Although the "thief army" retreated, the gap a few feet wide was still there. If the "thief army" goes and returns, Kaifeng City is still just as dangerous. Therefore, it is imperative to close this gap as soon as possible. The siege lasted for so long, and the city had already prepared things to fill the gap, and Gao Gao Ping didn't care about anything else, so he quickly organized people to start filling the gap. Chen Yongshou also transferred most of the troops that could be mobilized in the city to strengthen the defense. Even King Zhou, after hearing about this, immediately sent a lot of guards from the palace over. However, I heard that King Zhou himself, as well as King Zhou's family, have prepared horses and are ready to transfer at any time.

It will take a lot of time for a section of the city wall more than five zhang wide to be blocked, and during this time, the "thief army" may go and return at any time. For this reason, Chen Yongshou sent all the cavalry in his hands out to monitor the movements of the "thief army" and inform everyone at any time.

Soon, a scout came back to report that the thieves had retreated all the way to the camp, and then the camp of the thieves immediately closed the camp gate, and the vigilance was significantly strengthened, and the thieves sent a lot of cavalry to intercept and kill any cavalry that tried to approach near the camp, but if the enemy retreated farther, they would never pursue.

"Looking at it like this, Huang Zide should be okay if he is injured." Gao Gao Ping said to Chen Yongshou, "If it weren't for General Chen's arrow, I'm afraid that Kaifeng City would be in danger now." It's just that I don't know if this arrow can kill the yellow thief, if it can shoot the yellow thief, then General Chen Bing will really be a great contribution. ”

"Most of the yellow thieves are not dead at this time." Chen Yongshou said, "But most of the injuries are not light." Otherwise, the thieves would not have behaved so cautiously. As for how he was injured, let's look at their performance later, and we can guess that it is not far from ten. But now the most important thing is to fill the gap in the city first. As for the rest, it can only be seen by the imperial court, our army has limited strength, and there is nothing else to do except reconnaissance. ”

The next day, the revolutionary army withdrew its camp and retreated to Zhongmu. Then the recall of troops distributed in other areas began. This situation was quickly understood by Chen Yongshou and Gao Gaoping, and after discussion, the two decided that Huang Zide's injuries were serious, but he was not worried about his life. So the thief army did not fall apart, but for the time being, because of the inconvenience of command, it shrank up.

Their repertoire was constantly sent to the imperial court. In the eyes of Emperor Chongde, these movements both pleased him and depressed him. Happily, after a series of defeats, the court finally had a victory; What was frustrating was that he still couldn't let Zuo Liangyu of Huguang and Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo of Anhui go north to attack Huang Zide's bandits. Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo both said that even if the guys in the Fifth Battalion were cared for, they were very unstable. As soon as they leave, they are afraid that these thieves will immediately rebel. Emperor Chongde knew that what they said did make sense. If Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo went north, and the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution reversed, then they could even kill all the way from Anhui along the Yangtze River to Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In today's chaos, the world is in turmoil, and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions are rare places that are still peaceful, and they are also the main source of wealth for the imperial court. If this place is looted by the rogues of the five battalions, then it will be even more difficult for the imperial court to maintain. So today, Anhui's army really can't be easily mobilized.

Since Anhui's army can't be easily mobilized, and the Qin army has just suffered a defeat with Fu Yuanxian, and is unable to fight again, only Zuo Liangyu can move. But Zuo Liangyu followed Zhang Bingzhong wholeheartedly, but he refused to send troops. The imperial court issued many edicts, and he prevaricated on the grounds of insufficient military spending.

But this time, in the eyes of Emperor Chongde, it was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If this opportunity is missed, Huang Zide's arrow wound is healed, not to mention defeating Huang Zide, and even Kaifeng City will fall into danger again. As the saying goes, the opportunity cannot be lost, and it will never come again. Emperor Chongde made up his mind that no matter what, he would let Zuo Liangyu go north immediately.

The first thing he thought of was Zuo Liangyu's benefactor, Hou Liuzhen, who promoted him from a small soldier. Hou Liuzhen was imprisoned in the prison of Fusi in Beizhen because of his ineffective work, and now Emperor Chongde ordered him to be released and re-appointed as a squire in the military department, and then asked him to write a letter to Zuo Liangyu, asking Zuo Liangyu to go north. However, Hou Liuzhen said that the mobilization of Zuo Liangyu's army is indeed very much in need of money, and if there is no money, most of them will still not move. The distance between Jingshi and Huguang is far away, and between the letters coming and going, I am afraid that the time will pass.

"Your Majesty, as the saying goes, 'Don't miss the opportunity, you won't miss it again'. Now such a good opportunity, you can't miss it because of a little money! Hou Liuzhen finally said to Emperor Chongde.

However, the household insisted that he had no money, and the entire imperial court, up and down, was counting on Emperor Chongde to take out the silver from the inner treasury. However, Emperor Chongde himself knew that the inner library was now about to starve to death of rats. So he went back to the palace and discussed with the queen to see if he could be frugal and contribute a little more money.

