After some counting, there were more than 3,100 Goryeo cattle collected and brought back by Xindali.

With this group of Goryeo Niulu servants, Jierhalang calmed down and gave up the idea of ​​continuing to retreat to the west. While reporting the news to Huang Taiji in Shengjing and Dorgon in Gaizhou, he

Phoenix City was stationed and prepared to hold on for a long time.

Correspondingly, some soldiers and horses of King Huaishun from the Qing camp on Weihua Island east of Zhenjiang Fort City also fled to Jiulian City in the early morning of the eighth day of the first lunar month.

Fei Yangwu, the Duke of Zhenguo, who was stationed at Jiulian City and the other side of Jiulian City and the capital of Yizhou in Ningguo, heard that King Huaishun's men had rebelled in the early morning of the eighth day.

Upon hearing the news that the two camps had been destroyed overnight, he immediately ordered the abandonment of Yizhou City in Hening State on the other side of the river, and retracted all his troops to Jiulian City.

We also made preparations to defend the city and prepare to meet the enemy.

Of course, when he ordered to shrink his troops and abandon the defense of Yizhou City in Jiangdong, Fei Yangwu did not forget to ask people to burn Yizhou City into scorched earth.

This Uiju capital city has long since lost its original imperial inhabitants. Once the soldiers and horses stationed by the Xianglan Banner are withdrawn, it will become an empty city.

Although the walls of this city were not very tall to begin with, and were severely damaged in the war a few months ago, the government offices, private houses, and warehouses in the city could still be used by Yang Zhen's troops.

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In order to prevent this city of Yizhou from becoming a garrison for Yang Zhen's attack on Jiulian City in the future, Fei Yangwu made great efforts. Not only did he burn all the government offices, houses, warehouses and shops in the city to rubble, he also sent people to destroy them.

The remaining walls were demolished.

On the afternoon of the ninth day of the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the sentinels sent by Yang Zhen set off from Weihua Island and walked north along the east bank of the Ya River to gather information. They returned and reported to Yang Zhen the news that Yizhou City had been destroyed.

Yang Zhen originally intended to continue his efforts to completely eliminate the northern threat from Zhenjiang Fort City, but after learning the news, he temporarily gave up the idea of ​​occupying Yizhou City first and then continuing to attack Jiulian City.

After all, under the current extremely low temperature conditions, he would lead his troops to camp in the wilderness and then besiege a fortified city on a high ground. Even if Yang Zhen now had a large number of heavy artillery, he would not dare to take such a risk.

As a result, after the ninth day of the first lunar month in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the war situation in Zhenjiang Fort finally stabilized.

Jierhalang, who suffered a defeat on the seventh day and night, and Fei Yangwu, who had reduced his troops and stayed in Jiulian City after hearing the news, did not come to counterattack Zhenjiang Fort City or the camp on Weihua Island.

Yang Zhen, on his side, also made the decision to "give it up as soon as it was good" after repeated weighings. He neither took the opportunity to capture Jiulian City in the upper reaches of the Yajiang River, nor went west to pursue and escape.

The main force of Phoenix City with the blue flag.

In fact, if you want to hold Zhenjiang Fort City for a long time, or if you want to operate Zhenjiang Fort City and its surrounding areas with confidence in the future, you must capture Jiulian City to the north and Phoenix City to the west.

Otherwise, Zhenjiang Castle will always be under the watchful eye of Qing soldiers and horses.

The Qing soldiers and horses entrenched in Phoenix City or Jiulian City also have the opportunity to move east or south at any time and launch a new attack on Zhenjiang Fort City.

Regarding this point, Yang Zhen's generals can see it clearly, and Yang Zhen himself can also see it clearly.

However, at the camp military meeting convened by Yang Zhen, although the generals argued for a long time, Yang Zhen finally decided to stabilize the situation and hold his troops temporarily.

It's not that he doesn't want to make persistent efforts, but that he doesn't want to overly stimulate Huang Taiji or all the Eight Banners dignitaries on the Qinglu side at the moment.

