Because he received the news that the thieves had invaded Ningzhou and Sanshui, Hong Chengchou had to lead the troops of his own camp to quickly pursue the thieves south.

Ningzhou is located in the southern part of Qingyang Province, while Sanshui County is located in the northwestern part of Xi'an Province. If the thieves go all the way to the hinterland of Xi'an along Ningzhou and Sanshui, the most prosperous area in Shaanxi will be burned by the thieves.

Moreover, Xi'an is densely populated, not as large as the sparsely populated counties of northern Shaanxi. As long as a small group of thieves sneaks in, it is likely that the number of thieves will increase exponentially. (Note 1)

At that time, Shaanxi's excellent situation of suppressing thieves will be turned upside down. Hong Chengchou will also be like the previous trilateral governor Yang He, who will collapse in the last step of exterminating the thieves.

This kind of catastrophic result is absolutely unbearable for Hong Chengchou. Therefore, even if the thieves in Dongchuan were about to be wiped out, Hong Chengchou had to choose to move south at this time.

However, on the way to move the camp, news came, and Hong Chengchou, who received the news, moved back to the camp in Dongchuan's den of thieves, because the crisis he faced had been resolved.

On October 19, the fifth year of Chongzhen (Guiwei), the general Yang Qiyuan attacked the thieves who invaded Ningzhou and beheaded eighty ranks. After that, Hao Linyun, a wall and other thieves still crossed Ningzhou and invaded Sanshui County in Xi'an Prefecture.

This time, the officers and soldiers finally blocked this gang of thieves who intended to enter the hinterland of Xi'an Prefecture, and cut down 212 of them in the Guanjia Cave in Sanshui County. (Note 2)

Thanks to the efforts of many officials and soldiers, the thieves have fled north of Sanshui County in disarray, and the threat of Xi'an has been lifted.

At this time, news also came from the east that Ansai fugitives and others plundered the Hucha area of Xichuan, and Chen Qiyu, the governor of Yansui, sent the general soldier Wang Chengen to attack it.

Taken by the strong military might of the official army, and finally there was a fire fight among the thieves. A city gang was killed by his subordinate Qiao Liulang, and the thieves surrendered to the official army afterwards.

After the Ansai fugitives who tried to regroup in the original territory without mud were destroyed, other bandits in the vicinity also became unsuccessful, so the situation in eastern northern Shaanxi began to stabilize.

There are active performances of officials and troops in all parts of Shaanxi, and Hong Chengchou, who returned to the nest of thieves in Dongchuan with peace of mind, naturally plans to take this opportunity to completely exterminate the remaining thieves in Dongchuan.

So Hong Chengchou began to return to his previous situation, constantly commanding the troops around him to drive away and eliminate the thieves hiding in the mountains.

On November 3, Hong Chengchou summoned the secrets he had sent out to find out the situation of the thieves in Gao's house, and began to inquire about the information of the thieves. "How many thieves are there now entrenched in the Gao family?"

"Lord Hui, plus those who accepted the appeasement but refused to disperse before, and those who could not escape because the army was surrounded on all sides, there are thousands of border thieves in total." Hong Chengchou's spy looked very depressed and haggard, and he dressed like a thief who was chased by the official army and tired of hiding.

"Which thieves are the leaders among the thieves?" Hong Chengchou continued to ask.

"According to the investigation of his subordinates, Marshal Hu, the deputy general of Yuan Ke Tianfei's subordinates, and the leader Tie Lei and others have been combined into a group. The former deputy general of Liu's five subordinates served as a lama, and the leaders Tan Xian, Liu Huangying and others were a group. In addition, Qi Yixun's defection accomplices Xu Dawolf, Qi Feibao, Zhang and other scattered thieves from all over the world merged into one group. Because the subordinates have limited time to infiltrate, they can only find out about such thieves, and I hope your forgiveness. The subordinates have been sorted out, please take a look at it. ”

After briefly introducing a few thieves, the spy presented Hong Chengchou with a document of the thief's information that he had organized.

After Hong Chengchou took it, he saw that in addition to some other rogue affiliations, there were also some other rogue personnel. For example, Yan Qing, Huang Chao, Zhang Fei, Eagle Ling Arrow, Mountain Patrol Tiger, Black Evil God, Zhang Zongbing, Head Enemy General, etc., are all some guys who are a little famous among the Dongchuan thieves. (Note 3)

"You've done a good job, let's go down and get some rest."

Hong Chengchou read the document, talked to the spy about a few questions, and let the spy go down to rest. This spy was previously used as a spy and infiltrated the thief stronghold by the Gao family. After so many days of hard work, the information obtained is indeed very important to the officers and soldiers.

