Forced by the strong military pressure of the Shandong army, Wang Qiaonian, the governor of the five provinces, finally reacted, intending to defect to the Donglin group in the southern capital, so that his general Zuo Li left Germany.

On the third day of December in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, who was in Xinyang to unite the soldiers and horses, finally received a letter from his former comrade-in-arms Bai Guangen.

"The Shandong army is not going south, Wang Qiaonian and other old officials of the Chongzhen Dynasty, panic all day, deliberately evacuate Xuzhou, go to the south of Zhili, He Renlong, Li Guoqi and others want to return to Shaanxi, the two sides are in dispute, now the Xuzhou army is in turmoil, although the younger brother is in the Ming camp, but there is no day not to think about the king's grace and righteousness, looking forward to the brother to come soon."

In the Xinyang camp, Niu Jinxing, the military division of the breaking army, proudly recited Bai Guangen's letter, it was really sleepy and someone sent a pillow, his benefactor had just unified the righteous army, and he needed to take people to establish his authority, and Wang Qiaonian's people and horses had a traitor.

Little Tiger Li Guo questioned: "Mr. Niu, I heard that after Bai Guangen's family surrendered to the imperial court, he has made a lot of efforts to the imperial court, will this letter be fake?" ”

"It doesn't matter if he is true or not, Xuzhou always has to fight, after all, there is not much grain and grass in Xinyang, don't rob his mother's few cities, what do so many brothers eat, and when Wang Qiaonian came out of Shaanxi, he dug up our ancestral grave with his own hands, and it is said that a snake was dug up in our father's coffin, and a snake sworn to behead, if he escaped, do we still want to lose face?"

Li Zicheng really hates Wang Qiaonian, even more than Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, on the battle array, no matter how Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting play conspiracy and trickery, it is to win by means on the battlefield, but your Governor Wang just didn't talk about the education of the saints, and did the work of digging graves, so that his ancestors were in the wilderness, and he didn't expect that he and Zhang Xianzhong would dig the ancestral grave of the old Zhu family in Fengyang.

Liu Zongmin said with a smile: "How can there be a reason not to eat the meat in your mouth?" In case Wang Qiaonian is gone, it will be difficult for us to hold him again, break into the king, attack Xuzhou, and ask Lao Liu to be the vanguard. ”

"Yes, King Chuang, don't you know, since we integrated the righteous army, there are proverbs in the army, the eighteen sons, the main artifact, which means that you deserve to be ranked in the ninety-five, everyone is really excited, if we are still afraid of the officers and soldiers, the students are afraid that the army will be unstable!"

"Okay, this time, Brother Liu and Li Guo will lead the front battalion as the vanguard, and a certain self-commanding soldier will respond, and Wang Qiaonian will not be destroyed, and he will never give up, and he will give the order to go down, take down Xuzhou, drink wine and eat meat."

Since the annexation of Luo Rucai's department and the military horses of the fifth battalion of the left battalion, Li Zicheng's self-confidence has swelled unprecedentedly, and he has already heard of the proverbs mentioned by Song Xiance, although he still has reservations in front of his brothers in the army, but the mind of dominating Kyushu and the yellow robe is becoming more and more intense, and now the original Ming Dynasty aid army gathered in Xuzhou has become a stepping stone for him to establish absolute prestige in the army.

In order to prevent Wang Qiaonian from taking the lead in evacuating, Li Zicheng planned to attack Xuzhou, that is, with Liu Zongmin, the first fierce general under his command, as the vanguard, and commanded 100,000 troops to attack Xuzhou.

Sure enough, as written in Bai Guangen's letter, after Li Zicheng's soldiers and horses approached Xiangcheng, He Renlong and Li Guoqi, who were stationed in Yuncheng, took the lead in leaving the battlefield and headed for Shaanzhou without the order of the governor Wang Qiaonian.

After He Renlong evacuated, the Ming army gathered in Xuzhou Zhouzuo was suddenly in chaos, first Shaanxi deputy general Gao Jie and Jizhou deputy general Bai Guangen burned the camp, all the way to Zhuxian Town direction retreat, and then Henan general Zhang Renxue went out to Luoyang, only Huguang general soldier Yang Shien had no way out, led the troops to retreat into Xuzhou Zhizhi Xiangcheng.

