***

Many of the women in the village were ravaged to death, including girls of four or five years old, and old women in their fifties and sixties, whose bodies were abandoned naked by the haystacks.

The big iron pot exuded the smell of meat, and when you looked closely, you could see that all human arms and thighs were churning in the boiling water.

Seeing this, Qin Mu's stomach churned, and he vomited on the spot, and after vomiting, the raging anger almost made his hair stand firm;

He overturned an iron pot with his sword, and shouted: "Come, cut it off for me, cut off the heads of all the rebels, and marinate them in lime, damn it, these beasts, beasts"

More than a thousand heads, under Qin Mu's roar, were quickly cut down, and the corpses were still in a pond, and then filled with soil, and after doing this, it was almost the end of time.

In a small river not far from Liujia Village, 2,000 soldiers were jumping into the river to wash away the mud and blood stains all over their bodies, and the whole small river was muddy.

Under the shade of the trees by the river, Qin Mu, Meng Ke and other generals gathered by a rudimentary map to discuss the next battle plan.

"My lord, this time I can easily achieve a big victory, there is a bit of luck, the main thing is that the rebels are too light on the enemy, from the point of view that they rushed out, and the formation remained tight, Zhang Qi's 20,000 forwards who captured Yuanzhou are not ordinary rabble, they must be the elite selected from the rebels, we rushed straight to the city of Yuanzhou before, and the idea of finding Zhang Qi in a decisive battle seems a bit hasty." Meng Ke said calmly.

Qin Mu nodded silently, and Su Jin said: "Yuanzhou is the gateway to the right side of the river, if Yuanzhou is lost, the whole province of Jiangxi will be ruined, the throat of Liangguang will be broken, and the fence of Jinling will be lost, even if we can surrender Gannan." But did Nanchang and Jinling just watch Zhang Xianzhong occupy it? ”

Huo Sheng said with a smile: "Brother Su is thinking too much, it would be good to keep Ganzhou with our current strength, as for Nanchang and Jinling, aren't there still Lu Daqi and Zuo Liangyu?" Didn't the adults say it, let's fight a battle, it's not to protect any bullshit Nanchang, as long as the military power is brought out and all parties are deterred, the goal will be achieved, Brother Su really wants to swallow half of Jiangnan in one bite. Haha"

Huo Sheng's words were indeed Qin Mu's original thoughts, but when he said this, it was somewhat sarcastic to Su Jin, Liu Meng couldn't stand it, so he said: "It may not be impossible to swallow half of the Jiangnan wall in one bite, mainly to see if the adults are willing to pull up the banner." Zuo Liangyu was defeated by Li Zicheng in Zhuxian Town, and his elite was lost, and after retreating to Xiangyang, he drove the people of a county to fill the army. Soon another 200,000 horses were raised, and now the whole of Jiangnan has to rely on him;

Besides, Zhang Xianzhong, a few months ago, only one or two thousand remnants of the army were defeated and shrank in the area of Danshui, but after capturing Huangmei. Immediately pulled up tens of thousands of horses, and then captured Nanchang, and the number of men and horses under his command increased dramatically to 200,000, and now it has the entire Huguang. The number of rebels is nearly 500,000, and these are only two or three months, what Zuo Liangyu and Zhang Xianzhong can do. We have Gannan as the foundation, but we may not be able to do it.

Huo Sheng didn't refute, just looked at Qin Mu with a smile, not only him, but Cui Feng, Ling Zhan, and Ning Yuan also had the same expression as Huo Sheng, and they all looked at Qin Mu with a hint of expectation.

Qin Mu himself is not moved, this is an era where everything is possible, Zhang Xianzhong's one or two thousand remnants of the army were defeated, and in just a few months, they can become hundreds of thousands of horses and horses, sweeping the entire Huguang, this kind of temptation is not something that ordinary people can resist, not to mention that Qin Mu now has Gannan as the foundation, and the conditions are more superior than the original Zhang Xianzhong.

But Qin Mu, who is familiar with the trend of history, knows that he can't do this, and the Ming Dynasty will die in a few months.

Even if he really occupies half of the south of the Yangtze River, like Zhang Xianzhong, he will pull up hundreds of thousands of rabble, will he be able to resist the Manchu iron cavalry by relying on hundreds of thousands of rabble?

Li Zicheng still has an army of millions, what is the result? At this time, you must not do stupid things that are greedy and chew too much.

According to the original historical trend, let Nanming hold on, then he still has more than a year to develop, but if he gets up and occupies half of the south of the Yangtze River, he will have to deal with the counterattack of the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, and directly withstand the attack of the Manchu Iron Cavalry, Qin Mu does not think that he has so much stakes and can cope with it, but the possibility of making wedding clothes for the Manchu Qing will reach ninety percent.

But Huo Sheng and the others didn't know that the Ming Dynasty was about to fall into the country, and they didn't know that the Manchu Qing Dynasty would sweep across the north and south of the river, so they all felt that Qin Mu was too conservative.

Qin Mu didn't open his mouth to explain, but he just looked up at the sky as if he had unintentionally, Huo Sheng, and Cui Feng secretly exchanged a look, including Liu Meng, and never mentioned anything about occupying the entire Jiangnan.

