Nanjing Military Department.

Zheng Xunrui faced the sand table and was pondering.

The Investigation Bureau has been particularly busy recently, and the information on the battle between the imperial army and the Liukou in Huguang and Henan has been continuously delivered to Nanjing at the fastest speed, due to the attention of Xu Fojia and Yang Aizhen, and from the large amount of investment in money, the channels for the Intelligence Agency to obtain information have increased, and the speed is also very fast.

Zheng Xunrui asked the Investigation Department to make a huge sand table, which mainly reflects the terrain around Kaifeng Prefecture, among which Kaifeng Mansion City and Zhuxian Town are the most prominent, these two places are full of small red and blue flags.

The battle of the imperial army to exterminate the Liukou has become a matter of special concern to the whole court, especially after Li Zicheng led the Liukou to suddenly start attacking Kaifeng Fucheng, even some scholars and merchants began to pay attention to this matter, of course, the scholars cared about this matter, nothing more than feeling curious, and the merchants cared about this matter to see if it was related to their own business transactions, whether they would suffer any losses, and so on.

Zheng Xunrui's focus is of course different.

The emperor and the imperial court attach special importance to the extermination of the Liukou, it can be said that they have done their best, from the beginning of the collection and suppression of salaries, to the later implementation of the ambush on all sides, the operational deployment of four positive and six corners, everything on the surface The emperor and the imperial court are determined to completely exterminate the Liukou, as the secretary of the military department and the governor of the five provinces, Sun Chuanting's command ability is indeed good, in the early stage of the battle, he was able to grasp the key points, make full use of the contradictions between Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and adopted the method of stabilizing Li Zicheng and concentrating the army to exterminate Zhang Xianzhong. And it has achieved a very good result.

A great victory in the Battle of Xiangyang. It's the best proof of that.

It's a pity that everything has changed dramatically because of Li Zicheng's Kaifeng Fucheng.

At the beginning, Zheng Xunrui thought that Sun Chuanting did not need to lead a large army to aid Kaifeng Fucheng, which was the ancient capital of the Eight Dynasties after all, and the city walls were thick and tall. It's not so simple to be able to capture it, and the guards and border troops in Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places that are close to each other can rush to the aid of Kaifeng Fucheng, even if Kaifeng Fucheng encounters danger, the imperial court mobilizes other armies to act quickly and rush to aid Kaifeng Fucheng, it is also too late, and it is too late to retreat 10,000 steps back to say, even if Kaifeng Fucheng has fallen. As long as Sun Chuanting can completely eliminate Zhang Xianzhong, such an exchange is also cost-effective.

It's a pity that no one in the Ming court is willing to put forward such a proposal, including Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the cabinet, because there is one of the biggest problems here, that is, once the Kaifeng Mansion City falls, there will be many people who will have to bear unbearable responsibilities. was beheaded for public display, and even passed on to the nine sides. Just imagine who would want to take on such a responsibility.

As for whether Zhang Xianzhong was exterminated immediately, it is not the most important thing, anyway, the rogues have rebelled for so many years, and the imperial court is exterminating the rogues almost every year.

It is precisely because of this atmosphere. The military department sent an edict to Sun Chuanting, asking him to reinforce the city of Kaifeng.

Sun Chuanting did not dare to disobey the edict of the Ministry of War, or could not bear the responsibility for the fall of Kaifeng Fucheng, and was forced to lead the army when he occupied a good situation. Evacuate Yunyang and rush to the aid of Kaifeng Fucheng.

When Zheng Xunrui got the accurate news, he once sighed and said a sentence: Da Ming is hopeless.

For example, if Li Zicheng leads the Liukou to attack Kaifeng Fucheng, then the adjacent Shanxi and other places must immediately dispatch the garrison army or border army to aid Kaifeng Fucheng and relieve the danger of Kaifeng Fucheng. In this way, Sun Chuanting was able to concentrate on exterminating the living force of the Liukou in accordance with his own deployment.

Although Yang Sichang, a cabinet minister and secretary of the Ministry of War, put forward the operational deployment of ambushes on all sides and four squares and six corners, it was a pity that he lacked courage or lacked responsibility, and in addition to the scattered sand in the DPRK and China, the matter of exterminating the Liukou directly became the responsibility of Sun Chuanting, the governor of the five provinces, and the armies in the rest of the places were all watching from the sidelines, and they would not send troops if they were not involved.

According to this situation, the emperor and the court want to completely exterminate the rogue, which is a fool's dream, and it is very good to be able to guarantee that it will not fail.

Xu Wanghua, Zheng Jinhong, Li Yan and others entered the room.

Zheng Xunrui didn't look up, looked at the sand table and spoke.

"The red flag on the sand table represents the imperial army led by Sun Chuanting and Wu Fu, and the blue flag represents the Liukou led by Li Zicheng.

The situation in Kaifeng Fucheng and Zhuxian Town is as clear as Xu Wanghua and others, so there is no need to say much about this sand table exercise.

