Chapter Seventy-Four: Slaying the Dragon Son of Heaven

The army of bandits finally drove under the east gate, and when they looked down from the city, they were crowded and dense, and it was estimated that the number of people was not less than 10,000. There are a large number of bandits, not all of them are strong men, the old and the weak are among them, and it is estimated that there are only 30,000 to 40,000 people who can really fight. The rest of the people waited, but they were just a few of them.

Even so, it scared the eunuchs of the city head enough, how to deal with so many people. Governor Zhao Yan, however, was calm and calm, and ordered the archers to prepare, cannonballs, and meet the opponent's attack at any time.

After all, bandits are bandits, and when they came to the city, they did not plan to set up camp in advance, but attacked the city in one go. In their eyes, even if they die in battle, they can be reborn from the fire, and there is nothing to be afraid of. In addition, in the past, the siege of the city was all captured, and they regarded Jinan as the city they encountered in the past.

There is a moat outside the city of Jinan, and the bandit vanguard army takes the ladder as the bridge, lays the plank, crosses the river, and the army behind carries the ladder and follows closely. They don't take the Rong horses of Jinan City too seriously, and the governor of Beizhao has only gathered more than 7,000 defenders now, and when these troops fought on the plains, they had no combat effectiveness, but they were guarded by Jiancheng, condescending, and still very controlled by some rabble.

"Boom Boom ......" cannon sounded.

"Whoosh ......" feathered arrows rained down.

In the blink of an eye, the bandits fell to the ground, killing more than two and wounding hundred.

The bandits rushed to the bottom of the city, and before they could build the ladder, the rolling wood, stones, bricks and tiles of the city fell down, and they immediately killed another side. The bandits have not undergone formal training, and they are naturally not good at attacking the city, and they are not even very strong in their sense of self-care. In less than half an hour, hundreds of people died and more than 1,000 were injured.

Attacking a city is a matter of at least having the tools to attack the city, otherwise it is all in vain, just like Nurchi's banner and iron cavalry, who are easily unwilling to attack the city. When the bandits occupied other prefectures and counties, they also got a few siege guys, like arrow towers or something, but Jinan City is much higher than other cities, and the city's bows and arrows are sharper, and the cannons used as cover, the bandits' little armament doesn't work at all.

In the blink of an eye, it had been fought for nearly two hours, and it was almost dusk, and the officers and soldiers of the city had only injured a few, and nearly 2,000 of the bandits under the city had died, and the number of injured was even more overwhelming. The bandits thought that when they recited the incantation, they were sincere and would be reborn from the fire, but they were not too afraid, but Xu Hongru, who was in command behind, felt that he could not fight like this anymore.

He actually didn't care about the lives of the people, he had died too much, and his strength was too much to be compromised. If there are such casualties under the city of Jinan, and there will be more cities in the future, what should I do? It is estimated that before they reach Beijing, all the people will die. So, he ordered the troops to retreat, and temporarily set up camp in anticipation of reinforcements.

Yu Hongzhi and Zhang Shipei parted from Jingzhou and Caozhou, Jingzhou belongs to the north of Zhili, and needs to go south and rush to Jinan. Caozhou is in the south of Shandong, and needs to be rushed from the north. These two have encountered too many people along the way, and wherever they passed, the White Lotus believers were full of successes, and the momentum was great, and when they encountered any prefecture or county, they directly broke through and went in to loot. Seven days later, they rushed to Jinan.

Xu Hongru was waiting for reinforcements, and the governor of Jinan was not the governor of Zhao. The imperial court sent Xiong Tingbi to preside over the suppression of bandits, which has been spread here, and he is on guard and looking forward to it.

Xiong Tingbi on the side, led 30,000 troops to Shandong, along the way is bound to pass through Jingzhou, Jingzhou has been occupied by bandits, Yu Hongzhi sent a thousand people to garrison here. With their little people, how can they stop Lord Xiong's horses, and after only one battle, they will take Jingzhou lightly. Along the road to the south, the land passed was mostly occupied by the bandits, but the defenders were pitiful, Xiong Tingbi fought successively, until he was still a hundred miles away from Jinan City.

Within half a month, the lost land was regained, and the good news was spread frequently, how could the emperor not be happy, and specially added Xiong Tingbi as the prince and encouraged him. Lord Xiong was recommended by Yue Su, and the emperor naturally had little praise for Yue Su.

When Xiong Tingbi was about to arrive in Jinan, the three gangs of bandits got together and held an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with it. In the end, it was decided that Xu Hongru would lead the army to meet the attack, and Yu Hongzhi and Zhang Shipei would lead the army to besiege Jinan and reinforce it at any time.

Xu Hongru left the old and young behind, led 50,000 men, and blocked the attack in the north. Xiong Tingbi sent a horse to inquire early, and when he heard the news, he set up a position in a place called Liu Qigou and waited for the enemy. Two days later, the White Lotus bandits came to Liu Qigou, and Xiong Tingbi led the army to meet them.

Xiong Tingbi didn't take the White Lotus Sect rabble in his eyes, except for a simple pre-war lecture, he didn't do much at all, he thought that as long as there was a charge, the bandits would definitely be in charge.

The bandits are indeed a rabble, and their combat effectiveness is extremely low, but his old man's army is not necessarily strong. When the officers and soldiers saw that the bandits were dressed as civilians one by one, holding weapons of varying quality and quality, they did not take it seriously before, but in the end, Lu Ye fought with the bandits for several battles, and they were not all defeated in one attack. So they all rushed to charge. However, the bandits I encountered today were very ferocious, shouting "Mommy Mommy" one by one, and rushed to them with their lives.

