Zhang Zhongping led 20,000 northwest iron cavalry to Jinling City at dawn on the fifth day, surrounded Jinling City on three sides, only the city gate of Linjiang was released, but he did order people to block the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River for 50 miles, and the board was not allowed to go into the water.

After all the arrangements were in place, two artillery pieces were erected at the south gate, giving the city defenders a day, and if they did not surrender when it was overdue, they would prepare for a strong attack.

Li Zitong is still in Wu County, and it is his cronies Lebotong who guards Jinling.

After the righteous army captured Jinling City, the new order established by the righteous army was higher than that of the Chinese New Year's Eve tax at the beginning of the Sui Dynasty, reaching three or four percent, but it was much easier than begging for a living under Yang Guang's tyrant.

The king of the righteous army was also a philanthropic man, and the poor defected to him, and the family could always eat a mouthful. In fact, this is because the people don't know much about Li Zitong, this product is definitely a black-bellied person, and he is narrow-minded, and he will repay him. But compared with Yang Guang's tyranny, this can already be regarded as benevolent government.

The big guys all thought that it would be good to be a peaceful common man under this King Li, who knew that the peaceful days were only a few days, and the official army attacked and besieged the city, which was going to be a dead death. No monarch likes grass on the wall, even if the generals of the official army have pardoned the people in the city, but the hearts of the people who have been bullied are not so easy to clean up.

In the Jinling County Ya, Le Botong and a group of subordinates discussed countermeasures: "Now that the official army is suddenly attacking, we only have 10,000 horses in our hands, and there are 50,000 or 60,000 people in the city. ”

"My subordinates just came back from the city gate, and found that it was not the clothing of Yang Guang's subordinate army that besieged us, and the weapons were also very special, although they were under the banner of the official army, but I dare to guarantee that it was not the Sui army we had seen before." Lebotong belongs to a partial general surnamed Cui.

"What General Cui said is very true, this group of people is full of murderous energy, and it seems that they have returned from a hundred battles, but with such an army, how can Yang Guang's faint monarch not use it? It's really weird. ”

Lebo Channel: "We'll talk about that later, and we'll think about how to retreat from the enemy now." ”

General Cui said: "The enemy army is now besieging three and putting one, and now only the north gate is near the river and has not been besieged, but the river has banned ships, this plan is very poisonous, once the war is unfavorable, the ships we have can only transport two or three thousand people away, so it will inevitably be a great chaos in the army." But facing the enemy and our disadvantage, the enemy is heavy cavalry, so we can only hold on to the city and ask the king for help. ”

Lebo channel: "Don't think about saving the army, the king was defeated by Li Jing in Wu County, and has now retreated to Biling County, the 30,000 army has lost more than half, ready to cross the river back to Hailing, yesterday has been a letter, so that we don't have to defend it, because once the waterway is cut off, we will have no way out, Jiangbei Jiangdu Sui Dynasty army still has more than 100,000, we must not land, so we must stick to Jinling City." ”

"Yes, the last general will obey."

Lebo channel: "We try our best to mobilize the people in the city to defend the city together, let's say that the harsh army of the Sui Dynasty is here again, and we don't want to fall into a desperate situation again, so let everyone do their best to drive away the Sui Dynasty army, our King Li will definitely not treat them badly, regardless of the old and weak, women and children, every family must send people, and then order the brothers to prepare ships at the north gate, once there is a change, we will evacuate by water." ”

The people had made up their minds, and they began to prepare.

Zhang Zhong, who was outside the city, waited peacefully for a day, not only did he not see Lebotong send people out of the city, but he actually drove the old and weak women and children to the city, so he ordered the siege of the city.

In this year, artillery is a new thing, in the battlefield dominated by cold weapons, it can be said to be outstanding, because there is no reinforced concrete, so no matter how strong the city gate is, it can not hold the artillery twice, the Li Zitong army defending the city was frightened by the iron cylinder that sprayed fire, because only two deafening sounds were heard, and their own city gate collapsed, and then the opposing cavalry swarmed in.

Seeing this situation, the sergeants at the head of the city immediately stopped doing it, blended in with the people, and some rushed to the north gate with the crowd, ready to flee by boat, but the north gate was near the river, and so many people poured in at once and were directly blocked.

Lebotong had already led people to the north gate before the battle, and when he heard that the other three gates had been broken, he immediately took dozens of his cronies and fled down the river on the prepared boats.

Most of the soldiers in the city were peasants, and when they saw that the leader had run away and had no time to get on the boat, in order not to be captured, they would jump directly into the river and swim away with water, and they would break into the homes of the people in the city and change the people's clothes.

Zhang Zhongping has been in the northwest for so many years, and has dealt with all kinds of thieves and robbers, as soon as he entered Jinling City, he announced the policy of 30 taxes for the common people, 15 taxes for merchants, and no other taxes, so as to stabilize the people's hearts; On the one hand, all the thieves who pretended to be ordinary people in Dasuo City, and those who could not call the elderly, women, and children at home were all arrested and sent to the barracks.

After five or six days of investigation, as many as six or seven thousand people were found. Because the capture of Jinling was a quick battle, not many people and horses were killed on the other side, and most of Li Zitong's soldiers and horses were northerners who did not understand water. Zhang Zhongping came in due to the chaos in the city and the blockage of the river, and the other party could only escape more than 1,000 people.

Zhang Zhongping stayed in the city for more than a month, and when Jinling returned to normal, Gao Buer left 2,000 troops in the Northwest Army after being stationed in the county guard, and after 1,000 captives were tamed, he returned to Hangzhou with a large army.

However, he said that Lebotong took dozens of cronies down the river, preparing to go to Piling County to join Li Zitong, and did not want to see many of his brothers who had been scattered before he arrived in Piling County, and only from their mouths did they know that Piling County had also been conquered by Li Jing, and King Li had returned to Jiangbei. Lebotong gathered four or five hundred people all the way back to Hailing.

After this battle, Li Jing and his family captured more than 15,000 Li Zitong's army, killed nearly 5,000 people, and left the army to garrison Biling County and Wu County, and then returned to Hangzhou.

Gao Buer personally went out of the city to meet the triumph of the army, and after this battle, Gao Buer's subordinate army soared by more than 20,000 people, plus Gu Ci's newly recruited 10,000 new troops, Gao Buer's subordinate soldiers and horses reached 100,000 people.

When dealing with Li Zitong's prisoners, he actually found Du Fuwei's son Du Dejun, it turned out that when Gao Buer broke Du Fuwei, Du Dejun was injured and hid in the mountains and escaped, Du Fuwei thought he had died in battle, so he also searched for it. After Du Dejun recovered from his injury, he took refuge in Li Zitong.

After Gao Buer admonished him, he asked him to go to Taiyuan to find Du Fuwei.

After expelling Li Zitong's army from Jiangbei, Lin Shihong and Cao Shiqi, who were entrenched in Yuzhang County at this time, defeated Liu Ziyi's army of the Sui Dynasty at Poyang Lake, with a strength of more than 100,000 people, and in December 616, he occupied Qianzhou and proclaimed himself the king of Nanyue.