Good things don't go out, but bad things spread thousands of miles. From Jingzhou to Hanyang City, as long as they saw the banners of the Kuidong Army, they obediently opened the city gates, and the big households in the city sent the food, wine and meat of the labor army, and some of the officials surrendered, while others fled north.

When the Kuidong army relied on violence to defeat the victory, the Zheng army faced a huge crisis: Zhejiang, Jiangxi Luying from the direction of Huizhou Mansion and Ningguo Mansion met Yue Le under Wuhu City. Encounter with the main force of the Zheng army. And Ao Bai also got a notice of "demoting three levels and still receiving his original position", and took the patchwork of 40,000 troops to the west to conquer Tianchang County. Bypassing the heavily armed Yangzhou area, it entered Liuhe County on the north bank of the Yangtze River. These two counties have not experienced any war, and the soldiers under Aobai are well fed, and the horses are also fed.

At the end of July, Zhang Huangyan got a huge supply of 100,000 taels of silver, 100,000 stone grain and 4,000 flintlock pistols in one go, and commanded more than 60,000 people in five battalions under the Zheng Army's West Road Army.

In the north, Gan Hui once again shouldered the heavy responsibility of defending against Aobai, and of course, the nominal supreme commander was Zheng Xi. Since the end of July, the Zheng family has been transporting boats of various materials out of Nanjing by sea: grain, gunpowder, craftsmen, building materials... Although Zhu Chenggong thought that he had a sixty percent chance of winning these two battles, what if he ran into those forty percent?

The Qing court did not have clairvoyance, let alone drones, and did not know that Zhu Chenggong had been "frightened" to prepare to return home, and was still immersed in the grief of every household approving hemp and every family wearing filial piety. Of the 40,000 banners that went out in battle, more than 3,000 ashes and corpses were sent back alone, and nearly 7,000 casualties were reported. As a last resort, Shunzhi personally sent the guards around him to stand guard for Fan Wencheng, lest Fan Wencheng be shot to death by a certain mentally ill Eight Banners disciple with a clear bow. Of course, this also has the effect of monitoring Fan Wencheng. Fan Wencheng himself also closed his door all day, and the servants who bought food also came out of a separate house.

After the defeat under the city of Yangzhou, the Qing army's field forces in the north suffered great losses, if it loses again, the only field troops in the north that can mobilize more than 10,000 people are Gyeonggi and Liaodong (of which Liaodong also has to recruit Yu Ding), if the Zheng army marches north along the canal...

There was another panic in the city of Shuntianfu, and the price of grain gradually rose from about one stone to two taels, and even in the summer when the calorie consumption was relatively small, there was starvation.

If the Manchus were a giant, then the canal was the throat of the Manchus. The Manchus had been choked for a long time and had to devote all their strength to relieving the siege. One day at the end of July, a fast horse galloped into the city of Nanjing, and suddenly the horse stumbled and fell.

The rider didn't care about the pain, spread his legs and ran forward, and hurriedly handed a bamboo tube to the yamen.

The silk in the bamboo tube is only a few lines of words: "A large number of soldiers and horses in Jiangxi are mobilized, according to secret reports, the puppet king of Pingnan in the east, and the general of Duoning is still happy to lead tens of thousands of troops, and go down the Ganjiang River, and at most 15 days can be combined in one place!" ”

After the defeat in the Battle of Yangzhou, the Qing court appointed Shang Kexi as the "general of the city", which means literally: to recapture Jiangning (Nanjing), what Zhu Chenggong did not know was that in order to encircle the only field force in the south that could compete with him, the Qing court offered Shang Kexi the price of the prince of Zhennan, and almost wrote "Yongzhen Guangdong".

"Fifteen days, fifteen days...?" When Zhu Chenggong heard the news, his temper came up again, "This is still gratifying, it's not as good as me, a Haikou, who knows loyalty, he is a prince, and Lone is also a prince, I want to see how the veteran treats the veteran?" ”

Hearing that Zhu Chenggong was going to play in person, no matter which faction the people made the choice to dissuade, if His Royal Highness King Min made any mistakes, we would all have to finish the game! Except for him, no one can unite the hundreds of thousands of troops with uneven strength and force ratio into a whole.

"Lord Wang..."

"No, no! I don't believe it, Shang Kexi is afraid that those broken ships, our army can be smashed when they collide, and they dare to transport troops by water, Shang Kexi is afraid that he is not old and confused? I want to enter Poyang Lake and personally grab Shang Kexi's old immortal neck and ask for guilt! Your Majesty has arrested the puppet King of Pingxi, and I have also arrested a King of Pingnan! Zhu Chenggong blushed and had a thick neck, so he almost did it directly to his own person.

"The prince almost made a move just now, and it looks like he can't get angry for a while, so let's wait for the anger to subside before persuading..."

Hearing this, the two sides did not deal with each other at the same time, and at the same time, they drooped their heads, and sat on one side and sulked. Feng Xifan was annoyed when he saw Zheng Xi's small circle, in his eyes, it is a matter of course for the father to die and the son to succeed, when the elder brother has a son, but you come over and want to take the throne, who knows if you will be able to make a candle shadow axe? Besides, your master has gone out to fight, so why are you still here? Thinking of these heart-wrenching things, Feng Xifan pulled out his legs and left.

"During this time, unless it's those few, everyone else will be closed!" Feng Xifan was angry and said to his servants that as a soldier in Nanjing, many big families had to deal with him, and while fishing for oil and water, he also leaked some military news intentionally or unintentionally. However, this was the case with the military at this time, and it was fundamentally transparent compared to the secrecy system of later generations.

"Oh, by the way, if they take more than thirty taels of door bags at a time, let them in and see how many are willing." Feng Xifan doesn't think that he is insatiable, the war is imminent, the price of rice in Nanjing is soaring, and he will not be able to catch up with the speed of rice price increase by raising the price, right?

In the next few days, Feng Xifan shrank in this big mansion personally rewarded by the king of Min and no longer went to the yamen to work. After arriving in Nanjing, the heads and brains of Zhu Chenggong's group all lived in small western-style buildings, ahh Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

On the third day, the Min Wangfu sent a eunuch to knock on the door, saying that he would summon himself into the door tomorrow to discuss matters, and rewarded a door bag just to send the eunuch away, and a sneaky young man came to knock on the door.

……

Looking at this secret letter written to him by Zheng Jing, Feng Xifan covered his face and didn't know what to say.

"Son, son... Do you still remember the pseudo-prince case in the Hongguang period, let's not talk about how this thing can be taken seriously, even if it is true, but this groundless thing, how can we prove it... Do you want to arrest the sons of Huang Zhao and those people for interrogation? ”

"Balance, balance..."Feng Xifan thought silently in his heart, any relatively stable political situation is the result of the balance of forces of all parties in the current situation, if such an empty reason can prompt Zhu Chenggong to attack his opponent, wouldn't that be equivalent to cultivating Zheng Jing's power? Alas, the son of the world, it is better to do less!

Feng Xifan smiled wryly at the secret letter, put the letter on the candle and lit a corner, watching the paper being gradually swallowed up by the flames in the world.

(End of chapter)