Faced with Yuan Zongdi's forced force, Wu Dading and Sun Shoufa insisted on avoiding his edge. Although Cao Bianjiao was the nominal commander, he did not have many troops in his hands, so in the end he could only let him go.

They were originally in Qinzhou, and then retreated all the way westward to Lanzhou. In the local area, Cao Bianjiao collected some of the local guards and under his command, he defeated several powerful horse thieves in the local area.

The people of Ganzhou and Lanzhou have been strong since ancient times, and they are concerned about the strong as kings. If they are defeated, someone will take the initiative to surrender.

In a short period of time, Cao Bianjiao surrendered nearly 10,000 people, and nearly half of them were cavalry. He suddenly felt that there might be great potential here, and with soldiers in hand, he gradually subdued Wu Dading and Sun Shoufa.

But soon, the Qing army led by Haoge entered Jiayuguan, Zhangye, Yongchang, Xining and other places swept past, and headed towards Lanzhou where Cao Bianjiao was located.

Cao Bianjiao knew that relying on his current military strength would definitely not be able to fight. So he asked Wu Dading and Sun Shoufa to lead all infantry to urgently go south and retreat to Longxi. There were Wushi Mountain, Wuzhu Mountain, Shouyang Mountain, and three mountain sanitation, Shouyang Pass and Wei River, with two dangerous blockages. The terrain was dangerous and easy to defend but difficult to attack. Even if the Qing army could not be stopped in the end, there should be no major problems for persisting for a period of time.

After the two led their troops to leave first, Cao Bianjiao also led the remaining cavalry to evacuate Lanzhou. He set up an ambush on the Haowei River line, annihilated hundreds of Qing army's vanguard cavalry in one fell swoop, and then led the Qing army to Guyuan and Liupanshan area. He wanted to use himself as bait to lead the disaster to the rebel army.

The capital fell, Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself to sacrifice his country, and the prince Zhu Cilang fled south, and the northern land was no longer owned by the Ming Dynasty.

The result of the matter was not too unexpected to Cao Bianjiao, but time went by much faster. Fortunately, Prince Zhu Cilang escaped, and the Ming Dynasty was still there.

Zhou Xian's sudden rebellion against Ming and independence made Cao Bianjiao wonder and puzzled. After years of experience, Cao Bianjiao was not the reckless boy of that day. But he always regarded himself as a general and was unwilling to participate in these things too much. When he was confirmed that Zhu Cilang had gone to Nanjing, he did not hesitate for a moment and directly sent someone to Nanjing to express his loyalty.

Since he was loyal to the Ming Dynasty, the rebel army was naturally still his enemy. If the Qing army and the rebel army could both suffer losses, he might still be able to seize the three sides again, or even the entire Shaanxi.

But soon, Cao Bianjiao found out that he was wrong.

After Li Zicheng captured Shaanxi, he led the main force of the rebel army to march into the capital, allowing Yuan Zongdi to stay in Shaanxi. Although the rebel army left behind had nearly 50,000, and he also received tens of thousands of local local bandits in Shaanxi who had newly surrendered, with a total force of nearly 100,000. However, the elite soldiers of the rebel army were all taken to the capital by Li Zicheng, and Yuan Zongdi had only more than 6,000 troops in his hands.

However, the Qing army had 100,000 people, including more than 30,000 elite Qing army soldiers. They were siege cities and plundering the land, and were unstoppable. The scene of Cao Bianjiao trying to fight the Qing army and the tide of the tide of death did not appear. Instead, the Qing army formed a complete crushing and killing the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the tide of the treasury. He neglected the strength of the treasury of the treasury of the treasury of the Shaanxi treasury.

Later, Cao Bianjiao helped Yuan Zongdi resist the Qing army most of the time. However, with the fall of Xi'an, Yuan Zongdi led his troops to retreat to Henan, and Cao Bianjiao was unable to support him. He first retreated to Longnan and then to Hanzhong. After all, Sichuan was still in the hands of the Ming army, and Hanzhong was the gateway to Sichuan.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there was a saying that "The Shu Palace is the richest in the world."

