"Too much deception! It's too much of a deception!"

In the post house where the Qing court mission stayed, Zhang Duan looked at the ransom price that was sent, and was so angry that he almost tore up the note.

Twenty taels of Manchurians, twenty-five taels of Mongols, and thirty taels of Han Chinese, isn't this a completely disgusting person?

With the arrogance and contempt of the Manchus for the other two tribes, if they knew that the ransom for the captives of the other two tribes was higher than theirs, they would surely die of anger.

It's fine to say it's just annoyed, but if they do something unimaginably irrational because of it, it's over.

Moreover, the imperial court will not accept that the Han people will be able to redeem it for thirty taels, Zhang Duan can imagine that if the imperial court learns about this, it will definitely be furious, and even he will be implicated.

Thinking of this, Zhang Duan couldn't sit down, so he hurriedly ordered someone to prepare a sedan chair and rushed to the governor's yamen to meet Su Yan and bargain over this matter.

But when they arrived at the Yamen, they were told that Su Yan did not want to see them, and the guards who stopped them also relayed Su Yan's instructions in advance - there was no room for bargaining, and if the Qing court wanted to ransom the prisoners, they had to exchange them at the price set by Su Yan.

Zhang Duan, who got this answer, suddenly had a bloodless face, he was unwilling to report it like this, and after returning to the post house, he hurriedly changed his men into Han clothes and sent them out to find out if there were any of Su Yan's cronies in the city, or people of the same high and powerful position.

However, looking at the southeast, except for Su Yan, which one is really high and powerful, the people under him went out to investigate and found nothing, and several of them were even recognized because of their obvious northern accents, and they were almost beaten.

After finding nothing and hitting walls everywhere, Zhang Duan had no choice but to send the news to Jingshi and report the matter to the imperial court.

And they had only settled in Nanchang for a few days, on February 12, Zhang Duan, who was still sleeping peacefully, was suddenly heard by the noise outside, he got up unhappily to check, the door was suddenly pushed open from the outside, and an attendant broke in in a little panic, fell to his knees, and said to him:

"My lord, it's not good...... Oh no!"

"What's going on? What a system to be so panicked!" Zhang Duan reprimanded, got up, pulled the clothes on the shelf on the side, and was about to put them on.

But in the next second, the attendant's report made him feel like a thunderbolt from the sky, and the whole person was stunned in place.

"That Su Yan, Su Yan gathered soldiers and horses in the Nanchang City Martial Arts Arena and swore to march west!"

"What?"

Zhang Duan was shocked, and after reacting, he hurriedly got up, he didn't even care about wearing clothes, and hurriedly ran outside, the Qing court mission in the post house was already in chaos, and the deputy envoy and several attendants were arguing with the Ming army guarding the gate in front of the gate.

Seeing Zhang Duan walking out, the deputy envoy stopped arguing with the Ming army and said to him, "My lord, something is wrong, the post house has been blocked by the Ming army, and we are forbidden to go out!"

Zhang Duan didn't answer immediately after hearing this, but looked at the Ming army company commander, suppressed the anxiety in his heart, and asked in a deep voice, "Why are you trapping us here, this official wants to meet His Royal Highness the King of Nan'an County."

"His Royal Highness the King of the County has ordered that during the war, in order to protect the safety of the mission, the mission must not go out at will, and wait for the Qing court's reply to arrive before meeting." The company commander replied with a blank face.

Hearing what the other party said, Zhang Duan instantly understood that they were under house arrest, but this was directly ordered by Su Yan, and they couldn't change it, so they could only endure the dissatisfaction in their hearts and withdraw to the post house.

"My lord, what should we do? The Ming army swore to march westward, and I am afraid that the target is Huguang, and we must inform Ke Yongsheng, the governor of Huguang, about this." The deputy envoy lowered his voice and said in an anxious tone.

"To put it lightly, the post house has been blocked by the Ming army, how can we get out?" Zhang Duan was at a loss.

