The mountain road is rugged.
After the autumn harvest, the weather in the frontier fortress is no longer so hot.
The whole world became a little bleak again, the strong wind howled, the dense forest swayed with the wind, the bare branches whipped the passers-by with the strong wind, and thorns were everywhere, and the place once again returned to the past.
The mighty army is advancing on the mountain road.
The infantry were at the front, followed by many knights, followed by horse-drawn carriages and transporters.
The front army has already walked out of the mountain road, but the rear army has just entered.
Gao Changgong rode a horse, wore a mask, and walked in the center of the army.
The war horses neighed, and dozens of people were seen galloping from the front. This place was so narrow that even these outstanding knights did not dare to gallop here.
The person who came was Yao Xiong.
Yao Xiong was furious at this moment and returned to Gao Changgong with his horse in hand, while the knights headed towards the rear army again.
Yao Xiong struggled to take off his armor, panting.
"A group of blind people captured three more and tried to get into the village at the mountain pass, but I killed them."
Gao Changgong looked at him and saw obvious blood stains on his sleeves.
Yao Xiong frowned, "I really can't understand it. They are all farmers, and their farmland must have been damaged by cavalry. How come they don't know how to restrain themselves when they become soldiers?"
"I was treated like that in the past, and now I have to deal with people who are just like me back then. I can't understand."
This time Yao Xiong and Gao Changgong led the Youyan troops to the front line. Yao Xiong was still confident before setting off, but as soon as the army passed the Yinshan Mountains, the situation began to turn bad.
There were deserters and rioters, some of whom did not abide by military discipline and some who were greedy for money.
Yao Xiong was greatly disappointed.
Is this the strong soldier we have worked so hard to train?
Seeing Yao Xiong's disappointed look, Gao Changgong said calmly: "Chang Ying, there are good people in the world, and naturally there are also evil people."
"Under the general's command, whether they are officials from humble backgrounds or soldiers from Han peasants, there are some who commit crimes and violate laws and disciplines. This time we led more than 10,000 troops and crossed the border from Yanzhou. Up to now, we have only
There are dozens of violations of military discipline, but I think they are properly drilled and well-trained."
"If nothing happens along the way and everyone says Qiu did nothing, then something really big will happen."
After listening to Gao Changgong's words, Yao Xiong finally felt better.
"Chang Ying, don't be angry. We are not far from Yongfeng. Soon, it will be time for us to show off our skills. In this battle, I will compete with Chang Ying to be the vanguard."
Yao Xiong said with a nonchalant look on his face, "Neither of us can be a pioneer."
"No matter how well-trained the Youyan soldiers are, they have never experienced real combat. They are currently not as good as the Hengshuo soldiers. There are Podoluo, Tu Xiyue, Li Qinhu, Liu Chengcai and others on the Hengshuo soldiers. These guys are all
It’s hard to deal with. If you want to fight Yang Zhong, of course you need veterans. The vanguard won’t be able to take our turn at all.”
"oh?"
"Then why did the general ask us to go there?"
"It should be to expand the results of the war. Yuwenhu is coming. I heard that the momentum is huge. The more people on the general's side, the greater the pressure will be on the Zhou people, and Yuwenhu will not dare to go deep."
Gao Changgong was a little surprised, "Chang Ying is very promising."
"This is what the old man said."
Yao Xiong did not take credit, he said seriously: "He said that the situation that my brother is facing is very bad at the moment. Yuwenhu's army is coming to kill. Although there are famous generals in the court, the person in charge is a fool. He is not even as good as Yuwenhu. It may not be
I can beat it."
"And once Yu Wenhu destroys the temple and all Qingxu in Henan and Huainan becomes his property, then we will be in trouble."
"But in the north, it is particularly difficult to expand the results."
"That's why Zhang Heizu and others were transferred to the vicinity of Nanying, and even Kou Liu was transferred to the vicinity of Sizhou. They are all keeping an eye on the front line. If the front line is defeated, then they will try their best to block the enemy south of the river.
We guarantee that there will be no gaps in Hebei."
When Yao Xiong talked about strategy now, it was clear and logical.
Gao Changgong couldn't help but nod after hearing this.
The army passed through the mountain road and finally accelerated its march.
