"Qi Yu Marshal, the scout team has discovered the area of Xingzhou, there have been Tartar rangers, since yesterday, the scout team and these Tartar rangers began to fight, both sides have their own wins and losses, our scouts suffer a greater loss, the Tartar rangers are indeed very powerful, they are not only brave, but also very cunning, but also very good at riding and shooting, one person and two horses, our scouts do not take advantage! A few days ago, half of the scouts have not returned on time! Lin Luo said to Xiao Tianjian.

Now Lin Luo is already a battalion commander-level officer, this time Xiao Tianjian led his troops to the north, temporarily gathered the scout teams of each battalion together, and set up a temporary scout brigade, which was handed over to Lin Luo to be under the command of Lin Luo, responsible for detecting the enemy's tracks in front of and around the army, so Lin Luo naturally knew the current situation best.

After hearing this, Xiao Tianjian nodded and asked: "The Tartars have really penetrated into the territory of Zhending Mansion, and the scale of the Tartars entering the Kou this time is far greater than several times in the past, and the people in the north are really pitiful this time!" Alas!

So did the scouts discover the main force of Jiannu? After Xiao Tianjian sighed, he asked Lin Luo.

"Marshal Qiyu, the scouts have made some discoveries, in the northeast of Xingzhou, the scouts have found a Qing army of thousands of people, and there are also signs of a large number of Tartar activities in the north of Xingzhou, but it is a pity that many of the scouts under the last general have not returned, and the specific surrounding Jiannu forces are not very clear! Please forgive me! Lin Luo replied with a look of shame.

Xiao Tianjian also knew that Lin Luo could not be blamed for this kind of thing, after all, they went north this time, although there were fine works, but because there were many people fleeing south, the original fine works also lost contact, only relying on scouts, once they encountered the Tartar rangers, it was inevitable to lose, and the Tartar rangers were also the elite of the Jiannu, very difficult to deal with, Lin Luo's scouts could detect so much news, in fact, they had done their best, and they had paid a lot of price, so he waved his hand and said that there was no problem, so that Lin Luo did not have to worry about it.

"So have you ever found the officers and soldiers? Especially the soldiers and horses under Lu Xiangsheng? Xiao Tianjian then asked.

Lin Luo immediately nodded and said: "It has been discovered, there are currently two official armies moving south from Zhending Mansion, and the first official army should be the Guanning Army under the command of Gao Qiqian, with a strength of about twenty or thirty thousand people, and now they are moving towards the Jize area, and the other brother looks at the banner, it should be the soldiers and horses under the command of Lu Xiangsheng, but it seems that the number of officers and troops under Lu Xiangsheng is not much, at most about five or six thousand people, and they are very tired!" They were heading towards the Great Deer, and there was no communication between their two armies! ”

Xiao Tianjian looked at the sky, there was a haze in the sky, and suddenly asked, "What day is today?" ”

The generals paused for a moment, and Li Xin immediately replied: "Qiyu Marshal, today is the tenth day of the lunar month!" Where do we go next? ”

Xiao Tianjian looked up at the sky and said to himself: "Julu, Jiazhuang, it seems that nothing has changed!" ”

Li Xin couldn't understand what Xiao Tianjian said, so he asked again, what to do next.

Xiao Tianjian collected his thoughts at this time, and ordered Tietou, who was already his lieutenant officer, to spread out the map, pointed to the map and said to the generals: "The first battle between us and the Jiannu Army this time is here......

Lu Xiangsheng was leading less than 6,000 soldiers and horses at this time, difficult to withstand the cold wind, slowly marching in the direction of Julu, to this day, Lu Xiangsheng was already disheartened, although he tried his best to save a little national fortune for the imperial court, led his generals to fight to the death with the Jiannu army repeatedly, these two months, lost nearly half of the soldiers and horses.

However, the result of his efforts was that the current saint reprimanded and demoted him, and even took back the Shang Fang sword that was given to him in the first place.

Although the imperial court later sent his old friend Yang Tinglin to his army to make his praise paintings, so that he had an old friend by his side, which was a little gratifying, but for him, what can this be?

