The Spring Festival of the Xingtian Army was also spent in intense preparations, because the official army was pressing, and there was a tense atmosphere before the war everywhere, so even the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival was completely diluted, and everyone was put into busy preparations.

The local security chiefs led their subordinate township soldiers to carry out the final evacuation of the villagers under their jurisdiction, and arranged the lives of the people in the mountains, and the common people also brought everything they could take away into the mountains according to their requirements, and those who could not be taken away dug pits and buried them on the spot.

The battalions of soldiers are in full swing in carrying out large-scale military training in various places, and they are waiting for the coming of the big war.

Groups of scouts came and went at the junction to reconnoiter the movements of the officers and soldiers, and sent the news to the lotus village continuously.

The craftsmen on the other side of Shuangfeng Village did not even rest on the Chinese New Year's Eve and the first day of the new year, and produced various weapons at full speed, and continuously transferred various materials to the Lotus Village.

Originally, Xiao Tianjian also planned to marry Fan Yutong a year ago, but because of this matter, he was stranded and had to postpone it, and after arranging the affairs of the army, he personally took the guards out of Lotus Village and inspected the pre-war preparations everywhere, so that he was so busy that he didn't even have time to rest for a day.

After repeated preparations, the recruit battalion of the Xingtian Army also ended the training of recruits, and was transferred to the fourth battalion of soldiers on the spot, and Liu Bao temporarily served as the general of the fourth battalion, enriching the combat strength of the Xingtian Army, and at the same time, Xiao Tianjian ordered from the township soldiers from all over the country to select 3,000 capable township soldiers, and temporarily formed two super-organized township barracks, as the reserve force of the Xingtian Army to deal with the official army this time, and ordered Jiang Cheng and Zhao Erdon, the two deputy battalions, to each lead a township battalion as a reserve army of the war battalion, so as to enrich the combat effectiveness of the Xingtian Army. And ordered each of them to draw 100 generals from the original battalion to enrich the township barracks, and temporarily serve as middle and low-level officers, so as to command these temporarily organized township soldiers, so that the command was unified, even if the township soldiers were not well trained, but under the leadership of these people, they also had considerable combat effectiveness.

As a result, the strength of the Xingtian Army has also increased to about 8,000 people, although the number is still relatively different compared to several official troops, but these troops are used to defend the area of Yangcheng, but they are already relatively abundant.

It was under such intense preparations that the Xingtian Army finally ushered in the attack of the official army.

On the twelfth day of the first month of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Chen Bing's four official troops around Yangcheng were ordered to start acting together, and He Renlongbu was ordered to attack Yuanqu County again, Zuo Guangxian's department was ordered to go out of Jiangzhou, and from Jiangxian County to Qinshui County, the Ministry of Xuding Guo totaled Qinshui County, and the Hu Dawei Department set out from Lu'an Mansion and entered the south of Zezhou to sweep away the Xingtian Army.

This time, the Fourth Route Army learned the lesson of the defeat of the last Shanxi soldiers and horses, and did not make mistakes in their respective actions, but began to act at the same time.

The response measures taken by the Xingtian Army were that Yan Chongxi's 1st Battalion continued to garrison Yuanqu County to resist the attack of the He Renlong Division in the Zhengjiapo area, Luo Li's 2nd Battalion resisted the attack of Zuo Guangxian and Xu Dingguo's officers and troops in Qinshui County, and the southern part of Zezhou was handed over to Wang Chengping's cavalry, which led the two sentinel cavalry under his command to attack and harass the officers and troops of Hu Dawei's department.

According to Xiao Tianjian's words, this time the Xingtian Army took the first step by step to resist, and then gradually shrank and introduced the official army into the Yangcheng territory for a decisive battle.

After the Fourth Route Officer Army started, except for He Renlong who led his troops to Zhengjiapo west of Yuanqu County, encountered the stubborn resistance of the first battalion of the Xingtian Army, the rest of the Third Route Army made rapid progress, Luo Li and Wang Chengping led the troops to resist not fiercely, Luo Li, who guarded Qinshui County, only carried out a certain degree of resistance in a few key passes leading to Yangcheng in Qinshui, knocked out some of the vanguard soldiers and horses of the officers and soldiers, and then when a large number of officers and soldiers arrived, they took the initiative to retreat and give up fighting hard with the officers and soldiers. The slow retreat delayed the speed at which the officers and troops entered Yangcheng.

And Wang Chengping is even more desperate, taking advantage of the flat terrain in the south of Zezhou, standing on the characteristics of cavalry action, in the south of Zezhou simply and Hu Dawei consumed, not confronting Hu Dawei head-on at all, but unexpectedly led the cavalry under his command to revolve around the southern part of Zezhou, stunned that the nearly 10,000 officers and troops under the command of Hu Dawei could not catch them, and accidentally Wang Chengping led the cavalry to bite hard, giving full play to the advantages of the cavalry that can move quickly. greatly let Wang Chengping and his old brothers experience the pleasure of plundering in the border towns again, but this time they were dealing with a large number of officers and soldiers.

As long as the officers and soldiers under Hu Dawei's command went to sweep everywhere, Wang Chengping led the cavalry to select those officers and soldiers with few troops to carry out a surprise attack, and successively killed hundreds of officers and soldiers under Hu Dawei and nearly a thousand villagers, and Hu Dawei was angry like thunder, and led the army to find Wang Chengping's thief cavalry everywhere for a decisive battle, but Wang Chengping just didn't give Hu Dawei a chance, and ran around with the cavalry, so that Hu Dawei couldn't catch their tails at all.

So much so that Hu Dawei did not dare to easily divide his troops and sweep later, so he could only wrap the soldiers and horses into a group and slowly advance forward, gradually squeezing the activity space of Wang Chengping's cavalry.

