Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng did not send people out of the city, on the contrary, in the summer of the third year of Chongzhen, when Lin Dan Khan's Mongol cavalry withdrew from Xining, they sent several teams out of the city to inquire about the news.

There were only a few teams out of the city, and only the sentry team that went to the direction of Jishi Pass returned to Xining City as promised after inquiring about the news.

However, this team was far away from Jishi Pass, and when they saw that Jishi Pass was still in the hands of Ma Jiajun in Hezhou, they returned the same way, so they did not bring back any valuable information to them.

As for the one that goes to the north, and the one that goes south, there is no news, and life and death are unknown.

Next, the northwest ushered in the cold winter, Xining City is lonely in the wilderness of the river, the surrounding thousands of miles are barren and wild no man's land, if there is no large number of war horses, there is no large number of supplies, whether it is to send people out of the city to inquire about the news, or to send people to carry gold and silver to find the Qiang people, the tribes of the Fan people to buy cattle and sheep, it is a fierce and auspicious adventure.

In fact, less than two months after Lin Dan Khan withdrew the men and horses besieging Xining City, Hezhou City changed hands, and Jishi Pass also changed hands, and soon after, Lin Chengcheng's men and horses began to appear intermittently outside Xining City.

Fortunately, the walls of Xining City were tall and strong, and Lin Chengcheng's command had neither heavy siege equipment nor the determination to attack strongly, so Xining City was able to be safe and sound again.

Under such circumstances, Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, who knew nothing about the situation outside the city, simply blocked the four gates of Xining City, continued to lead the people in the city, and honestly held the city.

As long as the thieves outside Xining City did not come to attack the city, the defenders in Xining City never took the initiative to attack, and the two sides confronted each other and fought each other to attrition, and the stalemate was settled.

In the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, there was already no firewood and rice in Xining City, and even the rich and noble families in the past had no surplus food.

Moreover, even if there was more gold and silver, it would be of no use at this time.

If it weren't for the harsh military laws of Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, and the people who had taken refuge in the city had already been organized into a march, by this time, the order in the city would have been impossible to maintain.

Let's say that at noon on the first day of the first lunar month, Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, under the repeated persuasion of the Li family and some generals behind them, finally made up their minds to abandon the city and break through, hoping to break out a way for the surviving people in the city who followed them.

After the news that the defender Li Hongsi and others were ready to wait for an opportunity to abandon the city and break through the siege spread in the city, the morale of the soldiers and civilians in Xining City really boosted a little.

However, it is easy to make a decision, but to do it, it takes a lot of preparation in advance.

Just discussing the route and direction of abandoning the city and breaking through, the forces of all parties in Xining City quarreled and argued for several days.

Some want to go north, and after evacuating Xining, they only need to cross the Wusheling Ridge, which is the land west of the river in Gansu.

Some insisted on going east, fantasizing that after the successful breakthrough from Jishi Pass, they would enter the interior of the Ming Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty had not lost the entire northwest.

Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng insisted on going south, hoping to go all the way south to Mangrachuan, through the territory of the Tanguts, and to the northwest of Sichuan.

In the minds of the two of them, even if His Majesty the Emperor failed to resist the Jianyu and the Northern Captives in the land of Gyeonggi and Xuanda, even if the northern part of the Ming Dynasty fell into the hands of the Jianju, the distant southwest region should still be safe.

When Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng persuaded all the forces in the city half reasonably, half forcedly, and finally set a breakthrough route, they lost the best opportunity to abandon the city and break through.

On the first day when they were about to abandon the city and break through, when they finally packed up their bags and dug the hole in the city gate that had been built dead, everything was ready and only the east wind was owed, Li Hongsi, Li Zhensheng and Li Hongsi's subordinate general Han Yuchang and others were shocked to find that there was suddenly another besieging army outside the city.

This army is none other than the Daxi Camp thief army who came to seize Xining City after the merger of the Eight Great Kings Zhang Xianzhong and the King of the World, Lin Chengcheng.

Li Hongsi, who was already ready to send an arrow, beat his chest and sighed to the sky, so he had no choice but to use the dead horse as a live horse doctor, and ordered the department to lead Han Yuchang to lead the scheduled forward men and horses out of the city to open the way, and at the same time ordered other soldiers and civilians in the city to prepare to abandon the city and break through in advance.

This Han Yuchang was born as a personal guard of Li Hongsi's family, and he was originally a Salar.

