After getting the news that the thieves had retreated, Shen Shuren was still not in a hurry.

After a day of thorough preparation and repair, in the early morning of the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth month, he steadily pursued He Yilong, who had retreated, with his 9,000 men and horses.

The reason why there are 9,000 men is because he has incorporated and transformed a part of the relatively reliable rogue army.

The first batch of thieves who were captured were lost on April 20 when Erhe took the initiative to attack Zuo Zixiong's camp, and there were about 1,600 people, and many of them were the elite of the old camp of thieves equipped with iron and cotton armor, and it has been more than half a month so far.

Shen Shuren asked Zuo Zixiong to screen and confirm that there were fewer bad deeds, and it was indeed the original officials and soldiers who were forced to rebel because the imperial court owed salaries and forced them to suppress the salaries by force two years after Chongzhen, so they found a way to brainwash them.

Instilled the idea that "Shen Bingbei is different from other civilian officials in the Ming Dynasty today, Shen Bingbei never uses literature to light the military, and often helps the generals, especially the generals, to speak, so Liu Guoneng is so willing to contribute to him".

After half a month of reform, these prisoners were able to be incorporated into the official army.

The original 5,000 people of the Shenshu people were killed or seriously injured in the previous two waves of small battles, and some of them were crippled and injured, and they couldn't get better for more than half a month. So there are only four thousand elite veterans who can be mobilized.

In the old department of He Jin's henchmen who came to vote recently, Shen Shuren picked and chosen, and made up more than 1,000 people, plus He Jin's 2,000 people, a total of five garrison battalions and 9,000 people.

The newly surrendered soldiers will be broken up and expanded into the original troops to ensure that the number of newly surrendered soldiers is less than one-third and can be controlled.

……

In the early morning of the fifth day of the fifth month of May, after the troops were deployed, the beginning was very smooth.

Although He Yilong didn't follow very closely, this was the effect that Shen Shuren wanted, he was not in a hurry to fight He Yilong at all, he just wanted to force He Yilong to move and drive the enemy to the battlefield he wanted.

The distance from Xiaogan County, the capital of Suizhou, to Tongbai County, Xinyang Prefecture is not short, after all, Xiaogan County is located in the southeasternmost corner of Suizhou Prefecture.

When He Yilong planned to withdraw from the army, it was tantamount to giving up the entire mountainous counties along the Suizhou capital Zhuanshui.

Therefore, in the first five days of pursuit, the two armies did not break out into a large-scale conflict, at least they were nearly a hundred miles apart.

On the seventh day of the fifth month, after two days and more than 70 miles of marching, the officers and troops took the lead in arriving at Anlu County, the first county seat along the coast of Zhuanshui.

When He Yilong retreated, he failed to take all of He Jin's old troops away, and there were always some people who insisted on staying in the local area if they made excuses to delay.

He Yilong didn't completely harden it, because he realized that these people were willing to help him break the queen, and in fact played a role in his favor, so he threw these dead bones to the officials and soldiers to clean up.

Even if it was completely wiped out by the officials and troops in the end, at least it would have dragged on for a few more days.

On the side of the official army, Jin Shenghuan seized the opportunity to be a pioneer, so he rushed directly to Anlu County, and casually grabbed a few people and asked.

I learned that there were less than 2,000 guards in the city, and they were all local strong men who were arrested on the spot after He Jin came to Suizhou, and the others were some more low-quality patchwork personnel.

Jin Shenghuan directly sent people to the gate of the city to shout with satisfaction, demanding that Anlu County directly surrender anyway and accept the recovery of the imperial court.

What I didn't expect was that perhaps because I heard that the soldiers with the vanguard garrison were from Jingzhou Mansion, and they were guest troops fighting in other places, and the military discipline was not as strict as Shen Shuren's troops before.

In addition, He Jin has been here for two years, and he has more or less accumulated prestige, and the defenders of Anlu County are unwilling to surrender directly, and they still have to fight with the official army.