At the beginning of the war, the two sides did not fight too fiercely, although the official army was not able to clean up the large number of soldiers and horses of the Xingtian Army like the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, but they still moved forward step by step, and most of the battles between the two sides ended with the Xingtian Army retreating on its own initiative.

In this way, in less than ten days, Zuo Guangxian, Xu Dingguo, and Hu Dawei's three-way officers and troops basically recovered Qinshui County and the southern part of Zezhou, and He Renlong, who was responsible for attacking Yuanqu County, also achieved certain results, Yan Chongxi's battalion stubbornly blocked He Renlong's department in the area of Zhengjiapo for five days, and then took the initiative to abandon Zhengjiapo and retreated into the area west of Yuanqu County, so that He Renlong led his troops to attack Yuanqu County and relieved the siege of Yuanqu County.

Although there are not many generals of the official army who have captured the Xingtian army, but the reports of the victory have been sent to the Pingyang Mansion one after another, Wu Fu is also very happy after reading these reports of the victory, but his staff does not think so, because the number of enemy troops annihilated is ambiguous on the reports of several official and military victories, and sometimes after a battle, only a few levels of beheading, and never more than 100 levels of beheading, so the staff reminded Wu Fu that in this way, although the progress of the officers and troops from all walks of life is relatively smooth, However, the strength of the Xingtian Army was not greatly damaged because of this, so it is estimated that the future battles will become more and more intense.

After hearing this, Wu Fu thought so, and hurriedly sent someone to send a letter to the chief generals of several official armies, telling them to be more careful, and not to rush forward alone and fall into the ambush of the Xingtian Army.

But for Wu Fu's reminder, in addition to He Renlong, the other three soldiers and horses Zuo Guangxian, Xu Dingguo, and Hu Dawei did not listen to it, thinking that Wu Fu was too cautious, and now they are making very smooth progress, and the Xingtian Army has fled without a fight in the face of their attacks several times, basically without much strong resistance, and they have a large number of soldiers and horses, with the strength of the Xingtian Army, even if they play some tricks, they may not be able to help them.

So Zuo Guangxian and Xu Dingguo joined forces, and after recovering Qinshui County, they immediately waved their troops to attack the boundary of Yangcheng County, but what they never expected was that after they attacked the boundary of Yangcheng County, they encountered stubborn resistance from the first part of the Xingtian Army in Liangjiazhuang.

After Luo Li led his troops to fight and retreat to Liangjiazhuang, he stopped continuing to retreat, and with Liangjiazhuang as the center, he built several solid defensive lines in advance on the road leading to Yangcheng in Qinshui County.

Liangjiazhuang is also located in Qinshui County and Yangcheng County junction of a small village, but it happens to be on a mountainside, below is the only passage between Qinshui County and Yangcheng, here than the early Li Xuanzhu garrisoned the Hexi Village, the terrain is much more complicated, although it can not be said that a husband is a pass and ten thousand people are not open, but it can also be said to be an easy to defend and difficult to attack place.

Under Liangjiazhuang, if the official army wants to capture Liangjiazhuang, it must be attacked from the bottom to the top, and the terrain under the slope is narrow, even if the attacking side has more soldiers and horses, it cannot be all deployed here, so it can only use refueling tactics and constantly rotate to attack Liangjiazhuang.

After Luo Li led his troops to retreat from Qinshui County to the area of Liangjiazhuang, a group of township soldiers here had already built several solid defense lines for them with the help of the Xingtian Army Engineer Battalion.

The drill gopher Liang Tietou of the engineer battalion personally sat here to command, dug up the official road with earth and stone, and then went down the slope to the slope, led the soldiers of the engineer battalion and the township soldiers gathered nearby to build four solid chest walls, and the second battalion under the command of Luo Li immediately stationed in Liangjiazhuang after withdrawing here, took over the defense here, and firmly nailed here.

Xu Dingguo led his troops to the bottom of Liangjiazhuang first, and after collecting the soldiers and horses, he looked up at the location of Liangjiazhuang, and was slightly surprised, the terrain here is very unfavorable to him, the thief army has cut off this passage and built a fortification on the mountain, it seems that they are going to fight with them here.

And on the ramp leading to Liangjiazhuang on the mountain, there are also a lot of thistles and thistles scattered, and several deer barres have been built one after another, if they don't take this Liangjiazhuang, then they will be blocked here, unable to enter the Yangcheng boundary.

So he immediately mobilized the artillery in the army, erected it at the foot of the mountain, aimed at the position of the Xingtian army on the mountain, and made a rumbling call, and then sent a thousand generals under him, leading five hundred officers and soldiers, to start attacking Liangjiazhuang.

Luo Li stood behind the first breastwork, slapped the dust all over his body, and muttered and scolded: "Damn, there are really a lot of cannons in the official army!" I almost knocked Lao Tzu down! ”

When the officers and soldiers carried out an artillery bombardment just now, Luo Li happened to be standing on the chest wall to watch the layout of the officers and soldiers, and a shell just hit not far from his position, if it wasn't for the two guards to pull this guy off the chest wall in time, this guy might not be blown into slag, but even so, he was also disgraced by the dust stirred up by the shells, and he felt a little embarrassed.

"General Luo, the officers and soldiers are coming up, do you want to transfer the firecrackers and let them taste the power of our firecrackers?" A sentinel suggested to Luo Li.

Luo Li shook his head and stood up straight, stretched out his head to look at the movement below, and waved his hand with a big grin: "No need!" Our general said that if we want to withstand this large number of officers and soldiers here, we will be afraid of the officers and soldiers if we use firecrackers so early! You don't need to use firecrackers to fight, it is enough to transfer the archers of the township soldiers and the firecrackers of the township soldiers to deal with them first! ”