Hong Chengchou knew very well that Li Guodong was good at surrounding points and attacking aid. If hundreds of thousands of Qing troops were huddled in Xiangyang and did not come out, the Ming army could calmly build fortifications outside the city, and even a bastion could be built. At that time, the Qing army would not want to break through. After the Ming army built solid fortifications, the Qing army coming to rescue from the north would be blocked and even surrounded and destroyed!

"Li Ergou is good at surrounding the points and attacking the aid. To deal with their surrounding the points and attacking the aid, he can only send troops to fight in the field and station in Xiangyang with regiment training. The will to defend the city by those gentry is much more determined than the Green Camp Army! In this way, Xiangyang City will be worry-free. Our army can give a try with the southern barbarians in the field, entangle with the barbarians, drag them until the reinforcements arrive, and then annihilate the barbarian army in one fell swoop!" Hong Chengchou said as he gestured to the map.

"Fancheng must be defended, otherwise our army will be blocked by the Han River and there will be no way out." Tong Tulai pointed to the map and said.

Hong Chengchou frowned and looked at the map: "The barbarians came from the right bank. Their purpose was very obvious, as if they were to seize Fancheng and cut off our army's retreat!"

"It's so vicious!" Jiergalang, Tong Tulai and others gasped, "They trapped us to death in Xiangyang!"

Hong Chengchou nodded: "Yes, so it is completely different to defend the city from the north and defend the attack from the south. The location of Xiangyang City determines that it is easy to resist the attack from the north; it is difficult to resist the attack from the south! There is a floating bridge between Xiangyang and Fancheng. We now cross the bridge immediately, first enter Fancheng, and then prepare to go out of the city to fight. All the regiment training of the surrounding gentry is concentrated in the two cities of Xiangfan! Used to defend the city."

All the generals of the Qing army thought that with their own strength, they were enough to deal with the Huai Army. After all, Li Guodong won a clever victory in Yangzhou last time, rather than winning with his true strength. It was obvious that this person had the ability to predict the future and prepared more than ten years in advance. How could Duoduo not defeat the battle in Yangzhou?

However, Xiangyang is now the main battlefield of the Qing army. Even if the Huai army is so powerful, the Qing army has the power to fight.

According to the Qing generals' judgment of the combat effectiveness of the Huai Army, it is believed that the combat effectiveness of the Huai Army is comparable to that of the Later Jin Army at its peak. Although the combat effectiveness of the Qing army is not as good as that of the past, it is also a first-class elite.

As night fell, a fishing boat was moored on the Han River downstream of Xiangyang, lit the lights, and the fishermen on the boat attracted fish with the lights and cast nets to catch fish.

In fact, this fishing boat is the boat of the Jinyiwei's spy. The two fishermen, one old and one young, are the plain clothes spys of the Jinyiwei.

The old fisherman pretended to fish, but his eyes were staring at the floating bridge on the upstream river from time to time. After a while, the gate facing the floating bridge was opened. The floating bridge was filled with torches. In the open city gate, countless Qing soldiers holding torches surged out. Looking from a distance, it looked like a fire dragon crossing the Han River and pouring into Fancheng City on the other side.

"Jiannu is going to Fancheng to dispatch troops. It seems that they want to give up Xiangyang and all enter Fancheng?" asked the young Jinyiwei secretly intercepted.

The old Jinyiwei said: "It is unlikely that Jiannu will give up Xiangyang all. Xiangyang's location is too important. If Xiangyang is given up, our army will have no worries about the northern expedition! I guess the main force of Jiannu evacuated Xiangyang and entered Fancheng to facilitate retreat once it cannot be defeated. But they will definitely leave people to station in Xiangyang."

The Jinyiwei lurking everywhere, the nights of activities everywhere were collected and collected all kinds of information.

All kinds of intelligence floated into Li Guodong's central army tent like snowflakes, which was dazzling. But the Huai Army has now established a general staff department, and there are special people to analyze various intelligence.

After the analysis of the General Staff and Li Guodong's own judgment, it can be concluded that Hong Chengchou transferred the main force to Fancheng and concentrated the training of gentry from various places around Xiangyang into Xiangyang. But strangely, many training teams also entered Fancheng.

