Liu Qingzhou sent out several soldiers and horses under his command, leaving only one soldier and horse beside him, and set up camp a few miles away.
At the same time, a team of sentinels were left behind to keep an eye on the goings-on in the city.
"Yingzheng, do you think we should try to persuade the officers and soldiers in Tiancheng Guard City to surrender?" Ji Kui, who returned to the main tent from outside, expressed his idea of persuading surrender in front of Liu Qingzhou.
Liu Qingzhou rubbed his chin with his hand and said: "In the eyes of the government, our Tiger Flag is a bandit. I'm afraid the officials of the Ming Dynasty will not surrender easily."
"You can send someone to try." Ji Kui said, "I heard that Tianchengwei commander Zhou Tong is very incompetent. He got the black gauze hat on his head by spending money on it. For such a person, we only need to If you promise to save his life, you may not take the initiative to open the city and surrender."
The Foreign Intelligence Bureau of Tiger Character Banner collects all kinds of information from the outside world.
Tianchengwei commander Zhou Tong, as the person with the highest status in Tianchengwei, is naturally under the attention of the Foreign Intelligence Agency. All information about Zhou Tong has been sent by the Foreign Intelligence Agency to the commander of the Tiger Banner army attacking Tianchengwei.
As the staff officer of the war camp and Liu Qingzhou's deputy, Ji Kui is naturally qualified to see the content of this information about Zhou Tong.
Liu Qingzhou pursed his lips and shook his head, saying: "Don't forget, the news we received is that Wang Bao, the commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu, is also in the Tiancheng Guard. Zhou Tong is incompetent, but Wang Bao is not a fool. Although our tiger-character flag has soldiers The front is strong, but so far we have only been able to capture a side fort like Xinping Fort. How can Wang Bao, the dignified general of the Xuanfu, lower our tiger-shaped flag so easily."
He was not optimistic about persuading Tianchengwei to surrender.
Being in a foreign place, he will not surrender easily. After all, it is not clear whether the Tiger Character Flag is powerful for the time being. On the contrary, the power of Ming Dynasty is real.
"It's a pity. If we could capture Xiatian Chengwei without spending a single soldier, we would be spared. Deputy Division Chief Gao and the artillery team wouldn't have to waste time coming here." Ji Kui sighed lightly.
Liu Qingzhou next to him smiled and said: "Don't worry, when Deputy Division Gao is coming with the artillery team, the Tiancheng Guard will still be in the hands of our Tiger Flag."
When he spoke, his tone was very relaxed.
Even the two frontier armies of Xuanfu and Datong were no match for their Tiger-Charactered Banner army. Their strength was far inferior to that of the border army's guard troops, and it was even less possible to stop the Tiger-Charactered Banner army from advancing.
It would be useless even if there were some of the Xuan Mansion's defeated troops in Tiancheng Guard City.
The sun was setting in the west, and the sky was getting darker.
A tiger-character banner team sent out to clear out Tiancheng's guards and horses began to return, and with them came back the captured prisoners.
These prisoners were not all soldiers and horses of the guard station, but a large part of them were soldiers and horses of the border army who followed Wang Bao and fled to Tiancheng Guard.
When the last tiger-character flag troops sent out returned, the total number of captured guards and border officers and soldiers from several tiger-character flag teams was more than 3,000.
The number of prisoners captured alone almost caught up with the number of soldiers and horses Liu Qingzhou brought with him.
Night falls quickly.
The tiger-character banner army did not attack the city, which made Zhou Tong secretly relieved in the city.
"Sir, the food is ready. Would you like to go have something to eat first?" the commanding officer asked the servants in the yamen cautiously.
An army of bandits besieged the city, and everyone in the mansion could see that Mr. Zhou was in a bad mood. This made the servants be very careful about what they said, for fear that their words would be too loud and offend their master.
Zhou Tong waved his hand and said: "I won't eat, I have no appetite."
"What can we do without eating? At this time, we need to eat more so that we can have the strength to kill the enemy." As he finished speaking, Wang Bao came in from outside the house with two soldiers.
Zhou Tong, who was looking uneasy in his seat, saw Wang Bao coming and hurriedly stood up to greet him. He said, "General Wang is back. How is it? Can you stop the bandits outside the city?"
"It won't be a big problem to stop the bandits outside the city." Wang Bao held his beard in his hand and smiled softly.
Hearing this, Zhou Tong breathed a sigh of relief and said, "With General Wang's words, I feel relieved. I still need to rely on General Wang for the next matter of defending the city."
"Don't worry, since I promised to defend the city, I will not break my promise. However," Wang Bao paused and then said, "The bandits outside the city are just one of the bandits. I'm afraid there will be more people in the next few days." More armies of bandits arrived, and even many cannons were brought along."
Zhou Tong, who was just feeling more relaxed, was stunned when he heard that there were still bandits coming.
"This, this, this, why are there still bandits coming? Why don't they go to harm other places? Why do they have to come to Tianchengwei!" Zhou Tong patted his thigh with his hand in sorrow.
When Wang Bao, who was standing in front of him, heard these words, the corners of his mouth twitched unnaturally.
Unexpectedly, the commander of Tiancheng Guard was so afraid of death that he could even tell the bandits to cause harm to other places.
After finishing speaking, Zhou Tong seemed to know that he had said the wrong thing, and said with a slightly embarrassed look on his face: "Don't get me wrong, Mr. Wang, it's not that I want the bandits to cause harm to other places. It's true that Tianchengwei can't bear too much chaos." Bandit attack."
"I can understand Commander Zhou, but I would like to ask Commander Zhou to be mentally prepared. The bandits have more than 10,000 troops and many cannons. If we want to defend the city, we can only fight to the death with all our strength." Wang Bao said to Zhou Tong said.
He wanted Zhou Tong to understand that without the determination to fight to the death, Tiancheng Wei could not be defended.
Zhou Tong grinned.
Although he is incompetent, he is not stupid, and he can naturally understand the meaning of Wang Bao's words.
But this does not mean that he is really willing to live and die with Tiancheng Wei.
If Wang Bao hadn't brought thousands of border troops to garrison the city, he would have wanted to abandon the city and flee.
As for the idea of surrendering to the bandits outside the city, he had never thought about it. In any case, he was also the commander of the third-grade guard station, and there was no way he would surrender to a group of bandits.
Although he was a little incompetent, he did not think that the court could not quell this bandit named Tiger Flag.
Even though there are rumors that the Tiger Character Banner conquered the Tumote tribe, no one saw it with their own eyes. No one knows what happened. At most, they only know that the leader of the thieves, Liu Heng, is in Qingcheng.
Similarly, the leader of the Tumut tribe still lives in the Khan Palace in Qingcheng.
Therefore, even if soldiers and horses of the Tiger Character Banner appear on the grassland, it does not mean that the Tumut tribe was conquered by the Tiger Character Banner. It may also be that some kind of cooperation has been reached between the Tiger Character Banner and the Thumut tribe.
Even if the Tiger Character Banner conquered the Tumut tribe, even when the Tumut tribe was at its strongest, it could not do anything to defeat the Ming Dynasty. In the end, it had to surrender to the Ming Dynasty and accept the canonization.
In the eyes of many officials of the Ming Dynasty, Tiger Character Banner still regarded it as a business. Even with some force, it could not be compared with the Ming Dynasty that dominated the Central Plains.
