Chapter 364

Song Nan was surprised by the news brought back by the cavalry scouts, and the thieves were divided into two routes, one to the east to attack Jinghai County, and the other to the west to attack Xiongxian County; Moreover, the county seat of Xiongxian County, which is closest to Wen'an County, has been occupied by thieves.

According to Song Nan's judgment, the thief soldiers should not divide their troops to attack, after all, their strength is not strong, together there are only seven or eight thousand people, and one division of troops becomes three or four thousand people, which is equivalent to weakening the strength.

Either there is discord within the thieves, and the guides each pull the team to go their separate ways, or they have other plans; Internal discord can basically be ruled out, because this is a rebel army jointly led by Liu Liu and Liu Qi, two brothers, and it is unlikely that there will be a rift in just ten days.

After some discussion by everyone, Song Nan could basically conclude the intention of the thief soldiers to divide their troops and attack, and after judging the intention, Song Nan couldn't help but frown, if it wasn't Liu Liu and Liu Qi who were too shrewd, or there were capable people among the thieves to guide them.

The division of troops to attack took advantage of the weak defensive strength of the surrounding counties, and the defensive strength of the two county towns was less than 200, and the rebel army of 3,000 or 4,000 people could easily break through the county seats; At the same time, the capture of several surrounding counties will help to expand its influence faster, develop and grow greater, and it will also be more conducive to the collection and replenishment of weapons and salaries. Moreover, the fact that the rebel army was divided into two and attacked separately also brought problems to the officers and soldiers who were about to suppress the bandits, and it was conducive to dealing with the officers and soldiers.

The direction of the thief's attack was very tricky, attacking Jinghai County to the east, which could be used to seize the road to bypass the Hejian garrison in the south and attack Shandong; To the north of Shandong, there were a large number of small towns and densely populated towns, but they were all weakly defended inland towns, which were more conducive to the survival of the rebel army. And all the way to the west, after capturing Xiongxian, one can go northwest into the northwest of Baoding Mansion, which is high and densely forested, and then you can move to Shanxi, and then you can attack to the southwest, along the junction between Baoding Mansion and Hejian Mansion to the south, into Henan.

Song Nan looked at the map carefully, analyzing the direction of the thief soldiers, and ignoring the eastward march for the time being, because they had too many targets, Song Nan could not accurately grasp their movements, and the soldiers and horses that captured Xiongxian in the west had traces to follow.

It should be known that the surrounding area of Baoding Mansion was originally stationed in the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, and it also belonged to the Daning Metropolitan Administration, and was under the jurisdiction of the Rear Army Governor's Mansion in the Five Military Governors' Mansions. With the establishment of the Ming Dynasty for a long time, the number of troops was reduced, the center of gravity of the army was also biased to the border towns, Baoding Mansion in addition to the northwest and Ulzhou junction there are still several guards stationed in the southwest of the defense of the Beijing Division, and the guards in the southeast area have almost existed in name.

As a balance, in the fourth year of Jianwen, the imperial court carried out a major expansion of Baoding Mansion, strengthened the city defense and built important defensive measures such as enemy towers, but after strengthening the city defense, it was inevitable to reduce the soldiers and horses stationed there, and this practice of reducing soldiers and horses at the cost of city defense reinforcement showed its drawbacks today.

The more than 3,000 soldiers and horses of the Bazhou Wei in the east can only guard the county seat of Wen'an and cut off the connection between the east and the west of the thief soldiers, while the two guards of the Bauhinia Pass Guard and the Maoshan Wei in Yizhou in the north of Baoding Mansion have more than 13,000 soldiers and horses stationed, but their main responsibility is to defend the Beijing division and prevent the Tartars in the north from breaking through the front line of Ulzhou.

However, Song Nan also judged that it was impossible for the thieves who captured Xiongxian to attack to the northwest, although the mountains in the place were high and forested, which was convenient for concealing their whereabouts, but after all, under the noses of Bauhinia Guanwei and Maoshanwei, the danger was too great, and anyone who had a brain would not go to the northwest.

However, there is only one way to the south, and there are Tianjin Sanwei stationed in the northeast of Hejian Prefecture, but with the capture of Jinghai by the thief soldiers on the east road, these Sanwei men and horses will inevitably be pinned down in the northeast; For Xiongxian's southward army, Hejian Province has weak troops in the northwest, and it is difficult to protect itself; That is to say, if the thief soldiers of Xiongxian choose to go south and enter Henan through the passage between Hejian Mansion and Baoding Mansion, these two prefectures are powerless to stop them.

Song Nan looked along the map, Xiongxian to the south were Xin'an County, Renqiu, Gaoyang and other undefended county seats, since it was determined that they would take this road to the south, Song Nan decided to take immediate action to plug the gap in the south, forcing the thieves to go northwest, so that they could be driven into a dead end.

Song Nan had no time to hesitate, and told Chen Wei to defend Wen'an County to the death, cut off the back roads of the thieves on the east and west, and at the same time decided to lead a thousand cavalry to the south quickly, and to reinforce the county towns along the way when the thieves went south; The first choice is Xin'an County, because he is the closest to Xiongxian County, but more than 100 miles away, it is the first target of the thieves in Xiongxian County.

After informing the court of the situation again and requesting the court to send reinforcements quickly, Song Nan immediately led a thousand cavalry to embark on the road to Xin'an County, and sent people and horses to the two prefectures of Baoding in Hejian to remind them to take necessary precautions; At this time, Song Nan naturally couldn't talk about morality, and took Liu Yuerong with him, with Liu Liu's sister in hand, maybe it could play a role at a critical time, although this move was a little dirty, but in the case of being outnumbered in the rampant thieves, Song Nan couldn't take care of it much.

