On the night of the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Luo Rucai thought about it left and right, couldn't think of any other better way out, and sat with everyone all night until the east window turned white, and finally made up his mind.

"Come down! Lao Tzu descended first! No matter how damn harsh the conditions of the royal courtiers are, Lao Tzu has to take this step, and then talk about it first!

"If you want me to Luo someone to the south and do something to his Yellow Tiger, serve him as the Yellow Tiger Son, and do his mother's Spring and Autumn Dream!"

After Luo Rucai finished saying this, the few generals who sat with him all night were relieved.

Whether it was demoted to the army, or abandoned the city and fled, or simply merged into the Daxi camp, in short, a decision must be made as soon as possible.

This is a situation that everyone, including Luo Rucai, knows.

Because, when Luo Rucai escaped from Anding City with the rest of Cao Ying's men and horses before, the men and horses of his department only habitually brought gold and silver soft things that were easy to carry, and as for the small amount of grain, cattle and sheep, and the two-legged sheep captured from all over the country, they were all lost in Anding City.

After they came to Lintao City, where there was little food and clothing, Zhang Xianzhong, the eight kings, would not really care about their lives or deaths.

With the friendship he had made before, in the first half month, Zhang Xianzhong also allocated some food to Luo Rucai's Cao Ying's people, and tried to incorporate Luo Rucai's team.

Later, when Zhang Xianzhong knew that Luo Rucai was not willing to be subordinate to others, and it was impossible to lead Cao Ying to merge into the Daxi Camp, he quickly cut off the supply of Cao Ying's men and horses.

After that, if Luo Rucai and his subordinates wanted to eat, they had to spend money to buy it at a high price.

Later, after entering December, there was not even a little food in the Daxi Camp under Zhang Xianzhong, even if it was not worth spending money, it could only be a two-legged sheep.

In such a situation, what else could Luo Rucai do, he himself could not eat two-legged sheep, but the thieves of Cao Ying under his command couldn't help but be hungry!

Even if he is a hero with steel and iron bones, if he is allowed to go without eating for three days in a row, he will definitely not be able to bear it, and he will definitely not be able to get up as a hero.

Cao Ying's complete food shortage, and the hunger after the food shortage, did not last for three days, it has been more than a month since December.

The number of Cao Ying's population has also dropped sharply from more than 4,700 when he first fled into Lintao City to more than 3,100.

Some of them froze to death, some starved to death, some died of indiscriminate eating of bark, grass roots, and cotton wool, and some fell ill and died of eating half-cooked dead human flesh.

Of course, there are also a large number of old and weak thieves, who have disappeared without a trace because they were killed and eaten by their unbearable hunger comrades.

Such Cao Ying has long ceased to be an army, and their garrison has completely turned into a ghostly refugee camp.

What's more, there are many backbones under the command of Luo Rucai and others, who chose to betray because of continuous hunger, and ran with the team from the garrisoned Cao Camp of the East Gate to the Great West Camp of the Eight Kings of the West Gate.

If he didn't seize the last opportunity to surrender to the official army, then if this situation continued for a while, there would be no need for the officers and troops of Anding (later Dingxi) or Gongchang (later Longxi) to attack him, and there would be no need for Zhang Xianzhong to forcibly absorb him, and the Cao camp that Luo Rucai had worked so hard to pull up would disappear by itself.

In the early morning of the day when he made up his mind, while there was still a dead silence in Lintao City, Luo Rucai sent Wu Ruyi, a "piece of iron", and his more trusted strategist Ji Jue, to hurry out of the city again and go to settle down.

Of course, Luo Rucai was reluctant to surrender unconditionally, but otherwise, he had no other way out.

Abandoning the city and fending for one's own livelihood is easier said than done.

The first month of the year was the coldest season in the northwest, and after all, they still had a place to shelter themselves from the wind and keep warm in Lintao City, and without eating, drinking, or cotton clothes, they led their subordinates to flee to the wilderness of the northwest, almost a dead end.

At the same time, if they are out of the protection of the city, with the current morale and situation in his army, once they are pursued by the officers and soldiers, or even by Zhang Xianzhong's troops, they will be even more dead.

Compared to these two roads, the surrender of the Fourth Town of the Guards, they at least had food to eat and could survive.

Moreover, Luo Rucai also made serious inquiries about the officers and soldiers who defeated Cao Ying, known as the Guards Army, and its structure is different, and it has a great deal of independence on the northwest ground.

They belonged to the emperor, not to any of the court officials in the northwest, and were neither under the command of Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shaanxi, nor under the command of Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of the three sides.

It was this that made Luo Rucai and his subordinate generals choose to surrender to the courtiers of King Wu Anbo.

On the morning of the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, the courtiers of King Wu Anbo, who had been waiting for Luo Rucai to surrender in Anding City for half a month, and had basically given up the surrender plan, finally waited for the envoy sent by Luo Rucai.

In the early morning of the 20th day of the first lunar month, the sky was gloomy and the sky was full of lead clouds, and the courtiers of King Wu Anbo personally led the three cavalry targets of the fourth town of the Guards Army, all equipped with cavalry musketeers, and two mounted infantry grenadier battalions, namely Liu Xingzhi's division, the fierce tiger division, the Hu Dawei division, and the Wu Sangui division, and suddenly approached the city of Lintao Dongmen.

