stubborn thief

Tang Jiuzhou on Liupan Mountain wants to cry but has no tears.

That day he rushed out from Jingfu Mountain with his troops, and stopped Gao Yingdeng, the general of his marshal's mansion, in front of him.

Tang Jiuzhou always thought that there were two camps. Seeing that they only built one camp and there was another camp outside, he thought that the relationship between the two camps was not good.

This kind of situation is very common. For example, the Zhejiang soldiers and Sichuan soldiers in the Battle of Hunhe fought fiercely before the battle, and it is naturally impossible to cooperate closely on the battlefield.

So Tang Jiuzhou intends to destroy one first and then the other. We are Nurha Chibenchi.

He never expected that Gao Yingdeng was a camp, so naturally he only built one camp. The reason why he put half of the soldiers outside was so that he could skip the cumbersome steps of going out of the camp gate when he broke through, and he could rush up to fight directly. .

Anyway, this season is good now, it is April in the world, and the soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion are also used to sleeping in the wild. Resting outside the camp is more comfortable than in the camp, so they are not used to sleeping in a private house.

Tang Jiuzhou was particularly well prepared to attack the enemy's formation, but he couldn't stand Gao Yingdeng's battalion officer named Tang Tong.

The greatest contribution made by this former mid-level officer of the Ming Dynasty, who was born as a general, was to change the standard loading of heavy gunners. In addition to the large bullets of one, two, and five yuan, he also filled in three three-coin bullets. Under the dosage, the lethality of heavy guns against dense formations has been greatly increased.

Tang Jiuzhou's cavalry fought on par with Li Baliang's cavalry under Gao Yingdeng's mark in the stage of approaching the enemy. Before the dense front entered the range of a hundred paces, his artillery relied on the six-shot rapid-fire of the Franc machine gun. In a short period of time to stabilize Gao Yingdeng's heavy cannon.

However, the distance between the two armies entered a hundred steps, and the situation was instantly reversed.

At this distance, the marshal army created by Liu Shizi can be anyone's nightmare.

Zhang Yang raised the gun with a long barrel and a large caliber to spray out lead bullets that pierced people's holes, and every salvo of heavy guns can ensure that a row of people are shot neatly... Being shot does not necessarily mean you will die, three money The bullet doesn't have the ability to penetrate armor at that distance, but it's scary.

A firearm that can kill a person in one shot is not scary, and people will know to hide when they see it; a firearm that can't kill a person in one shot is not scary, and people will be very brave.

The most frightening thing is the firearm that does not know whether it will kill people. If it is shot with a bang, the bullet that hits the body may be a big bullet weighing one or two five cents, which directly punches a hole in the person's armor; it may also be a bullet. Three coins for a small bomb, a harmless little lead pancake pasted on the cloth-covered iron armor.

Torment!

For the first time in the six years since Tang Jiuzhou traveled across the Central Plains, he found that his army was not in command.

Although this kind of offensive came and went quickly, the marshal army on the opposite side only fired a few salvos, and then changed its formation to the east, just to give way to the mountain road leading to Liupan Mountain, Tang Jiuzhou ran up the mountain with donkeys down the slope, thinking It is necessary to fight a wave of condescending defensive battles according to the mountain situation.

It never occurred to Gao Yingdeng that he had no interest in him at all, and only sent a cavalry team to intercept half of his luggage, and then set up camp at the corner of the mountain, putting on a posture of "If you don't come down, I won't go up".

At that time, Tang Jiuzhou didn't know that on this mountain, there was a man named Wang Wenxiu who rushed all the way from Lanzhou just to perform a performance.

Tang Jiuzhou was almost scared to death when he went up. There was Marshal Wang Wenxiu in the front and Gao Yingdeng in the back.

But the mountains were not peaceful either. The army stepped on a landmine planted by Yang Chengzu, a Luo Rucai jumped out of the forest and beat him violently, and Li Wanqing led a row of musketeers to ambush him by the side of the road. Random guns, soldiers and food is not enough to eat.

In the end, I managed to build a camp on the mountain, but the mental pressure was too great, and the camp screamed when I was sleeping. I hacked myself and beat me for half a night. Seeing corpses everywhere in the camp, most of the remaining camp broke up and broke up on the spot, breaking through the defense line and fleeing into Jingfu Mountain.

On the other side, the main force of the marshal army led by Liu Chengzong also successfully broke through the imperial defense line after capturing Longzhou. The golden and iron horse finally got rid of the endless rolling mountains and entered the fertile Guanzhong Plain.

However, in terms of war, Liu Chengzong didn't know whether his march should be said to be smooth or not.

On the first day when he landed on Dayuan, his army on the march encountered a hailstorm, and many soldiers were beaten to death, but also because of the hailstorm, Wei Qian'er on the front line sent a message directly , Fengxiang Mansion was captured.

