The defenders of Guangning surrendered without a fight, and more than a dozen surrounding counties also responded after hearing the news, killing the officials sent by Zhang Xianzhong, holding high the banner of righteousness, and welcoming the arrival of Wang Shi.

There are even many ordinary people who volunteer to join the army to serve as guides for officers and soldiers or to transport heavy logistics and ammunition.

When many people saw the officers and soldiers, they wept and cried about the atrocities of the Great Western Army.

Di Qing was also quite surprised by this situation, although he knew something about it before, but when he actually saw it, he still felt shocked.

However, he soon realized that the people's support was available, and left a small number of troops in Quang Ninh City to be responsible for the logistics and transfer of grain and grass, and appointed Mei Shajia to continue as the defender of Quang Ninh, and Dang Zhiyong as the deputy general.

Regarding their previous surrender to Zhang Xianzhong, Di Qing made it clear that as long as they sincerely returned to the imperial court, His Royal Highness the regent would not be guilty of the past.

If they still have friends in other cities, they can write letters to persuade them to surrender and give them credit afterwards.

Mei Shajia and the others were overjoyed, thinking that it was a great favor for the court not to investigate their crimes as thieves, but they did not expect that they would not only be exempted, but also continue to hold their original positions, which made both of them grateful, and they all vowed to never live up to the trust of the regent Daen and Marshal Di Qing.

Di Qing also gave them the right to recruit troops on the spot, and asked the officers and soldiers left behind to help them train, and the two were even more excited.

With these anyway troops, Di Qing didn't need to leave a large number of troops to garrison the rear.

After a short rest in Guangning City, Di Qing's troops continued to attack in two directions. One route was led by himself to Bazhong City, and the other route was led by the deputy general to Dazhou City.

When the defenders of Bazhong City just saw the banner of the official army, they had already opened the city gate and surrendered out of the city.

Dazhou took a little twists and turns, probably because of the remote location, so the guard general didn't understand the strength of the official army, and made a look of sworn resistance.

Of course, Guan Jian is the guard of Dazhou, and the prison army sent by Zhang Xianzhong has a knife on his neck, and he can't resist it.

After the officers and soldiers set up cannons and fired a round of demonstrative shells at the city of Dazhou, the defenders of Dazhou quickly broke down in courage and immediately raised the white flag.

In less than half an hour, the city gate was opened, and the guards took the initiative to take the blame and came out to surrender.

There was a small episode inside, that is, a cannonball fell behind the prison army sent by Zhang Xianzhong, and the explosion wave knocked it to the ground and fainted.

The guard was safe and sound, and the first thing he did when he came to his senses was to cut off the head of the prison guard, and then immediately raised the white flag.

The three cities of Guangning, Bazhou and Dazhou were successfully won, and dozens of large and small cities around it were also recovered.

In less than a month, the entire northern part of Shuzhou has been fully recovered.

This speed is still on the road most of the time, after all, it is difficult for Shu Road to go to the sky, and for the officers and soldiers, the most worrying problem is not how to attack the city, but how to march safely.

During the march, the number of people who fell into the cliff valley for various reasons has reached hundreds, which greatly exceeds the number of battle losses since entering Shuzhou.

In particular, there are a lot of cannons carried by the officers and soldiers, although these cannons are much lighter than the previous red-coated cannons, but the cannons are cannons after all, and no matter how light they are, they can be regarded as a behemoth.

The rugged and narrow mountain roads in Shuzhou, coupled with mudslides caused by rainy weather, natural disasters such as landslides make it difficult to travel.

Even during this period, there was a small earthquake, although the magnitude was not high, but it was enough to make people tremble. For this reason, dozens of mules and horses were frightened away and fell under the cliff.

Although Di Qing had a headache about this situation, he also prepared a plan, selected elite personnel, walked as a car, formed a vanguard, and other baggage logistics troops followed the local guide and then slowed down.

