Han Sheng chose to carry on regardless of gender, age and age, which led to a very slow army speed. The marching speed of a day was only thirty miles!

While moving, Han Sheng sent a cavalry everywhere to sweep the people, and the team gradually became extremely large. When he arrived in Anyang half a month later, the number had reached 70,000.

When officials from counties and towns along the way saw this fierce bandit, they were so scared that they hurried inside the city and did not dare to come out to fight against it.

Henan is located in the hinterland. It has not experienced wars for a long time. The government troops are not good at fighting. Moreover, there are not many government troops in each county and town, so they dare not come out even if they can fight.

The movements of the thieves were reported one by one by one by the government of these counties and towns. The movements of these thieves were not a secret. However, Zhao Yan's official army was hidden and put away all the banners. When they encountered those counties and towns, they could take a detour. Anyway, they could go anywhere in the plains.

Even if someone saw Zhao Yan's men, he didn't know which official army it was. Many people ran faster than the bandits when they saw the official army coming.

It is said that it is better to be robbed by a thief than to be blocked by an official army. The thief robs the people's wealth and the official army will kill people's lives!

The thieves lack supplies, rob the people of the food, and also rob the rich households of the food. The government army has less food and specializes in robbing the people. They will kill good people and make achievements, but they dare not offend those rich households.

Even Zhao Yan did not dare to rob the rich families blatantly. Instead, the thief did not have that concern, so he used the means of tyrants.

If you want to gain a foothold in Handan, you must first clean up the wealthy households and then occupy the land, so no one will come to the mine to make trouble.

Handan is not Fengyang. Fengyang has several minions of Zhao Yan, but there are not in Guangping Prefecture.

The news that the thief entered Zhangde Mansion on a large scale soon reached the ears of the 70,000 generals and civil officials. However, Lu Xiangsheng fought with Ma Huihui in Yunyang and could not get rid of his body to suppress him.

Hong Chengchou was about to go to Zhangde Mansion, but he heard that Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other troops had all returned to the pass from Tongguan.

Although Tongguan is called the throat, there is another road beside it, but it is a little difficult to walk. The thief has been in trouble for seven years and has already figured out the terrain clearly.

When the official troops in Tongguan saw the bandits coming, they did not dare to go out to block the enemy. They watched Gao Yingxiang and his troops visit Shaanxi again.

Shaanxi was hit by natural disasters, and the thieves made the production extremely deserted. It can be said that no one farmed thousands of miles away. The Shanxi authorities also prohibited the flow of grain into Shaanxi in the name of strictly preventing bandits and thieves.

There was no output and little grain was transported in, so the people of Shaanxi could no longer survive. When Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong returned to Shaanxi, the troops expanded rapidly.

In order to survive with a bite of food, the people have gone from chaos to the terrifying number of thieves in just five or six days.

This scared Hong Chengchou to death. As soon as he arrived in Ruzhou, he hurriedly led his general He Renlong and Liu Chenggong to help Shaanxi. At the same time, he ordered the general Cao Wenzhao to move from Huguang to Shangluo and Xing'an areas in Shaanxi to guard the passage between the rebels and the rebels in Henan and Huguang.

At this time, the horse returned and passed Tianxing. The tribes of Mantianxing were chased by Lu Xiangsheng and fled in a panic, and also returned to Shaanxi with Gao Yingxiang and other tribes.

For a moment, except for the thief in Zhangde Mansion who was indulged by Zhao Yan, the rest of Henan returned to Shaanxi, which they were most familiar with.

When Lu Xiangsheng pulled out to help Handan, it was already February 19th, and he hurriedly headed towards Handan with eight thousand soldiers.

During this period, Lu Xiangsheng wanted to dispatch general Zu Kuan, Zu Dale, and Liaodong soldiers commanded by deputy general Liu Chongzhen to suppress the bandits who fled into Handan. However, Zu Kuan did not even bird him. Three thousand cavalrymen stopped in Henan Prefecture, killing people from time to time, annihilation, and silver women had fun.

Lu Xiangsheng led a few horses, most of them were infantry, and rushed to Handan all the way.

...

On February 15th, Han Sheng finally left Zhangde Mansion and entered Guangping Mansion, Hebei. Handan was on the border between Guangping Mansion and Zhangde Mansion (the previous few chapters were written incorrectly. Handan was in Guangping Mansion, not Zhangde Mansion. The characters on the map were too small, so depressed).

After entering Handan, Han Sheng started the sweeping directly.

No county or town passed by before, and they did not fight hard, but they just plundered them at will, but it would be different after entering Handan.

Han Sheng was like plowing the land, first sweeping all the way through the towns around Handan City, breaking down villages one by one, and slaughtering the rich.

Those thirty field artillery became a powerful weapon. The artillery soldiers of the Second Battalion pretended to be thieves and encountered a difficult place, they directly used artillery to blow it up fiercely.

Although the 75mm cannon is not very caliber, its attack power is far better than that of the Red Cannon of more than 100mm, not only because it is rifled, but also because it uses siege grenades.

There are two types of artillery shells produced by the Military Weapons Bureau. One is the killer grenade, which is covered with shrapnel, and the other is the siege grenade, which contains gunpowder.

The shells exploded directly into the wall, causing damage that was far from comparable to solid shells.

After all, the fortresses cast by the landlords were either not of high specifications or poor quality. They were bombarded by 75mm sieges and collapsed in a large area after one or two rounds.

Then a large number of thieves rushed in and chopped down the rebels inside to the ground, then ate the big guys and fight against the landlords...

Zhao Yan's finances were really tense. More than two million were invested in the textile industry. A lot of cotton was piled up. I really didn't have the money to buy land from those landlords, let alone mines.

But iron ore has always troubled Zhao Yan's development. The only way is to drive away the wolf and swallow the tiger.

At the same time, the iron and coal mines in Handan were also attacked by Han Sheng, and the miners directly joined the bandits.

After sweeping Handan a hundred miles apart, Han Sheng immediately gathered most of his troops and surrounded Handan. Then he divided some troops and swept the distance.

Handan is a small county town, with a city wall of six meters high and four meters thick. This is definitely a place that is not easy to conquer for thieves who lack siege equipment.

On the 19th, Han Sheng finally launched an attack on Handan, and thirty 75mm cannons began to bombard the city walls violently.

The magistrate of Handan was so scared that he was disgusted and quickly ordered the artillery on the top of the city to fight back.

As the cannons were fired, white smoke rose from the city wall, but it did not pose any threat to the cannons among the thieves.

The cannons on the city wall are not only old in style, but also have slow firing speed, short range and low lethality!

Within one day, the bandit's artillery fired nearly 600 shells, and finally blew up a large section of the city wall at dusk. With Han Sheng's order, a large number of bandits rushed towards the city. The defenders in Handan City were so scared that they turned around and ran away...

It is not difficult to conquer Handan, it is a foregone conclusion. What is difficult is how to end the situation to completely conceal the true appearance of the thief.

Lu Xiangsheng is heading to Handan for assistance...

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