Gu Jincheng didn't have time to get together with his good brother Yang Xiaolei at all, but went straight to the camp of the main general Yu Feng and told Yu Feng the news of the investigation.

Hearing that the thief army had set up a water camp on the west bank of Poyang Lake more than ten miles away, Yu Feng's brows suddenly furrowed. There was Poyang Lake between the two sides, and even if he wanted to take the initiative to attack, he couldn't cross the wide lake.

"We have to break down the bandit camp to prevent it from happening, otherwise they may reach the eastern shore of this Poyang Lake anywhere, and we will be exhausted." Gu Jincheng suggested, after all, Yu Feng's headquarters only has thousands of men and horses, and it is impossible to defend the entire east bank of Poyang Lake, and the Raozhou Mansion on the east side of Poyang Lake is also occupied by the thief army, and the thief army may also kill from the south along the land route.

"The task given to me by the Duke of Qi is to defend the mouth of the lake and defend the smooth progress of the construction of the city. The thief army on the west bank of Poyang Lake should be handed over to the water camp of the Duke of Qi to deal with. You take a boat and report to Qi Guogong. Yu Feng sighed, not being able to attack the city in person made him very unhappy.

Jiujiang was still under the occupation of the thief army, and the entire upper reaches of the Yangtze River had fallen, in order to block the Yangtze River to prevent the attack of the thief army from the upper reaches, Chen Yue's headquarters and Lü Taishui camp did not enter Poyang Lake without the mouth of the lake, but were stationed in Jiangxinzhou outside the mouth of the lake. On the basis of dozens of large ships, a strong water camp was set up. The Galen ship has hundreds of cannons, as tall as a building, and is not afraid of the attack of the Western Thief Naval Army, while most of the Western Thief Naval Army ships outside Jiujiang City have been sunk, and most of the thief troops who can attack are from Poyang Lake. The location of the water camp was only a few miles away from the mouth of the lake, and the guns on the ships were enough to cover the entire mouth of the lake.

After getting the news that Gu Jincheng had discovered, Chen Yue immediately convened everyone to discuss.

"Zhang Wenxiu is Zhang Xianzhong's righteous son, I heard that he is brave and decisive, and since he sent troops to Jiujiang to garrison Qingshan Town, he must have the intention of crossing Poyang Lake to attack the mouth of the lake." Gu Junen used to follow Li Zicheng and also knew a little about Zhang Xianzhong's subordinate generals who also belonged to the Righteous Army.

"There are only 50,000 thieves in Jiujiang, Zhang Wenxiu dares to take 30,000 people to attack Hukou, isn't he afraid that he can't defeat Hukou but loses Jiujiang City?" Lu Zhenfei asked puzzled.

"There are still 20,000 thieves stationed in Jiujiang, where can it be easily defeated. Zhang Wenxiu has already seen through the reality of our army's strength, and I am afraid that we would like to attack Jiujiang. Gu Junen sighed.

If the Ming army attacked the city, Zhang Wenxiu would definitely wave his army to counterattack from Qingshan Town, and attack inside and outside Jiujiang City, which was very unfavorable to the Ming army. Lu Zhenfei nodded, agreeing with Gu Junen's judgment.

"Our army in Hukou is only more than 50,000 people, most of them are Beijing battalion soldiers who are used to build cities, and I am afraid that they are not as good as the thief army in terms of combat experience and combat effectiveness, after all, the thief army has been fighting for a long time and is extremely experienced. When the construction of the city at the mouth of the lake was not completed, if Zhang Wenxiu really crossed the lake to attack, only a few thousand troops of General Yu Feng might not be able to stop the thief army. Even if they can't beat the mouth of the lake, it will seriously affect the speed of our construction of the fortress, and once the thief chief Zhang Xianzhong comes over with the main force, the situation will not be good. His subordinates suggested that Guogong should send a fleet to attack the thief army's water village and thwart the thief's plot! ”

Gu Junen solemnly suggested to Chen Yue.

