The peasant army is coming!

Around Zhangde Mansion, Weihui Mansion, Daimyo's Mansion, Guangping Mansion, and Shunde Mansion are all in the wind.

Of course, the main people who feel the rumors are corrupt officials and landlords, and the common people do not feel much fear, and they even have some expectations in their hearts, hoping that the peasant army will come over soon.

At this time, Zhang Bin naturally didn't want the peasant army to come quickly, because Dagu Port was more than 400 miles away from the Daimyo's Mansion, and there was no boat to sit on the shore, so he relied on his feet to hurry, and if he wanted to reach the Daimyo's Mansion as soon as possible, he had to march quickly.

So, how fast is it appropriate to run on a rapid march?

This depends on the specific situation, and there are normal marches, rapid marches and forced marches.

The normal marching speed is about 16 to 20 li per hour, that is, 8 to 10 li per hour, and the march does not exceed four hours a day, and the march is about 60 to 80 li, which is considered normal, so that the soldiers will not be too tired, and they will basically recover after a night's rest.

If the military situation is not urgent, it will generally move normally at this pace.

The rapid march is the running of about 30 to 40 miles per hour, that is, 15 to 20 miles per hour, and the march is more than four hours a day, and the distance is more than 100 miles.

This ordinary soldier can barely bear it, as long as the distance traveled no more than 150 miles a day, there will be no extreme situations such as cramps and falling to the ground, foaming at the mouth and being unconscious.

Forced marching is different, forced marching is to move forward at the speed of a rapid march, marching for more than six hours a day, marching a distance of more than one hundred and fifty miles, running like this, it is very likely to kill people!

Of course, the elite of the Qi family army are not ordinary soldiers, they are carefully selected from 100,000 soldiers, they are all strong and energetic, even if they run two hundred miles a day, there will not be much of a problem.

However, Zhang Bin did not order the Qi family army to run desperately, because there were sentinels in the Daimyo Mansion who always paid attention to the movements of the peasant army, and at this time the peasant army was still assembled in Anyang without any movement, and there was no need for him to order the Qi family army to march forcefully.

He chose the usual rapid marching speed, marching about thirty miles in one hour, running for five hours a day, about one hundred and fifty miles, and arriving at the Daimyo's Mansion in three days.

Since there are 500 grain and grass wagons carrying grain and grass baggage and weapons and equipment, the officers and men of the Qi family army are equivalent to marching lightly, and it is not very tiring to run 150 miles a day, and the fatigue is similar to the normal march of ordinary soldiers, and there is basically nothing to do after a night's rest.

Zhang Bin was leading the Qi family army to the Daimyo's mansion, and the capital and Anyang were not calm.

On the side of the capital, Qi Yuanbi led nearly 500 elite special combat battalions, escorted one million taels of silver to the capital on time at noon the next day, Chongzhen received the silver and was in a good mood, and the dissatisfaction with Zhang Bin also disappeared.

At this time, he remembered Zhang Bin's goodness again, when he saw Zhang Bin's performance on the fold, there were only 10,000 horses under his command, and he was immediately worried about Zhang Bin's safety, and he also received the report from Shanxi, and there were more than 100,000 troops of anti-thieves running through Taihang Mountain to Zhangde Mansion, which was more than 200,000 horses, even if it was not good, it could crush 10,000 people to death if it was piled up directly!

He agreed very much with Zhang Bin's suggestion to rectify the military armaments of the three prefectures of Daimyo, Guangping and Shunde and train 10,000 new troops, but 20,000 horses was still a bit insufficient, so he simply ordered Lu Xiangsheng to take the title of Imperial History of the Right Capital and the Governor of Shanxi Military Affairs Xuanda and Shanxi, and at the same time be responsible for rectifying the military armaments of the three prefectures of Daimyo, Guangping and Shunde, so that Lu Xiangsheng also became a governor of not too big or small.

In other words, Xuanfu Town and Datong Town are both in Shanxi, why should there be a governor to manage the military affairs of Xuanda and Shanxi, and the governor of Shanxi can't manage it?

The governor of Shanxi really can't manage it, because the border towns and tunwei are not a system at all, and they are basically not under the control of the local government, even if the soldiers and horses of Xuanfu Town and Datong Town need to set up a Xuanda governor to control, and the border soldiers of Xuanfu Town and Datong Town plus the tunwei of Shanxi naturally need the governor to control.

The area under the jurisdiction of Lu Xiangsheng, the governor, seems to be much smaller than Zhang Bin's, but if you count the number of border soldiers and guards, it is much more than Zhang Bin's Fuguang Province!

