Although Liu Sunsin learned that the reinforcements of the Shenshu people would arrive soon, after all, they had not yet arrived.

After all, there is still a time difference of at least half a day between the messenger and the large army.

Therefore, he still had to rely on his own troops to hold Chenglingji for half a day, and if Li Dingguo dared to attack, he must resolutely repel it.

Fortunately, Liu Sunchen was much better than the defenders in Baling City in terms of psychological superiority, after all, he knew that reinforcements were coming soon, and the morale of the whole army was also very high, and the fighting spirit was bursting. There are also dock fortifications to rely on, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

And even if reinforcements arrived, it would not be possible to arrive all at once, and the main force would be mobilized and set off in batches. It is estimated that the first batch is only the cavalry troops under the command of Shen Shuren, and the number will not be large, and then the main force of the Wuchang battalion.

As for more follow-up troops, it may take seven or eight days or even ten and a half days and a month of scheduling, preparation, and marching before they can rush to the Hunan battlefield in batches.

Shen Shuren is not a god, and Zhang Xianzhong's behavior has long been out of the trajectory of history, so it is impossible to predict it by opening the prophet to hang the perspective hanging.

Therefore, no matter how high Shen Shuren's IQ is, at best, he is just making a game, showing the enemy a false situation, taking advantage of the enemy's lack of logistics and supplies, and definitely wants to expand the mentality of new territory to lure Zhang Xianzhong out.

As for the specific way Zhang Xianzhong will be seduced from, Shen Shuren does not know.

Therefore, he could only divide his troops in advance, and Xiangyang in the north also left a considerable part of his troops, Wuchang in the south also left, and there were some other key nodes that could not be completely relaxed.

The troops on the Wuchang side are so that once Zhang Xianzhong chooses to kill from the mountainous areas of Shizhouwei and Yongshun Xuanwei, he can respond quickly.

The troops on the Xiangyang side are to guard against the possibility of crossing Shennongjia and going out of Yunyang again - although Shennongjia is more difficult to cross than Shizhouwei, it is not that the geography is more sinister, but that Shennongjia is a completely no-man's land, only savages, and it is impossible to raise grain and grass halfway, so it is more difficult to maintain logistics than the Turen and Miao people.

But after all, it is impossible to rule out this kind of possibility, Zhang Xianzhong went out of Jingmen to attack Xiangyang last year, what if there is a virtual one again this year?

"The First Evolution"

Zhang Xianzhong didn't turn over Shennongjia in the end, but this does not mean that Shen Shuren's troops left in Xiangyang were wrong.

There's nothing wrong with being careful.

Shen Shuren, who claimed to have a total strength of 80,000 troops, could be used to deal with Zhang Xianzhong in the first five or six days, that is, more than 20,000 people in the lead.

……

The reinforcements sent by Fang Kongzhi were temporarily stationed in Chenglingji, and of course they quickly attracted Li Dingguo's attention.

On the morning of the same day, Li Dingguo's vanguard troops arrived at the city of Baling, and the scout cavalry went out for dozens of miles to sentry, and of course they would immediately find that there were troops defending Chenglingji.

And you can also see that there are large warships lined up on the river and at the mouth of the lake, so it is definitely not the local guards of Yuezhou Mansion.

As soon as Li Dingguo got off the ship and had not yet gained a firm foothold, he received a report from his subordinates on this important military situation, and he attached great importance to it, and immediately summoned the main generals to discuss it briefly.

Soon, the deputy general Bai Wenxuan, the pioneers Pan Shirong, Jiao Guangqi and several others all came to Li Dingguo's Chinese army tent.

Li Dingguo also did not include the lake, and said his worries straight to the point: "Fang Kongzhi's reinforcements have arrived in Chenglingji, according to the report of the scouts, the scale of the reinforcements found at present is not large, and it should be in the thousands."

But the key is that our army is now trying to force land in Baling, if we let the defenders in the city know that the reinforcements have arrived, even if we don't know how many reinforcements for the time being, it will greatly boost the morale of the defenders in the city. In this way, once the forced landing fails, there will be only a strong attack.

