On the afternoon of May 14, the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the good news that Ding Qirui, a supervisor had been waiting for a long time, came to the county government with a collapsed wall and crooked houses in Weishi County:

The vanguard of the army, the colonel of the fifth battalion outside the left army, the deputy chief soldier, the governor of the same knowledge, nicknamed the mixed 100,000 Ma Jinzhong, regardless of the fatigue of the long march, suddenly crossed the Jialu River from both wings, and attacked Zhuxian Town in the south of Kaifeng City in many ways, killing hundreds of thieves. Vertices

The thieves fled in a hurry, giving up this important town in Biannan, known as "one of the four major towns in the world", to the official army.

At present, the horse camp rangers are continuing to pursue the remnants of the enemy, and the soldiers have forced out ten miles north of Zhuxian Town. The rangers encountered only a few stragglers, and no brigade of thieves was found.

Ma Jinzhong's messenger reported to the Governor Ding and the thief general Zuo Liangyu that General Ma had set up a Chinese army in the Yuewang Temple, where the righteousness of heaven and earth had been condensed in Zhuxian Town, and was waiting for the instructions of the three officials:

Is it to continue to attack, to take the Fantai outside Kaifeng City, and to enter the earthen embankment (Note 1)?

Or garrison Zhuxian Town, waiting for the army to arrive?

However, the messenger soon realized that something was wrong: the atmosphere in the tent of the Chinese commander was eerie.

Ding Qirui, the superintendent sitting in the middle of the hall, was hesitant and silent;

Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, who was seated in the east, stroked his beard and stopped talking;

Zuo Liangyu, the general of the thief who sat at the head of the west, although Ma Jinzhong violated his general order of "stop when encountering the enemy", he was still as cordial and kind as ever, and Dun Dun warned Ma Jinzhong that the thieves were now powerful, different from the past, and must not underestimate the enemy, and instructed the horse battalion to immediately dig trenches to defend and cover the arrival of the main force.

It is said that according to the imperial court's regulation of "using literature to protect the military", Ding Qirui, the superintendent who holds the sword of Shang Fang, is the commander of the whole army.

But when Zuo Shuai spoke, he neither looked at Ding Qirui's face nor asked for Yang Wenyue's opinion;

The veteran of the Chu Army beside Zuo Liangyu, the former Sichuan general Fang Guoan, kept covering his mouth and coughing, as if he had typhoid fever.

Jiang Mingwu (Note 2), the chief soldier of the Chinese army next to Yang Wenyue, pressed the handle of his knife with his hand, and the generals of the former five battalions behind Zuo Liangyu, Lu Guangzu, Li Guoying and others, stared at each other, as if they would fight for their lives if they disagreed.

This clever messenger gave Zuo Shuai's general order and hurriedly withdrew from the county office. Before getting on his horse and leaving the city, the letter used a silver ingot, and easily got the news he wanted to know from Zuo Shuai's own soldiers:

This morning, the inspector and Zuo Shuai had another big quarrel in the county office!

The superintendent asked Zuo Shuai to take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to immediately march into the army to relieve the siege of Feng; However, Zuo Shuai insisted that the enemy's situation was unknown, and that he must find out the enemy's situation and wait for the whole army to assemble before he could slowly advance to Kaifeng.

Yang Wenyue, the governor of the Wei clan who had just arrived, tried to play a round between the two.

Yang Wenyue said to Inspector Ding that it was indeed risky to rush into the army if the enemy situation was unknown. If the army is defeated, the Ming Society is in danger, the Bianjing Zhou Domain is in danger, and the future of the superintendent is also in danger;

Yang Wenyue said to Zuo Shuai again, it took too long to march into the army, and the food and grass were not enough, which was the way to defeat.

Under the repeated persuasion of Yang Wenyue, Inspector Ding and Zuo Shuai finally discussed a temporary compromise:

The front army occupied Zhuxian Town to cover the arrival of the middle and rear armies. Wait until the whole army gathers around Zhuxian Town, and then decide on the next move according to the advance and stop of the thieves.

The messenger galloped back to Zhuxian Town, bringing back not only Zuo Shuai's general order, but also the gossip that the generals were not in harmony with the generals and the civil and military forces.

