Baode Prefecture in Shanxi Province is located on the Yellow River 30 miles south of Hequ City, in the northwest corner of Taiyuan Prefecture.

On the opposite bank of the river is Gufu County in Shaanxi, which is not only the gateway to the south of the city of Hequ, but also an important ferry port on the edge of the Yellow River.

Once this place is captured, then more than 50,000 rebel troops will be completely locked in the meandering area.

On the northeast side of Hequ City is the Great Wall, facing Datong Town, one of the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty, there is the impregnable Ningwu Pass in the east, and the Yellow River is dangerous in the west.

For the rebels, the south was the only way out, and it was difficult to develop from the other three directions.

Therefore, as long as the Ming army held Zhenxiwei in the south of Baode Prefecture, it could prevent the rebel army from moving further south.

After Wang Jiayin and others entered Shanxi, they also organized people to attack Zhenxiwei many times, trying to open the passage to the south.

But the officers and soldiers were not stupid, they deployed a full 8,000 elites in Zhenxiwei, and a large number of birds and artillery.

The rebels returned many times.

It stands to reason that it would be difficult for the rebels to maintain a size of 50,000 men in this environment.

After all, the land around the meanders is limited, and it is simply impossible to support so many troops.

Moreover, there are various passes around them, and it is easy for them to jam the supply lines of the rebels.

However, Xiong Tingbi, who was sitting in Monan, found that the seemingly impregnable nine-sided Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty had a fatal weakness.

That is the Yellow River.

The Yellow River runs north-south here, directly becoming the dividing line between Shaanxi and Shanxi.

Of course, this was not a weakness in the first place, after all, the Mongol tribes in the Hetao area had a few ferry boats, and it was impossible for them to transfer troops through the Yellow River to directly cross the nine-sided towns of the Ming Dynasty.

But now it is the Liaodong Army that occupies the Monan Hetao.

As they had to transport supplies to support the rebels in northern Shaanxi, they discovered that the Yellow River was actually a convenient passage.

It's just that the Yellow River has a serious accumulation of sediment, the water depth is very shallow, and there are many shoals, so ferries are rarely used in the upper reaches of the river, and sheepskin rafts are generally used to cross the river.

Fortunately, northern Shaanxi is already in the middle reach, and the water depth can barely be used by ferry.

But it is generally only crossed, and it is used to cross the Yellow River.

Almost no one uses the Yellow River to transport supplies back and forth on a large scale, because it is barely possible to go downstream, but it is too difficult to go backstream.

After repeated experiments, the craftsmen borrowed from the "steamship" and created a small boat that could use the power of the runner to achieve countercurrent.

Xiong Tingbi recruited shipbuilders from Liaodong to build a small shipyard in Jiuyuan City directly for the construction of inland river vessels suitable for transportation on the Yellow River.

The Liaodong Army easily controlled the Yellow River channel in northern Shaanxi, and the Righteous Army received a steady stream of supplies through the lifeline of the Yellow River.

At this moment, the 5,000 righteous army under Li Zicheng had already gathered outside the city.

To be honest, although the combat strength of these rebels is not bad, their morale is not high.

Li Zicheng said: "I know that many of you lament the unfair fate, the same is the rebel army, others are ready to go south to plunder, eat and drink spicy, but you unfortunately won the "death lot" to stay here for the army. ”

"But Ben told you that if you think so, you would be very wrong!"

Then he picked up a reckless gun and aimed it at the jar in the distance.

All they saw was that the jar was shattered!

This jar is 150 steps away from Li Zichengzu.

You must know that the official army's bird gun only has an effective range of about fifty paces against the armor-piercing rebels, and even if it does not pierce armor, it is only seventy or eighty steps at most.

This firebolt can shoot 150 steps, which is a bit exaggerated!

Li Zicheng said: "This kind of Lu Mi Gong is extremely powerful, and it can break armor in 120 steps. We have 500 strokes now, do you still think that staying is death? ”

He then had several "thunderbolt" fuses ignited and threw them into a nearby open field.

Then there were explosions one after another, which directly stunned many rebels.

Although Lu Mi Gong just now was exaggerated, it was still within the scope of their cognition after all.

But this "thunder" is really beyond their imagination. Even many people think that this is a divine technique, and Li Zicheng is simply a thunder god.

Even many of the rebels were so frightened that they fell to their knees.

