and was preparing to go to the northwest with his army to fight a decisive battle with Li Zicheng, so he ignored the provocation of the Taiping army and let the Taiping army occupy some places It was not a big deal, as long as the grain road was protected.

On this day, Wang Qiang personally led 10,000 horses and horses of the Shanxi battalion out of the city to join Li Gang, who was active in the northeast of Nanyang. The commander of the Shanxi battalion is called Zhang Ding, who originally participated in the anti-Qing war in the Special Administrative Region with Lu Xiangsheng, when he was still a partial general, and now he has been promoted to general. On the way, Zhang Ding rode his horse and rode with Wang Qiang, and Zhang Ding asked, "Lord Wang, where are we going to fight in this operation?" ”

Wang Qiang said: "I haven't thought about it yet, we'll look at it when we get to the place, in short, where is it easy to fight?" How, do you have any suggestions? ”

Zhang Ding said with a smile: "Lu Dashuai has explained, so that the last general will obey all the orders of the king, and he will act according to the orders of the lord." If you talk about suggestions, I think you should hit Zhengzhou. ”

"Oh? Why? Wang Qiang asked.

Zhang Ding replied: "I see that the actions of our army these days are to lead the Qing army in Nanyang to fight and mobilize the Qing army, if we are only a small-scale attack, the Qing army can ignore it, so if you want to achieve your goal, you must find his important stronghold and beat him up." Zhengzhou is the key point of the Qing army's grain route, as long as we attack Zhengzhou, the Qing army will be saved, but this is more risky. ”

Wang Qiang felt that this Zhang Ding still had a lot of ideas, so he said: "What you said is very reasonable, then why don't we open the seal, isn't it more important there?" ”

"Kaifeng! This last general did not think about it. Zhang Ding said, he thought for a while and then said: "To attack Zhengzhou, we can make a feint to the northeast of Nanyang, and then raid at night, and we can arrive early the next morning to launch a surprise attack on Zhengzhou." If the seal is opened, we will need two days and one night, such a large-scale operation, the Qing army will definitely get the news in advance, with preparation, Kaifeng city defense is strong, if we fail to attack hard, surrounded by Nanyang's reinforcements, the situation will be dangerous. ”

"Yes." Wang Qiang nodded in agreement. Zhang Ding's opinion was also put forward during the meeting, but Zhengzhou was close to Nanyang, for fear of a surprise attack by the Taiping army, the defense was also relatively tight, and the Qing army's reinforcements could arrive in one day, and if the raid failed, there was no way out. Kaifeng is far away from Xiangyang, and the Qing army can't consider that the Taiping army will raid there, and opening Fengfeng is the real suddenness of the battle, but how to conceal the march and expose the target of the attack too early is also a problem that they repeatedly considered during the discussion, and made corresponding preparations.

The Taiping army did not engage the Qing army along the way, and the Qing army only sent a small group of people to follow the watch, and Wang Qiang did not care about him. In the afternoon, the troops arrived in Luan County, northeast of Nanyang, according to the predetermined plan, and joined the three brothers of the Yan family, but Li Gang did not arrive with the team on time, and Wang Qiang ordered the troops to rest on the spot and wait for Li Gang. In the evening, a group of soldiers under Li Gang arrived in Luan County and brought a letter from Li Gang. The content of the letter surprised Wang Qiang, in the letter, Li Gang reported that he had led 10,000 horses to lurk in the Hugao Mountain one hundred and fifty miles away from Luan County, in order to achieve the purpose of raiding Kaifeng, he planned to lead 5,000 elite soldiers to attack Kaifeng overnight after dark, leaving 5,000 soldiers and horses to garrison Hulao Mountain, confusing the Qing army, hoping that Wang Qiang would lead the troops and horses, and then follow up. Wang Qiang felt that Li Gang's action was too risky, because the Qing army in Kaifeng was about 10,000 people, and the Taiping army was attacking from a long distance, and the two sides were fighting, and the Taiping army was at risk of being defeated, but Li Gang's move was indeed a surprise attack, and there was also a possibility of success.

Wang Qiang saw that the sky was dark, and estimated that Li Gang and they had already begun to act, and there was no need to keep it secret when attacking Kaifeng, so he summoned the generals of each battalion to explain the situation, and then ordered the army to march to Kaifeng overnight.