Mo Li was stunned for a moment and asked, "What news?" Did Jingzhou send officials to Changyang to take up their posts? ”

He Zhenbei shook his head, his face was a little uneasy: "Something is wrong!" The governor of Huguang was removed by the emperor! ”

"Withdrawn? Why? Mo Li asked strangely. Bayi Chinese{Net ??). ］８)

"I heard that Wang Ziyong, Zhang Xianzhong and other rebels converged with Liu Xiyao's troops to break through Wuchang, Hanyang, Huangzhou and other places, and continued to move to Yuezhou and Changsha, and marched southward, and even had the momentum of marching into Jiangxi, and it is said that the rebels have now reached 200,000." He Zhen said as he gasped.

"What?!"

Mo Li was taken aback, why was the rebel army of Wang Ziyong and Zhang Xianzhong so violent, and they actually connected Wuchang, Hanyang, and Huangzhou?

"Wuchang is the location of the Huguang Governor's Yamen, not only the Huguang Governor Zhang Zhonghe is in charge, but also the nearly 10,000 officers and soldiers of Wuchang General Zhu Guozhen are stationed, why was it broken by thieves so quickly?" Guan Feng also said in surprise.

He Zhenbei shook his head, indicating that he didn't know either.

Mo Li walked to the poorly made map of Huguang hanging on the wall, looked at it carefully for a while, and said: "Huguang is the granary of the world, the king of thieves intends to seek self-reliance, it seems that he is very discerning, if he occupies the line from Wuchang and Huangzhou to Changsha, with the grain wealth they plundered, and wantonly recruits troops and horses, it is not difficult to pull up hundreds of thousands of troops, and it will become the climate in a little longer, and the court will easily move him." ”

"So what do we do?" Guan Feng asked.

"Of course, I tried my best to suppress the thief." Mo Li said lightly, turned his head to Sima Jian on the side and said, "Go and invite Gonggong Lu, just say that there is something to discuss." ”

Lu Hanzhang came over soon, and Mo Li invited him into the secret room to discuss for a long time. As for what the two said, outsiders have no way of knowing.

After that, Mo Li asked He Zhenbei to send people to rush to Hequ urgently, and transferred the officers and soldiers of the Qingzhu Department to enter Huguang to suppress the thieves. There are no thieves entrenched in Hequ now, and it is time for Cheng Qingzhubu to return to the establishment.

In view of the fact that the rebels are very likely to capture Yuezhou and Changsha and advance to Baoqing, Hengzhou, and even the Liangguang region, once the rebels occupy the southern part of Huguang and Liangguang, Jiangxi, and other places, these places are densely forested and there are many bandits in the green forests, which is not conducive to the encirclement and suppression of the official army.

Therefore, it is necessary to clear out the Hui mob and horse thieves and bandits around Changyang as soon as possible, quell the Hui rebellion in these places, and then draw troops to the south to seize Changsha before the rebels, and use Changsha as a barrier to block the rebels north of Changsha.

However, Changyang is not far from Changsha on the map, but in fact there are thousands of miles, and the army has traveled a long distance, which is not a day or two. The rebels are now in the vicinity of Wuchang and Huangzhou, which is about the same distance from Changsha, and now they must move south as soon as possible to prevent the rebels from continuing to invade south.

The rebels have just broken through Wuchang now, and with the power of a great victory, they are afraid that they will form a momentum like a bamboo, and go straight to Changsha. Whether they can reach Changsha before the rebels do, no one knows.

But no matter what, it's always a try.

Mo Li ordered Cao Bianjiao to order him to stop chasing Ma Shouying if he couldn't catch up, and first return to Changyang to prepare to go south to exterminate Wang Ziyong and Zhang Xianzhong.

As for Ma Shouying, I think he is going to enter the Sichuan Exhibition, so let the Ming army in Sichuan suppress it.

At the same time, Du Geng also came with news that all the remnants of Ma Shouying in Changning and Daning had been wiped out and were returning to the class.