Now the fact is that they can only be trapped in this post house, watching the Ming army attack Huguang, which belongs to them.

Regardless of the reaction of the Qing court mission in the post house for the time being, after the Nanchang martial arts field swore to the west, the Nanchang Ming army marched to Huguang in three ways.

Liu Fangming, who had surrendered earlier, and his Ningxia soldiers were placed on Su Yan's side, and the entire 30,000 Ningxia Green Battalions who had previously gone south

After the first battle of Nanchang, only a few hundred were killed, so counting the Qinglong Left Brigade, the Central Military Camp and the First Town under the direct jurisdiction of Su Yan, the army attacking Wuchang exceeded 50,000 people.

The army went north from Nanchang Prefecture, crossed the Ganjiang River and inspected the two prefectures of Nankang and Jiujiang before entering the boundary of Huguangxing Guozhou.

Here, he also received good news from Jiangbei - Zhang Mingzhen and Wang Yi's armies captured Qizhou and Huangzhou one after another, and the troops threatened Wuchang Mansion on the other side of the Yangtze River.

Wuchang Mansion is the residence of the Huguang Division, the capital of Huguang Province, and its status is naturally the top priority, after Luo Jinxiu, the governor of Huguang stationed in Wuchang, heard the bad news of the fall of Huangzhou, he reported the matter to Ke Yongsheng in Changsha while mobilizing water divisions to intercept the water surface of the Yangtze River and prevent the Ming army from crossing the river.

However, worse news soon came from the east - the Ming army marched westward with the three-way army, and the soldiers and horses on the northern route entered Xingguo Prefecture, and the defenders of Xingguo Prefecture saw that the Ming army was strong and decisively chose to surrender in Kaesong.

After the fall of Xingguozhou, the Ming army was able to drive straight in, Luo Jinxiu urgently transferred the soldiers and horses of the surrounding prefectures and counties to defend Wuchang, strengthen the city defense, build city defense equipment, and wait for the Ming army to attack.

However, Su Yan did not directly attack Wuchang Mansion, he stopped after killing all the way to Wuchang County on the other side of Huangzhou, and directly issued a new battle plan to Zhang Mingzhen and Wang Yi in Jiangbei.

Considering the vast territory of Huguang Province, which had not yet been divided between the north and the south at this time, Jiangbei could not be conquered overnight.

Su Yan appointed Zhang Mingzhen as the governor of Hubei, and ordered him to sweep the prefectures and counties of Huguang north of the Yangtze River, and Wang Yi gave him the post of general military officer in Hubei to assist Zhang Mingzhen in fighting together.

After the appointment, Su Yan did not interfere with Zhang Mingzhen and Wang Yi's combat decision-making out of the principle of employing people without suspicion, and then he continued to march to Wuchang Mansion with his squad and troops under Wuchang City on the 8th day of March.

When the North Route Army led by Su Yan was in Wuchang, the Dingnan Hou Cao Dahao who attacked Yuezhou defeated Gao Jiaolong, the general soldier of Yuezhou, who came to intercept him, in Tumen Town.

Although there were more than 5,000 soldiers and horses under his command, most of them were strong men who had just enlisted in the army for less than a year without systematic military training (not Su Yan's system), so after more than half of the soldiers in the army were killed, they could not continue to besiege Yuezhou, so they could only camp in Tumen Town.

In addition to more than 5,000 people from the Xuanwu Left Brigade of the headquarters, Su Dingyuan, who attacked Changsha Mansion on the south road, also belonged to the Qinglong Right Brigade led by Zhang Mingyang, so he had more than 10,000 troops and sharp heavy weapons.

After Su Dingyuan conquered Liling County, he went north to Changsha, and Ke Yongsheng, the governor of Huguang, who was sitting in Changsha to command the battle with Sun Kewang's Qin army, heard about it, and hurriedly ordered Hunan general Shen Yongzhong to transfer troops to meet the battle, intending to stop the Ming army.

The big war is about to break out.