Su Jiakang didn't want the Tang Dynasty's new army to enter the city because he would have to bear a huge responsibility after the city was defeated. After all, he would end up losing the city and the territory no matter what. What would the big bosses think of him?
They would think that Su Jiakang was extremely incompetent and actually allowed a group of bandits to break into the county. What is this other than incompetence? How could such an official take charge of a country and defend the land on behalf of the emperor's herdsmen?
If Su Jiakang was unable to regain Zhengtai County on his own in a short period of time after losing it, then the consequences would be even more serious, ranging from losing his official position to having his head beheaded and his property confiscated.
The imperial court has never been lenient to officials who lost their cities.
As for Li Xuan's unwillingness to enter the city, he was afraid of causing shock to the Ming court, which would lead to the Ming court sending a large army to encircle and suppress him. In that case, it would be difficult for his Tang Dynasty not to be finished.
But although they are unwilling to do this, the reason why reality is so fucked up is that it rarely develops according to your wishes.
This is like a man who is a loser but is also a beauty, but he wants to marry a beautiful woman; a woman whose appearance can scare passers-by to death, but is still a money-worshiping girl who likes tall, rich and handsome people, and is full of desires.
Looking for a tall, rich and handsome man, logically speaking, these two people cannot like each other.
But in reality, beauties are paired up with tall, rich and handsome people. Diaosi and Ruhua can only hold hands while hating each other.
Neither of them were willing, but they got it together in the end. This is reality!
Li Xuan didn't want to enter the city, and he didn't want to cause shock to the Ming court, but at this moment he had no choice. If he stayed outside the city, he would be surrounded by the Ming army on three sides, and the remaining side would be a dead end.
It would be better to go into the city and fight, especially when the Ming army in the city has surrendered. It doesn't take him much time to enter the city, and he won't encounter much resistance. Once he enters the city, he can immediately stop the defense and put the fierce oncoming force behind him.
The Ming army stopped them to gain temporary safety.
As for how to escape from danger later, that is a matter for the future. Whether it is to be trapped or to retreat, Li Xuan now has no extra time and thought to think about it.
After Chen Tufu and Fang Dongquan took the lead in entering the city, the new army of the Tang Dynasty quickly took control of the city gate and nearby city walls, followed closely by the musketeers, archers, and people from the baggage team who also entered the city one after another.
They entered the city very quickly. In just a moment, except for a few dozen people who were alerted by the police at the back, everyone else had already entered the city.
After the new army of the Tang Dynasty entered the city, they immediately divided their troops into several groups. The main force advanced along the city gate tower and the city walls on both sides. On the one hand, it was to eliminate the remaining Ming troops and take control of the city defense. On the other hand, more importantly, it was to immediately launch defensive operations.
Deployment to meet the attack of the main force of the Ming army from the rear.
At the same time, several small troops were also separated to march into various key points in the city, such as county offices, schools, warehouses and other important places.
As for the gentry who originally planned to surrender, they no longer knew where they had fled, and Li Xuan had no intention of paying attention to them at this moment.
At this time, Li Xuan also entered Zhengtai County under the escort of the bodyguards.
Li Xuan, who was on horseback, was wearing an extremely slim-fitting modern general officer's uniform, with a decorative sword hanging from his waist. He stepped on the stirrups with a pair of long leather boots, and the hand holding the reins also had a
Wearing a pair of leather gloves.
If he were placed in modern times or even modern times, he would be a typical general image, but in the eyes of people of this era, he looks funny and weird.
Many people hiding in the houses on both sides of the street looked at Li Xuan like this secretly through the gaps in the door panels or through the windows, and they felt it was strange and strange to some extent.
No wonder the government said every day that the bandits in Huangzhushan were cannibals. This young bandit leader knew at a glance that they were definitely not good things.
Naturally, Li Xuan didn't care about the eyes of the people in the city. He was riding on horseback, looking at the dirt streets in front of him and the houses on both sides of the streets. He had a fresh feeling like watching a historical movie, and at the same time he felt a sense of freshness.
A sense of satisfaction from conquering.
Speaking of which, this was the first time he had seen the city with his own eyes since he came to this time and space. Unfortunately, when he first came to this era, he encountered officers and soldiers entering Lijia Village, and he spent the rest of the time on the run.
, I spent most of my time in the ravines of Huangzhu Mountain.
Although he led his men to conquer Longhua Town last time, Longhua Town was said to be a city, but in fact it was just a larger Zhuangzi, which was only a little bigger than Fengjiazhuang. It was not a formal city at all.
More importantly, he, Li Xuan, had never entered Longhua Town for safety reasons.
Therefore, this is the first time he has entered an ancient city in so long!
But this curiosity about the ancient city only lasted a few seconds. He had more important things to do now.
"Since the defenses have been deployed, put away the drawbridge and close the city gate!" Li Xuan said as he got off his horse and took Qian Mengjiu and Zeng Ziwen directly to the city gate tower.
