I

To seize the world from Guanzhong, one would usually take the ancient Weihan Road and go straight to the Central Plains. Or, pass through Wuguan and capture the Nanyang Basin, then go around from the south and flank the Central Plains on both sides.

However, the ancient Xiaohan Road was blocked by the Datong Army. Except for Tongguan, all other great passes were in the hands of the Datong Army.

Although Wuguan was controlled by Li Zicheng, Fushui Fort was occupied by Zhao Han, which effectively blocked Wuguan Road. It was called Fushui Fort in the Ming Dynasty, Fushui Pass in the Qing Dynasty, and later became Fushui Town.

Li Zicheng also had another plan to send troops, which was to send a large number of troops from Shanxi to Henan.

But if you do this, you will be flanked by the Datong Army in Henan and Hebei from the east, northeast, south, and southwest, which means you will be able to bear the main force of the Datong Army in the north alone. By then, the Datong Army will probably ignore the Manchus and use all their strength to annihilate Li Zicheng's army.

So Li Zicheng made a stupid move and took his elite main force to Hebei to attack the strong city of Datong Army with the Manchus. Therefore, the Datong Army could only passively defend in Hebei, and instead sought to open up situations in Shanshan, Shaanxi, and Liaodong.

At this moment, the Datong Army had gathered the strength of three divisions in Tongguan and Hedong, but the morale of Dashun's Shanxi soldiers began to collapse. (The Xihe area covers Hedong, and the geographical concept is larger than Hedong.)

This is the general trend, and when it is done, it is done.

Zhao Han has gained power, so the people on Li Zicheng's side are unstable, and there are always civilians and military generals who want to take advantage of the opportunity to rebel.

Just like back then, when Li Zicheng gained power in the north, the civil and military forces of the Ming Dynasty chose to surrender.

It’s late May in the blink of an eye.

After Li Guo's general Zhang Neng defected with his troops, he falsely opened the Xieguguan Pass and opened the Baoxie Road to welcome Fei Yinggon's army into the pass.

Li Guo, Gao Yigong and other Dashun generals hurriedly withdrew to Fufeng with their remaining troops, trying to recruit Xiang Yong as soldiers to stop the Sichuan Datong Army. They barely managed to gather 10,000 people, but they only defended the city for six days before a general opened the city gate.

In the chaos, Li Guo and Gao Yigong escaped with their own soldiers and took over the Dashun army coming from Gansu in Baoji.

There was no fighting at all. Gansu Dashun's army arrived in a hurry. I heard that Li Guo's troops were completely wiped out. I also heard that Hanzhong was lost, Xi'an was also lost, most of Hedong was occupied, and Tongguan and Weinan were strategically surrounded. Therefore, the generals of Gansu Dashun Army also chose to rebel, arrested Li Guo and Gao Yigong, and quickly sent them to Fufeng to claim credit.

"Are you a hypocrite prince? Why are you so old?" Fei Yinggon asked confused.

Li Guo said nothing.

Fei Yinggong looked at Gao Yigong again: "Are you Gao Yingxiang's son and Li Zicheng's cousin-in-law?"

Gao Yigong spat out violently, almost hitting Fei Yinggon's face, and shouted sternly: "Kill or behead him, it's up to you. If he's a good man, I'll give him a hard time!"

Fei Yinggon scratched his forehead and felt that he was very lucky. He seemed to have done nothing. Not only did he occupy Hanzhong and successfully enter Guanzhong, he also captured Li Zicheng's nephew and cousin.

Fei Yinggong thought to himself: Could it be that I am the lucky general?

Seeing that the two men were very tough, Fei Yinggon stopped asking questions and said to the soldiers: "Take these two people and show them to the defenders of Weinan and Tongguan. After Guanzhong is captured, they will be escorted to Hebei. Let’s meet Li Zicheng before going to the battle.”

Under normal circumstances, if an important enemy figure is captured, he should be sent to Nanjing as soon as possible to report his merits.

But the head coach of Hebei is Fei Ruhe, who is Fei Yingcong's nephew.

His own merits don't matter, he should help his nephew as soon as possible. Fei Yinggong knew that the war in Hebei was not easy to fight.

