The situation that this group of thieves in Liangjiazhuang suddenly gave up resistance made Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian a little bit confused, according to their opinion, the Xingtian Army has been fighting very tenaciously these days, and it is not inferior, and it is fully capable of supporting it for a few more days, why did they suddenly give up here? This made them a little incomprehensible, for fear of falling into the tricks of the thief army, but after taking Liangjiazhuang, they did not dare to drive forward easily.

So they sent Ye Bushu over Liangjiazhuang to the front to search for the enemy's traces, and the sent Ye Bushu quickly reported, saying that the thief army had indeed retreated, and the villagers in the nearby villages had also run away, and they could hardly find any villagers.

Xu Dingguo was relieved at this time, and smiled at Zuo Guangxian: "It seems that the thief army still can't hold out here after running out of ammunition and food, and he has retreated back!" Then don't hesitate to wait, immediately march to Yangcheng and take down the lair of this gang of thieves in one fell swoop! ”

So the officials and soldiers rumbled into the boundary of Yangcheng, but where they passed, the people in the villages almost escaped cleanly, so that they could hardly find a person to lead the way, and only caught a very small number of old people, but these old guys were like stones in the pit, smelly and hard, and they refused to show them the way, and went to the lair of the Xingtian Army, even if they killed a few old people, the remaining villagers still refused to help them.

When they arrived at Yangcheng County, they found that Yangcheng County had already become a ruin, the city wall had collapsed in several places, and the houses in the city were burned to ruins by a fire.

This can't help but make the officials and soldiers very discouraged, originally they wanted to find a good place to warm up after entering Yangcheng, eat and drink to warm up their bodies that were almost frozen outside these days, but when they arrived here, they found that it was a dream at all, Yangcheng County had already been completely destroyed by the Xingtian Army, so they didn't even have a good place to rest.

The weather temperature is still very low in the first month, at this time the officers and soldiers are not happy, the slightest carelessness will be frostbitten, and the night is even more cold and even the hand can not be stretched out, so in these days when the Liangjiazhuang mountain is blocked, the battle-damaged soldiers will be regarded as a part, and there are many people who are born with frostbite and hands and feet, and many of them may be disabled for life.

Moreover, since they set off and entered the area controlled by the Xingtian Army, the local people have almost escaped, so that they have nowhere to collect food, nor can they get any supplies on the spot, and the common people have avoided them into snakes and scorpions, and they have no support from the local people at all, and there are only some remnants of people who are hostile to the Xingtian Army, who will provide some intelligence support for the official army, but basically the official army will not get much help.

But this is not what made Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian feel angry, just after they entered the boundary of Yangcheng, just after sending out a report to recover Yangcheng County, they got an astonishing news, two days ago, when they were still blocked by a group of Xingtian Army under Liangjiazhuang, Hu Dawei's soldiers and horses encountered an extremely fierce counterattack by the Xingtian Army in the southern part of Zezhou.

The thief army mobilized nearly 5,000 elites, and suddenly launched a fierce attack on Hu Dawei's department, Hu Dawei was caught off guard, and led the troops and the main force of the Xingtian Army to conduct a decisive battle, but under the fierce attack of the Xingtian Army, it suffered heavy losses, forcing Hu Dawei to lead his troops to retreat, but the Xingtian Army did not defend it, and launched a night attack on Hu Dawei's department overnight, so that the Hu Dawei Department, which had already fallen in morale, immediately collapsed, and Hu Dawei only led 3,000 remnants of the defeated army to flee back to Zezhou to avoid Zezhou City before surviving.

This news frightened Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian a lot, although Hu Dawei was the worst among the four route officers and soldiers, but he also had four or five thousand officers and soldiers and four thousand village warriors, adding up to nearly 10,000 troops, they would actually be defeated so badly under the onslaught of the Xingtian Army, which really made them a little unbelievable.

And from Pingyang Mansion also came to the news, saying that He Renlong's progress in Yuanqu County is also not smooth, although He Renlong fought fiercely for several days to repel the Xingtian Army, but in the next action, repeatedly frustrated, a group of Xingtian Army's troops in the east of Yuanqu County and fought and retreated, so that He Renlong's casualties were very heavy, the thieves of the Xingtian Army later retreated to Lishan Town, when He Renlong led the troops to pursue, not only did not take Lishan Town, but the baggage battalion responsible for transporting grain to them was raided by a group of thieves, burned a large amount of grain and grass in He Renlong's department, forcing He Renlong to lead his troops back to Yuanqu County, and redeploy grain, so that the eastern part of Yuanqu County, which had just been recovered, once again fell into the hands of the thief army.

In this way, only Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian were left with not too many losses of soldiers and horses, and they still had the ability to fight, and the officers and soldiers of Hu Dawei seemed to be unable to count on it.

Faced with such a situation, Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian were a little caught off guard, and they hesitated a little for a while, not knowing whether they should continue to march against the Xingtian Army, or stop and wait and see the situation.

