Just when Xiao Tianjian secretly mobilized soldiers and horses to dig pits for Sun Chuanting and Wu Sangui everywhere in the area of the Daimyo's Mansion, preparing to clean up Sun Chuanting and Wu Sangui, Yan Chongxi on the Shanxi side was not idle, and after the entire Jinnan was controlled by the Xingtian Army, Yan Chongxi's strategy focused on Taiyuan Mansion.

Yan Chongxi knew that Taiyuan Mansion was an important town of the imperial court, the city was strong and artillery, and there were still some defenders stationed there, if it was rashly attacked, it might suffer a lot of losses, so after the Chinese New Year, he first started from the periphery of Taiyuan Mansion, and used the old method used by the Xingtian Army to first clear out the government forces around Taiyuan Mansion, and pulled out the prefectures and counties around Taiyuan Mansion one by one, and it took a few months to finally isolate Taiyuan Mansion.

At this time, it was the new governor of Shanxi Fan Zhiwan who sat in Taiyuan, Fan Zhiwan collected nearly 10,000 Shanxi troops in Taiyuan Mansion to defend Taiyuan Mansion, together with the guards Niu Yong, Wang Yongkui, Zhang Xiong and others to defend Taiyuan Mansion, and at the same time, Zhu Qiugui, the king of Jin in the city, also took out 100,000 taels of silver to help pay and defend Taiyuan City.

Yan Chongxi gathered troops, surrounded Taiyuan Mansion in March, and began to set up artillery to storm Taiyuan Mansion, and failed to conquer Taiyuan Mansion after several battles, but it still seriously hit the morale of the defenders in Taiyuan Mansion City, and at the same time, Taiyuan Mansion City was exhausted of food, officers and soldiers were not allowed to eat, and their combat effectiveness was also greatly weakened.

After April, there began to be fugitives in the city of Taiyuan Mansion, almost every day people went down the city to flee to the camp of the Xingtian Army, and Yan Chongxi ordered to recruit the defenders in the city outside the city, so that they would not have to make useless resistance again, by this time, Taiyuan Mansion had little will to resist.

On the sixth day of the fourth lunar month, Yan Chongxi gathered 20,000 soldiers and horses outside the city of Taiyuan Mansion and began the last large-scale siege of the city, and the governor Fan Zhiwan personally took his family to the city to defend the city, and wanted to fight to the death with the Xingtian army.

However, Shanxi, which started as the Xingtian Army, naturally placed a lot of fine works in the city of Taiyuan Mansion, and the fine workers in the city were not idle these days, and finally lobbied through the Taiyuan garrison general Zhang Xiong in early April, just when Yan Chongxi led his troops to storm Taiyuan Mansion, Zhang Xiong suddenly announced the surrender of the Xingtian Army, and led his subordinates to open the east gate of Taiyuan in the evening and put the Xingtian Army into the city.

After a night of fierce fighting, Taiyuan Mansion was finally defeated by Yan Chongxi, Governor Fan Zhiwan died in the chaos, in addition to the guard Niu Yong and others also died in battle, and the rest of the thousands of defenders surrendered to the Xingtian Army, so far the entire Shanxi, only the Xinzhou area is still under the control of the government, basically Shanxi is controlled by the Xingtian Army.

On the one hand, he did not want to be the enemy of the Xingtian Army, on the other hand, he also knew that even if he led his troops to fight, he might not be able to hit Taiyuan Mansion to save Taiyuan, after all, there were Wang Chengping and Li Lingfeng, the two generals of the Xingtian Army, who were still eyeing the entire Xuanda in Shuozhou, and they would never sit idly by and let him lead his troops to aid Taiyuan Mansion, Wang Pu was an example, so Yang Guozhu could only station troops in the Datong area to prevent the Xingtian Army from taking the opportunity to capture Datong, At this point, I watched Taiyuan Mansion being taken by the Xingtian Army.

And the imperial court did not want to save Taiyuan, just after Chongzhen arrested Chen Xinjia and transferred Fu Zonglong to Beijing to succeed him, the matter of suppression on the Shaanxi side was handed over to the new Shaanxi governor Wang Qiaonian to be responsible, so Chongzhen wanted to send Shaanxi troops into Shanxi again to rescue Taiyuan Mansion, but this idea could not be realized.

Since Chongzhen transferred Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting into the guard last year, Hong Chengchou took away nearly 100,000 Qin soldiers and many generals from Shaanxi, and the number of Qin soldiers left behind was not much, and the Xingtian Army did not take this opportunity to attack Shaanxi, but Li Zicheng, who had been beaten into a water dog by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, recovered after Hong Chengchou led his troops to leave Shaanxi, and attacked all the way to the Hanzhong area, holding nearly ten counties in Hanzhong, imitating the Xingtian Army to rest and recuperate, and at the same time constantly attacking Shaanxi and Sichuan. forced Fu Zonglong to find a way to fight with Li Zihui for the past year.

And Shaanxi heavy general He Renlong was annihilated by the Xingtian Army in the area of Xiangyang Mansion last year and surrendered to the Xingtian Army, so that only Li Guoqi and Zuo Guangxian were left in Shaanxi, and Li Zicheng was stationed in the Hanzhong area, which was enough for them to be busy, so although Chongzhen thought about transferring Qin soldiers into Jin to rescue Taiyuan Mansion, even if it was to enter Jin to contain the Xingtian Army, but in the end, because of the lack of troops in Shaanxi, he could not make the trip, and he watched Taiyuan Mansion be taken by the Xingtian Army.

