In the afternoon of the same day, the vanguard army of Hongtang surrounded the east and north gates of Jinan Mansion, and in front of the Ming Dynasty army garrison on the city, they built a defensive line five miles outside the city, without worrying that the other side would take the opportunity to make any military counterattack.

Of course, the army in the city of Jinan of the Ming army did not send an army, and just watched the Hongtang army slowly build up official affairs under their noses.

"Hmph, count them as acquaintances!"

Under the city, Zhang Bao, the commander of the 1st Regiment of the 2nd Division of the 3rd Army of Hongtang, had blazing eyes, staring at the movement of the high wall in front of him, while following his companions without stopping, digging trenches.

"If they don't send troops to harass us, Lao Tzu will let them come and go!"

"People are not stupid!"

Feng Zheng, the deputy head of Zhang Bao's partner on the side, glanced at Zhang Bao and squeezed him angrily.

Don't look at the fact that there are only 20,000 or 30,000 people pressed into Jinan City by Hongtang's army, and the number of Ming troops in the city is even less, but they are not worried that they will suffer losses because of this, and everyone is fully sure to take Jinan City.

The army of the Ming Dynasty also has enough self-awareness, although there are many generals and generals below the governor of Gong Jilan, who are in charge of the battle and have a tough attitude, but no one proposes to act as a vanguard to harass the army under the city.

In several battles, even if they had an absolute advantage and a first move, the Ming Dynasty army failed to please in front of the Hongtang army, so that the Ming Dynasty generals had enough understanding of the gap between the two sides.

In addition, the dozens of Hongtang warships that were freed up on the river, eyeing their city, and the huge artillery in the telescope with the dark hole pointed to the location of their own city, just observing it had already made the Ming generals in the city feel deep pressure.

"Rest today, wait until the officers and men of the 1st Division in the rear have finished resting and returning, and start the attack early tomorrow morning."

By the evening, the defensive line of Hongtang's army was almost completed, and most of the artillery positions were also in place, and even the gunners were already at their posts, just waiting for the order from above to arrive, and they began to move.

"Send someone to talk to the commander of the naval division, and shout that they will cooperate with our attack and launch an attack on Jinan City with our army after dawn tomorrow."

"Yes!"

Kong Youde They certainly have a strong confidence in the capture of Jinan Mansion, but they will not make the mistake of underestimating the enemy before, in the information sent by the foreign guards, the Ming Dynasty government has sent 100,000 reinforcements to Shandong Province, and at this time it has reached the territory of Anhui, and it is still more than half a month away from Jinan Mansion in Shandong at most.

That is to say, Kong Youde's army attacked Jinan Mansion for more than half a month, if they failed to take Jinan Mansion before the arrival of Ming reinforcements, then for their Hongtang army, which is now only more than 40,000, the pressure on them will be great.

No matter how poor the quality of the Ming Dynasty army is, with the support of a huge number, even if the officers and soldiers of the Third Army of Hongtang can defeat this Ming army in the end, their own losses will inevitably be extremely heavy.

Although Kong Youde's Third Army has a number of 100,000, but until now his army has never been full, and now he has crossed the river to the south to face 50,000 troops, which is already the vast majority of the elite of his Third Army, and there are more than 10,000 relatively old and weak troops stationed in their defense area.

On the other hand, the official of the Ming Dynasty, although half of the country has now fallen into the hands of Hongmen, but the richest and most populated Jiangnan region has always been relatively peaceful, and has not experienced any twists and turns.

When the Ming Dynasty faced a life-and-death situation, even if the Ming Dynasty government did its best to recruit many strong men from the south of the Yangtze River to join the army, they could continue to send countless people and strong men to join the army in a short period of time to maintain their rule.

At least in this regard, the Ming Dynasty government had a future business development for the northern land that Hongmen did not have, and the upper echelons of Hongmen really couldn't make radical moves, so it was reasonable to be at a disadvantage.

It is with such self-knowledge that Kong Youde formulated a strategy at the beginning of the war, which was to complete the rapid operation against Shandong Province as quickly as possible at the beginning at any cost, so as to eradicate the local forces in Shandong before the Ming Dynasty military support arrived, and then move according to the response of the Ming Dynasty military later.

Therefore, Kong Youde asked the naval fleet to join the ship-based artillery, which means that Jinan Mansion will be completely shrouded in a rain of steel bullets, and in the end it will even become a ruin, in which the living people and the army will suffer extremely heavy losses.

"The first and second divisions are ready for battle, and at the same time, all divisions and headquarters will integrate all the doctors, and the military must be fully prepared."

"By the way, let the water master recruit all their hand medicine and healers!"

The deputy commander did not forget to add some details of Kong Youde's loss, although their army was going to fight freely in the future, but they were still unwilling to sacrifice the interests of the common people too much and let them suffer too much damage unless they had to.

"At the gates of the south and west of the city, don't send a team to encircle it for the time being, after the battle starts, as long as it is not a large number of Ming Dynasty routs, the general people flee, let them go!"

"Yes!"

It seems to be calm outside the city, but inside the city is too cold.

"My lord, you should evacuate out of the city first!"

In the governor's yamen, Gong Jilan, the governor of Shandong, was being persuaded by his henchmen to try to get him to withdraw from here.

To tell the truth, Ai Zhenxiong and other generals are not optimistic about the results of the next battle: first, it is naturally because of the number of soldiers stationed in Jinan Fuzhong, which is not too different from the Hongtang army, and they are really not the opponents of the Hongtang army in terms of real combat strength; Second, on the surface of the Yellow River a few miles away, the rows of Hongtang naval warships, dense artillery fire, made the two or three zhang thick hard city wall of Jinan Mansion City become an ornament, and no one can know how long it can last in the future.

Of course, in the selfish hearts of the generals of all parties, they naturally hoped that after Gong Jilan withdrew from Jinan Mansion, when their generals could not hold on to Jinan Mansion City in the future, they would be able to retreat to Jining, Linyi and other rear areas with peace of mind.

If Gong Jilan was still holding on to the Jinan Mansion at this time, with him as the commander, who would dare to commit a crime against the wind, and run away in a hurry at the risk of being beheaded by Gong Jilan!