The rebel army first attacked some powerful villages. Because of the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty, some powerful villages built themselves to protect themselves, built dirt cities in the countryside, surrounded their houses, and lived in the villages, in addition to the gentry's own family, there were also some relatives, clan members, servants, etc. If you break through such a village, you may not get less supplies than the county town! Moreover, it is much easier to attack such a village than to attack a county town.

However, the village in front of him gave Li Zicheng an extremely troubled headache. After carefully selecting the site and building the natural terrain of the hills and rivers, the village is located on the hills at the bend of the river, surrounded by water on three sides. It is not easy to use the moat formed by natural rivers to fill it. The river water is deep and the water flows very fast, and it is difficult to fill it if there is no river. The only side without a river has been dug deep trenches and are full of sharp wooden stakes. But don’t think that the section of the trenches can be easily filled, because there is a section of mud in front of the trenches, and the siege weapons cannot pass through mud.

The Tuzhai is set up on the hills. Archers hiding in the Tuzhai City can shoot light arrows from a high place, and can shoot two hundred steps away! If the elite soldiers wearing thick armor attack? Not to mention that the gunners in the village can penetrate the armor, just say that the mud in front of them can take the life of the elite soldiers wearing armor. The soldiers wearing thick armor fall into the puddle and cannot even climb up.

You can vaguely see that there are tiger squatting cannons on the Tucheng City, and there are servants patrolling the city with bird guns on their backs.

Seeing such a village, Li Zicheng was worried, but he had to fight. His team expanded to 100,000, and the food was already seriously insufficient. If he captured such a powerful village, the food problem could be solved.

"Oh, it would be great if there were cannons!" Li Zicheng sighed.

In the disastrous defeat a year and a half ago, Li Zicheng only had eighteen cavalry left to escape. All the cannons they had seized were lost. Where can I have cannons on hand now?

If the archer is used to suppress the firepower on the Tucheng, the opponent is at a high place and the arrows shot from a high place are much farther than those shot by himself. What is even more hateful is that this muddy land. If the archer passes through the mud and the bowstrings are wet, he will not be able to shoot the arrows at all.

"King of Chuang! The function of the man helps you build cannons! In just one day, you can prepare ten cannons to attack the village!" A man stood up among the refugees.

"Can you build cannons?" Li Zicheng was overjoyed. "You can build ten cannons in one day? Isn't it a deception?"

"Where can you dare to deceive King Chuang? Please give King Chuang to the ten carpenters of King Chuang to build cannons within one day." The man who stood up and said that he could build cannons was named Wan Shun, a hungry man in the countryside of Zhejiang and Sichuan, but Li Zicheng didn't know that this person's true identity was actually Li Guodong's personal guard agent!

Wan Shun and more than a dozen carpenters went up the mountain to cut down wood, and the ones cut down were the hard wooden pine trees. The cut down pine trees quickly turned into a cannon in the hands of Wan Shun and the carpenters.

"This, can this cannon be fired? It won't explode, right?" Li Zicheng stared at the cannons dug out from the wood.

"The King of Rebellion can be beaten with three shots, and it will not explode!" Wan Shun promised Li Zicheng confidently, "If it explodes within three shots, Bei Zhi is willing to give his head!"

"Okay! There are ten cannons, three shots in one shot, and there are thirty shells! It's enough to attack!" Li Zicheng was overjoyed.

Wan Shundao: "King of Chuang, wait a moment, we will build a batch of wooden boards, some as shields, and others are spread on the swamp, so that the archers can rush over! When we shoot thirty shells, we may not be able to destroy the earth city, and we can only suppress the top of the city. When the shells are about to be finished, we will spread the wood on the ground and rush through the swamp."

"Okay! Then it's up to you!" Li Zicheng happily patted Wan Shun's shoulder, "Wan Shun, I never thought that you could come up with such a brilliant plan!"

"Thank you, King Chuang!"

The rebel army began to attack the village, and ten pine wood cannons were scattered in one stroke, aiming the muzzle at the village.

