After Qi Sansheng fled Guiyang, he ran all the way to Pu'an Prefecture at the junction of Guizhou and Yunnan before stopping. Then he issued Liu Wenxiu's last words to everyone and summoned troops to guard Yunnan. However, under the attack of the Chu army, all the Western Army units were defeated. The Yunnan soldiers of Bao Shengting and other units were also made dumplings by Tan Xiao. Not one of the troops who escaped returned, and only some soldiers from western Guizhou responded to Qi Sansheng. It took the local troops more than ten days to gather six to seven thousand troops. The only good news was Gao Wengui's miraculous escape. After he jumped off the cliff, he was rescued by several passing Western soldiers and escaped the Chu army's pursuit. He heard that Qi Sansheng was gathering troops in Pu'an Prefecture, and he All the way to Pu'an, it was a pity that Gao Wengui's left leg bone was smashed to pieces. Even if he recovered from the injury, he would not be able to ride a horse or fight in battle. Hearing that Zhou Guodong and Liu Tichun were approaching with troops, Gao Wengui persuaded Qi Sansheng to retreat immediately. "Puan Prefecture cannot be defended anymore. We must withdraw to Yunnan as soon as possible, and then gather troops from all over to defend Kunming." When Liu Wenxiu attacked Guiyang, he drained all the mobile troops from the southwestern provinces. Qi Sansheng was able to gather these thousands of troops. Mainly under the pressure of the Chu army, many prefecture and county guards in western Guizhou no longer had the confidence to protect themselves, so they took the initiative to abandon their defenses and retreated to Pu'an Prefecture to stay together If they wanted to fight the Chu army, this small force would be far away. If it is not enough, we must rely on the local defenders in Yunnan, especially the 10,000 Western troops guarding Kunming City. Kunming is the base camp of the Western Army. In addition to the families of the soldiers, Yong Wang Zhu Cihuan and a large number of logistics and internal affairs personnel are here. There must be no accidents. Therefore, when Sun Kewang went to Huguang, he left enough defenders in Kunming, part of which Liu Wenxiu was transferred to attack Guiyang, and there were still 10,000 troops left. If the defenders from all over Yunnan were mobilized together, it might be possible to block the Chu army's attack. Qi Sansheng followed Gao Wengui's advice and led his troops to withdraw from Pu'an Prefecture and retreat into Yunnan. Three days later, Zhou Guodong and Liu Tichun occupied Pu'an Prefecture and then pursued them into Yunnan. There were no generals in Kunming at this time. Qi Sansheng took advantage of Liu Wenxiu's death and successfully took control of the military power in Yunnan. Then he gave up a large number of state and county guards and concentrated his troops to move closer to Kunming, preparing for a decisive battle with the Chu army. In eastern Guizhou, the winner was also decided between Feng Shuangli and Yuan Zongdi. The two of them were originally at a stalemate. Feng Shuangli took advantage of his superior strength and took the initiative. However, when the news of Liu Wenxiu's defeat and death reached Zhenyuan Mansion, the morale of the Western Army was immediately in chaos. Yuan Zongdi seized the opportunity to launch a counterattack. , Feng Shuangli was defeated and retreated until Shi Bing, who was dozens of miles away, stabilized his position. The troops of Yuan Zongdi and Tan Xiao arrived one after another and launched an attack on Shi Bing. Seeing that Feng Shuangli could no longer resist, he retreated towards the Tonggu Guards on the border of Hunan and Guizhou. The Chu army pursued them closely, clinging to the rear. Control changed hands again The Chu army was invincible in Guizhou, but in Nanzhili, thousands of miles away, the army of the Longwu court suffered a solid defeat. News of the defeat reached Nanjing. Emperor Longwu was seriously ill, but Wang Kefan remained calm. "It's a pity that a hundred thousand troops were defeated in one battle. How did Zheng Chenggong fight this battle?" This battle report was sent by Wang Jincai who was stationed in Yangzhou. There is a sense of gloating in the lines. After Zheng Chenggong landed on the north bank of the Yangtze River, he was Wu Sangui launched a fierce attack, winning consecutive battles and fierce offensives. He successively captured Gaoyou and other