Zhu Youzhen's choice to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army's Duoduo Department in Yangzhou was a basic strategy that had been established a long time ago.

Duoduo from Shaanxi into Henan and then to Yangzhou, although all the way to attack the city and pull out the village, it seems to be invincible, like the autumn wind sweeping the leaves, almost there is a great sign of success in destroying the Ming Dynasty in the south.

But in fact, once Duoduo arrives in Yangzhou, this journey will definitely cause logistical supply difficulties, and the soldiers will be difficult and lacking, becoming the end of the crossbow.

And when the time comes, more than 400,000 troops of the Ming Guards will encircle the Qing army under the city of Yangzhou, and the Duoduo Department will get twice the result with half the effort.

In the original history, Duoduo dared to go south quickly because even if he had logistical supply difficulties, he would go to the south to get food on the spot, plus he surrendered Liu Liangzuo and Liu Zeqing in Jiangbei, so that he had the opportunity to destroy the Southern Ming court.

Now, Zhu Youzhen has already eliminated Liu Liangzuo and Liu Zeqing, and ordered the armies of the Guards to implement strong walls and clear fields in Fengyang, Huai'an, Yangzhou, Xuzhou and other prefectures.

Therefore, the Qing army went to Yangzhou City to fight a decisive battle with the Ming Guards and break through Yangzhou City to obtain the foundation of capturing Nanjing and occupying Jiangnan, which was a good choice for Duoduo at this time.

Zhu Youzhen did not plan to return to Nanjing at this time, Nanjing City had Fan Jingwen, the first assistant, and Ma Shiying, the secretary of the military department, in charge, and he didn't need to make up his mind about everything in the distribution of money and grain.

And in the Huguang territory, Du Yinxi and Li Yan led the annihilation army to resist the battle of the Azig troops going south, and he had no way to intervene far away in the south of the Yangtze River.

Zhu Youzhen planned to stay as close to Duoduo as possible so that he could control the overall situation at any time, but he would not interfere with the command of the generals below the chief officer in the battles everywhere.

Although Zhu Youzhen carried out various military reforms according to the strengths and weaknesses of the Qing army when he organized and trained the guards as early as a few years ago, he was not sure whether the Qing army would still be as powerful as it was in history after it went south.

However, the current military situation shows that the Duoduo is still moving south.

Although, because the Guards had not yet participated in the battle against the Qing army's Duoduo Division. However, Zhu Youzhen was also worried that the momentum of the Qing army's Duoduo Department would frighten the officers and soldiers of the Guards to lose their courage, and mistakenly thought that the Qing army was really invincible.

Generals can be in awe of their opponents, but junior officers and soldiers cannot be afraid of the enemy, so that once the morale of the army is dispersed, even the best weapons are useless.

Originally, the reason why the two towns of Jiangbei surrendered without a fight was not only because the troops of the two towns in Jiangbei were not good and the generals were not loyal and brave, but also because Duoduo's fierce offensive was too fierce and was frightened.

This is also why Zhu Youzhen still wants to stay in Jiangbei now, just to stabilize the army's heart through his identity as an emperor, he is not afraid of the emperor, and the people below will naturally not be so afraid.

It is normal for the Qing army to attack fiercely at the beginning, firstly, because of its large number of cavalry, and from Beijing to the south to Jianghuai, it is a smooth road, which is the area of today's North China Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain; Second, because the Qing army was equipped with a large number of red-coated cannons at this time, which solved their weakness in attacking the fortified positions, and they could break the city almost within a few days, which also caused ordinary officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty to be unable to defend the city and fight.

But as long as the Guards annihilated the Qing army's Duoduo Division or defeated the Duoduo Division in the Yangzhou area, then the Qing army's southward movement would inevitably not be so smooth.

First of all, the Qing court had just been founded, and the northern foothold was not stable, coupled with the issuance of a shaving order, so that many Han landlords in the north did not have a good impression of the Qing court.

Secondly, after years of conquest in the north, the army has long been scarce, and the Manchu Qing itself is sparsely populated, Duoduo has almost accounted for a large proportion of the total strength of the Qing court, if it is completely annihilated in the south of the Yangtze River, the Qing court will inevitably be greatly damaged, and retake the road of the Jin State.

