Sure enough, the situation after that was as Zheng Sen expected, the entire Central Plains was temporarily quiet, although there were still a lot of small-scale battles, but the large-scale actions were stopped, if there was any big movement in the past few months, it was that Zhang Xianzhong had conquered the city all the way in Sichuan. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIt's just that today's imperial court really can't have the strength to manage Zhang Xianzhong.

It is clear that Li Zicheng is trying to consolidate the place and accumulate strength. Two months later, the summer harvest was over, and Li Zicheng immediately sent troops again to attack Kaifeng. This time, Li Zicheng really wanted to take the city seriously.

With the support of the summer harvest of grain and grass, Li Zicheng easily captured several county towns near Kaifeng in a hurry, as the support point of this siege. Then a long trench was dug and the city of Kaifeng was tightly enclosed. Then Li Zicheng began to attack the city unhurriedly.

The experience of the last two sieges told Li Zicheng that Kaifeng City is not so easy to deal with, in the first two sieges, Li Zicheng also suffered a lot, and now with the food support of the summer harvest, plus the surrounding Ming army is not able to relieve the siege for Kaifeng for a while, or the imperial court can not take out the money to organize the army to relieve the siege for Kaifeng, plus Li Zicheng estimates that Kaifeng City has experienced three sieges, and the materials in the city, especially the food, are definitely not much, so Li Zicheng feels that he can rely on the siege, Exhaust the supplies in Kaifeng City to achieve the final victory in this battle, or to put it more clearly, that is, to defeat the opponent with famine.

Of course, this does not mean that the army will stay behind the trench and do nothing, Li Zicheng still arranged some siege operations, but the intensity is not large, most of the time it is not for training, once they encounter too resolute resistance, they retreat quickly to avoid too many casualties.

……

Kaifeng kept sending people to break through the siege for help, most of these people failed to stand out, but some of them were able to successfully escape from the encirclement, and sent one distress letter after another to the hands of the imperial court, according to the words on these letters, Kaifeng has fallen into a serious famine, which can be said to be precarious.

"As far as we know through the imperial court, the food in Kaifeng City has basically run out, except for the Zhou Wangfu and the official eunuchs, all the other families have run out of food. The hungry people in the city continued to riot...... "Liu De was briefing Zheng Sen and others on the development of the situation in the Central Plains.

……

"Eat his mother, wear his mother, open the door to meet the king's ......" A group of ragged, thin people like skeletons, holding long and short wooden sticks in their hands, slowly approached the Dahong rice shop. Now in Kaifeng City, this is one of the most likely places to eat.

Dahong Rice Shop is the property of Zhou Wangfu, and some of the guards of Zhou Wangfu are now guarding the door of the rice shop. In fact, there was not much grain in the Dahong rice shop, as early as when Li Zicheng's banner appeared outside the city wall of Kaifeng for the third time, the people of the Zhou Wangfu had already transported most of the grain back to the Zhou Wangfu. However, they still left some of the grain to sell at a high price. In fact, every famine crisis is a good opportunity for the rich to accumulate wealth. In my Daming, the prince is a pig in captivity in the imperial court, except for making money or engaging in performance art, there is no other future. Compared with some other kings, King Zhou is actually a virtuous king, but this kind of money-making thing that follows the trend is what their family will do.

As the siege continued, the price of grain rose upward, and now the price of grain in Kaifeng City has reached the point of twenty taels of silver and one stone, and the wealth accumulated by those well-off families for generations in the past was quickly concentrated in the hands of some big bureaucrats and nobles at such a price.

These days, hundreds of people in Kaifeng City die of hunger every day, among these starving people, the first are the elderly and children, and later, even Xiucai has been starving at home.

However, there are still too few people with such a high level of consciousness in this world, at least not many in Kaifeng City. Therefore, a group of guys who are unwilling to starve to death for the sake of Daming honestly, under the deception and guidance of some rumors and songs of guys with ulterior motives, actually openly gathered together in a vain attempt to rob the sacred and inviolable private legal property! It's true that they're hungry, but that's not a reason to rob, and besides, they really don't have anything to eat? No, they have something to eat, it's just that they don't want to. There are already people in the city who have eaten their children and their wives. But these guys don't want to eat their wives and children, but they come to rob others, which is really bearable, which is unbearable!

However, the Dahong rice shop is not so easy to grab, and the guards of Zhou Wangfu are not vegetarians. Although since Zhu Laosi's martyrdom, in order to prevent others from doing the same, I have cut and cut the scale of the princes' personal guards. The level of equipment and training is also a lot worse than that of Zhu Laosi's era, generally speaking, by this time, the equipment and training level of the palace guards are just the level of ordinary government officials.

