Tongguan is located in the east of the Guanzhong Plain, located in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan Province three provinces to rush the place, there are Qinling Mountains in the south, there is the forbidden valley in the southeast, there are Wei and Luo Erchuan in the north and the Yellow River hugs down the pass, the west is near Huayue, the surrounding mountains are even mountains, the peaks are even peaks, the valleys are deep and the precipices are absolute, the mountains are high and the roads are narrow, many places are narrow sheep intestine paths, and only one car and one horse can be allowed to go back and forth.

Such a dangerous place, has always been a place where soldiers must fight, since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, all dynasties have set up checkpoints here, to the Ming Dynasty Hongwu years is to expand here into a city, and set up Tong Pass guard garrison.

Tongguan Guancheng is bordered by the Yellow River in the north, the east, west and north three city walls are all five zhang high, and the city wall in the south, the highest place is as high as ten zhang, the circumference of the whole city is nearly 12 miles, if it is eloquent, even more than the Shanhaiguan that is called the first pass in the world.

In the face of such a Xiongguan, Yang Sichang was really dumbfounded, there were anti-thieves stationed here, which was really unexpected to him.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 5,000 guards stationed here, but, since the beginning of the Zhengde period of Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty, the guard system gradually relaxed, a large number of guards escaped, to the apocalypse, the northwest is a drought continues, Tongguan guards have almost escaped, here has almost become an empty city, even the officers and soldiers are not stationed, this time was choked by the thief, Yang Sichang simply regretted not falling, he knew this, sent 10,000 people to garrison here, how could the thief not attack ah, now, but it is his turn to attack the city.

Is this Tongguan down?

He really didn't have any certainty, because the two southeast city walls facing this side were not easy to attack, and the southern city wall was relatively open, and tens of thousands of troops could be deployed, but the south city wall was as high as ten zhang, and the ladder couldn't be as long as ten zhang if he attacked it!

The east city wall is a little shorter, but five zhang is not low, you must know that many places in the city wall of the capital are only three or four zhang high, and there are not many places five zhang high, here, all are five zhang high, it is simply a human life, the ladder can be made, lift the dead, to climb up, he is a little frightened, what is more troublesome is that the terrain outside the east city wall is narrow, it is good to accommodate thousands of people, and the army can not be spread at all.

What to do?

If you are not sure, you have to attack, the entire Guanzhong is about to be occupied by the thieves, and if he doesn't rush over to suppress the thieves, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Yang Sichang couldn't, so he had to order more than 200,000 troops to be stationed outside Guancheng, make siege equipment, and prepare to attack Guancheng.

He didn't dare to attack the south city wall, ten zhang high, people could kill a bunch of people by throwing a stone down, although the east side could not be opened, the city wall was only five zhang high, and there was still hope of attacking, he was ready to send people to attack in turn, hoping to open the world's several male passes.

More than 200,000 Ming troops are stationed in the mountains and mountains outside Tongguan in this way, the terrain here is extremely complicated, more than 200,000 Ming troops want to be stationed together can not find a spacious enough place, can only be stationed in a mountain in the east, a valley in the west is stationed everywhere, for a while, the order outside this Tongguan is continuous, the herald flies back and forth, the Ming army soldiers are camping and logging, busy and happy.

At this time, Zhang Xianzhong, who was thousands of miles away, couldn't sit still, and heard that Li Zicheng had raised the anti-flag again, captured the Tongguan Pass, and was fighting with more than 200,000 officers and soldiers at the pass, so he couldn't do it in his heart.

What a chance, the imperial army was attracted to Tongguan by King Chuang, and the entire southwest was like no defense, let him gallop across the country, and not take the opportunity to plunder and expand wildly, let alone when!

At this time, there is an important town of Xiangyang in hand, I'm afraid of a fart, it's a big deal that the imperial army comes and retreats back to Xiangyang City, can the officers and soldiers still bite him.

He couldn't help but look at the surroundings of Xiangyang, ready to take a few pieces of fat meat first, and then say, at this time, the fattest one should be the Zhu Ming royal family, these dragon sons and grandsons are terrible, any prince's mansion has at least a million taels of gold and silver, and any county prince's mansion has hundreds of thousands of taels of gold and silver.

Anyway, he also killed King Xiang, and he also dug the ancestral grave of the old Zhu family, and it was nothing to kill a few more princes and county kings, so he starved to death the bold and starved to death.

Soon, he determined his goal, which was Wuchang City, the capital of Hu Guangcheng's proclamation of the political envoy department, and Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu in the city.

