Before going to the expedition, Yang Sichang had a separate conversation with Emperor Chongzhen. He planned to use Zuo Liangyu's army as the main force and cooperate with other generals from all walks of life. Chongzhen once mentioned Li Guodong, and Yang Sichang proposed that Li Guodong should send some troops to suppress the bandits. The Jinyang army mainly guarded Shanxi. If the Qing army invaded again, only Li Guodong could stop it. Leave the main force of the Jinyang army in Shanxi. If the Qing army invaded another incident during the process of suppressing the bandits, Li Guodong could also suppress it, so that he would not be able to dispatch the bandit army to Beijing to serve the king, resulting in the failure of the suppression of the bandits.

"Wuweibo is mainly defending against the invasion of Jiannu. If Wuweibo is transferred, we will soon wipe out the bandits. Jiannu will come to the invasion again. You and I are forced to go to Beijing to serve the king, and the bandits will be rekindled!" Yang Sichang replied while stroking his beard.

Li Guodong reminded Chongzhen and also reminded Yang Sichang that there were Qing troops in the Ming Dynasty, so every time the Ming army was about to wipe out the bandits, the Qing army would invade in time, forcing the Ming army to dispatch the troops originally used to suppress the bandits to enter the capital to serve the king, causing the bandits to rekindle. Yang Sichang of course believed what Li Guodong said, and the Qing army was in full swing, so he left Li Guodong's main force to prevent it in the north, and with the Guanning Army, the Qing army would invade again, so there would be no need to dispatch the army to suppress the bandits to return to Beijing to serve the king.

Yang Sichang's strategic plan this time was very good, but he never thought that Lu Xiangsheng was dismissed from office by Chongzhen and Sun Chuanting was imprisoned again. With Yang Sichang's tactical talent, he was not a match for Li Zicheng at all. His expedition to suppress the thieves this time was destined to be the bandits becoming bigger and bigger.

Just as Yang Sichang set out for Xiangyang, the angels sent by Emperor Chongzhen entered Shanxi.

The imperial edict arrived, and Emperor Chongzhen ordered Li Guodong to dispatch 6,000 troops to go out to Shanxi and Xiangyang, Hubei to meet with Yang Sichang and Zuo Liangyu's army to suppress the bandits.

Li Guodong sent troops to suppress the thieves, but did not hold a grand expedition ceremony. This expedition was very low-key. After all, this was to suppress the thieves. Let Li Guodong go to suppress the thieves, which means that it is mainly to rescue the people and expand his population.

Since Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict to ask Li Guodong to send 6,000 troops, he dispatched all kinds of cavalry. When the Qing army invaded last year, he fought two consecutive victories and seized a lot of war horses. He deducted the injured and scrapped war horses, and then deducted the war horses assigned to the court. Li Guodong himself received more than 6,000 war horses and more than 30,000 Mongolian horses. For this reason, Li Guodong expanded more than 3,000 heavy cavalry, and now the number of heavy cavalry has reached 6,000; the seized Mongolian horses are used to expand a light cavalry of 5,000 and a horse-riding infantry of more than 10,000 people.

Li Guodong's light cavalry was somewhat similar to Mongolian cavalry. In fact, the source of the light cavalry was mainly Mongolians. There were both Tumotes and Chahars who defected to him, and they were all Mongols who were forced to the death by the Qing army to defect to Li Guodong; there were also Korchin Mongols and Modong Mongols captured on the battlefield. After brainwashing them through Tumotes and Chahars, they were incorporated into Li Guodong's light cavalry.

In addition to the standard Mongolian cavalry equipped with scimitars and cavalry bows, Li Guodong also equipped them with heavy weapons such as page hammers, maces, and axes. With these heavy weapons, even if the light cavalry encounters the opponent's heavy cavalry, they can still fight.

The tactics of heavy cavalry are simplified, and they adopt the cone formation charge method.

To send troops to assist Yang Sichang in suppressing the bandits, Li Guodong dispatched 3,000 heavy cavalry and 3,000 light cavalry. Among the three thousand heavy cavalry, one thousand veterans were new soldiers, and the other two thousand were new soldiers. The method of veterans leading new soldiers was adopted. After the end of this battle, two thousand new soldiers could grow into veterans.

