A great battle ended with a great victory of the Ming army and a defeat of the thief army. Not many of the 30,000 thieves were killed in the fighting, but many died from trampling and cannibalism as they fled.

Yan Yingyuan's army was too small to outflank and flank, and as a result, many thieves fled into the mountains and forests, but the captured thief army also had more than 5,000 people, which can be described as a great victory.

Yan Yingyuan also ignored these rout and fled thief army, since they were scattered, they lacked food and clothing and had few opportunities to gather again, and there was no organization of unarmed routs, and even the mountain people in the mountain villages could not be defeated, so there was no need to be afraid.

The news of the great victory here in Linjiang soon spread to Xiajiang, and the 2,000 thief troops guarding Xiajiang immediately abandoned the city and fled, Wang Cheng rushed through the Xiajiang with 20,000 troops, and successfully advanced to Linjiang and Yan Yingyuan returned to the division.

At this moment, Yan Yingyuan's army reached more than 30,000, and there were more than 3,000 grenades left by Liu Nengbu, and his courage to win a great victory suddenly increased. After discussing with Liu Neng, he immediately decided to send troops to Nanchang.

From the mouths of the captured thief officers, it was learned that most of the thieves' troops were attacking the city at the mouth of Jiujiang Lake, and there were not many thieves in Nanchang City. For the thief army under Jiujiang City, Nanchang is equivalent to their back road, and if Nanchang is defeated, it is equivalent to cutting off their back road, which will inevitably make their army confused.

However, Yan Yingyuan only has 30,000 soldiers under his command, but he has to go deep into the territory of the thief army to attack the city and plunder the land, once the thief army reacts and surrounds it on all sides, it is likely that the whole army will be annihilated! Being able to make the decision to continue to march shows Yan Yingyuan's courage.

Linjiang Mansion is an important transit station in the south of Nanchang, and all kinds of materials are available. Yan Yingyuan immediately ordered to collect a large number of ships, carrying a large amount of grain and materials, and marched along the Ganjiang River by land and water, heading towards Nanchang.

Among the 5,000 captives, the officers and bandits were all killed, and the honest ordinary soldiers were left behind and incorporated into the army. They are all ordinary people who can't survive, and they joined the thief army for stuttering, and there is no resistance to becoming officers and soldiers. The large amount of baggage materials seized from Linjiang Mansion made the Ming army improve its equipment and food treatment, and Yan Yingyuan took out a large amount of money and food as a reward, which also made the morale extremely high.

The army marched along the Ganjiang River, invincible everywhere it passed, and did not encounter any obstacle at all, Zhangshu Town, Fengcheng and other Ganjiang border towns have been recovered, in front of the overwhelming Ming army, the thieves who defended the city or fled or surrendered and did not dare to resist at all.

It is less than 200 miles from Linjiang Mansion to Nanchang, and the successive battles here will inevitably make the thief army in Nanchang frightened, and Nanchang is a big city in Jiangxi, the city is high and deep, the city wall is solid, and the population is large, and it may be difficult to easily defeat Nanchang.

In fact, although there were not many thieves left behind in Nanchang, there were more than 5,000 people, and Feng Shuangli with a small number of defeated troops also bypassed Linjiang Mansion and fled back to Nanchang first. When Yan Yingyuan and Liu Neng rushed to the city of Nanchang with a large army, they saw the scene of people and buildings with flags at the head of the city.

Although the number of 30,000 Ming troops is quite a lot, it is not enough to attack a fortified city like Nanchang. Not to mention the siege, 30,000 people are not tightly besieged.

In fact, Yan Yingyuan did not have the idea of storming Nanchang at all, but deployed all his troops in the south of Nanchang and set up a large camp near the Ganjiang River. With the army to the city of Nanchang, he has completed the task assigned to him by Chen Yue, the Duke of Qi, to contain the western thieves, and with these 30,000 people, it is not realistic to break through Nanchang.

Although he did not plan to attack the city, Yan Yingyuan still sent an army to the city of Nanchang to provoke after setting up the camp, hoping that the thief army would be able to go out of the city to fight in the last battle, and then defeat the thief army with grenades. Perhaps it was Feng Shuangli's defeat that brought back the Ming army's "Five Thunder Dafa", and the Nanchang defenders did not dare to take the initiative to fight in the face of the Ming army's provocation.

Several times he sent troops to provoke, but the thieves did not dare to go out of the city, and Yan Yingyuan had no choice but to collect his troops and return to the camp.

A map was laid out on the table, and several large tallow candles lit the tent as if it were daylight.

Yan Yingyuan and Liu Neng discussed around the map, what to do to attract more thief troops as much as possible, so as to relieve the pressure on Jiujiang City.

"Nanchang City is too strong, we don't have heavy artillery and other siege weapons, it is not feasible to fight Nanchang City, what we can do now is to bypass Nanchang and continue to attack under Jiujiang City, and attack behind the enemy." Yan Yingyuan frowned, and said slowly, bypassing Nanchang to attack Jiujiang is equivalent to completely giving up the back road and making a desperate bet, if the thief army is surrounded on all sides and waiting for these 30,000 people, I am afraid that there is only one way for the whole army to be wiped out.

"That's too risky and not advisable!" Liu Neng shook his head slowly and said, "You don't necessarily have to fight to find the thief army to contain the thief army, maybe there are other ways to contain the thief army." ”

"What else can be done?" Yan Yingyuan asked.

"There is no better poison than food. There are nearly 500,000 thieves in the two places at the mouth of Jiujiang Lake, and people eat horses and chew at least 10,000 stone of grain every day. Even if the grain is transported to the front line once a day, Wanshi grain also requires a huge convoy.

Originally, I thought that the grain of the thief army was in Nanchang, but in the past few days, we have continuously gone out of the camp to provoke, and I have also sent a lot of manpower to go around the city along the river to investigate, and I did not find that the thief army's grain transport troops appeared. This shows that the place where the thieves store grain is not in Nanchang at all, and where will it be if it is not in Nanchang? As long as we find the place where the thieves store food and burn their grain with a fire, we can completely cut off the back road of the thief army. In a few days, the thief army will be in chaos, and the 500,000 thief army will collapse without attacking! ”

Hearing Liu Neng's words, Yan Yingyuan also became excited, and hurriedly crawled to the shore of the table, looking for a possible place for the thief army to store grain. If a person does not eat for a day, he will be hungry and have no strength, and if he does not eat for three days, he will be dying, if he can really burn the food of the thief army, how many thieves will there be?

However, the two of them crouched on the map and studied for a long time, but they did not come up with a reason. Such a secret place where the thieves are stockpiling food, in fact, can be found behind closed doors?

"I feel the need to interrogate the prisoners in the camp again, and maybe I can find some clues." Yan Yingyuan frowned.

"We should also send some more spies to investigate, and look north along the Ganjiang River, maybe we can find it." Liu Neng also said.

Liu Nengzi sent spies to investigate in disguise, and Yan Yingyuan ordered the original prisoners in the camp to be interrogated, and there were three or four thousand soldiers in the camp who were captured by the original thief army, and some people may know the place where the thief army stored food.

According to a prisoner's confession, when he was in Feng Shuangli's army, he had escorted a batch of grain with the army a month ago, and the destination was not Nanchang.