It is about 180 miles away from Jiangling City, and the Huya Mountain area was called Yaoting in ancient times, which is the junction of the Wushan Mountain Range that stretches for thousands of miles and the Jianghan Plain that is flat like a tabletop, and at the same time it is stuck in the Yangtze River waterway.

For Li Zicheng, who intends to follow Liu Xuande's example and enter Sichuan to open up a three-point world, Huya Mountain is undoubtedly a dangerous point that must be defended. And his opponents, whether it was Jin Shenghuan, who was stationed in Yiling Prefecture (west of Huya Mountain) earlier, He Tengjiao and Wu Guoyong, who later stationed troops in Hukoudu, or Zhu Cihong, who arrived in early summer, did not pay much attention to this important territory.

Li Zicheng was different, after he entered Jiangling, he immediately sent Li Guo to lead more than 10,000 elite soldiers of the old camp army to the west, seize Huya Mountain in front of Jin Shenghuan, and then rely on the mountain to build the Huya Mountain camp.

After forcing Jin Shenghuan (Jin Shenghuan was transferred from the dangerous place of Yiling Prefecture by Zuo Mengmei in the name of the King of Chu) to seize Yiling Prefecture and Guizhou (west of the Three Gorges, which is also under the jurisdiction of Jingzhou Prefecture), Li Zicheng did not give up the Huya Mountain camp, but regarded the Huya Mountain camp as a place to store grain.

In the previous Jiangling melee, Li Zicheng's army captured the Chu Wangfu and the grain stock of the Zuojia army about one million stones! and also swallowed the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver accumulated by Zuo Liangyu and Zuo Mengeng's father and son. In addition, his income from "fighting landlords and profiteers" in Chengtian, Hanyang, Jiangling, and De'an Prefectures, totaling more than 4 million taels of silver, as well as a large amount of copper coins, as well as countless silk, cloth, tea, salt and other materials, were packed and packed one by one, and transported to the Huya Mountain camp for storage.

In addition, Li Zicheng also sent people to the west of the Jiangling pontoon bridge to collect a lot of boats that could pass through the Three Gorges when the river rose in summer, and they also concentrated them in Yiling Prefecture, west of the Huya Mountain Daying.

This series of actions, on the surface, seems to be an attempt to treat Huya Mountain, which is in danger, as the fundamental place of the Dashun Army in Jingzhou. But in fact, he was quietly preparing for both--of course it is best to win the battle of Gangneung, but what if he can't win? Then you have to go into Sichuan to take Zhang Xianzhong's foundation.

And to calmly enter Sichuan, the gains and losses of Huya Mountain and Yiling Prefecture are the key to the key.

Now Guizhou, west of the Three Gorges, is already in the hands of the Dashun army, so the gateway to Sichuan is not completely closed. As long as you can break through Wushan and Qutangwei to the west, then Kuizhou will basically be in your hands.

The Ming troops in Chongqing and Kuizhou were now under enemy on both sides, and had been fighting hard with Zhang Xianzhong for many days, and their north (north of Kuizhou Prefecture) was also threatened by the Dashun army stationed in Hanzhong and Yunyang, so it was not too difficult to take them.

But Li Zicheng can't care about his head, if Zhu Cihong chases his ass and beats him, then what is he going to Sichuan for? Is it strong for Zhu Cihong to sweep the rich people in Sichuan Province?

So if things don't go well, someone has to guard Huya Mountain for him and resist Prince Zhu's pursuers!

In the past few days, taking advantage of the fact that the Jiangling front line is still calm, Li Zicheng simply left the Jiangling Palace and went to Huya Mountain to inspect the defense situation of the camp.

Just as he was riding the hillside, looking at the vast land in the southeast, thinking in his heart about how to defeat Zhu Cihong and then master the ups and downs, someone suddenly reported to him: "Emperor, the Second Army Division is here!" ”

"Gu Junen?" Li Zicheng looked down and saw that his Second Army Division, Gu Junen, was being supported by two imperial battalion soldiers, panting for breath while trying to climb the mountain, still holding a handful of paper in his hand. After a while, Gu Erjun finally arrived.

Seeing Gu Junen's panting and embarrassed honor, Li Zicheng chuckled in his heart - what happened again?

This Gu Junen is also considered to be literary and elegant on weekdays, and he rarely gets so angry. The last time he was in a hurry, it seemed to be the time when the Tartars went to Datong and copied the Taiyuan side...... Is it because of the Tartars!

Li Zicheng immediately asked: "Second Army Division, could it be that the Tartars are looking for trouble again?" ”

Gu Junen just shook his head, his expression was helpless and anxious, and he took a long time to catch his breath. Li Zicheng's camp was placed in a valley at the foot of Huya Mountain, and when Li Zicheng went up the mountain to look at the scenery, Gu Junen was squinting in the valley.

