Such a result forced Xu Ping to admit defeat, if the battle continued like this, the losses of the Shun army were unbearable for him. Xu Ping was ready to pause and continue the attack, and at the same time restarted the reconnaissance and temptation, so that the commanders of each battalion calmed down and carefully drew a map of the Ming army's city defense.

"Three hundred and thirty people were lost in one night of peripheral warfare, oh my God," Zhou Dongtian reacted the most fiercely after seeing the results of the battle, in addition to the main battle, this is a heavy casualty that has never been seen in all the battles since Henan, especially these lost soldiers are mostly the backbone soldiers of the commando sent by the two battalions of sharpshooters and snipers - although the main battle is a loss of several thousand, but the main battle has not been once for several months: "It takes less than ten days to shoot a wing!" ”

This loss made Zhou Dongtian fiercely oppose the continued assault on the Constitution Division, and he proposed to divide the troops to bypass the Constitution Division and march south, if the Ming army defected along the way, then there would be cannon fodder troops and servant troops to help the main force to deal with the Sixth Army of the Southern Ming, if the Constitution Division rushed out to stop it, of course, it would be better.

"How many troops to send south?" Li Laiheng opposed this opinion, and the 30,000 Ming army was eyeing Yingtianfu, and it was impossible for the Shun army to send a large force of troops: "How much baggage should you bring to the army?" How many siege cannons to bring? How many soldiers and horses were sent to protect their grain routes? If the Ming army in the south does not surrender immediately, but intends to defend it, what will happen if the army is divided? ”

It was difficult to transport the artillery, and Li Laiheng was also worried that because of the resistance of the Constitutional Division, some Ming troops would have the idea of stubborn resistance, and it would be a disaster if the Ming army in the south did not surrender but followed the example of the Constitutional Division, digging trenches and holding on—this was possible if the Shun army only sent a small detachment. If the Ming army is to attack the city held by the Ming army, then the Shun army must send more soldiers and artillery, and this action will cause a lot of trouble when many field camps of the Shun army are currently repaired; If it is not sent, it will be even more impossible to clean up, and all the Ming troops will doubt the ability of the Shun army to attack the fortifications - when the main force of the Shun army is stuck by the Sixth Army at close range, their ability to attack the fortifications is indeed doubtful.

Xu Ping is more inclined to Li Laiheng's opinion, if the Shun army is in great danger, he doesn't mind taking a risk, the inferior side always has to muddy the water to win more opportunities, but now the disadvantage is not the Shun army but the Ming army, tens of thousands of Ming troops were tightly nailed to the ground by the Shun army and could not move, losing all their mobility and offensive ability can only be beaten. If Xu Ping went to create chaos by himself at this time, it would not be worth it if he was taken advantage of by the Ming army.

In addition, Xu Ping also has a worry, after the victory in Anqing, he estimates that the Ming army will have a long period of fear and Shun army field battle, Xu Ping thinks that even if Jin Qiude has not been broken, he will not have much confidence in the field, and He Feihu on the opposite side is actually the same, it is precisely because of this lack of confidence that Xu Ping can maneuver more safely, which brings him a great battlefield advantage - for example, Tang Desheng sneaked up on the small army of the Shun army before, and did not dare to hold out for a long time, but hurriedly retreated as soon as he saw that he was in a stalemate, This is also because of the lack of confidence in the field and gives the Shun army an advantage.

Since the confidence in field warfare has declined, Xu Ping estimates that the Ming army's combat strategy in the future will tend to stick to the position, just like the constitutional division. And Xu Ping hoped that the larger the units of the Ming army together, the better, obviously if the Sixth Army was held together, it would be far more beneficial to the mobility of the Shun army than the current division of troops into three places. This is also a matter of confidence, the lower the confidence of the Ming army in holding on, then each of their defense groups will become larger, the distance between the various strongholds will become, and the Shun army will have more room for maneuver, safer food routes and marches, and more opportunities for field warfare. At present, if the Shun army shows that it is helpless against the Ming army of a division, then Xu Ping is worried that the next time he encounters the Ming army will be the Ming army to hold on as a regiment.

