Fu Zonglong's soldiers were defeated and died, and a good celebration banquet was useless, Wang Qiaonian was mournful when he heard the news, and immediately fainted. Not long after, the defeated troops from all walks of life also retreated to Tongguan one after another, He Renlong, Li Guoqi's Shaanxi army took the lead, but it did not suffer much loss, not long after, Sun Chuanting's Shanxi regiment training and Yang Wenyue's Hebei army and the Jin army's Hu Dawei headquarters also retreated.

Wang Qiaonian, who was finally rescued and woke up, immediately summoned a group of leading generals, He Renlong said vaguely, but Sun Chuanting was furious, and the generals on both sides did not hesitate to draw their swords against each other. Zhu Ping'an knew what was wrong, and watched coldly from the sidelines, without saying a word.

Wang Qiaonian's face was pale, and his body trembled uncontrollably, but he still suppressed his anger and shouted to stop the battle between the two sides, and asked Sun Chuanting to tell the story of the battle in detail.

He Renlong and Li Guoqi disdainfully pulled their legs and left, and a group of Shaanxi generals also retreated. Wang Qiaonian shouted loudly, but it didn't have the slightest effect, and he could only let it go.

Sun Chuanting tearfully recounted what happened.

It turned out that Fu Zonglong knew that his strength was far from the breaking army, so he had no choice but to adopt the tactics of splitting the way to attack, and he and Yang Wenyue led a partial division to penetrate directly into the flank of the breaking army, hoping to disrupt the deployment of the invasion army and win by surprise. However, Li Zicheng is not an ordinary person, and he has strong troops, so the general Liu Zongmin waved his army to surround Fu Zonglong, and the two sides fell into a stalemate for a while.

After a long time, the supply of grain and grass for the Ming army became a problem, and they began to kill mules and horses for food. At this time, although Wang Qiaonian had already sent a message to the front of the army, saying that 20,000 stone of grain had been seized in Jiexiu, he was already preparing to send food to the front of the army. However, He Renlong, who was opposed to Li Zicheng, hid the idea of preserving his strength, so he frequently challenged Fu Zonglong under the pretext of grain and grass. Fu Zonglong's persuasion in many ways had no effect, and in the end, He Renlong didn't even say hello and took the initiative to withdraw from the battlefield. The army found that the Ming army was moving, Li Zicheng took advantage of the situation to launch an attack, and the main force of the Ming army was greatly defeated, and the rest such as Li Guoqi and Gao Jie's troops also withdrew from the battle group, Yang Wenyue, Sun Chuanting and Fu Zonglong were caught off guard, and thus fell into a heavy siege.

Li Zicheng was overjoyed to learn that Fu Zonglong was in the encirclement, and ordered all departments to launch a general attack, Fu Zonglong and others led troops to fight with it, Sun Chuanting and Yang Wenyue successively broke out of the siege, but Fu Zonglong was captured by the army because of his injuries.

Li Zicheng personally lobbied, but Fu Zonglong vowed not to surrender. In desperation, the Chuang army took Fu Zonglong hostage to Xiangcheng, wanting to disguise himself as the Ming army to win the gate of Xiangcheng. But Fu Zonglong shouted loudly under the city: "I, Qin Du, have unfortunately fallen into the hands of thieves, and there are thieves on the left and right. In this way, the conspiracy of the invading army was destroyed.

Li Zicheng was furious and beheaded Fu Zonglong under Xiangcheng City.

Speaking of this, Sun Chuanting took the case and threw his hand towards Wang Qiaonian, "Lord Xian, He Renlong escaped from the battle, resulting in the defeat of our army, and the martyrdom of Inspector Fu. ”

Wang Qiaonian wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, thought about it carefully, but shook his head, "Now on the front line of Tongguan, the Shaanxi army accounts for sixty percent of the troops, once He Renlong is arrested, it will inevitably cause the soldiers to mutiny." Although He Renlong is guilty, the official is also afraid of provoking a mutiny, so it will be difficult to defend Tongguan alone! ”