Chongzhen's side is dispatching troops and preparing to clean up the peasant army, and the peasant army is also actively preparing for war, preparing to rush to the vicinity of the capital to toss around, attracting soldiers and horses from all over the world to enter the king of Jingqin.

The peasants also attached great importance to intelligence spying at this time, because in the past few years they were often ambushed by officers and soldiers, and once they were ambushed, they suffered heavy losses, so they gradually began to attach importance to intelligence spying, and they would send people to the destination before each march to make a good investigation.

In these days, there are homeless people everywhere anyway, and as long as they don't carry weapons, basically no one will take care of them, so the sentinels of the peasant army are simply pervasive, because they themselves are homeless, as long as they throw away their weapons, who knows that they are peasant troops, and officers and soldiers can't kill them when they see them.

After the Anyang Conference decided to enter the capital, Wang Ziyong immediately sent dozens of groups of sentinels into the territory of the Daimyo's Mansion, Guangping Mansion, and Shunde Mansion to investigate, so that Zhang Bin was still on the road at this time, so the result of their investigation was that the Daimyo's Mansion, Guangping Mansion, and Shunde Mansion had no Ming army at all, and only the local prefect and the county organization of the township Yong were guarding the city!

Such a good opportunity, naturally can't be missed, Wang Ziyong hurriedly ordered, the thirty-six battalions went into battle, rushed to the Daimyo's mansion, and first took the gateway to the south of the capital.

At this time, Zhang Bin had already led his army to the border of Qinghe County at the junction of Zhending Mansion and Guangping Mansion, which was less than one hundred and fifty miles away from the Daimyo's Mansion.

Early in the morning of the third day, the peasant army and the Qi army set off almost at the same time to rush to the Daimyo's Mansion, which was lively, the peasant army sent a scout horse, Zhang Bin naturally also sent a scout horse, the entire Daimyo's Mansion was almost densely covered with scouts, and before noon, the peasant army and the Qi army's scout cavalry encountered.

To be precise, it should be the elite of the special operations battalion under Zhang Bin and the reconnaissance cavalry of the peasant army.

At this time, Zhang Bin only had four groups of guards left, in order to ensure the safety of the army, he sent the most elite three groups, Xie Zhenggang, Zhang Cha, and Zhao Rubu out, Zhang Cha was in charge of Guangping Mansion in the north, Zhao Ru was in charge of the south of the Daimyo's Mansion, and Xie Zhenggang was in charge of the area between Anyang City and Daming City in the Damyo Mansion.

At the beginning, there was no situation, Xie Zhenggang's special operations team broke through very quickly, especially the team led by Zhang Pan, the most prominent, before he arrived, he had already led the team to the north of the Daimyo Mansion to the west, which was the middle of Anyang City and Daming City.

Due to the limited number of horses, only the elite of the special operations battalion in charge of communication rode horses, and the special operations battalion teams responsible for spying were all on foot.

Zhang Chagang led his team to the vicinity of the official road west of Beitaitou, and suddenly there was a sound of horses' hooves in front, and he didn't need to listen to the sound to the ground to tell that there were more than ten horsemen approaching in front of him, and they were at most two miles away from them.

At this time, they still dared to gallop on the official road, either officers and soldiers or peasant army, and now there are no other officers and soldiers in the south of Beizhili, and there are no other officers and soldiers, and the number of their horses is not large, and it is impossible for more than ten horsemen to run so far away, so he judged that this must be a scout of a peasant army.

What to do? Naturally, find a way to kill them!

He quickly glanced around, there was a small forest next to the official road not far in front, he immediately waved his hand, led his team to run into the small forest, and then quickly climbed a few big trees next to the official road.

Soon, there were more than ten horsemen on the official road not far away, these people did not have a uniform attire, they were ordinary people at a glance, but they were obviously equipped with weapons, no need to ask, this must be the scout of the peasant army.

Zhang Pan glanced at it secretly, and immediately made a gesture of killing, and over there, the scouts of the peasant army didn't know that there were people in ambush in the grove, because the grove was too small, and hundreds of people could be hidden if they were killed, and it was impossible for officers and soldiers to ambush inside, so they didn't care at all.

Originally, they still scattered along the official road to search, but they were blocked by the grove, and everyone had to ride their horses to the official road, line up, and enter the official road in the middle of the grove without hurrying.

When they passed through the grove, they carefully swept the woods, but they looked under the trees, not the trees, this kind of groves were everywhere from Anyang to Daimyo, they didn't know how many they had passed, and there was nothing wrong with them, who would have thought that there were still people hiding on the trees, and when they saw that there was no one under the trees, they beat their horses and continued to run forward.

At this time, the elite of the special operations battalion on the tree had already taken out the hand crossbow and secretly aimed at the peasant army scouts on horseback below, the woods were less than ten steps away from the official road, and at this distance, the lethality of the hand crossbow was very terrifying.

