After losing the battle, Wan Yuan Ji thought that the imperial court must be held accountable, so it was better to put the charges on Shao Jiechun's head first, so he combined the four defeats in Dachang, Kaixian, Dazhou, and Mianzhou into one to impeach Shao Jiechun for being cowardly as a mouse and escaping; At the same time, he asked for merit for being as fierce as a tiger, saying that he was brave and unparalleled in the battle to recover Mianzhou, and beheaded 3,000 people, so as to repay Yang Sichang and gallop into Beijing.

Emperor Chongzhen was furious after reading it, and immediately sent Tiqi to Chengdu to ask Shao Jiechun.

When Ticai entered the border of Sichuan and Shu, Luo Rucai was leading the Cao Ying Righteous Army to besiege Chengdu, and at this time, the main force of the official army led by Wan Yuan Ji and the fierce tiger still bit Zhang Kewang all the way without Zhang Xianzhong's old camp, and did not plan to return to Chengdu. As for Zhang Xianzhong's main force in the western camp, only the 5,000 Chu army of the supervising army Dao Liao Tycoon followed behind.

Zhang Xianzhong saw that Liao Daheng was just following far behind all the way, and he didn't dare to step forward, so he immediately relieved himself, and immediately went around from Jintang to Chengdu and joined forces with Luo Rucai.

After the joint camp of the rebel army, the momentum was huge, Liao Daheng thought that he had few soldiers, but Chengdu was a high city and a deep pool, and he would be able to be safe and sound, so he simply set up camp outside Jintang County and did not take a step forward.

Seeing that the reinforcements had been waiting for a long time, and Ti Cai was on the way, Shao Jiechun knew that the death penalty could not be escaped, so he had already put life and death aside, scattered all his family wealth, and gathered the soldiers and civilians of the city to resist desperately.

It was not until the twentieth day that he learned that Tiqi could not enter the city and temporarily lived in Liao Daheng's camp, so Wan Yuan Ji ordered 20,000 troops to relieve the siege of Chengdu.

Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai learned that the reinforcements of the official army were coming, so they immediately withdrew from the siege and went south to Luzhou.

When the Chengdu gentry saw the righteous army retreating, they were all happy, setting off fireworks and firecrackers, opening the city gate to welcome the fierce tiger into the city, and Shao Jiechun also held a feast in the governor's line to reward the three armies.

Who knew that at the banquet, Ti Cai suddenly invited Shao Jiechun to the back hall, read the holy decree, arrested him on the spot, and seized the big seal, and Liao Daheng took over as governor, and then escorted Shao Jiechun into the prisoner car, set off overnight, and went straight to Beijing.

It was not until the early morning of the next day that the proclamation was posted all over the city, and the civil and military officials and the wealthy gentry and common people learned about the changes that had taken place yesterday. Over the years, although Shao Jiechun has not been effective in suppressing thieves, but on the whole he is still a good official, thinking that he is about to be abandoned in the West Market, everyone is sorry, and grateful for his contribution to the preservation of Chengdu, for a time there were as many as 10,000 people crying along the street.

At noon on the fifth day of the first month of December, the inside and outside of Luzhou City were as peaceful and peaceful as ever, and the officers and soldiers on duty at the head of Xicheng City threw aside their swords and guns, and sat lazily behind the battlements of the city wall, letting the early winter sun shine warmly on their bodies, drowsy.

At this moment, suddenly a thunderous sound rumbled, and everyone woke up instantly, and they all looked out at the battlements of the city wall, only to see smoke and dust billowing in the distance, as if thousands of troops were killing here.

In an instant, the exclamation accompanied by a terrible horn resounded over Luzhou City.

Zhizhou Su Qiong was sleeping beautifully in the back house of his yamen at this time, and was suddenly awakened from a dream, and when he was puzzled, he saw a small colonel stumbling in, kneeling on one knee with a plop, clenching fists with both hands, and reporting breathlessly: "Big ...... My lord! Oh no! Thieves are coming! Less than five ...... from Xicheng Five miles! ”

Hearing that the rogue was coming, Su Qiong couldn't help but feel numb in his scalp for a while, and his mood was as heavy as lead, but in front of his subordinates, he still pretended to be calm and sat up from the couch, summoned a maid, waited for him to put on his official robes, and then reached out and grabbed the saber on the sword stand, and said to the little colonel: "Let's go, go to the city and have a look!" ”

Ordered to attack Luzhou was the elite of Dingguo's 10,000 dragon battalions, and at a distance of one mile from the city wall, Dingguo suddenly stopped his horse, raised his right fist high above his head, and shouted: "The whole army stops advancing!" ”

Behind him, the officers and men of the Western Battalion stopped on the spot one after another when they heard the military order, and quickly lined up an offensive formation on the narrow road along the river.

