After separating from the guide of Yuexi Pass, Deng Ming and his team rushed to the road silently, and no one spoke for a long time. Long afterwards, Deng Ming broke the silence and sighed: "During Fengjie, General Wen talked to me about the old story of Emperor Lie. The General Manager said that a minister came to Shanxi to supervise the army..." Deng Ming glanced at Zhou Kaihuang: "In order to resist the attack of King Chuang, he climbed the city tower to urge the soldiers to fight, but found that no one fired the cannon and no one was going to load gunpowder. The minister was very angry and filled the cannon with gunpowder himself. However, when he wanted to fire the cannon, the soldiers around him pulled him and said nothing to let him ignite the cannon."

Hearing this, not only Li Xinghan and other Sichuan soldiers, but also three people from the camp came out sighed. The morale in western Sichuan was much worse than that in eastern Sichuan, and the outposts in western Yuexi and other places were the same as Chengdu, with no intention of preparing for war, as if they had accepted their fate and were waiting to die.

"This minister returned to the yamen to commit suicide. Before he died, he submitted a letter to Emperor Lie, asking Emperor Lie to be sure to cleanse people's hearts." Deng Ming stopped at this point, and while moving forward, he lowered his head and thought about his thoughts.

"How to cleanse people's hearts?" After waiting for a while, Li Xinghan asked after seeing that Deng Ming had no intention of continuing to speak.

"He doesn't know, he only knows that he must find a way to curb people's hearts, and Emperor Lie obviously did not find it either." Deng Ming paused for a moment and said to his companions around him: "Now this problem is ours. The Western Sichuan Army has no fighting spirit and will not be determined to fight. How should we curb people's hearts?"

Lugu is located in a remote place with no Han people at all. The Ming army's outpost only serves as an inn. Although there have been constant wars here for more than ten years, it seems to be very far away from the Sichuan Xingdusi. Just like in the west of Yue, Deng Ming and his party walked into the straw hut-like post so that they saw the guards. More than a dozen guard soldiers in Lugu were having dinner at this time, and they were all shocked when they saw a rare group of knights suddenly entering the door.

"We are ordered by the commander Wen to go to Jianchang," Li Xinghan, the leader, jumped off his horse and walked to the guard closest to him. The latter stared blankly, his mouth full of food and forgot to swallow it. Li Xinghan shouted: "We need a guide, hurry! Quick!"

Under Li Xinghan's repeated urging, the guards seemed to wake up and quickly swallowed all the food in their mouths and came to lead the horses for Deng Ming and others.

"Are you sent by Commander Wen?" A guard asked again when he led Zhou Kaihuang.

"Yes." Zhou Kaihuang replied, saying so clearly just now that he didn't understand why this soldier had to ask again.

"Oh." The guard's brows frowned, his lips moved, as if he had something to say, but hesitated and didn't say it. His hand holding the reins loosened and clenched it tightly several times. He stood there and thought about it, and looked at Zhou Kaihuang again.

"You guy, how dare you hide your military information!" Zhou Kaihuang saw the hesitant look in his eyes. He jumped up without hesitation, grabbed the guard's collar and shouted: "What a courage!"

While scolding, Zhou Kaihuang pulled out his sword and put it on the sentry's neck. When the roar sounded, Deng Ming and the other eighteen people didn't see clearly what happened to Zhou Kaihuang. However, when he heard the sound of drawing the sword, he quickly pulled out his weapon without thinking. In a blink of an eye, the outpost was filled with the cold light of swords and the stern threat.

Deng Ming held the sword tightly and looked around the yard. None of the sentries in Lugu had time to pull out their weapons. When Zhou Kaihuang cursed, these people looked at the site of the incident in shock. There were also one or two people nearby seemed to want to persuade them, but as soon as they moved slightly, they were immediately pointed at by Deng Ming's guards with weapons, forcing them all to kneel on the ground.

"Is there anyone else in the room?" Deng Ming asked a subdued Lugu sentry. The man looked pale at this time. The guard behind him pressed the knife on the back of his neck slightly. The man quickly shook his head. Because of his excessive movement, the skin on the back of his neck was cut through.