The garrison towns near Yongfeng have now become Liu Taozi's important posthouses and important supply stations between the two places. These garrison towns that were originally used to occupy Wuchuan and other places now play an important reverse role.
Yao Xiong and others supplied supplies along the way and finally arrived at Yongfeng City.
Yongfeng Town is still as tall as ever.
As the defensive core of the border fortress, various types of cavalry and knights were constantly coming and going on the flat and wide road.
Today's military core seems to be gradually shifting from Wuchuan to Yongfeng.
There are many large campuses around Yongfeng. After General Yao Xiong arranged for his troops to enter the campus, he and Gao Changgong went to the city to visit Liu Taozi.
The two led dozens of riders into the city gate.
Yongfeng City is extremely lively.
The largest number of people here are not soldiers, but merchants.
You can even see many Turkic merchants. Although the relationship between Daqi and the Turks is quite bad, they have never stopped trade, especially private trade. Yongfeng used to be a major border trade town, and it is even more so now.
There were even merchants from the Western Regions who came all the way here to trade. Although strict laws were adopted at home, the Liu Taozi government still had a protective attitude towards the merchants.
As long as the commercial tax and vehicle and ship tax are sufficient and no prohibited goods are sold, the government will protect the safety of these merchants and protect them from thieves, traitors and others.
Some Zhou merchants came here secretly to trade, but Liu Taozi did not drive them out.
There are not only two cities in the city, but they are much more prosperous than Wuchuan.
Yao Xiong and others rushed all the way to the government office. When they arrived at the door of the government office, they saw Podoro standing here with a smile, waiting for them.
"Meet the King."
Podoluo paid homage to Gao Changgong and met Yao Xiong.
Several people walked into the official office. The official office was also extremely busy, with officers and clerks coming in and out.
When they arrived at the inner room, Liu Taozi was sitting among several generals. They were looking at the map in front of them and talking about something.
Seeing them coming in, everyone stopped talking.
"Meet the King!!"
Everyone bowed to see him.
Liu Taozi also looked at Gao Changgong, "Greetings to the king."
Gao Changgong was stunned and quickly returned the greeting, "Greetings to your Majesty."
The two looked at each other, and Liu Taozi said: "The king told me to just know it."
"Then the king will call me Chang Gong."
"Chang Gong."
"Know it."
Yao Xiong hurriedly came forward, showing a silly face, "Brother!!"
"Let's talk about business first."
The two men also joined the ranks of military discussions.
The map in front of Liu Taozi was quite huge, with various strongholds and fortresses from Yongfeng to Chang'an clearly marked.
"Brother, are you planning to attack Chang'an?"
When Yao Xiong saw the map, he had only one thought in his mind.
"No, our map can only go to the vicinity of Chang'an. The situation further south is not clear."
Yao Xiong saw that Yang Zhong's army was now stationed near Shiya Mountain City, and in other areas, there were several marked military camps with different generals' names written on them.
In today's strategic discussions, there is only one question: whether to go west or south.
Going west is naturally to attack Liang, Gan and other places.
Taking advantage of the huge emptiness in the rear of the Puppet Zhou Dynasty, they ravaged their local armed forces to their heart's content, and headed south, they were going to have a head-on confrontation with Yang Zhong and try to differentiate themselves.
Tu Xi Yue supported heading west.
"My lord, although Yang Zhong has sent troops outside, once he finds out that our army is approaching, he will definitely retreat to Lingwu and it will be difficult to attack. But if we leave one of them to fight with him, the rest will kill Lianggan and other places. Here
If you are on guard against emptiness, the results will be huge!”
Everyone thought it was reasonable and nodded one after another.
Yao Xiong gently stroked his beard at this moment, "It's better to go south."
"Huh? Liang Gan Kong, why bother fighting to the death with Yang Zhong?"
Tu Xiyue immediately objected.
Yao Xiong said seriously: "If we attack Liang and Gan according to what you said, we will definitely win a complete victory, but it has no strategic use."
"If we capture that area, we will easily be cut off by the enemy and will be unable to bear it. If we directly plunder, destroying Lianggan will cause harm to the enemy, but not much."
"Nowadays, the Zhou people rely more on Guanlong, Bashu and other places to fight. There are few people in Lianggan and there are no critical resources. Even if they are flattened, the impact will not be huge."
