Zheng Sen guessed that Zuo Liangyu's father and son would definitely compromise, the reason is very simple, in history, Zuo Liangyu was a bully who was afraid of the hard. Later, he took advantage of the case of the prince from the south to do something on the side of the Qing monarch, in fact, it was not because he had political ambitions and wanted to take this opportunity to control the government, but because he saw Li Zicheng's army going south to Xiangyang, and it seemed that he wanted to come to Wuchang. Although at that time, Li Zicheng had already hit a bag in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the elite suffered a lot of losses, and he almost became a lost dog. But Zuo Liangyu still didn't dare to fight with Li Zicheng, the so-called "Qingjun side" was not necessarily to compete for power, but more to avoid Li Zicheng's soldiers.

As for Zuo Mengeng, it is even more useless waste, after Zuo Liangyu's death, Zuo Mengeng with hundreds of thousands of troops, was blocked by Huang Degong in Jiujiang, and then the Manchu army forced up, Zuo Mengeng didn't say that he would do it with the Manchus, and he didn't even dare to mention the conditions, so he directly surrendered to the Manchus with hundreds of thousands of people. Generally speaking, like the kind of army leader who led his troops to surrender, if he controlled his subordinates well, the Manchus generally let him bring his own army and fight with the Manchus. For example, Wu Sangui, such as Li Chengdong, who later went anyway, or something. It's not that the Manchus are angry or reassuring them, it's just that the situation is moving so fast that there's no time to play with regrouping or anything like that. So what happened after Zuo Mengeng surrendered? The Manchu Qing directly asked the army leaders below him to lead the soldiers to fight with the Manchu Qing, as for him, he was directly raised, and Zuo Mengeng did not resist or complain. What can such a person make trouble?

Now that he had already decided that Zuo Liangyu's father and son would not make any trouble, Zheng Sen left all the negotiations with them to Kong Zhang, and he focused on preparing for the battle with Li Zicheng.

"According to our intelligence, after Li Zicheng captured Hankou and Hanyang, he set fire to most of the original docks and burned them down, probably because they were worried that we would use them in the future. However, as we all know, the effect of this is very limited, and it will not take much time to rebuild these docks. However, we also got information that Li Zicheng had sunk a lot of stones in the Han River, and they wanted to use artificial reefs to block the channel of the Han River. At the intelligence briefing, Xiao Gongchen, who was in charge of intelligence work in the Huguang area, was briefing on the situation.

"Wait a minute, can you explain this situation more carefully? For example, how big of a stone did the enemy use, how did it sink it, and how much did it sink, I don't know if it was discovered? An officer asked.

"Captain Huang, as far as we know, Li Zicheng used a bamboo basket to carry large and small gravel or bricks to sink, and the bricks used were all demolished in Hanyang, Hankou. It is said that the army has demolished most of the brick houses in Hankou these days. They used bamboo ropes to connect these bamboo baskets together, and then sank them together, so although it was a basket of gravel, the effect was not much different from that of a large stone. It's not easy to get them away. As for the location, we drew a few pictures in the inner line and passed them on, but they may not be comprehensive, and he is not as good as you, and has received drawing training, so the drawings he draws may not be accurate, and he can only see a rough idea. However, according to him, as long as you are careful, do not sail at night, and during the day, if you look carefully at the waves, you can see where there are stones. ”

The Captain Huang nodded, no longer asking anything, but took a charcoal pen and wrote and drew in his small notebook. Xiao Gongchen continued to introduce what he knew.

Li Zicheng has recently built a number of small forts along the Han River. Here's a map with red triangles that our people have verified, and some red circles that we've provided from our insiders, but we haven't verified yet. Most of these forts are built on the basis of some abandoned deserted villages in the local area, and the materials used to build them are all taken from those deserted villages, and there are not many garrisons stationed, basically there are only a dozen to dozens of people in each place......"

"Wait, that sounds like a beacon?" Gan Hui said.

"It's quite similar, and it's the kind of shoddy beacon." Xiao Gongchen replied, "However, according to our inner line, these fortresses are not beacon towers, but support points for the enemy cavalry. The enemy estimated that our army would move north along the Han River, so they used artificial reefs to prevent our troops from using the river to transport supplies. In this way, our army can only transport supplies by land, along official roads. There are two roads from Hankou to Xiangyang, the nearest one goes to Jingshan, about six or seven hundred miles, and there is a mountain road in the middle, which is not easy to walk. The far one is the road along the Han River, about eight or nine hundred miles. The enemy fought with our army, suffered several defeats in a row, and now has no courage to confront our army head-on in the field. Therefore, the enemy intends to rely on the fortified city while harassing the overland supply lines in our rear with cavalry. In this way, we will force our army to retreat. These small forts were used to support the invading cavalry who harassed our supply lines. ”

"Even the cavalry of the thieves wants to cut off our supply lines? Do you really think that our logistics troops are not soldiers? Although it was at the meeting, Gan Hui couldn't help but show his contempt for the combat effectiveness of Li Zicheng's cavalry.

"It's better to be able to dredge the Han water." Yu Xin also spoke, "It's not that I'm afraid of them attacking, it's just that by land, there are too few things that can be transported, and too many people are needed." Our logistics team is really not afraid of the cavalry of the thieves. However, the number of people and horses in our logistics department is very limited, and I am afraid that if we do not rely on the river and do not requisition civilian laborers, it will not be enough to support the long-term war. ”

"Do we need to fight for the long haul?" Gan Hui asked rhetorically, "The thieves have never seen how we attack the city, so they want to rely on the strong city to fight us. Hmph, just by virtue of them, they also want to play this set. I don't believe that Xiangyang City can withstand our cannons? If you want me to say, we might as well just do it. Just in Xiangyang, solve Li Zicheng! Well, I don't know ...... Zuo Liangyu."

……

"Daddy, the Zheng family gave such a statement." Zuo Mengeng talked with Kong Zhang for a few days, and then went back to ask his father for advice.

"What do they say?" Zuo Liangyu asked.

"The Zheng family said they could give us some islands in the South Sea. These islands have quite a few products that can be sold for a lot of money. It's just not a lot of people. If my family can take some of the population from the surrounding area, I can't say that I can rely on these islands and truly become a prince......"