After listening to Gu Ying's letter from the rear team, Li Zicheng said silently, "I have already ordered"

At this moment, he was nervously thinking about the situation in front of him, what should come will come after all, he calmed down and said to the person who came, "Go back and tell your general, order him to speed up his advance, and don't get too far away from the Chinese army brigade." ”

"Obey!" the little colonel turned his horse's head and ran off the job with a puff of smoke.

Li Zicheng knew in his heart that Cao Bianjiao and He Madman's pursuers must have defeated the blocking troops led by Liu Xiyao, and he had no time to care about the life and death of the Hu Ben camp and the old battalion's family.

Although there was a report from Li Guo, he didn't know where Sun Chuanting had arranged the interception troops, maybe they were still far away, and they might encounter them soon. He could see that the outpost had bypassed a hill and disappeared into the thickening white fog, and occasionally he could see Liu Zongmin's white flag, Liu Fangliang's blue flag, and Yuan Zongdi's black flag waving in the wind among the jungle tops.

"Pegasus go," he ordered a junior colonel beside him, "tell the men and horses in front of him to wait, lest they be too long." "The long snake formation is certainly convenient for marching and dealing with sudden attacks, but in the face of large-scale attacks, it will face the danger of being broken.

After the morning mist faded, the sun rose higher. The morning sun shines on the top of Huashan Mountain in the west, and the towering peaks of the five high clouds are decorated more spectacularly and majestic, and the golden sunlight shines on the banner of the high post. The silver flag gun shimmered in the sun, and the red flag was hula and rolled in the morning breeze.

Li Zicheng rode the oolong horse, bathed in the warm morning light, he quietly stared at the people and horses galloping forward in front of him, the oolong horse turned like a bamboo-leaf binaural radar, listening to the continuous sound of horses' hooves and the neighing of war horses, as if he could foresee the coming bloody battle;

With the neighing of the oolong pony like a dragon's groan, all the horses passing under the hill stopped chirping, and the team that broke into the camp rolled forward like a torrent about to erupt.

Because he was worried that there would be a battle at any time in front of him, Li Zicheng waved his whip, took Zhang Nai and a group of other partial generals and personal soldiers to gallop down the high post, and quickly advanced with Gao Yigong's Chinese military camp. Soon, the team advanced for another two or three miles, and Zhang Nai felt that the air seemed to freeze in an instant, and even the sound of galloping horses' hooves fell silent......

Suddenly, there was an earth-shattering cannon sound in his ears, and then from the fog in the distance ahead, there was a shouting of killing and a dense cannon sound.

Hearing the roar of the war machine, Li Zicheng felt a lot more steady, "This is the beginning of ......"

He whispered, his thick eyebrows frowned slightly, and then he whipped the oolong horse's buttocks, and the fierce cavalry galloped away from the Chinese military camp with Li Zicheng's war horse, and galloped forward with a puff of smoke and dust.

Zhang Nai led nearly 500 cavalrymen who had experienced a hundred battles and were long and strong, and followed closely behind Li Zicheng's horse, and the weapons in their hands glowed with a cold light in the warm sunlight. The hooves of five hundred war horses trampled violently on the cold rocks and hard brown earth, and the people were like the tide of the sea, and the horses were like dragons, rushing towards the battlefield in front of them like a violent storm......

Chongzhen looked at the cabinet transfer, the 100,000 urgent military situation outside Shanhaiguan for 800 miles, but his expression looked a little strange, Wang Dehua was afraid that the emperor would fall asleep, he coughed lightly, Emperor Chongzhen came back to his senses, and said lightly, "Liu Aita is gone, and there is no one outside the gate......"

On the morning of the second day after Lu Xiangsheng returned to Changping, the emperor sent a eunuch to urgently send 30,000 taels of silver to reward the troops who had gone to aid Gyeonggi, and another 10,000 taels were given to him personally. Just after noon, Emperor Chongzhen ordered someone to reward Lu Xiangsheng with 100 imperial horses, 1,000 servant horses, and 500 iron whips.

Lu Xiangsheng understood that the imperial horse was the imperial stable horse, which was the private property of the emperor who was obsessed with wealth, and the Taifu horse was the Taifu Temple, that is, the yamen of the Ming Dynasty that was in charge of raising horses, and the good horses were raised, and the good news made Lu Xiangsheng, who was depressed, particularly grateful and excited, and he immediately bowed to express his gratitude when he received the reward repeatedly.

At this time, his heart suddenly brightened, it turned out that the people in the court who advocated peace, sure enough, were only Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, the two traitors, the wise and martial emperor was just temporarily bewitched and deceived by the two of them, it seems that the emperor's young ears and soft roots have made the mistake again, fortunately, the saint is the master today, and now he has corrected his mistakes.

He secretly reproached himself for not misunderstanding the emperor's intentions. He even wondered if Cao Huachun had said good things for him in front of the emperor. On weekdays, he felt very uncomfortable when he thought of Dongchang, thinking that Dongchang was a major malpractice of the dynasty; now it seems that Cao Huachun's father-in-law, who was slandered by himself, actually approved of his anti-Japanese war policy in front of the emperor, and he was also grateful to Cao Huachun, a eunuch who was extremely despised on weekdays. It was only because of the strong self-esteem of the scholar class that he did not express this feeling.

Under the inspiration of the lord of Zhongxing, he gave himself 10,000 taels of silver given by Chongzhen and also rewarded the soldiers of the whole army, Lu Xiangsheng himself left only one tael and five coins of silver, and asked a skilled craftsman to create a silver cup for him, to keep as a souvenir, he took a poem inscription, and engraved this not very good poem on the silver cup:

Swear to drive away the Hulu with iron horses,

Praise the golden ou and praise the saints.

Although this couplet is far-fetched, it truthfully states his oath to kill the enemy, and his gratitude and loyalty to the emperor. He decided to wait until he had won and drunk himself with this silver cup at the feast of celebration for the expulsion of the Tartars.

In fact, in these short two or three days, the young Emperor Chongzhen's heart was full of contradictions. He is committed to becoming the master of Zhongxing, and this person's IQ is also online, so when he listened to Lu Xiangsheng's resolute remarks, he couldn't help but be shocked, and the cold and decisive iceberg showed signs of melting, and he had the heart to wait for the Qin Wang soldiers to fight to the death with the Qing soldiers after they arrived.

However, the young emperor also understood that strength did not allow natural willfulness, so the idea of a decisive battle was always vacillating in his heart, and although he thought about it repeatedly, it was still difficult to make up his mind.

He summoned Yang Sichang, the first assistant, and Gao Qiqian, the superintendent, to the Qianqing Palace, and asked them to seriously consider Lu Xiangsheng's opinions, and advised the two not to fight in vain. Gao and Yang were both in unison, opposing a decisive battle with the main force of the Qing army, believing that if the emperor's family background was used as a desperate bargaining chip, once the military affairs went slightly wrong, the consequences would be unimaginable.

At this time, most of the Ming army was seriously in arrears, and it was extremely common for officials and generals to eat empty salaries, which led to the corruption of military discipline in the Ming army.

(End of chapter)