A melee outside the East City, the Qing army lost nearly a thousand cavalry and evacuated in panic.

In the evening, when it was dark, a large crowd appeared in the east of Wuxing City.

Mandahai and Geng Zhongming rode their horses, and tens of thousands of troops rushed to the city behind them.

When Ma Guanghui was chasing Luo Wenyao, Mandahai met Li Benshen and others who were rescued by the Qing army's horse army, and learned about Wu Jin's just lost.

This shocked Mandahai and hurriedly ordered the army to speed up and rush to the western suburbs of Wujin, preparing to participate in the battle to retake Wujin.

Unexpectedly, when the Qing army arrived, Wu Jincheng was extremely calm. Ma Guanghui, who had not arrived first, did not attack Wu Jinchengcheng.

This made Mandahai furious and angrily accused Ma Guanghui of missing the opportunity to attack Wu Jin and gave Zhao Zamao the opportunity to deploy defense.

But then he learned that Ma Guanghui did not have no attack, but had already been defeated.

The Qing army counted the losses and lost 930 cavalrymen.

Mandahai was really shocked and angry. What was shocked was that the Ming army had just occupied Wujin and could actually block the attack of the Qing army. What was angry was that nearly a thousand Qing warriors had worked hard to travel thousands of miles to Jiangnan from Huguang. Before they could have had time to have a hot meal, they were reimbursed at the city of Wujin.

This made Mandahai unacceptable and shocked.

The front army was frustrated, and Mandahai rushed over and did not prepare any equipment. He could only set up a camp first and then discuss the follow-up matters.

When Wu entered the city, Zhao Ming immediately asked someone to repair the city wall and burned some of the siege equipment that had no time to transfer.

At this time, more than 50,000 Ming troops had been gathered near Wujincheng, including more than 15,000 elite troops in Shence and more than 30,000 troops stationed. The rest were the Qing troops who surrendered since the Battle of Fuhang.

There were nearly 100,000 Qing troops outside the city, most of which were reinforcements from Huguang.

There are a large army of 100,000, but there is no absolute advantage in facing Zhao Ming.

If it was a field battle, Geng Zhongming could defeat Zhao Ming with these 100,000 troops. Unfortunately, Zhao Ming relied on Wu to enter the city, and the 100,000 Qing troops would be difficult to defeat the Ming army.

In the next few days, Mandahai continued to challenge, and intended to force Zhao Ming to leave the city to fight to the decisive battle. Zhao Ming ignored it and instead began to prepare for the New Year of the seventh year of Longwu.

When Mandahai outside the city saw Zhao Ming staying in the city without fighting, he was very angry and could only make equipment while waiting for news from Huzhou.

Hangzhou was invaded, and the Ming army had already entered Jiangnan and directly threatened Jiangning, which made the Qing court extremely angry.

In the Qing court, many people's confidence was hit and they were no longer firmly believe in Dorgon's strategy of unifying the world.

After the defeat of the Battle of Fujian and the forced suspension of the Huguang Campaign, the Qing court no longer had any hope for the destruction of the Ming Dynasty.

Some of the Qing officials were already clamoring to negotiate peace, while some were still trying to attack and destroy the Ming Dynasty.

Among these two groups, the Eight Banners nobles advocated peace talks. At this point, they have gained a lot of wealth and have a family business. Unlike when they were outside the pass, they were so poor that they would starve to death if they didn't rob them.

They can live well now without working. In addition, the Ming army in the south is getting harder and harder, and the harder they are fighting, so they are tired of fighting and don’t want to fight anymore.

The ones who supported Dorgon to continue to destroy the Ming Dynasty were mainly surrendered by Fan Wencheng and Hong Chengchou.

Of course, this is easy to understand. They surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and worked for it. In order to gain the trust of the Qing court in politics, the best strategy is to firmly hate the Ming Dynasty.

The more they wanted to destroy the Ming Dynasty, they could show how loyal they were to the Qing court, so that the Qing nobles could use them with confidence.

This time, Dorgon was with their support and tried to resist the opposition. He recruited the 15th army from Huguang, Jiangxi and Huaihe River to reinforce Mandahai, and prepare to counterattack Zhejiang.

At this time, Mandahai led an army of 100,000 to Wujin, while Kong Youde led 50,000 people to Huzhou.

