In July of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong and Henan deputy general Luo Dai in the continuous urging of Prime Minister Xiong Wencan, led two departments of more than 10,000 people to Fang County to suppress, due to the army's lack of pay and food, Zuo Liangyu looted along the road, causing the people of the counties along the way to flee and avoid, and the village castle is the door to avoid, refusing to open the door, such as facing the enemy.

On the 16th, the two armies of Zuo Luo arrived in Fang County, but Fang County was empty at this time. Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai had already evacuated from here. When they left, they ransacked Fang County, and after the thieves left, the remaining people heard that Zuo Liangyu's soldiers and horses had looted all the way, and they were more prosperous than the thieves, and they all fled into the nearby mountains at once.

When Zuo Liangyu arrived, he only saw an empty city. At this time, the two parts of Zoro had run out of food and grass, and they were once again facing a situation where it was difficult to ride a tiger. At this time, Xiong Wencan sent another order to suppress them, and gave them an ultimatum, if they don't fight the thief, they will be punished.

At the same time, Yang Sichang in Xiangyang City also sent a letter over, asking Zuo Liangyu to hurry up and suppress the thief.

Zuo Liangyu did not dare to resist the order of Yang Sichang, the favored minister of the Son of Heaven, so he had to continue to march with his soldiers and horses. Fortunately, at this time, he got the news that the bandits fled west after evacuating Fang County, and now they haven't run far, and there is intelligence that the bandits are in Zhushan County at this time.

More than 10,000 soldiers and horses of the two divisions of Zuo Luo continued to pursue, and when they went west out of the dustpan village of Luozhi Mountain, eighty miles west of the county seat, they were suddenly ambushed. The eight kings Zhang Xianzhong and Cao Cao Luo Rucai had already set up an ambush here, and they sent a team of men and horses to bluff and go to Zhushan County with great fanfare, but the main force has been ambushed on the Luoyu Mountain halfway between Fang County and Zhushan County, holding on to the most dangerous section.

Zuo Liangyu and Luo Dai were caught off guard, coupled with the fact that the two soldiers and horses were marching all the way and lacked food, their morale was low, the thieves were ambushed in all directions, and the officers and soldiers had no time to be on guard, and most of them were forced into the deep mountains and valleys and dense forests, and they were killed in desperation.

A fierce battle for a day. There were more than 10,000 officers and soldiers in Zuo Luo's two divisions, and in the end, only Zuo Liangyu led more than 1,000 families to fight out of the encirclement with a fierce force, and Luo Dai, the deputy general of Henan who led his troops in front, and his troops were all killed. 12,000 men and horses, and finally lost more than 10,000, and Zuo Liangyu even lost his own general army seal on the battlefield.

Zuo Liangyu fled all the way back to Fang County, and then retreated to Junzhou, not even daring to return to Gucheng and Xiangyang, for fear that Xiong Wencan would ask him for blame. After arriving in Junzhou, Zuo Liangyu immediately sent people to recruit Liu Guoneng, Li Wanqing, Jin Shengheng and other generals. These generals were originally bandits among the thieves, such as Liu Guoneng who broke into the sky. Li Wanqing shot into the sky, Wang Guangen was called Xiao Qin Wang, Ma Jinzhong was mixed with 100,000, Jin Shengheng was called Yidousu, and Liu Hongqi was called Liu Bianzi.

These people turned out to be time-honored among the bandits, and they were old thieves with the same status as Zhang Xianzhong, and in the past few years, they were successively defeated and surrendered by Zuo Liangyu, compared to Zhang Xianzhong's capriciousness. After these people were recruited, they stood firmly on the side of the court, and all the generals were also rewarded by the court for their hard work to suppress bandits.

Zuo Liangyu returned defeated. Immediately send his cronies to summon these generals, who were nominally subordinate to him, to bring their troops forward. The generals rushed to Junzhou, and in the blink of an eye, Zuo Liangyu gathered nearly 20,000 soldiers and horses.

