Wang Pu in the late Ming Dynasty

But Zhao Xiao soon encountered a new dilemma. He led a team of 100 men to kill here. The nest of the thieves who were suspected of killing the officers and soldiers of the Shenjia Camp was pointed forward. The wall of the stone city was two miles long. If it was square, it would be four miles in radius. Zhao Xiao was frightened when he saw the entrance of the stone wall. His intuition warned him that this stone wall project was huge and this group of thieves was not an ordinary character.

Who could actually build a stone city on the grassland? Could it be a certain Mongolian prince? But this is a salt pond with sparse water and grass. The Mongolians should not build a city in such a place. Zhao Xiao invited several staff members who knew about grassland affairs before the war. He knew that the Mongolians had no habit of building cities. Unless the location is very important. However, this city is located in a very awkward position, a hundred miles away from the nearest strategic location on the map.

The surrounding area is very empty and not a strategic location. Why build such a large stone city out of thin air in such a place? Zhao Xiao couldn't figure it out, but he knew that with this manpower, this group of thieves should not be underestimated.

Zhao Xiao found Qi Qi Ge and asked, "You said that there are Han people inside, but this group of Han people built such a big city on the grassland, why don't you Mongolians stop them?" The Han and Mongolians have been fighting for years. If Han people build a city on the grassland, the Mongolians must raise troops to stop them. So Zhao Xiao asked this very obvious unreasonable question.

"This city was there when my grandfather was very young, maybe older than my grandfather's grandfather. It happened hundreds of years ago, I don't know." Qi Qi Ge said innocently.

Zhao Xiao believed it when he saw her expression. He thought that this city was like Yugong moving mountains, and it took hundreds of years to build. Hundreds of years ago, the Ming Dynasty had not yet been established. The previous dynasty, that is, the Yuan Dynasty, could the Han people come and go freely on the grassland at that time? He really didn't know this. After all, he was a rough man. A lot of historical knowledge was learned recently by simplified Chinese characters, and he only understood a little from textbooks.

The scout came to report at this time, describing the shape of the city. It was not a square, but a rectangular city with a width of two miles and a length of five miles.

"There are no gates in other directions, only one gate in the south." Zhao Xiao smiled bitterly. With only one gate, it is not a city, but a fortress, which is even more troublesome.

But he didn't have to worry about it. He simply ordered the whole army to set up camp and cut wood to repair siege equipment. He also ordered the scouts to go back and bring reinforcements. A fortress may not be easily attacked. At least cannons need to be dispatched to cooperate with grenadiers to protect the musketeers on the top of the city. However, in this way, it will take at least ten days to transport the artillery, and many parts of the artillery will loosen or even break during the bumpy journey.

Thinking that the precious artillery would be damaged, Zhao Xiao almost wanted to give up several times. For a scout, he had to go through so much trouble to conquer such a solid fortress, and the location of this fortress was very unimportant. Is it worth it? But seeing Qi Qi Ge, he thought that he should not let this Mongolian tribe who came to seek refuge look down on him, and he should establish the invincible military prestige of the Divine Armor Camp, so he finally gritted his teeth and persevered.

To theThree days later, some very crude siege equipment was made. He was impatient and could not wait for the artillery to be in place, so he tried to attack the city. The thieves in this strange city just shot a few arrows and fired a few guns on the top of the city, and then gave up the top of the city in the dense rain of fire guns from the God Armor Camp. When the officers and soldiers of the God Armor Camp climbed the ladder to the top of the city, they were all dumbfounded and stood on the top of the ladder. The soldiers below cursed the upper ones for making trouble, and fell into chaos for a while.

Zhao Xiao saw that the soldiers did not dare to move forward, and he was furious at first, and then he thought that there must be something strange, so he personally rode his horse to the bottom of the city wall, called the soldiers on the next ladder, and climbed up himself. He was dumbfounded when he looked inside the city. There were no streets or houses in the city, only stone bunkers. He had never heard of such a strange city. He thought that if you thieves had the skills to build these stone bunkers in a row to protect the city wall, wouldn't it be more useful? But when he lowered his eyebrows and took a look, he almost cried out in surprise. The city wall was very thin and people couldn't stand on it at all. Moreover, there was a moat on the inside. Who would build a moat on the inside? It was dozens of feet deep and looked like an abyss cliff. If you fell in, you would be killed. At the height of one person on the lower side of the creepy battlement, there was a protruding long stone every few steps. It should be the place where the thieves who guarded the city head just now stood, but now there was no one. Did they tie a rope to their bodies, one end of which was tied to the opposite side of the moat, and jump down and climb up again? No, it would be too late.