Then Li Zicheng kicked over the silver box again, and he shouted: "Here are 50,000 taels of silver, which are rewarded by the king of Hengtian." ”

Li Zicheng's henchmen took the opportunity to shout: "With such an artifact to help, why can't you break the official army? ”

"We are willing to follow the general and kill the enemy!"

Soon the morale of thousands of people was shaken!

This time, the imperial court used a large number of border troops from northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, and Li Xianzhong had to pay a bloody capital.

Thunder is rarely used even by the Liaodong Army in peacetime, that is, a batch was sent to Wang Xifan in Yanzhou before, so that he could use it at the most critical moment.

A day later, the Ming army advancing west from Ningwuguan joined the Ming army that was heading north with Zhenxiwei on the outskirts of Baode Prefecture!

The two armies soon surrounded Baode Prefecture after their combined forces.

However, they did not rush to attack the city, but only set up camp outside the city, and from time to time sent a large number of sentry cavalry to reconnoiter the direction of the river meander, to prevent the main force of the rebel army from going south to support!

Li Zicheng said: "There are 15,000 officers and soldiers, and they don't attack the city with such superior forces, do they want to attract the main force of our righteous army to the south, so that they can encircle the point and send reinforcements?" ”

Chong Guangdao pointed to the opposite bank and said, "The official army on the other side of Fugu should be about to cross the river, and the reason why the official army besieged and did not attack was because we were afraid that we would go out of the city to prevent He Renlong from landing. ”

Sure enough, not long after, many boats appeared on the other side of the Yellow River.

Although it is already located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, it is slightly more abundant than the upper reaches of the river, but there is only one channel suitable for crossing the river.

At this time, less than 1 mile upstream from the official army ferry, the personnel of the Intelligence Department had already received the signal.

They threw mines into the Yellow River.

The "underwater mine" made by the Ming Dynasty in the 28th year of Jiajing (1549) can be called the world's first mine.

The mine used a wooden box as a mine shell, putty glue seams, ropes below to connect iron anchors, controlled depth, and manually manipulated firing, more than 200 years before the manufacture and use of mines in the West.

During the period of resisting Japan and aiding Korea in the Wanli period, the Daming Navy Division used "underwater mines" to sink a large Japanese warship in one fell swoop, which was the first time in human history to use mines to achieve actual results.

Mines appeared early in the Ming Dynasty and were successfully used in actual combat.

In the 18th year of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty invented the earliest drifting thunder, the "underwater dragon king cannon" with incense as the timing fuse.

The drifting mine used by the Intelligence Department is based on the "Underwater Dragon King Cannon", but the original lit fuse has been changed to a trigger type.

Due to the turbulent current of the Yellow River, it was impossible to move large boats, and at this time this dense pile of small boats obviously became the target of these drifting mines.

Of course, because these drifting mines were coming down the river, two of them deviated from the middle of the river and touched the shore in advance and exploded.

It was these explosions that attracted the attention of the boatmen.

By the time they found the drifting objects, they were already close at hand.

With a loud "boom", a ferry boat was blown to pieces, setting off huge waves on the Yellow River.

Before the Ming army could react, a series of large explosions occurred.

Because the ferries were so small, each boat could only carry twenty or thirty people, and even some of the boats that were not hit by the mines were overturned by the huge waves on the river.

He Renlong, who had just landed, was also stunned by this scene.

Originally, his 10,000 men and horses were going to cross the river in multiple batches, but now more than 500 people have just landed, and almost all of the remaining 40 or so ferries have been blown and sunk.

Although the loss of personnel was not too serious, more than 700 soldiers were killed and drowned, but the impact on morale was huge.

He Renlong knew that Liukou must have used firearms to blow up and sink their ferry.

But the soldiers didn't think so, some said that the dragon king was angry, some said that the thunder god descended to earth, in short, they offended the gods.

The few remaining ferries that did not capsize did not dare to cross the river again.

And the rebels under Li Zicheng also believed that the official army had been punished by the gods.

This further confirms that the "general" Li Zicheng is a god descending from heaven and has been blessed by heaven, and the morale of the righteous army defending the city is directly bursting.

In order to prevent rumors from spreading in the army and affecting the morale of the Ming army in Shanxi, Wang Guoliang, the general army of Shanxi, decided to immediately launch an attack on Baode Prefecture.

After a round of artillery, thousands of Ming troops launched a charge towards Baode Prefecture with their shields held high.

