585 Erwei Kaifeng, military disaster

[Today's chapter is presented, please collect and subscribe!!] 】

As for why Li Zixiao appeared in Chenliu, Henan at this time.

That's because in two months, Li Zicheng's men and horses, because of the interference of Qi Wei's troops, lost the battle of Xinyang and were forced to shift the direction of the attack.

Immediately, he led people back to Kaifeng, unexpectedly conquered Xuzhou, and after obtaining sufficient supplies, he went straight to Kaifeng again.

After Li Zixiao got the news that Li Zicheng had returned to Kaifeng, he immediately couldn't sit still, and immediately sent troops to Kaifeng.

However, when Li Zixiao led 30,000 horses and horses to march to Chenliu, Henan, he temporarily stopped.

Because, at this time, Li Zixiao got accurate news that Li Zicheng's army had surrounded Kaifeng again two days ago.

This time, Li Zicheng commanded more than 300,000 horses, including 40,000 elite soldiers and 300,000 co-conscripts, and his momentum was far greater than the first time.

They claimed to be the '600,000 army', and once again surrounded Kaifeng, as if they were vowing to capture Kaifeng.

The elite soldiers mentioned here refer to the elite men and horses of Li Zicheng's henchmen, all of whom are armed with armor and sophisticated weapons and have undergone strict training.

These well-armed and well-trained bandits are all old bandits who have followed Li Zicheng along the way and have seen blood, and their combat power is comparable to that of the elite of the Ming army.

It is now that the officers and soldiers of the Ming army and guard in the Ming Dynasty have been beaten by them all the way, and they are no longer their opponents.

And the 300,000 co-operative troops are actually just displaced people who have been coerced by Li Zicheng along the way.

Of course, most of these displaced people are young and strong men and women, but they lack training, weapons and armor.

After all, although Li Zicheng has conquered many counties and cities in the past year or so, the armor and weapons he snatched from the Ming army are also limited.

Li Zicheng has always been fighting on the go, he doesn't produce anything, and his weapons and armor can only rob the Ming army.

Coupled with the damage and other circumstances, in fact, the armor and weapons that Li Zicheng snatched at this time can only equip the elite soldiers in his hands.

He carried more than 300,000 displaced people, a few of whom were equipped with worn armor and weapons.

Most of the other homeless people were still armed with rusty knives and tattered padded jackets without armor.

Many did not even have a long rusty knife, and could only hold a sharpened stick or bamboo to use as a weapon.

Don't think that the 300,000 displaced people under Li Zicheng have no combat power.

Of course, to be honest, the combat power of these homeless people is definitely not comparable to the 40,000 elite soldiers under Li Zicheng.

But these homeless people have one of the biggest advantages, that is, there are many people!

Moreover, these homeless people went to the battlefield one by one, and they fought even more fiercely than Li Zicheng's elite soldiers, and they all fought in a way that did not cost their lives.

Because, Li Zicheng had a rule, went to the battlefield and killed a Ming soldier, then these homeless people could get a tael of food.

It was for these two grains that became the driving force for these displaced people to go to the battlefield, all of them did not want to die, and they rushed forward.

These homeless people knew very well that without Li Zicheng, they would have died a long time ago, either frozen to death or starved to death.

Now that they are on the battlefield, conquer the castle in front of them, and kill all those Ming troops, they will be able to get food in the city and continue to live.

And Li Zicheng also used these displaced people as cannon fodder to consume the Ming army.

Every time he attacked the Ming army's city, he would first send his hundreds of thousands of homeless troops to storm the Ming army's city, regardless of whether it could be defeated or not, let these homeless people fight for two days.

After two days of fighting, Li Zicheng didn't care how many of his homeless people died, anyway, no matter how many people died, he was not as fast as he coerced.

But after the battle in the past two days, the Ming soldiers in the city attacked by Li Zicheng had already suffered heavy casualties, and those who were alive were exhausted.

Then Li Zicheng was willing to send his elite men and horses to attack and take the city in one fell swoop.

It was by relying on this very scoundrel tactic that Li Zicheng was able to conquer more than 30 cities in Kaifeng Prefecture, Runing Prefecture, Nanyang Mansion in Henan, and northern Hubei Province in just over a year.

As a result, Li Zicheng obtained more armor and food, and also made his army of homeless people grow bigger and bigger like a snowball.

Over the past year or so, with the continuous expansion of the strength of his subordinates, Li Zicheng has become more and more confident.

This time, he once again besieged Kaifeng, first, he took a fancy to the prosperity of Kaifeng City, and he would not forget how much benefit he brought to him when he conquered Luoyang last year.