Li Xinghan rushed into the house of the outpost with three guards, while the rest still controlled the Lugu guards outside.

After a while, Li Xinghan and his men came out of the house. They carefully searched every corner of the outpost. He reported to Deng Ming: "There is no one inside."

It seemed that the guards of this outpost were indeed very careless and were eating outside without any warning. Deng Ming nodded, put away the weapons in his hand, and turned to look at Zhou Kaihuang: "What's going on?"

"They speak indecently..." Zhou Kaihuang said. He found that the guards of Lugu looked panicked, wanted to speak but stopped, and finally concluded: "They have ill-intentioned evil intentions, please observe clearly."

"Unforgivable..." After hearing Zhou Kaihuang's words, someone immediately began to shout for injustice.

"Stop!" The guard Wu San turned his back to Zhou Kaihuang at the time of the incident. When he heard the scolding, he was not sure whether it was a verbal dispute or an emergency. However, when he heard the sound of metal, he knocked over the Lugu guard in front of him without saying a word, twisted his arm and pressed him to the ground and could not move. When the soldier opened his mouth to shout for justice, Wu San tightened his hand and blocked his words.

The others who wanted to speak out were also stopped by the guards. After the silence in the courtyard returned to the ground, Wu San asked Deng Ming and said, "Mr. Deng, I thought I would ask them separately. I was the first to forgive the truth, and the rest would not be beaten!"

Wu San didn't think that the guards of Lugu had any intentions for them, because the other party was completely unprepared. They seemed to be ordinary guards at posts and had never seen any formations. They were far inferior to ordinary battalions. As long as they were intimidated, they would probably scare these post guards and would honestly explain them when they asked questions.

The dozen guards in the outpost were all farmers before, and they had never been to the battlefield or killed anyone. After hearing Wu San's words, they all shouted for justice and begged for mercy, but they were stopped after only half of the words. Although these people seemed to be unscrupulous, Deng Ming's guards would not give them the chance to confess.

On the way to Jianchang, Deng Ming organized everyone to conduct emergency response drills many times during his rest. The training content came from various movies, TV and books he had watched, stories and documents. Deng Ming took out all these half-true things with the guards, and then gradually achieved a tacit understanding of cooperation through continuous practice.

For example, the few words Wu San said, and the strict control of the prisoners and the strict control of the prisoners did not allow them to collude with any opportunity, were all interrogation strategies they had practiced. After Wu San finished speaking, Deng Ming took a deep breath and announced loudly to the people in the yard: "No need to be so troublesome, Wu San!"

"I'm not here." The guard who was close to Wu San's name replied loudly. He had no prisoners in his hands and was now standing vigilantly outside the crowd.

"You count three later," Deng Ming deliberately slowed down so that every prisoner in the yard could hear it clearly: "From the beginning, you count to three slowly. When the word "three" is out, everyone must say the most important thing you know. Those who speak first, kill! Those who count to three but don't speak, kill! If someone tells the truth, those who say they don't know, kill!"

After talking about the rules, Wu San began to count.

"one,"

"Second," Wu San tried his best to look fierce and vicious, while observing the Lugu guards' expressions of fighting and competing.

"Three..." he shouted fiercely.

As soon as Wu San finished speaking, a messy shout sounded in the yard:

"Jianchang wants to surrender!"

"Qingyang was arrested!"

"Jianchang wants us to surrender with them!"

The soldiers at the outpost all ignored the knife around their necks, and everyone rushed to scream.

Seeing the slack appearance of the Lugu Post, Deng Ming didn't think there would be any surprise news. He also felt that Zhou Kaihuang might have misunderstood these guards - he had just entered the post for one or two minutes, and even if he saw the flaws, he wouldn't have been so fast, right? But he didn't expect to hear such amazing bad news.