Therefore, it is imperative that we send an army to Chenglingji, divide the troops to Chenglingji, and it is best to annihilate it while the official army is not firmly established, even if it cannot be captured, we must set up a camp to dig a long trench to block the road, so as not to let the reinforcements of Chenglingji go south, and exchange news with the defenders in Baling City - who dares to lead troops to fight to break Chenglingji? ”

Adjutant General Bai Wenxuan immediately asked: "Second general, let me go!" I'm afraid that it will be difficult to break through quickly, after all, there is a dock fort camp, so I still be prepared with both hands, and block the news first. ”

Li Dingguo thought for a while: "You are also needed here to attack the city, since you are not sure to take the Chenglingji, it is a bit overkill for you to go." ”

The two pioneers next to him listened, Jiao Guangqi was more reckless and daring to fight, so he followed the request: "Then let the last general go!" ”

Li Dingguo felt that he was a little reckless, but this matter was not very difficult, and it was better to let positive people go, so he finally added a sentence:

"You can go, give you thousands of cavalry, plus 8,000 foot soldiers, and the strength should be at least two or three times that of the defender. After arriving, you first test whether the fighting spirit of the officers and soldiers is tenacious. If the morale of the officers and soldiers is high and they can't hold out, don't waste their lives in vain, just cut off the news.

I kept two-thirds of the main force for myself to besiege Baling. Wen Xuan, you led the troops around to the east of the city and camped, and I camped by the Dongting Lake, besieging the city on both sides. ”

After Li Dingguo finished his order, the generals took their own orders.

Zhang Xianzhong has been entrenched between Sichuan and Hubei for a year and a half, and now there are still 50,000 or 60,000 descendants left, plus the cannon fodder of the new annexed army is almost the same number.

In the bloody battle with the Turen and Miao people of Shizhou Wei and Yongshun Xuanwei Division, the casualties were very heavy, and there were many casualties from the epidemic, but Zhang Xianzhong was good at coercion, and when he broke Cili, Shimen, Lixian and other places before, he frantically pulled Zhuang Ding, and expanded the total number of the whole army back to about 1120,000.

Of course, the quality of the source of troops must have deteriorated significantly. At present, veterans of thieves in Shaanxi, Henan and other places for many years have fallen below 50,000, and the proportion of hungry people has further increased.

Moreover, Zhang Xianzhong left 30,000 strong men to guard Sun Kewang's house, so he and Li Dingguo combined to bring out more than 80,000 people.

Zhang Xianzhong himself has 50,000 all the way, and Li Dingguo has just over 30,000 all the way, so it is already a lot to distribute more than 10,000 people to Jiao Guangqi to Chenglingji, and Li Dingguo himself will be overstretched.

……

After Li Dingguo and Bai Wenxuan hurriedly set up camp and hastily completed the siege of the defensive line, the two of them checked the measures to persuade them to surrender.

Zhang Xianzhong's army is now coming over the mountains, and there is no way to bring heavy artillery at all, at most there are only a few single-digit Franc machines, which were captured from the Ming army when Li County, Anxiang and other places were frightened to surrender before.

On average, if you capture a guard post or a county seat, you can capture at most one or two Franc machines, and they are only three or five hundred pounds of old-fashioned small Franc machines, and there is no one thousand pounds of Franc machines.

It is impossible to rely on this firepower to blast through the city wall and break through Baling, that is, to hear a sound to frighten the defenders of the city.

But being idle is also idle, so Li Dingguo lined up all the eight 300-jin to 500-pound Buddha machines in the army at the west gate of Baling City, and bombarded the city gate and the city tower.

