Seeing that an agreement had been reached, a big stone fell to the ground in Xu Ping's heart, and he did not seek Li Zicheng's consent in advance on this matter, but took advantage of the fact that King Chuang and the military division went to the west to guard against the Qin army and hurry up to do this matter, so as not to be opposed.

Li Zicheng's troops were mixed, and King Chuang himself did not have absolute authority in the army, and Xu Ping felt a bit like the leader of a military alliance. The leaders of each faction have absolute control over their own armies, which certainly gives Xu Ping a lot of autonomy - such as this exchange, but on the other hand, if he really asks for Li Zicheng's consent, it means convincing most of the generals, which is not an easy task.

Even among Xu Ping's subordinates and close allies, there were objections to this matter, because this would inevitably make Kaifeng hold on for a longer time, so Li Dingguo agreed very reluctantly, and there was even more opposition among the staff officers and officers, if it weren't for the fact that Xu Ping's prestige was further enhanced by this victory in Zhili, it would have been very difficult to convince these people.

Now that the wood is in the boat, Xu Ping smiled and arched his hand to the two of them: "The two generals, please go back." ”

Wei Landu was about to turn around and leave after saying goodbye, but was stopped by Jia Minghe. Jia Minghe stood between Xu Ping and Kaifeng Tower, blocked the Kaifeng Tower behind him, and said to Xu Ping in a deep voice: "General Xu, you go first." ”

Looking at Jia Minghe in front of him, and then at the Kaifeng City Tower that was blocked by him, Xu Ping smiled bitterly: "Thank you Lord Jia for your care." ”

Jia Minghe still tightened his face: "I don't understand what you're saying?" ”

Xu Ping sighed and turned to the mount, and Jia Minghe slowly followed him one step away, using his body as cover. Suddenly said a sentence from Jia Minghe's mouth: "Xu Ping, you have lost all the face of Hou Ye, but no matter what, you have not disgraced Hou Ye today." ”

Xu Ping, who was already about to turn over and get on the horse, stopped when he heard this, and said to Jia Minghe: "This is not what I meant, it is the will of General Jia, your brother-in-law, General Pu." ”

Jia Minghe pursed his mouth tightly and didn't make a sound, Xu Ping pointed behind his back: "There are hundreds of thousands of stone grains there, all of which were transported from Shandong by General Pu, and what he never forgot before his death was to prevent the tragedy of cannibalism in Kaifeng." ”

Jia Minghe's Adam's apple moved, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

Xu Ping continued: "General Pu desperately attacked our army in order to save the people of Kaifeng; But I desperately resisted him, not to slaughter the people of Kaifeng. General Pu and I have a public enmity but no selfish grudge. It is an honor for General Pu's last wish to be fulfilled, and it is an order of King Chuang, and it is a great honor to be able to complete it in my hands. ”

There was something faintly bright flashing in Jia Minghe's eyes: "I will let the people of Kaifeng get food." ”

"General Pu will be pleased with this."

"If one day General Xu's subordinates fall into my hands, I will treat them well."

"Me too."

"Sometimes I really envy General Jia and General Wei." After returning to the camp, Xu Ping suddenly said a sentence without a head.

"What are you talking about?" Zhou Dongtian and Yu Shenhe asked in unison.

"The Marquis of Zhendong said that they should love the people, and they said that they should love the people; The Marquis of Zhendong said that he wanted to suppress the bandits, so they said that they wanted to suppress the bandits; What the hell is Zhen Donghou talking about, they don't think about it at all. Xu Ping sighed: "So they will never be confused." ”

Yu Shenhe and Zhou Dongtian glanced at each other. There is no fourth person in the tent now, so there are not many taboos: "My lord, are you confused?" ”

"Yes, you remember when we were in Shandong." Xu Ping fell into memories and deep thoughts: "Hou Ye said that the new army should love the people, Hou Ye said that the new army cannot slaughter the people, and Hou Ye said that the new army must eliminate violence and peace." If I hadn't really believed every word Hou Ye said, I wouldn't have felt pain and confusion when I was in Shandong, and I wouldn't be standing opposite Hou Ye today. ”

……

On the 26th, the governor of Henan ordered a hundred old men to be sent out of the city first, and the army sent 1,000 stone of grain according to the agreement. After the grain was transported into the city, Gao Mingheng expressed his concern to King Zhou: "It must be poisonous and drugged. ”

"What do you mean?"