Xu Wanghua, Zheng Jinhong and Li Yan and others began to discuss moving the red flag, Zheng Xunrui was alone to move the blue flag, gradually, the red flag was completely surrounded by the blue flag around the city of Kaifeng, and there was no way out for the left and right, and at this time, Xu Wanghua, Zheng Jinhong and Li Yan had bean-sized sweat droplets on their foreheads.

Xu Wanghua raised his head and watched Zheng Xunrui speak.

"In the battle of Kaifeng Mansion City, if the adult commands it, the imperial army stationed in Zhuxian Town will definitely be annihilated, and the Kaifeng Mansion City will be difficult to defend, but Liukou does not have the wisdom of an adult, and Li Zicheng has no possibility of comparing with an adult."

After Xu Wanghua finished speaking, Zheng Jinhong also spoke.

"The young master is clever, where can the rogue be matched."

Li Yan nodded, reached out to wipe the sweat drops from his forehead, and did not speak.

Zheng Xunrui also looked up at everyone and slowly spoke.

"I didn't do my best, I just commanded according to the normal process of the battle, you have all seen it, there are many Liukou people, even if the combat effectiveness is not good, they can make up for it by constantly dispatching troops, don't think that Li Zicheng is a fool, let alone underestimate Gu Junen next to Li Zicheng, if they don't have extraordinary courage, how can they make the decision to attack Kaifeng Fucheng."

"But in the battle of Zhuxian Town, Lord Sun won a major victory, exterminating more than 20,000 Liukou."

"Yes, the battle of Xiangyang, the battle of Zhuxian Town, Sun Chuanting and He Renlong have won, but under what conditions is this victory, the victory of the battle of Xiangyang, Zhang Xianzhong wants to preserve his strength, and he does not agree with the reinforcements of more than 100,000 liukou led by Liu Wenxiu, Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi, so that Sun Chuanting can attack with less and more peace of mind, and Zhang Xianzhong has long had the idea of taking the initiative to take the initiative here in Xiangyang Fucheng."

Zheng Xunrui said this, Xu Wanghua and the others lowered their heads and pondered.

"As for the battle of Zhuxian Town, the information obtained by the Investigation Bureau has explained everything, Li Zicheng led most of the rogues to bypass Zhuxian Town and go straight to Kaifeng Fucheng, which shows that Li Zicheng's purpose is to capture Kaifeng Fucheng, not a decisive battle with Sun Chuanting, as for Liu Zongmin, who commanded the battle, he is a fierce general, but he does not have much strategy, and he does not pay attention to Sun Chuanting, who rushed to help, which led to a big defeat."

"Sun Chuanting won the battle of Zhuxian Town, why didn't he take advantage of the victory to pursue, why didn't he rush to the aid of Kaifeng Fucheng, this says it all, Sun Chuanting's worries are justified, once Li Zicheng concentrates the main offensive force on the imperial army led by him, the situation will be reversed immediately."

"I just hope that Sun Chuanting can hold on, wait until the follow-up army arrives in Zhuxian Town, and then launch a general attack on Li Zicheng, so that even if Li Zicheng cannot be completely wiped out, at least he can guarantee that he will not fail."

Xu Fojia and Yang Aizhen entered the house at the same time and handed a document to Zheng Xunrui.

The fact that the two of them came to deliver information at the same time shows that this information is not trivial.

The eyes of Xu Wanghua and the others were all focused on Zheng Xunrui.

Zheng Xunrui looked at the information carefully, and his hands trembled slightly.

After a long sigh, Zheng Xunrui handed the paperwork to Xu Wanghua.

"I'm afraid the sand table drill we just now is about to become a reality, and it seems that Zheng Jiajun needs to be ready to go on the expedition."

Xu Wanghua and the others hurriedly opened the paperwork and looked at it quickly.

A few minutes later, Xu Wanghua, whose face was slightly pale, spoke.

"Since Lord Sun didn't immediately rush to the aid of Kaifeng Fucheng, he expected that the Liukou would be strong, I don't know why he decided to lead the army to help at this time, why is he so unbreathable."

Zheng Xunrui shook his head slightly, smiled bitterly and spoke.

"The rules of the court, the emperor's temper, all this Sun Chuanting is clear, he can't bear the pressure, he can only compromise."

"My lord, do you want to write a letter to Lord Sun to remind me?"

"It's useless, I'm afraid that before the letter reaches Sun Chuanting's hands, everything has already happened."

"Then, all the arrangements of the imperial court to exterminate the rogues will not be destroyed in one fell swoop."

"Such an ending, I have long expected it, the power is not unified, the adults in the court think of their own official hats and interests, Sun Chuanting is under too much pressure, it is difficult to have the opportunity to call the shots, Chen Xinjia is lucky, and he is extremely smart, with the help of Sun Chuanting won the battle of Xiangyang and entered the cabinet, in this case, the battle to exterminate the Liukou can be won, unless the Liukou sticks out his head and waits for Sun Chuanting to cut down."

The room fell silent instantly, and everyone knew that Zheng Xunrui still took the overall situation into account, although the failure of the imperial court to exterminate the Liukou was very beneficial to Zheng Xunrui and Zheng Jiajun, but Zheng Xunrui still did not want to see such a situation. (To be continued......)