Night. Outside the city of Xiangyang. The hills and camps fell silent again. In the camp, it was quiet. Except for the guards and patrols outside, almost all of them were already asleep.

The sun has set back into the embrace of the mountains. Night fell and enveloped the whole world. Heaven and earth were dark.

The camp at the foot of the Zigai Mountain has also returned to calm. Chen Wang stood on the lookout platform outside the tent of the Chinese army, looking down at the camp tents scattered below.

The field of vision is dotted with firelight, as if it were daytime. From time to time, the crackling of burning wood came from the brazier not far away, echoing near the lookout.

The mountain wind is howling, wandering all over Da Hyeon, bringing the firelight in the camps to sway. The dancing firelight flickered in Chen Wang's eyes, and the mountain wind blew in and dissipated the surrounding heat.

Afar. Beyond the dark area, there was a dim fire under the night, which was where Xiangyang City was located.

At this time, Xiangyang City has already fallen silent, but the light on the city wall also proves that Xiangyang has not completely fallen into a deep sleep.

Looking at Xiangyang City in the distance, Chen Wang slowly exhaled a breath of turbidity. In five years, thousands of miles of war, and countless hardships.

From a family member to the general army of a town, to the general who was named a thief, to the three provinces of the company, to control the five prefectures, all the way to the battle, rarely rested, and now, there is finally a short time to stop.

But all this is nothing more than the calm before the storm. The mountain rain is coming, and the wind is full of buildings. In Liaodong, the Battle of Songjin has begun.

This time, the strength of the Ming army and the situation in the country were much better than in history. In the Wuyin Revolution in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the damage and harvest caused by the Qing army's entry into the customs were much smaller than in history.

The Qing army did not capture Jinan, and suffered a great defeat at Qingshan Pass, and the Ming army was able to regain a lot of people and baggage.

Although the main force of Xuanda soldiers and horses led by Lu Xiangsheng suffered heavy casualties, the main body was still there. Now that it has gone through two years of training, the three towns of Xuanda have recovered a lot of combat strength, so the power of the Ming court in the northern country is much stronger than in history.

Moreover, Wang Pu, the culprit who led to the rout of the Ming army in the Battle of Songjin, is now not the chief soldier of Datong Town.

In the previous battle of Cheng and Jie to encircle and suppress Li Zicheng, Wang Pu, then the chief soldier of Yansui Town, was defeated by Li Zicheng, and Li Zicheng crossed the Guanshan Mountain into northern Sichuan, and the pursuing Ming army fell far behind.

Hong Chengchou was furious, and directly took Wang Pu's official position and pushed him to the end. Therefore, in the Wuyin Revolution in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the general soldier of Datong Town, who followed Lu Xiangsheng to fight, was Du Wenhuan, not Wang Pu.

When he was in internal and external difficulties, Du Wenhuan did not lead his troops to leave Lu Xiangsheng, but chose to continue to follow Lu Xiangsheng.

The battle situation also shifted towards another result, the Ming army in Jiazhuang, and the main force of the Qin army, which came to the aid of thousands of miles, won the final victory in the battle of Jiazhuang.

If Wang Pu was still the commander-in-chief, he would definitely lead the main force of Datong Town to escape first, but I am afraid that the already sparse army of Jia Zhuang Ming would not be able to hold out for so long.

In the later stage of the Battle of Songjin, if the Ming army could follow Hong Chengchou's strategy and withdraw in an orderly manner, the losses of the Ming army would never be so heavy, and the reason for the rout of the Ming army was that Wang Pu did not obey the military order and led the men and horses of his headquarters to break through and escape by night, causing panic in the towns of the Ming army and causing chaos in the army.

The soldiers and horses of the towns fled in the chaos, the cavalry and the infantry trampled on each other, in the dark night, the Ming soldiers were in chaos, there were countless casualties, and it was impossible to distinguish which way the soldiers and horses were, the Qing army took advantage of the situation to cover and kill, and the Ming army completely collapsed.

The elite of the nine stops, the grain of China, all the throws...... In the Battle of Songjin, the Ming army's preparation was not sufficient, and it was normal to lose.

But according to common sense, no matter what, it will not suffer such a fiasco. Wang Pu is an undoubted sinner.

After the war, Wang Puyi

The crime of "first escape" was beheaded. However, this time, Wang Pu did not have a chance to appear in Songjin. Now the general soldier of Datong Town is Jiang Ting, who was born in the northern region.

In history, Jiang Zhu first descended to Dashun, then to the Manchu Qing, and then to the Qing Dynasty again, and finally died in the city.

Although Jiang Mosa's morality and reputation are at a loss, no matter how they are, they are much stronger than Wang Pu. In addition to the change in the general army of Datong, there is also a change in the towns on the nine sides of the north.