"The thieves are absolutely uneasy, and there must be something mixed in those grains that will make our soldiers weak in their limbs and weak in their hands and feet, so that they can take advantage of the opportunity to take the city." Gao Mingheng didn't think that every packet of grain was poisonous, because that would be too conspicuous, and he suggested using a dog to try which ones were poisonous.

"Why don't you go quickly?"

"Please ask the king to lend him a few dogs."

King Zhou was startled and said angrily: "Why use this king's dog? ”

"The king clearly saw that there were no living dogs in the city except for the palace."

"Let this king think about this."

"King, Jia Shuai is in a hurry, he is going to distribute the grain immediately, and the lower officials can persuade him only if they talk badly. Jia Shuai refused to believe that this grain was poisonous. ”

King Zhou frowned and thought for a while: "In this way, this king will select ten eunuchs from the palace and give them to Lord Gao, and let them test the poison." ”

"Thank you, the king, the official will retire."

At the request of Jia Minghe, the work of accepting grain was carried out under the city tower of Kaifeng, and ten eunuchs of the royal palace stood in the open space behind the city gate, and countless soldiers of the Bianjun army located on the city tower and the city wall looked at them with blank eyes. In front of everyone's eyes, the eunuchs of the palace trembled and ate the food sent by the invading army, and every slight movement of these ten people would cause the onlookers to exclaim and discuss. The anxious wait lasted for an hour, and Jia Minghe strode to the front of the army, and he raised his head and loudly announced to the Ming officers and soldiers on the tower and around the city: "There is no poison in the grain!" ”

"Hooray! Banzai! ”

The shouts of the soldiers of the Bianjun army shocked the entire Kaifeng, and hundreds of thousands of people in the city were all happy. Liu Gang had been anxiously watching the crowd for a long time, at this time he held his head and squatted weakly, he knew that his family's life was temporarily saved - the Xu Ping who killed people in the mouth of the governor of Henan without blinking, Liu Gang's family was temporarily saved because of his inexplicable kindness. Not only will the government not continue to collect food, but will give some relief to the people in the city, which is a guarantee made by General Jia.

But Liu Gang still lost his grandmother. The old man did not hesitate to leave his home and went with the people of the government. The yamen of the governor of Henan did not need to send people from every household, but it still needed a considerable number of people to exchange food with the invading army outside the city. The neighborhood uses a lottery to decide which one should be out, and the Liu family unfortunately won the lottery of "out". At the insistence of Liu Gang's grandmother, she was finally sent out of the city in place of his grandson and granddaughter in exchange for ten stone of grain for Kaifeng. The old people who were used to exchange food were being sent down to the city in a steady stream, and Liu Gang did not dare to look in that direction, for fear that he would see his grandmother in it. Tears kept streaming from his eyes, and he crouched on the ground and sobbed quietly. Liu Gang had a hunch that he would never see his grandmother again in this life.

After Kaifeng's operation of exchanging living people for food was carried out smoothly, Xu Ping once again left the front line of Kaifeng and went to Guide to inspect Sun Kewang's work. After seeing Xu Ping, Sun Kewang's first words were: "General, it seems that you have too much food to eat." ”

"Attack the city for the bottom, attack the heart for the top." Xu Ping smiled and avoided the argument.

Sun Kewang did not continue this topic, which made Xu Ping breathe a sigh of relief. If Sun Kewang said, "There are still people under our rule who are starving," or "The children of our boy camp still have to exchange cages for food," if Sun Kewang blames him for such reasons, Xu Ping can only prevaricate on the grounds of military and winning people's hearts. Fortunately, Sun Kewang talked about his Xifeng battalion.

A few days ago, Sun Kewang selected more than 1,000 people from the tens of thousands of troops in Guide to supplement the Xifeng battalion, and now the Xifeng battalion has nearly 4,000 people, which is the most elite army under Sun Kewang. According to Sun Kewang's request, Xu Ping sent hundreds of officers and non-commissioned officers to form a teaching team of the Xifeng Battalion, and they will build this battalion according to the model of the Guards Battalion.

