stubborn thief

The peasant army mobilized massively eastward, but could not hide from the Ming army based in the outskirts of Baoji.

During the same period, Cao Wenzhao, Zuo Liangyu and others also took this opportunity to send messengers to Fengxiang Mansion to go deep into the people and spread news to the local area.

For a time, the entire Fengxiang Mansion was filled with war clouds, as if a hundred thousand Ming troops had invaded Fengxiang, and false news that the Marshal's army was retreating in panic to the east spread all over the sky.

But soon, groups of Mongolian cavalry swarmed into Fengxiang from the east, bringing exciting news to the poor people who still yearned for the commander's mansion: two important towns in Pizhou and Qianzhou fell on the same day!
As the guard of Fengxiang Mansion, Wang Wenxiu received a clearer battle report from Liu Chengzong.

Pizhou was engaged in street fighting. Ren Quan'er, the general responsible for the siege of Pizhou, led his troops to Pizhou on the second day, and the defenders launched an attack on the troops outside the city.

Zhang Yingchang planned to form a formation behind the city from the beginning and launch a defensive counterattack under the city.

This tactic is a bit reckless. After all, the troops led by Quan'er actually pose little threat to the Pizhou defenders and there is no chance of forcibly attacking the city.

But he really couldn't control his desire to curse. Only when they left the city could the two armies get close enough, close enough that he could point Ren Quan'er's nose and scold him.

It just so happened that Cao Bianjiao hit it off immediately.

They really couldn't figure it out. How could the Yan'an pillars of the imperial court suddenly turn into rebels and traitors in just a few days?

The troops led by them did not react, and they still had some old feelings in their hearts.

But they obviously thought too much.

If being in the Ming Dynasty made the officers and soldiers of the Yan'an Battalion feel conflicted, then the flag officers and soldiers of the Yan'an Guard felt uncomfortable.

The Yan'an Guard has always been the most loyal army to Liu Chengzong in the Ming Dynasty.

Because they have different foundations of existence and different ways of obtaining benefits from Yan'an camp.

From the very beginning of the Yan'an Camp, the way people promoted their lives and improved their lives was to 'beat Liu Chengzong'. Even if it was a tacit and fake beating, it was still a kind of confrontation.

The foundation for the existence of the Yan'an Guard in Yan'an Prefecture is because the people of Yan'an recognize the Liu Shishi brand. Because of this brand, King Chuang will give them food, and the local people will exchange their needs with them.

Even when there is no water supply in their hometown, people will temporarily work in the Yan'an Guards' fields, which have the best water conservancy facilities, until the river water level rises.

All this was due to the fact that Ren Quan'er was the largest inheritor of the Yan'an estate after the old Liu family moved westward.

The thousands of households under his command were either Shi Wanzhong, the tenant of Fourth Master Liu, or Chen Ruji, who was related to Fourth Master Liu, or last but not least, Lu Bin, a neighbor of the Black Dragon King Miaoshan.

As the successor, he not only has the kindness of the Lion Camp to the people of Yan'an Prefecture, but also has the support for the government officials and minor officials, and also has the ability to intimidate the local wealthy families from plundering.

Ren Quan'er is the most respected person in Baojia and the township people in every county, even if he is not announcing tax collection in Yan'an Prefecture.

As long as the Guolu Banners reveal their identities, people will not beat, loot, or kidnap the Guolu Banners, nor will they deliberately lead them into minefields and blow them up into the sky, nor will they poison the Xindi wells where they are stationed.

This kind of treatment is higher than Chen Qiyu who announced that Yan'an Prefecture is tax-free.

At this time, Ren Quan'er could not care about the Ming army. The Yan'an guards officers under his command, such as Shi Wanzhong, Chen Ruji, and Lu Bin, were all mentally excited about returning to the mountains and being promoted to higher ranks.

They have not fought seriously in recent years and have always been immersed in boring training day after day. The only fun they have is confiscating the illegal gains of friendly forces.

Now that they saw Zhang Yingchang coming out of the city to form a formation, Ren Quan'er gave an order and the gang formed a formation to engage the enemy and fight him.

The two sides fought for an hour, with considerable casualties. As the sky grew dark, the Yan'an flag army retreated back. The Ming army also retreated to the sound of golden drums and withdrew into the city in an orderly manner.

But that night, the east gate of Pizhou City opened, and a group of Pingliang Guards Banner Army came out and ran to Ren Quan'er's Army, calling them to enter the city to change defenses.

On the one hand, Ren Quan'er was afraid of being fooled, but on the other hand, he really didn't have many useful soldiers at hand.

More than half of the Yan'an Guard's direct troops were exhausted from the evening battle, and the other half had to stay to monitor Zu Chengyong, so only 400 troops were sent into the city first to test whether it was true or not.

Unexpectedly, the Ming army was in similar condition. In fact, the friendly forces had surrendered to the enemy in the past few days and their strength was greatly reduced. They had long been frightened.

Zhang Yingchang was awakened from his sleep by the chaos in the city. He panicked and quickly sent people to look for Cao Bianjiao, trying to organize defense and start street fighting.