Wei Qian'er was at a loss what to do with Fengxiang Mansion. Fengxiang Mansion was different from other places. It basically belonged to the autonomous place of gentry.

Its last magistrate was called Shen Jin, who led the officials and the people to build the Shengong Canal and did a lot of good things, but then Wanli Lord is still alive, old Huangli.

Ordinarily, such a place should be easier to attack, but the difference in Fengxiang Mansion lies in two points. First, the landlords here are resolute in their armed attitude. Shots against each other can fully suppress the field guns in Wei Qian'er's hands.

The person in charge of guarding the city is a village gentry named Sun Peng. Since Catholicism was introduced to Fengxiang Mansion in the third year of Chongzhen, he was baptized and became a Christian. He became friends with Wang Zheng and Han Yun, learned a lot, and imitated Wang Zheng in Sanyuan. The Zhongtong armed forces established in Fengxiang Mansion also established a landlord armed force, melted Buddha statues and cast cannons, and made the battle defense impressive.

Wei Qian'er fought with Liu Chengzong, and the tactics he mastered were all done by Liu Shizi.

Under the influence of his ears and eyes, he knew that the best way to attack the city was to smash the battlements with artillery when encountering a fortified city, so that the defenders could not stand on the city wall, and then climbed the city to occupy the city wall and fight hand-to-hand.

But this time the guard guns on the city were heavier than his battle guns, and they hit farther, and they were covered by battlements, so they couldn't take advantage of the shelling.

So he prepared to dig tunnels and blow up the city walls like Liu Chengzong broke through Jiayuguan, but Fengxiang Mansion City stood along the Donggou River and Zaozi River, and there was a moat, so the tunnels couldn't be dug through.

Since the method of quick victory is not enough, Wei Qian'er can only use a stupid method. He leads a large battalion with complete officers, and has the technology of casting cannons and manufacturing siege equipment on the spot, so he recruits people on the spot to cut wood and iron, and rush to make Siege engines, forging heavier siege guns.

Fengxiang Mansion was plagued by locusts last year, and now it is less than May and it is the time when there is a shortage of locusts. There is a famine in the local area. There are people who rely on the army to beg for food. It is very easy to recruit people.

But no one expected that the hailstorm would come as soon as it was said, and Wei Qian'er's camp was slumped by a meal of hailstones.

Wei Qian'er couldn't stop attacking the city outside the city, and his mood was very confused. He felt that he was the first to lead troops into the pass, and the Grand Marshal entrusted him with the important task of attacking Fengxiang Fucheng, but he was helpless against such a fortified city, and he was very upset. It's guilt.

This is actually not his fault, it can only be blamed for fighting with Liu Chengzong all the time.

Liu Chengzong is very easy to fight in battles. He never fights against fortified cities that are difficult to capture, or against enemies that are difficult to defeat. He detours when he should, and retreats when he should retreat. Therefore, he is invincible and invincible. That is because he only fights against opponents that can be won. Only attack the cities that can be conquered.

Attacking a strong city normally takes years and months.

But how do others know his psychological dynamics?

Wei Qian'er simply felt that if the Generalissimo were here, the city would collapse by itself.

So the frustration was very strong. As a result, there was light rain first, and then hail. Wei Qian'er, who was hanging out his armor, was covered in bruises and his head was bleeding. There has never been a more embarrassing time in his life.

Unexpectedly, just when his army was so embarrassed that it almost lost its belief in victory-the defenders left the city.

Sun Peng went out of the city with the landlord armed forces he personally trained!
In all fairness, that was indeed the best time to go out to fight in the city. The more than [-] soldiers in Wei Qian'er's battalion were scattered and avoided because of the report. Not suitable for use in rain.

If the anti-insurgency frontier army that has fought all over the world leaves the city, there is a high probability that Wei Qian'er will be defeated.

But the landlord armed?

Wei Qian'er's camp didn't even use firearms, and only used swords, guns and bows to beat the defenders out of the city to pieces. They followed the defeated army and rushed into the Wengcheng until they captured Fengxiangfu City. Only made a wheel.

This sudden change in the situation made Wei Qian'er smile all the time.

Until Liu Chengzong arrived in Fengxiangfu City and ordered people to open the grain depot, Wei Qian'er couldn't laugh anymore.

The grain storehouse was empty, and the old mouse had to wipe his tears when he walked in and out.

Liu Chengzong's face was ashen. He didn't care about this Fengxiang Mansion City. Since he led his army out of the mountains and into the plains of Fengxiang Mansion, he thought it was a fertile land that had not been affected by war. The barren land to the west was even more shocking than what he saw in Yan'an Mansion back then.

Desolate areas can be seen everywhere on the plateau, and the hungry people move their way. The wasteland is full of dirt roads trampled by groups of people in the fields. Only in the fields near the remote Dahu Minbao can you see the scene of farming.

