The red lady observed in the Zhu army for two days, and saw that Xu Renjie was wise and fickle, Wang Er was brave and courageous, and Xue Hongqi was good at making cavalry...... Everyone else has their own strengths. The red lady is conceited, strong and good-looking, she thought that with a talent like herself, she could have a place no matter where she was, but when she joined Zhu Jun, she knew that she was just a drop in the ocean and not outstanding. Therefore, with an open mind, I learned more and watched more, but I became much more well-behaved.

Zhu Jun and Zuo Liangyu stared at each other every day, but they just didn't fight, stared back and forth, and stared at each other for a few days. King Chong in Runing Mansion wanted Zuo Liangyu to help him break the siege, but Zuo Liangyu didn't move, and he couldn't do anything.

On this day, a large amount of dust and sand was raised in the south, and the scouts returned, and Gao Yingxiang and others returned.

Zhu Yuanzhang opened the camp gate and took a group of leaders to greet her, and the red lady naturally followed the army, she now follows Xue Hongqi every day, and walks with Xue Hongqi and Li Jieqiong, three women and three red clothes, like three sisters, so that others are dazzled.

The crowd greeted them to the south, only to see the arrival of the brigade of the breaking army, and there were quite a few wounded in the army, many of whom were tied with bandages, and some of them were wrapped in branches around their arms, which seemed to be broken bones and fixed with branches. Some of the wounded soldiers were so badly wounded that they could not even move around, and were carried back on stretchers by their comrades.

The red lady had already heard Xue Hongqi introduce the situation in advance, so she also knew what they were doing, and couldn't help asking, "Did they come back from defeat?" ”

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and said: "No, I came back from a victory, if I lost the battle, I wouldn't have left so slowly." It will be a swarm of swarms running over and scattering with a bang. ”

I saw Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, and Li Zicheng, the general of Chuang, walking in the front, and when they saw Zhu Yuanzhang, the two of them hugged their fists together and smiled: "Ai Wannian has already taken it." There are two heads in the back, one of them is quite old, the other is middle-aged, Gao Yingxiang pointed to the head and smiled: "The old one is Ai Wannian, and the younger one is from Liu Guozhen, this time he killed the two deputy chief soldiers of the imperial court, hahahaha." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang pretended to smile. I went up and said hello. Later, the old Hui Department and Cao Cao Department also came over one after another. Many of their soldiers were also wounded.

The red lady couldn't help but ask curiously: "How many officers and soldiers are there on this road?" ”

King Gao Yingxiang said proudly: "There are more than 4,000 people, close to 5,000...... More than a thousand were killed by us, and the other two thousand were scattered, haha. This is a big win that has never been achieved before. ”

The red lady glanced at the miserable appearance of the thief army. I thought to myself: That's just such a few officers and soldiers. It took tens of thousands of you to beat it down, and as a result, everyone was injured, what kind of level is this?

King Chuang didn't ask who the red lady was. He only asked Zhu Yuanzhang: "What is the situation on Zuo Liangyu's side?" ”

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "He didn't move, he was only a few miles away in the north and we were consuming, and I didn't dare to attack Runing, so I had to fight him." ”

King Chuang nodded, thinking: It would be good to be able to consume it like this.

At that moment, the thieves all returned to the camp, and Zuo Liangyu, who was watching from a distance, saw a large number of thieves returning to the camp, and then realized that the joint camp of the 50,000 army he saw a few days ago was an empty camp, and he was kind and annoyed in his heart, but it was too late to be annoyed at this time.

That night, the thieves held another military meeting to discuss what to do next. Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, took the lead in speaking: "We broke up the garrisons of Runing and Xinyang, and also injured the two general soldiers of the imperial court, and killed two general soldiers. ”

Chuang Jiang, Lao Huihui, and Cao Cao all nodded in agreement, and everyone asked Zhu Yuanzhang's industry again, but he said: "I'm going to go back to Shaanxi." ”

King Chuang and the others all thought: This person is a great help by his side, so that he will have one less person who can help him a lot in the future when he returns to Shaanxi.

But they wanted to think about it, but there was no reason to keep Zhu Yuanzhang, because the Xingyang Conference divided the troops and decided on the phase, which was clear and clearly said that he was in charge of the West Road, and there was no reason for him to follow the army to the East Road at this time.

Li Zicheng glanced at Gao Yingxiang a few times, wanting his uncle to get back the old and weak wife and family members who were sent to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Gao Yingxiang thought in his heart: Without those old, weak, sick and disabled, how fast the march is, and it is much more convenient to fight, so he simply left those old and weak in western Shaanxi, anyway, Zhu Ba helped take care of them.

With such an idea, he didn't open his mouth to ask for the old and weak woman, but just said something irrelevant to Zhu Yuanzhang. Lao Huihui and Cao Cao were not ambitious, they only wanted stability, and they didn't want their army to be dragged down by the old and weak women, so they never mentioned it.

It wasn't until they were about to break up the next day that they said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Eighth Brother Zhu, since you want to go back, let's say goodbye, and in the future, our old and weak women will ask you to take care of them more, don't let them suffer." ”

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled: "This brother is naturally awake." ”

So the army split into two outside the city of Runing, pulled out the camp and left, the Zhu army to the west, and the Chuang army to the east. Zuo Liangyu was in the north and King Chong was kicking in the city, each looking at the rebels from afar, but they didn't move, letting them retreat, and after a long time, Zuo Liangyu symbolically chased after the east.