When Deng Ming and others arrived in Leshan, the Jianchang envoy had already arrived in Chongqing. The request they made was rushed to Baoning by the Qing army for 600 miles. Li Guoying agreed without hesitation and ordered Chongqing to send the news to Jianchang as quickly as possible, urging Di Sanxi to surrender immediately, so as not to have too many dreams. Deng Ming's team has a large number of people, and he chose a safer road to come to Jianchang. The messenger who set out from Chongqing had no concerns at all. They were very familiar with the road conditions and did not take the Emei Mountain road. Although this road was controlled by the Ming army, the mountain road was rugged and difficult to move. The messenger took the guards of the two armies and passed directly from the mixed areas of the Ming and Qing armies, and went straight to Xuzhou along the Yangtze River. Then, despite the danger of running a dead horse, he rushed to Jianchang quickly along the avenue.

Just as Deng Ming and others were crossing the snowy mountain, Di Sanxi had already taken over the military power from Feng Shuangli, wrote a letter of surrender to Wu Sangui, and sent it to Kunming with the golden seal of King Qingyang. At the same time, he ordered the garrisons around Jianchang to surrender together or leave the vicinity of Jianchang on their own.

After receiving the notice from Jianchang, the guards at the Lugu Post had never made up their minds to surrender or refuse. There were no knowledgeable people in this post. The soldiers were residents within a radius of 100 miles of the hometown. No one could understand the unpredictable situation in Sichuan and could not discuss a solution, so they had to wait and see. They neither informed the other side of the snow-capped mountain nor told Jianchang that they would follow the unified action. Today, they continued to receive the Ming army habitually after seeing them coming in.

When Deng Ming's guards heard that Jianchang was going to surrender, all of his faces changed. Since Jianchang had begun to call on the surrounding outposts to surrender, it means that the surrendered faction had steadily controlled Jianchang's troops. Deng Ming's departure not only did not play a role in calming people's hearts, but also automatically delivered it to the Qing court.

"These guys actually tried to hide from us. They must have made up their minds to surrender and could not stay." Zhou Kaihuang's hands tightened again, asking Deng Ming whether to kill someone.

Half of the guards in Lugu were so scared that they could not make any sound. The rest of the people who could speak were desperately calling for justice, saying that they had really not surrendered, and they had never surrendered or concealed it. In fact, they were indeed wronged. When this team of strangers came in, the guards in Lugu did not know them. Until now, they had not even asked their names and had not checked the guards. How could they report to them immediately about the incident in Jianchang? Who would have thought that Deng Ming's guards all had a vigilance that they would rather believe in, and immediately attacked them.

Deng Ming's guards were not completely unable to understand this. If they were themselves, they would never tell such important news to a group of strangers they had just met. However, they came all the way and saw the city of Jianchang but found that they had a waste of time. If they didn't leave quickly, there would be danger. The troubles in front of them and the serious consequences of Jianchang's surrender combined, and these guards took their anger on the guards of Lugu, and several guards agreed with Zhou Kaihuang's opinion.

Deng Ming thought about it for a while and asked these people to stand up and gather together. He first comforted him: "Since you have learned such a big news, why don't you report it to Chengdu immediately? According to military law, you should all be executed, but because you are the first offender, you will be exempted this time."

Before waiting for the guards to express their gratitude, Deng Ming continued to ask: "Someone just said that Jianchang has tied up King Qingyang?"

"Yes, general." The guards of Lugu didn't know who Deng Ming was. When they saw that he was the leader of this group, they called him a general: "I heard that it was General Di... Di Sanxi betrayed King Qingyang and had tied up the prince. He wanted to take Jianchang to surrender to the Tartars."

"Yes." Deng Ming nodded and continued to ask a few questions. Seeing that these soldiers really didn't know any more important information, he ordered them to be locked in the back room.

"So, Di Sanxi will definitely surrender to Wu Sangui." Deng Ming told his subordinates. Jianchang is not far from Yunnan. It is much closer to Jianchang to Kunming than to Baoning, and the road is much easier to walk.

