Li Yan's plan was to encircle Li Zicheng's 70,000 main forces with a three-way army, and Fang Yuan adopted his suggestion and arranged the three-way army as follows:

Li Yan and the Red Lady were 30,000 people, from the Yangtze River waterway, through Dongting Lake, directly into the port of Changde Mansion, sniping Li Zicheng's north road. The loyalty of this army is beyond doubt, if Li Yan and his wife are half-hearted, Wuchang Mansion will not be able to hold it for half a year.

The 20,000 men of Gao's army went south from Changsha Mansion to snipe Li Zicheng's south road. In Fang Yuan's view, this road is the most unreliable way of loyalty.

But Fang Yuan had already learned through the eyeliner placed in the senior generals of the Gao family army that Gao Ze and Li Benshen did not want to take refuge in Li Zicheng, but wanted to occupy an area and become the overlord of the soil. Since they wanted to occupy the territory, they had to use Fang Yuan's power to drive Li Zicheng out of the state capital south of Changsha Mansion. At least for the moment, their goal and Fang Yuan's goal were the same, which was to defeat Li Zicheng.

There is also a Jiangxi reinforcement led by his son Xu Cheng, and the task is to follow Li Zicheng. Xu Cheng's loyalty is undoubted, but Xu Cheng had only fought with some rogues in Jiangxi before, and had never commanded a team of 10,000 people.

Fang Yuan thought about it, and handed over this way to Jin Shenghuan, the general under the command of Zuo Liangyu, and his son Xu Cheng served as the deputy general, and followed Jin Shenghuan to the real battlefield to sharpen and sharpen first.

Before the expedition, Fang Yuan issued a strict military order to the Three Route Army, the Three Route Army did not have to go to war with Li Zicheng, and was stationed in the county seat when resting, waiting for the final net to catch fish.

Of course, in addition to the three-way army, Fang Yuan also sacrificed the sharpest blade, which was Zhang Ying's 5,000 special combat army. The task of this special operations army was not to confront Li Zicheng head-on, but to imitate the Battle of Shandong eight years ago, and to attack Li Zicheng's detachment that went out to plunder, and all of them within 2,000 men were annihilated. Unless Li Zicheng's team for grain grabbing is 3 to 5,000 people, it will be another matter.

The battle to hunt Li Zicheng has officially begun!

Li Zicheng relied on looting along the way, and finally withdrew to the west of Dongting Lake, and wanted to continue north, but found that Li Yan and the Red Lady's department had been stationed in Wuling County, Changde Prefecture, and held the road north.

Li Zicheng was so angry with Li Yan and his wife that he gritted his teeth and tried to order the general Liu Fangliang to lead 30,000 people to attack Wuling City. Due to the urgency of military rations, five more teams of 2,000 people per team were sent to attack in five directions, and went to the county seat of Changde Mansion to rob grain in the township.

Liu Fangliang's troops attacked Wuling City for five days and five nights, leaving thousands of corpses, but Wuling City did not move at all, and even the city gate was safe and sound.

The military advisor Niu Jinxing suggested that Liu Fangliang lead his troops to continue the siege of Wuling City, so that the rest of the army could break through the sniping of Li Yan and his wife in Wuling City and continue to attack the ports along the river in the north.

Due to the blockade of the Xuanjia Army, Li Zicheng had secretly ordered his wife and brother Gao Yigong, who was stationed in Kuizhou, to secretly arrange hundreds of civilian ships, ready to meet the invasion of the Yangtze River in the north. Because this secret fleet was in Fengjie in the Three Gorges, the Xuanjia Army did not detect it.

As long as they can break through Wuling City and go north to capture the port of Gong'an County, they can join Gao Yigong's fleet and cross the river to Jiangbei as soon as possible to garrison, or withdraw into Sichuan.

Song Xiance immediately vetoed Niu Jinxing's suggestion, the Xuanjia army division was intercepted in front of it, and there were chasing soldiers in the back, if only Liu Fangliang's 30,000 people were left, they would inevitably be dumpled by the Xuanjia army that followed, and the whole army would be annihilated. These 30,000 people are Li Zicheng's personal barracks, and they are the main force of the army, if they are lost, even if they flee to Jiangbei, how long can they hold in Jingzhou and Xiangyang Mansion?

What's more, the spies at the front reported that Li Yan had already reached the retreat of the army, and stationed 5,000 sergeants in the port of the public security. If you can't win the public security in one fell swoop and alarm the Yangtze River Naval Division of the Xuanjia Army, there will be no possibility of crossing the river.

