The sun shines through the valley and the dense foliage onto the ground, leaving a dappled afterimage.

The water flows through the river valley below, and the mountain spring is clear and bright, so that the sound of the water is dyed with the deep temperament of birth.

During the dry season, the river is very shallow, and the round boulders are all over the river, which is obviously not navigable. In summer, when the river swells and floods over the rocks, bamboo rafts with shallow drafts can try to sail. However, the water was fast, full of whirlpools, and dangerous, and only the most familiar boatmen in the area dared to challenge it.

The valley valley is winding and winding, and the road surface can only accommodate a single column to advance. He Huchen walked in the front, and Zhang Shijie escorted the team behind.

The carriage was certainly impassable, and the hardened mountain roads made of cobblestones and stones were thankfully thanks to the ancestors.

The heaviest weapon in the army was the 1-pounder Franc carried on the back of pack horses. The whole gun of the 1-pound Franc machine weighed more than 200 pounds, and after disassembly, the pack horse could barely carry the heaviest gun body. The heavier large Franc machine and cannon could not be carried, so they had to stay in Hezhou.

Zhaixia City Inspection Division is the dividing point of Hezhou and Cao Zhi Jianfang District, out of the castle and then go forward not far is one of the famous passes of Nanling Mo Xie Pass, also known as Xie Mu Pass. Xie Mu Pass is an important checkpoint on the Xiaohe Ancient Road, connecting Longhu Pass in the west and Baojian Village in the east, which is already the defense area of Cao Town.

A military town, a key pass. Since the Qin Dynasty, Moxie Pass has been garrisoned by Han soldiers in all dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, Xie Muguan is also called Xiongguan, there are two teams of officers and soldiers stationed in Chengping, and the Yankou Battalion and the White Elephant Battalion are set up at the east and west entrances of the pass.

The stone walls are covered with blue-black moss, and the traces of the road record the vicissitudes of history. There are several cemeteries on the slopes on both sides of the city, which are the resting places of the soldiers who have guarded the gates for generations. The towering trees and the city have witnessed thousands of years of changes, countless Chinese soldiers have spilled their blood at the pass, people have died, and the city is still there.

Xie Muguan City is not big, and Cao Zhen does not have many soldiers here.

The army camped in the open space outside the Guan, in the chaotic times of the late Ming Dynasty, friendly troops were not very reliable, and Cao Zhijian's troops were notoriously poor in military discipline. Zhang Shijie left the deputy general He Huchen to lead the troops, and entered the city with Fei Changtong.

Fei Changtong supervised the army with civilian officials and went out with the army. He said to Zhang Shijie: "Back then, Yue Shuai pursued Cao Cheng for thousands of miles, and had a bloody battle with the thieves guarding the pass at Xie Mu Pass, which was to enter Lingnan by walking the stone slab we are stepping on now. ”

"King Yue, hey." Zhang Shijie sighed for a while, Nanming just lacked Yue Fei.

The general of Cao Zhenjun guarding the pass was called Hui Yannian, and he took out a few pheasant muntjac and simply made a few hard dishes to entertain the guests.

As neighbors, it is not the first time that the two sides have met, and the strength of the troops brought by Zhang Shijie crushed the soldiers of Cao Zhen guarding the pass. He Huchen was ready outside the gate, and Zhang Shijie was not worried, and he drank with Hui Yannian until he was drunk. Although Fei Changtong is a scholar, the amount of alcohol is not bad, and he drinks with two Qiu for several hours at night.

Hui Yannian also had to send troops this time, and the next day the drunk generals slept an extra morning, and set off in the afternoon. The 800 soldiers of the Hui Department were in the front, and Zhang Zhen was in the rear.

The normal march speed of the army is 40 miles a day, and the mountain roads are a little slower. Three days later, Zhang Shijie joined forces with Cao Zhen's main force from Zhenxia Pass at the Taochuan Shouyu Thousand Households Office in Huguang Province.

Cao Zhijian, who is the prince of the country, is very polite to Zhang Shijie, who does not have a title. Nan Ming to this point, the empty title is a piece of paper. The forces standing behind Zhang Shijie forced Cao Zhijian to put away his usual pride.

