On March 11, the fifth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Mengjin was leading his soldiers to try to recover his strength during a short break. In these days, the imperial court has repeatedly let Zhang Mengjin and his gang march non-stop, which makes all the soldiers of Yansui Town, including Zhang Mengjin, feel unhappy.

Originally, they received an order, but due to the unstable situation on Yansui West Road, they urgently needed to return to Ningsai. Zhang Mengjin and others, who originally had the idea of retrieving the field in Iron Horn City, were also worried that something would happen to their own territory, so they beckoned their subordinates to prepare to return to defense.

However, Zhou Qiang, who saw the strong combat power of Zhang Mengjin and his gang, resolutely opposed them returning to Yansui West Road. Sunday Qiang believes that the bandits of Iron Horn City, whose power has increased greatly, are likely to launch a large-scale attack on all parts of the prefecture and county of Qingyang Province. And the Gan soldiers and Ning soldiers have suffered a lot of losses, and at present, Qingyang Mansion is very much in need of this Yan army to stay in the town.

On Sunday, Qiang and Dai Junen quarreled, and naturally Zhang Mengjin, a small garrison, acted without authorization. Therefore, Zhang Mengjin, who had just walked out of the camp not long ago, had to take his subordinates back to the station he had just left.

It's just that Sunday Qiang couldn't continue to fight, and after carefully investigating the reasons for his previous defeat, Wu Fu first impeached Yang Jiamo and He Huchen, two generals, and then focused his firepower on Sunday Qiang. Recent signs suggest that Sunday Qiang, the right-hand man of the former trilateral governor, is no longer immune to his dismissal.

Since no one argued with him, Dai Junen issued another order. Therefore, Zhang Mengjin took his Yanjun soldiers and embarked on the road back to Ningsai.

But this time, Zhang Mengjin and his gang, who had already made preparations, still failed to return to their station. Because the king of Guyuan Province participated in politics and Pingliang Dao Xu Bingbei, they both expressed to Dai Bingxian their willingness to borrow troops to defend. In order to prevent the expansion of the scope of the bandits, the soldiers of Yansui Town moved back and forth to various transportation arteries.

Later, Zhu Chun, the prefect of Qingyang Mansion, intervened again, claiming that the thieves were plotting the city and urgently needed to extend troops to help defend it. If the city falls, the impact will be extremely significant, and Wu Fu, the inspector of the imperial history, also supports Zhu Chun.

Therefore, the officers and soldiers of Ninsai once again changed the direction of the march. When they arrived in Qingyang, Cao Wenzhao's army also arrived the next day. Zhang Mengjin, who felt a little hurt about the court's extraordinarily behavior, showed all the fatigue posture of their group to the patrol press Wu Fu to watch.

Wu Fu saw the tired appearance of the soldiers in Yansui Town, and said to Zhang Mengjin and others very considerately: "Now let's rest and recuperate, so as to wait for the attack." ”

After that, Wu Fu said that he would let Zhang Mengjin and the others rest for a few days, and began to prepare for the plan to attack Iron Horn City again in the future.

However, on the eighth day of the first month of March, Zhu Chun's subordinates received news that the thieves began to camp in the area of the Pu River.

The officers and soldiers could not turn a blind eye, so in order to fight the thieves, the troops from all walks of life began to move again. Zhang Mengjin also had to gather his cavalry, and after converging with the Ningxia Town cavalry led by He Huchen and Cao Wenzhao's troops, everyone marched towards the Puhe River in the fourth watch.

After marching overnight, they arrived at Yima Pass on the ninth day of the first month, and joined Yang Jiamo, the general soldier of Gansu, and Zhao Guangyuan, the garrison of the new battalion of Qingyang, and others, and then arrived at Wangzhai on the tenth day of the next day. But then they received news that the thieves had left the Puhe River for the West Trench and were stationed in three large battalions.

