On the Huguang side, in an abandoned village not far from Jingzhou City, Tan Wenzheng, the general of the seventh battalion, personally taught the cavalry soldiers how to cultivate a relationship with war horses and how to tamesticate war horses.

"At any time, as a cavalryman, don't let someone else feed the horse instead of you, your own horse has to be fed by yourself, and you must feed it well, only in this way, when you go to the battlefield in the future, the horse will be intimate with you, and you can control it as you like."

And Liu Hei, the general of the second battalion, personally danced to the beat and sang a loud and rough but out of tune song with the soldiers, only to hear the lyrics in the song: "A steel gun in the hand, a red heart to the Han family" such lyrics, but when singing this sentence, some soldiers are laughing evilly, as if this lyric hides another layer of ulterior meaning.

The soldiers of the two battalions have been resting here for two days, it can be said that not only the horses have grown fat, but also the people have also made a lot of fortune, no way, because this time they have taken the grain and baggage of the official army, so the soldiers of the Han army are opening small stoves every day, and they can only eat some sweet potato fries or nest dumplings like in the past when they were out on a long march.

But born is an active living body, when they are full of food and drink, they want to find something to do, and the soldiers of the Han army, who have been indoctrinated with how to fight since they knew how to read, want to find something to do, and they are all restless, looking at the 50,000 temporary army shouting around Jingzhou City day and night, they can't wait to attack the city in person, so that these people who form the temporary army can see the level of the Han army.

But as the supreme commander of the two battalions, Du Xiaoyuan did not give the order for a long time, she is now waiting for the arrival of the prey, although Chen Yan is also her prey, but she doesn't want to clean up Chen Yan's prey now, the value of keeping this prey will be greater than the value of directly catching him and killing him, after all, the main force of the Han army on the main battlefield of Kuizhou is her top priority, and Yang Ming once told her to annihilate the left army, a brutal army that is likely to plague the people for decades, is the top priority, As long as Chen Yan is still in Jingzhou for one day, the left army will stay in Kuizhou for one more day, and Yang Ming will have one more day to annihilate the left army.

But this doesn't mean that Du Xiaoyuan can only take two battalions of soldiers to surround Jingzhou City, and then do nothing. After all, Chen Yan is the supervisor of the Ming Dynasty, and the supreme commander of the imperial court officials and troops here, once he is surrounded, there must be court officials and troops to relieve the siege, this is no way, and now no local warlord dares to oppose the imperial court or abandon the imperial court, and Chen Yan is the representative of the imperial court, and is the confidant of Emperor Chongzhen, so there will definitely be reinforcements coming.

Moreover, the left army stationed in this area must also know the importance of Chen Yan, if Chen Yan is captured, then the support force of his left army will be completely cut off. Therefore, even if other local warlords do not come to the rescue, Zuo Liangyu's army will come to the rescue, not to mention that this thief army is not of much scale.

"Miss Block, the last general has already found out that there is not much grain in Jingzhou City, Chen Yan and the other defeated troops consumed all the food in a few days after entering Jingzhou City, and now they are even more cold and hungry, and they have no combat effectiveness at all, so why don't we take Jingzhou City immediately?" Liu Hei couldn't bear it anymore, no matter how tired he was from the overnight march a few days ago, he didn't put forward the slightest opinion, but now he was too idle, and he had to come to talk to Xiao Yuan in person.

But Du Xiaoyuan said very resolutely at this time: "We can't take Jingzhou City, we must also give Chen Yan a hope that he can persevere, Bai Qian has already told me that Zuo Liangyu's army has captured the county seat of Kaixian, but I am afraid that now it has been done with Chen Gui's gendarmerie battalion, and now is the best moment for Zuo Liangyu's army to be surrounded by our army, there can be no mistakes, now we have to wait!" ”

"But!" Liu Hei wanted to go crazy, if it weren't for the fact that Xiao Yuan was the woman of his own son, he was afraid that he would have scolded his mother a long time ago, so he suppressed his anger and said: "Even if we don't attack Jingzhou City, we can go out to fight other officials and soldiers, or carry out the previous plan, such as taking Wuchang directly!" ”

"No, if we withdraw, under the leadership of Chen Yan, the superintendent, the officers and troops from all over the country will gather together again, once they enter Kuizhou after the division, my Han army's plan to encircle and annihilate Zuo Liangyu's army will also be in vain!" Seeing that Liu Hei was very angry, Du Xiaoyuan patted him on the shoulder and said, "Brother Liu Hei, wait a little longer, don't worry, since I brought you here, I won't let you go back empty." ”

At this moment, a maid's voice came from outside: "Mr. Bai asks to see him!" ”

As a woman, Du Xiaoyuan naturally wanted to bring a maid when she was marching outside, but as soon as the maid finished shouting, Bai Qian couldn't wait to break in: "Miss Block, the matter is urgent, I can't take care of these false courtesies, according to the Jinyi envoy we planted in Jingzhou City, Chen Yan has asked for help from Li Guoying's department in Xunyang Mansion, and Li Guoying's department has agreed, and now the department has come to the area of Jiangling County, Li Guoying's department has more than 50,000 people, including 20,000 elite soldiers, you see if we retreat immediately!" ”

"Li Guoying? One of the generals under Zuo Liangyu, this person is still a bit far-sighted and knows the importance of rescuing Inspector Chen Yan", Du Xiaoyuan smiled and said.

