Is Li Bingbeidao's approach wrong? That's right. Since he was not able to lead the troops, he was very self-aware to bring the Ming army, which had been weakened, back to Kaifeng, to preserve the strength of guarding Henan, in case the hinterland of Henan without the defense of the Ming army was empty. This is also a reasonable move at this time.

But in this way, it completely broke the original military jihua set by Wu Shigong and Xuan Mo, and abandoned the defense of the Henan border, so that the peasant army could enter Henan unimpeded. What's even worse is that all the other Ming armies in Henan, including Wu Shigong's Runing Army and Yu Zilian's Ruzhou Army, did not know about this change.

But it's useless to say anything now. The 8,000 Ming army, who had made a decision, immediately rushed back to Kaifeng with Xuan Mo's body. Only Zhou Junwu, who was unwilling, asked Li Bingbeidao to send a team of personal soldiers to escort him, first report to Ruzhou, and then look for Wu Shigong, so that his Runing army could respond in time.

These days, Emperor Chongzhen is really a house leak coincided with overnight rain, first of all, Shaanxi's bandits were quite unsmooth, not only the city was lost in a row, Xi'an was attacked twice, and the two generals Cao Wenzhao and Ai Wannian were killed one after another. Then came the news that Xuan Mo, the governor of Henan, was accidentally injured and died.

"Wen Aiqing! Shaanxi bandits are so rampant, what is Aiqing's good plan? "Because of the serious illness of Zhang Fengyi, the secretary of the Ministry of War, the current Emperor Chongzhen is even more serious to Shoufu Wen Tiren.

"Your Majesty!" Wen Tiren bowed down and said, "The old minister has read the battle report for nearly half a year, and there is nothing wrong with what Governor Chahong did, but why are there small setbacks again and again? Thinking that its jurisdiction is huge, it is difficult to take care of the tail, so it is difficult to take care of one and lose the other. ”

"Oh?" These days, Emperor Chongzhen also convened important ministers to discuss the ravages of the peasant army in Shaanxi several times, but the solution proposed by the ministers was nothing more than to increase the number of troops and salaries, didn't this make the overstretched Emperor Chongzhen even more worried? But today, when I heard Wen Tiren's new statement, I couldn't help but be very interested, so I hurriedly asked: "Aiqing say it quickly!" ”

Wen Tiren concealed the smugness in his heart, and then said: "The old minister thinks. Although Governor Hong was appointed as the governor of the three sides and five provinces for the sake of unifying powers, his responsibilities and powers were indeed too great, and another important minister should be appointed as the governor of the five provinces, so that Governor Hong could concentrate on the three sides, so that one east and one west, and each command and subordinate jurisdiction could meet the attack separately, so that the thief army could be wiped out with half the effort. ”

In fact, Wen Tiren's statement is also very reasonable, the reason why the imperial court wanted to add the official position of the governor of the five provinces at that time was to unify the command. Improve the efficiency of the suppression of bandits.

However, the appointment of Hong Chengchou has gone from one extreme to another. You must know that Hong Chengchou's original position as the governor of the three sides has not yet stepped down, and these two governors are in charge of the two most important theaters of the Ming Dynasty except for Liaodong. So it is indeed as Wen Tiren said: the jurisdiction of the place is a little too big, and some take care of one or the other.

But Wen Tiren's proposal is of course selfish. He was still afraid that Hong Chengchou's power would be too great, and his prestige would be too high after the peasant army was exterminated. After that, he entered the cabinet and threatened his position as the first assistant. So take advantage of this opportunity to weaken Hong Chengchou's power.

However, Wen Tiren's proposal was very much in line with Emperor Chongzhen's wishes. For him, the methods that do not use silver now are all good methods. And what Wen Tiren said is indeed reasonable. So his interest came up all of a sudden, so he smiled and asked, "Who does Aiqing think should be sent?" ”

"The old minister originally had two people report to the emperor. It's a pity that Governor Xuan is unlucky, and now there is only Lu Fuzhi. Wen Tiren pretended to be helpless and said.

Only then did Emperor Chongzhen realize that in fact, Xuan Mo's death was not necessarily a bad thing, at least it should have been a headache between Xuan Mo and Lu Xiangsheng, and now there is no such problem. So he immediately nodded and said, "Quasi-play!" Then I felt a little sorry for Xuan Mo. He commanded again: "Aiqing! Let the Ministry of Rites give preferential care to the Governor Xuan! ”

"Yes!"

In August of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen gave Prime Minister Lu Xiangsheng the military affairs of Zhili, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, and Huguang provinces, and gave Shang Fang the sword, which was specifically responsible for the defense of the Central Plains, while Hong Chengchou was specifically responsible for the military defense of the northwest region.

The East and the West are responsible for each. They no longer carry out large-scale encirclement and suppression, but attack the peasant armies in the areas under their jurisdiction separately. After Lu Xiangsheng became the premier of military affairs, he adjusted the military deployment, with Henan as the center, and relatively concentrated the Ming army, with the Guanning Iron Cavalry led by Zu Kuan as the backbone, and other departments cooperated to hold Luoyang.

At this point, Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong Army officially stepped onto the stage of history.

On July 28, the eighth year of Chongzhen.

"It took a lot of effort for the old nose to finally surround the bandits. My lord, when will they be completely resolved? Li Sanhe said excitedly.

