At dawn, the camp outside the city, which had been noisy all night, finally returned to quiet.

Yuan Chonghuan walked up to the command platform, looked at the flagpole that was cut down, and looked at the ashes left behind by the burning of the string of lanterns on the high platform, silent.

"Cabinet Department, the capture has been counted, and a total of 1,543 enemy troops were killed in this battle." A subordinate came over and whispered.

"What about our casualties?" Yuan Chonghuan was silent for a moment and asked.

"More than 1,100 were killed and about 2,800 were wounded." The subordinate said cautiously.

Captured 1,500, but his own casualties reached 4,000, although he had a premonition in his heart, Yuan Chonghuan still felt very helpless in his heart, the difference in combat effectiveness between the soldiers on both sides was too great.

And this is still the result of estimating that the other party will attack the camp and set up an ambush in advance, which is really unacceptable to Yuan Chonghuan.

Yuan Chonghuan had repeatedly deduced the course of last night's battle, and thought that he had no big problem from arranging the trap in advance to commanding during the entire battle. And the reason why it is like this is that first, there is a big difference in the combat effectiveness of the two sides, and secondly, Li Dingguo is too cunning!

From the mouths of several captured Praetorian Guards, Yuan Chonghuan had already asked about the battle last night, and he had a clear understanding of Li Dingguo's command process.

From the beginning, when he learned of the attack when he attacked the camp, he did not choose to retreat by the same route, but dared to lead his subordinates to fight hard with the ambush soldiers, reflecting his keen sense of smell and knowing that there would also be traps outside the camp. And this Praetorian Guard, knowing that it was in an ambush, still chose to follow Li Dingguo to fight to the death, rather than fleeing the same way, which demonstrated the strong military discipline of this Praetorian Guard.

No matter how desperate the situation is, he chooses to follow the generals to fight to the death, rather than fleeing because of low morale, such a strong will to fight and obedience to military discipline, Yuan Chonghuan has only seen in his life, that is, the powerful Jiannu Eight Banners Army in the past, when encountering this situation, I am afraid that he will also choose to retreat directly.

Then when he mobilized the army to encircle and suppress, the Praetorian Guards who attacked the camp were once again forced to a dead end, and when Li Dingguo was in a desperate situation, he actually came up with the idea of leading most of the people to hide in the empty barracks, and only sent a small number of troops to hold torches to lead away the strong enemy.

This is the real proud soldier! No wonder the emperor was able to expel Jiannu and recover Liaodong, and he was able to defeat the Mongols and occupy Monan!

At this moment, Yuan Chonghuan felt a deep sense of powerlessness and despair about the future.

Although he has an army of 200,000, can he win such an army?

"Cabinet, Cabinet?" The subordinate general called softly.

Yuan Chonghuan came back to his senses and a smile appeared on his face: "The soldiers did a good job, our army won a big victory and wiped out most of this Praetorian Guard." Pass on my order, reward the three armies today, and reward all the meritorious soldiers. ”

"Huh? Xie Ge Ministry. "The subordinate was pleasantly surprised.

In Yuan Chonghuan's heart, this battle was naturally a fiasco, but he couldn't but admit defeat, and he had to say that defeat was victory, only in this way could he boost morale.

On that day, Yuan Chonghuan summoned the generals and announced the results of last night's battle.

"Thanks to the heroic efforts of the generals, most of this damned Praetorian Guard has been wiped out, and it is no longer enough to threaten us.

This is the Praetorian Guard was created by the emperor, and Emperor Chongzhen spent a lot of money on them, and the money and grain spent on them alone amounted to millions of taels of silver every year, which can be said to be the best of the whole country to support this army.

But even so, there are only more than 10,000 people who have been trained, and most of these 10,000 people are defending Jiannu in Liaodong, and there are only 3,000 people who are with the emperor.

And in last night's battle, we wiped out more than 1,500 people, plus the number of people eliminated in Wuhu, this Praetorian Guard was basically disabled by us, and it can no longer pose a threat.

And we still have an army of 200,000, but we are getting stronger and stronger!

Chongzhen was perverse and brutal, and the people of the whole world were miserable, so that the displaced people were everywhere. Only by overthrowing Chongzhen's rule and supporting the establishment of the prison state and enthronement can the people of the world live a good life.

Chitose has already sent an edict to all provinces, and the provinces of Huguang, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangnan have expressed their willingness to support the prison country! Chongzhen has already betrayed his relatives and left, as long as we fight outside Nanjing, the people in the city will respond to us, and then we will be able to take Nanjing City in one fell swoop!

