Can a canal separate two armies? It's not too easy, after all, more than 100 miles from Liaocheng to Linqing, the canal is not too wide, as long as there are ships, the Qing army can choose a place to cross the canal at will.

As long as the traces of the Qing army can be found and the location of the river crossing can be judged, the Ming army can quickly arrive by boat to prevent it from crossing the river. With a large number of Cao boats in his hands and a large number of firearms in the army, and with the Cao Gang brothers as the eyes and ears, it is not difficult to do this.

The current situation is that the 80,000 Qing army was divided into two parts by the canal, and the 50,000 main force was on the east bank of the canal under the leadership of Dolgon, and was rushing back in the direction of Linqing. The other 30,000 Qing troops were mainly cavalry, and they looted Guangping Mansion and other places under the leadership of Bolo and Luck Dehun, and now they must have received the news that the Ming army was attacking Linqing, and maybe something will come back.

As for the Ming army, most of the army was under the leadership of Chen Yue to Linqing, but there were still more than 30,000 defenders left in Liaocheng, and some troops were stationed in all the provinces of Yanzhou in Dongping, and there were canals between the cities.

The two sides have not yet fought a big battle, and the situation is not clear who has the upper hand. However, now is a good time for both sides of the Ming and Qing dynasties to fight a decisive battle.

For the Manchus, as long as they could defeat Chen Yue's army, which had left the Liaocheng defense line, the situation would be regained in the hands of the Manchus. After all, if Chen Yue fails, there will be no army in the entire Ming Dynasty that can match the Eight Banners. Therefore, Chen Yue concluded that the two cavalry of Bolo and Luck Dehun had already returned, and they didn't know where to hide, just waiting for the Ming army to show their weak points, and they would pounce fiercely.

Although Chen Yue also sent many sentinels to inquire about the news of the Eight Banners, the Ming army did not have many cavalry after all, and the mobility in this plain area was far inferior to that of the Qing army.

The Qing army needs a decisive battle, and the Ming army needs a decisive battle, Chen Yue and the senior generals of the Ming army know how dangerous the situation in the Ming Dynasty is now. First of all, there is the issue of food and salary, since the dispatch of troops in November last year, Chen Yue has led the army to go out for nearly half a year, and the food and salary consumed are in the millions. Nanjing's treasury had long been hollowed out, and it was only by selling land to raise money that it could barely raise four or five million taels of silver before it could be supported. The Nanjing court had repeatedly urged to end the war as much as possible. Chen Yue knew that he couldn't delay any longer.

Moreover, the Qing army's strategy to win over the Shun army in Shaanxi has worked, and in the Ming and Qing wars, both sides could not take care of Shaanxi, which gave the Shun army an excellent opportunity to successfully occupy all parts of Shaanxi.

However, with the dilapidated Shaanxi, it was simply unable to supply the rapidly expanding army of more than 200,000. The current Shaanxi is no longer the Shaanxi of the Qin and Han dynasties, after more than a thousand years of overdevelopment, the land of Shaanxi has been very barren, and the 800-mile Qinchuan is not a country of abundance.

Therefore, for Li Guo and other generals of the Shun army, if they want to strengthen the Shun army and regain its former glory, it is necessary to go out of Shaanxi and march to the east.

And the great war between the Ming and Qing dynasties gave the Shun army an excellent opportunity to advance. Therefore, after Fan Yongdou entered Guanzhong as a businessman, he easily persuaded Li Guo and other generals of the Shun army.

So 100,000 Shun troops went out of Shaanxi, and the troops were divided into two routes, one way to cross the Yellow River east into Shanxi to attack Hedong, and the other way out of Tongguan to attack Luoyang.

Although Shanxi has been recovered, it is on the front line of confrontation with the Qing army, and Jiang Huang is leading troops to garrison Yanmen Pass, trying to counterattack Datong.

Li Jiantai, the governor of Shanxi, personally led troops to reinforce Hedong and started a big battle with the Shun army, but he was not the opponent of the Shun army at all. Puzhou, Linjin, and Anyi counties were successively captured by the Shun army, and Yuan Zongdi, the general of the Shun army, led the army to Linfen.

On the other hand, under the leadership of Li Guo, the Shun army marched out of Tongguan and entered Henan Mansion, defeated Yue Qijie, the governor of Henan, and successfully occupied Luoyang, with a tendency to attack Zhengzhou Kaifeng.

Fortunately, after Chen Yue received Fan Tianyu's report, he had already ordered Zheng Sen and Hao Shaoqi to advance to Xiangyang. Zheng Sen entered Shaanxi with 30,000 troops from Wuguan and launched an attack on Lantian, so that Li Guo had to stay in Luoyang and transfer troops to Xi'an to defend the Ming army.

Hao Shaoqi led his troops from Nanyang to Xuchang to deter the Shun army in Luoyang, so that they did not dare to look east.

But whether it is Zheng Sen or Hao Shaoqi, the strength of his troops is far inferior to that of the Shun army, which Chen Yue and the Nanjing court both know.

And now although the situation in the Ming Dynasty has improved, it is also surrounded by enemies, Fujian's Ainengqi West Thieves have not been wiped out for a long time, and the generals commanded Yinxi to attack Sichuan, and repeatedly fought with Li Dingguo's department in the area of Wanxian, losing more and winning less. (Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and other Zhang Xianzhong's righteous sons restored their original surnames after Zhang Xianzhong's death)

Shanxi, Henan was attacked by the Shun army, and Shandong, Chen Yue led more than 200,000 troops to confront the Qing soldiers. Everywhere there is a beacon fire, and the silver will be spent like flowing water, which has long been unable to support the Nanjing court. This is the main reason why Chen Yue gave up Liaocheng and marched into Linqing.

Another reason, of course, is that the time is ripe for a decisive battle. When the results of the battle of Ningyuan reached Liaocheng, and when he saw the messenger sent by Wu Ping to report the news, Chen Yue decided to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army.

On April 1, Dolgon led 50,000 Qing troops back to Linqing and set up camp twenty miles from the city.

On the same day, 30,000 cavalry led by Bolo and Luckedhun reached the west of the Linqing Canal and tried to find a place to cross the river.

In Weijiawan, 30,000 Qing cavalry came here with a large number of captured people and looted food and property, and a pontoon bridge was being built to cross the river.

The canal from Linqing to Liaocheng is more than ten zhang wide, although it is not too wide, but it is not too wide. The boats in the Linqing area were all recruited by the Ming army, but this also did not stop the Qing army, and they forced the captured carpenters to build boats, ready to use the boats as a basis, lay wooden planks, and build a pontoon bridge large enough to cross the cavalry.

When the news of the Qing army's crossing of the river reached Linqing, Chen Yue immediately sent Li Yulin with 5,000 soldiers who were proficient in water and 100 boats to attack the Qing army's crossing site.

When Li Yulin arrived at Weijiawan with the Ming army, the pontoon bridge of the Qing army was completed, and the cavalry of the Eight Banners was crossing the river with their horses.

Li Yunlin immediately ordered two fireboats to crash into the pontoon bridge. The Qing troops on the riverbank shot a continuous rain of arrows at the boats in the river. The Ming army covered it with shields, and the musketeers counterattacked back with colors.

The two fireboats crashed into the Qing pontoon bridge in flames, the impact angle of the front of the fireboat was deeply inserted into the ship carrying the pontoon, the flames were churning, the pontoon bridge was quickly ignited, and the Qing soldiers on it fled back the same way in a hurry, and many soldiers fell into the canal water in the crowd.