"Don't worry! It's only been a few days, huh? The bandits are quite capable of making trouble. Let's smooth out their strength first! Wu Shigong also said with a smile.

Without Xuan Mo and Yu Zilian's army, Wu Shigong contacted Xue Yongli to act together. After that, it took nearly 20 days to finally surround the main force of more than 60,000 bandits in the area of Qixian County. However, the current weather is the height of summer, and it takes a long time for the bandits to freeze and starve, so Wu Shigong blocked the route for the bandits to escape, wanting to slowly wear down the morale and energy of the bandits and reduce the loss of his own pacification.

Especially among the besieged bandits, there are also some old battalion men and horses left by the peasant army last time, their combat effectiveness is very strong, plus there are some local bandits in Henan to join, if they attack rashly, the losses of the Runing army will definitely be great, so Wu Shigong's general idea is still to suppress and promote appeasement.

"Report to your lord! Senator Zhou from the Governor of Xuan outside the camp asks to see him! The soldiers who came in from outside the big tent suddenly said.

……

"What!" The officers in the big tent exclaimed in unison.

"Is this a joke?" Wu Shigong smiled bitterly and shook his head, "Senator Zhou is resting in the back tent." ”

Hearing the news of Xuan Mo's sudden death, all the officers felt a little incredulous as Wu Shigong had when he first learned about the situation. However, those officers were only worried that the loss of Xuan Mo's army to defend the Henan border would bring great variables to the pacification of the Runing army, but they did not know that Wu Shigong would lose even more politically.

To be honest, until now, Wu Shigong has only formed an alliance with Xuan Mo, a high-ranking official. originally thought that with Xuan Mo's support, Wu Shigong would get a protective umbrella and some help when developing the Shili of the Runing Army, but now that he had just formed an alliance for a few months, Xuan Mo passed away so inexplicably.

Wu Shigong couldn't help but laugh at himself, if his life should be like this, he would not get any help from officialdom. Even the high-ranking officials who have formed an alliance with themselves will also have bad luck?

But no matter what, let's deal with it first.

"My lord! What are we going to do? "It's still Liang Hui who is the calmest.

Wu Shigong was also confused at this time. Go back and plug the gap left by the main force of the Henan Ming army when they left, then the efforts of the local bandits who have surrounded them these days will be in vain; However, according to the original pacification of Jihua, then the peasant army of Shaanxi will enter Henan unimpeded. You know, now that most of the main forces of the Runing Army have been dispatched, don't let the empty situation of your hometown last time be staged again?

The only way to get the best of both worlds is to rush into the besieged bandits. But in this way, the losses of the Runing army will definitely not be small, and it will also have a great negative impact on the future when the Runing army deals with the peasant army and the Tartars.

So Wu Shigong couldn't sit still. He stood up and paced back and forth in the tent, trying to come up with a thoughtful solution. After thinking about it again, Wu Shigong found that he could only trust his old rival Yu Zilian. As long as his Ruzhou army protected its back, the peasant army that re-entered Henan would definitely not dare to go deep wantonly.

But believing in Yu Zilian made Wu Shigong always feel a little uncomfortable, so after weighing it repeatedly, Wu Shigong still decided to put his personal feelings aside. He stopped and ordered: "Wait for Senator Zhou to wake up, let him work hard again, go to Ruzhou and tell Yu Zhizhou that he will hold out for a month no matter what, and wait until I wipe out the bandits here." ”

Wu Shigong decided to exterminate the besieged bandits according to the original Jihua. However, as for whether Yu Zilian has the ability to delay the pace of the peasant army with his rabble, Wu Shigong can only gamble on his character.

Seeing that Wu Shigong had already made up his mind, those officers immediately said at the same time: "No! He took the order and left.

Maybe Wu Shigong's character did come. Within a few days, the besieged bandits sent messengers to surrender to Wu Shigong. The main contributor to this surrender was one of the leaders of the bandits, Yuan Shizhong.

Yuan Shizhong's small Yuan battalion was the main force among the besieged bandits, and he took advantage of the great drought in Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places that year, and the locusts covered the sun, and when there was a great hunger in winter, he gathered tens of thousands of hungry people to rebel.

However, Yuan Shizhong has always wanted to take the old road of rebellion-recruitment-becoming an official, but he has never been able to find a way, and the original brutal encirclement and suppression of the leopard head by the Runing army also frightened Yuan Shizhong, so that he could not make up his mind to surrender to the Runing army.

But this time Yuan Shizhong was really cornered, he had the idea of giving it a try, so he packed up a few tougher leaders, integrated other bandit troops, and then sent a messenger to surrender to the Runing army with a generous gift.

And when he learned that the bandits were coming, Wu Shigong was of course overjoyed. But he didn't dare to slack off, in the end, Wu Shigong had encountered too many deceptions before. So Wu Shigong gladly accepted the surrender while carefully disarming the bandits.

Fortunately, Yuan Shizhong really surrendered this time, so the adaptation of the bandits also went quite smoothly. However, it also takes a lot of time to collect weapons and other miscellaneous tasks of more than 60,000 bandits. Therefore, for a while, the Runing army could not get out.

It was not until August 5 that Wu Shigong freed his hands and returned to Ruzhou with the 10,000 main forces of Tiger Roar Town, while Xue Yongli watched the surrendered bandits return to Runing. (To be continued......)