After ordering the whole army to be on alert, Zhou Kaihuang and the other officers hurriedly ran in the direction of the rearguard: "If there are not many pursuers, first defeat the pursuers and rob them of their weapons." ”

"Even if there are many of them, we must defeat them first." Zhao Tianba is alone, he has no subordinates to bring, and when it comes to life and death, his martial arts cannot be wasted, and he has to pounce on it desperately when he pulls out his waist knife.

In any case, the whereabouts of more than a thousand people cannot be hidden, and it is impossible to attack Tan Hong in front of him, so he can only pack up the pursuers behind him before Tan Hong is aware of it, which can be regarded as pulling some enemies on their backs - now these Ming troops are holding the idea of killing one and killing a pair to earn one, and the pursuers behind the raid always have a little more chance than storming Tan Hong's camp.

"No one is allowed to die until they kill a Tartar!" Seeing that all his hopes had been dashed, Zhou Kaihuang took the lead in rushing forward with a spear after giving this order to exchange his life for his life. Although the army has been organized, it is far less disciplined than under normal circumstances, and it is absolutely impossible for the whole army to turn back like an arm, and Zhou Kaihuang can't wait for the teams to keep up, so he took the people around him to cross the guard line and launch an attack, hoping to attack the pursuers by surprise.

Zhou Kaihuang had just crossed the guard jǐng cordon without taking two steps, when he saw a group of strong men with sticks rushing out from behind the rocks blocking the view of the bend of the river in front of him, their clothes and armor were very messy, most of them were wearing cloth clothes, and one or two people were wearing muddy armor or half-fan arm guards on their shoulders. Zhou Kaihuang first froze, quickly looked around the people in front of him, and saw that only one of them was still wearing a helmet, but it was a cavalry helmet, and this guy was wearing a coarse cloth military uniform, holding two wooden sticks, one large and one small, respectively.

The two groups, numbering nearly a hundred, faced each other silently, and a moment later two or three more men burst out from behind the rocks, one of them holding a bamboo pole with a few strands of red cloth tied to it. At this time, the leader of zhōngyāng on the opposite side also saw half of the red belt on the bamboo pole on Zhou Kaihuang's side - this red cloth was borrowed from a soldier, half of it was used as a military flag, and the other half was still left on the soldier's waist. Both sides took a long breath at the same time and slowly lowered their weapons.

"It's you!" Deng Ming had just squeezed into the front row at this time, and he immediately recognized that the leader on the opposite side was the young officer of the Tan Wen Department who he had seen on the dock.

The other party stared at Deng Ming for a while before he reacted, inserted the long sword in his hand into the mud at his feet, and hugged his fist towards Deng Ming: "It turned out to be Mr....... Mr. Deng? ”

Seeing Deng Ming nodding, the Ming army officer slowly glanced at the crowd here, and finally recognized Zhou Kaihuang and Zhao Tianba: "Why are you here?" Didn't you run away with your tail between your legs? ”

"Lao Tzu never knew what 'escape' was in his life! The boat is uncomfortable, and I want to go ashore and walk! Zhou Kaihuang held his head high, slowly inserted the waist knife back into the sheath, and looked disdainful: "It's you Tan family soldiers, Lao Tzu remembers that there are thousands of people who have spared the river, and now there are only a few left?" Then he looked back and asked one of his subordinates to go to the main force to report the situation.

The officer on the opposite side was also turning around and whispering something to a soldier behind him, but when he heard this, he suddenly turned his head and reprimanded with an angry face: "Will your grandfather escape?" Of the 1,300 brothers that Mr. Deng has saved, none of them are behind me! ”

Deng Ming looked at the other party, and the unknown officer was wearing a military boot on his left foot, but a straw shoe on his right foot, which was obviously hastily made, as if the sole of the shoe was pieced together from something like tree bark, and a rope was braided with green plants to tie it to the top of the foot and ankle.

Although Zhou Kaihuang was able to lead thousands of people on the march, but combat was another matter, just now he planned a surprise attack with the whole army to defeat the enemy army behind, and the result was dozens of people who followed. The two sides had been facing off for so long, until Zhou Kaihuang sent people to disarm the jǐng newspaper, and there were still a large number of people behind him who had not been notified to mobilize at all. The rest of Tan Wen on the opposite side was no better than Deng Ming's group, that officer was as successful as Zhou Kaihuang in reorganizing the rout, and sent scouts in style, just now when he learned that there were sneaky unknown soldiers in front of him, he was determined to raid, and he was caught off guard by the front, but only a few dozen people around him followed.

Fortunately, both armies were like this, not only did there not have a bloody conflict, but fortunately, they didn't make much noise, and they didn't even alarm Tan Hong's army.

