The old Hui Ma Shouying, who was once on an equal footing with Gao Yingxiang but now has suffered a great loss of strength, also had to lead the few remaining men and horses in the Hui Hui camp to express his allegiance to Gao Yingxiang.

Expressing allegiance and obedience together, of course, there is Zhang Xianzhong, the eight kings of Xiying.

Who made Gao Yingxiang's camp now have the most food among the various "rebels" teams.

Because of the preparations in advance, although Gao Yingxiang's camp abandoned a large amount of grain and grass property in the process of fleeing west out of the city, especially crossing the river, after these people fled west in a hurry, after all, Gao Yingxiang's command transported a lot of grain and grass across the river.

Almost all of these thieves have had the experience of going up the mountain and falling into the grass, and they know what is most precious when they are besieged by officials and soldiers.

Therefore, after escaping into the depths of the mountains, whether it was sincere or false, Gao Yingxiang soon became the nominal co-leader of these bandits.

However, Gao Yingxiang understands some of the principles of Taoguang and obscurity, and when everyone persuaded him to change a resounding name, he insisted on using the name that had already been called, and just continued to call himself the king.

Although Li Zicheng has set up his own door, he still brings his own men and horses, and follows Gao Yingxiang's left and right as always, still calling himself a "general", and calling his battalion head "Chuang General's Battalion" to show his intention to follow King Chuang and be loyal to King Chuang.

From May to November, for half a year, Gao Yingxiang, who had experience in climbing the mountains and falling into the grass, took these large and small thief camps hiding in the depths of the mountains, and played a game of hide and seek intermittently with the armies of Yansui Town and Shanxi Town who entered the mountains to encircle and suppress them.

In the vast mountains, forests and ravines deep in the mountains of northern Shanxi, these large and small bandit camps hid in Tibet, but they did not fight tough battles with the encircled and suppressed officials and soldiers.

Whether it is Li Banghua or Sun Chuanting, they have ordered the troops of Shanxi Town and Yansui Town to enter the mountains many times to encircle and suppress, but each time they have returned in vain, either they can not find any trace of the thieves at all, or the thieves will leave with one blow, and take the officials and soldiers to circle in the depths of the mountains until the officials and troops have run out of food again and again.

After entering the mountains several times to encircle and suppress to no avail, Li Banghua, Sun Chuanting and others also changed their strategy, no longer pinning their hopes on the completion of the battle, but step by step, began to command the army, hired people, outside the mountains infested by thieves, picked up those main roads that passed, blocked the roads and built forts and enemy platforms, and only stationed a small number of manpower to guard the roads in and out of the mountains, hoping that the thieves would lack food and die in the mountains.

In this way, the encirclement and suppression of the official army was outside the mountains, and the wandering thief army was in the mountains, holding each other.

Of course, this kind of confrontation or stalemate is even more disadvantageous to the thief's side.

In summer, it is good to say, although there are more insects and snakes on the mountain, but it is not fatal, and there are mountain springs and wild fruits to eat, which can barely hold on.

But by the end of winter, the already limited food had already been eaten, and the horses brought into the mountains began to be killed one by one.

At the beginning, following the team of thieves brought into the Lan Mountain and Luya Mountain, many minions and small bosses took advantage of the opportunity to go out of the mountain to loot and began to flee down the mountain.

And those small teams that led the team out of the mountains to loot were all like stones sinking into the sea, never going back.

In the middle of November, snow continued to fall on the mountains, and hunting and looking for food became more unsustainable, so from Ma Shouying's return to the camp, Zhang Xianzhong's Xiying, He Yilong, He Jin, Liu Xiyao, Lin Yangcheng and other people's camps, there were people eating people one after another, called eating fragrant meat.

Some of the old and weak thieves who followed into the mountains first became the food on the plates and mouths of the thieves in these camps, then the young people, and then by drawing lots to decide who would be eaten as food.

At the beginning, there were more than 12,000 thieves who followed the thieves across the river into the mountains.

However, by the middle of November of the second year of Chongzhen, after deducting the previous encirclement and suppression of the official army, those who fled down the mountain without permission, those who died of hunger, cold, injury and disease, and those who were killed and divided since the beginning of winter, Gao Yingxiang counted the men and horses of each battalion, and there were less than 4,000 people.

Finally, in late November, Gao Yingxiang, who had been hungry for many days but refused to deign to eat human flesh, couldn't bear it anymore, so at the risk of never returning, he once again sent his cronies and generals Liu Zhe to lead a team of old thieves who had eaten a full meal of fragrant meat, and went to the direction of Wuzhai Fort outside Lanshan to loot grain.

Liu Zhe and the others did not bring back food to Gao Yingxiang, but they brought him back an amazing news.

