Since Gao Yingxiang and other leaders broke through Shaanxi and occupied the Qinling Mountains, the Marshal's Mansion has been confronting the official army, and hundreds of thousands of peasant soldiers have rarely had a chance to recuperate.
During this period, the peasant army was not idle either, but their movements were relatively small. They spread to Jiezhou, Huizhou, and Ningqiang Prefecture of Hanzhong Prefecture in Gongchang Prefecture. Those who had property on hand sold their stolen goods on the spot in exchange for military rations to recuperate;
Those with power would occupy the county government offices and issue orders, ordering two or three households of the common people to raise one soldier; those who suffered losses in the confrontation with the government and army would recruit soldiers on the spot and collect materials to build ordnance.
Generally speaking, there are no government offices in Xihe, Liangdang, Wenxian and other places. It all depends on the leaders of each family to divide the land for reclamation, and there is a posture of dividing the land and dividing the land.
There are only dozens of peasant armies, and most of them have no reporting relationship. Even a big leader like Gao Yingxiang has no ability to command and mobilize other leaders. When things happen, they all rely on group discussions, which is very inefficient.
At the same time, with the opportunity to recuperate and without the threat of foreign enemies, the forces of the militia leaders who had united in the past were once again divided. In view of this situation, some leaders had the idea of following Liu Chengzong's example and establishing a new government to formalize the army. Among them are Li Yangchun, the Four Heavenly Kings, and Fatty Zhang, the Tibetan King. One of them occupied Xihe County and the other occupied Ningqiang Prefecture. They changed their banners and called themselves Xihe Commander-in-Chief and Ningqiang Commander-in-Chief. They established their own houses in the local area last winter.
Yamen.
However, the two of them dared to open a house and build teeth, not because they were brave, but on the contrary, because they were timid.
It is said that the power of the two of them is actually not small. The Four Heavenly King Li Yangchun, who is known as the commander-in-chief, reorganized his troops and formed three battalions. The neat king, Fatty Zhang, was even more powerful than him and organized four battalions of men.
Regardless of whether the army is elite or not, the tens of thousands of people under their command cannot be underestimated. The main reason why they opened the government is to find a place for themselves to step down... The leaders of the peasant army met several times to discuss how to join the alliance.
The Marshal's Mansion coordinated the operation, but sent people to contact the frontline generals of the Marshal's Mansion, but ignored them.
It’s not that the Marshal’s Mansion is no longer what it used to be, and that it doesn’t look down on the old brothers who are foraging in the fields.
The main reason is that the leaders of the peasant army did not dare to approach Liu Chengzong directly, and they had no way to approach Liu Chengzong directly.
Liu Chengzong is also famous in the peasant army. People call him Marshal Hengtian. He is very famous, but not many people have actually dealt with him. Even if they have met, they know that Marshal Hengtian is crazy.
He is also arrogant and notoriously withdrawn, with his tail raised to the sky.
In the past, when I only had a few hundred men under my command, I didn't like to cooperate with others.
What's more, if you are the leader, it is difficult to be convinced by others.
People like Luo Rucai, Zhang Tianlin and others were truly led through life and death by Liu Chengzong. They went from being chased by the officers and soldiers to running around with the officers and soldiers, and they tasted the sweetness.
These leaders gathered in the Qinling Mountains now have not received any favor from Liu Chengzong. They have led the team to this day only because of their own abilities. Why should they follow you if you are powerful? The power thing is very empty to them, because
Their life these years has been so exciting.
Maybe today there are only a dozen brothers as a small leader. Tomorrow, when a village is conquered, there will be hundreds of people following it. The day after tomorrow, when they encounter the official army, there will be only a few hundred people left. The day after tomorrow, when a county town is captured, there will be thousands or even tens of thousands.
People and horses can become famous all over the world in a day.
Therefore, although the Marshal's Mansion and the Peasant Army were stationed adjacent to each other, there was not much contact between the two sides. This was because Liu Chengzong felt that he could not afford so much food and grass to recruit all 100,000 troops; the various leaders also believed that their few men and horses were not enough to compete with the Marshal's Mansion.
Discuss the issue of coordinated operations.
