The Chuang Army attacked for seven days and seven nights, and suffered heavy losses under the city of Kaifeng, losing more than 100,000 refugees. The soldiers and civilians in Kaifeng City worked together to repel the Chuang Army's attacks again and again. The Jinyang Army stationed on the river bank in the north of the city was also eyeing the Chuang Army, making it impossible for the Chuang Army to siege the city.

"It's almost time. It's time to give some news to the thieves and let someone make a noise, and that Zuo Liangyu's reinforcements are about to arrive." Li Guodong asked Zhang Shuheng's people to walk in the camp for a rumor.

"No!" Zhang Shuheng bowed.

"Slow down!" Just as Zhang Shuheng was about to retreat, Li Guodong called him, "For the sake of our friendship with the thieves, we will also give him a real information: Yang Wenyue from Baoding is about to lead his army to rescue Kaifeng! Let's release this real news."

"No!" Zhang Shuheng retreated.

Li Guodong immediately summoned all the generals under his command to his central army tent.

"Dear brothers, be prepared to attack! The thieves will retreat within a few days! The thieves will retreat, and our army will immediately chase them out and gather the refugees as much as possible. Li will naturally classify them and ask Xiao Zhang to identify them. If they are old thieves, they will be sent to the capital to offer prisoners and handed over to the court for disposal. Most of the ordinary people will be sent to Shandong, and some will be sent to Lianghuai and Anqing." Li Guodong looked around and gave orders to his generals.

Wu Biao stood up and raised a question: "Lord, can we afford to support the hungry people if we have too many hungry people?"

Li Guodong smiled and said, "The more people, the better. With people, what are you afraid of not being able to produce them? Maybe we had to spend more food at the beginning to feed them, but in a year, these populations can create wealth for us! The land north of the two Huai Rivers has fertile land and a warm climate (compared to Shanxi, it is much warmer), but it was caused by thieves who offered disasters. The land is vast and sparsely populated, and there is no one to cultivate so many rich lands, so we are waiting for us to cultivate, which requires people."

At present, the population under Li Guodong's control is more than 800,000, but there is still a huge gap. He doesn't mind pulling out more than 100,000 to more than 200,000 refugees from the defeated rebel army and place them in various controlled areas of the Jinyang Army and the Huai Army, so that the population can reach one million.

It was very simple for Zhang Shuheng to release the news to the Chuangjun. Li Guodong's agents were infiltrated into the Chuangjun. After the true and false news was issued, the Chuangjun's own cavalry without quitting at night also sent the real news: Yang Wenyue, Baoding, led the Ming army to rush south to rescue Kaifeng. Although the Chuangjun did not get the news from Zuo Liangyu, Li Zicheng would rather believe that Zuo Liangyu would come to get a bargain.

Li Zicheng has dealt with Zuo Liangyu a lot and knows Zuo Liangyu's character well. He never fights fierce battles and never misses the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Now the Chuangjun fought for seven days and seven nights under Kaifeng City, with heavy losses. There are also elite Jinyang troops beside him eyeing him. The Ming army in Baoding has already gone south. The Chuangjun is at a time when morale is low. With Zuo Liangyu's character, such a bargain is not taken without a single advantage. Therefore, Li Zicheng judged that Zuo Liangyu would definitely come.

Yang Sichang asked Zuo Liangyu to pursue Zhang Xianzhong, but Zuo Liangyu disobeyed and remained silent. At this time, Zuo Liangyu would not send troops easily in order to preserve his strength. But when Yang Wenyue's reinforcements arrived, Zuo Liangyu would definitely send troops to Kaifeng.

In fact, Zuo Liangyu was also waiting for the opportunity to take advantage and might send troops to Kaifeng at any time. However, Zuo Liangyu himself did not expect that. Later, he met Li Zicheng and was defeated by Li Zicheng in Zhuxian Town. Later, when Li Zicheng opened the second and third openings, Zuo Liangyu never dared to come again and hurried in Xiangyang. Li Zicheng attacked Xiangyang, and Zuo Liangyu fled to Wuchang again. Zhang Xianzhong came to attack Wuchang, and Zuo Liangyu fled to Jiujiang again. When Zhang Xianzhong left Wuchang, Zuo Liangyu "recovered" Wuchang.

