Wang Qiaonian's troops went out of Tongguan, along Zhuyang Pass, Lushi, and Zhuyang Town all the way to the south, and the vigilance along the way was abnormal. Even the tactics of raiding the grain team and carrying heavy baggage by small troops that the rogues usually used well did not appear once. There were originally more than 10,000 people near Luoyang, but now there is no action at all.

On the way to the army, Ye County was declared lost, and the Ming army guarding Ye County was the original leader of the Liukou Raiders, Liu Guoneng, but now he is the deputy general of Beiwudu appointed by the imperial court. Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai's army stormed Ye County for seven days, and when the city was broken, Liu Guoneng personally went out of the city to see Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai, and killed himself in public, with his own life, to avoid the massacre of the soldiers and civilians of Ye County.

After occupying Ye County, Li Zicheng continued to go south and began to attack Nanyang Mansion. According to the established plan, Luo Rucai continued to go west, entered Luyang Pass, relied on Danxia Mountain, carefully guarded, and made it clear that he was watching the battle in Nanyang.

At the end of October, Li Zicheng's army marched under the city of Nanyang, and the defender was fierce as a tiger and the prefect Liu Ruzuo led the army to resolutely resist. At this time, not only did Wang Qiaonian lead the army to gallop closer to Nanyang in the starry night, but the governor of Henan, Li Xianfeng, also sent the guerrilla general Gao Qian to lead the troops to support, and Chen Yongfu, the general soldier of Henan, also escaped from the battle for Luoyang with Liu Mingshan, and led his troops to the south to help.

The shape of Nanyang was precarious, and even Zhu Yujiao, the king of Tang who was in Nanyang, sent the guards and family members in the palace to participate in the war, and even took out all his family wealth and distributed it to the soldiers and people defending the city, so as to boost morale. Therefore, although Li Zicheng's army attacked fiercely, it did not make any progress for a while.

Under such circumstances, Wang Qiaonian urged all armies to speed up the pace of marching, which also caused the disconnection between the front army and the rear army. Zhu Ping'an and Sun Chuanting were mostly foot soldiers, and asked Wang Qiaonian several times to slow down and wait for the rear army, so as to echo back and forth, in case the rogue took advantage of the situation to enter, but Wang Qiaonian insisted on refusing.

When he arrived in the area of Sujiagou, Wang Qiaonian quickly passed through Guò and rushed to Xichuan. But when Zhu Ping'an and Sun Chuanting passed by, the scouts found traces of the intruding army. Zhu Ping'an and Sun Chuanting had to order their subordinates to be on strict guard, and slowly pass through the dangerous terrain of Sujiagou.

Sujiagou comes to Danshui, the terrain is not precipitous, but it is located between two hills, these years of drought year after year, the government and the people in order to grab the water source, they opened up branches from Danshui, introduced Sujiagou, which caused the hills to be washed by the river, and now it is dry to the bottom, and the trees and plants on the hills on both sides are all dried up to death. The Sujiagou between the hills has become more low, and the official road is also in it, and a large number of grain, grass and heavy vehicles can only pass through it, so the hills on both sides are quite high and firmly lock the entry and exit of the official road.

When Zhu Ping'an and Sun Chuanting's department arrived at Sujiagou, it was already sunset, and a thousand people under Sun Chuanting's command first passed through Sujiagou and guarded at the southernmost exit, but the hilly area was vast and sparsely populated, and the terrain was complex and steep, so they could only send sentry spies and scouts to monitor.

After Sun Chuanting's regiment practiced the army, Zhu Ping'an's department was in the center, and a large number of grain, grass, and baggage vehicles with the army began to pass through Sujiagou.

With such a dangerous terrain, and the fact that he is the key to Wang Qiaonian's entire support for the Nanyang army, Zhu Ping'an knows very well that the army will definitely turn its attention to his side.

The troops put on a long snake formation and slowly entered Sujiagou, and the local people had already fled, and there was no way to find people such as the chief of the security guard and the chief of the li. The soldiers entered in a state of extreme vigilance and silence, with no sound of conversation in their ears, only the sound of whimpering winds, the grinding of axles, and the dull sound of footsteps.

After more than half an hour, Zhu Ping'an sensed that something was wrong with the situation, and hurriedly asked Shen Ke and Zhang Yaoxian, "How long has the scout not returned?" ”

Zhang Yaoxian also hurried to report, "Handsome, it's been two quarters of an hour!" And not just one, but all six groups of scouts have no news! ”

At this time, there is no need to explain anything, the scouts sent by Zhu Ping'an's department are all the elite of each department, and before leaving, it has been determined that half an hour will be marked by the special signal fireworks that he carries with him, indicating whether the investigation is safe or not. But until now, the array scouts have not sent any messages back, and not a single signal has been shot into the sky to warn.

The long convoy had already entered Sujiagou as much as a third, and Zhu Ping'an could only order the soldiers to stop advancing at this time, the musketeers to reload their bullets, and the pikemen and sword and shield soldiers to be on guard at the periphery. The grenadiers were closely guarded, and the line of sight was not good, and it was not clear where the surrounding enemy was ambushed, how many of them, and how they would attack, so it was better to hide the grenadiers for the time being.

Even the horses and mules in the convoy seemed to sense the impending danger and began to become agitated, their hooves constantly beating the ground and splashing dust, while a large number of soldiers silently watched every move around them in the smoke.

"Set off flares!" Zhu Ping'an ordered.

