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Although facing the problem of insufficient military salary, Jiang Yan really tried his best to cheer up and wanted to train some soldiers. He tried his best to raise some money and start training. What he did not expect was that this behavior attracted Li Zicheng's attention instead.

In our Ming Dynasty, Xuanda has always been the most important border defense center, and Xuanda's border army has always been the elite of our Ming army. Although over the years, Xuanda's army has been continuously transferred to other battlefields and has been consumed, so that the Xuanda army now has no troops to fight. However, over the years, the prestige established by the Xuanda army on various battlefields is still there, and people still dare not take Xuanda army casually and not take Xuanda army seriously. This is just like the later years of World War II, the main force of the Guandong army, which was once known as the "flower of the locust army", has been transferred to Taiping.

On various islands in the United States, the Americans were taught to be human with planes and cannons, or they were simply ignored by everyone, and then they became Benefactors on those deserted islands, looking for small insects to eat. The Guandong Army, which is left in Northeast China, is actually a group of half-grown children who have just been recruited from Japan, and can basically be considered "Kanto Cook". However, because the reputation of the "Guandong Army" is still there, even the Russians must prepare for a few months before they are about to touch them, and they will not take action until they have gained an overwhelming advantage from personnel to equipment.

Although Li Zicheng also knew that Xuan Dajun was actually an empty stance, after knowing that Xuan Dajun was training troops, he still felt pressure: because Xuan Da can produce strong troops. So just after this year, Li Zicheng summoned all the generals to discuss the situation in Xuan Da area. After discussion, everyone agreed that the Ming army in Xuan Da area would be a huge threat to the Shun army in the future. Therefore, in order to farm peacefully, the Dashun army needed to launch a preemptive attack on the Ming army in the Xuan Da area. It would be easier to fight when these troops were not trained yet to fight.

So, not long after the New Year, Li Zicheng had just become emperor and organized an army of 50,000 to set out to eliminate the Xuan army, which was still in its infancy. Liu Zongmin, the number one general under Li Zicheng, took 10,000 people as the vanguard, while Li Zicheng himself followed with the remaining 40,000 people.

In order to deter or scare the Ming army, Li Zicheng claimed that his military operation was to follow King Wu's "demolition of the people and attack the crimes" and to completely eliminate the Ming Dynasty reactionaries headed by Emperor Chongzhen. For this reason, he used 500,000 troops. Anyway, the Ming court could not send a civil servant to verify his soldiers. Moreover, in Chinese history, it is the usual rule to exaggerate the number of troops to scare opponents. Generally speaking, no one would take the number of troops claimed by others seriously. But even so, many times, using

Exaggerated numbers still have an effect in scaring people. For example, in the Three Kingdoms, after Cao Cao annexed Liu Biao's Jingzhou, he wrote to Sun Quan and said, "There are those who are in prison for revenge and command the south. Liu Cong is left behind. Now he is under the control of 800,000 naval troops, and now he will be hunting Wu with the general." At that time, the ministers of Eastern Wu were so scared that they were disgraced. Zhang Zhao, who was the leader of the civil ministers, simply advocated that "it is better to welcome him than to plan" and planned to surrender. If Prime Minister Cao honestly said, "I am managing more than 200,000 naval troops now." I am afraid that this will not be effective.

In short, this fictional number is still very scary, and the series of rapid victories of the trespasser army made this number look very real. When Li Zicheng sent troops, the army of Shanxi General Zhou Yuji and Governor Cai Maode were standing in front of him.

Zhou Yuji was not a general from a general. He was a real soldier in the late Ming army. He relied on bravery to rise to the position of Shanxi general. Therefore, compared with many generals from a general, such as Jiang Yan, he had more experience in military affairs and was more brave and good at fighting, but in other aspects he had obvious weaknesses, such as: he lacked enough servants and the resources to support these servants. Therefore, although he was a general from Shanxi, his power was quite limited.

The Shun Army's offensive preparations were not kept secret. In fact, the Shun Army did not intend to keep them secret. They hoped to use exaggerated numbers to scare the generals of the Ming army first. Therefore, when the Shun Army was preparing to attack, Zhou Yuji became aware of it and began to prepare to fight the Shun Army.

However, Zhou Yuji had too few troops in his hands. Although he had been committed to eliminating the old, weak and disabled soldiers, repairing weapons, strengthening training, and preparing for war at a high level, he was a humble background and his foundation was too poor. In addition, the financial crisis of our Ming Dynasty made it difficult for him to get enough military pay. As a result, after two years of hard work, his troops could fight were only two or three thousand. So Zhou Yuji had to ask the capital for help.

But at this time, Chongzhen did not have the army that could quickly mobilize and support Zhou Yuji to fight. Emperor Chongzhen thought of many ways, but in the end he could only transfer two thousand people from the Beijing camp and let his deputy general Xiong Tong lead him as reinforcements.