Wuchang is only more than 600 miles away from Xiangyang, which is not too far, much closer than Tongguan, even if the main force of the Ming army outside Tongguan receives the news to come to reinforcements, he has time to lead the army back to Xiangyang.

This Chu King Zhu Huakui is terrible, he has been reigning for more than 60 years, I don't know how much wealth he has looted, it is rumored that among the princes of the Zhu Ming royal family, his wealth is comparable to that of Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu, this guy's wealth is simply incalculable, and although Wuchang is the capital of Huguang, it does not have any garrison, and its defense is 108,000 miles worse than Xiangyang.

After Zhang Xianzhong probed the news in Wuchang City clearly, he selected the elite, pretended to be various identities, and sneaked into Wuchang City.

In fact, at this time, Hu Guangcheng in Wuchang City announced that the officials of the Political Envoy Department were worried that the big thief chieftain would move south to capture Wuchang as early as when Zhang Xianzhong captured Xiangyang.

However, the stinginess of Chu King Zhu Huakui also has a fight with the Fu King Zhu Changxun, he actually refused to donate money in the name of Yu Lu, his Yu Lu is indeed "meager" compared to his luxurious life, the problem is that his income does not depend on Yu Lu, he has reigned for more than 60 years, with the support of the imperial court, forcibly plundered, I don't know how much land has been plundered, how much wealth has been accumulated, that little Yu Lu is a fart!

Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, refused to donate money, and the Huguang officials were really meager, so they couldn't take out the money to serve as military salaries, and the imperial court used all the money and grain to support Yang Sichang's plan to suppress thieves.

Zhang Xianzhong was busy for more than ten days, and finally sent thousands of elites into Wuchang City, at this time, he ripped off the mask of Guishun, led 100,000 troops all the way to Wuchang City, and went straight to Wuchang City, as for Xiangyang City, it was garrisoned by Luo Rucai and the remaining more than 100,000 troops.

When the officials in Wuchang City received the news, they were all frightened, and they rushed to the imperial court for eight hundred miles, and organized the guards near Wuchang City to enter the city to garrison, and the entire Wuchang City was suddenly in a panic.

To say that there are really a lot of guards near Wuchang, what Wuchang Wei, Huangzhou Wei, Wuchang Left Guard, Wuchang Right Guard, etc., add up to more than ten guards, although the Tun Guard escaped seriously, it is not a problem to gather one or two thousand Tun Guards.

The main problem is that the Huguang Dusi has no money, after they issued an emergency order, the commander of the nearby guard post sent people over, but they were all light people, and they didn't even bring weapons, let alone food, there are some weapons in the arsenal of the Huguang Dusi, which can equip the more than 10,000 guards who were urgently assembled, but they have no food, and the rations of more than 10,000 people, who can afford it.

They scraped together, and in the end, they could only barely scrape together the porridge and water money of tens of thousands of Tunwei for a few days, and they couldn't make it if they wanted to give them a full meal.

Of course, it is not excluded that there are many corrupt officials among these officials, and they have money, but they can't hold up their money, tens of thousands of guards have to spend more than 1,000 taels just to eat and drink a day, plus salary, it is tens of thousands of taels a month, who can afford this money, even if they can barely afford it for a month or two, they don't dare to come out, they are so low, where does this money come from? Doesn't this make it clear to tell others that they are corrupt!

They pinned their hopes on Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, they all knew that this king of Chu alone has tens of millions of acres of fertile land, and it is not a problem to feed an army of 100,000.

So, the Huguang officials went to the palace of the king of Chu again, knelt down and begged Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, to donate money, but it was really not possible, so it was good to give some food for the soldiers defending the city to eat.

In their eyes, they underestimated the stinginess and shamelessness of Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, this guy is still the same sentence, he is lowly, he has no money, and there is no food!

This guy, the thieves are going to fight in Wuchang, and he still doesn't pull out a dime, and would rather watch the soldiers defending the city go hungry than give him a little food!

The Huguang officials begged again and again, and Zhu Huakui was annoyed by these people, so he pointed to the golden chair given to him by Chengzu Zhu Di and said: "This king really has no money, if you have to ask for it, take this chair and sell it, and use it as military expenses!" ”

This is not a joke, who dares to sell the things given by Chengzu, that is to kill the head, this guy, the scoundrel to this extent, the Huguang officials have no choice, they can only let the soldiers defending the city drink porridge every day.

The reason why Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, is so fearless is mainly because he has a high seniority, he is the ninth grandson of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, four generations higher than Wanli, and seven generations higher than Chongzhen, Chongzhen can watch his old ancestor being besieged by thieves, and don't send troops to save him?

