The expected reinforcements did not appear on the battlefield.

After Luo Rucai was killed by a cannon, Zhao Yingyuan and Fan Dingge were defeated one after another, Zhao Yingyuan died in the chaos, and Fan Dingge panicked and fell into the White River and drowned. Li Rugui wanted to lead the horse army to escape, but he could chase and besiege more than 3,000 horse troops such as Feijie's left battalion, Feijie's right battalion, Liu Guangzuo, Zhou Yuji, etc., but seeing that there was no hope of breaking through, he had to dismount and be captured.

The official army waved the army to cover up and kill, and the direct killing was from Kuiying to Cui Ying, nearly ten miles of plains were full of Cao Ying's corpses, Zhou Yuji, Min Yiqi and Lang Qigui were particularly enthusiastic, competing to chase the thief, Zhao Yingdu Mingjin was still unwilling to stop, Zhao Dangshi personally drove the horse to persuade, and a group of officers and soldiers returned to Xinye County in triumph.

After the war, except for Zhou Jin's Zhenxiao battalion, which lost one or two hundred people due to the fierce battle with Li Rugui in Cui Ying for a long time in advance, the casualties of the officers and soldiers of the rest of the departments were not large, and they were all worth 300 people together. On the other hand, in Cao Ying, Luo Rucai, Luo Daien, Zhao Yingyuan, Fan Dingge, and Li Rugui, the leaders of Qu Shuai, were either killed or captured, and almost no one was spared. The soldiers were even more folded, with countless casualties and escapes, and there were more than 200 heads brought back by Zhou Yuji to invite merit. From this point of view, Cao Ying, like returning to the camp, has no possibility of revival.

The victory of the war was certainly gratifying, but what really left an imprint in Zhao Dangshi's heart was the twelve self-cast artillery pieces that finally defeated the enemy. At first, Zhao Ying's tactics were conservative, and he only relied on the power of artillery fire to attack the enemy, and if he had a victory, it was not outstanding. It was not until the soldiers of the Zhao Battalion took advantage of the mobility of the new artillery to quickly shift their deployment positions and unexpectedly caused devastating damage on the enemy's flank, that the artillery reform from planning to production began to emerge.

And what could be more comforting than that all the hard work has not been in vain? At present, the amount of newly cast artillery is far from reaching the standard, and the corresponding tactics have not been trained, and the artillery reform of the Zhao battalion still has a long way to go. But as long as the road ahead is full of hope, even if it is long, it is enough to encourage Zhao Dangshi to continue to persevere.

Although Cao Ying was defeated, Xinye County was still shrouded in a thick cloud of war. No one knows how Li Zicheng, who is entrenched in Nanyang Mansion City, will react to Luo Rucai's death.

Zhao Dangshi once again sent people to find the whereabouts of Liu Yuanbin's army. As soon as it was first reported, Liu Yuanbin had already led his army to arrive in Queshan County, Runing Prefecture, and all the generals were overjoyed when they heard it. But on the same day, the latter report suddenly extinguished the enthusiasm of the generals.

It turned out that Liu Yuanbin had learned that the city of Nanyang Mansion had fallen, and his already not very positive rescue mood had completely fallen to a low point, and he did not know the real situation in Nanyang Mansion. Because of the fear of catching up with the intruding army, the whole army walked in an extremely hurry, almost like a rout, the battalions of the army will not be controlled, Liu Yuanbin can not be suppressed, watching them kidnap women, rob the state and county, doubly miserable. Liu Yuanbin was afraid of being attacked by the government and the opposition, so in order to protect himself, he pushed many women who were forced to accompany the army into the river and drowned, trying to destroy the corpses and destroy the traces.

Zhao Dangshi is sure that Liu Yuanbin will soon be impeached by Ren Rui and others, who are not effective in rescue and commit such atrocities. The evidence is ironclad, and his position as the eunuch of the Yongwei battalion is over.