"Since the main force of Jiannu is concentrated in Fancheng, why do we still have to dispatch a delegation to Fancheng? This shows that Hong Chengchou does not want to rely on the solid cities of Xiangfan City to defend himself. He wants to go out of the city to fight with us!" Li Guodong analyzed, "But in the specific situation, we cannot draw conclusions casually. We have to look at the information that the night does not receive and send back, and see if Hong Chengchou's main force will leave the city within the past two days."

Now Li Guodong's Huai Army is far stronger than the Qing army in real strength, and it is far better than the Qing army in terms of control of battlefield intelligence. There is no need to take risks to guess, and there is no need to fight risky battles. Just master the correct intelligence and then grasp the main force of the Qing army. The key to the problem now is to grab the main force of the Qing army and don't let them run away.

The next morning, the information was not received at night: "The main force of the Qing army left Fancheng and marched towards the mountains in the northeast."

"This is very obvious. Hong Chengchou gathered all the surrounding troupes and training into Fancheng, trying to defend the city with troupes. Their main army entered the hilly areas north of Fancheng, intending to deal with us and wait for reinforcements." Li Guodong said.

At this time, another secret spy from the Jinyiwei came in to report: "The 200,000 troops dispatched by Jiannu from the capital are coming to Xiangyang. Jiannu's army has arrived in Luoyang and is crossing the river."

"Hong Chengchou wants to fight a decisive battle with our army, so we will fight with them! Pay close attention to the movement of the Jiannu reinforcements," Li Guodong gestured the map, "We use cavalry to cut off Hong Chengchou's retreat. After the infantry comes up and stop Hong Chengchou, the cavalry will turn into Xinye and block Jiannu reinforcements near the Baihe River in Xinye! In this battle, it is necessary to keep Hong Chengchou! We must also re-create the slave reinforcements! In this way, after the Xiangyang decisive battle, we will have no pressure on the northern expedition!"

Then, Li Guodong turned around and gave an order to Cao Bianjiao and Wang Fuchen: "General Cao, General Wang! You and the other two, with 5,000 heavy cavalry and 10,000 dragon cavalry, rushed to Nanyang and intercepted Hong Chengchou!"

"No!" Cao Bianjiao and Wang Fuchen retreated.

On the fifth day of March 23, the 23rd year of Chongzhen, Hong Chengchou's army had just retreated to Nanyang.

"Sir! Sir! Not good! Minggou cavalry appeared in front of you! There were a large number of people, and there were estimated to be more than 15,000!" A Qing army scout whistle cavalry hurriedly reported.

Although Hong Chengchou's army had more than 200,000, while the Ming army had only 15,000 cavalry. However, most of Hong Chengchou was infantry, except for the three thousand Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry and the servants of the Green Camp generals, the rest were infantry. The total number of servants was no more than 2,000, which means that the Qing army had only 5,000 cavalry.

In the Qing Dynasty, there were also powerful Green Camp cavalry, namely Ganzhou Green Camp cavalry. However, all Ganzhou Green Camp cavalry was damaged by Zhao Liangdong in the western Sichuan plain, and was eaten by the Western Army so that there was no scrap left. Now the Green Camp army has almost no cavalry, and only the servants of generals at all levels are considered cavalry, and ordinary Green Camp soldiers are almost all infantry.

A mere 5,000 cavalrymen were used to resist Li Guodong's 15,000 cavalry? Although 10,000 of the 15,000 cavalrymen were dracos, the Huai Army's dracos could also fight on horseback. Those dracos were dismounted with muskets and machetes on horseback.

The role of the cavalry was to restrain the Qing army. The emergence of 15,000 cavalry delayed Hong Chengchou's transfer plan.

"Infantry formation, the auxiliary soldiers dig trenches on the spot! To prevent the Mingdog cavalry from rushing up! The cavalry is protecting on both wings!" Hong Chengchou made a series of orders immediately.

Jirgalang said: "Mr. Hong, let us cavalry go and rush."

"Be careful, Li Laoer's cavalry is strong. If you can't defeat you, come back. We will build fortifications and stand firm and wait for assistance! Find opportunities to fight back!" Hong Chengchou said.

"Zhe!" Jirgalang called a thousand.
Chapter completed!