"Has the Marquis of Xinjin rebelled?" After the guard was lifted, the officer opened his mouth and asked.

"Tan Hong, that thief! Come to a sticky end. Zhou Kaihuang briefly introduced what he had seen and heard.

During this time, the officer on the opposite side had been listening intently. Tan Hong's rebellion was not too unexpected for him, as the garrison of Wanxian, they had long known that Tan Yi and Tan Hong had an extraordinary relationship, and they had always acted in unison.

After pondering for a while, the officer suddenly remembered the etiquette and hugged his fist to Zhou Kaihuang: "Under the command of Marquis Fu, Li Xinghan, the commander of the left battalion." ”

Li Xinghan's name comes from Cao Cāo's poem "Viewing the Canghai", and the elders who gave him the name according to "rì moon trip, if out of it; Xinghan is splendid, if out of it" gave Li Xinghan this name. Li Xinghan entered the Qing army when he was six years old, and when he grew up, he became a member of Tan Wen's anti-Qing army, and felt that his name was very good, and he also had a "Xinghan" mouth.

Zhou Kaihuang also returned the salute with his fists: "Under the Yasukuni public account, the pro-soldiers are thousands of general Zhou Kaifa. ”

Seeing that the other party's eyes were on him, Zhao Tianba thought about it, and said bluntly: "Jinyi Wei Qianhu, Zhao Tianba." ”

"Jin Yiwei?" Li Xinghan's eyebrows furrowed, and he carefully looked Zhao Tianba up and down. After the Son of Yongli fled to Yunnan, there were few guards accompanying him, and in order to ensure that the puppet of Yongli could be firmly in his hands, Sun Kewang selected a group of officers and soldiers from the West Battalion to serve as the important post of Jinyi Guard. Later, Li Dingguo, the king of Jin, returned to Kunming and blasted away Sun Kewang, although the imperial guard was selected by Yongli, but the people of Jinyi Wei were all born in Xiying. Thinking of this, Li Xinghan asked, "Are you from the Jin Domain?" ”

"The King of Jin also works for the imperial court, and the people of the Jin clan also serve for the imperial court." Zhao Tianba replied nonchalantly.

"Aren't you thieves supposed to be in Yunnan? Isn't there a fierce battle in Yunnan? How did you escape to our Sichuan? "Just now I heard Zhou Kaihuang introduce Tan Hong's situation, Li Xinghan understood that the shape was sinister, so he moved the idea of helping each other in the same boat. However, as soon as he heard that Zhao Tianba was from Xiying, he suddenly became excited again, if the descendants of the Sichuan Ming Army and the Chuang Army just didn't like each other, then they didn't share the sky with Xiying.

In recent years, the armies of all parties who resisted the Qing Dynasty have stood under the banner of Yongli, but Xiying controls the Yongli court in Yunnan, and neither Sun Kewang nor Li Dingguo in Xiying has given the old Ming Tingchuan army a grain or a copper plate of military salary, nor has he praised a good word; Similarly, the old Sichuan army never cooperated with the Xiying operation, and Liu Wenxiu of the Xiying army would never help whether it was counterattacking Hanzhong or running Jianchang. Wen Anzhi had a way to get the Sichuan army and the rest of the camp to cooperate, but even the Yongli Imperial Court couldn't let the Sichuan army and the Xiying fight side by side.

Li Xinghan jumped towards Zhao Tianba as he spoke, and grabbed the latter's collar as soon as he stretched out his arm: "You coward traitor, why don't you protect the Son of Heaven in Yunnan?" ”

Zhao Tianba raised his hands up, grabbed the opponent's wrist and used force at the same time, trying to break the opponent's hand away. But Li Xinghan's hand strength was greater than Zhao Tianba imagined, and he didn't succeed when he earned it. Zhao Tianba's anger surged, and he was going to teach the other party a lesson when he started fighting, and at this time, Li Xinghan also noticed that the opponent's fist and foot kung fu seemed to be good, so he let go of Zhao Tianba's collar and began to fight.

In a blink of an eye, Deng Ming was stunned to see the two Ming army officers coming and going, and when they were pulled apart by Zhou Kaihuang, Li Xinghan's eyes were black, and Zhao Tianba's face was also bruised.

Licking the blood on the corner of his mouth, seeing Deng Ming walking to his side and seemed to want to say something, Zhao Tianba preemptively said: "Don't worry, sir, at this juncture, I won't be like this brainless idiot." ”

At this time, Li Xinghan was also wiping the bleeding wound, and seeing that Zhao Tianba, a western thief, was so polite to Deng Ming, he couldn't help but look at Deng Ming carefully. Originally, he thought that this person was most likely Yuan Zongdi's master and the like, but Zhao Tianba's actions made him a little suspicious, and he couldn't help but worry that this was also from Xiying. Because he didn't plan to accept the love of the camp, Li Xinghan put the grace of saving his life on Deng Ming's head, but if the other party was from Xiying, wouldn't he Li Xinghan have to accept the love of a western thief?

