South of Jiankang, Liyang, only a few hundred miles away from the capital.

Not long ago, when the rebels in Xuancheng built their first momentum, and when they tried to attack Jiankang, Gao Qiao personally rushed to Jiankang, attacked the rebels here and successfully sniped, and once made the rebels retreat.

But before that brief victory had passed, the place was once again caught in a war.

One side is still the court army, and the other side is still the rebels from Xuancheng.

But unlike the last time, this time, the rebels also had a force of the Tianshi Sect.

The battle for Liyang has entered its fifth day.

The imperial army repelled the attacks of the enemy again and again. However, the rebels that Xuancheng army and the Tianshi Cult gathered together seemed to have endless locust worms climbing from the depths of the ground, all over the mountains and fields. They were endless to fight and destroy, and retreated, and another wave came.

Especially the vanguard team of thousands of people composed of disciples of the Tianshi Sect, all had stiff faces, their eyes were blood red, and there were strange eyes flashing with wild beasts in their eyes. They held a sharp sword in their hands and rushed up and chopped them as soon as they saw them.

Nothing can stop their pace. These people seem to be not humans, but a large group of zombies with only life and souls. Unless they die, or their legs and feet are broken, even if their arms are cut off and their blood flows, they will not stop them from rushing forward while dragging their broken hands while stepping on the body of their companions.

When a person fell down, more people rushed up immediately afterwards.

In a field battle for favorable terrain, Li Xie saw with his own eyes a disciple of the Tianshi Sect who had his head cut off by himself. He stood up with his neck and shoulders, and rushed forward with seven or eight steps straight ahead, and then he pounced down, and the sword was still tightly held in his hand.

Even if he saw this scene, he felt creepy.

Liyang is the last pass to the south of Jiankang. If Liyang is lost, it will be like opening a direct gateway to Jiankang for the rebels. Jiankang, except for the Stone City that Gao Qiao has been working hard for many years and its not-so-high wall, there is no barrier worth mentioning.

Everyone knows the importance of Liyang. In addition, from beginning to end of each battle, Gao Qiao would appear to command the battle, and even regardless of his subordinates' persuasion, he personally wore armor and held the sharps, and went to the battlefield to kill the enemy with his soldiers. Inspired by him, whether it was the Guangling army or the central army who was left behind to defend the city, at this point, he had already killed red eyes and no one dared to retreat.

It was with this united morale that a few days later, the imperial army not only regained the previously lost positions, but also forced the rebels back fifty miles.

However, before the upper and lower levels could take a breath, when the fierce battle entered the seventh day, Gao Qiao still had to make the decision to shrink his position, retreat to the city, and divide his troops back to Jiankang.

Because he has no other choice.

He received the latest battle report.

Wangjiang County was captured a few days ago. The rebels in Jingzhou divided into two groups, one of which took six routes along the river and captured the counties along the way. The momentum was unstoppable. The other part, under Xu Mi's personal supervision, chose boats to take over the road, and walked along the river with the wind, heading straight towards Jiankang.

This rebel army heading east along the waterway will arrive soon.

The joy of victory disappeared in an instant.

When Gao Qiao arranged for whom to stay to guard Liyang, the meeting hall was silent for a while.

Everyone knew that after dividing their troops to Jiankang, relying on the number of people who could not compete with the other party, relying on this city gate, it was extremely stressful to resist the countless almost crazy rebels outside for a long time.

This is no longer a matter of death or life. But if the city is destroyed, you will die in battle. If one is not good, you will most likely be punished with a crime of incompetence and being scolded.

No one can afford this crime.

"If Mr. Gao believes in me, I will lead the army and defend this city!"

In the silence, Li Xie slowly stepped out of the line and bowed and said.

Gao Qiao looked at him, and a hint of relief slowly appeared in his deeply sunken eyes.

He stood up from behind the seat, walked to Li Xie in person, helped him up, and said, "I will fight the Jingzhou soldiers with all my strength to ensure that Jiankang is not lost. If you can lead your brother to defeat the Jingzhou soldiers on the west side, and ensure that this door will not be opened, you will be rewarded in this battle!"

"Don't worry, my husband! All the officers and soldiers of the army are as strong as iron! Without the order of my husband, even if blood splatters three feet away, I will not take a step back!"

Li Xie said word by word.

...

Gao Qiao sent two generals of the Central Army who took the initiative to ask for the order to stay in Jiankang and Li Xie to defend the city. After leaving the defenders, he led the remaining troops back to Jiankang overnight.

