In Yecheng, a large number of people from the countryside were driven into Linzhang New Town, which was originally intended to be used as a new capital, with nearly 100,000 people. The coalition army led by Xie Ai was stationed at the Santai Fortress.

The main body of this coalition army is naturally the Huainan soldiers led by Xie Ai, but more of them are rebels from all walks of life. The size of these rebels is several times larger than the original Huainan army, and the number is changing from time to time, but the overall scale is still about 30,000 people.

Although they went all the way north to take Yecheng, it does not mean that this army is strong enough, and many of those so-called rebel armies are simply men, women, and children go into battle together, not so much as an army, but a migration of the whole family. Moreover, there are a large number of refugees who have no heels, and in order to eat and survive, they join this huge team.

Chaos is the most important melody of Yecheng at the moment, there is chaos inside the city, chaos outside the city, chaos among the people, and chaos among the army.

At present, there is still order left, that is, the three stations defended by the Huainan Army at present. However, Santai also experienced a loot early, and when Xie Ai led the army to Santai, it had at least experienced three or four waves of turmoil, and even the Wei Wangfu was patronized by the rebels like rogue soldiers.

The accumulation of gold, silver, fine and soft goods in the mansion has long been looted, and even several of Shi Kan's sons and daughters and relatives do not know which way they were taken away by the rebels and imprisoned as bargaining chips for merit and favor.

Therefore, after Xie Ai arrived in Yecheng, he didn't even have time to savor the joy of building a great achievement again, and soon devoted himself to many affairs. The first is to take over the defense of the city, quickly collect the remaining materials in the city, and then quickly carry out a preliminary reorganization of the snowballing rebel army.

The composition of the rebel army is extremely mixed, at first it was only a part of some villagers in Jijun including the Yedi people who fought in Dongfang City, uprooted some dock walls along the way, and took in some refugees, when approaching Yecheng, the scale grew suddenly, a large number of Hebei people who fled the military disaster, and many heroic military leaders who were not in the room were also in the name of the righteous army, and attacked from all sides.

There was even a part of the original defenders of Yecheng, who had already robbed Yecheng in the name of righteousness before the arrival of the Huainan army.

Such a so-called rebel army is not fundamentally different from the rogue, and it is chaotic and difficult to control, and it is impossible to carry out meticulous reorganization in accordance with the strict rules of the Huainan army.

And Xie Ai didn't believe that these so-called rebels could be integrated into any tenacious combat effectiveness, so his so-called reorganization was to creatively issue tricolor flags to these rebels. The so-called three-color flags, including the Xuanshui black flag, the blood-stained red flag, and the hemp-colored yellow flag, correspond to basic military functions such as defense, attack, and conquest.

The rebels with the Xuanshui Black Banner have the power to defend the place, but they have to provide the rebels with a certain material supplement. The blood-stained red flag is responsible for attacking the place, and wherever there is no black flag of Xuanshui, it can be attacked.

As for the yellow flag of the hemp color, it is responsible for the transportation and requisition of the rebel troops, and all the rebels are not allowed to attack without authorization, otherwise the elite of the Huainan army will personally attack and retaliate, and they will not die. Other red flag teams can also take the initiative to attack the yellow flag team, and instead of committing crimes, they can divide up the people and things they get.

This military order was not accepted at first, after all, for a considerable part of the Hebei rebels, they just wanted to take advantage of the Huainan army's momentum to make a chaotic plunder, and they were not willing to be controlled by the Huainan army.

However, when the Huainan army personally dispatched and some rebels who had already obtained the red flag of conquest annihilated several unflagless but privately plundered teams one after another, the deterrent was quickly established. In just two or three days, more than a dozen red flags were taken away, and at least nearly 10,000 rebels wreaked havoc around Yedi in the name of this.

And some of the Yedi rebels were robbing happily outside, but after returning, they found that their nest had been raided, and they couldn't even find which friendly army did it. In desperation, he had to get a black flag again and hang it in his lair.

Among them, the red flag can be obtained casually, as long as you can get the red flag stamped with the seal of Xie Aidu's protector, you can become a part of the righteous army, obtain the legal qualification to conquer and plunder, and will not be hunted down and questioned.

However, the black flag is not free, according to the size of the defense area, it is necessary to donate 100 to 500 grains to Santai, and you can get a certain exemption right in the future. For this alone, the Huainan Army received thousands of grains in just a few days, not only for their own use, but also to support some credible rebels.

As for the yellow flag, it is not issued casually, but needs to be exchanged for meritorious service, and the statistics of this meritorious service are also extremely extensive, one is for donating food and materials, one is for donating important prisoners, and one is for reporting major military information.

And in addition to being able to avoid being attacked by the rebels at the moment, this yellow flag is even a certificate of merit for the Huainan Governor's Office after the war, if you can accumulate multiple sides to reach a certain number, you can obtain the same ** qualification as the Huainan Army, divide the county, seal the marquis because of merit, and become an official part of the Huainan Army, it is not a dream!

In the few days since they arrived in Yecheng, the Huainan Army itself has not participated in many battles, but is only fully promoting and maintaining this three-banner military order system. And all parties of the rebel army quickly developed a sense of identity after initially disapproving this clear and clear military order.

