Puzhou City, in the era when traffic relied on people's legs and horses' hooves, was an extremely important place, for no other reason, the terrain was critical.

The city is close to the Yellow River, less than ten miles away from the city, you can see the rushing and roaring water of the Yellow River, standing on the riverside, looking at the opposite bank in the distance, Pujindu, the extremely important ferry of the Yellow River, and Tongguan City, which guards the ferry, are impressive.

It is precisely because Puzhou City and Tongguan are opposite to the Yellow River, one side belongs to Shaanxi, and the other side belongs to Shanxi, the Pujindu pontoon bridge connecting the two provinces is like a thumping traffic artery, which closely links the two pieces of loess together.

Li Yukui, the former governor of Ningxia, at the end of the second year of Yongli, gathered tens of thousands of people to start an incident in Puzhou, deceived the city gate, killed all the Qing court officials in the city, announced that he would return to the Ming Dynasty anyway, set up an official office, set up a banner of righteousness, and persuaded the Qing court to guard the Tong Pass at the same time anyway, and put this critical pass that pinched the neck of the three provinces into the hands of the Ming court.

Li Yukui is nearly 60 years old, for the official integrity, for the benefit of one party, after because of the court party dispute, was maliciously impeached, forced to resign and return to the field, in the township to build bridges and roads, soup porridge to help the world, so the reputation is very high, when he climbed the high flag, kill the official anyway, a moment should be gathered, wave sleeves to cover the sun.

He scattered all his family wealth, ordered his son Li Hong to build weapons, set up a military system, and established himself according to Puzhou City, and ordered his son-in-law Wang Chenglong to take over Tongguan and reorganize the armament for the future.

He always paid attention to the situation in Shanxi and was ready to go north to resist the Qing Dynasty at any time, but Li Yukui knew that his strength was limited, and the army composed of rebellious peasants could still rely on numbers to crush the local puppet army, but when he really encountered the regular army of the Manchu Dynasty, it was impossible to resist, only to unite vertically and horizontally, and find a hug on his thighs.

There are two roads in front of him, one is to move closer to Jiang Huang, and huddle together to keep warm, but Jiang Huang expressed his opposition to the envoy he sent, Jiang Huang believes that the righteous army on the periphery of Shanxi will gather in Datong, there will be all kinds of harm and no benefit, so that the Qing army can completely besiege Datong with heavy troops, and Datong will lose all the time, so it is better to scatter in all directions, harass and destroy, so that the Qing army can not live in peace.

And the second way is to ask for help from Shaanxi, Li Yukui is located on the main road, well-informed, Xi'an City is broken, Wu Sangui fled to Luoyang The news he knew at the first time, at that time he had not cut his braids and rebelled.

So as soon as Jiang Huang's road was broken, he immediately sent his son Li Hong to Wang Huan to present a map of Tongguan, expressing his strong desire for Wang Shi.

After waiting for a few months, Wang Huan finally replied, the content was very brief, to the effect that Wang Huan, the general soldier of Daming Ping and Sichuan-Shaanxi, would send troops to Shanxi by holy order, and asked Li Yukui to prepare.

Li Yukui was very happy, because since the beginning of this year, with the failure of Jiang Jianxun's military operation in Taiyuan, the Mongolian cavalry of Prince Jingjin Nikan has begun to haunt near Puzhou, and there have been skirmishes with the sentinels he sent several times.

A little further, the anti-Qing uprising in Henan was also wiped out by Wu Sangui's three subordinates and five divisions, and the heads hanging on the high pole at the head of Luoyang City were heard to be thousands, and the king of Pingxi was sharpening his sword, ready to peep at Tongguan.

At this critical moment, the Shaanxi Ming Army finally came, like a raging flame in the night, which made Li Yukui's heart settle down.

Daming Ping Liang waited for Wang Huan, this name has long spread all over the banks of the Yellow River, I heard that this person has a hideous face, a tiger with a bear on his back, can tear lions and tigers alive, swallow cattle and sheep alive, and can open the stele and crack the stone, and the sword can not be close, in short, it is almost flying away.