Today, he used the excuse of sending Yang Tinglin to the army for the reason of seeking food and food, and he led Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei and others and these soldiers and horses under his command to continue to move towards Julu.

But at this time, his army has long been cut off from the grain, since he was ordered to set off from Baoding, Baoding Mansion stopped the supply of food and salary to his army, he sent people to Baoding City to ask for food, as a result, the Baoding prefect only dropped a thousand taels of silver from the city, let him use this silver to buy food, but now the Jiannu into the Kou wreaked havoc in the land of Jingfu, the common people were either killed, or captured, or fled, he has money and nowhere to buy food.

So he had no choice but to lead his troops south, chasing after the Jiannu army that had bypassed Baoding Mansion, seeking to engage with it, along the way he first tried to write to the military department to ask for food, but after the letter was sent, it sank into the sea, and he asked people to go to Qingyuan County with his hand to order Qingyuan County to supply him with grain, but the magistrate of Qingyuan County already knew that Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian were not in harmony, and they were afraid of Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian's obscenity, and did not dare to provide grain to Lu Xiangsheng, so he closed the city gate and did not allow Lu Xiangsheng to enter the city with a soldier, and at the same time did not give any grain.

Lu Xiangsheng was helpless, and he couldn't bear to rob the troops for food, so he had to lead this group of soldiers to continue on the road to Zhending Mansion, hoping to get some supplies from Zhending Mansion, but after the soldiers arrived in Zhending, Zhang Qiping, the governor of Zhending, was also afraid of Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, and refused to lose to Lu Xiangsheng even if it was a day's rations, and also closed the city gate, and did not allow Lu Xiangsheng's soldiers to enter the city.

At this time, the local government was unusually unified, helping Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian to deal with Lu Xiangsheng, cutting off all the support for Lu Xiangsheng's grain, for fear of offending Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, so that Lu Xiangsheng and the thousands of soldiers under his command basically ran out of grain and grass at this time, and at most every day, that is, they could drink a bowl of gruel, which had to be mixed with some grass roots.

Although Lu Xiangsheng knew that the soldiers and generals were hungry and had to do it, but in order not to lose the hearts of the people, he still reluctantly ordered these officers and soldiers to be beheaded, and the people who complained also found that Lu Xiangsheng's army had run out of food, and knew Lu Xiangsheng's situation, after going back, he found some people, spontaneously raised a little food, and sent it to Lu Xiangsheng's army, wanting to help Lu Xiangsheng, but this bit of food is a drop in the bucket, and each officer and soldier is not enough to drink a bowl of gruel.

In the past few days, Lu Xiangsheng has completely run out of food, so he can only let the officers and soldiers kill a few thin horses, and send people to dig some grass roots along the way to cook soup to make the officers and soldiers hungry, and he himself is also starving, accompanying all the soldiers and generals to march on an empty stomach.

If it was someone else who led the troops, these officers and soldiers would have mutinied a long time ago, but these officers and soldiers would rather be hungry because they respected Lu Xiangsheng as a rare good official in the world, and they followed Lu Xiangsheng to work hard, but at this time, everyone was completely disappointed in the court and other officials, and secretly scolded the emperor one by one for not being a good thing, Yang Sichang was not a good thing, and those officials in the state capital and county were not good things, they followed Lord Lu and Tartar every day. But these Wang Basun were stunned to sit back and watch them starve, wanting to drag them down, if it weren't for Lord Lu taking them, they would just be scattered on the spot now, go home and go home, and if they don't have a home, they will simply fall into the grass and pull them down.

Lu Xiangsheng also heard this, but at this point, he didn't want to punish these soldiers, he only thought about meeting the Tartars, and dying on the battlefield to end his life, he was also a human being, and at this point, he was also extremely disappointed in the current court.

Speaking of which, he is a governor, but now he can't even find a bite to eat for his officers and soldiers, everyone wants to see him die, nothing else, just because he is the main battle, and the current emperor and the important minister Yang Sichang, the great eunuch Gao Qiqian have different opinions, so all the people in the officialdom collectively unanimously squeezed him, and even the thousands of officers and soldiers under his command also wanted them to follow him to be martyred.