In the midst of the shouting and panic of some of the thieves at the head of the city, Wang Yuncheng, known as "a wall", personally opened the gate of the city guarded by himself.

Cao Cao and Luo Rucai, in accordance with the agreement with the officials and soldiers in advance, had been waiting restlessly in the arrow tower of the urn city at the east gate of Lintao the night before.

At this time, when the official army finally came to the city, he had no room for hesitation, and he had no other choice.

In the past few days, Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, first sent an order to see Li Xing, the general of Cao Ying's department, and the next day he sent an order to see Luo Rucai himself.

These dangers were all dealt with by Luo Rucai for all kinds of reasons.

If the officials and soldiers don't come again, he, Luo Rucai, is afraid that he will have to abandon the city and leave, and he doesn't know where to be a lonely ghost.

Therefore, as soon as Wang Tingchen led the cavalry of the fourth town of the Guards Army, Luo Rucai immediately went down to the city and came straight to the outside of the city with several generals around him.

Wang Tingchen, Liu Xingzhi and others, seeing Luo Rucai come to meet the army in person, the original doubts in their hearts were immediately eliminated.

Wang Tingchen took a group of men and horses to stay outside the city, while Liu Xingzhi took Wu Sangui, Hu Dawei, and Fierce Tiger three groups of men and horses to gallop into the city.

Wu Sangui's grenadier battalion with torches in two directions rushed straight to the west gate, opening the way with thunderbolts and fierce fire oil bombs along the way, while Hu Dawei and Mengru Hu's troops rushed behind a cavalry grenadier battalion.

And Wang Yuncheng, the general of the Cao Battalion Department, "a wall", led the more than 3,000 thieves who had defected to Cao Ying in accordance with the prior agreement, and followed closely behind the two cavalry of the Guards Army, Hu Dawei and Fierce as a Tiger, and frantically attacked the Daxi Camp thief army who dared to resist, so as to surrender as a surrender for his own surrender.

Before this, the generals in Cao Ying's camp and Cao Cao Luo Rucai himself had not been rumored repeatedly, which had already made the eight kings Zhang Xianzhong suspicious of Luo Rucai.

But he never thought that Luo Rucai would contact the official army to sacrifice the east gate.

Zhang Xianzhong has always been suspicious, as long as he is suspicious of his subordinates, he rarely gives them a chance to defend himself, and once he suspects who is unfaithful to him, he will kill him directly.

However, Luo Rucai, a figure who is on an equal footing with him, and even has a higher status than himself among the thieves from all walks of life in northern Shaanxi before, no matter how domineering Zhang Xianzhong is, he can't just kill him.

And even if you want to kill, you can't do it under such conditions, because killing Luo Rucai, who defected to him, and annexing Cao Ying's team, will ruin his reputation among the thieves in northern Shaanxi.

The leaders of the thieves never regard themselves as thieves, but as a rebel, and since they are rebels, of course they must take the lead in righteousness.

No matter what you think in your heart, at least on the surface, you have to pay attention to the meaning of the word.

This is also the only way for them, the bandit leaders, to lead and restrain their subordinates.

Therefore, since Zhang Xianzhong summoned Li Xing, the general of Cao Ying, for the second time on the eighteenth day of the first month, and finally Li Xing still did not arrive, and on the nineteenth, he reported to Luo Rucai and Luo Rucai did not come, Zhang Xianzhong moved to Luo Rucai.

It's just that the killing intention is the killing intention, and it needs to be carefully calculated to really do it, after all, Zhang Xianzhong still wants to merge Cao Ying's team.

However, just when he was determined to let Cao Ying, under Luo Rucai, starve for another two days, and then make a move, Luo Rucai sold him first, and sold him without taking a penny.

Luo Rucai's tone has always been very strict, until the official army arrived outside the east gate of Lintao, Luo Rucai has never announced to his soldiers in Cao Ying's camp that he is going to surrender to the official army.

There are pros and cons to doing this, and the plus side is to keep the secret, but also to keep your head.

The unfavorable thing is that as soon as Wang Tingchen led the main cavalry of the Fourth Town of the Guards Army to the outside of the East Gate, as soon as the city gate was opened, there were some Cao Ying soldiers who were extremely afraid of the official army, and fled in a hurry to report to the Daxi Battalion.

This greatly discounted Luo Rucai's "sale", and at the same time set up a group of mortal enemies for himself among the thieves.

When Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, learned that the official army had raided the east gate and had rushed into the city with the help of Cao Ying, he knew that Lintao City could not be defended, so he immediately arranged for his right-hand men Wang Fuchen and Zhang Xianbi to lead the army to resist the broken queen.

And Zhang Xianzhong himself, not long after the news of the entry of the fourth town of the Guards into the city, especially after the sound of guns and shouts of killing in the city, under the protection of his righteous son henchmen Zhang Kewang, Zhang Wenxiu and others, he took the elite of the Chinese army in the Daxi Camp around him out of the city from the west gate and fled to Hezhou.