In the middle of May of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, north of Yanling County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan, west of the Jialu River (Note 1).

The sun is scorching and the sky is full of dust.

On the vast land of the Central Plains, the eyes are scorched yellow, and there is not a trace of green in sight.

Hundreds of thousands of infantry and cavalry, marching on the winding road to the north;

Hundreds of thousands of human feet and horses trampled on the smoke and dust in the sky.

There was no wind at noon, only the scorching sun. The smoke and dust slowly rise to a low altitude with the rising hot airflow, and in the transmission of sunlight, it appears as a large cloud of yellow or brown, light or dark haze. The haze lingered, shrouded in the flat and dry land of central Henan, and also shrouded in the hearts of those ragged passers-by who went to fight for their lives.

Under a tall adobe kiln, a middle-aged officer in iron armor roughly ripped off the gray cloth on his face and dragged his heavy body over his tired war horse.

Although war horses are animals, they are actually like people, they need plenty of food and enough rest. On a continuous march in such scorching heat, special attention should be paid to the condition of the horses. If the horse sweats a lot and does not replenish water and salt in time, the horse will soon die due to weakness and detachment.

After decades of war in the Ming Dynasty, there were very few horses, mules and livestock left on the land of the Central Plains, so both officials and thieves lacked horses.

After the thieves re-emerged from Shangluoshan, they relied on deliberate looting and seizure to accumulate tens of thousands of horses and mules. Although these horses and mules are mixed with a large number of miscellaneous horses that are short in stature and can only be used for carrying them, the big green mules produced in southern Henan Province of Shandong Province and many donkeys that flirt around, there are still many qualified war horses that can be used for battle formations, at least the number is not inferior to that of the official army.

The thieves used these horses to form a "three walls" of elite cavalry battalions that terrified the officers and soldiers.

Legend has it that this cavalry battalion now numbered in the thousands, and each cavalry had a horse for the battle formation, and one or two horses and mules for carrying personnel equipment and food for the march in peacetime.

In this way, riding a miscellaneous horse on the march and a war horse during battle, the cavalry's long-range mobility and close-range impact were perfectly combined.

However, legends are legends after all, and there is no clear statement in the officers and soldiers about what the "three walls" are, and perhaps only on the battlefield can they see the true face.

It's a pity that Lao Tzu is so poor now!

A lieutenant's battalion is two thousand five hundred, and there are not even two hundred horses and mules! From Queshan County to Kaifeng City, a full 600 miles, Lao Tzu's soldiers have to walk over with their feet!

The hot tiger head boots "slammed" on the hot soft loess, raising a small cloud of smoke.

The general touched the wet back of the war horse painfully, and quickly loosened the belly belt of the war horse to let it relax for a while. While striding towards the top of the adobe kiln, he hated and whipped the non-existent enemy on the ground, and shouted loudly to the left and right: Don't grind, move quickly, pour a little water into the beans!

This general is Mo Chongwen, the deputy general of the Chu army, and the name of the war horse he brought from Sichuan.

From a private school student who failed to achieve fame (Note 2) to an officer and army general who survived a hundred battles, from an ordinary soldier in the Guizhou Army to a deputy general of the imperial court who led thousands of soldiers, Mo Chongwen has experienced too many hardships and hardships in his life.

Twenty years of fighting with a knife and licking blood, and more than a dozen winds and waves that have escaped death, have already tempered this scholar into a tough guy who does not smile.

At the end of last year, Mo Chongwen accepted the strict order of Ding Qirui, the governor of the five provinces, and led 4,000 soldiers to leave Dazhou Xundi, and went out of Sichuan to Yiling through Kuizhou.

After the army arrived at Yiling, it was already the first month.

Before he could settle the Li family and his only son who stayed in Yiling, Mo Chongwen heard two bad news.

The bad news is that the situation in the Central Plains continues to deteriorate.

Nanyang Mansion, the city that Mo Chongwen was ordered to help, has fallen.

Zhu Yuyu (MO), the king of Tang who sealed Nanyang, and the general soldiers were as fierce as a tiger and Liu Guangzuo were killed, and the Ming army guarding Nanyang Mansion was completely annihilated. Liu Guoneng, the former thief and the deputy general of Beiwudu, nicknamed the collapse of the sky, committed suicide; Li Wanqingcheng, the defender of Xiangcheng, nicknamed the Shot Collapse, was killed.

In addition, a large number of cities in western and central Henan were also attacked by thieves.

