Chapter 124 Li Zicheng's Old Bottom

Since the defeat of Tongguan, Li Zicheng did not dare to easily bring any more ideas about Tongguan. Instead, he began to mobilise troops and began to march towards western Shaanxi, intending to control the whole Shaanxi in his hands and prepare for the future before Xiao Tianjian frees his hands to deal with him.

However, after so many years of natural and man-made disasters, Shaanxi has already been extremely dilapidated. After decades of chaos, the population in Shaanxi has dramatically reduced to an incredible extent. Many places are already ten rooms and nine empty, and even within dozens of miles, almost no human smoke can be seen. The situation.

Originally, the population of Shaanxi was more than 10 million, but by the 14th year of Chongzhen, the population of Shaanxi was roughly estimated that there were only a few million left.

Since Li Zicheng conquered Xi'an Mansion, the official and army of the Ming Dynasty in Shaanxi have been completely scattered and completely lost their unified leadership. Even Gao Jie surrendered to the Dazhong Army. Therefore, Li Zicheng's army to the west can basically be said to be like a broken bamboo. He easily took Gongchang Mansion, Pingliang Mansion and Minzhouwei. , Lintao Mansion and other places.

However, the smooth westward offensive does not mean that Li Zicheng's life is better. Although the territory is good, Shaanxi is really too poor at this time. Li Zicheng almost killed all the rich people in Shaanxi on the way, and he also robbed everything, but he robbed the silver. It's a million, but not much food has been snatched.

Moreover, Li Zicheng has felt the threat to him by Xiao Tianjian's Dazhong Dynasty. He knows that as long as Xiao Tianjian succeeds the Northern Expedition this time, he will wave his hands to enter Shaanxi and take action against him. Therefore, the sense of crisis has always oppressed him and his generals, making them release again after the defeat in Tongguan. Abandoned the previous strategy of imitating Xiao Tianjian's elite soldier route, he began to expand his troops again.

With Li Zicheng's development to the west, Li Zicheng's Dashun army also snowballed a large number of people in Shaanxi. In just a few months, it once again expanded to nearly 400,000 soldiers and horses like blowing balloons.

But on the surface, it seems that there are a lot of troops in these 400,000 troops, but in fact, the Dashun army has returned to the level of the exiled people in those years. Among the 400,000 troops, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled account for nearly half, and half of them don't even have decent weapons. They can only carry some sticks, hoes, sickle and other things to use them as weapons. More than 90% of the soldiers have no armor. Although there are many cavalry, they are claimed to have 30,000 cavalry, but most of these 30,000 cavalry are thin horses, and even mules and donkeys are indiscriminately.

As for firearms, not to mention, although they are claimed to have a large number of cannons, they are all kinds of messy old guns discarded by the officers and soldiers. Not to mention the tattered, the gunpowder is scarce, and most of them are some bowls and so on. Needless to say, although Li Zicheng knows the strength of the fire, After controlling Hanzhong, he also recruited some craftsmen to build birds for him, trying to obtain the means to fight against the Dazhong army by such means.

But it's not that simple to build this thing. When Xiao Tianjian started his business in Yangcheng County, in order to build birds, even relying on Yangcheng's rich iron production, it took a long time to gradually cultivate a group of craftsmen who could make fire, not to mention Hanzhong's original iron. The output is not rich, and the blacksmiths who can make birds are even more limited. Therefore, in the past few years, Li Zicheng has only been equipped with thousands of chaotic birds by seizing them from the officers and soldiers, and one of them is the obsolete birds given to him by Xiao Tianjian. The caliber is not uniform, not to mention that Li Zicheng does not have it. The secret to mastering paper shell bombs is still the bulk black gunpowder, and it is not granular, and the quality is not comparable to that of the Dazhong army at all.

If he uses such soldiers and horses to deal with the Ming army that has no power to counter the hand, he can still be invincible. Before Xiao Tianjian spared his hand to deal with him for the time being, Li Zicheng's soldiers and horses can still run rampant in Shaanxi for a period of time, but it is also limited to Yan'an Prefecture and Qingyang. In the south of the mansion and the west of Shaanxi, even in the north of Shaanxi, Li Zicheng did not dare to easily find trouble with the Dazhong army.

However, although their development in Shaanxi is still smooth, Li Zicheng also found that with the increase of his military strength, he has returned to the previous strange circle. There are more and more soldiers and horses, but it is more and more difficult to feed him in this poor place of Shaanxi, which is impossible to feed his 400,000 soldiers and horses at once. Therefore, he can only send people to rob them farther away, but the more he robs Shaanxi, the poorer he will be. For the people of Shaanxi, his growth has not only not rescued them from the deep heat, but also displaced more Shaanxi people. In order to survive, he has to follow the Dashun Army to make a living.

The lack of food supply has become the biggest problem faced by Li Zicheng, so Li Zicheng had to once again focus on the rich Huguang and Sichuan, but Sichuan is mountainous. Because Xiao Tianjian started earlier than him, he sent Li Shuanzhu's troops to attack Sichuan at the end of last year and quickly conquered the heavy. Qinghe Chengdu, and then quickly brought the north of Sichuan to the hands of the Dazhong army.

