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Chapter 199 Fake news is flying everywhere
"Old Ge, the intruders, as Governor Shen expected, were so enraged by the provocation method that the entire army has already marched eastward from Luoyang and Zhengzhou, and besieged Kaifeng. It would take only a few days of preparation before they can start attacking the city with all their strength. Maybe the siege has already begun."

"It's bad news that Kaifeng is in an emergency, but at least it relieves the pressure on the thieves to go west and return to Shaanxi. Governor Sun, who has just taken office, may be able to breathe a sigh of relief and regroup the three sides to consolidate Tongguan."

Only three days after Li Zicheng set out, Yang Sichang, who was in Nanyang, knew the news. His confidant, Wanji, the supervisor, immediately passed on the information he found.

Yang Sichang's health was worse than a month ago, and his beard and hair were all white, which was obviously caused by worry.Hearing that Li Zicheng put all his eggs in one basket, even if he had a plan in the first place, he still couldn't help being afraid:
"Can Kaifeng be defended? Do you want to go north for reinforcements... If Kaifeng is really lost, I am afraid that your Majesty will not escape the crime, and it is not just the old man. The old man is nearly [-] years old, and it is not a pity to die, but you are still young and implicated. It would be a pity if the country contributes its efforts.”

Wanji was shocked, thinking Mr. Ge was in a trance and confused recently, he quickly reminded: "Don't be alarmed, Mr. Ge! Isn't this the strategy we agreed with Governor Shen?
The intruder is now in a crowd, what we are afraid of is that he will go out to fight in the field, pick the weak persimmons, seek the poor and small towns, and sweep away. Although each city can't get much food, if he wants to accumulate more, he can only do it. We are afraid that the whole of Henan and Hebei will be corrupted, then we will have to fight a decisive battle with it.Now he is attracted by Kaifeng Jiancheng, which is a good thing! "

Yang Sichang was taken aback for a moment, and sighed: "Old, the older you are, the less courageous you are. In the past two years, there have been accidents, and you are already scared. Forget it, let's follow the plan. What should we do?" with?"

Wanji reminded: "According to the plan, although we are not afraid of Li Zicheng's attack on Kaifeng, we should be false if we want to be true. We have declared that we are afraid of Li Zicheng's attack, so we asked Zuo Liangyu to go out to Tongbai Mountain in Yanye County,
Then let Liu Guoneng's troops go northward from Xinyang in Huainan along the Rushui River and go out to Runing.

Pretend that Shen Shuren's department is also being urged by you, and follow Liu Guoneng to go northward, from Xinyang to Runing, and wait for the action-and the above-mentioned plan, if we want to deceive even our own people, Zuo Liangyu must really go out, and Liu Guoneng and Shen Shuren have If there is no dispatch, at least we must tell the high-level troops of our army in Nanyang to let them think that Liu and Shen have dispatched. "

Yang Sichang patted his head and said with a wry smile: "Indeed, there are secret operations around me, so I have to deceive even my own people. In this way, Li Zicheng also divides his troops to guard against us. Don't dare to invest too much in attacking Kaifeng. You just follow the plan .”

Yang Sichang's layout is quite flexible and safe. He can advance, attack, retreat or defend, and he will not be forced by Li Zicheng to have to fight in the field.

Because between Nanyang Basin and Kaifeng, there is Tongbai Mountain as a natural geographical barrier. Li Zicheng needs at least several times his troops to attack on the initiative to defend the pass over Tongbai Mountain in Ye County.

Historically, no matter before or after, the Ming army and Li Zicheng failed in the field battle in Henan.

From this point of view, we have to talk about Chongzhen's pitfalls - he often has zero tolerance for losing land, forcing governors and generals to take the initiative to attack.It's okay to be unwilling to lose the preserved land itself, but blindly forcing the attack without knowing the situation and the strength of the enemy and ourselves is undoubtedly the same nature as Li Longji's forcing brother Shu Han out of Tongguan for nothing.

In history, Wang Qiaonian's downfall was because he went to Xiangcheng, which was far away from Tongbai Mountain and Funiu Mountain. Anyone who knows a little bit about Henan's geography knows that there are two counties under the jurisdiction of Pingdingshan City in later generations, Ye County in the south and Ye County in the north. Xiangcheng County is only sixty miles away.

The biggest difference is that from Ye County to Xiangcheng, there are two small hills to the north, Changcheng Mountain and Shou Mountain. It is because of these two small hills that the Xiangcheng area is already in the hinterland of the Henan Plain, and there is no danger to defend. When they got there, they were annihilated by Li Zicheng, who had a superior force.

Yang Sichang's current deployment has not yet taken this dangerous step, and he has always guarded against danger, so he can be as stable as Ge Shuhan hiding in Tongguan for the time being.

……

After Yang Sichang carried out the plan agreed with Shen Shuren, another three to five days passed quickly.The various ministries that need to be dispatched in the plan have also been moved into place one after another.

Now Zuo Liangyu, who moved to Nanyang and stationed directly under Yang Sichang's nose, didn't know the overall situation of this plan.Zuo Liangyu's performance of preserving his strength in the past two years has also made him trusted by Yang Sichang, far inferior to Shen Shuren, so he is only worthy of being a pawn in this plan, only responsible for executing orders, and nothing else is Zuo Liangyu I can ask.

At the beginning, Zuo Liangyu was very angry when he heard that he was going north to fight Li Zicheng. Liangyu endured it, and mobilized the troops obediently.