At the end of December, the thieves attacked Kaifeng for the second time. Ding Qirui turned to lead the army to Kaifeng. The thief brigade took advantage of the situation to break the siege and move westward, defeated the reinforcement of the Shaanxi army, and killed Wang Qiaonian, the governor of Shaanxi.

The second piece of bad news is that Matsuyama is besieged.

Since Mo Chongwen was promoted to the army, his younger brother Mo Chongcai has also taken the old road of throwing pen to paper. Mo Chongcai was originally in his camp. In the early years of Chongzhen, Mo Chongcai led his troops north to Xifengkou, but he stayed in the Liaodong Army, which is said to have a smoother career in the soldiers.

This time, Hong Chengchou led troops to reinforce Jinzhou, and Mo Chongcai, who had been promoted to guerrilla general, was also in the reinforcements.

Songjin was defeated, Mo Chongwen originally prayed that his younger brother could escape back to Shanhaiguan with the defeated army, but who knew that he learned the exact news in Yiling:

Mo Chongcai was transferred by Hong Chengchou to supervise the Chinese army before the battle, and as a result, he was also trapped in Songshan City!

The soldiers in Songshan City are short of food, how long can they hold it?

Mo Chongcai was trapped in Songshan, and his final fate was either to die in battle, or to be captured and surrendered!

In February, the unhappy Mo Chongwen finally led his troops to Chengtianfu and accepted the review of Song Yihe, the governor of Huguang.

Song Yihe reviewed and rewarded Mo Chongwen's department, in fact, with selfish intentions, wanting to leave his army in Chengtian Mansion to guard this important city that had been upgraded to a palace because of the Xianling Tomb.

Song Yihe sent someone to Mo Chongwen to say that as long as Mo Chongwen was willing to stay in Chengtian Mansion, he would play the chapter of the imperial court to promote Mo Chongwen as the deputy general of Huguang, and it was only a matter of time before he was promoted to the general army or even the opening of the mansion.

However, Mo Chongwen did not dare and was unwilling to agree to Song Yihe.

didn't dare, because Ding Qirui clearly ordered him to be assigned to the Sichuan general Wen Ruzhen's subordinates, and drove to Xinyang to accept the unified command of the thief general Zuo Liangyu with Wen Ruzhen's department.

If he disobeys the military order and stays in Huguang without permission, Ding Qirui, who is not in agreement with Song Yihe, is likely to use him, a foreign general who is not in the middle of the river, and there is also the possibility of asking Shang Fang's sword to behead others;

I don't want to, because Yang Wenyue is also wooing him.

Qin ordered to cooperate with Ding Qirui to suppress the thief's right attendant, and Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, Shandong, and Hebei military affairs, was a native of Nanchong, Sichuan.

Because Yang Wenyue is an authentic Sichuanese, in addition to commanding the Baoding soldiers of the general army Hu Dawei and the Jizhou soldiers of Yang Dezheng, he can also command the Sichuan soldiers led by the supervisor of the army and the Southern Confucian lineage Kong Zhenhui.

During Mo Chongwen's campaign in Sichuan, he once had a chance to send troops to protect Yang Wenyue's family in the panic of a bandit attack on the city. Therefore, Yang Wenyue has always been very interested in Mo Chongwen, who can fight well, and once tried to transfer him to Hebei.

This time, Mo Chongwen was transferred north to join the Central Plains battlefield, and there were not only Ding Qirui's military orders, but also Yang Wenyue's private letters. Mo Chongwen was not so much looking at Ding Qirui's military order, but rather looking at Yang Wenyue's promise to be promoted to an official and make a fortune. Therefore, Mo Chongwen naturally rejected Song Yihe's invitation and insisted on going north.

Rejecting Song Yihe's invitation meant refusing the support of troops and food from Huguang.

Mo Chongwen, who had lost supplies, had to rob if he wanted to survive.

In Xiangyang, in Xinyang, in Queshan, and almost everywhere Mo Chongwen's department passed, the soldiers were like a group of wild wolves that had lost their humanity and lived by robbing. Not only is he robbing, but the entire Left Army is robbing; Not only the left army is robbing, but the entire Ming official army is robbing; Not only the poor want to rob, but even the gentry and the big families have to rob!

In the past, the official army robbed, and as the army of the imperial court, they always had to wear a veil of shame: it was not robbery, it was "persuasion"!

Now this fig leaf is meaningless in front of a hungry belly.

Moreover, the emperor himself acquiesced in the robbery of the officials and soldiers, so what concerns did the officials and soldiers have?

In this way, Mo Chongwen and his soldiers endured the double torment of lack of materials and human whipping, and finally survived the arrival of this battle to aid Bian.

