On October 12, Li Zhi sat in the yamen of the prefect of Jining Mansion and arranged military arrangements with the generals of the Western Route Army to crusade against Li Zicheng. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

After a series of conquests and transfers, Li Zhi finally blocked the Jiangbei Army stabbed in the back, destroyed the Korean State that raised the anti-flag, and could free up his hands to attack Li Zicheng.

Although the recruits had only been trained for more than six months and were not yet capable of fighting, they could be used to suppress the North Korean peasants. After 20,000 recruits were transferred to Korea to garrison, 12,000 veterans of North Korea were liberated, and now all of Li Zhi's 60,000 veterans can be put into the battlefields of Henan and Huai'an. The Huai'an front arranged 20,000 veterans, so Li Zhi had 40,000 veterans left to use to crusade against Li Zicheng.

Li Zhi stood in front of the huge Henan topographic sand table and asked: "This crusade against Li Zicheng, the 40,000 troops of our Western Route Army are ready to go, how do you think we should fight." ”

The generals looked at the sand table and did not speak.

Hong Chengchou looked at the generals, stood up and arched his hand and said: "The Tiger Ben army has strong firepower and is the best at attacking fortified cities. I suggest that we take the north of the Yellow River, cross the Yellow River from the north bank, and cut into Henan from north to south. If you cross the Yellow River from Fengqiu County, you will go straight to Kaifeng. After capturing Kaifeng, he rushed from the flat belly of Henan to the south, attacked Xuchang, and went straight to Xinyang, occupying three large cities in central Henan, and dividing the thieves in Henan into two. ”

"After occupying the three big cities, if the thieves still have soldiers and horses left in eastern Henan, I am afraid that these soldiers and horses are in a state of panic. When the time comes, we will defend the city with a small number of soldiers and horses, and send a large army to sweep eastern Henan, and we will definitely be able to sweep away the thieves in eastern Henan. ”

Li Xing looked at the sand table and said in a deep voice: "The efficiency of such a battle is quite high. However, there is a thousand miles from Kaifeng to Xinyang, and the grain road is very long. What if the thieves sent the main force to attack our grain convoy? ”

Hong Chengchou said: "The second general should not worry about the problem of the grain road, Henan went to the New Year, and the countryside had accumulated grain everywhere. As long as our tiger army buys and sells fairly, we can raise grain and grass locally, and we don't need to transport it from Shandong at all. ”

Everyone gathered around the sand table, thinking about Hong Chengchou's words.

Li Xing shook his head and said: "The thieves are very popular in Henan, what if the people favor the thieves and are unwilling to sell us grain and grass?" ”

Hong Chengchou stroked his beard and said: "Soldiers, the country's major affairs are also." The land of life and death, the way of survival. Our army invaded the hinterland of Henan for the sake of the country, which is a great righteousness. If the people support the thief, it is rebellion. If the people are unwilling to provide food, the army can forcibly steal food from the people. ”

"If you are worried that the people will not have food for the winter, you can grab the food and leave the corresponding silver."

"Henan is a mountain in the east and west of Henan, and the west of Henan is a big mountain, but the fertile fields in central and eastern Henan are thousands of miles, and we attack all the way south from Kaifeng, and everywhere we go are plains. The people just wanted to hide the grain, and there were no mountains to hide. Therefore, as long as we forcibly requisition grain, we will definitely get grain and grass. In this area, our army will not have a problem with food and grass. ”

"If we can annihilate one-third of the thieves' soldiers and horses in central and eastern Henan, the frontal pressure will drop greatly when we attack the mountains of western Henan, and at that time, we can mobilize more soldiers and horses to transport grain in the mountains of western Henan to prevent the grain road from being cut off."

Hong Chengchou spoke very old-fashioned, and when he was arguing with Li Xing, he looked at Li Xing with a smile, and his tone was very soothing. Although Li Xing was repeatedly refuted by Hong Chengchou, he did not feel embarrassed.

After listening to Hong Chengchou's analysis, everyone felt that it made sense, and thought about the sand table.

After thinking about it for a while, everyone had no objections.

Li Zhi nodded and said: "What Deputy Chief of Staff Hong said is reasonable, so we will force the Yellow River from Kaifeng and divide everything in Henan into two from the middle road, trying to annihilate a part of the thief army in eastern Henan." ”

When the generals heard Li Zhi's words, they all bowed down and received their orders with a bang.