According to the rumors of the Ma Ying soldiers, Ma Jinzhong, a former thief nicknamed 100,000, stood under the big plaque of "Loyal Zhao Sun and Moon" in front of the main hall of Yuewang Temple and sighed to his subordinates:

Yue Wangye was loyal to the country all his life, and he broke the golden vulture (zhu) technique to kidnap horses here, leaving a good reputation through the ages. The hateful twelve gold medals, the previous efforts are abandoned, and the turmoil is wronged!

I, Ma Jinzhong, strayed into the den of thieves in my previous life, and the big sin is gone! Since the eleventh year, he has been recruited by the grace of the imperial court, and since then he has made many military exploits. He also, live up to the name of the loyal word!

Now we are waiting for thousands of miles to march, and there is no shortage of food and grass, so we can only fight quickly and cannot last. It's a pity that a military order has made a name for himself in his life!

After saying this, Ma Jinzhong burst into tears and hung his head silently. All the generals sighed, and there was resentment. His Xiao will promote Xi and Liu Zhiliang, and say disrespectful words; From the son of the school Ma Weixing, it is even more to draw the sword (zhe) pillar, and the imprint is deep.

As Ma Jinzhong expected. At midnight that day, a massive counterattack by the thieves came suddenly.

The thieves' counterattack was almost identical to that of the horse battalion: a frontal assault in multiple directions, two flanks across the Jialu River to outflank and cut off the enemy's retreat.

However, prepared and unprepared, day and night, led to a very different outcome of the attack.

Ma Jinzhong's attack was a complete victory, while the thief's counterattack was to throw off his armor, flee in defeat, and almost trap his own commander.

The thieves who had flanked them from the east and west wings were the first to fail. After crossing the Jialu River, they could not gain a firm foothold, and they were killed by the officers and soldiers who were ambushed under the embankment.

The commander of the officer and army ambushed in the northwest direction of the left flank was Ma Weixing, with a small number of troops, and the thieves lost hundreds before retreating safely across the riverbed, relying on the wide embankment to block the attack;

The commander of the officer and army who was ambushed in the southeast direction of the right flank was Wang Yuncheng, nicknamed the Iron Cavalry King. Wang Yuncheng's troops were large and had many cavalry. A three-sided counterattack intercepted nearly a thousand thieves on the bank of the river. The thief brigade retreated across the river in panic, but was ambushed by the officers and troops on the other side. Seeing that the situation was not good, a group of cavalry hurriedly reinforced it, and was once again dispersed halfway by the Chinese cavalry led by Wang Yuncheng. The two sides fought together in the darkness, until the light of day, when the thieves led the army back. On this battlefield alone, there were more than 2,000 corpses.

Responsible for the frontal defense of Zhu Xianzhen is Ma Jinzhong himself.

The thieves who attacked head-on were first blocked by the trenches of the horse camp on the defensive line outside the town, and suffered heavy losses. When the bandit battalion broke through the defensive line in a massive manner, the many bandits who entered the town may have been misled by the light of the guards' wandering torches and sunk into the town's dense housing courtyards.

In the darkness of light and shadow, only the light of the torches swayed, only the fire of the mouth of the gun flickered, and only the shouts and the sound of killing on both sides could be heard on all sides, and the screams and neighs of men and horses came and went.

The troops on both sides completely lost their command and were left to fight separately in the dark.

It is true that the officers and men of the horse battalion are fewer than the thieves, but they quickly gained the upper hand with reasonable pre-war deployment and high tactical literacy. They used the narrow streets and dense houses to divide and surround the thieves and annihilate them one by one. The thieves were like headless flies scurrying around in the streets and alleys, intercepted and killed by the officers and soldiers who were waiting for the rabbits.

At dawn, most of the thieves who entered the town were annihilated, and the remaining thieves withdrew from Zhuxian Town and gathered in several Zhuangzi in the north of the town to wait for help.

Whether to chase the poor or beat the water dogs, Ma Jinzhong and Wang Yuncheng, the golden partners from one official and one thief, are discussing and calculating, and the following generals have already excitedly broken into the Yuewang Temple:

According to the confession of the injured and captured thief, the thief general who attacked Zhuxian Town last night was not an unknown person, but Li Zicheng's subordinate Li Guo, who was known as "a tiger"!

