Soon after the end of the military meeting, under the deployment of Zhou Shixian, the Ming troops on the south bank of the Huai River immediately began to make a large-scale sortie and went north to regain the lost territory.

This time, whether it was the new army under Zhou Shixian, or the three army leaders Liu Zeqing, Gao Jie, and Huang Degong, they were all extremely hardworking, and they were even more brave and invincible, afraid of war, and sacrificing others for themselves, and almost disappeared without a trace in the Ming army.

Liu Zeqing quickly recovered the entire Huai'an Mansion, and Gao Jie also recovered the western state capitals of Fengyang Mansion, as well as Xuzhouwei. Huang Degong recovered the state capitals to the east of Fengyang Mansion.

As for the new army under Zhou Shixian, it is their strong backing. After all, if they don't make some contributions, this time the exploits of repelling the Manchu army will all be taken up by Zhou Shixian's new army.

Zhou Shixian still has this political consciousness, which is also his means to win over these military leaders. After being suppressed by force, in terms of political relations, Zhou Shixian cannot be too aggressive and monopolize everything.

In other words, this is a "profit-sharing" credit, and the part seen in the operational meeting is the operational deployment of the northward reconquest, and what cannot be seen is the division of forces after that.

The so-called politics is to make more friends and fewer enemies. At this time, it was not the time when Zhou Shixian couldn't rub the sand in his eyes.

In other words, in some aspects, Zhou Shixian will never allow others to challenge the bottom line, but in other aspects, many things can be talked about again. The measure of this is the so-called political wisdom.

Especially when you are not strong enough, how to maintain internal rules and be compatible with external forces is extremely important to create a good external environment.

However, the actions of the Qing army were somewhat unexpected by Zhou Shixian.

Duoduo retreated all the way north and retreated directly to Guide in Henan, but in the absence of reinforcements from Beizhili, he directly left more than 3,000 Eight Banner soldiers and more green battalion soldiers stationed in the local area, forming the first line of defense to block the Ming army from continuing to move north.

At the same time, at this time, the state capitals of Shandong had also been completely controlled by the Qing army, and Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming were sent back to this old place by Duoduo.

However, that time, they were in the north and east of Shandong, but now they are in the west and south, and it is the Ming army from Huai'an Province in the south that they have to resist.

Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming did not suffer much losses in that night attack, but in the battle on the south bank of the Huai River, they lost five or six hundred elites, but this did not make them suffer a great loss.

It's just that it failed to take Jiangnan, and only relied on the finances and taxes of the five provinces of Beizhili, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi, although the Dashun army paid to obtain property, but how long the Manchu court could hold out, and how much grain and grass could be allocated to them as supplies to restore their strength was a big problem.

After all, these five provinces have just recovered from natural and man-made disasters, and they have experienced the Shunqing War, and their manpower, material and financial resources are also very limited, and they cannot support hundreds of thousands of troops.

However, the two did not dare to say anything disobedient about the distribution of Duoduo, on the one hand, the other party was the prince of the Manchu clan and a Manchurian, and on the other hand, what they did that night, if they were to be investigated, I am afraid it would not be so easy to deal with.

After Zhou Shixian learned of Duoduo's deployment, he knew that although the other party had lost a battle, his courage was still there, and he was not afraid of the Ming army.

Moreover, Duoduo's reaction also aroused Zhou Shixian's vigilance, and the other party was able to deploy the defense of Henan and Shandong so calmly without reinforcements in the north, perhaps because the Azig side in the west achieved a great victory as in the original history.

In other words, perhaps Li Zicheng did not escape the fate of history - Zhou Shixian's butterfly wings did not significantly affect Li Zicheng at the beginning, let alone after the other party retreated from Shaanxi.

It's just that this time, did Li Zicheng die at the hands of Xiang Yong, or did he die in the battle of Fuchi Town, or did he not die, but the Dashun army suffered more serious casualties than in the original history?

However, Zhou Shixian, who was busy building a new line of defense, did not dwell too much, and his more important task now was to gain greater influence in the Nanjing court, so as to ensure that he could influence the military and political affairs in Huguang, Yungui and other places, so that the remnants of the Shun army could recuperate in Huguang, and Zuo Liangyu would form horns with each other, and resist the second wave of attacks of the Qing army in the future.

After all, with Zhou Shi's current strength, the main force of the Qing army has not hurt the fundamentals, and when the time comes, if he advances from the Huai River and Huguang at the same time, he can still only hold the Huai River all the way.

Zhou Shixian came from later generations, how could he not know that after absorbing the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Battalion, the strength of the Qing army increased greatly, and in the second year, the other party would definitely go south with all its strength to seize Jiangnan in order to solve the huge amount of food and salary required by the army.

At that time, Zhou Shixian will probably face not tens of thousands of Qing troops, but hundreds of thousands of Qing troops, including at least 50,000 Manchurian Eight Banner soldiers.

In other words, the Manchu Qing did not hurt the root in the battle with Dashun, and the Manchu, Han and Mongolian Eight Banners plus the soldiers and horses of the Sanshun King still had at least eighty or ninety thousand capable soldiers.

