After almost an hour of this fierce water battle, the Song army showed signs of decline.

The Song army sailors may be slightly better in technology, but they are physically weaker than the Ming army sailors.

Ming soldiers had three meals a day and could eat a full meal every time, so they were strong and full of energy, and had a high degree of lastingness when fighting.

Compared with the Ming army, the Song army was not as physically strong as it was gradually at a disadvantage in the fierce battle.

At noon, the Ming army had successfully captured more than 20 Song army warships through the boarding battle and jumping gang war, and sank more than 20 Song army warships. They also used these Song army warships to charge against the remaining Song army warships, defeating the Song army's second attack.

The Song army suffered heavy losses, while the Ming army suffered less than one-third of the Song army.

Then, the counterattack of the Ming army began.

The Ming army pressed on a large number of warships, first attacked with large rockets, and then launched an attack with Thunder God cannons, stones, crossbow arrows, and tinder oil. The Song army launched a fierce confrontation as soon as possible, and also used thunder, stones and tinder oil to counterattack the Ming army.

Despite this, the Song army's backwardness in the number of warships and attack frequency made them gradually at a disadvantage and could not compete with the high frequency and high intensity attacks of the Ming army, which led to severe damage to the warships and were shocked by the Ming army's sharp firearms and began to retreat.

At the beginning, these were just a few warships that fled, which did not affect the bravery of other warships. Other warships were still resisting bravely and did not give up.

But soon, Wu Chao, the chief general of the Guazhou Navy, saw that he had only less than fifty warships left, and the Ming navy became more and more brave as he fought. A large number of warships surrounded him, as if he was about to eat his entire army in one breath, and he was very frightened.

In fear, Wu Chao quickly lost his will to fight and could no longer insist on Liu Qi's order to protect Guazhoudu at all costs.

He looked at the black smoke on the north bank of the river, thought about Liu Qi, who was still fighting with illness, and felt ashamed.

Just as he was in a psychological struggle, a large rocket launched by a Ming army warship hit the starboard side of the flagship, with a loud bang, and he was shocked to the ground. After he got up in a hurry, the struggle in his heart no longer existed. Liu Ze and the past kindness were all ignored by him under the threat of life-threatening threat.

Wu Chao finally became a fleeing general and ordered the flagship to immediately move to the port on the south bank, escape, no longer insist on fighting, and then ordered the navy to retreat.

The flagship took the lead in escaping. When the other warships of Guazhou Navy saw it, they stopped fighting and quickly ran away. The warships that had gritted their teeth and insisted on losing their fighting will, and just wanted to escape.

Because Wu Chao only cares about running away as soon as possible, he did not command the retreat order after issuing a retreat order, so that the entire Song army navy became in chaos.

The Song Navy became chaotic in order to retreat, but the Ming Navy still maintained an offensive posture, so the Song warships could not cope with the cooperation of the Ming ships and were sunk and captured one after another.

Zhou Mancheng quickly confirmed that the Southern Song navy was running away in a hurry. He was overjoyed and realized that he had won this battle. Guazhoudu was about to be completely controlled by the Ming army. He immediately ordered to lead the entire army to rush forward, and all warships attacked and entered the state of general attack.

The remaining ships of the Guazhou Navy could not compete, and the retreat quickly turned into a fleeing. The Ming Navy continued to pursue and chased the Guazhou Crossing River South Port, basically annihilated the Guazhou Navy.

The remaining warships of the Guazhou Navy were either blown up or sunk by the Ming army and smashed and smashed. Some ships were surrounded and surrendered to avoid being sunk.

After giving up the battle, Wu Chao fled very quickly. He hurriedly abandoned his flagship and fled south. Many navy troops also tried to run with him, but were killed by Ming munitions at the port.

Zhou Mancheng then sent troops to land on the beach, shouting shocking slogans such as [The Ming Dynasty was victorious] [Liu Qi was defeated], while defeating the port defenders of the Southern Song Dynasty.

After two incense sticks, Zhou Mancheng's sailors successfully seized the Jiangnan port, successfully controlled the Guazhoudu north-south route, and completed the first phase of the Ming army's goal to move south.

After Zhou Mancheng controlled the port, he immediately sent people back to Jiangbei to inform Zhou Zhi and asked Zhou Zhi for reinforcements to complete the landing and further attack on Zhenjiang Prefecture.

After almost a day, Zhou Mancheng commanded the Ming Navy to successfully defeat the Southern Song Navy and achieved quite good results.

The Ming Navy sank and destroyed more than 70 Song army warships in one battle, captured more than 30 Song army warships, annihilated more than 1,000 Song navy soldiers, and captured more than 500 alive.

