At the beginning of August, in order to urge Sun Chuanting to go out of the customs as soon as possible and fight a decisive battle with the army of thieves, Emperor Chongzhen crowned Sun Chuanting as the secretary of the military department (false position), commanded the military affairs of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Sichuan, and ordered him to "go out of the customs with the sun".

Before leaving the customs, Sun Chuanting sent a fast horse to send an order in the direction of Sichuan with an expedited 800 li, ordering Qin Liangyu to lead his troops from Jiujiang to Runing and flank the army of thieves; Ordered Qin Yiming, the chief soldier of Sichuan, to lead his troops to business and make a response.

With the cooperation of these two troops and horses, Sun Chuanting is confident that he can mobilize a lot of Li Zicheng's troops to go out, so that the chances of victory of the official army can be greater.

Subsequently, on the eighth day of the eighth month of August, Sun Chuanting ordered all the troops to go out of Tongguan, leaving only 1,000 defenders stationed in Tongguan, and the Dubiao battalion, the soldiers and horses of Dongxie Town, and most of the defenders of Tongguan were all pulled out, totaling 45,000 soldiers and horses.

Sun Chuanting took the Governor Battalion as the central army and the Tongguan soldiers and horses as the rear army, and ordered Cao Bianjiao to lead the elite of Dongxie Town as the vanguard, and the 45,000 army went east out of Tongguan and headed towards Luoyang, preparing to attack all the way forward and attack Runing.

As long as he can take Runing, Sun Chuanting can join forces with Qin Liangyu and Qin Yiming's troops to annihilate the main force of the thief army.

"Governor, the striker set off two hours ago, and just delivered his first return."

A general of the supervising battalion said: "The thieves and horses of the middle battalion led by Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin have retreated!" ”

Sun Chuanting rode his horse and followed the brigade, his face was a little ugly, and sure enough, as he expected, Li Zicheng retreated, but instead of retreating, he lured himself into the encirclement!

"Humph! The thieves were treacherous, and ordered all departments to maintain speed and not to rush forward, and the whole army advanced in the direction of Luoyang. ”

"Yes!"

Same as this

At that time, Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin's middle battalion and Li Dingguo's firearms battalion slowly retreated, keeping a distance of about 50 miles from Cao Bianjiao, the vanguard of the official army, and constantly sending Xiao cavalry to harass and counterattack, so that the officers and troops thought that they were afraid of retreating.

At the same time, Li Zicheng sent fast horses and ordered Li Guo to lead the rear battalion, Li Laihum to lead the front battalion, and Liu Fangliang to lead the left battalion to quickly assemble and rush to the Jiaxian area to ambush and stand by.

In addition, Li Zicheng also sent tens of thousands of miscellaneous soldiers to Neixiang County to garrison to prevent Qin Liangyu and others' Sichuan soldiers from going north.

This time, Li Zicheng gathered hundreds of thousands of main forces from various bandits to surround and annihilate Sun Chuanting's department, which shows his great determination.

A few days later, Sun Chuanting successfully occupied Luoyang, and then "pursued" Li Zicheng's troops and continued to advance.

In mid-August, Sun Chuanting encountered more than 40,000 thieves and horses in the east of Luoyang City. The two sides immediately started a fierce battle, Cao Bianjiao led his troops to form a formation, and defeated the army of thieves in only one round, and then Sun Chuanting led his troops to cover up and kill, beheading more than 8,000.

The thieves broke their troops and fought and retreated, first going to Shaanzhou and Mianchi, and then retreating to Jiaxian. Sun Chuanting led his troops to pursue all the way, and found no trace of the rest of the thieves, combined with the previous intelligence, Li Zicheng has now changed his strategy and began to divide troops to garrison various places, instead of wandering around.

So Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao discussed and came to the conclusion that Li Zicheng must have divided the million-strong army in Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, and could not reassemble to meet the battle for a while, so he would lead the relatively strong middle camp to besiege Tongguan.

And when the official army went out to seek a decisive battle, Li Zicheng knew that the soldiers and horses in the camp of thieves could not resist tens of thousands of officials

The attack of the elite of the army had to retreat all the way in exchange for time to gather the main army!

"Governor, everything makes sense in this way, but I still can't figure it out, Li Zicheng has besieged Tongguan for a long time, and everyone in the world thinks that he has gathered hundreds of thousands of troops, but why is there only one middle battalion? For so long, why didn't Li Zicheng gather troops and horses? ”

Sun Chuanting thought for a while and said: "The origin of the leaders of the various bandits is complicated, and many of them are the leaders of the thieves from all over the world. Li Zicheng sent troops to garrison various places, perhaps those thieves were unwilling to give up their garrisons and ignored Li Zicheng's order. ”

"This is the best, this time our army can concentrate on dealing with Li Zicheng's middle battalion soldiers and horses!"

