In November, Yang Sichang led his army into Chongqing. The former general soldier of the supervising army 10,000 yuan Ji was as fierce as a tiger as the president, Zhang Yingyuan was the deputy, led the army to Mianzhou, and assigned the generals to guard the key places, Yuan Ji from the small road to the flood, and waited for the righteous army in Pengxi. The righteous army was stationed in Anyue boundary, and when they detected the arrival of the official army, they retreated to Neijiang, like a tiger chasing them, and Yuanji and Ying Yuan were held under Anyue City.

In the same month, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, led the local peasant army of Henan Province, known as the Tukou army, numbering hundreds of thousands, in the western Henan province of Lianpo Lushan, Jiaxian, Yiyang, Yiyang, Yanshi, Lingbao, and Zhuxian, and the officers and soldiers suffered defeats. He also broke through Yongning City and executed the vassal king Wan'an in the city and many officials and gentry in the city.

has long been cornered by years of natural disasters, coupled with the eight princes of Henan and many large gentry and gentry, and the powerful landlords have been sucking the bones and sucking the marrow and oppressing, the hungry people in Henan have long been everywhere. Now I see people attacking the city and breaking the village, and those high-ranking old men in the past have become ghosts under the knife in a blink of an eye.

For a time, "eat his mother, wear his mother, open the door to meet the king, and when the king comes, he will not pay food." "Seeking ascension in the morning, seeking harmony in the evening, it is difficult for the poor to survive recently. Open the door early to worship the king, and the discipline is happy for everyone big and small. It was sung from the Funiu Mountains in western Henan and quickly spread to central and eastern Henan.

So far, in addition to Luoyang City, the entire Henan Province has been owned by more than a dozen prefectures and counties. The momentum of breaking into the camp has reached the highest peak since the breakthrough of Fengyang! The military progress was so smooth, coupled with the surrender of Henan literati such as Li Yan brothers, Niu Jinxing, and Song Xiance, Song Xiance even offered "eighteen sons." The proverb of "the main artifact" made Li Zicheng's thinking begin to change, with the help of local heroes in Henan, this Henan can also become the foundation of the camp, and it can also be used to fight the country and win the world. His old Zhu family is just a wild monk who has no degree, and Lao Tzu is also a post pawn, how can he be much better than him, right? !

Therefore, he changed the old days of attacking cities and destroying villages only for money, food and property, and began to strictly enforce military discipline: "Whoever kills one person is like killing my father, and whoever fornicates one person is like adultering my mother." ”

Li Yan also made up "Yingwen King" for him. No food" and other ballads. And put forward slogans such as "Juntian free grain", so that his army developed rapidly. In every city he went, there were hungry people who were willing to respond to him, so that he could conquer the city. It can be described as effortless.

But. A great deal of money and goods found in these cities. Even some people, the generals who broke into the camp were not allowed to supervise the soldiers not to destroy or deface. Be careful with your dots. It was tightly bundled and wrapped and handed over to those who were loyal to the camp, and transported to Luoyang, Kaifeng Mansion and other places by camel caravans, and handed over to the Nanzhong merchants who opened shops here, and then exchanged for urgently needed weapons, gunpowder, cloth, salt, medicine, pig iron and other materials.

However, batches of mules transported a large amount of property and exchanged it for an equally large amount of armor, knives, guns, gunpowder, cloth, salt, medicine, and firearms, and quickly equipped the old camp of Li Zicheng's camp more and more neatly. Jiaolong leather armor has become the standard equipment of the soldiers in the old battalion, and cotton armor and hood armor have been eliminated to the horse army and the cavalry troops in large quantities. The officers and generals of the old battalion have all changed their iron armor, and the leaders of the children's soldiers such as Li Shuangxi, Zhang Nai, Wang Si, and Luo Hu have all changed into shining steel armor.

Peripheral troops, such as the infantry and the horse, were also well equipped, half of which came from the captured treasury of the city, and the other half from the trade activities that prevailed in Tonglong. With the expansion of the old battalion and the cavalry, a large number of weapons were constantly eliminated to the periphery of the infantry and horse army.

The camp also learned from Zhang Xianzhong, and began to set up a separate firearms unit in the old camp, six-pounder guns, three-pounder guns, big Buddha machines, guns, and various kinds of artillery collected from various cities, which were incorporated into the firearms camp in one go. Zhang Nai, who is also Li Zicheng's adopted son, like Li Shuangxi, became the commander of the firearms battalion.

