"There is a Cao in the army, and the western thief is terrified when he hears it."

Since Chongzhen's three years into Shaanxi to suppress the Kou, Cao Wenzhao has fought countless battles large and small, not only to defeat Wang Jiayin, Lighting the Lamp, Red Army Friends, Flying All over the sky and other rampant robbers, but also to die in his hands of countless small Kou, with him everywhere, far and near hundreds of miles of peace, can be called the most feared official generals.

In May of this year, Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, and Zhang Xianzhong, the eight kings of Xiying, joined forces to besiege Fengxiang, trying to forcibly open a gap, and at the same time made an appointment with Tianxing Zhang Tianlin and Scorpion Block Tuoyangkun to besiege Pingliang in order to divide the official army. Hong Chengchou of Xi'an, who was stationed in Xi'an, saw the move and sent Liu Chenggong to rescue Ai Wannian in Pingliang, Zhang Quanchang and He Renlong to relieve the siege of Fengxiang.

King Chuang retreated, Hong Chengchou personally pursued north with Cao Wenzhao as the vanguard, and Zhang Quanchang and He Renlong advanced westward. But the heavens did not fulfill people's wishes, first Zhang and He Er were ambushed and defeated in Zhangjiachuan in Qingshui, and then Liu and Ai Er were also attracted by the retreating rogues, pursued from Pingliang to Xiangle, and were besieged in Bajiazhai, which was also defeated. Ai Wannian himself was also killed in battle.

As a result, both sides were frustrated, and the momentum of the officials and troops was stagnant, so Hong Chengchou hesitated. But Cao Wenzhao didn't care, and he insisted that he should continue to advance north. As a result, a disagreement arose between the two. In fact, Cao Wenzhao and Hong Chengchou did not deal with each other for a long time, and Wu Fu, who served as the governor of Shaanxi in the early years, once saw that the two were discordant, and asked the reason privately, Cao Wenzhao replied: "The government is a person, Xu Xiaoren is a small person, the royal soldier has no sincerity, and there is no heroic and decisive decision." Wen Zhao has been in the army for several years, and no one is recorded as a meritorious general. "I probably think that Hong Chengchou is poorly appreciated, and at the same time, he also underestimates the command of this literati.

Although Cao Wenzhao, who was born in the Guan Ning Army, is loyal and courageous, it is inevitable that there are many martial artists with similar domineering personalities, and it is normal to look down on Hong Chengchou, and Hong Chengchou himself knows it. Cao Wenzhao was the chief soldier of Shanxi earlier, and now he is the general army of aiding and suppressing, and he is not controlled by Hong Chengchou, so usually the two of them can cooperate if they can cooperate, Cao Wenzhao does not want to cooperate, and Hong Chengchou has no choice. This time it was the same as usual, since Hong Chengchou was hesitant, Cao Wenzhao simply left him and led 2,000 soldiers and horses north alone.

Hong Chengchou didn't want to move, but seeing that Cao Wenzhao was in full swing, he just waited and watched, and promised a word of support to watch from the wall.

Li Zicheng didn't know what Hong and Cao thought, but he knew that Cao Wenzhao must be eliminated. This person is different from ordinary officials and soldiers, in the past, he was able to fight such as Deng Xi, Zuo Liangyu, etc., although there were many rogues, but he had more or less careful thoughts of "raising his own self-respect", and did not put the various subordinates to death, and occasionally the two sides would cooperate to do some unsightly deeds, and there was still a way to survive when encountering such ruffians. However, if it encounters "all the generals in battle, and the coerced followers flee with orders, the edict will be killed, and there will be no survivors." The same is true for the Jiao. Cao Wenzhao, then he can only ask for more blessings. This person will always fight a tendon, that is, he will never stop if he does not kill all the rogues, and sometimes he can chase and defeat the retreating rogues for hundreds of miles, for this kind of person, Li Zicheng only has the idea of life and death.

The sentinels wandering in the south had already come to report, indicating that Cao Wenzhao, the general soldier of the army aid and suppression, led the troops and horses north, and the target was obviously Li Zicheng and other cadres who were entrenched in Qingyang and Pingliang. In addition to this, there is another important news: the follow-up units of the Ming army do not seem to have moved.

Cao Wenzhao's lone army went deep into this point, which attracted Li Zicheng's great attention. At present, there are many rogues in Ningzhou, and the number of people alone is more than ten times that of Cao Wenzhao.

Ideas are ideas, Cao Wenzhao's prestige is famous, and Li Zicheng did not dare to act rashly, so he invited Lin Yangsheng, the king of the troubled times, and Zhang Tianlin, the star of the sky, to discuss this matter. The strength of these two people is much worse than Li Zicheng, they are all dependent on the eighth team to survive, among which Zhang Tianlin trusts Li Zicheng more and has no opinion on this, while Lin Yangcheng is quite hesitant.