Thinking of Zuo Liangyu, Li Guodong made up his mind: Do you want to seize Wuchang with Zuo Liangyu? Zuo Liangyu dared not fight Zhang Xianzhong, and there was no need to fight to the death with Zhang Xianzhong, but Zhang Xianzhong drove out Zuo Liangyu and occupied Wuchang soon after Zhang Xianzhong was driving away from Wuchang. Will he take advantage of this opportunity to occupy Wuchang?

After careful consideration, Li Guodong decided that it would be better to occupy Jiujiang than to occupy Wuchang. If Zuo Liangyu wanted to occupy Wuchang, let him go. According to the historical process, Zuo Liangyu would not live long. After Li Zicheng captured the capital, Nanjing would establish King Fu. Then Zuo Liangyu Qing jun sided and raised an army from Wuchang to attack Nanjing. However, Zuo Liangyu died of illness halfway, and his son Zuo Menggeng surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

"Occupy Jiujiang! We have a shipyard in Anqing, and Anqing is already under our control. If Jiujiang takes over again, you can stop Zuo Liangyu when he advances east four years later!" Li Guodong gestured on the map a few times and said to himself.

At this time, it has entered a good era of warlord expansion. The control of the imperial court and civil officials over military generals has gradually weakened. Whoever has the army in his hands can do whatever he wants. However, the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty did not realize this, and thought they could still be inferior to civil and military officials, and they used civil and military control. They did not see Emperor Chongzhen so diligent in cutting off civil officials' heads. They did not dare to move the generals such as Zuo Liangyu, Liu Zeqing, and Liu Liangzuo who were respectful to the soldiers?

At this time, Li Guodong had enough strength to fight against the imperial edicts. As long as he did not suddenly become hot and went to Beijing to send his heads, Emperor Chongzhen would never dare to do anything to himself. Zuo Liangyu was disobedient and domineering, what could the imperial court do to him?

As for the gentry of Huguang, who will let them harm them? This task should be handed over to Zuo Liangyu. As long as he occupied Jiujiang, cut off Zuo Liangyu's retreat, and intercepted the military salary and food of the Zuo Army, he would force Zuo Liangyu to reach out to the gentry of Huguang. After Zuo Liang's legs were straightened, Zuo Menggeng surrendered to the Qing Dynasty? That was a good opportunity to send troops to destroy him.

Shandong's layout was to deal with the situation that the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, turned a large number of refugees into military households, and built military forts in Shandong. In the future, when the Qing army went south to attack Yangzhou, they would not dare to go to Shandong. The layout on the two Huaihe River and the Yangtze River was entirely to deal with the enemies within the Ming Dynasty. Of course, Li Guodong was not a loyal minister. In the future, to establish his own order, he needed to clear all obstacles that blocked himself. Whether it was warlords, gentry, or vassal kings, as long as they blocked him, they would be eliminated.

Just as Li Guodong was preparing for his next plan, someone came to report: "Your Majesty, the thief has withdrawn!"

"The thief withdraws his troops overnight? Let's go out and take a look." Li Guodong stood up.

Li Guodong and several generals walked out of the central army's tent, rode on horseback, ran westward for several miles along the river bank, and saw a long dragon of torches appear on the avenue on the south bank of the Yellow River, illuminating the official road. From a distance, a long dragon of torches seemed to have fallen into the Milky Way and continued to the horizon.

"As long as I was not surprised, the thief really withdrew his troops." Li Guodong laughed.

"Lord, we are going out to pursue the camp now!" He Xing volunteered to fight.

Li Guodong shook his head: "Don't rush to chase them. We don't ask for capturing the old cavalry of the trespassers. What we want is to recruit refugees. Wait for another hour and it's almost dawn. We set off again, follow the thief army, and gather refugees as much as possible."

An hour later, at the hour of Mao, Li Guodong led the Jinyang army to attack from the camp. Among them, he personally led the cavalry to chase the retreat of the rebel army; while He Xing led the engineers who acted as infantry to go straight to the empty rebel army camp.

He Xing brought the infantry to the gate of the camp of the riot army. He saw that although the camp was brightly lit and bonfires were lit on the ground, the camp was empty, with only the cry of a woman and a sound of a cow. He Xing drew his knife and pointed to the camp gate: "Brothers, rush in!"

"Run!" More than 10,000 infantry rushed into the camp of the rebel army.

The camp had already left the camp, with only more than 5,000 hungry and wounded soldiers who were abandoned by the rebels and soldiers, as well as more than 6,000 women who were regarded as burdens by the rebels.
Chapter completed!