Xie Liangcai did not work in Lushan County before, but was a county magistrate in Shaanxi, but he was very unlucky when he was a county magistrate in Shaanxi.

During his three years of office, he encountered thieves attacking the county town every year. In the first half of last year, he even encountered a large army led by Gao Yingxiang and came over.

At that time, thousands of officers and soldiers guarding the city could not stop it, so he was a small county magistrate, and naturally had no choice but to do anything. However, he was very lucky and fled with the retreating officers and soldiers.

Later, he spent a lot of money to avoid the crime of losing the city, and was transferred to Lushan County to be the county magistrate.

The reason why he was not guilty was that he was transferred to Lushan County was because he encountered a thief attack of tens of thousands of dollars. At that time, he had no choice but to say that he was a small county magistrate, even Hong Chengchou had no choice.

So the superiors didn't blame him too much. Instead, they felt that this person had experienced great storms and had worked in Shaanxi for several years and had dealt with thieves. They also did a lot of things during the city guarding, assisting the defenders to collect food and grass, and mobilizing civilians to defend the city together.

In addition, Xie Liangcai spent a lot of money to open up the joints, and someone from the top helped him speak, so the court not only did not blame him, but also transferred him to Lushan County to continue to be the county magistrate.

He originally thought that it would be safer to go to Henan to be a county magistrate, but he didn't expect that as soon as he took office, a large number of rebels came out from Shaanxi and rushed to Henan.

This made Xie Liangcai very nervous. In the past month, he begged his grandfather to send troops to garrison Lushan County to avoid another fall of the city.

However, the superiors did not send troops to garrison Lushan County, but instead were transferred away by two or three hundred war soldiers who had originally garrisoned here because of the tense war in various places in the north.

This made Xie Liangcai even more frightened, for fear that a thief would emerge and kill him to Lushan County.

The soldiers were transferred away, and Xie Liangcai had no choice but to rely on a local county of Lushan County with hundreds of people to serve as the main force to protect Lushan County.

Speaking of this county tyrant, he has to thank Wang Jida, who has been transferred to the position of Ruzhou Tongzhi.

After all, this county hero was created by Wang Jida during his tenure. Although his combat effectiveness is not much different from the corrupt military soldiers, he is better than the civilians.

Xie Liangcai has been worried and concerned about the war in the north in the past month.

But what he didn't expect was that before a large number of thieves in the north had arrived, a large number of thieves appeared on Funiu Mountain.

"At least two thousand thieves? And there are also elite cavalry and artillery?" Xie Liangcai couldn't believe what he heard: "Didn't the thieves on Funiu Mountain have already run to the Lu family, why are there so many thieves suddenly appearing? Could it be that the thieves on the north side are circling the mountains and heading south?"

When he first took office, he had a brief understanding of the situation in Lushan County and knew that there was a thief on Funiu Mountain, saying that there were hundreds of people. However, Wang Jida said that he had led his troops to attack this thief, and a large number of thieves had already headed towards the depths of the mountains to the west.

None of the words Wang Jida reported on the upwards was true. Not only did the superiors not know, but Xie Liangcai couldn't figure out the truth or falsehood.

Now Xie Liang suddenly learned that at least two thousand thieves had emerged from Funiu Mountain. His first reaction was that these were not the little thieves in Funiu Mountain at all.

How could ordinary thieves have elite cavalry and artillery? These things are usually only available in large-scale thieves.

Looking at this area of ​​Henan, only the big thieves in the north have such elite cavalry and artillery.

So Xie Liangcai's first reaction was that these thieves were the main force of the thieves from the north heading south.

I just don’t know why I didn’t go to the flat hinterland of Ruzhou, but ran to the west to climb the mountains.

The officers and soldiers who came to report were just ordinary people. He knew so many twists and turns. He was just ordered to monitor the local bandits in the outer area of ​​Funiu Mountain. After seeing a large number of bandits coming out of the mountain, and there were cavalry and artillery inside, he didn't even have the courage to get close to observe carefully. He just took a look from afar and ran back to report.

He estimated that the bandit army had at least two thousand troops.

Anyway, those thieves seem to be in full force, so these troops are indispensable. And according to the bandits' traditional tradition of thieves, they have been thieves all the way after crossing the mountains. It is estimated that there will be thousands of people when they arrive in Lushan County.

So in his opinion, the number of at least two thousand people is very safe, and even said it is less.

After hearing a lot of questions from Xie Liangcai, especially the question of whether these thieves went south from the north, they naturally didn't know what to do.

When he saw the provocateur, he didn't know more. Xie Liangcai was too lazy to ask, so he asked the provocateur to go down, and then urgently summoned the county town, and the chief clerk and others discussed countermeasures.

After the officer and soldier were sent out, he stayed outside for a long time but no one paid attention to him. His face looked very ugly: "I rode back all the way back to report the news, and didn't even give me some rewards. Damn, if I work so hard in the future, I will be a bastard."

When the whistle detective left cursingly, many people in the county government were also anxious by Xie Liangcai.

Before everyone could arrive, Xie Liangcai asked the county magistrate: "County Chief Li, a large number of bandits came out of Funiu Shandong. What should we do?"

County Magistrate Li Li glanced at Xie Liangcai and muttered in his heart: "The thief is here to kill him. You ask me what you are doing. I don't know how to lead troops to fight."

