The cold wind was fierce, the dead leaves were swept in the cold wind, and a flock of crows and vultures came over the broken earthen walls, hovering in the air, looking down and searching for the dead bodies on the ground.

Under the city, among the dead corpses everywhere, countless crows and vultures are greedily devouring the corpses, these birds falling from the sky, flapping their wings in the middle of the corpse pile, tearing, pecking at the corpses, and then swallowing urgently, the corpses under the city seem to have become a living bird mountain, the sky is dark, and the dust is rolling. More crows and vultures hovered in the air, and then fell from the sky, and finally the body had disappeared in their wombs.

At this moment, suddenly there was a burst of artillery in the distance, in the sound of cannons, thousands of crows and vultures were frightened into the air, and the ruined Guancheng trembled again in the shelling, and for a time the rammed earth collapsed, and the loess flew up......

As the bricks and earth collapsed in the shelling, hundreds of Ming soldiers scattered behind the broken arrow stacks at the head of the city, their clothes shabby, sitting against the wall, they either sighed loudly, or closed their eyes and waited for death, and there were even those who looked up to the sky and prayed, their eyes full of despair.

At this moment, I don't know who shouted.

"Mr. Zhou is here!"

Originally, the soldiers who looked numb and sighed for a long time all stood up one after another and saluted the general soldiers who came over.

Zhou Yuji, who was dressed in broken armor, smiled at the soldiers and strong men on the city.

"The brethren have worked hard."

As he spoke, his shriveled eyes, his bloodshot eyes, looked at everyone, and when everyone returned the salute, he said again.

"Rest assured, brothers, I have sent a messenger to ask the imperial court to send reinforcements, and the reinforcements from the imperial court will arrive at Ningwu Pass in a few days, and the general of Pingyu has already leveled the thieves, and he will wave his army to the Northern Expedition in the near future, recover Xiangyang, and take the Central Plains directly, and the thieves will definitely suffer from ......the enemy at that time."

Are these words true?

It's all fake!

But now Zhou Yuji needs these lies to appease the army, and he needs to let them see hope, there are only a few thousand people under his command, and many of them are ordinary people, and they can defend until now, completely because the gate of Ningwu Pass is difficult to attack, but now, this city wall can last for a few days?

Listening to the rumbling sound of cannons and feeling the tremor of the cracks of the bricks of the foot city, Zhou Yuji's brows were locked, and he looked to the northeast again, thinking in his heart.

"When will the reinforcements from this imperial court arrive?"

At this moment, he saw that the dust outside the city was suddenly flying, and he saw that the shadow of the horse was galloping in the dust, and the momentum of thousands of cavalry galloping was very terrifying!

It must be the thief general!

It really made Zhou Yuji guess right, the general who was bound to break into the thieves protected by the thousands of horses, the soldiers were all wearing armor, although the armor was dusty, but the face was neat, without the slightest tiredness, and the leader of the leading figure rushed up the dirt slope more than a mile away from the city, and Lema stared at the city, his eyes were blazing, majestic and majestic, so that people did not dare to face it, but in this blazing gaze, there was a slight trace of worry.

It's been five days!

A small Ningwu Pass blocked hundreds of thousands of troops for five days!

In five days, the army suffered tens of thousands of casualties!

Even if it is claimed to have a million troops, Li Zicheng is also frightened by the bitter battle in front of him, if the generals of the Ming Dynasty are like this, then the capital will definitely not be able to take it!

Even yesterday, it was another fiasco, that Zhou Yuji opened the city gate and surrendered, lured more than 10,000 people of the Dashun army into the city, and then closed the gate, killed the four generals of the Dashun army in the urn city, and killed the Dashun army in the city.

"This Zhou Yuji! That's amazing! If you don't kill him, how can you vent the hatred in my heart! ”

When Li Zicheng was talking to himself, Sun Ke on the side persuaded him softly.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that he can spare Zhou Yuji's life."

"Oh? Why is that? He Zhou Yuji killed more than 10,000 people in my Dashun army in Daizhou, Yu Ningwuguan refused to surrender, I have already said that I will not go down for five days, slaughter the city, and the chickens and dogs will not be left, why should I leave him Zhou Yuji a dog's life. ”

Slaughter the city!

For Li Zicheng, it is not a big deal to give such an order, after all, this is the "magic weapon" of the rogue, and the purpose of slaughtering the city is not to slaughter, but to "intimidate", to tell others what price it takes to resist.