Although the officers and soldiers carried a few light Franc machine guns, this thing basically didn't do much damage to the city wall, and with a poor hit rate, that is, listening to a sound, it was a cheer for the army!

But surprisingly, before they could rush to the moat, the sound of fire rang out from the city.

"Bang, bang, bang"

As a puff of white smoke rose from the city, many Ming soldiers fell to the ground.

They could never have imagined that the thieves could penetrate the shield in their hands from a hundred paces away.

Although only a few dozen people fell to the ground, the psychological blow to the officers and soldiers was not small.

Many of his vanguard troops are armored, and they can break through the armor a hundred steps away?

The firearms of these rogue gangsters are so sharp.

Although due to their unskilled operation, the reloading time of the rogues was particularly long, and they could not form a continuous firepower output, which still had a great impact on the Ming army filling the trenches.

After each round of shooting, there were always a hundred and ten people falling.

Moreover, the birds and arrows of the official army could not hit so far, and they were completely passively beaten.

In the end, Wang Guoliang had no choice but to withdraw his troops.

He Renlong and Wang Guoliang were also depressed for a while, the equipment of these thieves is too against the sky, better than the equipment of the border army, how can this be fought?

He Renlong said: "Fortunately, the thieves in Baode Prefecture have no artillery, and no matter how sharp the guns are, they can't withstand the attack of a large number of artillery. ”

Wang Guoliang thought about it too, so he ordered the Hongyi cannon to be transported from Zhenxiwei to break the city.

Although Zhenxiwei is not far from here, it will take several days to transport the bulky Hongyi cannon.

So they decided to use these few days to fill in the moats on the outskirts of Palden.

Since the thieves' firearms are sharp during the day, they simply use the night to fill in the trenches.

Soon, the official army quietly touched the edge of the moat outside the city, but it was impossible for such a big movement to fill the trench without alarming the thieves in the city.

Although the Intelligence Department used the Yellow River to send a lot of arms, the number was limited after all.

Li Zicheng's righteous army was not a wealthy Liaodong army, and it could blindly shoot at the city at any time without ammunition, and use the enemy's screams to judge the location and the density of the enemy's army.

However, the rebels also have their own advantages, that is, they are all outlaws, and they are not afraid of death!

Soon Li Zicheng opened the city gate and personally led the army out of the city to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the officers and soldiers who filled in the trenches.

To be honest, this kind of night battle was fought very little on both sides, and it was purely a melee.

However, in the end, Li Zicheng, who was fighting at home, was superior, and the official army was killed by six or seven hundred people and retreated in a hurry.

Three days have passed, and the officers and troops with superior troops have no way to take Baodezhou?

Wang Guoliang felt that something was wrong, even if the Hongyi cannon was unlucky, this time should have come.

At this time, the defeated army that Zhenxiwei fled back came to the camp.

It turned out that the team transporting the cannons encountered the thieves heading south on the way, and all the Hongyi cannons were captured by the thieves.

The thieves used these cannons to blast the city wall directly, and had already occupied Zhenxiwei a day earlier.

Wang Guoliang was directly stunned on the spot, the main force of the thieves went south to raid Zhenxiwei, how is this possible?

Don't they even want their own nest in Hequ City? Unfortunately, Wang Guoliang said that after Wang Jiayin and others captured Zhenxiwei, they went all the way south and broke through Lanxian, and there was a tendency to go straight to Taiyuan.

Wang Guoliang had no choice but to return to the army to chase and hand over the task of besieging Baode Prefecture to He Renlong.

In the past few days, some men and horses have crossed the Yellow River, and at this time He Renlong has nearly 3,000 people in his hands, although he can't attack the city, but it is always not a problem to watch Li Zicheng.

When he learned that the thief's nest was already an empty city, the greedy He Renlong actually divided his troops to raid Hequ City.

Li Zicheng saw the opportunity to lead his army out of the city, repelled the men and horses left behind by He Renlong, and successfully took the ferry.

Then take the opportunity to go south to join the main forces of the rebel army.

At this time, He Renlong's main force had not yet crossed the Yellow River, and all the ferries were gone.

And he didn't have a war horse at this time, so he couldn't catch up with Li Zicheng at all.

He had to defend Tonghequ City in Baode Prefecture with his own 3,000 men and horses, and sent the good news of capturing the thief's nest and recovering the northwest of Jin to Hong Chengchou.

