As soon as the sky was dark, the governor's palace was crowded, Liu Yuliang, Lu Weiqi, Governor Li Xianfeng, Wang Yinchang and Pang Gang gathered together, Liu Yuliang sat on the main seat, looking at the people sitting under the hall, his heart was full of an emotion called Zhi satisfaction.

Liu Yuliang coughed and said loudly: "Everyone, since the end of the Apocalypse, since the end of the Apocalypse, I have been suffering from internal and external troubles, and I have been tormented by each other, and there is no peace. The thieves are more and more numerous, and the catastrophe is more and more intense. In recent years, the people have died and been displaced, like the deeper the water, the hotter the fire, often thousands of miles away, the smoke of the cooking is cut off, and the children are eaten, which is unbearable. For 300 years, the country has never said that its people are exhausted and exhausted. And the East is waiting for an opportunity to invade, and it is said that it is arrogant. Since the ascension to the pole, it has entered the fortress four times so far, and the Beijing division has been surrounded three times. Since ancient times, the outside must first be settled. If the thieves are not eliminated, then the inside cannot be taken care of, and the disaster of the Southern Song Dynasty is inevitable. Fortunately, thanks to the spirits of the ancestors and ancestors, the fortunes of the country have taken a turn for the better. The giant thief Gao Yingxiang had been ambushed in the autumn of the previous year, and Zhang Xianzhong's men had fled to Sichuan. The other remnants of the thieves are either dead or scattered, or they are waiting and seeing, and they dare not seem to be rampant. Only the thief Li Zicheng was stubborn, swore to confront the imperial soldiers, and surrendered without fear.

But even so, the emperor is still generous and wants to let him live, but this fang not only does not repent, but instead makes a comeback, and now it is even more harmful to the people of Henan. In view of this, the emperor specially ordered the governor of Henan to exterminate this fang as soon as possible, so that the court and the people would be very fortunate! I hope that all the kings will inspire the soldiers, and now they will fight bravely in front of the battle, and they will do everything in one battle, so as not to let a thief slip through the net. My generation repays the grace of the king, saves the people, and fights here. You hope to capture the giant thieves Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin alive and sacrifice them to His Majesty. Even if they can't be captured alive, they must be killed and passed on to the head of the capital. The emperor has repeatedly lowered his edicts, and he is very responsible, and I hope that all the monarchs will not live up to their wishes! ””

Liu Yuliang said spittle on it, but Pang Gang dozed off when he heard it below, this guy is worthy of being a university scholar, and he is really full of emotion when he pulls up the text, and even talking about a pre-war mobilization can be said to be like an old lady's footwrap is smelly and long, and Pang Gang is sleepy when he hears it.

Finally waited for Liu Yuliang to finish speaking, Pang Gang didn't know what this guy was going to express, Liu Yuliang turned his head to Pang Gang with a smile and said: "General Pang, now that the thieves will definitely attack the city again, Luoyang's city defense will bother you more." ”

Looking at Liu Yuliang's courteous smiling face, he sighed secretly in his heart before saying, "Your Excellency the Governor, the last general will definitely do his best." ”

"Very good!" Liu Yuliang nodded and said to Wang Yinchang, the soldiers and horses guarding on the side: "Wang Garrison, the Tibetan saying that the snake has no head, and if there is no unified order in the army, it will not work, and now that the enemy is present, the soldiers and horses in the city must have a unified order, so the governor decided that the original Luoyang defenders should obey General Pang's orders during the siege of the city, and there must be no mistakes, do you understand?" ”

Obey orders! ”

Wang Yinchang was a little depressed, he was the soldiers and horses of Luoyang City, and all the soldiers and horses in Luoyang were under his control, but now Liu Yuliang handed over all the city defenses of Luoyang to the guest troops from afar, which made him embarrassed. However, after the Ming army won a big victory in yesterday's battle, Liu Yuliang's status and prestige became more and more stable, and he didn't dare to contradict Liu Yuliang at this time, so he had to respond with a little depressed fists.

Suddenly, there was a sound of alarm bells, and the sound came from the side of the city wall, and everyone looked a little nervous for a while.

