Chapter 96 Pursuit

The Guanzhong War is about to break out. Although the process has changed, the wheel of history is still rolling forward.

On September 5, the eighth year of Chongzhen, Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Ma Huihui and others gathered an army of 300,000 men and marched to the gates of Jingyang City.

On September 7, all Ming army battalions in Shaanxi were ordered to gather in the two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan, with a total of 15,000 troops gathered in the two cities.

Cao Wenzhao, Cao Bianjiao, Zuo Liangyu, He Renlong, Zhang Quanchang, Sun Shoufa, Gao Jie and other generals all arrived.

On September 8, Hong Chengchou came to Jingyang in person, left a suicide note, and swore to fight to the death.

Gao Yingxiang led the main force to attack Sanyuan, while Zhang Xianzhong and Ma Huihui led a partial force to attack Jingyang.

Three hundred thousand troops were stationed in camps for hundreds of miles. Outside the two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan, the lights were everywhere, almost connecting the sky and the earth.

Hundreds of miles of camp, beacon fire illuminates the city.

A large number of rogue cavalry scattered out to plunder surrounding towns and villages.

All parts of Xi'an Prefecture suffered from man-made disasters. Outside the cities in Guanzhong, flames shot into the sky, and many villagers were plundered and driven away.

After seven days of siege, the troops of the rogue bandits increased instead of decreasing.

In Jingyang, under the Three Plains, there were corpses everywhere, and the blood accumulated under the city wall even reached a person's ankle.

The battlefield between the two cities was regarded by Gao Yingxiang as a huge training ground.

Hungry soldiers from each camp of the rogue bandits were constantly being added to the battlefield. Every day from the time of rooster crow at dawn, war drums were already ringing outside the city.

It is not until the sun sets and night falls that the golden sound of retreating troops will be heard in the rogue camp.

A large number of people fell on the battlefield, but more people survived.

After experiencing the baptism of swords and blood, everyone's hearts became tougher.

Those who cannot cross this threshold have no way of surviving in this cruel world.

The two cities of Jingyang and Sanyuan had been continuously strengthening their city defenses as early as August. At the same time, Hong Chengchou also transferred a large number of firearms.

A total of twenty-four general cannons are placed on the city walls of Jingyang and Sanyuan.

These artillery pieces, which are only much less powerful than the Hongyi cannons, are mostly used as heavy artillery on the walls of the nine-sided city.

Half of them are newly made cannons from the artillery factory, and the other half were directly dismantled from Datong City and transported all the way to Xi'an Fuzhong.

Not only the guards of Xi'an Prefecture were pulled up to the city wall, but also a large number of young men and women who assisted in the defense.

The Ming army relied on fortified cities, heavy artillery, and various firearms to gain an advantage in armaments.

However, they could only barely hold on to the two cities, and both the generals and the generals were in dire straits.

But all this has nothing to do with Chen Wang who is in Pingliang Mansion now.

The southeastern gateway of Pingliang Prefecture, Jingzhou.

When Chen Wang led his troops through Jingzhou, the city gates of Jingzhou were closed and they were not allowed to enter the city.

Chen Wang sent Chen Gong to ask for supplies of grain and grass, but the magistrate of Jingzhou City did not respond directly.

He just sent a clerk to open the door of the granary and let Chen Gong inspect it carefully, and then took Chen Gong to see the porridge shed in the city.

Not to mention supplying the troops, Pingliang Prefecture suffered several disasters, and Jingzhou City was almost running out of food.

Chen Wang did not send any more people into the city. He knew very well that these efforts were in vain.

The magistrate of Jingzhou sent someone to show him the granary, but he had nothing to say.

The fire outside Chunhua City destroyed almost all the food that Li Zicheng had looted.

Fortunately, before the Guanzhong War broke out, Hong Chengchou sent people to transport a lot of grain and rice. The excess grain and grass before and after was about 2,000 shi, and he even allocated 4,000 taels of military supplies.

Chen Wang exchanged all of it for grain, and the price of grain in Xi'an Prefecture had risen to more than four taels and one stone.

But no matter how high the price of food was, we still had to buy it. The four thousand taels of military supplies bought us less than one thousand shi in total.

The two battalions now have more than 4,500 men and more than 1,500 horses.

All the baggage was transported by mule carts or mules, and there were more than 500 mules in total.

