Please ask me to be the emperor

A journey of seventy miles at night is not something that can be accomplished in one breath.

Zhang Shun estimated his own physical strength consumption and arranged for his soldiers to rest from time to time. Eat some dry food and drink some water.

On the road, he encountered straggler rebel cavalry and scattered officers and soldiers from time to time, so Zhang Shun sent people to gather them together.

In fact, in this era of regular marches, infantry could march fifty miles a day.

The infantry under He Renlong were already elite officers and soldiers. Although this time they marched seventy miles at night, with Zhang Shun's encouragement and arrangements, they could actually do it.

In order to prevent the soldiers from falling behind and escaping, Zhang Shun also specially arranged for He Renlong to gather the soldiers from behind.

When the rebels arrived near Huazhou, they re-counted the number of people and found that only 213 people were missing.

Zhang Shun felt in his heart that these 213 people may not all be laggards, and maybe He Renlong took the opportunity to take advantage of his empty salary.

But now is not the time to talk about this, so Zhang Bian pretends to be deaf and dumb, and just treats them as if they are all lagging behind.

In other words, when Zhang Shun led He Renlong's troops to arrive outside Huazhou City, Zuo Guangxian's defeated army and He Jin's pursuing troops had actually just arrived in Huazhou.

Zhang Shun and others walked on two legs, which of course wore out the skin of their feet. But He Jin and Zuo Guangxian were delayed in a series of fighting actions such as fighting back and forth and taking detours.

It is said that Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province, retreated all the way to the outside of Huazhou City. He first gathered his troops and fought to the death to repel He Jin's cavalry. Then he quickly fled into the city and closed the city gate tightly.

After hearing the news, the magistrate of Huazhou City and the city's deputy generals hurriedly came to see Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province.

As soon as these people entered the door, they asked regardless of etiquette: "General Zuo, how is the situation in Huayin?"

"We have heard that the officers and soldiers were defeated, rumors are spreading in the city, and people are panicked. Please ask the general to clear up our doubts!"

"Nonsense!" Zuo Guangxian couldn't help but angrily shouted after hearing this, "Who spreads rumors and dares to make up stories about me, General?"

"It's just that the villain Zhao Guangyuan actually surrendered to the treacherous traitor in front of my general. He was cut into pieces by a thousand cuts. He doesn't understand my hatred!"

"Ah? Hua Yin is lost?" The prefect of Huazhou and the deputy general looked at each other for a moment, and then asked tentatively after a while, "But King Shun is here in person?"

"That's right, I and the 'Shun Thieves' were fighting hard at the gates of Huayin City. It's just that Zhao Guangyuan refused to go out of the city to attack the beasts. He actually took advantage of the difficult situation for us to fight and openly surrendered to the enemy, so that the morale of the officers and soldiers was high. Fall. I will have no choice but to return to Huazhou and make further plans!"

"Can Huazhou City be defended?" The governor of Huazhou hesitated for a moment and thought to himself: I heard that King Shun's benevolence and righteousness were different from other bandits. If persistence is really not enough, it is not impossible to surrender to the thieves!

"How can we not defend it? I have two thousand defenders left behind, and I have five thousand cavalry." Zuo Guangxian said with a worried look on his face, "How can I not defend this small city of Huazhou?"

As soon as Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province, finished speaking, he suddenly heard the sound of a cannon outside, which startled everyone.

"What's going on? Who is firing off cannons randomly!" Zuo Guangxian was upset and angry, thinking that in order to stabilize the situation in Huazhou City, he had to capture a few people and chop them down in public to establish their authority.

wrong! As soon as Zuo Guang spoke first, he immediately felt that there was something fishy in it.

It turns out that the Qin soldiers in Shaanxi were mostly good at cavalry but not good at artillery. Although Chen Qiyu, Hong Chengchou and others later served as governors, they strengthened the firearms of officers and soldiers, but most of them were still small-caliber artillery such as flanges, prisoner-killing cannons and generals.

Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province, was a veteran general with a lot of battlefield experience. Just hearing the sound of the artillery sounded familiar, vaguely similar to the sound of the rebel artillery.