……

"A tiger" Li Guo, also known as Li Jin, is a word to make up. He is the son of Li Zicheng's eldest brother, a few years younger than Li Zicheng, and his generation is lower than Li Zicheng.

According to officialdom, Li Zicheng is a descendant of the party, brutal, and has a hidden disease, and cannot perform humane etiquette, so he likes to abuse women in the bed.

It turned out to be a poor man and a scumbag.

Therefore, Li Zicheng's original partner Han Jin'er and his concubine Xing have committed adultery with others, and brought Li Zicheng two big green hats, which is naturally not surprising.

The person who committed adultery with Han Jin'er was Gai Hu, a villager from Li Zicheng's same village, but the person who committed adultery with Xing's family was Li Zicheng's general, Gao Jie, the current deputy general of the Qin army, known as the Mountain Harrier.

After Li Zicheng got up, he first voted for Wang Zuohang, and then voted for not getting muddy (Zhang Cunmeng). After recruiting peace without mud, Li Zicheng defected to his uncle Gao Yingxiang, and Gao Yingxiang married his niece Gao Guiying.

Li Zicheng was incapable of doing anything, but he proclaimed that he was not close to women, and pretended to forbid his thieves to rape women and pretend to be teachers of benevolence and righteousness. Therefore, until now, Li Zicheng has no biological heirs.

The thief had no heir, and Li Guo became the closest person to Li Zicheng's blood, that is, the traditional heir to his power, wealth, and army.

Li Guo can fight, and he can fight tough battles, and he is an out-and-out tiger general in the thief camp. The thieves raided and plundered, often in the vanguard.

However, Li Guoyong is brave, but his head is not easy to use. It's okay to fight in battle, but it's impossible to strategize. What's even worse is that Li Guo has no heirs.

Perhaps the genes of the old Li family went mad when they merged with the party members, and there was a cliff-like collapse, and Li was over 30 years old, and only took in an orphan of Mizhi as a righteous son. Therefore, Li Guo's prominent status did not give him the status of one person under ten thousand people in the thief camp.

On the contrary, Tian Jianxiu, who has the style of a Confucian general, and Liu Zongmin, who was born as a blacksmith, are above Li Guo.

Tian Jianxiu is the de facto deputy general of the camp, and it is said that he has a benevolent temperament and no ambition, in short, Li Zicheng is very relieved. Li Thief couldn't look at things, so he replaced him with Tian Jianxiu;

Liu Zongmin is Li Zicheng's blade, the elite of the old battalion who leads the thieves. Where Liu Zongmin's banner is is often where Li Zicheng's main force is.

Even if Li Guo's status is not high, he still becomes fat in the eyes of Ma Jinzhong and Wang Yuncheng. The simple truth of taking advantage of people's illness to kill people, the pair of Ma Wang still understand. Eliminating Li Guo from the top can not only greatly boost the morale of the officers and soldiers, but also make the second general Ma Wang increase the rank and knighthood, so that the officers and soldiers of the two battalions can receive rich rewards.

Therefore, King Ma hurriedly summed up and decided to ignore Shangguan's ban again and destroy the thieves in front of him first. However, the good deeds of the two of them were ruined by the swift reinforcements of the thieves. Before the officers and soldiers left the town, Tanma hurriedly came to report:

The army of thieves came from the northeast and stretched for more than ten miles. On the flag of the leader, there is a big "Liu" character!

It turned out that Li Guo was just a little person thrown out by the thieves to buy time to switch to the use of troops. Liu Zongmin came, indicating that the main force of the thieves was north of Zhuxian Town.

In less than half an hour, the news spread to all the battalions of the official army. Soon, the general army Fang Guoan led Xu Mao (Mao) De and Ma Shixiu to reinforce him. At noon, the pro-army cavalry of Ding Qirui, Yang Wenyue and Zuo Liangyu rushed outside Zhuxian Town.

The main force of both sides is against the main force, and the decisive battle is imminent!

……

When he arrived at Zhuxian Town, the Inspector naturally had to make an inspection.

Seeing the corpses of thieves all over the town and outside the town, Ding Qirui couldn't help but be overjoyed, and patted his chest to Ma Jinzhong and Wang Yuncheng on the spot:

The two of you have worked hard, and each of you can't run with a total soldier!