Staff officer Yu Shibo caught the spy Fei Biao halfway, and learned that Li Er, Du San, Yang Puppet General Soldier, Red Army Friends and other bandit leaders had secretly sent people to infiltrate Zhenyuan County. By bribing the inner response in the city, they planned to capture the county seat of Zhenyuan in one fell swoop on the 11th, and Fei Biao was sent to inquire about the news of the officers and soldiers.

In the end, after the generals of the Ming army discussed, Cao Wenzhao and Yang Jiamo drove their troops forward and attacked the thieves by surprise from the big and small square mountains. And Zhang Mengjin and his gang also attacked together with the two generals.

……

"Damn, if there is no shadow of the thief this time, let's just go back to Ningsai. If this continues, our brothers and horses will be exhausted to death. ”

Fan Shunjiang finished inspecting his war horse, returned to Zhang Mengjin's side and began to complain. He hadn't been able to get a good rest during his recent operation, and his eyes were bloodshot for a long time. Moreover, his beloved war horse also lost a lot of weight at this time, which made Fan Shunjiang feel very distressed.

Zhang Zhaoen, who usually speaks the most unobtrusively, was also very tired from sitting on the side at this time, and he began to complain after Fan Shunjiang's words: "Wu Fu's dog days before, obviously promised to let us rest for a while." But they didn't give us all the food and grass, and for just a few days, we didn't have a good rest, and we spent all our time leading the horses to the field to find food. How can we find anything in this damn season, Uncle Eight, do we continue to wander around like fools. ”

"What's the matter, if you don't clean up those thieves in Iron Horn City, you will let such a bunch of people who are grabbing food gather more and more. Whether it's Ningsai or Jinding Mountain, we can't be comfortable. This time, everyone will grit their teeth and endure first, clean up these thieves as soon as possible, and let's go back to rest as soon as possible. Although Zhang Mengjin was not happy in his heart, he still knew that the overall situation was important, and comforted his leaders to continue to endure.

At this time, Li Dan walked over, and he was also very tired, and he didn't say much, but just handed over the dry food in his hand to a few leaders.

After Zhang Mengjin took the dry food, he asked Li Dan: "How are Wan Kui and Meng Guang inspecting?" ”

After Li Dan swallowed the dry food in his mouth, he replied: "There are two more war horses that can't bear it, and if you reluctantly continue to run after that, most of them will be wasted." The third master and the second brother Zhang are now choosing replacement pack horses, but most of them have no hope, and those pack horses are almost overwhelmed. ”

Zhang Mengjin and his gang set out from Ningsai with more than 300 horsemen and nearly 400 horses and mules of various kinds. From the earliest killing of Huang Youcai and the subsequent invasion of Iron Horn City, as well as the subsequent repeated transfers. During this time, there have been quite a few casualties among the Ninser soldiers.

Combined with the non-combat attrition of various tired patients, a total of more than seventy soldiers were reduced. At the same time, because of the lack of food and grass, the horses were heavily served. When they began to attack again this time, they could only select 213 cavalry and 265 military horses.

And in this tired march, many of the horses carefully bred by Jindingshan were overwhelmed by the heavy labor and died, which made the big bosses and other leaders of Jindingshan very distressed.

If it's just a pack horse or a horse, you can still find an opportunity to grab it from the Mongols and thieves. It's just that the war horses of the Jinding Mountain cavalry were only put into service after careful training and training. These lost cavalry mounts could not be replenished simply by finding some sturdy mounted horses.

And it's not easy to accept emotionally, and after getting along for a long time, the Jindingshan cavalry all regard their partners as very important. For them, former thieves whose life values are somewhat distorted, the importance of the Ming people, who have little to do with them, is definitely not comparable to their war horses.

