Daming pirates

After controlling the southeastern provinces, Yu Xiaotian also grasped the lifeline of the Ming Dynasty's economy, and then came the Central Plains provinces.

The civil strife of the Ming Dynasty originated in Shaanxi and affected Henan, Shanxi, Huguang, Southern Zhili, and southern Shandong. If these places are not controlled, the chaos of the Ming Dynasty cannot be completely suppressed.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian subdued Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting and put them in the forefront, first militarily squeezing the living space of various refugee armies, and initially achieved results.

At the end of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, a large number of named leaders of the refugee army, led by Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai, were forced to surrender or killed one after another. As a result, the situation in Huguang, Henan, gradually stabilized, and only Lao Rucai was left.

Hui Hui Ma Shouying, Ge Liyan He Yilong and other groups of refugee troops are still operating in the Yinghuo Mountain area at the junction of South Zhili, Henan and Huguang.

In Shaanxi, there were only a few refugee troops such as Li Zicheng left, who were driven to Pingliang, Qingyang, Yan'an Prefecture and other places, and were squeezed to operate in some remote areas or linger on.

Especially after Zhang Xianzhong was killed, the morale of the entire refugee army was greatly frustrated. Some small groups of refugee armies had little future because they saw that the trouble continued. Some leaders either surrendered to the government and disbanded their organizations.

The refugee army was sent back to their hometowns for resettlement.

However, Li Zicheng was obviously more stubborn, but he still refused to bow his head and surrendered, and continued to flee around Pingliang Mansion and Qingyang Mansion with the rest of his troops.

After Hong Chengchou dealt with Zhang Xianzhong, he began to gather his troops according to Yu Xiaotian's instructions and mobilized the main force of the Shaanxi Army to the west. Chen troops were stationed in Chunhua, Sanshui, Fengxiang, and Longzhou, blocking Li Zicheng's troops from continuing their eastward invasion.

route, and received the support of a portion of Yu Xiaotian's newly reorganized Yu Jiajun, which greatly improved its military strength and combat effectiveness once again.

By June of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng was already in dire straits. Under the military pressure of Hong Chengchou, he led his troops to flee to Ningxia. However, after arriving there, he found that there was nowhere to raise food, so he had to flee with his troops.

He went to Lintao Prefecture, but was intercepted by the troops led by Lu Fangtian, the newly appointed prefect of Lintao.

By this time, Li Zicheng had basically run out of ammunition and food. The number of civilian troops under his command had dropped to less than 20,000, and the core combat strength was only about 2,000.

Lu Fangtian, the prefect of Lintao, gathered the local garrison of Lintao and blocked it in the Longmen Town area to the east of Lintao Prefecture. A fierce battle broke out between the two sides. Lu Fangtian did not have enough troops, but he persisted in defending. In the end, the Lintao official army was defeated, and Lu Fang

Tian's death in the rebel army was considered the first high-ranking official to die at the hands of the refugee army after Yu Xiaotian came to power.

However, although Li Zicheng won the battle, he also suffered heavy losses. After breaking through the obstruction of the government and army, he could not gain much loot. Lintao itself was a border town in the Ming Dynasty and was considered a remote place. Li Zicheng led his troops to break into Lintao Prefecture.

After that, they didn't get much benefit, and they still couldn't raise enough food and salary to cope with it for a period of time.

In desperation, Li Zicheng and his troops had to abandon Lintao Prefecture in September and led his troops back eastward, trying to fight back to his hometown of Yan'an Prefecture. However, this time he had no chance to return to his hometown of Mizhi County.

Hong Chengchou took advantage of Li Zicheng's escape to Ningxia and then to Lintao Mansion to complete the final arrangements for Li Zicheng's suppression.

Hong Chengchou assembled a total of nearly 25,000 Shaanxi troops and fortified layers of defenses along Qingyang Prefecture and Pingliang Prefecture, blocking Li Zicheng's return eastward.

Li Zicheng led his troops to fight with the government troops along the way. Although he repeatedly won small victories and broke through several government and military interceptions, his losses were also increasing. When he led his troops to Zhenyuan County, he had only

There were less than five thousand soldiers left, and they were almost completely out of food.

Li Zicheng knew that if he could not get more food, he would probably disperse his troops, so he decided to take the risk and attack Zhenyuan County, trying to break the city and grab some food, so that he could supplement it and break through the officialdom in one go.

Despite the military blockade, he fled to Yan'an Prefecture.

As long as he returned to Yan'an Prefecture, he thought that since he was a native of Yan'an Prefecture and was familiar with the local terrain, people and people, he would be able to take a breather.

But what he didn't expect was that as he was advancing all the way towards Yan'an Prefecture, Hong Chengchou had already roughly guessed the route he was going to take, and sent less than two reorganized battalions of Yu's troops to Zhenyuan County in advance.

area.

Speaking of which, the leader of the team is a bit unconventional. It is actually Kong Youde who was captured alive by Yu Xiaotian. However, his name has been changed to Kong Jinzhong. No one knows that he was the one who created the landing.

Kong Youde, the rebel general in the Lai Rebellion.