These firearms, especially the six-pounder and three-pounder guns, played a huge role in the battle in the Funiu Mountains against the earthen enclosures built by the county towns and gentry who had raised funds.

"In the past, we broke a fence and opened a county town, so why did we break into the camp and throw in hundreds of people, and we had to take dozens of old brothers, but now with these artillery, at most we can lose some hungry people and pour them into the city!"

The three-pounder cannon was even more powerful in the military campaign against those gentry.

Today's Henan gentry have understood the truth of "small chaos in the city and big chaos in the countryside", and have chosen dangerous terrain in Funiu Mountain to build a walled village, and a large number of gold, silver, fine and soft grain and property are stored in the village. For those who are even more afraid of death, they build houses in caves to live in, and cut roads in dangerous places to enter and exit with suspension bridges.

These methods can certainly ensure safety when not all the cold weapons can be equipped against the bandits and poles, but in the face of three-pounder guns and firearms, these geographical advantages pale in comparison.

The three-pounder cannon fired a few rounds to knock out the defensive pillboxes at the entrance of the enclosure or cave, and then the musketeers stepped forward to suppress them, and the infantry took the opportunity to lay ladders or long planks on the trenches, and a fortress or cave that was known as a strong and dangerous fortress or cave was breached, and a large amount of money and food returned to the camp.

All of these seizures, in addition to being used to raise troops and provide relief to the victims, are used in the arms trade in order to enter a new virtuous cycle. For a time, in Henan, where disasters and famines were everywhere and hungry people were everywhere, the momentum of breaking into the camp was unprecedented.

"Brother Ang, how many things can I get back this trip to Kaifeng Mansion?"

On the road leading from Ruzhou to Kaifeng, hundreds of war horses kicked up dust on the potholed post road, guarding hundreds of large and small vehicles, which were full of large and small cages. Walking on the flat, dry yellow earth as far as the eye can see. After the cavalry, more infantry flanked the flanks of the vehicle, kicking up a cloud of dust.

At this time, it is the end of the year, look up, full of hazel barrenness, the fields are desolate, on the road leading to the provincial capital Kaifeng Mansion of Henan Province in a year of severe drought, there are drought cracks everywhere, the grass and trees are withered and yellow, the grass and trees are scorched everywhere, the mountain trees seen are all white-flowered, the fluffy grass is eaten up, the bark is eaten up, and even the grass roots are dug up.

In the middle of the field, by the roadside. Everywhere there were starving people who had fallen to the ground, and there were hordes of refugees fleeing the famine, dressed in tattered cotton, with straw ropes tied around their waists, carrying their own black and tattered quilts, and on them were scrawny and shivering children at home.

Because of the severe drought, several rivers with a large amount of water and a very wide surface are left with only shallow water, and even some sections of the river have cracked. waist-deep withered yellow thatch. Undulating along the terrain.

This scene made Zhang Nai, who was escorting the seized property to Kaifeng with Wu Ruyi, a little shocked. After many years of following King Chuang's expedition to the north and south, surviving in the sea of blood in the sword mountain, these early child soldiers have long been trained to be indifferent to life and death, but that is on the battlefield. When he saw the hopeless waiting of the living people for the extremely cruel and painful process of death. I can't help but be moved.

It is true that human life is like a mustard.

"Angkor. If you and I hadn't followed King Chuang's uprising, I was afraid that my hometown in Shaanxi would also be a corpse in this starvation! Zhang Nai, while ordering his soldiers to dig a pit and bury several corpses lying on the road, talked with Wu Ruyi, the head of the Chinese army, with great feelings.

Speak from the mouth. In the nostrils, however, there was a growing and disgusting smell of corpses, and through the thatch, and through some mounds, both of them could see that in the haystacks in front of them, on the edge of the river, and in the river, there were rotting corpses, men, women, and children, exuding, a strong, disgusting stench.

These corpses, who may have been dead for a long time, are still rotting corpses even though the weather is still cold, and their bodies are all black and brown striped clothes, and their hair is also dirty and glued into lumps, and they look stiff.

Fat maggots, which emerge from them from time to time, and some wild dogs, are gnawing and dragging some internal organs all over the ground, without exception. The eyes of these wild dogs were full of green light.