Because of Chen Wang's influence, Cao Wenzhao did not die in Hutou Town, and was still active inside and outside the imperial court.

After the Battle of Qingshan Pass, Cao Wenzhao did not return to the south, but was left in the north. The original position of the chief military officer of the aid and suppression was naturally resigned, and Cao Wenzhao was appointed as the chief military officer of Jizhou Town.

This time Songjin, the Ming army will most likely be defeated, because the core problem has not changed.

But this time Songjin should not be so miserable. Now the eyes of the entire northern country are focused on the Songjin line, and all the towns on the nine sides have begun martial law.

With the continuous escalation of the situation on the front line of Songjin, the Ming court also sent a lot of reinforcements to Liaodong to support Songjin.

Although the large-scale confrontation of the Battle of Songjin will not begin until March of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, that is, in March of the next year, with Hong Chengchou leading the Eighth General Army to march.

But except for Chen Wang, it is naturally impossible for anyone to know about this matter. Now because the situation in Liaodong is becoming more and more tense, all the Ming troops in the north are in a state of combat readiness and do not dare to move.

Regardless of the final outcome of Songjin, the Ming court will be in a situation where it is unable to send troops from the north to the south, and all the troops will be used to defend against Jiannu.

And this is undoubtedly good news. The situation is developing in a favorable direction for Chen Wang. Just as Chen Wang was thinking, a sound of footsteps happened to come from behind Chen Wang's side.

Chen Wang tilted his head slightly, and just saw Chen Gong who was leading several armor soldiers back from patrolling the camp, and asked with some doubts.

"Finished patrolling the camp?" During this time, Chen Gong was undertaking the task of patrolling the camp, and generally speaking, the time required to patrol the camp should be about two quarters of an hour.

But now the time should have only passed a quarter of an hour, less than half of the usual, and Chen Gong rushed back first.

When something goes wrong, something must be wrong.

"As soon as they were halfway through the patrol, they received information from the supervision center from the north at night outside the camp without receiving it, and they didn't dare to slack off and sent it up." Chen Gong walked closer and handed over a tightly packed bamboo tube.

The fire paint on the bamboo tube is intact, and the packaging is also intact, with two shallow marks engraved. This is a common method of monitoring the delivery of the seal, and the scratches on the outside of the bamboo tube indicate the urgency of the message.

One is ordinary information, and the other is urgent information, which must be expedited. The engraved three strips represent the extremely important and must be delivered quickly at any cost.

Chen Wang opened the package, glanced at the letter in the tube, and then handed it to the guards on the side.

Naturally, the messages transmitted by the supervision are not in plaintext, and the letters transmitted also need to be translated according to the corresponding codebook.

The guard on his side took the letter in Chen Wang's hand and walked briskly towards the side tent, looking for someone to translate the letter.

It didn't take long for the contents of the letter to be translated. Chen Gong stood beside Chen Wang and frowned.

"The eldest brother's expectation is not bad, the new supervisor is really Hou Sui." In a sense, the court of the Ming court is a large sieve.

Conversations at the Great Pilgrimage Conference cannot be kept secret at all, and can be obtained by spending only money. Chen Wang's expression did not change, and the person who replaced Yang Sichang as the supervisor, as he expected at the beginning, the imperial court finally sent Hou Sui to take over.

Although Lu Xiangsheng survived, he survived the catastrophe. But Lu Xiangsheng still didn't use it in the end, and he was convicted and questioned after the Wuyin Change, and he should have been imprisoned.

Because Lu Xiangsheng was during the period of filial piety, he was specially allowed to return to his hometown to guard filial piety. The period of filial piety is three years, and it is easy not to win love.

Therefore, even if the current situation is difficult, Chongzhen has no way to use Lu Xiangsheng if he wants to. In Jingshi, Chen Wang also has some channels, which are naturally spent on money, just like Zhang Xianzhong in history.

After Yang Sichang's death, Lu Xiangsheng's name was mentioned as a candidate for the governor of the southern kingdom, but it was quickly rejected for this reason.

Hou Sui was Zuo Liangyu's benefactor, and Zuo Liangyu was stripped of his official position and demoted to a soldier for the crime of robbing military uniforms when he was young.

Later, it was Hou Sui who promoted Zuo Liangyu to give him military power, which made Zuo Liangyu emerge in the battle to aid Liao, and since then his career has been smooth sailing to the general.

As Zuo Liangyu's benefactor, Hou Sui served as the supervisor, I am afraid that Zuo Liangyu will change his mind. Zuo Liangyu is a person who values kindness very much.

Zuo Liangyu was in the army and plundered military funds, and sat on the law to behead. As a result, Qiu Lei, who was traveling with him, chose to bear the charge alone.