These three flags not only provide them with security, but also share some power with them, and most importantly, they do not have a strong and strong relationship between their superiors and subordinates.

If the Huainan Army can succeed and sit firmly on the ground, it is naturally best, and the banners they each have will allow them to gain a lot of rights and interests in the subsequent chaos. Even if the Huainan army was just spinning around, they directly rolled up the flag to hide or burn it, and they had nothing to do with each other.

Therefore, soon the military order of the Three Banners was quickly implemented in Hebei, and it was not even limited to Yedi, but even in some other more distant areas, many powerful and bandits began to use the Three Banners as their name.

Those distant places, naturally it is impossible to make a special trip to Yecheng to ask for the three banners, so they simply make a fake to hang up, after all, outside the influence of the Huainan Army, who will know what the Guardian Army seal of the Huainan Governor's Mansion looks like. And after hanging the flag, you can also show off to others, Lao Tzu is also a person with a backstage, offended me, and I am worried that I will be led to take revenge later!

The reason why Xie Ai dared to do this was also because when he reported to the Governor about the plan to attack Yecheng in the north, the Governor nodded and gave him great autonomy, and even allowed him to appoint some official positions in the name of the Governor's Mansion to win over and appease those powerful people in Hebei if needed.

Although Xie Ai was authorized by the governor, he did not do that, because after all, Hebei has been ruled by slaves for a long time, and Jiangdong's official position is not too attractive, and secondly, he does not want to cause any trouble for the governor.

Now it seems that the Three Banners military order formulated by Xie Ai himself is even more effective than the direct temptation of MG. Although the current Yedi is still chaotic, some order has been initially established in the chaos.

However, this order has not been established for a long time, and it will soon suffer a serious impact, because there has been an enemy trace in the north, and the Shihu general Ma Qiu led 5,000 horsemen to defeat several Red Banner rebels one after another, and it is already very close to Yecheng.

This important military situation soon spread to the entire Yecheng, and the turmoil provoked was really huge. When even if there were two righteous troops that originally hung three flags, when they learned that Shi Hu had sent troops to the south, they directly put away the three flags and went to the north to meet them.

Although the other rebels did not show such eagerness, their attitudes also turned ambiguous, at least nearly 10,000 people left Yecheng after Ma Qiu appeared, some were willing to find one or two excuses to cover up a little, and some simply led their troops to leave. And Ma Qiu did not attack immediately, but did not use this to exert pressure to keep those who depended away from Yecheng.

For a while, Yecheng Santai, which was still bustling and overcrowded, soon became deserted, except for the five thousand Huainan troops of Xie Ai's headquarters, there were only a few thousand righteous troops left.

Among them, the main ones are the Xiang Yong who was recruited and organized by Wang Guang and other generals who had no way to retreat, and Liu Mi and other generals who fought in Dongfang City, as well as some scattered refugees and villagers, who didn't care which side they were on, anyway, they were killed and swallowed up when they went out of the city.

The originally mighty rebel army shrank several times in less than ten hours. This also shows the weight of Shi Hu's prestige in Hebei, which is far from being comparable to the Huainan Army that has just arrived in Hebei. Although Shi Hu had the shame of defeating Huaishang in the early years, in Hebei, where the Shi family started, many people still preferred Shi Hu to be stronger.

Of course, there are many people, no matter who is strong or weak, but they just don't want to participate in it, and use their own lives to fight for others to win as a bargaining chip, so they stay out of the matter.

When Wang Guang and others complained about the unrighteousness of the pawns, Xie Ai was not lacking in optimism. Although these Hebei heroes did not have the courage and righteousness to fight against the Huainan army, at least they did not turn around and help Shi Hu attack the Huainan army.

This shows that the Three Banners military order still has a certain effect, at least in just a few days, it has created a weak sense of identity. The military leaders and heroes were able to recognize this rule, but they were not sure what kind of order Shi Hu could bring to Yedi when he came south, so they simply did not help each other.

"The defeated army is not brave enough. Huainan Wang Shi is here, Ji Long comes in person, he may not dare to say that he will win, how can he force Wang Ye to recover the general trend! ”

For those who retreated, Xie Ai not only did not stop and scold, but some of them resigned in person, but personally sent them out of the city.

However, having said that, the current situation in Yecheng is still grim. Between Yecheng and Liyang, although it is said that the morning is coming, the straight-line distance between each other is more than 200 miles, and the news will inevitably lag behind.

Although there have been sporadic news that the first battle of Liyang has ended and the Huainan army has won a complete victory, there is still no large force of defeated troops and Huainan reinforcements in the south, and it is only regarded as a rumor that the Huainan army wants to stabilize people's hearts.

Of course, after the Huainan Army initially stabilized the situation in Liyang, Han Huang led 3,000 cavalry to the north to reinforce Yecheng. However, Ma Qiu has already arrived near Yecheng, in addition to the 5,000 cavalry of the headquarters, there are still thousands of people who have taken refuge along the way, and nearly 10,000 troops are already close to Yecheng. 8)