By the afternoon of the third day, nearly 20,000 Hui mobs had been arrested, most of whom had been killed after a public trial.

After hearing about the large-scale purge of the official army in Changyang, the Muslims in several counties around Changyang were all terrified, fearing that the New Liao Army would also kill them, and they organized themselves one after another, preparing to contact the remnants of Ma Shouying to resist the conquest and suppression of the New Liao Army.

Another day passed, and Cao Bianjiao also led his troops back. Ma Shouying ran too fast and failed to catch up, and after learning that Mo Li had ordered him to return to his division, Cao Bianjiao did not dare to delay, and immediately led his troops back to Changyang.

On this day, more than 7,000 Hui mobs were caught, and as a result, the Hui mob in Changyang has basically been wiped out.

In the afternoon, Du Geng also led his troops back to Changyang, and in addition to exterminating the remnants of the Changning Ma Shouying Division, he also captured more than 4,000 prisoners, as well as a large number of materials and weapons.

After gathering the generals and analyzing the current situation of the bandits in Huguang, Mo Li decided to immediately go south to Changsha to block the rebels from moving south.

In order to seize time, Mo Li planned to send Cao Bianjiao, Li Guo, Bai Zhicheng, Ba Laodao, Tang Botao, Luo Dashan and others to lead 3,000 cavalry, 7,000 infantry, a total of 10,000 horses as the vanguard, and march towards Changsha on the fifth watch tomorrow.

The remaining 20,000 New Liao Army troops and the tens of thousands of rebel prisoners who had just been recruited followed immediately after dealing with the banditry in Changyang.

The next day, Cao Bianjiao and others took the lead and went in the direction of Changde.

Since there are still many Hui mobs and horse thieves and bandits in the surrounding prefectures and counties of Changyang that have not yet been cleared, Mo Li decided to leave Su Hansheng and Zhang Yu to lead 3,000 soldiers of the New Liao Army and 2,000 newly recruited prisoners and recruits, and cooperate with the officials of the new government of Changyang to continue to suppress bandits in the Changyang area, and if necessary, he can ask the Jingzhou Government for support.

And Cheng Qingzhu's subordinates will also go south from Changyang at that time.

Mo Li led Guan Feng, Du Geng, Ma Jinzhong and other generals to lead nearly 30,000 troops to leave Changyang and go south to Changsha.

Zijin Liang Wang Ziyong, the Eight Great Kings Zhang Xianzhong, Shuntian King Tu Yongzhong, the Two-winged Tiger Hu Jianqing and others led an army of 100,000 from Xiangyang Mansion to the east, and arrived in Suizhou three days later.

An6 is a small town, where can it withstand the onslaught of the rebel army of 100,000? It was soon captured by the rebels.

Subsequently, the rebel army swept Yunmeng, Yingcheng, Xiaogan, Huangpi, Hanchuan and other places, where they passed, the Ming army either fled from the wind, or opened the city to surrender, and approached Hanyang and Wuchang.

Because Huguang is located in the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, it has been peaceful for a long time, and the combat effectiveness of the guards in various places has long been eroded, so that the defense of various cities is like a fictitious situation, and the rebels captured nearly ten towns without much effort.

After the confluence of Yingcheng and Liu Xiyao's rebels, the rebels' momentum increased, and they went south one after another to conquer the city, which made the rebels grow rapidly, and when they besieged Wuchang, Wang Ziyong and other rebels had 150,000 people.

Zhang Zhonghe, the governor of Huguang, and Zhu Guozhen, the general soldier of Wuchang, suddenly panicked, before they organized nearly Wanming troops to prepare to rescue Xiangyang City, who knew that they were defeated by the rebels when they reached Yingcheng, half surrendered, and half fled.

The Ming army that fled back to Wuchang exaggerated the strength and prestige of the rebels to be extremely terrifying, otherwise they would not be able to account for the defeat.