Zhu Jun went all the way to the west and quickly returned to western Shaanxi. The red lady couldn't help but ask curiously: "Why did Zuo Liangyu chase the east and go east, instead of chasing us to the west?" ”

Zhu Yuanzhang explained to her: "As soon as the army goes east, the court will worry that they will come to Fengyang again, if this group goes to Fengyang again, the face of the court will be lost, and there is Lu Xiangsheng's army in the east, Zuo Liangyu will go east, and it is far better to cooperate with Lu Xiangsheng to suppress the bandits than to pursue us alone." ”

"I see." The red lady suddenly realized.

After Zhu Jun traveled west from Runing, he did not cross the Huitong Pass from Luoyang, but took the Wuguan and Shangluo lines, passing through a large area of Henan land along the way, Henan was in a big drought this year, and there was a barren land everywhere, and occasionally a small number of people were struggling on the verge of death. These victims ate with the army, which made the military rations consume very quickly, but fortunately they were not far from home, and before the military rations were exhausted, they finally saw the wall of Wuguan.

The general who is responsible for guarding Wuguan is Yang Hong, seeing Zhu Yuanzhang coming back from outside the pass, Yang Hong is naturally overjoyed, and brought a large group of brothers to greet him, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him how the situation in Shaanxi * West during the time he left, Yang Hong said: "Everything is fine, except for some small changes in Xi'an City, there is nothing else." ”

"Xi'an is changing?" Zhu Yuanzhang just asked half a sentence, and suddenly smiled dumbly: "By the way, we have been besieging Xi'an for more than half a year, and there should be almost any change in Xi'an Mansion, so it's okay, I'll go back and deal with Xi'an City." ”——

Late autumn, Xi'an City.

At this time of the year in previous years, it should be regarded as the happiest season in Xi'an City, because after the harvest of the surrounding cities, the autumn endowment must be transported to Xi'an to pay to the treasury. Moreover, the surrounding farmers would also sell their crops to merchants, who would transport them to Xi'an City for trading.

Therefore, every autumn, the rice market here will present a lively scene of stepping through the threshold. Even in a disaster year, such a scene cannot be diminished by a fraction.

But this year is different, the Zhu army occupied southern Shaanxi, Xi'an has become an isolated island, although there are 5,000 officers and soldiers guarding the city, with the thickness of the city wall greater than the height, 5,000 officers and soldiers are enough to resist 100,000 enemies, but the siege of the four gates has made this majestic city lose its former glory.

A big city like Xi'an, no matter what the year, will have a large amount of grain reserves, at least able to garrison food for a year, but now that the year has come, the imperial court has not come to help Xi'an relieve the siege, the five thousand officers and soldiers in the city have five thousand mouths, and after eating for a year, they are finally about to eat up the stored grain, and the five thousand officers and soldiers began to face stomach problems.

The city's commerce has almost completely paralyzed, but the rice hang's business has been rising. The price of rice has soared all the way, and it has risen to five taels of silver a bucket, and the poor family sells their sons and daughters, but can only exchange for a bucket of grain, which is really miserable. The streets were full of starving people, under corners, in gutters, under arched bridges...... Corpses abound.

On this day, the third lady of the Ma family passed by the study in the backyard, heard the sound of quarrels coming from inside, leaned against the window and listened, it turned out to be Ma Zhixiong, the eldest young man of the Ma family, Ma Zhibin, the second young man of the Ma family, and Du Shan, the son-in-law of the Ma family, who quarreled inside.

Miss Ma San snorted when she heard the sluggish voice of the second young man of the Ma family: "Our family's food is now more expensive than gold, why should we use it to distribute it to others at this time?" Du Shan, what kind of bullshit idea do you guys come up with? ”

Du Shan didn't even look at the second young man, he knew that this second young fart was useless, and talking to him was equivalent to playing the piano to the cow, but he just said seriously to the eldest master Ma Zhixiong: "Big brother, for the sake of today's plan, you must scatter your wealth to keep you safe...... Spread out the food at home as much as possible, and only keep enough food for our family, and we must not sell it at a high price, let alone hoard it...... Otherwise, disaster will befall you. ”

The second young master was about to shout again, but the eldest young master Ma Zhixiong glared at the second young master, so frightened that he didn't dare to speak anymore, so he asked Du Shan in a low voice: "You tell me why you want to do this, and I will listen if it is reasonable." ”

Du Shan said: "The city has been starving, if we rice merchants continue to sell grain at high prices, I am afraid that the people's hearts have been too fragile to bear, or in a few days, the chaotic people, all the rich and unkind profiteers will be turned into powder, we at this time to scatter the grain and rice, put on a good posture, in order to be in the turmoil not to be disturbed by the chaotic people." ”

"You are alarmist, there are still 5,000 garrisons in the city, how dare the people mess around?" The second young master snorted: "If they dare to loot, will the officers and soldiers be vegetarians?" ”

Du Shan glanced at the second young master with idiotic eyes, and said, "The officers and soldiers have nothing to eat...... They are afraid that they will be more ruthless than the chaotic people, and if they want others not to rob them, the best way is to let themselves have nothing at all. Scattering the food at home is the only way to save your life now. (To be continued.) )