But his army was more panicked than him. The defenders stationed in the camps on the four sides of the city were frightened out of their camps. Hundreds of soldiers who were sleeping soundly after being exhausted and fighting all day were awakened and had no time to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy. , just close your eyes and draw the knife to do it.

There were two camps left, one was for the Pingliang Army who was waiting to be reorganized, and the other was for Mr. Qian who was calm and calm. He opened the north gate and ran away as soon as he heard that there was chaos in the city.

Zhang Yingchang and Cao Bianjiao were unable to contain the roar of the camp in the chaos. In the end, they worked together to gather the sergeants. After including their own cavalry and servants, they gathered more than a thousand cavalry and left the city along the north gate.

Not far to the north of Pizhou is Zhenning County of Qingyang Prefecture, and to the west is Pingliang Prefecture. However, neither Zhang Yingchang nor Cao Bianjiao dared to go to these two places.

Not to mention Pingliang Mansion, Cao Bianjiao recruited troops from there, and now he became a mere commander without even fighting a single battle. As for Zhenning County, there was that madman He Renlong who escorted them into Pizhou.

Together, the two of them bypassed Zhenning, crossed Ningzhou overnight, and directly withdrew from the battlefield controlled by the Marshal's Mansion.

The Battle of Qianzhou on the other side was not so dramatic. The battle there was a matter of course, no, to be precise, it was a matter of course.

In the past thirteen days, Zhang Xianzhong was not in a hurry to attack the city. He used Liu Chengzong's power to suppress generals Shi Xiang and Yang Guodong, and made perfect preparations for the attack outside the city.

In the ruins of Guanxiang outside the south city wall, he dug twelve zigzag trenches, six of which were dug all the way to the moat according to Liu Chengzong's requirements, and led the water from the moat to Qishui River.

At the same time, the artillerymen outside the city were firing at the defenders almost every hour, consuming the gunpowder and shells in the city and damaging four of them.

On the other hand, a blast furnace for casting shells and cannons was built outside the city. However, he searched all the sergeants stationed in the siege camp and could not find a cannon caster who could copy the thousand-jin cannon.

Therefore, the twelve heavy cannons could only be cast outside the city. They fired the same shells and had the same range. They were more than 700 kilograms heavier than the standard thousand-pound cannon installed in the Marshal's Mansion.

But it is a siege cannon anyway, so there is no need to delay its use.

At the same time, he also stole people from the city.

A normal siege involves three gaps, and troops must be deployed to block and surround the other gaps in the distance.

Zhang Xianzhong, on the other hand, surrounded Qianzhou with one and three walls, and only surrounded the southern city wall. On the other three sides, he took advantage of the endless darkness and threw letters to persuade people to flee into the city.

He did not persuade people to surrender. He only said that the defender Duan Fuxing had committed a serious crime by killing the envoy of the Marshal's Mansion. However, the people in the city and the defenders were innocent and could not afford to die with him. They had to find a way to escape from the city quickly to avoid the fire at the city gate and the disaster of Chiyu.

At first, the defenders were able to stop them, but as the siege preparations in the siege camps became more and more complete in recent days, the defenders were under increasing mental pressure and could no longer stop the people who wanted to leave the city.Now that the moat has been emptied, all the people who can run in the city have also run out. Zhang Xianzhong quickly built a lot of siege equipment and made a bunch of blasting tubes out of tree trunks, waiting for the opportunity when the defenders were tired. Below Blow up the attack and knock down the city in one wave.

Unexpectedly, Liu Chengzong actually sent Yang Yanchang and other new troops here.

Zhang Xianzhong thought to himself, the Generalissimo really did not treat me badly!
In fact, he has always been afraid of Liu Chengzong.

Although Zhang Xianzhong is impulsive and seems to be naive and not very smart, he is not an impatient person.

On the contrary, being honest is just a disguise he uses to observe others. Under the disguise, Zhang Xianzhong is very calm, cunning and patient, and is a real smiling tiger.

But he couldn't understand Liu Chengzong.

I couldn't understand it from the beginning, and I can't understand it even more now.

He felt that if Liu Chengzong forced him to land, he would definitely be thrown to the front line of the battlefield to fight for his name, but he was given a great official position as Minister of Rites.

The wolf-like Xiying army was thrown into the Zhuanglang Valley to build a temple. With a wave of his hand, they were given several months of rations and were simply raised as livestock.

I thought that the position of Minister of Rites was a useless position, but I withdrew it immediately, and then I would have nothing but meat and fish on a chopping board.

Who knew that as soon as he opened his mouth, he was asked to lead troops to attack the city.

He said that he would give him five days and give him a month. He was still worried about not having enough troops, so he sent Yang Yanchang as reinforcements.

By this time, there were more troops besieging Qianzhou than the troops around Liu Chengzong.

He couldn't figure out now whether Liu Chengzong wanted to kill his people or seize his power; whether he wanted to promote him or buy his life.

All favors seem to contain fear; all trusts seem to contain hostility.

Liu Chengzong treated him like a disorganized psychopath.

But this is entirely due to the fact that people's views on people have reactive forces and are mutual.

