"Collect the troops? Captive? Wang Yongzhen and Gao Youcai were stunned at the same time, and then they were confused.

Wang Yongzhen was anxious, and asked as soon as he opened his mouth: "Big brother, if you don't fight and shrink back, it's inevitable that you're cowardly, so many of us ......."

Before he finished speaking, Wang Yongqiang glanced at him, turned around, turned his back and left, ignoring him.

Wang Yongzhen and Gao Youcai glanced at each other, and Gao Youcai made a slightly calmer gesture to him, signaling not to say more, the town marshal has his own measure.

Different from Wang Yongzhen, Gao Youcai in addition to Wang Yongqiang's awe, there is also a sincere admiration, the incident in northern Shaanxi, Gao Youcai just beat away the Shenmu County Order, led a group of aborigines in the county to make trouble, if it was not for Wang Yongqiang, he would have been suppressed by the Qing soldiers of Shenmu Road on the East Road, how can there be today.

Seeing that Wang Yongqiang was fighting in the east and west, and won the nineteen states of northern Shaanxi, known as the town commander of northern Shaanxi, contacting the Ming court, fighting against the Qing army, and being a person who did great things, Gao Youcai admired it from the bottom of his heart, and originally thought that he was a local tyrant who was the best man in the world, but there were people outside the sky, and he really didn't know the world's affairs without going out, and he didn't know the outsiders if he didn't study.

Gao Youcai had no objection to Wang Yongqiang's decision, no matter whether he could understand the reason for this decision or not, so at this time, Wang Yongqiang heard that the Qing soldiers would stop fighting as soon as they arrived, and he had no doubts.

He pulled Wang Yongzhen, followed behind Wang Yongqiang, and walked to the bottom of the hill.

Wang Yongqiang jumped on the war horse led by his own soldiers, stood quietly and solemnly in front of Lerma Mountain, listened to the sound of gongs in the Chinese army, and looked at the "uproar" of the people who withdrew from the city of Xi'an in the distance, and pondered.

After half a ring, he turned his head sideways to Wang Yongzhen and asked, "Do you still remember the old incident when we followed Sun Duchen to encircle and suppress the thieves, and Zu Dashou, the deputy chief soldier of Liaodong, led the troops to help?" ”

Gao Youcai was at a loss, he had never joined the army, of course he didn't know, Wang Yongzhen immediately replied: "Remember, at that time, during the Chongzhen period, my brother was still a general banner under the command of the Yulin General Soldier, and I was still a small banner, leading a dozen soldiers to follow the gangsters. ”

Wang Yongqiang nodded, looked at the west with far-reaching eyes, and sighed: "At that time, the thieves were powerful, hundreds of thousands of locusts rushed across the south of Shaanxi and Henan, unable to stop its sharp, Zu Dashou arrived, brought three thousand Guanning iron horses, frontal impact on the thieves' array, invincible like a knife cutting tofu, defeated its army, and then chased out two hundred miles away day and night, people did not unload their armor and horses, beheaded countless thieves, a few sentences drove Li Zicheng out of Shaanxi, if it wasn't for the tightness in Liaodong, the court transferred Zu Dashou back, and the thieves might be gone. ”

Speaking of these, Wang Yongzhen's eyes lit up, and he suddenly recalled the brilliant achievements of the Liaodong cavalry at that time, and Gao Youcai also heard it with straight eyes.

Wang Yongqiang took a deep breath and asked, "Our combat strength today is stronger and who is weaker than the thieves back then?" ”

The two who listened were stunned for a moment, and shook their heads at the same time: "We might as well be thieves."

At that time, Li Zicheng crisscrossed seven provinces, although there were many homeless people under his command, but his family foundation under the pro-military camp and the leaders of the large and small rebel armies was not weak, especially the border military camp dominated by the nine-border soldiers, which was definitely the first-class combat power of the Ming Dynasty at that time, and the Ming army in the idle mainland could not be compared with it at all, his cavalry was one person and two horses, coming and going like the wind, and the current army of the Wang brothers could not be compared with others.

