Liu Ziguang was very anxious, because his two wives might have fallen into the hands of their enemies. Dong Xiaowan, a charming beauty, and Dai Wenpei, who practiced martial arts all year round and had a strong and tall body, fell into the hands of this gang of extremely cruel horse thieves. They were not fat sheep.
Liu Ziguang couldn't even think about how miserable the consequences would be if he fell into the wolf's mouth. He also had such a lovely goddaughter Xue Xiangying, who was only three years old. The horse thieves would definitely not carry this burden back and forth, maybe.
He was cut off with just one strike. Thinking of this, Liu Ziguang clamped down on the horse's belly. As if the horse understood its master's thoughts, it leapt into the air and galloped across the Gobi.
Liu Ziguang's horse was so fast that the soldiers behind him could not keep up with him. A thousand men and horses were pulled into a long line and ran towards the area where the horse thieves were entrenched. A sharp-eyed scout suddenly shouted: "The enemy is in front." Liu Ziguang raised his head.
Looking at it, there was indeed a group of people a few miles ahead. He rushed over even faster. However, after hundreds of people rushed over at the outpost, large groups of cavalry sprang out from behind the sand dunes on both sides. The front team led by Liu Ziguang and those behind him were
The troops were divided.
No, we were ambushed. Looking at the group of people in front, they also turned their horses and rushed over. The equipment of the horse thieves was good. Under the sun, you could see bright armor, dazzling weapons, and a lot of people. Plus there were almost three people in the ambush.
Thousands of people, the Red Shirt Army remained calm after being surrounded. The soldiers all took off the five-shot muskets from their shoulders and waited for the enemy to launch a charge before giving them a head-on blow.
The soldier beside Liu Ziguang took off the blunderbuss, inserted the tail rod of the grenade into the mouth of the blunderbuss, then cocked the hammer and raised the angle to aim at the enemies in front. He only waited for an order to cover these rampant horse thieves with firepower.
But Liu Ziguang suddenly raised his hand to signal everyone not to act rashly. It turned out that he saw his goddaughter Xue Xiangying in the opponent's camp. At this moment, the little girl was being held by a bearded man and she was crying loudly. If a round of grenade were hit,
They will definitely be destroyed together.
The behavior of the horse thieves was very strange. They neither charged with their horses nor fired arrows to attack. They just stopped far away from the effective range of the fire cannons. The red shirt troops faced a powerful enemy and didn't know what medicine they were selling in their gourds.
They didn't dare to take the initiative to attack, and the two sides were in a stalemate. Suddenly, the bearded man who was holding Xue Xiangying urged his horse to run towards Liu Ziguang. The guard raised his gun and was about to shoot, but was stopped by Liu Ziguang: "Wait a minute, this guy seems to have something to say.
explain."
The man galloped to a place twenty steps away from Liu Ziguang, rolled the saddle and dismounted. Although he was still holding the child in his arms, his movements were still hearty and handsome. He got off the horse and knelt down with a plop.
When she fell, her stoic face was covered with tears.
"Xue Chaoyi, the former commander of Shaanxi Province before being imprisoned, pays homage to your lord!" The man kowtowed three times.
Liu Ziguang did not dismount his horse to help him, but said in a stern voice: "Since you were born in the army, why did you become a thief? Why did you come to harass me when you knew it was my imperial army marching westward, hurting the lives of my soldiers, and plundering my women, children, and supplies, and now you are trying to be mysterious?
What do you want to do?"
The man named Xue Chaoyi said: "General Mingjian, the last general is under the command of the former Shaanxi commander Si Guanke. Since the invasion of Xixia, the Western Army has sat idly by and waited until we suffered all casualties before leaving Tongguan. This is exactly what happened."
Taking the opportunity to eradicate dissidents made the brothers feel cold. They narrowly escaped death and became horse thieves in the Hexi Corridor. When they heard that the Western Army was passing through the border, they wanted to take the opportunity to take revenge. Little did they know that they accidentally injured the general's Red Shirt Army, and death was not enough.
Compensation?"
Liu Ziguang said: "We, the Red Shirt Army, are the Western Expeditionary Army of the imperial court. Isn't it sowing discord by saying this? What are your intentions? Just say what you say, and why are you holding on to a little girl as a shield? Are you okay?
As a pre-military envoy, I, the Red Shirt Army, have always killed people in an upright manner and will not take the opportunity to plot against you. Let this kid go as soon as possible!"
The man said: "The general has misunderstood. This child is actually the direct daughter of the general." After that, he took out the jade pendant hanging around Xue Xiangying's neck and compared it with the jade pendant on his own waist. It turned out to be a pair. No matter how delicate Liu Ziguang was,
Look at this bearded man, although he has a dirty beard, his features are still very handsome, and he is very similar to Xue Xiangying. It seems that his character has exploded again this time, but he is still worried about Dong Xiaowan and the others, so he asked
He said: "What about the two female relatives who were in the car with the child?"
Xue Chaoyi said: "I heard that the two women are the treasured relatives of the general. The general will naturally serve you well and dare not neglect him. General, please take a look." He waved his hand and saw Dong Xiaowan and Dai Wenpei being presented as gifts from the horse thieves.
When I came out, my whole body was fine and I had not been insulted.
Liu Ziguang breathed a sigh of relief and said: "Xue Chaoyi, you have lost your way and found your way back to good deeds. However, you cannot be spared for the crime of killing our soldiers. But now is the opportunity to use people, and I will put your head on my neck."
, you and your men will have to wait until you and your men have made meritorious service to the country by killing the enemy, and then you can make up for your fault."
