Qufu city is rectangular, the circumference is about five kilometers, the height of the city wall is seven meters, the wall thickness is nearly four meters, there is no rammed earth, all are made of blue bricks, it is unusually strong, and the major city gates are built with urn cities, which is convenient for defense.

The so-called urn city, as the name suggests, is a small city like an urn, which is generally built on the periphery of the city gate, in a semicircle or square, and is used to protect the city gate. The two sides of the urn city are connected with the main city wall, equipped with arrow towers, gate gates, pheasant moats and other defensive facilities, the defenders can hide on the head of the city, 360 degrees all-round attack those who try to destroy the city gate of the enemy army, like catching turtles in the urn.

In addition, the urn city generally has multiple small gates, but none of them are open in the same straight line as the main city gate, so there is no way to take the main gate with weapons such as battering rams. Therefore, the defense of the city with the urn city is particularly strong.

In the sixth year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty, Qufu City was broken by the thieves led by "Liu Liu Liu Seven", together with the Confucian Temple, all were burned, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, when the Ministry of Industry was ordered to rebuild Qufu City, special attention was paid to the defense of the city, not only the city wall was built with blue bricks, but also the major city gates were added to the urn city, and the large and deep moat was dug outside the city.

In fact, Qufu City was rebuilt from the sixth year of Zhengde to the sixteenth year of Zhengde, and it took a total of ten years to complete the construction, costing hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

However, this newly rebuilt city of literati has once again encountered a major crisis at this time. Just a few days ago, the nearby Surabaya County was captured by horse thieves Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi, and now, Meng Zhao and the two are leading thousands of thieves gathered together to violently attack Qufu City.

Today is August 28, the sun has just dried the dew hanging on the weeds, and outside the east gate of Qufu City, thousands of thieves dressed in disheveled clothes are swarming up with sand and mud and other debris, trying to fill in the moat.

"Chong, the Confucian Mansion has a lot of grain, gold and silver, as well as beautiful women, whoever grabs it will belong to whom, kill!" Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi led nearly two hundred horse thieves, cruising around the periphery to supervise the battle, while shouting loudly to cheer up the thieves.

It is said that on the 24th of August, Zhao Quan led Meng Lun and other horse thieves to take advantage of the dawn to sneak attack, captured Surabaya County, and quickly raised a rebel team of nearly 3,000 people by opening a warehouse to distribute grain and money.

The next day, Zhao Quan immediately divided his troops into two routes, and he personally led a way to attack Xintai County in the north, trying to connect with Wangtang in Laiwu County, so that the three counties of Laiwu, Xintai, and Surabaya were connected together, echoing each other, forming a solid base area, so that they could calmly deal with the upcoming encirclement and suppression of officers and soldiers.

In Zhao Quan's view, Qufu is a holy land for literati, and if it can be won, it will definitely shake the entire Ming Dynasty and make the prestige of the righteous army great, which is the same as the effect of Liu Liu and Liu Qi attacking Qufu. There is another reason, that is, the "first family" Confucius Mansion is very rich, and food and silver are urgently needed by the rebels.

Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi led more than 1,000 thieves from Surabaya County to Qufu, and the villages and towns along the way were burned and looted by their soldiers.

So, when Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi killed under the city of Qufu, the thieves under their command grew from more than 1,000 to nearly 6,000, so Meng Lun sneered even more at the so-called "those who win the hearts of the people win the world".

"Kill, rush!" The thieves shouted and pounced on the moat, although there were sporadic cold arrows on the head of the city, but they couldn't stop the pace of the thieves at all, the moat was too open, and the defenders at the head of the city were obviously not many, and the damage caused was naturally very limited.

It was almost noon, and a few sections of the moat were finally filled, and Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi ordered the thief army to temporarily withdraw their troops, set up camp outside the city to bury pots and cook, and then attack the city with all their strength when they were full of food and drink.

At this time, the smoke and dust are billowing on the official road less than ten miles away from Qufu City, a Ming army of 5,000 people, marching in the direction of Qufu in a mighty way, but seeing the banner waving, swords and guns are standing in a forest, a Xuanhuang regiment dragon flag flutters high above the team, and there is a green flag next to it, which is embroidered with the word "Xu" of a dragon flying and phoenix dancing, which is Xu Jin who was ordered to be sent and supervised the military affairs of the two prefectures.