It was only at this time that Zuo Liangyu sent someone to report the defeat to Xiong Wencan and Yang Sichang. But in the report, he blamed the defeat in the war. All of them were attributed to the fact that the local government did not give grain and grass along the way, which led to a great drop in the morale of its officers and soldiers, and said that Luo Dai served as the vanguard. However, there was no vigilance and defense, which caused the officers and troops to enter the ambush of bandits, resulting in a great defeat.

After Xiong Wencan, who was sitting in Gucheng, got the news of the defeat, his face was shocked, and then he ran back to Xiangyang City on the same day. When Yang Sichang got the news of this defeat, he finally couldn't pretend to be sick anymore, so he had to urgently summon Xiong Wencan, Fang Kongzhi, Zhang Xueren and others to discuss.

Liu Jun, who was thousands of miles away in Fang County, did not know the news of Fang County's defeat for the first time, but at the end of the month, Xiong Wencan's order to urge him to go north that he had received from Jiantian suddenly broke off.

Three days later, Zuo Luo's two Fangxian were defeated, almost all the troops were annihilated, the deputy general army of Henan was killed, Zuo Liangyu only took more than 1,000 people to escape, and even the news that the general army had lost the big seal of the general army on the battlefield was transmitted back, which shocked everyone.

Liu Jun, who was already ready to send troops, ordered the departure to be postponed.

On the one hand, Liu Jun ordered the suspension of the dispatch of troops, but on the other hand, he asked the newly expanded battalions to step up their training, especially for those gunners and gunners, and opened up ammunition for them to train, and each gunner conducted three live-fire training sessions a day, with nine rounds of ammunition each time. And the results are judged, divided into nine grades, upper, middle and lower grades.

The ninth middle is quasi-super, the eighth middle is quasi-upper, and the seventh middle is quasi-upper medium. Those who are in the sixth middle are quasi-upper and lower. Those who are in the fifth middle school are quasi-middle and upper-middle. Those who are three out of four are quasi-middle and medium. The second is the middle and the second, and the middle is lower. The one who is in the middle is allowed to be inferior and superior. Those who do not win will be allowed to go down. Those who don't know are allowed to be inferior.

For the target of 80 steps, there is no reward for those who are in three of the fourth, and those who are above the fifth are rewarded, and those who are in the second middle school and one are to be beaten with three sticks, and those who do not hit are beaten with five sticks.

It has even linked the training results of soldiers to their respective officers, and implemented a system of joint sitting. Each team also has to compete in the rankings, if the team is at the bottom, they will be punished, and if there is no improvement in the bottom of the team, the team will always be dismissed and demoted to soldiers.

Outside the entire Tiger Head Fort, there is a continuous sound of guns and cannons every day, and the sound is earth-shattering. Under the conditions of generous rewards and severe punishments, the training of the battalions was very hard-working.

For a month and a half, the Nine-Headed Bird Camp seemed to be forgotten.

Then just as the nine-headed bird's skills were constantly improving, on the first day of August, Fang Yizhi took a letter and directly found Liu Jun.

"Jiye, there is news from Xiangyang."

The letter was written to Fang Yizhi by Fang Yizhi's father, Fang Kongzhi, the governor of Huguang, and Liu Jun asked Fang Yizhi to help him find out the movements in Xiangyang, and now there is finally a result.

There was no movement in Xiangyang City before, in fact, it was because the defeat of Fang County was too serious, and it was directly presented to the Son of Heaven. Emperor Chongzhen, who was still happy because of a great victory in Qi Huang just now, did not expect to suffer a big defeat so soon, and the defeat was so ugly.

Around this defeat, the DPRK and China were also surging during this time, and all forces came from one after another. Yang Sichang originally wanted to protect Xiong Wencan, but he was not without opponents in the court, and his opponents seized this opportunity to start attacking Xiong Wencan and Xiong Wencan's protector Yang Sichang, and even attacked Yang Sichang's ally in the cabinet, Xue Guoguan.

The struggle between the DPRK and China was extremely fierce, and it was not until a few days ago that it finally became clear.

