Kaifeng Prefecture's new Henan governor Li Xianfeng has been on pins and needles since this period of time, it can be said that such a thief army led by Xiao Tianjian, for more than a month, has been swimming around in eastern Henan and central Henan, repeatedly breaking through the county seat, like a flood beast can not be controlled, and Kaifeng Mansion is now a small number of troops, Liu Zeqing's department in Shandong was ordered to be transferred out of Fengfu, Kaifeng deputy general Chen Yongfu also led his troops to Luoyang to assist in defense years ago, so that Kaifeng Mansion has almost no available soldiers on hand, although there are still more than 3,000 soldiers defending the city, But this little bit of men and horses is not enough to defend the city, where is the strength to stop this thief army wandering around Kaifeng!

For this reason, Li Xianfeng sent people to Nanyang many times to ask Xiong Wencan for advice, and asked Xiong Wencan to quickly order Zuo Liangyu to lead his troops to exterminate the Xingtian thief army, but the result was that Zuo Liangyuyang disobeyed the yin and followed the Xingtian army's ass to circle around Henan, and in the name of collecting food and wages, he was unwilling to do his best to pursue the thief army, which made the power of the Xingtian thief army bigger and bigger.

Finally survived to the beginning of April, Li Xianfeng learned that Qixian County was broken by the thief army, this time the thief army stopped, no longer continue to run around, if it is allowed to go down, Li Xianfeng guessed whether Kaifeng Mansion is the next target of the thief army, so in a panic, while urgently ordering Chen Yongfu, who was still in Luoyang, to speed up the troops to return to Kaifeng, strengthen the garrison of Kaifeng Mansion, and personally sent people directly to Zuo Liangyu's army and went to Nanyang Mansion to find Xiong Wencan, and urged Zuo Liangyu to speed the army to Qixian County to fight a decisive battle with the thief army, Ensure the safety of Kaifeng Province.

Zuo Liangyu was really under pressure from many aspects, and finally chose to gather troops to chase to Qixian County and fight a decisive battle with Xiao Tianjian, but the result of the decisive battle disappointed everyone in the official, and when he learned that Zuo Liangyu was defeated and almost wiped out, the entire Central Plains was shaken again.

When Xiao Tianjian led his troops to Kaifeng Mansion, Liu Zeqing learned the news in Yanshi early in the morning, and no longer dared to approach the direction of Luoyang, but played the banner of returning to Kaifeng, and immediately turned around and ran in the direction of Kaifeng.

Xiao Tianjian in mid-April, led his troops to pass outside Kaifeng City, under Xiao Tianjian's order, the battalions of soldiers and horses swaggered through Kaifeng City with a review posture, and under the eyelids of the officials and officials in Kaifeng Mansion City, they showed off their might and made a good show of power, which frightened the people in Kaifeng Mansion to the point of panic, for fear that the Xingtian Army would suddenly stop and launch an attack on Kaifeng Mansion.

But who of them can know that now Xiao Tianjian's army is actually a strong foreign force, and the ammunition and grain at this time have basically run out, and there is not enough strength to launch an offensive against Kaifeng Mansion.

This trip Xiao Tianjian led his troops back to western Henan, it can be said that he was carrying out an armed march, the whole army swaggered through Zhongmu, Zhengzhou, Xinmi, Dengfeng and returned to the city of Ruzhou, and the defenders of Zhongmu, Xinmi, Dengfeng and other places along the way saw such a scale of Xingtian Army, it can be said that without exception they chose to give up resistance, opened the city gate and surrendered to the Xingtian Army, only Zhengzhou because there are still thousands of garrisons, stubbornly defending the city and refusing to surrender, and Xiao Tianjian has no intention of using troops against Zhengzhou at the moment, so after capturing Zhongmu, casually demolished the city wall of Zhongmu County, and sang all the way back to Ruzhou through the outside of Zhengzhou.

At this time, in the Xingtian Army, an army trained by modern army training methods, it has demonstrated its strong and unparalleled combat effectiveness, plus the generals in the army are very clear about why they want to be soldiers in the Xingtian Army, which makes them have a clear goal, dare to fight hard in battle, and the current army of the Ming Dynasty has been left far behind them, so although the Ming army seems to be strong, it has completely become a paper tiger, in front of the army of the Xingtian Army, it can be said that it is basically vulnerable, After more than two months of anti-encirclement and suppression, several officers and troops were defeated by the hands of the Xingtian Army, among which Huang Degong's department and Zuo Liangyu's department were basically wiped out by the Xingtian Army, Sun Yingyuan's department suffered great losses, even Shaanxi's He Renlong, Zu Dabi, and Li Guoqi also suffered great losses, only Liu Zeqing's department was unable to move forward because he always avoided the war, and did not fight head-on with the Xingtian Army, so he was able to preserve his strength, but Liu Zeqing was afraid of the war and fled back to the Kaifeng Mansion area. So much so that by the end of April, there was no official army in Henan that could no longer confront the Xingtian Army.

Sun Yingyuan, who was entrenched in Xuzhou, learned the news that Xiao Tianjian led his troops to return to Ruzhou, and without waiting for Xiong Wencan to give an order, he led his troops to withdraw in a hurry towards Runing Mansion, and Zhang Renxue, the general soldier of Henan, learned that most of the Xingtian Army had returned to western Henan in Baofeng, and he did not hesitate to lead his troops to evacuate Lushan County, which had just been recovered by him, and ran to Kaifeng Mansion without looking back.

