Since crossing the Yangtze River, the special operations force has lost only more than 60 soldiers, but it has already completed the severe blow to more than 30,000 soldiers and horses of the local defenders and grain transport teams in the Jiangyou area, and the Jingwang army has lost more than 20,000 soldiers and horses.

On the ninth day of the lunar month, all the special troops, except for the scouts, had gathered in the county seat of Maoxian, with 3,002 soldiers and horses. Liu Yu left Lian Husheng's Fifth Route Army to guard the county seat of Mao County, and led the rest of the Fifth Route Army to march in the direction of Huizhou on the same day. Previously, Liu Yu ordered the more than 1,000 captured Jingwang troops to be dismissed on the spot.

Because this trip was extremely public, the Huai cavalry led by Hua Ji'an on the side of Huizhou had already received the news that Liu Yu had been able to withdraw before the army arrived in Huizhou, and the Taishou of Huizhou and a part of the army stationed in Huizhou by King Jing also fled first when they heard the news, resulting in the entire undefended city of Huizhou, as soon as the bandits came, the gate of the city was closed, and the bandits fired a round of guns below to deter, and the garrison army in the city who had time to escape opened the city gate and dedicated the city.

The county town fell to bandits, which was the first time since the founding of the Dashun Dynasty, and it was sensational, especially in a strategic city like Jizhou.

Huizhou is the northern gateway of the Jiangyou region, the water and land transportation is developed, to the east can go straight to the direction of the Huaidi capital Jiankang City, to the north can go straight to the hinterland of the Central Plains. Hua Ji'an's idea of withdrawing troops was very simple, he didn't want to lose troops for King Jing for no reason, he wanted to withdraw to the territory of Huaidi, cooperate with the defenders of Huaidi, and completely block this gang of bandits from Huaidi.

Originally, Hua Ji'an expected that this bandit would enter Huizhou, how could it be temporarily rested for a few days, if it was a real bandit, it would definitely loot on a large scale, if it was really related to the imperial army, the next target of this bandit would be to reinforce Xuzhou to the north. Or go east and go straight to the rear of Huaidi. At present, the main force of the Huai army is all in Jiangbei. Huaidi's defense is weak.

However, on the night of the ninth day of the lunar month, Hua Ji'an, who was on the way to withdraw his troops, received the latest battle report, saying that the bandits had passed through the city of Yuzhou and did not enter, and they had directly and rapidly advanced southward, taking the direction of Yingzhou, the capital of Jingdi. Do they want to break through Yingzhou in one fell swoop?

As the capital of King Jing, Yingzhou is larger than Xuzhou City in terms of population and city wall, and a Xuzhou city has made nearly 100,000 Huai Army North Route Army unable to advance or retreat. Now the bandits are only three or four thousand soldiers and horses, and they dare to fight the idea of Yingzhou, perhaps because the leader of the bandits has not encountered great resistance along the way, and his self-confidence is too great!

Hua Ji'an immediately realized that this was an opportunity to completely annihilate this group of bandits, and with his calmness, he couldn't help but want to outflank the back of the bandits, and cooperate with King Jing's army to eliminate all the bandits under the city of Yingzhou. The opportunity was fleeting, and Hua Ji'an sent a large number of sentry horses out of the city to inquire about the news, while stopping the retreat. Instead, they followed the bandits, both tailgating. It was not too close, and the distance between the two sides was more than 100 miles, so that the Huai army would not be suddenly attacked by bandits.

However, Hua Ji'an underestimated the speed of the bandits' march, from the three hundred and fifty miles from Yingzhou to Yingzhou, the bandits completed overnight, when the tenth day of the lunar month at noon, Hua Ji'an received the battle report from the front, the bandits' vanguard army had started from the morning of the same day, and after the night attack, they launched an attack on Yingzhou City without stopping.

"Although King Jing is in his twilight years, King Jing's army in Yingzhou is above 30,000, 3,000 to attack 30,000, what is the idea of the bandits?"

Hua Ji'an had a lot of combat experience and a lot of wisdom, and this battle was beyond his knowledge from the beginning, and no military book would record such a terrifying combat method. The rapid march and the immeasurable siege of the city, Hua Ji'an thought about it, the bandits were not annihilated by the Huai army in one fell swoop, and the biggest purpose outside the siege was likely to be to send reinforcements, that is, the four thousand elite cavalry of the Huai army led by him.

Thinking of this, Hua Ji'an became more cautious, and the speed of the march gradually slowed down, so as to ensure that there was no leakage and not give the bandits a chance to suddenly attack.

But what Hua Ji'an didn't know was that Yingzhou City, which went down first, was experiencing a siege battle that the defenders and people of the city would never forget, and the tragedy of the battle and the number of dead and wounded defenders were also unexpected by the soldiers and civilians of Yingzhou City.

This also starts from the morning of the ninth day of the lunar month.

This year, not only did the major event of the death of the Son of Heaven occur, but there was also a drought in Guanzhong and a flood in the south of the Yangtze River. The floods in the south of the Yangtze River are especially serious in the Jingwang land, that is, the Jiangjiang region. Originally, King Jing also wanted to take out grain to help the victims, and the grain stored in Jingdi was enough all year round, but because King Huai suddenly raised troops to rebel, King Jing needed to fulfill his promise to deliver grain as military rations, and the military rations were repeatedly hijacked, so that the local disaster situation was still not alleviated five months after the flood, and many victims gathered under the Jingdu Yingzhou City, relying on the porridge field that Yingzhou City only opened once a day to receive porridge to survive.

