With Xu Liang's order, Liang Jun behind him shouted to cover the past. Fight with the thief Luo Rucai's department. Luo Rucai tore up for a while, and couldn't help but secretly complain. His original intention was to take advantage of the night, the enemy and us could not see the truth clearly, and the chasing Ming army would not dare to be greedy for merit, and he bluffed, and had the right to block the chasing Ming army, and buy some time for the eldest brother who ran away.

According to the experience of fighting with the Ming army in the past, although the Ming army was quite strong, it had little enthusiasm for pursuing and killing such righteous troops as themselves, and most of them drove out of their own defense areas and finished the matter. The Ming army, who dared to chase dozens of miles overnight, was the first time to encounter it tonight. Luo Rucai cut down three Ming soldiers, and was entangled by Dai Yingying, who was holding a long knife.

Luo Rucai fought with Dai Yingying for a while, and found that there were female generals in this group of Ming troops, and he was surprised, and after six or seven rounds of fighting, he found that this female general's martial arts were not weaker than himself.

Luo Rucai saw that the subordinates around him were gradually decreasing, and the Ming army was gradually encircling him, and he knew that if he continued to fight, he would have to confess. He jumped out of the battle circle after a gap, hit his horse and left.

As soon as the main general withdrew, the thieves below immediately scattered, and hundreds of people who saw the opportunity early ran into the night and fled, and the remaining more than 300 people were surrounded by the Liang army and were taken prisoner. Xu Liang ordered two hundred soldiers to be guarded, and he led the rest of the soldiers and horses to chase down.

However, he was blocked by Luo Rucai for a while, and the sporadic torch light had long since disappeared. Xu Liang followed the plausible and plausible thief trail for another five or six miles, chased to a small hill, and through the wheel prints on the side of the road, he found that the thief's trail was divided into three roads, divided into three directions, and each escaped.

Xu Liang made a mistake now. Originally, there were less than 1,000 Liang soldiers who were with him, and Luo Rucai tore up and killed hundreds of people in a while, and divided 200 soldiers to guard the thieves who surrendered, and at this time there were less than 600 Liang soldiers who were with him. If you divide it into three ways and follow it, I am afraid that there will be a danger of being surrounded by counter-encirclement.

The generals of the Liang army all looked at Xu Liang, waiting for him to make an idea.

Xu Liang thought about it for a while, but he didn't think of any good way. If you return empty-handed, you will lose hundreds of people in vain, and you will not even have a little dividend, and you will be very unwilling. But if you want to continue to track down, there are three wheel prints under your feet, but it is not clear which way the carriages are taking.

Xu Liang said secretly, grandma's, the horizontal and vertical can't be distinguished, so just gamble. At that moment, he drew his knife and threw it on the ground. The tip of the knife is nailed to the ground, and it is shaken twice, and the handle of the knife is tilted straight forward.

Liang Jun beside him didn't understand what Xu Liang was doing, and looked at him strangely. Xu Liang picked up the matching knife, pointed straight ahead, and said with a smile: "The carriage must have run along this road, chase me!" ”

The general asked curiously, "Why is the general so sure?" ”

Xu Liang said: "Just now I threw a knife to ask for directions, and the knife pointed straight ahead, it must be so." ”

Choked the general manager, and was quite disappreciative in his heart, but seeing that Xu Liang was quite interested, he didn't dare to refute it out loud, so he had to hurry. Seeing this, Xu Liang asked: "If you don't say it, most of you don't approve of it in your heart." ”

The general said: "The last general will not dare." It's just that the general's way of asking questions is too child's play. ”

"Could it be that you can determine the whereabouts of the carriage?" Xu Liang said.

"Well, the general laughed. These four places are so dark that you can't see your fingers, and the last general chased after the general all the way, and he never saw the whereabouts of the carriage, how did he know? "Put the general way.

"Isn't that the end of it?" Xu Liang glared and shouted: "Hengzhu, let's follow the lost, why don't you throw a knife and ask for directions?" ”

Liang Jun didn't say anything all the way, and chased after the wheel mark for a while, and he couldn't distinguish between east and west, north and south in the dark night. Xu Liang saw that he couldn't catch up for a long time, and was about to give up the tracking, and when he was about to return to Jingzhou, he suddenly saw a burst of cheers from the forward soldiers, and several soldiers dragged two wounded rogue soldiers over, and reported: "General, two wounded rogue thieves have been caught on the side of the road." ”

Xu Liang was overjoyed, and interrogated the two of them, one of the two thieves was slashed on the shoulder, and the other was broken, all of them fled with the thieves' army, and they were all people who fell behind halfway, seeing that they were caught by the Ming army, but they had no will to resist to the end. was intimidated by Xu Liang and explained the whereabouts of the others.

It turned out that the leader of the thieves, Shangtianlong, was really cunning, and seeing that Xu Liang was in hot pursuit, he decisively ordered the team to divide into three roads, each with men and horses, and flee with his troops.

Xu Liang heard that the fleeing army of thieves was not far away, and asked that there were indeed five or six carriages full of things in the team, so he was overjoyed, and ordered the two to be taken into custody, and the whole army marched in a hurry, and must catch up with the gang of thieves in one go.

After chasing for a while, I suddenly heard the faint neighing of war horses in the woods ahead. Xu Liang drank the team, ordered a hundred pikemen to be in front, a hundred archers to be behind, and the brigade of men followed, groping their way into the woods. About thirty paces from the forest, the archers fired a volley, and the night sky suddenly startled a swarm of wasps, and the arrows burst into the forest with a buzzing sound, and then there was a cry of astonishment and screams in the forest.