"If Jianchang surrenders, the officers and soldiers of Yunnan will be trapped in the south." Deng Ming has talked about the importance of Jianchang to his subordinates these days, so someone immediately responded: "The King of Jin and other generals from all walks of life will not be able to come to Sichuan to meet us."

The Ming army in Yunnan had no chance to enter the western Sichuan plain, and could only stay in remote and remote areas without people and production. Under such desperate situations, other Ming army that were still resisting would soon have the intention of surrender.

"Yes, we can't sit still." Deng Ming said without hesitation. "We still have to go to Jianchang."

No one of the guards opposed it, but looked at Deng Ming together. They felt that there was no need to object in words. According to the soldiers at the Lugu Post, Feng Shuangli had been locked up and might have been sent to Kunming. The rebels had controlled the situation. There were only twenty people in the Ming army. Facing the thousands of troops in Jianchang, there seemed to be no other possibility except to die.

"It was Di Sanxi who surrendered, not Qingyang." Deng Ming said. The news at Lugu Post was very limited. After asking, people would have thought that Jianchang had a fire and Feng Shuangli was seized by a traitor: "It was not Qingyang himself surrender, which is fine. Just a general took the lead in surrendering. Even if he controlled Jianchang, it would not be very stable. Qingyang had been in charge of the army for many years, so why did he have no prestige in the army? It seemed that Qingyang was not killed immediately, maybe he was still in Jianchang City now. What do you think this means?"

Everyone started to discuss it in a slight manner. In Zhou Kaihuang's opinion, this was not a good thing: "It means that Di thief is not afraid of him at all. If he was worried that Qingyang would still have prestige in the army, how could he not harm Qingyang?"

Deng Ming shook his head and said, "This army was pulled up by Qingyang. It has been following Qingyang for more than ten years. You said that Qingyang has no prestige in the army. Do you believe this yourself?"

Zhou Kaihuang tilted his head and thought about it, but found that he really didn't believe it.

"So this shows that Di Sanxi dared not kill him at all," Deng Ming analyzed to everyone: "It shows that Jianchang has many soldiers loyal to Qingyang. Di Sanxi relied on threatening Qingyang's life to coerce the entire army, so that the officers and soldiers loyal to Qingyang would throw themselves into trouble. We just need to go in and catch Di Sanxi and force him to release Qingyang. We are not twenty people against three thousand people, we just need to deal with Di Sanxi and his guards."

The guards all thought Deng Ming's words made sense, and the morale that had just been depressed suddenly increased again. After all, everyone worked so hard to come here, and no one was willing to see that all their efforts were wasted at such a close distance from Jianchang.

"Without any time, we will rest here tonight and set out tomorrow morning so as not to leak news." Deng Ming ordered the guards of Lugu to be locked up first, but not to hurt their lives. Then he took out the razor: "Everyone shaved his braided hair tonight. Tomorrow we will say we came from Chongqing. After being ordered by Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, Jianchang is so far from Baoning, Di Sanxi will definitely not contact Li Guoying, he can't figure out our details."

Although I knew that this must be done, looking at the razor in Deng Ming's hand, the guards still looked complicated. Deng Ming asked with a smile: "You guys don't even want your head, do you still care about not having hair for a while?"

"Car!" Zhou Kaihuang replied loudly, but he no longer hesitated: "When this account arrives, Jianchang, we must make good calculations with Di Zhe."

"What will Mr. Deng say tomorrow?" When everyone started shaving their heads, Li Xinghan asked: "How should we explain to Di Zhe that we will come to Jianchang suddenly."

"We don't say anything, just let Di Sanxi guess it yourself." Deng Ming, based on his experience of being mistaken for the clan, the key to gaining trust from others is not how realistic he said, but that people do not see obvious flaws. Deng Ming summarized that it is precisely because he firmly refused to admit that he was a clan, there is no need to explain the details of his background, but instead, others will not find out that he is really not a clan: "Di Sanxi may guess Wu Sangui notified Li Guoying."

"Is it so fast?" Li Xinghan still lacked confidence.

"Maybe it was Fei Ge's letter." Deng Ming smiled.