Zuo Liangyu was exonerated because of this, but Qiu Lei was imprisoned by the Criminal Department. Later, Zuo Liangyu was rewarded for his merits, and donated tens of thousands of taels of silver to save Qiu Lei.

In history, Hou Sui became a supervisor, and Zuo Liangyu did obey Hou Sui's requisition to go to suppress. Chen Gong naturally didn't know about these things, but his worries were also the worries of normal people in this era.

In this era, ordinary people also attach great importance to the friendship between teachers and benefactors.

"Hou Sui, it doesn't matter to the overall situation, he can't save the situation." Chen Wang glanced at the military camp on the right mountain, which was the headquarters of Zuo Liangyu, just at the foot of the mountain two miles away.

It is true that you can control Zuo Liangyu with Hou Sui, but you can only control Zuo Liangyu with Hou Sui. Hou Sui's ability and prestige are insufficient, and there is no way to restrain other generals, nor is he able to solve the problems of the current southern country.

Although Hou Sui used to be a squire in the military department, he did not understand military affairs.

"The situation in the south, if Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting are sent south, it can be alleviated."

"Send Hou down to come down, it won't be long before it will completely collapse." When it comes to military ability, Hou Sui and Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Sichang naturally can't be compared, and not only Xiong Wencan's level can't be reached, but they are more than a star and a half worse than Chen Qiyu.

"Seven days ago, Zhang Xianzhong broke through the Qianjiang River and entered the Weiyang area, and the troops approached Wuchang."

"Wan Yuan Ji is the same as I expected before, after the troops arrived in Yuezhou Mansion, they have been standing still."

"By the time Hou Sui takes office, Zhang Xianzhong is afraid that he will have turned most of Huguang upside down." It's not that Chen Wang looks down on Hou Sui, but Hou Sui really can't handle the current situation.

In addition to Zhang Xianzhong, the Fifth Battalion of the Left Revolution is now making a lot of trouble in Nanzhili. Because of the Wanmin Army's attack on Xuzhou, a large number of soldiers and horses were transferred north, which gave the opportunity to the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution.

At the beginning of July, the 5th Battalion of the Left Revolution captured Shucheng, defeated the officers and soldiers of Nanzhili, and marched towards the state city of Lu'an Prefecture.

The Wanmin Army captured Shangqiu in June and returned to the entire territory of Defu. The Yellow River was in the middle of the summer flood, Li Yan arranged his troops and garrisoned along the river, and Yang Wenyue's troops were always blocked north of the Yellow River, and it was difficult to rush south to help.

In June, the Wanmin Army entered the northern part of Nanzhili, besieged Xuzhou, plundered the surrounding areas, and recruited villagers.

How could Hou Sui be able to deal with such a complex and grim situation?

"However, Hou Sui will soon arrive in the southern country, and this Xiangyang City can't just be surrounded and not attacked." During these days, Chen Wang did not give the order to attack, but only occupied the Sanxian Mountain in the southwest, connecting Fancheng in the north, and surrounded but did not fight.

After all, capturing Xiangyang will not be of any benefit to him now. The price paid is far more than the gain.

It is better to put Xiangyang City in Zhang Xianzhong's hands for the time being. During this time, the reason for Chen Wang's use was to integrate the various armies, rush to make siege equipment, and wait for the navy.

Huguang's sailors had also arrived outside Xiangyang City three days ago, but there were not many warships. Because Wuchang was threatened, the main forces of the water division were concentrated around Wuchang.

And after such a long time, the siege equipment has almost been made, and Chen Wang naturally has no excuse to stand still.

"Huguangbing, how many days can you arrive?" Chen Wang leaned his hands on the railing of the lookout platform and asked Chen Gong, who was standing aside.

"Tomorrow at noon, the Huguang soldiers will be able to rush to Fancheng." To fight Xiangyang, it is natural to fight. But Chen Wang definitely couldn't use the elite under his command to fill the trenches of Xiangyang, a fortified city.

Therefore, after besieging Xiangyang for a period of time, Chen Wang dispatched Huguang troops and horses stationed in Henan.

Most of the rogues in northern Henan have been exterminated by the newly formed battalion soldiers taken away by Chen Yongfu. The newly formed battalion soldiers have experienced blood and war, and have begun to have combat effectiveness, and the vacancy in Henan has also been filled, so it is natural that Huguang's soldiers and horses can be dispatched.

These Huguang soldiers were originally controlled by Chen Hongfan, but Chen Hongfan didn't care about them, and most of his attention was on the family under his command.

Therefore, these Huguang battalion soldiers are almost contaminated with the bad habits of all the inland battalion soldiers. Their combat power is not strong, their discipline is loose, and they are not able to do much use, like an old rusty knife.

And Xiangyang is undoubtedly the best whetstone. Those displaced people outside Xiangyang City can just be used as a supplement to the reserve of soldiers......