Qin Mu looked at Sima An, who was with the army, Sima An stroked his long hair, and said unhurriedly: "There is no doubt that Zhang Qi's 20,000 strikers are the elite selected by the rebels, but from the results of today's battle, although the other party is the elite of the rebels, with our 2,000 strong forces, if it is a field battle, there is still a chance of victory, which is also in line with the original intention of the adults to deter the enemy in a war;

However, in this way, my army may also have to pay a lot of casualties. And judging from the information currently available, the rebel general Zhang Qi is not a reckless person, after he quickly captured Yuanzhou, the right gateway to the river, he only divided his troops to plunder the surrounding counties, and the main forward did not continue to advance eastward;

This is obviously waiting for Zhang Xianzhong's follow-up army to arrive, so as not to go too deep alone, it can be seen that between the advance and retreat, Zhang Qi is just right, such a person, it is difficult for him to go out to fight in the field, once the first battle is unfavorable, he will also be willing to retreat to Yuanzhou City, waiting for Zhang Xianzhong's army to come to help. ”

Cui Feng said impatiently: "Mr. Sima, if you have any strategy, just say it directly, time is pressing, you better sell less." ”

Sima An smiled calmly, pointed to Wanzai County in the north of Yuanzhou on the map and said: "Everyone, please see, Wanzai is only seventy miles away from Yuanzhou, but from Wanzai to the northeast, through Shanggao and Gao'an, a total of about four hundred miles is Nanchang, and you can avoid Lu Daqi's army; To the west through Shangsu and Liuyang, it is also about 400 miles to Changsha, and these two roads are difficult for the army to pass, so Wanzai currently looks inconspicuous;

But for our 2,000 men. The strategic location of Wanzai is very favorable, and it can be said that it can be attacked and defended. Why don't we cross Yuanzhou at night and rush for ten thousand years?

With Yuanzhou in the way, the rebel defense of Wanzai must be slack, and it is not difficult to attack at night, once Wanzai is taken, he can form a pincer attack on Yuanzhou with Lu Daqi's army, Zhang Qi can not sit idly by, and then we can fight against the guest. Sit back and wait for Zhang Qi to throw himself into the net. ”

Qin Mu looked at the ten thousand years under Sima An's fingertips, his heart moved, and a bold idea came to his mind, making his heart pound, and it beat faster and faster.

"Ning Yuan." Qin Mu immediately shouted.

"The end will be."

"Immediately you take fifty men and horses, change into the clothes of the rebels, and rush to Wanzai, and try to sneak into the city, and the officer will set out with the army. Bypassing Yuanzhou overnight, we will take fireworks as a letter, and we will take the inside and outside together, and win 10,000 years in one fell swoop. ”

"The last will obey."

Inside the city of Yuanzhou. The crying continued, and the defenders of the city were crushed at the first touch, so that many people in the city had no time to flee and were blocked in the city. After the rebels entered the city, they rarely looted, although Zhang Xianzhong had already issued an order prohibiting looting and killing, but as a vanguard. often has to undertake the task of attacking fortifications, and the main general Zhang Qi is not too strict in restraint, so as not to chill the hearts of his subordinates.

As soon as the sun sank into the western mountains, only a trace of sunset remained, and a mud-covered rebel army was led by the soldiers guarding the south gate, and stumbled into the Yuanzhou Mansion.

"General, it's not good, it's not good"

"What's going on?"

"General, general, the officers and soldiers are coming to Liujia Village, our people are all wiped out, Yu Daneng and Yu Qianhu are dead, and a thousand brothers are also dead, and the officers and soldiers have cut off the heads of the brothers."

"What? Annihilated? Zhang Qi was in his thirties, slightly short, with a sparse beard, he was more surprised than shocked at the moment, since he came south from Wuchang, the progress has been very smooth, and the officers and soldiers always fled from the wind, so that even he was very disdainful of the officers and soldiers;

Moreover, according to the report, Zuo Liangyu's 80,000 army, the only one worth worrying about, was still more than 200 miles away from Yuanzhou, how could an officer and soldier suddenly appear in this vicinity?

His 20,000 forwards are the elite selected from hundreds of thousands of horses, although he has not undergone much training, but there are many people who have been soldiers of the Ming Dynasty and have a certain military quality, so it is really difficult for him to accept the fact that he suddenly lost 1,000 men and horses.

"Yes General, a thousand brothers are all dead, all dead," the mud-covered rebel spoke, trembling all the time, obviously frightened.

"Come on, where did this Ming army come from? How many centaurs are there? ”

"The little one doesn't know where this group of officers and soldiers came from, but I saw that there were about 2,000 people and horses under a big banner with Qin characters, so ruthless, the heads of the brothers were cut off."

Zhang Qi was about to ask again, when another subordinate suddenly rushed in outside the door, and reported loudly: "General, general, there is an army of officers and soldiers from the south who are coming straight to Yuanzhou, less than ten miles away from the city, and the speed is very fast."

"Tell me, how many people are there on the other side?"

"General Hui, from a distance, there are torches all over the mountains, and judging from the number of torches, there are at least 10,000 horses."

"Probe again, pass on the general's order, all the horses immediately go to the city to set up defenses, come, take the general's armor."

Zhang Qi hurriedly put on his armor, and then went straight to the south gate with his own soldiers, climbed the city tower to take a look, and sure enough, the mountains and fields several miles to the south were full of torches, like a sea of fire swept in, it was difficult to tell how many people and horses there were, and the speed was amazingly fast, he even suspected that the cavalry came.

Although there were more than 10,000 horses in the city, it was already night, and the enemy situation was unknown, Zhang Qi did not dare to rush into battle, and watched the sea of fire spread to Yuanzhou City (to be continued......