Su Xiong led his troops south along the Baoshui River.
They have entered the southern section of Baoxie Road, passing through Baoxian County and reaching Hanzhong Fucheng.
Su Xiong was very anxious. They crossed Lianyun Road without resistance from a large number of officers and soldiers.
He is a rare soldier who perfectly hides his whereabouts.
I wonder if the troops led by Su He can successfully capture Lueyang and withstand the encirclement and suppression by the Hanzhong Prefecture official army.
Su He's subordinates are all untrained recruits.
The quality of the soldiers is completely incomparable to veterans who have gone through several wars.
Su Xiong marched quickly along the river. From time to time, he could see boats passing by on the Baoshui River. Their whereabouts had been exposed.
The army walked for more than an hour and saw a small county town ahead.
Su Zhuang was a little embarrassed to speak, but he gritted his teeth and said anyway:
"Brigadier Su Xiong, the Lianyun Road Plank Road is too dangerous.
We only brought eight of our siege mines, and we couldn't carry the rest, so they were all thrown off the plank road.
Hanzhong Fucheng is stronger, and even eight may not be enough.
When you attack Baoxian County, can you work harder and just set up ladders to attack the city?"
Su Xiong thought about it and realized that he also knew the difficulties of the engineering camp and agreed to Su Zhuang's request.
"I can try it first. If the resistance of Bao County officers and soldiers is weak, I can use conventional methods to attack the city.
They are extremely resistant and should use siege mines as little as possible."
Su Xiong immediately sent troops to surround Baoxian County, and the army set up camp and buried pots for cooking.
Soldiers are very tired from marching in a hurry and need to take adequate rest to restore their physical strength.
At the same time, let the engineering battalion cut down the surrounding wood and make a simple ladder.
…
Noon.
When everything was ready, the army immediately began to attack the city.
The soldiers carried the ladders and quickly ran to the city wall despite the sparse artillery fire at Baoxian City.
They set up the ladder on the city wall. The top of the ladder had an underhook to hook it to the edge of the city wall.
The Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers guarding the city above Baoxian County began to pour boiling gold juice and lead water down, and threw down a large number of rolling logs and stones.
The soldiers suffered heavy casualties, but they still continued to climb the ladder.
A soldier quickly climbed to the city wall and threw a grenade directly onto the city wall.
The grenade explosion also announced that this section of the city wall had failed.
Soldiers climbed up the city wall one after another, completely occupied the city wall, and opened the gate of Baoxian County.
Su Xiong led his army into Bao County.
He didn't expect that attacking this county and city would be so easy.
The resistance of the Ming army was very weak.
In the first tentative siege, Bao County was successfully captured.
After they entered the city, they basically encountered no large-scale resistance.
Su Xiong was the first to occupy the pier on Baoshui River and captured a large number of ships.
Hanzhong Fucheng is close to the Han River. If you want to completely blockade Hanzhong City, you can't do it without ships.
Su Xiong came to Baoxian County Government Office.
Wu Langqian, the magistrate of Baoxian County in the Ming Dynasty, has been captured by them.
Su Xiong asked the soldiers to bring Wu Lang up and interrogate him personally.
"Tell me everything you know about Hanzhong Mansion's recent troop movements.
You are not the only one who knows about this, if you dare to hide it, your whole family will not have to live."
Wu Langqian looked at the rebels with an angry look on their faces, and he didn't dare to hide it at all.
"I haven't done anything bad in normal times. I have a good reputation in Bao County. Please let me go. I will tell everything I know.
The biggest troop mobilization of Hanzhong Prefecture recently is that the prefect sent all the troops of the prefecture to encircle and suppress the yellow-clothed thieves who occupied Lueyang.
Liu Yingyu's troops who were originally stationed in our Bao County were transferred away.
The county also recruited 800 corvees to transport food to the army.
As far as I know, Hanzhong Guard and Ningqiang Guard are the two largest guards in Hanzhong Prefecture.
All their troops were transferred to the Lueyang front line.
They marched quickly and have now reached Lueyang.
If we march slower, we can reach Lueyang tomorrow."
Su Xiong was worried and excited when he heard the news.
He was worried that Suhe could not withstand it, and the Ming army in Hanzhong Prefecture was attacking with all its might.
He was excited because Hanzhong was an empty city.
With the troops in Su Xiong's hands, it was very easy to capture Hanzhong Fucheng.
Now he can only capture Hanzhong Fucheng as soon as possible.
Then send troops to support Lueyang and eliminate all Ming officers and soldiers in Hanzhong Prefecture.
Su Xiong asked condescendingly: "Do you want to live?"
Wu Langqian nodded: "I think so, I really think so.
If the adults have anything to do, please let me do it.
I have been the magistrate of Bao County for seven years, and I am familiar with the people and things in the county."
Wu Langqian understood the meaning of the rebel's question, and it must be of use to him.
He cherished his life very much and did not want to be killed by the rebels.
It is a very good signal that you are useful to yourself. If you are useful to the rebels, you will not be killed.
"Call all the boatmen in the county who are good at setting up boats and have sons."
Su Xiong assigned guards to follow Wu Lang and supervise his work.
Wu Langniu worked extremely efficiently despite the threat to his life.
He quickly summoned more than 200 boatmen to the county government office.
Su Xiong looked at these people and threatened them.
"I want you to take us to Hanzhong Mansion by boat. We are rebels, and you know that.
Just listen to our instructions and nothing will happen to your family.
If you live, I will reward each of you with ten taels of silver.
If you die, I will compensate your family two hundred taels of silver.
If you dare to be clever, your whole family will die."
These boatmen lowered their heads and no one dared to resist.
Su Xiong is very satisfied with what he did.
When Su He was chatting with him, he told a story about a tomb robber.
When a tomb robber goes down to the tomb, one person should be left on top to pull the rope.
In the past, several people worked together to rob tombs, and to rob the tombs, the treasures had to be transported up first.
The one who pulled the rope became greedy and ran away with the treasure. All the people left in the tomb died.
Later, the tomb robbing gangs were all father and son combinations.
There will be a wolf-hearted son who will take the treasure and abandon his father and run away.
But no father has ever thrown his son into the grave.
These boatmen had family members as hostages and soldiers watching over them, so their safety was guaranteed.
Su Xiong summoned officers at the county government office to deploy combat arrangements.
"We took a boat and headed south along the Bao River to Hanzhong.
I led the first and third regiments to attack the north gate.
Su Shan, commander of the Second Regiment, led the Second Regiment to seal the east and west gates.
No one must be allowed to leave the city.
The third captain, Li Qingmu, led most of the brigade's squatting cannons and took a boat to blockade the Han River with cannons."
After Su Xiong deployed the battle plan, he immediately arranged for soldiers to board the ship and headed south to Hanzhong as quickly as possible.
There are two boatmen on each ship to supervise each other.
There were soldiers supervising the situation, so there was no chance of causing trouble.
The army sailed south, and the soldiers could still get enough rest.
When they were about to arrive in Hanzhong, it was completely dark.
For safety's sake, Su Xiong could only ask the boatman to stop the boat.
Sailing at night is too risky.
Everyone disembarked from the boat on the shore, set up camp, and buried pots to make rice.
November 8th, morning
Su Xiong asked Li Qingmu to take the waterway and blockade the Han River.
The captains of their ships were all only children, so they were less likely to rebel.
Su Xiong led other soldiers on a rapid march, heading straight to Hanzhong Fucheng.
They soon saw the tall Hanzhong Fucheng.
Su Xiong knew that Hanzhong Fucheng was empty of troops, so he immediately surrounded Hanzhong Fucheng with his army.