Dragon Sea Empire

When the camp of the Ming army on the South Road was broken, a large amount of food and grass were destroyed by the Chinese army, and some were looted by Chinese army soldiers.

When the defeated remnants of the Ming army on the South Road retreated outside the gate of the Chinese army camp, Wang Huazhen was furious and had to rearrange the more than 1 remnants and defeated generals in a small village south of the camp and set up another temporary camp.Since Gao Chao, the chief general and deputy general of the Ming army on the South Road, disappeared temporarily, and the main force of the Ming army on the South Road was the original Zhenwu camp, but Liu Zheng, the deputy general of Zhenwubao, also died in the night attack. , I have been unable to go to the battlefield for a long time.

Now, the Ming army besieging Xining Fort still maintains a strength of more than 7 to [-] troops, and it still has a seven or eight times advantage over the Chinese defenders of Xining Fort.Although the Ming army had never fought a big battle with the Chinese army in Liaodong before, some veterans of the Beijing camp of the Ming army who had fought against the Chinese army in the capital and other places had a saying: It is not ten times as difficult to fight against the Chinese army. With the above manpower advantages, it is impossible to defeat them.

Having experienced two attacks on the fortress, the soldiers of the Ming army who had doubts about what the veterans said agreed with them.The range of the artillery on the fortress and the blooming shells fired, as well as the rockets flying over the head like meteors and then exploding on the ground, and the rapid-fire guns fired in bursts, all surprised the soldiers of the Ming army who saw the Chinese army fighting for the first time.These weapons and the combat methods of Chinese soldiers are far beyond their imagination.

Today, even Mao Wenlong, who was the most active before, has lost his confidence in winning.At this time, the Ming Dynasty had entered a chaotic era, with raging wars in the north and the south, natural disasters and man-made disasters, but the tradition of civil and military still prevailed temporarily, and the status of civil officials was still higher than that of military commanders.The generals of the Ming army around Xining Fort did not dare to point the finger at Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong, and could only continue to issue various complaints and threats against Mao Wenlong.

In the whole army, only Wang Huazhen is still full of optimism about the war.He has been issuing orders to the rear, requesting the immediate transfer of food, grass, arms and supplies to the front line of Xiningbao, and at the same time requesting the rear to continue to deploy troops to him.He even disregarded that the guards in the Liaoxi Corridor were very empty, and sent a letter to Shanhaiguan to ask Xiong Tingbi to transfer troops.

At this time, Xiong Tingbi was stranded in Ningyuan.On the avenue between Ningyuan and Guangning where he was located, a large number of marines in blue uniforms of the Chinese Army had appeared, the number was about 2500, and there were also hundreds of Liaodong militiamen in messy uniforms.These pirate troops cut across the road, dug a long trench to cut off the road, and set up their own camp there.

They are transporting cannons from Chrysanthemum Island, and they are setting up a formation in front of Ningyuan City, as if they want to attack Ningyuan.At the end of the distant horizon, on the dark Bohai Sea, patches of sails can be seen faintly.That is the pirate galleon that keeps coming to the waters around Chrysanthemum Island.The powerful maritime mobility of the Chinese Army is fully demonstrated at this time. Xiong Tingbi can clearly see the trolleys and flatbed carts pulled by donkeys and horses at the head of Ningyuan City. It continuously extends from the north of Ningyuan City to the coast opposite to Juhua Island.Moreover, this kind of sea transshipment process is almost non-stop around the clock. God knows that there are only a few thousand people in this sea bandit army, why do they need so many supplies!

Some local people are actively working as coolies for the pirate army under the threat of force from the pirates and the lure of heavy money.

And the refugees who were previously driven out of their homes by harassment and attacks by the pirate army entered Ningyuan and other fortified fortresses in the West Liaoning Corridor in groups.It is probable that a lot of naval spies have been mixed in among these people. The day before yesterday, someone had tried to set fire to the gunpowder depot of the official army at the west gate of Ningyuan.

Under the banner of the "Ryukyu Squadron", this unit of the Haikou Army posted a post in Ningyuan City saying that the "Marines belonging to the Ryukyu Squadron of the Beiyang Fleet" demanded that Ningyuan City open the city and surrender, otherwise it would attack the city.They claimed that it was because the officers and soldiers took the lead in breaking the tacit understanding of the truce in Liaodong and wantonly sent troops to attack Xining Fort, that's why they landed and attacked the cities in western Liaoning.As long as the officers and soldiers cease fighting on the front line of Fort Xining, they will immediately retreat back to the sea.

