Zhu Zhi followed Wang Yuan out of the north gate and came to the wilderness. He couldn't help but waved his sword and shouted: "Chang Kuai, killing thieves like this is worth it in this life!"
"Order the troops!" Wang Yuan shouted.
Zhu Cong and Zhu Xiang immediately counted the team and found that there were twelve riders missing.
Zhu Ying suddenly said angrily: "Outside Renqiu City, we killed more than ten thousand thieves, but only one died. This time no one dared to stop them. How come there are not twelve?"
It's normal. He gets excited about killing, gets off his horse and cuts off his head, and falls behind in the streets and gets lost.
Wang Yuan asked Zhu Zhi to blow the horn, and waited for a while, and his own cavalry returned one after another. But in the end, there were still two cavalry missing. It was not known whether they were trapped in the city or had been safely evacuated from other city gates.
The whole army led their horses on foot and headed in the direction of the baggage train.
Those hundreds of civilians were attacked by the thief's sentries, dozens of them died, and more than a hundred people were missing. Fortunately, Wu Liande rushed back in time and led the Jinyi guards to kill the enemy sentries and retreat, otherwise Wang Yuan's baggage would have been lost.
The team is definitely doomed today.
The rebels are even worse. The food and grass in the camp were burned, and many family members were burned to death. Now they are quarreling.
Yang Hu blamed Liu Liu, Liu Qi and Qi Yanming for their poor military discipline and that they should not even guard the city gate after capturing the city. The latter also blamed Yang Hu for not taking a good look at the camp, which led to the officer's attack on his lair. Now he can only rely on
Marching with temporarily looted food.
The rebel army was divided into two groups, and they quarreled endlessly in Jinghai County. In the end, each occupied half of the county and pulled all the rebels outside the city into the city to avoid being attacked by the government army again.
For nearly a month, there was no fighting to speak of.
Wang Yuan stalked the area from a distance, but could not find any chance of a surprise attack. The thieves sent out a thousand light cavalry as sentinels, and guarded the area closely at night. Apparently, they had awakened new military skills and grew rapidly with Wang Yuan's help.
Because Deputy Commander-in-Chief Xu Tai pursued them in a hurry, the rebels rested for a night in Jinghai County and then fled southward without stopping.
Qing County and Xingji County along the way were already prepared, and the exploratory attack could not be carried out, so the rebels walked around the city for fear of being chased by Xu Tai behind them.
At the same time, as the border troops were transferred to Zhili, the imperial court was no longer short of troops.
Generals Song Zhen and Dai Yi, who had previously watched the rebels attack the city but stood still, were now imprisoned to await their fate.
Every few days, Wang Yuan can receive battle reports from various places on the front line through Jin Yiwei.
However, these battle reports are so rubbish that it would be better not to read them.
Obviously he was closely following the main force of the rebel army, but Yang Hu appeared inexplicably in Shandong, Qi Yan appeared in Dongguang County inexplicably, and even Liu Liu and Liu Qi went to Tongzhou again.
They were all the rebels who had been dispersed, pretending to be their names and raising banners indiscriminately. Anyway, rebels appeared everywhere in a mess.
The big bosses of the imperial court were also confused, but they had to take precautions. So they mobilized a total of eight thousand troops from Shanxi, Liaodong, and Henan to attack the places where the bandits were found in the battle reports.
In September, Cangzhou was besieged.
Wang Yuan led his troops several miles away from the city to watch the rebels attack the city. Unfortunately, he did not have a telescope and could only learn about the situation through sentries. Otherwise, this offensive and defensive battle would have been very interesting.
"The thieves are so stubborn that they actually dared to attack Cangzhou." Wang Yuan couldn't help but sigh.
Zhu Ying asked: "Wang Yushi, what does the iron head mean?"
Wang Yuan explained: "I just feel like I have a hard head. If I see a copper or iron wall, I will run into it."
"Hahaha, that bandit is really tough." Zhu Zhi laughed.
Cangzhou's city wall is not comparable to that of the county town. It is eight miles in circumference and two feet and five feet high, all made of huge bricks. There is also a moat outside the city, which is one foot and five feet deep and about four feet and five feet wide.
Once the moat is filled in, we can only attack by boat.
The bandits had to fight because they were running out of food and grass, and a batch of grain arrived in Cangzhou, which was temporarily stored in the city due to the war.
At this moment, the rebels seized many ships from the Grand Canal and drove them all to the Cangzhou moat to build pontoons.
I saw that the moat was densely packed with boats, one connected to the other, covering several sections of the river.
The civil and military officials on the city tower looked down and laughed. If the rebels could capture the city, they would not need the court to punish him, but would jump into the moat and drown the ball themselves.
The officials who guard the city are both civilized and military.