After going south to Nanjing, he will officially ascend the throne in Nanjing, and then everyone is the founder of the country, according to the merit, they can be named dukes, no matter how bad they are, they will be crowned an earl, hereditary replacement, and the country will end together! ”

Yuan Chonghuan spoke impassionedly, trying to flicker, no, it was to boost morale. His incitement ability is still extremely strong, and most of the generals are screaming at him instigated.

However, it cannot be said that Yuan Chonghuan is just fooling, at least one thing he is not wrong about is that the gentry everywhere are willing to support Zhu Yousong. For example, the gentry of the Taiping Mansion, Yuan Chonghuan had just led the troops to the Taiping Mansion City, and the gentry and people in the city took the initiative to open the city and surrender, and the other states and counties to which the Taiping Mansion belonged also expressed their willingness to support Zhu Yousong.

And when Yuan Chonghuan raised money and food from the gentry, these gentry were also willing to support and took the initiative to donate money and food. These gentry were worried that Yuan Chonghuan would plunder and take the initiative to hand over some money and grain to avoid disasters, and then they really hoped that Yuan Chonghuan would be able to conquer Nanjing, and Zhu Yousong, the supervisor of the country, would be able to replace Chongzhen as the Ming Emperor.

So even if half of the military rations were burned by Li Dingguo in Wuhu, Yuan Chonghuan still had no shortage of money and grain.

A large number of rewards were handed out, and even ordinary soldiers could get half a tael of silver, and their morale was immediately raised.

Then, according to the combat performance, Yuan Chonghuan adjusted the appointment and dismissal of some generals, reorganized the army, and led the troops to Nanjing again.

......

At this time, as Yuan Chonghuan said, Li Dingguo's ministry really had no strength to fight again.

After capturing Yuan Chonghuan's Chinese army and cutting off his commanding banner, Li Dingguo withdrew from Yuan Chonghuan's camp with his subordinates. And Yuan Chonghuan's command center was destroyed, so naturally he couldn't mobilize the army to encircle and suppress, so Li Dingguo easily withdrew.

Discerning the direction and retreating all the way, when it was thirty miles away from the city of Taiping Mansion at dawn, Li Dingguo ordered to stop and rest, and then counted the army, and then found that only 1,200 people were still with him, and more than half of these 1,200 people were injured.

It's really crippled. From the beginning of guarding Wuhu City to the present, it has taken half a month and fought several big battles, which has dealt a heavy blow to the anti-thieves, but he has also suffered heavy casualties.

The 3,000 troops who defended Wuhu City have only 1,200 people left, and the casualties have reached as much as 60%.

If it were other armies, so many casualties would have collapsed long ago.

"I don't know what happened to Liu Wenxiu and them." Luo Fengcai sighed

"I believe that Wenxiu and their Ji people have their own natural appearance, let's go back to Nanjing first!" Li Dingguo said.

There are only more than 1,000 people left in the 3,000-strong army, and they are all wounded, and there is no way to continue fighting, otherwise the whole army will definitely be wiped out.

After tidying up and bandaging the wound a little, Li Dingguo led the remaining remnants of the army to leave and head towards Nanjing.

It is only more than 60 miles away from Nanjing, and it only took one day to return to Nanjing.

"Dingguo is back!" Upon learning that Li Dingguo had led his troops back, Li Yanzhi was overjoyed and personally welcomed Li Dingguo's troops to the naval camp in the north of Nanjing.

"Lord General Soldier, the country is incompetent, and the soldiers are lost, please punish the Lord General Soldier!" Li Dingguo knelt on one knee and said bitterly.

"Hurry up, hurry up."

Li Yanzhi hurriedly helped Li Dingguo up: "You can stop the thief army for half a month, and you have successfully completed the task assigned to you by this commander." As for what kind of soldiers are lost, how can there be immortals in war? ”

Li Dingguo guarded Wuhu with 3,000 soldiers and horses, and even blocked Yuan Chonghuan's 200,000 army for half a month, and repeatedly took the initiative to attack, giving great damage to the thief army.

"Alas, I just don't know what happened to Wenxiu and them." Li Dingguo sighed, to be honest, Li Dingguo has always felt guilty about letting his friend Liu Wenxiu lure the enemy in exchange for his successful escape, even if he knew that it was the only choice at that time.

"Don't worry, I'll send someone to find it, Wenxiu should be fine." Li Yanzhi comforted.

"Lord General Soldier, how is the situation in Nanjing?" Li Dingguo asked.

Li Yanzhi sighed: "The situation is not too good, this Nanjing City is too complicated, beyond our imagination." But fortunately, Lord Hong is in charge of everything, and I believe there should be no problem. ”

Only when you arrive in Nanjing in person will you know how complicated the situation is here. Nanjing is the center of the south of the Yangtze River, one of the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty, here and Beijing city have a large number of nobles, each of which is huge in strength and deeply rooted in Nanjing. There were too many gentlemen here, all of whom had a grudge against the emperor.

