As for the actions of the various units of the Xingtian Army in Lushi County, it can basically be said that it is as fast as rolling soup and pouring snow, and because of mutual distrust between the major local forces, they have gathered their forces into their own forts as much as possible, and each has swept the snow in front of the door, so that it is impossible to form an effective resistance to the Xingtian Army at all.

Moreover, the Xingtian Army now has a complete range of troops, and the firearms are also quite sharp, especially the large number of equipped elite bird guns, which makes the Xingtian Army have a considerable ability to suppress firepower, plus each battalion of the Xingtian Army has a direct artillery team, equipped with light three-pounder guns, and each battalion also allocates some full-time soldiers, plus the knife player has a siege weapon thunderbolt.

Although these local gentry do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to purchase weapons and other things for their private armed forces, but after all, their financial resources are limited, and the quality of equipment is not comparable to that of the Xingtian Army, even if it is a little firearm, they are all old-fashioned guys, and there are very few who can have birds, most of them are mainly cold weapons such as bows and crossbows, once they are suppressed by the firepower salvo of the Xingtian Army, they are simply beaten on the wall and can't raise their heads.

In addition, the generals of the battalions are now fighting such a battle, they are already familiar with the road, and the cooperation between the various arms is quite tacit, first use the firecracker to suppress the defenders, and the knife player is responsible for covering the sappers to clear the obstacles outside the fort, and finally the pikemen and the knife players are under the cover of the artillery and the firecrackers, carrying the ladder to attack, even if the Zhuang Ding under the gentry is brave, in the face of such an attack, they are helpless, often against a fort, can be broken in one blow, and can ensure that it does not pay too much price.

After the two battalions were dispatched, they almost followed their predetermined goals in a competition, and under the leadership of the guide, they broke through the Zhuang forts in Lushi County one after another, which is not an exaggeration to describe it as overwhelming.

In the face of such an offensive of the Xingtian Army, the gentry in Lushi County were suddenly dumbfounded, and some of the gentry saw that they could not stop the Xingtian Army, so they simply learned from the people in Lushi County before the arrival of the Xingtian Army, packed up some soft things, and took their families to escape in advance, and some people were reluctant to do so, so they quickly sent someone to contact the Xingtian Army, asking to surrender to the Xingtian Army, and obey the orders of the Xingtian Army.

For these local squires who voluntarily surrendered, the Xingtian Army did not go too far, and ordered them to immediately disband the armed forces at hand, donate part of the family's food stock, and let their Zhuang Ding act with the army as an auxiliary to provide support for the Xingtian Army.

In this way, the actions of the Xingtian Army have become much more convenient, and after the local people heard the news, they came to join the attachment, which made the Xingtian Army in Lushi County have a great momentum, and even some local bandits and small poles have defected to the Xingtian Army, accepted the reorganization of the Xingtian Army, and provided a guide for the Xingtian Army, and for a time the Xingtian Army could not find any opponents in this area.

Unlike the smooth military operation, in the matter of finding Niu Jinxing's whereabouts, it did not go smoothly, and the subordinates sent by Tietou visited the county for two days, but they could not find Niu Jinxing, and even some of the local county officials and messengers who were caught could not tell the whereabouts of Niu Jinxing.

But the only thing that is certain is that a government official confirmed the news that Niu Jinxing was in Lushi County, and when this official learned that Xingtianjun was visiting Niu Jinxing, he took the initiative to confess that he had heard of this person, saying that Niu Jinxing was escorted to Lushi County from Lushan County half a month ago, and the officials in the county government happened to hear that Xingtianjun had invaded Yongning County, and the officials here were worried about this matter, so they didn't care much about Niu Jinxing, and later this official took Niu Jinxing to prison and temporarily locked him up. Later, as soon as the officials in the city ran away, there was chaos, and the county government prison was also opened, and the prisoners inside ran away when the city was in chaos, so now no one knows where Niu Jinxing has gone, whether he died in the chaos or fled from the county seat.

After Xiao Tianjian got the reward, he sighed slightly in his heart, this is really impermanent! So he asked him to continue to investigate, and no matter what, he had to find a way to find this person, but if it didn't work, he put up a notice in the city, in short, he had to find a way to find Niu Jinxing.

The news of the Xingtian army's entry into Lushi County also quickly spread throughout western Henan, and Feng Yijun of Henan Prefecture was naturally even more panicked, and sent people to the governor Chen Biqian for help, asking Chen Biqian to quickly send troops and horses to Yongning and Lushi to suppress the Xingtian army.

Lu Tianqing, the governor of Shaanzhou, hurriedly dispatched troops and horses to reinforce Ruxiang County, which is close to Lushi County, and at the same time ordered the defenders of Hangu Pass to strengthen their defense, strictly prevent the Xingtian Army from taking advantage of the situation to go north, capture Hangu Pass, cut off the connection between Henan and Shaanxi, and even went beyond the level to ask Hong Chengchou for help, and asked Hong Chengchou to send Shaanxi soldiers east to Tongguan to assist in the suppression of the Xingtian Army.

For a while, the situation in various places in western Henan suddenly became tense, and seeing that the Xingtian Army was wantonly attacking in Lushi County, they could not transfer troops and horses to deal with the Xingtian Army.

Xiao Tianjian's side took more than ten days in Lushi County, connected seven Dazhuang Forts, reached Zhuyang Pass in the control area to the south, and controlled the official road crossing at the junction with Ruxiang County to the north.