In terms of combat effectiveness, officers and men can be slightly better than half a chip, and in this aspect of not being afraid of death, the bandits will be several points better. The bandits shouting incantations were killed as if they were going to die, and after a long time, the officers and soldiers could not bear it. The big guy eats food from Rong, usually bullying the common people, not seeking to make a fortune, but seeking peace. This time, I met so many people who were not afraid of death, how could I fight the battle, so I ran away with my head lost.

Xiong Tingbi supervised the battle in the back, the situation in front of him was evenly matched, and he secretly regretted it in his heart, underestimating the bandits, and knew that he should play a little bit and make some tricks. I was thinking about this, compared to the end of the first battle of the day, and after the two armies collected their troops in the evening, they would make a sneak attack.

I don't want to, the pomp and circumstance that was originally evenly matched did not last for a while, the officers and men suddenly lost their heads and fled, the front retreated, and the rear was immediately big, and the bandits took advantage of the situation to rush and kill, killing the officers and men on their backs and fleeing in a hurry.

Xiong Tingbi ordered to stop it, and stabbed several officers and soldiers who fled, but the army was defeated like a mountain, and the whole army was fleeing for his life, and he couldn't suppress it if he wanted to. In desperation, he had to flee with his head lost.

The bandits were in hot pursuit, and the officers and soldiers fled for their lives, but they really didn't want to, this officer and soldier were incomprehensible, and the speed of escape was really fast enough, and after dusk, the bandits had already been left behind.

The officers and soldiers were also tired, and when they saw that the bandits behind them did not chase after them, they all stopped to rest, and Xiong Tingbi had the strength to gather the generals and count the number of people. This check doesn't matter, I almost didn't Xiong Jing to death, 30,000 horses, and now there are 20,000 left. The other 10,000 did not know how many had died, and they fled in all directions.

There was no way, Lord Xiong rested his horse a little, and led the army to withdraw to the newly recovered Qihe County. Fortunately, Xiong Tingbi saved an eye, and he didn't bring all the grain and grass with him, half of which stayed in Qihe County and sent troops to guard it.

Now he has fled back to the wilderness, writing a recital and pleading guilty, while training soldiers.

Before leaving, Yue Su told him to train the army, but Lord Xiong was eager to help Jinan as soon as possible, and he didn't care about it. Now that the battle is defeated, he has just understood Yue Su's intentions, and he is not trained at all, and he is embarrassed at all.

In the following days, Xiong Tingbi was training in Qihe County, and according to his estimate, it would take at least three months for these soldiers to change their appearance. When he was in Liaodong, he governed the army very strictly, and as soon as the old routine was taken out, those soldiers and ruffians could stand it, and they quickly obeyed.

Please send the guilty twist to Beijing quickly, because Yue Su was there, pleading on behalf of him, how embarrassed the emperor was, but he just ordered Xiong Tingbi to make contributions and quell the rebellion as soon as possible.

After the holy decree, Xiong Tingbi saw that he was fine, he was more at ease and bold, and after training, he began to assemble Shandong Rongma, contact Yuan Keli, the governor of Dengzhou, and discuss the time to carry out a large-scale encirclement and suppression of the bandits.

After Xu Hongru defeated Xiong Tingbi, his confidence swelled, and he led his troops back to Jinan, planning to conquer Jinan City in one fell swoop. However, after returning to the army, the families of the deceased of Liu Qigou's first battle all hinted that they hoped that the holy master and their relatives would be reborn.

Xu Hongru was not ambiguous, and immediately ordered the burning of the corpse and the opening of the altar. There are really those who have a lack of strings in their brains, and they were originally injured not seriously or lightly, and they can be healed after a month or two, but listening to the practice of the holy master, they are reborn from the fire, and they want to be clever and reborn from the fire, and they also save the pain and recuperation. For this kind of person, Xu Hongru still does persuasion work, telling the congregation that if you want to be reborn from the fire, you must fight for the sky and die, like you who have crooked thoughts, jump into the fire and have to be burned to death. Because of this, the injured people did not insist on jumping into the fire pit.

Regarding the rebirth of the fire, that is, deceiving people, Xu Hongru knows in his own heart, after burning, the corpse will be all turned into ashes, how can anyone stand up again. However, he will justify himself, telling the congregation that the reason why these people have not been reborn is because they are not sincere, have crooked thoughts in their hearts on the battlefield, and do not devote themselves to teaching, so they are not satisfied with being reborn. In doing so, he also warned the living congregants that if they want to be reborn from the ashes, they must be sincere.

The festival of rebirth from the fire ended like a joke, but Xu Hongru processed it in terms of publicity, and the sect members who had distracting thoughts and were not reborn from the fire died because they fought for heaven after all, but all such dead people were reincarnated, and the city was cast into the rich and noble, or even heaven, to obtain eternal life.

After some flickering, Xu Hongru once again commanded the congregation to attack Jinan. He thought that he could take Jinan lightly with the morale of Liu Qigou's battle, who wanted to fight fiercely for three days and three nights in a row, thousands of bandits died, and Jinan City was not good.

It was also when Xu Hongru failed to attack Jinan that Shanxi rebelled. Pingyang Mansion and Lu'an Mansion were successively defeated, and the leader of the rebels claimed to be the Son of Heaven, and the slogan of the propaganda was that there was no more than one disaster today, all because of the demon dragon world, and the heavens sent the Son of Heaven to kill the dragon, kill the evil dragon, and change the heavens and the earth.

The group of forces of the Son of Heaven who slashed the dragon was also quite strong, and they took away Pingyang and Lu'an in a few days, but their posture was not like attacking Taiyuan, but using this as the foundation to attack Chang'an.