After dealing with the prisoners, Fei Yinggon was filled with pride, drew his sword and shouted: "The whole army sets off and marches into Weinan!"

Fei Yinggon's troops fought more and more, and Zhang Neng's troops who surrendered, as well as Gansu Dashun's surrender army, totaled tens of thousands of people.

Traveling to Xi'an, Cao Bianjiao could finally take a breath.

Cao Bianjiao came out of the city to greet him and said: "General Fei, you arrived in time, otherwise I would have been surrounded. The enemy troops from Ningxia and Yulin have already arrived in Chunhua. For some unknown reason, the garrison in Chunhua suddenly stopped moving. .”

"What other reasons could there be? They are just waiting to see the situation," Fei Yinggon said with a smile. "They did not go to Hedong to join the main force in Shanxi. They did not go to rescue Tongguan and Weinan, or even came to Xi'an. This shows that the enemy troops are ready at any time. Surrender. Once our army wins another battle in Hedong and Tongguan, the enemy troops stationed in Chunhua will immediately change their banners."

"Ta-ta-ta-ta!"

There was a sound of horse hoofbeats, and the dragoon turned over and dismounted: "The enemy army in Chunhua sent an envoy, saying that they are willing to surrender to our court!"

Cao Bianjiao and Fei Yinggon looked at each other, then laughed.

The general who surrendered this time was named Ma Chongxi, who was also one of the thirteen families in Kuidong in history.

Fei Yinggon and Cao Bianjiao led their troops straight to Weinan. Li Guo and Gao Yigong were taken to the city. A soldier with a loud voice shouted: "Liu Sanhu, quickly open the door and surrender. Li Guo and Gao Yigong were wiped out. Gansu, The pseudo-submissive soldiers in Hetao have also surrendered, so please stop resisting stubbornly!"

When Liu Sanhu heard this, his expression changed drastically. He carefully observed the prisoners in the city and found that they were indeed Li Guo and Gao Yigong.

The garrison on the city also became noisy, and the officers and soldiers wanted to surrender.

General Hua Chun said: "General Liu, surrender, we can't win."

Clang!

Liu Sanhu unsheathed his sword and slashed it out with all his strength. After hacking Hua Chun to death, he shouted: "Whoever dares to surrender again will end up like this!"

The soldiers guarding the city were horrified and did not dare to speak any more.

Fei Yinggong put down his telescope and sighed: "Li Zicheng is the emperor after all, so he must have a few people to die. Pull up the artillery and start bombarding the city, and let the craftsmen build siege equipment."

On the east side of the river.

Liu Fangliang was at a loss. He originally wanted to gather troops to fight the Tongguan battle, but one after another Henan soldiers defected. He gradually gathered 15,000 troops here, but nearly half of them were new soldiers. They did not dare to take the initiative and could only withdraw the entire army to Yicheng for defense.

Immediately, bad news was received one after another. Hanzhong was lost, Gansu soldiers surrendered, and Li Guo and Gao Yigong were captured.

Immediately afterwards, more than 10,000 soldiers gathered in Hongdong County, and there was inexplicable internal strife. The cause seems to be old grudges. In the past, Li Zicheng suppressed them and prevented them from breaking out. Now the situation is in a mess. There are grudges and grudges, and there is a fight in Hongdong County.

The one who won the battle took the remaining soldiers to Linfen to ask for surrender.

In this way, not a single serious battle was fought, and only the few troops in Liu Fangliang's hands were left among the several armies supporting Tongguan.

"I thought there was going to be a bad battle, but who knew it would be like this." Liu Zhu didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Lin Ruzhao said: "The dynasty came to an end. Chongzhen was like this, and so was Li Zicheng. At that time, Li Zicheng's foundation was not stable, and he was defeated by the Tatars. Although he has barely gained a foothold in the past two years, he has been in a corner, and the civil servants and military generals have long lost their nerve. . Once signs of defeat are revealed, there will inevitably be a rush to surrender."

Liu Zhu said: "Send troops to Yicheng, first straighten out the east of the river, and then slowly besiege Tongguan."

