Chapter 22 Little Test Knife

Fighting Gaoping for Xing Tianjun this time, it is purely a big fight against the small, and there is no suspense at all. To put it bluntly, it is to carry out a real military test in advance for the next step of entering Henan. Let's see how the combat effectiveness of each battalion is through this battle.

After a few days of preparation, the battalions were quickly transferred to the place of departure. With Xiao Tianjian's order, several battalions of soldiers and horses set out together and rushed to Gaoping County.

Together with the war, the officers and local armed forces of Gaoping County were beaten with no power to fight back. They quickly asked Lu'an Prefecture and Zezhou for help. However, after several battles, Zezhou was constantly encroached by the Xingtian Army around Zezhou. Now it has been isolated by the Xingtian Army. The defense of the city is still unstable and has no ability at all. He mobilied troops to rescue Gaoping County.

However, Lu'anfu's reaction was relatively fast. It immediately put together 2,000 soldiers and came to Gaoping County to stop Xing Tianjun from capturing Gaoping County.

After the news spread to the Shanxi governor's government, Wu Jing was the first two. In the past six months, he did not want to get rid of the trouble of Xing Tianjun, but after the disaster at the beginning of the year, there were beacon smoke all over Shanxi, which was a mess. In a short period of time, there were hundreds of large and small thieves. He had to fight against the fire everywhere, and the soldiers and horses that could be called were so exhausted that he couldn't pull out his hand to deal with the Xing Tianjun.

At least, Xing Tianjun has stopped in the past six months. After occupying Qinshui County, Zezhou, Yicheng, Fushan and other places, he no longer uses soldiers on a large scale. It seems to be a little content with the status quo, which more or less relieves the pressure of Shanxi officials. Otherwise, he really can't imagine how much the situation in Shanxi will be.

However, when he learned the news that Xing Tianjun suddenly used force against Gaoping County, he knew that Xing Tianjun had regained his vitality. I'm afraid there would be another big move in the next step. Moreover, he looked at the map and knew that as soon as Gao Ping was captured by Xing Tianjun, Zezhou completely became a lonely city. In addition to Xiancheng's surrender to Xing Tianjun. Other than that, there is no hope.

If Zezhou is lost, it will be lost. Anyway, in the past year, Zezhou has basically become a lonely city, but once Xing Tianjun occupies Gaoping, if he has a bigger appetite and comes up with the idea of Lu'an Mansion, then things will be even more troublesome! Xing Tianjun could completely take Lu'an Mansion again, and then he rose up and went straight to Taiyuan Mansion in the heart of Shanxi. At that time, even if Chongzhen did not kill him, he could only find a rope and hang himself to thank God.

So in order to keep Lu'an Mansion, he urgently ordered Xu Dingguo to immediately lead a 3,000-person soldier and march to Lu'an Mansion. After sitting in Lu'an Mansion to prevent the Xing Tianjun from going down to Gaoping, he used troops to Lu'an Mansion. As for Gao Ping could save it, he could not save it.

Several battalions of Xing Tianjun fought together, which did not give Gaoping County a chance to fight back at all. The soldiers and horses of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 3rd Battalion, with the support of the artillery team, attacked Gaoping County along the third road. Some Zhuangbao along the way could not resist the fierce attack of the Xingtian Army at all.

The firepower of Xing Tianjun at this time is no one in this era. A large number of sharp birds have made them gain long-range firepower that overwhelms their absolute opponents. The three-stage and five-stage shooting platoon tactics, and even the regular army of the imperial court can't meet its front, let alone a miscellaneous place like local villagers. Armed, they often collapse at a touch, which can't stop the attack of the Xingtian army at all.

To deal with those strong Zhuangbao, after the Xingtian Army was equipped with a large number of Thunderbolt guns, the Xingtian Army began to appear a new arms, that is, similar to the Western bombers in later generations. However, at present, it still mainly appears as a knife player in the army, but more often They have begun to take on the task of attacking. Against some fiercely resisting Zhuangbao, the knife players used shields as a shield and rushed to Zhuangbao with a Thunderbolt gun. After lighting the Thunderbolt cannon, they threw it into the Zhuangbao. Although the exploding Thunderbolt cannon could not catch up with the grenades of later generations, the explosive power was already quite good. At the very least, the explosion is extremely shocking. It may not kill a few people, but there is no problem to scare people. Often, as long as they throw it, the villagers who resist will be immediately blown up, and then they will be attacked by the Xingtian army and end the battle in a short way.

Xiao Tianjian personally led the guards to watch their combat situation between the battalions. After watching it, Xiao Tianjian's confidence became more full.

Even the teaching camp led by Liu Yaoben, who had just been expanded this time and had not yet carried out strict training, also showed extremely strong combat effectiveness. Outside the city of Zezhou, he fought with a soldier who tried to go out of the city to intercept the Xingtian Army to attack Gaoping. These teenagers took a thousand new soldiers who had just been recruited. The battle beat back the battalion of officers and soldiers who came out of Zezhou City. If it weren't for the lack of training of new recruits, they could almost eat up a battalion of officers and soldiers from the city in Zezhou. This time, the officers and soldiers of Zezhou were completely honest, and all of them retracted into Zezhou City and made a posture of strict defense. Even outside the city was originally Those Zhuangbao, which are also officially controlled, have also been swept away by Liu Yaoben.

