Although there was a reward, Yao Xingli might have opened the warehouse and asked the army to obtain the property in the warehouse by itself. He also made up a non-existent reinforcement rushing to Jiangning. However, when the Ming army's Thunder God Cannon and big rockets exploded on the top of the city, the Jiangning defenders gradually began to collapse.

After all, the courage that money can inspire is limited. Song Bing also has some thoughts on whether reinforcements exist or whether they can come to rescue Jiangning City.

As far as they know their comrades, it is estimated that the majority of people who do not believe it are. It is purely because Yao Xingli promised too many benefits and has good reputations, so that he can attract the soldiers to continue to fight for him.

But some things cannot be changed by personal will.

Under the extremely rapid and fierce attack of the Ming army, the Song army gradually lost its opponent and showed its decline. The courage inspired by the money was quickly exhausted, and the defense at the top of the city began to collapse.

The Ming army attacked the city from three sides and used the method of siege of three and missing one to attack Jiangning City. The remaining south side became a life-saving straw for the Song army to fear the enemy.

When the Ming army ended its long-range attack and began to siege the Yifucheng, the Song army on the top of the city did not dare to resist and fled in large numbers.

Yao Xingli and his personal soldiers were very brave, defending the city and fighting against the Ming army, trying to use his courage to inspire morale, let the Song army burst out with courage and persist in fighting the enemy.

However, the iron pestle can be ground into a needle, and the wooden stick can only be ground into a toothpick. The Jiangning defenders are of the type that cannot be pasted on the wall, and there is no cure.

Under the bombardment of the Ming army's overwhelming rockets and Thunder God cannons, and under the threat of large-scale advancement of siege equipment, the Song army defending the city was completely brave and did not dare to fight the Ming army to the end.

In just one day, Jiangning City was captured by the Ming army.

When the city was broken, Yao Xingli was still fighting to the death. He fought with the Ming army alone at the top of the city, and eventually died, and all his personal soldiers were killed.

The main general died in battle and the flag fell. There was no suspense in the battle situation anymore. So the Ming army quickly entered Jiangning City and controlled the entire city.

After Jiangning City was occupied, Ma Hongxing obtained warehouse supplies and military supplies in Jiangning City, obtained a large amount of food and supplies, and made a lot of money for the Ming army.

Then, through interrogation of the captured Song Bing, Ma Hongxing learned that the former commander of the Jiankang Prefecture Chief of the King Quan had fled one day ago.

Not only did he run away by himself, he also took away a large amount of personal property and navy, as well as the most elite three thousand infantry.

Ma Hongxing also wondered why the 70,000 defenders of Jiankang Prefecture seemed so few. After interrogating the officers, he learned that there were no 70,000 defenders of Jiankang Prefecture, and it can be said that even less than 40,000.

Most of these less than 40,000 troops were called by officers as chores. There were only more than 10,000 troops who could fight, and only 3,000 elite troops, which were the royal power's life-saving troops.

Ma Hongxing was very surprised by this answer. He could not imagine that an army would be able to be eaten by the officers of the Southern Song Dynasty to be half of the remaining ones.

How much impact will this have on the country's military strategy be serious?

Anyway, the royal power will definitely not worry about it.

Yao Xingli was a subordinate of Wang Quan and was left to take the blame. He originally commanded the troops to form a Jiangshan defense line and tried to fight the Ming army to death, but the defenders were unwilling to fight. Overnight, more than 10,000 Song soldiers fled cleanly.

Therefore, the Ming army easily crossed Jiangshan to launch an attack on Jiangning.

Despite this, Yao Xingli insisted on defending the city and fought to the last moment.

After hearing about this, Ma Hongxing was speechless. He sighed at the shamelessness of Wang Quan and Yao Xingli's rareness. He found Yao Xingli's body and buried him with great burial.

After the grand funeral of Yao Xingli, Ma Hongxing felt that even if he could let go of the Ma infantry army that Wang Quan took away, he could not let go of the navy army that he took away.

So he found Zhou Mancheng, hoping that Zhou Mancheng could lead the navy to advance westward and strive to destroy the navy army that was taken away by the royal power.

"I understand. I have some experience in dealing with the navy of the Southern Song Dynasty now. Let me leave this matter to me."

Zhou Mancheng agreed immediately, then prepared supplies and replenished gunpowder, and led the main force of the Inland River Navy to set sail, go upstream, and look for the escaped Jiankang Navy of the Southern Song Dynasty.