In the past few months, Sun Kewang has repeatedly invaded Nanzhili, and swept the camp of the Jiangbei army again and again, and now Sun Kewang is planning a new sweep, and he ambitiously plans to send 20,000 troops to Yangzhou. Xu Ping looked at the map, Sun Kewang drew a twisted and crooked marching route, Xu Ping asked suspiciously, "Why did Brother Sun march like this?" ”

Xu Ping pointed to the several Jiangbei Army camps bypassed on the marching route and asked, "Are these Ming generals very combative?" Why deliberately bypass them? ”

"They've exchanged affidavits with me." Sun Kewang took out a few secret letters and handed them to Xu Ping, they were all written to Sun Kewang by the generals of the Jiangbei Army, and the few people who wrote the letters were the owners of several military camps that the army wanted to bypass: "I have promised not to invade each other with them. ”

Xu Ping opened the secret letter and looked carefully. In the letter, several generals of the Jiangbei Army issued one poisonous oath after another to cut off their children and grandchildren, promising that they would never participate in the blockade of Guide by Nanzhili, let alone the siege of the invading army by the imperial court; These Ming generals pledged to inform the invading army of the Ming army's military secrets in a timely manner and to cooperate with the invading army's military operations as much as possible.

Sun Kewang said proudly to Xu Ping: "They also agreed to hand over half of the military salary and rations to me, and send them once a month, while I want to avoid their defense area." ”

"Good." Xu Ping was very satisfied with these terms, but was a little dissatisfied that Sun Kewang had never reported to him: "Why didn't Brother Sun tell me these oaths earlier? Are you afraid that I won't be able to leak my secrets? ”

"If I'm afraid that the general will leak secrets, then I won't say this to the general today." Sun Kewang shook his head and said: "What I'm worried about is King Chuang, King Chuang has repeatedly asked me if I can attack Nanzhili, and I have always replied that I have no spare strength." ”

"Hmm." Xu Ping nodded slightly.

"If we want to seize a piece of land in Nanzhili, this is not a problem at all. And Nanjing has always thought that they can ensure the whole of Nanzhili, and they don't want to give up even an inch of land, which is a big mistake. Sun Kewang talked to Xu Ping about his plan: "If I keep attacking Nanzhili and withdrawing, and then attacking and withdrawing again, Nanjing will feel as if as long as they add a lot of strength, they can keep an inch of Nanzhili without losing an inch of land, and if they don't add this strength, they will lose the land to us." Therefore, Nanjing will continue to throw troops, weapons, salaries, and rations into Jiangbei, so that I can obtain them through one attack after another. ”

Xu Ping had already understood what Sun Kewang meant: "What you are worried about is that if you storm Nanzhili according to King Chuang's order, Nanjing will see the situation clearly and retreat to the vicinity of Yangzhou." ”

"Yes, we can take a county, a prefecture or even a few prefectures, but we definitely don't have the strength to take Jiangbei, let alone cross the Yangtze River to get Nanjing. If we stay in Nanzhili and don't leave, there will be a few officials in Nanjing who will be unlucky, and those who are dismissed will be dismissed and those who will be transferred. But the successor is dead-hearted, and simply throws the barren Jiangbei to us, and then retreats to Yangzhou, anyway, the loss of land is his appointment and not his......"

Xu Ping interjected and asked, "Brother Sun, how many things have you gotten in the past few months?" ”

"Not counting anything else, I grabbed more than 2,700 flintlock rifles alone."

Xu Ping laughed and said, "Brother Sun has really made a fortune. ”

"But there are not many that can be used, and I am afraid that there are no more than 1,200 that can be repaired, and it is not clear how many will be left in the end." Sun Kewang smiled bitterly at Xu Ping helplessly, and spread his hands and said: "The Jiangbei Army is not a new army, they don't maintain weapons at all, they never rub oil on guns, and bayonets are stolen and sold. Once, I grabbed 200 guns, but none of them could be repaired, and some of the barrels were rusted out of holes. ”

"It's still good, at least I don't need to allocate you the equipment of the Xifeng Battalion."

