The morale of the Dashun army, which captured the entire territory of Shanxi, was so strong that it continued to advance without even a day of rest. On the 7th day of the first month of March, 500,000 soldiers set out for Beijing in three ways.

The main force of the Chinese army was naturally led by Li Zicheng and went straight to Beijing from Taiyuan.

The South Road army was led by Liu Fangliang, and the route was from Licheng and Lu'an to Zezhou and Huaiqing, and detoured to Daming, Hejian, and Baoding to Beijing. The main task of this road was to occupy a large area of the city south of Beijing and block the Ming army that came from the south to rescue the Beijing division.

The East Road Army was led by Liu Zongmin, from Taiyuan to the east, out of Guguan, and after the South Road Army returned to Baoding, they marched into Beijing together!

Li Zicheng's main Chinese army was played by Li Guo, and on March 13, Li Guo led the army to set off, and the first target was to lock on Daizhou.

Daizhou is close to Ningwu Pass and Yanmen Pass, the terrain is very dangerous, and it has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times. Before leaving, Li Yan, who was familiar with the officials of the Ming Dynasty, specially put forward his opinion to Li Guo: "Zhou Yuji, the chief military officer of Daizhou, is a tricky target -- his people are brave and brave, resolute and good at fighting, and his personality is upright and loyal, and he will never surrender, and our army will probably pay a heavy price when it encounters it." However, most of the defenders of the Ming State were short of food and grass and could not fight for a long time. If you don't get a bargain for a hard attack, you might as well use the strategy of cutting off food and water instead! ”

Li Guo listened to Li Yan's strategy, and the truth turned out to be exactly as he expected.

From Taiyuan all the way north, Xinzhou, Wutai, and Xiuxian all looked at the wind and fell, and it was not until Daizhou that they encountered the fierce resistance of Zhou Yuji, and they could not win for several days. However, Zhou Yuji was unable to receive assistance from other places because of his own internal lack of food and grass. had to retreat into Ningwu Pass and hold on.

Li Zicheng led the army to set out on the 20th and arrived at Yanmen Pass on the 22nd. The next day. There was a mutiny in Shuozhou, and the rebels collectively surrendered to Li Zicheng after killing the Ming generals.

So far. Ningwuguan has become a completely isolated city......

Zhou Yuji, who led the remnants to retreat to Ningwu Pass, did his best to prepare for battle, but there was not much food in Ningwu Pass, and everyone in the whole army was in a state of semi-starvation. However, under the leadership of Zhou Yuji, no one complained, let alone surrendered.

Here I have to focus on Zhou Yuji, the chief military officer of Daizhou, because in history, after Lu Xiangsheng died, the military generals of the Chongzhen Dynasty, whether they were against the Manchu Tartars or Li Zicheng, were almost eight or nine out of ten who opened the door and surrendered, and the remaining one or two were basically "hanging the seal and leaving".

But Zhou Yuji is different, he is a native of Guangning, Liaodong. Since childhood, he has been brave and has learned martial arts, so he joined the camp and joined the army. Zhou Yuji relied on several bloody battles to fight bravely, accumulated military merits, was promoted to the Beijing guerrilla, and began to emerge in the military. Originally, in history, Zhou Yuji was promoted to the chief military officer of Daizhou in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, but the previous time the Tartars entered the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of Ming Dynasty generals surrendered to the Tartars and joined the Han army flag. After the Tartars withdrew from the gates. There were no available soldiers in the imperial court, and there were no available generals, so Zhou Yuji was exceptionally promoted and promoted to the chief soldier of Daizhou.

Daizhou is in Shanxi. This was originally the territory of Wang Pu, the chief soldier of Shanxi--from the perspective of military strength, it can be seen that Wang Pu has tens of thousands of male soldiers, while Zhou Yuji's men are only a few thousand old and weak. After coming to Daizhou. Zhou Yuji was loyal to his duties and diligent in training. Although he didn't have many men and resources, he started by eliminating the old and weak and building weapons. Then recruit the strong. Strengthen training, and train the thousands of men and horses under his command quite well.

Daizhou fought several battles in successive days, although Zhou Yuji could not last because of lack of food, but it also greatly frustrated the momentum of the Shun army, and he was very satisfied with the combat ability of his subordinates.

It is no wonder that in the year of the Jiashen Revolution in history, when the Ming army was about to collapse at the first touch, Zhou Yuji's majeste move had a far-reaching impact both at that time and in history, and Li Zicheng was once ready to withdraw to Shaanxi. After the peasant army invaded Beijing, the soldiers were still saying, "If the commander of every town is like the general of Zhou, how can we get here?" After Emperor Hongguang ascended the throne in Nanjing, he posthumously named Zhou Yuji as the Taibao, called Zhongwu, and enshrined in the Jingzhong Temple.

Now before the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng waved his army to force Beijing, and he had to admit that it was still a huge change brought about by the sudden rise of the Tuanshan Army.

Originally, Jiannu entered Kou Daming just to rob wealthy women, but in the fifth year of Chongzhen, the situation changed. At that time, although Huang Taiji's Manchu and Han Eight Banners were repeatedly defeated by Zhang Li's Tuanshan Army, the Tartars recruited Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou, as well as a large number of Ming troops to enrich the Han Eight Banners.

Xuanfu, Datong, Shanxi and even the entire northern Ming Dynasty, there are basically no soldiers to fight, and the situation is far worse than that in the last years of Chongzhen.

Therefore, under the stormy situation, Li Zicheng's peasant army grew several years in advance.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, people who knew they couldn't do it, Lu Xiangsheng counted one, and Zhou Yuji was definitely one.

At present, he can clearly see the situation of the enemy's attack on Ningwu Pass -- the total number of Shun troops is as high as 500,000, and although with the usual urine nature of thieves, I am afraid that most of them are "peasant" troops, but this time there are really tens of thousands of old battalion bandits. What's even worse is that the defenders of Daming have changed and become a member of the Dashun army. These people are all combative, no better than ordinary people.

Although the Dashun army did not plunder the poor people, but the people above the middle class wantonly slaughtered, and in a short period of time also accumulated a huge amount of wealth and grain and grass, no matter from what aspect of the conditions, Zhou Yuji of Ningwuguan and the five thousand men and horses under his command were at an absolute disadvantage.

What do you know about these Zhou Yuji? But he didn't back down.

Zhou Yuji ordered the soldiers to transport the old Furang machine guns to the city tower of Ningwu Pass, and after erecting them, they prepared a large number of things to defend the city, such as earthen bags and boulders. Then he divided the whole army of 5,000 soldiers into two shifts day and night, taking turns to defend the city, and he himself led all the generals to guard the city tower, the streets and alleys in the city, and the protection of the houses was handed over to his wife Liu.

Although Liu is a woman, she has also practiced martial arts, and she has trained the healthy maids in the family to be skilled in bows and horses on weekdays, and she will play a big role in wartime.

And just when Zhou Yuji was ready for all this, and he didn't even have time to breathe, the besieging Shun army launched an offensive.

First, Li Guo came to the city with 3,000 cavalry and archers, and shouted loudly to persuade him to surrender.

"I am a great soldier, invincible, invincible! Limit Erning Wuguan to open the city and surrender immediately, otherwise when the city is broken, both old and young, will be slaughtered! (To be continued.) )