According to the information obtained by the intelligence department of the Tuanshan Army, Jiannu is buying Western firearms on a large scale through the Zheng family, and will not go south to fight against the Tuanshan Army in Liaodong for a while, after all, they still need to be reorganized and trained. Therefore, while improving the strength of the Tuanshan Army, Zhang Li also needs to hit the so-called "worries" fiercely.

After the battle of Gaomi, the number one enemy in Zhang Li's heart is no longer just the Jiannu family, and those thieves may have destroyed the country more than the Jurchens. Therefore, Zhang Li transferred 20,000 elites from Liaodong to Shandong, including 5,000 cavalry from Chaolu.

Subsequently, Zhang Li mobilized more than 40,000 recruits from Shandong and set up a thief suppression corps, led by Lu Xiangsheng, from Shandong to attack Beizhili, Xuanfu, Henan, Shanxi and other places, the purpose is to severely attack the army of thieves who have swelled rapidly because of the entry of Jiannu.

In the spring of the seventh year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, the entire northern part of the Ming Dynasty was full of chickens and dogs, and the thieves Zhang Xianzhong, Gao Yingxiang, Luo Rucai, and even Li Zicheng, who was not so powerful, were all defeated by the Tuanshan army and fled in a hurry.

With the 5,000 cavalry of Chaolu, the main force of the old battalion of the thieves was very sad, and the Tuanshan army did not care about the large number of people they were coercing, but chased the old thieves and bandits and beat them violently, which really hurt the vitality of the thieves.

Now, Li Zicheng, who calls himself a "general," is fleeing with his brothers from Hebei to Shanxi along the way.

After several large bandits were sniped by the Tuanshan Army, the original strategy of "going east" and "going south" could not be carried out, and several bandit leaders such as Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, and Wang Ziyong, who had disappeared together on the surface, would certainly not have lived in seclusion and drank the northwest wind from now on, and the absence of news did not mean that they had no action -- their actions were only carried out in secret -- and in the secret operations, they still kept recruiting the surviving old troops. and the absorption of new entrants. It's just that they are afraid of the prestige of the Tuanshan Army. did not dare to operate in Shandong, Beizhili, and Xuanfu generation, but changed the direction to Shanxi and Henan.

Li Zicheng also finally met a brother from Gao Yingxiang's department. Only then did I learn a little bit about Gao Yingxiang. There were not many brothers left under the Jingguan, and although he was only a weak horse under his crotch, as soon as he heard the news of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng's spirit came—at least in the seventh year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng was far less powerful than in later generations.

All the way to the west, Li Zicheng was able to collect more and more information, more and more detailed. Gao Yingxiang is really moving in the direction of Henan, and in these days, he has gathered more than 100,000 horses along the way. But. His team was also constantly attacked by the Tuanshan Army, and the losses were not small......

Anyway, as long as there is Gao Yingxiang covering, everything is easy to do, so Li Zicheng rushed all the way and went to Henan.

The princes of the imperial court have been living a very prosperous life recently, because of the two major problems that plagued the Ming Dynasty, the Jiannu and the thieves have been beaten by the mountain army of the Zhang Li Tuan, and they have stopped a lot.

In fact, in the eyes of the bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty. Jiannu is nothing more than a gang of bandits, and the real threat comes from the peasant rebels. The best outcome is if the Li Li's Tuanshan army can beat the thieves away and make them no longer threaten the Jingshi.

At the same time. The peasant army, which had been defeated and defeated repeatedly, also encountered an unprecedented crisis. In the past. Whether it's Hong Chengchou or Lu Xiangsheng. Against the peasant army, almost all of them won more and lost less, the so-called "rabble"! But the old camp of thieves. The loss has not been big, all don't look at the battle record, the peasant army was completely blown up by the Ming official army, but as Bai Juyi's poem wrote, "The wildfire burns inexhaustibly, and the spring breeze blows and grows." It is also very easy for a thief to regain his strength.

However, this time against the Tuanshan Army, the old camp of the thieves suffered heavy losses under the blow of the cavalry troops, and Li Zicheng, who fled in embarrassment, finally met Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", in Henan.

When the two met miserably, the old camp under his command all shed tears. Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng opened their thick and strong arms respectively and hugged each other tightly, the tears in their eyes were not left, but the sound of their heartbeats rang so loudly that they could hear each other clearly. Sweat seeped out of my heart and forehead, covering my whole body.

It took a long time for the two to let go of their arms. Gao Yingxiang patted Li Zicheng's chest vigorously, looked up to the sky with tears in his eyes and laughed: "Brother, let's be human again!" ”

His demeanor was unrestrained and free, and his few words and gestures were full of heroic momentum, but the whole person was obviously thin, his face had a few more wrinkles, and his robe was also stained with a little dust - his pride was still there, but unfortunately the traces of wind and frost were mercilessly burned.

The army of thieves who once had hundreds of thousands of horses and horses simply existed in name only, and now there were only a few thousand veterans left by his side, and his days were still spent in the middle of running around, which was simply precarious.

"Along the way, the brothers have numbered more than 100,000 horses several times, but after they gathered, they were swept away by the Tuanshan army, scattered and scattered, scattered and gathered, and after today, I don't know if I can see the sun tomorrow."

Gao Yingxiang briefly told Li Zicheng about his escape from Hebei - in ancient times, Hebei was not the Hebei of later generations, but north of the Yellow River - to Henan, his tone was very calm, but the content was extremely tragic and bloody battles!

The cavalry units of the Tuanshan Army were like a sharp knife, beating the "hundreds of thousands" of peasant armies to the ground, and their number was only a few thousand......

However, after all, Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", is a person with a natural leadership personality, although there is danger and distress in front of him, the future prospects are uncertain, and even there is little hope, it seems to be a dead end, but his eyes are by no means with the slightest frustration and despair, but he is speaking with a calm and rational attitude. Even the process of a critical state was carried by him in an indifferent tone.

"If it weren't for the base camp of the Tuanshan Army in Shandong and unable to cross the Yellow River and go south, I would have crossed the corpse valley with all the brothers, so let you arrive, just in time to collect the corpses for everyone!"

When Gao Yingxiang said this, a very calm smile involuntarily appeared on his face to face Li Zicheng, and he didn't take danger and life and death to heart at all.

But Li Zicheng's mood was very different from him - for the first time since he met Gao Yingxiang, he saw that his face was frosty and his clothes were dusty; It's the first time I've seen him look so embarrassed, and it's the first time I've seen him in such a dangerous situation! (To be continued.) )