The central location of a city is often the location of the most important functional departments in a city, and the most important department in Yongzhou City, the state government, is in the center of the fire. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Of course, since Nong Zhigao occupied Yongzhou, it has become his imperial palace.

Seeing the sky-high flames rising from the location of the "Great Southern Kingdom Palace", Di Qing and the others all knew that something would happen.

Di Qing hurriedly led everyone down from the city tower, and under the escort of his own soldiers, rushed to the location of the palace.

When Zhong Hao followed Di Qing and his party to Nong Zhigao's "palace", he saw that his "palace" was already full of flames, and no one could enter at all.

Cui Feng, the commander of the middle battalion of the Pingxi Army, who was the first to come to attack Nong Zhigao's palace, saw Di Shuai coming, and hurriedly stepped forward to report, saying: "Commander, when the north city gate was blown open, his subordinates rushed to capture the thief chief Nong Zhigao, but he was strongly blocked by the Nong army at the gate, and then the thief chief set fire to this place by himself. ”

Di Qing glanced at Cui Feng, and he was very appreciative of the commander of the middle battalion of the Pingxi Army who led his soldiers to use gunpowder weapons to destroy the elephant troops of the Nong Army and blow up the north gate of Yongzhou City. After listening to Cui Feng's words, he nodded and said, "Have you ever seen the thief chief after you arrived here?" ”

If Nong Zhigao was in this "palace", he should have committed suicide by burning down this "palace" by burning down the "palace" seeing that he was cornered. Because the Western Army had already surrounded the "Imperial Palace", Nong Zhigao had no chance to escape. Moreover, Di Qing had already ordered the cavalry of the Western Army to block the four gates of Yongzhou City, even if Nong Zhigao could escape from his "palace", he would definitely not be able to escape from the city, so it was very likely that he understood that he was desperate, so he set himself on fire.

Although Cui Feng just said that the thief chief set fire to the nest by himself, he didn't see Nong Zhigao. For Nong Zhigao's appearance, the Western Army has a shadow drawing, which is generally recognizable. Moreover, Cui Feng can recognize Nong Zhigao more for others, because he has clairvoyance, and during the decisive battle between the two armies, Cui Feng once carefully looked at Nong Zhigao who was sitting under the Huangluo umbrella at the height of the Nong army's position, dressed in a dragon robe.

Although Cui Feng felt that Nong Zhigao had self-immolated, but when he heard Di Qing's question, he didn't say much about his thoughts, but just answered his own marshal truthfully, and said: "Yu Dashuai, my subordinates have never seen the thief chief Nong Zhigao, but they have only encountered the desperate resistance of those Nong soldiers under him. ”

Since it is not certain that Nong Zhigao is in this "palace", he cannot give up his recourse.

At that moment, Di Qing turned his head to the herald beside him and said: "Block the gates of the four cities, let the soldiers clear the Nong army in the city as soon as possible, and wait for dawn to search for the thief chief Nong Zhigao in the whole city." ”

At this time, it was already the second watch, the moon and stars in the sky were scarce, and there were shadowy firelights everywhere in Yongzhou City, and the faces of the people under the firelight looked very unreal in the moonlight. If you search at night, I'm afraid it won't have any effect, so Di Qing arranged for the soldiers of the Western Army to search for Nong Zhigao's traces tomorrow.

"Huh", after listening to Di Qing's order, the herald replied loudly, turned to find his heralds, and asked them to go separately to herald.

Everyone didn't care too much about Nong Zhigao's whereabouts, even if he wasn't burned to death in this "palace", I was afraid that he would not be able to escape, the four gates of Yongzhou City had been firmly controlled by the Western Army.

…………

After dawn, the Western Army began to search for Nong Zhigao throughout the city.

In less than three watches last night, the Western Army had completely wiped out the Nong troops in Yongzhou City who still dared to resist.

As for the large number of Han soldiers and peasants who had no fighting spirit and had just been transformed from the common people into soldiers, most of them had already thrown away their weapons and surrendered on their knees as soon as they saw the Western Army. At this time, they were gathered and driven to the square where the prisoners were beheaded in the open place of Yongzhou City, and were guarded by a small number of Western soldiers.

Well, there is no intention of killing these prisoners in the square where they are gathered everywhere, and if they do, they would have been killed last night, so there is no need to bother with this.