After three rounds of cannons, he asked a group of scolding men to come forward and shout in unison, persuading them to surrender from a distance of several hundred steps:

"Listen to the defenders of the city, 100,000 soldiers of the Eight Kings are here! Open the city in one day, and the whole city will not be killed! Tomorrow, after attacking the city with all your might, you will surrender and kill two percent of the rich households in the city! Kill half in three days! Five days later, the city will be broken again, and the chickens and dogs in the whole city will be slaughtered! ”

Bai Wenxuan listened to it on the side, and was a little unwilling, and quietly persuaded Li Dingguo: "Why did the second general give them a day to consider?" They should be made to surrender immediately. ”

Li Dingguo shook his head: "To give people time to think, those dog officials of the Ming people are afraid of taking responsibility, and they have to calculate how to shirk the blame before surrendering directly." And we don't have siege weapons now, and if they refuse to surrender immediately, we won't be able to attack back with color right away, and we'll be demoralized when the time comes.

Intimidate the enemy, but also make sure that once the enemy does not accept the threat, he can immediately bleed them with the strength of real swords and guns! Increasing the number of people in the city to be slaughtered by a certain number of days is enough. ”

Historically, after 13 years of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong gradually formed such a terrifying tactical tacit understanding. And the further you go, the stronger the thief's power, and the more stringent the conditions are.

For example, after the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng even broke through Kaifeng, and after Xi'an also took and killed Sun Chuanting, his intimidation price was also increased to the highest: after breaking into the city, those who surrendered before launching an attack did not kill. If you resist for one day and then surrender, you will slaughter one-third of the city, and if you resist for two days and then break the city, you will slaughter two-thirds. Whoever resists for more than three days to break through the city shall slaughter the whole city.

There are a few more such examples, and after the news spreads, the effect is very exaggerated, resulting in the history of Li Zicheng crossing the Yellow River from Kaifeng to the north, except for the stubborn resistance encountered by Zhou Yuji along the way, and finally the whole army and the people of the city were slaughtered, other places basically did not dare to resist.

Of course, now Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong are not strong enough to reach this point, so Zhang Xianzhong's army still has the usual price of "resisting for more than five days before breaking the city, and slaughtering the whole city", and the time to prepare siege weapons on the first day is just left for the defenders to think clearly and slow down.

In addition, psychological warfare is not about waiting, it is also about doing something. After Li Dingguo finished scolding, he immediately put on supporting measures, letting the soldiers carry a string of human heads carried by long poles and shout outside the city.

"The Yongding guard and the heads of the three thousand generals are all here! They dared to resist the heavenly soldiers, and their entire family had been slaughtered! Cili County, Anxiang County, the county, the county, the main book, the history of the whole family are here!

The Eight Kings Heavenly Soldiers broke five counties in five days! Blockers will be killed! Shimen County, Li County, and Jiuxi Wei returned to the Shuntian soldiers, and the soldiers and people were all saved! ”

The gatekeeper at the head of the city saw this battle, trembling with fright, and hurriedly reported the situation to the prefect and garrison who were discussing countermeasures in the government office. Of course, the prefect and the garrison were also panicked, and they couldn't get up all day long.

……

Under Baling City, Li Dingguo ran out of tricks, but he had to wait for at least one day, and the officials and soldiers would be instigated again, after all, this was the seat of a government, and it had not yet been coerced to the extent of surrendering.

The words were divided into two ends, on the other side of the battlefield, twenty miles north of the city, at about the end of the day, Jiao Guangqi also rushed to Chenglingji with nearly 10,000 troops, and after a short observation, he made words to persuade and coerce while preparing to attack.

Jiao Guangqi's persuasion words, of course, are similar to Li Dingguo's, which is nothing more than saying that every day of resistance and after breaking the village, he will slaughter 20% more people, so that the defenders can do their own thing.

The difference is that Jiao Guangqi is more impatient and will not give the defenders time to think about it. The defenders did not agree to surrender on the spot, and he immediately threw himself into a strong attack.

However, although Liu Sunsin was cowardly, he still had a favorable location to rely on. When Shen Shuren received Zuo Liangyu's inheritance last year, they also found a batch of old-fashioned firecrackers in the Wuchang and Hanyang armies, and Shen Shuren himself couldn't look down on them, so they also gave Fang Kongzhi a batch.