He originally thought that since Cao Wenzhao's killing god came, the best policy was naturally to slip away, and there was really no need to fight with it, in his opinion, the soldiers under Cao Wenzhao were no longer people, especially the eight hundred family members among them, and the terrifying degree was no different from the terrible ghosts who came up to ask for their lives in the underworld.

Li Zicheng was already determined to fight a decisive battle with Cao Wenzhao, and under coercion, Lin Chengcheng reluctantly agreed to serve as the rear army. This incident happened the day after Zhao Dangshi met Li Zicheng.

Hearing that Li Zicheng was going to fight Cao Wenzhao, Zhao Dangshi immediately decided to stay in the eighth team to serve a force. His dangerous idea immediately aroused strong opposition from one-third of his strong subordinates led by Hou Dagui. Even Xu Hui, who has always been silent, said that Cao Wenzhao was not easy to deal with.

"The soldiers of General Cao's soldiers are all the elite soldiers of Guanning. The total number is no more than 3,000, of which more than half are Ma Jun. There are hundreds of families in the Ma army, which are particularly fierce, and it is not an exaggeration to say that one enemy is ten. Xu Hui carefully recalled the impression of Cao Wenzhao's soldiers and horses, "Most of these families are Liao, and there are about 300 sets of Ding, and every war is the first, and the enemy is invincible." Among them, Xiao Cao's soldiers were the most tyrannical. ”

Zhao Dangshi asked, "Have you seen Cao Bu's tactics?" ”

Xu Hui thought for a while and said: "I've seen it, it's very simple, at most it's just to hit the middle with sharp pawns, the quality of the soldiers and horses of the rebel army is uneven, the sharp pawns of the Cao Department can often come out of the formation, and the rear team foot pawns take advantage of the situation to cover up and kill, and then sweep left and right, invincible." ”

Zhao Dangshi nodded secretly. Most of the rogue soldiers of the various departments are not familiar with tactics, and every time they fight, they are scattered and chaotic, and occasionally they only form a few loose and chaotic phalanxes, and it is impossible for such a formation to block Cao Wenzhao's mid-lane impact. Therefore, Cao Wenzhao has eaten all over the world with one move, and he can always defeat the rogue with his excellent military quality and huge equipment gap. Having said that, this is also related to the fact that there are few rebellious senior officers of the Ming army among the leaders of the Liukou, everyone is a monk halfway through the wilderness, and those who are more talented and lucky in fighting can survive until now, such as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong.

He was still pondering, Hou Dagui came over and said with a bitter face: "Baihu, do you really want to fight?" ”

Zhao Dangshi raised his eyebrows and glanced at him, and responded: "Exactly." Finally, add, "What?" Captain Hou has scruples? I Zhao Dangshi has never been difficult to force others, if there are brothers who disagree and are unwilling to do this battle with me, take the money and choose where to go. ”

Hou Dagui was stunned, gritted his teeth, and said fiercely: "I've come here from Shangzhou, and I'm afraid of a hammer." The left and right were beaten, so he beat Cao Wenzhao on his dog day. has bullied Lao Tzu for many years and harmed so many brothers around him, it's time for him to pay for his blood debts! ”

He knew what Zhao Dangshi meant to stay, he didn't sleep all night last night, and he was at war with heaven and man in his heart, and he struggled to weigh whether to go or stay, and it was not until dawn that he made up his mind to go one way to the end, and from then on he followed Zhao Dangshi.

He was able to say this, which was beyond Zhao Dangshi's expectations, judging from his original undetermined and several changes of ownership, at the cusp of the storm, he is likely to protect himself first, and he doesn't want his current performance to be impressive.

Zhao Dangshi didn't know what to say, so he could only say without pain: "I know." And they sent him away. And Hou Dagui looked at his calm face, and was even more convinced that Zhao Dangshi heard some favorable news from Li Zicheng before he was confident, so he was glad about his decision one night.

There are also some people in the team who want to leave, such as Yang Chengfu. But he is good at observing words and feelings, and if Hou Dagui doesn't leave, he won't leave. The two of them must have been heartbroken, and the crowd that had been in some commotion calmed down immediately. No one offered to leave.

Li Ziwei wanted to send someone to send Zhao Dangshi out, but after hearing that he was going to stay, he did not refuse, so he arranged for him to be used under Liu Liangzuo. Liu Liangzuo was nicknamed "Flower Horse Liu" because he often rode a flower horse, and he defected to Li Zicheng with Gao Jie earlier, and Gao Jie was responsible for the defense of the outer camp and the inner camp respectively. And Liu Liangzuo followed Liu Zongmin all the way. This Liu Zongmin is the rough man who fought with Zhao Dangshi earlier, and now that Zhao Dangshi's fifty horsemen are under his subordinates, he has no opinion, and his mind is much broader than that Zhang Xiongfei.