"We want to eliminate the Constitution Division," Xu Ping vetoed Zhou Dongtian's proposal, feeling the need to completely annihilate the division, sending a clear signal to the main force of the Ming army: it is extremely unsafe for any division to act alone, and it is useless even if it is fully prepared. And it is also a kind of deterrent to Nanzhili and Zhejiang, in order to completely dispel their idea of sticking to the Shun army: "But of course I won't attack so recklessly, let's take our time." ”

While Xu Ping was busy scouting the enemy situation and drawing maps, the Ming army also strengthened the fortifications day and night, and the trenches and ramparts were constantly strengthened and improved, and the two armies faced each other for several days without any fierce fighting.

"Tang Desheng's defense is very solid, and it is strong in every direction," after careful reconnaissance, Xu Ping gave up his earlier idea of attacking on all fronts, and then looking for weak points to break through to the Ming army headquarters, although this tactic of attacking the head was his favorite, but Xu Ping frankly admitted after five days of reconnaissance that he said that the defensive loopholes he was looking for might not exist at all, or that it would be necessary to launch a sacrifice of firepower reconnaissance to find them. Anyway, the situation of protracted war has been formed, and Xu Ping does not plan to continue to take risks: "I think it is better to pull out these strongholds one nail and one nail at a time, so as not to reach it quickly." ”

Another benefit of slowing down engagements is that the battalions can use the opportunity to recuperate while assigning recruits to some of the work: whether it's standing guard, keeping a sentry, or spying on enemy troops, it's good for recruits to be able to carry out tasks alongside veterans on the real battlefield. Chen Zhe pointed out that this is a very cost-effective training model, and after the enemy army has lost most of its offensive capability, it will not be much more dangerous for the new recruits of the Shun army to receive training than when they are training in the rear.

Before each attack, Xu Ping would dig trenches as close as possible to the Ming stronghold, concentrate artillery for long-term shooting, and then send more than two battalions to attack a Ming stronghold with only a few hundred or thousands of people.

In the following month, the Shun army only launched four attacks, but each time they pulled out one of Tang Desheng's outlying strongholds, after four attacks, the outermost position of the constitutional division was driven into several gaps, the Ming army suffered more than 1,000 casualties, and each time the Shun army, which launched an attack under absolute superiority, only lost a few hundred people, in addition to the time was greatly prolonged, the current offensive efficiency is not the same as the first time.

"A defense without a counterattack is still an incomplete defense after all," Xu Ping felt that the balance of victory was constantly tilting towards him, and he was now standing in the former Ming army position that he had just captured, and he could already see the core fortress of the Ming army in Chunhua Town. Since the beginning of the war, the 15,000 Ming army has always been closely surrounded by the Shun army, their every move is the surrounding Shun army into view, each position is not far from the Shun army control and produce a containment effect, the Ming army's mobility and counterattack ability has been very low from beginning to end, which gives the Shun army the ability to calmly mobilize superior forces and weapons to attack a little: "When the Ming army is all forced into Chunhua Town, our mortar artillery can hit their morale hard and kill and wound their soldiers." ”

That night, the Shun army launched an attack on a weak stronghold again, and the Shun army once again took a village in the hands of Tang Desheng, Li Laiheng found that the Ming army on the opposite side seemed to be a little hesitant, he noticed that the Ming army had made a build-up and seemed to have signs of counterattack, but Li Laiheng waited all night, and finally the Ming army opposite him still gave up the effort to regain the position, and the assembled Ming army finally dispersed and did not rush out of Chunhua Town.

After dawn, Li Laiheng saw that the teaching team of the avant-garde battalion brought the recruits to the edge of the Ming army's artillery fire for drills, and the officers shouted the order loudly, asking the recruits to form a phalanx, and in the Ming army's field of vision, they lined up back and forth in a big way, and then changed the formation to the right for a while, and then changed the formation for a while.