Zhenxia Pass is the city of Zhenxia Village Inspection Division in Gongcheng County, Guangxi, and the castle is hidden in the peaks and peaks of Mengzhu Ridge, bordering Yongming County on the border of Hunan and Guangxi.

Yongguo Duke Cao Zhijian was a native of Wenzhou, and was the last general to be crowned a duke in the Yongli court. In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong invaded Hunan, and Cao Zhijian retreated all the way to Zhenxia Pass. The Guangxi army did not allow him to enter the country, and Cao Zhijian could only occupy Guancheng to settle his soldiers and family.

Although the city of Zhenxia Pass Inspection Division is small, there is a large open area on both sides of the city, which can be used for the garrison. The terrain of Guancheng is dangerous, Cao Zhijian changed the name of Zhenxia Pass to Longhu Pass, built his base camp in the troubled times, took the four cities of Yongming, Jiangyong, Daozhou, and Ningyuan, which were subordinate to Huguang in the north of Guan, raised troops, appointed officials by himself, and stayed and did not leave. When He Tengjiao was alive, there was no way to take Cao Zhijian.

In the year of Longwu, Cao Zhen sent troops to reinforce Ganzhou. After a few battles, he passed through Chenzhou, killed the king of Yuan'an County, the Ming Dynasty clan in the city, and collected the assets of the royal palace. After the loss of Ganzhou, Cao Zhen plundered several places in Jiangxi and returned with a full plunder. With the money, Cao Zhijian managed the small Zhenxia Pass very well, and supported 30,000 family members of officers and soldiers.

Cao Zhijian did not have the ability to turn the tide, and every time the Tatar army went south, he retreated to Guancheng to block the traffic pass second only to Lingqu. Under the spring rain, after the bow and arrow could not be used, the Eight Banners retreated, and he ordered troops to attack, recover the four cities in Guanbei, and then hit Yongzhou Mansion. Like a piece of kraft candy, it gave the Tatars of Huguang a headache.

Objectively speaking, Cao Zhijian's ability is limited, and the army's combat effectiveness is not strong. But Cao Zhen is also an orthodox Ming army, not a peasant army reorganization, not a temporary recruit of volunteers. The army system is complete, and Cao Zhijian himself did not give up and fought hard. He operated in Zhenxia Pass for more than 6 years and became a local army.

The army fights on the ground and has a certain cohesion. Since the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong, Luck Dehun, Kong Youde and Jierharang have fought to the Hunan and Guizhou borders four times, and Cao Zhen can at least independently hold the core fortress Zhenxia Pass, which is above the passing level in the Ming army.

There are many reasons for Cao Zhenhuo and blocking Yinxi, mainly the indelible hatred between the orthodox official army and the loyal battalion that forced Chongzhen to death. Zhang Shijie's soldiers don't have this problem.

Kong Youde's army went south, Cao Zhijian withdrew quickly, and the loss of the living forces was not large. After Kong Youde relieved the siege of Yongzhou, he transferred the main army to the dangerous west to fight Wugang and Jingzhou. In front of Cao Zhen, there was Ma Jiaolin stationed in Daozhou, which was the reason why Cao Zhen dared to send troops.

He also had to send troops, Zhenxia Pass was close to the south, and in the past, even if the Tatars set out from Changsha in the autumn, the distance of the southward attack seemed too long, exceeding the depth of the normal battle breakthrough. As long as the Ming army in front of them topped it, and when the Tatars hit Daozhou, Cao Zhen would have already harvested the autumn grain and returned to guard the fortress. This is the core meaning of Cao Zhen to maintain combat effectiveness, but this time Kong Youde went south too fast, and the food on the gate was not enough, so Cao Zhen had to raise more military rations to persevere.

The coalition army drove north to Yongming County, and after several years of tug-of-war, the county town seemed very decadent, with no soldiers and few households.

Further on, there was already a war zone infested by Tatar cavalry.

The enemy's general soldiers, Ma Jiaolin, from Yang Jianbao in Guyuan, Shaanxi, were all Muslims. A hereditary officer of the Ming Dynasty, he started from Li Zicheng and served as the general manager of the Tongguan camp under Sun Chuanting. Sun Chuanting was defeated, and Ma Jiaolin led his troops to Zuo Liangyu.