So everyone usually tries to contact Ganzhou Yingshen Jiang Bee Tail Needle Zhang Zhen.
Zhang Zhen has been with many people. They are old acquaintances everywhere and they are also generals. He is a senior general who can speak well in the Marshal's Office.
Except for the Mongolian aristocrats, the people at the level of the Marshal's Mansion, who were born in Shaanxi, were the first monsters to follow Liu Chengzong in the uprising. Those old guys' status in Shaanxi Green Forest was too high. Only Zhang Zhen had followed Wang Jiayin, Li Laojiao,
Liu Daojiang, Shen Yikui, a friend of the Red Army, Wang Laohu, and Yang Qi are relatively junior.
A few months after Zhang Zhen returned from Gansu with Liu Chengzong, he had already met several groups of township party members from the Qinling Mountains, and all of them were sent back by him as gifts.
It's not that Zhang Zhengou looked down on others, he said to himself that my marshal is a marshal. You cats and dogs come here with the name of this king or that king, and you even open your mouth to support tens of thousands of rice grains. This makes it very difficult for me!
So Li Yangchun and Fatty Zhang opened a mansion, changed their title to Chief Military Officer, and then sent a note to the Marshal's Mansion.
Of course, externally we cannot say that we are afraid of the Marshal's Office. We feel that the government orders are not clear and we need to standardize management. From now on, the brothers will be the regular army of Xihe General Military Yamen and Ningqiang Prefecture General Military Yamen.
This is actually a stop-gap measure for the two of them who want to occupy this place and recharge their batteries. They really need a place as a base. Although Xihe and Ningqiang Prefectures are small, they can get the cover of the Marshal's Mansion to divert the attention of the officers and soldiers.
, for leaders like them, both big and small, it is a good roof to protect them from wind and rain.
For others, like Gao Yingxiang, it's not that he has never thought about being like them, but he knows very well that he has too many people and horses. Even Liu Chengzong can't feed them and can't support them, and the small land at the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains is even less likely to last long.
Provide them with quarters.
Therefore, there is no need to consider opening a mansion and building teeth. What Gao Yingxiang needs to consider is to fight out. His goal is Sichuan.
It's not that Gao Yingxiang hasn't considered the problem of entering Sichuan and being unable to get out, but for him... even whether he can enter Sichuan is a problem. Isn't it a bit too early to consider it?
What's more, he is not a young Liu Shizi. He is already forty-four this year. How many more years can he live? If he can't get out, he won't get out!
The leaders of the younger generation are more aggressive. The Fifth Battalion of the Chuang Army, led by Li Zicheng, has formulated a plan to invade Guanzhong, Henan and Yunyang Prefecture. However, the Fifth Battalion of the Chuang Army is also a loose alliance that gathers together for survival.
No, one of the sweepers, Zhang Yichuan, sent someone to find Zhang Xianzhong, hoping that he would introduce Liu Chengzong on his behalf.
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Zhang Yichuan believes that Liu Chengzong, the real leader of the rebel army, will definitely be interested in his plan to invade Fengyang Mansion.
Zhang Yichuan was not such an arrogant person originally. He gave himself this name because he initially wanted to sweep away the dirty things in the world. However, as his power grew stronger and more scholars surrounded him, he realized that the world was full of dirty things.
He is not the only sweeping king.
In the Qinling Mountains alone, there is a sweeping king named Cao Wei who was born in northern Shaanxi.
In the Red Turban Army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there was Wang Shicheng, the sweeper king, and during the Zhengde period, there was also the sweeper king Liao Hui. They are both revolutionary sages.
Revolution is not a new word, and the meaning of this word has never changed. Let’s not talk about the Tang-Wu revolution in the Zhouyi. In Li Sancai’s memorial during the Wanli period, it was said that the rebels were peeping at the artifact and planning to revolution. p>
Because of this, the title "Sweeping King" gave Zhang Yichuan a huge sense of mission. He wanted to be the first to jump out, declare war on the rulers of the Ming Dynasty, and dig up the ancestral graves of the old Zhu family!
But he never expected that Zhang Xianzhong also wanted to do this big job, and this man with thick eyebrows and big eyes actually slandered Liu Chengzong and almost sent him to Siberia to grow potatoes.
