In early April, Apricot Hill Castle. Tomato '''.'

"My lord, Jiannu has been passing us south in a steady stream these days, and I don't know what the conspiracy is."

In the lobby of the General Soldier's Mansion, the senior generals of the Ming army held a meeting, and a general said in a deep voice to the round-faced general sitting at the top.

The round-faced general frowned slightly when he heard this, he was Du Wei, the deputy chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, and now he led more than 30,000 soldiers and horses to be trapped in Xingshan City, waiting for the imperial court to send troops to rescue.

Originally, there were many Qing troops outside the city, and they put on a posture of fighting and forcibly attacking the city, but they didn't know why, not only many Qing troops besieging the city pulled out their camps to the south, but also many Qing reinforcements who rushed from the north also passed through Xingshan City to the south, and for a while seemed to forget the existence of the Ming army in Xingshan City.

For Huang Taiji, the Ming army in Xingshan City is like a turtle in an urn, as long as the Qing army blocks their way south, then they will not be able to escape, but the plan now is naturally to deal with Li Hongyu who led the army to attack.

Because it was surrounded by water, communication with the outside world had been cut off, so the Ming army in Xingshan City did not know what was happening in the outside world.

However, under the propaganda of the Qing army, the defenders of Xingshan City already knew the news of the fall of Songshan and Jinzhou, and the Qing army sent a general of the Ming army to persuade them to surrender, which caused a lot of psychological pressure on the soldiers and made their morale very low.

Dewey saw the bad situation of the Xingshan defenders in his eyes, and he was secretly anxious in his heart, the military food in the city can only last for more than a month now, once the food is exhausted, then the consequences are unimaginable, and the defenders will collapse without a fight.

"My lord, did the imperial court send reinforcements, and those Jiannu went to block it?" Without waiting for Dewey to answer the previous general's words, another general tentatively suggested a possibility.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the imperial court has not forgotten us, Jiannu looks like a rejuvenating army, it must be that the imperial court has sent reinforcements!"

Hearing this, Dewey glanced around at the generals present, and after a deep groan, he said loudly, this is probably the only explanation.

After all, the Ming Dynasty is a vast kingdom of the Celestial Empire, although it is now a little down, but it still has the ability to mobilize troops from all over the country to reinforce the battlefield outside the Guanwai, after all, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse.

"Great, the imperial court has finally sent reinforcements." The generals were overjoyed when they heard this, and in any case it was exciting news.

Dewey's brows furrowed slightly, but in this way, the combat effectiveness of the mobilized Ming soldiers was worrying, and if they did not have enough time to practice, even if they transferred more reinforcements, it would be in vain, and they could only become the live targets of the Qing army on the battlefield.

"Your Excellency, someone shot a strip of cloth into the city last night." Just as Dewey was secretly worried, a soldier walked in quickly, holding a white strip of cloth in his hand.

"Oh?" When Dewey heard this, he immediately showed a look of surprise, and motioned to the soldiers on the side to bring the strip of cloth, obviously this was not done by the Qing army, and the Qing army couldn't stop doing this kind of thing secretly, so it must have been done by someone from the Ming army.

When Dewey took the strip of cloth and looked at it, he was slightly stunned at first, and then his expression became excited, and his face couldn't help but turn red.

This made the generals on the scene look at each other suspiciously, not knowing what was written on the cloth strip, which would make Dewey so out of shape.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this piece of cloth was written to us by Mrs. Li, Mrs. Li personally led the forbidden army out of the customs to save us, and now we have rescued the officers and soldiers in Tashan, and the next step is to rescue our people in Xingshan."

After stabilizing his excitement, Dewey raised the strip of cloth in his hand and said to the generals on the scene excitedly, "Master Taifu has made arrangements, as long as we act according to the plan at that time, then we will definitely be able to escape from here." ”

"Mrs. Li is here?"

"No wonder Jiannu is like a great enemy, it turns out that it is Mrs. Li who has come out of the customs!"

"Great, now we can be saved!"

……

There was a brief silence in the hall, and then there was a commotion, and the generals talked about it excitedly, and their morale soared.

