Inviting Zheng Hongkui into his military camp, Yang Chao thought about the whole picture of the Ming Dynasty.

The first suspicion is that Hong Chengchou is doing the same trick again, just like last time, tearing himself from both sides, and then sneaking up on himself from the center.

But the current situation is completely different from the last time, last time Hong Chengchou could raid himself from Jiangxi, but now the whole Jiangxi is in the hands of Yang Chao, it is impossible for Hong Chengchou to hit Nanjing in a short time, but after Lu Mo's troops went out of Yuanzhou to capture Liling, they could directly attack Xiangtan and Changsha along the Xiangjiang River system, and cut off Huguang.

That is, Yang Chao has a favorable location to raid Huguang, and Hong Chengchou has no chance to sneak attack Jiangnan.

Although this possibility is not very likely, but Hong Chengchou is a person, as long as there is a chance, he will definitely seize it, the feint attack and the main attack can be changed at any time, Qi Zheng is very good at playing, even if there is no such plan, once Yang Chao gives him a chance, he will definitely not miss it, so Yang Chao does not dare to be careless.

Second, Yang Chao suspected that the reason why Hong Chengchou attacked Guangdong was because he was sure that he could recruit Jin Shenghuan, but he attacked Yang Chao from both Zhejiang and Huguang.

Therefore, although Jin Shenghuan has not played an anti-flag at present, he has to guard against it.

Third, Yang Chao suddenly pointed to the north: "Here, this time Hong Chengchou is just a supporting role, and the protagonist is Dolgon!" ”

Zheng Hongkui watched Yang Chao's hand pointing back and forth on the whole map of the Ming Dynasty, flickering left and right, flickering east and west, and in the blink of an eye, there were several provinces, quite a bit of a taste of pointing out the country, but he still couldn't help but be surprised, Yang Chao would actually focus his eyes on the north far away from the battlefield, and would think that the goal of the Manchu Qing was Shandong and Henan!

The war has been fought like this now, it has long been no longer a battle for one city and one pool, or even one province and one government, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has begun to play the national grand strategy, and Hong Chengchou is just starting this time. The real direction of attack is in the north.

"It seems that Dorgon thinks that he has trained the thirty-eight bannermen in his hand and can compete with the Governor."

Yang Chao sighed to Zheng Hongkui.

Yang Chaojun, 500,000, 350,000 in Jiangbei, 150,000 in Shandong and Guide, Zheng Yongwang in Fengyang, Chuzhou and other places. Sun Changfu stayed in Huaiyang to respond, Jiangnan only had 150,000 horses, except for Nanjing City, which left 50,000, the others were in the hands of Xie Fei, many men and Lu Mo, the three general soldiers and Hu Quan.

Zheng Hongkui swallowed his saliva, 300,000 Eight Banners, he couldn't help but be stunned in his heart, the whole world can compete with the Eight Banners, that is, Yang Chao's army, this is already a recognized fact. Except for a few very romantic civilian officials, basically no one would provoke Yang Chao militarily.

Zheng Hongkui is a character who knows more about fighting and kills with real swords and guns, so he naturally understands what is going on in the army, it is definitely not blown out, nor is it something that one or two literati can turn the clouds and rain with a little strategy, those things in the book are about reason rather than facts.

But the literati don't care about that. They believe in Cao Di's polemics or something, as if they can win the battle in just a few words. They probably won't care about the fact that Mr. Cao Di also died in the battle in the end.

"So the Governor probably can't send many troops. Marquis Zheng, this battle has to rely on the Zheng family's army. ”

Yang Chao sighed.

Zheng Hongkui was overjoyed: "Uncle has a life, the Zheng family doesn't dare to disobey, and they all listen to the uncle's dispatch." ”

Yang Chao is very satisfied with Zheng Hongkui's attitude, an ally, he should have an ally. is as clear and amiable as before, and the thing of stabbing a knife behind his back is still very hurtful.

Yang Chao nodded and said: "In this battle, the governor can only send 30,000 infantry cavalry artillery soldiers of Xie Fei's army into Guangdong. The rest of the army will remain in Zhejiang and Jiangxi to guard against Hong Chengchou and Jin Shenghuan. None of the troops in the north can go south, and I am afraid that they will have to fight with the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners. Therefore, Zheng Jiawu must do his best to recover Guangdong together with Xie Fei's department! ”

Zheng Hongkui said: "Write a letter immediately." Let Sen'er send troops to Guangdong! ”

Yang Chao nodded.

Northern.

It was already October weather, the autumn was high and the grass was yellow, Wang Pu burned all the way, and successfully hit Kaifeng Mansion from Guide.

In order to deal with Wu Sangui's cavalry, he didn't bother to think less, he was originally a person with high military talent, and it can be seen that he was able to use the wall array to break the orthodox mandarin duck formation practiced by Lao Jin in the past, in order to guard against Wu Sangui, he dug out his mind to arrange a circular formation, and it really had a different effect on dealing with the enemy's sneak attack.