Pang Gang hurriedly stepped forward and hugged his fist at Liu Yuliang and said: "Lord Liu, there is an alarm bell, presumably the thieves have begun to attack the city again, and the last general will go to the city wall to defend, but the last general hopes that you can work with Lord Lu to collect silver taels for the last general, last night the last general only got 300,000 taels of silver, and there are still 200,000 taels to be found." After speaking, Pang Gang strode out.

This kid, when is it, he is still thinking about his little silver. Liu Yuliang, Lu Weiqi, Li Xianfeng and others looked at each other, and they were all a little crying and laughing, this General Pang is really different!

Looking at Pang Gang's disappearing back, Liu Yuliang said to Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng: "Two adults, since the two adults have promised to give General Pang 500,000 taels of silver, yesterday King Fu has given 300,000 taels, and how do you think you should ask for the remaining 200,000 taels of silver?" ”

Lu Weiqi smiled confidently: "What's so difficult about this, when the old man summons the rich gentry in the city to the restaurant for a banquet, the old man and Master Li mentioned it in passing, is there still a way to do it, and the current enemy must not dare not sell the old man's face." ”

"Ahem, cough, cough" Liu Yuliang coughed lightly before saying: "Jie Rugong, this official is asking who should come forward to negotiate this matter." ”

Lu Weiqi said without thinking: "Since the old man promised General Pang, naturally um" Speaking of this, Lu Weiqi somewhat understood what Liu Yuliang meant, and he stared at Liu Yuliang thoughtfully for a while before saying tentatively: "What does Lord Liu mean?" ”

Liu Yuliang pretended to be silent for a while before saying: "This official thinks that this time the apportionment to the rich gentry can't just ask for General Pang's 200,000 taels of silver, so many soldiers in Luoyang City can't watch the Qingzhou army eat meat, but they can't even drink the soup, the official thinks that he can ask for more silver to reward the defenders, you must know that the Luoyang soldiers have not been paid silver for several months, what do you think?" ”

As soon as Liu Yuliang said this, Wang Yinchang almost jumped up and hugged this old man is kiss, this governor has finally done a good deed, he is now thinking about the silver is almost crazy, if he doesn't send silver, the defenders who have not been paid for half a year are estimated to mutiny soon, at this moment Wang Yinchang looks at Liu Yuliang more than his father.

Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng thought a little differently from Wang Yinchang, but what they thought of at the moment was that Liu Yuliang wanted to take advantage of this incident to make money. It must be known that he is the governor of Henan under the emperor's order, and there is no pressure at all to apportionment to the rich gentry in the city, which is really too justified.

Otherwise, people say that the butt determines the head, Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng are both in high positions, and they are always used to thinking about things from the worst side, while Wang Yinchang is used to leading soldiers, and his brain is naturally not as fast as the two people who spend time in intrigue all day long, so they think about things completely differently.

Lu Weiqi's heart turned a few times like lightning, but he said with a smile on his face: "The old man almost forgot, the old man who has already made a name for himself is really not easy to participate in such a major event, Master Li, what do you think?" ”

Li Xianfeng can be the governor of a province, is it a simple person, Lu Weiqi understood when he said this, and hurriedly smiled: "Also, the subordinate Yu Jierugong also has to assist General Pang in organizing the young and strong to defend the city, and the official duties are heavy, so this matter is still annoying Lord Li's hard work." ”

Liu Yuliang nodded with satisfaction: "Well, it's okay, since the two adults have important matters, then the official will arrest this matter for you if he can't say it." ”

"Nima, can you be more shameless?" I really can't get used to Liu Yuliang's virtue of being cheap and obedient, Lu Weiqi arched his hand towards Liu Yuliang, "Lord Liu, the old man still has important things, so let's leave first." ”

Seeing Lu Weiqi stand up, Li Xianfeng and Wang Yinchang also quickly stood up and said goodbye, and walked out of the lobby of the Governor's Palace, Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng glanced at each other, sighed together, and shook their heads at the same time, and the two walked out one after the other, leaving only Wang Yinchang who was confused.