To surrender thieves as the general army, although this is unique in the Ming Dynasty, it is not common. Gao Jie, a subordinate of Ruhe Renlong, is a deputy general, Liu Guineng, a subordinate of Zuo Liangyu, is a deputy general, Hui Dengxiang is a deputy general, Li Wanqing is a general, and Ma Shixiu is a general. Therefore, as soon as Ding Qirui expressed his position, he immediately asked Ma Jinzhong, who was born as a thief, to kowtow and bow; Wang Yuncheng, who was born in the official army in Liaodong, was overjoyed. It's just that...... The handsome Zuo Liangyu's face was a little cloudy.

By the evening of May 16, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, most of the main forces of the official army to aid Kaifeng had gathered around Zhuxian Town, which was less than 50 miles south of Kaifeng.

And the thieves on the opposite side did not show weakness, and reinforcements flowed continuously.

Tanma reported that in addition to the generals of the thieves on the opposite side, there were also Cao Thieves and Xiao Yuan's battalion (Note 3), and the total strength was estimated to be only a lot more than the claimed 500,000.

In the face of the officers and soldiers who were waiting for the battle, the thief army, which had a threefold advantage in numbers, did not dare to be careless. They did not directly pounce on the formation and call for battle, but dug trenches and held on like the officers and soldiers.

I saw the two sergeants separated by several miles, wielding hoes and shovels, sweating like rain under the scorching sun. A few days passed, and two clear fronts appeared in the eyes of the officers and men of the two armies.

The officers and troops used Zhuxian Town as a fulcrum and deployed defenses around the town. The eastern flank was defended by the Jialu River, while the western flank was extended to the southwest in order to cover its own grain routes.

However, the generals of the official army may not have expected that the professional soldiers they raised could compete with the amateur soldiers of the thieves on the battlefield, but when it came to the ability to repair the earth, they were far inferior to the amateur soldiers of the thieves.

Within and outside the line of sight of the officers and soldiers, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the thief camp went into battle together, and hundreds of thousands of shovels and hoes turned up and down. When the official army turned Zhuxian Town into an iron wall, the trench of the thieves not only surrounded Zhuxian Town on both sides in an arc, but also continued to extend to the west and south, until it reached the shore of Weishui nearly a hundred miles away!

In addition, the thieves also erected three mounds to the north, northeast and east of Zhuxian Town. Each one is more than ten zhang high, and there is a circle of trenches nearly two zhang wide around it. On the mound of earth, not only did they erect watchtowers, plant flags, monitor the movements of the officers and troops, and direct the movement of the troops, but also placed more than 10 cannons to bombard the defense lines of the officers and troops on the opposite side day and night.

Of course, repairing the earth is not the same as digging the earth, and sometimes it is necessary to fill in the earth.

In the upper reaches of the Jialu River, thieves built a dam out of dug earth to stop the muddy water in the center of the river.

In the upper reaches of Weishui, southwest of Zhuxian Town, there is also a thief general who is often ignored and despised by the officials and soldiers, and is leading his sons and daughters who have nothing, ready to give the officers and soldiers who plan to break through the siege a lesson that will be unforgettable for a lifetime according to the grand plan of Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang.

The army of reinforcements and the army of thieves confronted Zhuxian Town, so some people will ask, what are the officials and troops in Kaifeng City doing? Why didn't they seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get out of the city and give the thieves a north-south attack?

Some people will ask, what are the officers and troops stationed north of the Yellow River doing? Why didn't they seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cross the river and send the necessary resources to the city, such as grain and grass soldiers, to defend Kaifeng?

History has no assumptions, and crossing is not nonsense.

The key people involved in all these issues, there is no action. It's not that they haven't moved at all, at least one thing they never forget:

Fishing for money.

Note 1: Kaifeng outside the city embankment, that is, the Song Dynasty Kaifeng outer city, the Ming Dynasty annihilation. Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng in the third foot, and this earthen embankment became the inner encirclement of the rebel army.

Note 2: Jiang Mingwu, said to be a deputy general in the history of the Ming Dynasty. This book is subject to Mr. Gu's research.

Note 3: Xiao Yuan Ying, Yuan Shizhong's army.