In the evening of the same day, the fierce fire and oil bomb offensive of the official army came to an end, and the worried He Yilong, He Jin, and the equally worried Po Ximu finally waited for Gao Yigong, the messenger sent by Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, to give orders.

Gao Yigong is still very young and is one of the nephews of Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang.

Gao Yingxiang's original name was Gao Ruyue, he was a horse dealer in his early years, and he was afraid of affecting the clan after falling into the grass, so he changed his name to Gao Yingxiang.

This time, Gao Yingxiang took advantage of the opportunity of Jianyu to break through the border and enter Xuanda, broke through the siege of the official army, and after returning to northern Shaanxi, he knew that his name had spread all over the world at this time, and he was worried that the Gao clan in Ansai's hometown would not be able to be preserved.

Therefore, when the soldiers were besieging Ganquanyu, he sent Li Zicheng with a group of men and horses to return to his hometown in Ansai.

And Li Zicheng really lived up to his trust, tossing and turning, and finally brought back the few people who could take away from the old Gao family in Ansai.

Gao Yigong and his widowed sister Gao Guiying are among them.

Gao Yigong came to Gao Yingxiang's side, and was soon reused, becoming the small leader of the Chinese army's personal soldiers around Gao Yingxiang, who was dedicated to running for King Gao Yingxiang to pass military orders between battalions.

Now, it was this Gao Yigong who led a small team of cavalry to Guyuan from Pingliang over the mountains and mountains, and took advantage of the fact that the official army had not yet closed the siege to rush into the city from the south gate, bringing Gao Yingxiang's order to He Yilong and others.

Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, strictly ordered He Yilong, He Jin and Po Ximu to lead their men and horses to hold Guyuan City, and without Gao Yingxiang's order, they would never be allowed to retreat.

He Yilong and He Jin interrogated Gao Yigong for a long time, and only then did they vaguely realize the seriousness of this crisis from Gao Yigong's rambling answer.

It turned out that not only Guyuan City was attacked by the official army, but the official army team that had been holding Qingyang before also sent a group of sentry teams to Pingliang.

According to the official and military sentry who captured the battalion, the 3,000 battalion, one of the three major battalions of the Daming Beijing Division, has also been stationed in Qingyang City recently.

A large number of officers and troops have been assembled in the east of Pingliang.

The military orders brought to He Yilong and He Jin by Gao Yingxiang's Chinese army escort Gao Yigong made them feel a huge pressure, and at the same time, it also made Po Ximu, who had been swaying from side to side for several days, suffering from gains and losses, finally made up his mind and made up his mind.

In the middle of the night of April 18 in the third year of Chongzhen, Guyuan City under Liupan Mountain was shrouded in a moonlit and starry sky.

There was silence above and below the city, and the soldiers on both sides who had been fighting nervously for a day could finally lie on the ground wrapped in a blanket and quickly fall asleep.

Only some of the unlucky people who were ordered to be on duty at night were left at the head of Guyuan Castle, holding bows, knives and arrows, yawning and yawning, while secretly complaining about their errands, praying that nothing would happen at night.

As an important town in the northwest frontier, Guyuan City is the location of the former trilateral governor and the general military office of Guyuan Town.

Up to now, although it has experienced more than 100 years of wind and rain erosion and wars ravaged again and again, it seems to be a little dilapidated, some are in disrepair, the walls are full of potholes, and even the masonry has collapsed in some places, revealing the rammed earth inside, but in general, it can be regarded as a heroic city.

"If the army of Guyuan Town did not move north to defend Huamachi, then this Guyuan City would not only be unable to lose at this time, but it would also be the home of the army under my command!"

After the third watch, the night was already dark, and Zhou Yuji, who had been commanding the army for a busy day, still did not return to his big tent on the distant hill to rest.

Zhou Yuji is a figure who was quickly promoted after Wen Zhen and Meng supervised the military camp in Beijing and purged the factional forces of Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo.

At the beginning, Emperor Chongzhen sent him to escort ordnance and military salaries and escort Yuan Chonghuan to the Trilateral Governor's Mansion to take office, originally to let him come back from this errand and find an official who would promote him from the beginning, and then use it as a general in the Beijing camp.

However, after arriving in the northwest, Zhou Yuji's loyalty to his duties and orders and prohibitions along the way made Yuan Chonghuan very satisfied, and Yuan Chonghuan, who had just arrived, wanted to stabilize his position in the trilateral land as soon as possible and open up the situation, and he also needed to promote a group of generals who obeyed his orders.

So a group of young generals such as Zhou Yuji and He Renlong entered his field of vision.

Therefore, after Zhou Yuji arrived in the northwest, although he did not fight a single war, he was basically in the process of selecting and training troops, but he was promoted rapidly all the way.