After a night of wild running, the tired 1,000 cavalry at dawn finally arrived in Xin'an County; The scene that Song Nan was worried about did not appear, the local order was not chaotic, and there were even farmers working in the fields in Xin'an County; When I came to the east gate of the city, the city gate was closed, and there were many people stationed at the head of the city, obviously getting the news that Xiongxian County in the north was broken.

A thousand cavalry rolled in, scared the defenders on the city head, and when it became clear that it was the Jinyi Guard's cavalry coming, Zhou Xiaoyi, the county commander of Xin'an County, who heard the news from the city, hurriedly ordered someone to open the city gate to welcome Song Nan and others into the city.

Zhou Xiaoyi's arrangement is also appropriate, after getting the news that Xiongxian County was attacked by anti-thieves yesterday evening, Zhou Xiaoyi immediately ordered people to close the city gate, gathered more than 500 garrisons in the county into the city, and is organizing the people in the county to go to the city to defend the city; Song Nan didn't have time to catch his breath and climbed the city wall to inspect, this didn't matter, and his heart suddenly became cold.

The city of Xin'an County is in disrepair for a long time, the city wall that was originally only more than one zhang high has collapsed in many places, the battlements on the head of the city have collapsed more than half, what is even more depressing is that the moat in the north and west is completely blocked, it has been in vain, this is an undefended city, if the thieves arrive, with the help of simple tools can be broken here.

What's even more worrying is that although Zhou Xiaoyi is ready to defend the city, he doesn't know the number of thieves at all, and thinks that there are only 1,000 thieves and 800 thieves, but he doesn't know that after the division of troops, the number of thieves on the West Road has reached 3,000 or 4,000; It is not known how much the number has increased after the capture of Xiongxian.

Song Nan explained the critical situation to Zhou Xiaoyi, and Zhou Xiaoyi's enthusiasm suddenly dissipated, and he collapsed like a deflated ball, and asked with a crying voice: "Commander Song, how is this good, how is this good?" ”

Song Nan comforted him and said, "Didn't my thousand people arrive? Plus you have nearly 2,000 men, so you can fight. ”

Zhou Xiaoyi said: "But the adults said that there are three or four thousand thieves, and once Xiongxian is broken, and then one or two thousand people are coerced into the gang, how can we resist it?" ”

Song Nan frowned and said: "Zhou County Order, it's not good to be so cowardly before the war started. ”

Zhou Xiaoyi said: "The lower officials are afraid that the lives will be destroyed after the city is broken, so it is better for us to abandon the city and take the people to Renqiu in the south, and combine the power of the two cities, so that it will be difficult for the thieves to advance to the south." ”

Song Nan shouted: "Zhou County Order, if you say something like this, don't blame the official for taking your sacrificial flag, I waited for the starry night to come here, but I didn't come to abandon the city and escape." ”

Zhou Xiaoyi didn't dare to say more, Song Nan saw that Zhou Xiaoyi didn't have any ideas, and he didn't plan to rely on him to come up with any good ideas, so he sent people to the north to investigate the movements of the thieves, and on the other hand, he temporarily organized strong men to temporarily strengthen the city wall; It is impossible to strengthen it to how strong, but at least it is necessary to build a barrier with mud bags at the head of the city, and prepare some earth, rocks and rolling wood and other things to help defend it, otherwise it will be useless for you to have a thousand soldiers and horses.

The whole city acted urgently, and worked until noon, and finally prepared some supplies and fortifications to defend the city, but the thieves in Xiongxian County were nowhere to be found, and the scout cavalry sent did not return; Song Nan was anxious, he didn't get enough sleep for several days, and his eyes were red; Under the persuasion of Wan Zhi, Wang Yong and others, he returned to the back hall of the county government and took a cold shower, but he didn't dare to sleep, and the hunger in his stomach was unbearable.

The dim sum was dry and rough, the choked Song Nan couldn't swallow it in a dry throat, coughed loudly, the sound of chains, someone put a cup of tea in front of Song Nan, Song Nan took a few sips like drinking ganlin, and after drinking it all, he found that it was Liu Yuerong who was wrapped in an iron chain in his hand that sent the tea.

Song Nan remembered that he had ordered Liu Yuerong, who was tired from a night of bumps, to rest in the county office, after all, she was a woman, and although she was a family member of a prisoner, she couldn't ignore humanity. Song Nan also told the guards around him to arrange Liu Yuerong to follow her, because she was afraid that she would be harassed, Zheng Da and these guys are not good birds, if they see her beauty and mess around, will they punish them or not?

Now it seems that Liu Yuerong may have slept a lot, and the guards have not turned it off. Hold her, after all, if you are bent on death, you can't stop it.

"Miss Liu, why are you serving me tea?"

Liu Yuerong said: "The slave family asked for it themselves, the adult is a good official, and the slave family has seen it all along the way." ”

Song Nanyan would believe her, maybe this Liu Yuerong thought that she could let her go, so she said these words, and took the initiative to bring tea and pour water for herself.

"Have my men ever behaved rudely to you? If so, tell me and I will punish them. ”

Liu Yuerong blushed and said, "No, thank you general." ”

Song Nan thought about it and decided to stabilize her feelings, so she said: "That's good, I want to open it up, I also scared you yesterday, in fact, things are far less strict than you think, you are different from Liu Liu and Liu Qi, maybe there is a chance to atone for your sins, I will help you fight for it." ”

Liu Yuerong said: "General, the slave family has already thought about it, no matter what kind of torture he suffers, he should just forgive his brother's sins, and the slave family will not seek death. ”

Song Nan was thoughtful, and was just about to speak, when he suddenly heard the noise of people outside the yamen, and someone shouted: "My lord, my lord, there is news here." ”

Song Nan's expression changed and he got up, and saw Hou Dabiao rushing in with great strides.