The imperial court wants to rescue Kaifeng, and the thieves will inevitably block the reinforcements, and the main battle is inevitable.

It is the dream and pursuit of all soldiers to decide the outcome of World War I.

But just before leaving, Mo Chongwen received a private message from his brother-in-law Jia Denglian's own soldiers. This letter turned Mo Chongwen's dreams and pursuits into confusion hidden in his heart and fear in his heart.

……

Jia Denglian's private letters, just like his likes and dislikes and cultural level, are straightforward and never dragged throughout, plus crooked handwriting like a dog's crawl. At a glance, you can see that it is the handwriting of Jia Denglian.

In the letter, Jia Denglian went straight to the point, saying that he had now taken refuge in Zhu Pingjin, the son of Shu, and that he was well fed and warmly dressed, had a lot of military achievements, and had sufficient military salaries. Shu Shizi never forgot his righteous brother, not only summoned him many times to ask about his brother's current situation, but also specially instructed Chen Youfu, the general of the Protector Army, to take care of his sister-in-law and nephew in Yiling.

If the righteous brother intends to return to Shu, Jia Denglian, as the life and death brother of the righteous knot Jinlan, is willing to sponsor Mo Chongwen to the prince of Shu in person, and the status of the righteous brother will not be lost to the imperial court, and the treatment of the soldiers will definitely be better than that of the imperial court.

Chen Youfu sent troops to protect Mo Chongwen's wife, children and clansmen, and strictly prohibited the harassment of the homeless, and Mo Chongwen's successor, the Li family, had written to inform him. Mo Chongwen also wrote a sincere letter to thank Chen Youfu in accordance with the rules of courtesy. But Mo Chongwen's interaction with the Shu Wangfu basically ended here.

Mo Chongwen has been educated since he was a child that "loyal ministers do not serve the two masters". Since he became a general of the imperial court and took the emperor's salary, he naturally couldn't "be in Cao Ying's heart in Han" and pull and pull with a distant vassal king who had no political future, even if the vassal king was very capable and had a lot of money.

But the different allegiances will not hurt the feelings and trust between brothers in life and death.

Next, a story written by Jia Denglian in the letter aroused Mo Chongwen's strong interest.

Jia Denglian said that long before he joined the Protector Army, he had heard that the son of Shu was the reincarnation of a god and a Buddha, and he had a god to protect his body.

At that time, he, like many people around him, thought it was nonsense, but it was just the flattery of the villains around him. However, after witnessing one thing as an eyewitness, he was shocked.

It was in the battle of Bolt Mountain in northern Sichuan, the prince personally led the Jia regiment and another regiment with a total of thousands of people to attack the desperate place in northern Sichuan.

The bandits resisted stubbornly, and the two armies launched fierce fires on the mountain beams.

The mountain beams are narrow, the battle situation is in a stalemate, and the Protector Army is in a dilemma.

At that time, Shizi, who was observing the changes in the battle situation with a clairglass, casually asked the eunuch for a moist veil ice face. At this moment, Jia Denglian saw with his own eyes that Shu Shizi was like a god possessed, suddenly threw down the veil, and issued a strict order to change the Chinese army into a long snake formation into a phalanx to resist the enemy's large-scale impact, and to copy the front and rear left and right armies in all directions, encircling and impacting the enemy of the Chinese army.

The moment he received the order, Jia Denglian thought that the prince had lost his mind - the enemy attacked the Chinese army? So where is the enemy?

However, after a few breaths, the surrounding area of the Chinese army's location resounded with shouts and killings all over the mountains:

It turned out that the hideout of thousands of bandits was in the wild grass and bushes a hundred steps away!

Do you say that the son of the world has supernatural powers that reach the sky?

Not only that, Si Shizi set up in the phalanx, held the gun in both hands, opened the bow left and right, and beheaded the ninth level of the thief. The morale of the Chinese army was greatly boosted, and they immediately stabilized their position. This kind of heroic and martial arts is by no means inferior to Emperor Taizu Gao!

……

This is the beginning of the story.

Everyone didn't expect that on the night after the victory of Bolt Mountain, Shu Shizi suddenly had a high fever in his dream and fell unconscious!

Strictly interrogated Shu Shizi and served the eunuchs and guards that night, and the eunuchs and guards were conclusive: Shu Shizi did not have any signs that night, but he shouted "Eight Commandments" several times in his dreams!

