After receiving Qin Liangyu's military order, Zeng Ying did not retreat immediately, but closed his eyes and thought for a quarter of an hour.
He was thinking: How can I, the great Master Zeng Ying, retreat without a fight?
If this gets out, how will the court view me? How will the people of Shu view me? How will the soldiers view me?
Don’t I have any face?
Those who came to him all wanted to fight Zhang Xianzhong. If they really retreated without fighting, their morale would inevitably be damaged and even the army's morale would be unstable.
"Lord Zeng, do you want to fight before leaving?" Zeng Ying's capable subordinate, guerrilla general Yang Zhan asked with a smile.
Who is Yang Zhan?
A fierce general in the late Ming Dynasty, he was granted the title of Marquis of Huayang and posthumously named "Zhonghui"!
Everyone knows about Zhang Xianzhong's sinking of silver...
It was Yang Zhan who did it!
In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Yang Zhan won the third place in the military imperial examination for his martial arts.
In the 17th year of Chongzhen, Yang Zhan and Cao Xun led 3,000 elite soldiers to guard Chengdu. They were outnumbered and captured and taken to the execution ground.
Trapped in a dead end, Yang Zhan did something big - he snatched the knife and escaped.
He pretended to praise the executioner on the scaffold, first praising the executioner to the point of complacency, and then tempting him to untie him. Unexpectedly, the executioner actually untied Yang Zhan! Seeing this, Yang Zhan immediately grabbed the knife and killed the two men, then jumped into the river and swam away.
After escaping, he raised an army to resist Zhang Xianzhong, first defeating Feng Shuangli, then being defeated by Sun Kewang. But he then sent troops to defeat Liang Yixun and Liu Wenxiu, and recovered the four states in Shuzhong.
Zhang Xianzhong was frightened by Yang Zhan's attack, so he led 100,000 soldiers and more than 200 ships loaded with gold, silver and treasures, and sailed down the Qingshen River, leaving Sichuan and entering Chu. Yang Zhan fought a fierce battle with Zhang Xianzhong at the mouth of the Pengshan River, beheaded Zhang Xianzhong's brother, set fire to the ships, and sank countless silver.
Zhang Xianzhong was forced to return to Chengdu.
In the first year of the Yongli reign, the Qing army was defeated in Ziyang and Jianzhou.
Unfortunately, such a brave general was lured and killed by Li Gande, the Minister of War of the Southern Ming Dynasty due to internal strife.
The Southern Ming government army never recovered from this defeat!
If there had been no internal strife, the Southern Ming Dynasty would never have perished.
Although we dare not say anything like recovering the Central Plains, we can definitely compete with the Qing Dynasty.
Unfortunately, there are no "ifs" in history. The Southern Ming Dynasty accelerated its demise amid the open and covert struggles among the Donglin Party, the Eunuch Party, and the military generals.
No wonder everyone who has read Gu Cheng’s “History of the Southern Ming Dynasty” says that it is a period of frustrating and helpless historical tragedy.
Zeng Ying looked at his general and asked, "Do you think so too?"
Yang Zhan nodded: "Yes, Lord Zeng, although Zhang Xianzhong's infantry and cavalry are coming with great force, their navy is not as strong as our army. We can take this opportunity to counterattack the bandits."
Zeng Ying no longer hesitated upon seeing this and immediately formulated a battle plan with Yang Zhan.
......
Gao Wengui, the general of Li Dingguo's Tianwei Camp, led 5,000 elite soldiers by boat down the Wujiang River and headed straight for Wangjiang Pass.
After crossing the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Wujiang River, Gao Wengui ordered the warship to slow down.
He stood on the deck, holding a telescope, looking towards the direction of Wangjiang Pass.
In the Wangjiang Pass area, dozens of warships from both sides were engaged in a fierce battle.
The Ming army fought and retreated, while the Dashi army fought and chased them, getting closer and closer to their position.
"Brothers, the opportunity to make a contribution has come! Set sail!" Gao Wengui waved his hand, and dozens of ships rushed over.
When they were within an arrow's reach, something strange happened.
Suddenly, the warships of the Dashi Army changed their flags and revealed the flags of the Ming Army.
Gao Wengui reacted immediately: It’s a trap!
But he did not panic, because he saw the genuine warships of the Dashi Army coming downstream through his clairvoyance.
The flags on the warships swayed from side to side, conveying secret messages that only he could understand.
Li Dingguo had long expected that Zeng Ying would run away, so he asked Wang Fuchen to keep a close eye on Zeng Ying and immediately send troops to pursue him if he retreated.
Sure enough, he guessed it right.
Gao Wengui ordered: "The messenger should raise the flag and order all the ships to line up in a row to block the entire river surface, and then drop the anchor and fight the Ming army to the death!"
"Once the main force of our navy arrives, the Ming army will be defeated!"
There are many opportunities on the battlefield, it depends on how the generals grasp and choose them.
Take this water battle as an example.
Gao Wengui has two choices.
The first option was to line up the warships across the river, block the Ming army's retreat route, and launch an encirclement and annihilation campaign.
The second option is to use warships to tie down the main force of the Ming army, preventing it from retreating smoothly, and then attack the main force of the Ming army together as soon as the main force of the Dashi army arrives.
It was certainly correct for Gao Wengui to choose the first option, but he forgot his identity.
If he was Wang Fuchen, leading the main warships of the Dashi Army Navy, then the first plan would definitely be fine.
We have sufficient personnel, complete weapons, and adequate protection, so we can fight.
The problem lies with the warships. His warships are not the main warships of the Dashi Army, but a temporary fleet composed of warships, large, medium and small merchant ships.
The merchant ship had almost no extra protection, especially the sides of the ship, which were not thickened and could not withstand the Ming army's artillery fire.
When the two sides encountered each other, they first exchanged bombardments, and then the ships approached each other and both sides boarded the ships to fight.
The Ming army was divided into two parts.
Zeng Ying led a part of the Ming army to contain Wang Fuchen who was coming from downstream.
Yang Zhan led the remaining Ming troops in a fierce battle with Gao Wengui.
The Ming army's tactics were very simple.
The large warships attracted the enemy's attention, while the small warships shuttled between the two sides of the large warships, throwing firework paper balls onto the deck and clay pots filled with kerosene onto the hull, which were then ignited with flaming arrows.
Wait for the enemy to put out the fire, then kill them with arrows.
Under the command of Zeng Ying and Yang Zhan, the Ming army cooperated very well.
Especially along the way, Yang Zhan suffered almost no casualties when facing Gao Wengui.
Because Gao Wengui's ship had dropped its anchor in advance, it could not move on the river.
Yang Zhan stood on the first boat and directed the direction: "Left, left, right! Aim at those small boats!"
"You are f**king blind. The ship on the other side is a little smaller than ours. We can't do a job that would injure the enemy by a thousand and our own by eight hundred."
"Brothers, go ahead, kill and burn together, and run back immediately after cutting the anchor rope."
Yang Zhan’s strategy was to first capsize the small boat to open the passage, and then besiege the large ship, killing people and setting fire.
Zeng Ying fought and retreated, and when he arrived at the place where Gao Wengui ambushed, Yang Zhan had already set fire to more than 20 ships.
A dozen more ships were being set on fire.
By the time Wang Fuchen led the main force of the Dashi Army fleet to arrive, Gao Wengui had already lost half of his troops.
Zeng Ying and Yang Zhan had already retreated upstream.
After returning to Fuling, Zeng Ying received news that Governor Qin Liangyu had important matters to discuss in Fuling City.
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