On 17 February, shortly after Zhang Xianzhong evacuated the Shuiyou Dam, Zhang Yingyuan and Wang Zhifeng's officers and troops also followed, where they were ambushed by Bai Wenxuan and Ma Yuanli, and lost many men.

However, because the broken Xiying Righteous Army had too few troops, it did not continue to chase and fight, and seeing that the official army was retreating, Bai Wenxuan and Ma Yuanli immediately gathered their men and horses and turned back to chase the main force.

On the 19th, Zhang Kewang and Zhang Wenxiu's forward troops met Zhang Ling's 6,000 Sichuan army in the area of Chaxi and Qianjiang River at the junction of Sichuan and Chu.

Zhang Ling was the deputy chief soldier of Sichuan at this time, and he was seventy years old this year, but he was still able to easily pull out the five-stone bow, and he hit a hundred shots, so he was nicknamed "Divine Crossbow General", and he was a famous general in Shu second only to Qin Liangyu, the general of Sichuan General Army, and he had made outstanding achievements over the years, and he was powerful in Sichuan and Shaanxi.

Seeing the retreat of the Xiying rebels, Zhang Ling immediately flew to the governor Yang Sichang and the governor of Sichuan, Shao Jiechun.

The war is imminent, considering that there is no danger to defend in the area of Chaxi and Qianjiang River, once Zhang Xianzhong's army is coming, it will be impossible to advance and retreat, Zhang Ling immediately ordered the whole army to retreat, and the main force of 5,000 men and horses was stationed in Kejiaping, an important town in central Sichuan, and left the deputy general Fang Guoan to lead 1,000 troops, and camped behind Kejiaping to guard the water source.

In the early morning of the 27th, Zhang Xianzhong led the army to arrive, and Zhang Kewang joined forces, after finding out the reality of Zhang Ling's Sichuan army, Zhang Xianzhong personally commanded the Xiying Righteous Army, and launched a fierce attack on Kejiaping.

Zhang Ling saw the rebels coming, and immediately ordered the gates of the fortress to be closed on all sides, and at the same time, the bows and ballistas on the wall of the fortress fired in unison, so that the besieging rebels could not approach the village.

The rebel army was attacking like a tide, Fang Guoan was frightened, and couldn't help but secretly scolded Zhang Linglao'er for cowering in the village, but let him take more than a thousand brothers to die outside, and immediately decided to abandon Zhang Ling in anger, and led the troops to escape along a difficult path behind Kejiaping.

Fang Guoan's escape instantly exposed the entire back of the official army in front of the Xiying Righteous Army, and Kejiaping also fell into a desperate situation of being surrounded on all sides.

However, Zhang Ling deserves to be a fierce general in Sichuan, although surrounded by the Xiying Volunteer Army, but he did not flinch, he personally went to the wall to command the battle, and the Sichuan army was fighting against the water, there was no way to escape, under the encouragement of Zhang Ling, it burst out with strong combat effectiveness, causing great damage to the Righteous Army attacking the village.

For three consecutive days, the Xiying Righteous Army suffered thousands of casualties, but it was never able to climb the wall one step, just when Zhang Xianzhong was worried, Xu Yixian, a military advisor who had been sent by Zhang Xianzhong to Xiangyang to inquire about the whereabouts of the captured wife and children and Pan Duao, came back.

Seeing Xu Yixian, Zhang Xianzhong was overjoyed, and hurriedly pulled him to sit down on the chair enthusiastically, and then couldn't wait to ask: "Old Xu!" After a long wait, I finally hope you back! How is it? Lao Pan, Hui'er, and those stinky women have been okay? ”

Xu Yixian took a breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, grabbed a cup of cold tea on the table, poured it down, and then wiped his mouth, and then reported to Zhang Xianzhong: "Don't worry!" Then Yang Sichang threatened to wait until you captured Jing Shuai, and then escort them to Beijing to offer prisoners, so as long as our Xiying Daxu does not fall, their lives will not be in danger! I have been in prison for a while, and I guess they won't suffer much for the time being. ”

After hearing Xu Yixian's words, Zhang Xianzhong's hanging heart finally let go of most of it, and hurriedly ordered his soldiers to change hot tea for Xu Yixian, and then stroked his long hair, and said with a smile: "My old Zhang Fu has a big life, how can he ask the master if he wants to invite it?" ”

At this time, the soldiers had also made hot tea for Xu Yixian, Xu Yixian picked up the teacup, smacked it lightly, and asked casually: "Jing Shuai, I just listened to the soldiers in the camp that the war didn't seem to be going well?" ”

