The town of Shikou, where Liu Guoneng is entrenched, is not large, and is located in a small basin surrounded by mountains. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Its north, west and south sides are all mountains, only the east side is a river valley area, from west to east out of this river valley, there are two mountain roads, the north one, leading to the northeast Lingshi, the south one, leading to the southwest Fenxi.

At the narrowest point of the valley to the east of Shikou Town, two mountains are sandwiched between the north and south mountains, forming an exit known as "Shimen".

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Luliang Mountain was full of green forest heroes who raised troops against the Yuan, and a righteous army entrenched here was in this place where the two mountains were sandwiched, the narrowest place was only more than 100 steps wide, and a high wall was built on the road, and an arched door hole was opened in the middle, so that people and horses could enter and exit.

When Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, set up the world, the righteous army entrenched here either joined the Ming army of the Northern Expedition, or was wiped out by the Ming army of the Northern Expedition.

Liu Guoneng, who called himself the "King of the Collapsed Heaven" after defecting to Wang Jiayin, took the initiative to ask Yingzhen to guard the South Road, because he took a fancy to the steep mountains in this place.

After Liu Guoneng led a large group of men and horses to Shikou, he quickly organized people to repair this Shimen Pass, which had been abandoned for more than 200 years, and sent his most trusted brother Liu Guocheng to lead a heavy army to defend it.

At the same time, he also set up camp on the two mountain roads leading to Lingshi and Fenxi outside Shimen Pass, and set up a village as two outposts of Shimen Pass.

Then, for the next two months, the king of the heavens continued to send out bands of thieves to search and loot the small villages scattered in the surrounding valleys nearby, and at the same time became the king of the mountain in the town of Shikou.

At the beginning of May, Li Banghua personally led the Ming official army and appeared on the mountain road leading from Lingshi to Shikou.

Li Banghua, as a cabinet veteran and minister of military aircraft, entered the Jin Governor, his status is noble, and he should not have been on the front line in person, and the cronies of the mining camp under his command Li Bei and Lu Yuanding, as well as Lu Xiangsheng, Shaanxi generals Wang Chengen, and Guan Weixian, also persuaded him not to take risks, in case of a mistake, the overall situation of Shanxi thieves may have immediate chaos.

But Li Banghua insisted on going, especially after the emperor's decree and the subsequent reports of thieves from Hong Chengchou and Zhang Zongheng reached him.

Now that there is reliable information that it has been concluded that the lair of the main force of the thieves is in this mountainous area to the west, what are you waiting for?

I took the initiative to invite Ying to come to the front line of Shanxi to supervise and suppress thieves, so why did I come?

As for the security issues that the generals under his command thought of, Li Banghua certainly thought of them.

But the power of the musket team mentioned by Hong Chengchou in the thief report in front of the thieves made him even more convinced that the mine camp he built single-handedly had the latest muskets, the latest artillery, and the latest grenades of the Ming Dynasty, etc., what danger could he have in such a situation?

If in such a situation, he did not dare to go to the front line in person, and did not dare to go with the army to fight the outlying strongholds of the thief army.

So when he learned that Shanxi Town was defeated again at the foot of Huanglu Ridge and two generals were killed, Li Banghua could no longer sit still.

First, he sent Li Xianzhong to quickly lead the musket team of the Chinese army in the mine camp with 500 people, with a bunch of new firearms to reinforce Wang Guoliang, and then handed over the latest battle situation of Hong Chengchou and Wang Guoliang to the Jinyi guards who came to deliver the decree before to bring them back to Beijing and report to His Majesty the Emperor.

Finally, he sent Wang Chengen, the new commander-in-chief of the Shaanxi army, to lead 2,000 elite soldiers of Shaanxi Fubiao to Shilou to reinforce Hong Chengchou, and sent Guan Weixian to lead the remaining Shaanxi army to slowly advance westward from Fenxi.

And he personally led the mine camp and Tianxiong camp brought by Beizhili, and on the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival, he quickly went west from Lingshi and went straight to the direction of Shikou.

The spirit stone is not far from Shikou, almost two hundred miles up and down, and there is a ready-made road to walk.

Li Banghua led the army under the guidance of the Lingshi local inspection department of the township soldiers, set off at the sixth day of the fifth month, and two days later on the eighth day of the fifth month, just after noon, followed the inspection department of the township soldiers to fight the front station of the former army Li Bei's department, on the mountain road from Lingshi to Shikou, found the thief army patrol under the command of Liu Guineng, the king of the collapsed sky.

