In the early October of the third year of Chongzhen, when Li Banghua and Yuan Chonghuan reported the news of the northwest to Emperor Chongzhen, who was far away in Beijing, and was anxiously waiting for the emperor's decision, Liu Xiyao, the deputy marshal of the thief Left Route Army under the command of Gao Yingxiang, happily took the men and horses of his direct subordinates and the people and horses cultivated by King Lin of the world, and stationed in the area of Hezhou City and Jishi Pass.

As the two of the thieves under Gao Yingxiang's command, Liu Xiyao and Lin Chengcheng got the best place outside of Lanzhou City.

Now the territory of these two people is almost equivalent to the territory of Ma Jinzhong, the former pseudo-commander of Hezhou Musu.

From ancient times to the present, this truth has not changed, but those obedient subordinates will always receive more preferential treatment from the superiors.

Just like characters like Liu Xiyao and Lin Yangcheng, compared with heroes like Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai, they are naturally not good in terms of ability and ability, and they are not as good as they are wise and resourceful.

But after He Yilong and He Jin died unexpectedly in Guyuan City, Gao Yingxiang began to like this kind of relatively obedient character under his command.

It doesn't matter whether you can do it or not, the important thing is whether you listen to it or not, especially how you treat yourself, and whether you are convinced or not.

An old brother like Lao Hui Ma Shouying can lead his troops to leave, which is a blow to Gao Yingxiang.

Subsequently, there was the departure of Toluntai, and he did not defect to Ma Jinzhong, who was close at hand.

Later, Ma Guangyu, who had already sworn to him, led his troops to leave.

These incidents happened one after another, and he completely dispelled the original idea of subduing the Northwest Mu Suman, and then turning back to fight a decisive battle with the official army.

Corresponding to a series of exodus, Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, and Luo Rucai, nicknamed Cao Cao, have increasingly revealed their unruly and untamed heroic nature.

Especially the Eight Kings Zhang Xianzhong, when he was in the mountains of northern Jin, he was quite respectful to himself, but since he escaped from the mountains of northern Jin, especially after entering Gansu in the west, this Zhang Xianzhong began to disobey himself.

The young Eight Kings not only used their original subordinates as the backbone to expand their personnel, but also recruited a large number of baby soldiers, all of whom followed his surname and were recognized by him as his righteous son.

Zhang Xianzhong's practice in his Daxi camp reached Gao Yingxiang's ears, and Gao Yingxiang knew that this eight kings were still a white-eyed wolf who couldn't be fed after all.

It is precisely because of this concern that Gao Yingxiang vigorously supported Liu Xiyao, Lin Yangsheng, and Liu Zhe, the old brother who had followed him for the longest time.

Including vigorously promoting rising stars such as Li Zicheng, Gao Yigong, Hao Yongzhong, and Liu Tichun, it is also out of this consideration.

Gao Yingxiang was wary of his own thoughts and arrangements, of course Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai were not unaware, but they also had their own ideas, and they didn't show them.

Figures like Zhang Xianzhong, since the rebellion, have never been willing to live under others.

When he was at the end of his rope, whether he defected to Ma Shouying earlier or Gao Yingxiang later, it was just an expedient measure.

Including accepting Xiong Wencan's appeasement in the original history, it was an expedient measure at the end of the road.

Now Gao Yingxiang has taken the generalissimo's mansion and the middle route army of the thieves to occupy Lanzhou City, and the left side of Hezhou has become the territory of Liu Xiyao and Lin Chengcheng, the deputy marshals of the left route army of the thieves.

The deputy marshal of the thief's right route army, Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, and Luo Rucai, who was still nicknamed Cao Cao but did not claim the title of king, led their men and horses with their own thoughts, and returned to Lintao and Anding to camp and eat.

After Luo Rucai led his men to defect to Zhang Xianzhong, he has been temporarily stationed on the territory of Zhang Xianzhong's "Daxiying".

Now, after the westward expansion, he finally got a piece of land that was recognized by all parties, that is, the area around Anding City (later Dingxi, Gansu).

Zhang Xianzhong, the eight kings who have always been slammering, is so generous this time, of course, because this territory has now become a buffer zone between the various bandits and the official army, and it is also a place where no one dares to ask for it.

While Liu Xiyao, Lin Yangsheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and Luo Rucai each rushed to their "territories", Gao Yingxiang's generalissimo mansion in Lanzhou was not idle, and successively sent various people to occupy various areas near Lanzhou.