A corpse, which seemed to be a woman, sat on her corpse with a baby wrapped in a small quilt, in his mouth, babbling and muttering, from time to time happily grabbing, from time to time cheerfully grabbing the fat maggots that emerged from his mother's body, and then his little hands, holding the maggots that were still wriggling, sent into his small mouth, the maggots with white flowers, struggling in his small mouth, and some sticky liquid, from time to time flowed down.

This scene made Zhang Nai and the others nauseate for a while.

"Kill!"

With swords and spears down, the two led their own soldiers to kill the group of wild dogs, and dug and buried the more than 100 corpses in front of them one by one.

"Little Master Zhang, there is a group of displaced people in the woods on the other side of the river, about thousands of people!" A Bian Ma Shi chief in charge of patrolling the post informed Zhang Nai of the new situation.

"Get their leader!"

Zhang Nai saw very clearly that most of the displaced people were skinny and ragged, especially many women and children, and their clothes were torn like sacks, revealing their black skin inside. The cold wind blew, and pieces of rags kept flying, revealing the skin that could not be covered, making these people curl up and look more and more cringe. The word shame was no longer visible in them, and there was only numbness or hunger in their eyes.

Many of the displaced people are dying of hunger, look at their appearance. Zhang Nai's heart was even more sour.

Once upon a time, I was the same homeless as them, and I didn't know what tomorrow would bring, maybe one day I would become an insignificant corpse on the side of the road starving, abandoning the corpse in a foreign land, and being a lonely ghost who could not return home after death. If there is a little hope of survival, I will not join the ranks of rebellion with my father and brother.

"People say we're thieves, but they don't know that we're good people. If we have a mouthful of gruel to drink, we will not harden our hearts and rob the house! ”

Wu Ruyi's words resonated with Zhang Nai: "Brother Ang, the official family said that we are thieves who kill people without blinking, and Lao Tzu will prove it to these people today." Who is the thief who should be killed! ”

At the sound of an order, Zhang Nai left behind fifty cavalry and two hundred infantry, and at the same time left a dozen stone of grain.

"Cook porridge and drink, everyone saves a little, and you can go to Funiu Mountain. When you go to Funiu Mountain and see my father, King Li Chuang, you will have a way to live! ”

While beckoning the thousands of hungry people to drink gruel, Zhang Nai arranged for the thousands of homeless people to form a line according to the current practice of breaking into the camp. He appointed the commander of the army, the chief of the sentry, and arranged several of his and Wu Ruyi's personal soldiers into officers such as the head of the department, the commander of the flag, and the commander of the commander, and ordered them to send these thousands of people back to Funiu Mountain.

"Little Nai, now there is famine everywhere in Henan, and there are countless victims, hungry people, and displaced people. Your relief is really a drop in the bucket. Watching Zhang Nai finish these things, he set off again on the way to Kaifeng. Wu Ruyi couldn't help but sigh and then told Zhang Nai what he wanted.

"The current plan, from the things in front of us, is that we hurry to Kaifeng, hand over these goods to the treasurer of Nanzhong Chen, and exchange them for knives, guns, armor and other things, so that those large and small horse thieves, mountain bandits, swordsmen, and poles that belong to us will become our horsemen and old camp horses faster. Only King Chuang's strength is greater. Occupy this Henan Mansion and Henan Eight Mansions, and these victims can have a good life! ”

In the final analysis, it is better to expand the strength first.

Among Li Zicheng's camps, the most powerful ones are the more than 3,000 old battalions that followed him all the way from Xunyang and Shangluo. These veteran battalion soldiers who followed Li Zicheng to fight in various places not only could not be dispersed, nor did they follow the banner of breaking the word with all their hearts. And the battlefield experience is very rich. You don't need a command from a commander to know what you should do according to the shape of the battlefield.

In addition to these old camps. In the past few months, they have newly recruited elite horsemen from the Tukou and small poles in western Henan, these people can ride horses and know how to fight on horses. It's a ride. Then there were those with horses, all called horse soldiers, and the rest were foot soldiers or hungry people who were called coerced by Henan officials.

