"Dashuai, the last general is incompetent, and he has lost Governor Wang."

Hearing this, Chen Wendeng was stunned on the spot. Because he learned from the mouth of the advance troops that they had had a confrontation with the Qing army stationed there when they passed through Shengxian, and seeing Wu Dengke and Li Ruixin looking distressed, Chen Wen once thought that Wang Jiang had unfortunately died in that conflict.

It's just that as Wu Dengke and Li Ruixin told the ins and outs of the matter, Chen Wen found that things were not as out of control as he imagined for a while.

Wang Jiang was indignant at Wu and Li's self-made assertions, and turned to persuade Yu Guowang and other Ming army counterparts not far from the temporary old camp in Tiantai Mountain, so as to provide greater strength for Chen Wen's counter-encirclement and suppression in Jinhua.

Among them, there is no lack of the intention of using these people to cause a certain diversion to Chen Wen in the future, so as to prevent him from acting recklessly after he is a dominant family in Zhejiang. But in the final analysis, Wang Jiang's vigilance is far from the point of seeking military power, after all, due to the sequelae of the Battle of Siming Lake, Chen Wen's ability is still extremely strong in his eyes, especially for military affairs.

Since Wang Jiang himself had the official position of governor of Zhejiang, which was admired by Lu Jianguo, and was the nominal supervisor of the entire Ming army on Tiantai Mountain, after he persuaded Yu Guowang, he went to the camp of the Houying and the remnants of Jintang to lobby. However, when this migratory force crossed Xinchang, Yu Guowang caught up with the team, but Wang Jiang never followed, and there was still no news of Wang Jiang even here.

Wang Jiang's news did not make Wu Dengke and Li Ruixin anxious like ants on a hot pot, but after entering Shengxian County, the local army stationed in the Shaoxing Green Camp forced up, and the two of them took a lot of effort to cover the old camp and the people while repelling the Qing army that followed, and they really couldn't spare too much energy to take care of Wang Jiang. When you get out of danger. The two immediately sent a team of cavalry back to find Wang Jiang.

Wang Jiang has the identity of the governor of Zhejiang, and he is the civil official and superintendent of Chen Wen's department, and his reputation in eastern Zhejiang is not small, even in Jinhua in western Zhejiang, many people know it. If such a person dies inexplicably, it will inevitably have a very bad impact on the cause of resisting the Qing Dynasty in the entire western Zhejiang.

And more importantly, hundreds of anti-Qing rebels in eastern Zhejiang have been in place over the years. But only Wang Yi's Dalanshan Ming Army can develop and grow in the real sense, which has Wang Yi's insistence on military discipline, and Wang Jiang is indispensable to take care of logistics behind him. Otherwise, no matter how strong the army is, if the logistics cannot be guaranteed, it will either let military discipline corrupt or strangle itself to death.

Therefore, if Wang Jiang is gone, Chen Wen, the Ming army that is ready to do something in Jinhua, will seem to have been cut off.

Knowing that Wang Jiang was only temporarily out of news, Chen Wen forced himself to calm down and helped the two people in front of him up. He inquired in detail about the details.

"What did Governor Wang say when he left the old camp?"

Wu Dengke thought about it for a while, and then took the lead in replying: "Back to the marshal, before Governor Wang left, he said that he would try his best to persuade Xin Changbo, Deputy General Ye of the rear battalion, and the officers who commanded Jin Shuai's old camp to go to Jinhua together, thinking that the commander would help him. ”

Hearing this, Chen Wen immediately had a thought in his mind, Yu Guowang had rushed to Jinhua at this moment, so the problem was eighty percent with Ye Shirong and Jin Tang's subordinates. It's just that the combat effectiveness of these two parts is not very good. Even if they want to move Wang Jiang, they have to ask the team responsible for guarding Wang Jiang if they can let them get their wish.

"Who is the officer leading the team to protect Governor Wang? How many troops are there? ”

"Returning to the marshal, the leading officer is Niu Ping'an, and the last general and Vice General Li are divided into two teams of mandarin duck array killer teams, one team of firearms teams and one team of cavalry responsible for protecting the safety of Governor Wang."

Although the number of troops is not much, if you add the twenty or so people of the Governor's Guard, it is not something that these two remnants can easily help. As for the officer who led the team. Chen Wen also knew that Wu Dengke's fellow villager, one of the dozens of people who first swore to follow him in the small courtyard of the Sun family, was an officer who knew how to fulfill his duties, and using him to protect Wang Jiang could be regarded as a winner.

Then. Chen Wen asked the officer of the cavalry team sent to find him, and the answer he received was that he was also a trustworthy officer in his impression.

In that case, it can only be so for the time being. From the mouth of an officer of the Shaoxing Green Battalion who Li Ruixin had captured in the previous confrontation, he learned that in addition to the green battalions of Jin, Qu, Yan, and Chu, there were also Shaoxing Green Battalions and Fubiao Battalions attacking from north of Jinbei.

Such troops and deployments have exceeded Chen Wen's expectations, after all, the Battle of Zhoushan has just ended, and it stands to reason that these mobile forces of the Qing army should still be in a state of exhaustion. Could it be because the commotion he made before was so great that the Qing army in Zhejiang would destroy him this year at all costs?

