The Ming Dynasty: Starting with bandits, it swept across the land.

With Cao Xianchong and other former postmen serving as guides, Li Chengye and his group progressed much more smoothly.

They set off from Jinming Post Station, first heading north and capturing Luo'an Village. Then they turned south towards Ganquan County. Next, they passed through Fuzhou, then Bao'an County, and finally arrived at Ansai County.

Along the way, they burned down all the post stations along the route, including Fu'an Post Station, Fuzhou Post Station, Yuanlin Post Station, and Zhao'an Post Station in Ansai County, as well as all the express delivery stations.

Ultimately, they returned to Fushi County and essentially destroyed the post station system in the central area surrounding Yan'an Prefecture.

During this process, in these post stations and courier shops, there were also people like Cao Xianchong, totaling more than a hundred people who joined Li Chengye's team.

At the same time, they obtained a lot of horses and mules from these post stations, and now each auxiliary soldier has one, with some to spare.

To be fair, these couriers were in much better physical condition than the veterans in Li Chengye's team.

The Ming Dynasty set up express delivery stations with intervals of ten li (approximately 5 kilometers), requiring couriers to be able to run to the next station within three quarters of an hour (about 45 minutes in later times) while carrying official documents and fire tokens.

If it was an "800-li urgent dispatch," then the courier was required to be able to ride a horse and travel at least 400 li a day. People who could do this kind of work were extremely rare even among the elite border cavalry. Cao Xianchong was such a courier.

These postal workers received this kind of training year after year, so their physical fitness was naturally excellent. Moreover, there were quite a few like Cao Xianchong who rode horses all year round, and most of the people in the team were proficient in horsemanship.

After completing this series of actions, Li Chengye decided to make an appearance at the city of Fushi.

He knew that the fact that Yan'an Prefecture had not responded to his large commotion was not due to any leniency from the government.

The Ming Dynasty has always focused on suppressing bandits. If it remains inactive, there is only one possible reason: its current military strength is insufficient, making it unable to launch an attack.

This matches the intelligence we had previously gathered.

Then why be so polite?

Just like when a normal person and a cripple fight, of course you have to kick his bad leg hard!

At this time, people in Yan'an Prefecture were in a state of panic.

Since a few days ago, Yan'an Prefecture has been cut off from the outside world. The courier letters sent out have received no reply, and no news from outside has come in. The entire prefecture seems to be completely isolated.

Various rumors circulated, some saying that the border troops had rebelled, and others saying that large groups of bandits were roaming and looting outside the prefecture.

The constant noises caused several alarms in Yan'an Prefecture throughout the day, creating a tense atmosphere.

As the de facto military commander of Fushi Town, the capital of Yan'an Prefecture, Zhang Shiyan, the commander of Yan'an Guard, was more annoyed by Prefect Zhang Lian, who constantly nagged him to send troops to suppress the bandits than by the border troops or bandits whose true identities were hard to discern.

But Zhang Shiyan dared not say much to Prefect Zhang Nian.

Because this prefect's family background was extraordinary.

From his grandfather to his generation, three generations had passed the imperial examinations, making them a prominent official family in the Ming Dynasty. In particular, his grandfather, Zhang Siwei, was the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet after Zhang Juzheng.

When Zhang Siwei came to power, he almost completely abolished all the new policies and measures implemented by Zhang Juzheng, and his influence and legacy in officialdom continue to this day.

Even disregarding the prevailing political climate of "governing the military with civil administration," Zhang Shiyan, as the commander of Yan'an Guard, a third-rank official, could only proceed with extreme caution when facing Zhang Nian, a prefect of only the fourth rank.

However, Zhang Shiyan currently only has seven or eight hundred garrison troops under his command, and the rest of his forces have long been dispersed to various counties, leaving him with no troops to send.

Even if we could barely send troops, what use would these people be?

Apart from the twenty or thirty servants who trained year-round, the rest of the soldiers had long since abandoned their military skills, spending their days farming and planting crops. The total number of drills they did in a year was less than the number of times they could hold their hands.

Normally they can't even get enough to eat, and it's only recently, because of their defense of the city, that they've been able to have a full meal.

Zhang Shiyan feared that if he sent such a force to suppress bandits, they would scatter before they even saw the bandits.

But he could not say these things outright, otherwise Zhang Nian would surely report to the court and impeach him for his poor management of the garrison.

This left Zhang Shiyan feeling helpless.

On this day, Zhang Shiyan patrolled the city walls as usual, both to reassure the panicked people in the city and to show everyone that he, the commander, was still holding the city.

Suddenly, he saw civilians outside the city rushing into the city, claiming that they had spotted a large group of people, but he didn't know whether they were border troops or bandits.

He dared not delay and immediately dispatched a servant who had followed him since childhood to ride a fast horse to find out whether they were passing border troops or bandits.

Less than half an hour later, the servant rode back in a disheveled state: "My lord! It's not border troops, it's bandits! A large group of cavalry bandits is heading this way! They're not far from the city, and although they're not coming fast, they'll be at the city walls in at most an hour!"

Zhang Shiyan hurriedly asked, "How many people?"

The servant replied, "At least three thousand, all cavalry! They came in a dark mass from Ansai; I didn't dare look closely!"

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Before Li Chengye even reached the city of Fushi, he saw flames and thick smoke outside the city, the rising flames almost turning half the sky red.

As the capital of Yan'an Prefecture, Fushi had not experienced the ravages of war for a long time, and the flow of merchants and travelers was still relatively frequent. As a result, many inns, warehouses, taverns and other businesses gathered outside the city.

Upon discovering the approaching band of rebels, Zhang Shiyan, in order to prevent Li Chengye's troops from leaving any usable facilities, preemptively burned all the buildings outside the city.

