Under the leadership of King Lu Shi, Shaanxi had a peaceful and prosperous year. But as the saying goes, the year is sad, the year is sad. Not only is the emperor of the Ming Empire sad, but in Shangluo Mountain, there is another person who is even more sad, he is Li Zicheng.

Since the first battle in Jixian, the last benefit is only two people, and Li Zicheng is one of them, after the war, he gathered a total of 100,000 poles that have been leaderless, so that Li Zicheng's strength is like a blow.

However, after all, these 100,000 horses come from various poles, and there is inevitably some friction during them, and before the real battle, they still need to be run in and rectified, so Li Zicheng took these horses into Shangluo Mountain, ready to rectify and rest, and then go out of the mountain to fight again in the spring.

This Shangluo area was originally a familiar place for Li Zicheng, and the common people had a lot to do with the peasant army. The peasant army called the area "soft land", and the officials described the people of the area as "thieves". However, Li Zicheng came with his men and horses for three or four days, passing through many villages and villages, but saw that the common people were hidden, leaving only some elderly people to guard the gate. It was only when his men came suddenly, and the people could not escape, that some young people could be seen. Although there were also people who were more courageous and had a deeper relationship with the peasant army, they came to report the news of the official army and the surrounding area, and led the path, but after all, there were very few.

Li Zicheng understood that the common people were afraid of war, of the official army, and of abducting people, robbing people, committing adultery, and killing people. In particular, the common people saw that his troops were now in defeat, and they did not dare to approach his troops. In the past three or four days, because the common people everywhere have fled one after another, the grain and grass have been unprecedentedly difficult, and the news has not been obtained, which has made him extremely distressed.

After dealing with some things, Mrs. Gao instructed her soldiers to bring dinner quickly. King Chuang looked at her and asked:

"Where's the credit?"

After setting up camp, he has been busy with the food and grass of the whole army, and he has not rested until now. Knowing that you are going to summon the generals to the old camp to discuss matters, I have sent someone to tell him that he will come here after dinner. ”

"Are there any people in this village?"

"Of course the people do, but they all hide in the mountains. I heard that there are still a lot of ordinary people in this village, but everyone has become a frightened bird, and they have seen people and horses, and they want to fight, and they are not afraid? As soon as I arrived, I asked the brothers to search for the people of the village, but they only found a few old men and wives who were deaf and left behind as janitors, and they could not even speak clearly. I told the brothers to find a way to keep looking. As long as you can find a few sensible men, you can always find some news. ”

Li Zicheng lowered his head and roasted the fire, waiting for dinner, his heart was anxious and heavy, 100,000 troops, in this Shangluo Mountain, there is no suitable place to stay, it is simply the way to defeat, especially if there is no food, this is even more fatal, if he makes everyone can't even eat, I can't say, in a few days, the 100,000 families will be scattered, and it is not a way to go on like this.

In fact, in the past one or two years, Li Zicheng has often pondered Lu Shi's method in his heart, and at the same time he is envious and puzzled, he knows that in order to win the world, he must solve the people's suspense and buy the people's hearts, for this problem, he studied hard when he was not fighting, and he wanted to know more about the success or failure of the ancients from the books, and he also hoped to see the origin of Lu Shi's methods. I also like to find some elderly people to talk about ancient and modern and folk suffering. However, the harvest was poor, or not at all.

In terms of military discipline, he also paid more attention than in the past, and actually killed some people who committed adultery and plunder. But how to make the team like what people say "no offense in autumn", he failed to do it seriously, because first, the troops under his command were not all his old Eighth Team, and second, he ran and fought every day, and did not give him a chance to stop and train the whole army. Some of his friends often said to him, "Be self-contained, open your eyes and close your eyes." When the water is clear, you can't raise fish, who will fight for you? Even now, it's much better than the official army! Comparatively, his contingent is indeed much better than that of the officers and soldiers, so in the past year, in addition to the consistent purpose of "fighting the rich and helping the poor," he has also used the phrase "suppressing the soldiers and reassuring the people" as a call for the common people to hate the suffering of officers and soldiers. But now it seems that whether it is to fight the rich and help the poor, or to suppress the army and reassure the people, it is obviously not enough. It is not easy to make the people welcome!

"How did he Lu Shi do it?" Every now and then, Li Zicheng wanted to look up to the sky and ask, and then he sighed, there was no answer, and no one gave him an answer.

The soldiers brought the prepared dinner. On the table was half a bowl of pickled radish mixed with chili noodles, four buns of cereal noodles were placed in the basket, the rest were all steamed potatoes, and everyone had a bowl of porridge in front of them. Li Zicheng had been hungry for a long time, gobbled up a nest head, and then took a few sips of porridge. It is called porridge, but in fact, there is no millet in the bowl, and the figure of a person is seen under the lamp, so it is more appropriate to say that it is boiled in water and dried wild vegetables. Zicheng thought that the food was almost out while eating potatoes, and he could only barely support it for three days, and this area was a poor mountain, constantly suffering from natural disasters and military disasters.

I made up my mind this time, if I want to settle down in this Shangluo Mountain, I must no longer rely on looting to survive, but also learn from Lu Shi, will rest the people's strength, and give a good impression to the people, and if you don't rely on looting, you have to rely on silver to buy, and the silver money is now available, but if you have money, you have to have food, and the current situation is that you have nowhere to buy food with your own silver. So what to do? I can only go back to the old way and loot, this is really a dead end.

Eating with him were Mrs. Gao, Shuangxi and Zhang Nai. He refused to show his anxiety in front of them, and only thought about the current serious situation in his heart.