The Stone City in the west of Jiankang was built in the previous dynasty and was originally a military fortress used to protect Jiankang. Before the Northern Expedition, Gao Qiao began to operate it again. Not only was the gateway high and the city walls were solid, and it was known as the number one fortress in Jiangdong.

Xu Mi has been in charge for many years and will not be unaware of the strength of Stone City. After arriving, Gao Qiao believed that he would bypass Stone City. The most likely route was to go to Jiangling to cover Zhoushan area and set up an ambush there early.

Sure enough, he was guessed.

On that night, the rebels took advantage of the night to take advantage of the cover of the night and boarded the riverside dozens of miles away from Shitou City, and attacked Jiankang in a roundabout way.

It was originally an expected surprise attack, but unexpectedly, when passing through a low-level valley near Jiangling, he encountered an ambush. For a moment, rockets on both sides of the hills were like locusts, rolling rocks. The rebels caught off guard and trampled on each other in order to avoid attacks in the valley. When the ambush came out and resisted, they were defeated.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Xu Mi hurriedly withdrew his troops and retreated, leaving behind the dead and wounded soldiers and armor and supplies all over the ground, and was chased by the court army. He was frightened and fled with the defeated army in the middle of the night. Until dawn, he fled to the field of Jiangcheng County northwest of Jiankang, and used the flat terrain to reorganize the team. Only then did he escape the disaster.

The reason why he was divided into 6 groups of troops this time was that he personally brought the army with him to attack Jiankang first was that Li Mu.

He had always had the idea of ​​creating great achievements. But he did not expect that the previous Northern Expedition not only failed to achieve the goal of excluding Gao Qiao, but instead caused him to lose his foothold in the court.

Just when he was hesitant about whether to continue to rebel and when to rebel, the huge chaos in the Tianshi School that started in Wu and then spread rapidly gave him a feeling of help from heaven. Without hesitation, he decided to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start a cause and create karma.

But looking at the Southern Dynasty, he was still afraid of only one person.

That person is Li Mu.

He knew that Li Mu was a terrible opponent.

Once he returns to the Southern Dynasty and has not controlled the situation well, he is very likely to encounter difficulties. If he is not careful, he may even capsize his gutter.

So from the beginning, he planned to take Li Mu's mother to his own hands and secretly sent someone to Jingkou. Unexpectedly, Li's mother moved into the manor, with strict access control and no chance to start. So he simply instructed the thieves of Jiangyang to openly attack Jingkou.

He originally thought that this should be successful.

But the news that came finally disappointed him.

What's even worse is that he also received news that Li Mu had indeed gone south as he expected.

So he needs to conquer Jiankang as soon as possible.

In his plan, although Jiankang had no danger to defend, as long as he could take Jiankang before Li Mu returned, then conquered Jingkou, and firmly controlled Guanglingdu, it meant that starting from Jingzhou upstream to Jiangdong downstream, the entire river area, and the commerce and grain transportation that accounted for a large proportion of the imperial treasury obtained by relying on the river, all fell into his hands.

He grabbed the lifeline of the Southern Dynasty and then rejected Li Mu from the north of the Yangtze River, making it impossible for him to cross the river to go south. In this way, he could completely fight against Li Mu and the court that retreated to the southeast in the future, and plot to remain.

This is why he personally led his troops to attack Jiankang.

After he took advantage of the opportunity of the Tianshi Sect to rebel openly, everything went smoothly.

Compared with Gao Qiao's embarrassment and exhausted to deal with it, he could have said that everything he wanted was smooth sailing and he was originally a little proud.

Unexpectedly, after the first battle after the 6th, he was defeated by Gao Qiao in an ambush and was defeated so embarrassingly.

Xu Mi was both hated and annoyed. After two days of rest in Jiangcheng County, he learned about the new good news. He said that the army led by Yang Xuan was invincible all the way, conquering cities and land along the way, and was as powerful as the officials of some small places did not even resist, but directly opened the city gate to surrender.

The army has reached the Dangtu area, and it is only three or four days away from Jiankang.

Xu Mi was overjoyed and continued the news. He mobilized the soldiers with heavy rewards. He immediately dispatched troops and attacked Jiankang again.

After Gao Qiao won the battle, he knew that Xu Mi would make a comeback and sent Jiang Cheng to order Cui Gao to guard Xiling in the north of Jiankang, Shang Gang, the prefect of Lujiang, to guard Qingxi in the east, and the officers and soldiers of Shitou City guarded the west gate, and led their own troops to defend Yunlongmen in the south of Taicheng.

After three days of bloody battle, Cui Gao and Shanggang were killed one after another, and Xiling and Qingxi fell into Xu Bi's hands.

