stubborn thief

When the emperor and courtiers of the Ming Dynasty were still arguing over such trivial matters as the future of the empire.

Marshal Liu Chengzong, who dominates the northwest, is already thinking about the most important things in human society:

What to eat?

Cao Wenzhao was a well-known field general with both wisdom and courage. He made great contributions to the imperial court in Shaanxi and achieved the highest achievement since the Shaanxi rebellion.

But he was as immature as a child when it came to fighting with large corps, and he made a mess in the night battle against Liu Chengzong's headquarters camp.

Liu Chengzong didn't even fight back. The troops surrounded by Cao Wenzhao collapsed on three sides, leaving only his own troops able to form formations in the west.

However, there was only one battalion left, and they soon realized that the situation was over. In order to restore the decline, they led the army to rush to the west of Liu Chengzong's military formation for a while. The military formation remained motionless, and they had no choice but to retreat westward before the encirclement. After retreating across Qianhe River, they fled south with a false shot.

As for the other three battalions, General Shen Guangxian saw that the situation was not good and led his troops to run towards Qianzhou. He ran so fast that Wang Wenxiu could not catch him. Guerrilla Cao Wenyao was blown to pieces by Zhang Tianlin's rockets, and two of his soldiers were killed. The Qianxuanfeng elite collapsed and rushed through the Grotto Pass, fleeing towards Lingtai and Jingzhou.

However, Ningxia General Bu Yingdi, who was confused during the whole battle, led his troops to escape to the bank of the Wei River. He was overtaken by the Marshal's Army. He fought until he was exhausted and led his troops to surrender to Li Baliang, the Commander-in-Chief of the Marshal's Army Gao Yingdeng. .

Then came the pursuit of death and north.

Simultaneously with this night battle, Zhang Xianzhong on the south bank of the Wei River received Liu Chengzong's order and led the Lintao army to launch a fierce attack on Long Zaitian, Zuo Liangyu, Ai Wannian and other troops.

In fact, this is the main event. The Ming army was tortured for a day and a night, and was exhausted physically and mentally. The Lintao army led by Zhang Xianzhong only got a short rest after a long journey, and the state of the army was also not good.

But they have many soldiers and generals, and their morale is like a rainbow, but they all have extremely high patience.

The two sides fought hard in formation. Zhang Xianzhong's troops broke through the Yunnan army's front line time and time again, but were blocked by Ai Wannian's Yansui Army again and again. They were even forced out of range by Fran's machine many times. The two armies fought fiercely under the night. We fought for two whole hours, but we couldn't decide the winner.

But we could only go so far. As the sky brightened, Liu Chengzong, who had easily won on the Fengxiang Plateau, approached the north bank of the Wei River. He deployed heavy artillery on the bank and crossed the river to bombard the Yansui Army's formation and the flanks of the Yunnan Army.

The roaring artillery and flying artillery shells became the last straw that broke the camel's back. Chen Bing's huge army on the Baoji Plain was surrounded on three sides. The military formation collapsed instantly, and tens of thousands of troops swarmed into Baoxie Road.

Liu Chengzong deeply regretted this.

He had drawn up a huge encirclement before the battle started, but he only missed that the Ming army would run south, so there was no ambush on Baoxie Road, allowing the Ming army to flee in panic.

Zhang Xianzhong couldn't count on it. After the battle, the Baoji Plain was full of squirming wounded soldiers, and the equipment scattered on the ground needed to be sorted out. At the same time, in the southern foothills, there were fires set by the fleeing Ming army in order to delay pursuit, and they were smoky. A scene from hell.

The necessary procedure in field battle is pursuit.

In a battle where the goal is not to seize terrain, defeat is not victory.

Only by pursuing can we kill the enemy as much as possible, capture prisoners, and achieve victory.

No battle is complete without pursuit.

Liu Chengzong handed over the pursuit task to Luo Rucai who came out of Baoji City.

In fact, Liu Shishi was dissatisfied with Luo Rucai's performance, because Luo Rucai made him feel that as a general born in the Ming army, his inheritance of command in a dream was not perfect enough.

The level of telepathy between the two parties has not kept up.

