In fact, for the Shanchuan Division, Wu Shigong did not favor one over the other, and Xue Zhinong also had his own goals.

In the last operation to pacify Henan, Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng cooperated with the Runing Army. Of course, after the end, these two men and horses also got a share of their own interests from the Runing Army.

But with the accidental death of the former governor Xuan Mo, these two Ming armies immediately became rootless water. Although Chen Zhongzhi is already a deputy general, and Jiang Cheng is also a garrison, because the two of them have no relationship with the upper echelons, Chen Zhongzhi's department has only 3,000 people, and Jiang Cheng's department has only more than 1,000 people. Therefore, these two Ming armies were quite marginal in the Henan Ming army.

However, Wu Shigong knew that these two Ming armies had strong combat effectiveness. Denglai and his entourage, Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng also learned a lot from the Runing Army, and now almost all the soldiers and horses of these two departments are the old troops of these two Ming generals, who have participated in previous wars.

It was only because they were marginalized and could not get enough military pay and equipment that these two Ming armies were never able to expand.

But this time, Li Xianfeng, the new governor of Henan, took office, and there were only a few ways in front of Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng:

One is to honestly go back and continue their marginalization. However, Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng heard that Li Xianfeng was reorganizing the Ming army in Henan, so they were extremely afraid. This is reorganized into cannon fodder is still haode, in case their troops are reorganized and gone, the military attache without soldiers will be a life to go home.

One is to take refuge in the Runing Army. But when they were originally in Denglai, they were on an equal footing with Wu Shigong. Especially although Chen Zhongzhi's popularity is very poor, he especially wants to be the head, and now he wants them to bow to Wu Shigong, which is a result that Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng can't accept.

Then there is only one way to go - drag. Anyway, they stayed away from Li Xianfeng, and Wu Shigong was more friendly to them anyway. So they temporarily lived in the southern part of Kaifeng Province, near the Runing Army.

And Wu Shigong is indeed good to them, all the supplies are half bought and half given. Of course, the personnel sent out by the Yamakawa Division are also indispensable.

Because the mobility within these two Ming armies is very small, and the members are comrades-in-arms who have been fighting together for many years, it is more difficult to break the Yamakawa Division spies into these two Ming armies, so the Yamakawa Division adopts the method of bribery.

It is not that these two Ming armies immediately surrender to the Runing Army, as long as they lean to this side and think of the Runing Army when it is critical, this will achieve Wu Shigong's goal.

However, the information fed back from the Shanchuan Division: Because of Chen Zhongzhi's strong independence, he was more resistant to defecting to the Runing Army. However, Chen Zhongzhi's subordinates had a better attitude towards the spies of the Runing Army. No way. No one is a fool, everyone knows Chen Zhongzhi's temperament, and there is no good future with him, so his subordinates always want to find another way.

Jiang Cheng is different, he is more friendly to the Runing Army. Jiang Cheng originally had few soldiers. has to take refuge in one side, so it is better to take refuge in Wu Shigong, who has a better relationship with him. At least it won't be sold.

But it's too early to say that. After all, Wu Shigong's ambition has not yet been revealed.

But the current situation is that the big war is about to start, and Li Xianfeng can't wait to scatter beans into soldiers, so of course he will not idle these two Ming armies. Therefore, Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng successively received orders from Li Xianfeng to take their troops to the Henan border to fight.

As soon as they received this order, Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng were immediately frightened. Let them, 4,000 men, deal with hundreds of thousands of peasant troops. And without the cooperation and support of friendly forces, no matter how you look at it, it is a matter of meat buns beating dogs.

But Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng didn't dare to disobey the order. The current Ming court has no problem with Wu Shigong, a military attache who has become a climate, but it is still decisive to deal with young military attaches like Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng. That's why it's still a small number of soldiers to get into trouble!

Since they had nowhere to rely on, then of course they wanted to attach themselves to the Runing Army. Of course, I don't want to take refuge now. I just want the Runing Army to protect the safety of their troops behind them. In this regard, Wu Shigong didn't object, anyway, he couldn't swallow the army of these two people now, so he simply didn't do anything ugly and formed a good relationship with them. However, Wu Shigong still asked Xue Zhinong to step up his efforts, and he must have Chen Zhongzhi and Jiang Cheng stand on the same front as him.

On October 19, the eighth year of Chongzhen, Jiugao Mountain, Song County.

General Zu Kuan, Zu Dale, Deputy General Li Chongzhen and other generals with 6,000 Liao soldiers waited for the appearance of Zhang Xianzhong's troops.

"Crazy! How did you come up with the idea of taking on the thief here? Zu Dale asked strangely. However, only the people of the ancestral family dared to call Zu Kuan a "madman" to his face.