This time, because of the relationship of time, in order to stabilize the situation in Lushi County as soon as possible, so that the local manpower, financial and material resources can be used by the Xingtian Army as soon as possible, he also adopted relatively ruthless means, in order to achieve the purpose of quickly deterring various local forces, he personally ordered Luo Li and the others, once they met the desperate and stubborn Zhuang Bao, they were no longer polite to them, and directly conquered them, and then slaughtered the entire family of the gentry in the village, together with their fellow clans in the village, and the province kept them to continue to make trouble.

After Luo Li and the others were ordered, they also faithfully carried out Xiao Tianjian's order, as long as they encountered such a Zhuang Fort that vowed not to surrender, they would gather troops to break it and slaughter the people in its village, so that it really played a role in deterring the local resistance forces, forcing more small forces to bow their heads and surrender to the Xingtian Army.

However, with the deepening of the use of troops, Xiao Tianjian also began to gradually feel the lack of troops, the number of soldiers and horses he brought into Lushi County was less than 4,000, and these people were divided into three ways to act, so that with the development of the operation, the troops gradually began to be overstretched.

Fortunately, there were also a lot of displaced people in Lushi County, and more and more ordinary people were attached, and nearly 20,000 people gathered in a short period of time.

These two new military camps are recruiting strong people and Zhuang Ding, who have surrendered to the local armed forces, while being trained by the veterans of the Xingtian Army, while taking over the work of the local garrison, they do not need to go into battle for the time being, and under the leadership of the veterans of the Xingtian Army, it is more than enough to do such things to garrison the place, so as to alleviate the shortage of troops in the Xingtian Army.

Until the tenth day when the Xingtianjun entered the county seat of Lushi, Xiao Tianjian had lost a little confidence in finding Niu Jinxing, but at this moment, he got a message from Tietou, saying that Niu Jinxing had been found.

Speaking of Niu Jinxing, he is really unlucky, he should have been able to get close to the officialdom after he was admitted to the Juren, but because he sometimes didn't pay much attention to what he said, he offended some officials or people who were also scholars, and after he was admitted to the Juren, he was not allowed to be hired by the government, so he could only stay idle at home.

Fortunately, he is also a small landowner in Lushan County, and his family has some land, and when he is idle, he sets up a museum to teach some students to read, and he lives a well-off life by teaching apprentices and his own land, but he accidentally offended a guy surnamed Wang who is a relative, this guy is quite powerful in Lushan, and he falsely accused him of resisting and not paying in the county government, and forcibly occupied more than a dozen young women. first asked Niu Jinxing to take out five hundred taels of silver to settle down at this time, but although Niu Jinxing's family was not poor, it was impossible to take out five hundred taels of silver at once, so he was directly sent to Lushi County to fill the army.

Niu Jinxing can only admit that he is unlucky, he was escorted to Lushi County all the way on the road in the cold, and he also suffered a lot of hardships on the way to escort him, and when he arrived in Lushi County, he originally wanted to spend some money and get a slightly easier errand, who knew that the surnamed Wang was going to kill him completely, and he spent money in Lushi County in advance to buy off the official, and even more because of the attack on Yongning County by the Xingtian Army, he didn't give him a chance to find a way out, so he was thrown into prison.

Niu Jinxing stayed in the prison to cry without tears, there was no way to ask for help, every day in the prison can only drink rotten vegetable soup, a small moldy cake, fortunately, his son also followed to Lushi County, made some money outside the prison, and sent a little food to the prison every day, maintaining Niu Jinxing's livelihood, if it weren't for this, Niu Jinxing would have died of starvation in the prison.

What's even more unfortunate is that all of a sudden, the county town of Lushi was in chaos, and the officials ran away overnight, and the defenders in the city immediately began to plunder the city, and someone took the opportunity to open the prison and release the prisoners in the prison.

Niu Jinxing was also dragged out of the prison in a daze, his son found him and hid around in the chaotic city, fortunately, Niu Jinxing was in tattered clothes at this time, and he was not looked at by the rebels, so he was lucky not to be killed by the rebels, and was taken by his son and finally fled to the Chenghuang Temple in the south of the city, mixed with the homeless people.

Poor Niu Jinxing father and son, repeatedly frightened and frightened, and suffered a lot of anger, after the father and son hid in the City God Temple, they both suffered from the wind and cold, one could not afford to be sick, and they did not dare to reveal their identities to others, one was afraid that the people of the Heavenly Army would arrest them, and the other was afraid that the government would investigate him for escaping from prison, so he did not dare to leave the Lu County seat, nor did he dare to show his face.

Fortunately, the Xingtian army entered the city and quickly quelled the rebellion of the defenders, and gave porridge to the refugees outside the City God Temple in the city, and the kind-hearted refugees took pity on their father and son, and brought them a bowl of porridge every day, so as to save the lives of their father and son, otherwise their father and son would definitely die in the City God Temple.

Later, someone said that the Xingtian Army was looking for a person from Niu Jinxing in the city, and Niu Jinxing's father and son learned about it, but neither of them knew how the thief army knew his name, for fear that they would come forward rashly and suffer from it, so they continued to conceal their identities and did not dare to show up, so they dragged it down and let the Xingtianjun look for many days outside the city.

It wasn't until Niu Jinxing was really sick that he couldn't hold it anymore, his son gritted his teeth and admitted their identities to others, and found a refugee to help them report their identities outside the City God Temple, which was quickly taken out of the City God Temple by the Xingtian Army, and placed in a house in the city, and found Lang Zhong to diagnose and treat Niu Jinxing and his son, which saved the lives of Niu Jinxing and his son.