"Okay, then add three mules!" Bai Wang's teeth were about to be crushed.

"Then thank you Lord Bai!" Li Zicheng arched his hand, and after a while, the animal was brought over, Li Zicheng watched his subordinates put the armor and luggage on the back of the animal, and the group was ready to set off. Before leaving, Li Zicheng suddenly stopped, turned around and asked, "Lord Bai, if your lord has any other orders, how can you inform me?" ”

"In the last few days of each month, you send someone to this fort with one, and naturally someone will tell you!" Bai Wang took out a piece of copper talisman from his arms and handed it over, Li Zicheng saw that it was a copper eagle cut through it, he knew that there should be half a piece, and if the two sides were matched, it would count, so he nodded and took it into his arms and turned around to beat the horse and left.

Li Zicheng beat the horse and walked for a while, and found that the mount was a little strange, and jumped down to take a look only to find that the horse had no iron nails on one of its hooves. He had to unsaddle his horse and carry the contents of the horse to the other animals. When Li Zicheng cleaned up, he found that the twenty people were standing aside, looking at him coldly, and seeing everyone like this, Li Zicheng couldn't help but sigh.

Outside Ganquan City, there was a mess, and the moat near the drawbridge had been filled with corpses. Six or seven paces to the left of the gate, there was a pile of shards of wood, the remains of a rudimentary version of a battering ram. The thieves tore down a squire's house, used thick beams and pillars as battering rams, and used the coffin that the squire had prepared for himself to build a small mobile wooden shed to protect the people who carried the battering rams. Whether it was the boiling water, throwing stones or arrows from the castle tower, they could not help the thieves who were protected under the cowhide wooden shed, and finally Liu Guoneng came up with a countermeasure - he ordered the step stone of the city gate tower to be lifted above the battering ram and smashed it hard, and the falling stones smashed the wooden shed and the people inside to pieces. Several crows jumped up and down on top of the pile, pecking at the flesh and brains oozing from the shards, making unpleasant cries from time to time.

On the hillock, Li Guo watched all this. His right arm was wrapped in a white cloth, and blood was faintly oozing from it, and his face was pale, no better than the dead people lying on the ground. He launched two attacks in three hours, and the only thing he found was more than a hundred corpses on the ground, and twice as many wounded. Liu Guoneng proved that he did not waste time in the thief, he knew everything about every trick Li Guo came up with, and cracked them one by one. and also took advantage of Li Guo's inattention to lead a small group of cavalry to rush out of the hidden gate and launch a flank attack, forcing Li Guo to fight in person before repelling it, and also injured his right arm.

"Chief. It's getting late! Is it—" A small leader asked in a low voice, Li Guo snorted coldly, and did not speak, he knew very well what his subordinates meant. The defending side has the protection of the city wall, so that the strong men can be on duty on the city wall at night, and the soldiers can sleep at ease, while the attacking side is easy to be attacked by the enemy at night if it does not retreat, unless it is a siege overnight. Otherwise, it would be unwise to stay.

"Go, take the wounded brethren with you!" Li Guo finally gave the order.

At the head of the city, seeing the thieves leaving, the county order breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to Liu Guoneng on the side, he smiled and said, "Thanks to Liu Garrison this time, this official will definitely show the merits of Lord Ming to the army." ”

"Thank you, county!" Liu Guoneng was secretly happy in his heart, like most traitors, Liu Guoneng at this time was extremely eager to wash away the filth on his body with the blood of his previous comrades.

"No thanks!" The county commander laughed: "Liu Shoubei." At present, the northwest of the imperial court is troublesome, and it is a good time for a brave warrior like you to make a contribution. Liu Cheng and Liu Zhentai were only a hundred households two years ago, but now they are the deputy chief soldiers of Yansui Town. The dignified second-class member of the imperial court, Lord Liu, you have to seize the opportunity! ”

Hearing that the county order compared himself with Liu Cheng, Liu Guoneng couldn't help but be secretly happy in his heart, but he pretended to be humble on his face: "Liu Zhentai is brave and brave, and the army is omnipotent, he is a model for my generation of martial artists, how can a villain be compared." ”

The county commander smiled slightly, and suddenly asked: "As the saying goes, '********', I see that this gang of thieves has suffered a lot of casualties, and their morale must have declined greatly, why didn't Liu Garrison lead his troops out of the city to pursue them and wipe them out?" “

