A few days later, Nanyang Province, Tang County.

This is already the front line of the border between Nanyang and Xiangyang provinces.

From then on, further south, although Xinye and Deng County still belong to Nanyang Prefecture in terms of administrative divisions,

But since the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Zuo Liangyu was convicted in the imperial court. Before his death, Yang Sichang, the elder of the cabinet at that time, used his last power to try to help Zhu Shuren keep the two choke points of military importance, so that Xinye and Deng County were under the control of Zhu Shuren, so as to clamp Zuo Liangyu and make it difficult for him to go south to harass and get food.

After more than three years, Zuo Liangyu did not dare to provoke, including Li Zicheng during the Henan Campaign, even if he temporarily penetrated into Nanyang County, but he did not attack the territory of Zhu Shuren, Xinye seems to have been the forefront of the northern wandering army.

At this moment, Li Zicheng, who had been defeated in successive battles in Hebei, Shanxi, and Henan, and was exhausted and depressed, had already arrived in Tang County and had been there for a long time.

The new field in front of him is less than a hundred miles away. But after Li Zicheng lost his position from Heluo and escaped from Funiu Mountain and went south, he did not dare to act rashly.

Obviously, he has been a little frightened and confused recently, although he insisted on choosing to go south, but he was more of a step by step, full of hesitation - if the Qing army behind was chasing and pressing tightly, then Li Zicheng worked hard and fought to the death to survive.

If the Qing army turns the spearhead and forces it less urgently for the time being, he will slack off again, rush to repair, restore morale, and let the troops recover the source of wounded and sick soldiers.

And in the past ten days, the reason why he has been able to repair safely obviously shows that Azig behind him is not in a hurry.

The Qing army was not good at mountain warfare, and Azig had tried once before, crossing the Funiu Mountains from Heluo with several small forces and entering the Nanyang Basin. As a result, they were defeated by the Chuang army and the Zuo Liangyu army, which were waiting for work, in the mountainous and remote places such as Taigu Pass and Yin Que Pass, respectively.

The Qing army is not completely invincible, there are many battles, there are always small defeats, often walking by the river without getting your shoes wet.

However, Azig's losses were not large, and the two groups of men and horses only killed a few hundred to a thousand people, and thousands of people were wounded and captured, and most of them were Han army banners and servant troops. There was no way to deal a decisive blow to Azig's 60,000 Manchu and Mongolian army and the supporting Han army banner.

It's just that Azig himself thinks it's not cost-effective, and thinks it's more important to stare at Wu Sangui to completely collect Shaanxi and prevent Wu Sangui from occupying Tongguan and separating it.

As long as Tongguan is in hand, Azig will be able to go south if he wants to go south in the future, and he is not in a hurry at this time, in contrast, from Heluo to Nanyang, there is no place in the mountains and dangerous places between them that can reach such an important level as Tongguan, so there is no need to pay too much attention to the timing of seizing.

Azig slowed his hand, and even Li Zicheng, who was chased and ran, the inertia of being at ease with the encounter rose again, and he began to be afraid of taking risks again.

Who let him be pushed by the situation all his life. No one is behind him, and he doesn't seem to take the initiative to set a clear goal in life, he just takes one step at a time, and if he can't live, he takes one more step.

……

Li Zicheng's hesitation and lying flat made both sides very uncomfortable, until this day, Li Zicheng finally waited for a few good news.

His strategist Song Xiance, with a bunch of military information from his subordinates, rarely came to report the good news to him with an excited look:

"Your Majesty! Sure enough, God bless me Dashun! From the puppet Ming defenders in Xiangyang, he inquired about the confidential military information, and the cowardly and cowardly new puppet emperor in Nanjing was so frightened that he couldn't sit still because he heard that Duoduo was fighting faster and smoother than Azig.

He also asked Shi Kefa to openly discuss in the court to send troops to attack Huainan as soon as possible and seize the Huaihe defense line. Shi Kefa, a corrupt Confucian, also helped to quote scriptures, saying that to defend the river, he must defend the Huai, and to keep Nanjing, the defense line must be advanced to the Huai River. ”

When Song Xiance spat and said this, Li Zicheng didn't feel anything, but just snorted coldly: "Shi Kefa is right, in terms of the art of war, it is not all dynasties, but wherever the north and the south are divided, must guard the river and guard the Huai?" ”