Zhou Yuji also knew this, and when he killed Cao Ying, he had a lot of pleasure raising his eyebrows, but unfortunately not long after the relief, the ugly behavior of Liu Yuanbin and the Yongwei Battalion made him fall into an ice cave, and he couldn't even raise his head in front of people in an instant. In fact, there are traces of this happening, Liu Yuanbin's subordinate Yongwei battalion was the first to recommend Sun Yingyuan as the chief, Sun Yingyuan obeyed the imperial court, respected Liu Yuanbin, and the rest of the generals also guarded themselves. Liu Yuanbin was overconfident, and sent Sun Yingyuan to Nanyang for the front first, only to rely on his own means to also govern the army obediently, but as soon as Sun Yingyuan died, the generals were in chaos, and he was at a loss, and he was inevitably exposed in the end.

One day after the defeat of Cao Ying, the officers and soldiers stationed in Xinye County received an unexpected good news - the intrusive army that had swept up the city of Nanyang did not continue to move south, but returned to central Henan north.

Li Zicheng fought Nanyang, one was to break the city and raise troops, one was to contact the threat of a tiger, and the other was to test Zhao Dangshi. Now that he has achieved these three goals, there is really no reason to enter again, unless he has the ambition to swallow Huguang. However, as Zhao Dangshi previously analyzed, the opponents of the invasion army in Henan are still ready to move, and Li Zicheng, who has placed officials in the occupied area of Henan and established a yamen, will not be reluctant to seek the near and far, and abandon the basics to fight for the bite of food that is not worth it at the moment despite the pressure of a full-scale war with Zhao Ying.

Zhou Yuji once lamented that the army was different from the original rogue, and Zhao Dangshi was even more peeficative, believing that at least Li Zicheng and a group of strategists at the highest level around him had completed the ideological transformation from "wandering to survive" to "fighting for world domination". Thinking determines the policy, Zhao Dangshi pretended to be as shocked as the generals, and there were not many waves in his heart.

Two days after the army went north, at the end of October, Zhao Dangshi and other officers and troops recovered the devastated Nanyang Mansion City. The army went quickly, and it was too late to destroy the city wall, even if the people were fluent and the treasury was empty, the city still had strategic value for Zhao Dangshi. At this time, all the generals decided that the army would not go south, and they were definitely shocked by the defeat and death of Luo Rucai. Naturally, they deserve the credit of "indirectly repelling the intruding army".

Zhao Ying was the main force to destroy Cao Ying, and he was also the mourner of Luo Rucai. Zhao Dangshi was humble and unscrupulous on the surface, accepting the praise and flattery of the generals, but in his heart he was constantly speculating about Li Zicheng's intention to allow Luo Rucai to lead the army to invade Xinye County. Even though Cao Ying's attachment to the camp is not so close, the scale of nearly 10,000 people is still a force and arm that cannot be ignored, and it is unreasonable to give up so easily. Zhao Dangshi thought at first that sending Luo Rucai to the door might be Li Zicheng's deliberate effort to ease the tension between the two parties caused by the attack on Nanyang, but when Zhao Dangshi finally figured out the context of the matter, he suddenly shuddered.

Completely abandoning his wishful thinking, Zhao Dangshi saw Li Zicheng's true intentions. The biggest possibility is that Li Zicheng wants to use Luo Rucai as a stepping stone to pull the door of northern Chu. Just imagine, Luo Rucai was defeated, and the first thought he had was Li Zicheng's disguised concession. In this way, Li Zicheng can be regarded as selling himself a favor, and with the many benefits of attacking Nanyang Mansion, he can easily ease the relationship with Zhao Ying, and continue to maintain the peaceful situation of the army in the south. This is the truth, and it is normal for people to work backwards from the facts. But if you think about it the other way around, if Zhao Ying is defeated, what will happen? Since the Zhao camp was defeated and the defense line was lost, Luo Rucai would definitely take advantage of the situation to attack northern Chu, how could the intruding army stand still and let the plastered place where the door was opened be ignored, it was nine times out of ten that the troops would continue to advance - the Zhao camp was undefeated, and it was better to go back to run Henan if it was involved in northern Chu. Zhao Ying was defeated, and then conservatively retired to Yuzhong, and handed over the fertile and rich northern Chu to others, which was short-sighted.

