Chapter 608 0603 [Chaotic Battlefield]

Li Gong, who failed the imperial examination three times, passed the martial arts examination, and led troops in military campaigns for many years, is still only forty-two years old.

Xing'an County has been besieged, and craftsmen are building siege equipment.

Breaking the city is a matter of time.

Li Gong seemed a little depressed. He wanted to die for the Zhao and Song Dynasties, but for the sake of his family and tribe, he had no choice but to submit to the Ming Dynasty.

"My lord, the magistrate appointed by the imperial court is here."

"What's he doing here?"

"Say it's a labor force."

Li Gong was observing the enemy's city defense. When he heard that the prefect came to work on the front line in person, he reluctantly turned back to the camp to receive him.

In order to appease Li Gong, Guangxi did not set up a chief envoy for the time being, and still let him serve as an administrative envoy.

However, a Guilin Prefecture was set up, which not only included Guizhou, but also included the whole state of Jinghu Road.

The first prefect of Guilin was named Yang Bangyi, who was barely the same year as Ju Ming. However, Yang Bangyi did not pass the imperial examination, but was a graduate of the imperial examination.

No matter what, as long as you are a Jinshi in the fifth year of Zhenghe, you will be very popular in the Ming Dynasty. After all, you have the status of the prince in the same year!

"I've met Li Jinglue!" Yang Bangyi's attitude was very low. Although he and Li Gong were the same age, Li Gong held a high position and had sufficient seniority.

Li Gong returned the greeting and said, "Thank you for your hard work, Prefect Yang. Come and sit in my tent."

Yang Bangyi held out a wooden box: "This is a gift from His Majesty, please accept it from Li Jinglue."

Li Gong could only turn to the north and bow, thank the emperor from thousands of miles away, and then carefully take it with both hands.

Yang Bangyi smiled and said: "You can open up the story as much as you like."

Li Gong curiously opened the lid, revealing a monocular telescope inside. He had never seen this thing before and thought it was some kind of gadget for playing with.

Yang Bangyi reminded: "This object can be stretched or shortened. After a while, put a smaller section in front of your eyes and look at it from a distance. If the scenery is blurry, adjust its length."

According to Yang Bangyi's statement, Li Gong used the telescope in confusion.

After a while, Li Gong said excitedly: "This is a sacred object. The scenery of a thousand miles away is as clear as your eyes. Why worry about being unable to wipe out the thieves and bandits in the world?"

Yang Bangyi smiled and said: "Your Majesty specially asked craftsmen to build it for Jinglue."

Li Gong turned towards the north again and said sincerely: "The emperor has been so kind to me, but I have no way to repay it, so I must fight to the death to destroy that fake Chu!"

"This is the drawing of the flat cannon. Two or three people can operate the catapult." Yang Bangyi took out the drawing of the returning cannon.

Guangxi is too remote. Not only have I never heard of telescopes, I haven't even gotten hold of a telescope.

Li Gong was dubious about Hui Hui Pao and decided to let the craftsman make one to test the effect.

Yang Bangyi was afraid of making this person unhappy, so he said softly: "Your Majesty knows that Jing Lue and Cao Cheng have a grudge. They used to be their masters, but now they are both generals of the Ming Dynasty..."

"No need to say more," Li Gong interrupted, "I won't embarrass him anymore, but I don't want to join forces with him. I followed the Ling Canal to the north to attack Quanzhou, and he went over the mountain to attack Daozhou. See Whoever defeats Yongzhou first will be able to do whatever he wants from now on!"

"Jing Lue's magnanimity is really admirable." Yang Bangyi praised him, but he was a little unhappy in his heart.

The man in front of me has surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, but he is still a warlord.

Li Gong and Cao Cheng are the largest forces in the south. As long as they cooperate sincerely, they can quickly follow the Xiangjiang River to Zhong Xiang's hinterland. But Li Gong's attitude was to fight on his own and was unwilling to cooperate with Cao Cheng.

Of course, this also has advantages, so as to avoid further friction between each other.

Late April.

Li Gong bombarded Xing'an County with returning artillery, and at the same time used regular siege vehicles to advance, and built a seven or eight-meter-high earthen platform outside the county town.

On the earth platform, arrows rained down.

On both sides, stones and bullets fell.

Li Gong's two sons led their troops to ascend first and quickly occupied two sections of the city wall.

The Puppet Chu defenders here are obviously much weaker than those over Dongting Lake. Not to mention street fighting, when the Ming army established a foothold at the top of the city, the defenders began to retreat on a large scale, and the supervisory army sent by Zhong Xiang took the lead in escaping.

After conquering Xing'an County, Li Gong worked non-stop and led his troops to the entire state.

The Chu army in the whole state was conquering the Su rebellion of the Dong people. When they heard that Li Gong was coming to kill them, they quickly withdrew their troops and returned to aid the state city. They were ambushed halfway and were almost wiped out.

Quanzhou was captured, but Li Gong fought with the Su family.

As early as the reign of Zhao and Song Dynasties, the Su family had repeatedly surrendered and rebelled. From time to time, they would go down the mountain to rob Han people, and even plunder the government's wealth.

This time, while Li Gong occupied the capital, the Su family looted everywhere in the countryside.

In a rage, Li Gong actually trapped and killed the leader of the Su clan, and also executed several small leaders of the Dong clan!

When the news spread, the Dong rebels across the state became excited and began to plunder the countryside even more crazily. The Han rebels were angered by this and did not follow Li Gong northward, and immediately started fighting with the Dong people.