Xue Chaoyi was overjoyed when he heard this. He kowtowed three times and then turned around and shouted: "General Zhengxi is willing to recruit us!" His voice was so loud that it could be heard far away in this open area. The horse thieves heard it.
He cheered for joy, dismounted his horse and prostrated himself, it seemed that he was really happy from the bottom of his heart.
More than 400 new soldiers were sacrificed in exchange for 3,000 elite cavalry. This deal was quite suitable, and it also solved the hidden safety hazard of the grain road in the Hexi Corridor in one fell swoop. It was really a double kill. Liu Ziguang disrupted these horse thieves and divided them into two forces.
, one group was led by Xue Chaoyi to follow him to fight in Jiayuguan, and the other group was led by Luo Xiaohu, the second master of the horse thieves who was familiar with the terrain of the Hexi Corridor, and continued to stay there to maintain the security of the Red Shirt Army's logistics roads.
This group of horse thieves is the famous Bantianyun horse thieves gang. It consists of more than a dozen small groups of horse thieves plus part of the former Shaanxi army. They collude with big businessmen like Yu Chiguang to rob caravans that don't know what they're doing and eat those businessmen who know what they're looking for.
I lived a filial life, but I also often faced military encirclement and suppression. Although I earned a lot of money, I lived a lifestyle with my head in my belt. I bought a lot of silver and jewelry, but I had no place to spend it. The most I could do was go to Lanzhou in disguise.
I visited the brothels in the city, but this kind of life has become difficult to maintain recently. Liu Ziguang banned business. The horse thieves have no source of income.
Whose team is this? When he saw the camel team and the cart, he became jealous. No matter who he was, he robbed them.
Xue Chaoyi and Luo Xiaohu took the lead, first wiping out a flanking cavalry team of 100 people, changing their clothes and attacking a transport team behind them. This time they got a big deal, there were actually women in the convoy! In the desert
After staying for a long time, the horse thieves, who had never smelled a woman in their eight lives, attacked like crazy and quickly wiped out the guards. However, they suffered a big loss in the process of robbing the women. Dai Wenpei shot several people to death with concealed weapons.
There were ten horse thieves, and it wasn't until Luo Xiaohu captured Xue Xiangying as a hostage that he forced Dai Nuxia to put down her sword.
Originally, things should have ended tragically here, but luckily among the misfortunes, Xue Chaoyi recognized the jade pendant around the little girl's neck. If he looked carefully at the little girl, wasn't she the daughter he left at home in Weinan, Shaanxi! He immediately gave the order
He stopped and asked Dong Xiaowan, who was huddled in the car and was about to commit suicide, about the whole story. What kind of person was Dong Xiaowan? He immediately realized that a turning point was coming. The Dong family, who had been on the Qinhuai River for many years, were very eloquent. They rescued Liu Ziguang and killed Xue Xiangying.
The story of Qian Xixia soldiers avenging the people of Weinan was so emotional that it made the horse thieves lament. Xue Chaoyi burst into tears. All his relatives died at the hands of the Xixia people. It was Liu Ziguang who helped him avenge this bloody feud and also brought
He cares for his poor daughter as his own daughter. This kind of kindness is really hard to repay even if he wants to die. But he actually does such a thing as repaying kindness with hatred, which is worse than a beast. How can he still be considered a human being?
Seeing that the speech was effective, Dong Xiaowan quickly struck while the iron was hot, calling on the horse thieves to join the army and serve the country, and was willing to help guarantee it.
He rode out of the battle and surrendered to Liu Ziguang, thus finding a glorious future for his three thousand horse thieves.
The Bantianyun Horse Thieves Gang is the most powerful horse thieves in the Hexi Corridor. With their assistance, there is no need to worry about being robbed along the thousands of miles of logistics routes, and it has also attracted many horse thieves from other gangs to join them, making them famous for a while.
The army of Shirts became more powerful and quickly expanded to five thousand elite cavalry. These people were experienced in hundreds of battles and were familiar with the situation.
Veterans of the western environment, apart from not knowing how to use firecrackers and having slightly less discipline, are much better than the new recruits like the red shirts.
The Red Shirt Army advanced to Zhangye, hundreds of miles east of Jiayuguan, and finally approached Wusangui and Liu Zongmin's troops who were surrounded by the Xixia Army. At this time, Jiayuguan was lost. The Xixia Army drove straight in and surrounded the remnants of the Ming Army in Zhangye City.
Bombarded with return artillery every day, the Ming army relied on their excellent firearms to resist desperately. If it hadn't been for their faith, they would have been destroyed long ago.
This belief comes from Liu Ziguang and the Red Shirt Army. Although the relationship between the Western Army and the Red Shirt Army is not so good, after all, we are all Han people and we are all the Ming Dynasty's army. We are still a family in the face of foreign enemies. Wu Sangui has to express his gratitude to the Red Shirt Army every day.
The soldiers in Zhangye City reported the advancing speed of the Red Shirt Army forwards, saying that if they persisted for as many days as they could, reinforcements would arrive. In fact, the radio station in the army had been broken long ago, and Wu Sangui was only using this to boost morale.
Confidence is the source of strength. This sentence is not true at all. With the hope fabricated by Wu Sangui, the soldiers of the Western Army persisted day after day. When they ran out of gunpowder and bullets, they used the stones and arrows thrown by the enemy to fight back.
, the knife is blunt, the gun is broken, just use your fists and teeth to drive the enemy off the city.
When the army rations were gone, they ate horsemeat, rats, and corpses. When the city wall collapsed, they used cold water mixed with gravel to build it up in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the winter in Zhangye was extremely cold, and a city built with ice was better than a city built with bricks.
It was even more solid. In this way, the soldiers of the Western Army defended Zhangye City and prevented the Western Xia Army from advancing eastward.