"When you encounter this kind of time, you must have seen the general of the county brave first. You asked me what a scholar who is powerless to do..."

"And seeing this man's expression was panicked, I'm afraid he was scared. Why did this fool have not died in Shaanxi for several years? This is unreasonable!"

Although County Magistrate Li complained in his heart, he did not show any signs of it. Instead, he cooperated and showed a look of fear, and then said: "County Master, the thief is coming. Did you call the Wang Dusi from County Yong over?"

Xie Liangcai then reacted and immediately said, "Yes, yes, call Wang Dusi over immediately."

As Xie Liangcai became anxious one after another, it didn't take long for the most prominent people in the entire Lushan County to know that a thief was about to be killed.

Not to mention the reaction from Lushan County, Luo Zhixue continued to advance eastward without panic.

Although after Songshan Village, the places we pass through are all the outer areas of Funiu Mountain, and the roads are far easier to walk than those in the mountains, this place is still a hilly area. Many roads seem to be able to pass through carriages, but they are still very troublesome, and the roads are not flat, with many ups and downs.

Before this time, a large number of people have to be used to help push and pull artillery and ammunition trucks, as well as large numbers of carriages for transporting food and supplies.

Sometimes we will encounter small bridges across streams and valleys. These small bridges are generally wooden bridges of poor quality. In order to pass through more than 600 kilograms of artillery and similarly heavy ammunition trucks, Baoxiangying often needs to temporarily strengthen the bridge, or simply build a small wooden bridge on the spot.

So the entire marching speed was actually not fast. They just took six days to rush in the outer hills and arrived at a relatively flat place.

Seeing that although the terrain ahead was still undulating, but there were no obstacles to the mountains, Luo Zhixue himself breathed a sigh of relief.

It is really troublesome to march in the mountains with a large army and a large number of artillery and supplies.

Fortunately, I moved my headquarters to Songshan Village, which is so troublesome to march in the hilly areas of the surrounding area. If I still stayed in Sanshui Village like before, I would probably not be able to get out in less than half a month.

"I finally came out and camped for rest according to the plan!" Luo Zhixue himself also got off the horse and ordered the army to rest on the spot.

The climbing and wading along the way consumed a lot of physical energy for soldiers and mules and horses. In addition, there was still more than ten miles away from Songjiazhuang. It was already afternoon, so he could not directly lead the army to Songjiazhuang.

Of course, we have to set up camp and rest first, and any action plan will come tomorrow.

After arranging his subordinates to camp, Luo Zhixue called An Yongduo over again: "Is there any news from Wang Jianzi? Have you found any officers and soldiers' sentry detectives?"

Wang Xiazi led the cavalry post to set out half a day in advance. According to the plan, his cavalry post should be about five miles northeast of the army. As the peripheral vanguard unit of the entire army, he should detect the enemy's movements in advance and intercept the enemy's small-scale vanguard unit.

An Yongduo said: "Brother Wang sent someone to report that everything is normal at present. He has not found any abnormal movements in Lushan County and the north, nor has he encountered the officers and soldiers' reconnaissance cavalry. Instead, our reconnaissance cavalry discovered that the village gate was closed in the Songjiazhuang. It should have been known that we had come out of the mountain."

After hearing this, Luo Zhixue looked down at the simple map: "It is normal for Songjiazhuang to react, but the officers and soldiers did not react at all? There was not even a detective cavalry?"

EYongduo said: "Brother Wang did not find any officers and soldiers to detect the cavalry, and the infantry teams we patrolled the periphery did not find any traces of officers and soldiers to detect the cavalry."

"Either they don't know what we are doing or they haven't sent a sentry to come."

An Yongduo's guess was not right. Xie Liangcai and the others in Lushan County already knew that a thief was killed and sent a sentry to attack.

But, the few detectives he sent didn't come at all.

These detectives rushed back to report the thief when they found out that they had been robbed, but the superiors didn't give them a penny and sent them out for investigation that day.

The detectives were extremely unhappy about this, so they were naturally the ones who were mowing the country. After leaving the city, they found a broken wooden house in the wilderness and forest and traveled all day.

The next day, I was wandering around and snatched a team of travelers in the middle of the journey, and I gained a lot.

These sentry detectives didn't go west at all.

This work was not rewarded, and they risked their lives to find traces of the thief army, so they naturally refused.

Xie Liangcai didn't know about this, and Luo Zhixue didn't know about it either, so after not finding the officers and soldiers' sentry detectives for several consecutive days, Luo Zhixue felt a little strange.

These officers and soldiers did not follow the normal routine. Even if there were no soldiers in Lushan County who dared not fight, they would have to send a few posts to investigate the situation.

But there wasn't even a sentry detective...

However, Luo Zhixue only felt a little strange about this, but he would not change the scheduled combat plan just because the officers and soldiers' reconnaissance cavalry did not appear.

Anyway, after long-term intelligence collection, Luo Zhixue has been very sure that there are no main forces of officers and soldiers in Lushan County, and only a few hundred people will be the county brave man who has to die.

The main force of the officers and soldiers in the north did not go south, and the officers and soldiers stationed in Luyang Pass did not go north, so there is no need to worry too much.

The focus now is to take over Songjiazhuang!
Chapter completed!