When Hao Bonian received Li Chunjing's battle report and learned that the Second Army had captured Yuezhou and was preparing to come towards Changsha, Hao Bonian had already predicted the various reactions that the Ming army might make.

Among the many reactions of the Ming army, nothing was enough, and it was naturally the most beneficial for the Tang army to defend Changsha and Hengyang respectively, because in this way, the Tang army would be able to break through Changsha and Hengyang respectively, completely lay the foundation of the vast situation in Huguang, not to mention, but also be able to annihilate most of the main forces of the Ming army in the Huguang area in one fell swoop.

That is the main force of the Ming army with a total of 50,000 or 60,000 people, all of them are supervising and training the army, and it is not comparable to any guard soldiers!

But Li Chunjing also knew very well that the Ming army was not stupid, it was impossible to do nothing and wait for the Tang army to kill him.

Hao Bonian guessed that the Ming army might take the initiative to attack and concentrate on Changsha and Hengyang to encircle and kill his First Army, and this situation was also the most dangerous for his First Army.

In addition, there are several possibilities that the Ming army may abandon Hengyang or Changsha and concentrate their forces to defend a city, but this possibility is the most troublesome for the Tang Dynasty.

If the main force of the Ming army is hiding in Changsha City, facing a Changsha with perfect city fortifications, many artillery, and fifty or sixty thousand elite defenses, to be honest, even if the first army and the second army work together, it is not so easy to take it down, and then it will either rely on a long-term siege, or pay a lot of casualties to attack, and these two are not willing to face by Hao Bonian!

This is also the reason why he sent forward troops to Changsha and Hengyang, in order to cut off the connection between the two cities, whether it is the enemy of Hengyang to Changsha, or the enemy of Changsha to Hengyang, it is necessary to delay.

In addition, in fact, Hao Bonian also considered the possibility that the Ming army would take the initiative to abandon Changsha and Hengyang and then flee into Jiangxi, but he also knew that this possibility was very small.

Without a fight, he gave up Changsha and Hengyang and fled into Jiangxi, Zhang Yue is estimated to be crazy and killing!

And even if they want to escape into Jiangxi, how can there be such an easy thing, unless they abandon most of the baggage such as artillery and flee lightly, otherwise, they don't want to easily get rid of the pursuit of the Tang Dynasty!

And what combat effectiveness can these Ming troops, who have lost artillery and most of their baggage, have?

Now, the Ming army really made one of the choices predicted by Hao Bonian, and the enemy of Hengyang chose to burn Hengyang, and then tried to escape into Changsha to resist.

However, if these Ming troops want to escape into Changsha, they must first get rid of the entanglement of Wang Chaohong's department!

The Shenjia ferry on the Xiangshui side, located in the north of Hengyang and the south of Changsha, is not biased or oblique, just located in the middle of the two cities, and many passing ships will choose to anchor here for the night, and then continue the formation of the next day.

Therefore, although it is not a big city, or even a small town, it is quite prosperous as a local ferry port, and there is a market in the ferry port, which specializes in the business of nearby villagers and passing boats.

However, this is the old yellow calendar, since two years ago after the puppet Tang thief army entered Huguang, although Hengyang and Changsha are still in the hands of the Ming army, but although the inland river transportation on the Xiangjiang River has not been interrupted, but it has also plummeted.

The Shenjia ferry port is no longer as prosperous as it used to be, and the wooden dock that is slowly crowded on weekdays has been empty in the past two years.

However, today's Shenjia Ferry Port has ushered in the prosperity that seems to have been in the past, with a large number of ships moored on the wooden dock, and the wharf is also full of people.

But if you look closely, then you will find that the people on the dock are not passing merchants, but all officers and soldiers!

Those ships moored at the pier are also huge official ships!

At this time, in a small mansion inside the ferry, several red-robed officials were frowning and talking.

At this time, a three-rank military general said: "What are you afraid of, we have so many ships, even if they sink a few ships, what do they have!" ”

But at this time, a five-grade civil official on the side shook his head: "If you want to forcibly break through the pass, under the attack of the thief army's fireships and artillery, I'm afraid that there will be no one in ten who can successfully pass the pass!" ”

I only heard the civil official continue: "The best way now is to stop the fleet, and then go ashore for land battle, and destroy their forts, this group of thieves is just a forward, less than 5,000 troops, and we have 30,000 soldiers and horses, as long as we defeat this vanguard of the thief army, then we can continue down the river to Changsha!" ”

At this time, another four-grade civil official said: "But the enemy army is high and defending, if you want to attack, I'm afraid it will not be easy!" ”

The others also chimed in: "Yes, I didn't expect these thieves to come so quickly, and they also deployed artillery in the crooked and narrow parts of the river, and also collected many small boats to block the river!" ”

The three-rank military general who spoke first said: "What are you fighting, if you can't take a boat, we can go directly to the shore and walk, and we can go to Changsha as well!" ”

"Walk ashore?" The five-grade civilian official just now said: "This is absolutely not good, although our army is in a hurry, but it still carries a large amount of baggage, there are dozens of heavy guns, and we lack horses, how can we move forward quickly with so many artillery and ammunition, and the enemy army still has nearly a thousand cavalry, if you want to bypass them to Changsha, it is almost impossible!" ”

"And this pseudo-Tang thief army in front of us is just a striker, the main force of their brigade is behind, if we are dragged by them for a few days, then we will be caught up by their main force, and then I am afraid it will be even more difficult for me to escape!"

