Han Sheng's choice to coerce men and women this time caused the army to be very slow. The speed of a day's march turned out to be only thirty miles!

While marching, Han Sheng sent elite cavalry to coerce the people everywhere, and the team slowly became extremely large, and when they arrived in Anyang half a month later, the number had reached 70,000.

When the officials of the counties and towns along the way saw this menacing bandit, they were so frightened that they cowered in the city one by one and did not dare to come out to fight them.

Henan is located in the hinterland, where there has been no war for a long time, the officers and soldiers are not very good at fighting, and there are not many officers and soldiers in each county and town, even if they can fight, they dare not come out.

The movements of the thieves were reported by the officials of these counties and towns, and the movements of this group of thieves were not a secret, but Zhao Yan's officials and troops were relatively hidden, and the banners and everything were put away.

Even if someone saw Zhao Yan's men, they didn't know which officer and army it was. When many people saw the officials and soldiers coming, they ran faster than the thieves.

There is a saying that it is better to be robbed by thieves than to be blocked by officials and soldiers, thieves rob people's property, and officials and soldiers kill people!

The thieves were short of supplies, and robbed the people of their food as well as the rich of the rich. The officials and soldiers have little food, rob the people, and will kill the good and take the risk, but they dare not offend those rich families.

Even Zhao Yan didn't dare to blatantly rob those rich people, but the thieves didn't have that concern, so they resorted to the means of arson.

If you want to gain a foothold in Handan, you must first clean up those rich households, and then occupy the land and mines, and no one will come to make trouble.

Handan is not Fengyang, Fengyang has a number of Zhao Yan's minions, but there is no one in Guangping Mansion.

The news of the large-scale entry of the thieves into Zhangde Mansion soon reached the ears of the 70,000 generals and civil officials of the army, but Lu Xiangsheng fought with Ma Huihui in Yunyang, and he couldn't pull away for a while.

Hong Chengchou was about to go to Zhangde Mansion, but he heard that Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other departments had all returned to Guannei from Tongguan.

Although Tongguan is a throat, there is another road on the side, but it is a little difficult to walk, and the thieves have been in trouble for seven years, and they have already figured out the terrain.

The officers and soldiers in Tongguan saw that the thieves had been killed, and they didn't dare to go out of the pass to block the attack, and they watched Gao Yingxiang and other troops go around Shaanxi again.

Shaanxi has been extremely deserted by natural disasters and thieves, and it can be said that there is no one to cultivate the land for thousands of miles, and the Shanxi authorities have banned the flow of grain into Shaanxi in the name of strictly preventing banditry.

With no output and few foreign grains brought in, the people of Shaanxi could no longer live. As soon as Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong returned to Shaanxi, the troops expanded rapidly.

In order to survive for a mouthful of food, the number of thieves has skyrocketed to more than 2 million in just five or six days.

This scared Hong Chengchou half to death, and just arrived in Ruzhou, and hurriedly took his generals He Renlong and Liu Chenggong to help Shaanxi. At the same time, Cao Wenzhao, the commander-in-chief, was transferred from Huguang to Shangluo and Xing'an in Shaanxi Province to guard the passage of the rebel army into and out of Henan and Huguang.

At this time, Ma Huihui, Guotianxing, Mantianxing and other departments were chased by Lu Xiangsheng and fled in embarrassment, and also returned to Shaanxi with Gao Yingxiang and other departments.

For a time, except for the thieves in Zhangde Mansion who were indulged by Zhao Yan, the rest returned to Shaanxi, which they were most familiar with.

By the time Lu Xiangsheng took out his hand to gallop to help Handan, it was already February 19, and he hurried all the way to Handan with 8,000 soldiers and horses.

During this period, Lu Xiangsheng wanted to transfer the general soldiers Zu Kuan, Zu Dale, and the Liaodong soldiers commanded by the deputy general Liu Chongzhen to suppress the thieves who had entered Handan, but Zu Kuan did not bird him, and the three thousand cavalry stopped in Henan Mansion, killing and annihilating people from time to time, and the silver women had fun.

The army led by Lu Xiangsheng did not have many horses, most of them were foot troops, and they hurried all the way to Handan.

……

On February 15, Han Sheng finally left Zhangde Mansion and entered Guangping Mansion in Hebei, Handan is on the border between Guangping Mansion and Zhangde Mansion (the first few chapters of the small dishes were written incorrectly, Handan is in Guangping Mansion, not in Zhangde Mansion, the words on the map are too small and depressing).

After entering Handan, Han Sheng directly started the sweep.

The counties and towns that passed by in front of them did not carry out offensive battles, but they plundered at will, but it was different when they entered Handan.

Han Sheng was like plowing the land, first sweeping all the way through the towns around Handan City, breaking through villages one by one and slaughtering the rich.

The 30 field guns simply became a sharp weapon for attacking fortifications, and the artillery of the second battalion pretended to be thieves, and when they encountered a tricky place, they directly blasted it with artillery.

Although the 75-mm cannon is not large in caliber, it is far more powerful than the Hongyi cannon of more than 100 mm, not only because of rifling, but also because of the use of siege grenades.

There are two kinds of artillery shells produced by the Ordnance Bureau, one is anti-personnel grenades, which are full of shrapnel, and the other is siege grenades, which are filled with gunpowder.

The shells exploded directly into the wall, causing damage that was far from being comparable to solid bullets.

After all, the fortresses cast by those landlords were either of low standard or of poor quality, and they collapsed in a large area after one or two rounds of 75-mm siege shelling.

Then a large number of thieves poured in, cut down the people who resisted inside, and then ate the big households, and fought the landlords......

Zhao Yan's finances are really tight, more than two million yuan has been invested in the textile industry, and a large pile of cotton is backlogged, and there is really no silver to buy land from those landlords, let alone buy mines.

But iron ore is a problem that has always plagued Zhao Yan's development, and the only way to be ruthless is to drive away the wolf.

At the same time, Handan's iron mines and coal mines were also attacked by Han Sheng, and those miners directly joined the thieves.

After sweeping a hundred miles of Handan, Han Sheng immediately gathered most of the men and horses and surrounded Handan. Then they split up and swept farther away.

Handan is a small county seat, but the city walls are six meters high and four meters thick. This is definitely a place that is not easy to conquer for thieves who lack siege equipment.

On the nineteenth, Han Sheng finally launched an attack on Handan, and thirty 75-mm cannons began to bombard the city wall fiercely.

The magistrate of Handan was so frightened that he hurriedly ordered the artillery at the head of the city to return fire.

Clouds of white smoke rose from the city during the "boom, boom, boom ......" cannon fire, but it did not pose any threat to the artillery among the thieves.

The guns at the head of the city were not only old-fashioned, but also had a slow rate of fire, a short firing range, and low lethality!

In one day, the thieves' artillery fired nearly 600 shells, and finally blew down a large section of the city wall at dusk......

It is not difficult to capture Handan, it is already a sure thing. The difficulty is how to end it in order to completely conceal the true image of the arsonist.

Lu Xiangsheng is rushing to Handan to help......

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Thanks for the ethereal...... Cloud, aaaaabbbbbb, donkey long abc for the tip, thanks!

Brothers, come and count the votes!

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