After the Battle of Jiaxian, the last elite Shaanxi Qin army of the imperial court was almost lost, and the official army was crushed for thousands of miles, and the Ming court was able to control the place in Henan, in fact, only Huaiqing, Weihui, Zhangde and a few prefectures and counties in eastern Henan were left north of the Yellow River.

At this time, it coincided with the beginning of the Shandong army's Cangzhou military admonition, and it is said that Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, laughed loudly after hearing about this, and was eager to try, wanting to immediately lead a large army into the siege of Kaifeng and the second mansion of De.

But later, this idea was persuaded by Niu Jinxing and others, saying that although Wang Zheng led the main army to the north, there were still a large number of regular soldiers left inside and outside Shandong, and the losses suffered in the past could not be eaten again, so it was better to go to Huguang.

At that time, the official army in Huguang was actually far inferior to Henan, and the only thing worth mentioning was Zuo Liangyu, the general of the Ping Thief, who is said to have gathered hundreds of thousands of remnants in Xiangyang.

In the 11th leap month of the 15th year of Chongzhen, when the Shandong army advanced to Hejian Province, Li Zicheng led the main force of about 400,000 people from Nanyang in Henan to Hubei and went straight to Xiangyang.

When the news reached Xiangyang, Zuo Liangyu was shocked, and led the left army to loot the state capital near Xiangyang after taking advantage of the night, and when the army came to Xiangyang, the people in the city had been oppressed by the left army for a long time, and they shouted to fight the official army, and the mighty army entered the city.

Not far from Xiangyang is Jingzhou.

Zhu Changrun, the king of Minghui, and Chen Ruimo, the governor of Biyuan, led a large number of officials without any intention of resisting, and abandoned the city with a group of officials, and the Ming army stationed in Jingzhou was either disbanded on the spot, waiting to be attached to the invasion army, or fled south.

After the defeat of the army in the battle of Returning to Germany, the momentum rose again in an instant, and everywhere it passed was invincible, "The civil and military divisions of the Ming court absconded at the rate, and there was almost no pawn at the city gates everywhere." ”

The army entered Jingzhou and killed dozens of people in the whole mansion of Zhu Yanyi, the king of Xiangyin, who still felt unhappy, so he actually searched for firewood and grass and piled it up inside and outside the palace, and burned the Xiangyin palace.

Within five days, Li Zi organized his troops to go down to Zaoyang, Yicheng, Gucheng, Guanghua and other counties, and responded to every call, and all the officials and ordinary people in various prefectures fell in anticipation.

After occupying Xiangyang and Jingzhou, Li Zicheng continued to lead the main force of the Chuang army to march to Chengtian.

On the first day of the first month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the army conquered Chengtian.

In this battle, Song Yihe, the governor of Huguang, hanged himself after the city was broken, and the patrol according to the imperial history Li Zhensheng waved a wood to attack the thief and was captured, and then died of hunger strike.

After the occupation of Chengtian, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, ordered to change Chengtianfu to Yangwuzhou, followed by the main force to continue to advance eastward, and conquered Hanchuan County on the 15th day of the first month.

It is only one hundred and twenty miles away from Wuchang, the capital of Huguang Province, and it is close to the Han River, and it can reach Wuchang in a few days.

Zuo Liangyu fled from Xiangyang to Wuchang with his subordinates, but before his heels were firm, and his buttocks were not hot, he listened to the invasion of the army, so he had to loot again and fled to Jiujiang along the river.

After Zuo Liangyu's troops fled, the army took Liujiabi and conquered Hanyang Mansion on the 18th day of the first month, capturing ships 4 or 5,000.

The army crossed the river by boat to attack Wuchang, and the soldiers wanted to advance to Nanzhili, but due to the turbulence of the river, most of the soldiers were not familiar with the water, and the ships were almost sunk by the wind and waves, and the damage was heavy.

Li Zicheng decided to temporarily stop crossing the river and return to Xiangyang via Yunmeng County.

Seeing this, although Wang Zheng had expected what was going to happen, he couldn't help but be a little surprised.

It took only three or four months for the army to occupy most of Huguang, and to put it bluntly, Li Zicheng and Zuo Liangyu pursued and escaped, and Zuo Liangyu fled everywhere under the banner of the imperial court officials and soldiers, robbing the people, and what he did was better than the previous thieves.

In contrast, Li Zicheng's army has become a righteous army, and he only needs a few simple orders and some rumors to easily win the hearts of the people.

In the first month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng completed all the preparations, changed Xiangyang to Xiangjing, known as the "King of Xinshun", and was respected as the "Generalissimo of Fengtian Advocate Righteousness and Civil Martial Arts" by Luo Rucai, Xiao Yuan Ying, Ge Zuo Fourth Battalion and other peasant armies, and promoted a large number of subordinate generals.