When he was resting in his tent, he received an urgent military report sent by Yuan Zongdi to send a 600-mile urgent Tangma. After looking through it, he ran all the way before he was fully dressed, and he couldn't run to the mountainside, but fortunately he met two soldiers of the imperial camp and asked them to help him go to the top of the mountain.

"Emperor! The Ming army has invaded the territory of Xiangjing Mansion and Nanyang Mansion! ”

When Li Zicheng heard this, his hanging heart had already let go of more than half of it, "What's the big deal, Xiangjing is not an ordinary city, it is a strong city made of iron." Even if Zhu Cihong had a Hongyi cannon, he couldn't break the city in a hurry.

Nanyang is even more worried, although it is not a strong city, but it is in the arid land of Zhongzhou, unless Xiangjing is laid, otherwise there is no waterway to go, how can the cannon of the Zhu thief be transported? ”

Gu Junen still shook his head, took another breath, and said in a deep voice: "Marquis Yuan's recital said that after the vanguard of the Ming army broke into the territory of Piyang County and Zaoyang County, they posted notices everywhere, announcing that they would dictate the fields in Xiangjing Mansion and Nanyang Mansion, divide the land equally, and also make people sing and sing: Open the gate to welcome the prince, and divide the ......fields when the prince comes."

"What did you say?" Li Zicheng was so shocked that he couldn't say anything, but he just raised his hand and pointed to it, meaning that he hurriedly presented Yuan Zongdi's recital to him.

Gu Junen hurriedly presented the recital, "Emperor, I really didn't expect Zhu Cihong to be so despicable, a good prince of the Ming Dynasty, and he actually used the land to incite the people!" ”

Li Zicheng took Yuan Zongdi's recital, unfolded it and read it carefully, and then sighed: "Alas, Zhu Cihong, this thief is more traitorous than a traitor, more fierce than a Tartar, and more demagogic than Li Zicheng!" ”

"Emperor," Gu Junen's square inch was messed up, and he looked at Li Zicheng, "What should we do?" ”

"What should I do?" Li Zicheng stomped his feet, "If the prince of Zhu Thief goes elsewhere to incite with the matter of dividing the land and dividing the land, he is not afraid at all, but the small people of Xiangjing and Nanyang can't stand such incitement!" ”

Li Zicheng enclosed land in Xiangjing and Nanyang Prefectures, and regardless of whether the land belonged to the landlords and gentry or to the poor middle peasants, they were all enclosed and then assigned to his old battalion generals.

And although those old battalion soldiers are all from a bitter background, once they turn over and become landlords, they are all more vicious than the original scholars!

They all came to the landlord with two fists clenched, their eyes were red, and they could still be polite to the tenants?

Besides, Li Zicheng did not give land to the people below in vain, and the land was given to them to bear feudal military service! This feudal military service was not something that could be done empty-handed, and it was necessary to prepare its own blades, armor, horses, servants, and a certain amount of grain and grass.

While Li gave it to the soldiers, he also threw out the financial burden.

In this case, can the old brothers below not go to loot with red eyes? If you don't scratch it hard, what do they use to buy equipment? What do you use to start a family? What do you use to buy horses and hire servants?

And who are they? They are turned over and rogues, they are born in rebellion and slashing people, and their suppression ability is not known how many times stronger than the original scholars and landlords...... There is no fear of the poor and middle peasants resisting rent and interest.

So in the past year or so, the poor middle peasants in Xiangjing Mansion have suffered a great crime!

So much so that Li Zicheng, who sympathized with the working people, couldn't stand it, and simply stayed in Jiangling after taking Jiangling, and never returned to Xiangjing, which is called out of sight is clean.

And now Prince Zhu directly took Li Zicheng's "script" to Xiangjing and Nanyang, and used the story of dividing the land to mobilize the poor people who had been oppressed by the old camp owners of the Liukou for more than a year, which happened to poke Li Zicheng's weakness.

"Emperor," Gu Junen gritted his teeth, "Why don't we hurry back to the division and fight to the death with the soldiers and horses of the Zhu thief!" ”

"Second Army Division, don't mess up!" Li Zicheng glared at the Second Army Division, which was in chaos, and he was a little helpless in his heart.

He also found a lot of history books to read during this time, and he read all the "Romance of the Gods", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "The Legend of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", and the more he read, the more he felt that his life was miserable! When others are the founding emperors, why do they have so many strategists to help, why are there only Song Xiance and Gu Junen, who are not very bright?

He sighed: "Second Army Division, I ask you, who else knows about this?" ”

"What's the matter?" Gu Junen asked.

Li Zicheng lowered his voice: "It's Zhu Cihong's division of the fields in Xiangyang!" ”

"No, no one." Gu Junen looked left and right, everything he knew was here, and they were all Li Zicheng's henchmen.

Li Zicheng looked around and raised his voice: "What the Second Army Division and Er said just now, none of you are allowed to spread it out!" ”