"That's all there is to it." Chen Yue nodded and said, the most important thing for the Ming army now is to gain time and build the fortress as soon as possible, and there is no way to hide the strength of the sailor at this time.

"Since they are fighting, the first battle will completely scare the thief army, and before Zhang Xianzhong's main force arrives, they will no longer dare to touch Hukou's mind!" Chen Yue said in a deep voice, "In this battle, the naval division is commanded by Jin Xin, using the newly developed flowering bomb of the Ordnance Division, all five Galen ships will be launched, and they will launch an all-out attack on the thief camp early tomorrow morning, and order Li Yi to lead a thousand personal guard battalions, and then transfer 10,000 Beijing battalion soldiers, and go ashore from the west side of the lake early tomorrow morning, directly between Qingshan Town and Jiujiang, and cut off the retreat of Zhang Wenxiu's thief army!" ”

The five Galen ships all moved, and this was about to be moved, and the generals immediately lifted their spirits, received orders in unison, and each went to make preparations.

In this battle, the main fleet, Chen Yue's personal guard battalion, Lu Tai's naval army, and the Beijing battalion were all used, except for Yu Feng leading the headquarters to garrison Hukou City, most of the Beijing battalion soldiers were still building the city, and all the troops were put to use, which showed that the strength was stretched. If you can't build the fortress of Hukou City in time, once Zhang Xianzhong's hundreds of thousands of troops come to attack, how difficult it will be to defeat the thief army!

......

No matter how small a battle is, it takes a certain amount of time to prepare from planning to preparation to launching an attack.

Chen Yue's subordinates are well-trained, as long as there is an order, they can be pulled into the battlefield in a short time, but Lu Tai's Dinghai soldiers are not good, except for Lu Tai's two thousand relatives, the others are the former Dinghai households, although Lu Tai has packed them up well for most of the past half a year, and can do the order and prohibition, but how can the combat effectiveness be improved in a short time? Not to mention the usual lazy Jingying.

Therefore, the attack of the Ming army that Zhang Wenxiu had been waiting for did not happen until the night, and even at night, Zhang Wenxiu ordered half of the soldiers to prepare and guard against the attack of the Ming army at all times, but the whole lake was very calm, and the Ming army did not come at all.

The lake ten miles opposite Qingshan Town is under the jurisdiction of Hukou County, and when Zhang Wenxiu was camping, he sent a boat across the lake to find out the movements of the army.

Poyang Lake is vast, and it is not easy to find a small boat, so the sentinel boat sent by Zhang Wenxiu arrived safely on the opposite shore and approached to observe the movement at the mouth of the lake.

When he learned that the Ming army was building and reinforcing the city wall of Hukou County, Zhang Wenxiu immediately judged the Ming army's intentions. I am afraid that the Ming army did not plan to attack Jiujiang City at all, but to take Hukou County as the foundation, firmly control Hukou and trap the main force of the Great Western Army in Jiangxi. Next, I am afraid that the Ming army from all over the country will continue to come to Hukou, and this is the place of the decisive battle between the Western Ming!

Thinking about it, the Great Western Army and the Shun Army took advantage of the winter season of Layue to send troops together, which completely caught the Ming army by surprise. The Ming army had just experienced the failure of the Northern Expedition, and the Ming army in Huguang was completely annihilated, and it was not so easy to mobilize enough troops, so they planned to block Hukou. Otherwise, when the Western Army completely conquered Jiangxi and went down the river, the Ming army would not be able to resist it at all.

Now that he has judged the intentions of the Ming army, Zhang Wenxiu naturally will not let the Ming army succeed. As soon as he decided that the day was dawning, he led his army to the eastern shore of Poyang Lake and tried to prevent the Ming army from building the city.

Maybe with these 30,000 troops in his hands, he can't defeat the Ming army and recapture Hukou, but at least he can contain them, and when his father Zhang Xianzhong leads the army back to Jiujiang, it will be the end of this group of Ming troops!