After eating, he saw that several generals had not yet arrived, so he asked Shuangxi and Zhang Nai to rest in the old camp, and he took a few personal soldiers out to have a look. For several years he made a rule for himself, that after daily battles or marches and camps, he would always walk among the soldiers and look among the lottery trumpets. The more tense the situation, the more he wanted to do it. Because she was used to it, Mrs. Gao knew that he was working very hard today, and how much she wanted him to rest for a while, but she didn't dare to persuade him, so she had to let him go out. After Zicheng walked out of the hall, she glanced at his back distressedly, turned back to Shuangxi and Zhang Nai, and said:

"Alas, you are young, you think it is easy to hold the handsome flag!"

Li Zicheng walked a few places in the village. His troops were everywhere in the moonlight, and the tents were about to be lost, and they all slept by the fire. The horses are munching on hay. Some warriors lay down on the grass next to the horses' hooves, with reins hanging on their arms, saddles on their pillows, and snoring.

Looking at these tired people, Li Zicheng couldn't help sighing, this time he retreated from Ji County, and he really had to thank the unenterprising Lu Shi, who did not send men and horses to chase and kill him, so that he could retreat calmly, but in the retreat, Li Zicheng was still worried about what happened, so he didn't dare to delay on the road, just blindly rushed, and couldn't rest on the march for days, Li Zicheng was about to walk towards a broken temple, and a small colonel in the old camp chased after him. He stopped, turned his head, and asked with his eyes:

"What's the matter?"

The colonel approached him and reported to him that the generals had arrived except for the chief post Liu Ye and Hao Shaoqi, and that his wife had asked him to go back quickly. Li Zicheng nodded and walked back. The Colonel said to him happily again:

"King Da Chuang, I have found the common people."

"Found it already? Where is it? How many do you find? Li Zicheng stood still and asked repeatedly, looking at the school intently.

"I'm familiar with this place. I found a common man in the woods outside the village, and told him that King Dachuang was stationed in the village himself, and Qiu did not move, so there was no need to be afraid. I gave him a few pieces of silver, and told him to go to the back mountain and call all the people back, so that they would not freeze in the woods. ”

"Okay, okay, find the common people in the end!" Li Zicheng said that he was so happy in his heart that it was as if he had heard important good news on the battlefield.

Li Zicheng walked two or three steps, turned around and ordered, "When the people come back, you go back to the old camp to get thirty taels of silver and scatter it to everyone, don't forget." ”

He glanced at the little colonel's face again before hurrying towards the old camp.

When Li Zicheng walked into the courtyard of the old camp, five generals, Li Guo, Tian Jianxiu, Gao Yigong, Yuan Zongdi, and Liu Fangliang, were sitting in the hall talking with Mrs. Gao. They had just talked about Lu Shi, but now the topic had turned to the issue of the Qing army's entry into the fortress. Tian Jianxiu said with emotion:

"The imperial court has stationed so many soldiers inside and outside the Great Wall, and they will call their boots to invade at will!"

Mrs. Gao continued: "Hmph! The court is not angry, and of course the Hu people will invade. Since Chongzhen's ascension to the pole, things like this have happened more than once or twice. "!" Li Guo scolded, "Isn't Lu Xiangsheng the governor of Xuan, Da, and Shanxi?" Two years ago, he fought with us, but he seemed to be very good at leading troops, and he also had the courage, why couldn't he stop his boots from getting stuffed? ”

Liu Fangliang explained: "The Tartar came from the east, he was in the west, and the water was far away and the fire was not extinguished. ”

Li Guo said again: "If he sends troops from the west to fight a few battles, will he dare to attack Beijing from the east with his boots full?" …… Odd! ”

Mrs. Gao replied: "Since there is no way in the imperial court, even if Lu Xiangsheng is the governor of Xuan, Da, and Shanxi, he is like a buffalo falling into a well, and he can't use his strength. On his head, there is still the emperor and the military department's yamen! ”

Tian Jianxiu bowed his head and said: "But it is precisely by borrowing the light of Tartar that we have the scenery and development of Shanxi." ”

"Yes, yes," mentioned the days when they were roaring back and forth in Shanxi, everyone immediately came to the spirit and sighed, but Liu Fangliang made a sentence out of time: "If it wasn't for nothing to provoke Lu Shi, why let us live to this point today?" ”

As soon as these words came out, the originally cheerful scene immediately cooled down, and everyone stopped talking, and lowered their heads one by one to think about their own thoughts.

At this time, the curtain was lifted, and Li Zicheng came in. Several generals did not stand up to greet him when they saw him enter. He sat on the grass mound opposite Li Guo, and before he could speak, a sound of horses' hooves came to a halt outside the gate. There was a horse with a violent temperament, which, after a stop, stubbornly jumped, spun, kicked, stood upright on its hind legs, snorted, and neighed angrily. It was not until the whip was violently drawn from the air that it began to fall silent, but it still scraped and kicked the stone ground with its front and rear hooves with iron palms. Li Zicheng exchanged a smile with everyone and whispered, "It's here!" Everyone looked into the courtyard in unison. Mrs. Gao stood up, vacated the small chair with a backrest she was sitting in for the people who were about to enter, and turned and went inside. Immediately the footsteps of a man came in from the gate, and the ground was shaken, and suddenly a click was heard, and a dry branch was broken in the courtyard, and the sound must have been thicker than a mallet. Liu Fangliang smiled into the courtyard and said:

"It's really different from others! Before I saw your man, I heard your horse bark. ”

"It can be seen that my jujube horse is really a good horse, and he is full of spirit when he marches and fights every day." A rough voice replied in the courtyard like thunder, followed by a hearty laugh.

"Come on in, Jiexuan. It's not early, we have to discuss how to go next. ”

The book