Looking at the hazy sky, Lu Xiangsheng's mood was extremely bad, and he silently muttered in his heart, 'Come on!' Hurry up! Taking advantage of the strength that I Lu Xiangsheng still has, killing a few more Tartars can be regarded as being loyal to the Ming Dynasty! Your Majesty! Why do you do this to me? If it goes on like this, will it be true that Daming is going to end? ’

At this time, Hu Dawei, who had become black and thin, came to Lu Xiangsheng, and said with a dark face: "Lord Qiqi, the person sent to find Gao Dajian has returned, Gao Qiqian's guy doesn't agree to provide us with a little food at all, they want to starve us to death!" If this continues, let alone fight with the Tartars, even if we are hungry, we can all starve to death! My lord, let's go back to Shanxi if we can't do it! This battle can't be fought! ”

When Hu Dawei spoke, Yang Guozhu also walked over with a look of resentment, and intervened and said to Lu Xiangsheng: "My lord, more and more Tartar rangers have been found around, they have embellished us since they came out of Zhending Mansion, it seems that the Tartars are looking for an opportunity to defeat us in one fell swoop!" If this continues, we may not have much time! ”

After Lu Xiangsheng heard this, he suddenly took a deep breath and said angrily: "Shut up the official!" As a minister of the Ming Dynasty, how can we say such discouraged words at this time? Give me to go down to prepare the soldiers and horses, our trip is to find the Tartars to fight to the death, if we want to die, we are also loyal to the Ming Dynasty to die, and the death behind us is also extremely glorious, now go back to Shanxi? How to go back? If anyone disturbs our army's heart here again, don't blame me for Lu Xiangsheng's military law! ”

Hu Dawei and Yang Guozhu glanced at each other, so they helplessly intervened to give a salute, and both retreated, Lu Xiangsheng watched them retreat, his body shook a little, and he almost fell to the ground, his family Ding Gu Xian hurriedly stretched out his hand and hugged Lu Xiangsheng, and said urgently: "Master!" Let's have a bite to eat! How about going on like this! Today, you haven't eaten a grain of rice, even if the master wants to fight Jiannu to the end, at least you have to eat something and have the strength! ”

Lu Xiangsheng smiled bitterly and shook his head: "The soldiers have no food, how can I, Lu Xiangsheng, eat alone?" What's more, what is there to eat now? That's it! Don't say anything! Keep on your way! ”

And at this time, that Li Qi also said angrily: "Master, it's okay if this official is not right!" The old man was born and died for the court all day long, fighting with Jiannu, and fighting with the mutant army, didn't he just want to serve the current emperor? But now look at the whole court, who is like an adult? Like Yang Sichang, Gao Qiqian's generation, even Xiao Xingtian is not as good, now the Ming Dynasty is in a national crisis, even Xiao Xingtian knows that he should let go of his past grievances and help the court to fight the foreign court, but the court up and down, but only know that the enemy is like a tiger, and avoid war everywhere, this is not enough, now in order to be afraid that the adult will get credit, he also cut off the adult's grain, and wants to put the adult and so many soldiers to death, so it seems that the officials of this court are not appropriate! The little one would rather be an adult to help Xiao Xingtian fight the sky! It is also saved to suffer from such birds here! ”

Lu Xiangsheng quickly turned his head to look around as if he had been shocked, fortunately only Gu Xian and Li Qi were by his side at this time, and no one else was there, so he was angry, pulled out his waist knife, and swung it at Li Qi, and said angrily: "Bold Li Qi, do you want to do the opposite?" I will kill you today, and see if you dare to say such disobedient words!" ”

But Li Qi was unexpectedly tough today, neither dodging nor begging for mercy, just stretched his neck like this, stared at Lu Xiangsheng's knife falling towards his neck, a layer of mist flashed in his eyes, and at the same time showed a trace of pity for Lu Xiangsheng, and the knife instantly swung to his neck, at this time Li Qicai closed his eyes.

(Thanks to the tip of the truth left friend!) ）