Hearing the county order say this, Liu Guoneng showed a trace of embarrassment on his face, and after thinking for a while, he asked, "Do you know that one of the thieves is called 'Cao Cao'?" ”

"Oh?" The county commander smiled: "There is still a name for this?" Presumably that's not his real name, right? ”

"Not bad!" Liu Guoneng said with a smile: "Just like the villain's previous 'bandit name', this thief's real name is Luo Rucai, because he is cunning and wise on weekdays, and often has unexpected moves, he got a nickname of Cao Cao among the thieves, and this Luo Rucai called himself 'Cao Cao', and after a long time, others have forgotten his real name, but they all call him Cao ****." “

When the county commander heard this, he also understood what Liu Guoneng meant, and said with a smile: "Liu Shoubei, are you afraid that this is Cao Cao's trap?" ”

"My lord, that Cao Cao and a tiger besieging the city are very close on weekdays, Cao Cao is cunning and wise, a tiger is fierce and good at fighting, the two are embarrassed, and they are the leader of a group of thieves. A tiger is here today, and I think that Cao Cao is probably also nearby. ”

Seeing that what Liu Guoneng said was also reasonable, the county commander smiled and said: "Since this is the case, then the official will not say much, Liu Shoubei, you should be self-controlled!" ”

Liu Guoneng hurriedly arched his hand and said, "Thank you for your understanding!" ”

After Liu Guoneng sent him off to the city, he immediately summoned his men and ordered: "You take two people to the city, cut off the heads of the thieves, and prepare to ask for merit from the Hong Army!" ”

Li Guo attacked Ganquan without breaking it, so he had to join forces with Cao Cao and continue eastward, preparing to cross the Yellow River east into Shanxi, while Liu Guoneng led his troops to chase behind, and kept a half-day journey, killing a small group of peasant soldiers who had fallen behind, and asking Hong Chengchou for credit with his head. He is very familiar with the laws of action of the peasant army, and he is very meticulous, and several times Cao Cao and Li Guo wanted to set a trap to destroy this follower, but Liu Guoneng saw it, but it was unsuccessful. In this way, in mid-November, Cao Cao and Li Guo finally entered the west bank of the Yellow River in Yichuan County, and to Li Guo's disappointment, although the Yellow River in front of him already had a thin layer of ice on the riverbank, its thickness was still far from enough for the army to cross the river.

"How can this be, isn't it frozen on the river at this time of the year in previous years?" Li Guo's face was full of anxiety. It's no wonder that he is like this, during this period of time, Liu Guoneng chased behind, and there was no time to divide the troops to collect food, the food in the army was almost eaten, if it was blocked by Hong Chengchou's army in the narrow strip west of the Yellow River, the situation would be very bad.

"Brother Li, don't be too anxious!" Cao Cao said with a smile: "The time of this river closure is different every year, and even if the river is closed, it will not be able to go to the ice immediately, so let's do it." You and I will let the sentry ride probe along the riverbank to see if there are any boats to cross the river! ”

"That's it!" Li Guo sighed, called a few of his subordinates, asked them to search along the riverbank, and found a high ground with Cao Cao to camp and let the sentry posts rest. To their disappointment, the scouts who came back in the evening told them that there were no big boats everywhere they went, only two or three rafts and small boats for fishing.

"Rafts and boats for fishing?" Li Guo was immediately furious: "I and Leader Cao have a total of more than 3,000 horses and horses, so when will we get a few rafts and boats?" Isn't it that you guys are lazy? Didn't go far and came back? ”

"Never!" Several sentry spies called him unanimous in unison, claiming that he had walked at least more than 20 miles, but he had not found any boats in the villages along the river, and Cao Cao persuaded on the side: "Brother Li should not be too anxious. I don't think they lied, maybe they let the officials and soldiers take it away, you and I can calm down and always come up with a way. ”

"The big boss is right!" A sentry hurriedly said, "I heard in a village that there is a fort more than twenty miles from here. There are boats there! ”

"Why didn't you say it earlier!" Li Guo was surprised and delighted when he heard this, and hurriedly scolded.

"Chief, I just heard. I haven't seen it lightly, how dare I talk nonsense? Speaking of this, the sentry paused slightly, looked at Li Guo's face before whispering: "The village said that the fort was very strong, even a few hundred men and horses could not capture it, and there were also clippers from the government. ”

"Enough!" Li Guo interrupted his prayer, turned to Cao Cao and said, "It seems that this crossing of the river landed on this fort." ”

"Looks like this boat is not easy to take!" The next day, Cao Cao stood on the hillock, his voice low as if he was talking to himself. Li Guo on the side did not speak, but from his ugly face, it was not difficult to see that there was a hard bone in front of him.