In fact, there is no coercion at all, for those hungry people who feed themselves on the bark of grass roots and trees to survive, the temptation of a pot of rice and a bowl of hot porridge is much more terrifying than death. They will vote with their feet following the food. The larger the number of people, the larger the base of choices. With enough soldiers, coupled with a steady stream of weapons replenishment, the strength and combat effectiveness of the camp have increased rapidly. As far as the officers and men of Henan are concerned, the troops that break into the camp are much stronger than any of the rogue bandits, and the old battalion can easily defeat the families of the battalions in Henan, and the combat effectiveness of those horsemen is now comparable to that of the generals of the battalions, or even slightly stronger.

The purpose of the two's trip is to break through Ruzhou and pull out this last nail on the periphery of Henan Mansion! In order to conquer Ruzhou and attack Luoyang in the future, Zhang Nai and Wu Ruyi's purchase list accounted for the majority of the amount of gunpowder.

Within a few days, the two of them saw the symbol of Kaifeng Mansion from a distance - the iron tower.

In the notes of the Ming people, Kaifeng was commented on: "To the south of Beijing, Henan is in the middle of the world, and Kaifeng is also the capital." Go north to Weizhang, Dajingqi; East along Biansi, turn to Jianghan, the turn of the car and horse, reach the Quartet, businessmen and musicians. In addition to the Yellow River water transport, Kaifeng's land transportation is also very developed, at that time out of Caomen, Songmen, West Gate, North Gate, South Gate can be connected to Shandong, Jiangnan, Shaanxi, Huguang and other places. Therefore, at that time, Kaifeng was known as "five gates and six roads, eight provinces".

Kaifeng is the capital of Henan Province, there are Henan political divisions, Kaifeng government and officials at all levels, a large number of officials and their families are in the city, as well as a large number of retired eunuchs, squire residences. With Xiangfu County as the attached Guo, the yamen of the provincial, government and county three pole official offices gather in one place, and the official offices are all in the southwest of the Zhou Wangfu. With the Bell Tower as the center, the Chief Secretary for Administration is located on the West Street of the Bell Tower, and the Command and Embassy Office is located on the East Street of the Bell Tower, and there are Divisions such as the Judicial Division, the Prison Division, the Governor's Office, and the Experience Division.

In addition to these, Kaifeng City has its specialty, the vassal palace. In "Zhongzhou Miscellaneous", it is said: "The Henan domains in the Ming Dynasty are the most horizontal. Bianliang (Kaifeng) has seventy-two princes, children born in the field, all into the office. ”

Among the feudal domains, the king of Zhou is the most will be born, its fief is Kaifeng Mansion, multiply to the present, the descendants of the Zhou royal family have more than 5,000 people, there are forty-eight who are crowned as the king of the county, there are many palaces in the city, in addition to the palace of Zhou, there are Qujing Palace, Huating Palace, Yuanwu Palace, Ruijin Mansion and so on.

Each prince and county king has a special civil and military official and soldier service. The entire Kaifeng Mansion can be said to be centered on the Zhou Palace, and the officials and soldiers who serve them, large and small, plus the common people and merchants who operate around them, constitute various groups of the Kaifeng population.

The development of transportation, coupled with the consumption of a large number of urban populations, especially a large number of nobles with the royal family as the core, led to the development of commercial trade. Three streets and six cities, shops pù merchants, along the street continuously, the prosperity of Cheng dù is almost not reduced in the Northern Song Dynasty. "From Guandi Temple Street, to the south is Xinglong Bridge, there is a photo Fangjia painting gallery, to the archway of Xiting Mansion, there are belts, hand towels, large and small shoes and hats, loose strings, hairpins, department stores and other shops." "Turning to the north of the east road, there are colorful headlines, teeth, sweat towels, copper hairpin buckles, hotels, coppersmiths, and finishing pipa strings." "Tea alley, there are ready-to-wear, shochu, leather gold, groceries, southern wine, medicinal herbs and other shops, fungus shops, taverns to the east." "Dashan Goods Store Street, there are grocery stores, pawn shops, Cambodian shops, and gold shops." Qiao Sanfu Hutong "has fried yellow pills, dumping, gold, and Zhengsheng brand stores". Black Ink Hutong "has baked cakes, cold wine, and miscellaneous goods". To the west of Dadian Street, "there are miscellaneous vegetables and groceries such as pine shops in the south of the road." …… The Great Patriarch Temple, the Dawang Temple, Beijing, Hangzhou, Qing, Yang and other places transported thick and thin fans, monks' hats, head grates, kudzu scarves, white wax and other goods." "At the entrance of the small mountain goods store, to the west, there are grocery stores and inns." To the west of the north entrance of the grass three pavilions, "there are sheepskin gold, flying gold, leather gold, headlines, teeth, copper tin hairpin buckles and other shops. West back to the main street". "To the south of the street, there are restaurants, brushing, engraving clothes, making jade books, and publishing boards." To the west of the drum tower, there are "merchants from all over the world, piling up groceries and other things, and they are congested every day." The taverns on each street are full of guests, singing for fun, and the two are scattered". "The bell tower is east to the south, there are money tables, cold grapes, lap burning, etc., wine, rouge, silver shops, and large halls sell pork soup, garlic noodles, and meat noodles, all the food is delicious, and the county is well-known."

