After you haggled back and forth, the two sides finally reached a mutually agreed plan.

The Demon Sect agreed, and the remaining 45,000 or so officers and soldiers in the inner city (3,000 were wounded soldiers) left Lanzhou City from the east gate at three o'clock. In exchange, Qin Shuhuai agreed to release a hostage after the last Ming army had left the east gate. Subsequently, after leaving Lanzhou City for 30 miles, another one was released. When you get to 60 miles away, release the last one.

After the negotiation, Qin Shuhuai could order the soldiers to tear up the wall blocking the back of the gate of the northern city, and then all the soldiers in the inner city were ready to go.

However, what worries Qin Shuhuai more is that Zhao Wu'er and the good player of Xiao Chengjing have not come back until now. According to estimates, they should have notified Hong Chengchou at this time and returned to Lanzhou.

Qin Shuhuai needed to know the location of Hong Chengchou's ambush, and he wanted to "deliver" the hostages there.

Minutes and seconds passed.

At three o'clock, Zhao Wu'er and the man still hadn't returned.

Qin Shuhuai dragged on for another half an hour, and seeing that they were still nowhere to be seen, he had to give the order to set off. If it drags on any longer, not only will the Demon Church be suspicious, but it may be dawn when the ambush location is reached, so it will be easy to see through the ambush.

With these fifteen thousand people in the Demon Sect, he didn't plan to let them come back for a long time!

The Demon Sect set out on this expedition, with a total of 100,000 troops. Attacked other cities with little bloodlessness and did not suffer much damage. However, in the battle of Lanzhou City, the official army relied on the tenacious will to resist, sufficient firepower, strong city walls, and the support of Qin Shuhuai and other top masters, after paying the price of nearly 70,000 people, the Demon Sect lost at least 20,000 main forces (a total loss of 36,700 troops, some of which were Ma Shouying's people, but in order to gather more peasant troops, the Demon Sect did not use Ma Shouying's men and horses as cannon fodder, so the Demon Sect accounted for more than half of the soldiers who died).

If you eat more of their fifteen thousand, then there will only be sixty-five thousand Demon Sect elites left. This is crucial for the next step in the clean-up operation. As the so-called emaciated camel is bigger than a horse, the territory of the official army is large, and it can always squeeze out troops little by little, and the Demon Sect is difficult to recruit many soldiers in a short period of time, and it is impossible to train as strong elites as before.

At that time, it will not be so easy for them to control the whole of Gansu with 65,000 troops! It can be said that the larger the territory they occupy, the more dispersed their forces will be, and the officers and troops will attack one by one.

From this point of view, Qin Shuhuai's decision to give Lanzhou City to them is also reasonable.

"Squeak~~"

The heavy city gate, accompanied by a piercing grinding sound, slowly opened.

The Demon Cult army was divided into two columns outside the city gate, waiting for the battle, watching the Ming army in the city swagger out of the city. And the soldiers of the Ming army, all of them still have provocative eyes, a posture of what you can do.

Forty-five thousand men, carrying the remaining birds, gunpowder, arrows, oil, money, and other supplies, went out of the city unhurriedly. Before leaving the city, Qin Shuhuai also ordered all the Franc machines to be destroyed. Although these Franc machines had wheels, they were too bulky to walk fast on the road - he had to get to Hong Chengchou's ambush point before dawn.

After half an hour, all these talents left Lanzhou City. At the east gate of the outer city of Lanzhou, Qin Shuhuai returned the five apostles of the Demon Sect to the Demon Sect very credibly.

The army continued eastward.

At the same time, 15,000 elite soldiers of the Demon Sect also followed closely behind the team of the Demon Sect and slowly came out. The 10,000-5 major armies were led by Zhao Ju, the owner of the Jumu Banner, and accompanied by Wu Lie, the owner of the Flame Banner, so that it would be convenient to negotiate with Qin Shuhuai.