While Liu Yuliang was pondering how to "persuade" the wealthy gentry to donate money, Pang Gang was directing the soldiers at the head of the city to counterattack the swarming rogues. At this moment, outside Luoyang City, the dense layers of rogues with red scarves on their heads were still swarming forward desperately, holding high the weapons in their hands, and the dense spears and wooden sticks seemed to pierce the clouds.

On the city wall, Cheng Kai ordered the soldiers to speed up the shooting, and scolded in his mouth: "Damn, these thieves are simply crazy, so many people died yesterday and they don't know the pain, aren't they afraid of death?" ”

Pang Gang had a gloomy face, today's Liukou's actions confirmed his inner guess, Li Zicheng seemed to deliberately let these Liukou come to death, and there was no discipline at all to drive the Liukou forward, and there were many men on horseback mixed in the Liukou, as long as he saw anyone cowering and immediately shot an arrow, I don't know how many Liukou were shot to death because of their slow movements. But even so, the hungry soldiers kept rushing forward, and perhaps death might be a better relief for them.

Moreover, Pang Gang also observed that most of these rogues who were driven over were old, weak, sick and disabled, and there were basically no young and strong, which also proved Pang Gang's guess even more.

Pang Gang's face gradually turned pale: "This Li Zicheng is really ruthless, he is going to send all the old, weak, sick and disabled to us for slaughter!" ”

Pang Gang couldn't imagine that the person opposite him, who was called the leader of the peasant rebel army by many "brick families" in later generations, would do such a nameless thing, and could send thousands of people to hell without any scruples for his own purposes! ”

"Boom"

Dozens of artillery pieces opened fire on the city wall one after another, and one after another swarthy projectiles pierced the air with a whistling sound and continued to fall into the crowd and explode, the fire and explosion accompanied by pieces of broken limbs constantly flying in the air.

Despite the cruelty of the sight, the hungry soldiers, who were already hungry and thin, were still accustomed to numbly following their companions with their weapons, and they either rushed under the city wall and were stoned to death by rolling stones, burned to death by pouring gold juice, or killed by flowering bombs on the way.

The rain of bullets and the falling shells caused great damage to the hungry soldiers who were charging intensively, and in just two hours, the casualties of the rogues reached a staggering tens of thousands.

Looking at the dense crowd of hungry soldiers who kept falling, Li Zicheng, who was standing on the high ground and watching, was expressionless, silently calculating his own casualties in his heart.

And behind Li Zicheng, the generals of the army looked at the hungry soldiers who kept falling, and their faces also showed unbearable expressions, if they didn't know what Li Zicheng's idea was in his heart at this time, it would be too insulting to their IQ, but at this moment they could only silently watch countless old, weak, sick and disabled people being sent to death in vain under the drive of the Inspector team. Only Li Guo, who couldn't bear it, squirmed a few times at the corner of his mouth, walked to Li Zicheng's side and was about to speak, but was pulled back by Hao Shaoqi on the side.

Hao Shaoqi pulled Li Guo aside, glanced at him, and whispered: "You are crazy, what is the use of going up now!" ”

Li Guo said anxiously: "That's tens of thousands of brothers, let's just let them die in vain?" ”

Hao Shaoqi shouted anxiously: "As far as you are benevolent and righteous, you don't know that our food is not much, if we don't reduce these burdens, how can we feed so many people." ”

Li Guo said angrily: "Then we can go and capture the city again, there must be a lot of cities and food, as long as we capture it, we will have food." ”

"Take the city?" Hao Shaoqi sneered: "Where are you going to attack?" Nearby villages? Or is it a small county? At present, in the whole of Henan, there are only two cities that can have enough food and grass to support our army, Luoyang and Kaifeng, these words of Luoyang have already made our soldiers lose a lot of money, do you think that with our remnants, we can go five or six hundred miles away to attack and open the seal? ”

Li Guo was dumbfounded for a while, he didn't understand this truth, but he just couldn't pass his own level.

