Five Dynasties River Mountains Fengyue

Chapter 328
As the sun slanted to the west, the scene in the sky gradually dimmed, and fires lit up on the land in the distance.

Shi Congyun gathered his own troops around him, and there were still about 3000 people, so he asked them to guard him, and without rest all night, he drove towards Zezhou along the main road with a luan flag, accompanied by many civil and military personnel.

The sky was gloomy, and the accompanying guards took out fish fat stored in earthen jars from the luggage and smeared it on the linen, then wrapped it around one end of a wooden stick, lit it with an open flame, and it smelled bad.

Shi Congyun rode his horse and headed north along the avenue. The main battlefield was just now on both sides of the road.

A lot of flags, armor and weapons were scattered by the side of the road, and the thick blood and gunpowder smoke smelled very bad.

Several civil servants accompanying the army couldn't help vomiting.

Along the way, the army advanced rapidly, and Shi Congyun actually didn't dare to go too fast on horseback. It was already dark at this time, and he was afraid of getting lost, and it was unclear how many remnants of the enemy remained in the north.

All he had to do was act as if the emperor was marching with his soldiers.

But during specific actions, he can slow down the speed of the horse. If there is a battle report from the front, he will stop and look at it for a while, pretending to be very serious, and it will take a long time to look at it.

The news from the front is indeed all kinds of good news, because the whole army is chasing and the troops are not coercing each other loosely, many battle reports are directly reported to Yujia.

In the night, the troops from all walks of life did not stop chasing, and the fire flickered and gathered a long dragon, winding north.

After walking in the middle of the night, Shi Congyun ordered people to camp at the mountain pass instead of moving forward, and then stopped to give orders.

That night, the fast horses in front kept galloping back and forth, and the accompanying officials were extremely busy but excited, because almost all the reports came back with good news.

In the middle of the night, Shi Congyun relaxed, arranged for people, and fell asleep for about two hours, then woke up immediately.

When he woke up, it was daylight.

The accompanying eunuch came in and reported to him in a low voice, saying that someone from the front had come back to report and had been waiting for a long time.

Shi Congyun got up and said without haste, "Let them all come in and report."

When he sat down in the big tent, there were already more than a dozen people waiting. Shi Congyun called the secretary in charge of the army to take notes beside him, and then asked them about their situation one by one.

Everyone was happy and reported to him one after another.

"Officials, our army has already chased to the west. When it was about to dawn, the commander Zhao Yan sent someone back to report. I can't remember how many people killed, let alone more than five hundred, and captured more than seven hundred bandit soldiers along the way. People, all commanders are still leading people to pursue to the northwest." Shi Congyun nodded.

"I remember the achievements of your army." The secretary in charge next to him wrote down all of these.

Soon someone came up to report the results of the battle to him, explaining the position of the troops.

After several times, someone stepped forward and said, "Commander, our army has captured Lu Zan, the supervisor of the puppet Han army, and has already escorted him out of the tent. The striker has already arrived at the city of Zezhou last night."

Shi Congyun was very happy: "Pull it in and let me see."

After a while, a middle-aged man in ragged clothes and bloody face was escorted in by two soldiers, one on the left and the other on the right.

But the material of his clothes is better, although his face is pale from fright now, but his skin is smooth, he looks like a rich man.

After Lu Zan came in, he didn't have much integrity. He kowtowed and bumped his head one after another, but he didn't dare to look up at him at all.

Shi Congyun is not happy, he is not a devil, so there is nothing to be afraid of.

"Okay, okay, stop kowtowing, if you kowtow again, I'll chop off your head and see what you kowtow with." Shi Congyun said impatiently.

Lu Zan was so scared that his face turned pale, and he begged for mercy: "Our country does not know the heights of the sky and the depths of the earth, and dared to entangle people and horses against the heavenly soldiers. Now it is really defeated. I only hope that the emperor will be magnanimous and spare the life of the ignorant villain! Please forgive me, poor old man! "After speaking, tears flowed out and began to cry.

Shi Congyun took many prisoners, and saw a lot of spineless people. Lu Zan is not surprised by this. He has seen only a few people who still have backbone after being captured, such as Yelv Talie, the king of the Southern Academy of Liao Kingdom. .

Shi Congyun is not interested in his people, but more interested in the information he may know
So he said directly, "It's okay to spare your life. I'll ask you something, and you answer truthfully. If you don't match up in the future, I will feed you to the dog."

"Even if the Son of Heaven asks, the villain will know everything and say everything!"

"How many troops do you have in your puppet Han country? Tell me the defense plan." Shi Congyun asked.

Lu Zan immediately said anxiously: "Reporting to the Son of Heaven, I have dispatched more than half of the soldiers and horses of the Northern Han Dynasty this time, and there are about ten thousand soldiers around Jinyang. It seems that the envoys are not very obedient."

"You should know the defense map of your country."

Lu Zan continued: "I only know about Tuanbai Valley and its vicinity, and only Taiyuan inspectors know about the surrounding capital."

Shi Congyun was overjoyed and immediately ordered, "Give him a pen and paper and let him draw!"