While Zhao Xiao was thinking, several arrows flew over his head. He quickly ducked his head. The arrows were quite accurate. One of them hit the stone beside his eye. With a ding, the metal and stone collided, and a spark flashed. The flying stone pecked his eye. I don't know whether it was blood or tears, but it flowed down his cheek.

Zhao Xiao endured the pain, looked up again carefully, and went down to call his subordinates to take a look and come up with ideas together.

"That doesn't make sense. This moat is so strange and too deep. How can we get through it? It's better to use cannons to bombard it and knock down the city wall first." The captain of the centurion team spoke first.

"There are not many shells left. How can we use them to bombard the city wall? Oh, damn, there are many trenches under the bunkers in the city. It is estimated that they are not shallow. How much manpower must have been used. It seems that when our ancestors were building the Great Wall in Jiubian, they were busy digging pits here." The secretary of the centurion team was amazed.

"This city is used to defend against the Mongols. The Mongols have no artillery, so the city walls are particularly thin." Zhao Xiao said in deep thought.

"Yes, that's right. But we don't have many artillery, and we don't have enough gunpowder."

"In the previous battle with Ligdan Khan, 80% of the gunpowder has been used up. If we use it to attack this city, what will we do if the supply can't keep up in the future?" The grassland is treacherous, and without gunpowder to defend themselves, the whole army will be in danger at any time.

"The terrain here is low, let's draw water from the salt lake to pour it in." Zhao Xiao slapped his thigh and jumped up.

The people on both sides looked at each other and shook their heads and said, "How much manpower will it take? We only have more than a hundred people."

"Who said that? We have ready-made manpower."Zhao Xiao pointed to Qiqige in the distance and said, "That woman is willing to bring us here, she must have a grudge against the thieves in this city, why not let them help a little."

Under the red rocks of Luliang Mountain, gusts of wind with the stench of corpses came, and Wang Pu, Xing Hongniang and others were trembling with fear. Along the way, they saw that large areas of villages were razed to the ground. Among the ruins, there were mostly corpses of the elderly, children, women and children, and many of them showed signs of being scorched and eaten, with only white bones left. They can be seen everywhere on both sides of the road. At night, the whole mountain and the field were glowing, and the mountain wind was like a ghost crying for a funeral, which was particularly creepy.

"The country is dead and silent, and nine out of ten houses are empty. So this is what it means." Wang Pu suddenly sighed, "This must be the work of the devil Zhang Xianzhong. I have been having nightmares these two days." Historically, among the peasant uprisings in the late Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong was the most notorious. Only he could do such a thing as massacring civilians.

"Does Bai Xiaoru's so-called fox fairy magic really work?" Xing Hongniang said with lingering fear: "Didn't you say that Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang and others were heroes? Why did you indulge Zhang Xianzhong to do evil and didn't get rid of this beast early?" She was frightened by the ghost fire everywhere at night. Wang Pu and Bai Xiaoru colluded to trick her into drinking the magic water, saying that the magic water had Bai Xiaoru's fox fairy magic and could exorcise evil spirits. She had heard of Bai Xiaoru's story and took it with doubt.

"It's okay, you see I'm not afraid." Wang Pu was indeed not afraid. He was a modern man who believed in materialism and was basically immune to superstition.

Xing Hongniang stared at Wang Pu for a while, and seeing that he didn't seem to be pretending and was indeed very courageous, she said: "Oh, if you officials were afraid of ghosts, you wouldn't do bad things. The dog officials who harmed the people are not afraid of ghosts, right?" This sounded resentful.

Wang Pu had no choice but to change the subject. He thought: A woman's grievances are much scarier than ghosts. He had told her that Chi Yinping was his old lover, and was framed and had nowhere else to go. He had no choice but to take her in. Besides, if he allowed Chi Yinping to be killed, he would be branded as a heartless and ungrateful person. Therefore, he had no choice but to take Chi Yinping in.

Thinking about something, he said, "What I saw these past two days, I'm glad it's winter, otherwise flies would be everywhere, that would be terrible, and it would also breed plague."

"Uh." Xing Hongniang frowned, trying not to think about this scene, but she still felt a shiver of palpitations, and couldn't help but roll her eyes at Wang Pu, annoyed, "Don't talk about it, I can't eat if I don't have it."

As he was talking, a group of people suddenly jumped out in front of him, wearing messy clothes, many of which were not cut, just a whole piece of silk, looking like Indians, Wang Pu almost laughed.

"Who are you, where are you from?" The leader of the group asked.

"We are the local rebels in Shanxi. My name is Li Yan, and this is my wife, the famous Lady Hong. You must have heard of her when you came to Shanxi."