The Henan Datong Army came with three divisions, one stationed on the south bank of the Yellow River, one stationed at Fenglingdu and Daqing Pass, and the remaining one went to attack Yicheng.

Upon learning that Liu Zhu was coming with his troops, Liu Fangliang immediately abandoned Yicheng and led his troops to guard various passes in Luliang Mountain.

The entire Xihe area and the famous Hedong area were once again controlled by the Datong Army.

The only remaining enemy forces in Shaanxi are Tongguan and Weinan.

Tongguan.

Military information came one after another, and they were all sent by the Datong Army. Tian Jianxiu had begun to feel numb.

The morale of the defenders was low. Except for the veteran soldiers, whether they were temporary militiamen or soldiers recruited in the past two years, they all quietly discussed whether they should surrender.

Tian Jianxiu could only say to the soldiers: "It's all rumors that the enemy troops shot books. Don't believe it. As long as we persist for another month, reinforcements from all walks of life will arrive. By then we will have another great victory!"

The soldiers were dubious, but in the end there was no rebellion.

Just when Fei Yinggon and Cao Bianjiao were attacking Weinan, Li Guo and Gao Yigong were also sent to Fenglingdu via a detour.

These two precious prisoners were immediately sent by boat to the north of Tongguan City.

The defender wanted to fire an arrow, but Tian Jianxiu, who had a telescope, saw clearly who was standing on the bow of the ship and quickly shouted: "Wait!"

The archers looked confused and turned to look at Tian Jianxiu.

Tian Jianxiu lowered his head and thought deeply, then gritted his teeth and said, "Fire the arrow!"

Arrows rained down like rain, and before the Datong army had time to shout, they hurriedly rowed their boats and drifted downstream.

Seeing the ship being rushed downstream, Tian Jianxiu shouted again: "Fire at that ship!"

Are artillery and ammunition free of charge?

How can a ship be worth firing? It might take a long time to hit it without even being able to hit it.

"Boom boom boom!"

The shells roared in, but fortunately the target was small and the ship carrying the prisoners was unharmed.

In desperation, Jiang Liang could only use the old method, sending people to approach quietly at night and shoot letters towards the city wall.

After the letter spreads, Li Guo and Gao Yigong will be escorted over during the day.

Li and Gao were defeated and captured. The bad news eventually reached Tongguan. The morale of the Tongguan garrison dropped to the bottom, and this great pass had become a besieged and deadly place.

Jiang Liang still besieged but refused to attack. A strong attack would mean death. Historically, Xiongguan was won by the surrender of the defenders.

We have to wait a little longer. After we capture Weinan and take advantage of the situation to capture Huazhou and Huayin, we will be able to completely surround Tongguan, and the morale of the defenders in the pass will inevitably collapse.

Over in Tianjin, Li Zicheng didn't know that most of Shaanxi was lost, let alone that his nephew and cousin-in-law were captured.

However, Li Zicheng knew that Shaanxi was in danger and the battle situation in Tianjin was completely deadlocked, so he began to wonder whether to withdraw his troops.

"Your Majesty, withdraw!"

General He Jin advised: "The people named Zhang in the city and the people named Fei outside the city have always refused to fight. If you want to break the situation, you have to cross the river and attack by force, and you have to cooperate with the Tatars to attack together. That kind of attack will definitely cause heavy casualties." .”

You Wuwei General Li You also said: "Your Majesty, the Duguan Mountains in Shaanxi and Shanxi are steep. We might as well abandon Hebei and wait for the puppet comrades to die in Shanxi."

General Yi Wu Ruyi advised: "Your Majesty, if you stay in Tianjin, you will only waste military rations!"

Just when Li Zicheng was hesitant, Hauge actually sent someone over: "My prince wants to cross the river and attack by force. If His Majesty Emperor Li agrees, we will discuss how to attack."

"Why did Hauge suddenly want to cross the river?" Li Zicheng asked doubtfully.

Li Zicheng's Shaanxi had problems, and Manchu Qing's Liaodong also had problems.

Hauge learned about the military situation in Liaodong and did not obey Dorgon's order to return to rescue Liaodong. Instead, he wanted to desperately defeat Fei Ruhe's main force!