The wind rises at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 96 Pursuit
The Guanzhong War is about to break out. Although the process has changed, the wheel of history is still rolling forward.

In the eighth year of Chongzhen, on September 30th, Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Ma Huihui and others gathered an army of [-] and approached the city of Jingyang.

On September 5000th, the Ming troops from all battalions in Shaanxi were ordered to gather in the two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan, with a total of [-] troops gathered in the two cities.

Cao Wenzhao, Cao Bianjiao, Zuo Liangyu, He Renlong, Zhang Quanchang, Sun Shoufa, Gao Jie, and others all came.

On September [-]th, Hong Chengchou came to Jingyang in person, left a letter of death, and vowed to die.

Gao Yingxiang led the main force to attack Sanyuan, while Zhang Xianzhong and Ma Hui led the partial division to attack Jingyang.

The garrison of 30 troops spread out for hundreds of miles, and the two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan were lit up with lights, almost reaching the sky and the earth.

Hundreds of miles of battalion, the beacon fire shines on the city.

A large number of bandit cavalry scattered out to plunder the surrounding towns.

All parts of the Xi'an Prefecture suffered from man-made disasters. Outside the cities of Guanzhong, flames blazed into the sky, and many villagers were taken away by captives.

After seven days of siege, the strength of the rogues did not decrease but increased.

Under Jingyang and Sanyuan, corpses filled the field, and the blood pooled under the city walls even reached people's ankles.

The battlefield between the two cities was regarded by Gao Yingxiang as a huge training ground.

The battalions of the rogue bandits were constantly filled with hungry soldiers, and every day when the rooster crowed and the dawn dawned, the battle drums were already ringing in the city.

It wasn't until the sun set and night fell that the golden sound of retreating troops would be heard in the bandit camp.

A large number of people fell on the battlefield, but more people survived.

After experiencing the baptism of swords and blood, everyone's hearts became tougher.

People who can't cross the threshold of this way have no way to survive in this cruel world.

The two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan continued to strengthen their defenses as early as August. At the same time, Hong Chengchou also dispatched a large number of firearms.

On the walls of Jingyang and Sanyuan, there are a total of 24 general cannons.

These cannons, which are only much less powerful than the Hongyi cannons, are mostly used as heavy artillery on the walls of the important towns on the nine sides.

Half of them were new cannons made by the artillery factory, and the other half were directly dismantled from the city of Datong and transported all the way to Xi'an Mansion.

Not only the guards of Xi'an Mansion were pulled up the city wall, but also a large number of young men who helped defend.

Relying on strong cities, relying on heavy artillery, and various firearms, the Ming army had an advantage over armaments.

But it was barely enough to hold the two cities, and both the generals were in a panic.

But all of this has nothing to do with Chen Wang who is in Pingliang Mansion.

The southeast gateway of Pingliang Prefecture, Jingzhou.

Chen Wang led his troops through Jingzhou, but the gates of Jingzhou were closed and they were not allowed to enter the city.

Chen Wang sent Chen Gong to ask for food and grass, but the governor of Jingzhou did not answer directly.

They just sent officials to open the door of the granary for Chen Gong to check carefully, and then took Chen Gong to see the porridge shed in the city.

Not to mention the supply of troops, Pingliang Mansion suffered several disasters, and the city of Jingzhou was about to run out of food.

Chen Wang didn't send any more people into the city, he knew very well that these were all in vain.

The magistrate of Jingzhou sent people to show the granary, but he had nothing to say.

The fire outside the city of Chunhua almost destroyed all the grain that Li Zicheng looted.

Fortunately, before the Guanzhong War broke out, Hong Chengchou sent people to bring in a lot of grain and rice. The surplus grain and grass were about 4000 shi, and he even allocated [-] taels of military funds.

Chen Wang replaced all of them with grain, and the price of grain in Xi'an Prefecture has risen to more than four taels a stone.

But no matter how high the price of food is, you have to buy it. The 4000 taels of military funds cost less than a thousand shi.

The two battalions now have more than [-] people and more than [-] horses.

All the luggage is transported by mule carts or mules, and there are more than [-] mules in total.

A man's solar eclipse is one liter, and a horse's solar eclipse is three liters.

Chen Wang now has 500 people under his command, and needs 45 shi of grain a day.

There are more than 2000 mules and horses, and they need sixty shi of grain a day.

The combination of people and horses requires more than 100 shi of grain a day.