A man's daily eclipse is one liter, and a horse's daily eclipse is three liters.

Chen Wang now has 4,500 people under his command, and he needs forty-five shi of food a day.

There are more than 2,000 mules and horses in total, which requires sixty shi of food per day.

The combined forces of men and horses require more than one hundred shi of food a day.

Mules and horses consume much more food than ordinary soldiers, so this is why Chen Wang sold most of his mules and horses.

Mules and horses can indeed improve the mobility of an army, allowing it to maintain a faster marching speed and improve its combat effectiveness.

But its consumption of food and grass is unbearable.

During the campaign, many places were in dilapidated condition, and the price of rice was extremely high, making it difficult to buy food even if you had money.

Although nearby prefectures and counties have the responsibility to provide relief, many times the magistrates and magistrates insist that they have no food and are unwilling to provide it.

If you just close the city gate, the matter will probably end in nothing.

More than three thousand stones of military rations can last for about a month. If you save a little, you can extend the time a little longer.

But it is also extremely limited. The mules and horses cannot be hungry, because once they are hungry, they will lose weight and their combat power will be reduced sharply.

And people can't go hungry either. If you don't have the physical strength to fight in battle, you will die.

The ordnance and food allocated by Hong Chengchou were only distributed to the guerrilla battalion under Chen Wang. Two thousand dan was already an extremely high amount.

Chen Wang estimated that Hong Chengchou allocated military rations largely in favor of Cao Wenzhao.

After all, the other battalion was not part of the establishment, so Chen Wang naturally paid for it out of his own pocket.

Jingzhou City was extremely dilapidated, and the entire southern part of Pingliang Prefecture was severely damaged.

As early as July, Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng led the army to pass through Jingzhou.

Although they did not capture the city, they destroyed most of the villages and towns around Jingzhou.

Nowadays, the outside of Jingzhou City is full of desolation, and everywhere you look is yellow.

The trees were scorched and lifeless, with no leaves or bark, and almost no blades of grass.

The convex trees stood in the wind and sand, and the west wind blew the yellow sand towards us, leaving a broken scene all around.

The flow of water in Jingshui River has just reached the original water level, which is much lower than the previous river bank.

The towns he passed were basically in ruins, and many people could be seen lying dead on the road.

The wilderness is littered with bones and corpses.

All the way from Ningzhou to Jingzhou, for hundreds of miles, I saw almost no living person.

Until we were about to leave Jingzhou, we passed by an empty town and finally met a group of about twenty refugees on the outskirts of the town.

The refugees gathered in a wilderness, lighting a fire and not knowing what they were doing.

When Chen Wang smelled the aroma of meat, he couldn't help but tighten his grip on the riding crop. It was obvious what kind of meat he was cooking.

Chen Wang repeatedly clenched and unclenched the riding crop in his hand, but in the end he could not hold back the anger in his heart.

Because he saw a group of people tied up in the camp there.

These gathered refugees are not cutting flesh from the dead, but from the living...

Dozens of Liao cavalry rushed out of the marching column, and the more than twenty refugees were easily shot to the ground.

Chen Wang looked gloomy as he led the war horse all the way to the simple camp where the group of refugees had been.

However, Chen Wang was used to seeing mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and seeing corpses and remains.

But Chen Wang still felt like his stomach was churning.

In the boiling cauldron, several severed arms had been boiled to a bloody pulp.

In the camp, there were still several arms and legs hanging with blood.

The few refugees who were rescued kept kowtowing and spoke incomprehensible words.

Those who were tied up were already extremely weak and could not even stand after being untied. One person remained in a coma.

"Pile them up and burn everything here..."

The town had already turned into scorched earth.

Chen Wang did not order to stay. He distributed some food to the rescued refugees and asked them to keep walking eastward towards Jingzhou, and then led his troops to continue westward.

As he continued to advance westward, Chen Wang encountered more and more refugees on the road.

Those refugees walked eastward in groups, and most of those who died on the road and in the wilderness had turned into white bones.

I just don’t know whether it’s because it’s been too long, or because people passing by have cut off their flesh…

Even though he had seen this scene countless times, Chen Wang still found it difficult to accept it.

In my memory, there are even more desolate scenes in Shaanxi and Shanxi.
To be continued...