Li Zicheng sent a small number of people from Lizhou in May to try to make a fortune in Sichuan, but when he saw that the Dazhong army was ready, he did not dare to continue to go deep and returned to the Hanzhong area. However, Li Zicheng was really forced to do anything, and he still couldn't stand the ** of the rich Huguang to him, in Xiao Tianjian When he led the army to attack the north, he once again wanted to take advantage of the attention of the Dazhong army and concentrated on the north. There was a lack of troops in the Huguang area and sent high-power soldiers to attack Yunyang, but Li Zicheng's calculation was still empty. Although Xiao Tianjian's Northern Expedition, he did not despise the defense of Huguang at all. Before the departure, the military headquarters had already Arrange for Zhao Er donkey to sit in Yunyang.

As a result, Gao Yigong not only did not conquer Yunyang, but also was defeated by Zhao Er donkey and fled and returned to Hanzhong. However, when Gao Yigong attacked Yunyang, he was given the opportunity by Li Shuanzhu in Baoning Mansion, sent 3,000 elite soldiers, and suddenly attacked Hanzhong, which Li Zicheng relied on to start his own again. He robbed and stirred up the area of Hanzhong. After Gao Yigong withdrew from Yunyang to Hanzhong, he found that Hanzhong had been destroyed by the Dazhong army. In anger, Gao Yigong gathered Hanzhong's troops and chased him to Baoning Mansion, but he was overshadowed by Li Shuanzhu, who had already prepared, and almost blocked Gao Yigong. In the mountains around Baoning Mansion, the result was that Gao Yigong not only did not find the field in the end, but also was again defeated by the Dazhong Army in Baoning Mansion, and almost fled back to Hanzhong alone.

It can be said that Li Zicheng tried to sneak up the Dazhong army twice, but finally failed. Not only did he get a little bargain, but he also stole chickens and rice. Even his old nest Hanzhong was given a black tiger by Li Shuanzhu and made a mess.

So on the surface, after the recovery in Hanzhong in the past two years, Li Zicheng occupied a large area of Shaanxi, and his military strength has grown to nearly 400,000, but in fact, his strength has not increased much. On the contrary, the generals under his command have made trouble with each other in order to compete for success and seize food, property. Less contradictions.

Originally, Li Zicheng expected Xiao Tianjian to lead the army to the north. Even if he could capture Beijing, at least it consumed a lot. Moreover, when he heard that Jiannu took the opportunity to go south and tried to enter the customs to seize the land of Yanyun, the news almost made him overjoyed. Tianjian knew that Xiao Tianjian would certainly not easily give up Yanyun's land to Jiannu, so at this time, Xiao Tianjian led his army to the north and would definitely start a big war with the Jiannu army.

Although Li Zicheng has never fought with Jiannu, he has devoted all his national strength for so many years and won less in the repeated battles with Jiannu. He believes that Xiao Tianjian wants to defeat Jiannu. Although it is not impossible, even if he can win, it can only be the result of both defeats.

So he immediately ordered that in June, after the defeat of Yunyang, he began to shrink his troops from the western part of Shaanxi, and once again began to gather towards Xi'an Prefecture, and hoard grain. After waiting for Xiao Tianjian to fight with Jiannu in the north, he took advantage of the situation to divide his army into two directions again. Tongguan and Yunyang marched into the army and took advantage of the situation to attack Henan and Huguang in one fell swoop, completely reversing his current plight in Dashun.

However, by the end of July, a piece of news came from the north to Xi'an, which made Li Zicheng feel as if he had been struck by lightning, and he was stunned.

Even the generals under his command were shocked after hearing the news. It turned out that after Xiao Tianjian first annihilated nearly 40,000 Guan Jiannu in Tongzhou, he gathered heavy troops to Shanhaiguan, and fought a decisive battle with the Jiannu army outside Shanhaiguan, and once again defeated the Jiannu army. After the two battles Shengsheng killed nearly half of the Jiannu army in the south, and the Jiannu retreated to Liaodong in a hurry.

This news not only shocked Li Zicheng, but also completely cut off his idea of competing with Xiao Tianjian to dominate the world. The power of Jiannu can be said to be well known by the whole world, and Xiao Tianjian is said that the Northern Expedition only gathered 100,000 troops, which not only opened up Beijing and Hangzhou in just two months. The canal has been killing Shanhaiguan, and with weak troops, he threw away his armor against the fierce slave army, so Xiao Tianjian's large and medium-sized army could not be fought against.

Think about the Battle of Tongguan and the Battle of Yunyang that he has actively launched in the past six months. Both times, his Dashun army has an absolute military advantage, but it has been defeated by the Dazhong army. Now with his strength, if he still wants to fight against the Dazhong army that is about to vacate, I'm afraid it will end very tragic.

So after learning the news of the victory of Dazhong Junshan Customs, Li Zicheng immediately recruited Song Xiance and other advisers to his "Palace" and asked Song Xiansche and other advisers where to go next.