Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 163 Siege
Ma Jinzhong put down his wine bowl and burped, an unpleasant stench came out of his mouth, his dark face turned pale.

He squinted his drunken eyes, glanced at King Huntian and King Renyi who were munching, and said with disdain: "I said that the two leaders have not eaten mutton for a long time? Why are you so greedy?" ? Just now, would you two be willing to say what I said?!"

King Renyi held a mutton leg bone in his hand, chewed a large piece of mutton in his mouth, and said vaguely: "Matou leader, just say what you want, and Lao Zhang and I will listen to it!"

Among the three, he was the weakest, with less than ten thousand men under his command, and only a thousand or so old soldiers who could make a move, so he put himself in the right position early.

Huntian Wang Zhang Sanshun has more than 1 men and more than 2000 old soldiers. He is considered a strong one in the Northwest; but compared with Ma Jinzhong, who has more than 2000 cavalry and more than 1 infantry.

He heard that Ma Jinzhong had the idea of ​​becoming the boss of the Northwest Bandit, although he was dissatisfied, but his strength was not as good as others, so he could only see the direction of the wind first.This time, the situation forced them to join forces, thinking about following behind to fight a smooth battle to check the advantage, and then make plans after the power becomes stronger.

King Huntian put down a piece of fat mutton, wiped his oily hands on his robe, swallowed the meat in his mouth, and said: "I heard that the new governor, Mr. Sun, was in Heishuiyu. King Gao Chuang was suppressed; King Gao Chuang has many people under his command, and the three of us together are not equal. Doesn’t your brother Ma Shizhong, the leader of the horse, also follow King Gao Chuang? The loss of Zongbing Cao and General Cao is enough for us, if we make a big noise, how can we attract that governor Sun?"

Ma Jinzhong snorted: "I don't know what's going on with my brother, he has his own luck, let him go! Lao Zhang, you are timid, Cao Zongbing and Xiao Cao are a little scared, but you have to say that grandson The fact that the governor can come is because you don't know anything!"

King Renyi took up the conversation and asked: "Matou is saying that Governor Sun can't come to our side? What do you mean? Our territory is also controlled by Governor Sun?"

Ma Jinzhong picked up the wine bowl and took a big sip, wiped the wine stains from the corners of his mouth, looked at the two people who were waiting for him to speak, and then continued proudly after sinking: "You two don't know, Shanbei There are tens of thousands of rebels on that piece of land, and there is a lot of trouble there! How can the imperial court have time to take care of us? Now they must mobilize soldiers to suppress the rebels in northern Shaanxi! Can Governor Sun not go?"

Unconvinced, King Hun Tian answered: "I know what the leader of the horse said, if the imperial court suppresses the rebels in northern Shaanxi, why not turn back and deal with us?"

King Renyi echoed: "Old Zhang is right! We'd better keep some of them. I don't think we should go to fight Lingtai. It's two different things to rob big households of food and grass and kill officials. It will really annoy the imperial court and wipe out northern Shaanxi. You can come and suppress us! I feel that we are making small troubles, and the court doesn’t care too much, as long as we have wine and meat to eat!”

Ma Jinzhong stared, and shouted: "Fart! How dare you two become a rebel army?! How can there be a big family in Fengxiang and Pingliang for us to rob? Those bastards almost hid in the county with food, gold and silver. Go inside! There are some muddy legs of poor peasants left outside! These bastards who are poorer than us have meat and let us keep it?! It is true that King Gao Chuang was suppressed, but how many years did the court take to capture it? Live him? Is it easy to suppress the hundreds of thousands of rebels in northern Shaanxi? I ​​saw that within three to five years, the government and army will not be able to take down northern Shaanxi! We don’t grow hair while we are not growing. Could it be possible to lie down and wait for death?! "

What Ma Jinzhong said made King Renyi and King Huntian speechless.

After careful consideration, the two found that what Ma Jinzhong said was indeed reasonable.

Gao Yingxiang also turned from a small thief to a giant bandit. They knew the name of King Chuang before they rebelled. Gao Yingxiang was not wiped out by the army until this year. This shows that not all the officers and soldiers can fight like General Cao.

Now, as Ma Jinzhong said, they should take advantage of the possibility that the government and the army will go all out to encircle and suppress the rebels in northern Shaanxi and temporarily ignore them.

It is useless to just rob the big households in the countryside. Those big households are just landlords with a little more land, and there will not be too much food and other materials stored in them.But the county town is different. Almost all the rich people in the county live in the city, and there are also various shops and government treasuries. How many good things must there be?If a county can be conquered, the food, grass, gold and silver in it will not be worth a hundred big households?

As long as you have enough capital, is it not easy to recruit troops?
Thinking of this, King Huntian slapped the table and shouted loudly: "It's done! Let's go to the Lingtai!"

King Renyi also said: "Success! We will listen to the leader of the horse! If General Xiao Cao comes to join in the fun again, tens of thousands of us will just kill him!"

Ma Jinzhong clapped his hands together, and said happily: "Middle! This is what a leader looks like! Today, I will teach you to rest well, and tomorrow we will go east! If the city is broken, I, Ma Jinzhong, will never break my promise, and the three of us will share the good things equally! "

Just as the bandit camp was full of excitement, on an unnamed plain a few miles northeast of Baishiyuan, several officers and soldiers in cotton armor crouched in the thick thatched grass and approached Baishiyuan. Looking in the direction.

The terrain here is higher than that of Baishiyuan, which is a few miles away. Standing on the plain, you can have a clear view of Baishiyuan and the surrounding terrain for more than ten miles.