"In my opinion, it is still necessary to go all out, directly knock out their battery, and then let the fleet break through, as long as we pass this checkpoint, our army will be able to reach Changsha by ship!" The three-rank general still insisted on storming the fort.

At this time, a middle-aged man wearing a four-rank civil official robe sitting at the top was also frowning, and he was the former commander of the new army, Cheng Hongan, the imperial historian of the left capital.

And the few people under him, some of them are civilian generals who supervise the former army under his command, and some are generals of the Hengyang training army, and there are also ordinary local officials in Hengyang Mansion.

Although in terms of grade, many people at the bottom, especially the military generals, are beyond him, even if they are civil officials, there are a few people whose grades are not lower than him, but the political status of officials in the Ming Dynasty is high, and it is not just based on grade.

He Cheng Hongan is the imperial history of the left capital of Zheng Sipin, and if he holds the position of a local civil official, he is at least the governor of a province.

Now he is a little embarrassed, this took Hengyang's 30,000 troops all the way north along the river, and it was quite smooth at the beginning, without any obstruction, but he didn't expect that after coming to this Shenjia ferry, he found the interception of the pseudo-Tang thief army.

If he just encountered an ordinary puppet Tang thief army, it would be okay, anyway, almost all of his more than 30,000 people took a boat, and the puppet Tang thief army on land couldn't catch up if they wanted to!

However, the puppet Tang thief army actually set up a fort ten miles in front of the Shenjia Ferry, with nearly 30 guns aimed at the river, and a large number of small boats and even rafts and bamboo rows were not collected.

And here the river is crooked and narrow, and when he sent a small fleet of boats to try to break through during the day, he was continuously bombarded and attacked by fireboats, and as a result, none of the seven or eight ships could break through, and all of them were burned!

Fortunately, the ships that tried to break through were originally there to test the strength of the thief army, and they did not carry many soldiers or baggage on them.

The ship sank and there were not a few deaths, so he didn't feel much distress about the loss of those ships, but what made him frown was that if the fleet couldn't get by, how would they return to Changsha?

Forced to break through? If he really wanted to do this, it was really unknown how many of his more than 100 large and small ships, 30,000 soldiers, many artillery pieces and baggage would be able to break through.

Abandon the ship and go ashore and run all the way back to Changsha?

This is even more unreliable than forcibly breaking through, and the puppet Tang thief army has 800 cavalry in their hands.

Don't look at the eight hundred cavalry is not much, but as long as they hang behind, it is enough for their 30,000 troops to advance with confidence, and if the time is delayed for a few days, the main force will be killed, and it is possible that the whole army will be annihilated at that time.

After thinking about it, Cheng Hongan still decided to storm the fort!

He didn't believe it, the enemy army was only more than 5,000 people, and his own army of 30,000 couldn't take it!

Cheng Hongan is confident, but Wang Chaohong, who is ten miles away, is also full of confidence in himself!

As the commander of the forward troops, he knows very well what his responsibility is, not to go to Changsha or to Hengyang, he has only one mission, to stop between Hengyang and Changsha.

So he led his troops all the way to the wild, in order to ensure speed, in fact, he didn't carry much baggage, and the artillery was mainly five-pound and seven-pound artillery, and there was not a single nine-pound artillery.

At the same time, Hao Bonian also specially accompanied him to a baggage battalion, and with the assistance of a large number of livestock and carriages in the baggage camp, his forward army was able to quickly advance eastward, and then galloped all the way to the Shenjia ferry.

At this time, he also learned from the scout that the Ming army had abandoned Hengyang and was heading north along the Xiangjiang River.

Immediately, an artillery battalion under his command and a cavalry artillery battalion of the cavalry unit were pulled to the river, and a place where the river was curved and the river surface was relatively narrow was directly selected to build a battery.

Then he directly sent troops to spend a day requisitioning all the nearby boats, and also temporarily recruited a large number of people to build small boats such as bamboo rafts and rafts to serve as fire boats.

After doing these preparations, the Ming army fleet was also killed, and the result was the same as he expected, this afternoon directly sank eight ships of the Ming army fleet, and stopped more Ming ships upstream.

Now that the Ming army can't go downstream, it won't be long before they will come to storm their positions, and he is waiting for them to come.

When they come, they can use mines, grenades, guns, and other field fortifications to teach the Ming army how to fight this field defensive battle!