All kinds of rice from Zhengzhou, Huixian, Guangzhou, Gushi, Liangguang, Fujian and other places, charcoal from Shaanzhou, handkerchiefs from Linqing, boxwood from Sichuan, lychee and pine silver from Fujian, Xia cloth from Jiyang, new chintz cloth from Songjiang, and "Xirong" and "mink" from far away, etc., in the Kaifeng market with Kaifeng local production of famous handicraft products, such as the famous Dingji of Madao Street, and leather box box, crown with a box, stationery hairpin box, seven-inch pillow box and other goods, are heavy copper ornaments, brush teeth, tongue and eyebrows to sweep the fragrance and elegance, It's all in one place. Merchants from Beijing, Linqing, Nanjing, Tai'an, Jining, and Yanzhou came and sold continuously.

Wu Ruyi led Zhang Nai, who was familiar with the way, bypassed the river embankment, dismounted in front of a five-bay shop, and ordered the accompanying more than 20 personal soldiers dressed as family members to tie up the horses. There were already deacons waiting in front of the door, leading the soldiers to the courtyard to arrange food and feed the horses, not to mention it.

"Shopkeeper Chen, the goods we broke into the camp have arrived. When will the five thousand barrels of gunpowder you promised me, the two hundred thousand pieces of cotton cloth, arrive in Kaifeng? ”

Wu Ruyi gets straight to the point, he and Chen Guoxi are also old acquaintances, so naturally they don't need that kind of fake and polite intimacy.

"Goods? It has already arrived in Bianliang. Naturally, gunpowder can't be placed in the city, so I put it in the Fanta Temple outside the city! ”

What the? You put such a thing as gunpowder in the temple? This approach really made Wu Ruyi and Zhang Nai feel incredible.

"What's so strange about that. Those bald donkeys who have no Amitabha Buddha in their mouths actually recite the mantra of the cross, and the monks do not love money, and the more the merrier. I give them more incense and silver, and I put some gunpowder, even if I put thousands of women from good families, they won't ask! I can't say it, the abbot will pick a few of them to say joy Zen! ”

Chen Guoxi rolled his eyelids and expressed his disdain for those bald donkeys who were full of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but such rebellious words resonated with Zhang Nai.

"The big shopkeeper is right! When I came from Dengfeng, several of my brothers who worked as tenants and long-term laborers for the local big temples once told me a local folk song in Dengfeng, 'Monks don't bite when they enter the door!' It's about these bald donkeys, who go to the tenants' houses to demand rent, drink wine, eat meat, and engage women! Damn it! said that our Lao Tzu is a thief, so what is this group of bald donkeys with clear rules and precepts? The daughter-in-law who finally saved up money to marry, the monk in charge of Zhuangzi had to sleep first! ”

"Little Zhang." Chen Guoxi fanned his huge nostrils and smiled with a huge tooth, "But this group of bald donkeys is also good for being greedy for money." This Fanta Temple is the lower courtyard of the temple in Dengfeng, and the presiding monk and the abbot over there, Monk Yongxin, are the same brothers. Letters have been written to him that our future armor, armaments, etc., can be stored in their temples. Just give them some incense money! ”

After saying this, Wu Ruyi was so shocked that he almost jumped up.

"Do they know it's for us to break into the camp?"

"Manager Wu, this group of bald donkeys is not stupid, we have tens of thousands of weapons and thousands of sets of armor at every turn, in today's Henan, in addition to King Chuang, who else has such a powerful faction? It's too late for them to break into the king, where do they dare to have any different intentions?! (To be continued......)