In the east of Xi'an Province, Shaanxi, in the Shangluo Mountains in the southeast of Shangzhou.

The autumn wind is bleak, in the desolate mountains, on a high mountain, there is a simple cottage, the scale of the cottage is not large, there are more than 1,000 people living in it, and there are many women and children.

In front of the hall of the wooden house in the cottage, there is a big flag, and an apricot yellow flag is embroidered with two big characters of Juyi.

In the hall, there were more than a dozen people deliberating. The first person wore an old white pointed felt hat with the tip of the hat folded down. Although it was not yet September, it was already very cold in the morning and evening in Shangluo Mountain, so he still wore a half-worn green cloth sheepskin robe over the iron armor, a cowhide belt tied around his waist, and a sword stuck in his waist.

This person is only in his early thirties, tall, with broad shoulders, bulging cheekbones, full heaven, high nose, deep eye sockets, thick eyebrows and big eyes, not like an ordinary Han people, but a bit of Huyi mixed blood.

He sat there, staring at the letter in his hand for a long time.

After a long time, he let out a long sigh, "Is the news reliable?" ”

"The Yellow Tiger is being escorted into Beijing by the Jinyi Guard, Cao Cao took the remnants into Daba Mountain, the King of Sweeping, the King of the Ten Antis, the King of the Mixed World, the King of Shuntian, the One Dragon, the Two Tigers, and the Star of the Sky are all broken, and the White Tiger Zonghuo and Deng Tianwang Zhang Shouan have all surrendered."

When the words fell, there was a dead silence in the room, and no one could have imagined that the two righteous armies of the Eight Kings and Cao Cao, who had set off another round of uprising, were exterminated by the imperial court in a blink of an eye.

The person sitting at the top is the same age and fellow villager as Huanghu Zhang Xianzhong, and it is Li Zicheng, who was once a rising star in the early years of the rebel army. Like Zhang Xianzhong, he is a native of Mizhi County, Yan'an Prefecture, Shaanxi, born in a farmer's family, and herded sheep for the landlord in his early years, but he also studied private school, and also learned martial arts, and became a post pawn when he grew up. Later, due to the abolition of the imperial court, the post guards were abolished. Li Zicheng has no means of life and has spent several months in prison for debt.

After that, he went to join the army, but because Shangguan deducted military salaries, he followed his comrades to mutiny, and finally rebelled and defected to his uncle Gao Yingxiang. As his uncle became more and more troublesome, he also became a member of the rebel army, and his uncle was called King Chuang, and he was called Chuang General. After his uncle died of illness in the 36th battalion of the righteous army, he became the new leader of the 72nd battalion of the 13 families, and Li Zicheng's status in the rebel army also rose.

But later, the official army was surrounded and suppressed by Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting and others, his uncle was captured, and Li Zicheng was elected by his uncle and the rest of his uncle to succeed him as King Chuang. He led the rebel army to continue the war, and once invaded Hubei and Sichuan. It also surrounded Chengdu, and the momentum was very great. It's a pity that he was defeated by Sun Chuanting in the end, and once fled into Shangluo Mountain with only eighteen horsemen.

In fact, Li Zi's name is Li Hongji, Zicheng is actually the table word that Mr. gave him when he was studying in a private school, and later when he was a post pawn, everyone called him Li Zicheng, but his real name was gradually used less. Now, everyone calls him King Chuang. Even the name Zicheng is rarely used.

Although Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong are fellow villagers or the same Geng, in fact, the relationship between the two was not good before. Zhang Xianzhong's seniority in the rebel army in his early years was much higher than that of Li Zicheng. Zhang Xianzhong and Gao Yingxiang were on an equal footing, and he was only a general of Lao Chuang Wang in his early years. Later, after the Xingyang Conference of the Righteous Army, they invaded Fengyang, and Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong also made trouble for several eunuchs.

After that, Li Zicheng took over the throne of King Chuang, and the relationship with Zhang Xianzhong also recovered a little, but the two of them basically did not interfere with the river water, and each led a share of people. Fighting on their own.

But after Li Zicheng's defeat, in his most difficult time, he once went to Gucheng to find Zhang Xianzhong, who had already surrendered to the imperial court, and borrowed horses and grain from him to borrow ordnance. neither offered him to the imperial court to invite merit, nor forced him to stay, and finally gave Li Zicheng 500 horses and a lot of money, food and ordnance.

It was with Zhang Xianzhong's funding that Li Zicheng regained his strength in Shangluo Mountain. During this time, Zhang Xianzhong and Cao Cao raised the banner of righteousness again and fought against the official army, and Li Zicheng also seized the opportunity to start attacking everywhere, fighting grain and breaking villages everywhere.

In just a few months, Li Zicheng didn't even dare to raise the banner of the king for more than a year, and only hid in Shangluo Mountain and acted as an ordinary bandit. He didn't even dare to put the accumulated men and horses together, but set up villages in various mountains, and divided the men and horses recruited by his subordinates into one cottage after another.

When Li Zicheng was about to re-launch the banner of King Chuang and hit Shangluo Mountain, he suddenly received a bad news.

Zhang Xianzhong's army was defeated and captured, Cao Cao only led a few thousand cavalry to escape to the Zhongba Mountains of the Great Han Dynasty, tens of thousands of righteous troops were annihilated and captured by the official army, and the leader of the 78th Volunteer Army was killed.

This was not only a catastrophe for Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and other rebel armies, but also an extremely bad situation for Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng slammed his fist on the table, his face flushed, and he saw that he was about to make a comeback and make a comeback, but the failure of Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai's two rebel armies made the situation worse again.

"Pass my order, and the villages will continue to be careful, and we will continue to hide."

"Big brother, I heard a piece of news!"