Liu Shizi truly regarded Zhang Xianzhong as a psychopath from the bottom of his heart.

When others do something unbelievable to Liu Shishi, he will guess, analyze, think, and then prescribe the right medicine and correct it. He may even lose his temper in the middle, and then turn over with satisfaction.

But for Zhang Xianzhong, the analysis process will be completely omitted.

If he does well and exceeds the lower limit of normal people, it will exceed the upper limit of Liu Shizi's expectations for him, which is great!
When Zhang Xianzhong did something unbelievable, Liu Shishi would not guess. His brain would naturally find a reasonable explanation. No matter how outrageous the explanation was, there was still a clear answer: This was a mental illness.

Who has nothing to do with mental illness?

Fortunately, Zhang Xianzhong has behaved like a normal person in most cases so far.

Even normal people who are very good, powerful, and capable leaders.

The reinforcements Liu Chengzong sent him were the surrendered troops that had just surrendered.

After simply listening to Yang Yanchang's briefing on the personnel composition, Zhang Xianzhong immediately understood Liu Shizi's intention: let me, Lao Zhang, be the bad guy.

easy to do!

Zhang Xianzhong and the brigade commanders Shi Xiang and Xie Erhu went up to the tent to discuss matters. They gathered the generals Zhang Yunqi, Li Zude, Yang Guodong, Yang Yanchang, Zhang Shangxuan, Mo Yujing and others, and the four gates were deployed in a blink of an eye.

Outside the east gate, two thousand soldiers led by Yan'an Battalion General Yang Yanchang were deployed on the front line, followed by two thousand sergeants led by Lintao Brigade General Zhang Yunqi.

Outside the south gate, Liu Xiangshan, the general of the Yan'an Battalion, led his headquarters and the first part of the Zhenyu Army to deploy two thousand troops on the front line. Later, the Lintao Brigade joined Yang Guodong's command of more than two thousand troops.

Outside the west gate, two thousand soldiers were led by Zhang Shangxuan, the commander of the Zhenyu camp, followed by two thousand sergeants led by Li Zude, the commander of the Lintao brigade.

The north gate, as the entrance, was completely handed over to Xie Erhu's Mongolian cavalry, who were not responsible for attacking the city.

Zhang Xianzhong's order was that if any defenders escaped from the north gate during the siege stage and did not put down their weapons and surrender immediately, the Mongolian cavalry would drive them into Huangchao Valley and throw them to death.

In addition, Zhang Xianzhong also mobilized men from various ministries to form a thousand-man team, temporarily led by his former Xiying general Wang Ziqi.

The brothers Wang Ziqi and Wang Ziyu used to have a high status in Xiying because they led a group of clan forces from Jiazhou, Shaanxi to join Zhang Xianzhong.

But with Liu Chengzong splitting up Xiying, Wang Ziqi now doesn't even have an official position, and can only follow Zhang Xianzhong as the leader of the guard.

At this moment, Zhang Xianzhong found an opportunity and arranged a thousand-man suicide squad for Wang Ziqi. As the backbone of the city wall, they were deployed outside the south gate.

Then Zhang Xianzhong gave an order, and the siege of Qianzhou officially started on the [-]th.

The first step is to push the tree trunk filled with gunpowder into the tunnel under the city.

With a series of explosions, the blasting tubes with redesigned charges by Liu Shizi detonated one after another under the south city wall. Huge vibrations and flames rose from the ground. The vibrations of the explosions seemed to push up the city wall a little, and then fell hard again. Go down normally.

But in fact, the explosion was not that powerful. The blasting tube broke the support pillars in the tunnel. The city foundation lost its support, and the soil was damaged by the shock wave in the explosion, causing the city wall to fall downwards.

When the huge smoke and dust slowly dispersed in the air, the south city wall collapsed into two slopes four to five feet wide. Then the war drums roared, and the defenders on the city reacted and rushed to support the slopes.

Zhang Xianzhong at the bottom of the city showed a triumphant smile, waved his command flag, and the artillery fire of the military formations was fired. Suddenly, the siege troops arrayed outside the three walls of Qianzhou received the signal, and at the same time launched a storming attack on the city walls amidst shouts.

Dozens of ladder trucks set up with wooden curtains to shield the arrows and lead pellets, and drove towards the city. At the same time, rows of long ladders served as a supplement to the siege. They were set up on the city wall where there was a lack of defenders, and they started close combat with the defenders.

At this time, the suicide squad led by Wang Ziqi also rushed up to the two gaps with shields in front and earth bags behind. Under the cover of the shield hand, they piled up the earth bags in the gaps where it was difficult to get a foot on, climbed up and rushed into the gaps to meet the enemy. He drew his sword and fought against the oncoming defenders.

At this moment, a black smoke burst into the sky from within the city.

Duan Fuxing, the councilor of Shaanxi Province in the Ming Dynasty, threw down the torch, ignited the firewood piled under the Drum Tower with his own hands, threw the official seal into the fire, and said goodbye to his old mother, wife and concubines upstairs.

Then he turned around and took off his official hat. Without looking back, he held an iron whip and led his servants to charge towards the rebels who broke into the city. (End of chapter)