Chongzhen issued an order to remove Xiong Wencan, the prime minister of the six provinces against bandits, from his official position, and sent Jinyiwei to escort him into Beijing. The governor of Huguang, Fang Kongzhi, was dismissed from his post and succeeded by Yuan Jixian, a senator of Hubei and a member of the Xiajiang Defense Road. Dai Dongmin, the governor of Yunyuan, was dismissed and succeeded by Li Changgeng, the former secretary of the Ministry of Officials, and Li Xianfeng, the governor of Henan, was relieved of his post and succeeded by Li Shuchu, the former deputy envoy of Shanxi. Zhang Xue, the chief soldier of Henan, was dismissed, and Chen Hongfan was transferred to the post of chief officer of Henan. After Xiong Wencan was dismissed and arrested, Mei Zhihuan, the former governor of Gansu, took over as the prime minister of the six provinces to suppress bandits.

Zuo Liangyu was demoted to three ranks, but he was still allowed to treat the crime and was awarded the general officer of Huguang.

Affected by the defeat of Fangxian, a large number of officials and generals were demoted and dismissed, and at the same time, a large number of officials were promoted or even reinstated. Among them, the most striking is the reactivation of Mei Zhihuan, Li Changgeng and Li Shuchu, the three Huguang officials, all of whom are Chu people, and all of them are members of the Donglin Party, and they have all been excluded and dismissed because of their discord with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and the traitor Wen Tiren.

Could it be that the emperor is going to use the Chu people to solve the bandits in Chu?

In any case, this is simply a big earthquake in officialdom.

At the same time, Chongzhen also issued a time-limited suppression order to his newly selected governors, limiting them to exterminate the thieves and Cao thieves and other bandits before the end of Chongzhen's twelfth year to stabilize the Central Plains.

After getting the news, Liu Jun was indeed extremely surprised, he was not familiar with history, so he didn't know what Xiong Wencan's ending was in the end, and who replaced him as prime minister later. However, the new appointment of the imperial court is good news for Liu Jun.

Mei Zhihuan was his teacher, and he became the prime minister, which was naturally a good thing for him, not to mention the new Yunyang governor Li Changgeng and Huguang governor Yuan Jixian, who were all from Huguang, and they all had a good relationship with him, although he had never met the new Henan governor Li Shuchu, Liu Jun had saved his daughter.

After receiving this news, Liu Jun went to Shenzhuang in Macheng as soon as possible to meet Mei Zhihuan.

Shen Zhuang and Mei Zhihuan were not surprised when they saw Liu Jun coming, and said with a smile, "I guess you will definitely come today." ”

"Congratulations to Mr. on his appointment as Prime Minister."

Mei Zhihuan's face was very calm, "This is not a good errand, what is there to congratulate." Looking at the governors and prime ministers of the imperial court in recent years, whether it is Chen Qiyu and Hong Chengchou, the governors of the five provinces, or Lu Xiangsheng, the prime minister of the five provinces, and Xiong Wencan, the prime minister of the six provinces, basically nothing good ends. ”

Liu Jun said with a smile, "Hong Chengchou, the governor of the five provinces, was transferred to the north to serve as the governor of Jiliao, which should be more important." Lu Xiangsheng, the premier of the five provinces, later entered Beijing to take charge of the military department, and he was once the governor of the world at the age of 39. ”

"No matter how good it is, now it has turned into a handful of dust." Mei Zhihuan is reluctant to talk too much about Lu Xiangsheng, Lu Xiangsheng is indeed a capable minister, although he was born as a jinshi, but he is born handsome when he trains the president and soldiers, but it is a pity that such a loyal and patriotic capable minister commander was finally framed and died because of the struggle between Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian.

"Jiye, what advice do you have for suppressing bandits?" Mei Zhihuan, the newly appointed governor of the crown prince Taibao and the military secretary of the Ministry of War, Nangi, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, and Sichuan, asked Mei Zhihuan, the commander of the military affairs of the six provinces. (To be continued......)