Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 588 Lu Da Dao
While waiting for Zhang Xianzhong's troops, Gao Yingxiang was also closely following the movements of the imperial court. In particular, after hearing that Lu Xiangsheng in Daming Prefecture in the east was gathering troops and was heading towards him, Gao Yingxiang vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

He immediately summoned his subordinates and decided not to wait for Zhang Xianzhong. If they continued to wait, they would probably miss the opportunity. Gao Yingxiang decided to send troops in advance and enter northern Zhili from Henan first. Once they arrived in northern Zhili, they would see the situation. If there was hope, they would continue to march north. If not, they would turn around and march south. No matter what, they must not let the officers and soldiers surround them.

After receiving Gao Yingxiang's order, Li Zicheng began to gather his troops and prepare to follow the main force of the rebel army. But soon after the order was issued, while he was waiting for the troops to gather, his brother who had gone to the south to pass the order suddenly rushed over and told Li Zicheng something he could not imagine.

"What!? What did you say?" Li Zicheng couldn't believe his ears. He reached out and grabbed the man's chest, asking with a ferocious look.

"Reply...Reply General Chuang, when I arrived there, I found out that General Gao and his troops had long disappeared, and even his...his wife was missing..."

"How is this possible!" Li Zicheng asked hurriedly, "Have you looked for Gao Jie and his men here?"

As soon as he said this, Li Zicheng knew something was wrong. If Gao Jie had brought people to join him, they should have arrived by now, and it was impossible that the people he sent out would not have met him.

It's only over thirty miles, which is not far. Even if they crawl slowly, they should be able to reach their destination. But Gao Jie's men, including Xing Qiaoer, are nowhere to be seen. What's going on?

Suddenly, a very bad premonition arose in Li Zicheng's heart. Li Zicheng seemed to see a huge hat emitting green light falling from the sky and directly hitting his forehead.

Ever since the incident with Han Jiner, Li Zicheng has been particularly sensitive to such matters. However, after marrying Xing Qiaoer, Li Zicheng gradually put his mind at ease because of her intelligence and ability, as well as her flattering attitude towards him.

As for Gao Jie, it goes without saying that Gao Jie is his fellow villager, and the two have a good relationship. Moreover, Gao Jie is also a capable person under his command, managing the rear army and logistics in an orderly manner, and he is deeply trusted. How could these two people get together and cheat on him like Han Jiner did back then?

Shaking his head, Li Zicheng got rid of this idea. He would rather believe that Gao Jie was on his way to meet him with his troops and Xing Qiaoer, but they just met the people he sent by accident, or maybe they were not taking the same route.

Thinking of this, Li Zicheng calmed himself down and asked people to quickly look for the whereabouts of Gao Jie and Xing Qiaoer. He also sent more people to search all the roads leading to here from their area and report as soon as possible if there was any news.

After the others left in a hurry, Li Zicheng was mumbling something, and his whole spirit became a little dazed. At this time, Li Guo and others arrived and were about to ask Li Zicheng when he would set out, but Li Zicheng waved at them and asked them to wait for a while, leaving them confused.

However, half a day later everyone knew the truth. The truth was that Gao Jie and Xing Qiaoer not only cuckolded Li Zicheng and made him a living cuckold, but also ran away with his men and all the logistical supplies of Li Zicheng's troops, including gold, silver and treasures.

According to the report from the people who went to investigate, Gao Jie and Xing Qiaoer fled yesterday morning. In name, they had received an order from Li Zicheng to reunite, but in fact they just abandoned some old, weak and disabled soldiers and the civilians they had taken hostage to the local area, and disappeared without a trace with the property, food and more than a thousand of Gao Jie's subordinates.

Because Xing Qiaoer was there at the time, and Xing Qiaoer was Li Zicheng's wife, no one raised any objection to the order. Without telling either side, Gao Jie and Xing Qiaoer got away easily. No one knew where they had gone in the end or where they were now.

There was an uproar when the news came out, especially Wen Xinghu and Li Guo, who looked at each other in confusion, not knowing how to comfort Li Zicheng.

Unlike other brothers, these two had experienced the incident of Li Zicheng killing Han Jiner. It was this incident that eventually led to the extermination of Wen Jucheng's family. Li Zicheng took them to flee to the border, and finally they changed their names and served as frontier soldiers.

Now something similar has happened again. Li Zicheng's second wife has also cheated on him, and the one who had an affair with Xing Qiao'er is Gao Jie, who they are all familiar with. This... how can we explain this? Could it be that Li Zicheng was born without a wife? Or is he born to have a crush on women? All the women who have a close relationship with Li Zicheng are like this? And each one is more daring than the other. This time, before Li Zicheng found out in advance, this adulterer ran away first?
It was not good to persuade him, nor was it good not to persuade him. It was extremely embarrassing. Moreover, seeing Li Zicheng's gloomy face, as if he was ready to eat someone, Wen Xinghu and Li Guo thought it was better to keep silent about it.

As expected, Hao Yaoqi, the reckless man, went to enlighten Li Zicheng, scolded Gao Jie and Xing Qiaoer severely in front of Li Zicheng, and even said that he would definitely lead troops to capture the adulterer and adulteress to vent Li Zicheng's anger. Although it was well-intentioned, Hao Yaoqi kept calling them adulterers and shameless bastards. These words not only did not comfort Li Zicheng, but made Li Zicheng so angry that his face turned red and green. It seemed that Hao Yaoqi was taking advantage of the situation to make indirect accusations.