This is not the first time Li Laiheng has seen such a scene, as before, the Ming army fired a few cannons at the Shun army, but the long distance made the accuracy of the shells very poor, and the recruits of the Shun army who had seen this scene were not as flustered as when they heard the cannon for the first time, Li Laiheng saw that the phalanx of recruits in the avant-garde battalion was still in order, and the recruits waved their arms and continued to walk around in front of the Ming army in a formation similar to a military parade.

"It's so hot today," Li Laiheng looked at for a while, and as the sun gradually rose in mid-air, the land of early summer was so bright that people felt like they couldn't open their eyes. Although Li Laiheng, who hadn't slept all night, was a little sleepy, but the sweat quickly soaked through the thick armed uniform on his body, Li Laiheng thought about it, took the guards to the stream behind the position, and threw himself into the water.

After taking a pleasant bath, Li Laiheng reluctantly climbed out of the cool stream, and before he went to bed, he ordered that the officers and men who were not on duty could go to the stream in batches to enjoy themselves.

The soldiers of the Ming army who were sticking to the trenches and ramparts looked at the figures frolicking in the water in the distance, and they all kept their mouths shut. Sweat flowed down Li Hong's forehead, and in order to guard against a sneak attack by the Shun army, the soldiers of the 35 th Regiment took turns to enter the trench on duty, and mosquitoes flew in the trench, buzzing in Li Hong's ears all the time, and this kind of small insects that could not be killed and driven away harassed the Ming soldiers in the trench day and night.

Li Hong looked at the vague figures with envy, and there was also a small stream flowing not far from his position, passing between the positions of the Ming and Shun troops. Li Hong wiped the sweat that flowed from between his eyebrows to the corners of his eyes, and fantasized that he could also rush into the water and have a good time, but after the fantasy ended, Li Hong, who was still in the trench, felt that his whole body became more itchy.

After I don't know how long, the soldiers of the Shun army in the distance finished their drill, and Li Hong watched them happily disband, moving to the shade of the tree to rest, and sometimes Li Hong could see the soldiers of the Shun army in the distance playing ball not far from the shooting range; On a few nights, you can still see the campfire on the Shunjun side, and smell the aroma of roast rabbit meat wafting from afar.

In the past, Li Hong also had similar activities with his comrades in his spare time, but these have all disappeared since they were surrounded, and the surrounding darkness hides the enemy who may rush at any time, and the whole division implements strict lighting control, not to mention any entertainment, and it is impossible to have such a large space for activities and this mood. There are also game and fish, Li Hong swallowed his saliva, and now there are not even many fresh vegetables and mushrooms in the city.

When the time for the shift change finally came, Li Hong returned to Chunhua Town, and both sides of the road were full of bored Ming army comrades, and the Ming soldiers in the town had been sitting day by day, waiting for the attack of the Shun army. However, most of the time it was empty, except for the beginning, and then the Shun army attacked a very small range every time, and every time it gnawed a little position of the Ming army and stopped. Li Hong and his 35th Regiment have been waiting since they were surrounded, ready to strike hard at the enemy with the weapons in their hands and repel the enemy's attacks, but the weapons in his hands are rarely useful, and although they stay behind the trenches or walls every day to be on guard, the enemy always refuses to attack.

Walking into the camp, Li Hong collapsed on his bunk, nervous, bored, and the stuffiness of the trenches made him have no appetite at all. After resting until the sun went down, Li Hong got up and considered what to eat in case of a possible battle in the evening -- although he was not on duty tonight, war could happen at any time, and the officers had said during training that they should hurry up and eat, because in the event of a fierce battle, they would probably not be able to eat for many hours. While Li Hong was preparing to eat, he was also preparing to take good care of his weapons and check his equipment.

Not every soldier thinks this way of Li Hong, and some soldiers have begun to deviate from the requirements of the training, shouting that the Shun army will never attack tonight, and it is useless to repeat the various precautions - most of the time they are right.