Wang Yongqiang said: "That's right, Li Zicheng couldn't resist Zu Dashou back then, and now we are facing the Liaodong military horses, how can we be the enemy?" Uncle Pingliang has long taught me to follow, and when the Tartar reinforcements are attracted by us, they will immediately form a village to protect themselves, and don't send troops recklessly, Uncle said, as long as we can drag the Qing soldiers under the city of Xi'an, it will be a victory. ”

He sighed and said: "Uncle is far-sighted, if we don't listen to him, I'm afraid that at this time, the Tartars have already set foot in northern Shaanxi, and you and I have already seen the king of Hades!" ”

Wang Yongzhen and Gao Youcai took a breath of cold air together, it turned out that Ping Liangbo had already laid out this chess game, they were all chess pieces, no wonder Wang Yongqiang finally made up his mind to agree to Chen Xiangtang to gather the displaced people to Xi'an, and thought that he had listened to the persuasion of the two of them, but he thought of this layer.

"As long as we can hold on and tie the village here, although the Liaodong Army is strong, we can't wipe out so many of us overnight." Wang Yongqiang saw that the crowd that came back one after another poured into the huge camp, and his battalion supervisor team was constantly driving back some of the displaced people who tried to desert, so he rode forward slowly, and said as he walked: "Uncle did not ask us to take down many cities and kill many people, as long as we contain Wu Sangui, even if the task is completed, after the war, we will be added to the rank and knighted, and we will be rewarded according to merit, and the sin of surrendering and betraying the Ming court can also be wiped away." ”

Wang Yongzhen and Gao Youcai were speechless, of course they couldn't think of this.

"Let's go, let's go on a patrol to reassure the homeless, they are the main force of the force." Wang Yongqiang urged his horse to go and ran to the camp, which was made of rough wood as a fence and a deep ditch as a trench, and was so tightly tied that it was a wooden city within a radius of several miles, and in order to build it, the displaced people cut down almost all the trees on the nearby hills.

……

Half an hour later, Li Benshen and Wang Pingfan arrived at the city of Xi'an.

They did not enter the city, but crossed the west gate, said hello to the city, and went straight to the north gate.

Outside the north gate, the two were startled, the west gate was safe and sound, but here was a mess, dense corpses and craters, arrows all over the ground seemed to make this open land into a wheat field of arrows, the huge nest car was pierced by iron bullets after the remaining wreckage was still smoking flames, close to the city wall, almost nowhere to put their feet, severed arms and limbs and flesh-like corpses everywhere, the stench was so strong that people covered their noses.

Seeing the arrival of reinforcements, there was a cheer in the city, Meng Qiaofang organized some people to open the city gate and come out to carry and burn the corpses, although the weather turned cold, the corpses would still rot and stink after a long time, and it would be troublesome if there was an epidemic.

Li Ben went deep into the city to meet Meng Qiaofang, Wang Pingfan took the men and horses, ran out of five miles, and saw the wooden city that Wang Yongqiang spent tens of thousands of people building for several days.

Wang Pingfan was a little confused at that time, didn't these rebels come to attack the city, why did they build a city? Is it really going to be a protracted war? Do they have that much food?

Running around the wooden city with great might, except for a burst of arrows when the cavalry got too close, half a person in the wooden city never came out, and he was extremely cowardly.

Wang Pingfan's eyes were opened, tens of thousands of people cowered in the wooden city, allowing two thousand cavalry and four thousand horses to parade under their noses, and they didn't even dare to let go of a fart, such a weak army, such a way of fighting, unprecedented.

However, the wooden city is also a city, and the deep ditch outside the city that is a few points wider than the Xi'an moat is an insurmountable obstacle, of course, no matter how fierce Wang Ping Fan is, he has not effectively imitated the courage of the Three Kingdoms Ganning to break into the enemy camp alone, so he shouted a few words in the distance, stayed outside the range of the bow and arrow and scolded a few words, and the Qing army returned to Xi'an City.

The night was calm, there was no movement on either side, the air was frighteningly quiet, but there was a faint restless movement, just like the weather at this time, dark clouds rolling, and the first autumn rain was coming.

(End of chapter)