However, the guards of the Zhou Wangfu are slightly different, in the first two sieges, especially in the second siege, the guards of the Zhou Wangfu also participated in the defense of the city, many of them can be regarded as having seen blood, and because they are the personal guards of the Zhou Wangfu, at least for now, they are still well fed, and in this regard, they are even stronger than the ordinary soldiers in the city.

And although there are many opponents of them, they are all hungry like skeletons. So Hu Zhongyi, the guard of the Zhou Wangfu standing in the front row, was not nervous, he knew not to say that he had a knife in his hand, and most of those hungry people were empty-handed, even if they were not empty-handed, they only had wooden sticks in their hands. Just in terms of the physical strength of the two sides, there is a huge difference. The hungry were literally on the verge of death, so weak that they could not even walk, and some fell to the ground as they walked, and then they could never get up again.

"Draw your sword!" Hu Zhongyi's ears heard the captain's voice. So he pulled the knife from his waist, and the sound of the knife being drawn rang in his ears.

The glistening knives and the sound of a row of people pulling out their knives made the hungry people walking in front pause. Taking advantage of this time, the shopkeeper of the Dahong rice shop shouted: "Folks, it is illegal to rob things, you can go home now, it's still too late." If you dare to step forward, you will be a rebel and rebellious, and you will be killed! ”

But this shout did not have any effect, in the extreme hunger, the charge of "rebellion" had no deterrent effect on everyone, and even the shining steel knives of the Zhou Wangfu guards in front only made the crowd pause slightly, and then the crowd began to slowly approach again.

"Rush up and scatter them!" The captain of the guard ordered. Hu Zhongyi immediately rushed over with a shout along with the other guards. The first target was a young man in his twenties, who was holding an arm-long wooden stick in his hand, and when he saw Hu Zhongyi rushing over, he screamed, picked up the wooden stick and was about to smash it at Hu Zhongyi.

Hu Zhongyi gently waved his left arm and struck it with the shield of his left hand, and the man flew along with his wooden stick, and at the same time, the knife in Hu Zhongyi's right hand swung out, and cut down another person who didn't know what he looked like.

With such a simple rush, the guards of the Zhou Palace's palace put down dozens of hungry people, but more hungry people continued to rush forward.

"Stand back and line up!" The captain of the guard shouted.

So Hu Zhongyi pushed his shield forward, smashed another hungry man, and then retreated sharply. Then line up in a neat formation again.

"It would be much more convenient if there were spears and bows and arrows." Hu Zhongyi thought. However, these weapons are not something that can be equipped casually by the guards, and even now, there are certain restrictions.

But this is not a problem, although the hungry people are numerous, but they are almost ineffective, it is such a sword and shield impact, but two or three times, more than a hundred hungry people have been killed, and the rest have been dispersed. And the royal guards suffered almost no losses.

Such stories continue to play out in Kaifeng City, in some places, the hungry people are dispersed and killed, and in other places, the hungry people successfully grab a little food. But one thing is the same, that is, the people who died in these riots do not need to be buried, and others will eat the dead.

……

That night, when people were looting, people were killed, and people were eaten. The three giants in Kaifeng City: Gao Mingheng, Chen Yongfu, and King Zhou gathered together to discuss countermeasures.

"Governor Gao, Chief Chen, it's not that I refuse to give food, it's really gone, and I can't support it for a few days if I take it all out." King Zhou said, "The two of you also know that I am not a general person, but now, there is really no food." ”

"Now the hungry people in the city are raging, if it is not handled well, I am afraid that there will be a big change." Gao Mingheng said with a frown.

"Hungry?" Chen Yongfu said, "It's okay to starve people, as long as there are soldiers, they can't make big waves." It's just that those who are soldiers now can't eat enough, and they are just as unstable. Lord, you also know that if these soldiers are extremely hungry, then maybe something will happen, not to mention anything else, they secretly open the city gate, then the general trend has gone! Lord Wang, it's okay to say other food, this soldier can't eat without food! ”

"Isn't it possible that if there is no food, I can conjure it empty-handed?" King Zhou said with some annoyance, "You can't break the siege, you can't let Li Zicheng retreat, when you run out of food, you will die sooner or later!" ”

"Where is there any way to retreat now!" Chen Yongfu said.

"It's not completely impossible." Gao Mingheng said suddenly, "If ......"