Zhu Ping'an, who had been silent, immediately stood up, "Lord Xian, Sun Tuanlian has been in the Shaanxi army for a long time, and he has quite a prestige, and if he takes He Renlong, he can be used as the chief general of the Shaanxi army to appease the army." Now that Jiexiu grain, grass and gold and silver are about to arrive at Tongguan, as long as they are slightly comforted with grain, grass and silver, it is expected that all the units of the Shaanxi army will not take risks for He Renlong! ”

Yang Wenyue and Hu Dawei nodded frequently, and Sun Chuanting's eyes also showed eagerness. But Wang Qiaonian thought about it, he still shook his head, and his eyes looking at Zhu Ping'an were a little more complicated. "Killing a general before the battle is not good for the army. General Zhu is the heart of the country, but please remember that this official is not Lu Shaobao! This matter will be presented to the imperial court, and the imperial court will decide! ”

It seems that Wang Qiaonian is still suspecting that Zhu Ping'an let Luo Rucai go without authorization, so he has a pimple in his heart, coupled with Zhu Ping'an's previous precedent of sniping Wang Pu in Hebei, Wang Qiaonian is also afraid that his subordinates will intensify the internal fighting in the name of revenge for Fu Zonglong and empty their authority, so he looked at Zhu Ping'an coldly: "General Zhu, the official's will has been decided, please don't do anything without authorization!" ”

Wang Qiaonian's words were heart-wrenching, everyone looked at each other, and Zhu Ping'an also felt a little bored.

In fact, He Renlong has today's appearance, but the reason is that the root of the curse has long been buried. Rather than blindly blaming He Renlong, it is biased. As early as the fourth year of Chongzhen, He Renlong successively followed Hong Chengchou, Chen Qiyu, Sun Chuanting, and Yang Sichang and others to pursue and suppress the Liukou, and fought bravely and made many achievements, and was called "He Maniac" by the Liukou. After accumulating merit, he was promoted to a general, and then gradually became the general of a province. roving bandits

Yang Sichang once promised to fight for He Renlong for the title of a thief general, so in the battle of encircling and suppressing Zhang Xianzhong, He Renlong forgot to die, fought a bloody battle, and defeated Zhang Xianzhong with Zuo Liangyu. For this reason, He Renlong also took the life of a son. But after the war, Yang Sichang broke his word and gave Zuo Liangyu the title of General Pingjiao.

He Renlong was annoyed and angry about this, and since then, he has not contributed to the work, and he has avoided fighting with the rogues every time to protect his strength. Zhang Xianzhong was able to conquer Xiangyang along the way, and there was his "credit". That's why it is not surprising that there is a fact that he fought against Li Zicheng this time and abandoned the coach Fu Zonglong.

These grievances and grievances between He Renlong and Yang Sichang are actually clear to everyone present. But at this time, He Renlong has become a time bomb in the camp of the Ming army, and conniving at him like this can only make the form of the Ming army more precarious, so Zhu Ping'an advocated eradicating it, but he didn't expect Wang Qiaonian to still be unbearable, or to throw a mouse bogey.

If Zhu Ping'an staged the scene in Hebei again, sniping the general, I am afraid that he will cause a commotion for himself.

So, Zhu Ping'an wisely chose to remain silent. I don't know when, Sun Chuanting's gaze shifted, and the two exchanged a look, and sighed at the same time.

……

Luo Rucai took Ji Qi to enter Lingbao, and his brother Luo Ruliang also retreated, they did not dare to stay for a long time, and immediately retreated to the east with more than 1,000 defenders and horses, and on the way they got the news that Li Zicheng defeated the official army and killed Fu Zonglong, the governor of the three sides.

Luo Rucai secretly said that it was not good, and then met Yang Chengzu, the general under his command, who came to answer at Luyang Pass. After seeing Yang Chengzu, he knew that Li Zicheng had received the news of his defeat in Tongguan, and took this opportunity to annex several rogues who were originally attached to him, and his momentum was even stronger.