Jin Shenghuan was very annoyed, and directly got some flying ladders and hit the wood to start attacking the city, but his soldiers were not more than the defenders, and he was a little tired from afar, and after dozens of people were killed and hundreds of people were injured, he had to stop his reckless attempts, and prepare to raise other better siege weapons, and wait for the rear army to arrive together and then think about it in the long run.

Half a day later, Zhang Mingzhen of the second battalion also arrived, and after hearing about the situation, he couldn't help frowning, and taught Jin Shenghuan a few words without being humble or arrogant:

"Jin Garrison, since you are a guest general of the reinforcements invited by my army, then you must also be subject to the military discipline of my army, your troops have come all the way, collecting food on the spot, and the ignorance of the people has deepened their fear of 'soldiers are like combs'!

Lord Shen's soldiers are benevolent and righteous teachers, and the people of Suizhou will be the people under the rule of adults in the future, and they must be written to raise food! Remember your first offense, this time is just a warning, take a good look at how we attacked the city, you cooperate from the side - but after the city is broken, looting and slaughtering are not allowed, even if those who don't know this time are not guilty. ”

Jin Shenghuan was taken aback, and then he became more and more obedient, and was about to see how Zhang Mingzhen attacked the city.

However, Zhang Mingzhen's performance really surprised him: they didn't have any bells and whistles at all, just let the troops repair for a day, and wait for the artillery in the rear to arrive the next day.

Then directly six Hongyi cannons were directly bombarded at the south gate of Anlu County.

The accuracy of the cannon is not very high, and some of the shells hit high and flew and fell on the city tower.

In the end, after five or six rounds of volleys, the city gate was completely destroyed, and even the walls and pillars on one side of the city tower were broken and collapsed.

Zhang Mingzhen rushed into the city gate with his headquarters and quickly ended the battle, and Jin Shenghuan was stunned during the whole process.

In a county-level place like Anlu, how strong can the city wall and gate be? This has to be on the Hongyi cannon?!

After entering the city, since the city was broken after resisting the official army, the fate of the thief officers in the city can be imagined.

Zhang Mingzhen directly announced once again the handling standards of Shen Bingbei for surrendering, anyway, being a thief, and resisting thieves at all levels.

According to the law, all the officers of the thief army above the "department general" in the city were arrested, escorted to the crossroads in front of the county government and beheaded, and the heads were taken to other places for public display, and the headless corpses were strung on sharpened wooden stakes for the people and thieves to see.

Whoever is still holding on to the county after the main force of the thieves has been defeated and the king of thieves no longer exists, the rear of the city must be completely killed in principle!

If you take the initiative to surrender immediately after receiving the enemy, you can not be killed. If the department commander wants to make an exception, he must arrest his own commander, or behead the commander and surrender to the official army in order to avoid death.

After these laws were announced, the officers and soldiers strictly enforced military discipline and did not rob the people, but within a day, the locals realized that the troops of the Shenshu people were different from the original, and there was no more friction.

After completing Liwei in Anlu County, he can be regarded as a woodcutter who sharpens knives and does not mistakenly chop wood.

Two days later, when the troops marched to Suizhou County, many of the rogue defenders and ordinary people left here had already heard about the fate of Anlu.

Therefore, as soon as Jin Shenghuan arrived, he directly raised the banner of Shen Shuren, and learned Zhang Mingzhen's words and shouts before, but after discussing for an hour in the city, there was no blood to open the city and offer the door.

There are more than 1,000 local strong men who chose to stay and were unwilling to follow the thieves, and joined the official army sequence anyway.

Seeing this scene, Jin Shenghuan fell into more and more self-doubt: I knew that why didn't he pretend to be the banner of Shen Bingbei a few days ago? Why did he have to fight the banner of the Jingzhou Mansion army given to him by Governor Fang?

Among the people, the banner of Shen Bingbei is much better than the reputation of other Ming army guest troops!