"Sun Kecong, go to order troops quickly, follow the old man to pursue Gao Jie and Bai Guangen, if the two do not turn back according to the order, you can capture and kill these two on the spot."

Wang Qiaonian was angry, everyone still said it a few days ago, under the order of the governor, they retreated to Jiangnan to enjoy the glory and wealth, who knew that these dogs killed talents, everyone had a small abacus, He Renlong and Li Guoqi had an army of 30,000, he didn't dare to pursue, but Gao Jie, Bai Guangen, you two people from the rogue background, also dare to shake our five provinces governor.

"The superintendent will stop the wrath of the thunder, Gao Jie and Bai Guangen are just two rats, it is not difficult to capture them, but Li Zicheng's army is not far from Xiangcheng, if the superintendent divides the troops again, the people of Xiangcheng will die and have no place to be buried."

Li Yunpeng was Wang Qiaonian's staff who had just been summoned to the shogunate in Xuzhou, and when he saw that Wang Qiaonian had lost his mind under the collapse of the army, he hurriedly stepped forward to persuade him.

Wang Yingyi, the governor of Xuzhou, said: "Xiangcheng is among the Son of Heaven, and it is also the gateway to Kaifeng and Luoyang. Although the prime minister said that he was domineering, he still served as the heir of the first emperor, and he was protecting the Ming Dynasty. Abandon me a city of people? ”

"Yes, let's send troops to pursue Gao Jie and Bai Guangen now, if the thieves are chasing after them, wouldn't they be killing themselves, Wang Du, the last general thinks that we still hold on to the city, Li Zicheng has hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, this person eats horses and chews, how much grain will be consumed in a day, and the last general may not be able to hold out for long under Xuzhou City."

Yang Shien, the general soldier of Huguang, also opposed Wang Qiaonian's abandonment of Xuzhou, joking, after the official army and Bai Guangen left the battlefield, the military spirit has dropped to the limit, and if they really want to catch up with Gao Jie and them, whether they can win or not is still two words, not to mention that there are millions of rogues behind them, although there are few homeless people in this million army who are not even cannon fodder, but they can't stand the number of people, even if one person spits at the mouthful, I am afraid that the remaining more than 20,000 soldiers and horses in Xuzhou can be drowned.

"Alas...... Passing on the order of the governor, all the armies immediately went to the city to garrison, Wang Yingyi you went to mobilize the gentry in the city, asked them to donate money, food and materials, and told them that if Xiangcheng was lost, they would not have good fruit to eat. ”

In desperation, Wang Qiaonian had to accept the end of being trapped in Xiangcheng, and then he ordered Sun Zhao, the Tongzhi of Xi'an, who accompanied the army, to be a staff officer, and Liu Hanchen and Geng Yingzhang, members of Xiangcheng, to be Sasuke, and assigned deputy generals to guard the four gates of Xiangcheng. ordered Zhang Xie to guard the west of the city, and to give birth to He Yu to supervise discipline; ordered Jia Xie to guard the south of the city, and supervise discipline with Zhang Hesheng; ordered the horse association to guard the east of the city, and supervise the discipline with the well; Ordered the party to guard the north of the city, with Zhang Xiu supervising discipline, and he and Li Kecong, Yang Shien and other generals selected elite soldiers for the purpose of dispatching the Quartet.

The officers and soldiers acted quickly, and the gentry in the city did not dare not move, and under their instigation, the people of Xiangcheng spontaneously took action and moved all the altars and jars at home to the city wall for the purpose of defending the city.

A large number of stones, clay pots, and iron pots were placed behind the wall stacks, and many carpenters were urgently making forks and rolling logs.

"Defeat Xuzhou, drink wine and eat meat!"

"Defeat Xuzhou, drink wine and eat meat!"

On the tenth day of December in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, countless peasant troops shouted slogans and arrived at the city of Xiangcheng under the leadership of Liu Zongmin, their eyes were full of hope and eagerness.