Zhu Zhi followed Wang Yuan out of the north gate and came to the wilderness, and couldn't help waving his knife and shouting: "Happy, killing thieves like this, this life is worth it!" ”

"Point Army!" Wang Yuan shouted.

Zhu Cong and Zhu Xiang immediately counted the team, and found that there were twelve horsemen missing.

Zhu Ying suddenly said angrily: "Outside Renqiu City, we killed more than 10,000 thieves, and only one died. No one dared to stop it this time, why were there no twelve? ”

It's normal, I got up to kill, I got off the horse and cut off my head, and I got lost in the streets and alleys.

Wang Yuan asked Zhu Zhi to blow the horn, and waited in place for a while, and his own cavalry returned one after another. But in the end, there were still two missing, and I don't know if they were trapped in the city, or if they had been safely evacuated from other city gates.

The whole army led the horses on foot and headed in the direction of the baggage team.

The hundreds of people were attacked by the thieves' sentry horses, dozens of them died, and more than 100 people were missing. Fortunately, Wu Liande rushed back in time and led the Jinyi guard to kill the enemy's sentry cavalry, otherwise Wang Yuan's baggage team would definitely be finished today.

The thieves were even more miserable, the grain and grass in the camp were burned, and many family members were burned to death, and now there is a lot of noise.

Yang Hu blamed Liu Liu, Liu Qi and Qi Yan for having too poor military discipline, and they shouldn't have even guarded the city gate after capturing the city. And the latter also blamed Yang Hu for not being optimistic about the camp, which led to being stabbed by the official army, and now he can only march on the temporary stolen grain.

The thief army was divided into two factions, quarreled endlessly in Jinghai County, and finally each occupied half of the county seat, and pulled all the thieves outside the city into the city, so as not to be attacked by the official army again.

For almost a month, there was no fighting.

Wang Yuan stayed far away all the way, but he couldn't find a chance to raid. The thieves scattered a thousand light horsemen to serve as sentinels, and they were also heavily guarded at night, apparently awakening new military skills and growing rapidly with the help of Wang Yuan.

Because the deputy commander-in-chief Xu Tai was in a hurry, the thieves rested all night in Jinghai County, and then fled south without stopping.

Qingxian and Xingji counties along the way were already prepared, and the tentative attack could not be defeated, so the thieves walked around the city, for fear of being caught by Xu Tai behind the buttocks.

At the same time, due to the transfer of the border army to Zhili, the imperial court was no longer short of soldiers.

Song Zhen and Dai Yi, the generals who sat and watched the anti-thieves attack the city before, but they did not move, were all sent to prison at this moment.

Every few days, Wang Yuan was able to receive battle reports from all over the front line through Jinyiwei.

However, these war reports are too rubbish, and it is better not to read them.

Obviously, he followed the main force of the thief army, Yang Hu appeared in Shandong inexplicably, Qi Yanming inexplicably appeared in Dongguang County, and even Liu Liu and Liu Qi killed Tongzhou again.

It's all those anti-thieves who have been scattered, impersonating and raising banners indiscriminately, anyway, there are thieves everywhere in the mess.

The court bigwigs were also confused, but they had to guard against it. So from Shanxi, Liaodong, and Henan, a total of 8,000 troops were transferred again to kill the places where there were thieves in the war report.

In September, Cangzhou was besieged.

Wang Yuan led the crowd several miles away from the city and sat and watched the anti-thieves attack the city. It's a pity that there are no binoculars, and the situation can only be known through the sentry horse, otherwise this offensive and defensive battle will definitely be very interesting.

"The thieves are really iron-headed, they really dare to attack Cangzhou." Wang Yuan couldn't help but sigh.

Zhu Ying asked: "Wang Yushi, what does Toutie mean?" ”

Wang Yuan explained: "I just feel that my head is hard, and when I see the copper wall, I have to hit it headlong." ”

"Hahaha, that thief is really a head iron." Zhu Zhi laughed.

The city wall of Cangzhou is not comparable to the county seat, with a circumference of eight miles and a height of two feet and five feet, all of which are made of huge bricks. There was also a moat outside the city, which was one and a half feet deep and four and a half feet wide, and if the moat was not filled, it could only be attacked by boat.

The thieves had to fight, because they were running out of grain and grass, and Cangzhou happened to have a batch of grain transported, which was temporarily stored in the city because of the war.

At this moment, the thieves snatched a lot of boats from the Grand Canal, and all of them drove to the Cangzhou moat to build a pontoon bridge.

I saw that the moat was densely packed with boats, one connected to the other, and several sections of the river were paved.

The civil and military officials on the city tower looked down and laughed. If this can be broken by the thieves, they don't need the court to punish the crime, they jump into the moat and drown the ball.

