When Zhao Dangshi saw Liu Zongmin, who was wearing a hat and his face was full of stubble, he was squatting by a stream on the side of the road to eat. Even if he became a pioneer general in the camp, he was no longer the blacksmith who was bullied back then, but the habits he had developed over the years still made him feel most comfortable squatting and eating.

With just one face, Zhao Dangshi and Liu Zongmin laughed relatively. With this smile, a lot of rice grains splashed out of Liu Zongmin's mouth, and many of them stuck to his messy beard.

"Yo he, the kid surnamed Zhao is a lot more generous." Liu Zongmin ignored his image, swallowed the unfinished meal in one go, and licked the bottom of the bowl again.

"Hehe, Brother Liu, I haven't seen you for a long time." Zhao Dangshi hugged his fists. I think that at the beginning, when I first arrived at the camp, I was placed under Liu Zongmin's command, so speaking of which, this Liu Zongmin is still half of his old superior.

"Not bad, not bad." Liu Zongmin handed out the smooth and new rice bowl, clapped his hands and stood up, looking Zhao Dangshi up and down. He is not as tall as Zhao Dangshi, but he is better than his big shoulders and round waist, so the two of them stand together, but he looks a lot stronger, "Looking at the body, it is also much tougher, I think I have been here for the past two years, and I have eaten a lot of oil and water." ”

Liu Zongmin's words are so sharp and annoying, Zhao Dangshi learned it when he broke into the camp. He knew that Liu Zongmin was just straightforward and quick-witted, and he didn't have any malice, so he didn't feel at ease: "Big brother said that he was laughing, he was begging for a living with his life, and he didn't care what oil and water were or not." ”

Liu Zongmin pursed his lips, took off a few grains of rice on his beard, and looked behind Zhao Dangshi: "Huh? What about your people? He found that Zhao Dangshi didn't seem to bring many people.

"My people are all waiting for King Chuang in Baocheng, and my younger brother is here to visit first."

"Haha, interesting, interesting!" Liu Zongmin stroked his palms and laughed, "Whether the scout is handed over to the scouts, but you are the one who does it yourself, you Zhao Ying, it's very interesting." ”

Zhao Dangshi said with a smile: "That's nature. It's Brother Liu, and whoever is qualified for those scouts has to come to me for anything. said, adding, "Why don't you go to Baocheng tonight, the younger brother has prepared a banquet in the city, and it is specially designed for Brother Liu to pick up the wind and wash the dust." ”

Liu Zongmin laughed dryly and said, "Then there is no need, there are already more than 10,000 people in your Baocheng." The 2,000 or so men of my vanguard here squeezed over, and they were suffocated to death. I saw that the terrain was good, so I simply camped here, not far from Baocheng. The place where the two meet now is at the southern foot of Muchao Mountain in the north of Baocheng, less than 20 miles away from Baocheng.

"I don't know where King Chuang is now?"

Liu Zongmin scratched his teeth with his tongue and said vaguely: "It's not far from me, I will inform him when I find the place, and he will arrive in a few days." ”

Zhao Dangshi chatted with him for a while, and then turned back to the camp: "There are many fierce beasts and poisonous insects in the Qinling Mountains, and I am afraid that it will be uncomfortable when I come to Hanzhong over the mountains." ”

Liu Zongmin pointed to his crotch and scolded: "If you don't say it, I forgot." A few days ago, I was bitten by an unknown bed bug and it was very swollen. The quack doctor who was with him said that he would cut him with an axe, and I slaughtered him with one sword. Seeing that the lump disappeared in the past two days, I thought that the quack doctor wanted to take the opportunity to harm me. ”

Zhao Dangshi didn't want to hear this, but when he saw Liu Zongmin talking and began to rub his lower body in public, he was very uncomfortable, so he stopped turning around and asked directly: "I don't know how the brothers were injured along the way?" ”

"Huh?" When Liu Zongmin heard this, he raised his eyebrows and glanced at him, and said with a pout, "This Shaanxi is a person's head, and this Qinling is a comb inserted in a person's head." The whole battalion combed it, and the soft and bad ones were broken and dead, and the ones that remained were all hard and tough. With that, he yawned.

Zhao Dangshi heard that he seemed to have ulterior motives in his words, so he stopped asking about it, and in order to alleviate the embarrassing atmosphere, he asked: "But I don't know what happened to Gao Jie's traitor?" Gao Jie abducted Li Zicheng's wife, surrendered to the imperial court, and broke into the camp, hating her to the bone.