After completing today's routine pre-war inspection in accordance with the regulations, Li Hong suddenly heard a wail from afar, passing in front of the camp gate, and then heading into the distance. This voice immediately dispelled Li Hong's appetite a lot, and it was not because of the shouts of the unlucky wounded, although there were not many such voices, Li Hong had heard them a few times, and what he could not forget was the wounded barracks not far from his own barracks.

Since the siege, the number of wounded soldiers and sick soldiers has been increasing, and the division headquarters has built a nursing battalion in the center of Chunhua Town, and the area of this battalion has slowly expanded as the siege has been around for a long time. The last time Li Hong passed in front of the guard camp, although it was only a glance, he still saw the wounded soldiers inside. The wounded soldiers had no way to be transported to the rear, so they could only huddle into the increasingly tight care camp, and as the temperature got hotter, a large number of flies spun around the wounded camp all day long, and the wounded soldiers began to be so indifferent that they didn't bother to wave away the bugs that circled around their bandages. Every morning, the replaced bandages would be piled up and burned in the center of the town, and Li Hong felt that sooner or later the whole town would be enveloped in this stench.

A few days later, the temperature became even more unbearable, the Shun army did not attack for several days, and the nervousness of the Ming soldiers also increased day by day, until seven days later, the Shun army still did not attack. When he was on duty tonight, Li Hong felt that his nerves were already tense and about to break—why hadn't they launched an attack yet? It's been so long since they fought again!

In the past few days, the bonfires on the opposite side have become more and more numerous, and the soldiers of the Shun army have become more and more unscrupulous, and the order given by Shangfeng is still that he is not impatient, and he is absolutely not allowed to attack privately.

A fire broke out in the dark night, and Li Hong was in good spirits, but soon became disappointed again.

The Shun army still did not launch an attack, this is a routine artillery bombardment of Chunhua Town, and now the Shun army will design several times to Chunhua Town every night, about a few shots every hour. Li Hong and his companions were so noisy by this boring shelling that they couldn't sleep, and now this harassment and shelling by the Shun army was called a beating by the Ming soldiers.

"Damn, it's going to be on the shift again."

Li Hong heard a low scolding voice from behind him, and his partner's tone was full of chagrin and anger. Nervous soldiers had a hard time sleeping, and were more likely to be woken up, and tonight it was even more intolerably hot, and the position after the sun had set was like a steamer.

The cannonball fell in Chunhua City, one of them was estimated to hit something and made a noise, in the silent night, the sound was particularly harsh and spread far away, it seemed that the Shun army was very satisfied with the effect of this cannonball, and soon the fight stopped, and the silence returned to the position outside Chunhua City.

"Those dogs, hiding in the distance, are sleeping, and they come to Lao Tzu's head every day to fight!"

The partner behind him complained even louder, which forced Li Hong to turn around and whisper to him: "Shut up, you will kill us." ”

"Where will people come, they are all sleeping at home!" The companion argued dissatisfiedly, the outside of the trench was so dark that he could not see his fingers, and no one knew whether there was a commando from the Shun army who was taking advantage of the night to touch the Ming army's position, and had just determined the target because of the cries of Li Hong's companions.

After his companion argued, he also fell silent, he did not continue to sleep but leaned to Li Hong's side, and the two of them opened their eyes together, trying their best to search for the figure of the Shun army commando in the dark.

A long time passed, and the two men found nothing.

"I told you they were sleeping." The companion grumbled under his breath, retracted and went back to sleep.

I don't know how long it took again,

Bang!

The sky exploded again, and Li Hong still maintained a vigilant posture - the Shun army began to fight again.

……

The next day, after surviving a scorching night, it suddenly rained heavily in Chunhua, and Li Hong, who had just retired from his post, raised his hands high, looked up to the sky excitedly, and let the rain wash his face. The soldiers of the 12th Division rushed to the open air, quickly took off their stinking and sour uniforms, and vigorously wiped their shoulders and spine like bath towels.

