On the suspension bridge outside the west gate of Kaifeng Fucheng, Zhang Nai was knocked to the ground by a war horse. He reacted quickly enough and just rolled backwards to stop himself.
He just stood up and turned over, and saw several guards running back, and the city gate began to slowly close. He shouted loudly: "Quick, rush over, don't close the door..."
Two small leaders led more than 20 horses and rushed in front of Zhang Nai. When they heard Zhang Nai's roar, they urged their horses harder and ran toward the city gate.
Suddenly, Zhang Nai felt his feet shaking uncontrollably. He hurriedly took a look and saw that the suspension bridge had begun to slowly rise upwards. At this time, except for the twenty-odd cavalry intruders who rushed down the suspension bridge towards the city gate, there were only
Only a dozen riders rushed onto the suspension bridge.
Zhang Nai screamed anxiously. He picked up the waist knife in his hand and slashed at the iron rope. The thick hemp rope was already stretched tightly. The steel knife in his hand bounced away when he struck it, leaving no traces.
Nothing left.
He shouted anxiously to the back: "Abandon the horse, climb up, seize the door, quick, quick..."
A dozen rebel cavalrymen immediately abandoned their horses and climbed onto the suspension bridge. There were not many refugees on the suspension bridge at this moment. Almost all of them were occupied by rebel soldiers. There were still some rebels behind who were riding on horseback towards the suspension bridge.
Jump over.
With the help of several people on the suspension bridge, I managed to climb up the suspension bridge. Although they slowed down the rise of the suspension bridge, they still could not stop the suspension bridge from continuing to rise upward.
At this moment, a small leader of the insurgent army ran back quickly and shouted: "The city gate is closed, it can't be opened..."
Zhang Nai shouted and was about to rush to chop down the door, but was stopped by the thieves. They all knew that the Kaifeng City Gate was thick and solid and could not be broken open by just slashing with swords and axes. Since they could not rush in and seize it before it was closed,
, this operation is considered a failure.
At this time, the guards on the city tower also discovered that they were not real officers and soldiers. Rolling stones and trees came down one after another. A thief soldier next to Zhang Nai was hit by a big stone, and his brains burst open mixed with blood.
It was all over his body and face.
The little leader who just ran back from the city gate cave shouted: "Little Master Zhang, we are protecting you, jump back quickly, it will be too late if it is later!"
As he spoke, he commanded all the thieves to raise their shields and protect Zhang Nai everywhere in front of him. Under the city tower, in addition to rolling logs and rocks, there were also many arrows flying down. Those thieves who had no shields to protect them.
They were all hit by arrows and fell to the ground wailing.
Zhang Nai saw that things had come to this. Although he was extremely unwilling in his heart, he also knew that there was no benefit in continuing to endure. He shouted: "Let's go, jump back."
The thieves raised their shields one after another. Zhang Nai jumped up with all his strength and barely landed on the edge of the ditch. Several thieves immediately rushed up to support him and retreated back.
Three hundred of them rode to prepare for a sneak attack on the south gate of Kaifeng. However, only less than sixty people rushed to the suspension bridge, and only less than ten people escaped from the suspension bridge.
As the suspension bridge was raised high, Zhang Nai also led the thieves to retreat backwards to avoid the arrows and bullets fired from the tower.
Outside Xiguan, further west of them, a large cloud of smoke and dust billowed in, getting bigger and bigger, filling the sky and the fields, boundless!
…………
Just when the west gate of Kaifeng Fucheng was attacked, the boat of the governor Yang Sichang was heading east down the Qutang Gorge in Kuizhou. The river current was fast and the boat was like an arrow.
Now he had to rush to Shashi as quickly as possible in order to know the whereabouts of the two bandits, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai, so that he could decide on the next step of the pursuit and suppression strategy.
Yang Sichang was alone in the large cabin of the ship, staring out the window at the rolling Yangtze River water for a long time, not allowing anyone to come in and disturb him.
After a long time, he sighed softly and said to himself: "Your Majesty, I am exhausted!"
In May last year, he had forced all the bandits to the eastern Sichuan area. Under the siege of the army, Prime Minister Hui Deng and Wang Guangen and other bandits had surrendered one after another. Even Luo Rucai, known as "Cao Cao", had
Just soothe your heart.
He was so high-spirited at that time that only the "Eight King" Zhang Xianzhong was left, and he was surrounded in the mountains between Kui and Wu. It was only a matter of time before he was completely annihilated.
But what he didn't expect was that the officers and generals were getting tired of chasing down the thieves for many years, and they gradually became slack.
Firstly, Sichuan Governor Shao Jiechun did not follow his battle strategy in deploying troops. Secondly, Shaanxi warriors He Renlong and Li Guoqi actually ran away from Kaixian County and led the army privately back to Shaanxi, blocking the west road from the thieves.
The troops are empty.
At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong persuaded and threatened Luo Rucai, causing Luo Rucai to change his mind. He actually joined the Xian thieves and led his troops into the heart of Sichuan.
Yang Sichang had no choice but to rush to Chongqing himself. He originally planned to drive the two thieves Zhang and Luo to a remote place in northwest Sichuan, and then try to encircle and annihilate them.
However, the veteran soldiers were exhausted, their lives were useless, the soldiers had no fighting spirit, and Shangfang's sword was ineffective, so all the strategies he planned to block and suppress them came to nothing.
In just half a year, the Xian bandits and Cao bandits fled from eastern Sichuan to northern Sichuan, and even returned to attack Chengdu. After that, they went south along the Tuojiang River and attacked Huzhou in western Sichuan. Then they returned from western Sichuan to the north, bypassed Chengdu, and headed eastward.
Tongjiang River, quickly heading south, its whereabouts are very mysterious, and the news was lost for a while.
Just when Yang Sichang was searching hard, the Xian thieves and the Cao thieves suddenly appeared in Huangling City, Kaixian County. After defeating the officers and soldiers of the General Soldier, who were as fierce as tigers, they fled out of Sichuan from Kuizhou and Dachang.
He looked at the river and thought to himself: "Since I was ordered to supervise the army, I have spent millions of taels of national money, but I am called a traitor, and the traitor fled back to Huguang. This year and a half of hard work has been ruined in one day!"
Yang Sichang thought hard for a long time, but he still couldn't guess where the traitors would go to continue causing trouble, and he couldn't think of any good strategies to deal with the traitors. He only felt that he had many things to say to the court and the emperor.
But as the saying goes, "Once you go abroad, you are thousands of miles away." Now that I am far away from the center, I have no choice but to let others criticize me, but there is nothing I can do!
His mood was extremely depressed and heavy, and he unconsciously shouted in a low voice: "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!..."
…………
For a time, many past events in the past six months kept popping up in Yang Sichang's mind.
I still remember the scene when he entered Sichuan from the Three Gorges in September last year, vividly before his eyes...
In early September last year, Yang Sichang took a boat from Yiling and headed west up the river. On September 11, he arrived outside Wushan City. The boat parked by the river, but he did not go ashore. He only stopped here for one night and continued westward.
Enter Sichuan.
The reason why the ship docked here was just to meet a bandit general who sincerely surrendered.
In fact, among the bandits from various tribes who surrendered in eastern Sichuan, Yang Sichang valued most the battalion of "Huaguansuo" Wang Guangen. They stayed here to receive him specially on the big ship and give him silver coins.