In the vast night, more than 20,000 soldiers and horses began to sail up the river to Anqing Mansion in more than 100 warships, and at the same time, more than 20,000 soldiers and horses in the Jiangpu camp also pulled out the camp and drove to Anqing by land. On the Jiangpu wharf, the people who came to see him off were densely packed, and the black figures were all over the corners, watching the army of Zhenguo leave Nanjing.

Before leaving, Song Nan secretly ordered the two commanders of Jin Wuwei and the army to control the situation in Nanjing, strictly purge the generals who might still be bribed by Zhu Chenhao in the army, and ordered the commander of the Nanjing Jinyi Wei to make Wang Zitong participate in the matter. And Song Nan secretly explained to the two commanders in charge of Nanjing's soldiers and horses: in extraordinary times, the army will not be deployed by the Nanjing Military Department, nor will it be deployed by the Admiral of Nanjing's left-behind division, in the final analysis, Song Nan is still full of distrust in Huang Jue and other Nanjing officials, and at this last critical time, Song Nan does not allow any mistakes in Nanjing City.

These people may not have any major faults, after quelling the rebellion, Song Nan will naturally open up to officials who are not seriously negligent, but now is not the time.

In the early morning of the next day, the fleet of ships slowly tracing the river arrived in the territory of Dangtu, where a small number of rebels were stationed, but when they heard that the imperial army had attacked, they had already gone to the city; Only the ruins of the county town that had been burned and looted remained.

Under the rubble, women and children sat in agony on the rubble, the bodies of the slain people could be seen everywhere, and the young and middle-aged men had disappeared, apparently all of them had been taken away and retained into the army.

Song Nan gritted his teeth, Zhu Chenhao's behavior is almost the same as that of bandits, of course, from a realistic point of view, Zhu Chenhao's current supplies are tight, and he will definitely loot the large and small towns on the way from Nanjing to Anqing Mansion, otherwise it will be difficult to ensure his military needs, but this is no longer the work of a prince who raised troops to fight for imperial power, but is similar to the behavior of Liu Liu and Liu Qi back then.

It was not until the evening that the westward army encountered its first resistance, which was on the river in Wuhu County, when more than 20 rebel warships suddenly appeared to attack, and took advantage of the current to let dozens of burning boats go down the river, intending to rush into the ranks of officers and soldiers and burn the ships.

But this attempt will not succeed, did not wait for the boat to approach, the ship's Mrs. Song's rocket artillery bombarded, and the boat was sunk hundreds of feet away, Mao 18 personally led 30 warships to meet the rebels 20 warships, after several battles, sank the rebel flagship, the rest of the ships retreated in a hurry, because there was no other opponent's warship advanced, the speed could not keep up, Mao 18 had to watch the enemy ships fleeing farther and farther away on the deck and scolded.

That night, the fleet anchored in Wuhu to rest for one night, because Song Nan didn't want to be too eager to attack, he knew that Zhu Chenhao at this moment was actually a frightened bird, knowing that the army was surrounded on all sides, he had no way to escape, and it was not a bad thing to arrive later, at least let Zhu Chenhao suffer a little more mental torture. Song Nan hoped that Zhu Chenhao could use this last time to think clearly, it was best to disarm and surrender, Song Nan didn't want to let the situation of Mei Zizhou's head floating in the river appear again, that was also Song Nan's nightmare.

……

Anqing Mansion has become a dead city, Zhu Chenhao's defeated army finally fled here for a day and a night, but bad news followed, the tens of thousands of troops led by Xu Tai in the north of Anqing Mansion have passed through Heqi County is coming violently, and the previously planned intention to go north to occupy Fengyang Mansion and even rely on Dabie Mountain The plan will not work, with today's troops, going to war with Xu Tai is tantamount to self-destruction.

In the south, there are soldiers and horses reinforced by the state capitals in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Jiujiang Mansion in the west has been taken by Jiang Bin, and there is news that Pengze County has surrendered to its own county order Li Gui has turned back and handed over Pengze County to Jiang Bin, and Jiang Bin's rear has Wang Shouren in charge, and the west cannot go.

The east is even more terrifying, and Song Nan's soldiers and horses are even more unprovoked, the nightmare of that night is still in front of him, and he doesn't dare to make up his mind in the east anymore.

For a while, Zhu Chenhao felt like a flying insect in a spider's web, full of spider silk in all directions, restraining his hands and feet, making him unable to move at all and unable to escape. There seemed to be an invisible net in the entire sky, and the catastrophe was imminent.

In the face of such a dilemma, the left and right military divisions and the officials and generals who followed Zhu Chenhao also collectively lost their voices, and they also realized that there was nothing to save the fate of defeat, and in the face of Zhu Chenhao's questioning, they could only remain silent, because any method was futile, and the fate of waiting for them was predictable.