Finally, Li Zicheng was so angry that he lost his temper on the spot and whipped Hao Yaoqi severely. Hao Yaoqi, who was beaten for his kindness, felt very aggrieved afterwards. He kept saying in front of Li Guo and others that Li Zicheng was ungrateful. It was not him who abducted his wife, but Gao Jie who did it. Why didn't he seek revenge on Gao Jie but beat himself?

Hao Yaoqi's behavior made others laugh and cry. They were afraid that this guy would make Li Zicheng angry again, so they quickly covered his mouth and explained in private the reason why Li Zicheng beat him, and warned him not to mention it again, just as if it had never happened. If he continued to talk about it, not only would Li Zicheng lose face, but he would also hate him because of this matter.

After hearing the explanation, Hao Yaoqi suddenly realized what was going on. But then he got angry again, saying that these brothers were really not nice. You guys knew you couldn't persuade them or say anything, but you just pretended to be deaf and dumb and watched the show from the sidelines, and instead watched him run into the muzzle of a gun. It was really not nice.

Everyone apologized quickly and promised Hao Yaoqi a drink, and Hao Yaoqi gave up. However, from then on, there was an unspoken rule in Li Zicheng's army, that is, no one could mention Jie and Xing Qiaoer's names in front of Li Zicheng.

Gao Yingxiang did not continue to wait for Zhang Xianzhong. After the troops gathered, he led them eastward into northern Zhili, and then quickly moved northward to Cheng'an.

But Gao Yingxiang did not expect that although he was fast, Lu Xiangsheng was even faster. Before Gao Yingxiang's troops reached Cheng'an, they ran into Lu Xiangsheng's troops head-on.

Lu Xiangsheng was a rare capable official in the Ming Dynasty, with both civil and military skills. He had fought against the rebels many times and was very experienced. When Emperor Chongzhen ordered him to gather troops to stop Gao Yingxiang's troops, Lu Xiangsheng quickly determined Gao Yingxiang's direction of advance and made preparations in advance.

Although the soldiers led by Lu Xiangsheng were not the elite border troops of Liaodong, most of them were just local garrison troops, but Lu Xiangsheng had a special army in his hands. This army was organized by Lu Xiangsheng himself when he was the prefect of Daming and the military governor. He selected good families from the three prefectures of Daming, Guangping and Shunde, and then based on this, he spent a lot of effort to train an army according to his own military insights and experience.

This army was mostly composed of fellow villagers, relatives, friends, brothers, fathers and sons, and had a strong cohesion. In addition, Lu Xiangsheng never treated them unfairly, and they were well-paid and well-equipped. After being trained by Lu Xiangsheng, their combat effectiveness was extremely strong, and it could be said that they were a very strong army.

Lu Xiangsheng called this army the "Tianxiong Army" and even boasted that his army was comparable to the Qi Family Army of that time.

And this is indeed the case. Although the tactics of the Tianxiong Army are different from those of the Qi Army, their combat effectiveness is indeed almost the same. It's just that Lu Xiangsheng could not afford to support too many troops. Moreover, the Tianxiong Army was formed in the name of a militia and was not part of the official army of the court. All military expenses had to be borne by Lu Xiangsheng himself. Therefore, although the Tianxiong Army was strong, it had few people, only more than 2,000 people.

When Lu Xiangsheng led his Tianxiong Army and the Wei Suo troops to block Gao Yingxiang's way, Gao Yingxiang did not take Lu Xiangsheng seriously at first. After all, Lu Xiangsheng's troops were not many, and his troops totaled only more than 5,000 people, while Gao Yingxiang had 100,000 people, and the difference in strength between the two was huge.

Originally, Gao Yingxiang thought that it would be easy to defeat Lu Xiangsheng, a civilian leader, with his own military strength. However, the situation on the battlefield after the war started shocked Gao Yingxiang. Although Lu Xiangsheng had few soldiers, his fighting power was amazing, especially his Tianxiong Army, which was so strong that it was unimaginable. The mere 2,000 Tianxiong Army not only directly blocked the attack of the 20,000 he sent, but also forced his vanguard to retreat step by step.

Not only that, under the inspiration of the Tianxiong Army, Lu Xiangsheng's garrison troops also exerted 300% of their combat effectiveness, almost comparable to the elite Liao army under Cao Wenzhao.

That was not all. When Gao Yingxiang saw with his own eyes that the commander-in-chief Lu Xiangsheng was actually wearing the uniform of a civil official and charging forward with a terrifying-looking sword in hand, his sword was heavy, long and extremely sharp. Anyone who touched him while swinging it would be injured or killed. No one could get close to him within a few meters. He could enter and exit the formation as if it was an empty space. It was like Guan Yu reborn or Xiang Yu resurrected, and he made his side terrified.

This scene shocked Gao Yingxiang so much that his eyes almost fell out. He had never thought that there would be such a brave man in this world. Moreover, he was a civil official and not a military general. How was this possible?

In fact, there was one thing that Gao Yingxiang didn't know, that is, the broadsword in Lu Xiangsheng's hand weighed as much as 140 kilograms, which was much heavier than Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade's 82 kilograms. Even Liu Jing, who died in the Battle of Sarhu and was known as the number one general of the Ming Dynasty, used a broadsword that weighed only 141 kilograms, which was only one kilogram heavier than Lu Xiangsheng's broadsword.

(End of this chapter)