"Why did you Jin clan people come to Yunnan?" Li Xinghan remembered the question just now. The Sichuan army has always speculated about Xiying's intentions with the greatest malice, and then looked at Zhou Kaihuang, the remnant of the thief, a terrible thought suddenly rose from Li Xinghan's heart, and he asked in a trembling voice: "Are you traitors who have lost their conscience want to abandon the Son of Heaven and betray the court again?" ”

This time, they also scolded Zhou Kaihuang, and the people in Yuan Zong's first department were furious when they heard this: "You dog officers and soldiers are the ones who have lost their conscience, which way of wild dogs betrayed the imperial court under the city?" ”

As soon as the words came out, Li Xinghan himself knew that it was impossible, he was carried away by anger before he blurted out, but it was still impossible to be scolded by the traitor to his face, and the soldiers of the Tan Department immediately ridiculed each other.

"You bastards! I probably haven't seen a hero before! Seeing that the people behind Zhou Kaihuang couldn't take advantage, they raised the wooden stick in their hands again.

"I want to see who is a hero and who is a bear!" The people beside Li Xinghan also showed no weakness and raised the big stick in their hands.

This qiē in front of him made Deng Ming feel incredible--still under the nose of the enemy, his own people were about to start a firefight!

As a person hundreds of years later, whenever he read this history in the past, Deng Ming naturally regarded the Ming army's lineage, Chuang Ying, and Xiying as one camp, because they also fought under the banner of the Ming Dynasty, and they were all Han Chinese. But in the hearts of Zhou Kaihuang, Zhao Tianba and Li Xinghan, this is not the case at all, their father and brother have killed each other for more than ten years, each other's hands are full of each other's blood debts, and when they were children, they heard from their elders that each other's cruel bestiality, the hatred between them is not only deep but also constantly accumulating, compared to the blood feud with the Qing army, I am afraid it is not too much. In this era, except for Deng Ming, a lonely person, no one in the rest of the camp, the rest of the Xiying, or the descendants of the Ming army would think that the other party was "their own person".

Deng Ming always felt that Zhou Kaihuang's xìng was impatient, and Zhao Tianba was careful and thoughtful, and sometimes Zhou Kaihuang was impulsive and the latter would dissuade him, but now Zhao Tianba went to pull out his waist knife without saying a word, and Li Xinghan on the opposite side also drew his sword in his hand without saying a word, seeing a fire and approaching him.

"Do you want to cut or kill or choose the time?" It was actually Zhou Kaihuang who jumped out, he first stopped his subordinates who were leaping and jumping, and then stepped forward in front of Li Xinghan and his group. Zhou Kaihuang raised his arm and pointed behind him suddenly, although he didn't look back, he accurately pointed at Deng Ming: "If he is killed by Tan Thief, you will die!" ”

Deng Ming looked at the arm pointing at him in a daze, thinking that Zhou Kaihuang might have pointed at the wrong person. Zhou Kaihuang glanced back quickly, and made sure that he was pointing at Deng Ming, so he turned his head back and coughed to strengthen his tone: "Do you know his identity?" ”

"My identity?" Deng Mingxin said: "Ten days ago, I was a student of the Academy of Fine Arts, and now I claim to be a reader with amnesia. ”

Zhou Kaihuang drew the eyes of all the people around him to Deng Ming, including the people from Yuan Zong's first department, who also looked at Deng Ming's face seriously, and the people behind him were still tiptoeing and stretching their necks desperately forward, lest they couldn't see clearly, as if Deng Ming's identity and origin were written on his face, as long as he looked at it a few more times, he could see it.

Seeing that everyone around him was looking at Deng Ming intently, Zhou Kaihuang showed a hint of pride, he dodged aside slightly, and after waiting for a while to make everyone's waiting more eager, he said heavily: "This is the clan!" It's Your Highness! ”

"Wow!"

Including the people on Yuan Zongdi's side, they also exclaimed together, and then they started talking about it. Several officers immediately said that in fact, they had long seen that Deng Ming was unusual, how could Yuan Zongdi's status as a prince of the country be so noble, how could he send his own personal guard captain to protect a new "master" for no reason! The officers said that it was only because of the urgency of the war that this idea had been lurking in the bottom of their hearts and had not been made public.

With the help of these clever Zhuge Liang, soon the people in the Yuan Sect were convinced that Deng Ming was the clan. As for which sect disciple it was, Zhuge Liang was very cautious and did not explain, and only waited for Zhou Kaihuang to announce it one by one.

