The next morning, around midnight, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shaanxi, who had finally slept peacefully, finally waited for the news he was waiting for. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The messenger sent to deliver the letter in the direction of Shikou had already hurried back to Ningxiang overnight, bringing back the order of Li Banghua, the minister of military aircraft, and Li Gebu.

One is to agree that Li Bei will be temporarily under the command of Hong Chengchou.

After all, the war on the southern front has subsided, and there is no use in leaving the musket team under Li Bei's command who has made many military exploits on the southern front, so it is better to let him temporarily return to Hong Chengchou and strengthen the strength of the western front.

Another order was to let Hong Chengchou hurry up and deal with the aftermath after surrendering these thieves and prisoners, and lead his main force back to the stone tower as soon as possible.

Because the combat strength of the Zhenxi Battalion under Zhang Zongheng is average, and the "Zijin Liang" king in front of Shilou still has 20,000 people under his command.

Once "Zijin Liang" learned that Hong Chengchou's main force was not in the stone tower and led the thief army to break through the stone tower, then the previous encirclement and suppression arrangement would be a failure.

Of course, it is a bit too much to say that the success is successful, but if the king of "Zijin Liang" runs away with 20,000 or 30,000 horses, then at least the main road of this encirclement and suppression is a little imperfect.

After receiving the order from his immediate boss Li Gebu, Hong Chengchou certainly didn't dare to slack off, not to mention that this was also his own inner thoughts.

I have made a contribution in Ningxiang, but if there is a problem in the direction of the stone building, then this credit can be regarded as vain.

At noon that day, Hong Chengchou braved the scorching sun and climbed to the north gate of Ningxiang County, and from a distance, the imaginary burial place had begun to take shape.

After a day and night of hard work by more than 2,500 young people before and after, a rectangular deep pit with a length of more than 200 steps and a width of 120 steps has appeared in the open area in the northeast of Ningxiang County.

It is said to be a deep pit, but in fact, it is only about one zhang, and the deepest place is less than two zhang.

It's just that because it is not far upstream of the Nanchuan River, some deep places have begun to seep out, so at this time, there are shallow puddles everywhere in this deep pit.

Seeing this situation, Hong Chengchou turned his head and went down the city tower with a gloomy face.

Soon an order came out of the city, ordering Wang Chengen, the general soldier of Shaanxi, to stop digging the earth pit, and at the same time to lead the troops to supervise the two thousand young and strong prisoners to demolish the outpost camp that originally belonged to the official army, and set up a fenced passage more than 200 steps long in front of the logs used for camping.

Originally, I thought that the governor of my house ordered the captives to dig the soil into a pit to bury the corpses of more than 3,000 thieves inside and outside Ningxiang County, but at this time, Wang Chengen, the chief soldier of Shaanxi, suddenly understood, I am afraid that this is not the case!

I'm afraid this young governor is going to kill and kill the prisoners again!

Regarding Hong Chengchou's practice of killing and killing prisoners in the face of the world's disapproval, Wang Chengen, who was also from a Jiangmen family, actually disagreed with it in his heart, after all, for traditional Ming army generals, basic martial arts still have to be emphasized.

But Wang Chengen, the general soldier who was accustomed to obeying Hong Chengchou's orders and never asked why, also resisted the urge to go forward to make suggestions at this time, and rode on the horse with a lot of heart, looking at the thieves who had been busy working for a long time but did not dare to disobey the order, and from time to time he ordered them to speed up their progress.

In the evening, at sunset, Hong Chengchou once again stood at the north gate of Ningxiang County, seeing that everything in front of him had been completed, and finally showed his hole cards to Wang Chengen, the general soldier of Shaanxi.

He's going to kill all the thieves!

Along with this order, it was sent to Wang Chengen, as well as the warrant of Li Banghua, who was brought back from Shennanyu by the messenger of the Shaanxi army in the morning.

Wang Chengen took advantage of the afterglow of the setting sun, read Hong Chengchou's order, and Li Banghua's order to let the horse be brought back quickly, sighed in his heart, and didn't say much, and immediately arranged Li Bei's musket team to the left and right sides of the fence entrance, distributed in a figure-eight shape, like a big open pocket, and then asked Li Wenyun and Zhong Dewu to take the men and horses to the prisoner camp a few miles away, and escort the prisoners of the thief army who had already been tied into a string with ropes around their necks.