It's just that he has a Han surname, takes a Chinese name, speaks Chinese, and has been completely sinicized from Han customs, so I can't see any difference from the Han people.

There are not many Salar people who belong to Xiningwei, there are about 2,000 Salar families, and there is only one deputy 1,000 households.

Speaking of which, they were originally a kind of Musuman, but in the Musuman Rebellion in the second year of Chongzhen, the Sinicized Salar people under the jurisdiction of Xiningwei stood on the side of the official army.

The Tusi family of the Han clan, who ruled the Salar people, continued to be under the command of Li Hongsi, the commander of the Xining Guard, and followed the Xining official army to fight bravely against the other Musu barbarian rebels in the Hehuang land around Xining.

At the same time, they also went on a killing spree against other white-capped Mu Subarians around Xining, thus gaining Li Hongsi's continued trust.

And this Han Yuchang's father, Han Jinzhong, the deputy of the Tusi of the Xunhua Salar people, died in the battle with other Mu Suman.

As the son of Han Jinzhong, the young Han Yuchang then took over his father's position with the support of Li Hongsi.

It's just that for more than a year, Xining has cut off contact with the imperial court, and Han Yuchang's position has not yet had time to be officially confirmed by the imperial court.

In the evening of the same day, Han Yuchang led the only remaining Salar cavalry in Xining City to charge out of the city.

However, not long after leaving the city, the Salar cavalry led by Han Chengen, the younger brother of Han Yuchang, fell into the siege of the Daxi camp thief army.

Han Yuchang saw from afar that Han Chengen, the leading clansman, failed to charge the battle and fell into the thief formation, so he immediately made a decision, turned around and ran back, and rushed back to the city with the remaining hundreds of horsemen.

At this time, the army and civilians led by Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng had not yet been assembled in the city.

As a result, such a breakthrough did not achieve any purpose except for the loss of Han Chengen and half of the Salar cavalry he led.

In the next month or so, the soldiers and civilians of Xining City led by Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng failed to break through again and again, and nearly 20,000 horses and horses led by Zhang Xianzhong and Lin Yangsheng led the Daxi Battalion and the Zhengshiwang Battalion to attack Xining City again and again at the cost of death and injury.

If it had been left in the past, Zhang Xianzhong and his generals in the Daxi Battalion would not have taken the initiative to launch a fierce attack on a fortified city again and again.

But this time it was different, because he knew the situation in Xining City.

After Han Yuchang's brother Han Chengen fell from his horse and was captured, he quickly chose to surrender, and told Zhang Xianzhong and his generals about the situation in Xining City.

As soon as he heard that this was the situation in Xining City, Zhang Xianzhong was overjoyed, and while asking Han Chengen to find a way to recruit his brother Han Yuchang, he personally supervised the main force to storm the south gate of Xining, and beat the south gate of Xining several times.

By the end of February, the last moment of the defenders of Xining City had finally arrived.

Xining City has been without food for many days, and in this more than a month of defending the city, because there is no hope of breaking through, the last batch of horses of the Salar cavalry, who were originally reluctant to kill and eat, were also killed and eaten by hungry officers and soldiers one after another.

On the night of March 2, Li Hongsi, the hereditary commander of Xining Wei, took Han Yuchang and other generals to inspect the city defense, and when they reached the south gate, they were assassinated by Han Yuchang, and the city was in chaos.

Han Yuchang's men, who had been prepared for a long time, took advantage of the chaos to seize the south gate, and opened the city gate from the inside, offering the city they had been holding for a year and a half to the thieves outside the city.

It was not that Han Yuchang wanted to surrender to Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the eight kings, if he could choose, he would prefer to surrender to Lin Dan Khan, who was besieging Xining City.

Lin Dan Khan of Chahar is also a serious Mongolian Khan, a descendant of the Mongol masters that his old Han family had been loyal to for generations before they surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.

The reason why he finally surrendered to the thief he himself despised was because he was really cornered.

Whether it is Li Hongsi or Li Zhensheng, after they have no hope of breaking through, they are all ready to die with the city.

But he, Han Yuchang, is a Salar after all, although he chose to stand on the side of the court in the Musuman Rebellion, he can't be martyred for this court that can't save Xining City.

Especially when he found out in the defense of the city that his clan brother who fell into the hands of thieves was not killed by the thieves outside the city, but became a leader, he quickly made his choice.