Although Gu Xiaoyuan did not know that Li Guoying was the traitor who later surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and destroyed the Nanming regime with Wu Sangui and became the first Sichuan governor of the Qing court, this did not affect Du Xiaoyuan's desire to get rid of him.

"Zuo Liangyu let Li Guoying's department stay in Xunyang Mansion The purpose is to pick him up, so as not to cut the back road, if we take advantage of this to annihilate Li Guoying's department, we will completely cut off Zuo Liangyu's back road, and at that time, Chen Yan's chess piece will be insignificant, and it won't be able to turn over much of a storm if he kills him or makes him come back", soon, Du Xiaoyuan figured out the key inside, and immediately ordered: "Immediately call the generals of all battalions!" ”

In a simple farmhouse, an elm table was spread horizontally in the middle, and the dust that had been deposited on it for a long time was wiped clean by Liu Hei, the general of the second battalion, directly with his sleeve, and then a map of Huguang was spread on the table, and after pressing it on both sides with two or three pieces of soil, he said to the officers around him:

"This is the Peaceao Mountain in the northwest of Jiangling County, this afternoon, Li Guoying's troops will pass through this place, although this is not as high as the mountain in our Kuizhou, but it is enough for us to fight a beautiful ambush battle, now, my order is that the second and third standards will first rely on the favorable terrain to use muskets to fight the enemy's cavalry, and then wait for the brothers of the seventh battalion to rush over and disperse the elite infantry of the department, the first standard will be responsible for annihilating the rest of the auxiliaries, the fourth standard will be responsible for intercepting the enemy's retreat, and the fifth standard will be the general reserve, carry out the order."

"Yes!" After listening to Liu Hei's order, the guerrillas of the second battalion all replied loudly, and then left with a smile.

"A group of guys who don't have a long history of knowledge, they panic like this after not fighting for a long time", Liu Hei couldn't help but laugh and scold when he saw this.

At this time, Tan Wen, the general of the seventh battalion, rode on a black war horse and shouted at a group of majestic cavalry soldiers: "Order: The first standard is to rush out from the flank immediately after the gunfire of the second battalion, and be sure to break up the enemy camp within half an hour, the second standard is to continue to be responsible for attacking other officers and troops, and must create a false impression that the main army is about to attack, and the third standard is responsible for countermeasures, once the left army escapes from the position of the second battalion, immediately pursue it, and be sure to annihilate him!" ”

……

"Don't be in a hurry to fight first, Childe said, sometimes the latter will receive a surprise effect, the fifth and fourth standards of the gendarmerie will first give me an honest lie in the trenches, and when the left army attacks, then give me a hard beating!"

At this time, Chen Gui, the general of the military police battalion, was also standing in a simple house made of a few pieces of wood and lecturing to a group of officers who were also wearing mortar-colored clothes. ”

"Yes!" Several people also climbed out of the trenches one after another, and soon saw the soldiers of the first target of the gendarmerie jumping swiftly over the trenches with spears, and soon disappeared into the jungle. And when they came to fifteen miles of the outer line of the first line of defense, they had already seen the scout cavalry of the left army, but they quickly fled into the woods, and when the bulk of the left army came, these warriors immediately rushed out like tigers and wolves in the mountains, and shouted: "Kill! Then I saw several spears with the sound of the leaves cracking in the woods, knocking the left army to the ground.

Then, they seized their spears and quickly reverted to the assassination formation of the army, and immediately gave it a swift blow while the left army was in shock, and many of the left army were killed in the green forest, but when the left army tried to raise their guns to fight back, they immediately dispersed and hid in the dense foliage bushes, and when the left army relaxed their vigilance, they killed again, so that the left army could not get a moment of peace in the midst of the killing sound.

"These thieves are as agile as swallows and superb in martial arts, it seems that they must be the main force of the thief army, and the army behind them is ordered to immediately press up, and cut down the trees in this area while counterattacking, and be sure to annihilate this thief army!" Zuo Liangyu ordered, and many hundred-year-old trees were killed, and the first standard immediately withdrew from the battle, so as not to be surrounded and annihilated by Zuo Liangyu's follow-up army.

The bunkers built of several miles of concrete, as well as countless fortresses made of blue bricks guarding the main transportation routes, were Zuo Liangyu's first impression when he entered the hinterland of Dongxiang County, and he had even guessed that the Han army here was only afraid that he was already ready to fight here, but when he saw that there was silence and no wind around, and since he had come with a large army, there was no reason not to attack once, so he immediately ordered: "Transfer the artillery battalion and bombard these cylinder houses and low walls for a while, I want to see what kind of formation these thieves are arranged!" ”

After a few rumbling sounds, the concrete wall was not damaged in the slightest, and the cylinder building (bunker) in Zuo Liangyu's mouth was still standing there. Yang Ming, who was hiding in a bunker with Chen Gui at this time, couldn't help but smile when he saw this: "It seems that Shang Daoxing and Ge Qizuo have not worked on this project, but they also have to tell the engineers of the Han Family Ordnance Institute to set up a project as soon as possible on how to develop a heavy artillery that can destroy concrete walls." ”