After reading the handwritten letter sent by Bai Wenxuan, Sun Kewang was so angry that he tore it to pieces.

Of course, Sun Kewang understands these superficial tactical truths mentioned by Bai Wenxuan, but in fighting a war, we should not only look at the temporary situation and only look at the part, but should consider the overall strategy from the perspective of the overall situation.

Sun Kewang is a strategist, the partial victory or defeat is not important to him, the casualties of a few hundred people each time are even more insignificant, these prices paid now are all for the future to win greater victories, as long as he can keep the big cities of Yuezhou, Changsha and Hengyang, and wait until Liu Wenxiu eliminates Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong, and then lead his troops back to Huguang, Wang Sheng can be defeated in one fell swoop.

If, according to Bai Wenxuan's suggestion, we concentrate our forces to fight a decisive battle with Wang Sheng now, we will inevitably abandon the big cities of Yuezhou, Changsha, and Hengyang, then what benefits did the Western Army gain by spending such a big price to attack Huguang?

Could it be that the strategy of attacking Huguang was wrong from the beginning?

At the beginning, Li Dingguo advocated going north, but Sun Kewang strongly advocated eastward expansion, so he did not hesitate to start a war with the Chu army, after the war, the losses of the western army were very large, Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong advanced thousands of miles into Guizhou, and even the backyard was on fire, if in the end they had to give up Changsha, give up Hengyang and Yuezhou and even Changde, and even withdraw from Huguang, it would be a fatal blow to Sun Kewang's personal prestige, and it would be difficult to suppress Li Dingguo in the future.

No troops can be withdrawn!

You can't easily shrink your defense!

The difficulties in front of him are only temporary, gritted his teeth and survived, Sun Kewang believes that Liu Wenxiu will soon recover Guiyang and return to Huguang!

Sun Kewang has a firm belief, and returned to the old road of dividing troops everywhere and defending everywhere, although he now has a certain number of mobile troops, but they are all cowering in Yuezhou, Changsha, Hengyang, these big cities, if the Chu army is too far away, it is easy not to attack, lest they fall into an ambush, or be surrounded by the Chu army to send reinforcements, and lose the last capital...... Little by little, Wang Sheng began to encroach on his territory, focusing on the outlying strongholds of the Western Army, and gradually divided Yuezhou, Changsha and Hengyang.

Sun Kewang saw it in his eyes and was anxious in his heart, anxiously waiting for the good news from Guiyang every day, completely unaware that he had missed the best time to retreat......

On the battlefield in Guangxi, Liu Fangliang, Dang Shousu, and He Zhen pointed to the east and the west, which brought great trouble to the western army.

The Western Army had relatively few troops in Guangxi, and was transferred by Liu Wenxiu to attack Guiyang, and the remaining troops could only shrink the defense, focusing on protecting the supply line from Guilin to Quanzhou in northern Guangxi.

Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong made a big fuss in Guizhou, the Qingshui River waterway and several other grain routes were either cut off, or the transportation capacity was greatly reduced, Liu Wenxiu's army returned to Guizhou from Huguang thousands of miles away, and the road traffic between Guizhou and Huguang was even more overwhelmed, so most of the food and materials needed by Sun Kewang were transferred from Guilin, in order to ensure the safety of this supply line, the Western Army was heavily defended on the Guilin-Lingqu-Quanzhou-Lingling line, and there was not enough strength to attack Liu Danghe, so they could only let them toss around in Guangxi.

After Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong led the Western Expeditionary Army to leave Guangxi from the 90,000 Mountains, Liu Fangliang, Dang Shousu and He Zhen continued to besiege Liuzhou, Sun Kewang had already planned to abandon Liuzhou, but Liu Danghe had no intention of attacking the fortifications, and suddenly withdrew his troops after besieging the city for more than ten days, and attacked Pingle Mansion and Wuzhou Mansion to the east, opening up the connection with Guangdong.

Under Wang Kefan's strict order, Guangdong Su Guansheng sent a large number of food and materials to Liu Danghe, ensuring the supply of this army, Liu Danghe got a blood transfusion, waved his army south, respectively recovered Wuzhou Mansion, Xunzhou Mansion and other large areas of territory occupied by the Western Army, and then turned to the northwest, two Liuzhou, in the siege battle encountered a slight setback, then went around the city, invaded the western part of Guangxi, and successively captured Yishan, Hechi and other counties, the soldiers pointed directly at the Yelang Ancient Road in the western part of Guangxi, and put on a posture of preparing to attack Guizhou, and Tan Xiao Zhou Guodong joined Guiyang, Frightened the nearby state capitals to be in a hurry.

In ancient times, the country of Yelang has long been submerged in the long river of history, but the idiom of Yelang's arrogance has made people in later generations remember their names. The core area of Yelang country is in the area of Guizhou, and there is the "Yelang Ancient Road" between Guangxi, through the waterway of the Qiqi River, through the heavy mountains in the west of Guangxi, through the Baise area, into the hinterland of Guangxi.

The lower reaches of the Qiqi River are the Hongshui River, the lower reaches of the Hongshui River are the Qianjiang River, the lower reaches of the Qianjiang River are the Xun River and the Xijiang River, and the lower reaches of the Xijiang River are the Pearl River...... There are many large and small rivers along the way, some of which are navigable, and some of which have become obstacles to traffic isolation, but in general, as long as they are well prepared, tens of thousands of troops can enter Guizhou through the Yelang Ancient Road.