That is, after Zhenjiang Prefecture, Jiankang Prefecture was also taken down by the Ming army. Two large garrisons set up by the Southern Song Dynasty were wiped out and defeated by the Ming army. Two important towns fell in an instant, and the Yangtze River defense line was neatly torn apart by the Ming army.

The Jianghuai War Zone of the Southern Song Dynasty was in a state of defeat, and there was no army that could challenge the Ming army head-on and defeat the Ming army.

So far, the Southern Song army was in a state of defeat. Except for Yangzhou, which became an isolated city surrounded by the Ming army, there were no other cities that successfully defended or brave generals who bravely stood up to block the Ming army's military front.

In terms of the navy, after the destruction of the Huaihe Patrol Navy and the Guazhou Navy, the Jiankang Navy was also in danger.

It seems that the only existence in the Southern Song Dynasty Navy that could turn the situation around the war - the Mingzhou Navy is the last hope.

However, this is not the case.

On March 23, Zhou Zhi ordered the Ming army to launch a battle against the Song army. At that time, the main force of the Ming army naval division led by Kong Zhende gave all the main resources to the inland water naval division led by Zhou Mancheng. The main force of the naval division was still staying in Haizhou to wait for the arrival of subsequent materials.

On the one hand, the arrival of materials was not enough and did not keep up with all the needs of the army. On the other hand, the maritime naval army had fewer restrictions than the army. As long as they wanted to start a war, they could decide the outcome within a few days. Kong Zhende knew the power of the Southern Song Navy, so he was a little afraid and wanted to make more preparations.

After preparing enough Thunder God Cannons, big rockets, and bed crossbows, Kong Zhende led more than 600 warships from the main force of the Ming Navy on March 27 to head south, preparing to find the Mingzhou Navy in the Southern Song Dynasty to launch a decisive battle.

The Mingzhou Navy's mooring point is Dinghai County, Qingyuan Prefecture, located in the south of the Yangtze River and south of Suzhou Ocean. There are many natural ports with superior conditions around it. The Mingzhou Navy uses this as a base to moor and train, and also stationed some soldiers.

Kong Zhende's idea was not just to defeat the Mingzhou Navy. He wanted to take advantage of his main force, which exceeded more than half of the Mingzhou Navy's scale, to eat up the Mingzhou Navy in one breath, destroy the main force of the Southern Song Navy, and to seriously damage their vitality.

Therefore, he believed that a simple water battle might not have such an effect. If we want to destroy the Mingzhou navy, we need to advance both water and land.

But he did not have the command of the infantry—of course, this was not a problem.

The eight thousand navy troops he commanded not only had water battle capabilities, but also had strong infantry combat capabilities. He just had no cavalry.

So he made a plan through his understanding of the waters in that area.

He planned not to directly attack the main force of the Mingzhou Navy in Dinghai, but to attack Ligang first, and then use Ligang as the temporary base of the Ming army naval division, and confront the Mingzhou Navy in Dinghai in Ligang.

Then he secretly sent a landing ship to a place west of Dinghai, and sent troops to attack Dinghai County from land, using the Ming army's advantage in field combat capabilities to destroy Dinghai Port. The Mingzhou Navy had no old nest, and attacked it by water, destroying the Mingzhou Navy.

He announced the plan with the officers and instructors in the navy, discussed it with everyone, and finalized some details.

In fact, some officers suggested that they just fight directly. After all, the Ming Navy was twice as large as the Song Navy, and the number of piles could kill them. However, Kong Zhende retorted the case of the Restoration Navy sneak attacking the Jin Navy, believing that the lions would do their best to fight rabbits, not to mention that the opponent was not a rabbit, but also had fangs.

Therefore, no matter what, we must give full play to the advantages of the Ming army and fight naval battles, but not completely fight naval battles.

Kong Zhende's plan quickly received the support of most officers and instructors, so it was approved and promulgated and put into effect. On the morning of April 1st, an attack on Ligang was launched.

The attack was not very smooth because the Song army navy was very alert and arranged many rounds of patrol fleets outside the port.

The main force of the Ming Navy was discovered by a patrol fleet when the main force of the Ming army attacked. They immediately sent a signal and bravely drove the ship to fight with the Ming army ships.
Chapter completed!