The Shanxi general army Wang Guoliang was worried that Taiyuan would be lost, so he first led 3,000 cavalry south to relieve the siege of Taiyuan.

Eventually, they were surrounded by the Righteous Regiment at Shapo Ridge north of Taiyuan.

Although Wang Guoliang's subordinates are mostly the elite of Datong Town, they are helplessly constrained by the terrain.

Now they are besieged in the valley and can only be beaten passively.

In the end, Wang Guoliang was unfortunately crushed to death by a boulder rolling down the mountain, and most of the remaining Ming troops died after resisting for nearly a day, and finally more than 800 people surrendered to the rebels.

Gao Yingxiang said to Zhang Xianzhong: "'Yellow Tiger', you are still good at ambushes, Wang Guoliang, a reckless man, saw that Taiyuan was surrounded, and he really plunged into our ambush circle. ”

Zhang Xianzhong said: "This is also thanks to the cooperation of Song Tongyin, the straw bag governor, if he hadn't sent an envoy Cui to urge Wang Guoliang to hurry back to Taiyuan eight times a day, Wang Guoliang would not have been fooled." ”

"I just don't know what happened to Li Zicheng and the five thousand brothers?"

Gao Yingxiang said: "According to the brothers who took refuge, Li Zicheng and they fought in Baode Prefecture one after another, and the officers and soldiers lost two or three thousand people, but they failed to touch the city wall of Baode Prefecture. Many of Wang Guoliang's henchmen died in the battle of Baode, otherwise it would not be easy for us to eat him. ”

"And because the ferry boat was destroyed, He Renlong's main force did not cross the Yellow River at all, and the situation is very favorable to us!"

Just when the situation of the rebel army was very good, the news came that the two leaders of the "Hengtian One Word King" Wang Jiayin and the "Zijin Liang" Wang Ziyong were unfortunately killed.

Wang Jiayin's confidant Wang Guozhong was rebelled by the "trilateral governor" Hong Chengchou and wanted to surrender to the imperial court.

Hong Chengchou's reputation in the rebel army is very poor, and Wang Guozhong is worried that his words will not count.

So Hong Chengchou's envoy said: "If you can offer the head of the thief Wang Jiayin, are you still worried that the imperial court will not give you high-ranking officials?" ”

Wang Guozhong thought about it, anyway, he betrayed the rebels, so he simply made a big vote.

Soon he found Zhang Li, the little leader who was dissatisfied with Wang Jiayin, and the two of them were able to do this together.

Although it was a good opportunity for the rebels to go south this time, Wang Jiayin's old camp had a lot of people, and they never found a chance to start.

This time, Zhang Xianzhong and Gao Yingxiang designed an ambush for the official army, just taking away most of the main force of the rebel army, and they sneaked into the tent to kill Wang Jiayin while he was asleep.

And Wang Ziyong was completely unlucky, at this time he happened to come to Wang Jiayin, so the two simply didn't do anything, and even Wang Ziyong killed him together.

After that, the two took their heads and went to the court overnight.

After Wang Guozhong and Zhang Li presented their names, they were respectively awarded the deputy general of the Puzhou Association and the deputy general of the Left Guard Association by Chongzhen.

After the two leaders were killed, the two strongest and most famous in the rebel army were Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", and Zhang Xianzhong, the "Eight Kings".

They all elected him as their leaders and continued to lead the rebels.

Although the two wanted to be the only leader, they also knew that this was not the time to fight for the leader.

Soon the rebels abandoned Taiyuan, although taking the city would be able to replenish a large number of supplies. However, Taiyuan City is too strong, and it will not be able to defeat it for a while, and it may attract a large number of officers and soldiers.

So the rebels decided to disperse.

Moved to the more affluent Jinnan region.

Fan Yongdou, these Shanxi merchants, once helped the rebels, but in the end, the rebels did not attack Jiexiu and Qixian, where the Jin merchants were concentrated.

Of course, the Jin merchants also took the initiative to fund a lot of money and food for the rebels.

With money and food, the rebel army has been greatly developed.

Entering the counties of Ningxiang, Shilou, Jishan, Wenxi, and Hejian successively conquered, the momentum was huge for a while.

At this time, the rebel army also began to gradually divide into two camps, and some leaders led by "Cao Cao" Luo Rucai supported the "Eight Kings" Zhang Xianzhong; The "Fifth Battalion of the Left Revolution" led by Ma Shouying supported Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang".

