Qian Qianyi embarked on the journey home and stayed in Nanjing for five days, but he did not have the courage to go back to his hometown Changshu to have a look.

The passenger ship was heading north along the canal, and the cabin was very dull, so Qian Qianyi ordered his entourage to open the window of the cabin and look at the scenery on both sides of the canal.

There are countless wooden boats carrying grain with the imperial flag hanging in front and behind the passenger ships. There are not only grain ships in the river, but also troop carriers. The government soldiers of the prefectures and counties of Nanzhili gathered on both sides of the canal and went to Gaoyou Prefecture by water.

Feng Qin has been operating in Gaoyou Prefecture for two years, and the original small earth city has now been repaired as solid. Twenty miles away from Gaoyou Prefecture, there was a large camp of the Ming army, which echoed with the defenders in the city, and defeated dozens of Qing cavalry harassments this year.

Just looking at the materials deployed by the wooden boats in the canal, Qian Qianyi could predict the strength of the Ming army.

Thinking of the chaos in Beijing, he secretly sighed in his heart: "It seems that the Manchu Qing Dynasty is really at the end of the road." ”

One wrong step, one wrong step, if he was not in a hurry to surrender to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, even if he fled to eastern Zhejiang with Ma Shiying, he would be indispensable in the Ming Dynasty today, and it would not be impossible for him to be in Shangshu. What was Zhang Guowei before? Even Chen Zilong had to perform a disciple ceremony when he saw him.

The prosperity of the canal reached Gaoyouzhou, and there were some wooden boats on the river north of Gaoyouzhou, but those were warships. There have been no large-scale battles in Huaiyang in the past six months, but the war of scouts has never stopped.

In order to control the surface of the canal, or even the control of a certain village, it is common for both sides to kill and injure dozens of people.

The Ming army's sailors escorted Qian Qianyi back from the thirty-mile waterway of Gaoyou Prefecture, and in front of him was the control area of the Qing soldiers. To the north of the waterway safety, Huaiyang gathered a total of more than 200,000 Manchu and Ming troops, the canal Shui Kou has long been out of hiding place.

Qian Qianyi did not stay in Huai'an Mansion, he did not even get off the ship, but ordered his entourage to buy some supplies and return to Beijing through the northeast of the mountain.

Walking by water avoids 6 bumps on the ground, but the degree is not comparable to that of a fast horseman.

When Qian Qianyi's passenger boat arrived in Tongzhou, a suburb of Beijing, the little guy who got off the boat to buy food returned with a shocking news.

"The war has begun."

The sun is blazing.

A neat group of soldiers and horses marched north along the embankment by the river, and they came from Yangzhou City.

Looking at the deserted villages along the way, Sun Zhijing has passed through more than a dozen villages along the way, and there is no one in them, not even the old and weak women and children.

Although the news of the Ming Army's Northern Expedition was kept secret, the common people were much more sensitive than those sitting in the court imagined.

The paddy fields on both sides were full of rice that had just pulled out the ears, and Sun Zhijing rode a black horse under his crotch. The black horse walked with its head hanging down, looking a little wilted.

If Xu Yiyang sees it, he will definitely laugh at the general soldiers of a town who will ride such an inferior horse. But Sun Zhijing doesn't care, he doesn't like horseback riding. He has been practicing martial arts since he was a child, but his family is in Ningbo Mansion, and he often goes out by boat, and he has never ridden a horse before starting an army.

If it weren't for the military order of the Great General's Mansion, he wouldn't even touch the reins of his war horse.

He occasionally raised his clairing mirror to look into the distance, but the lush trees blocked his view. According to the information sent by the scouts, the Qing soldiers should still be guarding Xuyi City.

Xuyi was the first target of the Northern Expedition.

Xuyi is a very inconspicuous small county town on the shore of Hongze Lake, with many waterways and rice fields, which is not conducive to the Qing cavalry fighting. Hongze Lake was in the upper reaches of Huai'an, the lower reaches of Fengyang City, and the Ming army captured Xuyi in order to cut the connection between the Qing soldiers of Huai'an and Fengyang Mansion.