The servants and servants in the village were so scared that their legs were weak when they saw the gun pointing at their guns. Although this village is easy to attack and difficult to defend, but the opponent has cannons, how can they fight? Look at the cannon, it is the red cannon!

As a result, the rebel army only fired one round of shells, and the people in the village surrendered. The rebel army rushed into the village, snatched all the food, gold, silver and treasures, and the powerful living inside turned into prisoners and was chopped by Li Zicheng with a knife.

Li Zicheng's army arrived at Zhejiang and Sichuan County. This small county was not very strong, and there were very few defenders in the city. He relied entirely on the civil war organization of the gentry who hid in the city.

The rebel army began to attack the city. The local county magistrate and the gentry who hid in the city knew that they had already had a disaster. They urged the yamen runners, soldiers, archers, mentors, constables, jailers and gentry servants to fight to the death on the top of the city.

A ladder was raised and pushed down by the defenders at the city. The wolf teeth were smashed on the top of the city, and the yakshas, ​​lime bottles, and stones were smashed from the top of the city like rain. The tinder and gold juice were poured down from the top of the city, causing heavy casualties who acted as cannon fodder.

Xie Haotian, who sneaked into the city in advance, relied on his advantage of being a local, mobilized a group of stall owners and craftsmen who were bullied by the government and gentry and could not survive. Taking advantage of the empty opportunity of the county government, he suddenly rushed into the county government, opened the prison, and released all the prisoners detained inside.

"Brothers, the King of Chuang is here! Let's join the King of Chuang! Kill all the officials and gentry in the city!" Xie Haotian raised his arms and shouted.

A large number of ragged hungry people and local people suddenly launched an attack from behind the defenders. Although the weapons and equipment of these hungry people and the people were very poor, the equipment of the defenders on the front of the city was also very poor, and almost no armor protection was available. Although the weapons on hand were better than these rebels, they were attacked from both sides and the rebels were attacking the city. The rebels behind them were invading the city, and the rebels were in a hurry to resist. They turned back to deal with the rebels behind, but were climbed onto the top of the city by the rebels.

From Li Zicheng's attack on the city and to the loss of Zhejiang and Sichuan County, it took less than two hours! In less than half a day, a county town succeeded!

When Li Zicheng entered the city, he executed all the county magistrates and minor officials who resisted to the end without hesitation. Then he mobilized civilians in the city to find all the gentry hiding in the city, and unceremoniously pulled all the people out of the city to behead them. Not to mention those who had fame and fortune above the juren, even some scholars, even Tong Sheng, were killed by Li Zicheng.

"Every of these scholars is heartless! It should be killed!" Li Zicheng roared.

As soon as these words were said, Niu Jinxing, Li Yan and others' expressions changed slightly. They were also scholars.

Li Zicheng noticed that his military advisors' faces changed and suddenly laughed: "Well, I'm talking about most scholars in the world, of course you are different."

Niu Jinxing wiped his forehead and sweated coldly: "Breaking Wang Shengming! Although we are scholars, we are different from them."

Li Yan advised: "King of Chuang, you cannot kill all scholars in the world. If some people with fame and honor want to surrender to our army, we should accept scholars more. In the future, we need these scholars. Even those who surrender to our army should accept their surrender. When we attack the city in the future, there will be more people who surrender to us."

"Bah!" Niu Jinxing spat: "All those scholars are corrupt. We have killed a group of people today. In the future, they will surrender the fastest!"

Seeing that Li Yan was ineffective in persuading Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing was making trouble, he had to sigh and turn around and retreat.

Within a few days, the rebel army successively broke through Zhejiang, Sichuan, Neixiang and Zhenping counties, killed the minor officials of the county magistrate and county government office, and killed all the gentry hiding in the city. After Li Zicheng killed the gentry, he did not distribute the farmland of the gentry to the farmers, but instead used the method of raiding the house to obtain food and wages, and then took all the local farmers to join the army of refugees.
Chapter completed!