Gao Yingxiang's former generalissimo's generalissimo, that is, Li Zicheng, the former general of the Middle Route Army, was ordered to lead his troops to cross the area of Gaolan Mountain in the north and march west along the Zhuanglang River, waiting for an opportunity to seize the territory of Weimu Subarian in Liangzhou.

Hao Yongzhong, the left general of the Generalissimo's Mansion, and Liu Tichun, the right general, were also ordered to go out and station, one to the west to guard against the direction of Xiningwei, and the other to the east to guard against the officers and troops in the direction of Huining County.

Gao Yingxiang couldn't do anything about this, he sent these people out, on the one hand, of course, to seize important places to guard against Mu Suman in the north, and on the other hand, he was also looting grain and grass to relieve him the pressure on the supply of grain and grass in Lanzhou City.

It's just that in this way, in the towns and villages of Lintao, Hezhou, Lanzhou and other places, those Mu Su barbarians who hesitated and didn't have time to escape with the army were unlucky.

Since the beginning of October, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Liu Xiyao, and Lin Chengcheng have been divided into countless teams of thousands of people in order to collect grain, grass and food for the winter.

In the area of Lintao Hezhou in October, the mountains are red all over, and the white dew turns into frost, and in this beautiful scenery that people in later generations flock to, there is a hell on earth.

Batch after batch of Musuman families who hid in an attempt to avoid the limelight were searched out of the ravine.

The adult men were killed on the spot, while the women and children were taken away like the hidden food flocks to be used as food for the thieves for the winter.

After all, winter in the Northwest is coming.

It's not that Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Liu Xiyao, and Lin Chengcheng have any prejudices about Mu Suman, it's not.

In the original history, these bandit leaders were known for their extraordinary brutality, robbing cattle and sheep to eat cattle and sheep, and sorghum to eat sorghum, if they couldn't grab anything, they would never starve themselves to death.

If there are people, they will eat the people, and if there are no people to eat, they will eat their own people, that is, those who are coerced by the army of disorderly people.

Now that he has been driven to this place, he can't buy food even if he has money, so he has to prepare to survive the long cold winter, and he has to be ready to fight against the officers and soldiers who are attacking at any time, so naturally he has something to eat.

In this way, thousands of years have passed since the Han people were treated as two-legged sheep by the Hu people from the northwest, and now the feng shui is taking turns, and it is the turn of the Hu people to be used as two-legged sheep.

Just when Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, sent out more than a dozen thousand-man teams to search for the hidden Mu Suman through the sieve, Wang Chengen, the chief military officer of Shaanxi, also led his men and horses to the west and came to the capital of Gongchang Mansion.

Weixian, the general of the Shaanxi Army who had entered Gongchang Mansion earlier, had already led 3,000 people to clean up Gongchang Mansion, a city that was slaughtered by Zhang Xianzhong, for more than a month.

Guan Weixian's troops recovered the city of Gongchang, which was abandoned by Zhang Xianzhong and others, without a big battle, but after the recovery, the effort was more laborious than a big battle.

The corpses that were cleaned out of the city were piled up like several hills, and they were poured with fierce fire oil by Guan Weixian, and they were burned for many days before they were burned clean, and this hellish Gongchang City could barely be stationed for a long time.

Not long after Wang Chengen, the commander-in-chief of the Shaanxi army, entered the city of Gongchang, the main force of the Hanzhong army, under the leadership of Dong Zhiyi, the chief soldier, stationed in the Acropolis of Luzhou, where the same people went to the empty city, and joined the headquarters of Pan Yunteng, a general of Hanzhong who had recovered this place earlier.

It turned out that Ding Guodong, who was entrenched in Luozhou, was also a self-appointed commander in Luozhou, and he had already taken his family with him, and fled to Taozhou with his Musu barbarians and horses, and attached himself to Zhao Xihe, the uncle of Zhao Dayin, a wealthy family in Taozhou.

At the beginning of November of the third year of Chongzhen, the official army from Shaanxi was stationed in Luozhou, and the Musuman family of Taozhou, which was more than 300 miles away from Luozhou, also began to continue to evacuate and transfer the old, weak, women and children of Musuman in Taozhou to the west.

Only Mu Su was left as an army, ready to start a war with the official army that came to occupy Taozhou.