Mules and horses consume far more food than ordinary soldiers, so this is why Chen Wang sold most of the mules and horses.

Mules and horses can indeed improve the mobility of an army, allowing it to maintain a faster marching speed and improve its combat effectiveness.

But its consumption of food and grass is unbearable.

During the campaign, many places were dilapidated and the price of rice was so high that it was difficult to buy food even if you had money.

Although the nearby prefectures and counties have the responsibility to provide relief, many times the magistrates and magistrates insist that there is no food and they are unwilling to give.

Close the city gate directly, and in the end, most things will just be nothing.

More than 3000 shi of military rations can be used for about a month, and if you save a little, you can extend it for a little longer.

But it is also extremely limited, mules and horses cannot be hungry, because once they are hungry, they will lose fat, and their combat power will drop sharply.

And people can't be hungry either. If you don't have the physical strength to go into battle, you will die.

The armaments and food that Hong Chengchou dispatched were only distributed to the guerrilla battalion under Chen Wang's command, and two thousand shi was already an extremely high amount.

Chen Wang estimated that a large part of Hong Chengchou's military rations were allocated for Cao Wenzhao's face.

The other battalion was not included in the establishment after all, so naturally Chen Wang paid for it out of his own pocket.

Jingzhou City was extremely dilapidated, and the entire southern part of Pingliang Mansion was severely affected.

As early as July, Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng led the army through Jingzhou.

Although the state city was not captured, most of the villages and towns around Jingzhou were destroyed.

Today's Jingzhou city is full of bleakness, and everywhere you look, it is all yellow.

The trees were scorched and lifeless, without leaves or bark, and hardly even the blades of grass.

The bare and convex trees stood in the wind and sand, and the westerly wind swept the yellow sand and rushed towards him, and there was a dilapidated scene all around.

The current of Jingshui has just reached half of the original water level, which is much lower than the previous river bank.

The cities and towns they passed were basically in ruins, and many people who died on the road could be seen on the road.

Skeletons criss-cross the wilderness, and corpses are everywhere.

All the way from Ningzhou to the border of Jingzhou, hundreds of miles away, almost no living person was seen.

When he was about to leave Jingzhou, he passed an empty town, and finally met a group of refugees with about twenty people on the outskirts of the town.

Those refugees gathered in a wilderness, lighting a fire, they didn't know what they were doing.

When Chen Wang smelled the aroma of meat, he couldn't help but clenched his horsewhip tightly. It was obvious what kind of meat it was.

Chen Wang repeatedly clenched and loosened the whip in his hand, but he still couldn't hold back the anger in his heart.

Because he saw a group of people tied up in the camp there.

These gathered refugees did not cut flesh from the dead, but from the living...

Dozens of Liao cavalry rushed out of the marching ranks, and the more than 20 refugees were easily shot down to the ground.

With a gloomy expression, Chen Wang led his horse all the way to the simple camp where the refugees were.

Rao is Chen Wang who is used to seeing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and seeing corpses.

But Chen Wang still felt his stomach was overwhelmed.

In the already boiling cauldron, several severed arms were already boiled and bloody.

In the camp, there were still several bloody arms and legs hanging.

The few refugees who were rescued kowtowed uncontrollably, speaking incomprehensible words.

Those who were tied up were already extremely weak. They couldn't even stand up after they were untied, and one of them was in a coma all the time.

"Pile up and burn this place..."

The town has already turned into scorched earth.

Chen Wang didn't give the order to stay. He distributed some food to the rescued refugees, and told them to walk eastward, towards Jingzhou, and then led the troops under his command to continue westward.

As he continued to move westward, Chen Wang encountered more and more refugees on the road.

Those refugees walked eastward in groups, and those who died on the road and died in the wilderness, most of them had become bones.

I just don’t know if it’s because of the passage of time, or because people passing by cut off their flesh…

Rao had seen such a scene countless times, but Chen Wang still couldn't accept it.

In my memory, there are even more bleak scenes in Shaanxi and Shanxi.

All the bandits in Pingliang Mansion had already left, and the government released all the rescued people back to their neighbors.

However, the arrival of Li Guo made the Pingliang Mansion, which had just recovered from its tranquility, become turbulent again.

A large number of people returning home were coerced again, and the production that had finally resumed was once again destroyed.

Chen Wang originally had the idea of ​​chasing Li Guo all the way into Hanzhong, but now Chen Wang couldn't bear the killing intent in his heart.