After Kong Youde was captured by Yu Xiaotian, he was brought back to the south. Yu Xiaotian thought that because this guy had been fighting with the slaves outside the Pass for many years and knew the situation outside the Pass very well, he spared his life and threw him into the

Yu Jiajun came to the Army Academy for further study.

Kong Youde was not used to Yu Jiajun's strict control at first, and he was punished by the instructor for repeated violations. But later he figured out that Yu Xiaotian could save his life, which was considered an extrajudicial mercy. After that, he came to Tamsui

After that, I unexpectedly met Sun Yuanhua, who stayed in Tamsui and was now devoted to learning. After the two met, they were deeply moved. Sun Yuanhua really taught Kong Youde a lesson.

Sun Yuanhua enlightened Kong Youde and asked him to follow Yu Xiaotian and work hard in the future. Yu Xiaotian is a person who can achieve great things. Following Yu Xiaotian now is a sign of joining the dragon as soon as possible. In the future, he can clear his background, achieve a career, and in

Xiaotian knows people well and treats his subordinates well. As long as Kong Youde works well in the future, he will never be treated badly.

So after Kong Youde received the education, he felt at ease. He stayed in the Army Academy for two full years. After changing his name, he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant and became a trainee deputy company commander, and then was sent to Hong Kong.

He was stationed on the island for a while, and later went south with the army and fought several battles with the Vietnamese in Hou Le Chao, and was promoted to deputy battalion commander.

When he went north this time, he served under the Ninth Brigade. He fought very bravely and made considerable military exploits. He was promoted to be the battalion commander. When Hong Chengchou returned to Shaanxi, Yu Xiaotian asked Kong Youde to follow Hong Chengchou.

Returned to Shaanxi and served as a supervisor to monitor Hong Chengchou, obeying orders under Hong Chengchou's account.

During this time, Kong Youde followed Hong Chengchou in Shaanxi and made military exploits when he attacked Luo Rucai and Zhang Xianzhong. Now his military rank has been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but for the time being, he still leads the first battalion as the battalion commander. If necessary, he will

He can lead a brigade at any time and become the senior general of the Yu family army.

This time, Hong Chengchou wanted to wipe out Li Zicheng, and he saw that Li Zicheng might go to Zhenyuan County, so he took a battalion led by Kong Youde and brought some recruits newly trained in Shaanxi to Zhenyuan County to take charge of intercepting Li Zicheng.

As a result, a somewhat ridiculous situation emerged. Kong Youde fought against Li Zicheng. Later, when Yu Xiaotian learned about this incident, he laughed so much that he spit out a mouthful of tea. This is so ridiculous! It's like Guan Gong.

Zhan Qin Qiong! But because Yu Xiaotian unexpectedly appeared in this time and space, such a ridiculous thing happened.

Li Zicheng had no idea that there would be such a powerful army hiding in Zhenyuan County at this time. He thought that in a small county like Zhenyuan County, it would be good to have at most a few hundred officers and soldiers or village warriors.

, even if their siege ability was not strong, they could still capture the county seat with a little effort, so they led their troops and horses to surround Zhenyuan County City.

In fact, Kong Youde had already learned from the scouts that Li Zicheng led his troops to Zhenyuan County. After thinking about it, he decided to show his nose in front of everyone this time and use a trick to get Li Zicheng to death.

Stay here.

So he ordered Zhenyuan County to close the city gate early in advance, blocking the news that he was leading troops to be stationed here, and left three companies of his two thousand men to stay in the county, while he himself

He led the cavalry company and the remaining elites and left the city without knowing where to go.

After Li Zicheng led his army to Zhenyuan County, he surrounded the county town on three levels inside and three outside, and then threatened the defenders of Zhenyuan County to immediately open the city and surrender, otherwise he would attack the city and attack the county seat.

Kill a chicken or a dog and leave nothing behind.

This was by no means the first time that Li Zicheng had done something like this. Ever since he raised his troops to follow Gao Yingxiang in rebellion, he had done things like massacre the city once or twice. Often when they attacked the city, they encountered the defenders in the city.

Strong resistance, in order to intimidate other city defenders in the future, after these refugee armies captured the city, they often adopted extremely bloody methods and massacred in the city.

But this time his threats obviously had no effect. There was no response from the walls of Zhenyuan County. Instead, they fired artillery fire to kill several of his men who were sent to persuade them to surrender.

Li Zicheng was furious and immediately ordered the attack on the city. Driven by Li Zicheng's core soldiers, thousands of refugee troops began to swarm up, set up ladders and ants to climb up the city, and launched a fierce attack on Zhenyuan County.

But what surprised Li Zicheng was that the defenders in Zhenyuan County seemed to be more numerous than he thought, and the resistance was relatively tenacious. What surprised him even more was that there were actually some muskets among the defenders that could shoot very far.

Although they were not many in number, they were very powerful. They killed some of his generals one after another, causing his several attacks to be repeatedly frustrated.

(I’m so moved! My brothers rewarded me for my update speed, which is really well deserved! Today, I would like to express my special thanks to my old friend Brother Ying Zhiwu, and also to Pangzi Liu Chao’s friend for the reward!

This book will probably be finished during the Spring Festival, and now I’m starting to think about new books!)

!!