Unlike the Western Army's vigorous advance in Huguang Jiangxi, the Shun Army's strategy in the northern part of Huguang was not very smooth.

He Tengjiao, the governor of Huguang, destroyed Jingzhou with an army of 200,000 troops, so that there were almost no available troops in the south of Huguang, and Zhang Xianzhong's troops in Sichuan amounted to 300,000 people, most of whom were young and elite, so they made such earth-shaking movements.

In the north of Huguang conquered by the Shun army, there were still two Ming armies, one was the Zheng army of Zheng Sen, the governor of Xiangyang, although the strength was only more than 30,000, but it was an elite division with sharp armor, which was originally transferred from Jiujiang to Xiangyang to resist the possible southern invasion of the Manchu Qing after the failure of the Northern Expedition, but now it has become a great resistance for the Shun army to go north.

On the other side was the army led by Hao Shaoqi, a traitor to Dashun. Jingzhou was lost, Hao Shaoqi decisively abandoned He Tengjiao, who was under siege, led the troops to flee Jingzhou, crossed the Han River to Chengtianfu, and confronted the Shun army across the Han River. Although Hao Shaoqi was defeated in Jingzhou, he still had 40,000 troops under his command, and his strength should not be underestimated, and the Shun army would be helpless against him for a while and a half.

Although the total number of the Shun army is as high as 1340,000, it includes the family members who accompany the army, and after leaving the old and weak women and children, there are more than 60,000 troops that can really be used to fight, and they belong to Li Guo, Yuan Zongdi, Gao Yigong, Bai Wang, He Zhen, Tian Jianxiu, and Liu Tichun.

Although Li Zicheng's younger brother Li Zijing was appointed as the emperor of Dashun, no one among the generals took this emperor seriously, but regarded him as a puppet of the general Li Guo. Li Zijing can't even speak well on weekdays, so what majesty can he have? Naturally, he does not have the ability to command the generals. Therefore, the generals of the Shun army are nominally subordinate to the first army, but in fact, the generals all go their own way, regard the army as their own forbidden territory, and do not allow others to get involved at all, even in the name of the Great Shun Emperor.

In the first battle of Jingzhou, he fought hard with Hao Shaoqi in the ice and snow for more than half a month, and the soldiers of the Shun army suffered heavy casualties, and they had no capital to fight again. Therefore, when Zhang Xianzhong and Zhang Dingguo led the Great Western Army to attack the city and plunder the land in the west of Huguang River, the Shun army was hiding in Jingzhou Mansion and recuperating from its wounds, and only occupied Jingmen, Chuyang Prefecture, and Jiangling Prefecture.

Fortunately, the defeat of Jingzhou in the confluence of Shunxi caused a great earthquake in the entire Ming Dynasty, and Hao Shaoqi and Zheng Sen did not dare to rashly attack the Shun army, for fear that he would be burned.

After resting in Jingzhou for more than a month, the Shun army relieved itself, plundered the gentry and rich households, conscripted the poor into the army, and restored the number of capable troops to 100,000.

Then, Li Guo summoned the generals and began to discuss the next move. At this time, the Shun army was entrenched in the area north of the Yangtze River, west of the Han River, and south of Xiangyang. In addition to Li Guo leading more than 20,000 people from his headquarters to sit in Jiangling, the capital city of Jingzhou, Yuan Zongdi and other generals each took their headquarters to be stationed in other states and counties, each with its own territory.

If the Shun army wants to develop and grow, it naturally cannot be confined to the narrow land of Jingzhou, and must develop north and enter the Central Plains of Henan.

The Shun army is developing and growing in the Central Plains, and has a broad mass base in the north, and now the Ming Dynasty is unable to control the north, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty has just experienced a major defeat, the strength has been seriously damaged, the myth of the invincibility of the Eight Banners has been shattered, and the Qing court is full of contradictions, and the frequent uprisings of the people in Shandong and Hebei have made the Qing court tired to deal with. So now is a godsend opportunity to develop northward, attack the Central Plains and even return to his hometown in Shaanxi.

And to enter the Central Plains, in front of the Shun army is Zheng Sen's Xiangyang army, which must capture Xiangyang before the Shun army can enter the north with the sky high and the sea wide.