At the same time, Su Qiong had also climbed to the top of Xicheng City, and seeing the scale of the incoming rebel army, Su Qiong's face instantly turned pale, but because Luzhou City was surrounded by water on three sides, there was only a narrow passage in the west, and the soldiers and horses of the Xiying could not be fully deployed at all.

Seeing this scene, Su Qiong breathed a sigh of relief, but she didn't dare to take it lightly, and hurriedly ordered left and right: "Pass the order!" The whole army is defending the city, and you can't attack without permission! Violators will be killed! ”

Dingguo stationed in front of the Ma Yu formation, observed the terrain of Luzhou City for a while, and then ordered in a loud voice: "Chen Xi! I ordered you to lead a thousand soldiers and lead a ladder to the city! ”

"No!" Chen Xi agreed, immediately clamped the horse's belly, led a thousand soldiers from the headquarters, with a team of ten people, carrying the escalator, and rushed out of the formation.

"Crossbowmen out! Cover the arrows! Dingguo held the command flag in his hand and pointed forward.

With the sudden sound of the terrible trumpet, two thousand crossbowmen quickly followed behind the soldiers who rushed to the city, marched until they were a hundred paces away from the city before stopping, and then shouted slogans, pulled their bows and arrows together, and poured a rain of arrows on the city.

In the blink of an eye, the 1,000 soldiers led by Chen Xi had rushed to the city, and more than 100 escalators were erected high and leaned heavily against the city wall.

"Quick! Hurry up with the Rolling Stone! Smash me hard! Seeing that the dense Xiying rebels under the city were stepping on ladders and climbing up the city wall, Su Qiong was frightened and urged the defenders to throw wood and stones under the city.

Although from time to time the soldiers of the Western Battalion fell from the city wall, more people still climbed the top of the city one after another.

"Li Chunming! Order you to quickly lead a thousand troops to reinforce Chen Xi! Seeing that there was a fierce white-knuckle battle on the city wall, Dingguo immediately issued an order for reinforcements.

As the second group of reinforcements climbed to the top of the city, the defenders gradually began to be unable to resist and retreated one after another.

Su Qiong raised his sword high and shouted at the officers and soldiers who had fled: "Don't escape!" Resist me! ”

However, the matter has come to this point, but it is not human can be reversed, although he killed three defenders who tried to escape in a row, but it was to no avail, and soon the west gate was knocked open by the siege rebels with wooden stakes, and a large number of soldiers from the western camp poured into the city.

Although the terrain of this Luzhou city is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but once it is breached, the defenders have become a turtle in the urn, and the officers and soldiers who have been scattered in all directions have no way to escape, so they have to discard their swords and guns, kneel on the ground and beg to surrender to the Xiying rebels.

The shouts of killing gradually subsided, and Su Qiong, Zhizhou, and Huang Jiqing, who was on his way to work in Luzhou, both died in the chaos during the street battle.

When Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai entered Luzhou, the nearly 100,000 chasing army led by Wan Yuanji was still circling around Neijiang County. Because the imperial court arrested Shao Jiechun to anger the Shu people, the officials and soldiers asked Sixiang about Zhang Xianzhong's whereabouts, but the villagers did not know what to say, and finally learned from the Tang newspaper that Zhang Xianzhong was in Luzhou, and wanted to find a guide to lead the way, but no one agreed.

Finally approaching the vicinity of Luzhou City, Wan Yuan Ji ordered the whole army to go down to the village at Longwei Pass, block the passage for Zhang Xianzhong to flee west, and sent 2,000 men and horses to ambush in the Yuchan Temple outside the city, intending to wait for Zhang Xianzhong to lead the troops to break through the siege, and sneak attack its rear. Before the ambush arrived, the local people had already reported the movements of the official army to Zhang Xianzhong.

Seeing that the official army was pressing the border, Zhang Xianzhong immediately made a decision and ordered the whole army to withdraw from Luzhou City immediately.

Since there was only one land passage on all sides of Luzhou City, Longwei Pass, in order to break the blockade of the official army, Zhang Xianzhong ordered people to push all the rafts prepared in advance and full of straw men into the river overnight, and lit the torches in the hands of the straw men.

The raft flows eastward, and the firelight illuminates the entire river. Wan Yuan Ji was woken up by the staff in his sleep, and learned that Zhang Xianzhong wanted to escape back the river, so Wan Yuan Ji hurriedly ordered the army to chase along the river.

