Liu Zongmin was not wrong in estimating He Jiajun's losses, but the only thing he miscalculated was the size of He Jiajun.

Since Bai Yushan and He Sanjiang developed separately, they settled in the territory of Caozhou, Shandong after several twists and turns, but because of the peasant uprisings in Shandong at this time, although they came and went, because of the strong suppression of the invention court, Shandong at least maintained calm on the surface.

Therefore, after settling in Shandong, the development of Baiyushan gradually went underground, and he devoted himself to making friends with the many green forest heroes in Shandong and becoming the king of the mountain.

The advantage of this is that the Ming court will not pay more attention to them, compared to those peasant armies who raised anti-flags and wanted to overthrow the Ming rule, although the green forest bandits are also a factor of civil instability, but they can barely be accepted by the court and the government.

Especially in the boundary of Shandong, this is only a few hundred miles to the Daimyo's mansion, and it is also an important gateway to Gongwei Jingshi since ancient times, and Baiyushan is valuing the geographical factors here, so it settled here, laying a good foundation for the layout of the future base camp in advance.

And He Sanjiang gave up his business in Puyang and turned to join Bai Yushan, which was not detected by Dashun's rudimentary intelligence system, so when Liu Zongmin calculated the strength of the He family's army, he failed to count the more than 20,000 soldiers of Bai Yushan.

That is to say, although the army of the He family lost more than 50,000 troops in the battle with the Dashun army in the past two months, in fact, there are still more than 50,000 troops available in their hands now, which is similar to the strength of Liu Zongmin's troops stationed in Caozhou and its surrounding counties.

In terms of the combat effectiveness of the army, the strength of the soldiers of the He family army is also stronger than the strength of the Dashun army, which is already a fact admitted by Liu Zongmin, who has just experienced the battle between the two sides.

At this time, Jining Prefecture, sitting in Jining Prefecture, stepped up its defenses for the retreat of He Sanjiang's department, just in case, after merging with He Sanjianghui and temporarily settling the people, they learned that the Dashun army had returned to Luoyang as they expected, and they had already begun to prepare a plan to recapture Caozhou.

After experiencing several wars and natural disasters, the population of Jining Prefecture has become a lot scarcer, but it is also a little stretched to accommodate the people who moved from Puyang and Caozhou to the He family's army.

And the most important thing is that although He Jiajun cleaned up many greedy gentry and landlords in Jining Prefecture after occupying Jining, they are not as visionary as the Dashun people, and if they want to make Jining Prefecture stable, they still need the assistance of these local gentry who are very famous.

Therefore, although there is a lot of land in Jining Prefecture that is occupied by He Jiajun, more land is still in the hands of the local landlords and gentry.

As the foundation of a place, if the common people want to settle down in a place to reproduce and pay taxes, then they must also have the necessary source of livelihood, He Jiajun supports hundreds of thousands of migrant population, and can still have some savings in a short time, but in the long run, they will definitely be dragged down by such a huge burden.

In the long run, if He Jiajun wants to continue to gain a foothold in Shandong, they must recapture Caozhou and the surrounding counties, so that their strength can occupy a foundation and gradually grow.

On the other hand, after a hard battle between the He family army and the Dashun army, if they can show their strong side again at this time, it can also dispel the Ming court's various thoughts about the loss of the He family's army and the loss of generals, thinking that its strength has weakened a lot.

All kinds of considerations made He Jiajun not act after licking his wounds steadily, but after confirming that the main force of the Dashun Army returned to Luoyang, he began to actively prepare for war.

On August 13 of the 17th year of Chongzhen, only two days away from the Mid-Autumn Festival, the 40,000 troops of the He family army set off from the state city of Jining Prefecture and marched towards the Caozhou territory more than 100 miles away.

The speed of the He family's army even exceeded the speed at which Liu Zongmin's defense was deployed to return the scouts around the border of control that intersected with Jining Prefecture.

When Liu Zongmin received an urgent report from the scouts from the border, the troops of the He family's army had already captured several guard fortresses along the way.

By the time Liu Zongmin gathered the troops scattered around the state city to Caozhou City, the army of the He family army had already been killed under the city, and the offensive and defensive momentum between the two sides was completely opposite to that of half a month ago.

Liu Zongmin's response was extremely correct, while he collected the troops scattered in various county capitals and towns, He Jiajun also divided the 40,000 army into two in a big way, an army of less than 30,000 approached Caozhou City, and the remaining 10,000 soldiers began to sweep around the county, gradually recovering the county towns and villages occupied by the Dashun people one by one.

With the strength of its army, if there is no disadvantage in terms of geographical advantages, the goods of the two sides fighting, the 10,000 army of the He family army can at least be equivalent to the scale of more than 20,000 troops of Dashun, and with the growth of the number of troops, its overall strength will be enhanced.

This is also the reason why He Sanjiang has the confidence to come with an army of 40,000 to recapture the territory of Caozhou, and even if he divides his troops to regain the territory at this time, less than 30,000 troops dare to be stationed under Caozhou City, so that more than 40,000 soldiers of Liu Zongmin in Caozhou City dare not move.

At this time, the defense of Caozhou City was repaired by Liu Zongmin's efforts, and finally had some effects, such as the cracks in the city wall before, the collapsed arrow tower battlements, etc., many of which were already usable, so Liu Zongmin was still able to rely on the fortifications to defend Caozhou City.

It's just that when Liu Zongmin condescendingly observed He Jiajun outside the city, his grasp of holding Caozhou gradually sank.

What he didn't expect was that the soldiers of the He family army were replenished so quickly, and they had another 30,000 or 40,000 troops after only half a month, compared to the 50,000 Dashun army, which he thought was quite powerful, was at a disadvantage in terms of overall strength at this time.

The most important point is that Liu Zongmin knows very well that the main army of Dashun, who has just returned to the dynasty, will definitely not move the army to Caozhou before the movement of the Ming army is unknown, and the Dongming and other county governments adjacent to Caozhou have even less troops than Liu Zongmin.

Before thinking about victory, Liu Zongmin knew that he was in an unfavorable situation, but the first thing he had to consider was to leave a room not to let himself be in a Jedi.

(End of chapter)