The Southern Ming Army and the Tatars had three general soldiers surnamed Ma, Ma Jinzhong of the Zhongwu Battalion, Ma Bao of Li Chengdong's subordinate generals, and Ma Jiaolin, the general of the Tatar Chen Chang. Cao Zhijian knew that because of the same religion and the Guyuan Township Party, Ma Jinzhong, Ma Bao and Ma Jiaolin had private contacts, and Qu Shiyun said that it was possible to return to Zima anyway. But that has nothing to do with Cao Zhijian. Even if the Ming army occupies his source of salary, he has to do it, not to mention that it is still an enemy army.

Based on Zhang Shijie's understanding of the enemy's army, Ma Jiaolin's troops are mostly in the northwest frontier army, and their combat effectiveness is certainly relatively strong. However, their performance was unstable, not only the record of defending Yuezhou alone and repelling He Tengjiao's tens of thousands of troops, but also the black history of defeating Ma Jinzhong and Guangxi Tusi Qin Yuchun's wolf soldiers. The cultist army is very troublesome, they are cohesive, they are defeated but not dispersed, and it is difficult to kill.

Cao Zhijian's troops were mostly veterans, and they split up to scout, using superior forward troops to break the enemy's cavalry curtain within a few days. Fighting on the ground, Cao Zhen was more familiar with the terrain, and the Tatars could not set up an ambush. If the basic business of the two sides is in place, there will be little work to be done in the war.

Cao Zhen produced nearly 7,000 people, and the Ming army had an absolute advantage in numbers. The coalition forces pressed forward and camped under the city of Daozhou.

The core of Cao Zhijian's subordinates is 2,000 veteran battalion soldiers and some family members, and the others are made up. The Ming army placed most of the combat-effective troops under the city of Daozhou, and Cao Zhijian sent discarded soldiers with only cold weapons to plunder money, food, and women.

Zhang Shijie was also not polite, Hezhou also needed money and food, so he assigned 500 soldiers to take half of the porters to Ningyuan County and other places in the Xiaoshui River Valley to the east. The rest of the porters, under the watchful eye of the soldiers, fetched water and firewood to fortify the camp.

Military discipline not only refers to not encroaching on the people, but also to prohibiting it. Zhang Shijie's whole army didn't think there was anything wrong with robbing those people with braids.

Horn cannons were lit in the city, and the Green Battalion soldiers were out.

After many days of sentinel battles, the Ming army basically figured out the strength of the enemy army in front of them.

Ma Jiaolin's subordinate Green Battalion has less than 3,000 soldiers, of which less than 1,000 are the core Xiliang soldiers. Counting some defective Ming troops, their military strength is below 5,000.

There are more than 2,000 soldiers out of the city in Mazhen, and it seems that half of them have come out. People say that Ma Jiaolin is good at leading soldiers, and he pays for soldiers to buy horses and guns, and he is very generous and very popular with women. It lives up to its name.

The Ming army also reacted quickly. The generals had already discussed with the soldiers, and the green battalion had to be half of the troops when they left the city. The soldiers expressed their understanding one after another, and only by beating the green battalion soldiers back, the brothers who went out to collect food could safely return to the camp with the stolen silver and the little lady.

The two armies were separated by 2 miles.

On the side of the Ming army, Cao Zhijian's equipment was very poor, so many troops only had 28 Franc machines and more than 400 guns of various types, which were more than 70% of the firearms of his entire army.

Zhang Shijie put 500 Li hand-to-hand infantry in the front, and 600 bird soldiers in the back. Zhang Zhen came from afar, and there were not as many cannons as Cao Zhen, but the bird guns were new and good, and they were a sharp weapon for killing people at first glance.

There were neat 5 rows of muskets in a row, and Cao Zhijian's soldiers cheered. Zhang Zhen still has half of the bird soldiers in the battalion, and this is only half of it.

The morale of the Ming army was greatly boosted, and the momentum in the scolding battle was full of momentum, and there were many tricks, and even the military flag was more cheerful than the green camp opposite.

The Li soldiers of Qiongzhou, the wolf soldiers of Tusi in Guangxi, and the Tatar officers and soldiers in Guangzhou were the elite of the Ming army in the south. These foreign armies have a higher desire to fight. Li soldiers raised their spears or struck their swords and shields, emitting a simulated beast roar.

The momentum of the green battalion soldiers on the opposite side descended at a speed visible to the naked eye.