As a front-line soldier, Cao Cao was all too familiar with the thing in front of him—not the kind of fortifications built to protect the inhabitants, but the kind of beacons that were built to protect the enemy from a hundred times his size in the first place. This thing is actually a 15-meter-high, top-of-10-meter-square rammed earth mountain, dig a deep pit that can only accommodate one person in the center of the top of the hill and lead to the bottom, and then make a hole from the side, and at the top of the hill there are food, water, arrows, houses and firewood necessary for fires. The soldiers lived in the house under the mountain on weekdays, and once a large number of enemy troops approached, the soldiers guarding the beacon would burrow into the mountain from the hole, climb to the top of the mountain from the rope ladder, and then collect the rope ladder and light the beacon fire on it. Although this beacon looks very crude, unless you have a lot of special equipment, you can't attack it even with dozens of times the number of troops. The passage inside the beacon is very narrow, only one person can go up and down, there is no place to erect a ladder, there is a strong woman with a long wooden stick on it, and no number of people below can go up; If you want to ambush and attack the city from all sides, but the top of the ten meters square dirt mountain, around a circle is less than thirty meters, even if there are 10,000 people, at the same time can go into battle only thirty or fifty people, the defenders are condescending, if you want to take it down, you have to lose three or five hundred lives, nothing can be obtained; If it is besieged, there will be only twenty or thirty people above, and there will be less food for less people, and it will not be a problem to save a little to support for two or three months. Therefore, when the Tartars on the border see this kind of beacon, they usually do not spend their efforts in vain to attack, and they just give up when they go around. This kind of fortification, which does not take into account the protection of the surrounding inhabitants, is extremely rare in the interior, but it is not known that it has been encountered here. The beacon was located at the base of a small peninsula jutting into the water, and the pier was at the end of the peninsula, and the entire pier was threatened by the guards on the earthen platform.

"Why don't we attack immediately, take him by surprise, and go directly to the dock to grab the boat?" Li Guo asked.

"It's hard! That thing is plugged in the opening, and there must be someone shooting arrows down there when we go by! Cao Cao shook his head: "But with this thing, the guards should have discovered us." “

As if to confirm Cao Cao's guess, a long horn came from there, and then a straight wolf smoke also rose from the top of the beacon, and soon, a column of smoke also rose in the distance downstream, and the smoke column continued to rise, connecting into a line, which was spectacular.

"So fast!" It was the first time for Li Guo to see such a spectacular scene, and he couldn't help but be speechless.

"Damn, which son of a bitch even got this thing up, if it weren't for daylight, Lao Tzu would have thought that he would have returned to the side wall in his dream!" Cao Cao smiled bitterly, he spat and said: "The beacon fire has spread, reinforcements will arrive sooner or later, we have to hurry!" ”

"That's what the big boss said!" Li Guo jumped on his horse and shouted, "Follow me and grab the boat!" “

With Li Guo's loud shout, a small group of cavalry rushed down the mound and rushed towards the dock, where the people had already seen the thief, and they shouted in panic and fled to their boats, trying to escape to the safety of the river. Some impatient people could not even wait to use their pennies and oars, but struggled to jump into the river with a thin layer of ice, completely ignoring the sharp edge of the ice to cut their hands and feet, and struggling to push the boat.

However, compared with the speed of the boatman, Li Guo's cavalry was still faster, and he rushed to the dock despite the arrows and lead bullets shot from the top of the earthen platform, drove his war horse into the river, and with a single knife cut down a sailor who was struggling to push the boat in the water, and then jumped on the horse's back, brandishing a bloody steel knife and shouting: "Do not move, whoever dares to move will die!" Listen to me honestly! Under the threat of Li Guo, the sailors on the ship lowered their oars one after another.

Inspired by the brave behavior of the leader LinkedIn, the thieves' cavalry took control of six or seven large boats, and the rest fled into the river, but the lead bullets fired from the top of the earthen platform not far away became more and more violent, and from time to time people were shot and fell. Li Guo hurriedly forced the boatmen to row the boat downstream, and as they got farther and farther away from the earthen platform, the swishing sound of the lead bullet passing overhead gradually turned into a muffled sound of falling into the water, which showed that the Ming army on the earthen platform could no longer threaten them. (To be continued.) )