When the last rider entered the range of the crossbow, Zhang Pan immediately waved his raised hand down slightly, and at the same time pulled the trigger of the crossbow in his other hand.

"Whoosh", twelve crossbow arrows shot at the peasant scouts on the official road like lightning, and suddenly twelve people screamed and fell off their horses, and the others didn't understand what was going on, and more than ten black shadows suddenly jumped down from the trees, and before the people arrived, the cold light arrived first, "Ahhh

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Pan commanded the people to throw the corpses of all the peasant army scouts into the grove, and ordered two members of the team to send the surplus horses back, and then led the remaining ten people to ride horses to the west.

All the way to the west, the scouts of the peasant army became more and more dense, he led his subordinates to kill three groups of peasant army scouts one after another, and finally found traces of the peasant army near the brick village camp.

Zhang Pan didn't have time to count the people, because they had been discovered by the scouts on the periphery of the peasant army, this was not the time to kill, the most important thing was to send the news back, he immediately led the team to fight the horse and turned around, and overturned several groups of scouts of the peasant army, before returning to the area controlled by his own side and uploading the news layer by layer.

Zhang Bin was taken aback when he received the news, because the brick camp was less than eighty miles away from the Daimyo, and his location was still nearly a hundred miles away from the Daimyo, if the peasant army arrived at the Daimyo City first, it would be troublesome, because the city wall was full of village warriors, and it was not known whether it could withstand the attack of the peasant army.

He looked at the soldiers of the Qi family army who were still in good spirits, and immediately gritted his teeth and ordered, the whole army should speed up the march, and within two hours, they must rush to the famous city!

In any case, you must arrive at the Daimyo City first, judging from the news from the scouts, the speed of the peasant army is not slow, because they have a lot of horses, a lot of carriages, and mules, donkeys, etc., I don't know how many, in short, they also traveled lightly, but they did not run.

Why did the peasant army have so many mules and horses?

This has something to do with the climatic conditions in the northwest, because the northwest is originally dry and rainless, and the climate is relatively cold, the crop yield is low, if you only rely on farming, it is difficult to feed a family, so the animal husbandry in the northwest is more developed, like the Ming Dynasty Zhang Han's "Song Window Dream Language" mentioned that the main economic products of Shaanxi are "more land, donkeys, horses, cattle and sheep, muscles and bones".

Most of the peasant army started in Shaanxi, so there were many ways to obtain mules and horses, and in addition, from the composition of the peasant army, horsemen and post guards also accounted for a large part.

Like Gao Yingxiang, before participating in the peasant uprising, he was engaged in horse trading, good at riding and shooting, and his strength was outstanding.

There is also Li Zicheng, when he was a post boy, he mainly greeted the post horse, and to put it bluntly, he was a horseman.

These people may not be able to farm the land, but they are good at raising horses, therefore, the rebel army has a lot of mules and horses, and they also attach great importance to collecting mules and horses, every place, not to mention others, they will definitely rob all the mules and horses, so that the rebel army's mules and horses are more and more, many of the Ming army generals who participated in the encirclement and suppression of the rebel army have mentioned in the report, to the later period, the officers and soldiers are horses three steps seven, but the rebel army is everyone is a fine horse, and even, even the women's equipment is carried by mules and horses, so the transfer is particularly fast, and the officers and soldiers can not catch up at all.

For example, Zhang Xianzhong also made a limerick poem to ridicule the officers and soldiers: there was Governor Shao in the past, and he often came to the troupe to dance; Later, Liao joined the army, and he followed me without a fight; What a Yang Pavilion Department, three days away from me!

Yang Sichang chased after him and ran behind his buttocks, and he was thrown away by him casually for three days, which shows the strong mobility of the peasant army.

At this time, the peasant army also knew that some officers and soldiers had rushed over, because almost none of the scouts sent to the east and north had returned, and all of them had been killed!

There were two roads in front of them, either they would immediately retreat to Anyang City and hold on, or they would speed up and rush to the Daimyo City, take down the Daimyo City in one go, and then deal with the officers and soldiers.

Wang Ziyong and the others naturally retreated, because they didn't know how many officers and soldiers came, but Zhang Xianzhong insisted on speeding up his progress and arriving at the Daimyo City first, because the news that the scouts came back a few days ago that there were no officers and soldiers near the Daimyo Mansion at all, and how many could be sent over suddenly, he estimated that there would be at most 10,000 or 20,000 people, and more than 200,000 troops were scared away by 10,000 or 20,000 people.

The king could not resist him for himself, so he could only order the whole army to speed up, and at this time, they were less than seventy miles away from the Daimyo!