Then Sun Chuanting marched all the way and led his troops to Ruzhou.

At this time, Li Yangchun did not know Li Zicheng's plan, and thought that the official army was chasing and killing all the way, and the thief army had already gone, so he opened the gate of Ruzhou and surrendered to Sun Chuanting.

Subsequently, in order to make meritorious contributions, Li Yangchun provided the main force of the thief army and the rear stationing location.

Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao were overjoyed, and then concentrated all their efforts to attack Baofeng, Baofeng is the land of thieves to store grain, and there are many families of thieves and generals in the city.

However, the city of Baofeng is strong, and there are more than 20,000 soldiers and horses in the city, and they are all soldiers and horses in the rear camp led by Li Guo, and there are thousands of armor soldiers in it, and the strength is not bad.

The official army attacked for several days, Sun Chuanting was afraid of missing the fighter, so he personally supervised the army to break the city, Cao Bianjiao took the guards to climb the city, and took the lead to capture the city gate, and then the officers and soldiers rushed into Baofeng and killed

There are more than a dozen thief officials such as Chen Kexin, the state of the thief army.

Subsequently, Sun Chuanting's good news spread frequently, attacked Tang County, and slaughtered the dependents of the thief army.

At this point, Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao thought that Li Zi's success or failure was decided, and after Baofeng rested for a while, they led the army to kill Jiaxian.

But on the way from Baofeng to Jiaxian, the situation began to become unusual.

The rogue cavalry and scouts around the official army began to increase, and there were rogue cavalry on the front and back, left and right, many hundreds, as few as a dozen, these rogue cavalry monitored the movements of the official army during the day, and rushed up from time to time to harass them, and at night they would launch small-scale raids, making the officers and troops miserable.

Even if Sun Chuanting strictly ordered all the troops not to collect at night and the cavalry to expel them with all their might, but all the departments of the official army were exhausted along the way, and at this time, they were powerless in the face of more and more thieves and soldiers.

What's even worse is that Sun Chuanting received an urgent report from the night, and a cavalry of the thieves directly detoured to the rear of the army, attacked the Baisha in the northwest of Ruzhou, and cut off the grain route of the army, and the grain stored in the army was only enough for more than 40,000 soldiers to eat for a few days.

In this regard, Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao woke up suddenly, and the two realized that the so-called results along the way were just bait thrown by Li Zicheng!

"Governor, the army can't go anymore, we must consider withdrawing!"

In the big tent of the Chinese army, Sun Chuanting looked at the map and said, "You can't withdraw!" Withdraw the army now, and the army of thieves hidden around will rush up, and our army will not be able to withdraw. The top priority now is to continue to move forward, take Jiaxian, and then rely on Jiaxian's urban defense and the grain and grass in the city to hold on and wait for help! ”

Although he said that, Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao's hearts were clear

Chu, even if Jiaxian is taken, most of them will not have any reinforcements, and the soldiers of the army are just waiting for death in another place.

Six days later, Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao led the soldiers of the Ming army to capture the county, and obtained more than 300 mules and sheep (only) and 1,800 stone of grain.

Then, it rained heavily for seven days in the Jiaxian area, and the inside and outside of the city were muddy, and the soldiers of all departments were unable to repair the dilapidated city defense in the pouring rain. Moreover, in the past few days, all units of the Ming army have run out of food, and can only rely on leaves, bark, rats, and even dead livestock in the city to satisfy their hunger, and all the soldiers of all departments are hungry and exhausted.

On August 25, because of the lack of food, the morale of the officers and men of all units of the Ming army was shaken and almost mutinied. Although Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao tried their best to suppress the pressure, they could not do anything, and after discussion, they decided to withdraw from Jiaxian County and move to the surrounding cities, hoping to obtain grain and grass supplies.

On the second day after the Ming army withdrew from Jiaxian, the 600,000-strong army of the thieves' middle battalion, the left battalion, the rear battalion, the front battalion, and the firearms battalion under the command of Li Zicheng came from all directions and surrounded more than 40,000 officers and regiments in the muddy wilderness.

Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao immediately ordered all departments to form a defensive formation in situ and start a bloody battle with the army of thieves.

Li Zicheng stationed the Chinese army on a hill two miles north of the Ming army's formation, and then ordered each battalion, except for the firearms battalion, to select horsemen to prepare for the charge, and each battalion of horsemen to take 500 people as a team to take turns and uninterrupted to attack the Ming army.