Queen Zhou didn't have much to do, so she could only secretly take out some of the collections in the palace and sell them for silver. To say that in the past three hundred years, there are naturally a lot of rare treasures in the palace. In peaceful times, these rare treasures could easily be sold for a large amount of money, but now it is a troubled time. In troubled times, everything is expensive, but these collectibles can't be sold for money. So although I bought a lot of things, I only got about 60,000 taels of silver in the end.

The 60,000 taels of silver, plus the Chongde Emperor scraped together and borrowed from East and West, squeezed out a total of 100,000 taels. Then he used the 100,000 taels of silver as military expenses to mobilize Zuo Liangyu to go north to Henan.

This operation took another 20 days, but fortunately, the level of medical care in this era is limited, and after a person is injured, it takes a long time to recover. Therefore, according to the reconnaissance of Chen Yongshou's cavalry, the "thief army" is still cowering in the Zhongmu area. However, the cavalry of the thief army was more active than before, and the interception of Chen Yongshou's reconnaissance cavalry was also more powerful, and now it was difficult for Chen Yongshou's reconnaissance cavalry to get close to Zhongmu.

But in Chen Yongshou's view, just the fact that the main force of the thief army is still cowering in Zhongmu shows that Huang Zide's injuries are still heavy. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the thief army to stick to a small county like Zhongmu without plundering in all directions.

After receiving the military salary promised by the imperial court, Zuo Liangyu finally began to turn to the north, he no longer entangled with Zhang Bingzhong, leaving only the general Li Guoying with a partial division to continue to monitor Zhang Bingzhong, and he personally took the main force under his command and began to advance to the north.

Zuo Liangyu is good at making money, so among the general soldiers of Dazhao, the number of troops under him is also one of the largest, almost second only to the general army of Jinzhou in Liaodong. During this time, taking the opportunity to pursue Zhang Bingzhong, he made a small fortune and achieved some small goals. In addition, there are still a lot of refugees from Henan, and Zuo Liangyu also recruited some of them into the army as auxiliaries to help transport supplies, grain and grass. So the total number of troops used by Zuo Liangyu this time is as high as 150,000, of course, most of them are auxiliary soldiers who can't go to the battlefield and can only do some transportation and other things, but the number of soldiers who can go to the battlefield to fight also exceeds 50,000, and there are as many as 5,000 people such as family members who are particularly effective in combat. (This number is almost no less than the ancestral general soldiers in Liaodong, of course, there is still a gap in the level of training.) ）

Zuo Liangyu didn't know how many people Huang Zide had in his hands, and the imperial court's information about Huang Zide's troops was always chaotic and contradictory. Some intelligence says that Huang Zide has more than 300,000 people, and some say that Huang Zide has more than 100,000 people, but there is no accurate number. But Zuo Liangyu was not bothered by this, because he felt that not to mention the imperial court, even Huang Zide himself, did not really know how many people he had. Most of the Liukou's troops were brought in temporarily, and a few days ago they might have only had a few thousand people, but in a blink of an eye, relying on methods such as coercion, their numbers could quickly swell to more than 100,000 people, but in the blink of an eye, they suffered a defeat, and maybe even in order to grab a handful somewhere in a hurry, they might lose all the more than 100,000 people under their command, and only run away with the thousands of people in their core. So their numbers suddenly became thousands.

Zuo Liangyu estimated that when Huang Zide came out of Shangluo Mountain, there would be two or three thousand people at most, and these teams should be his core strength. The combat effectiveness of this group of men should be stronger than that of ordinary officers and soldiers, but weaker than that of his family guards. Then Huang Zide captured some cities in a row, and should have captured a lot of officers and soldiers, some of which were also included in his army, Zuo Liangyu estimated that Huang Zide's army should have a maximum of seven or eight thousand such soldiers, and the combat effectiveness of these people was roughly equivalent to the soldiers under him. The rest should be the displaced people who have been brought in temporarily. How many of them are, but Huang Zide himself may not be clear. And the equipment is extremely poor, almost unorganized. Although the number of people is large, its usefulness is limited. Generally speaking, the rogues are to drive these people to attack the military formation of the officers and soldiers, relying on the strength and weapons of the officers and soldiers to consume the strength and weapons of the officers and soldiers, and then put into the main assault after the officers and soldiers are exhausted. But this trick is only useful if the rogues have a great numerical advantage. And in the current comparison of troops, such a trick is almost useless.

According to this estimate, Zuo Liangyu feels that as long as he fights steadily in this battle, the advantage should still be obvious.

On the other hand, as soon as Zuo Liangyu's army of more than 100,000 moved, Huang Zide had already received information. After all, with such a large troop movement, it is almost impossible to keep it secret. Huang Zide immediately gathered his subordinates together and held a meeting to discuss countermeasures.