Thirty miles from Tianjin, an even larger army was on the march, the main force of the Ming army led by Chen Yue, the king of Qi.

After sending a large number of troops to occupy Beizhili and the prefectures and counties of Shandong, Chen Yue still had 100,000 troops in his hands, and these 100,000 troops were the most elite troops.

Starting from Linqing, the army marched in two ways, one along the canal by land and water, and the other through Baoding between the rivers to the north, the two armies were more than 30 miles apart, marching hand in hand, gathering in Tongzhou.

As we all know, the larger the number of troops, the slower the marching speed, so in ancient battles, it was a common strategy to divide troops and advance at the same time. Of course, although the Qing army was defeated, there were still tens of thousands of troops, Chen Yue did not dare to divide it more carefully, but it was divided into two roads, but the two armies each had forty or fifty thousand people, which was absolutely impossible for the current Qing army.

Because the East Route Army marched along the canal, it could use cao boats to load grain and baggage, and the marching speed was relatively fast, only dozens of miles behind the Jinxin Department who attacked the city all the way.

On the way to the march, he received good news from Jin Xin all the way, and Chen Yue was very happy in his heart.

"Jin Xin, this guy is really desperate." When the news of the capture of Tianjin came, Chen Yue couldn't help but smile. However, while being happy, there was also a faint worry in his heart, along the way, the Qing army completely gave up too many cities, and the march was too smooth, which made Chen Yue a little worried, worried about whether the Qing army had any conspiracy.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for the news that Jin Xinbu was attacked by the Qing cavalry and lost more than 1,000 soldiers. Chen Yue immediately ordered the army to speed up and join Jin Xinbu.

A day later, he finally caught up with Jin Xinbu, and Jin Xin pleaded guilty to Chen Yue with a sad face.

"Lord Wang, there are about 5,000 cavalry in the Qing army, and the last general has no cavalry in his hands, so there is no way to take them." Jin Xin's face turned red.

Chen Yue nodded: "Although the Qing army is defeated, there are still tens of thousands of troops and tens of thousands of cavalry, which should not be underestimated. But it's impossible to sneak up on us again! ”

Unlike Jin Xinbu, who did not have cavalry, Chen Yue had cavalry in his hands, Yu Feng's 1,000 cavalry battalion plus Wu Sangui's 2,000 Guanning iron cavalry, and a total of 3,000 cavalry in his hands.

The two armies were combined into one, with as many as 70,000 troops, and 3,000 cavalry to guard the flanks, so they were not afraid of the Qing cavalry attack at all, and the speed of the march increased.

From Tianjin to Beijing 260 li, a normal march takes at least six days, and for an army of tens of thousands of people, 40 li a day is already the limit.

The army had breakfast every morning, and it was already mid-morning when the camp was set out, and the march had to be set up in the middle of the afternoon, and the time for setting up camp and pulling out the camp took several hours, and it was not possible to get up quickly.

Jin Xin was unprepared because he marched too fast, so he was successfully attacked by the Qing cavalry.

In the next few days, Luck Dehun and the Eight Banners cavalry tried to sneak attack many times, but the Ming army was very well guarded and could not succeed. Yu Feng and Wu Sangui led the cavalry and the Qing cavalry to fight fiercely for several times, and both sides suffered damage.

Unwilling to suffer too heavy losses among his subordinates, Luck Dehun always retreated in every battle, and was not willing to fight a decisive battle with the Ming cavalry at all.

However, under the repeated harassment of the Qing cavalry, the Ming army's march speed could not be too fast, and more importantly, under the blockade of the Qing cavalry, they knew nothing about Beijing.

After camping this night, Chen Yue summoned Zhang Huangyan and other staff officers to discuss, guessing the current movements of the Manchu court.

According to General Jin Xin's battle report, when attacking Tianjin Wei, there were three or four thousand soldiers of the Qing army guarding the city, and five thousand cavalry roaming outside Tianjin.

However, the Qing cavalry did not do this, but abandoned the Tianjin Guard. What does this mean? Zhang Huangyan analyzed, "This shows that the generals of the Qing army have no intention of fighting with us at all, let alone caring about various cities." So what exactly are they trying to do? ”

"Do you want to concentrate your forces on Beijing and fight us in Beijing?" A staff officer said.

Zhang Huangyan shook his head: "The strength of the Qing army is far inferior to ours, if it defends Beijing, we will mobilize more troops to attack the city." There are hundreds of thousands of Manchu Qing people in Beijing, if they are defeated, the entire Manchu Qing will be finished, how dare they fight with us in this case? ”

"They don't want to fight with us, but thousands of Qing cavalry are constantly harassing, what do they want to do? I see, they are retreating, they are retreating from the city of Beijing to Guanwai, so they keep harassing us and preventing us from marching to buy more time for them to retreat! The staff officer exclaimed.

Chen Yue and Zhang Huangyan looked at each other and smiled, this is probably the purpose of the Manchu cavalry!

"Ladies and gentlemen, in which direction will the Manchu retreat from Beijing come out?" Chen Yue asked with a smile.

"Needless to say, General Wu Ping occupied Ningyuan and stuck the western Liaoning corridor, and the Manchu Qing must have gone north from Beijing to Jizhou, and retreated over the border wall from Gubeikou and Qingshikou to Guanwai." The staff officer laughed.

"What do you think?" Chen Yue asked Zhang Huangyan with a smile.

Zhang Huangyan thought about it carefully and shook his head slowly: "My subordinates don't see it that way. Perhaps, the Manchu court would choose to leave the Shanhaiguan and withdraw to the outside of the customs through Liaoxi. ”

"How is that possible? Ning Yuan can be in our hands, General Wu Ping has more than 20,000 troops in his hands, how can the Qing army pass? A staff officer retorted.

Zhang Huang said: "Nothing is impossible. There were not hundreds of thousands of troops in Beijing, but hundreds of thousands of old and weak women and children in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. It seems easy to cross the border wall from Jizhou, but first to cross the Yanshan Mountains, hundreds of miles of mountain roads are not easy for Manchu women, children, old and weak. It didn't take long to enter the Mongolian steppe, and you had to continue to climb over the mountains to reach the outside of the pass. How long will it take for these hundreds of thousands of women and children to walk through a journey of one or two thousand miles?

The western Liaoning corridor is flat and the road is much closer, which is the most suitable path for marching. ”

"But don't forget, Ning Yuan is in our hands! It's not so easy for the Qing army to defeat Ning Yuan, right? The staff officer sneered.

Zhang Huangyan shook his head: "The current strength of the Manchu Qing should still be thirty or forty thousand, and the strength is much stronger than Ningyuan's Wu Ping army." In a frontal battle, General Wu Ping had no chance of winning. And the Manchu Qing Dynasty had a large number of cavalry with strong machine power, and it was impossible for General Wu Ping to sneak attack. Therefore, as long as the main force of the Qing army is forced outside the city of Ningyuan, forcing our army not to dare to go out of the city, their people can naturally easily pass through Ningyuan from the field. The western Liaoning corridor is twenty or thirty miles wide, how much space does Ningyuan City occupy? ”

Chen Yue had to admit that Zhang Huangyan's analysis was very reasonable, and the Qing army might really retreat from Liaoxi.

Since the direction of the Manchu retreat was determined, there was no need for the army to go to Beijing.

Chen Yue immediately ordered to send someone to Li Yi, who led the Left Route Army, to give an order, ordering him to continue to march to Beijing to recover Beijing. Chen Yue himself led the army to the east and headed towards Shanhaiguan.