On this day, Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao fought hard, and the soldiers of all departments were like a tide

Under the cavalry charge, the casualties were heavy, the defenders of Tongguan were the first to collapse, and thousands of routs broke away from the battle formation in horror and fled to the east, and then they were overwhelmed by the overwhelming army of thieves and cavalry.

Then, in the evening, Li Zicheng ordered all his troops to retreat, and then mobilized 200,000 infantry and dead soldiers to attack from all sides, not giving the officers and soldiers a chance to breathe.

Then Sun Chuanting's superintendent battalion was defeated, Cao Bianjiao saw this and hurriedly led his troops to rescue, and the soldiers of Dongxie Town escorted Cao Bianjiao and Sun Chuanting to break through, and the whole army retreated in the direction of Nanyang.

When the two of them led their troops to withdraw from the battlefield, there were only more than 23,000 of the 45,000 soldiers left, and the morale of the army was low, and it was completely defeated.

The next day, Li Zicheng led the main force to chase and kill, and the army of thieves chased to Nanyang, and Sun Chuanting and Cao Bianjiao led their troops back to meet the attack. The two sides started a fierce battle again, but at this time, the morale of the bandit battalions was strong, and the endless army was killing like a tide, and the Ming army, which had been out of food for a long time and was disheartened, could not resist it at all, and began to retreat as soon as the battle began.

The cavalry of the thief army took advantage of the victory and pursued fiercely, galloping more than 400 miles to Mengjin, and the elite of the 45,000 Ming army was almost wiped out.

Sun Chuanting and the generals of the Dubiao battalion all died under Nanyang City, and Cao Bianjiao led the remnants to retreat all the way to Mengjin, but before they could cross the river, they were caught up by the brigade of thieves and horses, and the two sides fought fiercely again.

At this time, there were only more than 800 remnants left around Cao Bianjiao, the armor was incomplete, the weapons were not complete, and the soldiers had almost not entered the water and rice for three or four days.

In less than half an hour, Cao Bianjiao and more than 800

The blood of the soldiers of Dongxie Town was sprinkled on Meng Jin, and everyone's heads were cut off by the thieves, all of them were hung on the saddle, and then laughed and shouted all the way, venting the joy in their hearts.

On August 30, Li Zicheng led his troops to re-encircle Tongguan, at this time the 1,000 officers and troops left in the city were unable to resist, and when the battle flag of the thief army appeared outside the city, the 1,000 defenders directly opened the gate and surrendered to Li Zicheng.

At the beginning of September, Li Zicheng summoned the generals of each battalion in Kaifeng City, as well as Li Yan, Gu Junen, Niu Jinxing, and Song Xiance.

At the military meeting, everyone smiled, and this battle successively killed two famous general officers and a governor of the Ming army, and annihilated 7 or 80,000 elite officers and soldiers, such a huge victory was enough to make the name of the righteous army spread all over the world.

"Haha! Ladies and gentlemen, what are your views on how our righteous army will develop next? ”

On major strategic issues, Li Zicheng still tends to ask Li Yan, Gu Junen, Niu Jinxing, and Song Xiance, after all, the other battalion generals are all brave and good at scheming, and they really have a view of the overall situation and can guide Li Zicheng, that is, the four of them.

Song Xiance and Niu Jinxing spoke successively, the meaning of the two is very clear, now the territory occupied by the righteous army is already very large, Li Zicheng should be called the king of the system, so the heroes of the world should be subdued!

Gu Junen believes that it is too early to become king, and the top priority now should be to stabilize all parts of the country and truly digest the territory occupied.

Finally, Li Zicheng looked at Li Yan and asked, "What is your opinion?" ”

Li Yan said: "The students agree with Mr. Gu's opinion, and at the same time, our righteous army should continue to attack and sweep Shanxi Town to the north

, Datong Town, the entire Shanxi into the bag, and at the same time attack all parts of Beizhili. To the south, it is necessary to divide troops to attack all parts of Hubei and attack the land of money and grain in the south. ”

After listening to the opinions of the four people, Li Zicheng pondered for a long time, to be honest, the temptation of the king is huge, but Li Zicheng is still sober at this time, the Ming court still has Liu Yan's new army, and the righteous army must stabilize the place and develop its strength as soon as possible, otherwise once the message leads the troops to kill, everything at the moment will not be guaranteed.

So Li Zicheng said: "In this way, I will follow what Mr. Li and Mr. Gu said!" ”