That night, the soldiers and civilians of the county all knew the news that the thief Li Zicheng had arrived in Kaifeng.

Li Yan and they don't need to do any guidance, the people outside the city have basically been homeless, and they have all seen bandits and bandits in various places, no matter which group of thieves they are, they are all robbing, raping, setting fire to houses, and so on. Even the most benevolent and righteous Yuan Shizhong is also in the business of kidnapping tickets.

The most important thing is that the people outside the city are now considered to be the propertied class. Almost every family has ten to dozens of acres of land, and there are houses in the village. And Li Yan only charges them 30% of the tax, and they don't have to bear anything else, so their quality of life has been greatly improved, and it is the time to thrive.

At this time, if the thieves want to ruin their lives, make them destitute, and make them hungry, then they will never agree. So the people immediately went to the barracks one by one, or wrote letters to their sons and husbands in the army, asking them to fight bravely against the enemy, to defeat the thieves who came to them, and to protect their hard-won good life.

And the prime of life who did not join the army were also self-determined and took up arms - it was Li Yan who distributed them to them. Of course, the weapons are relatively rudimentary, with only a few bows and crossbows and long knives in each fort, and the others are the simplest spears. Even such weapons could not guarantee that no one would have them, so the people found suitable wooden sticks and sharpened their heads to make weapons according to the suggestions of the troops. Others use poles, sickles, and hoes as weapons.

Li Yan began to mobilize troops, gathered all the soldiers in the village, and together with the troops in the city barracks, a total of 2,300 people were gathered.

They kept a close eye on the situation in Kaifeng, using the last time to strengthen the supply. The gunpowder shop, the blacksmith's shop, and the bow and crossbow shop became the busiest units. All of them began to rush to work, and on the premise of attaching great importance to safety and quality, they went all out to produce more muskets, gunpowder, projectiles, chain mail, long knives, spears, crossbows, arrows and everything else for the upcoming war.

Shi Jincai was busy in the barracks, but he was a little absent-minded. He was recognized as a third-class meritorious service in the last battle in Suizhou, but he was not promoted, but only commended, and he is still a hundred presidents.

Ever since he knew that Li Zicheng's troops were attacking Kaifeng, he had not been able to calm down. Although I knew that Li Zicheng had made a comeback and laid down Luoyang, it was in western Henan after all, and there was still some distance from Qixian County. But now it's different, they're in Kaifeng, just a stone's throw away from him.

He has been thinking about whether he should return to Li Zicheng's command for the past two days. Of course, he didn't just go back, but took Qiu Niang with him. He didn't care if Qiu Niang already had something with Li Yan, he didn't care. When he first met Qiu Niang, he found that Qiu Niang was very similar to the daughter of their landlord in Zhuangshangdu.

He was a poor boy in the village and had nothing, so he was naturally not worthy of the daughter of the landlord's family. Although the Du family is a landlord, they only have forty acres of water to irrigate the land, but the small landlord is also a landlord, so naturally he will not let him, a poor boy, have any chance. Later, during the tax resistance, the daughter of the Du family was also killed by the rebels, and the most beautiful woman in his heart disappeared. But after seeing Qiu Niang in Qilizhai, he remembered this woman again, and wanted to have it more and more.

After Shi Jincai checked the preparation of the troops, he did not ask Li Mu for leave, and left the barracks by himself.

He came to the outside of Li Yan's house and waited. He knew that Qiu Niang would come out of here every day, and then return to the small courtyard next to her. He also knew that Li Yan had been very busy recently, and he had dinner in the barracks, and he would come back very late.

Before he came, he had rented a carriage, and by this time the coachman had been knocked unconscious, and was lying in the carriage with him tied. He found a secluded street corner and waited, he was wearing a military uniform, and no one in the county town dared to interrogate him. After waiting for two quarters of an hour, he finally saw Qiu Niang and that Wu Niang coming out of Li Yan's house together.

He drove the carriage forward, and the speed was controlled just right. When Qiu Niang was about to approach the door of their small courtyard, he happened to pass. He jumped down from the carriage, stunned Qiu Niang, and then got into the carriage with Qiu Niang in his arms, stuffed Qiu Niang into the carriage, and drove away.

At this time, Wu Niang and Qiu Niang were talking about the legend of Li Zicheng in the past few days.

"I heard that Li Zicheng is very murderous?" Qiu Niang asked, "You are from Kaifeng, you should have heard of it." ”

"I don't know, I've heard of 'King Chuang' Gao Yingxiang before." Wu Niang shook her head and replied.

"That~", "uh~" Before Qiu Niang could speak, she made a sound, and then she was picked up by Shi Jincai and put in the carriage.

Wu Niang heard the sound, looked back curiously, and happened to see Qiu Niang being carried into the carriage by a person. He was completely stunned, he didn't expect to encounter a kidnapping ticket in Qi County, which has good public security. It wasn't until the man set up the carriage and started to move that she reacted.

"Help! Help me! Come on! Wu Niang shouted loudly, and then ran towards Li Yan's mansion.

At this time, the soldiers at the door of Li Yan's house were the first to react and ran over with spears. "What's going on?" he asked. ”

Wu Niang said anxiously: "Quick, save people, Qiu Niang was caught in that carriage and taken away." Go and save someone. ”

One of the two soldiers ran to chase the carriage, and the other immediately ran back to Li Yan's house, where there were horses and he could ride them in pursuit. The most important thing is that he was going to inform Li Yan in the barracks that he saw that the driver of the carriage was wearing a military uniform to see if there was any task.

Shi Jincai set up the car and moved quickly, and he kept whipping the old horse to make the car faster. He went straight to the north, and he wanted to take Qiu Niang to join Li Zicheng. When he got there, Qiu Niang was his, and no one could snatch Qiu Niang away.

After Li Yan got the report, he was very puzzled, he didn't let the people in the army perform any tasks. Besides, there were no carriages with carriages in the army, all of them were carts that carried heavy loads. So he immediately called his own soldiers and rode in pursuit.

No matter who it is, the people in the army went to hijack Qiu Niang, it sounds very suspicious, there must be something else. The best thing to do is to catch this person as soon as possible, so that his subsequent destruction cannot be carried out.

They followed the instructions of the messenger and pursued them north. When they had just left the city, they saw soldiers chasing on foot.

"The carriage, the blue curtain, went in the direction of Chen Liu." The soldier gasped as he reported.

Li Yan instructed: "You can rest first." Then he commanded his own soldiers: "Go! Keep chasing! ”