When Liu Shizi led his army from Longzhou to Fengxiang Fucheng for more than 100 miles, Tang Bing picked up more than a dozen abandoned boys on the side of the road.

In the past, soldiers like Liu Chengzong heard that in the military forts along the Nine Borders, they were selling their sons and daughters, which means selling children for money; but now in Fengxiang Mansion, what they see is Women abandon men.

The reason, Liu Chengzong came all the way, he already knew it in his heart.

Selling sons and daughters is not something that people can sell or buy if they want to. What these big soldiers encountered in the border areas was not just a drought. In fact, the suffering they suffered was only affected by the drought in Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places. The border, so it just creates a big gap between rich and poor.

Yan'an Mansion is the second most populous mansion in Shaanxi, but it is not the second most densely populated place, because the area of ​​Yan'an Mansion is so large that it can almost cover four Fengxiang Mansions. In the past, there were more than 60 households with a population of nearly [-].

And because most of Fengxiang Mansion is located on the Guanzhong Plain, the population is very dense, with a population of up to 30.

In this era when the equipment gap between the peasant uprising and the regular army was the largest in history, it was difficult to form a large-scale peasant army on the plain, and Liu Shizi knew this best.

At the beginning, he also experienced the process of a dozen backbone forces and dozens of clan youths robbing food and getting a large amount of food and grass.

With the money, grain and wealth of successful cases, it is possible to select more than a dozen backbones from the hands of the people, gather crowds to rob the city, rely on complex terrain to go around guerrilla, and then grow bigger like a snowball.

However, Fengxiang Mansion obviously does not have this foundation. There are five checkpoints garrisoned in all directions in seven counties of one prefecture, five inspection departments with a small number of armed forces, and one guarding thousands of households. Among them, hundreds of ordinary people who rose up could not even run into the mountains, and a ninth-rank patrol inspector brought people over and wiped them out.

The problem facing Liu Shizi now is not only that Fengxiang Mansion is full of starvation and needs government relief, but also his more than 4 troops also need food.

Wei Qian'er said: "Marshal, although there is no food in Fengxiang Mansion, there are many rich and powerful families in Fengxiang Mansion, who can get food."

Liu Chengzong frowned for a moment, weighed it in his heart, and then returned to his normal color, saying: "After so many years of drought, last year was bad...I'm afraid that even if we harvest food in Fengxiang Mansion, the food and grass we get will not be able to satisfy the needs of the hungry and the hungry at the same time." The army eats it, but it’s okay, you should do it first, according to the old rules we had in Gansu, we’ll get the food first and then we’ll talk about it.”

He reckoned in his heart to collect food in Fengxiang Mansion, conservatively estimated that he could get the army's food for a month or two, but these food costs are also fast, and the local government will definitely provide some relief. Eat a lot.

The current situation in Shaanxi has been plagued by successive years of drought, and last year was plagued by locusts. Even in the Guanzhong Plain, the pressure on the people may be extremely high. I am afraid that the Xi'an government will not be able to meet his military needs.

After all, Xi’an Mansion is rich if it is rich, but its population density is higher than that of Fengxiang Mansion. More than half of the population in Shaanxi is gathered in Xi’an Mansion. The poor people are the most numerous in the world. The most critical question.

The most critical issue is that Liu Chengzong has been greedy for the past few years.

With a population of millions, it is impossible for him to patronize his own war and make people starve to death.

But if he wants to take care of the hungry people, the difficulty of the Battle of Guanzhong must be raised to a higher level: he must end the battle as soon as possible.

Because of the current lack of officials in Fengxiang Mansion, the big households of the Howe family who sweep their own snow are not enough to deal with the threat of locust plagues throughout the territory. It is obvious that there is no organizational ability to exterminate locusts in the autumn and winter of last year. Fengxiang Mansion is not the only place in the north with this situation. ?There is also no magistrate in Xi'an Prefecture, so the situation is not much better.

At the turn of summer and autumn this year, locusts will return.

To resume production, the campaign must end as soon as possible.

Liu Chengzong's military rations still had to be provided by the palaces of Xi'an Mansion and Hanzhong Mansion.

Wei Qian'er had just gone down to call up the army and went to the countryside to find rich households and food, when Habayashi rode from outside the city and reported, "Marshal, Zhang Tianlin, the former battalion general, sent a cavalry report that when the former battalion besieged Baoji, Tang Bing met Li Zicheng's troops, and learned that Zuo Liangyu from Qinzhou was lured out of the city by Zhang Yichuan, and was fighting in the camp."

Yulin Qidao: "General Zhang Shen asked, can we withdraw from the siege of Baoji and join forces with General Chuang to attack and suppress the general army?"

Liu Chengzong's spirit was shaken, and he waved his hand and said: "Yes! Let the front battalion withdraw from the siege, send troops to the west to assist Zhang Yichuan, and wipe out Zuo Liangyu as much as possible, and I will fight Baoji!" (End of this chapter)