Song Xiance is reasonable, since the Eastern Expedition, 200,000 soldiers in the army, now there are less than 130,000 left, if these 30,000 elites are lost, even if they flee to Jiangbei, the situation of the entire Huguang battlefield is irretrievable.

can't capture Wuling City, can't pull out the nail of Li Yan, where does the army dare to go north to attack the public security. was chased and killed by Li Yan's tail, even if he arrived at the public security, he would be attacked from front to back.

At Niu Jinxing's suggestion, Li Zicheng decided to transfer another 20,000 people to Liu Fangliang, so that he surrounded the four gates of Wuling City and attacked them day and night, so that he could take Wuling City in a short time and open up the way to the north.

The siege lasted for half a month, Liu Fangliang still did not take Wuling City, and in the next few days, Li Zicheng even personally supervised the siege, but there was still no progress.

When Li Zicheng attacked Wuling City, he got other military information.

Jin Shenghuan, who followed closely behind, and Xu Cheng's subordinates were stationed in Yiyang; The Gao family army on the southern front also arrived in Anhua City from Changsha Mansion through Linning Township, but also garrisoned.

These two armies strictly implemented Fang Yuan's military orders, that is, to maintain a pincer-shaped encirclement formation against Li Zicheng, but did not fight Li Zicheng head-on.

Although the two armies did not put on a combat posture, since there was a threat of tens of thousands of troops in the rear, Li Zicheng had to divide his troops with 20,000 troops to guard against the sudden attack of these two lines of soldiers and horses.

What made Li Zicheng even more frightened was that three of the five 2,000-strong teams sent out to loot were dealt a devastating blow by the Xuanjia Army's special operations army, and the entire army was wiped out. Only two teams grabbed less than 5,000 stone of food and returned to the barracks safely.

If you grab 5,000 stone of grain, you will lose 5 or 6,000 soldiers and horses, and if you continue to fight like this, you will not be able to get out a few times, and Li Zicheng's little family will be wiped out.

Li Zicheng has pursued soldiers in front of him and intercepted him later, and the only thing he doesn't have is military rations, which is really a place where the mountains and rivers are exhausted. Of course, he also had another option to continue westward and step into the territory of the Yongshun Propaganda Division.

Yongshun Xuanwei Division is the territory of Xiangxi Tusi, that is, the gathering place of ethnic minorities, such an army stepped into the Yongshun Xuanwei Division, it is estimated that Fang Yuan did not wait for Fang Yuan to come to conquest, and he had already fought with the local Tusi armed forces first.

He once again found Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance to ask about the next countermeasures.

Niu Jinxing said slowly, "King Chuang, I still adhere to the previous suggestion, abandon the 30,000 troops who attacked the city, and directly lead the army north, and greet Gao Yigong to come from Fengjie to respond, and I can escape the river as much as I can." When the army arrived safely in Jingzhou and Xiangyang, he planned the future. ”

Li Zicheng's eyes moved to Song Xiance, and Song Xiance said with a sad face, "King Chuang, I still have a plan, that is, I will go to Wuling City and persuade Li Yan with kind words, hoping that he can look at the love of his brothers before, raise his noble hand, and let us cross." ”

Niu Jinxing sneered and said, "Song Shorty, didn't you see that King Chuang was in a predicament, so you thought about following your Li Yan brothers and surrendering to Fang Yuan together!" ”

Song Xiance was so angry that his face was flushed, and he paused again and again, pointing to Niu Jinxing and said, "Niu Jinxing!" Brother Li was forced to rebel by you, and you are still spewing blood to this day! ”

Niu Jinxing smiled and said, "Song Shorty, you don't give me more acting, at this time you are going to Wuling City, no one will suspect that you are trying to report the news." By the way, you want to report the news, Gao Yigong still has a fleet in Fengjie, you are so vicious, you want to put the king to death! ”

Song Xiance was so angry that he almost fainted, so he finally sat down in the chair and took a few deep breaths, "I'm so angry!" Break into the king, who is loyal and who is traitorous, Mingjian, Mingjian! ”

Li Zicheng looked at Niu Jinxing and made him stop, and then he said to Song with a pleasant face, "Master Song, it's not that I don't believe you, it's just that you went to Wuling City alone, in case you are detained by Li Yan, you will damage my henchmen out of thin air." ”

Song Xiance saw that he said well, but in the end, he still didn't trust him, and he wouldn't send him to Wuling City, so he could only sigh, "Okay, good, everything depends on King Chuang." ”

Li Zicheng pondered for a while, and said slowly, "Master Song, I will send someone to invite Li Yan to meet at the head of the city tomorrow, and Master Song will go with me to meet Li Yan for a while!" ”

This was a compromise method, but this method of secretly letting go of the border should have been discussed in the secret room, so as not to reach Fang Yuan's ears. At present, he has to put forward in front of everyone, whether Li Yan dares to do this favor in public, Song Xiance is no longer sure, so he can only respond helplessly.