Taking advantage of the gap in the mobilization of officers and horses, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai quickly drilled out of the encirclement under the cover of night, conquered Nanxi County on the seventh day of the first month, broke Rong County on the 11th, and then advanced to Jingyan, and then Kerenshou County on the 14th, and killed Liu Sance, the county governor, and Chengdu was shaken.

In the early morning of 16 December, the rebels again arrived at the outskirts of Chengdu and set up camp outside the East Gate.

As dusk approached, Xu Yixian stood on the watchtower next to the walled gate, looking at Jinguancheng not far away, only to feel that his right eyelid kept beating, he quickly pinched his fingers and calculated, and his face changed instantly. Xu Yixian hurriedly got off the watchtower and rushed straight to the Dingguo camp.

Dingguo was sitting at a table with Jin Tongwu and Qi Sansheng eating dinner at the moment, when he suddenly saw Xu Yixian walking in, Dingguo couldn't help but be a little surprised, and hurriedly put down the dishes and chopsticks, got up to meet him, and said enthusiastically: "Military advisor? How did you get here? I haven't eaten yet! Come and sit down here, and I'll have someone prepare your meal!" ”

Xu Yixian grabbed Dingguo and whispered in his ear: "General Dingguo, come out with me." ”

Seeing Xu Yixian's serious expression, Dingguo hurriedly restrained his smile and quickly followed Xu Yixian out of the tent.

Dingguo glanced around to make sure that there was no one else, and then lowered his voice and asked, "Xu Junshi, what is the matter?" ”

"General Dingguo, according to the observation below, the officers and troops will attack the camp tonight, and they need to be prepared as soon as possible." Xu Yixian touched his mustache and said thoughtfully.

"Strategist, don't worry, the soldiers will block the water and cover the earth, if the officers and soldiers dare to attack, they will not return!" Dingguo patted his chest and reassured.

Xu Yixian smiled slightly after hearing this: "How does General Dingguo plan to deal with it?" ”

Dingguo was asked a little inexplicably, and immediately said: "How else can you deal with it, isn't it just to lie in ambush around the camp, wait for the enemy to rush into the wall, and outflank from both wings?" ”

Xu Yixian shook his head and said: "If the officers and soldiers are cautious, what should they do if they refuse to enter the camp when they see that it is an empty camp?" ”

Dingguo really never thought about this question, and immediately humbly asked for advice: "What does the military advisor think?" ”

Xu Yixian took half a step forward, approached Dingguo's ear, and whispered to him.

After hearing this, Dingguo couldn't help but quip: "Strategist, if you really have you, aren't you afraid of angering the gods?" ”

Xu Yixian couldn't help but burst into a foul voice: "I'm afraid of a bird, we rebel and even the Son of Heaven dares to pull off the horse, what are these mountain gods and wild ghosts afraid of?" It's getting dark soon, and time is running out, so let's do it! ”

"Don't worry, the military advisor will do it properly!" Dingguo bowed slightly to Xu Yixian, then turned around and returned to the tent, and instructed Jin Tongwu and Qi Sansheng to lead five hundred brothers each, immediately go to the vicinity to search for temples and ancestral halls, and move all the clay statues back to the camp.

"I said boss, when will our Xiying become a big temple, what do you want these clay people to do?" Jin Tongwu asked with a puzzled expression.

Dingguo smiled slightly, pretending to be mysterious: "Lao Jin, you don't have to ask more, just hurry up and do it!" ”

Jin Tongwu and Qi Sansheng glanced at each other, hurriedly stuffed the leftovers in the bowl into their mouths in a few bites, then put down the dishes and chopsticks, got up and wiped the oil stains on the corners of their mouths, hurriedly walked out of the tent, and led the brothers to search for clay statues.

Within an hour, the two returned to the camp one after another, and more than 300 clay statues of different sizes were piled up in the open space outside the tent of the Dingguo camp.

While Jin Tongwu and Qi Sansheng were busy looking for clay statues, Xu Yixian went to see Zhang Xianzhong again and explained the plan and plan. Zhang Xianzhong was convinced of Xu Yixian, and immediately left the Chinese army camp with all the guards and transferred to Zhang Kewang's army not far away, and the huge Chinese army camp instantly became an empty camp.

Dingguo counted the number of clay statues, and then asked people to move all these things to Zhang Xianzhong's Chinese army tent, and lit all the candlesticks in the tent.

Preparing these, Dingguo instructed Jin Tongwu and Qi Sansheng to take the brothers back to the camp to rest, while he personally led 3,000 elites to scatter and ambush on both sides of the Chinese army camp, silently watching every move inside and outside the camp in the dark.