The fire raged on and on, and when Li Chengye arrived with his troops, thick smoke was still billowing out.

Only a few starving refugees remained nearby. They did not hide when they saw the large group of people, but just stared blankly, as if waiting for some kind of end.

At this moment, the city gates of Fushi were tightly closed, and the city walls were filled with guards.

Liu Ye, who was in charge of the vanguard, glanced around and noticed that many of them were soldiers from Yan'an Guard, and even recognized a few familiar faces.

Li Chengye led his men to explore the outer perimeter of the city wall. They were choked by the smoke several times. They saw that there were quite a few soldiers on the city wall of Fushi, and the city wall looked much stronger than that of Yanchang and Yijun.

This city is going to be tough to conquer!

However, he had no intention of attacking the city, and his troops did not even bring simple siege ladders, but he could not remain indifferent.

So he ordered the artillery to advance.

"Fire two cannons, let the people in the city hear the noise."

Zhang Yuanwu of the artillery unit was more confident this time than last time, after all, he became more and more familiar with firing cannons.

He led his men to drag the two "Three Generals" cannons to the city gate, loaded them with solid shot, and fired two shots at the gate.

After the cannon fire subsided, the shells struck the iron-clad city gate with a heavy metallic clang.

"Good heavens! The iron plating on the city gates of this prefectural city is so thick, much stronger than that of Yanchang County."

Li Chengye couldn't help but say.

At this moment, the soldiers guarding the city, who had been awakened by the two cannon shots, also began to fire arrows at Zhang Yuanwu.

However, due to the distance and the lingering smoke below the city, the archers were probably also choked by the smoke, and the dozens of arrows they fired were all crooked and none of them reached the cannon.

Li Chengye asked Liu Ye beside him, "Gangfu, you were originally a centurion in Yan'an Guard. Do you have any enemies in the guard post?"

When asked, Liu Ye paused for a moment, thought for a second, and said resentfully, "Yes! It was that Wang Jizong! If it weren't for his constant harassment back then, I would have been a proper centurion long ago!"

Li Chengye nodded: "Alright, then today, we'll take this opportunity to vent your anger."

Although the garrison headquarters of Yan'an Guard was located in Fushi County, the prefectural city, many officers owned properties outside the city.

Many of the officers and soldiers of Yan'an Guard wanted to go out of the city to fight, but when they saw that the enemy army numbered over a thousand and was entirely composed of cavalry, they immediately abandoned their desire to serve the court and fight the enemy, and only sought to protect themselves.

It should be noted that some time ago, Liu Yingyu had ordered the Yan'an Guard and various prefectures and counties to assist in the defense of the city to prevent it from falling again.

The Yan'an Guard was already severely understaffed, and more than 2,000 people had been transferred out earlier, leaving only a little over 1,000 in the prefectural city, of whom only 500 or 600 were truly capable of fighting.

This ability to fight only refers to the ability to defend the city walls, not to engage in open field battles outside the city.

Leading these few hundred men out of the city to fight against thousands of enemy cavalry is something Chang Yuchun might try if he were alive today, but for others, forget about it.

Prefect Zhang Nian of Yan'an was pacing anxiously inside the city, but Zhang Shiyan insisted on closing the city and holding it.

Although the Ming Dynasty system prioritized civil officials over military ones, the military officer was currently refusing to leave the city, leaving Zhang Nian with no other option.

Just when Zhang Shiyan thought that the enemy might launch a fierce attack after firing two cannons at the city gate, the enemy was actually scared away by a volley of arrows from his own men, and didn't even have time to fire the cannons on the city wall.

Zhang Shiyan was both surprised and delighted, but he still decided to keep the city gates closed to deal with any eventuality, in case the enemy army lured him out of the city.

Some time later, in the afternoon, a soldier suddenly reported that a large area of ​​smoke and fire had been set off in the east of the city.

The eastern part of the city was where the military officers' farms and properties were concentrated, and many officers' families lived there, but Zhang Shiyan's family did not live there.

He climbed to the top of the city wall and looked out. Sure enough, he saw smoke and fire shooting into the sky in the east of the city, and the fire was spreading.

"It's over, it's all over!" Commander Wang Jizong, standing next to Zhang Shiyan, looked ashen-faced.

In recent years, Wang Jizong had purchased a large amount of land outside the city and built a new residence, which now appears to have been completely looted by bandits.

Zhang Shiyan remained calm and reassured him, "Alas, once the bandits are defeated, our fields and houses will naturally be restored."

Wang Jizong felt frustrated, but he could only nod.

Immediately afterward, someone came running in with the news: "Sir, the south of the city... the south of the city is also on fire!"

This time, it was Zhang Shiyan's turn to lose his composure.

Because his family's ancestral home was located in the south of the city, and there was still a considerable amount of savings inside.

He gritted his teeth and cursed, "Damn bandits! I will tear you to pieces!"

Seeing this, Wang Jizong felt somewhat relieved.

The actual situation is far more complex than that.

Li Chengye led his men on a long tour around the military garrison areas surrounding Fushi County.

Liu Ye was a local and knew the ins and outs of the matter perfectly well. He knew which officers were running rampant and where their businesses were located.

Whenever they saw a large walled compound, they would set it on fire and distribute the looted money, grain, and supplies to the local tenants and soldiers on the spot.

Many of the garrison soldiers recognized Liu Ye, and when they saw him leading his troops, quite a few of them took the initiative to come and join him.

Many of these men were young and strong. Although they had never been on the battlefield, they had received regular training and were much better than the inexperienced farmers.

Li Chengye then recruited about two hundred more people.

Gazing at the billowing smoke from the garrison's property, Liu Ye felt a surge of anger welling up inside him, and immediately asked:

"Now, where do we go next?"

Li Chengye said, "Go north. But be careful, stay away from the border wall."