However, Zhou Kaihuang did not announce it, he hoped that Deng Ming would speak out at this critical moment and persuade everyone to stabilize the morale of the army.

At the same time, Li Xinghan also vaguely remembered that when he first met Deng Ming, he felt that this person was a little special, and Deng Ming constantly asked Shuiying Qianzong to cross the old Sichuan army across the south bank, which was not at all like what Chuang Camp and Xiying did. At that time, they were only concerned about crossing the river by the river, and they were in a hurry and did not inquire much.

Now with Zhou Kaihuang's prompt, Li Xinghan gradually understood what Deng Ming was different from others, maybe it was the temperament of the children of the clan.

Deng Ming has no scars on his face and hands, let alone a disability, probably because he has a noble status and has never been on the battlefield; Deng Ming has a tall figure, a white face, a smooth forehead without wrinkles, and obviously has not engaged in hard work, nor has the heavy pressure of life; No wonder Zhou Kaihuang has so much respect for Deng Ming, and it makes sense for Zhao Tianba to accompany Deng Ming - a very important disciple of the clan, it is worth sending Jinyi guards to protect him.

"Humble greetings to Your Highness." Since he was not a thief or a thief, Li Xinghan immediately remembered Deng Ming's life-saving grace. For the bloody battle of the Ming Dynasty, and was rescued by the clan, the clan is closer to the Sichuan army of the Ming court after all! So far, everything that happened today can be explained. Li Xinghan immediately knelt down on one knee in the mud: "Forgive me for being in armor and not being able to pay full salutes." Dare to ask His Highness? ”

Seeing Li Xinghan kneeling, the officers and soldiers of the Tan Wen Department behind him also saluted together and sang in unison: "Your Highness." ”

At this time, Deng Ming also recovered from the initial shock, he guessed Zhou Kaihuang's intentions in his heart, and felt that he needed to look at this person who had always been a little impatient: "I didn't expect Zhou Kaihuang to be so impatient, well, now it is true that we can't kill each other, this Li Xinghan claims that there are more than 1,000 people behind him, plus more than 2,000 of our people, and if we work together, we may be able to break through Tan Hong's block; This group of people has a deep prejudice against the people who break into the camp and the western camp, and it is obvious that they can only be suppressed by carrying them out of the clan. In these few seconds, Brother Zhou actually thought so thoroughly, and immediately put it into action, what a masterpiece. ”

After thinking that he understood Zhou Kaihuang's intentions and plans, Deng Ming began to congratulate himself that he was also stunned by Zhou Kaihuang's remarks just now, instead of jumping up immediately and categorically denying it, otherwise it would be out of control now: "Why didn't Zhou Kaihuang just say which vassal family I am?" I don't know anything about the Ming clan at all, if I talk about one nonsense, maybe the age is wrong, or someone has seen it, or I show my feet in a few words, so don't people immediately see that it is an impostor? ”

Deng Ming hurriedly took a few steps to help Li Xinghan, he couldn't watch others kneel for him.

Li Xinghan and his subordinates were still waiting for an answer, and Deng Ming couldn't let them wait forever, so he had to say vaguely: "I really have something unspeakable, please don't worry, I will naturally make it clear to everyone when I return to Fengjie." ”

Seeing that Deng Ming still refused to reveal his identity after all, Zhou Kaihuang and Zhao Tianba glanced at each other, and they both felt a little regretful. Deng Ming has not let go for so many days, obviously he has deep concerns, and if they forcibly make it clear, I am afraid that they will be denied.

Zhao Tianba and Zhou Kaihuang's small actions could not escape Li Xinghan's eyes, and he said to himself: "These two guys probably know the identity of His Highness. ”

Those Zhuge Liang of Yuan Zong's first department, some guessed the Han Wang family in their hearts, some guessed the Andong Wang family, and some guessed that it was the Yongli prince, just waiting for Zhou Kaihuang to announce or Deng Ming himself to admit it. Seeing that Deng Ming and Zhou Kaihuang were strictly guarding secrets, these Zhuge Liang made an unfathomable and profound appearance, and refused to answer the curious questions of the people around him: "It's not good to say it, if Your Highness doesn't want to say it, wouldn't it be against Your Highness's original intention to say it directly." If you make a mistake, wouldn't it damage your image of Zhuge Liang?

The expressions of these people also fell in Li Xinghan's eyes, and he thought: "I'm afraid that the true identity of this sect is only known to Zhou Kaihuang and this western thief, and most of the others don't seem to know it yet." ”

When the officers and soldiers of the Tan Ministry of Culture and Culture saw Deng Ming's vague words, some people immediately made an uproar, obviously they were suspicious of Zhou Kaihuang's words, and Zhou Kaihuang couldn't help but be anxious when he saw that there was another turmoil.