Xiong Tingbi stretched out his hand outside the city wall of Ningyuan, and threw this post down to the city.He glanced at the busy Chinese army camp in the distance, sighed, and turned back to the central area of ​​the city to arrange and organize the defense of the city.At this moment, Xiong Tingbi still doesn't know that the Ming army in Xiningbao is already in crisis.

For five days in a row, the two Ming armies in the northwest of Xiningbao did not move: Wang Huazhen convened people to hold meetings and discuss, but nothing could be decided—as long as the generals of the Ming army do not fight, you Wang Huazhen can say whatever you want, and we will listen to it up.Wang Huazhen kept urging the generals to attack Xining Fort, but no one responded.As a result, nearly [-] soldiers of the Ming army wasted food there for nothing.

Wang Huazhen did not know where he got the news, saying that the Mongolian Horqin tribe north of Liaohe Hetao intends to go south to help the Ming army in fighting.Wang Huazhen enthusiastically sent a group of envoys to Horqin Mongolia with gold and silver to attract them to help in the war.

At the same time, in order to maintain the encirclement of Xining Fort, he ordered Zu Dashou to lead the vanguard battalion to attack the area along the Sancha River east of Xining Fort.Originally, the Ming army had set up many guard posts on the dry platform surrounded by reeds in the Sanchahe area, but all of them had been driven out by the Chinese army at this time.Wang Huazhen ordered Zu Dashou to resume the blockade of the Sancha River ferry, which made Zu Dashou really couldn't bear to scold her mother.

Since starting from Guangning, Zu Dashou’s troops not only ran ahead of the whole army, but also ate the worst food in the whole army, and also received dirty work: the first tentative siege of the city and the blockade of reed marshes District roads, patrolling the banks of the Sancha River, and so on.The main reason is that Zu Dashou and others are old people from the former Liaodong Town, and they have always listened to the words of Xiong Tingbi, the economic strategist of Liaodong. .Those generals Wang Huazhen promoted recently, such as Mao Wenlong, were originally soldiers from Liaodong Town, and their original status was far inferior to Zu Dashou, who was a hereditary military officer.Now they have been promoted rapidly under Wang Huazhen's support, so they are all united around Wang Huazhen and crowding out the Zu Dashou Department everywhere.

In the daily endless small-scale battles of blockade and anti-blockade, Zu Dashou suffered few casualties, but it made his troops very tired.So, after he received Wang Huazhen's order that day, he immediately demanded that the army's food and grass were not enough, and asked the Chinese army camp to provide him with supplies immediately, otherwise the soldiers would have no food and would not be able to go out to fight.

This blow hit Wang Huazhen's vital point, no matter how eloquent he could talk, he couldn't conjure food and grass empty-handed.He questioned all the staff and masters in the big tent, and found that the food for the whole army was only enough for five days.He couldn't produce food, so Zu Dashou insisted on passively avoiding the war, and only sent dozens of people to the west of Xining Fort, and then he returned to work after completing the task.Then Zu Dashou reported back to the old battalion: the pirate army is powerful, they have gathered at the Huangniwa Ferry of the Sancha River, and they have also divided their troops to cross the river.Moreover, the pirates in Xiningbao also intended to go out of the city to meet them, so our soldiers were small and weak, so we had to return to the camp temporarily.

Although Huangniwa is indeed a gathering place for the reinforcements of the Chinese army, only a small number of reconnaissance cavalry crossed the river, and the Chinese army in Xiningbao did not intend to go out of the city in large numbers.After Zu Dashou uttered such nonsense, Wang Huazhen had no choice.Now, he already felt that the generals under his command looked at him with little reverence in their eyes.It is very unwise to offend and anger these military leaders during wartime.

Therefore, in the next few days, the Ming army wasted time and wasted food and grass under the city of Xiningbao.And Xiong Tingbi was in charge of defending the city of Ningyuan, so he couldn't come here.As a result, the two supreme commanders of the Ming army in western Liaoning finally avoided quarreling in the army.Wang Huazhen had already taken refuge in Wei Zhongxian at this time, so the Ming court collected the last grain from the peasants in the vast north and sent it to the front line.

As soon as Wang Huazhen took office, regardless of the military strength of the enemy and us, he always advocated attacking the pirate army and recovering Liaoshen.In this way, Xiong Tingbi, who advocated defense as the mainstay, appeared "disharmony with Jingfu", "Huazhen wants to fight, Tingbi wants to defend", "two people discuss, and it becomes a fire and water", such news is often heard in the Tang newspaper .

Now, these two people have no intention of arguing, and they are about to usher in the most dangerous war situation.

At this time, the Chinese Army has assembled 5000 cavalry brigade main force and nearly [-] infantry troops in Huangniwa.