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On the first day of November, the north wind from Siberia has begun to dominate the skies of Henan. The cold wind was howling in the air, the temperature was getting lower and lower day by day, and the soldiers of the Tiger Ben Army were all wearing cotton clothes.

However, the marching plan of the Tiger Ben Army was not affected by the weather, and they marched all the way.

Only five days after attacking Henan, the Huben army crossed the Yellow River and attacked Kaifeng Mansion.

The Chuang army apparently took the initiative to retreat westward and abandoned Kaifeng City. There were only 1,000 hungry soldiers left to defend the city, and as soon as they saw the 40,000 tiger army attacking, these hungry soldiers immediately surrendered.

Li Xing rode into the city of Kaifeng, an important town in the Central Plains.

But in this city ruled by thieves, Li Xing saw only a dazzling desolation.

Both sides of the street are very depressed, and it seems that most of the shops have been closed for a long time. Some of the large shops were even burned down by the invaders, and all that was seen was scorched black. The roads in the city are very dirty, and all kinds of garbage are everywhere, so that the whole city is shrouded in the stench of garbage.

Obviously, the Chuang army, as a soldier who takes plundering as its main business, has not yet learned how to manage the city.

The slum dwellings on both sides of the road were still inhabited, and it was not clear whether they had been looted. But the yards of the richer, more respectable ones were all empty, and it was clear that the original occupants had been killed.

Without exception, the yard was completely destroyed. From the outside, the most intuitive feeling is that the door panels are all gone, probably cut down by the peasant soldiers and burned as firewood.

Li Xing walked into a three-entry courtyard and saw that the courtyard was full of messes. The third entrance of the yard was completely filled with garbage, littered with all sorts of food scraps and discarded clothes, fat rats and bugs of unknown kinds. Apparently the peasant army occupying the yard was too lazy to throw out the garbage, so they used the third courtyard as a garbage heap.

The furnishings and furniture in the front two courtyards were also completely destroyed. The porcelain, calligraphy and paintings were all smashed and destroyed. As a luxury item for the gentry, the rosewood furniture for the reception in the main hall probably aroused the anger of the peasant army and was burned, and Li Xing only saw a few burnt chair legs in the corner.

The occupiers of the courtyard moved dozens of rough wooden chairs of various colors from the wing room to form a circle, and used the main hall as a meeting hall for this group of intruders.

Around the "Council Hall", all the main rooms and wings were used as barracks for the intruding army. Li Xing walked into a main room and only smelled a sour smell. The low-level soldiers who broke into the army did not have a woman to greet them, and obviously did not know what hygiene was at all, and they probably did not take a bath or wash the sheets and bedding. The corners of the room were full of animal bones, and Li Xing only glanced at them and saw four or five cockroaches crawling in the garbage in the corner of the house.

Li Xing frowned and scolded: "The rabble! ”

Li Xing withdrew from the courtyard and rode into the palace of King Zhou in Kaifeng City.

The king of Zhou has been killed by the Chuang army, and the palace of the king of Zhou was previously used as Li Zicheng's palace of the king. The palace was desolate at this time, and there were no people. The valuable things on the main hall of the palace were all taken away by Li Zicheng, and the palace was bare.

Li Xing walked to the harem of the palace, but saw that the harem was empty, and most of the manhole covers of the wells were sealed with snare drums and other utensils.

Li Xing opened a well curiously, looked inside, and only felt that he couldn't see anything in the black rumbling.

Li Xing's personal soldiers captured a eunuch from the palace from a nearby house and brought it to Li Xing.

Li Xing asked, "Why are all these wells sealed?" ”

The eunuch walked with a limp, as if he had been lame by the sergeant soldiers. When he saw Li Xing, he seemed to see his own relatives, kneeling and holding Li Xing's boots and crying bitterly.

"Chief Officer! Chief Soldier Mingjian! After the army invaded the palace, they bullied the palace maids, and the low-level soldiers took turns insulting the harem maids. Those palace maids were humiliated and shameless, and more than a dozen people committed suicide by throwing themselves into a well in a few nights! ”

"The army didn't bother to clean up the bodies of these palace maids, so they sealed these wells."

When Li Xing heard this, he was stunned for a while.

After a long time, he sighed: "What a thief." ”