Song Xiance hurriedly added: "Your Majesty, don't be impatient, the minister hasn't finished talking yet-this cowardly emperor still doesn't believe that Shi Kefa can mobilize the local soldiers and horses of Jianghuai, so he has to ask his son-in-law Zhu Shuren to transfer the Huguang army to fight the main force." I heard that Zhu Shuren was also forced to express his stance at the court meeting, and was willing to dispatch 100,000 horses to aid Nanjing, but there were some civil officials from other factions in Donglin, worried about what foreign troops would enter Beijing, and they were stumbling and chewing their tongues in private. ”

When Li Zicheng heard this, his brows suddenly furrowed: "Zhu Shuren is still in Nanjing?" Are you convinced? ”

Song Xiance hurriedly explained, saying that this was a few former Beijing civil officials who surrendered to Dashun and had relatives in the Sixth Department of Nanjing, and they should have been inquired about through these connections.

Considering that the Ming Dynasty's imperial court was infiltrated by intelligence has always been a basic operation, and everyone was looking for a home, Li Zicheng quickly stopped doubting it after listening to the intelligence source.

I have to say that the anti-osmosis work is done poorly, and sometimes it is beneficial, and when the Ming court wants to spread false news, it is also very efficient.

Li Zicheng saw that the source of information was reliable, and finally stopped lying down, and was aroused by the passion to get a vote, he paced back and forth, irritable and alone in his brain to make decisions, and after a while, he gritted his teeth:

"Zhu Shuren's soldiers are strong and strong, and they are not too easy to deal with, so they are slightly weaker than Tartars. I led the army to this point, but I have no choice, since the front line of Xiangyang is empty at the moment, Zhu Shuren's soldiers and horses have been transferred to attack Huainan, and if I miss it, there will be no more chance.

Spread my will, the whole army took out the last wine and meat, today the three armies, tomorrow lightly armed, first attack Xinye, and then down the White River, all the way to Xiangyang! Inform Zuo Liangyu again, he is willing to go with him, and I will give him a part of the world! In the future, I will enter the river, and leave Huguang to him! If not, don't regret it in the future! He'll just stay here and wait for Azig to clean up! ”

And at this moment, in addition to Song Xiance, there is also an important civil official, Prime Minister Niu Jinxing. Before Song Xiance came, he was playing to Li Zicheng about daily government affairs.

Niu Jinxing has a relatively calm temperament, and he is not good at scheming, after listening to such a hasty decision, just because Song Xiance said a word and brought a piece of information, he directly led more than 100,000 people to kill, he really felt a little ridiculous.

However, he only persuaded a few words, but was rejected by Li Zicheng, and then he could only be silent, and at the same time completely figured out a truth:

So far, where can Li Zicheng have a perfect plan? He was originally forced to be pushed away, and he didn't have the courage to turn back and fight Azig to the death, so it's normal to think that one is one.

……

After Li Zicheng was finally seduced out, in the next five or six days, the progress of the war was very "smooth", and it was also very much in line with Li Zicheng's expectations and Song Xiance's intelligence.

On September 16, Li Zicheng's army took the lead in advancing and surrounded Xinye on three sides, originally planning to encircle the city and attack the city, but the defenders fled overnight. In the middle of the night, the intruders tried to sneak attack in the dark, but when they climbed the tower, they found that it was an empty city.

The intrusive army also suspected fraud, cautiously touched in, and did not dare to let the soldiers who entered the city sleep, they were vigilant all night, and if they couldn't hold on, they took turns patrolling the night, just like in the barracks.

Before dawn, there were really small groups of Ming troops hiding in the shadows to sneak attack, taking advantage of the most exhausting points of the intruding army, setting fire and harassing everywhere.

But the fire was quickly extinguished, and the chaos was completely under control. Only a part of the recruits who were emotionally unstable bombed the camp, and they were soon pressed back by the veteran bullets, and in the chaos, they just trampled on each other and killed hundreds of people, which was completely acceptable for a peasant army that had exchanged blood for many rounds.

】

On the other side, the Ming army, which was left behind after secretly setting fire to the fire, also killed and wounded 100 people in the battle, and dozens of dead soldiers who ran slowly were captured.

Li Zicheng didn't care about these little things, and after getting the report, he just laughed at Zhu Shuren for going backwards, and actually imitated the strategy used in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which was just on paper!

But Song Xiance was relatively cautious, and when he heard that a prisoner had been caught, he hurriedly sent someone to ask about the belonging of these Ming army dead.

As a result, when interrogated, it was learned that these soldiers of the Ming Army were originally also thieves, and they were the old troops of Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and others of the former Western Army.