At this time, Xu Jin was wearing a cyan six-grade official robe, riding heroically on horseback, surrounded by five hundred brocade guards wearing flying fish suits.

On August 22, Xu Jin received the news of the rebellion of the miners in Yanshen Town, Qingzhou Prefecture, thinking that it was just a disease of scabies, and the garrison of the nearby guard should be able to exterminate it soon, because there is Qingzhou Wei in the northeast of Laiwu County, and there is Tai'an Wei in the west.

Who knew that only two days later, two rebellions occurred in the territory of Yanzhou Prefecture, the ringing horse thieves entrenched in Nishan, Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi captured Surabaya County; Pan Jinliang, a bandit from Yixian County in the south, also announced a rebellion.

At the same time, chaos also broke out in Henan, Hebei, and Shanxi, and this was obviously an organized and premeditated rebellion.

Xu Jin did not dare to slack off, and immediately mobilized 2,000 Yanzhou guards to Yi County to pacify the bandit Pan Jinliang, who was in turmoil, and at the same time let Huang Jin lead 3,000 Yanzhou guards to stay, and he personally led Dewei to Qufu, preparing to exterminate Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi, a gang of rebels, and recover Surabaya County.

As a result, the army just set off to leave Yanzhou City and received a call for help from Qufu, Xu Jin hurriedly ordered the troops to speed up, Qufu is the hometown of Confucius, the holy place in the minds of the literati, if it is broken by thieves again, then he is afraid that he will also be questioned, who made him happen to be in Yanzhou, and he is also the commander of military affairs.

When he heard that the thieves had just filled the moat of Qufu City, Xu Jin couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and immediately ordered the army to go straight to the east gate of Qufu City.

According to the news from the scouts, the thieves only had five or six thousand soldiers, and they were all rabble, and they were well-armed regular troops, and the number of both sides was about the same.

"Kill!" 5,000 men and horses of the Dewei were killed by the thieves under the command of the commander Huang Qi.

Xu Jin stood on a gentle slope to watch the battle under the escort of a group of brocade guards, and when he saw the slow formation of the Guide Dewei rushing to kill, he couldn't help frowning, is this still a regular army?

It is said that in the 150 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the military equipment has been in ruins, except for the border soldiers in the north, most of the officers and soldiers of the local guard station have neglected training, and their combat effectiveness is really not worth mentioning. The formation is unfamiliar, the physical fitness of the soldiers is uneven, the strong charge is in front, the weak body is far behind, the whole team is sparse, there is no murderous spirit at all, which makes people look annoyed.

Fortunately, the thieves on the opposite side were even more spicy, mostly untrained mud legs, and were frightened by the row of fire guns in front of the guard, and turned around and fled with a shout.

"Damn, it's all for Lao Tzu to catch up, whoever retreats will die!" Meng Lun and Zhao Zhi drew their knives and killed more than a dozen escapees, and finally stabilized the team's formation.

"Senior Brother Zhao, you lead the cavalry to charge into battle and defeat the Ming army's firecracker team!" Meng Lun obviously also understood that relying on these black crowds alone would not work, so he decisively ordered the main force to fight.

Zhao Zhi whistled and led nearly two hundred cavalry bandits to kill, fiercely killing Gui Dewei.

At this time, the 1,000 musketeers of the Dewei were in front, divided into three rows and took turns to shoot at the thieves, which was the classic "three-stage shooting method" of the Ming army, and this method of uninterrupted shooting, if the shooting density was large enough, was undoubtedly a nightmare for the cavalry.

However, the musketeers of Gui Dewei were usually negligent in training, whether it was shooting to change ammunition or changing teams, they were half a beat slower, and there were also cases of collisions between soldiers in the front and rear rows when changing positions.

The horse thieves led by Zhao Jing were very good at riding, and nearly two hundred people rode on horseback, and the waist knife in their hands was raised high, flashing a chilling light under the scorching sun.

Bang bang bang......

A row of firecrackers swept in, and more than a dozen horseback thieves were shot and fell on the spot, but the team of horse thieves had already reached the front of the formation twenty meters like a whirlwind.

Zhao Zhi showed a crazy smile on his face, the waist knife in his hand just lightly passed, and a slow-running firearm soldier was cut off on the spot, and the headless corpse ran several meters before falling to the ground......