"General, the sound of this cannon is wrong!" Not only did Zuo Guang hear it first, but the deputy general also heard what was fishy.

"Go out and take a look!" Zuo Guang happened to be unable to take on the clothes and armor, but now it saves trouble.

Surrounded by Zuo Guangxian's personal guards, the three of them strode outside the mansion. I saw that the people in the city were in chaos, many people were shouting and clearing up their stalls and belongings, as if they were about to flee.

Zuo Guangxian frowned and pointed to the governor of Huazhou: "People like this will definitely cause chaos during the war."

"You arrange manpower as soon as possible and organize Ding Zhuang to take care of them all. Except for recruiting Ding Zhuang, the others will be driven back home. They are not allowed to go out casually. Violators will be shot to death and will be punished as spies!"

"By the way, after organizing the strong men, demolish more houses and tiles, and transport wood, bricks and stones to the city for defense!"

"Yes, yes!" Huazhou Zhizhou looked honest, as if he didn't know that he was a civil servant and didn't have to listen to his orders.

The three of them were planning a defensive strategy when several more deafening cannon shots came over.

Suddenly there was another scream and shout in the city. Zuo Guangxian's face became even more ugly. He quickly ordered his soldiers to separate the crowd and rush up to the city in three steps and two steps at a time.

Not long after, the three of them climbed up the tower and took a look, only to see several square formations neatly distributed outside.

There are five infantry formations and three or five cavalry formations. What was even more unexpected to Zuo Guangxian was that there were more than ten artillery pieces distributed in front of the formation, and they were being loaded under the command of the gunner commander!

"Where did these thieves get the artillery?" the deputy general asked tremblingly.

"Come on!" Zuo Guangxian yelled angrily, turned around and looked carefully, and saw a large flag flying in the middle of the rebel army, with a big Chinese character "handsome" written on it in silver hooks and iron.

"To be worthy of King Shun's pursuit, Zuo can be regarded as the number one among the officers and soldiers!" Zuo Guangxian, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi Province, couldn't help but smile bitterly.

It turned out that this flag was Zhang Shun's Chinese army flag. Zuo Guangxian played against him many times and was very impressed by Zhang Shenyan's good calligraphy.

"Let's go!" Zuo Guangxian couldn't help but feel lost, and sighed, feeling as if he had aged ten years.

"Where to go?" the deputy general asked inexplicably.

"Is General Zuo going to give up Huazhou City?" The Huazhou Zhizhou was much more sober.

"We can't defend it anymore! We don't have time to organize a defense!" Zuo Guangxian shook his head and said, "The officers and soldiers have been defeated, and rumors are spreading all over the city. People are uneasy, how can we defend it?"

"What's more, as the governor of Huazhou, you should know what happened when the Earth Dragon turned over. This Huazhou city wall looks tall and strong, but how many enemy artillery can it actually withstand?"

It turns out that eighty years ago, during the Jiajing period, a shocking earthquake occurred with Huazhou as the epicenter.

The earthquake affected areas as far away as Gansu and Ningxia in the west; Shandong and South Zhili in the east; Shanxi and North Zhili in the north; and Huguang in the south. The earthquake was even felt thousands of miles away in Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi.

At that time, Huazhou was "indescribably miserable, the mountains and rivers were moved, and the roads were changed." "The officials and soldiers and civilians were crushed to death, and there were 830,000 people who were reported and reported, and there were countless unknown people who were not reported."

It was even more so that "all the people's houses collapsed and nothing was left", "all the city walls of Huajun collapsed, and the territory was in ruins".

The city wall of Huazhou was also destroyed in this terrible earthquake. Although it was later rebuilt, the foundation of the old city still remains.

Who can guarantee that the Huazhou city wall can withstand the terrifying "big cannon" in the hands of "shun thieves"?

Originally, Shaanxi General Zuo Guangxian planned to return to Huazhou City to make some repairs and try to defend temporarily.

Now that the thieves are pressing hard, how can they get through?

For now, I’m afraid I’ll return to Xi’an for the time being and make further calculations!