Perhaps it was Emperor Chongzhen who set up a bad direction for him in the secret decrees he gave to Hong Chengchou again and again, or it was the ruthless nature of the murderous Hong Chengchou in history, or it was because there were too few officers and soldiers and too many prisoners on the battlefield at present.

Of course, there may be other complicated factors, but in short, no matter what, Hong Chengchou finally decided to kill these thieves and thieves.

In addition to the female dependents of the thieves, except for those young and strong men from Shanxi who worked hard to dig pits and behaved fairly docile, the main force of the other thieves was more than 15,000 people, and he decided to kill them all.

When night fell, torches were lit, and torches were lit around the rectangular pit that was more than 200 steps long and 120 steps wide.

Until this time, Wang Chengen, the chief soldier of Shaanxi Province who was riding on a horse, and Li Bei, the general of the mine battalion who was also riding on a horse and commanding the musket queue under his command, looked at the lights that looked like a camp in the distance.

After a long time, they looked at each other, although they were speechless, they were deeply shocked in their hearts by the deep scheming of Hong Chengchou, the young governor.

Even until this time, all the officers and soldiers inside and outside Ningxiang County, except for Hong Chengchou himself, only Wang Chengen and Li Bei, the commanders of Shaanxi, knew the thoughts of this young governor, and they just knew.

Including Li Wenyun and Zhong Dewu, who went to escort the thieves captured at this time, these two figures who were recently regarded as confidants and generals by Shaanxi Governor Hong Chengchou, still did not know what their governor was going to do at this time.

However, this did not affect their execution of Hong Chengchou's orders.

It was just a few miles of road, and in two quarters of an hour, that is, half an hour later, Zhong Dewu led the first batch of thousands of thieves and prisoners to appear on the mountain road not far away.

After another quarter of an hour or so, the vanguard of the thieves' prisoners had arrived in the trumpet-shaped position arranged by Li Bei's musketeers.

The thieves had not eaten or drunk for two days and one night, and at this time they faltered and dizzily followed, and those who walked in front saw the brightly lit fence in the distance, thinking that it was a newly erected camp.

Some even thought that there would be food and water in the newly established camp, and although they were half-dead, they were reluctant to stop, hoping to arrive at the newly established "camp" in the distance as soon as possible.

Without shouting or guiding from the front, the detachments were captured by a long line of thieves, and without stopping they passed through the open positions of the officers and musketeers, entered the rather spacious fenced passage, and stumbled forward.

The first group of thieves, two or three thousand prisoners, had just entered the passage, followed by a second group, and then a third group appeared on the ramp not far away.

The fourth and fifth groups had already left the prisoner camp five miles away, and under the guidance of the musketeers led by Li Wenyun, they were heading towards this side.

By the time the second group of thieves entered the passage surrounded by logs, the first vanguard had reached the edge of the pit.

At this time, the part of the thieves who were in the forefront of the lucid army had already noticed that something was wrong, and found that there was not a newly erected camp at all, but a wide deep trench, and even a deep trench was not enough to describe it.

After all, in front of anyone's camp, there will not be such a trench as wide as 200 steps!

Soon, some of the sharp-eyed thief captives screamed in silence, because some of the people who were walking in front had already been pushed down the pit by the crowd of people behind.

"That's not right! It's a trap! It's a trap! ”

"The officers and soldiers of the dog day are going to kill us!"

A burst of hoarse shouts soon followed, but it was too late.

The archers placed on the excavated earth were guarding the end of the fenced passage, and at the end of the passage was a pre-set entrance to a deep pit, and the thief captives had no way to escape from them except to be pushed forward.

And those thieves who screamed were soon shot to death by the archers who stood on top of the mounds, and then pushed or dragged into the pit by those in front or behind.

Including those who fell into the pit and stayed in place and did not move forward, they would also be mercilessly shot by the official archers.

And some of the thieves who accidentally fell into the pit were still lucky, thinking that although this was not a normal camp, maybe this was a dungeon or water dungeon prepared by the official army for the captives.

Some of the captives, who had been thirsty for two days and one night, accidentally fell into the deep pit and found that there were many puddles in it, and immediately lay on the ground and drank water.

The first batch of thief prisoners in front had already fallen into the deep pit, and the follow-up thief army prisoner brigade three or four miles away was still swarming forward.

In this way, thousands of thieves were captive, and step by step they fell into the deep pit and came to their own end.