"Pass the order and tell the brothers in the city the news, with Mrs. Li here, we will definitely be able to break through safely!"

Dewey suppressed the excitement in his heart and conveyed the order in a deep voice, what the Xingshan defenders lack most now is morale, and Li Hongyu's arrival is undoubtedly the best encouragement for the soldiers.

Sure enough, when it was learned that Li Hongyu led the army out of the pass and had rescued the Ming army in Tashan, the originally lifeless Xingshan City suddenly regained its vitality, and the eyes of the soldiers regained their hope and morale.

At this moment, Li Hongyu led his army to station at a place called Yecaogang, twenty miles south of Xingshan, and confronted the Qing army from afar.

After rescuing the Ming army in Tashan, Li Hongyu already had 70,000 troops in his hands, and the camp tents stationed in Yecaogang were densely packed and there was no end in sight.

The Qing army's position is better than that of the Ming army, and the sick Huang Taiji is ready to make a break with Li Hongyu this time, and it is best to get rid of Li Hongyu's scourge, so he has mobilized heavy troops, and the Qing army's strength has exceeded 100,000, and a big battle is close at hand.

This made the wild grass gang shrouded in a dull and depressing atmosphere, and the generals of the Qing army changed their previous arrogance and arrogance, and reorganized their armies with a serious expression, and they did not dare to be careless in the face of Li Hongyu.

Ming army camp, handsome tent.

Li Hongyu stood in front of the sand table and looked at the schematic diagram of the confrontation between the Ming army and the Qing army in the wild grass hill, with small red flags on one side of the Ming army and small blue flags on the Qing army, densely planted in their respective camps.

Judging from the situation at the scene, the number of small blue flags has been close to twice that of the small red flags, which means that Huang Taiji has transferred all the troops he can muster, and wants to fight Li Hongyu to the death in the Wild Grass Gang.

Li Hongyu had long known that Huang Taiji would mobilize heavy troops to deal with him, because Huang Taiji's health was in good health, and he already knew that due to the perennial conquest and hard work, coupled with the death of his favorite concubine Chen, Huang Taiji was deeply affected, and Huang Taiji's physical condition was worrying.

Compared with the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Huang Taiji has been very lucky, perhaps because God is going to die in the Ming Dynasty, so that the Ming Dynasty finally had a Zhongxing Emperor and died young, which in turn created an opportunity for the rise of Huang Taiji.

"Lord Taifu, Jiannu's strength is nearly twice that of us, and I hope that your Excellency will make a decision a long time ago, and such a confrontation will not be good for our army."

Wu Sangui and a group of Ming army generals entered the Rushuai tent to meet Li Hongyu, and after saluting Li Hongyu, Wu Sangui said in a deep voice, looking a little worried.

Obviously, the Ming army not only has few troops, but also the combat effectiveness of individual soldiers is not as good as that of the Qing army, so the most important thing to do at this time is to attack quickly, launch an attack before the Qing army completes the transfer of troops, and fight quickly to avoid the arrival of Qing reinforcements.

Originally, Wu Sangui and others would have thought that Li Hongyu would immediately go north to rescue the trapped Xingshan Ming army after rescuing the Ming army in Tashan.

Although Li Hongyu gathered the Ming army in Tashan, he did not go north to attack the Qing army in Xingshan, but stopped at Yecaogang, set up camp, built fortifications, and put on a posture of fighting to the death with the Qing army in Yecaogang.

As time passed, the strength of the Qing army camp on the opposite side gathered more and more, which made Wu Sangui and other generals feel quite uneasy, even if Li Hongyu was in charge, it was difficult to have any hope of victory in the face of nearly twice the Qing army.

Therefore, Wu Sangui and other generals felt more and more uneasy, so they came to ask Li Hongyu, wanting to know why Li Hongyu unusually stopped at the wild grass hill.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Qing army besieged Xingshan City before the strength of 50,000, mainly Mongol soldiers and Jurchen soldiers, if we attack them, how sure are we that we can defeat them before Huang Taiji's reinforcements?" Li Hongyu naturally knew the intention of Wu Sangui and the others, and asked quietly after glancing at them.