Walking up to the city gate tower, you can vaguely see the corpses of the Ming army and many wounded people. There are also many weapons scattered on the ground, as well as huge rocks, huge trees, boiling oil and other equipment used to defend the city that have not yet been used.
The top of the city was now completely occupied by the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. The few dozen young men who had not had time to escape were being guarded by the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty and squatting in the corner.
Li Xuan didn't look at the scene on the top of the city. He had already made detailed arrangements when he entered the city. Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu took the musketeers, archers, spearmen and other main forces to arrange the city defense. Huang Xueren took the people from the baggage team.
The troops and horses cleared the key points occupied by the Ming army in the city, etc.
They already had a clear division of labor and did not need Li Xuan to say anything more, so Li Xuan did not interfere too much with Fang Dongquan's work.
Instead, he took Qian Mengjiu and Zeng Ziwen to the higher city gate tower, and then looked from a distance. From a distance, Li Xuan finally saw the Ming army forward mentioned by the scout.
It was an army of about three hundred people wearing Ming army uniforms. At this time, it was about a mile away from Zhengtai County.
As for farther away, he probably saw more Ming troops approaching, but because of the undulating terrain, he couldn't see clearly.
The southwest direction of Zhengtai County is not very open. Instead, there are low hills rising one after another. These hills do not affect farming, but they affect the sight.
Unlike in the east and north, it is an open area with a very good view. Enemies coming from several miles away can be clearly seen.
When Li Xuan was observing the Ming army outside the city, the Tang Dynasty's new army inside the city had already closed the city gate again, and the musketeers and archers used as the main defensive force had also gone to the top of the city.
As for Huang Xueren and the others, they cleared the city quite quickly. Like many ancient cities, Zhengtai County is not very big, and it doesn’t take long to run around. In addition, Huang Xueren and the others also know that the matter is urgent and cannot waste too much time in the city.
The Ming army rushed all the way, shouting slogans such as those who surrender will not be killed, and successfully captured important places such as the county government office and official warehouses.
It is actually wrong to say that they captured it, because all the Ming troops in these places have long since fled. Most of them fled with Xu County Prime Minister and other civil and military officials. Some of them also hid, and they did not dare to take the lead and confront the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
Fight.
As for the young men who originally had hundreds of people, it was even more unbearable. Xu County Cheng and the others would not take them with them when they fled. After Xu County Cheng and the other officials were gone, the leaderless young men were left behind by the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
They had already dispersed before they even attacked the city.
Otherwise, the gentry in the city would not have simply chosen to open the city gate and surrender.
In other words, before Li Xuan and the others entered the city, Zhengtai County had actually become an undefended city. The new army of the Tang Dynasty attacked Zhengtai County and actually took over Zhengtai County.
Soon, after clearing out the remaining Ming troops in the city, Huang Xueren came back with most of his troops. Not only did they come back, but they also captured hundreds of people and came back with them.
Without waiting for Li Xuan to ask, Huang Xueren took the initiative to explain: "I saw these young men running away at the northeast gate just now, so I stopped them. Now that our army is short of manpower to defend the city, they are just lined up for use!"
Qian Mengjiu on the side asked: "Will these people cause trouble during our army's battle? And lead to accidents?"
But at this time Zeng Ziwen said: "Don't worry about this, these young and strong civilians are very submissive. If someone supervises them, they won't cause trouble!"
Zeng Ziwen used to have thousands of households in the Ming army, and when he fought, he also liked to recruit young and strong men to accompany the army to transport baggage or directly fight. He had a deep understanding of these young and strong civilian men.
These young men are definitely not willing to sacrifice their lives for the new army of the Tang Dynasty, but they were also unwilling to sacrifice their lives for the official army before. However, the official army can force them to sacrifice their lives with swords, and the new army of the Tang Dynasty can do the same.
Li Xuan nodded slightly after hearing this. With this group of young and strong prisoners joining in for physical labor, at least when defending the city, his side would be able to mobilize more combatants without having to assign people to carry rocks and wood to burn fire.
Oil and other chores.
When the new army of the Tang Dynasty was actively preparing for defense in the city and did not even bother to deal with the gentry and ordinary people in the city, the main force of the Ming army led by Su Jiakang finally arrived at the gate of Zhengtai County.
Su Jiakang, who was riding a horse, looked at Zhengtai County in front of him, his expression gloomy and terrifying.
That was Su Jiakang's Zhengtai County, but now it has fallen into the hands of the puppet Tang traitor army. If he can't recover it quickly, I'm afraid his end will not be too good. Losing his official position is the lightest thing.
If you don't do well, your head will be beheaded and your home will be ransacked.
Immediately, he sighed to Wang Zhi beside him: "While the bandits have just entered the city, and now they are not yet secure, we must attack the city quickly. Send an order immediately to attack the city immediately!"
With Su Jiakang's decisiveness and resoluteness, the Ming army launched a counterattack against Zhengtai County as soon as they arrived at the city, intending to take advantage of the Tang Dynasty's new army's unsteady foothold to regain Zhengtai County.