"What's the news?"

Sun Chuanting was released from prison by the emperor, and was also awarded the post of governor of Shaanxi Trilateral, and even concurrently supervised Henan, Shanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang. I heard that the emperor asked Sun Chuanting to supervise the northwest, and then let Li Changgeng to supervise the southeast, Li Changgeng served as the governor of Nangi, Shandong, Henan, Huguang, and Jiangxi provinces, and Mei Zhihuan specially supervised the military affairs of Nangi, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Huguang, and Jiangxi. ”

Li Zicheng's brows couldn't help frowning even tighter when he heard the news, one governor of eight provinces, two governors of five provinces, the imperial court is going to wipe them out. Especially for the news that Sun Chuanting was appointed as the governor of the five provinces, Li Zicheng was even more uneasy. Sun Chuanting was only the governor of Shaanxi at the beginning, and he defeated the righteous army, captured the old king alive, and once wiped out the entire army that he beat, for this Sun Chuanting, Li Zicheng was afraid in his heart. He never thought that Sun Chuanting would actually go out of the mountain again. He knew that Sun Chuanting was transferred to Beijing and was promoted to the governor of Baoding Shandong, but because of his discord with Yang Sichang, he was imprisoned not long after. Unexpectedly, at this critical time, he came out again, returned to Shaanxi, and served as the governor of the five provinces, specializing in the northwest.

"Originally, Huang Hu and Cao Cao all turned that Yang Sichang around, who knew that Mei Zhihuan and Liu Jiye were killed halfway, and they were repeatedly defeated under them, and in the end, even Huang Hu was captured alive. I heard that Emperor Lao'er had appointed Liu Jiye as the chief military officer of the Zhennan Hou Jiayunyang Regiment and asked him to train 50,000 elite soldiers. Zuo Liangyu hung the seal of the general of the thief and was transferred to Sun Chuanting as the general of the soldiers and horses of the towns, and Liu Jiye hung the seal of the general of the Kou general, and went to the command of Li Changgeng to be the general of the soldiers and horses of the towns to suppress bandits. ”

"You listen to what others say, then Liu Jiye caught a yellow tiger, and the court gave him a marquis?"

"This news is now known to the whole world, you can go to the bottom of the mountain to inquire and know, then Liu Jiye not only sealed the marquis, but also added the title of prince Shaobao, I heard that now the government calls Liu Jiye Liu Shaobao, saying that he is the reincarnation of Grandpa Qi, and Wuqu Xing is descending to earth." Li Zicheng's adopted son Li Shuangxi said.

Li Zicheng had never heard of the name Liu Jun before, but these days, his ears have a calloon.

"I also heard that the imperial court transferred a new governor of Yunyang from Fengyang, it turned out to be the governor of Caoyun and the governor of Fengyang or something."

Li Zicheng and the others are now located in Shangluo Mountain in Shangzhou, Chang'an Prefecture, southeast Shaanxi, but the governor of Yunyang can also govern Shangzhou and Hanzhong Prefecture in Shaanxi.

"I heard that the emperor also expanded the jurisdiction of the governor of Yunyang this time, and the Huangzhou Mansion in the east of Hudong and the Chongqing Mansion in Sichuan were also included in the jurisdiction of Yunyang Town, and I heard that Yunyang Town now has jurisdiction over seven provinces, ten prefectures, fifteen prefectures, and one hundred and five counties." Li Shuangxi said again.

The imperial court once again expanded Yunyang, a special region spanning four provinces, and also set up a general army, and Li Zicheng felt a great pressure. Liu Jun served as the commander-in-chief of this expanded Yunyang Town, so Shangluo Mountain, where they are now located, is also under Liu Jun's jurisdiction.

The twenty-year-old prince of Zhennan Hou was the chief military officer of Yunyang, which made Li Zicheng think of a person, Lu Xiangsheng. Lu Xiangsheng was 22 years old, 27 years old as the prefect, 29 years old as the third military station, Jiantian Xiongjun. At the age of thirty-three, he was already the prime minister of the five provinces, at the age of thirty-five, he entered the military department, and at the age of thirty-nine, he became the governor of the world.

"King Chuang, I don't think Liu Jun is as divine as it is rumored outside, that is, he took shit luck and caught Huang Hu. After all, he is only twenty years old, and he can have some real skills, I heard that he is the nephew of Liu Qiao, the new commander of the Jinyi Guard in the DPRK, and it is estimated that he was promoted by virtue of his connections. I heard that this time the imperial court also promoted a twenty-seven-year-old general soldier named Wu He Gui, I heard that the surname Wu can be promoted to the general soldier, completely because his uncle is the chief soldier of Liaodong, and his father used to be the chief soldier of Liaodong, and this surname Wu is particularly shameless, worshiped the governor Hong Chengchou and the governor of Liaodong and the town guard eunuch and others as teachers, so he was able to be promoted to the general soldier, and the surname Liu must be the same as this surname Wu. ”

"That's it, if we don't give a big gift to the imperial court, let's go to Yunyang and pick off the head of the new Zhennanhou."

Li Zicheng listened to the more they talked, the more unreliable they became, and he slapped the table angrily, "Enough, there is never a good end for underestimating the enemy, so the Yellow Tiger and Cao Cao who Liu Jun can fight have been defeated repeatedly, is it all luck?" Huang Hu has been running for many years, and even Zuo Liangyu defeated his subordinates this year, but this Liu Jun was able to defeat Huang Hu and capture him alive, which shows that this person is indeed capable. Li Zicheng thought for a while, "Before we find out the details of this Liu Jun, we have to restrain our momentum and act in a low-key manner." ”

"Understood?"

"Yes, King Chuang!" (To be continued......)