"But if we can defeat Yang Zhong, kill him, or even capture Lingwu when he has the smallest number of troops, no support, and is at his weakest, the impact will be different."
"Yang Zhong is difficult to deal with."
"Although Yang Zhong only has a few thousand soldiers, if he insists on defending Lingwu, we will not be able to capture him easily, and the casualties will be huge!"
"I know."
Yao Xiong added: "Before I left, General Bao Lao discussed this matter with me. He said that at the moment when Yu Wenhu summoned an army of 240,000 to go south, the country was empty and could not support it, and Yang Zhong was at his weakest.
, If Yang Zhong cannot be defeated at this moment, then when Yuwen Hu comes back and Yang Zhong has more troops and reinforcements, then we should never think about taking Lingzhou."
"After taking Lingwu, the only way to Lianggan and other places was occupied by us. At the same time, our threat to Chang'an increased greatly. The enemy's Lingxia defense line collapsed without attack and had to shrink again. We even
It can threaten places like Guizhen."
For a moment, the inner room was extremely quiet. The generals looked at Yao Xiong one after another with complicated expressions on their faces.
broken!
This Qihu really learned something!
Yao Xiong looked at Liu Taozi and smiled stupidly again, "What do you think, brother?"
Liu Taozi nodded slightly.
Yao Xiong looked at everyone and asked: "Who is stationed in Shiya Mountain City now?"
"Shi Jing."
"who?"
"Why don't I recognize him?"
"He just surrendered."
"Ah? General?"
Yao Xiong looked anxious, "How can we allow a descendant to garrison such an important city? If it happens again, wouldn't something big happen?"
Liu Taozi said calmly: "Don't trust the people you employ."
Yao Xiong was about to say something when he saw a boy emerging from the crowd, "General, don't worry! General Shi is stationed alone in Shiya Mountain City, but his proton is here!"
Yao Xiong looked at him confused, "Who are you?!"
"I am the proton!"
Shi Wansui said proudly.
The generals laughed.
Gao Changgong walked to Liu Taozi's side at this moment, "Zhizhi, I think what Chang Ying said is very reasonable."
"Yang Zhong only leads an army of less than 3,000 men now. If we don't dare to fight him and capture his city now, what will we do if he has more troops in the future?"
"Now is a very good time. If we can really capture Lingwu, Yu Wenhu will not be able to sit still. In the future, he can even threaten Chang'an and make the people of Zhou restless."
"I agree with his idea."
Liu Taozi had a straight face and pondered for a moment, "Okay, let's wait until the scouts from Xiazhou come back before making a decision."
After discussing the camps where each ministry would be stationed, the generals left.
Yao Xiong and Gao Changgong stayed here.
The three of them sat down, and Yao Xiong quickly complained, "Brother, I was bullied by that violent old man in Yanzhou every day. This old man doesn't even take you seriously, brother."
"male."
"It shows that I am teaching you as a disciple."
"For the words you said today, could you have thought of half of them in the past?"
"You don't appreciate the hard work I've put into teaching you, but you still dare to humiliate me?!"
"How can you be so ignorant?!"
Liu Taozi scolded him sternly, and Yao Xiong immediately shrank his neck and did not dare to speak.
"If you feel unwilling to learn these things, starting from tomorrow, you will change places with Podoro. You will come here as a pioneer and let Podoro go to Yanzhou to learn from Baoxian."
"Brother, I know I was wrong."
Gao Changgong was a little shocked. It was the first time he heard Liu Taozi say so many words, and in such a tone.
Yao Xiong did not dare to speak again, but Gao Changgong slowly talked about what happened in Youzhou.
"When I first took office, many people came to pay their respects. Later, when they learned that the General's Office was sending people to take over, they started running away."
"Many, many people ran away."
"Even the officials are like this."
"Some people didn't want to run away, so they came to me and told me not to let people from General Wei's mansion come in."
"The officials and wealthy families over there are particularly afraid of you."
Liu Taozi was not surprised at all when he heard Gao Changgong's words. He said slowly: "The temple has set up a North Daxing Platform. Does Changgong know about it?"
Gao Changgong was stunned, obviously he didn't know.
"With King Pengcheng serving as Shangshu Ling, almost all the ministers in the court came to Wuchuan."