So this time to come for reinforcements, Liu Sunchen also had 500 old-fashioned firecrackers, of which 300 were given to Fang Kongzhi by Shen Shuren.

No matter how slow and inefficient the old-fashioned firearms are, the lethality is still very impressive when there are fortress walls to rely on.

After a fierce battle, the morale of the Ming army soldiers who knew that they had reinforcements was at their peak, and they did not retreat at all, and hundreds of old-fashioned firearms fired cross-fired, shooting Jiao Guangqi's forwards who only relied on simple flying ladders to climb the wall.

Jiao Guangqi was also decisive, after killing and wounding hundreds of people, he immediately realized that the strong attack was not possible, and turned to the isolation operation, besieging the enemy, and preventing him from conveying the news of reinforcements to Baling City.

In this way, another hour was dragged over, and before noon, Jiao Guangqi had just fenced the camp, and he didn't have time to cut down trees to make fences, at most, he just let the soldiers shallowly dig a half-finished long ditch, no more than a foot deep, and even any trap bamboo sticks had not been prepared, and then he saw that a small reinforcement army of officers and soldiers from the north had arrived again.

There were not many people, only about two thousand, but they were all cavalry. The leader of the generals is not a descendant of Shen Shuren, but Zhu Wenzhen, a general from Cao Bianjiao's old department and rescued from Liaodong.

Shen Shuren asked Liaodong to lead the cavalry, but there was no way, because he had no cavalry generals before, and his descendants were all southerners and were not good at horse warfare.

The general of the Liaodong Army, who has lived with the Guanning Iron Cavalry, has fought together as a robe, has never eaten pork and seen a pig run, as long as he learns half of the combat power of the Guanning Iron Cavalry, he is very qualified.

Jiao Guangqi didn't figure out the situation for a while, so he didn't send troops to intercept Zhu Wenzhen from entering Chenglingji.

After a cup of tea, Zhu Wenzhen met with Liu Sunchen and briefly asked about the situation to understand the enemy's situation.

Subsequently, when he learned that Liu Sunchen was so cowardly that he had not sent the news that "reinforcements have arrived" to Baling City to boost the morale of the army, Zhu Wenzhen couldn't help but be very disdainful:

"What are you going to do! Reinforcements have arrived, why don't you want to notify the defenders in the city? What if the defenders surrender in despair because they don't know there are reinforcements! You're going to make a big mistake!

Before sending troops, Shen Futai's first sentence was that after arriving in Yuezhou, I must let the defenders know that we are here as soon as possible! ”

Liu Sunchen was also helpless, he spread his hands: "General Zhu, it's not that we don't want to ventilate the news, Zhang Wei has always been cunning, I heard that he also sent people to defraud the city, the city is now a frightened bird, we go to report the news, and we will not open the city to let us in, isn't the person who reported the news dead in vain?" ”

Zhu Wenzhen proudly despised it: "Who asked you to report secretly?" If you don't believe the defenders, you won't open the door, so let's go back the same way! Defeat the part of the thief army that blocks the road, and you won't be able to report it safely! ”

Yi Sunsin was stunned: "Defeat the enemy troops surrounded by the north of the city, and then report the news?" General Zhu, you're not kidding, there are 10,000 people in this Jiao Guangqi Department, we have 4,000 people here, and you can bring 2,000.

It's good for us to defend Chenglingji, you let us take the initiative to go out of the city with 6,000 people to find 10,000 people to fight? Go and take your two thousand men yourself! I want to defend Chenglingji, and I can't let the channel at the mouth of Dongting Lake fall into the hands of thieves! ”

Zhu Wenzhen also did not contain the lake: "I will go, I will go!" I don't want you to get in the way!" Although I only have 2,000 men and horses, it is impossible to annihilate these 10,000 people, but it is more than enough to defeat its part and kill a bloody way to report a message! ”