He also knows that he is as stable as Ge Shuhan in Tongguan, temporarily safe and secure, there is no need to take risks and disobey——

Even if you want to disobey orders in the future, you have to wait for the order equivalent to "Li Longji forced brother Shu Han out of Tongguan" to be issued and resist when you have to resist. Now you can bear it for a while.

Zuo Liangyu obeyed, and of course Liu Guoneng would obey, and Liu Guoneng had received Shen Shuren's greeting in advance, so not only would his troops go north to deploy defenses, but he would also use the banner of Shen Shuren a few days later.

Pretending to be part of the main force under Shen Shuren's command, they also went northward through Xinyang Road and joined forces with Liu Guoneng.

While the Zuo and Liu Departments were dispatching real troops, of course, all kinds of news leaked out to Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong like a leaking sieve.

There are really too many youngsters around Yang Sichang, and there are indeed too many bastards who are betting on both sides by corrupt officials accepting the benefits of thieves. This situation is inevitable.

All of this, just like the plan of Admiral Scheer, the German naval coach during World War I, would be spied on by the people of the Yin country at will. Only the squadron of General Hipper, who often goes alone and adapts to the situation, can surprise and keep it secret.

Yang Sichang is like the later Scheer, while Shen Shu is like the later Hipper. (In Liaodong, Chongzhen and Chen Xinjia were Scheer, Shen Shuren was Hipper, and Huang Taiji was from Yin. In Henan, Shen Shuren’s status remained the same, Li Zicheng replaced Huang Taiji’s position, and Yang Sichang replaced Chongzhen’s position. The nature is the same)

On May [-]th, the sixth day after Li Zicheng's troops set out and the third day after he arrived at the city of Kaifeng, he had just prepared a batch of siege weapons and was about to officially launch the siege. Sent to Li Zicheng's desk.

After Li Zicheng heard the words, he was also angry and disdainful. After thinking for a while, he recruited Gao Yigong and Li Guo, and asked these two confidantes to divide their troops to the south to monitor Zuo Liangyu and Liu Guoneng respectively.

As for Liu Zongmin, the number one general under his command, of course he will stay in Kaifeng City, leading the elite lineage of Chuangjun as a strategic reserve team and supervising team, urging Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying to take over the new attached army as cannon fodder, and let the cannon fodder go to the front line first. Carry out the deadliest assault missions.

……

It was almost the same in late May, that is, four or five days at most after Li Zicheng got the news.

In the area of ​​Zigui and Wuxian on the border between Sichuan and Huguang, an army of thieves who had been dormant for almost a year and a half under the oppression of the government army finally received the same good news.

In Zigui County, the people's livelihood was already in decline at that time, and there were no people for a long time, only the troops of the bandits were stationed.Ordinary innocent people have been robbed, killed and eaten for a long time.

A rough and powerful general with a beard as big as Guan Yu, with several scars on his face, and fierce eyes, was drinking to soothe his sorrows in the county office, waiting for news ahead, with wild game meat and unknown meat in front of him.

This man with a beautiful beard and a scar was none other than Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the bandit leader who repeatedly feigned surrender and rebelled most frequently in the late Ming Dynasty.

It is said in the history books that he slaughtered Sichuan, of course it is false, because in history, the Qing army also slaughtered wildly when they entered Sichuan. Both sides were the main factors for the population to be slaughtered. The part of the army killing is also counted on Zhang Xianzhong.

But Zhang Xianzhong's crazily killing is true in itself, and it is not true that he is cruel by nature and likes to kill. Most of the time, he lacks supplies, so he kills indiscriminately.

Today's Zhang Xianzhong is worse than the same period in history. He failed to break into Huguang and was driven back to the mountains on the border of Huguang and Sichuan. How can he support his army with just a few counties?
Zhang Xianzhong's military strength is at least equivalent to the sum of the three or four battalions of Ge Zuo's Fifth Battalion.Historically, he entered the Dabie Mountains in the 15th year of Chongzhen and joined forces with some of the Gezuo Fifth Battalion. After annexing some troops, the total force expanded to 10,000+.

Now all this has been blocked, there is no fresh blood to join, and there are losses caused by insufficient supplies, but Zhang Xianzhong's young and strong men are still at least [-] to [-].The three battalions of Ge Zuo's fifth battalion that were directly wiped out by Shen Shuren at the beginning had only so few people.

Moreover, this does not count Zhang Xianzhong's new recruits who were arrested and forcibly recruited into the army in the Three Gorges area. If these mobs are counted, it is not too much to say that he has 10 people.

In order to support so many people, the food in several counties must not be enough to eat, and they can’t get out suddenly, so these counties have to be completely wiped out, all the people’s food is robbed, and all other proteins are used.

Even so, when Zhang Xianzhong's troops lasted until last winter, the newly attached Wuhe soldiers had already started to starve to death. It was just because of the cold winter and heavy snow that blocked the mountains, and it was impossible to go out to find food and attack other places to search for supplies. , so I can only carry it.

The ice and snow freeze in the mountains ended late, and basically the freeze had not been lifted in February this year, so it was impossible to march out.Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong's department forcefully endured the hunger until the middle and late February.

In the twelfth lunar month of last year, only the newly attached mob starved to death. By February, veterans from Shaanxi and Henan who had been coerced for many years died of starvation.

From then on, Zhang Xianzhong had to send troops to solve the food problem.

(End of this chapter)