Since Li Xuan ascended the throne as emperor, he has experienced many battles, including medium battles with dozens of people, and super large battles with hundreds of people, including many battles of the country.

Counting with his fingers, Li Xuan found that he had fought a lot of 'battles for the country', including the Battle of Jiguan Mountain, the first Battle of Fengjiazhuang, the Battle of Luohu Valley in the third anti-encirclement and suppression operation, the fourth anti-encirclement and suppression operation at the beginning of the year, and the second Battle of Fengjiazhuang a few days ago.

Every fight is thrilling, which makes Li Xuan scared.

In the above-mentioned battles, the Tang Dynasty is pouring out of the nest every time, and it is extremely dangerous, if one of them is defeated, then the consequences are unimaginable, the fall of the Tang Dynasty is a small matter, and Li Xuan's life is a big deal.

This time out of the mountain, for the Tang Dynasty, there is no doubt that it is another battle of the country, and Li Xuan has to be cautious.

Because he was afraid that the Ming army would set up an ambush on the road, and the checkpoint he originally occupied had also been recovered by the Ming army, Li Xuan deliberately took the troops around in a big circle, and it took three days to go out of the mountain through another passage.

In order to ensure the safety of the follow-up logistics material transportation and transit, Li Xuan and the others naturally took down the Ming army sentry card that passed by, just like last time.

However, in order to keep the whereabouts of the troops secret when they went out of the mountain this time, and to gain a few more days to confuse the Ming army, Li Xuan spent a lot of thought when attacking the sentry post this time, and put on a posture of treating it with all his might, first sending more than 100 people to secretly detour behind the sentry post from the dense forest on one side, and then the troops advanced quickly.

and then completely surrounded the Ming army in the outpost.

In order to prevent the Ming army in the sentry card from escaping and reporting to Su Jiakang, so as to buy more time for himself, lest he be detected and entangled by the main force of the Ming army as soon as he came out of the mountain.

After surrounding this outpost, the next thing is much simpler, more than 20 Ming troops in the outpost faced hundreds of pseudo-Tang thieves who surrounded them, and after finding that there was no hope of escape, they simply chose to surrender, and most of the Ming soldiers in the pseudo-Tang thieves promised that they would be able to eat enough in the future, and they were very single-minded on the spot, and joined the Tang Dynasty Wang Division, becoming a member of the baggage team.

After taking down the checkpoints in and out of the mountain, and also maintaining the hidden whereabouts of the troops, Li Xuan was also relieved.

Keeping the troops' early whereabouts secretive will greatly benefit the smooth implementation of his subsequent plans and effectively reduce the risks.

What is his plan?

In official terms, it was to use a large-scale battle to put pressure on the Ming court authorities, forcing the Ming court to shift its attention from Huangzhushan to its own security, to the main force of the Tang Dynasty's royal division, and to force the Ming army to withdraw the main force back to defense, so as to reduce the pressure on Huangzhushan.

In simple and straightforward words: Li Xuan plans to go to Zhengtai County for a walk, and put on a posture of attacking Zhengtai County, scaring Su Jiakang, lest he worry about Huangzhu Mountain in the mountains if he has nothing to do.

After all, if you want to contain the Ming army, it is not enough to rely on words alone, and it is not enough to rely on aimless wandering after leaving the mountain, you must take action to stimulate the Ming army, and it must be an action that makes the Ming army quite uncomfortable, so that the Ming army can focus on its own defense and cannot be distracted into the mountain.

However, although Zhengtai County is only a small county in the southwest inland region, it is just an ordinary county town on the land of China, but it is still a serious county seat.

This ran to the city of Zhengtai County, and even put on a posture of attacking Zhengtai County, the danger here must be quite large.

First of all, one thing is very clear, regardless of whether Zhengtai County is good or not, but it can't really be frozen, this is a huge hornet's nest, much larger than Longhua Town, once Zhengtai County is really hit, then the development of the situation is not something that Li Xuan can control.

However, in the case of not being able to really fight Zhengtai County, how to effectively threaten the Ming army?

Li Xuan has a certain amount of money in this regard, but whether it is really effective or not has to be done, at least now even Li Xuan himself is not sure whether it is effective or not.

After resting at the outpost for a day, Li Xuan led the men and horses out of the mountain again, and after leaving the outpost this time, they did not wander around the edge of the mountain, but went directly out of the mountain to the vast small plain outside.

Zhengtai County is built on a small plain, this small plain is not large, and strictly speaking this area is not a real plain, but a relatively gentle hilly terrain, but the ups and downs of the hills are not too obvious.

This kind of gentle terrain is also relatively suitable for farming, but unfortunately, the water source in this place is still relatively lacking, and there are still relatively few places with abundant water resources like Fengjiazhuang, and the fields in most places are not high-quality fields.

Otherwise, Fengjiazhuang is so close to the mountains and the bandits are serious, and the Feng family in Fucheng will not hold on to it, just because a place like Fengjiazhuang is really difficult to find in Zhengtai County.

However, Li Xuan didn't plan to go out of the mountains to farm for the time being, so what he was concerned about was not how the grain harvest would be in Zhengtai County, but that this kind of gentle terrain would greatly increase the marching speed of the army.

The Ming army moved quickly, which would undoubtedly increase the danger of the new army of the Tang Dynasty after it came out of the mountain.

Therefore, the plan to 'travel' outside Zhengtai County must be careful and careful, so as not to be surrounded by the main force of the Ming army by accident.

In order to increase the mobility of the troops, he did not carry too much baggage when he went out of the mountain this time, and even the more than 100 young and strong people of the baggage team carried as little weight as possible, and the main thing they carried was ordnance and ammunition, and as for the most important food in the army, they still had four words: they ate on the enemy.

There is no way, Huangzhu Mountain itself has limited food, and the more than 500 people who came out of the mountain are all young and strong, in other words, these 500 people are 500 rice buckets.

The food they needed for one day was enough for the old and weak women and children in Huangzhushan to eat for two days.

Therefore, just like the last time they went out of the mountain, they only carried the necessary grain in the early stage, and as for the food needed in the future, they could only find a way at that time, either to attack the grain transportation team of the Ming army, or to collect grain in the countryside.

Li Xuan took a lot of trouble to travel to Zhengtai County smoothly, but what he never expected was that on the day they left the mountain, Su Jiakang had already learned the news of their departure from the mountain.

The Ming army is not stupid, in addition to the necessary checkpoints, several small-scale patrols have been arranged near the edge of the mountain, these patrols are on the one hand to prevent the small-scale puppet Tang thief army from going out of the mountain to plunder, and on the other hand, it is to monitor whether the main force of the puppet Tang thief army is out of the mountain at any time.

Although Li Xuan was very careful, the Datang New Army was still just a group of bandits in the final analysis, and there were naturally many inappropriateness in this battle.

After a patrol of the Ming army discovered the main force of the new army of the Tang Dynasty from afar, they didn't even give Li Xuan a chance to meet, and ran back to report it, and Li Xuan himself didn't know that his whereabouts had been exposed, and continued to go towards Zhengtai County with what he thought was a secret route.