Cao Bianjiao is now short of food and salary, lacks soldiers and armor, and he lacks anything. When he moved his troops to Hanzhong, he thought of relying on the wealth of the King of Shu to recruit soldiers and horses, and in the future he would raise his troops to enter Shaanxi.

But what Cao Bianjiao didn't know was that the King of Shu had accumulated a lot of money in history, but they were all wealth-guarding slaves.

In the 17th year of Chongzhen, Sichuan soldiers were in a hurry, and all the officials asked Shu King Zhu Zhishu for money. However, Zhu Zhishu cried poorly and said, "There is a lot of money and grain in the orphan warehouse, only Chengyun Hall, and the old man and others demolished it and sold it for replenishment." Sichuan Governor Liu Zhibo replied angrily, "Your Highness! No one can afford Chengyun Hall, but Li Zicheng is the recipient."

Later, Zhang Xianzhong captured Chengdu and slaughtered all the Shu King's family. The wealth of the Shu King's Mansion supported the military expenditure of the Daxi Army for nearly 20 years in the next. The excess, those who were not lucky, were directly sunk into the river mouth, becoming the famous "Zhang Xianzhong's sinking silver" in later generations.

How could Cao Bianjiao expect such a desperate King of Shu to get the silver from him to recruit soldiers? But there are really people who get the silver from Zhu Zhishu, Gao Jie.

He was born into a turbulent family and was a general under Li Zicheng. He chose to surrender to the Ming army because of his affair with Li Zicheng's concubine Xing. He was born into a general and had always been loyal to the Ming Dynasty. Gao Jie was never loyal to anyone. He finally led his troops back to Sichuan, and he was short of food and salary, but Shu King Zhu Zhishu was unwilling to take out a copper coin to reward his soldiers.

In a rage, Gao Jie led his troops to loot several of Zhu Zhishu's manors, obtained countless silver and grain, and used this money and grain to recruit soldiers and horses.

Zhu Zhishu was furious and reported Gao Jie's lawsuit to Sichuan Governor Liu Zhibo.

But Liu Zhibo saw that the situation in the world has changed drastically, and there was no force around Chengdu that could compete with Gao Jie. Not only did he unintentionally punish Gao Jie, but he deliberately wanted to win him over, and the matter was finally left alone.

After Zhou Xian fell from the capital, he immediately ordered the whistle cavalry to spread the word in all directions to tell the fact that Zhu Cilang was already the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Gao Jie, who received the news, suddenly had other thoughts and kept asking Zhu Zhishu for salary on the grounds of supporting the King of Shu to be called emperor.

Gao Jie is not stupid, so of course he cannot truly support Zhu Zhishu to be emperor. He just wanted to use this to ask for more military salaries and put pressure on the new emperor through the King of Shu to seek more benefits.

Therefore, when the news that Zhu Cixuan named him Xingpingbo came, he immediately abandoned Zhu Zhishu and asked Zhu Zhishu for a large amount of money and food again on the grounds of his conspiracy to be emperor.

Zhu Zhishu, a vassal king with no power and power, had no choice but to face Gao Jie, who was like a robber, almost vomited blood. But facing a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty like Cao Bianjiao, he turned around and changed his identity as a vassal king. He directly refused Cao Bianjiao's request to send some money and food, and sent someone to severely rebuke him.

Fortunately, Sichuan Governor Liu Zhibo felt that he could use Cao Bianjiao to restrain Gao Jie, so he gathered in the east and got a batch of food and grass to send people to Hanzhong.

Gao Jie was in Chengdu at this time, and he was like a local emperor. Of course, he did not want Cao Bianjiao to enter Sichuan. He quickly sent his general Li Chengdong to lead 4,000 elite troops to Jianmen to stop Cao Bianjiao.

With Cao Bianjiao's current military strength, he certainly could not compete with Gao Jie, but he was as fierce as fire. Seeing Gao Jie doing this, he was furious and directly led his troops to capture Qipan Pass and Chaotian Pass and force him to Jianmen.
Chapter completed!