In his opinion, as long as the pen frame post is fought, then Huang Taiji will definitely know at the first time, and the next thing is to transfer troops to reinforce the Qing army in Jinzhou, so that the Ming army will fall into a boundless bitter battle, forming a war of attrition, which is extremely unfavorable to the Ming army.

Wu Sangui and other generals couldn't help but glance at each other, it was not easy to defeat the Qing army in Xingshan, and failing to defeat the Qing army in Xingshan meant that there was no way to rescue the defenders of Xingshan.

As for attacking the Xingshan defenders in front and back, I am afraid that when the Xingshan defenders who are heavily surrounded know the battle plan of the Ming army, then Huang Taiji's reinforcements have already felt that everything is in vain.

"Therefore, in view of the fact that the situation in Xingshan is different from that of Tashan, we can no longer storm and fight, but find another way to solve this trouble."

Seeing that everyone was silent, Li Hongyu pondered for a while and then looked at them and said, "The reason why Taifu Ben wants to stay here is to wait for the arrival of the water division, and the water division will take on the heavy responsibility of rescuing the Xingshan defenders. ”

"Sailor?" Wu Sangui and the others showed a look of surprise on their faces, could it be that Li Hongyu wanted to let the sailors land and fight?

"Ladies and gentlemen, as our army is stationed in Yecaogang, the Jiannu besieging Xingshan and the reinforcements of Jiannu have gone south and confronted our army in front of Yecaogang, so that the strength of Jiannu outside Xingshan City will be greatly reduced."

Li Hongyu knew that the generals couldn't guess his intentions, so he was ready to solve the mystery, and now it was time for everyone to know the next battle plan, so he said methodically, "The ships of the sailor division will meet on the shore at that time, what we need to do is to attract the main force of the Qing army, so that they are as far away from Xingshan as possible, and create a favorable opportunity for the Xingshan defenders to break through." ”

"Master Taifu, the sailor will use a boat to pick up the people of Xingshan?"

Wu Sangui and the others finally understood Li Hongyu's intentions, and asked with a surprised expression, how many ships are needed for this, and now the Manchu Qing Dynasty has also used those surrendered Ming generals to form a water division.

Now, the Manchu Qing naval division was formed by Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming and other former Dongjiang Island rebels, which not only eliminated the Ming naval division on Dongjiang Island, but also defeated the Ming naval division of Denglai to lose their armor.

Today, the sea area of Liaodong has been controlled by the Qing army's naval divisions, which on the one hand prevented the Ming army from rescuing from the sea, and at the same time prevented the Ming army trapped in the Songjin area from escaping across the sea.

Wu Sangui has lived outside the pass for a long time, and naturally knows that the Qing army's sailors are a big trouble, and it is not easy for Li Hongyu's sailors to defeat them in a short time, but if they can't defeat the Qing army's sailors, then they will not be able to rescue the Xingshan Ming army that has arrived on the shore.

"Ben Taifu knows that Jiannu has now also formed a sailor, and it is parked on the sea along the Liaoxi Corridor, although they also have a lot of ships, but in Ben Taifu's opinion, they are vulnerable!"

Li Hongyu knew the worries of Wu Sangui and the others, and after smiling slightly, he said proudly, "This Taifu will let Jiannu see the real naval battle this time!" ”

This is naturally not Li Hongyu's arrogance, but the Manchu Qing sailors and the sailors under his jurisdiction are not at all in the same order of magnitude.

Not only is the tonnage of the Manchu clear division much smaller than that of the three major naval divisions, but the weapons used are even more different, the Manchu clear division is still the old method of naval warfare, using bows and arrows and ramming as the main means of attack, while the three major naval divisions use shipborne artillery.

It can be said that in front of the three major naval divisions, the ships of the Manchu Qing Division have become targets for sea activities one by one, which can be clearly experienced from the naval battle of Tuen Mun that year, the Ming army with superior ships and troops was almost powerless to fight back at sea by several Portuguese warships.

Wu Sangui and the other generals secretly glanced at each other when they heard this, and a look of relief appeared on their faces, but they knew that Li Hongyu never boasted about Haikou, and now since he didn't take the Manshui Masters in his eyes, then those Manshui Masters would definitely be vulnerable!