prefectures and counties, and launched a decisive battle with Wu Sangui's main force in Huai'an Prefecture. However, Wu Sangui overturned the situation at the last moment, and his army of 100,000 people collapsed. When Zheng Chenggong fled back to Nantong Prefecture, he only Thousands of remaining soldiers were defeated. (Zheng Chenggong counterattacked Nanjing with an army of 100,000, but was defeated by thousands of green battalions and the entire army was annihilated. This is a real thing that happened in history. It has little to do with the main line of this book, so I won¡¯t go into details.) After Wu Sangui defeated Zheng Chenggong , pursued southward and pushed the battle line to the city of Yangzhou. At the same time, Taixing, Nantong, Haimen and other places east of Yangzhou were in panic. Wu Sangui had the momentum to conquer the Yangtze River in one fell swoop, and the atmosphere in Nanjing became very tense. Nervous, some timid gentry and common people have fled to the countryside. The main force of the Chu army was transferred to Hunan. There were only Tian Jianxiu's First Northern Expedition Army in Nanjing and some new troops that had just been trained. The situation seemed very dangerous, but from Wang Kefan down, the top brass of the Chu army were calm and completely There were no plans to evacuate. Slowly, the public sentiment in Nanjing City returned to stability. Wang Kefan's biggest reliance is a powerful navy. After two years of vigorous development, the Chu army's navy has basically taken shape. Although it cannot be compared with Zheng Chenggong's "Ocean Fleet", it is for the Qing army. With the existence of invincibility, even if Wu Sangui recruited a group of civilian ships and merchant ships to forcibly cross the river, they would be wiped out by the Chu navy with strong ships and powerful guns. As long as he didn't have water in his head, he would not let his troops die in vain. In order to ensure nothing went wrong, Wang Kefan borrowed a fleet from the evacuated Zheng Chenggong to strengthen the Yangtze River defense line. In return, he ordered Wang Jincai to contact Zheng Chenggong's remnants as much as possible, cover their retreat, and at the same time sent a batch of food to Zheng Chenggong. supplies. Zheng Chenggong's "Army" was lost in Huai'an Prefecture, but the "Navy" fleet was unscathed. The warships that were fully loaded when sending troops were now useless empty ships, so he agreed to Wang Kefan's request and left him five ships. Ten warships in exchange for various kinds of help from the Chu army. After all arrangements were made, Zheng Chenggong came to Nanjing to pay homage to Emperor Longwu, who was seriously ill. Then he led his troops to leave sadly and return to Xiamen. "This is probably the inertia of history. After Zheng Chenggong returns to Xiamen, he will most likely go to fight against Taiwan." Knowing that Zheng Chenggong left, many people in the Chu army's senior leadership celebrated. Zheng Chenggong returned after a great defeat and was already seriously injured. Vitality, for the Chu army, there was one less opponent to fight for supremacy in the world. Emperor Longwu suddenly fell ill after hearing that Zheng Chenggong was defeated. The reason was also obvious. He originally had great expectations for Zheng Chenggong, but now he can only I gave up On the battlefield in Huguang, Li Dingguo's troops were all in Hubei, and they fought independently with Sun Kewang in Hunan. After the news of the fall of Guiyang reached Huguang, Li Dingguo wanted to cross the river to support Hunan, but Sun Kewang firmly refused. Because of the fall of Guiyang, Sun Kewang's prestige was severely reduced. He himself became very sensitive and was inexplicably wary of Li Dingguo. He was afraid that he would threaten his status after entering Hunan, so he must let Li Dingguo stay in Wuzhan. Hubei could be fought, but Sun Kewang also knew that Hunan's troops were empty, so as the supreme commander of the Western Army, he repeatedly ordered Li Dingguo's troops to be transferred from Hubei to reinforce Hunan. On the one hand, Li Dingguo was not allowed to come to Hunan, and on the other hand, he transferred his troops. Sun Kewang's move was obviously selfish. However, Li Dingguo put the overall situation first and still transferred tens of thousands of troops to try to cross the Yangtze River to support Hunan. As a result, Hubei has become relatively empty again. In Huangzhou