During this battle, the Ming army naval division was destroyed and sunk twenty-one ships, losing nearly 400 sailors. The losses were not small, but the results were really great and it did meet the requirements of starting the war before the war.

That is, the navy captured Guazhou Ferry, cut off the connection between the Song army in the south and north of the Yangtze River, laying the foundation for the main force of the army to successfully cross the Yangtze River and escort it.

The navy has successfully completed this task.

In the evening of that day, Zhou Zhi was overjoyed when he learned about this and immediately arranged some troops to go to Guazhou Du, preparing to cross the river on a large scale under the protection of the navy and set foot on the south of the Yangtze River, creating some conditions for the arrival of the subsequent large troops and consolidating the navy's results.

That night, some soldiers stayed asleep and used the lights on both sides of the shore to help nearly 2,000 Ming cavalry crossing the river. After dawn, they increased their efforts to cross the river. By the end of Chen, more than 4,000 Ming soldiers had successfully crossed the river.

Yuan Xian, the commander of the Third Division of Youyi Army, who was the first to cross the river, believed that launching an attack as soon as possible and not allowing the Song army to reorganize defense was the decision that was most in line with the interests of the Ming army. After discussing with the division secretary Qin Gang, he made a quick decision and decisive decision and led more than 4,000 Ming soldiers to launch an attack on Zhenjiang without wasting any more time.

However, when he led his army to Zhenjiang City, he suddenly found that there was no resistance in the city. The legendary Zhenjiang defenders disappeared strangely, as if they had never existed.

He led his army to occupy Zhenjiang City easily. Without bloodshed, he obtained a major Jiangnan town and obtained a large amount of Song army food and fodder that had not yet been transported away or seized, as well as a lot of money to reward the army, as well as military supplies, military daily necessities, etc.

He calculated a little and found that the military supplies stored in this city were enough for the 63,000 troops of the Ming army to participate in this battle to use for a month, and it would be a little extra for almost thirty-five or six days.

The Southern Song Lao Iron sponsored the Ming army to fight in the south with friendly support.

But I am the offensive side, you are the defensive side, and you are friendly to sponsor my military supplies. What is the way?

Yuan Xian looked confused at the huge gains.

He didn't expect that he could capture Zhenjiang Prefecture so quickly. He also wanted to use a trick to hide the truth and create a huge illusion to force the Zhenjiang defenders to surrender, but he didn't expect that the Zhenjiang defenders ran away directly and did not give him the opportunity to use strategies at all.

Is this the army of the Southern Song Dynasty?

At this moment, Yuan Xian felt that he could almost understand why there were millions of imperial guards in the Northern Song Dynasty, but he was beaten by more than 100,000 Jin soldiers and simply lost half of the country.

With such an army, it is difficult to be defeated.

The army he remembered should be an iron army like the Ming army who insisted on fighting until the last night and never gave up. They had absolute trust in each other, supported each other on the battlefield, and never gave up on each other, and never abandoned each other.

Therefore, although Zhou Zhixue, the secretary of the former army, told everyone not to have too much respect for the Song army when mobilizing before the war, they should fully consider the differences between the Song army and the Ming army after liberation, and realize that the main body of the Song army was the numb lower class people who were illiterate and not liberated, and did not have a broad and strong fighting will.

But at this time, Yuan Xian still felt that he had overestimated the Song army and mistakenly believed that all Song army would insist on fighting like the Song army trapped in Lujin Town before.

There were only 4,000 people here, and the military information before coming said that Zhenjiang had 10,000 defenders left by Liu Qi. If the Zhenjiang defenders were closed to the city and defended to the death, he would definitely not be able to take Zhenjiang.

As a result, all the defenders of Zhenjiang ran away, leaving him an unprepared city, allowing him to easily occupy Zhenjiang.

So far, the Ming army had set foot on the south of the Yangtze River, gained a foothold and gained all the advantages.

Zhou Zhi learned about this after half a day, and he was no longer so surprised because the successive happy events made him realize that the enemy he was facing was too shattering.

Such a bad enemy diluted his joy in winning the battle.

Not to mention those unknown military generals, even the famous general Liu Qi did not perform well. He felt that Liu Qi was not as brave and tenacious as he did when he fought with the Jin army back then.

He felt that if this was the so-called elite of the Song army, he would have won this battle without having to fight.

But then again, the situation has reached this point, and Yangzhou has not been taken down. Yangzhou City has not surrendered under Liu Qi's throne and is still ready to hold on. Zhou Zhi feels that he needs to go south as soon as possible and cannot put the main army here.

So he held a military meeting and everyone thought of a solution together.

