At midnight.

In Tongguan, the supervisor Li Huaxi changed into military uniform, carried a sword on his waist, and stood on the reviewing stand of the military camp.

"The loyal soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, the rebels, had already been put under the gates."

"They were once soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, but now they are following the rebel Liu Jun's rebellion. Now, they are heading towards the Ghost Pass. They are stationed twenty miles outside the Pass. Three days later, the rebel's cannons will be transported. At that time, Tongguan will be unable to withstand the rebel's artillery attack."

"Your Majesty is in charge of the army and leads 100,000 reinforcements."

"But as soldiers of His Majesty the Ming Dynasty, how can we let His Majesty take risks and come to the battle formation in person? Tonight, we will take the initiative to attack and catch them off guard while the Han army has arrived and the artillery has not arrived and the enemy has been arrogant and underestimated."

"As a soldier of the Ming Dynasty, being able to defeat the rebels with his own hands is a glory given to us by God and an opportunity given to us by God."

Li Huaxi shouted loudly, "Soldiers, it's time for you to make contributions. Let the blood of the rebels soak our battle robes!"

"If you kill one rebel, you will be rewarded with twenty yuan in silver and ten acres of land in Guandong."

"Anyone who kills the rebel commander shall be awarded the ninth rank official, and who can kill the rebel military academy shall be awarded the seventh rank. If he can kill the rebel general, he shall be awarded the fifth rank official."

"If the rebel general Zheng Zhilong is killed, he will be awarded the Count and will be given ten thousand gold!"

There must be brave men under heavy rewards. There is a lack of training in daily life and insufficient military pay. Rewards are generous in wartime and improving military merits have also become the only way to inspire the morale of the army.

The Qin army below began to hear those loyalty and achievements without any reaction, but as soon as they heard all kinds of rewards, they immediately became energetic and began to shout slogans such as killing enemies and long live, and their momentum immediately increased a lot.

"out!"

Li Huaxi was originally from Shandong, a Jinshi in the seventh year of Chongzhen. He served as a prosecutor in Huzhou and a Taoist in Tianjin. Because he was in charge of setting up porridge factories in various places and helped many victims, he was promoted to governor of Shaanxi by virtue of his merits. However, when he arrived in Shaanxi, Chongzhen died. Not long after, Emperor Longwu also died and Liu Jun usurped the throne.

When Liu Jun cleared his shortcomings and recovered the tax arrears, he still had to impose a deed tax. As soon as he attracted dissatisfaction from the rich people in the world, Shaanxi had no direct troops at this time, so Shaanxi and Gansu quickly rebelled.

Li Huaxi was also awarded the title of Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, and this time he was specially sent to Tongguan to supervise the army with Shangfang Sword.

Facing the Han army outside the pass, Li Huaxi and others had no good idea. The Taoist platform proposed a plan yesterday.

However, the so-called strategy is just a night attack on the Han army. Ma Shiyao opposed the night attack because the Han army was extremely elite and had strict defenses. Even if it was stationed in the camp, there would not be many loopholes.

On the contrary, night attacks are too testing the level of an army.

But the current Tongguan defenders are still put together.

The total total is only 7,000, while the Han army opposite has 80,000, so they still have to stay behind.

There will be no more than three thousand people who can be sent out.

Three thousand to sneak attack 60,000 Han troops. Even if the Han army had some artillery soldiers before they arrived, the Han army in the camp would not have less than 40,000 to 50,000.

Ma Shiyao objected, but unfortunately no one listened to him.

Fortunately, because of his opposition, Li Shixi did not choose him to lead his troops to attack him in the end. Instead, he transferred another general to command the troops.

Ma Shiyao knew Li Huaxi a little and knew that this was a very traditional official.

But he still disagrees with and does not like his military service.

Li Huaxi's ancestral home was from Shanxi, and his family moved to Shandong. His great-grandfather was a tribute student who was not in office. After he brought his family to Shandong, he made a living by farming. Li Huaxi's grandfather only counted a farmer, but his family had been farming and passing on his family. When he finally passed the imperial examination for the Jinshi and became an official.

Li Huaxi's reputation as an official is pretty good, and he has done a lot of practical things. He also has achieved helping more than 100,000 victims during famines.

However, like many other officials and gentry, he was dissatisfied with Liu Jun usurping the throne and seizing power, and even more dissatisfied with his new policy. He was extremely dissatisfied with the court's request for officials to settle accounts and make up for the deficit, and also recovered the five-year tax owed to the official and gentry family, and the collection of deeds and taxes.

Finally he joined the rebel army and became a member of the support for the restoration of the Ming Dynasty.

Ma Shiyao did not believe that Li Huaxi was loyal to the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was rotten to the point of being nostalgic. He believed that many officials such as Li Huaxi were just to fight against Liu Jun and slam the flag of Zhu Ming.

I heard that when Li Huaxi was in his hometown of Zhou Village, he used his position to force local governments to rectify market order and crack down on the rampant bullying and bullying of the market and corrupt officials, which attracted many businessmen to open shops and do business. There were thousands of commercial roads in the village and street markets.

Li Huaxi even privately included the market's business tax, and then made a market tax-free sign to attract businessmen to come and operate. Zhoucun became more prosperous as a result, and even had the title of the world's number one village.

But even such a capable minister of the Qing official firmly opposed the new dynasty.