When the thieves in the forest saw that they were discovered, they panicked again, and their families fled for their lives, and they rushed out of the forest without fear of death, wanting to fight to the death with the Liang army.

Liang Jun went down another round of arrows and shot a lot. Xu Liang then ordered the Liang army to attack in an all-out manner and lead the army into the forest. When they rushed into the forest, under the light of the torches, they saw that there were thieves lurking everywhere in the forest, but most of the family members were bold, and the bold ones fought back, the cowardly ones scattered and fled, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, and most of the women and children squatted on the ground with their heads in their hands, trembling. The Liang army was in a group of more than ten people, and the thieves in the forest were cleared, and those who crouched on the ground did not care, but those who dared to fight back were all killed.

Xu Liang saw that there were only two carriages in the forest, and used a knife to pick up the tarpaulin covering the carriage, and saw that one cart was rice and the other was clothes and bedding, and did not find the so-called silver two treasures. After escorting a few thieves and soldiers, he learned that the leader of the thieves along the way saw that there were too many family members in the team, so he fled with the five carts of silver and two treasures, leaving only more than 2,000 old and weak soldiers.

Xu Liang was very angry when he heard it. I didn't think that I was tired and tired, so I hurried and hurried, and I still didn't catch a penny of silver and two treasures. The search of the Liang army ended at dawn, and the generals who searched reported that more than 1,600 thieves were captured in this battle, but most of them were old and weak soldiers, family members and women, and the real thieves and soldiers were only 100 people.

Xu Liang listened with a calm face, and looked at it, most of the captured thieves were old and young, and there were very few young and middle-aged people, all of whom were terrified. Thinking about the current shortage of food in various counties in Shaanxi, Zhenyuan did not have extra food to feed these soldiers, and it was just a burden to be escorted back to Zhenyuan County. More than 300 women were singled out and escorted back to Jingzhou to join Xing Zhongshan, Huang Ziren and others.

When the team came to the outside of Jingzhou City, there were already Liang soldiers guarding the city to report to Xing Zhongshan and Huang Ziren. Xing and Huang were informed that they opened the city gate and welcomed Xu Liang into the city.

Xing and Huang welcomed Xu Liang to the Jingzhou County Ya, and they settled down. Xing Zhongshan arched his hand and asked: "The last general went out of the West City Gate last night and joined the Liang army outside the city, but he didn't see the general, for fear that the general would miss a year, he sent people to investigate around Jingzhou City, but there was no news." It turned out that the general had already chased him out. ”

Huang Ziren also said: "Yes, eldest brother, I and Xing Yingzhu are very worried about the eldest brother when they see that the eldest brother has not returned for a long time. ”

Xu Liang waved his hand and said: "Alas, don't mention it, I originally wanted to chase it out and make a windfall, but I didn't want to toss it all night, except for bringing back more than 300 women, I didn't catch anything." Hey, what's the situation in Jingzhou City now? ”

Xing Zhongshan said: "At the end of last night, General Huang and General Huang each led a way to kill from the north gate, at that time the thieves also captured Jingzhou not long ago, the foothold was not stable, we suddenly killed, the thieves were greatly panicked, most of the thieves scattered and fled, and occasionally encountered a small group of thieves also rushed to cross. At the end of dawn, the general and General Huang joined up to clean up the battlefield, killing more than 2,000 enemies and capturing more than 3,000. ”

Xu Liang nodded, and asked again: "What about the casualties of our army?" ”

Xing Zhongshan said: "More than 200 people were killed and more than 500 were wounded. ”

When Xu Liang heard this, he ordered to treat the families of the fallen soldiers well, and sent people to the prisoner camp to spread the word and recruit the people who had originally surrendered to the Liang army. The three of them talked for a while, and Xu Liang suddenly remembered that since he entered the Jingzhou County Ya, he had not seen any officials from the Jingzhou County Ya, and couldn't help asking, "Why haven't you seen the officials of Jingzhou County?" Have they all died in the line of duty? ”

Xing Zhongshan and Huang Ziren looked at each other, and their faces were weird.

"What's going on?" Xu Liang asked.

"Hehe," Huang Ziren smiled and said, "If you want to say that all of them were killed, you can't say it." This Jingzhou County originally had a county, a county, and a history. When the thief Shangtianlong led his troops to besiege Jingzhou, the county Cheng, seeing that the situation was wrong, had already fled from Jingzhou City with his family. This Jingzhou magistrate still has some backbone, leading the city to catch fast, the people are strong for a while, and when they see that they can't hold it, they hide. ”

"Oh? So this county hasn't been found yet? Xu Liang also felt amused and asked.

"I found it, I found it." Huang Ziren said slowly.

"Then this magistrate is too rude!" Xu Liang said unhappily: "We worked hard to drive out the thieves for him and recaptured the county seat, as the lord of a county, what is the matter with him hiding so much?" ”

Huang Ziren laughed after eating, waved his hand at Xu Liang and said, "Big brother, you are really wrong to blame this Jingzhou magistrate for saying that." It's not that he doesn't want to see his eldest brother, it's that he can't see him now. Haha, in order to hide his life, this old boy actually jumped into the well in the backyard of the county government, this cold winter, if we hadn't saved it in time, this old boy would have been frozen into a popsicle now! When I went out of the city to pick up my eldest brother, I went to see the magistrate of Jingzhou, and he was still trembling when he was lying on the bed with three quilts. ”