They are the governor of Cangzhou Zhang Qi, the salt transport envoy Yang Hao, the Qianhu Manzheng of Zhejiang, and the commander of Guangdong Nie Ying (huán).
Why did two southern military attachés suddenly appear in the Northern Zhili region?
Unfortunately, they were responsible for escorting weapons to the capital, but they were blocked by rebels in Cangzhou on the way. They didn't have any exotic weapons, just firecrackers, bows and arrows, armors and the like. There was no rush to transport them to the capital now.
Now, just take it out of the box and start fighting.
Two large ships and weapons, what a disaster!
Seeing the rebels coming to the city via the pontoon bridge, Guangdong commander Nie Zhen smiled sinisterly and slowly raised his hand to order: "Let go!"
"boom!"
A row of firecrackers were fired, making a loud noise like thunder.
There is also a Shenji Battalion in the capital, but it has never been sent out to fight. Where have the rebels seen firearms? They were directly beaten by a row of firecrackers. The direct casualties were very small, but the indirect casualties were large. Many people were so frightened that they turned around and ran away.
Many people drowned in the river.
The rebels also worked hard, because they were short of food and had no choice but to use their lives to save it - Wang Yuan had his own share of the credit for the food shortage.
After three days, the defensive utensils were almost exhausted, and Yang Hu personally led two thousand old thieves to attack the city.
Not only did Yang Hu fail to climb the city wall, Zhejiang Qianhu Manzheng also took advantage of the situation and rushed out, throwing flammable objects onto the pontoon, and then fired several rounds of rockets out, instantly burning most of the pontoon built by the rebels.
Then Liu Liu and Liu Qi also went into battle in person, took a boat to the city to build a ladder, and were captured. Nie Zhen and Nie Zhen shot with bows, arrows and firecrackers and defeated the army.
Liu Liu and Liu Qi were all wounded by arrows. The rebels finally did not dare to fight anymore, so they took a boat and rode south along the Grand Canal.
This offensive and defensive battle lasted for eight days, and there were only five or six thousand rebels left. Every day, the rebels escaped quietly. However, Xu Tai, who was chasing the rebels, never came because there was a large group of rebels behind him.
They were fighting with the rebels on the way.
"Haha, the thieves have withdrawn!" Nie Wei laughed.
Zhizhou Zhang Qi finally breathed a sigh of relief, because there were only a thousand regular soldiers in the city, brought by two military attachés from Zhejiang and Guangdong.
More than 10,000 fierce old thieves attacked for eight days. If it were not for the high city and deep pool and the weapons, Cangzhou would have been captured by the rebel army.
The rebels were also unlucky. If they had arrived in Cangzhou a few days in advance, there would not even be a regular soldier in the city, and there would be no muskets or bows and arrows, so there would be no need to spend so much effort to defeat them.
Before the bandits had gone far, two hundred cavalry suddenly arrived outside the city.
Zhang Qi was immediately startled and quickly called to the people around him to take precautions.
Wu Liande got on a small boat that had been abandoned by the rebels, sailed across the moat, came to the city and said: "Wang Yuan, the patrol censor, was ordered to punish the thieves. Please ask the officers and soldiers in the city to come out of the city to help!"
"You just have these cavalry?" Zhang Qi asked.
Wu Liande recited the lines prepared by Wang Yuan: "There are still more than ten thousand troops, which have been intercepted in the area of Xinqiao Station. Please ask the Cangzhou defenders to leave the city immediately and attack from the north and south with the officers and soldiers of Xinqiao Station!"
Zhang Qi hung up the basket and pulled Wu Liang up. After checking a bunch of documents, he finally confirmed his official identity.
Qianhu Manzheng in Zhejiang and Nie Zhen, the commander in Guangdong, heard that there were more than 10,000 troops intercepting the attack in the south, and they immediately became more alert.
This is the main force of the anti-thieves, and it is a lost dog that is not in a good position to attack the city. If you lead your own troops to follow them and fight casually, and cooperate with the friendly forces, you will definitely win a big victory. If you are lucky and accidentally capture a few thieves' heads, then you will be promoted to an official rank just around the corner.
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"Zhang Jishi (honorary title)," Nie Zhen first expressed his position, "As a military attache of the imperial court, I cannot sit back and watch the bandits escape. I will take my leave now! My sons, follow me out of the city to kill the bandits!"
Not to be outdone, Qianhu Manzheng from Zhejiang also clasped his fists and said, "Chief Zhang, when we return from killing the enemy, we will go back to Cangzhou to have a celebratory drink!"
Two military attachés from other provinces, with their own troops, were deceived into going south with Wang Yuan to pursue the enemy. Moreover, they were commanding archers and firecrackers.