However, Li Shishi put forward a somewhat untimely method of negotiation, which is not a solution, saying that he would use the existing soldiers and horses at hand as bargaining chips to reach a peace agreement with the imperial court, otherwise he would break through the net and break through strongly, even if he lost, he would make a mess of Anhui, and in the final analysis, he would persuade Zhu Chenhao to surrender.

Zhu Chenhao was furious, this stupid plan was not able to be proposed by Li Shishi, if he could surrender, how could he let his concubine and mother throw themselves into the river and die on the Yangtze River that day? It's ridiculous to surrender now. In the face of Li Shishi's chatter, Zhu Chenhao couldn't bear it anymore, jumped up from his seat, drew his sword and slashed off the head that made the annoying words, and raised his foot and kicked out the door.

All the officials were silent, they understood one thing, if anyone came up with such a foolish idea of surrender in order to save themselves, it was to give their lives in advance. At this time, he either didn't speak, or he had to drum up his enthusiasm and swear to fight to the death with the officers and soldiers, so that Zhu Chenhao would not swing the sword to his neck.

In the face of Zhu Chenhao's exposure, Liu Yangzheng finally spoke out, and he built a yì to collect the soldiers, horses, manpower and materials of Huaining, Yuexi, Tongcheng and other counties under the jurisdiction of Anqing Mansion to comprehensively defend Anqing Mansion, expand the young and strong people into the army, increase the city wall, build forts, install iron cables and hidden piles on the river, and fight to the death with the soldiers and horses of the imperial court.

This building sounds beautiful, but everyone knows that it is a spring dream, and a heavy problem is time, the imperial army is just around the corner, and it takes a lot of time to complete these things; But Zhu Chenhao didn't realize this at all, he immediately agreed to Liu Yangzheng's construction and asked Wang Lun to arrange it immediately. For a time, the state capital and county under the jurisdiction of Anqing Prefecture suddenly suffered a hellish disaster, and the rebel soldiers drove the people from the counties to Anqing City overnight, and loaded all the materials and finances they could take into Anqing City. The small Anqing Mansion originally had only 50,000 soldiers and civilians, but it doubled overnight, and it was suddenly crowded and there was nowhere to stay.

Although it has already entered spring, the cold at night is still difficult to resist, and the people who have nowhere to stay lie in the streets and alleys, and the night is so cold that the crying of women is full of sorrow and crying, like a city of ghosts.

Young adults were forcibly driven to participate in the expansion of the city wall and the construction of forts, one by one, like walking corpses, under the threat of whips and swords, mechanically climbing up and down to carry earth and stones, and only being given a lump of cold rice as food every day, starving and cold as if living in hell.

Even worse were the women and children, who had so much food to feed them, who wandered the streets like ghosts, and who would be killed by the sword if they did the slightest misdeeds. In one day, hundreds of people died in the city, most of whom thought that they were hungry and cold, stealing, robbing and being killed by the rebels in the street.

Since the founding of the Southern Song Dynasty, the people of Anqing Mansion are rich and pure, the folk customs are simple and thick, and the ancient city of hundreds of years has become this appearance in just a few days, which is really unimaginable.

In the early morning of the fifth day, Liu Yangzheng accompanied Zhu Chenhao to inspect the city defense of Anqing, pointing to the newly built forts and the reinforced city walls, Liu Yangzheng told him that now the soldiers and horses in the city have expanded to 40,000, there are still 53 cannons on hand, more than 90 warships, and the materials and grain and grass transported from Nanchang in the city can support at least several years.

Things haven't gotten out of control.

However, this good mood quickly dissipated, standing on the high city tower, he saw the dense sail shadow on the surface of the Dongfang River, Song Nan is coming, the wolf is coming!

The whole Anqing City fell into panic and tension all of a sudden, all the soldiers immediately went to the city to prepare to meet the enemy, and the warships on the dock also quickly moved to the wide river in the south of the city to prepare for the battle, and the hearts of the rebel soldiers who had experienced the battle of Jiangxinzhou that night were tightened, and they couldn't help but think of the situation that night. That scheming and murderous Song Nan is here, what kind of vicious tricks will he use this time?

Song Nan's fleet stopped on the water five or six miles away from Anqing, the water flow on the wide river was gentle, and the white sails were reflected on the river, which was as magnificent and quiet as the scene in the mouth of the sorcerers who came here.

A small boat slowly rowed out of the fleet, and there was only one captain on board, struggling to shake it, and the boat was covered with a white cloth, tall and boxy.

The soldiers on both sides looked at the small boat with wide eyes, and the sound of the Nai Nai could be heard clearly on the river, and before entering the range of the rebels' fire, the captain stopped his oars and shouted loudly: "Song Nan, the prince of Daming Town, has a letter to Ning Wangye, and there are things belonging to Ning Wangye, please send someone to pick up the boat." ”

After shouting three times, the captain turned over and entered the water, swimming back like a fish in the middle of a river.