Of course, Chongzhen will not see death without help, the problem is that Wuchang is more than 2,000 miles away from the capital, and it will take three or four days to rush the news for 800 miles, you must always have time to save Chongzhen!

Zhang Xianzhong hurried all the way, and it took only five days to lead the army to the outside of Wuchang City, he didn't say a word, and directly surrounded Wuchang City, and pretended to build siege equipment.

In fact, he didn't wave his army to attack the city at all, he didn't fight a few real siege battles, almost every time he asked Nei Ying to open the city gate inside, and directly waved his army to rush in, attacking the city or something, it was too troublesome, he didn't bother to bother with it.

This soldier defending the city can't eat enough, and when he sees the hundreds of thousands of thieves outside the city, how can they be willing to defend the city desperately, all of them are listless during the day, and they sleep crookedly at night, and they don't even bother to light torches, of course, even if they want to light torches, because they don't have money to buy fire oil!

This city defense is simply useless, and soon Zhang Xianzhong, with the cooperation of Neiying, said that the night invaded the city, and many city defenders were not demoralized, and they directly joined the peasant army!

Now Zhu Huakui is miserable, Zhang Xianzhong is not as polite as the Huguang officials, he directly ordered people to surround the Chu Wangfu, that is, a search, just silver to find millions of taels, the hundreds of carriages he brought could not fit, and finally had to "requisition" a batch of people.

Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, had millions of family assets, and the grain was piled up, and he refused to pay a little money for the army, so that he easily attacked Wuchang City.

This guy is simply a pig, so let's dip it in the pig cage!

He directly ordered someone to put Zhu Huakui in a big pig cage and throw him into the river to drown, and then ordered someone to drive all the royal clansmen in Wuchang City to the river, and ordered them to commit suicide by throwing themselves into the water to accompany Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu.

For a time, the crying on the bank of the Yangtze River shook the sky, and hundreds of royal relatives were forced into the river, and there were only a few survivors!

The news of Wuchang City was transmitted back to the capital one after another, Chongzhen was so angry that Zhang Xianzhong actually lowered his sentence and reinstated, he dared to sink Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu who was seven generations higher than himself, into the river like a pig and drowned!

At this time, Chongzhen didn't think that it was his eagerness to agree to appease Zhang Xianzhong, he vented all his anger on Xiong Wencan's body, and directly ordered someone to drag Xiong Wencan out and cut him, and made people rush to pass the decree for 800 miles, ordering Yang Sichang to immediately lead the army south to Huguang, no matter what, to exterminate the anti-thief Zhang Xianzhong!

Yang Sichang was already anxious at this time, he attacked Tongguan for more than ten days, there was no progress, but tens of thousands of soldiers died, the morale of the army was low, and the leading generals were even more depressed, this battle was simply impossible to fight.

When he received Chongzhen's will, he was even more shocked into a cold sweat, Zhang Xianzhong actually surrendered and reinstated, this guy actually conquered Wuchang and killed Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, and hundreds of royal relatives!

This resounding slap made him faint to death at the wrong point.

He didn't dare to slack off, and hurriedly left Qin Gongming, the chief soldier of Henan, and 30,000 Henan soldiers to guard Henan Mansion, and then led the army straight to Huguang.

Sometimes, people's mood can also affect their health, Yang Sichang was hit by this series of failures, his mood was depressed, he couldn't sleep at night, he was infected with wind chill before he arrived in Huguang, and his condition became more and more serious, he coughed all day long, swayed on a horse, and his hair became snow-white in a few days.

His body obviously couldn't hold on, but he had to stubbornly lead the army to continue to move forward, there was no way, the thieves were like this, he didn't have the face to go back to face the emperor!

He led the army to rush for more than ten days, and finally came to the outside of Xiangyang City, and at this time, Zhang Xianzhong had already returned to Xiangyang City with 50,000 horses and hundreds of carts of gold and silver treasures found from the Chu Palace, and the defenders of Xiangyang City reached 150,000.

At this time, Yang Sichang finally understood Xiong Wencan's helplessness, this Xiangyang City is simply the same as Tongguan, which is desperate!

Under a series of blows, he collapsed!

Since then, I can't eat medicine, I am bedridden, and I am about to die.

More than 100,000 troops were stationed outside Xiangyang City in this way, neither advancing nor retreating, and they were at a loss.

In the end, Yang Sichang could not withstand the blow of defeat and the torture of illness, and died with a whimper, Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong and other generals hurriedly led the army to retreat to Yunyang, and the situation in the entire southwest and northwest was suddenly eroded.