But after their description, the Ming army in Wuchang City was even more panicked, the rebels had not arrived, and the army's morale was in chaos.

Zhang Zhonghe was born as a civil official, he didn't have much courage, and he didn't know how to lead troops to fight, and Zhu Guozhen, the chief soldier of Wuchang, was a royal clan, and he became the chief soldier of Wuchang with his noble status, and he was also a gentleman, and he didn't know how to lead troops.

In the panic, Zhao Yi, the deputy general of Wuchang, was quite calm, and commanded his subordinates to strictly guard the four cities and resist the rebels. At the same time, he sent people to Chuyang, Yuezhou, and Changsha to mobilize troops and horses to aid Wuchang, and sent people to Jiujiang Mansion to ask for help from Tian Xinlong, the general soldier of Jiujiang.

However, Zhang Zhonghe, Zhu Guozhen and others did not wait for reinforcements to arrive, and Wuchang City fell.

After the rebels captured nearly ten cities, they got a lot of artillery and firearms, and also rushed to produce a lot of engineering equipment such as bed crossbows and ladders, and the rebels with high morale launched a fierce attack on Wuchang City.

At this time, Wuchang City only had 9,000 guards under Zhu Guozhen, the general soldier of Wuchang, as well as 5,000 auxiliaries and errands mobilized from nearby counties, as well as thousands of officials from Wuchang Mansion and nearly 20,000 people in the city organized by Zhang Zhonghe.

In just two days, the rebels quickly captured Wuchang City, the deputy general Zhao Yi was killed, Huguang governor Zhang Zhonghe, Wuchang general Zhu Guozhen and others escaped under the desperate escort of their own soldiers, and fled along the Yangtze River to Jiujiang by boat.

When Chongzhen learned of this, Long Yan was furious, and immediately removed Zhang Zhonghe from his post as governor of Huguang, as well as Zhu Guozhen's Wuchang general army.

After the rebels captured Wuchang, they plundered on a large scale, and for a time there were wails everywhere inside and outside the city of Wuchang, and the people were panicked. Originally, Wang Ziyong had strictly ordered his subordinates not to harass the people at will, let alone rape and plunder, and destroy the image of the peasant army in the eyes of the people.

However, most of the generals in the rebel army went their own way, and the orders to the king for his own use were to obey the yang and the yin, according to their words, do not rob the silver or the women, so what are we rebelling for with our heads? Besides, many of his subordinates are newly recruited, and the composition is too complex to restrain so many people at all.

Although Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, recommended Wang Ziyong as the leader of the alliance, his subordinates were twice as many as Wang Ziyong, and he was the largest force in the rebel alliance, with more than 60,000 troops, and there were many violent people under his subordinates, so Wang Ziyong's words did not have much binding force on these outlaws.

The two-winged tiger Hu Jianqing and others are also, since the beginning of the army, they have been used to plundering, and the military discipline is extremely poor, how can they say that they will not rob if they don't rob at once.

Wang Ziyong also understands that these so-called allied subordinates are extremely respectful to themselves on the surface, but in fact, how many people can really follow their orders, only God knows.

In fact, Wang Ziyong didn't know that these people didn't have any good intentions in electing themselves as the leader of the alliance, one was because of his old qualifications, and the other was mainly to carry the banner against the wind, and when the time came, if the peasant army failed and was really cornered, they had nothing to do, and they could surrender to the officials and soldiers at any time, and most of the officers and soldiers would not take them to the knife.

But the king himself used as the leader of the alliance, as a leader, and the responsibility was much heavier.

This also shows that Zhang Xianzhong and Hu Jianqing have no vision and no ambitions. Who said that we, the peasant army, would definitely fail? Wasn't he a poor monk who asked for food before Zhu Yuanzhang established the Zhu family, and our old Wang had also studied for a few years and been a soldier for a few years, so he was not as poor as Zhu Yuanzhang with mud legs......