As soon as he left Suzhou City, Zhu Cihong received an urgent information from Jinyiwei.

Wang Tuo, the head of the thief, led tens of thousands of rogue soldiers to Suzhou, wanting to sneak attack and intercept him.

After receiving the information, Zhu Cihong was quite calm, faintly excited, after going south for so long, he finally met a rogue of a decent size.

Zhu Cihong did not have a good impression of the Liukou at all, the Liukou was originally a desert escape team composed of displaced people who were harsh on heavy taxes and lost their land, and it was not wrong to resist the government at the beginning, and it was also worthy of sympathy.

However, since the change of Chongzhen in the second year, a large number of escaped Shanxi, Xuanda, Shaanxi officers and soldiers fell into the grass or joined the Liukou, since then, the Liukou began to destroy production on a large scale, every place must harvest grain and grass, loot the place, women, young and strong are coerced into thieves, children are generally killed.

Every time the rogues captured a city, they would tear down the city walls, burn the houses, dig three feet into the ground, and the court would ask for money for the rogues, send troops to encircle and suppress the rogues, and rebuild the place for money.

Slowly, the finances of the imperial court were dragged down, and it was impossible for the scholars and doctors to come forward to donate money, and the taxes of the imperial court could only continue to be apportioned to the peasants who did not flee the famine, resulting in a dead circle, so the liukou continued to grow, from more than 10,000 people in Shaanxi in the first year of Chongzhen to hundreds of thousands of people now.

The rogues only do things of looting and destruction, and do not do production and development, so the national strength of the Ming Dynasty is weakening more and more, natural disasters are only the cause, and man-made disasters are the most important.

The imperial court called them rogues and thieves, not to belittle them, but that the other party was a real exiled robber and thief, and he was not worthy of being called a peasant army at all, let alone a rebel army.

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the Liukou captured Fengyang, the central capital, killing tens of thousands of people in the city, burning more than 20,000 houses, and even some people dissected pregnant women, took out babies and picked them on the gun lance to laugh and play.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the Liukou attacked Shucheng, plundered thousands of women in Huoshan and Luzhou (Hefei), and forced these women to be naked under the city.

After the defeat of the Liukou attack on Chuzhou, they captured hundreds of women from nearby villages, humiliated them collectively, and cut off all their heads.......

The murderous slaughter of these rogues at every turn is simply appalling, and their cruelty is no less than that of the Tartars outside the gates.

In history, Li Zicheng only shouted the slogans of "Juntian is exempt from endowment" and "killing one person is like killing my father, and lewd one person is like adulterating my mother" to win people's hearts and no longer slaughter the city.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng established the Dashun regime in Xiangyang, and reassured the people with the slogan of "no levy for three years, no people will be killed", even so, Li Zicheng was still unpopular in the end.

In the end, after he occupied the northern land, he only brought the people a greater military disaster.

Among the rogues, the best Li Zicheng is still like this, not to mention the other goods, the rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty is really far worse than the rebel army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

Fengyang Mansion, in Mengcheng County.

On the potholed post road, the army walked in the wind and dust, and most of the soldiers of this army were wrapped in turbans and wore cloth armor, and some did not even have cloth armor.

In their ranks, there were several large flags that had broken several holes, with the word "Tuo" written on them, and many soldiers under the banner shrunk their hands in their torn cotton clothes, and walked slowly with their weapons on their shoulders.

Since Zhu Cihong led the army south, Zhang Xianzhong also sent a lot of spies to find out the movements of the Ming army, and he soon learned the news that the Yongwei battalion was going to pass through Suzhou.

Zhang Xianzhong was excited, if he could kill the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, then his reputation in the righteous army would be in full swing, with such a mood, he immediately sent his general Tuo Xianling to lead 30,000 horses to attack Suzhou, and he led the army to feign attack Luzhou, creating an opportunity for Tuo Xianling to attack Suzhou.

Tuo Xianling, nicknamed the word king, Chongzhen participated in the Xingyang Conference in eight years, ranked one of the thirteen, and later his own development was not very good, so he was included in Zhang Xianzhong.

Under the cover of Zhang Xianzhong, Tuo Xianling couldn't wait to rush to Suzhou after leading 30,000 horses, and he felt that he was going to become famous this time.

Out of Huoshan, the entire land of northern Anhui is a flat river, so that Tuo Xianling is a little uncomfortable, since the king Gao Yingxiang was cut by the imperial court, the righteous army is depressed, plus the government is surrounded and intercepted, many people hide in the mountains, occasionally group out to wave, to the government to deal a heavy blow.

Fortunately, the spirit of his subordinates is quite good, and there are some laughing and scolding voices from time to time in the team.

Tuo Xianling's eyes squinted with a fierce light, and he said to himself: "I really look forward to what the world's reaction will be after killing the crown prince!" ”

When the army passed through a small town, the people of the town heard that the thieves were coming, and they had already packed up their homes and scattered, and fled far away.

The rogues ransacked the town from house to house, and then walked away, halfway through, a few sentinels in front of them caught a few big families and brought them to Tuo Xianling.

Several white and chubby big families were so frightened that they urinated on the spot, and kept kowtowing there and begging for mercy.

"Leave their wives and daughters behind, and cut them all!" Tuo Xianling waved his hand and said lightly.

As soon as he finished speaking, several old battalion soldiers immediately came out, drew their knives and cut them, and one of the other old battalion soldiers slashed four times in a company, cutting off the limbs of a fat big man respectively, and the steaming blood overflowed, and the painful man kept rolling and finally fainted to the ground.

The surrounding rogues laughed while watching it, and shouted excitement, Tuo Xianling also smiled, and ordered to camp nearby to rest.

The thieves cheered, and a dozen or dozens of people scattered around the area at random, either chatting and fartizing, or punching and drinking, and there was a lot of commotion.

Tuo Xianling entered the newly built camp under the arrangement of his own soldiers, followed by a few good-looking women who had just been captured.

A few generals with felt hats lit charcoal fires, gathered in a circle, took out wine and meat to eat and drink, and looked at the camp tent from time to time.......

As the thieves gathered together to make noise with each other, they suddenly heard a rumbling sound in the distance.

"What's that?" One of the rogues pointed to a fast-moving "dark cloud" in the distance.

"Yes........ It's officers and soldiers! A rogue with good eyesight exclaimed, "That's the cavalry of the officers and soldiers!" ”

Five thousand iron horsemen galloped on the boundless plain, each cavalry wore a hat and iron helmet, the helmet was red tasseled and floated high, they were lined with fiery red cotton armor, and there was dark armor inlaid with iron leaves, and the outside wore black armor that exuded a chill.

Where did this cavalry come from? How can it be so scary!

When the thieves appeared in the sight of the cavalry of the Brave Guard, they took out their cold rifles from their horse pistols and pointed them at the terrified thieves, and accelerated towards them like a tidal wave.

"Meet the enemy!" A rogue general let out a trembling roar.

A large area of heavy horses' hooves trampled on the dry ground, making a dull roar, which made the rogues even more panicked, and they couldn't help but shrink back wherever they dared to fight.

Wang Tuo Xianling walked out of the camp tent with his pants in his hands, staring blankly into the distance, cold sweat broke out, and before he could figure out how to deal with it, those cavalry had already rampage mercilessly.