"Hu Changren cannot tolerate these people."
Hearing Liu Taozi's words, Gao Changgong had mixed feelings in his heart and his eyes were complicated.
Gao Changgong was a man who valued the country and his family very much.
But things are getting more and more wrong now. Many people say: Liu Taozi has different intentions.
Gao Changgong never paid attention to these words, he didn't want to understand these things.
But now even his uncle has arrived in Wuchuan.
Liu Taozi said again: "The affairs in Youzhou and other places are all managed by King Pengcheng. We can not worry about the affairs in the rear and fight with the Zhou people with peace of mind."
After hearing this, Gao Changgong nodded.
"only."
They waited for two days in Yongfeng before the scouts arrived.
According to the reports from the scouts, Yu Wenhu did not deploy additional troops in Guizhen and other directions. He even transferred several of Yang Zhong's generals and asked them to go to Chang'an to be on standby.
As a result, Liu Taozi and others made a decision immediately.
The next day, the army gathered at the school grounds. There were more than 30,000 troops stationed here, which was more than ten times the number of Yang Zhong's army.
Hengshuo soldiers and Youyan soldiers fought together for the first time, and the mighty army occupied the entire campus.
After performing sacrifices, divination and other professional military activities, the army set off for the expedition.
Liu Taozi took Po Duoluo and Tu Xiyue as the vanguard and led 4,000 cavalry in the front to clear the way. Yao Xiong was on the left, Gao Changgong was on the right, and Li Qinhu and Liu Chengcai were in the rear.
Tens of thousands of troops hoisted a banner with Liu characters, and were magnificent. There were knights, infantry, crossbowmen, sword and shield soldiers, craftsmen, and civilians.
Yang Zhong's scouts had already begun to fight with the forwards and fled in all directions.
Yang Zhong, who was stationed outside Shiya Mountain City and was thinking about how to persuade Shi Jing to surrender, suddenly learned that Liu Taozi's tens of thousands of troops were rushing towards him. He did not dare to stay at all and immediately chose to withdraw to Lingzhou.
.
It's not that Yang Zhong is cowardly, nor is he afraid of Liu Taozi.
The main reason is that there are too few soldiers under his command.
Yuwenhu asked him to send troops in advance and unite with the Turks to attack Yongfeng.
But the Turks simply couldn't get through.
And his thousands of people couldn't even get through Shiya Mountain City, let alone Yongfeng.
With such a disparity in strength, if he was entangled by the enemy's forward, he would definitely die in the wild.
Yang Zhong led his troops to retreat quickly, but the enemy had no intention of stopping. They pursued and followed Yang Zhong all the way. The two groups of troops arrived at Lingwu City almost in tandem.
Podoluo and others quickly carried out sabotage outside the city, destroying the road leading to Chang'an and cutting down the surrounding woods.
Yang Zhong took the opportunity to lead his troops to attack, and fought a fierce battle with Tu Xi Yue. He killed many enemies, but failed to defeat them.
The disparity in military strength is too great!
And Liu Taozi finally arrived outside the city.
Tens of thousands of troops gathered outside the city and began to set up camp and build siege equipment.
Yang Zhong stood on the city wall, looking at the sea of ​​people outside the city, his chest heaving violently, and his fists clenched.
"Liu Taozi is going to capture Lingzhou!"
Zheng Daoqian stood aside, looking at the army outside the city in amazement and a little scared.
"General, what should we do?"
"There are less than 6,000 defenders in the city. Only 3,000 of us can fight with the opponent. The rest are auxiliary soldiers. Can we fight??"
"I can fight"
Yang Zhong was almost about to say something that would shake the morale of the army. He quickly held back and said with a dark face: "Send more people to break out and ask the Duke of Jin for help!!"
"We have already lost Yongfeng and Shiya, Lingwu cannot be lost anymore!! If Lingwu is lost, Liu Taozi will go to Chang'an next!! Let the Duke of Jin quickly send people to rescue!!"
"Let the beacons be lit in three places without interruption, and let everyone know how critical the situation in Lingwu is!!"
Everyone hurried to prepare. Yang Zhong stood on the tower, leaned forward, stared at the big banner with Liu characters erected in the distance, and laughed angrily.
"Okay, okay, do you want to kill me here?"
Chapter completed!