So far, Xiong Wencan organized the encirclement and suppression of the Xingtian Army in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, which basically ended in the fiasco of the official army, and the prestige of the Xingtian Army at this time, it can also be said to be a powerful eight-way, a large number of righteous troops active in the Henan area, have begun to move closer to the Xingtian Army, and chose to be under the wing of Xiao Tianjian, of which there are as many as five or six righteous armies with more than 5,000 people, and even the fifth battalion of Gezuo operating in the western Anhui area also sent people to Ruzhou City after learning the news of the victory of the Central Plains Battle of the Xingtian Army, Contacting Xiao Tianjian and expressing their willingness to unite with the Xingtianjun to fight against the imperial court together, to a certain extent, it can be regarded as an indication of their attitude, expressing their willingness to accept Xiao Tianjian's command to a certain extent.

At this time, Luoyang City has basically become a ripe peach on the big tree of the Xingtian Army, and it can finally be picked.

After May, Xiao Tianjian once again made certain adjustments to the soldiers and horses under his command in Ruzhou City, and through the collection of the elite of the surrendered officers and soldiers and the captured weapons and horses, he ordered Luo Li, Li Xuanzhu, and Liu Bao's three combat divisions to be expanded again, and each division was expanded to five combat battalions, one artillery battalion, one cavalry battalion, one baggage battalion, plus a reinforced engineer corps, so that the main combat strength of each combat division reached about 10,000 people, so that it could form a more powerful independent combat group, and the commanders of these divisions, It was also officially renamed the capital, and each capital had two deputy commanders, and the original officers were promoted according to their performance during this time, and Zhao Erdonkey also became the deputy commander as he wished.

At the same time, he ordered to expand a guard division under his direct jurisdiction based on Liu Yaoben's teaching camp, which was temporarily led by him, and Liu Yaoben, Situ Liang, and Zhao Tietou temporarily took over the post of deputy commander, and set up an additional deputy commander, and Liu Yaoben was the first deputy commander of military affairs in peacetime, presiding over the daily affairs of the guard division, and Zhao Tietou and Situ Liang cooperated.

In this way, coupled with Yan Chongxi's strength in Jinnan, the Xingtian Army has expanded to a large-scale military group with nearly 50,000 regular troops and nearly 50,000 reserve battalions.

At this point, the entire western Henan region, including many prefectures and counties in central and eastern Henan, has become the scope of the Xingtian Army's control, and the effective rule of the imperial court over the Henan region is only the southern Henan region and the northern Henan area, plus Kaifeng, Luoyang, and Guide, and several prefectures and cities, and the control of Henan is already on the verge of collapse.

On the 15th of May, after the Xingtian Army completed the replenishment of supplies, Xiao Tianjian finally took Luo Rucai to gather the Guards Division, the first division under the jurisdiction of Li Xuanzhu, as well as some soldiers and horses under the jurisdiction of Luo Li, as well as a large number of newly formed reserve battalions, with a total strength of 30,000 people, and began to assemble in the area around Luoyang.

On 17 May, the two battalions under the command of Li Xuanzhu quickly conquered the Yanshi in the east of Luoyang City in two days, completely isolated Luoyang City, and finally completed the general encirclement of Luoyang City.

At this time, the officials and even the officers and soldiers in Luoyang City have already panicked, due to the long-term military action of the Xingtian Army around Luoyang City, so that the government of Luoyang can no longer be as before, from the surrounding people to extract food, coupled with the consumption of officers and soldiers inside and outside the city and the normal consumption of people in the city, so that there is a large area of food shortage in Luoyang City, now in Luoyang City, just the price of a bucket of rice, it has risen to a few taels of silver a bucket, even so, it is also priceless, There is no money and no place to buy it, and what is even more infuriating is that in fact, there is not really no food in Luoyang City, there is no food in the treasury of Henan Mansion and ordinary merchants and people, but in Luoyang City, there are still people who have a lot of food, and many of them have a lot of grain in their homes, and the most grain is Fu Wang in Luoyang City, just in the granary of Fu Wang's house, he hoarded all kinds of old grain no less than 100,000 stones, but Fu Wang, the old bastard, not only refused to open a warehouse and take out grain for relief, On the contrary, he also took advantage of this time to make a windfall, hoarding the old grain of the palace in the granary in the city, selling it at a high price, and almost squeezing out the property of the people in the city.

In order to get food, the generals indulged their officers and soldiers inside and outside the city to extort a lot of money from the common people inside and outside the city, and snatched away the last bit of food left in the hands of the common people to meet their needs, so that when Luoyang City reached May, a large number of people were starved to death almost every day, and even a large number of people were cannibalistic in the city.

Now, the new prefect of Henan, Kang Menghui, no longer thinks about anything to exterminate the Xingtian Army and drive the Xingtian Army out of the jurisdiction of Henan Prefecture, since the Xingtian Army attacked Ruzhou last year, he expected that sooner or later the Xingtian Army will come to fight Luoyang City, originally he was still counting on Xiong Wencan's ability to turn the tide and mobilize the officers and troops to solve the trouble of the Xingtian Army, but now the officers and soldiers along the way have been defeated under the front of the Xingtian Army, even if Xiong Wencan has the ability, he can't rescue Luoyang City, and it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. Xiong Wencan no longer has many officers and troops to call on.