Ma Shiyao is sometimes confused. What’s wrong with the world? Who can dominate it?

However, since the defeat of Luoyang, although he is now an official and leading troops in the Xi'an court, he is thinking more and more, and gradually he understands some things.

Just like tonight's night attack, Ma Shiyao did not believe that it would succeed at all, but Li Huaxi and the others insisted on sending three thousand troops to the scene.

This is going to die.

Thinking of the chaotic wars over the past ten years, Ma Shiyao was also a little tired. If this continues, when will the king be defeated, he will be invincible. The Han army is invincible and seems to have already settled the world.

On the school ground, three thousand night-attacked soldiers were already lined up, and Ma Shiyao looked at these people, but seemed to be watching a group of dead people.

He believed that these people might not come again when they went out.

Tomorrow, many women will lose their husbands and many children will lose their fathers.

Ma Shiyao suddenly felt that all this was very disgusting and terrifying.

"Call all the officers of each battalion." Ma Shiyao said to his personal soldiers.

After more than ten years of rebellion, he has now become a loyal soldier of the Ming Dynasty. Ma Shiyao shook his head. If the Ming Dynasty was still the same as the Ming Dynasty in the past, perhaps he would have accepted his current new identity.

But the Ming Dynasty had finally destroyed its country. The Ming Dynasty is just a fake, just deceiving itself.

The four thousand soldiers left behind were basically all the former subordinates of the rebel army and the generals led by the troops were basically old brothers.

Ma Shiyao looked at everyone and said slowly, "These people who came out of seclusion tonight will not come again."

The officers didn't speak, it was obvious that only those civil servants couldn't see such a simple thing.

"Now there are only four thousand people left in the pass." Ma Shiyao said again.

Everyone still didn't say anything and didn't know what to say.

Four thousand people guarded a pass, and they were all desperate in their hearts facing the 60,000 elite Han army.

"The reinforcements from Xi'an must arrive in five days."

An officer finally couldn't stand this depressing atmosphere, "General, why don't we retreat."

Ma Shiyao looked at this brother, who was also an old brother of the rebel army. He has been fighting in the world with the rebel army for more than ten years. He can survive to this day. I have to say that his luck has always been very good.

"Where to retreat?" Ma Shiyao asked back.

Yes, wherever you retreat, there is no way. Now it is not the Ming Dynasty. It is not scary to lose a war at that time. At worst, it can be played hide-and-seek with the government army, but now it is different.

The Kanto area is no longer there. When the Han army arrives in one place, it looks like an iron bucket. The government troops stationed in the army, the local reserve troops, the militia troops, and even the villagers are all made of Baojia.

Going eastward, they can't hold on at all.

But when going west, there are the Han army behind them. How many days can they escape? It will not last long to go southwest.

"Brothers, I've been fighting for more than ten years, running around. To be honest, I really feel tired." Ma Shiyao said.

Many people nodded. They were really tired, and they were even more tired, and their future was confused.

"The current situation is definitely the best man in the world. Do you think so?"

Everyone nodded, it was indeed very clear. Before, a tree of anti-flagship in Luoyang was launched, and gentry all over the world responded, but now it seems that those people are useless at all.

Ma Shiyao continued, "It seems that Liu Jun is the true dragon emperor. The Han Dynasty has only been established for a few months, but under Liu Jun's administration, various places have seen a change. There are no refugees in the provinces of Kanto. They are all busy plowing and working to earn money."

"To be honest, everyone has seen the new dynasty and new policies. In addition to being a little tough on those big families, it is good for ordinary people. The rent reduction and interest rate reduction and the land tax and silver are reduced."

An officer nodded, "Yes, in the past, I couldn't survive because my family's taxes were too heavy and I had to raise funds. Local wealthy households had to exploit them, and the clerks had to force them. They had no choice but to join the rebellion team. If it were at that time, the court would have helped reduce rent, interest rate and taxes, and also helped to repair water conservancy, lend money, and get the purchase price of grain protection, pre-purchase, etc., how do we need to escape? How do we need to rebel?"

"Yes, in the past, no matter where we went, we raised our flag and greeted us, and there were countless responders, and the people followed us to rebel. But now, how many people are willing to rebel with us?"

"The people are like this. Until they can't survive, who is willing to rebel at the risk of beheading?"

"There is no future in rebellion."

Ma Shiyao also sighed as he heard these old brothers' sigh.

"Brothers, I have been thinking about it for a long time these days. I think about the 100,000 troops gathered by the King of Chuang in Luoyang. But in the end I was beaten clean in one night. Although there were traitors and insiders, even if there were no traitors, could we really beat the Han army? The Han army was one million, all of them were elite, with excellent weapons, well-trained, and sufficient food and salary. We would never be able to beat him."

"Brother Ma, just say whatever you have. This is my own brother."

"That's right, let's talk about it, Brother Ma."

Ma Shiyao nodded, "Okay, I'll just say this to everyone. I'll do it. I plan to surrender to the Han army, which is also a way out. I don't want to run away like this for the next life. If my brothers support me and are willing to follow me, then we will join us with Tongguan. If there are brothers who don't want to surrender to the Han army, I won't stop everyone, you can go by yourself."

As soon as he said, many people immediately said, "What else do you think about? We all followed Brother Ma and surrendered."

"Reduced." (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!