Light cavalry can also make up for the night of not being collected. Light cavalry has good mobility, comes and goes freely, and has a fast speed. The precious number of people not being collected at night will not be too many. With the cooperation of light cavalry, it can not only send back the battlefield information in time, but also cooperate with the night of not being collected and encircle and annihilate the enemy's whistle cavalry.

However, Li Guodong received information that Li Zicheng was not weak at this time, and the cavalry of the rebel army expanded to more than 10,000 people. Every time Li Zicheng broke through a place, he paid special attention to confiscating horses and recruiting horse thieves from all over the country. Li Guodong knew very well that in the near future, Li Zicheng's cavalry would be expanded to more than 30,000 people and formed three wall cavalry.

On the fifth day of the 10th month of the 12th year of Chongzhen, Li Guodong set out for war. Six thousand light and heavy cavalry, plus two hundred nights without quitting, a total of six thousand two hundred soldiers and horses went on war. Six thousand two hundred people, at least one person and two horses, were all the heavy cavalry and the light cavalry rode Mongolian horses.

Everyone brought a bag of dry food on the army and put it on the horse's back. The dry food was mainly pancakes. A cavalry carried thirty kilograms of pancakes, five kilograms of dried meat, and a kettle on his back. Everyone's rations can be used for one month. When they went to Xiangyang, they did not need to carry too much rations. Huguang was well-educated in the world, and the land of Huguang was the world's granary. As long as they carried silver, they could buy them wherever they went.

According to the Ministry of War’s manifesto to Li Guodong, he required him to arrive in Xiangyang within two months. The Jinyang army, which had all the cavalry, actually only took one month to arrive in Xiangyang, so the food they carried was enough. After arriving in Xiangyang, they sent people across the river to Wuchang to buy food.

As for Yang Sichang's plan to enter Sichuan or Hanzhong to suppress the thieves after going to Xiangyang, Li Guodong would definitely not go, and Zuo Liangyu would go to pursue the thieves' army. What Li Guodong had to do was to patrol the area around Xiangyang and encircle the bandits defeated by officers and soldiers at any time.

"The bandit defeated by the officers and soldiers? I guess it should be the opposite." Li Guodong sneered.

The army set out from Pingyang Prefecture and headed south along the Fen River. Along the way, I saw that the turbulent Fen River, which was turbulent in the past, has now become a small river ditch, and some places have been cut off. A few crops can be seen near the river bank. A few places far from the river bank are grass and the land is dry and cracked. However, the good land by the river is all from the gentry and has nothing to do with ordinary people.

The village I saw on the road was empty, and there were bones everywhere on the roadside. People who were hungry and dying were sitting on the roadside waiting for death.

"It counts as much as you can save, He Xing!" said Li Guodong.

"The last one will be here!"

"Take a thousand light cavalry and distribute your food to the people. You can go back to Pingyang Mansion and bring some dry food out."

"promise!"

He Xing asked his thousand light cavalry to distribute his dry food to these ordinary people. The people who received the food were grateful and kowtowed to thank him one after another.

"Dear fellow villagers, you are full, hurry up and walk north. After walking a hundred miles, you can reach our Jinyang Army headquarters. It's in Xiangling. If you go there, you can ask for a bowl of porridge." Li Guodong personally helped up a white-haired old man.

"This general is such a good person! If it weren't for you, my only grandson would have starved to death!" The old man turned his head and shouted, "Dear fellow villagers, let us thank the general for his life-saving kindness!"

"This is our Wuwei Bo General Li Guodong." He Xing said loudly.

"Dear fellow villagers, we can survive, all the great kindness of the general! As long as we overcome the difficulties, we will build a temple for Wuweibo!" the old man shouted.

"I really don't dare to be a sacred person! Li doesn't want to have a temple. As long as all the fellow villagers can live and work in peace and live well, it will be the greatest comfort to Li!"

He Xing led a thousand light cavalry back to get food. The round trip was only more than 200 miles away. The light cavalry was fast and followed behind and chased after three days, then caught up with Li Guodong's main army.

The Jinyang Army left Shanxi and entered Henan. The scenes we witnessed were even worse than those in Shanxi. Looking around, the villages were no longer angry, and even some people in towns were dead. After walking all day, sometimes, I could not see a living person. All the way was to see the white bones everywhere.

"It's so miserable. Why doesn't the court provide relief?" He Xing sighed.
Chapter completed!