Previously, Zhang Mengjin was a little puzzled about the intentions of the trilateral governors, why Hong Chengchou did not move. And he didn't care much about the two or three hundred people who surrendered one after another in the camp, and even the governor let these people flee to Gao's house again.

Now if Zhang Mengjin is present and watches, he may be able to figure it out directly.

It turned out that Hong Chengchou did it on purpose, and he didn't move because he wanted those thieves hiding in various ravines to all receive the news and go to Gao's house to meet.

After all, if the mountains of Dongchuan stretch for hundreds of miles, if all the thieves hidden in the deep mountains and old forests are found out one by one, then the workload and difficulty of the work are really too difficult for the officers and soldiers who are attacking this time. Judging from the time alone, it is difficult to accept, and the food and salaries of the officers and soldiers cannot be supplied smoothly.

And to let the two or three hundred thieves who received it, causing most of them to flee, was to let these people go and pass the news to the remnants of the thieves in Dongchuan. At the same time, it is also an opportunity to create an opportunity for his secret agents to infiltrate Gao's house to find out the information of the thieves and remnants.

Now that the thieves are allowed for the time being, they can be gathered together and hunted down. After the official army's advance and suppression were over, Dongchuan, the bandits who had not been able to settle down after several years of gathering the power of the whole Qin, could finally be stopped.

After the spies left, Hong Chengchou summoned two generals, Cao Wenzhao, the chief soldier of Lintao, and Yang Jiamo, the general soldier of Gansu. Through the information gathered by the secret agents, he began to discuss with the two commanders the strategy of entering the Gao family's thieves.

Cao Wenzhao, the most famous Lintao general soldier recently, after listening to Hong Chengchou's introduction to Gao Jiapan, he only thought about it a little and took the lead in speaking.

"Your Excellency the Governor, now that the official army has been in suppression of the Dongchuan thieves for more than a month, in order to avoid the fatigue of the veteran soldiers and the difficulty of food and grass, the last general thinks that he will immediately start to clear the thieves in the Gao family, and recruit the elite soldiers and strong generals in the official army, it is best to finish his work in one battle."

Yang Jiamo of Gansu Town's outstanding performance during this period also washed away the humiliation he had suffered in Iron Horn City before. At this time, when he heard Cao Wenzhao's proposal, he also very much agreed with the suggestion of this tacit partner of Lintao Town.

"The last general seconded the proposal, the soldiers are fast, it is best to start advancing as soon as possible."

"This governor thinks the same way, how many soldiers and horses do the two generals think should be gathered, and how to start the attack?"

Hong Chengchou originally thought so, because the officials in charge of raising food and wages in the rear had already reported their worries to the governors of the three sides, which required Hong Chengchou's serious attention. Therefore, after he heard that the two chiefs under him had the same idea, he immediately began to discuss the plan with the two of them.

The three important ministers of Shaanxi in the Ming Dynasty quickly devised a plan to attack the thieves on the fourth day of the first month of November, that is, tomorrow.

In their plan, they are ready to gather all the elite soldiers and generals to carry out a sneak attack on Gaojiaban through a rapid march. If the sneak attack fails, it will take advantage of the huge superiority in the combat strength of the officers and troops to launch a strong attack.

And in the next big drama of attack, Zhang Mengjin, the military attache who performed well, will also appear on the battlefield with his troops. His soldiers, who were tired of searching the mountains and recruiting thieves, were finally able to stretch their bones.

PS: Note 1: The reason why the thieves in the late Ming Dynasty developed rapidly in Henan later, in addition to the fact that many elite troops of the official army were annihilated by the Eight Banners, a more important reason is that the population density of Henan Province is not comparable to that of northern Shaanxi.

Note 2: In the fifth volume of "Huailing Liukou Always Recorded", the number of beheadings in Ningzhou is eighty, and the number of beheadings in Guanjiadong is not mentioned. In the ninety-second volume of "Guoyi", the number of beheadings in Ningzhou is seventy-eight, and the number of beheadings in Guanjiadong is two hundred and twelve. Because the names of the officers and generals of Ningzhou are clearly mentioned in "Huailu", the author uses the records in "Huailu" for the time and the number of Ningzhou beheadings in this article. It should be noted that other historical materials, including "Huailu" and "Guoyi", other historical materials such as "Suikou Jiluo" all put the battles of Gaojiapan, Ningzhou, and Sanshui together. He also set the time of the Battle of Gaojiaban on October 4 (Wujin), which is an erroneous record, but it should actually be November 4.