The flare is one of the inventions of the Dengzhou Research Institute, which played a huge role in the Battle of Penglai, exposing the Zheng family sailors to firepower without reservation. The flares carried by the Lu Master are much smaller than those of the Sailors, and the appearance looks like a huge firework.

In the darkness, apart from the neighing of mules and horses and the incessant sound of the wind, it seemed that the sound of stray footsteps and heavy breathing could already be heard in the distance.

The soldiers galloped and scattered, each looking for a place where the ground was soft, and inserted the flares firmly into the earth, and then lit the fuse, but after twenty silent counts, several long dragons with flames rose into the air, and behind the tail was a fire with a clear trajectory, and when it flew to a distance of dozens of feet above the ground, it suddenly dispersed, and a bright and dazzling white firework suddenly bloomed in the dark sky.

In the darkness of the surrounding hills, there was a large-scale exclamation at the same time.

There is a dazzling white between heaven and earth, illuminating the entire Sujiagou area without visual blind spots.

The rows of musketeers had already reached the heights of the hills, and the abrupt exclamation undoubtedly provided them with an obvious target, and the muzzles of their guns were unconsciously pointed there.

On the dry and yellowed earth, there were countless figures lying on their stomachs neatly, because of the sudden rise of the flares, suddenly from the darkness into a bright and dazzling environment, these soldiers in earthy yellow uniforms were actually stunned, forgot to crawl forward, all opened their mouths wide, and looked at the wonders of the sky in unison.

With Zhu Ping'an's approval, Shen Ke had already taken over his musket, which was obviously different from other firearms, from the hands of his guards, and climbed up the hill excitedly, and the flare slowly fell down, during which there was about half a cup of tea, and this qiē was enough for the musketeers to aim and shoot.

As early as when the musketeers were first established, Zhu Ping'an combined the dog lock gun and the flintlock pistol developed by Bi Maokang, and Sun Heding and others from the research institute developed the "Dengzhou one-style" rifle. At present, the research and development of newer army muskets is being stepped up, and the so-called sniper musket used by Shen Ke is the enhanced, improved and luxurious version of the "Dengzhou Yi Style", which is only suitable for long-distance shooting.

The brightness provided by the flares is already absolutely sufficient for the needs of a sniper. The snipers are currently under the new army, and the proportion of 100 musketeers is less than three, and their training is all completed by Shen Ke's personal guard Zuo Qianhu, and the training syllabus compiled under the personal guidance of Zhu Ping'an is used as a guide, and the selection is also the sharpshooter in each battalion. Suddenly encountering the enemy, the snipers did not wait for orders, and as the flares were raised, they locked on to their respective targets in an instant.

At this time, the military system was still in its infancy, and the habit of rogue in the past had not been completely eliminated. However, after Li Zicheng raised troops in Henan again, especially after absorbing a large number of Ming army generals and some frustrated scholars and literati into the system, he began to rectify and reform the military system.

At present, the elite of the army is the old battalion commanded by Liu Zongmin, Tian Jianxiu, Li Guo and others who have been following Li Zicheng, and it is divided into six divisions, which should include a large number of Shaanxi soldiers, and the combat power is the crown of the rogues. This is also the reason why Luo Rucai heard that the old sixth camp surrounded his camp that day, and he was timid and had to negotiate with Li Zicheng and take a step back.

The Chuang army is currently divided into five battalions, the front and back, the left, the middle and the right, and the old battalion belongs to the combat force directly under Li Zicheng and is not in the sequence of the five battalions. Among them, the rear camp is mainly yellow. Therefore, by looking at the color of the clothes, you can determine which part of the invasion army that attacked today, but the formation of the invasion army is still chaotic, so Zhu Ping'an and others cannot confirm which part of the rear camp is in front of them.

The officers in the army continued to use the standard armor and equipment of the Ming army, so they were particularly conspicuous under the mapping of flares. The sniper preemptively launched a round of shooting, and immediately killed more than a dozen officers in bright armor, which also caused a lot of confusion in the invading army, and the subsequent musket salvo caused a lot of damage to the invading army who were still prostrate on the ground.

Judging from Zhu Ping'an's experience in fighting with the Chuang army, the combat strength of the Chuang army is still mainly composed of Li Zicheng's descendants and subordinates of the Ming army, and these people have more or less experience in serving in the official army, so they are similar to the official army. Normally, in the event of such a dense and heavy salvo of muskets, the invading army would have immediately retreated, out of range.

But to the surprise of Zhu Ping'an and the others, these ambushed intruders actually made a jaw-dropping change.

They did not retreat but advanced, the casualties around them did not seem to make them feel afraid, or they were obviously afraid, but they were subject to the harshness of military law, anyway, none of these soldiers retreated, and jumped up from the ground with a roll, and then quickly widened the distance between everyone, forming a loose charging formation, and rushed up without fear of death.

This change surprised Zhu Ping'an's troops, because the distance was very close, and after three volleys, the speed of reloading would be difficult to resist the attacking enemy. The musketeers had to quickly retreat down the hills.

Pikemen and sword and shield men formed a formation, guarding the musketeers and baggage carts in the center.

But what is even more surprising is that these soldiers rushed to the edge of the hills and stopped in their tracks, and then took off the bows and arrows on their backs, and many of them lit torches, which seemed to be going to attack the brigade's grain and grass and heavy vehicles with rockets.

Zhu Ping'an was suddenly shocked, in the past, the army saw the weight of grain and grass, even in the face of hard fighting, he had to use his life to attack, and he was willing to give up only when he took the grain and grass for himself. Could it be that so much baggage is not in their eyes? R1152