The population of the entire city of Nanjing has long exceeded one million, which is more than the population of Beijing. For more than 200 years, the city of Nanjing at this time showed an extreme prosperity, like a brocade of flowers.

At this time, Hong Chengchou, who arrived in Nanjing as the governor of Jiangnan to resist the thieves, became an uninvited guest and was not really welcomed by the officials and people of Nanjing.

The officials of the six departments of Nanjing City were against Hong Chengchou, and the nobles did not treat Hong Chengchou, and the Nanjing scholars repeatedly published articles to openly slander Hong Chengchou and even the emperor. thinks that the emperor's many measures over the years are actions to disrupt the country and the people, and it must be that there are traitors and villains around him, so he almost didn't explicitly say that this traitor is Hong Chengchou.

In the face of this situation, Hong Chengchou did not have much to do, so he could only try his best to win people's hearts.

Fortunately, Li Dingguo blocked the thief army for half a month, which bought Hong Chengchou some time.

"Lord Commander, since these people don't know each other, why get used to them, just slaughter one by one!" Li Dingguo said angrily. In Li Dingguo's view, anyone who dared to oppose the emperor was his enemy and must be eradicated

Li Yanzhi sighed: "Killing people can't solve the problem." ”

Li Dingguo said: "That's less killing, more killing, and all problems have been solved." ”

Li Yanzhi shook his head: "You don't care about these things, now you straighten out your people and take a boat to Zhenjiang." ”

"To Zhenjiang? Why? Li Dingguo was puzzled.

"Your Majesty wants to form the Jiangdong Praetorian Guard Army in Zhenjiang, and has decided to appoint you as the Jiangdong General Army." Li Yanzhi explained.

"Ah, I, can I?" Li Dingguo was a little hesitant for a while, he never expected that the emperor would let him be the chief soldier.

"You can stop Yuan Chonghuan's thousands of troops in Wuhu, and what is it to be a small general soldier?" Li Yanzhi said with a smile.

In any case, the emperor's orders still had to be obeyed, although Li Dingguo preferred to stay in Nanjing and continue to fight against the anti-thief Yuan Chonghuan.

"Don't worry, you've got you covered." Li Yanzhi saw Li Dingguo's hesitation and comforted.

Li Dingguo's eyes lit up: "Lord Commander, what do you mean?" ”

"There are as many as 200,000 thieves, and the noble gentry and officials inside and outside Nanjing don't know how many people will choose to stand on their side, and our army adds up to only 10,000, and Lord Yuan has 4,000 infantry in his hands, and there are less than 7,000 sailors left with me. Therefore, if you want to win the victory completely, you need to continue to transfer troops. Li Yanzhi explained.

"So Your Majesty asked me to go back, and it was the army of Jiangdong who rushed to Nanjing for reinforcements?" Li Dingguo suddenly realized.

"Probably so." Li Yan nodded straightly.

"But there are only a few peasant soldiers on the Zhenjiang side, and they have only just divided the fields, and the training time is only about a month, can such an army be brought out to fight?" Li Dingguo said suspiciously.

"It's true that the fighting power of the peasants and soldiers is not good, but at least their loyalty is not in question." Li Yanzhi replied.

These peasant soldiers were deeply favored by the emperor, and each of them received a share of the land, and their loyalty to the emperor was unquestionable. Of course, their combat effectiveness is not as good as that of the Praetorian Guards, and it is certainly not possible to use them for frontal combat, but there is no problem in using them to defend the city.

The gentry and officials in Nanjing City are not trustworthy, if Yuan Chonghuan commands a large army outside Nanjing, the original army in Nanjing City does not know how much will be with Yuan Chonghuan, and will choose to open the door and surrender to the thieves.

And if the peasant soldiers can arrive in time, then at least the strength of the defenders of the city will be eased, and with these peasant soldiers as the main force, the defenders of the city will at least not have to worry that someone will open the city and surrender." ”

"Understood, don't worry, sir!" Li Dingguo Kailan said that at this moment, he knew how important the task on his shoulders was.

"I've prepared enough boats for you, so take a boat to Zhenjiang." Li Yanchang said.

Li Dingguo's army has been crippled, and it will take time to say that it will take time, so it is better to let them go directly to Zhenjiang, as officers, they can easily form an army of tens of thousands of people. When he came to Nanjing, he would definitely be able to give Yuan Chonghuan a hard look.

And this is how Hong Chengchou and Li Changmei discussed how to deal with Li Dingguo's single merger.