Besides, Xiao Tianjian is really not idle these days, the battle situation everywhere is summarized on his desk every day, he continues to issue his orders everywhere, the situation in Yuanqu County is better, although He Renlong's department is more sophisticated, but Yan Chongxi's battalion is not vegetarian, as the most elite battalion under Xiao Tianjian, even in the case of disparity in strength, Yan Chongxi's battalion is basically not left behind, using their advantage of being familiar with the terrain to repeatedly fight with He Renlong in various important places in Yuanqu County, With local superior firepower, He Renlong's troops are constantly consumed.

He Renlong suffered a loss from the Xingtian Army, although he wanted to get back to the field through this fight, but in the face of the more ferocious Xingtian Army, his generals were a little timid, for fear of suffering a big loss, even after the retreat of the Xingtian Army, the speed of the pursuit was not fast, and Yan Chongxi's battalion was too tight, and if he was not careful, he would be bitten by Yan Chongxi.

Moreover, Yan Chongxi also held five three-pounder and six-pounder cannons newly cast by the Xingtian Army, such artillery took advantage of it when fighting with He Renlong, whether it was in range or power, it was far beyond the Fulong machine gun equipped by He Renlong's department, and He Renlong's gunners had no power to fight back.

Therefore, Xiao Tianjian was not very worried about the situation on Yan Chongxi's side, after all, Yan Chongxi finally had such a dangerous place as Lishan Town for him to defend, which was enough to block the attack of He Renlong.

And his main focus is on the body of the soldiers and horses of Hu Dawei in the south of Zezhou, judging from the news sent back by the soldiers and horses from all walks of life, among the four official armies, the weakest is the official army of Hu Dawei, and Hu Dawei's department is responsible for recovering the southern part of Zezhou, Wang Chengping's cavalry team has caused a lot of trouble to Hu Dawei in a few days, and the Hu Dawei department has been tired all day, and gradually entered the depths of the area controlled by the Xingtian Army under the attraction of Wang Chengping.

So Xiao Tianjian saw this opportunity and sent an order to Luo Li, ordering him to drag Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian's troops in Qinshui County at any cost, so as to buy time and create conditions for him to lead the main force of the Xingtian Army left behind in Yangcheng to defeat Hu Dawei's troops.

This is the scene of Luo Li desperately blocking Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian in Liangjiazhuang, these days, the officers and soldiers have suffered heavy casualties, but Luo Li's side is not easy, even if the officers and troops are not good, but they occupy more than ten times the advantage of troops, and they are also equipped with a lot of three-eyed guns and bird guns, under the turn of the battle, Luo Li led his troops to fight very hard, plus the number of artillery of the two officers and soldiers far exceeded the number of artillery of Luo Li's second battalion several times, the officers and troops in order to conquer Liangjiazhuang, At the expense of gunpowder kept bombarding the Liangjiazhuang defense line, the second battalion after several days of fierce fighting, the loss was not small, casualties of nearly one-third of the personnel, and finally after getting the news of Xiao Tianjian, they took the initiative to give up Liangjiazhuang, abandoned Liangjiazhuang overnight and withdrew to Lotus Village.

Taking advantage of the time when Luo Li resisted Xu Dingguo and Zuo Guangxian in Liangjiazhuang, Xiao Tianjian personally led Li Xuanzhu's third battalion and the first artillery battalion, as well as Wang Chengping's cavalry team and two temporarily formed township battalions, and quickly rushed to a place called Jiaozhuang in the south of Zezhou, where he blocked Hu Dawei, who was about to lead his troops to attack the boundary of Yangcheng.

After the two armies encountered, Xiao Tianjian immediately bombarded Hu Dawei's large array with three six-pounder guns and three three-pounder guns of the artillery battalion, as well as more than a dozen Furlong machine guns.

Although the power of the solid bullets of the artillery is limited in the absence of flowering shells, the gunners of the Xingtian Army have basically received formal aiming training, and their shooting accuracy is much higher than that of the gunners in the official army of Hu Dawei.

In this era, because the accuracy of artillery is very poor, no one in the official army knows the concept of artillery suppression, and it is often taken that after the two sides set up the artillery, they fired indiscriminately at the enemy's large array, and the gunners of the two sides fought their own guns, and no one could help anyone, but Hu Dawei did not expect that as soon as the two sides fought, the gunners of the Xingtian Army first knocked out the artillery in his hands, and then turned the muzzle of the guns to bombard his Chinese army array.

The power of the ricochet of the solid bullet should not be underestimated, especially after the army is assembled, when it is arranged in a dense formation, when the ricochet is fired, a shell can kill and injure a lot of personnel, so under the salvo fire of the artillery of the Xingtian Army, even if more than a dozen bloody roads were opened in the middle of the army formation in Hu Dawei, the officers and soldiers where the shells passed were beaten to the stumps and flew into the sky, screaming to the sky, and suddenly the dense formation began to be chaotic.