Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 978 Returning to the court
Wang Fuchen's heart sank, "It's not easy to fall into the trap!" He didn't think that the Ming army was so patient, and the fourth grain team was still a trap.

He raised his eyes and saw that the official road was full of gunpowder smoke, and under the sound of "bang bang bang", the soldiers of the Western Army kept falling in front of the Ming army.

"Retreat!" Wang Fuchen immediately yelled after hearing the scout's report, and the flags and drums beside him woke up like a dream, hurriedly beat the gongs and drums, and gave the order to retreat.

Even if they didn't issue an order, the western army that rushed out would be defeated by the Ming army. With the sound of gold, they stumbled and fled towards the woods on both sides.

Li Dingguo saw that the order to retreat was issued from the left, and knew that the general of the Western Army was on the left, so he asked a thousand households to chase and kill the Western Army on the right, while he waved his sword, "Catch up, and no one is allowed to escape."

Upon hearing the order, the soldiers of the Ming army divided into two groups, and chased towards the woods on both sides respectively, chasing the defeated army's buttocks to cover up the kill.

Most of the western army did not have armor, they wore commoner clothes, and they ran easily. If it was an ordinary Ming army, they might be thrown off by them. However, Li Dingguo's troops have been stationed in Sichuan for more than three years. They are very good at fighting in mountains and forests, and they are the most elite troops of the Ming army One of them insisted on biting and chasing for more than ten miles.

Wang Fuchen led the defeated army and ran for more than ten miles in one breath, out of the woods, and ran for another three or four miles on the trail. His armor was already crooked, and he needed to gather his thoughts. Just in time, he saw another forest in front of him, so he stretched out his finger. : "Go to the woods to rest for half an hour."

Except for Wang Fuchen's [-]-year-old battalion, which was an elite group, the rest of this western army was only a little better than miscellaneous soldiers. They ran panting one by one, supported each other and ran into the woods, and collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

Wang Fuchen sat down on a big rock, and his brother Wang Fulin sat beside him, and asked, "Commander, it seems that we are not fleeing in the direction of returning to the valley."

Wang Fuchen's Adam's apple moved, he licked his chapped lips, nodded and said: "I wanted to ambush, but I didn't expect to be plotted by the Ming army. The Ming army is so patient and lures us out again and again, there must be some master soldiers. Now that we are going back to the valley, the Ming army is easy to follow and chase, it is too dangerous for us, so I decided to take everyone around the mountains for two days, and return to the valley after I am sure that the Ming army has been shaken off."

Wang Fulin nodded after hearing this. It is indeed safer to do so, but this time they lost at least half of their manpower. I am afraid that Sun Kewang's task of harassing the Ming army's grain road will not be able to be realized.

Wang Fuchen seemed to know what he was thinking, sighed, feeling sad in his heart, "Don't think so much, take a break first, get through the current crisis, and then think about the future."

Wang Fulin nodded silently, got up and was about to sit aside and let Wang Fuchen rest with the stone, but just as he sat down, a general beside him who was lying on his back suddenly sat up, as if he felt something.

The soldiers lying down in the forest, especially those elite soldiers of the old battalion, noticed something strange almost at the same time. Wang Fulin hurriedly lay down on the ground and listened for a while, then suddenly got up and shouted: "Commander, there are cavalry coming!"

"Get up!" Wang Fuchen's face changed, and he shouted loudly.

The soldiers in the woods got up in fright and rushed out of the woods, but a group of flaming figures appeared in the distance, only two or three miles away from the woods, and they were about to kill them in the blink of an eye.

Wang Fuchen ran out, seeing this scene, he had to wave his hand again, and said anxiously: "Back back! Bow and arrow ready!"

The soldiers of the Western Army could only retreat into the woods and prepare for defense under the cover of the woods.

After a while, the cavalry galloped over, and it was Yu Youming who started from behind. He reined in his horse and stopped, and two scouts ran out from behind a piece of weeds opposite the forest, kneeling on one knee, pointing to the forest and saying: "General, The bandits are all in the forest!"

Upon hearing the words, Yu Youming immediately waved, "Surround!"

The cavalry immediately divided into several teams and surrounded the woods. They got off their horses one after another and took off their weapons.

When the Ming Dynasty retreated from eastern Sichuan, they ambushed Oboi and obtained four or five thousand horses. He Tengjiao allocated more than 2000 horses to Li Dingguo. After more than seven months of training, the soldiers were barely able to fight on horseback, but they were still far from real cavalry. , Strictly speaking, they are just infantry who use horses instead of walking.