This ironic scene is similar to what happened to Gao Jie, one of the four towns in Jiangbei, three years later in history, when he wanted to lead his troops south from the north to Huainan-

Historically, Gao Jie wanted to take refuge in Nanming after Chongzhen's death, but he was originally based in Shandong, and he had to go south through many fortified city defense areas. At the beginning, he was under the banner of the Ming army, but he was afraid of him everywhere, obviously marching on the territory of the Ming Dynasty, but it was difficult to move an inch.

Later, Gao Jie remembered that he had also followed Li Zicheng at the beginning, and he still had the banner of the army at hand (Gao Jie was originally Li Zicheng's general, because Li Zicheng lost his X function after being injured, and his wife Xing ran away with Gao Jie, and he hated to take his wife, so he couldn't go back) Then he used the Ming army to pretend to break into the army, from Shandong to Huainan, all the way unimpeded.

Of course, Shen Shuren is a person who practices morality and politics, and it is definitely not the same thing as Li Zicheng relying on robbery to share the spoils and pull people.

Li Zicheng's kind of economic routine is purely similar to a pyramid scheme to attract people, and it needs to rely on external snowballs for blood transfusion, and there is no sustainability of economic self-operation at all.

"Shen Bingbei is benevolent and the people love things, and we only know it today. If the world can be like under the rule of Shen Bingbei, and the four people will be in peace, why is the world so chaotic! That night in Suizhou County, Jin Shenghuan was drunk and sighed deeply.

……

After Suizhou County, further north, until entering the territory of Xinyang Prefecture, there is no longer a county seat, only some towns and checkpoints.

Those towns and villages are even more unlikely to resist the officers and soldiers, and they are all accepted as they pass by.

Shen Shuren also had a posture of not taking He Yilong seriously at all, and while receiving the territory, he transferred Yan Yingren and Zhang Huangyan from the rear, and asked them to seize the time to stabilize the people and resume production in Suizhou counties.

At the same time, in the midst of the busy schedule of the war, they did not forget to divide a part of the Shenjia fleet and transport the surplus potatoes from Huangzhou and Xiaogan, so that the counties of Suizhou could strive to plant a part of the suitable land for potatoes when they could still grow summer grain in May, so that the breeding area of potatoes at the end of the harvest could be twice as fast as that of only Huangzhou seeds.

As for corn, there is no way, you can only plant one crop a year, and it is impossible to plant it again in May.

And the superior breeds of other animals have been promoted to the local gentry while fighting. Relying on this benefit, the people were soon reunited.

The soldiers who were originally captured by He Jin to be strong men saw that their fathers and villagers were living better anyway, and their morale was getting higher and higher, and they were willing to fight for Shen Bingbei.

These efforts to persuade farmers to organize production have to be busy for a month, and Shen Shuren has no time to worry about it personally, so it is good to listen to Zhang Huangyan's report when the time comes.

On 12 May, after the repair of Suizhou County, the officers and troops continued to move north, and finally left the Zhuanshui Valley.

From here to the north, there are three dangerous passes in the Tongbai Mountain, the source of the water ends here, and there is no large-scale agricultural settlement area to the north, only the poor mountain, and there is not even bad water.

After delaying for so many days, Liu Guoneng had already given up attacking Xinyang County, but blocked outside the Pingjing Pass at the northern end of this mountain road.

There are defenders left by He Yilong on Pingjing Pass, and the terrain is steep and easy to defend and difficult to attack, so Liu Guoneng can't get in, so he can only be outside the north side of the pass.

According to the trend of the marching route, He Yilong will soon retreat to Pingjing Pass with his army, and Shen Shuren will soon chase him far away to the south side of Pingjing Pass to encircle.

In the evening of the same day, when it was time to set up camp again, the Shenshu people spread out the map and updated the latest information on the location of friends and foes under the guidance of the scout officers.

Looking at this step-by-step advancement, he also became more and more confident: "This He Yilong is worthy of being reckless, he really doesn't read the art of war at all, he doesn't learn history at all, and he even dares to escape this way, it seems that this Pingjing Pass is his place of death." ”