Winchester is a huge town with a large population.

Its southeast and northwest are mountains and hills, and there is a great avenue built by the Romans to the northeast. It was already a military city at that time and later became the capital of England.

At this moment, it is the key place that Ying Ming must conquer, and it is also the huge barrier that Robert Dudley must guard.

In terms of intelligence, the Ming army was relatively backward because they had only the single method of sending scouts.

Earl Robert was able to gather the nobles who fled to the west and summarize the information along the way.

On the third day of the second month of the 12th year of Wanli, the Western nobles who fled into Winchester reported to Count Robert that there were Ming cavalrymen with small flags on their backs near the Northwest Stonehenge six days ago.

At the same time, their spies in Southampton returned, the Ming army sent reinforcements to Southampton for eight consecutive days, and nearly 800 troops entered the city every day. Now the city has implemented a complete Ming-style defense method, prohibiting anyone from walking around at will, observing water sources, listening to geodesics, gathering astronomers, forbidding noises, and conducting military management.

On the eighth day of the second month, the nobles who fled ashore from the southern Isle of Wight brought the news that the Isle of Wight was besieged by the Ming army with more than a thousand heavy troops, and asked the count for reinforcements.

Five hundred registered sailors from the rear were reorganized from Glencoe Heights, and were expected to arrive in Portsmouth in three days, and set out from there to land on the Isle of Wight to rescue the siege. At this moment, the Ming army's reinforcements to Southampton were still continuing to send additional reinforcements.

It had been twelve days, in the eyes of Count Robert, the Ming army in Southampton had expanded to an army of thousands, causing its pressure to double.

Finally, on the 14th day, the tenth day of the February, a nobleman fled east said that the army had stopped continuing to reinforce Southampton, but on the 9th day of the Ming Dynasty, General Ying Ming, the highest military commander in Puli County, entered Southampton, and twelve field circumference cannons were also entering the city with him.

At the same time, news came from Compton Village on the banks of the Ichin River that a team of Ming army reconnaissance cavalry flowed into the river and headed towards the east bank.

All evidence shows that the main force of the Ming army will launch an attack from Southampton to Winchester.

And it is very likely that it was an attack from the east bank of the Ichin River, which was not smooth.

However, the facts are often different from the information. Ying Ming is not in Southampton, and there are no tens of thousands of people stationed in the city.

Southampton had only two expanded Makino camp, one thousand six hundred units and twelve Franc cannons. The troops attacking the southern Isle of Wight were the longbowmen of the Third Prit Battalion. After launching a six-day attack for them, they did not occupy the Isle of Wight and instead withdrew their troops north.

The reason why the information told Earl Robert that there were a large number of Ming troops in Southampton was because Yingming knew that there were British troops in the city.

Therefore, we must first use the method of defending the city to imprison the residents in the city so that they cannot watch the situation carefully, then split the two Maize camps sufficiently, secretly pull them out of the city at night, and then drive them from the official road to the city the next morning.

Wear armor today, be shirtless tomorrow, wear helmets and cloth clothes the day after tomorrow, and gradually drive the people in the city out of their homes to get in, showing the illusion that there are more and more Ming troops in the city.

In fact, there are always only those 1,600 troops in the city.

This kind of trick will definitely be discovered over time, but it is no problem to fool people in a short period of time.

Especially Ying Ming brought the cannon into the city, and the cannon did stay in the city. He himself cavalry out of the city that night and ran along the official road with the Eastern cavalry waiting outside the city. The next day, he had already arrived at Bury City, forty miles northwest, and joined the main force of the army.

In Bury City, he had four hundred Beiyang cavalry households, four hundred Alan Fuguo Army, two Alan battalions, two Mapley camps, and three Puli battalions, with nearly seven thousand troops.

No one knew whether the plan could be successful when it was implemented, especially such mysterious troops mobilized. Until Ying Ming was preparing to advance, he did not know whether the enemy was baited.

However, even if he didn't take the bait, there was no loss for him. Anyway, waiting for the artillery team behind him and the baggage team gathered together, his scouts were also collecting enemy intelligence, so it would not hurt that the Southampton troops would sleep outside the city.

He didn't know how many troops the Englishmen were stationed in Winchester, but he knew that nearly 10,000 sailors who had lost their livelihoods were armed by the English royal family, which was a big trouble for him.

For this purpose, he brought out forty-eight Fran machine guns and six major generals from Puli County, and rushed to build artillery vehicles to bombard the city.

When the baggage artillery team arrived, they rushed to the plains to advance eastward with Ailan Camp as the pioneer.

The two sides were only sixty miles apart. Aylan Camp first occupied a beer workshop and gained control of a large farm. On the evening of February 15th, it occupied the Episcopal Monastery, which was only nine miles away from Winchester from the west.

Earl Robert, who stationed his main force in the southeast of the city, was extremely panicked by the emergencies and sent two knights left behind in the city to lead more than 300 troops westwards, but did not dare to recall the troops that were almost guarding Southampton in the south. He could only send three sirs to lead more than 1,000 recruits to move towards Hesley in the southwest, in order to take into account the north and south.

At the same time, he had determined that the main attack direction of the Ming army, whether in the south or north, would definitely start in Winchester, so he summoned the registered sailors from the rear to come and rescue with full arms.

There were also five hundred sailors who had been sent to the south to support the Isle of Wight, who were also called back.

The battle in the monastery began in the morning of February 16th. The knights led a dozen light cavalry to attack the team that transported beer, bread and goods to the west. After a sudden attack, more than 30 soldiers who pulled carts in the Ailan camp were wiped out.

Immediately after half an hour, the Ayran infantry of the monastery rode out everywhere, blocked the knight team that could not be carried out due to the wheels of the carriage being stuck in the mud, and wiped out it.

Another knight led more than 200 people to launch a siege on the monastery. The battle lasted for two hours and could not be attacked. The knight finally found that the defenders had more troops than him. When he retreated, he was killed by Elan Camp and chased them all the way and almost entered the town of Winchester.

The destruction of this force was very meaningful to the Count. It took him a day to turn the main force from the east to the west, and mobilized the farmers to build a trench outside the city. That night, he led 3,000 main force and Count Robert, who had two thousand sailors, led his troops out of the city, camped in the west, and sent people to issue a letter of war to the commander of the Ming army in the West, hoping to fight on the plain farmland.

Because of this protracted garrison, Count Robert was already heavily in debt, and neither the troops nor him could continue to bear the pressure of the Ming army's erratic actions.

This is exactly what Ying Ming wants. If the enemy general defended the city to the death, he would be really worried about the situation of a strong attack.

But in field battles, the advantage of the defenders was offset.

His reply was very refreshing.
Chapter completed!