Liu Zongmin sneered and said: "This dog thief is hiding in the fart ditch of the crazy man, and he is stunned, as long as he dares to come out once, Lao Tzu will beat his dog head." As he spoke, he muttered to himself, "It's a pity that Mrs. Xing, what a good mother-in-law, why is she blind and follows this dog thief?" "He Maniac is He Renlong, the deputy general of Yansui, this person has a perverse and violent personality, and the behavior of the officers and soldiers under his command is no different from that of the rogues, and he is especially able to mingle with the rogues to do some persuasion and rebellion.

Zhao Dangshi sighed a few times, and Liu Zongmin said again: "However, not long ago, King Chuang accepted a new lady, surnamed Gao, compared to Mrs. Xing, whether it is heroic or courageous, she is even better. As he spoke, he laughed, "I'm afraid this can be regarded as a blessing in disguise haha." ”

At the beginning, Li Zicheng was able to succeed Gao Yingxiang and successfully become the king of Chuang, and the support of foreign camps like Zhao Dangshi was on the one hand, and on the other hand, an important reason was that he received the full assistance of his subordinates. The Eighth Team is a little different from the Zhao Battalion, if the Zhao Battalion has recently absorbed soldiers from Wu Dading, Zhang Miaoshou and other departments to make the organizational composition complicated, then the Eighth Team is like a big dye vat, which has been mixed with many various troops. Also as the head of a battalion, Li Zicheng, the real "King Chuang", is actually not as good as Zhao Dangshi's control over the troops.

Of course, this is not to say that he can't command his generals, but the power of the troops is essentially divided between a few generals who have supported him all the way. Even an old descendant general like Liu Zongmin also controls a considerable part of the descendant troops. Therefore, those who stand out do not necessarily really have real power, but for example, Lu Gang, Chongtian Peng, Fang Xianye, Liu Boqing, the underwater dragon, Mei Tielu, Mei Yuchun, etc., who rarely come out to see people, and are not famous voters, can be regarded as the people in power behind the scenes.

Liu Zongmin's nature is rough and straightforward, but because he knows the inside of the camp, he dares to repeatedly say Li Zicheng in front of others without caring at all.

Zhao Dangshi naturally couldn't figure out the details of the composition of the camp, but he knew that if the boss of the camp was Li Zicheng, then the second child was undoubtedly Liu Zongmin in front of him. Talking to this person, being cautious and cautious cannot be a little less than when facing Li Zicheng.

Liu Zongmin chatted with Zhao Dangshi for a few more words, and the soldiers over there came to report, saying that they were going to start camping and needed him to co-ordinate, and he was going to leave after hearing it. Zhao Dangshi gave a look to Pang Jinming behind him, Pang Jinming understood, carried a heavy green cloth package, and handed it to Liu Zongmin.

"This ......" Liu Zongmin weighed the weight of the package, and the leopard's eyes smiled into two small slits.

Zhao Dangshi arched his hand and said: "The younger brother is supported by Brother Liu, so that he can have today's results." Gratitude is beyond repayment, this little gift, please ask Brother Liu to smile. ”

"Well said, well said." Liu Zongmin squinted his eyes and smiled, looking much kinder than before, "When I finish arranging the camp, I will find an opportunity to find you to have a drink and talk about it." ”

Zhao Dangshi should accept it, and seeing Liu Zongmin swaggering away, Pang Jinming came up and said in a low voice: "Lord, the small ones under the right talent went around in circles, and reported that there were not 2,000 people surnamed Liu, and now here, counting the guys, at most a thousand people are on the spot." ”

"Got it." Zhao Dangshi nodded. Pang Jinming's report is actually very much in line with his previous expectations, as far as he estimates, Li Zicheng was defeated in Guanzhong, and he will not take too many people to flee into the Qinling Mountains in a panic, and after combing through the mountains and forests, less than five or six out of ten can finally come to Hanzhong.

However, on the other hand, those who have survived many hardships and dangers must also be the strongest and most tenacious warriors in the camp. Take these soldiers who broke into the camp brought by Liu Zongmin now, Zhao Dangshi found that they went up to the generals and down to the pawns, almost without exception, they were all one person with two horses or even three horses and four horses, and this alone was difficult for Zhao Ying to match.

Liu Tichun, a young man who came with Tian Jianxiu that day and stayed in Zhao Ying, also came this time, but he seemed to have a general relationship with Liu Zongmin, and even if they met, they didn't feel warm. It wasn't until later that he remembered that he wanted to give a horse to Zhao Ying for Li Zicheng, and despite Zhao Dangshi's dissuasion, he ran to Liu Zongmin to talk, but before he had time, he was full of loss and returned dejected. Needless to say, his request must have been for Liu Zongmin to call back - Li Zicheng's promise to let him fulfill it himself, want to knock my horse? There are no doors.