In other words, no matter which side wins, Li Zicheng can reap the benefits of the fisherman. In the final analysis, the two sides involved in the battle were unknowingly used as guns by Li Zicheng.

When he saw Li Zicheng for the first time, Zhao Dangshi felt that this person could not be disguised, and he cooperated many times in the future, and felt that he was indeed outstanding in military affairs, who would have thought that he had not seen him for many years, and at present, Li Zicheng's meticulous strategy and planning have gradually become perfect, even if he is assisted by outstanding strategists, it must be inseparable from his multifaceted growth. He Zhao Dangshi can go through trials and continue to improve, and the ups and downs are even worse than his Li Zicheng, why didn't he have the courage to lie down and improve day by day?

Fighting for the world is by no means an overnight thing, and whoever can persist until the end is the winner.

Nanyang Fucheng was successfully recovered, but there was a real problem next, that is, the problem of what to do with the officers and soldiers of Liu Guangzuo, Min Yiqi, Lang Qigui and Zhou Jin, who had lost their fierce control like a tiger.

The group of old generals with Fierce as Tiger as the core has not yet received official arrangements from the imperial court until the death of Fierce Tiger. Now that the fierce tiger is dead and the army is falling apart, it is very likely that the imperial court will take this opportunity to directly disband or repatriate the remnants of the people. For Liu Guangzuo, Min Yiqi, Lang Qigui and others, only with soldiers can they have a chance to play.

Liu Guangzuo was originally used to be a criminal, and if the army was disbanded, he could only unload his armor and return to the field. Therefore, he was the first to express his intention to Zhao Dangshi. Zhou Jin, who has always had a keen sense of politics, then expressed his willingness to be restrained by Zhao Dangshi through Liu Guangzuo, otherwise he could only go back to Chenzhou, where the poor mountains and bad waters would never come out, to be his overlord, or to make a good relationship and defect to the governor Ding Qirui. Compared with Zhao Dangshi, who has fought side by side for him, Ding Qirui is obviously not a good choice, and more importantly, Zhao Ying's foundation is in Huguang, he is a native of Huguang, and he is naturally kind.

The old generals of the Governor's Gate are all in a group, and since Liu and Zhou chose Zhao Ying, the weaker Min Yiqi and Lang Qigui also took refuge in Zhao Ying.

Now there is only Zhou Yuji left.

If Liu Yuanbin had been arrested a year ago, then the generals of the Yongwei Battalion, including Zhou Yuji, Zhang Cong, Ma Wenzhi, and Diao Mingzhong, would definitely have to be under the command of Lu Jiude, another eunuch in the prison army. The problem is that these generals are finally free from the constraints of their superiors, and they are not willing to be driven by others. Even if Lu Jiude relied on the power of the imperial court to forcibly control them, but the emperor was far away, they might not be obedient, and it was predictable that they would not be able to do anything wrong.

In other words, there are two paths in front of Zhou Yuji now. One is obedient to the imperial court, and is ready to defect to Lu Jiude after Liu Yuanbin is arrested; One starts anew and finds a way out.

Zhou Yuji is actually not an arrogant and arrogant person, but he has been immersed in the Yongwei camp for many years, and he knows the details of the so-called eunuchs of the prison army. He felt that whether it was Lu Jiude or Liu Yuanbin, the eunuchs leading the army were just blindly commanding with their backs to the imperial court. Expecting to accept their leadership to exterminate the gang is a fool's dream.

So two paths, he chose the latter. Find a way out again, the way out is obvious, only Zhao Ying'er.

Zhao Yingqiang is undoubted, and Zhao Dangshi let him see the ability and courage to annihilate thieves on a large scale. His heart is clear, if there is no Zhao Dangshi's careful planning and command, even if it is not the army but "Cao Cao" Luo Rucai, he will not be able to defeat these miscellaneous troops who are temporarily gathered together and panicked.

He reveres the strong and has a natural desire for victory, and it is clear that Zhao Ying is his best choice.