Fortunately, neither Zhang Yichuan nor Liu Chengzong knew what Zhang Xianzhong was thinking. When the rites clerk of the Marshal's Mansion ran to the Sweeping King's station and told him that the Marshal wanted to see him, Zhang Yichuan was very happy and asked his subordinates to take good care of the family.
He took a team of servants to Lanzhou on the spot.
On the other side, Wang Ziyong received the news faster than Zhang Yichuan and was more excited. He rushed to Lanzhou non-stop almost as soon as he received the order.
However, during this period, the most interesting thing for Liu Chengzong in Lanzhou City was that Li Hongsi from Liangzhou sent someone to deliver a letter to him.
And there are more than one.
Starting from the Chinese New Year, Li Hongsi first sent people to send letters to greet the New Year, and then sent people to send letters to congratulate the Lantern Festival. Then he changed the letter to one letter every five days, and now it is one letter every three days.
At first, the tone of the letter was quite blunt, saying strange things like "The Qinghai Marshal's Mansion exists only because of the emperor's mercy." Liu Chengzong simply ignored him. At this time, the letter's words and sentences were no longer stiff, and it was very
Respectfully, we are talking about the friendship between the Shaanxi Township Party.
Regarding Li Hongsi, the last die-hard Ming general in Gansu, Liu Chengzong knew why his mentality had changed - Liangzhou was out of food.
If the time was pushed forward three months, whenever Li Hongsi expressed the slightest idea of opening the city to surrender, Liu Chengzong would have to have a good chat with him and wait for a full-time officer with real power to lead the army. But now at this time, Liu Chengzong did not personally receive the envoy who delivered the letter to Li Hongsi. He even specifically told the Li Yamen that even Zhang Xianzhong could not receive him in person, so it was enough to let Zhang Kewang receive the envoy.
The environment is different.
Liangzhou City itself is very important to Liu Chengzong. The Wuwei Oasis where this city is located is stuck on the seven inches of the Marshal's Mansion. As long as the city has not surrendered, the Marshal's Mansion will not be able to fully digest the results of the Northern Expedition to Gansu.
If they cannot be connected together, Gansu cannot become the rear area of the Marshal's Mansion.
But with the locust plague invading the entire northwest, Liangzhou City was no longer so important to Liu Chengzong.
Originally, Liu Chengzong farmed in the Wuwei Oasis when he besieged Liangzhou. His purpose was to trade time for space and drag it out for three months to offset the results of Hong Chengchou's efforts to fortify the walls and clear the country, so that Wuwei Oasis could produce grain and grass, forcing the Liangzhou garrison who had exhausted his troops to
The army must fight with him in the field.
This was an obvious plan, and Li Hongsi could see it, but he had no choice. The soldiers and civilians of Liangzhou had to go out of the city to seize this batch of grain. In other words, a field battle that would determine the fate of Liangzhou was already doomed. However, the locust plague that swept through the northwest destroyed all the food in Wuwei Oasis. Liu Chengzong lost the magic weapon to lure the Liangzhou defenders out of the city to fight in the field, and also lost the desire to capture Liangzhou.
After all, it is not an empty city. There are 40,000 soldiers and civilians in the city. If the harvest of grain planted outside the city is successful, the Ming army is defeated in the field, and Liangzhou City is surrendered, this batch of grain can be supplied to the soldiers and civilians of Liangzhou City, and everything will go well.
.
Now this batch of food is used to feed locusts. Cao Yao's Gansu Governor's Mansion is barely self-sufficient by relying on sheep transported from the Tianshan Mountains. After a locust plague, there is no surplus food in Hexi. Moreover, Liu Chengzong is also used to reporting news through the Qilian Mountains.
No support from Gansu is needed.
There are many disadvantages to capturing Liangzhou, but there is only one advantage: it can make the territory map of the Marshal's Mansion look better... To be honest, the beauty is limited. The Western Region has not been captured, and the territory of the Marshal's Mansion is already ugly. p>
This resulted in Li Hongsi's position in the confrontation being extremely embarrassing.
Now it's not his turn that he doesn't want to fight in the wild, but even if he wants to fight in the wild, no one will fight with him.