In just two and a half years, he was promoted from a guerrilla in Beijing to deputy general and deputy commander-in-chief, so much so that after Yang Qi's death, he became the acting chief officer of Dingyu Town.

For this, Zhou Yuji's heart is of course very grateful to Yuan Chonghuan for his kindness.

It is also precisely because of this that although Zhou Yuji did not understand and did not agree with many of Yuan Chonghuan's actions after he arrived in the northwest, he silently chose to obey and implement.

Among the things he didn't understand was the relocation of the Trilateral Governor's Mansion and Guyuan Town to Huamachi.

Guyuan is located in the center of the five towns on the three sides of the northwest, and is far and near away from Yansui, Ningxia, Gansu and Lintao, which is convenient for commanding and responding to all parties in the northwest.

At the beginning, the Trilateral Governor's Mansion was first established, and the site was located in Guyuan, which was precisely because of its geographical location.

It's just that Yuan Chonghuan gave the Ming court and wanted to move the trilateral governor's palace to Huamachi, and this was also in line with Emperor Chongzhen's strategic intention to drive the northwest thieves all the way to the west, so he immediately agreed.

Of course, Zhou Yuji didn't know the inside story of the decision, but as a general, he thought that it would be too hasty for the governor of the three sides to move his defense as soon as he took office.

At this time, there was a sudden chaos in the northwest, and Guyuan City also fell into the hands of the mob of the Musu Barbarian Army after the mutiny.

At the beginning, those Guyuan Town generals and their families who were ordered to follow Yuan Chonghuan and Yang Qi north to Huamachi were okay, but those old and frail military households, as well as a large number of family members of soldiers who had not gone north with the army, were lost in the city and slaughtered this time.

After the news of Yang Qi's death in Taozhou reached Huamachi, the former Guyuan Town generals who stayed in Huamachi were shocked and panicked.

When the news of the Guyuan Mutiny and the massacre of the city came, the generals and soldiers who were still in Guyuan City with their wives and children's families were even more in an uproar, crying and crying, and one after another letters of invitation to war written in blood were sent to the governor's palace of the three sides one after another, asking Yuan Chonghuan to mobilize a large army to go south to Guyuan for revenge.

All these sudden changes caught Yuan Chonghuan off guard and became anxious, and while promising revenge to the whole army, he quickly mobilized officials and troops from Gansu and Ningxia to come to Huamachi just in case.

If it weren't for the 2,000 soldiers that Zhou Yuji brought from Beijing to the original were well-equipped and very elite, and the 3,000 governors newly recruited by He Renlong in Ningxia, Dinglu and other places among the Han people in the tunhu were in Huamachi, then it is difficult to say whether there would be a mutiny in the Huamachi area because of this.

However, although Yuan Chonghuan, Zhou Yuji, He Renlong and others stabilized the situation in Huamachi, they once again missed a good opportunity.

Not only the war to recover the land of Hetao, the army of the towns under the jurisdiction of the governor's palace of the three sides had no time to send troops to participate, many people lost the reward of knighthood, and almost the entire land of Hexi, because Yuan Chonghuan urgently mobilized Mei Zhihuan to lead the army to aid Huamachi, and fell into the hands of Mi Layin and other rebellious Hexi Musuman hereditary officials, which made the Ming Dynasty's more than 200 years of hard work in the land of Hexi in Gansu ruined.

All of this made Zhou Yuji's heart very breathless.

However, Zhou Yuji, who has always had a good view of the overall situation, still chose to obey everything until the Ordos Mongols in the land of the Hetao left the Hetao and passed through the jurisdiction of Yan'an Prefecture.

Because he knew very well that he, the acting commander-in-chief of Dinglu Town, could not avenge the former commander-in-chief Yang Qi, especially the generals and soldiers whose families were lost in Guyuan City, he would not be able to truly win the hearts of the generals in Dingyu Town.

And if he doesn't get the heart of the soldiers, he, the acting chief military officer, will be an expedient measure after all, and it will be short-lived.

Zhou Yuji led people along the edge of the official army position in the north of Guyuan City to check the sentry, while recalling all kinds of past events, just when he felt in his heart that he had been in the northwest frontier for three years but had repeatedly missed the opportunity, and had achieved nothing so far, he suddenly heard Wang Shihu, the commander of the Chinese army in Dingyu Town, who followed closely, whisper:

"The head town! Look! There's movement in the city! ”

When Zhou Yuji heard this, he was shocked, and immediately turned his head to look at the right hand.

I saw a blurred figure at the head of the tall Guyuan City a mile away, descending along the city wall under the moonlight!

At first sight, Zhou Yuji seemed to have an understanding, and immediately ordered in a deep voice: "Wang Shihu! Go take him down! Don't make a fuss unless you have to! ”