According to his plan, Luo Rucai in Baoji City should have fought his way out of the city as soon as the Ming army collapsed.

Unexpectedly, Luo Rucai, who had lasted all day and night, watched the fight in the city for two hours, felt sleepy, and took a nap at the critical moment when the winner was about to be decided.

So much so that when he was woken up by his uncle Luo Daien, he missed the opportunity to lead his troops out of the city. The battle was over, and the defeated Ming army had fled into Baoxie Road a moment ago.

Luo Rucai, who looked frightened, saw Liu Chengzong with a dark face. Unexpectedly, he did not receive any criticism. He just handed over the pursuit task to him in an understatement. His whole body was enveloped in the joy of surviving the disaster, and he faced the mountain with his head down. The fire rushed over.

What Luo Rucai didn't know was that this was all because Liu Chengzong had made a mark for him in his heart.

It was his disdainful brother-in-law Wang Guocai who led his cavalry to trample Bu Yingdi's military formation and achieved the first success in breaking it.

However, after Luo Rucai led his troops to pursue him, Liu Chengzong learned from the gathered surrendered troops that although Luo Rucai had been squatting in Baoji City all night, his achievements were only much greater than those of the generals fighting outside the city.

Not to mention his brother-in-law Wang Guocai led the cavalry to trample the military formation, and his subordinate Li Rugui went out of the city at night. He first killed Cao Ying guerrilla Cao Dingjiao, then killed Zuo Ying general Luo Dai, and killed two generals in a row with arrows all night.

This achievement shocked Liu Shishi: Who is this Li Rugui? He was in the enemy camp as if he was in a deserted place, rushing left and right, like a ghost!

But let's not mention the pursuit of death and the north for the moment. The battle has just come to an end, and Liu Chengzong's troubles are catching up with him like a shadow.

He surrendered his troops again.

After two battles in the north and south of the Weihe River, the captured surrendered soldiers, weapons and armor were useless. It was not until the evening of the next day that the Chinese army made clear statistics.

When the Chinese army's primary school reported the news, Liu Chengzong was on the earth hill built by Zuo Liangyu outside Baoji City when he attacked the city earlier. He summoned Yang Mai, the magistrate of Baoji County, and asked him about matters within the territory.

Yang Mai expressed bitterness that the situation in Baoji County is not good.

Although the agriculture here is actually relatively good in Fengxiang Prefecture, due to the war, the trade routes were cut off, the things produced by the people could not be sold, and the goods they wanted to buy could not be purchased, and the economy was on the verge of collapse.

Under the mountain, Zhang Xianzhong was leading a group of generals from the Lintao Brigade to watch the Huotou Army dismember the elephant corpse.

This war elephant was also Liu Chengzong's trophy. In the battle last night, they obtained the corpses of two war elephants.

It's a bit outrageous to say that Long Zaitian brought a total of four war elephants, and two of them died in the battle last night. Both war elephants were killed by the Ming army.

One of them was during the battle with Zhang Xianzhong. Long Zaitian found the opportunity and released it to cooperate with the Yunnan soldiers to attack the military formation of Zhang Yunqi, the general of the division and Xiangbu, and rushed away his formation.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Xianzhong ordered General Wang Ziqi to lead thirty troops to stop the war elephant. He first fired at the elephant's head, but unfortunately he used a traditional bird gun. The caliber was too small and could only inflict skin wounds on the elephant's head. Wang Ziqi was so anxious that he said He went into battle with a long sword and cut the trunk of the elephant, and then the war elephant was called back.

In fact, compared to Zhang Xianzhong, his general Wang Ziqi was the one who was really suppressed by Liu Chengzong.

He was originally a general of the Western Army and Zhang Xianzhong's right-hand man during the earlier uprising. As a result, the Western Army was forced to land in Zhuanglang Acropolis by Liu Shishi. The Western Army demolished four battalions of generals and had nothing to do with him.

But he still couldn't leave, because Liu Chengzong gave his younger brother Wang Ziyu a position as a general, and the two old brothers who had rebelled in Jiazhou were both in that camp.

In this battle, he worked hard to make great achievements so that Zhang Xianzhong could get him an official position from the Marshal's Mansion.