The unknown thief patrol is not Li Bei's opponent at all, this team of more than 100 thieves was broken up by the musket team in front of the mine camp commanded by General Li Bei, and in the subsequent pursuit, Li Bei found the camp set up by the thief army on the road not far from the mountain, and immediately sent someone to report to Li Banghua.

At around Shen Shi in the afternoon of the same day, Li Banghua rushed to the east of the thief camp with the main force under his command.

The camp of this thief army is very simple, it is the combination of the more common earthen fence, the horse and the log fence that are more common in the thief army, outside the camp is a long trench dug out by hand, using the soil and stone excavated from the long trench, piling up an earthen wall, and then putting a wooden horse between the trench and the earthen wall, erecting a wooden fence against the wall behind the horse, and tamping the fence and the earthen wall together with soil.

To put it a little more particularly, behind the earthen fence, a watchtower was erected at regular intervals, both for observation and as a platform for archers to shoot from a high position.

The camp of the thief army in front of Li Banghua was like this, but it was only a semicircle, and there was nothing on the side facing the direction of the stone gate in the rear.

And due to the topography of the mountain road, only two watchtowers were built behind the earthen fence.

Of course, no matter how many watchtowers it has, no matter what shape of the camp and how high the fence is, it is all floating clouds in front of Li Banghua.

After the sentry team sent out by the thief camp before was defeated by Li Bei's troops, some of them fled back and reported the arrival of the officers, soldiers and horses.

When Li Pei led more than 1,000 people to stop about 250 steps in front of the camp, the archers in the thief camp could not shoot the official army even if they stood on the watchtower, and the thief army in the camp did not dare to go out of the camp to fight except for the strict battle.

When Li Banghua led the army to arrive, the men and horses in the thief camp were even more afraid to leave the camp.

Li Banghua first asked Li Bei to send people with shields to persuade him to surrender, but no one in the thief camp answered, and finally was shot back by the thief archers.

Seeing this situation, Lu Xiangsheng couldn't help but come over to ask for battle, and was willing to make a military order to break through the thief camp in one battle.

For such a battalion, Li Banghua knew in his heart, of course, he would not let his army suffer unnecessary casualties, and once again rejected Lu Xiangsheng and the generals of the Tianxiong battalion to ask for battle, but ordered Lu Yuanding to lead the artillery battalion to the front to set up a formation.

This time, Li Banghua took the main force of the mine battalion into the Jin Governor's Division, and the equipment he brought was all special, all of which were the latest, in addition to the Chongzhen type of front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun, as well as grenades, incendiary bombs, etc., there were also sixty Chongzhen type rear-loading smoothbore mother guns improved by the Fran machine.

Each Chongzhen type rear-loading smoothbore mother cannon, with a gun carriage weighing 800 catties, a maximum firing range of 2,000 steps, the best killing distance of 600 steps, and an iron projectile weighing 5 catties and 6 taels.

In addition, each mother cannon is equipped with eight sub-cannons, with a cumulative weight of 2,400 catties, and it has been transported here with great difficulty from the land of Beijing over mountains and mountains, trekking mountains and rivers for thousands of miles.

Li Banghua gave an order, Lu Yuanding immediately led the artillery team of the Chinese army in the mine camp to pull the horse-drawn cannons, passed through the army, pulled ten artillery pieces to the front of the formation, about 200 steps away from the enemy camp, untied the horses, turned the muzzle, aimed at the thief army camp in front, and then commanded more than 100 gunners of the ten artillery squads to start loading the sub-guns and adjusting the firing angle.

After each artillery squad is ready, the gun commander in charge of ignition must raise the torch in his hand to signal.

Lu Yuanding saw that the ten artillery pieces lined up in a row had been prepared, and immediately held high the command flag, signaled to Li Banghua, the current commander of the enemy, and waited for his order.

Li Banghua had been staring at Lu Yuanding for a long time more than a dozen steps behind the artillery team, waiting for this moment to come, and when he saw this, he immediately ordered: "Order, ignite the fire and open the cannon!" ”

The voice is calm and majestic.

When Lu Yuanding heard the order, he immediately waved the small red flag in his hand vigorously, and shouted: "Ignite the fire and open the cannon!" ”

Ten Chongzhen rear-loading smoothbore mother cannons improved from the Franco machine cannon lit the fuse above the fire door at almost the same time, and then at almost the same time, smoke and fire erupted from the muzzle of the gun, and the sound of "bang", "bang" and "bang" came immediately, and the ground under everyone's feet trembled.