Li Yukui is a person who has seen the world, so he naturally doesn't believe these rumors, but he also has great expectations in his heart, Daming has been cowardly for too long, and he needs a Yue Fei-style hero too much to boost the morale of the people.

Since the beginning of this month, Li Yukui has prepared **** things, moved to live in Tongguan City, and stayed on the Xiguan Guan Tower every day, looking at the way from afar, lest the banner of the Ming Dynasty official army appear in the sky and he did not know it for the first time.

The Yellow River in April, coincides with the frozen water, the dry period of winter causes the riverbed to shrink the appearance is slowly changing, the riverside grassland sends out tender shoots, a piece of greenery, the official road from Shaanxi leans on the Qinling Mountains, leans on the Yellow River, meanders, in the winding path, the merchants come and go endlessly, Tongguan just sandwiches the official road and builds, like a silk thread in the middle of the abrupt knot.

At noon on April 12, Li Yukui was called up from the dinner table by the guards, and was pleasantly surprised to get the news of the arrival of the Ming officials.

Li Yukui was running out of the city, and as soon as he stood outside the city, he saw the advance of the Kuizhou army.

The cavalry of the brigade rushed over, and the bright cavalry spears with white iron armor were like a cloud floating in the sky, which made Li Yukui blink his eyes several times.

The cavalry of the Linzi battalion did not stop at the gate, but entered directly through the city gate, crossed the pontoon bridge from the gate, and set up camp on the other side of the Yellow River. Because of the long journey, the cavalry at the head of each battalion was one man and two horses, which was strengthened according to wartime regulations.

Two thousand horses rumbled past in front of them, the cavalry two in a row, four horses side by side, neat and orderly beating horses, the horses are newly purchased from Mongolia healthy horses, fat and healthy, the cavalry on the horse helmet and armor, eyes do not squint, the spear is raised, the crossbow hangs from the waist, the hunting of the men and horses are one, the shining blade of the gun is murderous, although no one shouts, but there is a sense of intimidation of the people, avoid the people on both sides of the official road to see the lively, very consciously no one dares to speak, have bowed to the ground, peek with respectful and fearful eyes.

After the horses' hooves, a neat line of two foot soldiers drove over.

For this expedition, Wang Huan made a bloody investment, all the rattan armor is no longer used, Kuizhou Military Bureau over the years, has been able to provide high-quality iron armor for every soldier, the iron armor imitates the Ming Dynasty most used Ming light armor manufacturing, Wang Huan increased the area of the chest and back two pieces of armor, like two breastplates, the defense is stronger, but the difficulty of processing has been reduced a lot.

A set of Mingguang armor weighed about sixty catties, which was too heavy to be worn during the march, so Wang Huan only distributed it to the infantry pikemen and sword and shield soldiers and other melee troops, and at the same time stipulated that the march did not need to be worn in full, only cuirass and skirts. However, Rao is like this, and the weight is about thirty pounds, and it takes a lot of effort to wear it for the march.

But when the Ming army wearing white lacquered Mingguang armor appeared in front of Li Yukui, the bearing that seemed to be a heavenly soldier descending to earth immediately convinced him and the Shanxi soldiers beside him.

The Kuizhou army was lined up in two people, the queue was neatly lined up until the distance, the sound of footsteps was like a person, the military boots stepped on the ground, more shocking than the cavalry hooves just past, and tens of thousands of people stepped on the smoke and dust raised on the yellow earth together, straight into the sky.

Rulin's spear and face shield are all standard equipment, standard uniformity, three-foot-long hook and sickle blade and a shield of equal height for one person, all of which show the unique military appearance of the Kuizhou army.

Behind the spear team and the sword and shield hand, there are rows of bird commanders, the bird commanders are all dressed in light chain mail, iron helmets on their heads, the armor is also painted white, and the one-person tall birds are all carried on the left shoulder, holding a crescent axe in the right hand, and there are medicine cartridges and bullet bags hanging on their waists.

And after the foot soldiers, there were teams of cavalry, and there was a large battalion of vehicles that could not be seen at a glance, but Li Yukui didn't have time to look at these, because he saw Wang Huan, who was so conspicuous in the army.

(End of chapter)