The most embarrassing thing is that Liu Chengzong did not attack the city. In fact, Li Hongsi had no other purpose in writing to Liu Chengzong at first, just to stop Cao Yao from attacking Liangzhou City.
Cao Yao is a very generous person. He is now in charge of Gansu in a high and powerful position, but to be honest, the entire Gansu has dug out the Wuwei Oasis. The population plus one is equivalent to a county in Beizhili. It is just a vast area. If there is no such thing as a locust plague,
His daily work is actually no different from other general military officers.
But he is not greedy for Liangzhou at all. Since the locust plague, he has sent people to Liangzhou City every now and then to shoot letters, saying in the name of the Marshal's Mansion, Governor of Gansu, that he has no hostility towards the soldiers and people of Liangzhou, and that the Marshal's Mansion acts aboveboard and aboveboard.
, never take advantage of the locust plague to add insult to injury.
They are all nice words, but they are actually being scolded here. Because there is no food outside the city of Liangzhou, the locust plague has no impact on other people. The locusts even gave extra meals to the soldiers and civilians of Liangzhou when they passed through. On the contrary, Ganzhou and Suzhou
They have land and food, and they are the ones affected by the locust plague.
He said it first, meaning that if you send troops to attack Ganzhou now, you are adding insult to injury.
Such words are useless in the face of war, but Li Hongsi has 10,000 men and only half of them are left to defend the city, and even 5,000 soldiers cannot defeat it.
In fact, Li Hongsi did not have so many people in his hands. In the twelfth month of last year, Liangzhou City experienced an internal strife and drove Cao Wenzhao's army to Ningxia.
Originally, when his troops in Gansu were running out of food, they were quite critical of Cao Wenzhao, the guest army from outside Gansu. If he had known that they were so hungry in Liangzhou City, they might as well have followed General He.
We went to Monan to fight against the Donglu, and he was talking nicely outside the city. What do you think you, a reckless man, did to shoot him?
But there is nothing to say. Anyway, the soldiers and civilians in the city could see that the grain planted by Liu Chengzong outside the city was growing green, and it was enough to replenish it at a glance.
Until the locust plague came, Liangzhou was unlike other places. The people's homes were in the countryside, and the soldiers and civilians were all in the city. The locust plague came roaring, and there was no time to react. The grain fields were almost destroyed in an hour, and everyone was dumbfounded.
.
Later, the conflict broke out when the guest army forcibly confiscated food from the city. When they were defending the city, the big families in the city had already lent a lot of food, and ordinary people only kept enough food. Now, seeing that the food outside the city is gone, there is no sign of reinforcements.
As a result, the army had to forcibly requisition food, and people came to Li Hongsi, a local general, willing to redress their grievances.
Li Hongsi couldn't say anything. If he didn't collect food today, he would be killed by the hungry army tomorrow. He had no choice but to let Cao Wenzhao lead his troops to Ningxia to search for Hong Chengchou. Of course, he said it nicely and asked General Cao to
We went to move reinforcements, but everyone knew that there were no reinforcements - the locusts came from the east, and Ningxia was also affected.
What's more, the people of Liangzhou now think that their poverty and hunger are caused by the governors, generals, and generals of the Ming Dynasty, but people like Li Hongsi know that this is actually caused by Liu Chengzong!
Because, to put it another way, the people of Gansu may be able to support themselves, but the Gansu frontier army is not self-sufficient. They have always relied on Lanzhou to supply military rations. Now Lanzhou's military rations have been diverted by Liu Chengzong to support the soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion. Li Hongsi's
The army has no way of finding a second person who can provide them with food and fodder.
To be honest, if he had a choice, Li Hongsi would rather lead his troops to find Hong Chengchou than write a letter to beg Liu Chengzong. But the problem is that he is the deputy commander-in-chief of Gansu. If Gansu is gone, what will the deputy commander-in-chief do? Now all the horses, donkeys, mules, cattle, sheep and other livestock in Liangzhou City are about to be killed, and the forcibly collected food in the city is about to run out. More than 30,000 soldiers and civilians are without food, and the old, weak, women and children can only survive on a few locusts and leaf batter every day.
Life.
Liu Chengzong is the only person in this land who can save them.