The army walked for three days, and Xuyi City was in front. The scouts did not show the Ming army that came out of the city to block the attack, and Sun Zhijing was a little drumming in his heart.

"It shouldn't be"

With more than 200,000 troops piled up in such a large place as Huaiyang, it is impossible for the Huai'an Qing soldiers not to know that the Ming army left Yangzhou City, and the advantage of the Qing captives was in the field, so wouldn't they send cavalry to block it?

The commander of the Huaiyang Army was Feng Qin, and the battle plan was inevitably affected by his cautious nature.

Sun Zhijing's army originally planned to encounter the cavalry blocked by the Qing Lu on the road, but he didn't expect Shunshun to arrive outside Xuyi City.

The vanguard of 2,000 Ming troops rushed straight to the outside of Xuyi City, the gate of the county seat was closed, and hundreds of people were left behind in several large market towns outside the county seat. The Ming army first lined up outside the south city gate, and the leading guerrilla general sent a small group of soldiers and horses around the city to block the four city gates first.

Sun Zhijing's Chinese army arrived, and while ordering the soldiers of the military government to pull up the iron cannon, he asked people to invite the local villagers out of several surrounding market towns.

The Ming army went out this time, and it did have the appearance of a king. The regent and Feng Qin repeatedly emphasized that they should not disturb the people along the way, and if there were any violators, the general soldiers of each town would be questioned.

There are no village elders in those towns, and those with a little identity have long since fled to where. The people of Huaiyang would rather believe in their own legs than in the military discipline of the soldiers and horses of the imperial court.

The soldiers brought seven or eight men who spoke in a slightly more organized manner.

The government soldiers dragged the iron cannon from the carriage outside the southern gate of Xuyi and set up an artillery position. The soldiers cut down trees and built camps around them.

When those civilians were brought into the barracks, it happened that the artillery outside was testing the artillery. After three or four cannon shots, several civilians shrank their necks in fright, and the guerrilla general of the scout battalion interrogated them for a long time without asking for any useful information.

Seeing the inarticulate appearance of those people, if it was the guerrillas in the scout camp in the past, they would have gone down with a few whips. However, before the dispatch of troops this time, the commanders of each battalion specially conveyed orders to the army to coordinate with the garrison above, and those who disturbed the people were not spared, and the arrogance of these people was suppressed.

After the Ming army tested the artillery, there were Qing soldiers pointing and watching at the head of Xuyi City, and some people fired back with artillery.

Sun Zhijing stood three or four hundred steps behind the artillery camp and took a clairvoyant mirror to look in the direction of Xuyi City for a while, and saw that the Qing soldiers were in a neat lineup, and there were Jurchens pressing the formation at the head of the city.

According to Feng Qin's military order, he must first set up a camp in every place he goes, and use Wuhan steel vehicles and wooden fences to do a good job of perimeter defense to prevent the Qing cavalry from attacking the camp. Last year, Ao Bai led the army to run thousands of miles and killed Yuan Zongdi, leaving a bloody lesson for the Ming army

Sun Zhijing looked at the sun in the western sky, and it was already halfway through. He estimated that Xuyi City was not so easy to fight, so he decided to prepare for it today and attack the city tomorrow. There was no exact military information sent by Gaoyouzhou, and he was also afraid that the Qing cavalry would suddenly appear under Xuyi City.

Two hours later, the defenders saw that the Ming army outside the city did not look like they were about to attack the city, and the dense crowd slowly thinned out.

Sun Zhijing was patrolling around, supervising the soldiers to set up camp.

These mountain people from eastern Zhejiang are brave and ruthless, and they have been honed on the battlefield for five or six years.

As the sun sets, the camp begins to take shape. The soldiers put down their work and gathered for dinner first.

As long as the battle is not as urgent as burning eyebrows, it is inevitable to sing the military song three times a day in the morning, noon and evening.

Sun Zhijing was about to return to the camp to rest after finishing his meal, when the scouts from the periphery came to report, and Zheng Zunqian led a team of 100 cavalry to seven or eight miles away.

The two general soldiers in eastern Zhejiang, Sun Zhijing and Zheng Zunqian, are both from scholarly families, and the two are not brothers, but better than brothers.

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