On September 17, the three or four battalions each hit the city of Gaoping County, and the troops were in one place. More than a thousand defenders of Gaoping shrank into the city and planned to defend it to the end.

However, the two sentries and six-pound guns of the Huang Shengqiang Artillery Battalion were lined up at the city gate. After a fierce bombardment, the gate of Gaoping City was smashed. With the help of the battalion's artillery team, the two battalions entered Gaoping County in just half a day. After a short street battle, the defenders announced their surrender, and the county magistrate of Gaoping County was in the county government office. Burning and dying was also a martyrdom. Gao Ping then announced the fall and became another county under the complete control of the Xing Tian Army.

Luo Li led the second battalion and also quickly occupied Sizhuang and Yonglu in the northern part of Gaoping County, cut off the only connected official road between Gaoping and Lu'an Prefecture, and blocked an officer sent by Lu'an Government to rescue Gaoping.

Luo Li was in the north of Sizhuang Town. He opened his team and fought head-on with the officers and soldiers who came from Lu'an Prefecture. After the newly established direct artillery team was bombarded, the officers and soldiers actually collapsed directly and fled back to Lu'an Prefecture without looking back. Even many of the accompanying weights were lost on the battlefield, and they were ready for the war angrily. Luo Li chased them fiercely and failed to annihilate them. He scolded the officers and soldiers for being really wasteful. If he had known it, he would not have let the artillery fire, and simply rushed directly tore them up and tore them more happily.

After Xu Dingguo led his troops to Lu'an Prefecture, the situation in Gaoping had been settled, so he was deterred by the fierceness of Xing Tianjun. He did not dare to lead his troops to try to restore Gaoping County. Instead, he stationed south of Lu'an Prefecture and made a posture to defend Lu'an Mansion to prevent Xing Tianjun from attacking north again.

As soon as Gaoping County was lost, the whole Zezhou Basin became the pocket of the Xingtian Army, leaving only the lonely Zezhou City pestle in the center of the Zezhou Basin.

What Xu Dingguo did not expect was that after taking Gao Ping, Xing Tianjun stopped and continued northward, cleaned up the soldiers and turned around Zezhou City.

By this time in Zezhou City, the officials and officers and soldiers in the city had no fighting spirit for a long time. After more than a year, Zezhou suffered a lot. Every battle, it was a serious blow to the morale of the garrison of Zezhou. Seeing a soldier and horse supporting the Xingtian army driving to the city of Zezhou, there were actually many officers and soldiers even if they were able to escape. After the mandarin duck battle jacket, he plunged directly into the city and hid. Even if the rest of the officers and soldiers did not escape, they had already been scared to death.

Xiao Tianjian was not polite to them. As soon as the troops arrived, they immediately launched an attack on Zezhou City. Dozens of large and small cannons bombarded the west gate of Zezhou together. The officers and soldiers in Zezhou City shouted and asked to open the city to surrender. As a result, there was no war, and Zezhou declared a fall and became the pocket of the Xingtian Army. .

The fall of Gaoping County and Zezhou was naturally another earthquake for Shanxi officials. The voice of the call for a crusade suddenly became very noisy among the "people". After hearing this, Wu Yu and Hong Chengchou were also very angry. They wanted to send troops to suppress Xing Tianjun again, but the defeat at the beginning of the year was still remembered by them. New, if there are few soldiers, it's just to send food to others. If you send more soldiers, but they don't have so many elite soldiers at hand!

At present, Jiannu is still raging around the capital. The capital has been under martial law for more than a month. The troops in the north are basically based on the main goal of building slaves, strengthening the defense against the northern slaves. In addition, the people in various parts of Shanxi are changing frequently, which makes the already not full of officers and military forces even more stretched.

And the movement of the Xing Tianjun seems to have smelled all kinds of civil armies in Shanxi, especially the newly rising civil armies in the past six months. Suddenly, they began to move towards Xinzhou. It seems that there is a posture of generals to Xinzhou, and Xinzhou is the north gate of Taiyuan Prefecture. Once it is lost, Taiyuan The situation was critical. In this way, Wu Jing was powerless and had to temporarily throw his troops into the Xinzhou area to ensure that the north would not change much. As for the Xing Tianjun side, he could only hope that Xu Dingguo could defend Lu'an Mansion.

At the same time, news came from the capital that Gao Yingxiang, the leader of the civilian army, was finally escorted to Beijing by Hong Chengchou. Chongzhen was not polite to Gao Yingxiang this time. Even if he ordered Gao Yingxiang to stay in the city, it was said that Gao Yingxiang did not beg for mercy and died in a curse.

However, according to detailed exploration, this time Hong Chengchou escorted Gao Yingxiang into Beijing. In the end, for the sake of safety, he did not choose to take the road of Shanxi, but instead escorted him to Henan first, and then took the Daming Mansion all the way to Beijing. In this way, he avoided the area within reach of the Xing Tianjun forces, so that Xiao Tianjian even If you want to help, you don't have such a chance.

In this way, Xiao Tianjian did not have to carry the name of death. Naturally, Li Zicheng had nothing to say. However, after Gao Yingxiang was escorted to Beijing, Li Zicheng was finally pushed as the new king as he wished, and carried the banner that Gao Yingxiang had carried.

And Li Zicheng also quickly brought together many old departments of Gao Yingxiang who had been scattered in Shaanxi, and immediately became the largest force among the rebels. He raised the banner of revenge for Gao Yingxiang in Shaanxi and entangled with Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting.