On March 25, a group of officers and soldiers stepped on the grass that had just grown on the ground, began to leave Ruzhou, and embarked on the road to Yichuan, with 3,000 Guanning iron cavalry led by Zu Dale and Zu Kuan, accompanied by 2,000 auxiliary soldiers transferred from Wuyang to follow them, while Chen Yongfu led 4,000 officers and troops brought by Kaifeng to follow, and brought more than 2,000 Xiangyong transferred from Ruzhou to act as auxiliary soldiers to transport heavy grain and straw, and began to embark on their journey in a mighty way.

And after Wang Shaoyu received the order in Ruzhou, he took Ma Rutian to make a detour back to Yiyang County, and also rectified the soldiers and horses on March 26, this time Wang Shaoyu was also completely ruthless, while squeezing out thousands of taels of silver from Feng Yijun, he took out 10,000 taels of silver from his pocket, and sent it down as a driving money, and finally temporarily stabilized the morale of the army under his command, concentrated nearly 5,000 soldiers and horses, and only left 2,000 soldiers in the Yiyang camp to guard Yiyang County, He personally led these 5,000 soldiers and horses out of Yiyang, crossed the Luo River in the direction of Yichuan, and killed Yichuan.

At this time, in the Xingtian military camp in Gaoling Village, Xiao Tianjian was also closely watching the movements of the surrounding officers and troops, and the soldiers and horses of the Zu Dale Department and Chen Yongfu's Department had just moved, and soon the scouts sent the news to Xiao Tianjian's hands.

After Xiao Tianjian listened, he looked at Niu Jinxing and said with a smile: "Mr. Niu really expects things to be like a god, and the official army still chose Yi Chuan to do it first, it seems that this time there will be a good show here!" ”

Niu Jinxing smiled indifferently: "The handsome is too famous!" Although we came here this time, the commander kept mobilizing Ruyang's soldiers and horses, so that the officers and soldiers could not figure out the number of our garrisons in Ruyang for a while, so they would go on the road to kill Yichuan with such a swagger!

However, this time, according to the arrangement of the marshal, only such a battalion of more than a battalion of troops is left to be stationed here, once Zu Dale's troops rush over, can they be stopped with only this little force? ”

For the big strategy, Xiao Tianjian adopted Niu Jinxing's opinion, but in terms of specific tactics, how to do Niu Jinxing can't interject, now Xiao Tianjian has grown into a quite clever tactician after so many years of conquest, how to deploy the troops at hand, so that they can play the maximum effectiveness, it is not something that a reader like Niu Jinxing can master, Niu Jinxing can only listen to Xiao Tianjian's words in this regard.

Hearing Niu Jinxing ask this question, Xiao Tianjian laughed secretly in his heart, in the end, Niu Jinxing is still a scholar, and his grasp of tactics is still too far behind, although he resolutely stays and follows him, but this question exposes his weakness, so he laughed and said: "Of course it can't be stopped!" Why should I stop them? Mr. wouldn't think that I would use this less than 2,000 troops to completely defeat Zu Dale and Zu Kuan's 3,000 Guanning Iron Cavalry here! Hehe! Unstoppable! I'm just here to drag them off! ”

After Niu Jinxing thought about it carefully, he understood Xiao Tianjian's intention of such an arrangement, so he immediately laughed along, hugged his fists and said to Xiao Tianjian: "Handsome and wise!" The humble position is far inferior to the handsome in this regard! ……”

Zu Dale and Zu Kuan since the lead of the troops to leave Ruzhou, this road has not stopped, they just left Ruzhou less than ten miles, then began to appear small groups of thieves constantly wandering around them, send troops to chase, they ran, stop they are like flies around them, really lingering, a bit like tarsal maggots as annoying.

Zu Dale had to send more night and light cavalry out to chase and kill these thieves' light cavalry, but the other party was very slippery, and he had a small fight as soon as he could make contact, and he couldn't turn around and run, so that the night and light cavalry of the official army could not be pursued, so he could only return in a huff.

In this way, it slowed down the marching speed of Zu Dale's department, and also seriously interfered with the search line formed by the Ye Bu Shu sent by Zu Dale, so that these Ye Bu Hui were always suppressed by the light cavalry of the Xingtian Army, so that they could not go too far in a small team, and could only carry out activities within the sight of the officers and soldiers of the brigade.

This situation made Zu Dale couldn't help but be a little worried, if these thief light cavalry were their scouts, he didn't believe it at all, even if it was a cavalry-based Guan Ning army like him, it was difficult to send so many light cavalry scouts, let alone a thief army that lacked horses, and what did the thief army do this for? So Zu Dale found Zu Kuan and said what he was worried about.

Zu Kuan had actually noticed this problem, and he was also thinking about the purpose of the Xingtian Army's actions, before Zu Dale recruited him, Zu Kuan had already come to a conclusion, after listening to Zu Dale's inquiry, he became relaxed instead, and said to Zu Dale: "It seems that the thief army has also found that things are not good!" It is estimated that we found that we did not go straight to Ruyang County this time, but directly sent troops to Yichuan, so they sent their cavalry out, wanting to use these cavalry to drag our legs, so that they have time to transfer troops to Yichuan! In my opinion, this time the thief army is probably in a hurry!

My lord, according to what we have seen, let's ignore them, speed up and march towards Yichuan, so as to reach Yichuan County before the thief army increases the number of troops in Yichuan, in that case, the thief army will be in chaos, so that the thief army can be killed! ”

After hearing this, Zu Dale immediately nodded yes, feeling that Zu Kuan's statement was very reasonable, so while ordering to speed up, he sent someone to send a letter to Chen Yongfu who was following them, asking Chen Yongfu to speed up and keep up, arrive at Yichuan as soon as possible, and restore Yichuan.

So after these thousands of Guanning troops got the order, they began to shrink, no longer caring about the light cavalry and scouts of the Xingtian Army that appeared from time to time around them, and rushed towards Yichuan County in a group.

And Chen Yongfu got the news of Zu Dale, but he didn't think so, he felt that the Xingtian Army's move was a bit abnormal, in his opinion, with the situation of the Xingtian Army, the number of cavalry should be limited, so scattered and constantly attacking in Ruzhou, obviously there was an idea, it was not good that they wanted to take advantage of their army to go to Yichuan, take advantage of the empty army in Ruzhou, to attack Ruzhou, so that it became a situation where their officers and soldiers were attacked by the enemy.

So Chen Yongfu did not listen to Zu Dale's words, not only did he not speed up to keep up with Zu Dale's department, but instead sent a fast horse back to Ruzhou City and informed Wang Jiazhen of his thoughts.

Wang Jiazhen was originally a civilian official, and he was not familiar with the military, although he had already made up his mind to gather troops to attack Yichuan, but when he heard that Chen Yongfu said that the thief army was likely to take advantage of the weak strength of Ruzhou and attack Ruzhou first, Wang Jiazhen was a little undecided.

Ruzhou is Henan Zhili Prefecture, the status is also quite important, once there is a loss, not to mention whether it can be restored to the five counties of the Xingtian Army, even if the five counties are recovered, if Ruzhou is lost, he is still guilty of nothing, not to mention that Ruzhou is indeed relatively empty at the moment, after Zu Kuan and Chen Yongfu led the troops to leave, there are only less than 3,000 defenders left, and they are all local garrisons, and the combat power is very worrying, and the Xingtian Army is said to be very good at attacking the city, once the Xingtian Army first sends troops to attack Ruzhou, Then even his own net worth and life have become a problem.

Just when Wang Jiazhen was hesitating about this, a news came from Feng Chun on the side of Lushan, saying that Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, suddenly led 30,000 troops to leave the Suizhou area of recent activities, and the troops went straight to Daoyang Mansion, and the Nanyang prefect urgently recruited Feng Chun to return to Nanyang.

In this way, the plan to contain the thief army in Ruyang County could not be implemented by threatening the Nanyang soldiers and horses under Feng Chun's command, which made Wang Jiazhen's concern for the safety of Ruzhou even heavier.

So after thinking about it again and again, Wang Jiazhen sent someone to order Chen Yongfu not to enter the army for the time being, and to camp in the southwest of Ruzhou to prevent the thieves in Ruyang County from suddenly attacking Ruzhou.

In this way, the originally planned plan of Zu Dale and Chen Yongfu to attack Yichuan has lost its meaning, but Wang Jiazhen did not make Zu Dale's troops give up attacking Yichuan, in his opinion, with Zu Dale's troops, plus the troops of Luoyang Wang Shaoyu, it is enough to recover Yichuan County, leaving Chen Yongfu to keep an eye on Ruyang is a safer way.

After hearing that Wang Jiazhen had changed his plan temporarily, Zu Dale immediately scolded, saying that Wang Jiazhen was really a fool, since he had already made a decision, how could he change so much? The most taboo in military affairs is to change the hexagram in battle, and Wang Jiazhen, as a civil official, has soft ears and small timidity, Xing Tianjun doesn't know what to do if he scares him a little, and this matter must be Chen Yongfu making trouble behind him, and this Chen Yongfu has a holiday with them, and Wang Jiazhen, who didn't want to cooperate with him to instigate him.

But Zu Dale was angry, but there was no way about this matter, this time he was personally ordered by Xiong Wencan, and sent here to obey Wang Jiazhen's dispatch, Wang Jiazhen asked him to continue to attack Yichuan, then he could only do it, and for Chen Yongfu's judgment this time, he also felt reasonable, but he was still a little expectant, Xingtianjun had better go to Ruzhou at this time, and let Chen Yongfu, a bastard, be beaten up!

To be honest, Zu Dale really didn't have a good impression of the civil officials of today's imperial court, when they followed Yuan Inspector outside the pass, they could be regarded as doing their best to serve the Ming Dynasty, but because the Jin army entered the customs, Yuan Inspector led them to chase after King Jiannu Qin, but they were brought down by those officials in the court, and finally ended up with a chopped end.

So in Zu Dale's view, few of these civil officials are good things, they have won one by one to make money by eating, but few have real skills to do practical things, and this kind of thing is originally a matter of military generals, but military generals are subject to the dispatch and constraints of civilian officials, why!

So Zu Dale was full of slander, and he and Zu Kuan led his troops to continue to march towards Yichuan.