Qi sighed, patted Li Guo's shoulder and comforted: "Okay, it's good to open it if you want to, if you can't stand it, go back and rest, I guess we will have a big move tonight." ”

"No!" Li Guo shook his head and said sadly: "I'll just stand here and give them a ride with my own eyes, but Lao Hao, what did you say our uprising was for?" ”

Hao Shaoqi was stunned

Night slowly fell into the night sky, today's siege battle is over, the breaking army consumed almost half of the Luoyang City defenders' rolling stone and arrows at the cost of more than 40,000 dead and wounded, and the Qingzhou army consumed half of the flowering bombs they carried today.

In order to repel the frenzied attack, Pang Gang led the sergeants of the Qingzhou Army to destroy more than 2,000 Mini rifles, and six Napoleon guns had to be scrapped in advance due to the high frequency of fire.

"It's time to reach Li Zicheng's bottom line now, right?"

Under the dark night sky, Pang Gang muttered to himself, he calculated an account, the corpses that the rogues have dropped under Luoyang City since the beginning of the day have exceeded 70,000, plus the rogues they eliminated when they marched, their losses have reached more than 90,000, this number should have reached Li Zicheng's bottom line, right? If it continues to be lost, it will not be in his interest.

If the expected is right, they should have made a move tonight, but should they really go out of the city overnight to pursue them? Pang Gang was still thinking in his heart.

There was a roaring bonfire burning in the woods, Li Zicheng and dozens of his generals sat by the fire, quietly eating horse meat, although the horse meat without seasonings tasted sour and astringent, but they still ate it with relish, because they knew that they didn't know when they wanted to eat this sour and astringent horse meat if they missed today.

Liu Zongmin held a roasted seven-ripe horse leg, and his mouth was full of oil, and he made a slurping sound while eating.

After a long time, Liu Zongmin still left the horse's legs that had eaten all the flesh on the side, patted his greasy hands, wiped them on the hem of his clothes casually, and then wiped his mouth with his sleeves indiscriminately, and then grinned and said: "King Chuang, now that the brothers have eaten and drunk enough, should we go?" ”

Li Zicheng nodded, casually threw away the half-eaten horse meat and stood up, he walked to a tree stump, looked around at the generals and said in a low voice: "Brothers, we failed to attack Luoyang this time, but don't worry, we can start again if we are defeated, I think when we came out of Shaanxi, there were only thousands of brothers, but as soon as we arrived in Henan, we soon had hundreds of thousands of troops, even if we suffer losses now, but there are still tens of thousands of troops, I believe it won't take long for us to recover!" ”

The generals thought about it, they had nothing in the first place, although they lost the battle, but what was it, it was great to earn it back in the future Li Zicheng's voice became louder and louder, "Now the defense in Luoyang City is solid, we can't beat it, but it's nothing, I don't believe that all the cities in the world are as strong as Luoyang City, as long as we can capture one or two cities, we can gather tens of thousands of troops again, and fight to the death with those officers and soldiers!" ”

Listening to Li Zicheng's words, the eyes of the generals gradually shone again, and the shadow caused by the defeat during the day gradually weakened, Liu Zongmin first smiled and said: "What King Chuang said is that we haven't suffered anything over the years, and if the team is gone, let's just pull it up again, what's the big deal, King Chuang has long said that as long as the mediocre court does not fall, our righteous army will not be killed!" ”

Li Zicheng said happily: "Haha or Jiexuan said well, our rebel army originally had nothing, and now everything is earned in vain, what else can't be killed." These 100,000 brothers who were killed and wounded by us changed to let the Ming army return thousands of times, is this the reason why everyone said? ”

Gao Yigong also said loudly: "Yes, our life was originally earned, what is there to be reluctant to, you say King Chuang, where are we going to fight?" ”

Li Zicheng saw that confidence had returned to everyone, and nodded with satisfaction: "I think everyone has guessed, we are going to leave tonight, but we may not know where to go, we can't go back to Shaanxi for the time being, and now Shaanxi has not recovered, and we can't develop if we go, so there is only one place we can go, and that is Hubei!" ”

Everyone exclaimed: "Hubei? ”

"Yes, Hubei!" Li Zicheng's eyes flashed with a cold light, "Hubei, Hubei is a place where grain is produced, as long as we get to Hubei, we don't have to worry about doing that anymore!" ”

(To be continued)