Although he blocked the first wave of attacks by the mountain people, Li Zicheng also suffered additional casualties.

Two people were killed, three were seriously injured, and one was slightly injured.

Li Zicheng counted and found that there were less than ten people around him who could fight.

While the mountain people were retreating, a soldier called in charge of the team: "Your Majesty, why don't you tell these people your identity, promise a heavy reward, and let them let us go."

Li Zicheng frowned and said, "If this was before the war, this move might still win their trust. But now that he has killed several of us, do you think they will trust us again?"

What's more, the leader called us thieves from the beginning. Not surprisingly, he was probably a landlord who had a grudge against us.

If they knew who I was, I'm afraid they would just want to take my head to collect the reward from the Qing captives."

The soldier guarding the team said: "Then what should we do now? We can defend for two more waves at most, and we won't be able to hold it any longer."

Li Zicheng's brows furrowed into the Chinese character "Sichuan", and the brown eyeball in his one eye remained motionless, obviously there was nothing he could do.

When other people saw this, they all showed deep despair.

However, these people are Li Zicheng's true confidants and have received great favor from him. Even now, no one wants to use Li Zicheng's head to survive or seek wealth.

Even if someone thinks so, they may not dare to implement it.

Without any connection, no one would know how many people present were die-hard fans of Li Zicheng.

If only one person takes action, he will most likely be hacked to death before he succeeds.

Soon, Li Zicheng and others no longer had to worry.

Because the mountain people outside launched another attack and threw in several smoking dung balls!

Obviously, these mountain people came prepared and expected that they would not be able to attack the mountain temple.

As more than a dozen specially made dung balls were thrown in, the mountain temple, which was originally not very big, was suddenly filled with thick smoke. Although the mountain temple had leaks, it would take some time for the smoke to dissipate.

Outside.

A man in his thirties or forties, dressed in silk and satin, looked at the thick smoke with a ferocious and excited look on his face, and shouted: "Kill all these intruders, leave no one behind!"

Li Zicheng's guess was correct. This man's name was Zhou Wang, and he indeed had a grudge against Chuang Jun.

The Zhou family was originally a landowner with a major surname in Xinyang Prefecture, but was almost destroyed by the Shun army.

Fortunately, Zhou Wang's old father had foreseen the advent of troubled times and had already implemented the cunning rabbit's strategy of three caves, allowing Zhou Wang to build a stronghold in Zhenlei Mountain, and only then could a group of people survive.

Later, Zhou Wang slowly developed by relying on the stockade in Zhenlei Mountain, and in a few years he became a major "overlord" in the depths of Zhenlei Mountain, with more than 3,000 villagers and more than 500 soldiers.

His village is just a few miles away from the mountain temple.

When it rained before, a hunter in the village came here to take shelter from the rain. He noticed the presence of Li Zicheng and others in the forest. He thought it was a defeat of the army, so he went back to report to Zhou Wang.

Zhou Wang did not dare to provoke the large group of loyal troops, but Zhou Wang wanted to kill the small group of defeated troops quickly.

In fact, in the past few months, Zhou Wang had also encountered the defeated Shun army retreating to Zhenlei Mountain - they were all defeated and fled by the Qing army.

Therefore, Zhou Wang thought that these dozen people were the remnants of the defeated army.

It's just that he doesn't recognize Dashun, so he calls him a trespasser.

Zhou Wang originally thought that being so smoked, the Shun soldiers inside would be unable to help but rush out, and then he would be able to let his soldiers swarm up and kill them easily.

Unexpectedly, after smoking for a while, I saw that the smoke began to thin, but no one came out.

Zhou Wang had people shoot arrows inside, but no screams could be heard, as if there was no one inside, or everyone was dead.

'It's quite difficult.'

Zhou Wang narrowed his eyes.

He was originally a child who had lived in Zhenlei Mountain for several years as a half-people and half-expense. He didn't know how to fight in big battles, but he had many ways to deal with such small-scale battles.

Immediately shouted: "Whoever dares to put on a wet cloth and rush in to kill these thieves will be rewarded by the leader of the village with three buckets of rice and five taels of silver for every head!"

When they heard that a human head was worth three buckets of rice, many soldiers' eyes suddenly turned green.

What is most valuable in Henan today? Not gold and silver, but rice!

This is true even in this Thunder Mountain.

Immediately, dozens of people cut off their clothes, wet them in the rain puddles on the ground, covered their mouths and noses, and rushed in.

Suddenly there was the sound of swords piercing flesh and the sound of hacking and killing in the mountain temple.

Within a few seconds, five people rushed out, and they were all loyal soldiers. Even though they knew that there were enemies outside, they had to rush out because they would also die inside.

Zhou Wang sneered when he saw this, waved his hand and said: "Fire the arrow!"

