This is a captive named Hou Cheng, who is a squad leader in the thief army, that is, a small flag officer in the Ming army, and is in charge of more than a dozen people. According to Hou's generation, a month ago, he followed Du Wei, surnamed Zhou, to escort more than 10 boatloads of grain from Linjiang Mansion, and did not enter Nanchang, but continued to go north into Poyang Lake. After two more days of walking in Poyang Lake, I landed in a small town called Lutan.

According to Hou Cheng, on the shore of Poyang Lake in Lutan Town, hundreds of large warehouses were built in a row, which were full of grain, and dozens or hundreds of boats sailed from Poyang Lake every day to transport grain collected from all over the country into the Lutan granary.

Lutan! When Yan Yingyuan and Liu Neng hurriedly searched on the map, they couldn't find this place name. I think it's an unknown town, and the map is too simple to be marked.

Yan Yingyuan ordered Hou Cheng to step forward, looking at the huge map, Hou Cheng recalled carefully, and pointed to a place on the map by feeling.

"It took about two days for our fleet to enter Poyang Lake from Nanchang, and the ships walked for more than half a day to reach Lutan. According to the travel time, it is estimated that it is probably in this area, but after such a long time, the villain is not sure. Hou Cheng said nervously.

"Knowing a general place to practice, how big is Poyang Lake? Hou Cheng, if you follow the army as a guide, you will definitely be able to find this place called Lutan. Yan Yingyuan said in a deep voice, seeing Hou Cheng's pale face, he hurriedly promised, "As long as you can help the army find this place and successfully burn the food of the thief army, I will count you as a great merit, reward you with a hundred taels of silver, and promote you to be the boss!" ”

Hearing the reward of one hundred taels of silver, Hou Cheng's throat surged, revealing a greedy gaze. One hundred taels of silver, for most of the people of the Ming Dynasty, they will never see this amount of money in their lifetime.

"Master Bingxian, can you, can you not let me be the general, I, I don't want to be a soldier anymore......" Hou Chengyou hesitated and asked, with a large amount of silver, the fool continued to fight as a soldier, where is there a few acres of land to take a mother-in-law and an aunt to live a comfortable life?

Yan Yingyuan laughed when he heard this, "It's okay if you don't want to be the boss, when you defeat the Western Thief, I will operate for you and let you be the head of the team in the county government." ”

Be the head of the shift! Hou Cheng's eyes lit up suddenly, how majestic it was to show off his might with a knife on his shoulder!

"Master Xie Bingxian, the little one must work for you, and he will definitely be able to find the granary of the thief army!" Hou Cheng kowtowed again and again, making promises.

With a guide, it is not difficult to find the approximate location of the thief army's grain field. The next step is the number of troops to be sent and the choice of generals.

The number of troops sent can not be too much, the movement of large-scale troops will inevitably cause the thief army in Nanchang City to notice, the grain field is deep in the hinterland of the thief army, it will inevitably be surrounded by heavy troops and guarded deeply, once the thief army has doubts and wants to successfully attack it is too difficult.

And the number of troops sent is too small, and if there are too few troops, they will not be sure to break through the defense of the defenders in the grain cantonment area, and there will be no way to successfully burn the grain of the thief army. The result of the deliberations should be a thousand-strong force.

And the candidate to lead the generals must have both wisdom and bravery, Yan Yingyuan wanted to personally lead the troops to go forward at first, but was persuaded by Liu Neng.

"Lord Yan is the commander of the army, he can't leave, Liu Neng is not talented, it is appropriate to do such a thing." Liu Neng said with a smile.

"Commander Liu is the envoy of Lord Jinglu and a member of the imperial court, how can you be allowed to do such a dangerous thing?" Yan Yingyuan said embarrassedly. Taking a small part of the army to burn the enemy's granary is really a life-and-death business, and Yan Yingyuan naturally knows the danger.

"No way, we're doing this dangerous thing, I've been used to it all these years. In terms of coordinating and leading the troops to fight, I am not as good as you, Lord Yan. But if you talk about going behind enemy lines, setting fire to food, and assassinating enemy generals, Lord Yan, you are far inferior to me, so don't fight. ”

It was determined that Liu Neng would lead the team and bring the original 500 soldiers under him to carry out this matter, and Yan Yingyuan wanted to allocate some more men to follow but Liu Neng refused.

Liu Neng's five hundred subordinates are the elite of the Dongfan Army and the Jinyi Guard, and the combat power of the equipment far exceeds that of Tongji, although Yan Yingyuan has many troops in his hands, there is no elite at all, and he may be held back. Of course, there is someone who must be brought, and that is the guide Hou Cheng.

Liu Neng did not leave with these 500 men in a daze, but found some prisoners' clothes from the army, changed them, and then asked Yan Yingyuan to allocate dozens of ships, which were filled with grain and grass, pretending to be a thief army grain transportation team.

The next day, under Yan Yingyuan's order, all 30,000 troops left the camp and slowly pressed towards Nanchang City. The soldiers of the Ming army carried the ladder and set up the artillery carriage, making a look of attacking the city with all their might, which immediately attracted the attention of all the soldiers at the head of Nanchang City.

Just when the attention of the defenders was attracted by the impending siege, Liu Neng quietly bypassed Nanchang City with five hundred men and escorted more than twenty ships to the north along the Gan River.

The Ganjiang River is wide and mighty, and more than 20 ships are inconspicuous in it, rowing forward quickly against one side of the riverbank, for fear that there will be thieves from Nanchang City to chase and kill.

Perhaps the thief army's attention was all attracted by the siege, and they didn't care about this small fleet at all. It was not that he did not care, but five or six cavalry thieves chased along the river bank for a while, and at a river bay they were blocked by a protruding cliff, and could no longer follow.

The boat was loaded with thatch on and below, and only a few bags of grain were loaded on the top, which was not very heavy, and the boat was very fast down the river, and it didn't take two days to sail into Poyang Lake after Nanchang.

As soon as I entered Poyang Lake, the water surface suddenly widened, and the water surface was dozens of miles wide, and more than 20 grain boats were not much different from duckweed in it.

There are many sandbar islands at the mouth of the Ganjiang River, and the reeds on the sandbar in the lake embankment are swaying. The 500 officers and men all changed into the uniforms of the thieves, and the ships also flew the flag of the western thieves, and this grain fleet was no different from other thief fleets.

Soon after entering Poyang Lake, he suddenly encountered a fleet of more than 30 boats. The soldiers in the fleet immediately looked at the enemy, but the thieves of the fleet only glanced here a few times, and did not suspect anything.

Liu Neng slowed down, parallel to this fleet, and after going forward to talk, he learned that this was a grain ship from Raozhou Mansion, and the ship was also carrying grain destined for Lutan.

Liu Neng's northern accent immediately aroused the interest of the other ship's leader, and the people in the western army who spoke northern dialect were all old men in the past, Zhang Xianzhong was from northern Shaanxi, and the soldiers who followed him in Shanxi, Shanxi and Henan were his old team.

After talking, Liu Neng learned that the person escorting the ship on the opposite side was a captain, who was indeed from Shaanxi, but it was the Western Army that he joined after Zhang Xianzhonghuo merged with other rebels.

"I am a native of Henan, Chongzhen only joined the Western Army when he was seven years old, and he has been following General Feng Shuangli as a personal soldier, and he was only recently released to lead the army." Liu Neng said.