The war in Liaodong was temporarily stopped due to heavy snow, but the heartland of the Central Plains was turbulent again.

Shortly after Lu Xiangsheng was transferred to Liaodong, Li Zicheng led tens of thousands of people to advance westward and attacked the Ming official army that confronted the peasant army in Wushan. Zong Long, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, caught him off guard and suffered heavy losses. Fortunately, the general Zuo Guangxian protected him and finally retreated to Tongguan, defended according to the danger and requested reinforcements from the court.

After learning that Li Zicheng was advancing westward, Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, thought he had an opportunity to take advantage of it. He led the general officer Hu Dawei, Feng Dadong and Zhang Pengyi, two deputy generals, to go out of Xingyang. Feng and Zhang troops led less than 3,000 people to station troops at Hulao Pass to lure troops. Yang Wenyue personally led the main army to take a boat along the Yellow River to the west, trying to capture Mengjin, and marched into Luoyang from the north.

At the same time, Yang Wenyue also sent a letter to Henan Governor Gao Mingheng, asking him to lead his troops to help. Gao Mingheng wanted to refuse, but Yang Wenyue repeatedly urged him and said that Tongguan was in danger, and that only by besieging Wei to save Zhao could solve this problem. At that time, judging from the situation from all parties, it showed that Li Zicheng really wanted to march into Shaanxi. Gao Mingheng was worried that if Tongguan was in a mistake, the court would blame him. After much consideration, he ordered the general Gao Qian to lead two thousand soldiers to Mengjin, and at this time there were only 10,000 soldiers who could fight in Kaifeng City.

Soon after, Sun Kewang's troops left Nanyang and marched into Xinye. With more than 30 red-branded cannons obtained in Xiangyang and Nanyang cities as the main force, they successively captured Rang County and the dangerous land Bowangpo. Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong fought with Sun Kewang's troops for many battles, and the losses gradually increased. Most of the main forces retreated to Fancheng, and only delayed the advancement of the peasant army with a small number of rangers in Xinye.

After Lu Xiangsheng left, he was as fierce as a tiger among the generals and temporarily played the role of coordinating the army. He strictly guarded the battle strategy set by Lu Xiangsheng before leaving, and the army did not rescue each other in times of crisis. He strictly guarded the important cities on the front line of Yuzhou, southern Henan, southern Henan, and Kunyang, trying to gradually consume the strength and morale of the peasant army and wait for the right time before counterattacking. In order to avoid being continuously mobilized by the peasant army as usual, thus causing the army to be exhausted.

Such a tactic was originally a helpless move made by the lack of coordination between the commander and the generals in the event of disagreement. It was also the most suitable tactic in the current situation. For this reason, when Zuo and He were attacked, he and Li Guoqi, Liu Guoneng, Cao Zhiyao and others only strictly guarded the city in southern Henan and did not send a single army to support each other. However, this move angered Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong. They wrote to the court, saying that they were as fierce as a tiger and were as powerful as a thief but did not send troops. They sat down to see that friendly troops were in trouble and did not support each other. The crime should be punished.

Before Lu Xiangsheng left, he had already written a letter to Emperor Chongzhen, saying that Li Zicheng and Sun Kewang were already in great power. The government forces were insufficient and should not attack rashly. Defending the city, gradually expend its strength, and then counterattacking was the most reasonable strategy. Emperor Chongzhen was very convinced of this at that time, but after seeing Zuo Liangyu's letter, he felt unhappy. After consulting the opinions of the ministers and carefully considering it, he made a decision that he thought was the best.

Emperor Chongzhen did not sue Feng Ruhu, but issued an edict to appoint Ding Qirui as the governor of Henan and Wang Qiaonian as the governor of Huguang, and went to the front line to supervise the army. Although he said nothing, his dissatisfaction with the current situation suddenly became apparent. Especially in this case, the four supervisors of Fu Zonglong, Yang Wenyue, Ding Qirui and Wang Qiaonian were gathered in Shaanxi and Henan alone, which was a situation that had never happened in the Ming Dynasty for more than two hundred years.

On the surface, each supervisor took responsibility and had a clear division of labor. But in fact, the generals who had finally been integrated by Lu Xiangsheng were split again. The generals in Henan were a group, the generals in Shaanxi were a cluster, and the generals in Huguang were a group, and the overall strength was seriously weakened. Some generals were not completely clear about who they should obey the orders. The upper-level command system was extremely chaotic, even more unbearable than before.

After receiving this news, Li Yan was extremely excited. He wrote to Li Zicheng to bluntly talk about the many disadvantages of the Ming court's arrangements and suggested that he suspend the attack. After the two supervisors arrived and fell into chaos in their responsibilities, he would use the conflicts between them to seek defeat each one. He believed that this was the best opportunity given by God to Li Zicheng to seize the Central Plains.

After discussing with the generals, Li Zicheng agreed to Li Yan's opinion. He transferred the elite soldiers in front of Tongguan back to Luoyang in batches, replaced them with old and weak soldiers, and bluffed in front of Tongguan. He adopted a complete defensive move in the direction of Mengjin, deliberately defeating Yang Wenyue in succession, giving the government army a hope that a little more troops could be taken away by Luoyang and encouraged its arrogance. At the same time, a large number of elite cavalrymen were lined up behind Hulao Pass, ready to attack Kaifeng at any time after attracting the Henan army to Luoyang.

Not long after, the two supervisors left the capital one after another. Ding Qirui went to Kaifeng, while Wang Qiaonian rushed to Xiangyang. Fu Zonglong successfully defended Tongguan and blocked the peasant army's journey to Shaanxi. Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong retreated to Fancheng. After receiving the support of deputy general Zhang Yingyuan, their strength increased greatly and gradually stabilized the defense line. On the Yuzhou line in southern Henan, Liu Guoneng and Li Guoqi guarded the city tightly, and there seemed to be no big problem.

But under this inexplicable calm, there seemed to be endless storms.

Lu Xiangsheng learned the news half a month after Emperor Chongzhen made the decision. He could not understand why such a stupid decision was issued from the court. Emperor Chongzhen was not in military affairs, but Chen Xinjia, as the Minister of War, had been working in the border areas for a long time, so how could he not even understand the simple principle of "not giving more orders".

Lu Xiangsheng was extremely angry about this and immediately wrote a letter to Emperor Chongzhen, describing the possible command problems caused by the gathering of multiple supervisors in the Central Plains. He once again stated that defense should be the main focus. However, his letter did not attract enough attention from Emperor Chongzhen, but only replied to him to respond to the Liaodong war with all his heart.

This incident caused a great touch in Lu Xiangsheng's heart, making him feel that the war in the Central Plains could change at any time. He could no longer train new soldiers according to his original ideas and slowly rescue Song Jin's trapped army.

After Wan Ji came to Ningyuan, he carefully considered Zhou Xian's plan and felt that it was indeed feasible. But the premise was that there must be enough elite soldiers in Ningyuan. Not only should they be provided to Denglai to attack Jinzhou, but they also needed to put enough pressure on the Qing army in Ningyuan.
Chapter completed!