Therefore, in the next year, Zhou Shixian will at least double the number of soldiers and horses under his command to 50,000, and the soldiers and horses of Gao Jie, Huang Degong, Liu Zeqing, Ma Shiying, Zheng Chenggong and others also need to be further expanded in order to have the ability to fight with the main force of the Qing army.

After all, after this battle, the Qing army may no longer dare to despise the Ming army, and Zhou Shixian may not be able to lure the enemy into the depths again.

However, such an expansion of troops and horses is only in the military affairs of the Huaihe River and the Huguang line, and Zhou Shixian is still beyond the reach of the whip, so he can only exert political influence.

Therefore, at this time, it is even more important to have a strong enough anti-Qing force in Huguang, and it is far from enough to rely on Zuo Liangyu and the thousands of elites under his command.

The appearance of Zhou Shixian made the imperial doctor in Nanjing, and the improvement of the situation made Zuo Liangyu not die of illness at this time, and he was still guarding Jiujiang.

As for Wuchang, as in the original history, it was burned by Zuo Liangyu, and then Li Zicheng was caught to death by him like this.

However, the Qing army on the West Road went all the way south from Xi'an to Wuchang, and was basically exhausted, and there was no spare strength to fight again, and because of Zuo Liangyu's continued resistance, his subordinates did not surrender as in the original history, and Azig had to return to the north.

Of course, Azig was also a blessing in disguise, and the Hongyi cannons carried by the army were not all thrown into the Yangtze River by Ma Jinzhong, an old oilman.

After Azig led his troops to retreat north, Zuo Liangyu and Huguang's Guyinxi combined action and quickly recovered many state capitals south of Xiangyang and west of Jingzhou.

Under the efforts of Zhou Shixian, Du Yinxi also received an order from the Nanjing Imperial Court to accept the rest of the Dashun army who were willing to submit as much as possible, and those who were unwilling to submit to Chongqing rushed to Chongqing and Kuizhou.

Until the death of Li Zicheng is confirmed, the various units of the Dashun army cannot surrender, and it is impossible for Emperor Chongzhen and the Manchu civil and military forces to be willing to accept this rebel army.

As for why it is Chongqing, Kuizhou, this is naturally deliberately done by Zhou Shixian, a person from later generations, and after the Shun army has a short recuperation there, it is possible to fight the Qing Dynasty for him in the second year.

In the face of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was stronger than the Ming Dynasty, Dashun and Daxi in terms of military strength, Zhou Shixian was unwilling to fight any more and consume his precious soldiers and horses.

Moreover, there are still thirty or forty thousand veterans in the remnants of the Dashun army, and if the equipment and supplies are sufficient, they will definitely be able to fight with the Qing army.

It can only be said that he waited and saw the changes, and proposed that the Nanjing Imperial Court let the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan see the opportunity to act.

All in all, although the "Battle of the Huai River" was quickly won because of Duoduo's light enemy, Zhou Shixian had to prepare for the Qing army's southward march again a year later.

Otherwise, that decisive battle will be extremely difficult.

However, with the manpower of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, even if Zhou Shixian failed to win this decisive battle, it was impossible for the other party to have the spare strength to sweep Huaxia.

Zhou Shixian will not run away like Li Zicheng, he will be a hero, and his final death has become a joke.

In July, after Zhou Shixian had completed the defense of the north and south of the Huai River, he returned to Nanjing with more than 10,000 troops under his command, preparing to use this as the basis for training the new army.

Liu Zeqing, Gao Jie, and Huang Degong have all been forcibly reorganized by Zhou Shixian, which is the first step for him to unify the army in the true sense.

The original so-called tens of thousands of troops of these three people, after the final determination of the number of troops, after the annexation of Liu Liangzuo, Zhou Shixian's expansion, Liu Zeqing's number of troops was determined at 8,000, Gao Jie was slightly more, 9,500, Huang Degong because of the early defection, and Zhou Shixian's support before, the number of troops was 12,000, and the three major general officers were stationed north of the Huai River with nearly 30,000 armor soldiers.

Of course, in addition to the number of soldiers and cavalry, there are also auxiliaries, and most of those who are wrapped up in the army, but do not meet the standards of soldiers, become auxiliaries, but the size is only one-third of that of soldiers.

After all, the Nanjing court could not afford to raise so many soldiers and horses, and the auxiliaries did not need such high salaries, let alone expensive armor and weapons.

And after Ma Shiying obtained the number of 4,000 soldiers, he was also transferred west to Wuchang, where he should supervise Zuo Liangyu and strengthen the opponent's strength by the way. Zhou Shixian didn't want to see Zuo Liangyu directly annexed by the remnants of the Shun army after recuperation.

Zheng Chenggong and the Zheng family are in Fujian, and the soldiers and horses on the Yangtze River, Zhou Shixian did not move, Chongzhen is trying to win over each other, and Zhou Shixian can't push people away.

Zhou Shixian's own soldiers and horses, under the priority funding of the Nanjing court, also began to expand the army and train, but this time, his tentacles extended to Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and other places, where fishermen, mountain people, and miners are all excellent soldiers.

At the end of July, Zhou Shixian finally received the news that Lu Jiude's secret agents had sent him back to Nanjing—Li Zicheng had died in Jiugong Mountain.