"Go and talk to Wan Kui, and the horses that can't run will be gathered up by him and the people behind. Don't reluctantly participate in the battle this time, don't care about Cao Wenzhao and Yang Jiamo's verbosity. We still have to take good care of this little bit of family money that we have saved up with great difficulty. If we consume too much this time, we won't have much weight in talking in the future. Originally, Zhang Mengjin and Cai Zhongming took turns to attack, so they could get enough rest. It's just that this time a series of delays and transfers, far away from the logistics and supply of Jinding Mountain, their losses in this period of time are too great.

Li Dan nodded, and left with dry food in his mouth. Others stopped talking and took advantage of this short break to try to regain some energy. Most of the sentry cavalry sent out by Cao Wenzhao will be back soon, and they will definitely start a surprise attack on the rogue thieves in the western trench.

The thieves were outnumbered and morale was strong, and if the soldiers of Ninsai could recover a little more energy, even if they could not wave their weapons a few more times, they would be able to find more cold arrows shooting at them.

Not long after, the sentry who had gone to inquire about the thieves returned. At present, there are three bandits in three camps, with a total number of about 10,000 people, and they are confronting the two official armies that rushed to intercept them from the southwest.

These officers and soldiers who came from other directions were led by two military lords, they were Wang Zhenqi of Guyuan Province and Xu Ruhan of Guanxi Province. In addition to the Neiding under their hands, there are also many officers and soldiers led by Wang Xingshan, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Chinese army, Jin Guixiang, the commander of the capital, and Yu Kun, the guerrilla army.

The attention of the thieves is now focused on Wang Zhenqi and Xu Ruhan. The troops of Cao Wenzhao and others were not found. According to the description of the sentry cavalry, Cao Wenzhao and the others were in front of the old camp of thieves. It's just an old camp of thieves stationed in the West Trench, and it's not easy to attack by leaning on the mountain. And it looks like there are about two or three thousand thieves inside, and there are even cannons captured from the official army, which is not a bone to gnaw on.

After receiving the news of the sentry horse's report, Cao Wenzhao was not intimidated by the apparent strength of the thief, but was very excited. Because Cao Wenzhao knew that Wu Fu's false news had successfully deceived the thieves.

In fact, Wu Fu was in Qingyang Mansion before, and publicly released news that the officers and soldiers should rest and recuperate. It was not really because Zhang Mengjin and other officers and soldiers were too tired, but in order to deceive the thieves and spies who were mixed in the city and make the thieves brigade slow down.

Now that the deception plan has been successful, Cao Wenzhao and other officers and troops have finally paid off for their hardships in these days. Therefore, Cao Wenzhao immediately summoned the other officers and officers of the army who were rushing this time, and announced to them the news that the thieves had not escaped, and that the old camp was not on guard.

After listening to Cao Wenzhao's statement, all the officers, including Zhang Mengjin, were very happy and began to offer suggestions and suggestions to immediately start the raid on the old camp of the thieves.

Taking advantage of everyone's excitement, Cao Wenzhao introduced the situation of the old camp of thieves in Xihao to Yang Jiamo and other officers, and discussed with them the distribution of the next combat tasks.

At the same time, Cao Wenzhao also emphasized that in the subsequent battles, the officers and soldiers could not covet the livestock of the thieves, could not compete for the women among the thieves, and could not compete with each other for the heads of the thieves. At the same time, it should be noted that thieves are accustomed to using ambushes, and officers and soldiers must be careful not to fall for the trick. Those who violate military orders will be severely punished.

Cao Wenzhao said very seriously, and Yang Jiamo, the chief soldier of Gansu, also supported it on the side, and the other officers naturally said that they would obey the order. After completing the pre-battle preparations, Cao Wenzhao immediately ended the rest of the officers and troops, gathered the troops and began the tense march again.

Finally, on the 11th day of March in the fifth year of Chongzhen, Cao Wenzhao and others, who had rushed to the battlefield through rapid maneuvering, finally launched a surprise attack on the old camp of thieves in the west trench.

At this time, the thieves were concentrating their attention on the two armies to the southwest, unaware of the impending attack behind them.