Although Di Qing issued an order to kill the Nong army during the pursuit, it was impossible to kill them all. After all, Nong Zhigao's subordinates are also an army of 100,000, and if they are killed, it will be too terrifying, and many of the Nong troops in the city are coerced, and many of them do not have too many evil deeds. Most of the soldiers of the Western Army are brave and heroic men, and they also have their own pride, let them face the same strong party warriors or Khitan men, they will not frown at all, but let them slaughter those nong Han soldiers who discarded their weapons and surrendered on their knees, they are really a little unable to do it.

Killing prisoners is still disdainful of the proud Western Army.

Moreover, after the rebellion of Nong Zhigao, the two regions of Lingnan and Guangxi are now full of holes. In many places, there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles, and there is no one for hundreds of miles. Now that the counterinsurgency is coming to an end, it is time to think about the post-war reconstruction work.

Of course, these post-war reconstruction efforts must have been the work of the civil servants of the imperial court.

However, although Di Qing is not a civilian official, it is impossible for him to preside over the post-war reconstruction of Lingnan, but if all the captured Nong soldiers are killed, the civilian officials will be deprived of the important coolies for post-war reconstruction, and they will inevitably be infamous as a "cruel butcher" by those civilian officials, so Di Qing thinks that it is better to leave coolies for those civilian officials.

Besides, letting these Han soldiers of the Nong Army who helped the abuses do some coolies and contribute some efforts to the rebuilding of the Lingnan homeland can be regarded as atoning for their own sins.

There were more than 30,000 Han soldiers in the nong-army.

Originally, there were more than 50,000 Han soldiers left behind by the Nong army, and about 5,000 or 6,000 were killed by the Western soldiers because of resistance. As for the remaining more than 10,000 nong troops, they probably took off their military uniforms in time, changed into people's clothes, and blended into the people in Yongzhou City.

After dawn, the western army began to search for the thief chief Nong Zhigao from house to house.

However, after searching for a long time, Nong Zhigao was not found, but many Nong soldiers hiding in the houses were found. The Nong soldiers who were searched for were also taken to the square.

It stands to reason that as soon as the Western Army entered the city, it had already controlled the Yongzhou City Gate in time, and Nong Zhigao should not be able to escape, but the soldiers of the Western Army still did not find any trace of him after searching the whole city in detail.

In the end, the Western Army caught a few Nong soldiers hiding in the houses in the city at the south gate, and they were all guarding the south gate all the time. In order to survive, these guys hurriedly told Nong Zhigao's whereabouts to show that they were valuable.

From the mouths of the defenders of the south gate, the Western Army learned that Nong Zhigao had already left the city.

According to these guys, before the Western Army rushed into the city, Nong Zhigao rushed out of the south gate with many treasures and two prime ministers, as well as a few Nong soldiers. No wonder the Western Army blocked the city gate and the whole city, and they couldn't find Nong Zhigao.

This guy probably knew that Yongzhou City could not be defended after he failed the decisive battle at the beginning, so he didn't plan to stay in the city and wait for death at all. So before the Western army could attack the city, he ran away.

Since Nong Zhigao, the biggest culprit of Lingnan erosion, has fled, he has to send troops to chase him.

At that moment, Di Qing scattered all the cavalry of the Western Army to track down Nong Zhigao. As for the infantry, they all stayed in the city to control the situation in Yongzhou City.

Di Qing instructed those cavalrymen to do their best and not to make unnecessary sacrifices, he was afraid that Nong Zhigao would have something to do. Therefore, the instructions to the cavalry of the Western Army were to chase if they could catch up, and not to take risks if they couldn't catch up.

In fact, even if Nong Zhigao escapes, I am afraid that it will be difficult to set off any waves, because of this incident, all his elite and prestige have been lost. Even if he can escape, I am afraid that in the future, he will only be able to hide in the mountains and forests to avoid the suppression of the Great Song Dynasty.

Di Qing actually didn't need to go so hard to chase Nong Zhigao, the reason why he asked all the cavalry to try their best to hunt down Nong Zhigao was mainly to give an explanation to the civil officials of the imperial court, after all, Nong Zhigao was the culprit who caused the Lingnan Rebellion, if he knew that he ran away and didn't chase after him, it was estimated that he would be sprayed by the civil officials again.