Zhao Dangshi waited for a while at the southern foot of Muchao Mountain, and saw that the Chuang army was in full swing and camped, and no one paid attention to him, so he returned to Baocheng. When I arrived in Baocheng, the scouts who scattered out came one after another, and two of them were more important. One is that there are soldiers and horses coming out of the valley near Hutou Pass. Hutou Pass is at the southern end of the Qinling Mountains, and there are several passes nearby, combined with Liu Zongmin's previous words, it can be concluded that these soldiers and horses out of the valley are the follow-up Li Zicheng's large army in the camp. The other is that the officers and troops of Lüyang have moved, and in the past two days, several large and small units of officers and soldiers have merged into Baocheng from the north. This is not difficult to understand, as soon as Li Zicheng left, northern Shaanxi and Guanzhong basically rested, and Hong Chengchou, in line with the principle of eliminating all evil, would naturally immediately plan a military operation against the gangsters in southern Shaanxi. With this policy as a guide, it was normal for some officers and troops closer to Lüyang to assemble in advance.

Although he sensed that the storm was coming, Zhao Dangshi was quite calm. He had already sent Hao Shaoqi, who had been in the right battalion of the first army, to return to Chu County as an outpost to keep an eye on Luoyang's every move. Combined with the calm and calm in other directions and the inaction of the officials and troops in the city of Hanzhong Prefecture, Zhao Dangshi judged that Hong Chengchou's next main direction would be Luoyang in the west.

After more than two months of rectification, the new organizational structure of the Zhao battalion was basically adjusted and stabilized, and the training work of all armies and departments began to be carried out in an orderly manner. Although among the injured group of senior generals, Bai Jiaolong and Bai Wang have not yet recovered and cannot be put into military affairs, under the instruction of Zhao Dangshi to "select some parts and refine them first", the military work of several other departments was the first to be carried out -- with the current time, energy, and equipment of Zhao Ying, it is absolutely impossible to unify and improve the combat effectiveness of all troops. Therefore, Zhao Dangshi first picked sharp knife troops like the left battalion of Wu Mingfeng of the old army, the front battalion of Guo Hutou of the first army, and the right battalion of Hao Shaoqi of the first army to focus on strength. Whether it is equipment rationing or personnel transfer, priority is given to these battalions. It can be said that so far, the entire army of Zhao Ying, which can be called a "capable army", can only barely count the 7,000 people of the three battalions of Wu Mingfeng, Guo Hutou, and Hao Shaoqi.

On the third day after returning to Baocheng, the Zhao camp began to plan and prepare for the transfer in full swing. Zhao Dangshi was only anxious to deal with several important tasks in the morning, and before he could eat lunch, the messenger who broke into the camp arrived. The messenger is none other than Tian Jianxiu.

Tian Jianxiu was concise and concise, and described the current situation of the camp: Liu Zongmin's vanguard troops had chosen a place to camp at the southern foot of Muchao Mountain, and Li Zicheng also led his old elite soldiers from the north to gather with him, and the rest of the troops had not yet all left the Qinling Mountains, and were still assembled at various valleys.

Compared with Liu Zongmin, Tian Jianxiu is a lot more honest, and he revealed to Zhao Dangshi that Li Zicheng now has less than 2,000 people in Muchao Mountain. Zhao Dangshi heard a deeper meaning from his words: Li Zicheng, who has a great reputation and can be called the first person in today's rogues, has only 2,000 old soldiers who rely on him as the foundation and the most powerful soldiers.

Relying only on this backbone, he can turn northern Shaanxi upside down, and he has been confronting Hong Chengchou for so long, Zhao Dangshi asked himself, he can't do it. Heroes, heroes and even traitors can be called "heroes" because they can do things that are very unattainable. The one with the highest means is "British", the second is "Tyrant", and the most despicable is "Treacherous". Zhao Dangshi felt that Li Zicheng had deserved to be a hero only by insisting on staying behind when most of the friendly troops had withdrawn from Shaanxi and Gao Yingxiang was also defeated, and had survived in the net of the official army. And he Zhao is alive, and he can't reach the word "Xiong".

Tian Jianxiu roughly explained the situation, and then took out an invitation card from his arms. I don't know where this invitation came from the wedding, and a large piece of it was altered to cover up the original text. The margins next to it are filled with text. The content of the text is to invite Zhao Dangshi to go to Muchao Mountain tomorrow night to have a banquet with Li Zicheng and the generals who broke into the camp.