Zhou Yuji himself stayed in the Beijing camp. He knew that many of the generals in the Beijing camp were children of officials who obtained positions based on family background and nepotism, and they would not fight at all. Most of the soldiers in the Beijing camp were old, weak, sick and disabled. Such an army was useless at all, but Zhou Yuji had no other army available, so he asked Xiong Tong to lead these two thousand men to defend the Yellow River, and then he led the troops trained in Daizhou for two years.

Liu Zongmin led his troops to attack Taiyuan, where Shanxi Governor Cai Maode was stationed. Cai Maode was not proficient in military affairs. As a believer in his heart, he was best at "talking about one's heart and one's heart to repay the king when he was in trouble." With the obvious advantage in the Shun army, he sent his main force out of the city to fight in the Shun army. As a result, in just half a day, more than 5,000 Ming army were wiped out under the city of Taiyuan, and the generals Niu Yong, Zhu Kongxun, and Wang Yongkui, who led the troops to fight, were also killed in battle.

This defeat at the city was a devastating blow to the morale of the defenders. At this time, Cai Maode did not find a way to inspire morale, but ran back to the government office to write a suicide note in front of everyone. As the saying goes, "The train runs fast, all depends on the locomotive." Now, as the highest commander of Taiyuan City, Cai Maode has lost confidence in the battle and is about to die for the country, so the morale of his subordinates has naturally become negative. As a result, Zhang Xiong, the general who was responsible for guarding the city gate, simply surrendered, so Taiyuan City fell into the hands of the Shun Army in just two days. As for Cai Maode, he died for the country and became a loyal minister.

Taiyuan, where the city is high and the pool is deep, was lost in just two days. This news shocked the Ming army in Shanxi. Originally, when Li Zicheng claimed that he had an army of 500,000, most of the Ming generals did not believe it. However, when Li Zicheng's army took Taiyuan in just two days, many Ming generals began to believe that Li Zicheng really had hundreds of thousands, or at least had a army of more than 100,000. Otherwise, how could he capture Taiyuan in such a short time?

After Taiyuan fell, Li Zicheng continued to march. Then, Jiang Rang, the general of Yulin who felt that he could not resist Li Zicheng's attack, took the initiative to send someone to contact Li Zicheng and expressed his willingness to surrender to Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng has always been very welcome to surrendered official troops, because no matter what, the official troops are regular troops, and their general level is not bad. Many times, many skills are learned from these surrendered official troops. Most of his combat troops have had the experience of being an official army.

So Li Zicheng welcomed Jiang Rang's surrender and asked Jiang Rang to write a letter to his brother, Datong General Jiang Yan, and persuaded him to "abandon the dark and turn to the light". At the same time, he continued to march forward.

Xiong Tong, the deputy general of the Beijing camp who was left by Zhou Yuji to guard the Yellow River, was naturally frightened by the lightning attack of the rebel army. He also knew what the two thousand people under his command were. He estimated that if these two thousand people fought with the Ming army guarding Taiyuan, he would probably not be able to hold on to a meal. However, the Ming army guarding Taiyuan had never survived the next day with the city, let alone the two thousand people? As a result, as soon as Liu Zongmin's scout appeared, Xiong Tong rushed to surrender.

Li Zicheng accepted Xiong Tong's surrender as usual, but after seeing Xiong Tong's soldiers, he seemed unhappy. After hearing that he was from the Jingying Camp, Li Zicheng inquired about the situation in the capital again. Moreover, Li Zicheng knew that the Shanxi general Zhou Yuji was also from the Jingying Camp, so he sent him to persuade Zhou Yuji to surrender. Li Zicheng and Zhou Yuji also had some dealings with him, and knew that this person was very good at fighting. If Xiong Tong could persuade Zhou Yuji to surrender, then accepting Xiong Tong's surrender and having to support him for two thousand garbage soldiers would not be considered a loss.

However, Zhou Yuji was a loyal minister. When he saw Xiong Tong who came to persuade him to surrender, he was furious and said, "I have been favored by the country, how can I surrender the thief? You have led two thousand troops and did not kill the thief for the country, but came to be a lobbyist for the thief!" He immediately ordered his subordinates to push him out and behead him.

Li Zicheng's army rested for a few days, continued to advance, and began to attack Daizhou, which Zhou Yuji was defending. Daizhou was large in the city, and Zhou Yuji had few soldiers, so it was difficult to support it. After resisting for several days, he retreated to Ningwu Pass.

Ningwu Pass is the location of the Sanguan Governor General. Guancheng was built in the first year of Jingtai (1450 AD) of the Ming Dynasty and was repaired during the Chenghua, Zhengde and Longqing periods of the Ming Dynasty. Guancheng is located on Huagai Mountain, which is the remainder of Hengshan Mountain. The terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Li Zicheng led his troops to chase here. Seeing that the pass was in danger, Zhou Yuji was very firm and knew that there was no oil or water in Zhou Yuji, so hesitated whether to continue attacking. So Zhou Yuji sent troops out of the city to challenge, and the rebel army naturally responded to the battle, but he did not expect Zhou Yuji's army to turn around and run away. The rebel army chased after him. The Ming army was too slow to pass the gate and was actually rushed into the gate by the rebel army.
Chapter completed!