Of course, Song Xiance knew that he wanted to distinguish the real from the fake, so he asked people to interrogate them in Shaanxi dialect, and these captives were really fluent in Shaanxi dialect. If you ask them about the old things when the thieves joined forces, these people can also tell the details.

After some careful deduction, Song Xiance went back to report the good news to Li Zicheng: Zhu Shuren was recruited by the Longwu puppet emperor because of his own lineage, and went to participate in the counterattack on Huainan, and actually replaced the defenders in the north bank of the Han River on the Xiangyang side with Zhang Xianzhong's old department who surrendered and reorganized! It is because it is a pity that these troops die, and it is not good to abandon the territory without a fight, so let these thieves be cannon fodder and fight the thieves with thieves!

When Li Zicheng heard this, he also laughed angrily. He inquired again and learned that the current Xiangyang guard was only Jin Shenghuan, who knew Zuo Liangyu, plus some generals at the level of Ming army generals. Further down, the dirty and dangerous defense areas were all lost to the old Western Army, and the Ming Army was mainly responsible for supervising the battle in those directions.

In the next few days, as the time entered the second half of September, Li Zicheng had an army of more than 100,000 people, and followed by Zuo Liangyu, who had smelled the benefits and came to pick up the cheap, respectively, along the Baihe River, and soon arrived in the Fancheng area at the mouth of the Baihe Hanshui River, which was only a river away from Xiangyang.

Li Zicheng was still hesitating, after all, the Han River is one of the main tributaries of the Yangtze River, the water is grand and wide, and it is difficult to regret crossing the Han River if he is not fully prepared.

However, the Jiang waterproof division of the Ming army did not appear for a long time, and the ships in several nearby state capitals were also very scarce, and there were still some old thieves and old thieves in the old western army who did not change their character and colluded with Li Zicheng's letters, complaining that the old troops under Zhu Shuren looked down on them anyway. They are willing to take the old department of the eight kings to return to King Chuang and take King Chuang to cross the river.

These words are obviously rather clumsy. Under normal circumstances, Li Zicheng doesn't know how long it will take to make up his mind.

But the problem is, it's not normal right now.

Later, Azig's troops had already detoured back to Fangcheng Pass, occupying the dangerous passes of Tongbai Mountain such as Yexian, Kunyang, and Bowang, and sooner or later, Azig would have to continue to chase Li Zicheng's ass and continue to chase and kill.

But now it's just Hanshui, and in the next month or two, Li Zicheng may not be waiting for such a God-given opportunity for Xiangyang's emptiness.

In line with the idea of surviving in death, Li Zicheng reluctantly collected at least enough boats, regardless of the size of these boats and whether they could fight on the water, directly asked to cross the river. Of course, the deception work before crossing the river must also be done sufficiently, and it is necessary to choose an unexpected ferry to cross the river in the dark, so as not to be detected by the enemy, so as not to be intercepted by the half-crossing attack.

With mixed feelings, Li Zicheng finally made a detour from Fancheng upstream to a small remote county in Xiangyang Prefecture near Yunyang Prefecture on September 27, avoided all the major crossings in the upper reaches of the Han River, and secretly began to cross the river.

The pioneer crossed the river very smoothly, and Li Ziben himself stayed in the north of the Han River to observe nervously, and in the middle of the night, at least 30,000 or 40,000 people crossed the river.

Li Zicheng saw that the sky was about to dawn, and the initial defense line and simple earth trench rammed earth wall fortifications had been steadily erected on the south bank, so he personally crossed the river with the Chinese army's personal guards. By the time the sky officially began to lighten, all the seven or eight thousand people of Li Zicheng's descendants had already crossed the river, including his distant relatives and confidants, civilian officials and staff.

However, no matter how covert the intelligence work is, after the sky is completely bright, everything will definitely not be hidden, and the Han River patrol fleet of the Ming army will appear sooner or later.

When the time came to the end of this day, Li Zicheng's army was finally discovered, and only two hours later, the Ming army came one after another.

Li Zicheng's army had not yet fully crossed the Han River, and the rear army and a large number of old and weak people remained in Hanbei. Fortunately, the army on the south bank had been built and stabilized overnight, and it would not be attacked by surprise.

Li Zicheng saw that the number of Ming troops who came in the first batch was not large, and he also made a decision immediately: "Prepare to fight!" The Ming army must have rushed to march in batches, wanting to attack our army halfway through!

Kill me! Take advantage of the fact that they are tired and their troops are uneven, and they will kill the courage of the Ming army first! ”