Zu Kuan "hehe" Yile and said: "Who is not beating?" Sooner or later, there will be a war, it is better to fight now! ”

"You calf must be playing some kind of little Jiujiu!" Zu Dale ruthlessly exposed Zu Kuan's lies, "Governor Lu's troops are not far from us, and they will be able to converge in two days at most." It's better for you to bring all of our brothers here, and not bring a single outsider. What do you want to do? Loyal to the country? Don't tell me, you're possessed by Grandpa Yue? ”

Zu Kuan suddenly daxiao: "Hahaha-! I know I can't hide it from you! But think about it, who are we dealing with? ”

"Thief! And his army of 100,000! Zu Dale was a little confused, "Could it be that madman, you like to fight with so many thieves so much?" Are you really crazy? ”

"You're crazy!" Zu Kuan scolded back, "Seventh General, why are you stupid? Think about it, Zhang Thief's fame is so big? ”

“weishenme？” Zu Dale also glared at the bull's eye, "Of course he took down Fengyang and dug up the ......" Speaking of this, the eyes of Zu Dale and other generals suddenly lit up, and they only understood Zu Kuan's intentions at this time.

After conquering Fengyang, Zhang Xianzhong must have obtained a lot of gold and silver treasures, and Zu Kuan had the idea of these gold and silver.

"What a good brother!" Zu Dale also hahadaxiao, and then immediately pulled out his waist knife and shouted, "Sons and daughters, get ready." The two thousand Guan Ning Iron Cavalry who followed him also immediately raised their weapons.

"Don't worry!" Zu Kuan immediately raised his eyebrows and said, "This thief's shadow hasn't appeared yet, why are you pulling out your sword in such a hurry?" Zu Kuan's words immediately attracted the generals to be hahadaxiao.

These Liao soldiers were hiding behind a hillside, and they relied on scouts to find out the news of Zhang Xianzhong's department. When the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's army was still about three miles away from them, these Liao soldiers immediately appeared from behind the hillside.

The quality of these Liao soldiers was very high, and although they appeared from behind the hillside in a very scattered manner, their pace was not fast. Therefore, it is easy to adjust the queue and expand it into a battle formation.

The front row was 2,000 Guanning iron cavalry, and the back row was 4,000 infantry, and they pressed towards the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's department with great momentum.

Seeing the appearance of the Ming army, the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's department was also busy, but it was also the elite of Zhang Xianzhong's department who opened the way, and they immediately wanted to arrange a formation to block the advance of the Ming army in front of them, so that their main force had time to deploy.

However, although the Liao army walked unhurriedly, it was not far from three miles, so it soon approached the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's department.

Seeing that there were more than 3,000 peasant troops blocking the road, Zu Kuan asked Zu Dale with a smile: "Are you coming or am I coming?" ”

Zu Dale also replied with a relaxed face: "Come on!" Otherwise, you madman wouldn't be able to sleep at night. ”

In the midst of laughter, Zu Band lined up with his thousand Guan Ning iron cavalry and charged. The three-eyed fire gun fired three sections, and then drove the horse into the chaotic peasant army formation, and suddenly broke the three thousand pioneers of Zhang Xianzhong's department.

Zu Kuan's Guanning Iron Cavalry did not take advantage of the situation at all, but only tore a big hole in the vanguard of Zhang Xianzhong's department, opening up a road for Zu Dale's Guanning Iron Cavalry behind.

Following this road, Zu Dale's Guanning Iron Cavalry slaughtered Zhang Xianzhong's brigade. Although this large group of people is very numerous, it is mixed with a large number of old and weak women and children, and it is completely a rabble.

Seeing Guan Ning Iron Cavalry rushing over, they didn't resist at all, and immediately turned around and fled, allowing Zu Dale's Guan Ning Iron Cavalry to save all the ammunition of the Three-Eyed Fire Gun.

Then the Guanning Iron Cavalry was divided into small groups to attack the peasant army in groups. The Liao infantry that followed behind killed the rout of the peasant army. After a while, the peasant army was strewn with corpses, and the scene was unbearable.

However, Zhang Xianzhong had his own intentions in arranging the marching order in this way. He just wanted to use the more than 10,000 old and weak women and children of the front army to block the pace of the Ming army's surprise attack. So by the time the Liao army killed the front army of Zhang Xianzhong's army, Zhang Xianzhong's main force was ready for battle.

Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong's troops had finished arranging, under the constraints of Zu Kuan, Zu Dale and other generals, the Liao army was in a hurry to line up again, preparing for the next charge. Of course, Zhang Xianzhong would not let the Liao army get his way, so he immediately ordered the whole army to press in.

However, Zhang Xianzhong's troops were greeted by the artillery, guns and rockets of the Liao army. As soon as he encountered such a firepower attack, Zhang Xianzhong knew that it was bad, and it must be the border army.

So Zhang Xianzhong immediately made a decision and immediately ordered 10,000 newly coerced displaced people to charge, while he himself quietly pulled the main force behind. Seeing that the Liao army had been entangled with these 10,000 displaced people, Zhang Xianzhong immediately fled with his main force.

By the time the Liao army had spent a lot of effort to kill the 10,000 displaced people again, Zhang Xianzhong had already left the battlefield with his main force. And under the lack of people and horses, it is impossible for the Liao army to pursue.

Although nearly 10,000 peasant troops were beheaded and captured, the Liao army did not gain any gold and silver wealth. In a fit of rage, Zu Kuan ordered the capture of the peasant army to be killed, preparing to pursue Zhang Xianzhong's troops again.

But Zu Dale grabbed the impulsive Zu Kuan, and said: "The direction in which the thief fled is the direction from which Governor Lu came, and it is impossible for us to fight for food, so let's set up an ambush and wait for the thief to escape again." ”

The war began with the Battle of Songxian. (To be continued......)