The local people have long been accustomed to living in this environment, and many mountain people walk like flying in the mountains, and after Di Qing saw it, he realized that it was necessary to form such an army suitable for walking and fighting in the mountains in the future.

It was this idea of Di Qing that laid the foundation for the establishment of the first mountain combat unit in the future Wehrmacht sequence.

After the northern part of Shuzhou was recovered, there was only one Mianyang City left in front of Jinguan City, the capital of the Great Western Kingdom.

Although there are still some cities behind Mianyang, they can't be compared with Mianyang. The city wall of Mianyang City is tall and strong, and there is a moat to protect it, surrounded by mountains on both sides, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

If you want to go to Jinguan City from north to south, Mianyang is a must-pass place.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong sent a confidant general Sun Kewang here, who is also his righteous son, to personally guard Mianyang.

Di Qing led the vanguard troops to Mianyang City and set up camp, and did not immediately attack the city, but led people to observe the terrain and landforms near Mianyang, draw maps, and make sand tables after returning.

This information is not only useful for this war, but also has far-reaching significance in the future.

After two days of investigation, Di Qing found that the battle in Mianyang was bound to be a tough battle, and there was no way to take advantage of it.

There are Great Western Army garrisons on the hills on both sides of Mianyang City, and even if there is really any trail, it is impossible to pass.

Di Qing knows very well that it is impossible to always hope for strange soldiers in a war, to win with a good match, and to respond to the enemy head-on will always be the mainstream, and strange soldiers will only play a role at a certain time.

Moreover, he climbed high and looked far away in the past two days, and saw that the head of Mianyang City was waving flags, rolling stones, sasswood, golden soup oil pots, crossbows and other equipment for defending the city.

Seeing that the defensive posture of the defenders was in shape, Di Qing secretly said in his heart that Sun Kewang did have some ability.

However, Di Qing didn't care much about this ability, when the artillery troops arrived, the artillery would be erected and bombarded, and no matter how strong the city was, it would be breached.

However, it was obvious that Sun Kewang in the city did not intend to let Di Qing attack the city so comfortably.

The rapid fall of the northern part of Shuzhou made the soldiers of the Great Western Army, who had begun to corrupt and degenerate, also quite panicked.

In addition, their strength is to fight in a mobile manner, flying as fast as a horse, hanging the officers and soldiers behind, and using speed to drag down and defeat them.

Now they have lived a leisurely life in Shuzhou for two years, and I don't know how much of their ability they retained back then, but their courage is obviously a lot less.

In addition, the officers and troops are invincible, and the artillery fire is fierce and invincible, which makes people even more panicked.

Sun Kewang was well aware of these floating undercurrents in the current army, and knew that in order for the Great Western Army to regain its courage, there must be a victory to stimulate it.

He was originally very worried that the official army would start to attack the city with artillery as soon as it came, and if that was the case, he could only plan to break the net and fight with the official army in the streets.

However, he did not expect that after the arrival of the forward troops of the official army, they did not immediately start attacking the city, but set up camp for a long time, which made him puzzled, and after many investigations, it was basically determined that the artillery of the official army had not yet arrived.

So he immediately realized that it was a good opportunity. If you can break the forward men of the official army in one fell swoop, you will definitely be able to boost your morale, and maybe there will be a chance to break the follow-up of the official army.

Zhang Xianzhong has no heirs, although there are many righteous sons, but Li Dingguo and others are not bad, so if you choose an heir in the future, you must choose among them.

This is naturally an opportunity that the ambitious Sun Kewang cannot let go.

So he needs to add a huge chip to himself with a huge brilliant victory.

In the early morning of the second day when Di Qing's vanguard army came to Mianyang City, everything was quiet, the moon was dark and the wind was high, dozens of ropes hung down from the head of Mianyang City, and one by one figures silently climbed the ropes from the city head and hung down.

After these figures landed, they gathered together, and after quietly observing for a while, they continued to quietly touch the quiet official and military camp in the distance.