That is, the news that the Jianyu, who was far away in Liaodong, outside Shanhaiguan, broke through the border from Datong Town.

Gao Yingxiang, Ma Shouying and others, who were overjoyed but suspicious, immediately sent people east to the upper valley of Fenshui leading to Ningwu Pass in Jingle City, but they saw the scene of the Yansui Town cavalry of the brigade marching towards Ningwu Pass.

When the news came back to the mountains, Gao Yingxiang, Ma Shouying, He Yilong, He Jin and other bandit leaders, everyone was elated, knowing that the time to turn over, which they had been suffering and waiting for in the mountains, had come again!

And this time, the opinions of these bandit leaders, large and small, are also surprisingly unanimous.

Not long after Gao Yingxiang's proposal was spoken, the slogan of "go back to your hometown, go back to Shaanxi" shouted in the camp.

Subsequently, this slogan soon spread to various bandit camps in the Lan Mountains.

In the Lan Mountains and even in the entire Luya Mountain, they have had enough of this kind of life when people are not ghosts or ghosts.

At this time, only the slogan of "go back to your hometown, fight back to Shaanxi" can condense the morale of this group of thieves from Shaanxi.

It was precisely this slogan shouted by Gao Yingxiang that made the thieves in the Lan Mountain, who had been trapped to the extreme, and saw that they were about to collapse, suddenly returned to the light, were stunned, and radiated strong morale, and in the early morning of November 24, they were divided into three groups, rushed out of the mountains, and shouted slogans while heading west.

At the same time, this incident also caught Zhang Zongheng, the Shanxi envoy, and Li Bei, the deputy chief of the Zhenxi Battalion, who were encircling and suppressing the area of Bauhinia Mountain and Mopan Mountain in the northwest of Shanxi Province, and the deputy commander of the Zhenxi Battalion, who were encircling and suppressing the thief Luo Rucai, and they were too late to lead the main force of the Zhenxi Battalion north to Lanzhou and other places to block.

In this way, Gao Yingxiang's camp took the lead, leading the seven battalions under his command, including the battalion of the generals, the Huihui camp, the Xiying, and the number of Geli Yanhe Yilong and others, ranging from 500 to 300, and the soldiers were divided into three routes and rushed back to northern Shaanxi.

In the process of rushing back to northern Shaanxi, they also rescued the "Cao Cao Battalion" of Luo Rucai's department, which had been surrounded in the mountainous area of Mopan Mountain for a long time.

Luo Rucai already had the idea of surrendering, he was ready to sacrifice the Shaanxi rebel general Li Xing, and then take the "Cao Cao Battalion" out of the mountain to surrender to Zhenxi Camp, in order to survive this difficult winter, but the officials and troops on the mountain roads outside the mountain suddenly withdrew, so that he also seized the opportunity to escape back to northern Shaanxi.

By this time, these people already knew that the current official army was not the official army of the past, so when they saw the city fortress, they naturally did not dare to attack or harass, but all fled from afar.

For such a wandering style, the soldiers of the Zhenxi Battalion, who are mainly infantry, can only be helpless.

There is a way to be poor, don't chase after the poor, don't strangle the teacher.

The morale and determination aroused by Gao Yingxiang with the slogan "Go back to your hometown, go back to Shaanxi" is even more effective than eating a full meal for these thieves who have been wandering from northern Shaanxi to Shanxi for nearly a year.

On the night of November 25, King Gao Yingxiang and others were all the way, Lao Hui Ma Shouying and his remnants of the Hui camp were all the way, Zhang Xianzhong and his west camp were the first way, and then Luo Rucai Cao Cao's camp who also led the people to the west was the first way, a total of four thieves, once again crossed the river against the wind and snow and crossed the ice, and fled back to the border of northern Shaanxi.

The thieves who were able to follow the river to the west in the end, Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, had the largest number of people all the way, about 1,800 people.

Under the command of Lao Hui Hui Ma Shouying, there were only more than 700 people left in the Hui Hui camp.

After the eight kings Zhang Xianzhong set up his own door, there were more than 500 people in the Xiying who evolved from the attached Hui army.

And following the footsteps of Gao Yingxiang and others, and then crossing the river to the west, Luo Rucai's Cao Cao battalion was the same number as Gao Yingxiang's command, with more than 1,600 people.

Although the number of these anti-thief leaders who have left a prominent name in history is small, the ability of various departments to fight is not weak.

It was these bandits who did not have a large number of thieves who began to cross the river separately on the night of November 25, and from north to south, they successively captured the three county towns of Fugu, Mizhi, and Qingjian, and received some supplies.

And at the beginning of December, once again some people were enveloped and joined together in the Ganquanyu area in the southeast of Yan'an Prefecture.