"If Nanking throws more equipment into the Jiangbei Army, if they allocate it quickly enough, I may be able to get it before they rust or are sold. Perhaps I can not only arm my Xifeng battalion, but also provide Kaifeng with equipment, food, grass, and military salaries. Sun Kewang looked at Xu Ping and reiterated his opinion; Therefore, we want to make Nanjing think that they can hold Jiangbei and let them continue to transport material resources over. ”

Xu Ping agreed: "Before we can cross the river and take the entire Nanzhili, we don't want to beat the Jiangbei Army away." ”

"Yes," Sun Kewang stretched out his hand and pointed to the map of Maozhou, which is now garrisoned by Yu Dong: "Maozhou is the same as Ning Yuan outside the Guan, as long as Ning Yuan is still there, the Ming Court will not give up on Guanwai, and will have a daydream of relying on it to counterattack the Beiyu." As long as Maozhou is still in the hands of the Ming army for a day, no one in Nanjing will dare to propose that the Jiangbei Army shrink to Yangzhou, then every year there will be millions of taels of salaries, countless grain and grass baggage, and tens of thousands of soldiers will be transported to us in front of us for us to seize, and we can easily destroy the Jiangbei Army again and again, consume the vitality of the Southern Zhili, and Nanjing will never be able to accumulate the strength of the counterattack. ”

"As the general of the camp, I cancel the order of King Chuang to attack Nanzhili." Xu Ping officially issued an order to Sun Kewang: "Without my order, the intrusive army of Guide Mansion must not occupy any of the county towns of Nanzhili. Brother Sun, although you do what you think, I will talk to King Chuang. ”

A smile appeared on Sun Kewang's face, this was the first time Xu Ping saw a smile on Sun Kewang's face today: "It is really my great luck to have a general presiding over the army." What do you know about the general? Some people are opposed to continuing to use grain to replace people in Kaifeng, but I feel that since the general has already made this agreement, it will be detrimental to the reputation of the general, so I have written to King Chuang to tell him that I fully agree, and if the general does not have enough food, I can allocate the necessary food from Guide and let the general continue to change. ”

The two then talked about the war on the Western Front, and more and more laughter appeared in their conversation, which gave Xu Ping a vague feeling, as if the estrangement between Sun Kewang and him had suddenly disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed.

"Since King Chuang sent troops from Shangluo Mountain, he has changed his previous combat style, and he has managed the army and trained his troops, which is completely different from the past." Sun Kewang commented: "Although our righteous army was also known as an army before, it was actually just a rabble of hungry people who helped the old and the young, and it was just a massacre when encountering officers and soldiers, so it was a slaughter if the officers knew whether they knew military affairs, as long as they could arrive with border soldiers who dared to kill and killed people, it would be devastating." This Sun Chuanting has never encountered a real battle formation in the past, and he dares to make a big promise to the Son of Heaven, just thinking that we are still the same as before. ”

"That's right," Xu Ping agreed: "This time the Hebei army was defeated, and another reason is that although Yang Wenyue brought 100,000 troops, all the soldiers and horses are not the new army that are prepared for field battles, but are patchwork together by the officers and soldiers who defend the city from all over the country. The field troops in the Qin army have long been defeated by Fu Zonglong and Wang Qiaonian, and at the moment, I am afraid that only He Renlong's subordinates can still fight in the field, but a few thousand people are definitely not enough, and if Sun Chuanting wants to realize his big words, he must be like Yang Wenyue to extract the defending troops from the guards of Ganshan and Shaanxi to cobble together an army. ”

"And Sun Chuanting has been in prison for the past few years, as I just said, he doesn't know anything about the strength of our army, and most of them still think that we are still the kind of hungry people who can be chased and killed by hundreds or thousands of officers and soldiers," Sun Kewang laughed and said: "He will definitely send the guards of the border army to come out to fight with King Chuang, and when he sees King Chuang's strict battalions, he will definitely be surprised." ”

"Then there will be a big defeat," Xu Ping also laughed, Chongzhen Tianzi couldn't listen to the frustrating words, as long as anyone was willing to make a big promise, he would trust whom, whether it was him or Li Dingguo, he was very optimistic about the war on the Western Front, and it seemed that Sun Kewang was the same.

"Since ancient times, it is not that if the article is done well, it will be a war, of course, anyone can kill and kill the unarmed hungry people, but the faint king can't judge the situation, thinking that as long as it was once a hungry rabble, it will always be, this Governor Sun also thinks the same way, so how can he be undefeated?" Sun Kewang said disdainfully: "That's the case with Luoyang, King Chuang can deal with it himself, we have to consider the new army after all." ”

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