He spent two days and two nights mobilizing all soldiers and some civilians, gathering 70,000 people to use the canal water, and in turn dug a larger and wider moat and water into the canal water, and in turn used this river ditch to physically isolate the traffic inside and outside Yangzhou City.

Then a horse-rejected crossbow was set up on the edge of the river ditch, and crossbowmen were sent to guard the situation, so the offensive and defensive momentum changed instantly. If the people in Yangzhou City wanted to come out, they would have to face the river ditch dug by the Ming army.

Now that things have come to this point, there is nothing to worry about. Zhou Zhi left behind the Second Division's deputy commander Ling Zishi, led 5,000 soldiers to surround Yangzhou City with this ditch, cut off traffic inside and outside Yangzhou City, prevented the soldiers in Yangzhou City from leaving the city, and then led the main force of the army south to cross the river.

Before crossing the river, he sent a letter of surrender, telling the city's defender Guazhou Du that had been controlled by the Ming army, the Guazhou Navy had been wiped out, and even Zhenjiang City was captured by the Ming army, Yangzhou was already a completely lonely city, with no food and grass inside and no reinforcements outside, what else?

When will it take until now to surrender?

The acting guard Wang Fang was shocked after reading the letter of persuasion and surrendering. He noticed that the Ming army had really abandoned Yangzhou City and headed south, and was frightened to death.

Of course he knew what the loss of Guazhoudu and Zhenjiang meant.

Not only will Yangzhou become an isolated city, Jiangnan will also face huge dangers, and even Lin'an will be very dangerous.

Before the Ming army started the war, they said they wanted to [strike Lin'an directly]. At that time, Wang Fang felt that the Ming army was too entrusted and that tens of thousands of troops dared to attack Lin'an directly, which was even more outrageous than Jin Wushu back then.

But now he realized that it was not the Ming army that was outrageous, but the Song army itself.

At this time, Liu Qi's condition was getting slightly better. He was drinking porridge to recuperate. Wang Fang thought about it over and over again and again, and still wanted to tell Liu Qi about this to see if there was any good solution to the problem.

Wang Fang could not afford the consequences of concealing the news.

When Wang Fang went to see Liu Qi, Liu Qi's spirit improved a little. He leaned on the bed and closed his eyes to rest. Seeing that Wang Fang was coming and his face was not good, he realized something and then closed his eyes again.

"Is there something bad happened? The war has not started in the past few days. What happened outside the city?"

"You know it's a bad thing?"

"You will know by looking at your face. You can never hide things. You can put everything in your heart on your face and let people see it."

Wang Fang lowered his head and was silent for a while.

"The Ming army dug a larger ditch around the moat and introduced the canal water. Now, Yangzhou City is surrounded by the Ming army's ditches."

Liu Qi suddenly opened his eyes.

"What happened to Guazhoudu?"

"The Ming army sent a letter of persuasion to surrender, saying that Guazhoudu and Zhenjiang have already..."

"Zhenjiang?!"

Liu Qi glared: "What a joke! Zhenjiang Prefecture has 10,000 elite troops stationed! The soldiers are elite and food are sufficient! The Ming army dared not even fight Yangzhou, how could it be possible to occupy Zhenjiang so quickly? Are all the defenders of Zhenjiang dead? Why don't they resist?!"

Liu Qi was angry and his face turned red. He coughed violently as soon as he finished speaking. Wang Fang was shocked and quickly stepped forward to help Liu Qi's chest to relieve his anger. Finally, Liu Qi stopped coughing and could take a breath. Liu Qi suddenly squirted out another mouthful of blood, and his face turned pale.

"General! General! Come! Come! Come! Call the doctor! Call the doctor!!!"

Wang Fang was panicked, crying and roaring. Liu Qi's guards were also panicked and ran around to find the doctor. The whole mansion was in chaos.

Liu Qi gasped for a long time before he had just gained some strength, and then grabbed Wang Fang's wrist.

"If... if Guazhoudu and Zhenjiang Prefecture are lost, Yangzhou will be an isolated city, but... but the lonely city also has the use of an isolated city. Find a way... find a way to defend here, and use this as a premise to keep... harassing the Ming army... it cannot stop..."

Wang Fang was stunned for a while, and was deeply sad and angry.

"General! We have reached this point! How can we continue to fight? We are all alone! If the royal power does not come, the Zhenjiang defenders will be gone, the imperial reinforcements will not be allowed, we will be isolated and helpless! We are helpless! This battle has been defeated!"

"No! I'm still alive! Yangzhou is still here! Why do you cough cough cough cough... cough cough cough cough..."

Liu Qi widened his eyes and retorted, and was excited and almost coughed.

Now Wang Fang didn't dare to say anything, and listened quietly to Liu Qi's instructions.
To be continued...