Along the way, not only did they encounter a large number of fleeing refugees, but almost all the towns they passed turned into Qiuxu.

More and more bodies are being found around roads and towns.

There are ruins everywhere, and bones are scattered on the road ruins.

Years of famines almost destroyed Shaanxi's production, and the two disasters of bandits made Shaanxi even worse.

Only cities like prefectures and counties can barely survive the wave of bandits.

In addition, only those Zhuangzi who merged and hugged each other for warmth still exist.

But the surroundings of these villages and villas are all dug and built with deep moats and high walls.

There is a big village whose walls are even higher than the walls of some county towns that Chen Wang has seen.

Much of the land outside the village is dark red, and not far from the village, there are several large-scale mounds, and some places still have traces of burning.

There was a pungent smell of blood in the air.

Chen Wang only glanced at the big village near the mountain in the distance, and then looked away.

It is now September [-]th, he has already led the troops past Chongxin, and the scouts ahead finally found the track of Li Guojun's march.

The messenger sent from Pingliang Mansion also delivered the latest information to Chen Wang yesterday.

The horse army is five thousand, and the rest are twenty thousand, including men, women and children.

The battalion soldiers of Pingliang Mansion were ambushed and defeated for a while, and now they are sticking to Pingliang Mansion and dare not go out to fight in the field.

The news of the snooping was also completely careless and extremely sketchy.

This information is from three days ago.

Now Li Guo has more troops under his command.

"Thirty miles in front of our army, we found the cavalry of the rear army of the rogues. There are about a thousand riders and two thousand footsteps."

"The rogue cavalry are well-equipped with armor. Most of the troops are young and strong. They don't have many weapons and don't have any armor."

"Its brigade raised countless smoke and dust, and it is difficult to observe the number of most of the rogues from a long distance."

The scouts sent to the front gave extremely detailed reports.

These people are all from Liaodong at night, and they often need to go out of the fort to investigate the situation in Liaodong.

Few of the people who can serve as Yebuyan are simple characters, and they are all the best in the army.

Chen Wang also used to do no collection at night. One level of military exploits in Liaodong was obtained when he encountered a Houjin reconnaissance team while investigating intelligence.

"Continue to hang Yaoyao behind to observe, check both sides of the road, check for ambushes."

Chen Wang raised his head and issued the military order decisively.

"Order, the whole army is in armor!"

What the rogues are best at is setting up ambush around the official road.

Once the officers and soldiers are found to be chasing, they will speed up and look for opportunities to hide ambushes on both sides of the road, which is hard to guard against.

During the period from the third year of Chongzhen to the present five years, although the Ming army has been cautious, it still suffers defeat from time to time.

Although Li Guo is just a bereaved dog now, fleeing all the way.

But capsizing in the gutter is not impossible.

A group of Liao cavalry basically marched with two horses, one horse carried armor and armor, and the other rode and marched, but sometimes they dismounted and led the horses to march.

Although wearing the armor was a bit cumbersome, but with targeted training, everyone quickly finished putting on the armor.

That is, the recruits recruited by Binzhou for the three rounds, as well as the auxiliary soldiers recruited, are already quite proficient.

Over the hundreds of miles, not many of those auxiliary soldiers were left behind.

The big reason for this is because most of these people are farmers, and their endurance is inherently good.

Part of the reason is due to the leggings.

Leggings can prevent blood from accumulating in the legs after a long walk, thereby reducing leg fatigue and increasing the mileage of troops.

Leggings are the simplest, and cheapest, equipment that can be obtained.

When he was in Chunhua, Chen Wang asked people to buy a lot of numbness from Xi'an Mansion and cut it into long strips, so that all the soldiers put on leggings.

Chen Wang led the horse and looked around.

Then he took out a map from the side of the saddle.

It has been three days since Chongxin passed by, and he will soon arrive at Huating.

Compared with Chongxin, Huating's terrain is much flatter, and the terrain is open, so there are not many places to set up an ambush.

After chasing up, you only need to beat the rear team in one go.

According to the consistent behavior of the rogues, they will inevitably choose to dock their tails to survive.

To the southwest of Huating is the Gongchang Mansion, and to the southeast is the Fengxiang Mansion. How to pursue it is a huge problem.

If Li Guo fled to Fengxiang Mansion, it would be difficult to stop him from fleeing all the way to Guanzhong...

(End of this chapter)