Taiyuan Mansion was lost, and the threat to the Jingshi was greater, Chongzhen hurriedly recruited Fu Zonglong to discuss, Fu Zonglong could only propose to strengthen the defense of the Xuanda area, and after re-training the new army, he would seek to recapture Shanxi and drive the Xingtian Army out of Shanxi, but this kind of words, that is to say, at this time, everyone actually knows that after the new army of the imperial court is trained, the Xingtian Army will never be idle, and if Shanxi is lost, I am afraid that there will be no chance to get it back.

When the time entered the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the situation of the entire Ming Dynasty has completely changed into a situation where the Xingtian army is strong and the imperial court is weak.

At the same time that Sun Chuanting led his troops south to suppress the Xingtian Army, Ding Qirui was not idle, Ding Qirui knew that this was his last chance, and now the Xingtian thief had already been restrained because the court and Jiannu negotiated peace, and transferred troops into the customs, and he had to transfer the main force to Henan, and the crisis of Nanzhili was temporarily alleviated.

So if he wants to make achievements at this time, then he can only take advantage of the opportunity of the main force of the thief army to go north, go upstream, and wave his army to regain Huguang, so that he can save the Ming Dynasty from danger, once the official army in the north wins, then he can fight the Xingtian thief in Henan with the official army in the north from the south, and finally kill the Xingtian thief in Henan.

So at the beginning of March, Ding Qirui mobilized nearly 100,000 officers and troops in the area of Nanzhili, and the troops began to march on Huguang in three ways, one route was led by Huang Dequan, directly attacking Macheng, and the other way out of Nanchang Mansion to attack Ningzhou, and he personally led the army from Nanjing against the river, directly attacking Wuchang Mansion, wanting to advance in three ways at the same time, enter Huguang, and recapture Huguang.

And Xiao Tianjian left Luo Rucai in Huguang to sit in Huguang, which was to let him guard against Ding Qirui's move, after Ding Qirui sent troops in March, Luo Rucai, who was sitting in Wuchang Mansion, immediately learned the news, so Luo Rucai immediately mobilized troops and horses to deal with it, compared to Xiao Tianjian's side, Luo Rucai's side is far worse, this time Xiao Tianjian in order to fundamentally disintegrate the imperial court's combat power against the Xingtian Army, when he returned to Henan in the north, he transferred a large number of elite old troops to Henan, in order to prepare for the enemy going south, As a result, most of the soldiers and horses left in Huguang were newly formed battalions that were not strong in combat effectiveness, and most of these soldiers and horses were battalions B and C, but there were very few real battalions of type A, so at this time, Luo Ru on the side of Huguang had no strength to launch any offensive at all, and it was very difficult to defend so many places.

Therefore, under the advice of Pan Duao, the senator, Luo Rucai could only temporarily shrink the main forces as much as possible, gave up the defense of some county towns in the east, and concentrated the main forces in Huangzhou and Ezhou and Wuchang Mansion, and at the same time ordered the naval division to be stationed in the Ezhou area, ready for defense, and he also urgently ordered Zhao Weihua (Zhao Erdonkey), who was now sitting in Xiangyang, to mobilize part of his troops from the west of Huguang and immediately reinforce Wuchang Mansion to strengthen the defensive force of Wuchang Mansion.

It is precisely because Luo Ru took the initiative to show weakness and gave up the defense of part of the territory, so as not to cause the troops to be too scattered, when the official army attacked, he wanted to defend anywhere, but he couldn't hold anywhere, so Ding Qirui raised troops in Nanzhili, and the progress was quite smooth at the beginning, the three armies marched together, the right wing army first laid down Macheng, and then approached Wuchang Mansion, and the left wing army also conquered Ningzhou, and the soldiers pointed directly at Daye.

The generals plundered the places they passed, burning and killing along the way, and it was normal to kill the good and take the merits, so that the people who had just lived a few days of peace along the way immediately fell into a disaster.

But in this way, it also aroused the anger of the people in the area controlled by the Xingtian Army, and the common people did not complain that the Xingtian Army abandoned them, after all, the Xingtian Army made it clear when they withdrew, they had no choice but to let the people retreat with them, but many people were reluctant to abandon their homes and flee because they were greedy for the rice planted in the land, so when they were harmed by the officials and soldiers, they couldn't complain about the Xingtian Army.

After a large number of people suffered the scourge of the official army, the news quickly spread, and in a short time it spread all over Huguang, and the people everywhere learned that the official army was coming back, so they immediately made their own choice, and a large number of people ran to find the men and horses of the Xingtian Army to help in the war, and began to dig trenches around the city and fort to arrange armor under the mobilization of the Xingtian Army.

In this way, the official army will be more and more difficult to walk, when Huang De's power department captured Macheng, he knew that with his troops, it would be difficult to take Wuchang Mansion alone, so he turned to Huangzhou, trying to take Huangzhou first, covering Ding Qirui's main force against the river, and opening up the defense line of the Xingtian Army on the Yangtze River for Ding Qirui.

As for the left flank army of the official army, it first conquered Ningzhou, and then began to advance in the direction of Daye County, trying to take Daye, open the passage to Wuchang Mansion, and respond to the attack of the Middle Route Army led by Ding Qirui on Wuchang Mansion.