The retreat route chosen by Qin Shuhuai was naturally the line of Gongping-Bailu-Hanjia fork, because it was this road that he asked Hong Chengchou to take. At this time, Zhao Wu'er and the Xiaocheng Realm master still had no news, and Qin Shuhuai speculated that they were likely to be intercepted and killed by the Demon Sect master.

That won't change his plans, though.

If Zhao Wu'er was intercepted and killed on the way back, then it means that Hong Chengchou has been notified, and Hong Chengchou must be ambushed on this road. If they were killed on the way out, then Hong Chengchou did not know that the situation had changed, and at this time, he should have led his troops to Gongjing according to the agreement last night. Gongjing is seventy or eighty miles away from Lanzhou City, and if you fight the Demon Sect there, the Demon Sect army should not be able to catch up for a while. Although there is no advantage of ambush in this way, it is still possible for more than 70,000 officers and troops to fight against 15,000 demon sect soldiers, with Qin Shuhuai and other masters present.

Qin Shuhuai sent hundreds of horse sentries around Lanzhou City to monitor the movements of the remaining demon sect soldiers in the city, some of them were open sentries, and some of them were secret sentries. The whistle is deliberately let the people of the Demon Cult see it, telling them not to play tricks.

Naturally, the Demon Sect would not send any more troops to follow Qin Shuhuai. On the one hand, they believed that 15,000 elites would be enough to deal with the more than 40,000 Ming troops, mainly from Gansu. On the other hand, they also believed that if they sent a large army out of the city again, with Qin Shuhuai's shrewdness, they would definitely be able to find out, and when the time came, he would tear up the hostages, but everything would be in vain.

After leaving the city, Qin Shuhuai ordered his troops to speed up their march.

When the demon cult soldiers behind saw it, they immediately sped up.

Under the moon, the soldiers on both sides carried torches, forming a long dragon with no end in sight.

The long queue marched quickly.

About half an hour later, the team arrived in the area of Jinya Town, and Wu Lie urged him to come to Qin Shuhuai immediately, saying that he had been out of the city for almost thirty miles, and it was time to hand over the second hostage.

Qin Shuhuai waved his hand and said, "Is it thirty miles? It's still a little short, right? Lord Wu Qi is not in a hurry, I'll release him if I go a little further." ”

Wu Lie hurriedly said, "Gang Master Qin, this place is already Jinya Town, and it is indeed thirty miles out of the city, don't make it difficult for me!"

The Demon Sect naturally wanted to hand over as soon as possible. This is not only a security issue for the ambassador and Zhao Protector, but also a security issue for the 10,000-5 major armies. The news that the Demon Sect got was that Hong Chengchou had arrived in Guyuan. If they went too far to the east, they suspected that Hong Chengchou would bring people to intercept and kill, so they would be in danger.

So, the bottom line is that they can only go 60 miles east. There are still hundreds of miles away from Guyuan, even if Qin Shuhuai goes to inform Hong Chengchou in advance, it will take at least two or three days between coming and going, and Hong Chengchou will never arrive so quickly. As long as Hong Chengchou doesn't come, they have nothing to worry about.

Qin Shuhuai pretended to be annoyed and said, "Jinya Town, Lilan City is only more than twenty miles away, how can it be born in your Demon Sect and then become thirty miles? Could it be that your Demon Sect still has other plans?"

Wu Lie shook his head again and again, "Gang Leader Qin has a lot of heart, a lot of heart! My sect has always kept its promises, so how can it have other calculations? This Jinya Town is about thirty miles away from Lanzhou City, this is recognized!"

Qin Shuhuai was willing to listen to his explanation. Anyway, there was no navigation at that time, and no one could come up with any evidence of how far Jinya Town was from Lanzhou City, so of course he had to drag it out.

Not only did he have to delay, but he also pretended to be suspicious and muttered for a while, and then said to Meng Wei, "General Meng, you bring more horse sentries to the front to take a look, and see what kind of reputation the Demon Sect is doing." ”

Meng Wei understood and immediately responded, "Subordinates obey orders!"

With that, he immediately rushed away with hundreds of cavalry.