"Is there a Fei Ge delivering a letter between Kunming and Baoning?" Many guards asked, and Zhou Kaihuang also questioned: "Even if there is, why would Wu Sangui be so anxious to notify Li Guoying about this?"

"This is what Di Sanxi needs to consider," Deng Ming laughed: "I won't say it was Fei Ge's letter. If you say it, he will start to doubt it like you. It's enough for me to just say that I came from Chongqing on order. Let Di Sanxi figure out how and why Wu Sangui should notify Li Guoying."

"When did we receive the order?"

"He probably didn't have the chance to ask this question." Deng Ming sneered.

...

In Jianchang County Government, a guard ran in to report to Di Sanxi that a team of Qing soldiers had arrived at the city. The leader was Baoning Qianzong, who claimed to have come from Chongqing. There were nineteen followers with him, all of which were the same Qing army uniforms. It seemed that the team was at least one person and two horses.

"Li Guo... what did the Governor send someone to Jianchang so quickly?" Di Sanxi was stunned for a moment. Li Guoying didn't mention this at all in his reply to him: "What did they say?"

"They said nothing, and said they would like to see you." The messenger replied, "That Qian Zheng gave the waist card to Bei Zhi."

"Where is the waist card?" Di Sanxi asked.

"I took it back, and I don't know you." The messenger complained: "I was scolded by Mr. Qian for this, saying that I don't understand it, but I have to see if I'm itchy."

Di Sanxi felt angry when she heard this, but now people are under the roof and have to bow their heads. Although Li Guoying's reply was polite, the Qing soldiers below would definitely be arrogant in front of them, the surrenderers. Di Sanxi figured out this and suppressed his anger: "Take them to see me."

After a while, the Qing soldiers came to Jianchang County Government. On the way to the city, the Qing soldiers showed their power and their chins were raised to the sky. Now the army in the city has not yet shaved its heads, and the soldiers are still wearing Ming army uniforms. When they see the Qing soldiers, they all stand on the side of the road and look at them silently.

"Are you Di Sanxi?" Deng Ming strode into the county government with a arrogant look on his face: "The Governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi ordered all the troops of Jianchang to set off for Chongqing immediately and bring all the food."

Logically speaking, the other party should have reported to his home and saluted him. After all, the other party was just a small general, but Di Sanxi was a general. Seeing that the other party had no etiquette at all, Di Sanxi's anger that had just suppressed suddenly became louder. His guards in the county government also showed anger, and many of them snorted coldly.

Deng Ming raised his chin and glanced at the county guards who made the sound with contempt. He forced each of them to lower his eyes before looking at Di Sanxi again: "Do your guards want to be unfavorable to me?"

Di Sanxi was surprised and angry. He never thought that the other party could be so rude. However, seeing the other party's fearless look, Di Sanxi swallowed the anger and asked politely: "What do you call the entourage?"

"I am Li Ming." Deng Ming said carelessly and asked randomly: "Now do you know why the Governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi asked me to come?"

Di Sanxi didn't know who Li Ming was, but seeing that the other party claimed so proudly, it was probably Li Guoying's confidant, maybe he was still an adopted son, and he could only sigh in his heart that the surrender was really not done by anyone: "It turns out it was Mr. Li Qian, who has long admired him."

"Since I know who I am, I will not summon all the generals and hurry up and leave for Chongqing?" Deng Ming said impatiently: "The strong men, grain, and the governor of Jianchang are all required."

"But King Pingxi has ordered us to transport the strong men and grain to Kunming," Di Sanxi moved out Wu Sangui's order and wanted to mock the other party as just General Qian, but in the end he did not do so: "The King Pingxi sent a banner official to come, and he was already on the way. He will arrive tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. General Li Qian can go and talk to him." After that, Di Sanxi ordered the guards: "Send General Li Qian to rest."

"Nonsense, this is the territory of Sichuan," Deng Ming screamed as soon as he heard this, rushed forward and slapped Di Sanxi's desk: "How dare you not listen to the orders of the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi!"
To be continued...