At the same time, Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong's Western Expeditionary Army captured Guiyang, Guizhou could no longer transport a single grain, and the supply line from Guilin to Quanzhou was actually broken.

(The logic of this paragraph is a bit complicated, to explain, Yunnan has only had two major roads to connect with the outside world since ancient times, one is the road to Sichuan into the west of Yunnan, and the other is the road to Guizhou and Hunan to the east of Yunnan, in other words, the Western army has been fighting in Huguang for a long time, and the grain and grass needed have to be transferred from Guiyang, and after the Chu army captured Guiyang, it was equivalent to cutting off the supply line of the Western Army from the upstream.) ）

Seeing the Western Army chasing after him violently, Liu Danghe gave up his plan to enter Guizhou from the Yelang Ancient Road, and quickly turned southeast, passed through the Liuzhou Basin, and returned to the plain area of eastern Guangxi. The western part of Guangxi belongs to the edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and it is also a sparsely populated mountainous area, and the Chu army is unfamiliar with the place, and the lone army is deep, and the risk is very great, so Liu Danghe took the first step to break through, and after his back to Guangdong, he turned around and prepared to face the battle.

At this time, Wang Kefan sent an urgent order to reward Liu Danghe, and at the same time earnestly warned that the Chu army and the western army had reached the critical moment of a full-scale decisive battle, and the Guangxi battlefield was affected by a blow to the whole body, and Liu Danghe's primary task was to bite these tens of thousands of western troops, and not let them support Guizhou or Hunan, without absolute certainty of victory, it was not suitable to fight head-on with the enemy for the time being......

As a result, before the outbreak of the war, Liu Danghe suddenly coaxed again.

They were divided into several ways to retreat, but they were not in a hurry to retreat into Guangdong, but if they were about to leave the Western Army, the Western Army immediately launched a pursuit, one was careless, a little disconnected between the various departments, Liu Fangliang led more than 10,000 Chu troops to forcibly break through, and rushed into the Liuzhou Basin again, three dozen Liuzhou, Dang Shousu and He Zhen also gave full play to the advantages of breaking into the camp and being good at mobile operations, taking advantage of the Western Army's pursuit of Liu Fangliang, they jumped out of the encirclement one after another, all the way to the north to feint Guilin, all the way to the south to feint Xiangzhou, and the Western Army launched a game of cat and mouse.

Guangxi's Western Army was busy besieging Liu Danghe, constantly drawing troops from Guilin and Quanzhou, and gradually disconnected from Hunan......

Several provinces in the rear of the Chu army also entered the climax of general mobilization at this time.

Dolgon and Sun Kewang both said that Wang Kefan was reckless, but he was not wrong, in fact, since the rise of Huguang, the Chu army has been fighting non-stop in the past few years, and many times it is not that he wants to fight, but the situation is pressing, and he has to fight, and he can't stop fighting until he fights, so he has to fight one battle after another.

For example, in the early days of the Battle of Nanjing, Wang Kefan's original intention was only to attack Jiangnan and weaken the strength of the Qing court, but later the battle became bigger and bigger, and after the complete annihilation of Jierharang, the Chu army took advantage of the situation to capture Zhejiang, Fujian, capture Nanjing City, and even counterattack to Jiangbei, recovering half of the country at once, Wang Kefan did not expect it before the war.

After the Battle of Nanjing, Wang Kefan also wanted to slow down the rhythm and lay a solid foundation, so he ordered the main force to rest and reorganize, and only sent the second-line troops to cross the river and the Northern Expedition...... However, at this time, the Western Army suddenly rebelled, and then attacked Huguang, and the Qing army also took advantage of the fire to loot, and launched a counteroffensive at the same time, and the Chu army was dragged into a life-and-death decisive battle, and had to be fully mobilized to deal with this war.

Due to the continuous war, the Chu army's manpower, material and financial resources have been consumed hugely, and it was very difficult to attack the Qing army and the Western Army on both sides, so while resisting, while retreating, giving up Hubei and Hunan one after another, but secretly accumulating strength, and when the offensive momentum of the Western Army was exhausted, it suddenly sent the Western Expeditionary Army thousands of miles into Guizhou, turning the tide of the war in one fell swoop.

At this point, Wang Kefan had a feeling that he couldn't hold his hands again.

After Tan Xiao and Zhou Guodong captured Guiyang, the Chu army had achieved a large-scale counter-encirclement of the Western Army, and the situation was extremely favorable.

To fight a war, you must first have money, but Wang Kefan did not have much money, and his solution was simple and rude: temporarily imposing a one-time war tax on the provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Guangdong, and at the same time starting a money printing press, making a large number of silver dollars, and printing military stamps to make up for the huge financial shortfall.

In order to avoid social unrest, after Wang Kefan announced that he had entered a full-scale mobilization, he imposed military control on Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and northern Fujian, and also adopted a high-pressure policy against Wan Yuan Ji and Su Guansheng, strictly ordering them to complete the tax task within a time limit, otherwise they would be severely punished.

The Jiangnan region is rich in the world, much richer than the northern provinces, Wang Kefan imposed a temporary war tax, although the people are boiling with resentment, but the people can actually bear it, Wang Kefan also made it clear that this is a one-time temporary tax increase, will not be collected in the future, regardless of the farmers and businessmen, as long as the war tax is paid, you can rely on the receipt to deduct the tax in the next two years, carrots and sticks go hand in hand, most of the people have to accept the reality, honestly pay the money.