The art of war in the Song Dynasty is cloudy: all infantry and chariot cavalry fighters, if they encounter an easy way, they must use the horse gun as a phalanx, including the infantry. The horse army and infantry were divided into garrisons and war teams. The team is stationed in the formation, and the team fights; The team defends the formation, and the team is stationed in the battle. If the enemy attacks us, we will send troops from two sentries to cover ......

Obviously, with the horse gun as a phalanx, flat formation, this is the Western infantry phalanx to cavalry tactics, the Chinese study of tactics is much deeper than the West, but it is a pity that later generations of military enthusiasts who know nothing strongly admire the Western phalanx, but do not want the ancient Chinese formation is varied, in different terrain will choose different tactics, far more flexible than the West, Westerners military research has been very shallow, so only a set of phalanx used for many years.

The military formation is such a thing, flexible and natural life is rigid, and the more flexible Roman phalanx will defeat the Macedonian phalanx.

Wang Pu absorbed this experience, and he specially made an extended spear, divided into three formations with a group of 300 people, covering each other, and immediately formed a formation after encountering the enemy's cavalry. But he was not confined to the defense, after rejecting the horse and pistol to form a field of guns, to deal with the first round of the enemy's charge, if the enemy chose to harass with cavalry, then there were infantry archers and ornithmen in the formation to suppress it, and after resisting the first wave of the enemy's assault, followed by his most skilled pikemen thrust, the cavalry that lost its speed did not have any resistance before this thrust.

Wang Pu with 3,000 people, nine phalanxes to escort military rations, encountered several sneak attacks, were easily repelled by him, at the same time the main force and the baggage troops were always kept within three miles, once the baggage troops were entangled, the main cavalry could arrive within a quarter of an hour, so he easily hit Kaifeng Mansion.

Kaifeng Mansion guard general Gao Di, trembling, he was the general soldier of Shanhaiguan, and then surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty with Wu Sangui, and let the Manchu Qing enter the customs is actually him with Wu Sangui, but he is not as famous as Wu Sangui, and the infamy of later generations made Wu Sangui carry it alone, in addition to his loyalty to the Manchu Dynasty, the history written by the Qing Dynasty is not easy to scold him, so he escaped the reputation of a big traitor.

In fact, Wu Sangui fought with Li Zicheng in Shanhaiguan at that time. Gao Di's troops were almost the same as Wu Sangui's, and the border army stationed in places like Shanhaiguan was very limited, even if it was worse than the Guangning army, so he and Wu Sangui blocked Li Zicheng together, and then the Manchu 100,000 Eight Banner soldiers suddenly appeared to defeat Li Zicheng.

After the surrender of Gaudí. is not as prominent as Wu Sangui, and he is also not too suspicious, he still did the Shanhaiguan general soldier, and then transferred to Henan, as the chief soldier of Kaifeng and Guide, although the Guide Mansion was captured by Yang Chao, Dolgon only fined him for half a year, and did not remove him from his position.

Later, Wu Sangui was sent from Liaodong to help him, and the two old partners got together again. Gao Di was responsible for holding the city, and Wu Sangui was responsible for containing it outside the city.

Just when Wang Pu was about to take Kaifeng in one go, he suddenly received a military order from Jiangnan.

"What, let me immediately shrink my forces and defend to Germany?"

Wang Pu was a little difficult to accept this military order, he had already hit the outside of Kaifeng City, and the artillery had begun to be erected, maybe he could break the city tonight. It's too much to say that he should be retired now.

But Yang Chao also gave Wang Pu an explanation. That is, it was conjectured that the Qing army might concentrate its forces to attack Guide and Shandong, so that he could be careful and defend the city.

"What are you kidding, Lao Tzu has hit Kaifeng Mansion, can the Qing army still go to Guide?"

Speaking of this, Wang Pu himself was stunned for a moment. Cold sweat came down in an instant.

It's too easy, it's too easy to hit the edge of Kaifeng City.

"Oh no, turn the tiger away from the mountain!"

It suddenly occurred to him that the Guide Mansion was empty, and Wu Sangui's cavalry was always only harassing. He knew he had been fooled.

Dongchang Mansion, Shandong.

Zhao Kang also received an order.

However, he agreed with his lieutenant Li Yuanyin that the cavalry should be attacked instead of defended.

"Fight the Daimyo's Mansion, cut off the road that the Qing army threatens my flank, and at the same time attack and defend each other as one with Guide Company."

These two have been cooperating since Wuhu, and they have become more and more tacit, and they are both bold and reckless.

Li Wuliu, Jinan Prefecture.

"I'm afraid he won't come to fight. The Tartars attacked me, one for Texas and the other for Linqing, and I want to see how they beat me. ”

After Li Wuliu received the order, he was very arrogant, the cavalry of the Eight Banners was very powerful, and he taught Zhao Kang a lesson, but his Li Wuliu's infantry was not afraid of these Mongolian cavalry from the bitter cold land of Mobei, especially in the case of defending the city, Li Wuliu thought that those people were the ones who gave away their heads.

