From the first month of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shaanxi in the Ming Dynasty, entered Sichuan to quell the rebellion.

Yang Sichang, a scholar of the current military department and a scholar of the cabinet, is not an incompetent person; since he took office as secretary of the military department, he has actively pursued his policy of suppression of "four positives," "six corners," and "ten-sided nets," and at the same time actively contacted the leaders of the peasant rebel army and adopted a soft policy of recruiting and security, which has made many leaders of the peasant rebel army accept the recruitment of an army and turn around and become the vanguard of suppressing the peasant rebel army.

Since then, Li Zicheng and others have suffered heavy losses in their military operations in the Shaanxi and Gansu areas, and they have no choice but to retreat towards northern Sichuan.

This time, Hong Chengchou entered Sichuan westward, in order to completely annihilate the last main force of the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang.

After entering Sichuan, Commander Hong Chengchou ordered the Sichuan army to strictly guard the key places, and at the same time ordered all the yamen in Sichuan to clear the wilderness, so that Li Zicheng and other peasant troops were trapped and had no food for a long time, and finally secretly sent the Sichuan army defenders to pretend to escort grain and grass to Zitong, and the Shaanxi soldiers led by him were secretly lurking in it, so that Li Zicheng's troops under the lack of food supply fell into an ambush and defeated Zitong.

Li Zicheng took the remnants of the army back to Shaanxi again, followed by a few generals under Hong Chengchou's command, Cao Bianjiao, He Renlong, and other generals who wanted his life, and chased him all the way to the land of Shaanxi.

"General, we have already dispersed with King Chuang, what should we do next?"

In the small town of Gangcha, which originally belonged to the land of Hamiwei in the Ming Dynasty, a peasant army of more than 5,000 people who had been separated from Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, was resting in the town.

"Now there is the dog thief Cao Bianjiao and others around King Chuang to chase after him, if I go to join King Chuang, I am afraid that it will fall into the hands of Cao Thief!"

Hong Yangtang's appearance is less than thirty, with sword eyebrows and starry eyes, and his temperament is not very similar to that of ordinary rebel leaders, but what is the difference is made impossible for ordinary people to say.

But at this time, everyone was embarrassed and on the run, and everyone else looked like they were in the dust, but although the general Hong Yangtang was in rags, he was still in good spirits.

"It's better for everyone to avoid the edge of the dog army for the time being, take a rest here, and wait until King Chuang breaks out of the encirclement, and then it's not too late for us to join them."

"But this thousand miles of Liao is uninhabited, the herdsmen in the small training town have asked, this is the fixed place where the herdsmen usually trade with the outside world, and now we stay here, I'm afraid the surrounding herdsmen will not dare to come to trade."

"If you want to find a group of nomads running on four legs in the vast grassland, I'm afraid we'll be choking!"

The leader at the bottom said worriedly.

After Li Zicheng entered Fandi from Shaanxi, he finally returned to Shaanxi again because of the scarcity of people in Fandi and the difficulty of supply, so he was separated from Hongyangtang behind.

"It is precisely because of the hardships of the grassland that we can have a chance to recuperate, otherwise if we are in the Sichuan and Shaanxi areas, where would we have such a good opportunity to cultivate!"

"Order, from today onwards, our team will implement a supply system for grain and grass supply, and when everyone is fine, they will also go out to the grassland to collect some game and dig some wild vegetables to supplement it as food."

Seeing that Hong Yangtang, the young general, had made up his mind, the leader who had followed him to the north and south for several years, and knew his temperament, could only stop there, and ordered the soldiers to settle down.

However, fortunately, the grain and grass prepared by this partial division that was separated from the main force of the peasant army was quite sufficient, and all the supplies could still last for a month or two, and it was not impossible to meet the needs of March with a little meat and poultry on the grassland.

Moreover, it was predicted early that the Hongyangtang Department of the King of Chuang would break into Fandi, and on the road to Sichuan and Shaanxi, he had been preparing a lot of salt tea and other materials that others did not care about, and now after arriving on the grassland, it happened to become a hard currency in the grassland, which could be used to trade with the grassland herdsmen.

After the henchmen went down, Hong Yangtang finally had time to rest, and muttered to himself: "Follow Li Zicheng? Hmph, now that Li Zicheng himself is difficult to protect, didn't he follow him to die? ”

The subordinates may think that Hong Yangtang and they were separated from the army, mostly because of the heavy burden on their bodies and the large number of Ming Dynasty troops blocking the way, but no one could have imagined that it was actually Hong Yangtang himself who wanted to break away from Li Zicheng's army, so he deliberately created such a situation without leaving a trace.

As a member of the peasant army planted by the Hongmen spy war, Hongyangtang's status in the peasant army is now a good one among the spy wars, so the Hongmen external guard intelligence system is also very good for him, so compared to the peasant army team that opened its eyes and smeared it, Hongyangtang's intelligence is much stronger.

So far, the Hongmen headquarters has basically not had much demand for these members who have penetrated into the enemy's interior, and the only thing is that they should strengthen their own strength as much as possible and consolidate their position in the peasant army.

Hong Yangtang and others, who have experienced the military, cultural and educational education of the Hongmen system, naturally occupy a great advantage in front of the poor people, and it is also the right thing to become the leader of one party.

Now, with the efforts of the Hongmen External Guard Intelligence System and his own efforts, he has the current situation, with more than 5,000 elite soldiers in his hands, knowing that the next will be a sea of swords and fires, and Hong Yangtang's brain is broken, so he will follow Li Zicheng back to Shaanxi to die.

Now the place they occupy is the Hamiwei who originally belonged to the Ming Dynasty, and now with the change of the civil fort and the rise of the labor Jurchen, it has finally been abandoned by the Ming Dynasty, and has gone through Turpan Khan and Kashgar Khan, and now it has become the eastern territory of the Yarkand Khanate.

Fandi is sparsely populated and it is not easy to supply, and it does not belong to the territory of the Ming Dynasty, so Cao Bianjiao, He Renlong and other Ming Dynasty generals also turned a blind eye to the remnants of the peasant army close to Shaanxi, and did not send a large army to chase after them, which also gave Hong Yangtang a little respite.

The grassland in April is full of vitality, and it is not too difficult to find some supplies at this time, which also reduces the burden on Hong Yangtang and them.

Under the leadership of Hong Yangtangdi, this peasant army guarding the small town of Gangcha reversed their style of burning, killing and looting in the Ming Dynasty's dependent territories, and first treated the ethnic minority residents of the town with a certain situation.

At the same time, Hongyangtang actively sent people to contact the Uyghurs, Hui and other tribes who were nomadic in the wild, inviting them to come to Gangcha to trade with each other with the salt, tea, silk and other things they had collected.

(End of chapter)