At the beginning, after Lin Yangcheng was ordered to settle in Jishi Pass, he also had the idea of Xining City.

He also once thought about occupying Xining City and the land of Hehuang, and since then he has been dormant for a few years, watching the changes in the three sides of Shaanxi outside Jishi Pass, and then waiting for the time to be ripe, and then go out of the east and fight for the northwest.

It's just that the city walls of Xining City are tall and strong, there are tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city, and there are cannons at the head of the city, which is not easy to fight.

As for the Ming official army in the city, although it has long been cut off from foreign aid, but it has been holding the city, not only the local rebellion of the Musu barbarian army can not attack it for a long time, that is, Lin Dan Khan led the Chahar and the Mongolian tribes of the West Sea to come, and the face of Xining City is also unable to attack for a long time, so it can only take the method of siege.

After Lin Yangcheng was ordered to lead the army to occupy Jishi Pass, he only tried to attack once, and then gave up the plan to lead the army to attack.

Next, just sit and wait for the food of the officials and soldiers in the city to be completely exhausted, and then the soldiers and civilians in the city will surrender without a fight.

However, what Lin Yangsheng didn't expect was that he waited for half a year at Jishi Pass, but before the defenders of Xining City surrendered without a fight, he waited for Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king.

And Xining City, which finally had civil strife after a long period of hardship and fatigue, was also cheaper than Zhang Xianzhong, who came to pick peaches.

"King of the World" Lin Chengcheng did not welcome Zhang Xianzhong's arrival, but in the face of Zhang Xianzhong's arrival, he could only twist his nose and admit it.

First, although Jishiguan is not far from Hezhou City, it is also hundreds of miles away, if the two sides really fall out, in addition to the officials and troops in Xining City, there is also the threat of the Haixi Mongols.

Second, Liu Xiyao, the reincarnation king in Hezhou City, said that he would leave, and he did not wait for Lin Chengcheng to withdraw to Hezhou, which also made Lin Chengcheng lose the opportunity.

In fact, in the final analysis, it is still the Daxi Camp of the Eight Kings Zhang Xianzhong, which is more "elite" and more "capable of fighting" than the team cultivated by Lin of the "King of the World", and at the same time, it is also more famous and notorious.

Lin Yangcheng also knows his own family affairs, and knows that although his subordinates have a large number, they are all rabble who have nothing left over and nothing to do, so he has never fought any decent hard battles, and he can't compare with those fierce generals and soldiers under Zhang Xianzhong who have survived a hundred battles.

In addition, there was no food or drink in Jishi Pass, and Zhang Xianzhong was voted for, so many people eat horses all day long, and he has to take care of the eight kings.

In this way, two days after Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to Jishi Pass, Lin Chengcheng, the king of the world, hesitated and switched to Zhang Xianzhong.

Now, Lin Chengcheng has merged his troops into Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi Camp, and everyone has become a group, but whenever he thinks of the coincidence, Lin Chengcheng's heart is not good.

This is in line with the old saying "it is better to come early than to come at a good time".

Because Xining City has long been at the end of the crossbow.

After the Musu chaos in the northwest, Xining City has become a lonely city in the wilderness of the river.

Not only did the people in the city lose contact with the outside of the city, but the officials and troops in the city also completely cut off communication with the officials and troops in the interior.

In the following year and a half, the guards of Xining City and the hastily recruited village warriors experienced several siege battles, and the men, grain, grass, ammunition and various materials for defending the city were seriously consumed, but they hardly received any replenishment from the imperial court.

First of all, the military salary was cut off, and he did not receive the money and food allocated by the imperial court for nearly two years.

However, this does not have much to do with this, because the family of Li Hongsi, the hereditary commander of Xining Wei, has guarded Xining City for generations, and it can be regarded as one of the few wealthy families in the northwest region, and it is the kind of wealthy family that rivals the country, and they can afford to pay for the money and food that defends the city.

But immediately afterwards, the leader of Qinghai Tumut, Huoluo Chitaiji, led his troops to withdraw, and the troops of Lin Dan Khan, who came to sweep and plunder, swept away the nomadic Tanguts, Tibetans and Qiang tribes in the Hehuang field outside Xining.

At this moment, the soldiers and civilians defending the city in Xining City not only cut off trade with the interior, but also cut off trade with the Mongolian tribes in Qinghai, and completely lost the external supplementary channels.

Even if the Li family in Xining City is rich, they can't buy anything from outside Xining City, not only can't buy grain and forage, but also can't buy cattle, sheep and horses.

At the beginning, Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng and other generals who defended the city relied on strict living within their means and implemented a strict rationing system in Xining City.