Of course, the Shun army can also choose to attack Hao Shaoqi's department to the east and attack Chengtianfu and De'an Mansion. However, from Chengtian De'an to the north, there is a thousand miles of Tongbai Mountain Dabie Mountain, and it is impossible to enter the Central Plains at all. From Chengtianfu to the southeast is Hanyang Jiujiang, which is the direction of the Western Army's advance. Long before the attack on Jingzhou in Sichuan, Li Guo and Zhang Dingguo had agreed that the entire south of the Yangtze River was the territory of the Western Army's strategy, and the north was the direction of the development of the Shun Army.

Therefore, it is imperative to attack Xiangyang!

In the two months of rest, the Shun army was not idle, and Li sent many detailed works to Xiangyang, basically finding out the strength of the Xiangyang Ming army. It was known that the person guarding Xiangyang was a young man in his twenties named Zheng Sen, who had more than 30,000 troops under his command.

The Ming army in Xiangyang only has more than 30,000, while the Shun army has nearly 100,000 troops to fight, and against the Ming army, the Shun army has a natural psychological advantage, after all, they once broke through the Ming Dynasty's Beijing division and almost destroyed the Ming Dynasty. In recent years, the Shun army has won victories in the face of the Ming army, even when it was a big retreat, the Ming general Zuo Liangyu had hundreds of thousands of troops and did not dare to stop the Shun army.

Therefore, for the defeat of Xiangyang, the generals of the Shun army do not think how difficult it is.

After discussion, it was decided to send 70,000 troops to attack Xiangyang, leaving 20,000 or 30,000 troops to garrison Jingzhou to prevent a possible attack by Hao Shaoqi's troops.

Leaving Gao Yigong Tian Jianxiu to garrison Jiangling Chuyang Prefecture, Li Guo and other generals all went out to attack Xiangyang.

Attacking Xiangyang from Jingzhou, if you don't attack by Hanshui waterway, you can only take Jingmen as a path, because the west of Jingzhou is a continuous mountain range, Jingshan Wudang Mountain and Dongchuan mountains are connected.

For the Shun army, although Jingzhou, which occupied the river, there was no sailor, because Jingzhou's ships had long been swept away by the Western army.

Fortunately, Li Guo's strategic sense was not bad, and as soon as he captured Jingzhou, he quickly sent troops to capture Jingmen, which made the road to Xiangyang unimpeded.

At the beginning of March of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Guo, Yuan Zong, and other generals of the Shun army led 70,000 troops to attack Xiangyang Mansion through Jingmen Prefecture, and successively occupied the counties of Zhanggucheng in the south of Yicheng, and approached Xiangyang City from the southwest.

Zheng Sen, the governor of Xiangyang in the Ming Dynasty, tried to lead his troops to counterattack the Shun army at first, but was defeated by the Shun army in Yicheng, losing thousands of soldiers, and withdrew to Xiangyang City by relying on Zheng Hongkuishui's division from Hanshui.

Although the Zheng Jiajun is sharp and elite, and its naval warships dominate the southeast, its infantry is only a few, not much stronger than other Ming armies, and it does not have the rich combat experience of the Shun army that has been crisscrossing the Central Plains for many years.

After winning the first battle, the Shun army began to attack Xiangyang City, but in front of Xiangyang City, which was high and deep, it was bloodied.

Xiangyang in the Ming Dynasty, the northeast two sides are surrounded by the Han River, although it is not as perverted as the Xiangyang City in the Southern Song Dynasty, but the city wall is as high as more than three zhang, the moat is wide and more than ten zhang, and it communicates with the Han River. There were as many as 30,000 Ming troops in Xiangyang, and Zheng Hongkui's fleet of sailors was still cruising in the Han River, so the Shun army could not besiege Xiangyang to death, nor could it cut off the moat to divert the moat water. So it's really hard to capture Xiangyang.

Throughout March, the Shun army and the Ming army were in a tug of war in Xiangyang Mansion, the Shun army could not break through Xiangyang and enter Nanyang, and the Ming army could not go out of the city to defeat the Shun army, and the situation was so anxious.