As the rain flowed through the town, Li Hong saw a companion dragging out the mats, bedding, and planks and throwing them into the water, shouting that he wanted to settle the score with the bedbugs.

……

The heavy rain lasted for two days and one night, and Li Hong felt as if the rain had completely washed away the anger that had been formed since the siege, and his companions also had a similar feeling, as if the dissatisfaction and resentment of the entire constitutional division had been washed away.

Li Hong maintained this good mood until the clouds cleared and the sun rose again in the middle of the sky - the mosquitoes in the damp trenches were almost like a layer of mist; The mud that didn't reach the calf was illuminated by the sun, and the steaming water suddenly rose, and after staring at the trench for half a shift, Li Hong felt that he was about to faint; There were also rats that had been washed in by the water, and they lay at the bottom of the trench with their white bellies turned up, and soon emitted a foul smell.

"Be vigilant!" From time to time, the officers inspecting the trenches sounded warnings, and the division headquarters should closely monitor the movements of the Shun troops and seize the time to clear the trenches, and the more this time it is, the more necessary it is to guard against the sneak attack of the Shun army.

"I'm sure those guys are in the shade right now!" Li Hong's companion cursed in a low voice while digging through the mud: "I really want to rush out and fight with them now!" I'd rather be shot than be in this ditch anymore. ”

On the opposite side of the Shun army's position, there was still silence.

……

"Seventeen enemy soldiers slipped over and surrendered to our troops last night, and upon questioning the Admiral he found that there was no sign of a plague outbreak in the town." Zhou Dongtian reported to Xu Ping that although the Constitution Division had lost some peripheral positions, it still had more than 13,000 Ming soldiers, Tang Desheng gritted his teeth and said that he would not come out to fight back, although this made the Shun army much easier, but with such a huge force entrenched around such a small town, Xu Ping couldn't think of any way to easily capture it.

The Constitutional Division's sanitation work is also doing well, although it has been besieged for a long time, they still ensure that each soldier has a piece of sauerkraut or fruit every day, and the waste of the wounded soldiers and the corpses of the dead are also well disposed of.

News came from the south that Nanming urgently cobbled together a new division and went to Zhejiang, and the 13th Division absorbed a large number of stragglers, because the general collapse of the divisions of the Northern Expeditionary Army did not seem to be able to recover in a month or two, so the Constituent Assembly did not replenish these divisions with officers and soldiers (and did not have so many officers and soldiers), but incorporated a large number of soldiers who had escaped into the public servant division that had already set up the officer shelf. Last month, the division left Jiangxi in a hurry and hurried to the territory of Zhejiang. Xu Ping estimated that this division would be used to stabilize the local troops of the Ming army in Zhejiang, because of its existence, Xu Ping would not immediately divide the army to the south, and after the elimination of the constitutional division, he would lead the main force south, Xu Ping did not think that the Ming army could hinder itself by relying on a town.

It had been more than a month since the siege of the Constitution Division, the teaching teams of the battalions had trained a large number of recruits, the battalions had recovered in numbers, and Li Zicheng had sent 10,000 reinforcements to Jiangnan—these soldiers from the north would be more reliable than those from Nanzhili. Xu Ping felt that the current weather was not suitable for large-scale military operations, and most of the besieging troops were resting in the rear to escape the heat, except for the strength needed to maintain vigilance, and from time to time to scare the Ming army so that they could continue to maintain a high state of alert

"Anyway, it's been delayed for so long, and I don't care about delaying for a few more days,": The deserters of the Ming army are increasing day by day, and people's fear comes from the unknown, since most people know that surrendering Xu Ping will not be dead, some soldiers of the Ming army don't want to suffer in Chunhua, when Zhou Dongtian reported just now, Xu Ping planned to make good use of this: "Continue to wear down the morale of the twelfth town of Nanming, it's always good to have fewer dead soldiers, it's not a good time to fight when it's so hot now, I think this town will be much easier to fight if it is a month or two, At that time, autumn arrived, and it was just in time to go south. ”

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