The advantage of Jiangnan over Guanzhong is that the vegetation in Jiangnan is lush and there is no shortage of water, so although the victims of the disaster are living in difficulty, they can barely survive for nearly half a year outside Yingzhou City by relying on leaves, bark, wild vegetables and gruel. In recent days, because of the serious shortage of food in King Jing, Yingzhou City suddenly closed the porridge field, which caused a large-scale commotion among the victims outside the city, and on the ninth day of the lunar month, the city gate was closed and no longer opened, and the victims felt that there might be no way to live, and they had begun to make noise outside the city, and more than 100,000 victims would riot at any time.

Originally, it was easy to deal with the riots of the victims, after all, the walls of Yingzhou City were so high that even hundreds of thousands of regular troops might not be able to conquer them, and it was unlikely that hundreds of thousands of hungry people wanted to cause trouble. But on the morning of the tenth day of the lunar month, a black vortex rushed to the city of Yingzhou.

Most of the victims have heard of the bandits around Yingzhou, but they have only heard and not witnessed, the bandits have come and gone without a trace, even if they are groups of refugee bandits are not interested in patronizing, at first sight of the bandits, the victims instinctively scattered and fled, and the north of Yingzhou City, where the bandits are entrenched, was vacated.

Everyone, including the defenders in the city and the hungry people outside the city, thought that the bandits were passages, and they would leave immediately when they found that Yingzhou City was heavily guarded, but no one expected that the bandits did not rest for a moment after arriving at Yingzhou City, and immediately launched an attack on the city. And the means of siege is also unheard of by the soldiers and civilians inside and outside Yingzhou City, only to see a black-clothed and masked bandits, from the black cloth covered objects on the horse, a round object of about half a foot diameter, was placed diagonally in the open space outside the city, about four hundred steps away from the city wall of Yingzhou City, and began to line up black pipes in rows, each black pipe was followed by two people, one squatted and looked at the black pipe, and the other person stood behind him, all looking at the small red flag in the hand of the first thief.

As the small red flag fell, all the standing bandits gave a command, and the crouching bandits lit a fuse with a fire breaker, and then the entire line of bandits fled quickly.

The bandits' act of magic attracted the attention of the defenders on the city wall and the victims of the disaster under the city wall, and they all thought it was fun, as if they were lighting firecrackers, but then they felt that it was not fun, and the earth-shaking sound, as if it was divided into levels, and as if it sounded in the open space at the same time, after a violent fire, the black pipe sent out a black smoke stream, and the smoke flew high into the sky, and then fell on the castle tower in a parabola.

"Coax! Coax! Coax! ……”

Immediately after that, there was a loud explosion on the city wall, and many of the battlements on the city wall had been blown out of the gaps, and the casualties of the defenders on the city tower were a little shocking in this round. Looking at the original location of the open space, the pits have been blown out one by one, and almost all the black pipes have been blown open or burst, scattered inside and outside the pits.

"It's good in the past!"

The defenders on the city wall and the hungry people under the city were frightened, and this idea came to their hearts at the same time, but apparently they had made up their minds too early, and another group of black-clothed bandits rushed out, and the two of them were carrying the same black pipe just now, and this time the soldiers and civilians inside and outside the city could see clearly that they were stuffing something into the black pipe under the coordination of the two bandits.

The red flag fell, and the bandits fled to the back without a shadow, and the defenders who had just escaped the difficulty were cold. This still makes people how to live.

"Coax ......"

Rounds of artillery fire continued to attack the northern wall of Yingzhou City, and the city wall seemed to be crumbling under this continuous artillery fire.

After more than a dozen rounds of attacks by bandits, the Cheng army in the city could not sit still, and then cavalry rushed from the east and west sides of the city wall, obviously because the defenders did not want to be beaten passively.

This time the bandits' artillery attack came to a slight halt, and a group of bandits' cavalry was ready to attack, but there was no rush to attack. The infantry under the horses crackled with something as thick as wood and an iron pipe, and the cavalry that counterattacked in the city had been largely damaged, and only scattered cavalry were left when they rushed over.

And the bandits' formation is very firm, a round of guns ended, immediately retreated to the back to reload and prepare, the other group that had been loaded with ammunition had already stood behind the temporary set up shield wall, and there was a burst of crackling fire, the sound of horses' hooves over there gradually sporadic, the remaining cavalry wanted to resist stubbornly, the bandits' cavalry had launched a round of killing, and the cavalry of the Jingwang army was harvested and taken away.

The remaining defenders on the north wall were frightened, for fear that the bandits would attack the city immediately, and at this time, the reinforcements were not available, and the north city wall was easily lost, but the bandits did not rush to attack the city, but continued to use black pipe artillery fire to suppress the remaining defenders on the city wall.

At this time, the hungry people who were hiding in the distance outside the city were horrified, and they were also worried about their future and fate, and now it was time for them to make a choice, perhaps joining the side defending the city and helping the defenders resist these bandits, which was tantamount to killing themselves, and the other way was to flee and leave the land of right and wrong, which would mean that they would continue to embark on the road of migration, which would be full of thorns.

There is an idea that they don't dare to think of, but there are still many people who think of it, I wonder if Lu Dao can join the side of the bandits, attack Yingzhou City together, and then fall into the grass to eat and drink spicy food for Kou in the future?

Thinking of this, the victims were also a little disheartened, how could they easily accept a group of disaster victims into the gang with their well-trained people? What's more, if you join a thief, you will be a thief for the rest of your life, and you may end up in the future where both the government and the thief are not welcome. (To be continued......)