It can be said that Li Zicheng's conquest of Luoyang last year was completely a turning point in his career as a bandit.

From Luoyang City, Li Zicheng obtained a large amount of armor, food, gold and silver, which allowed him to rapidly expand his strength in the next period of time.

During the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng had been fighting in the Ming army that encircled and suppressed them.

However, unlike the results a few years ago, this time it was no longer the Ming army chasing them, but they continued to conquer cities, and the Ming army could only continue to defend.

The offense and defense have changed momentum. Now it is Li Zicheng's turn to be the attacker, and the Ming army is the defender.

Although Li Zixiao was very anxious after learning that Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng for the second time, he also knew that Li Zicheng would not be able to defeat Kaifeng in a short period of time.

Moreover, at this time, those who are more anxious than him should be those people in the imperial court and Chongzhen.

According to the news that Li Zixiao got from the capital, Chongzhen was indeed anxious after getting the news that Li Zicheng was attacking Kaifeng again.

After Chongzhen heard the news, he immediately ordered the superintendent Ding Qirui, the governor of Baoding, Yang Wenyue, and the general soldiers Zuo Liangyu, Hu Dawei, Yang Dezheng, Fang Guoan and other Ming army generals to immediately rush to Kaifeng.

This is the general of the Ming army, the general, it is estimated that he will lead 180,000 troops to rescue Kaifeng.

It's no wonder that Chongzhen is in a hurry, you must know that Kaifeng is too important for the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, Kaifeng can be described as a 'pearl' of the entire Henan and the entire Ming Central Plains, and it is the most prosperous place in the entire Central Plains of China.

In the Ming court, some people proposed that if you want to protect the Ming Dynasty, you must protect the Central Plains, and to protect the Central Plains, you must keep Kaifeng.

If the Ming Dynasty wanted to prevent Li Zicheng from continuing to grow bigger, it must not let Li Zicheng and lay Kaifeng again.

Looking at the consequences of Li Zicheng's defeat of Luoyang, it can be imagined.

And if Li Zicheng conquers an ordinary small county town, he will not get much armor and money and food at all, and only by conquering big cities like Luoyang and Kaifeng can Li Zicheng's strength expand dramatically in a short period of time.

Therefore, at this time, after Li Zicheng opened the second siege, the Ming court was anxious, Chongzhen was also anxious, and nearly 200,000 Ming troops were rushing over from the surrounding state capitals to help.

Then at this time, Li Zixiao doesn't need to be too anxious, if he rushes to Kaifeng first at this time, wouldn't he have to be paired with Li Zicheng first.

Li Zixiao was not so stupid, so he ordered his subordinates to stay in Chenliu for the time being and wait and see what happened.

Moreover, because Li Zixiao has interfered with the situation in Henan several times in the past two years, Li Zicheng's development trajectory at this time is no longer the same as the original history.

Even the situation in the Central Plains at this time is very different from the original history.

Of course, the only thing that hasn't changed is Li Zicheng's coveting of Kaifeng City.

After all, the prosperity of Kaifeng City is placed there, and in any case, Li Zicheng is a temptation, and this will not change.

The consequence of this is that Li Zixiao is no longer able to predict Li Zicheng's next move through the development trajectory of Li Zicheng that he learned in his previous life.

Li Zixiao can only formulate the next step against Li Zicheng according to the actual situation, but fortunately, the strength in his hands is not what it used to be.

The time entered the end of December of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, but at this time, there was still a long time before the traditional Chinese Spring Festival.

In the past four or five days, Li Zicheng has been attacking Kaifeng, but strangely, the intensity of their attack is not large.

At the same time, in the past few days, Ding Qirui, who had received Chongzhen's strict orders, had led nearly 100,000 Ming troops to Zhuxian Town, and Ming troops arrived one after another.

As everyone knows, this time Li Zicheng wants to play a big game, and the hundreds of thousands of Ming troops led by Ding Qirui are entering Li Zicheng's trap.

On this day, ten miles west of Chen Liucheng, in a village called Chenjiabao.

"Official, please, don't take away this grain, this is the last winter food for our family.

I still have my mother and three children at home, if you take this food, we won't be able to survive this winter!

Please, don't take this grain, I'll kowtow to you! ”

In this village, a middle-aged man was kneeling in front of a Ming army general at this time, kowtowing vigorously and begging.

"Damn, leave food for you, what do you eat, get out!"