Since he said that he wanted to slaughter Ning Wuguan, he naturally couldn't give up easily.

"Your Majesty, Zhou Yuji may not know the current affairs, but the emperor, that Zhou Yuji was born in Liaodong Jiangmen, although the Zhou family is not a prominent family in Liaodong, but between Liaodong Jiangmen, there is always a kinship, if the emperor can spare him from dying, when he surrenders Liaodong Jiangmen in the future, he may be able to come in handy."

The prime minister's words made Li Zicheng say with some displeasure.

"The prime minister means that I will spare his life?"

"The minister wants the emperor to be able to buy bones, Liaodong generals have 200,000 male soldiers, all of whom are the elite of the border army, if they can be recruited, they can use it to crusade against the Pingyu army, Zhou Yuji may not know the current affairs, but the Liaodong generals see people like Zhou Yuji who do not know the current affairs, the emperor can spare him from dying, and he is naturally willing to surrender to my Dashun, with the help of the 200,000 border troops in Liaodong, the Pingyu army is naturally not afraid!"

Sun Ke's persuasion made Li Zicheng fall into contemplation, and now he is not him a few months later, and Li Zicheng at this time can also listen to the advice of others.

However, thinking that Zhou Yuji killed tens of thousands of his soldiers and horses, Li Zicheng still said unwillingly.

"What about Ning Wuguan?"

Sun Ke replied.

"Since you should slaughter everything, the old and the young will not leave a mouthful."

Li Zicheng asked again.

"What if Zhou Yuji doesn't descend?"

"He is bound to not surrender, the emperor just imprisons him in a prisoner car, in the opinion of the ministers, as long as I conquer the capital, when the time comes, he will definitely surrender."

Zhang Tianlin, who was on the side, also said.

"Your Majesty, let's attack Ningwu Pass this time, in order to be the division of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, after defeating Ningwu Pass, the general army of Datong and the general army of Xuancheng, seeing that the emperor can spare him from dying, they will surrender to my Dashun, so that we can go east to the capital, and we will not worry about the return of the Xuanda Ming army to aid the capital!"

In Taiyuan, Li Zicheng, Song Xiance, Sun Ke and others formulated the offensive line is very strategic, if after capturing Taiyuan, directly go to Zhending to attack the capital, there will inevitably be Xuancheng, Datong's strong army back to Kyoto, and first take Ningwu Pass, and then annihilate Xuan, the main force, it will cut off the main way of Qinwang's division, and the reinforcements in other places will be beyond the reach of the whip.

It's just that the bones of this Ningwu Pass guard are too hard, in the past fifteen days, with the danger of Ningwu Pass, killing and injuring tens of thousands of his troops, if the heavy casualties are far beyond his expectations, if the Xuanda Ming army is like the Ningguan defenders to resist desperately, I am afraid that before they reach the capital, the Dashun army has been greatly injured, what is this crusade eastward?

"Will they fall?"

Li Zicheng asked rhetorically.

"Now that Ningwu has not been broken, our army has already suffered too many casualties, since then to the Beijing Division, as well as Datong, Xuanfu, Juyongguan heavy troops hundreds of thousands, if they are all the same as Zhou Yuji of Ningwu Pass, even if there are millions of troops, I am afraid that they will be greatly injured, if so, it is better to return to Shaanxi, guard Tongguan and plan for the future."

Again, Li Zicheng felt a hint of retreat in his heart, and as soon as his words fell, Song Xiance said.

"Why should the emperor bother, now the city of Ningwu Pass is cracked, and the city is broken today and tomorrow, as long as the Ningwu Pass is laid, the Xuanda Ming army will surrender ......"

After that, Song Xiance said again.

"Whether it's Datong Jiang Jiu or Wang Chengyun of Xuanfu, none of them killed the messenger we sent to persuade them to surrender, only Zhou Yuji killed the surrender general Xiong Tong, it can be seen that they already have different intentions, as long as they take Ningwu Pass, he will definitely surrender!"

So saying, he glanced at the city again,

"It's just that this week Yuji, when the emperor sent Xiong Tong to persuade him to surrender, he not only did not surrender, but killed him, which is really hateful, in the opinion of the minister, he should be killed!"

"Your Majesty, even if you kill him to vent his hatred, what's the use?"

Sun Ke hurriedly argued.

"Killing him is just venting his anger, but keeping him can use him to convince everyone in the world, and use him to persuade those Ming generals to surrender to us, and leave one person to win the world, Your Majesty, is there a more cost-effective good thing in the world?"