"Lady Hong?" The leader of the group looked at Xing Hong with a strange expression, and said, "So you are the local heroes. I have heard of your name for a long time. Please follow me."They made way for the road and sent people to the mountain to inform that there was a distinguished guest visiting.

"What are you doing?" Xing Hongniang pointed to the front and asked. I saw a group of rebels gathered on the roadside, drinking wine and eating suspicious meat. Not far away was a group of civilians who were killed by evil, lying in all directions, like a ghost prison. The bodies were hideous and died horribly. The bright red and pale intertwined, which was particularly dazzling.

When everyone approached, Wang Pu saw on his horse that they cut the tendons of some civilians with knives, forcing these poor people to crawl forward like maggots. The man who looked like a small leader of the rebels was drinking wine, standing crookedly beside a tree, cheering for a fast-climbing human-shaped maggot.

Xing Hongniang was angry and cursed: "The dog official army has never been so cruel. Where did you come from?" It was the first time Wang Pu heard Hongniang scolding people, and it was known that she was extremely angry.

"Hmph, this woman, what's your business? Your man has nothing to say, how can you say anything?" The little leader of the rebel army was immediately unhappy and retorted.

"Brothers, if you have something to say, don't hurt the harmony." Wang Pu was afraid that Xing Hongniang would get angry and hurt others, so he quickly tried to smooth things over and said, "Excuse me, brother, what is your name, and who is your subordinate."

"My surname is Liu, I don't want to say my name, but how come you don't know my name, Wang Chuang." The little leader said with a proud look on his face. This muscular man seemed to look down on Wang Pu, a pretty boy.

Faced with the provocative look of the little leader surnamed Liu, the little leader who brought Wang Pu over hurriedly said, "Old Liu, this is Lady Hong and her husband Li Yan. I'm going to take her to see King Chuang."

It turned out to be Gao Yingxiang. According to historical records, this guy died a few years later. It was a good death. He didn't manage his army well, so he deserved to die. Wang Pu cursed in his heart, but he didn't dare to show his anger on his face. He said respectfully, "Who are these people whose tendons you cut? Even if they are evil people, just kill them with a knife. Why humiliate them for no reason? You are tarnishing King Chuang's reputation. The local people in Shanxi are all kind, and this is not popular."

The little leader surnamed Liu blushed when he heard this. He probably knew that he was in the wrong and couldn't get off the stage for a while, so he had to say, "Then help me kill them all." As he said that, he strode towards Wang Pu. His sudden move made Wang Pu's personal soldiers unhappy and drew their knives to stop him.

The little leader surnamed Liu laughed and cursed: "I hand you a knife and ask you to help me kill people. You see, your soldiers are so presumptuous. Shanxi people don't know etiquette, but they can only talk."

When the subordinates of the little leader surnamed Liu saw someone showing a knife in front of the commander, they surrounded him with curses and laughed at the Shanxi people for being cowardly and useless.

Wang Pu frowned. These rebels were unruly. They didn't have the bitterness and hatred of the grassroots, nor did they look like serious soldiers. Instead, they had a bit of the flavor of gangsters in the city. They were completely different from the rebels in his mind. Was the rebel army so unbearable at this time, or was this just a unique exception.

The little leader surnamed Liu looked at the soldiers around Wang Pu.Seeing the armor on the ground, he felt a little jealous. Shanxi was so rich that any group of thieves could wear armor. He said, "I think your armor is good. Sell me a set. I'll give you 100 taels of silver."

Wang Pu smiled. It's easy to see the King of Hell, but it's hard to deal with the little devil. He didn't want to have a conflict on someone else's territory, so he said, "These armors are my treasures. I won't sell them, but I have such armor as a gift for the King of Rebellion."

The little leader surnamed Liu didn't look very happy, but after hearing what Wang Pu said, he didn't want to do anything rash. He waved his hand and led his subordinates to make way.

Xing Hongniang was furious and ready to lose her temper at any time, but this was someone else's territory, so she knew the importance of the matter and finally endured it. Wang Pu waited for the group of people to go away, breathed a sigh of relief, and said: "The Chuang army has been wandering around for many years and neglected to manage the army. When we meet the King of Chuang, we should remind him to enforce military discipline."

"Well, but what if the King of Chuang is not worthy of his name?" Xing Hongniang asked worriedly.

Wang Pu was stunned when he heard this, but he remembered another thing. In history, Xing Hongniang and Li Yan seemed to be close to the Chuang army, and they did not become Li Zicheng's core subordinates. Could it be that they saw that the King of Chuang was ignorant and could not accomplish anything in that time and space? Wang Pu had a bad premonition that this trip might be too hasty.

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