The Qing army's response was beyond his imagination, but that wasn't the most important thing.

With the arrival of the old camp, the news of Wang Yi's death and the defeat of the Ming army in the Battle of Zhoushan also began to spread around. More and more locals showed an unoptimistic attitude towards the future of this lone army, so that it was not long before the donation of materials outside the occupied areas of the Ming army completely stopped; In the areas occupied by the Ming army, the attitudes of some big families also began to be ambiguous, and only those grasshoppers who had been tied to a rope with the Ming army were still trying their best to help the Ming army.

It is a fact that Wang Yi died, and it is also a fact that the Ming army failed in the Battle of Zhoushan, and even Wang Jiang is missing. In this regard, Chen Wen had to work harder to train the army, hoping to defeat the encirclement and suppression of the Qing army, so as to offset these adverse effects on the Ming army with military victories.

The task of settling the old battalion personnel, military families, and civilians was all handed over to Sun Yu, and Chen Wen mixed the remaining troops and new battalions of the Nantang battalion that rushed in, thus obtaining a new version of the Nantang battalion with infantry, cavalry, artillery and auxiliary troops reaching full strength, and Dongyang and Yiwu, two new battalions that only had infantry and used bows and arrows as long-range fire support, as well as several garrison units as supplements.

There are only so many troops for a while, and even so, the materials in hand can only barely survive this year, and even according to Sun Yu's calculations, it may not even be enough to reward during the New Year.

It is often said that when a cannon goes off, there are ten thousand taels of gold. At the moment, the cannon has not yet sounded, and Chen Wen already feels a little unbearable.

The fall of the Dalanshan base area led to the fact that the economic foundation of the old camp, which was not very strong, was completely beaten; Relying on seizures and transactions, Chen Wen reluctantly scraped together the start-up capital for the army to enter Jinhua; As a result, when he arrived in Jinhua, he found that the storage here was far less than he imagined; It was a show and an advertisement, and finally won a certain amount of support from local people, but the Zhejiang Ming army suffered successive defeats during this period, so that the general trend has been in an absolutely unfavorable situation, and with the news coming, these supports have also begun to decline significantly; If you add Wang Jiang's matter......

Chen Wen had some expectations for these questions at first, but the reality was far harsher than he expected, and even harsher realities followed.

In late October of the fifth year of Yongli, the Dubiao battalion entered Jinhua Mansion after completing the initial rest, and joined Ma Jinbao and other departments as the main force of the encirclement and suppression.

At the same time, the Fubiao battalion on the northern front also began to move, and only the Shaoxing Green Battalion did not show too positive movements because it knocked out two big teeth on the unit that was guarding the migration of the old battalion not long ago. It's just that if the Ming army becomes more and more unfavorable in the battle situation, these Qing troops will definitely pounce on them like vicious dogs.

With historical knowledge and recent investigations, Chen Wen made a rough calculation.

Among the Qing troops on the southern front, there were more than 3,000 troops in the standard battalion of the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian; The standard battalion of Jinhua Town was partially knocked out before, and those who were able to escape back were also unable to form combat effectiveness for a while because the formation was scattered, plus the two hundred soldiers who were strictly guarded by Jinqu, there should be about 2,000 soldiers and horses; According to the intelligence, Chen Wen knew that the green battalions of the three prefectures each had 1,600 soldiers, divided into two battalions, so each battalion was about 800 people.

In this way, the Qing army on the southern front had about 7,000 to 7,500 soldiers. According to the Manchu Qing green battalion system, the composition of Zhejiang's troops should be Ma Bujiu, if Ma Jinbao's cavalry is basically counted in Dongyang County, the Qing army should have about 600 cavalry can be used on this local battlefield.

Relatively speaking, the Qing army on the northern front only played an auxiliary role, but the strength of the army should not be underestimated. The standard battalion of the governor of Zhejiang has a strength of 2,000 troops, and he went south to Yiwu from Zhuji; There are more than 2,000 people in the Shaoxing Green Battalion, and in addition to the troops guarding various places, there are also more than 1,000 troops stationed in Shengxian County, ready to go south to Dongyang County.

This time, the total number of soldiers of the Qing army exceeded 10,000, and Chen Wen only had the Nantang battalion in his hands, with only 2,000 people, just barely guaranteed to wear armor. As for the other two battalions and garrisons, they were all infantry only, and almost all of them were unarmored infantry.

In addition, Zhou Qingui of Luochengyan in Dongyang County is still hesitant at the moment, although Chen Wen knows that this person insisted on resisting the Qing Dynasty in history until his death, but in the case of rising with him, and even the leaders of the familiar anti-Qing rebel army have accepted the official position and title of Lu Jianguo, this person is still alone, God knows if he will take advantage of the bloody battle between Chen Wen and the Qing army to jump out of Luochengyan and make a big fuss again.

Previously, Chen Wen relied on his control of history to unexpectedly enter Jinhua Mansion and create a huge momentum. However, the strength of the Qing army in Zhejiang was still strong, and the Ming army in Zhoushan had suffered a major defeat and was forced to retreat south.

In just over a month, Chen Wen's situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and there is only one thing left for him to do.

That's - war! (To be continued.) )