Hearing Xu Yixian mention this matter, Zhang Xianzhong couldn't help but sigh and said: "Don't mention it, Lao Xu, I underestimated Zhang Ling, the old turtle!" A small walled city, Lao Tzu's tens of thousands of troops fought for three days, losing thousands of brothers, and it is not possible to continue fighting like this, the casualties are too great! ”

Xu Yixian smiled slightly: "Jing Shuai doesn't have to worry, within ten days, Kejiaping will be broken." ”

Hearing Xu Yixian say this, Zhang Xianzhong's eyes suddenly lit up: "So, the military division has a clever plan to break the enemy?" ”

"Jing Shuai, on the way back, I heard from the local people that there is no water source in this Kejiaping walled city, and our army only needs to besiege him for a few days, and this village will be self-defeating!" Xu Yixian touched his mustache and shook his head and said.

Zhang Xianzhong was overjoyed when he heard this, and immediately ordered the whole army to suspend the siege and prepare for a long-term siege.

For several days, the Xiying Righteous Army was stationed outside the four gates of Kejiaping, and did not attack the city, but only conducted some simple exercises.

At the beginning, there was not much movement in the village, after all, before Zhang Xianzhong besieged the village, Zhang Ling had asked the soldiers and the people to collect some spare water in advance, and the shortage of water sources would not have a great impact for the time being.

But on the fifth day of the siege, the water previously stored in the village had been exhausted, and the soldiers and civilians in the village suddenly panicked. On the tenth day, they didn't even drink urine, and under the unbearable hunger and thirst, many people stole and killed the horses, and drank blood to quench their thirst, but the horse's blood was fishy and dry, and after drinking, not only could not quench their thirst, but the feeling of lack of water became more and more intense.

Seeing that the morale of the army was low and almost collapsed, Zhang Ling had nothing to do.

In the early morning of this day, Zhang Xianzhong and Xu Yixian were stationed on a small hill not far from the camp, looking at the rising new sun and the brilliant morning glow in the sky, Zhang Xianzhong said proudly: "The official army in the village is about to collapse!" After the soldiers have breakfast, the whole army will press on it together, and they will be able to take Kejiaping in one fell swoop! ”

But Xu Yixian looked at the sky, but he was worried: "Jing Shuai, I'm afraid it's going to be a bad thing, I can't delay it any longer, I must attack the village immediately!" ”

Xu Yixian's words made Zhang Xianzhong a little surprised, he turned his head to look at Xu Yixian, and asked puzzledly, "What do you say?" ”

"According to the observations below, there will be rain today!" Xu Yixian pinched his fingers as he spoke.

Zhang Xianzhong laughed when he heard this: "Lao Xu, you are too worried!" With such a big sun, where does it rain? ”

"Nope! If you are not miscalculated, there will be heavy rain in an hour! Respectfully! Just in case, we can't wait for breakfast, we must attack the city immediately! Otherwise, it will be a failure! Xu Yixian said anxiously.

Seeing that Xu Yixian's face was solemn, not like he was joking, Zhang Xianzhong also restrained his smile, nodded and said: "In this case, let's go back to the camp, gather the generals, and immediately send troops to attack the village!" ”

As the drum rumbled in front of the Chinese army's big tent, the generals rubbed their hazy sleepy eyes and gathered from each battalion one after another.

Last night's military order clearly said that it was the time to gather the generals, but now it is only halfway through the hour, why did the drum of the gathering generals sound, and after the generals entered the account to meet, they were all talking to each other, and they did not know why.

Just when everyone was talking, Zhang Xianzhong hurriedly walked in accompanied by Xu Yixian, and the entire Chinese army tent instantly became silent.

Time was pressing, and Zhang Xianzhong didn't care about talking nonsense, so he immediately issued an order to the generals to attack the village.

With the generals returning to the camp, soon the entire camp of the righteous army was agitated, the doors of each camp were opened at the same time, and countless soldiers of the western camp shouted, killing Kejiaping from all directions.

When a defender in the city heard the sound, he struggled to get up from the ground, leaned on the battlement of the wall, and looked down, only to see that the black pressure under the wall was all the Xiying Volunteers, who rushed to the front, and saw that he was about to reach the bottom of the wall, he hurriedly swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva, opened his lips that had been chapped and cracked, and shouted in that hoarse voice: "The thieves have attacked the village!" ”

"Second brother, this time it should be nine out of ten." Standing on the hill, Zhang Nengqi looked at Ke Jiaping, who was crumbling in front of him, turned to Dingguo beside him, and said excitedly.

