In the southeast of Tianshui County, in a noisy and chaotic barracks, soldiers are in groups of three or five, going in and out of the barracks, escorting the looted food, money, and women.

This small camp of two or three hundred men was not firmly entrenched, but only some tents were placed at random, and there were no even the most basic fences and trenches, let alone horses and traps, and from a distance it looked like a shack.

Although it has only been stationed for less than two days, all kinds of unpleasant smells have been heard from the entire camp, garbage and blood stains are everywhere, and there are more than a dozen naked women's corpses in a dirt ditch not far from the camp. After yesterday's looting, the screams and cries of women continued to be heard from the tents in the camp.

Gao Jie's rebellious soldiers robbed all the way from Shaanxi to Nanzhili, and gained a lot along the way, but they only knew what it meant to be rich, Shaanxi, those places in Henan have been robbed many times in the past few decades, and they have been robbed by natural disasters for a long time, they can only rob the poor, grab food, strong men and women, but Nanzhili is different, and there are a lot of silver and jewelry.

This unit sent to Tianshui County is not an elite just by looking at the camp, but it is already the most capable soldier and horse under Gao Jie's command, except for his family. However, if it is a robbery, they are absolutely elite soldiers, and their experience, speed and proportion are among the best in the Ming army.

In the open space in the camp, some soldiers were cooking on the fire and laughing loudly, and some soldiers who came out of the tent where screams were heard walked out with their pants on their hands, and then joined the chatter, and some of the soldiers who were talking and laughing excitedly took off their pants and rushed in.

In a big tent in the middle of the camp, several officers were talking about the details of the distribution of the spoils with a lame arithmetic level.

Moreover, since Gao Jie connived at the looting of the soldiers and horses under his command, and the magistrates turned a blind eye, and Zhou Shixian, a powerful faction with unknown intentions, was staring at the south, the entire looting process must be planned, and the results of the looting must be dotted everywhere.

"The general said, we will keep the food ourselves, but the silver, jewelry, and women, we have to take it to pay attention and honor the adults."

A middle-aged officer with a sloppy beard said in a rough voice: "We will keep five thousand taels of the things we have stolen this time, and the young ladies of those two big families are filial to the general, and no one is allowed to touch them, and the other silver and jewelry, as well as those maids and women, the brothers can play as they want."

"Five thousand taels down, less than twenty taels per person, I think we should grab it more than once, come quietly, and don't go to rob any prominent households, even those who have no background and don't matter, didn't Zhou County Order already give us a list, which ones can't be grabbed?" Another officer then said.

"I don't think we're in a hurry, we'll have lunch in a while, and then go to grab the town in the south, which is close to Yangzhou, and there are many merchants, and we can grab at least fifty or sixty thousand taels of silver at a time, and then we will leave 20,000 yuan for ourselves, and hand over the rest, this trip is not in vain."

Another officer touched the silver in front of him and analyzed: "The part left behind, our five brothers will divide it in half, and the rest will be distributed to the brothers, so everyone's tone will naturally be tight. And Lao Tzu doesn't believe that other people don't have private hiding, even if it is passed out, he is not afraid. ”

When the others heard this, they also nodded in agreement, because they wanted to open up the relationship and honor the officials, and they didn't dare to go to Yangzhou to rob, resulting in the income of the robbery being less than expected, which made these soldiers quite dissatisfied, and they always wanted to do a big deal.

And seeing that the brothers were eager to try, the sloppy officer just now also smiled fiercely: "It's okay, anyway, the situation is so chaotic now, the king of heaven can't control us, Lao Tzu has long wanted to taste what those fragrant ladies are like." ”

As soon as these words came out, there was a burst of wild laughter in the tent, and someone immediately responded, these rebels were already difficult to restrain them, it was Gao Jie, and it was impossible to really control them, at most they would be coerced. After all, he himself is no better.

"It's just that the town is too close to Yangzhou, I'm worried that it will ...... then," said an officer with a worried frown, but before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted.

"What are you afraid of, the horse has already returned to Nanjing, everyone is a soldier of the imperial court, they dare to come to Fengyang to take care of us? Liu Zeqing's soldiers came to look for trouble before, what was the result? It's not that we beat me back, but now I'm much more obedient. ”

After hearing this, the officer was also a little relieved, but before he could say anything to defend himself, lest others think he was cowardly, a soldier suddenly rushed in from outside the tent, and shouted with a panicked face: "Oh no, Liu Zeqing's men are here again!"

When the five officers in the tent heard this, they all jumped up immediately, they were worried that Liu Zeqing was going to take revenge after eating deflated last time, and they might also be eyeing the silver they robbed, and they all reacted very fiercely.

Several people rushed out of the camp tent, looked to the north, and sure enough, they saw a few war horses standing on the small hillside in the distance, and there was a commotion in their own tents, dozens of soldiers put on armor in a panic, took up arms, and were completely unprepared in the face of such an unexpected situation.

In order to lure this rebellious army, Zhou Shixian did not send a large team of men all at once, he was worried that if he was too strong, the other party would surrender directly, and he would not know how to do it at that time. Therefore, the two thousand headquarters brought by this expedition were stopped behind the hillside, and this group of rebels did not even send sentry cavalry, and they did not know that Zhou Shixian had come in person.

Zhou Shixian and the six guards observed in the rear together, and only one hundred and eight sentry cavalry went to provoke, which was very thin in terms of troops, and the camp was deliberately messed up, making it look unorganized.

In order to show weakness, Zhou Shixian can already be said to have done his best, but he was afraid that he would be too strong and the opposite side would not dare to fight.

Zhou Shixian originally wanted Zheng Chenggong to watch the battle in the rear like himself, but he didn't expect the other party to go to the front line, after he saw the military appearance and marching performance of Zhou Shixian's army, he had no doubt about the combat effectiveness of this army, plus he was bold, Zhou Shixian couldn't stop him.

However, it is also good that after Zheng Chenggong observes the battle process of his army up close, he will be more impressed, which is highly overlapping with Zhou Shixian's original purpose.

As for the so-called attack by Liu Zeqing in the mouth of the rebels, it was just Zhou Shixian's smoke bomb, and his subordinates didn't say anything about Liu Zeqing, but just deliberately said that they were on the orders of General Liu, and because they came from the north, they were naturally misunderstood.

In a team of more than 2,000 people, it is not surprising that there is a Bai Zong surnamed Liu.