Although this plain is more dangerous than Baishiyuan, it is smaller in size and not suitable for stationing large troops.

After looking around for a long time, after confirming that there is only one main road in the south of Baishiyuan, and the other three sides are steep hillsides and dense forests, the leader made a gesture, and the group turned around and walked north.

At the edge of a hidden woods on the plain, several officers and soldiers hid behind the trees, bowed their bows and shot arrows, and scanned the surroundings vigilantly. A dozen war horses were tied to the tree trunks, and they were leisurely gnawing on the weeds on the ground.

With the sound of rustling footsteps, figures loomed in the long and dense weeds, and several officers and soldiers who had explored the terrain emerged from the grass; the officers and soldiers were calling everyone to come closer, and briefly explained what they observed Afterwards, he sent several scouts back to the camp to report, and he stayed with several of them to continue the scouting.After receiving the order, several officers and soldiers came to the tree, untied the reins, got on their horses, turned the horse's head and legs to clamp the horse's belly, and the horse galloped northward.

On a flat and wide wasteland thirty miles north of Jingzhou in Pingliang Prefecture, there are various flags waving in the wind everywhere. Nearly [-] Qin soldiers are resting on the spot according to their battalions, waiting for the military order to prepare for lunch.

In the entire camp, there was only the occasional neighing of war horses, and no other officers or soldiers were allowed to talk to each other. The officers and soldiers sat on the ground in a circle in units of teams, and all kinds of weapons such as knives, guns, and guns were placed by their side, so that they could line up at any time. enemy.

There are more than ten thousand people, and there are no boundaries.

The entire Qin army camp stretched for more than ten miles. Looking down from the air, the ground became a fiery red ocean.Except for the generals in black iron armor, the soldiers of the Qin army were all wearing bright red cotton armor, and red tassels fluttered on the hat-shaped iron helmets.

From time to time, horses galloped in and out of the Qin army camp, conveying various military information.

In the center of the camp stood Sun Chuanting's big tent, and eight soldiers stood on both sides of the tent door with their swords straddled.

After the big case in the tent, Sun Chuanting was looking at the map while Xie Renxing, who was dressed in a Confucian robe, was busy with a few recruited scribes.

Sun Chuanting led his troops all the way to the southwest from Yan'an Mansion, passed through Heshui and Ningzhou in Qingyang Mansion, and arrived at Jingzhou in Pingliang Mansion yesterday, only more than two hundred miles away from Fengxiang Mansion.

Qin Jun first rushed from Xi'an Mansion to Yan'an Mansion, and then turned around and came to Fengxiang Mansion after only a few days of recuperation.Until arriving in Jingzhou yesterday, the journey covered more than 1000 miles in more than [-] days, and more than [-] people were lost due to illness, falls, and other reasons.These wounded and sick people were placed in the nearest passing prefectures and counties for treatment, and left with appropriate staff to take care of them, and returned to Xi'an Prefecture after their injuries recovered.

There was a sound of horseshoes coming from far and near, and the people in the tent were not affected in any way, and they were still busy, and I don't know where the scouts came to report the military situation.

General Zhou Yuji sent several roads to the south, north, and west to investigate the terrain and military situation within about forty miles around.

With a cry from the guards outside the tent, he stopped drinking: "Stop! Dismount!"

Several riders who were more than ten steps outside the tent reined in their horses, got off their horses, and shouted outside the tent: "Report! Urgent military situation!"

Sun Chuanting straightened up when he heard the words, and said loudly: "Come forward and report!"

A scout stepped into the account and knelt down on one knee, clasped his fists and reported loudly: "Report to Zhongcheng! There are a large group of thieves gathered thirty miles ahead! There are about [-] people!"

After hearing this, all the people in the tent stopped their busy work and looked at Sun Chuanting together.

Sun Chuanting raised his eyebrows and asked, "You can see the bandits' flag? Where are the bandits? How many horses? Is there a picture of pulling out the camp? Come here! Mark the location on the map!"

After visiting the horse and saluting, he got up and came to the big case, looked at the rough map and hesitated for a while, secretly estimated the location of the thief in his heart, stretched out his finger and pointed at one place: "Report to Zhongcheng, the thief is here! I have not seen the thief Raise the banner, I don't know which bandit they are! Although there are many thieves, they are in chaos, and the cavalry should be more than a thousand riders! There is no movement to pull out the camp!"

Sun Chuanting looked at where Tanma was pointing, then glanced around and immediately understood that there were a large number of thieves gathered, and the target was obviously going to Lingtai County.

He immediately ordered the whole army to eat, before the whole team marched south, and must arrive at the place where the bandits camped before dark.

The next morning around Chenshi, the thieves on Baishiyuan ran out of food in a mess. When Ma Jinzhong ordered the whole army to march to Lingtai County, the scouts he sent came back in a panic and reported: Yuanxiashili found a brigade of officers and soldiers At that time, the only passage from Baishiyuan to the outside world was blocked by the government army, and tens of thousands of rebels were trapped on Baishiyuan.

　At that time, most of the thieves were mobs, and they didn't pay much attention to setting up camp and guarding.The army in the northwest is weak, and this group of Northwest thieves has basically never fought against the army in the brigade, unlike Gao Yingxiang who has fought against the army for many years, and has basically learned the same thing about the army, so it is reasonable for them to be besieged middle.This is by no means taken for granted, the thieves are all composed of farmers, and the leaders are just bandits and horse bandits, who have never received formal training.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)