Until now, Yang Zhen still couldn't figure out what happened in western Liaoning and why Huang Taiji suddenly led the two yellow flag troops back to Shengjing.

Although Shi Mingxiong and Song Guofu reported a lot of inside information about the Qing captives to Yang Zhen after surrendering to Yang Zhen, it was still not enough for Yang Zhen to make a clear judgment on the reasons for Huang Taiji's withdrawal.

Under such circumstances, Yang Zhen did not want to send troops to clear the Eight Banners' inner circle for the time being, and force the Qingqi Eight Banners to recruit all their main forces to continue fighting with him.

For Yang Zhen, after the Zhenjiang Fort City is temporarily stabilized, what he wants to manage and consolidate is not the area north or west of Zhenjiang Fort.

His real purpose was to consolidate and manage the area south of Zhenjiang Fort and east of Zhenjiang Fort, or east of the Yajiang River.

At least for the next year and a half, the direction of Jinhai Town immigrants' settlement will be there, not the west and north of Zhenjiang Fort.

Yang Zhen's current strength, or Jinhai Town's current strength, is not enough to occupy and hold Phoenix City and other places west of Zhenjiang Fort.

Jiulian City is worth a try, but now is not the right time, or it is not the best time.

When spring blooms, the ice and snow melt, and the Yajiang River is reopened to navigation, then the best time to capture Jiulian City will come.

Using the navy under his command, which is already unique in the Liaodong region, to destroy Jiulian City's defenses through artillery fire from the river, and then capture it, would be the method with the lowest risk and the least loss.

The so-called Jiulian City here is not nine cities combined into one, but one of the forts under the jurisdiction of Ding Liao Youwei in the Ming Dynasty.

The Acropolis seat of Ding Liao Youwei is in Phoenix City. Starting from the Acropolis and going north to east, along the Liaodong border wall, there are nine castles of various sizes distributed in sequence.

Jiulian City is adjacent to the Yajiang River in the east. It is the ninth and last fort under the jurisdiction of Dingliao Youwei, so it is called Jiulian City.

Later, after the rise of the Jin Dynasty, they invaded the right guard of Dingliao, and then occupied the entire Liaodong. In order to better deal with Dongjiang Town's harassment of its rear hinterland, and to block Dongjiang Town's power from going north by boat, they established a building on the riverside south of Jiulian City.

On the site of the abandoned pier and abutment, a castle was rebuilt and named Zhenjiang Fort.

In this regard, the place where the Zhenjiang Fort built by the Qing captives was actually part of the Jiulian City defense system.

Only in order to deal with the harassment from the sea, the Qinglu continued to push its defense system southward from Jiulian City, which was closer to the hinterland behind the Qinglu.

Now that Yang Zhen has captured Zhenjiang Fort, if he goes north to capture Jiulian City, or goes west to capture Phoenix City, and gets closer to the hinterland of the Qing Dynasty, it will be equivalent to forcing the Qing Dynasty to use the entire country to deal with him.

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This is not what Yang Zhen wants now. At first, he was determined to go north to capture the Zhenjiang Fort City, but his purpose was not here.

In this way, Yang Zhen suppressed all the impulses of his generals to "take advantage of victory and pursue victory" and continued to lead his troops to stay in Zhenjiang Fort without moving any troops.

At the same time, while he ordered people to clean up the results of this attack, he sent several messengers to Zhuanghe Fort, Xiuyan Fort and his own rear areas to spread the news.

On the morning of the tenth day of the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Shouzhong, who had just rode out of the city the afternoon before, led his team to Zhuanghe Fort to deliver a message again, happily rode his horse all the way back to the gate of Zhenjiang.

Following Li Shouzhong to arrive outside the city were Liaoxi messenger Qiu Biyong and his entourage who had traveled thousands of miles over mountains and ridges to report to Zhenjiang Fort, as well as escorts from Zhuanghe Fort led by Xu Tingxuan, a group of hundreds of people.