Relatively speaking, there are more people who support Gao Yingxiang.

However, Zhang Xianzhong did not want to give up the position of leader.

Just when the two were at a stand, Li Zicheng led more than 4,000 people to catch up with the main force of the rebel army.

Originally, everyone thought that Li Zicheng would definitely die, but they didn't expect that he not only killed him, but also did not lose too much of his men.

At this time, although his 4,000 people were not the largest, they were quite elite and a decisive force.

Moreover, the original sergeant of the righteous army, Guangdao, is now also serving under Li Zicheng's account.

This situation is even more complicated, originally it was just the "battle between the two heroes" between Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong, but now it seems that there is a trend of "three kingdoms".

Li Zicheng was originally Gao Yingxiang's subordinate, and Gao Yingxiang was his uncle, Gao Yingxiang felt that Li Zicheng must be on his side.

But Zhang Xianzhong doesn't see it that way, he thinks that Li Zicheng has been bullied under Gao Yingxiang's account, if he supports Gao Yingxiang as the boss, wouldn't it be the same as before?

On the contrary, it is to support himself as the boss, so that he can be truly independent.

Both began to woo Li Zicheng.

But at this time, Li Zicheng felt that his strength was not weak, and the two of them competed with each other, and he happened to be the profitable fisherman.

Chong Guangdao saw that Li Zicheng was also an ambitious person, which was the reason why he chose to assist Li Zicheng.

However, he said: "I know that the general feels that he also has a chance to become the leader at this moment, but you must understand that this leader is only a nominal co-leader, if you are not strong enough, even if you become a leader, other leaders will not obey you." ”

"Judging from the current situation, only King Gao Yingxiang has this strength. As long as General Chuang supports him, Zhang Xianzhong will definitely not dare to object. And your nephew and uncle can also use this to repair the previous relationship! ”

In the end, Li Zicheng was persuaded by Chongguangdao and took the initiative to support his uncle Gao Yingxiang, and Gao Yingxiang was also relieved of Li Zicheng's self-reliance!

In September of the second year of Chongzhen, Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", posted a heroic post in Wenxi County, Shanxi, calling on the rebels in Shanxi and Shanxi to vote.

In the end, there were 36 battalions of rebels and more than 200,000 horses.

"King Chuang" Gao Yingxiang was also promoted as the leader of the 36th Battalion Righteous Army, calling on the world's righteous army to rise up against the Ming!

After Li Xianzhong heard the news, he also sighed for a while, in the original historical trajectory, Wang Ziyong of "Zijin Liang" was elected as the leader of the 36th Route Righteous Army.

But by mistake, Wang Ziyong was killed by a traitor in advance, but Li Zicheng became independent from Gao Yingxiang early, and now the righteous army is no more and no less than 36 roads.

However, due to his own appearance, today's Ming army is not the original Ming army.

He believed that as long as Zuo Liangyu and Cao Wenzhao led the Yulin battalion south, the righteous army would not be the opponent of the official army at all.

He knew it was time to take his own shot.

And Chongzhen finally couldn't sit still when he heard that Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", was promoted as the leader of the 36th Battalion Righteous Army and called on the world's righteous army to come and overthrow him.

The furious Emperor Chongzhen deposed Song Tongyin, the governor of Shanxi, and let He Renlong lead an army of 8,000 troops into Pingyang; Zhang Zongheng, the governor of Xuanda, and the generals Zhang Yingchang, Po Ximu, Ai Wannian, led 7,000 troops to block Fenzhou.

Then ordered Zuo Liangyu and Cao Wenzhao to lead the elite of the 30,000 Yulin battalion to the south, preparing to wipe out the righteous army in one fell swoop.

Just when the two of them were complacent and ready to exterminate the righteous army again, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, made an urgent report: the great pirate Zheng Zhilong raided Dengzhou in the name of "East Ryukyu Company", the opponent's warship was sharp, and the Dengzhou Navy was annihilated. Now the other party is storming Dengzhou City, the situation is extremely critical, if the imperial court does not send reinforcements quickly, the whole territory of Denglai and even the entire Shandong will soon fall! ”

Thank you for your monthly passes, recommended tickets, and follow-up support!

Thank you for the monthly pass support of the book friend "1478551518432063488".

(End of chapter)