In the second year of Hongxian, the war between the Hong Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty army was a stalemate between the two lifelines of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, a huge area of millions of square miles.

The Yellow River moat was easily broken by the Hong Dynasty army, which made people of insight in the Ming Dynasty gradually understand that the Yangtze River moat is actually and may not be very stable.

Especially Ying Tianfu, now the Ming Dynasty is now on the Yangtze River, with the strength of the powerful naval fleet of the Hong Dynasty, if he wants to break through the Yangtze River several miles wide, it can only be easily described.

Therefore, although they gave up large territories such as Shandong and Henan, in the vast lands of Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu, the Ming Dynasty army, under the leadership of Sun Chuanting, Zhang Huangyan and other generals, was entangled with the Hong Dynasty army.

Sun Chuanting and other generals of the Ming Dynasty, while clearing the walls of the land that could not be defended, looked for a suitable blocking location, and launched a confrontation with the Hong Dynasty army, using their own strong population base advantage to consume the small army strength of the Hong Dynasty.

At the same time, Sun Chuanting also said that most of the stubborn courtiers in the court, as well as the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Jianlong, gave up the inherent view of the land, exchanged space for time, and selectively gave up a lot of land, so that the Hong Dynasty army had to take the initiative to weaken the strength of their main battle force step by step in order to garrison these places, which is also the Hong Dynasty army until now, unable to complete the complete occupation of the land north of the Yangtze River.

In the second year of Hongxian, although the armies of the two sides have been fighting each other, there has not been a truly decisive war.

This does not mean that the war between the two sides is not cruel enough, from the time of Li Tianyang's accession to the throne in the first year of Hongxian, to the last day of the second year of Hongxian, the total number of troops lost by the Hongchao army on the battlefield exceeded 200,000, and the corresponding Ming Dynasty army lost more than 600,000 troops.

You must know that by the time of the Spring Festival of the third year of Hongxian, the total number of garrisons in the entire Hongchao was less than 600,000; As for the number of troops in the Ming Dynasty, they continued to expand under the continuous fighting of more than a year, that is, after losing 600,000 numbers, they still had a million scale.

It is not an exaggeration to use the word "reckless force" to describe the Ming Dynasty now, just as expected by the Hong Dynasty before, when the Ming Dynasty realized that they were in a life-and-death situation, the power they could burst out was far stronger than that of the Hong Dynasty.

Moreover, with Sun Chuanting, who is not only far-sighted, but also has the first assistant Jiang Fengyuan as an ally in the court, and is also the minister of the humerus in the heart of Emperor Zhu Cihong of Jianlong, the policy of clearing the field with strong walls will not become the target of attack by the important ministers of the court.

However, even so, the DPRK and China were still dissatisfied and uneasy about the current situation of the Ming Dynasty's army retreating step by step, and the voices of the DPRK and China reprimanding Sun Chuanting, Zhang Huangyan and other commanders gradually increased, which was quite out of control.

Today's Shandong Province, the whole territory is occupied by the third army of the Hong Dynasty Kong Youde, but it is a pity that even if Kong Youde and they occupy the entire huge territory of Shandong, and even a small part of Anhui and Jiangsu, the number of people under their rule is extremely rare.

Since crossing the Yellow River in the south, Kong Youde has controlled the territory, no matter how it is calculated, it has increased by millions of square miles, but its population growth is less than one million, and most of them are still old, weak, sick and disabled, as well as women and children who cannot be used as a supplement to the army.

And their army has lost more than 50,000 in more than a year of conquest, if it is not for the war with the Ming Dynasty army, the capture of the opposing warriors for their own use, just relying on their own territory to replenish, I am afraid that their army will lose more than one-third of the strength of the army.

This is the result of his opponent Zhang Huangyan, who brought about the victory with the clear field of the wall, although it did not work as immediately as it seemed, but in the subsequent battle, it really weakened the expansion of the Hong Dynasty's army.

For example, although there are still 100,000 troops on the roster of his Third Army, there is a battalion here and a regiment there, and Xuzhou, which is now the main fortress of the front-line battlefield, the main force of the Third Army is not much more than when it crossed the river, and it is only more than 55,000 people.

On the opposite side of Kong Youde, Zhang Huangyan, who had repeatedly retreated, had more than fifteen troops in his hands, which was three times the number of Kong Youde's army.

"Commander, Xiangcheng Ming's army has been moving frequently recently, and it seems that there is something to do!"

After receiving a report from the scout battalion on the enemy's movements on the opposite side, Zhan Wenbo, director of the Third Army's Aircraft Chief, immediately made a report to Kong Youde.

"Oh?"

Kong Youde raised his voice with some interest.

"It's rare for them to get out of Yaxing, presumably the soldiers under them have been too idle recently, it's time for everyone to loosen their muscles and bones."

"Shouldn't we also occupy Xiangcheng?"

In the war between the Hong and Ming dynasties, most of the time, the Hong Dynasty army, which had a relatively small number of troops, occupied the dominant position on the battlefield, and the Ming Dynasty army had a numerical advantage, but they relied more on the city defense offensive that did not have much advantage, or the natural geographical location, and the Hong Dynasty army was opposed, and few took the initiative to attack.

Therefore, although the soldiers of the scout battalion have now discovered the movement of the Ming army in Xiangcheng, Kong Youde does not think that the other party dares to really launch an offensive against Xuzhou, where he is located.

The advantages of the Hong Dynasty after occupying the Northeast have gradually become prominent, and with the Hong Dynasty's hardline attitude has been restricting the military to intervene in the recruitment of civilian people, although the expansion of the army's strength has been difficult, but the recovery ability of the civilian land is particularly inferior.

In particular, on the territory that has been occupied for the longest time, has the most input costs and manpower, and is now named Liaoning Province, the Anshan mine produces more than hundreds of tons of iron a year, bringing enough resources for the whole assembly of the Hong Dynasty army.

The Gun Manufacturing Bureau expanded its factories in Liaoning Province again and again, and the qualified muskets and artillery produced in a year repeatedly reached new highs, and now more than half of the soldiers of the Hong Dynasty army have used flintlock spears.

As for the remaining half of the soldiers, although they are not equipped with flintlock pistols for the time being, they have been training for basic musket shooting.

This also means that as long as the musket manufacturing of the Hong Dynasty army can keep up, the speed at which the musketeers will change their outfits and increase their strength will also increase. Update the fastest mobile terminal::Update the fastest computer terminal::/

With these firearms, whether it was against the enemy in the field or in siege operations with insufficient geographical advantages, the Hong Dynasty army was always able to fight more with less, and finally defeated the enemy and won the battle.

"I want to see a mature plan to occupy Xiangcheng."

It was based on the self-confidence in the strength of the Hong Dynasty's army that Kong Youde did not care about the movement of the enemy's forces on the opposite side, but wanted to take the opportunity to pull out the nail in front of him.

"Yes!"