Henan governor Gao Mingheng and the general soldier Chen Yongfu guarded the city of Kaifeng, although they learned that Fu Zonglong was defeated and killed, but still refused to surrender, the city of Kaifeng was high and strong, Li Zicheng avoided unnecessary casualties, turned south, and prepared to attack Nanyang, so after reprimanding Luo Rucai in a letter, he ordered him to also march south and join forces in Wuyang.

Luo Rucai had officials and troops in front of him and Li Zicheng in the back at this time, and there was no other way out, so it was worth following Li Zicheng's order to rush to Wuyang City. Li Zicheng also rushed to Wuyang in early September, and invited Luo Rucai to the city several times to discuss major matters, but Luo Rucai always shirked on the grounds that he was defeated and injured, and has not recovered so far, and needs to recuperate.

On the tenth day of the first month of September, the soldiers defended themselves, and the invading army began to move south, but Luo Rucai kept his troops still, fearing that Li Zicheng would suddenly do something to himself, so he ordered tens of thousands of horses under his command to wait for the day and be on guard.

It wasn't until Li Zicheng's elite sixth battalion of tens of thousands of soldiers and horses pulled out of the camp that Luo Ru was relieved.

However, that night, an uninvited guest suddenly came to Luo Rucai's camp - He Yilong, one of the leaders of the fifth battalion of Gezuo.

He Yilong brought a letter from Lao Hui Hui Ma Shouying. After the capture of Xiangyang, Zhang Xianzhong wanted to kill Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying, the two of them joined forces from Huguang to Henan to defect to Li Zicheng, Ma Shouying was separated halfway, and led the troops into the Yinghuo Mountain at the junction of Huguang and Anhui, and formed the "Five Battalions of Ge Zuo" with Ge Li Yan He Yilong, Zuo Jin Wang He Jin, Reincarnated King Liu Xiyao, and Troubled King Lin Chengcheng.

Li Zicheng captured Luoyang, the military power shook the world, the fifth battalion of the left had already made contact with the imperial court, and planned to follow Liu Guoneng and other mixed officials and half positions, at this time hearing the news could not help but have some abnormal movements, so he raised troops to move closer to Henan, intending to belong to Li Zicheng.

But the leader of the fifth battalion was a little worried, lest Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, like him, would eradicate the leaders of the battalions and annex his own men and horses, so Ma Shouying immediately thought of his friend Luo Rucai, who shared the hardships and hardships, and immediately entrusted He Yilong, who was the fastest in the army, to get in touch with Luo Rucai.

The lights in Luo Rucai's big tent flickered, and after a song and dance, Ji Jue shook his feather fan, and the musicians and singers retreated in understanding. And He Yilong stared directly at a graceful singer, reluctant to give up.

Luo Rucai smiled and poured him a bowl of wine, "Brother, don't worry, after a while, Ben Shuai will order someone to send that woman to your tent, let's get down to business first!" ”

He Yilong suddenly blossomed with joy and nodded frequently, "What my brother said is true!" ”

There were only three people left in the big tent, He Yilong grabbed the wine bowl and drank it all, wiping the wine on his lips with his sleeve, "Big brother, who of our righteous army doesn't know that you are highly respected and righteous, but it is a pity that in today's world, there is no way for honest people like us to live." Then Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were originally nothing, but now they have become developed, one is more ruthless than the other, in the long run, where is there a place for our brothers in this world! ”

He Yilong was a little excited, grabbed the wine jar and took a big sip, "The meaning of Lao Huihui is very simple, he only believes in you in this world, and our five brothers are also headed by him, so we will do whatever he says." Although our Fifth Battalion has been nesting in the mountains all these years, there are tens of thousands of elite soldiers, plus the eldest brother's soldiers and horses, there are at least 100,000 people in total, so he Li Zicheng does not dare to underestimate us and others! ”

Luo Rucai didn't speak, and drank a bowl of wine very simply, "Brother, I will go back tomorrow and tell Brother Ma Shouying that in the future, we will share hardships with wealth and prosperity!" If Li Zicheng wants to annex us, he also has to see if his teeth are hard enough! ”

The two looked at each other and couldn't help laughing, and their four big hands were tightly clasped together. R1152