They collected all the food they could find in the city, mainly the Li family's own grain, and rationed it every day according to the three levels of the officials and soldiers who defended the city, the villagers who defended the city, and the people in the city.

Including Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, the two generals who were born in the city, also set an example and survived according to the quota set by themselves every day.

They originally thought that the Ming Dynasty in Beijing would send a large army to rescue Xining City after driving away the Jianyu who invaded Xuanda, so the Musuman Rebellion in the northwest would not last long at all, only half a year at most.

And Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng and other generals who defended the city also relied on this to stimulate the morale of the soldiers and civilians in the city, not only withstanding the Musuman Rebellion, but also withstanding the siege of Lin Dan Khan, and also withstanding the lack of materials in the city.

But as time passed, the officials and civilians in the city did not see the arrival of the imperial army.

Including Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, the backbones of the soldiers and civilians defending the city, they also doubted their previous judgment.

Could it be that the imperial court far away in Jingshi lost the war against the Jianyu?!

Otherwise, why would Lin Dan Khan, the originally powerful Chahar Ministry, flee to Qinghai?!

Otherwise, why hasn't the imperial army come to solve Xining until now?!

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen, who was far away in Beijing, accompanied the concubines and their children in the Forbidden City.

The two of them still didn't know anything about the situation outside Xining, especially the good situation in the Ming Dynasty.

On the contrary, the more they thought about the current situation, the more worried they became.

Especially when they thought that the Daming Jingshi, thousands of miles away, might be in a stormy situation, and thought of the tragic situation of the countless soldiers and civilians in Xining City who followed them to stick to the lonely city but starved to death, the two people faced the direction of the Daming Jingshi, knelt on the ground, and cried loudly:

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! I did my best! The minister did his best! Back then, Zhang patrolled Suiyang for only 300 days, but now the ministers are waiting for Xining, but it has been more than 400 days, when will the reinforcements come, when will the reinforcements come!? ”

Their cries could only be used to convince themselves, and of course it was impossible for Emperor Chongzhen, who was thousands of miles away, to hear them.

And the reason why these two men who insisted on waiting for help at the beginning were crying so much was because they didn't know the situation outside, they didn't know the news of Jianyu's defeat and retreat, and they were still worried that something must have gone wrong with the Jingshi thousands of miles away.

On the other hand, it is because Xining City has reached the point where the grain and grass are cut off and there is no way out.

In the past 400 days or so, Li Hongsi, the hereditary commander of Xiningwei from a big family, and Li Zhensheng, who is also a member of the Li family, have always taken the lead and set an example.

In particular, in terms of food rationing, he basically ate whatever he was given, and he shared weal and woe with the soldiers and civilians in the city.

As the main generals in the city, the two of them started with two meals a day, one dry meal and one gruel.

After a while, the food in the city was exhausted, and the two of them also changed to two meals a day of gruel mixed with various wild vegetables.

In the deep winter of Chongzhen's third year, the cereals in the city bottomed out, and even the main generals like Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng couldn't guarantee even one porridge a day.

As for the ordinary people in Xining City, by the end of Chongzhen's third year, they had long since run out of food supplies.

In the harsh winter of the third year of Chongzhen, countless soldiers and civilians in Xining City froze to death, starved to death, and died of disease.

The population of the city has also dropped by about half from about 50,000 at the beginning, and now it is less than 30,000.

Originally, Li Hongsi, who was born in the Xining Wei command family, still had some experience in sticking to the city, otherwise he would not have insisted on sticking to it.

Because since his youth, Xining City has been at the forefront of resisting the invasion of foreign races in the northwest, and it is even more common for Xining soldiers and civilians to be besieged by the army of Haikou and the army of the Tibetans.

Only this time, the situation is too special, not only do they have no food and grass inside, but also no reinforcements outside, and most importantly, after more than a year, they now have no original morale.

Originally, there was no food, and they could eat wild vegetables, eat tree bark, including their beloved war horses, and even dig up rats and sparrows for what they eat.

As long as they can wait for reinforcements in the end and usher in the final victory, they can pay as much as they want.

But now, when the rats in the city are eaten by the hungry soldiers and civilians, the reinforcements they have been waiting for have still not arrived.

This made Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng, who were the most determined in defending the city, begin to waver.

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Xining City was full of wounds and diseases, starvation everywhere, 30,000 soldiers and civilians not only lacked food and clothing, but also God fell into the ground, and the weather was abnormally cold.

Li Hongsi and Li Zhensheng discussed and discussed, but they could not find any other way to survive except to evacuate Xining.

After the two of them hugged their heads and cried in the direction of Zhongjing in the official office, they finally made up their minds to abandon the city and leave.