In fact, there is another reason why Li Zicheng left Zhao Dangshi, that is, he wanted him to be a representative of the return to the camp and a witness on behalf of the old Huihui, and in form, the two battalions cooperated and deepened their friendship.

As a representative, Zhao Dangshi, a little-known person in the Hui camp, actually participated in the high-level meeting in the barracks tent of the Eighth Team in a decent manner. Until now, Zhao Dangshi was still glad that the other messengers sent by Zhang Xiongfei were really cowardly, and none of them had arrived until now.

Seeing his hundred households standing tall and stepping into the camp tent of the Chinese army with the other big brothers of the eighth team, Hou Dagui, Wang Laixing and others were all proud. Hou Dagui even smiled at Yang Chengfu for a long time - although the way he laughed made Yang Chengfu goosebumps.

At the meeting, the generals of the eighth team expressed their thoughts on the next battle one by one from high to low, and Li Zicheng did not express his position, but just listened quietly. Zhao Dangshi thought that he must have already made an assertion.

In the end, only Zhao Dangshi in the tent did not speak. Li Zicheng set his eyes on him, and the other generals in the tent also looked at him. The overlapping gaze made Zhao Dangshi's heart furious.

After a long time, Li Zicheng said slowly: "Brother Zhao seems to have something to say, you might as well say it and refer to it together." ”

Zhao Dangshi really thought about it, but he still knew the depths, and hurriedly shirked it: "You are all veterans who have seen the big battle, and your knowledge and experience are far beyond the following. How dare you get an axe in front of you? ”

Everyone in the camp is basically from a bitter root, and they usually like to listen to flattery. Although Zhao Dangshi's words were aimed at everyone's face, they also listened to them well. Several generals who were still hostile to Zhao Dangshi heard this, and their faces also eased.

Li Zicheng smiled and said: "Brother Zhao, what are you talking about, returning to the camp and my eighth team are brothers' camps, and returning to me is more like a father and brother." Now that you are speaking on behalf of the old man, you don't have to be constrained too much. When it comes to the point, the brethren shout hello to you; If it's wrong, let's just listen to a fart, wave our hands and pass. ”

As soon as these words came out, there was a burst of laughter in the tent, and Liu Zongmin also smiled: "Aren't you a kid who can talk about it yesterday?" Why is it deflated now? Just like you, if you have a wife in the future, you will go to the kang with others! ”

He should have made a joke, but unexpectedly inadvertently poked Li Zicheng's pain point, Li Zicheng was immediately a little embarrassed, and several other old adults in the account were also silent.

Zhao Dangshi was afraid that there would be something inside the eighth team at a critical moment, so he quickly took over the conversation and said: "If you hide it, you will really be teased by the brothers." Anyway, I will be shameless and talk a few nonsense. ”

Although he said this, most of the people in the tent were not serious, but Li Zicheng was pretending, and they all waited with a sneer to see the jokes of the broken settlement that came to the camp.

"In my opinion, in order to break Cao Wen's edict, it is necessary to do three things." Zhao Dangshi began to speak, and immediately put on a serious face, "The Cao army is different from the officers and soldiers of other departments, the Ma army is extremely elite and has a particularly strong impact. Most of the tactics used are to break through the center, that is, to break through the center and cause the enemy to disrupt themselves. Once the shock front began to disorient, the rear troops stepped up and flanked the horse army in front and back, and won a great victory. Therefore, the first thing we need to fight against them is to guard against the assault in the middle lane. As long as the formation is not penetrable, you can counterattack. This is the first point. ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Dangshi peeked at everyone, only to see that at this time they all changed their appearances, no longer laughing at themselves, but instead surprised and confused.

"After resisting the onslaught of Cao's troops, in order to take the initiative, it is necessary to cut off the connection between his front army horse team and the rear army foot soldiers. Without the foot soldiers, there was nothing to worry about when the horses were trapped. This is the second point. ”

At this time, there was silence in the camp, only Zhao Dangshi's loud voice kept sounding, looking at the silence of everyone and Li Zicheng, Zhao Dangshi became more and more confident the more he spoke, "The third point." After all, Cao Bu is a strong army that has been fought for many years, even if it is trapped, with its ability and the combat power of our army, it cannot be said that it can be captured in one battle, so I have the courage to ask for more troops in charge, not to trap Cao Wenzhao in one place, but to continue to kill and injure his living forces in all walks of life. If the above three points can be achieved, the officers and troops of the Cao Department will not be afraid. ”

After a big phone call, Zhao Dangshi's mouth was dry, and he looked at everyone in the tent with anxiety, paying special attention to Li Zicheng's reaction.

But after a long time, no one spoke, and Li Zicheng also had a gloomy face and didn't say a word. Zhao Dangshi had no choice but to say: "I am talking wildly, there are many fallacies in what I said, if you are not used to listening to it, just listen to a joke......"

Everyone looked at each other and looked at Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng coughed lightly twice, and then said softly: "What you said is very reasonable. ”