When the cold winter of the first year of Chongzhen was approaching the New Year, the Jianzhou army that entered the customs quickly withdrew from the customs after suffering setbacks. However, the heroes from Linqing to Jining still did not dare to slack off, and they were even more like a great enemy than when Jianzhou went south. After the canal water is cut off in winter, it forms a small ditch, and the ditch formed by the canal when the flow is cut off in winter has become a defense line for many people.

A powerful leader in the Linqing area inspected with several large households in Linxiang, and after seeing the seemingly sparse troops on the entire canal defense line, as well as the equipment of most people, he couldn't help but worry: "When will the documents of the imperial court arrive?" When will the horse reinforcements arrive? ”

"I heard that the Ministry of War has just been purged and rectified, and many things have been suppressed, and now you still count on the imperial court? We can only protect ourselves ... ”

"Didn't you say that the Holy Lord himself led the army to suppress the bandits again?"

"It's hard to say, the news from the capital. The army led by the saint marched only twenty or thirty miles a day, and he had not yet left the north of Zhili. It seems that since the last time I returned to Beijing with victory, I encountered a rebellion.,The attitude of the saint towards this kind of thing seems to have changed greatly.。。。 ”

A family leader who rushed over from Jining Mansion without any scruples said: "No one can count on it now! It's up to us ... ”

Even in the late Ming Dynasty, although there was nothing to privately recruit regiments to practice and build fortifications for self-protection, it was still very taboo to privately mobilize troops to assemble across prefectures. It's just that in the more than a year since the new emperor came to power, many officials and gentry in the north have faintly seen that this young emperor who has just ascended the throne is probably not a fuel-efficient lamp. Many large households in Henan have been purged before, and the whole of Shandong has been rumored to be in the air, but there are still many powerful armed forces in many places who have withdrawn manpower for the defense line of the canal generation, preparing to block the rogue coming eastward.

At this time, Li Zicheng's department only recovered to the strength of more than 10,000 people in a few months or so, of which the old and weak women and children accounted for only a small proportion. In terms of numbers, although it is much weaker than the peasant army in the mobile combat stage ten years ago in the history of Chongzhen. However, because of the impact of the long-term preparation with favorable conditions before the start, the entire team was significantly stronger than the breaking army in the era of annihilation of Cao Wenzhao in terms of training, tactics, discipline and other aspects. The Ming army, which is usually a few thousand people all the way, is no longer the opponent of the army at all, let alone the bull ghosts, snakes and gods that have been encountered along the way. Because the pressure of long-distance marching was much less than in history, and relatively speaking, because of sufficient capture and proper methods, many of the backbone of the team during the march were able to practice the power of the bow using the prepared wooden frames, pulleys, ropes, and masonry equipment, and the bow and arrow training level of the whole team also improved a lot in the past few months. For the peasant army, which had a scarce source of gunpowder, the position of the bow and arrow was much more important than in the Later Jin army.

And after the Battle of Fuping, the whole team was also purified a lot. Roughly Li Zicheng's troops accounted for the minority, and the heterozygous team composed of various rebel armies accounted for the majority to the headquarters directly controlled by Li Zicheng, and quickly completed the digestion of the team in the following months, and many people such as Gao Yingxiang at this time became the backbone and core force of Li Zicheng's army.

The guard battalion and the brave guard battalion around Xiao Xuan, who are mainly young people, have to give at least a little face to the New Year. Now, after winning consecutive battles along the way, and many of the troops who have not suffered serious losses since the defeat of Fuping, many people have completely come out of the shadows of a few months ago at this time. On Chinese New Year's Eve, although they did not forget to take turns on duty and set up fake camps, the three civil engineering backbones of the army who had performed most prominently in previous battles did not forget to conduct an archery competition at this time.

In the ranks of the peasant army, Gao Yingxiang was the first in the debate on bow level and archery, which was also related to the foundation brought by his past experience and career. At this time, although Li Zicheng's attainments in bows and arrows were far stronger than those in history when he had not yet decided to start an incident, it was no longer what it used to be. At least, after a year and a half of training, compared with Gao Jie, a master in his hometown, he has his own strengths. In terms of the strength of the battle bow, Gao Jie already has a lot of talent advantages, but he is not very serious in archery, so he is much worse than Li Zicheng, who does not know how many bows he has wasted. In most of the battles along the way, three masters who can open a strong bow with more than one stone, and can use a six-bucket bow to continuously open the bow and release arrows quickly and accurately, have played a role that has not been seen in previous battles. Especially against most of the opponents, it is rare to see the iron armor of the Northwest Frontier Army or the Forbidden Brigade of the Son of Heaven, and it is mostly just ordinary cotton armor and armor.

In this competition on Chinese New Year's Eve, Li Zicheng finally decided not to keep his hand, and in front of everyone, he opened a strong bow with one stone and two buckets, and continuously shot at least ten arrows at the target that had been prepared in the dark night while wearing armor one after another, and six arrows crossed the car shield and landed in a specific area with a very flat arrow path, which caused many people to applaud, which made Gao Jie feel shocked.

"It turns out that the eldest brother has already hidden a hand? It seems that the little brother will not be as lax as before in the future... Gao Jie felt a lot of pressure in his heart, but he still said so on his face.

Of course, because Gao Yingxiang's archery skills are known to be significantly stronger than Li Zicheng and Gao Jie, in order to avoid stealing the limelight of the coach, he did not set an example of higher difficulty.

After the archery competition, just when many people were chatting according to Li Zicheng's method on Chinese New Year's Eve, a firework flew into the sky to bring red light. The distance, though difficult to detect after a few miles away, was seen by those who were watching from the sidelines.

"There is an enemy! Get ready for battle! Many officers scolded at this time, and at the same time organized a team to prepare for the battle as quickly as possible. Although many of the recruits who had just joined the team still felt the pressure and tension before the battle, most of the veteran backbones did not seem to feel any panic, and the pressure and fear were reduced a lot.

"Don't worry! This kind of sudden attack on the enemy is nothing to fear. Perhaps, without you and me at all, the battle will be over... Many veterans of the army smiled at those who had recently joined the ranks.

(End of chapter)