Since the injury of Agate Mountain, Zhang Nengqi and Dingguo have been recuperating in the old camp, seeing that the injury is gradually healing, this day I heard that the army attacked the village, the two of them itched in their hearts, and immediately slipped out of the old camp on horseback, and came to this small hill not far from Kejiaping to watch the battle.

The Dengzhai rebels climbed the escalator and approached the wall step by step, but the officers and soldiers guarding the village were listless, weak, and couldn't even pull their bows and crossbows.

The outcome of this battle seemed to be in no suspense, but at this moment, Dingguo suddenly felt that water droplets were falling above his head.

"Huh? It's raining? Dingguo looked up at the sky and involuntarily reached out to probe it.

"No, the sun was still so big just now!" When Zhang Nengqi heard Dingguo say this, he also stretched out his hand.

As he spoke, another bean-sized raindrop smashed on the palm of Dingguo's hand, and it was really raining. At first, it was just a sporadic raindrop, but then the raindrops fell more and more frequently, and the density became smaller and smaller, and in an instant it was pouring rain.

"It's raining! It's raining! The defenders of the village cheered and scrambled to raise their heads, sticking out their tongues, greedily sucking the rain from heaven, and letting the rain moisten their chapped lips.

Zhang Ling was also in tears, and immediately raised the steel knife in his hand and shouted: "Brothers, God help me!" Kill the thief with me! ”

Encouraged by this, the morale of the army was greatly boosted, and they besieged the Xiying rebels who had just climbed the wall of the village and had not yet gained a firm foothold. The Dengzhai rebels were outnumbered and gradually weakened, and were finally driven down.

"It's a failure! What a failure! Zhang Xianzhong looked at the soldiers of the Xiying who had retreated from above the wall one after another, wiped the rain from his face suddenly, and said angrily.

spent ten days in Kejiaping in vain, but in exchange for such an ending, Xu Yixian also beat his chest. I think that if it wasn't for the sake of stability and postponing the attack on the village for one day, I'm afraid that Zhang Ling would have been wiped out by now.

"It's come to this, let's stop Mingjin for the time being!" Xu Yixian saw that the rain was too strong, and there was a mud under the wall, and he had become a Zeguo, so he suggested to Zhang Xianzhong.

Zhang Xianzhong nodded helplessly, immediately turned the horse's head, and returned to the old camp first.

Although this sudden shower only fell for less than half an hour, it successfully solved the draft problem of the besieged officers and soldiers, and even more frustrated the morale of the besieged rebels. Although Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to storm for three days in a row, he could no longer shake this small walled city.

At the same time, under the advice of Zhang Kejian, the governor of Xiangyang, Zheng Chongjian, the governor of Shaanxi, finally gave up his previous wait-and-see attitude and made up his mind to reinforce the Sichuan army. He urgently ordered the generals Zhang Yingyuan and Wang Zhifeng to set off from Batai Mountain, and the deputy commander-in-chief He Renlong set off from Full Moon Mountain to attack Zhang Xianzhong.

On the eighth day of the first month of March, Zhang Xianzhong once again led the army to besiege Kejiaping, and the fierce battle was in full swing, when a deafening shout of killing suddenly came from the side and rear, and in just a moment, the entire army was rushed into two. It was Zhang Yingyuan and Wang Zhifeng, the generals of the Qin army, who attacked, in fact, they had already arrived at the battlefield before dawn, lurking silently in the dark, just waiting for the arrival of this fatal blow.

Seeing that the reinforcements arrived, Zhang Ling immediately ordered 2,000 soldiers to go out of the village to respond, and the Xiying Righteous Army could not care about each other for a while.

On the second day, Zhang Xianzhong led the remnants of the army to retreat to Hanxi Temple, and collided with the He Renlong Department, the two sides fought a big battle, Zhang Xianzhong was defeated again, losing more than 1,300 soldiers, and another general left battalion a dragon Xue Chengcai, the right battalion Shuntian King He Guoxian led 2,000 men and horses to surrender to He Renlong.

The officers and soldiers took advantage of the victory to pursue, and pursued all the way to Yanjing non-stop, along the way there were 651 more killed in the Xiying Righteous Army, seeing that the general trend had gone, the two tigers in the front camp also surrendered with 1,000 people.