When Yang Bangyi got the news, he was so angry that he slammed the table: "This Li Gong simply doesn't prioritize. Even if we want to punish the murderer, we should kill Zhong Xiang first. How can he join the army now that he is being held back by the Dong people?"

…

On Cao Cheng's side, he bribed the garrison of Gupoling to rebel, and quickly broke through the pass and entered Jianghua County in Daozhou.

The city of Daozhou has been captured by the Han rebels, and the Jianghua County defenders are panicking. Cao Cheng promised to save the life of the garrison, and the puppet Chu army in Jianghua County directly opened the city and surrendered.

Cao Cheng also went back on his word and not only beheaded the surrendered defenders, but also killed all the altar masters and emissaries in the city.

The Han, Dong, Yao, and Miao armies cooperated well in Daozhou and specifically slaughtered the leaders of Manichaeism.

Including those merchants, gentry, gangsters, monks and Taoists who exploited the people under the banner of Manichaeism, the coalition forces of all ethnic groups killed them one by one. By the way, they confiscated their property and robbed the women in their families.

The situation in Daozhou was extremely chaotic, and they were not in a hurry to go north to fight Zhong Xiang. They started to take revenge and divide the spoils in Daozhou.

If there were no new Ming army in Hubei and Jiangxi, it would be estimated that there would be no result if they only relied on these people to fight Zhong Xiang until the end of time.

Cao Cheng also knew that this was not a solution, but he could not control the situation. Many leaders of the rebel army did not listen to him at all.

Instead, the miners in the neighboring Guiyang Prison rebelled. They did not divide the silver they robbed from the silver mine, but collected it as military expenses. After executing some notorious people, several rebel forces joined forces and quickly headed east to Chenzhou.

…

Wugang.

Yang Zaixing returned to his hometown to raise troops, led the clan members, and occupied Chengbu Village.

Another Miao rebel force was besieging Guanxia Village.

Yang Zaixing led his troops to set up an ambush in the north of Tangjiu Mountain. The Chu army stationed in Wugang City would run into their ambush point whether they wanted to rescue Guanxia Village or recapture Chengbu Village.

After ambushing in the mountains for seven or eight days, not a single Chu army was seen.

"Those people dare not come, let's fight them." Yang Zaixing muttered.

The Wugang defenders were not Zhong Xiang's direct line, this was not a strategic location, and the surrounding area was full of ethnic minorities.

The defenders were locals, and the altar master sent by Zhong Xiang had been lured and corrupted.

To put it bluntly, it was just the armed forces of landlords and gangsters, wearing a layer of Manichaeism.

Thousands of allied forces from various ethnic groups arrived outside Wugang City one after another. The defenders were so scared that they hid in the city and dared not come out. They abandoned all the surrounding forts.

Although these rebels from various ethnic groups were very brave in fighting, most of them could not even form a battle array.

They did not know how to attack the city!

Only Yang Zaixing had followed Cao Cheng, and his headquarters could still be considered a battle array.

Yang Zaixing also had a detachment, although the number was small.

"General, there is a group of Han rebels coming to surrender, and they also have craftsmen who can make artillery vehicles and ladders!"

"Please come!"

When the defenders in the city saw the rebels building siege equipment, they finally couldn't sit still, and they also gave up hope for Zhong Xiang's reinforcements.

One evening, taking advantage of the opportunity of the rebels from various ethnic groups returning to the camp, the defenders organized a death squad of hundreds of people and tried to go out of the city to destroy the equipment built by the rebels.

The sudden attack caught the rebels off guard.

Yang Zaixing mounted his warhorse and rushed towards the enemy with more than a dozen personal soldiers - this was all their cavalry, a total of only sixteen cavalry.

The rebels there had been killed and dispersed, and hundreds of death squads were setting fire to the siege equipment.

Seeing Yang Zaixing rushing with more than ten cavalry, the enemy general immediately divided his troops to organize defense and speed up the speed of starting the fire.

Yang Zaixing was only wearing a half-body leather armor. He shot two arrows in succession while riding a horse, accurately hitting two enemies. Then he raised his long spear and knocked one person over, and rushed into the enemy's army formation that had not yet been formed. More than ten cavalrymen behind him followed Yang Zaixing into the formation.

The enemy general used to be a bandit who pretended to convert to Manichaeism and now commanded hundreds of soldiers.

He rushed forward with his arrogance, but he didn't even see Yang Zaixing's movements clearly. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, and then his whole body flew back.

"Kill!"

Yang Zaixing rode through the formation and found that one of his sixteen cavalrymen had been killed halfway.

In a rage, he turned his horse around and charged again without waiting for the cavalry to assemble.

The enemy's formation was not well-arranged to begin with, and the attack had already disrupted it. Now Yang Zaixing charged alone, charging left and right and killing more than ten people in a row, which frightened the remaining enemies to flee on the spot.

The morale of the defenders in the city dropped to the bottom.

That night, the altar master and the envoy chose to abandon the city and flee.

Not to mention their escape, they even wanted to take away the property. The copper coins were too heavy, so they had to give them up. They took away all the gold, silver and treasures, and quietly slipped away from the water gate by boat.

The guard was on the tower, and when he heard the movement of the water gate, he immediately knew what was going on. He did not stop it, but followed suit and slipped away with his family and property in the second half of the night.

When the soldiers heard the news, they were so frightened that they fled in panic, and even opened the city gate to escape.

The next day, Yang Zaixing led his troops into the city, easily captured Shantangzhai, and headed straight for Shaoyang further north.

And in Dongting Lake, a water battle also kicked off.