During the attack on Qianzhou, Wang Ziqi personally led the death squad and served as the vanguard to attack the city and break through the gap.

This time, seeing the war elephants being killed and retreated by him, he kept doing nothing, shouting and ordering people to follow up, and followed the path where the war elephants rushed left and right into the gap, leading the group to the front of the Yansui Army formation.

Then the war elephant, whose trunk was injured and whose face was covered in blood from musketry, was shot down by the Yansui soldiers under Ai Wannian.

The other war elephant's leg was broken by a cannonball fired by Liu Chengzong across the river. The Ming army could not walk when it retreated. In order to prevent Liu Chengzong from using the war elephant to attack the Ming army in the future, Long Zaitian ordered the war elephant to be killed.

Despite this, Liu Shizi was still very grateful to Long Zaitian for sending the elephant all the way.

Especially at this time, the small school in Huben Camp responsible for counting casualties and war profits came to report, and the numbers were not as good as expected.

The number of dead soldiers and wounded soldiers in need of treatment alone exceeded 7,000, which exceeded Liu Chengzong's imagination. He was so surprised that he blurted out and asked: "How can it be so high?" He thought to himself, this battle was easy to fight. ah!

The two armies of the Ming army had nearly 30,000 troops, and more than 20,000 troops went to the battlefield.

Although the Marshal's Mansion had a large number of troops, the number of troops actually engaged in the battle was only a little over 40,000. This was even after counting the troops like Yang Chengzu who went out of the city to burn camps and returned with their entire division.

Suddenly there were more than 7,000 casualties, and everyone in Liu Chengzong was stunned.

It wasn't because of the heavy casualties, but... He looked down at the surrounding Tushan Mountain, where groups of three or five stood on the hill, watching the soldiers slaughtering the elephants.

The temperament of his troops is not what it looks like after a tragic victory.

What's more, there is no need to record minor injuries. If you want to be included in the casualty statistics, you must at least have a knife, slash, and arrow wound.

However, the main force of the Marshal's Army is well-equipped. As long as it is not defeated, basically only those who are extremely unlucky will be included in the casualty statistics.

This kind of doubt was not solved until the Central Military Primary School presented the directory and Liu Shizi looked at it one by one.

The largest proportion of casualties was Shixiang's Lintao Brigade. They alone accounted for nearly 5,000 casualties.

But this situation is quite special. According to the statistics of Huben Camp, this is one battle, but for the banner army of Lintao Brigade, it took them three battles to catch up with the casualty statistics.

Shi Xiang first fought against Yang Guodong. Yang Guodong defeated Shi Xiang, but was surrendered by Shi Xiang. Then he attacked Qianzhou City. After defeating Qianzhou City, he was dragged to the south bank of the Wei River by Zhang Xianzhong to fight the Ming army.

Almost everyone in their army was injured.

And because of the battle between Shi Xiang and Yang Guodong, the latter became one of our own, and the casualties on both sides were considered their own.

This brought a helpless smile to Liu Shishi's face.

Then the person with the second highest proportion is Luo Rucai.

His battalion suffered a lot of deaths. As early as when Liu Chengzong was still fighting in the east, Luo Rucai had already fought against Long Zaitian's Yunnan soldiers. By the time the city was besieged, many new soldiers recruited from the city had already been added to the battalion. .

Not many people were killed in the defense of the city, but those who did not come back after leaving the camp twice were really dead. Very few people could come back after being injured.

The rest were soldiers from the fourth battalion of Liu Chengzong's headquarters, located in the small camp outside the Liuhua Formation. They were injured or killed in Cao Wenyao's night attack.

Seeing this, the smile on Liu Chengzong's face disappeared, he raised his eyes and said to Yang Mai, the magistrate of Baoji beside him: "Mr. Yang, summon the city's medical craftsmen to set up a camp in the city's school grounds to recuperate the wounded soldiers. You can handle this."

Yang Mai hurriedly agreed, nodding his head like a chicken pecking at rice. He couldn't say anything anymore, and he was going to summon the civilian men to repair the wounded barracks.