Dozens of prepared hunters shot arrows together, and three of the five were immediately hit by arrows.

One of them is Li Zicheng!

"His Majesty!"

Seeing Li Zicheng hit the calf with an arrow and falling to the ground, Hu Er couldn't help shouting anxiously.

But he did not rush to protect Li Zicheng, but took advantage of the lull in the arrow rain to pounce on Zhou Wang, who was more than ten steps away!

Zhou Wang jumped, quickly retreated, and shouted: "Block him! Block him quickly!"

Although he was not a weak scholar and could kill people with a knife, he was no match for someone like Hu Er who looked very fierce.

More than a dozen Zhou family servants and clan members rushed up to stop Hu Er.

However, these people basically had no armor, and their fighting skills, experience, and strength were also very different. Hu Er, who was wearing armor, easily killed them one by one with his sword.

Seeing that Hu Er was so good at fighting, the surrounding soldiers did not dare to come up again for a while.

Hu Er's movements did not pause at all. After killing the people around him, he picked up a waist knife and threw it at Zhou Wang!

With a puff, Zhou Wang's body froze as he was running away.

He turned his head and looked behind him, with a look of disbelief on his face.

He never expected that he would lose his life in such a confused manner even though he was winning before he saw it.

Seeing Zhou Wang's death, the rest of the soldiers in the village suddenly burst into commotion and were on the verge of disintegration.

But in the next breath, a member of the Zhou clan who served as the leader of the village soldiers shouted: "Shoot the arrows! Kill these people to avenge the village master!"

The man's name was Zhou Fa. After he shouted, an arrow shot at Hu Er.

It turned out that unknowingly, the village soldiers had distanced themselves from Hu Er again.

Hu Er swung his sword, knocked the arrow away, and rushed towards the nearest camp soldier again. One man actually forced the camp soldiers to retreat continuously.

But soon more than a dozen spears were fired at him, forcing him to stop; arrows kept coming, making his situation more and more dangerous.

The most important thing is that the fighting in the mountain temple stopped, and the bravest soldiers retreated and attacked the injured Li Zicheng and the other remaining guard Tian Zhao.

Fortunately, Tian Zhao was also a master and managed to temporarily protect Li Zicheng by himself.

But with just two people, no matter how good their skills are, there will be times when they are exhausted.

Seeing that Hu and Tian were in danger, the injured Li Zicheng and two other seriously injured soldiers also struggled to get up and pick up their swords to fight again.

Although the village soldiers were shocked by the bravery of these people, they also understood that they were all at the end of their strength and could be killed with just a little more sharpening, a few more knives, and a few more arrows.

So no one left for a while, but they became even more excited.

Although Zhou Wang is dead, the village still belongs to the Zhou family. No matter who wants to succeed as the leader of the village, they must avenge Zhou Wang and fulfill the heavy reward Zhou Wang promised.

Within twenty or thirty breaths, another accident happened.

First, there were screams from the outside of the village soldiers, and then there were angry shouts of killing.

Hearing the shouting and killing, the accent was mostly in Shaanxi dialect. Hu Er was surprised and said: "It's Miao Yousheng and the others who are here!"

After all, the soldiers in the village were not regular troops. When they saw reinforcements coming from the Shun Army, they couldn't tell how many there were in the forest, so they immediately dispersed and fled.

Miao Yousheng's 20 or 30 people who arrived here through the thick smoke did not pursue them, but hurriedly arrived in front of the mountain temple.

"It is my humble duty to come to rescue you late, please forgive me!" Miao Yousheng saw Li Zicheng and immediately knelt down on one knee to apologize.

At this time, Li Zicheng's face could no longer tell whether it was sallow or gray. He leaned on the ground with a knife and managed to stand up.

He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, he fell down with a plop!

"His Majesty!"

The three guards, Miao, Hu and Tian, ​​couldn't help but hurriedly supported Li Zicheng and checked his body.

But at some point, Li Zicheng's armor was torn and he was stabbed in the left waist. The blood had soaked into his armor and trouser legs.

The three guards and the surrounding elite soldiers were all people who had walked through mountains of corpses and seas of blood. It was clear that such injuries were hopeless.

Thinking of the various scenes in which Li Zicheng led everyone in the southern and northern wars in the past many years, dozens of compliant men could not help crying.

No matter what Li Zicheng did, whether he succeeded or not, he eventually led these low-level men to fight for a piece of the sky. Even if the sky was only temporary, he still became a hero in the minds of these low-level men.

Now, their hero died at the hands of a group of mountain people in this small Thunder Mountain.

Thinking that Dashun's achievements would collapse overnight with Li Zicheng's death, all these Shun soldiers felt sad.

Li Zicheng felt his body getting colder and colder, and the hand still holding the knife became weaker and weaker, and he knew that he was dead this time.
To be continued...