After Li Zicheng became king this time, the army was called the "Xinshun Army" to the outside world, and the battalion system also underwent a radical rectification.

Li Zicheng divided the original invasion army into the attached Ming army and the peasant army of various divisions into the five battalions responsible for siege and field battles and the local army guarding important towns and strategic points.

In the eyes of people at this time, this is nothing special, but it is modeled on the three-level military system of the Shandong Army's regular soldiers, combat soldiers, and auxiliary soldiers.

In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng became the queen in Xiangyang, and the generals at all levels of the original Liukou were like the commanders and battalion officers of the Shandong Army, and they all had official titles to the outside world.

It is said that Tian Jianxiu is "generous and can win the hearts of the people", so Li Zicheng ordered him to "supervise the camps".

Liu Zongmin acted as Li Zicheng's right and left hand, and assisted in commanding Li Zicheng's Zhongquan pro-army, which can be regarded as a position below one person and above ten thousand people.

But now, Liu Zongmin died and returned to Germany, and his head was sacrificed to Beijing by King Anton Waiting, and in addition to him, he could not find a candidate for the second general in the army for a while.

Although Li Guo is brave, he lacks qualifications, he is stable in high school, but his prestige is not enough, although Luo Rucai's prestige and ability are enough, but Li Zicheng is estranged.

Therefore, in the end, the Xinshun army only set up Tian Jianxiu, a general of Quan, and the Zhongquan pro-army and Liu Zongmin's troops were personally led by Li Zicheng, the king of Xinshun.

It is a bit strange to say, the Shandong Army was reorganized last time and set up "four battalions and eighteen generals", but this time the reorganization of the army was only a few months apart, and "five battalions and twenty-two generals" were also set up, and many people felt that Li Zicheng was too shameless.

Although the Shandong Army is said to be the strongest army in the world, your Shun Army is not what it used to be, and it is not necessarily worse than the Shandong soldiers and horses, how can it be imitated to this point?

From the system of local armies and main forces, to the last four major war barracks, and the five main battalions, almost all of them are carved out of a mold.

Li Zicheng's Zhongquan pro-army is like Wang Zheng's Mingwei Chinese Army, under the jurisdiction of Shuai Biao Zheng Mighty General Zhang Nai, Mighty General Dang Shousu, Shuai Biao Zuo Mighty General Xin Sizhong, Guo Yi General Gu Kecheng, Shuai Biao Right Mighty General Li You, Shuai Biao Qianguo Yi General Ren Jirong, Shuai Biao Consequences Yi General Wu Ruyi Seven generals.

In addition, the general of the left battalion system is Liu Fangliang, and the general of the left Guoyi is Ma Shiyao, and the right mighty general Liu Rukui is the deputy general.

The rest of the battalion system is roughly the same, the right battalion is the general Liu Xiyao, the left Guoyi general Bai Minghe, and the right Guoyi general Liu Tichun; Yuan Zongdi, the former battalion general, Xie Junyou, the left Guoyi general, and Tian Hu, the right Guoyi general; After the battalion general Li Guo, the left Guoyi general Zhang Neng, and the right Guoyi general Ma Chongxi.

However, it is worth mentioning that He Jin, as the leader of the peasant army who later attached himself to Li Zicheng, was also appointed as a general of the power system this time, and he was on the right side of the generals.

After reading it, Wang Zheng took a deep breath.

After being silent for a long time, Wang Zheng put down the newspaper in his hand, drank all the tea on the general's case, and walked out of the main hall in good spirits.

Li Zicheng This is a symptom but not a cure, even if the combat effectiveness of the five battalions of the main force has increased linearly, but the root of the local soldiers and horses is still the original Ming army and local thieves, although the speed of the sweep is fast, but this is only a superficial phenomenon, and there is a huge disaster hidden behind it.

It is foreseeable that once the main five battalions of the Shun army suffer heavy losses, the strength of the entire army will be greatly reduced, and there will be no high-quality back soldiers to replenish, and one less elite will die.

In history, after the Qing army entered the customs, the Shun army, which seemed to have won a hundred battles, was a stone battle, and the five battalions of the main force led by Li Zicheng were almost wiped out, and the quality of the rest of the local army was low, and it was difficult to resist the Qing army at all, and the speed of collapse was unbelievable.

But then again, no matter what happens to Li Zicheng's side, this is some inevitability of history, and I still have to think about how to deal with the shortage of money first.

In the past, Wang Zheng may not have thought too much, but now he has the Shandong soldiers and horses, which is known as the strongest army in the world, and he must plan for the long term in the future, so he naturally does not want to waste his years of hard work.

Looking at the lotus pond in front of him, Wang Zheng inadvertently clenched his fists, and his eyes revealed a different look.

Now that it has come to this point, and in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen in the future, it should also have the strength to fight with the Tartars.