Xu Bi's morale was greatly boosted and he took advantage of the victory to push him to Yunlong Gate. Gao Qiao personally led the army to the battle. During the battle, Xu Bi was shot in the chest by him and fell to the ground. The people nearby thought he was shot to death at first, and they were in panic. They lifted him up and fled in a hurry. Gao Qiao seized the opportunity to counterattack, forcing the rebels back dozens of miles, and finally took back the Qingxi area of ​​Xiling.

The arrow was blocked by the heart protection mirror, and it only shot the armor and penetrated about an inch of flesh, and it was fine.

Although he was a false alarm and survived, Xu Mi did not expect that Jiankang, who had thought he could easily be captured, would be so difficult to fight. Not only did he almost die at Gao Qiao's hands, but his soldiers were also seriously injured and exhausted. He remembered that he wanted to conquer the people of nearby counties and counties to act as military service for him, and the people also complained and fled. He had no intention of fighting again for a while, and ordered to stay on site to rest and wait anxiously for Yang Xuan's arrival.

Although the rebels were repelled for the second time and Jiankang got a chance to breathe again, the court army suffered heavy losses in this battle. Not only ordinary soldiers, but also more than a middle-aged generals also suffered more than a dozen casualties, which was shocking.

Regardless of his fatigue, Gao Qiao was visiting the injured soldiers in the camp temporarily erected outside Yunlong Gate in Taicheng. Outside the gate, a messenger covered in blood suddenly rushed in, bringing a terrible news.

Piling is lost.

Zhong Ming, the general of Zhengzhen who was responsible for defending Piling, was born in a gentry and fought with Gao Yun for many years. He used to have been stationed in Guangling. This time, Gao Qiao transferred his army south, and Zhong Ming was transferred over and obeyed Gao Yin.

He felt that he had a deep experience and was able to be brothers with Gao Yun in terms of seniority. He was even more of Gao Yin's uncle. He bullied him young and was dissatisfied with his arrangement to obey him. However, he knew that Gao Yin was the next head of the Gao family that Gao Qiao valued. Due to Gao Qiao's order, he did not dare to reveal anything in the Ming Dynasty. After being sent to Piling, he was deployed and repelled several sieges of the Tianshi Sect. He looked down upon him and felt that Gao Yin was so serious that he was really making a big deal. The Tianshi Sect was just a group of mobs, but he was like Gao Yin was facing a great enemy, just because he was incompetent.

Just a few days ago, Gao Yin came here to inspect the camp. After he left, Zhong Ming summoned several trusted subordinates to drink and have fun in the tent, and privately ridiculed Gao Yin for being timid and incompetent. Everyone agreed and all got drunk.

It happened that late that night, the previously defeated Tianshi Sect merged tens of thousands of people, and under the leadership of the sect Wu Cang, he launched a large-scale night attack towards Piling.

The result can be imagined.

Zhong Ming sobered up and wanted to form an array to fight.

Gao Yin rushed over to hear the news. Piling was lost. Zhong Ming was also killed by the chaos army, with his head hanging high above the city.

The triangular defense line that was previously laid out was torn apart overnight. The next day, Wu Cang led his disciples and church members to work tirelessly towards Quasha, where the emperor and empress were.

"Gao Xianggong! The Tianshi Sect is out in full swing, with no less than 100,000 people. The sect is the leader in the battle. It is extremely fierce. Qu'a's defenders are insufficient and have been surrounded by all sides. When General Gao was commanding the battle, he was injured by a scattered arrow. The 6th young master was leading the army on his behalf and defending the city with difficulty. The situation was extremely urgent! He sent several messengers, but they were all stopped and killed not far from the city. The villain sneaked out and escaped to the death. He finally came here to report the news!"

The messenger knelt on his feet and shouted loudly.

Gao Qiao's eyes suddenly turned black, his ears buzzed, and his body swayed slightly.

He hurriedly came up to help him.

He held his body steady, pushed away his hand, grabbed Gao Yin's handwritten letter from the messenger, and read it at a glance, his shoulders froze.

In front of him, there were more than a dozen heavy-looking deputy generals standing around him, all holding their breath and waiting for his decision.

Gao Qiao's figure was like a stone-carved pillar, motionless.

Slowly, his hands fell weakly, and his blood-covered eyes showed a sadness full of resentment and helplessness.

"God will do this, what can I do?"

He murmured and said this to himself, his expression as if he was crying but not crying, and he was laughing but not laughing, which was extremely strange.

The surroundings were quiet, there was no voice, and the atmosphere was extremely heavy.

"Send someone to send a message to Li Xie, there is no need to defend Liyang, ask him to arrange a retreat and retreat to Qu'a."
To be continued...