The general of the Ming army looked at this middle-aged man, did not give up, held one of his legs and refused to let go, anger surged up, and kicked him out.

Behind this Ming general, there were three Ming soldiers, who were sneering at this scene, and they were still carrying three bags of grain on their backs.

These two bags of grain were just what they had just found from this family, and they were about to take them away.

"Let's go."

The Ming Jun looked at the middle-aged man who was kicked out by himself and fell to the ground and vomited blood, without the slightest pity in his eyes, he snorted coldly, and turned to the four soldiers and said.

"You can't go, leave the food for us."

At this time, the middle-aged man who was kicked and vomited blood rushed over again, hugged the back of the Ming army general, and refused to let go.

This middle-aged man's name is Chen Yufeng, he is an authentic farmer, and he lives honestly in Chenjiabao.

After a year of hard work, paying taxes and rent, there was only a small amount of food left, barely enough to support their family of six through this winter.

Fortunately, Chen Yufeng's ancestors left him a few thin fields, and his family's life in the whole village was quite good.

Fortunately, they live in the Kaifeng area, and the people here live a decent life and have not encountered serious banditry.

However, Chen Yufeng would never have thought that disaster would fall from the sky today.

This morning, a group of officers and soldiers broke into their village, and when they came in, they demanded 50 catties of grain from each family.

How can the people of Chenjiabao be willing, if they hand over all the grain, they won't be able to survive this winter.

All the people of Chenjiabao refused to pay grain.

As a result, in the afternoon, this group of Ming sergeants was in a stroke, and the general manager of Qian, who led the team, directly ordered that every family should search for grain, and all the food found was taken away, but if there were resistors, they could be killed on the spot.

As a result, soon the entire Chenjiabao was full of mourning, and the screams continued.

In the entire Chenjiabao, there are no longer a few men like Chen Yufeng who resist, and they can't watch these grains being taken away.

Otherwise, this winter, the whole family will have no food to eat, so they will have to leave their homes and go out to beg.

"Why, don't give you face, look for death."

The Ming general, who was held by Chen Yufeng on the back of the waist, was really angry, a trace of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes, and he pulled out the long knife on his waist with a 'poof', and then stabbed it fiercely towards the back of the waist.

Poof!

The sharp long knife stabbed directly into Chen Yufeng's chest, causing him to fall in a pool of blood.

"Ahh Yu Feng, Yu Feng, you actually killed my man, I fought with you. ”

As a result, Chen Yufeng's wife was also emotional when she saw Chen Yufeng being killed, and rushed towards the general.

A trace of ruthlessness flashed in the eyes of the general, and he simply didn't do anything, went straight up, hacked Chen Yufeng's wife to death with a knife, and fell beside Chen Yufeng.

Wow wow!

The murder of Chen Yufeng and his wife frightened two eight or nine-year-old children in the house, and there was also a bedridden seventy-year-old mother and a baby in swaddling clothes.

"Let's go."

However, those Ming soldiers didn't care about this, and after they saw Chen Yufeng and his wife killed, they turned around and left with food.

Such a situation is happening everywhere in Chenjiabao at this time.

It can even be said that Chen Yufeng's family is not the worst, and some of the people of Chenjiabao were slaughtered by these Ming soldiers because of the fierce resistance.

Even, even the only big landlord in their fort, the old rich family of Chen was inevitably threatened by this group of fierce soldiers this time.

In the end, Chen Laocai had to grit his teeth and take out a thousand taels of silver to try to send away this group of soldiers and ruffians.

However, what Chen Laocai never expected was that the Ming army had already targeted him and directly ordered to kill his entire family.

In the end, Chen Laocai and his sons were arrested, tortured to extract confessions, and found the cellar where Chen Laocai hid his silver, and also found several granaries in Chen Laocai's mansion, which could hold more than a dozen truckloads of ministers' grain.

"Haha, with this food, we can go back and deal with the general." That Ming Jun Qian said with a laugh.

"My lord, this time it's all thanks to you!" A Ming sergeant next to him patted his ass.

This Ming Junqian always smiled and said to this henchman: "Second brother, you will come out with five hundred taels of silver later, and give it to the brothers who came out this time."

The rest of the silver, you find a way to put it away for Lao Tzu, and find a place to hide it temporarily, you know? ”

The Ming soldier next to him seemed to have known this for a long time, and even said that he had dealt with this kind of thing many times for this Qianzong, and he was familiar with it.

The Ming sergeant chuckled and said, "Don't worry, my lord, I will take care of it." ”

"Well, that's good." That Ming Jiang Qian nodded with a satisfied smile.