Because Wu Jin threatened Zhenjiang and Nanjing and could surround the Qing army's retreat, Mandahai's original plan was to dispatch a hundred thousand troops to cooperate with the Wu Jin defenders to defeat Zhao Ming who besieged Wu Jin, and then detoured Hudong, passed Suzhou and entered Jiaxing, sneak attacked Hangzhou, surrounded Zhu Yihai who besieged Huzhou, and finally defeated the Ming army.

But now, Mandahai was trapped in Wu's city, so he could only hope that Kong Youde could defeat Zhu Yihai after rushing to Huzhou, and then surrounded Su Song from the east of Huzhou.

In late December, Mandahai tried several attacks, but was repelled by the Ming army, so he anxiously waited for news from Huzhou.

At this time, the Ming army had no chance of capturing Huzhou, but Zhu Yihai just held on his own and stood firm, with deep trenches and high ravines against Kong Youde.

Zhu Yihai knew in his heart that Hangzhou had just been defeated and the situation was still unstable. If he retreated to Hangzhou, the Qing army would definitely follow him. However, in the city of Hangzhou, he was not prepared for defense and might be taken back by the Qing army.

In addition, if he retreated, the Qing army could encircle the land east of the lake, which would have harmed Zhao Ming.

Therefore, Zhu defended his camp with deep trenches and high ravines at the same time, and ordered Zhang Huangyan to go to Hangzhou, recruit troops in Zhejiang and Fujian to rectify Hangzhou's defense.

Due to Kong Youde's arrival, the Ming army was temporarily unable to capture Huzhou. Zhu Yihai ordered Zhang Mingzhen to strengthen the city defense in Deqing and Wukang counties north of Hangzhou to serve as the outer defense line of Hangzhou.

Dorgon drew 150,000 Qing troops to aid, which seemed to have a lot of troops, but the Qing army in Jiangnan had suffered heavy losses before, and the Ming army in Zhejiang was not afraid of the Qing army, so the Qing army did not have an absolute advantage in military strength over the Ming army.

Mandahai was eagerly waiting for the news from Kong Youde, but he didn't expect it, but he waited for a disaster.

On this day, Mandahai and Geng Zhongming peeked at Wu's defense in the city. Geng Zhongming frowned and said, "Prince, when I was in Huguang, I heard that Zhao Zamao's firearm was sharp. I have been in contact recently and I realized that what I said is not necessary. Now Wu's city is three miles away from the city, with heavy artillery bombardment. When we enter the city, there are iron cannons and grenades. Only these three objects make it difficult for the army to capture the city."

Reinforcements came from Huguang thousands of miles and did not bring any siege equipment. Even if they had the equipment, Mandahai was helpless in the face of the Ming army's sharp firearms.

Mandahai gritted his teeth and said, "Zhao Zamao is huddled in the city, which is not easy to attack, but Zhu Yihai's army is stationed in the wild. I thought about it over and over again. Since it is difficult to capture Wu Jin for a while, I would like to ask King Huaishun to lead 50,000 troops to reinforce Huzhou, defeat Zhu Yihai first, and then trap Zhao Zamao to death!"

The 150,000 Qing troops rushed into Jiangnan. When they arrived, they did not prepare any food and grass, and they ate in Jiangnan's stock.

Fan Wencheng wrote a letter to inform Mandahai that there were not much military rations in Jiangnan and could not support the continued combat. He hoped that Mandahai could defeat the Ming army as soon as possible.

Mandahai was thinking about it in three days and decided to lead 50,000 troops to monitor and restrain Zhao Zamao, and let Geng Zhongming go south to join Kong Youde, defeat Zhu Yihai first, and then concentrate his troops to deal with Zhao Ming with an absolute advantage.

At this time, Geng Zhongming was about to take the order, but a sound of horse hooves suddenly came. Several people looked for the sound and saw a Qing general coming over.

The visitor ran to a distance, quickly turned over and dismounted, then held the whip in one hand and pressed the sword in the other, and ran to Mandahai with anxiety.

The Qing general looked around, then stretched his head and whispered: "Prince, Ningguo Mansion urgently reported that Li Chengdong has captured Xuancheng!"

When Mandahai heard this, he stood up in an instant and said to Geng Zhongming for a while: "No need to go south. Xuancheng is lost, Wuhu and Jiangning are threatened by the enemy, and Huzhou's flanks are also in danger. We will lose this game for the time being."
Chapter completed!