Qiu Biyong is Yang Zhen's brother-in-law and the nephew of Qiu Zhenhai, the commander-in-chief of Zhenjiang Fort East City Defense.

At the same time, Li Shouzhong and Xu Tingxuan came to lead them. Naturally, their entry into Zhenjiang Castle was extremely smooth.

As soon as they entered the city, they were led by Qiu Zhenhai and Li Shouzhong and went straight to General Zhengdong's camp to meet Yang Zhenlai.

When they met, Qiu Biyong didn't bother to talk about anything else. He first told about the major events that happened in western Liaoning more than half a month ago, such as Guangning City changing hands, Zhang Cunren anyway, Youtun Fort and Panshan Fort falling into the hands of Songshan soldiers and horses, etc.

He reported it to Yang Zhen as if he were pouring beans out of a bamboo tube.

"What did you say?! Zhang Cunren, Zu Zerun did it anyway?!"

Yang Zhen occasionally speculates about the change of hands in Guangning City.

Especially when he learned that Huang Taiji and the two yellow flag troops had evacuated from Zhenjiang Fort, he could not help but think of this possibility.

But every time he thought of this "possibility", he would quickly deny it, because it was difficult for him to imagine that Zu Dashou or Wu Sangui would capture Guangning City at all costs.

In Yang Zhen's view, it was already very valuable that they could send out a large army to surround Guangning City, or make preparations to attack Guangning City.

But what he didn't expect was that Zu Dashou, Wu Sangui and the others actually captured Guangning City, and the reason they were able to capture it was because Zhang Cunren, Zu Zerun and others led their troops anyway!

"That's right, two days before Commander Zu and Wu Sangui sent troops to Guangning, Commander Yuan and Commander Xia received the news that Zu Zerun was in the middle to make contacts, saying he wanted to surrender Wu Sangui, but in reality it was Zhang Cunren and others who decided to surrender.

Raise your troops anyway.

"Our Songshan soldiers and horses went to attack Youtun Fort and Panshan Fort. Apart from General Yuan and General Xia's consideration of building momentum for the governor in western Liaoning, we actually also responded to Commander Zu's request and cooperated with Commander Zu.

That’s what they mean by what they do.”

Facing Yang Zhen's surprised rhetorical question, the young Qiu Biyong looked quite calm and calm, and his face was covered with traces of weather and frost, which added a bit of perseverance and tenacity.

After not seeing each other for more than a year, Qiu Biyong, who was once a little weak and immature, has not only become stronger, but also matured.

On the night when Guangning City changed hands, Qiu Biyong was appointed by his father-in-law-to-be, Songshan General Xia Chengde. Under the guidance of the guide sent by Yuan Jin, he led a team of escorts overnight along the frozen coastline towards Jinhai Town.

Come and deliver the letter.

The reason why he was sent here was of course because of his identity.

No matter how trustworthy the others are, it would be better to directly send Yang Zhen's own wife and brother to deal with this important matter.

After Yang Zhen moved to Jinhai Town, he insisted on sending Qiu Biyong back to Songshan City and back to serve in Xia Chengde's army, in order that one day, if a major incident happened, he would be a completely reliable person by Xia Chengde's side.

people.

Otherwise, based on Xia Chengde's performance in the original time and space, Yang Zhen was really worried that Xia Chengde would sell himself out at some major historical juncture.

Of course, judging from Yang Zhen's arrangements for Songshan City, Xia Chengde in this life should not easily rebel again.

But it’s important to be on guard against others, and it’s always good to be more careful.

Therefore, although Qiu Biyong had not yet consummated his marriage to Xia Chengde's daughter, he had already served under his Chinese army as Xia Chengde's prospective son-in-law, basically replacing the role originally played by Xia Chengde's son Xia Shu.

Regarding Yang Zhen's arrangement, Xia Chengde naturally knew Yang Zhen's intentions, but he could not refuse at all.

Fortunately, he has no second thoughts about Yang Zhen now, and at the same time, he does regard Qiu Biyong as the Xia family's son-in-law, so he doesn't have much conflict with it.
Chapter completed!