Prefecture in eastern Hubei, when the Chu army counterattacked thousands of miles away, Li Guo once pushed back the Qing army. However, under the attack from both sides by Tan Tai and Tuen Bu'er, he quickly switched to the defensive. Because the enemy was outnumbered, we were outnumbered. Unable to hold on to Huangzhou Prefecture, they finally withdrew to the south bank of the Yangtze River with the cooperation of the navy. The Qing army thus completed the strategic goals set by Dorgon and basically controlled the north bank of the Yangtze River in its own hands. The good news of Wu Sangui's victory over Zheng Chenggong spread to Hubei, and the morale of the Qing army was greatly boosted. Seeing Wu Sangui's victories, the troops went straight to Nanjing City. Tan Tai, Tunbuer and Kong Youde were not willing to lag behind. Although the Qing army controlled Most of the area on the north bank of the Yangtze River, but Li Dingguo still occupied half of Hubei. Knowing that Li Dingguo divided his troops to support Hunan, Hubei became very empty. Tan Tai and Kong Youde mobilized heavy troops and crossed the Han River to launch a fierce attack on the Western Army. The two armies fought fiercely for many times. On this day, the former alliance became in name only. Li Dingguo had a small number of troops. After the war started, he retreated steadily. On the surface, he was unable to resist, but in fact, it was a deliberate plan to arrogant the enemy. Kong Youde pursued and fought hard all the way, trying to capture Li Dingguo's main force. He almost succeeded several times, but in the end he missed it. He gradually lost his guard and became impatient. Finally, he got into Li Dingguo's encirclement near Jingzhou and the entire army was wiped out. , was defeated and died. Li Dingguo took advantage of the victory and launched a counterattack against Tan Tai. Tan Tai hurriedly escaped across the Han River and scuttled all the ships in the Han River. He thought that the Western Army would never be able to cross the river again. However, Li Dingguo went around to Zhongxiang overnight and used Zhongxiang's heart to attack him. Nail on the east bank of the Han River helped the army cross the river, and finally caught up with Tan Tai in Xiaogan, and started a fierce battle again On the Hunan side, after Liu Wenxiu returned to Guizhou to aid, Sun Kewang's troops became stretched because the battle line was spread too wide. , the supply line was too long, so he could only divide his troops everywhere and defend everywhere. Wang Sheng took the opportunity to launch a counterattack again, penetrating deep into the Western Army from the gaps, avoiding big cities such as Changsha and Hengyang, and focusing on small and medium-sized strongholds below the county seat, especially Not a single warehouse or post station on the supply line was spared, and at the same time, we tried our best to separate the connections between Yuezhou, Changsha and Hengyang. Five hundred today, eight hundred tomorrow. After more than a month of this, the total number of Western troops eliminated was more than 100,000. Fifteen thousand people were no less than the number of enemies wiped out in a large battle. The greater the losses Sun Kewang suffered, the less he had the strength to launch a counterattack. Although he was not defeated for the time being, the situation became more passive day by day. At this critical moment, reinforcements sent by Li Dingguo arrived in time, and Sun Kewang finally stabilized his position and recaptured a batch of troops. The county stronghold reconnected Yuezhou, Changsha and Hengyang, and opened up the supply line to the rear. The situation has improved! Sun Kewang immediately sent the victory news to various departments of the Western Army to boost morale. However, Bai Wenxuan, who was stationed in Hengyang, made a big mess and sent someone to send a handwritten letter. In the letter, he implicitly accused Sun Kewang of having wrong tactics and that he should not waste precious troops. Instead of wasting money on these city strongholds, we should concentrate our forces.A decisive battle with Wang Sheng, otherwise, even if they can recapture these county strongholds for a while, they will have to divide their troops and defend everywhere in the future, but they will still be defeated by Wang Sheng one by one. If the cycle continues, no matter how many troops there are, they will not be able to fill this bottomless pit.