Officials defending the city, two civil and two military.

They are Zhang Qi, the governor of Cangzhou, Yang Qi, the salt transport envoy, Manzheng, Qianhu Manzheng, Zhejiang, and Nie Huan, the commander of Guangdong.

Why did two southern military attaches suddenly appear in the North Zhili area?

Unfortunately, they were responsible for escorting weapons into Beijing, and they were blocked in Cangzhou by anti-thieves on the way. There are no unusual weapons, just firearms, bows and arrows, armor and the like, and now they are not in a hurry to transport them to the Beijing Division, and they can be taken out of the box to fight.

Two large ships of weapons, but a disaster!

Seeing the thieves coming to the city through the pontoon bridge, Nie Xuan, the commander of Guangdong, smiled sneeringly, and slowly raised his hand and ordered: "Release!" ”

"Boom!"

A volley of firebolts fired, converging into a thunderous roar.

There is also a Shenji battalion in the capital, but it has never been sent out to fight, where have the thieves seen firearms? Directly stunned by a row of firearms, the direct casualties were very small, but the indirect casualties were large, many people were so frightened that they turned around and ran, fell into the river and drowned countless people.

The thieves are also fighting, because they are short of food, so they can only use their lives to pile it up - Wang Yuan has a share of credit for the lack of food.

For three days, the weapons guarding the city were almost consumed, and Yang Hu personally led 2,000 old thieves to attack the city.

Yang Hu not only failed to climb the city wall, but Zhejiang Qianhu Manzheng also took advantage of the situation to kill, threw flammable materials on the pontoon bridge, and then sent several rockets out in a row, instantly burning more than half of the pontoon bridge built by the thieves.

Then, Liu Liu and Liu Qi also went into battle in person, set up a small boat to the city to set up a ladder, and were shot by Man Zheng and Nie Zhen with bows and arrows and fire guns.

Liu Liu and Liu Qi were all wounded by arrows, and the thieves finally did not dare to fight anymore, so they went south along the Grand Canal by boat and horseback.

This offensive and defensive battle lasted for eight days, and there were only five or six thousand anti-thieves left, and every day there were thieves who quietly fled. And Xu Tai, who was chasing the rebels, never came, because there was a large group of rebels behind him, and he was fighting with the rebels on the way.

"Haha, the thieves have withdrawn!" Nie Zhen laughed.

Zhizhou Zhang Qi finally breathed a sigh of relief, because there were only 1,000 soldiers in the city, and two military attachés were brought from Zhejiang and Guangdong.

More than 10,000 fierce old thieves attacked for eight days, if it weren't for the high city and deep weapons, Cangzhou would have been captured by the chaotic army.

The thieves are also unlucky, if they arrive in Cangzhou a few days in advance, there is not even a single regular soldier in the city, and there is no firearm and bow and arrow, how can they use so much effort to defeat it.

The thieves had not gone far when suddenly two hundred cavalry came outside the city.

Zhang Qi was suddenly taken aback, and hurriedly beckoned left and right to strengthen his defense.

Wu Liande got on a small boat abandoned by the thieves, sailed across the moat, came to the city and said: "Patrol the imperial history Wang Yuan has been ordered to beg the thief, please ask the officers and soldiers in the city to go out of the city to help!" ”

"You're just these cavalrymen?" Zhang Qi asked.

Wu Liande recited the lines prepared by Wang Yuan: "There are still more than 10,000 troops, which have been intercepted in the area of Xinqiaoyi, please Cangzhou defenders immediately go out of the city and attack the officers and soldiers of Xinqiaoyi from the north and south!" ”

Zhang Qi hung the basket and dragged Wu Lian up, and after checking the documents, he finally confirmed his official identity.

Zhejiang Qianhu Manzheng and Guangdong commander Nie Xuan, heard that there were more than 10,000 officers and troops in the south to intercept them, and they immediately became active.

This is the main force of the anti-thieves, and it is a reservoir dog that is not conducive to the siege of the city, and he will lead his troops to follow and fight casually, and he will definitely win a big victory with friendly forces. If you are lucky and accidentally capture a few thieves, then the addition of officials to the knighthood is just around the corner.

"Zhang Tingshi (honorific title)," Nie Zhen said first, "As a military attache of the imperial court, you can't sit back and watch the thieves escape, so let's take my leave first!" Sons, follow me out of the city to kill the thieves! ”

Zhejiang Qianhu Manzheng was not to be left behind, and also hugged his fists and said: "Zhang Tingshi, when we return from killing the enemy, we will go back to Cangzhou to drink celebration wine!" ”

The two military attachés from other provinces, with their own teams, were fooled into chasing the enemy south with Wang Yuan. Moreover, they were still under the command of archers and musketeers.