The armies of Li Zhen, Yang Banhou and Smith merged. Their strength was no longer the original 5,000 soldiers, but already exceeded 10,000. Among them, Yang Banhou continued to expand his army, and the soldiers under his command were approaching 5,000. The soldiers led by Smith were also approaching. Five thousand people, plus the more than 4,000 soldiers led by Zhou Xiuying, totaled more than 14,000 people, which was already an extremely large number.
The three armies converged, and Li Zhen led his army to leave Yongfu County and approach Lingui County.
Now, the areas controlled by Xi Yinglong have been compressed to Lingui County and the area north of Guilin. The remaining counties, prefectures and states have been captured. As the army advances, something surprising has happened. No one has been encountered on the way. He resisted and encountered no enemy troops.
It can be said that Li Zhen's journey was extremely easy.
On the first day of August, the army arrived in Lingui County and marched to the city walls.
However, Li Zhen looked at the scene at the gate of Lingui County and felt a little puzzled.
What kind of era is this, and they are still trying to make an empty city?
That's right, it's an empty city strategy.
The city gates of Lingui County were wide open, while Xi Yinglong and Xi Changzhen were standing on the city tower. This arrangement was clearly Zhuge Wuhou's plan to empty the city, but it was a pity that there was no incense burning or piano playing.
Xi Changzhen complained: "Sir, the "empty city plan" you set is really not that good. It is too vulgar and uncreative. It is better to fight Li Zhen directly." When mentioning the fight, Xi Changzhen's eyes lit up, showing infinite expectation. expression.
This man is undoubtedly a war maniac.
Xi Yinglong rolled his eyes and said: "Brother, it is almost impossible to use the city wall to block Li Zhen. There is no point in leading the army to fight with Li Zhen's army. It is interesting to open the city gate like this. Think about it, you are stationed at Zhennanguan. Isn't it the same failure? Zhennan Pass still has the terrain as a basis, and it has been repaired by emperors of all dynasties. It is not an exaggeration to call it a majestic city wall. However, even such a pass was destroyed by Li Zhen. With Nanguan like this, how can the small Lingui County block it? Instead of letting Li Zhen use cannons to destroy the city wall, it is better to open the city gate and let Li Zhen come in by himself."
Speaking of this, Xi Yinglong said expectantly: "The city gate is open. What I'm thinking about is whether Li Zhen dares to come in. If he doesn't dare to come, hehe..."
Xi Changzhen continued: "He doesn't dare to come. Do you dare to go out?"
Xi Yinglong rolled his eyes and thought to himself, "What am I going to do? Now, the main business is waiting for Li Zhen to come."
The two were talking on the city tower. Li Zhen led the troops to station under the city. He was also thinking about it. Zhou Xiuying said: "Commander, Xi Yinglong deliberately opened the city gate. He wanted to use Zhuge Wuhou's empty city plan to scare us. ."
Li Zhen nodded slightly, but did not speak.
Yang Banhou continued: "Commander Zhou, it is impossible for us to retreat. Besides, the opponent does not have the ability of Zhuge Wuhou, and Xi Yinglong only has Lingui County and other places left, and there is no depth to retreat. Increase smiles."
He loudly said: "Commander, the soldiers under my command can serve as vanguards to explore the road."
Smith said: "We haven't figured out the situation in Lingui County yet, and we really need to explore the way. Think about it, old Zhuge laid out the empty city strategy. If we send someone to test it out, the situation will change immediately."
Li Zhen said: "The number of people is smaller, let's go and have a look."
"yes."
Yang Banhou excitedly agreed and sent a battalion of soldiers to rush into the city.
Seeing this, Xi Yinglong sneered and said, "Let all the soldiers in the city hide for me and not take action."
Xi Changzhen said calmly: "Li Zhen is cunning and he won't be fooled. These actions of yours are superfluous."
"You, hum,."
Xi Yinglong snorted and said, "Brother, can't you say something nice?"
Xi Changzhen chuckled and said: "I am a noble and honest person, and I will not say flattering words." Seeing Xi Yinglong's speechless expression, he changed the topic and said: "To be honest, fierce fighting in the city is a big problem. ."
While the two were talking, a battalion of soldiers under Yang Banhou had already rushed out.
The soldiers of this battalion approached the city tower, and they were a little uneasy. They were afraid that there would be sudden shooting on the city tower, especially at the city gate, or that an ambush might have been laid. To all the soldiers' surprise, they encountered no obstacles along the way. From the moment they went to the city tower, When they arrived at the bottom of the city tower, a battalion of soldiers quickly entered the city. They stood in the city and looked around, and found that the area near the city gate was empty and there were no soldiers.
"Fire."
Xi Changzhen looked at the enemy troops under the tower and suddenly shouted.
The order was given, and the soldiers who were ambushing in the city immediately opened fire.
"Bang, bang,,."
Suddenly, intensive gunfire rang out.
"Whoosh, whoosh,,."
At the same time, sharp arrows were also shot out. The dense rain of arrows and the continuous shooting of bullets immediately killed nearly a hundred soldiers.
The battalion commander shouted: "Retreat, there is an ambush, retreat quickly."
In an instant, the battalion commander and his soldiers quickly evacuated.
Xi Yinglong stared at Xi Changzhen angrily and said, "Xi Yinglong, didn't you hear my order clearly just now? No one is allowed to take action. You suddenly gave the order to expose the soldiers ambushing at the city gate. Why?"
He groaned angrily, with no concealment of murderous intent in his eyes.
Xi Changzhen said: "If no soldiers fight back, don't you think it's strange? Let the Qing soldiers who entered the city walk around, and then these soldiers went back and told Li Zhen that there was nothing in the city. If so, what do you think Li Zhen would think? They would definitely think that there was an ambush in the city, but not that it was really an empty city. Now they were attacked head-on by the soldiers sent by Li Zhen to explore the way. They thought that we opened the city gate to deliberately attract them, and part of the soldiers inside the city were exposed. , which will help us continue to fight with Li Zhen."
"You are right."
Xi Yinglong snorted, still very unhappy.
The soldiers of the repelled battalion withdrew. In this moment, they had lost nearly a hundred people. He retreated to Yang Banhou and said loudly: "Commander, there is an ambush in the city. As soon as we entered the city, there was an ambush." When shooting, some of these people used bows and arrows, and some used guns. I speculate that the opponent's firearms may have too few bullets, so they used bows and arrows to shoot."
Yang Banhou nodded slightly, looked at Li Zhen and said: "Commander, even if there is an ambush in the city, we must go."
Li Zhen shook his head and said: "There is no need to go any further. We have already tested enough information just now. The other party has laid out an empty city strategy, and Xi Changzhen and Xi Yinglong are both on the tower. There must be soldiers inside, otherwise if we attack, they will be finished immediately, hehe , he has an ambush, I let him know that ambush is useless, empty city strategy is useless, come, prepare artillery fire, bombing the city, damn, let’s see if his empty city strategy is more powerful, or my artillery fire is more powerful.”
Smith immediately ordered all the cannons to aim at the city and fire. "Boom,,"
There was a loud noise that sounded suddenly.
Immediately afterwards, the roaring sound of artillery was deafening, and the intensive and non-stop attack of artillery fire had submerged the city inside the south gate. Explosions and screams were heard one after another circling the city.
On the tower, Xi Yinglong and Xi Changzhen looked at each other speechlessly with livid faces.