Liu Chengzong felt disgusted when he saw this, frowned and said, "Are you afraid of me?"

"I don't dare to be humble!"

Liu Shizi knew what was going on. The county magistrate of Baoji turned out to be Li Jiayan. When Li Jiayan surrendered, he was gathering all the squires in Baoji in the city to discuss providing military rations to Zuo Liangyu, and Zhang Tianlin came.

After Li Jiayan surrendered, he was awarded the prefecture of Fengxiang. Before leaving, he recommended Yang Mai, a scholar and squire at home, to take over.

Yang Mai may not have wanted to be an official, but Liu Chengzong wondered, "Huh?" With a cry, Yang Mai quickly nodded and became the county magistrate.

The first time they met, he was afraid of himself.

Now that they met for the second time, he was obviously more scared.

Liu Shishi thought, forget it if you are afraid of Zhang Tianlin, Zhang Tianlin is a brainless bastard; forget it if you are afraid of Luo Rucai, a barbarian who is greedy for money, lustful and purely dominated by desire.

I smile every day, what are you afraid of me for?

Little did he know that Yang Mai was even more afraid of him because of this.

Zhang Tianlin has no heroic spirit, let alone Yang Mai and Luo Rucai, who were surrounded in the city together. They deeply realized that he was a ruthless man who only had a month of military rations in his pocket and 30,000 troops surrounded the city. He dared to go crazy on the city. Son.

Those two were as well-behaved as kittens and puppies in front of Liu Chengzong. How scary must this unknown side of Liu Chengzong be?

Not to mention that the soldiers in Luo Rucai's battalion were all extremely evil and deviant people. However, the Tibetan soldiers treated him like a bodhisattva who came to the world. The Han soldiers defended the city and took a nap. They talked in their sleep about "Long live our emperor" and then laughed silly. .

Thinking about this, I heard Liu Chengzong say: "You can do your work with peace of mind. Don't be afraid of me. I won't eat you."

Yang Mai was shocked and couldn't help but think of the earlier rumors about bandits murdering people and drinking wine.

If he doesn't eat me, then he won't...eat children, right?

"Ugh."

To be honest, looking at Yang Mai like this, Liu Chengzong felt that he was entrusted by Baoji County, and he also had great doubts about Fengxiang Prefect Li Jiayan's ability to recognize people.

He thought to himself, Oh no, I made a fucking fool the county magistrate.

Fortunately, just when Liu Chengzong was considering whether to change the county magistrate, the Central Military Academy noticed the awkward atmosphere and promptly handed over two lists to divert Marshal Liu's attention.

It was a list of surrendered troops and a statistical booklet of trophies.

Liu Chengzong became worried when he saw it. A light book added more than 8,000 mouths to eat.

The corresponding spoils of war were not that rich. There were a lot of weapons and armor, but the rations were pitifully small. After excluding some of the rations that were burned after the defeat, the rest could not even supply the army for five days.

In other words, the two war elephants were considered high-value trophies and could provide some meat.

Liu Chengzong raised his eyes and looked at the soldiers who were cutting up the war elephant not far away, thinking that the rough meat did not look delicious.

His army rations were insufficient and he had to hurry up to find some food.

On the other hand, in Fengxiang Prefecture, the farmland abandoned due to war is also a big problem that needs to be solved urgently.

He focused on the last army of the Ming Dynasty coalition, the Sichuan commander Hou Liangzhu, thinking that Sichuan should have military rations.

Liu Shizi planned to write a letter to ask Hou Liangzhu if he had military rations. If he had military rations, don't wait and bring his troops over to fight. If he didn't have military rations, hurry up and get some and send them over to spare his life.

Unexpectedly, just when he was worried about military rations, Zhang Zhen, a bee-tailed needle from Yan'an Prefecture in the north, sent him a letter.

The letter said... Yang Qi's Monan Governor's Mansion sent troops to the Harashen tribe and almost robbed the Harashen tribe. They lost all the cattle, sheep and livestock, and robbed more than 10,000 children and women. Now they are trying to avoid the rear. Jin attacked and got to the north of the border wall.

Liu Chengzong's eyes suddenly lit up.

Got a trick! (End of chapter)