"Sure enough, it's in the north!"

Three days later, Yang Chao received a battle report, and the Qing army had indeed launched an attack in the north.

First of all, Wang Pu was plotted and was secretly attacked by Wu Sangui to Guide Mansion, and the number of troops guarding Guide Mansion was less than 3,000, and the day was not safe.

But fortunately, Zhao Kang led the cavalry to attack the Daimyo's Mansion, and after receiving the news, he asked the deputy general Li Yuanyin to lead his troops to surround the Daimyo's Mansion, and immediately sent 10,000 cavalry south to rescue. In addition, Wang Pu woke up in time, frantically sent troops back to help, and finally rushed to Guide Mansion before the Qing army broke the city, and repelled Wu Sangui.

However, Wu Sangui's troops were probably insufficient, and the sneak attack was only 20,000 troops, so he retreated early when he saw that the situation was not good.

The real war took place on the front line of Shandong and Beizhili.

Li Wuliu's army was mainly defensive, and the Eight Banners mobilized more than 150,000 troops to concentrate their forces on attacking the two cities of Linqing and Dezhou, but after deploying enough artillery and almost all the tenacious infantry that could fight with bird guns to defend the city, the Eight Banners could never capture the two cities.

The war lasted for 20 days, the Eight Banners can be described as heavy losses, the loss of people is not large, it is estimated that it is less than 20,000, but the large-scale artillery battle has caused the Qing army to lose more than 1,000 artillery, the Manchu Qing Dynasty cast artillery is still a primitive method, casting a cannon takes a long time, so this more than 1,000 red-coated cannons may be more distressing than the death of 20,000 people.

Soon after the artillery battle, Yang Chao received information from Diao Erdou, and Dolgon actually asked them to hire a group of cannon casting craftsmen from Jiangnan, especially from Macao, and Dolgon was willing to pay a lot of money in return.

"Dolgon's donkey skills are exhausted!"

Yang Chao secretly sighed in his heart, an army that relied on personal brute force and strong cold weapons under the constraints of cruel military discipline was forced by himself to start paying attention to artillery, and if he didn't make it, the future war would become a large-scale artillery battle first, and then a cold weapon confrontation.

As soon as he thought that the Manchus were going to start an arms race with him, Yang Chao was full of sympathy for them, they had lost the war, and in Yang Chao's view, the Eight Banners Group had withdrawn from the ranks of competing for the world.

The Northern Offensive of the Eight Banners was thwarted by the three most capable generals under Yang Chao, but the cost was also very large, the people were displaced, especially the junction of Shandong and Beizhili, almost became a no-man's land, the Qing army could not capture the city, in this area burned and looted, frantically slaughtered the people, and drove the people to attack the city and other bad behaviors, so that there were almost no people in the canal for thirty miles.

The situation in the south is not very optimistic, Hong Chengchou obviously achieved better results than his master, taking advantage of Yang Chao's inability to divide his troops to the south, Hong Chengchou almost captured the entire Guangdong, except for Guangzhou held on for half a month, the rest of the city almost surrendered without a fight, and handed over the city to Hong Chengchou.

Whether it is a civilian official or a military general, none of them have a discipline, Conghua County ordered Ji Yisheng to be actively responsible for helping the Qing army cast artillery, it was he who cast the red-clothed cannon that collapsed the city of Guangzhou, after the Qing army entered the city, even if there was a constraint from Hong Chengchou, it still carried out a brutal massacre here.

Hong Chengchou, as a literati, obviously can't do this kind of thing, but he can restrain the green battalion soldiers, but he can't restrain the Eight Banners, especially when the Eight Banners are still led by a prince like King Sanshun, he doesn't listen to him at all, and the final result is that this first male city in Guangdong has become "the people are slaughtered, and two or three out of ten." ”

"Order our army, but the army under the jurisdiction of King Sanshun will not accept surrender and be annihilated in one fell swoop!"

After Yang Chao received the news, he sighed, he couldn't reach it, although Xie Fei had rushed to Guangdong, but he didn't have enough troops to rescue Guangzhou, and Hong Chengchou's deployment was obviously much better than Xie Fei, Xie Fei with the cooperation of Zheng's family, although he landed in Chaozhou, but he has been restrained by Hong Chengchou, and sent troops to rescue three times, either ambushed or sneak attacked, and returned three times in vain.

Like last time, the small court fled from Zhaoqing to Wuzhou from the Xijiang River by water.

It is said that the first assistant Ding Kuichu because of too much wealth, loaded more than 100 ships, fell behind, and was finally caught up by the Qing cavalry, Ding Kuichu brazenly expressed his willingness to return, but the Qing army was angry with his property and killed him, this batch of treasures is rumored to be worth millions of taels of silver.

After Hong Chengchou captured Guangzhou, he immediately asked Kong Youde to pursue Zhu Cihuan, leaving Shang Kexi and Geng Zhongming to continue to attack Guangdong, and Kong Youde chased all the way into Guangxi. (To be continued......)