The war was fought for money and food, and Duoduo went all the way south, and it would definitely be difficult for the Qing court in the north to raise enough grain and grass for him, so he could only supply him at any time during the southern expedition.

Zhu Youzhen now ordered Fengyang, Xuzhou, Huai'an, Yangzhou and other prefectures to clear the wilderness, so that Duoduo could not get any food supplements on the way to Yangzhou, and there were not even the people who could be used as coolies.

At this time, outside Fengyang City, there were many officials and gentry and ordinary people who moved south to Dingyuan, Shouzhou, Chuzhou and other places under the leadership of the guards from all over the country.

"Hurry up, don't rub it off, wait for the Tartars to arrive here, it's too late to run, I heard that Jiannu loves to eat children, especially that Dingyuan general Duoduo likes to cut people's lower bodies and drink wine!"

Because Zhu Youzhen emphasized strengthening the people to leave their homeland and respond to the call of the government to temporarily move south to the southern provinces, prefectures, and counties, on the one hand, he ordered the military headquarters to reward the soldiers with silver coins according to the number of people and industries they had relocated, and how much grain they had, and on the other hand, he also ordered the people to understand as much as possible the seriousness of the southward march of the Jiannu.

Therefore, at this time, in order to withdraw as many people as possible from Fengyang Mansion, the officers and soldiers of the guard center wantonly talked about the crime of building slaves.

Now hearing the officers and soldiers of the guard station describe Duoduo like this, Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but want to laugh, but he didn't refute it, in his opinion, even if Duoduo was not as brutal as the officers and soldiers of the guard said, but his crime of slaughtering Yangzhou for ten days in the original history can also show how brutal this person is.

Since ancient times, the Han people have had a hometown love plot, especially the Ming people, who mainly focus on agricultural production, and it is even more difficult to leave their homeland.

It is not a simple project to let them leave their land and homes and temporarily move to the southern state capital, and from the issuance of the edict last year to the present, it can still be seen that there are still people who have left their homeland at this time under the soft and hard measures of the government.

Outside the city, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Army Guard Station were still waving their knives to chop some green seedlings, and once all the people of a village were moved, they would directly burn all the mountains and forests near a village, so as not to provide any food and grass for Duoduo to go south.

Naturally, there were also people who were crawling on the ground and crying bitterly, but there were also officers and soldiers who couldn't help but yell: "What are you crying about, the state government has lost money to you, it's better than letting the Tartars rob it when the time comes!" ”

The chariots, the horses, and the pedestrians, bows and arrows, are all at the waist.

Seeing this scene, Zhu Youzhen thought of Du Fu's "Soldier Chariot Travel", as long as war comes, no matter what, it will affect the lives of the people and destroy the production of a society.

But the scene in front of him was caused by Zhu Youzhen's own order, he felt quite guilty in his heart, but he didn't regret it, if it wasn't so strong, who could know how crazy Duoduo's army did in order to replenish military supplies, and it was not unheard of to make up for the shortage of food by eating people in the late Ming Dynasty.

As soon as Zhu Youzhen left the city, he rushed to Mengcheng accompanied by Liu Fangliang and others.

This is the station of the First Corps of the Third Army of the Guards, and it is also an important place to prevent Duoduo Luzhou from advancing westward into the south of the Yangtze River, and at the same time, it is the closest place to detect the intelligence of Suzhou, Yongcheng, Guide and other places at any time.

Zhu Youzhen didn't know if Duoduo would send troops here for a tentative attack, but he had to come here after Duoduo came to Mongolia for a tentative attack to personally determine if this possibility would happen.

Ten days later, Henan people from the north appeared in Mengcheng one after another.

Chen Zizhuang, an official who had been transferred to the governor of Fengyang and had moved south with Zhu Youzhen, had also rushed to Mengcheng at this time and began to accept refugees from Henan.

The arrival of a large number of refugees from Henan also means that the Qing army's Duoduo Department is getting closer and closer to Mengcheng and Fengyang.