The Ming army immediately formed a confrontation with the Lin Zhongxi army, and not long after, more Ming army infantry finally rushed out of the forest.

Li Dingguo turned over and got off the mule and horse, took the water bottle handed over by his men, raised his head and drank it, then threw the water bottle away, and while taking off his armor, he said to a guard beside him: "Go and tell Wang Fuchen, I will Looking at the past friendship, give him fifteen minutes to consider surrendering to the court, once the time has passed, don't blame Ben for not loving the old relationship."

Li Dingguo had obtained the identity of the general of the Western Army from the captives, and knowing that it was Wang Fuchen, he decided to give him a chance.

The soldiers heard the words and immediately ran outside the forest. The Western Army inside wanted to shoot arrows, but Wang Fulin stopped them with his eyes.

"Listen, people inside. My general will give you a quarter of an hour to consider whether to surrender. Once the time is over, we will start attacking!"

"Who is your general?" Wang Fuchen did not speak, but Wang Fulin called out.

"Our general is Li Dingguo, the deputy governor of Zhongyi Town, General Li Ningyu!"

"It's King Anxi!"

Wang Fulin turned his head to look at Wang Fuchen, there was surprise in his voice, and the old soldiers around him couldn't help but exclaim.

Wang Fuchen's face was gloomy. He didn't expect to meet Li Dingguo. As an old man of the Western Army, he knew how powerful Li Dingguo was. Among the four kings of the Western Army, Sun Kewang was the number one in terms of internal affairs. But if it was about leading troops in battle, then Li Dingguo was undoubtedly the leader.

"Commander, let's make a decision!" Seeing that Wang Fuchen didn't speak, Wang Fulin couldn't help feeling anxious for fear that he would make an irrational decision.

Wang Fuchen had already seen what Wang Fulin meant, "Do you think we should surrender?"

By this time, Wang Fulin was no longer hiding his inner thoughts, "Commander, we all have family members, and now Yunnan is estimated to have been brought down by the imperial court. We don't think about ourselves, we should also think about our children and grandchildren! It's been more than ten years , it’s time to give them peace of mind!”

It was said that the three armies of the North Dynasty attacked them, the elite of the Western Army were all in southern Sichuan, and there were some miscellaneous soldiers in Yunnan. Ai Nengqi probably couldn't resist the attack of the Ming army.

Wang Fuchen was silent for a while, then sighed, feeling very helpless, "Your Majesty has treated me well!"

"We have reported our disturbance to the grain road and reported it to the king. Now that we are poor and surrounded, there is nothing wrong with surrendering." Wang Fulin said anxiously, "Besides, does the commander think that there is still hope for Daxi? Now that the king is sitting in an isolated city and counting on the Kingdom of Jin to rescue him, even if he is repelled If you lose the Ming army, you may have to surrender to the Kingdom of Jin, is the commander willing to surrender to Jin?"

"Of course you can't surrender the gold!" Wang Fuchen frowned, and said, "The former king died at the hands of the Jin captives. Surrendering the gold is better than surrendering to the court!"

Wang Fulin knew that Wang Fuchen was actually very pessimistic and had the intention of surrendering, but it was difficult to say so, so he could only analyze the pros and cons and give Wang Fuchen a step up, "At the beginning, we were in Wanxian, because we thought that the king of Chu had the idea of ​​consuming us. , just moved to Yunnan with the king, but now King Anxi and King Funan occupy high positions in the court, which shows that it was a misunderstanding at the beginning. As long as you make meritorious service in the court, you will have a bright future. Not too late, there is still a chance to gain fame and benefit the descendants, this is also following the last king's will!"

Wang Fuchen was already moved, "You can surrender, I have no objection, but I'm afraid the following deployment is not willing!"

"I don't want to, just tie it up and hand it over to King Anxi!" Seeing Wang Fuchen's agreement, Wang Fulin was overjoyed immediately, and then sneered: "It's no problem for our old soldiers, only those who joined later are still loyal to Sun Kewang. We called them over, explained the benefits and disadvantages, and those who are willing to surrender with us will surrender together, and those who are not willing can not blame us for being ruthless, it is their own choice."

Wang Fuchen was silent for a while, and nodded in agreement.

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(End of this chapter)