The soul of the prince wanders in the sky in his dream, and the generals of the Protector Army are naturally in trouble, and they can't live in fear. The generals of the Protector Army had no choice but to take emergency measures and transfer the unconscious prince to Boryeong Province overnight for medical treatment. Who knew that three days later, the news came, and Shu Shizi suddenly woke up again, and he was as healthy as ever!

Later, Jia Denglian once bribed the military doctor who took the pulse of the prince that night to inquire about the son's condition.

The doctor said that on the night when the prince fell into a coma, his pulse was like a red dragon fugue, flying away from his body. He has been a doctor for 30 years, and he has never seen such a miraculous pulse. The doctor also said that the lineage of the prince must be the legendary Qiangua, that is, the pure yang hexagram in the gossip - the flying dragon is in the sky!

Jia Denglian also said in the letter that the prince dreamed of eight precepts in Zhuzi Mountain, and since then there have been rumors that the "eight precepts" shouted by the prince that night was none other than Marshal Tianpeng Zhu Bajie!

The royal Taoist of Zhenwuguan in Baoning Mansion said that the prince of Shu was the reincarnation of Marshal Tianpeng.

Marshal Tianpeng is the head of the Four Saints of the North Pole, and Marshal Zhenwu is the last of the Four Saints of the North Pole.

Shu Shizi is the reincarnation of Marshal Tianpeng, in a word, Shu Shizi is the savior of the troubled times of the Ming Dynasty. In the future, the son of Shu will ascend the throne and will be destined for heaven.

Seeing is believing, hearing is false.

Jia Denglian said that he never believed in the canopy cover real martial arts, and he believed in the facts he saw with his own eyes.

Just after Shu Shizi sent the medical insurance to Ningfu, he secretly ordered his confidant Yang Weidong to quietly return to the battlefield of Zhuzi Mountain, found the silk handkerchief embroidered with dragon patterns, and returned it to the accompanying eunuch Zhang Gonggong for confirmation.

Before returning this item to the prince Zhang, he and Yang Weidong carefully examined the handkerchief and confirmed that there was no handwriting of the secret letter. So how did the prince know that the bandits were lying in ambush at that time? The only reasonable explanation is that either Shu Shizi is a natural general, or Shu Shizi himself is like a god and can be a prophet!

Mo Chongwen read the letter from his brother-in-law Jia Denglian, savoring the wonderful and interesting story in the letter. But when he got to the end of the letter, the wonderful and interesting feeling turned into a panicked fear. Because Jia Denglian pleaded with Mo Chongwen at the end of the letter, he must believe him once:

The prince once said to him personally, if the court ordered Mo Chongwen to rescue Kaifeng with Zuo Ping's thief, he must not fight to the death. If Mo Chongwen can escape from Kaifeng, he will retreat to the Yangtze River, such as the Jingzhou Mansion in Huguang.

Chengtianfu must not go, it is a place of death!

If Mo Chongwen acts according to the orders of the prince of Shu, he will get the help of nobles in the future, and turn evil into good fortune!

Escape from danger?

If you go to Kaifeng, will you really lose?

Why retreat to the banks of the Yangtze River in the far rear!

Could it be that the entire north of the Yangtze River will fall into the hands of thieves, including the ancestral tomb of the current emperor?

In this way, with deep confusion, Mo Chongwen took his two thousand five hundred sons and embarked on the official road to Kaifeng.

Note 1: The Jialu River, the legend is the "chasm" in the struggle between Chu and Han. The course of the Jialu River in the Ming and Qing dynasties was different from now, and it flowed through Zhuxian Town. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Jialu River was not only an important agricultural irrigation waterway, but also an important grain transportation waterway, so it was also called "grain transportation river". At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Yellow River burst its banks many times, resulting in the silting up of the old channel of the Jialu River and the impassability of the boats. After the Huayuankou incident, the water of the Yellow River poured into the Jialu River, causing the old channel of the Jialu River to silt up like a plain, and the old road gradually fell into disuse.

Because the Jialu River was cut off in historical materials, some people restored the battle of Zhuxian Town, so they positioned the Ming army camp south of Zhuxian Town, and then deduced that in the battle of Zhuxian Town, it was Li Zicheng who controlled Zhuxian Town. Hibiki was unimpressed. You must know that at that time, during the period of "the Yellow River seizing the Huai River into the sea", the direction of the river in central Henan changed greatly.

Note 2: Mo Chongwen went to a private school, could write essays, and was one of the generals of the Ming army with a high level of knowledge and culture.

Note 3: From Mo Chongwen's memoirs, it can be found that Mo Chongwen and Yang Wenyue have a deep personal relationship. Such as the section of Taoist Zhang.