He said again: "Lu Zan, as long as you tell the truth clearly, not only will I not kill you, but I will reward you. Your Han country father who defied the sky will clean up sooner or later. Now is your rare opportunity. Don't make mistakes. A rare opportunity in this world.

The pen and ink are here, draw the defense picture. "

"Yes, even if I have the guts of a bear and a leopard, I won't dare to bully you!" Lu Zan reassured repeatedly, and then the officials accompanying him brought him pens and inks, and Lu Zan started to draw after a little thought.

Shi Congyun watched intently.

The defense map is a country’s military secret, just like Daliang’s defense map, which is a state secret. It was drawn up by the Privy Council in Daliang, and the emperor approved it.

If the deployment of troops is leaked, it will cause irreparable damage.

The simplest way is to go north from Liaozhou to Taiyuan, usually through Tuanbai Valley to the north, but that's just ordinary, the sky and the earth, tens of millions of people are nothing at all on the vast land.

So in fact, there are many alternative roads, but they all have risks, and there is not only one road to go in Tuanbai Valley.

But once they knew the opponent's deployment of troops near Tuanbai, they could avoid the real situation and go northward, avoiding the key defensive position of the Northern Han Dynasty, and directly cut off their logistics and food routes.

In another well-known example, Cao Cao's defeat of Yuan Shao in the Battle of Guandu was not because he never thought of attacking Yuan Shao's granary at the beginning. With Xu You's defection, the situation of the war was reversed as soon as the deployment was leaked.

So what he was most concerned about was the deployment of the Northern Han Dynasty. After the victory, he had greater ambitions, and wanted to take advantage of the situation to go north, capture Taiyuan, and destroy the Northern Han Kingdom.

This is not an act of will.

In history, the two dynasties of the Later Zhou Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty fought successively for more than 20 years in order to destroy the small Northern Han Dynasty that occupied half of Shanxi.

There were four large-scale battles before it was finally destroyed.

First, because the northern part of Shanxi is close to the nomadic peoples, it is the frontier to resist the northern invasion, such as Yanmen Pass, Yunzhou to the north, etc., because it has been tempered by war for a long time, it has been able to fight well since ancient times.

The second is the support of the Liao Kingdom. Guo Rong won the first large-scale conquest of Shanxi, but later Yelu Talie, the king of the Southern Academy of the Liao Kingdom, led his troops to the south to support him, and was immediately beaten to the point of losing his troops and retreating from Hedong in a panic.

If he hadn't come to this world, father would have died at that time in history, at the hands of Yelv Talie, the great king of the South Court of Liao Kingdom, but now he is fine, Yelu Talie was captured by him.

Later, in addition to small-scale wars, Zhao Kuangyin conquered the Northern Han Dynasty twice, and each time he came to Taiyuan, and then the Liao army immediately went south to support.

However, Zhao Kuangyin's strength lies in the fact that although he was worried that Taiyuan would not be captured by two sides, he was causing great damage to Liao's reinforcements.

So when Zhao Guangyi sent troops for the last time, the Liao Kingdom did not dare to send any more reinforcements. If the Liao Kingdom did not come to rescue, half of Shanxi's territory and population in the Northern Han Dynasty would not be able to sustain it.

But now Shi Congyun feels that he has achieved the effect of Zhao Kuangyin after the two Taiyuan battles.

First, the elite of the Northern Han Dynasty was exhausted, Zhe Deli in the north, Yang Jixun surrendered one after another, and the North and South have formed a strategic encirclement of the Northern Han Dynasty.

Second, the Liao Kingdom had a high probability of not daring to send troops after a big defeat the year before. He had already played the effect of Zhao Kuangyin's two Northern Expeditions to Taiyuan in the First World War.

Thirdly, many people in the north-central part of Shanxi are unwilling to run dogs for the Liao Kingdom like the ruler.

The people were very dissatisfied with this. During the first battle of Gaoping in [-], when he was an unknown soldier, he remembered that the local people hoped that the Zhou army would win.It's a pity that the government couldn't restrain the army at all at that time, and incidents of burning, killing and looting happened from time to time, coupled with the forced requisition of food, which disappointed the fathers and villagers in Shanxi.

Fourth, the Jiedu envoys of the world need to be deterred. It is hard to say what the position of Zhe Deli, Yang Jixun and others who are newly surrendered in the north is. If they are tough at this time, they can deter the world.

Fifth, Hebei's grain harvest has been bumper for three consecutive years, which can support military operations for a longer period of time. Such an opportunity is rare and must be seized.

With various reasons, Shi Congyun had made up his mind, defeated Li Yun, took advantage of the victory and went north, solved the Northern Han Dynasty in one fell swoop, and pushed the defense line north to near Yanmen Pass.

Over there, Lu Zan had roughly marked the location, and then knelt on the ground to explain: "Your Majesty, look here, after Taiping Station is Bi County and Wuxiang County, and the troops are mainly deployed at Liang Hou Station, about ten miles northwest of Bi County.

The granary is in Shangqu Village, [-] miles away in the north valley, where all the grain from the nearby counties is gathered for the defenders. "

"As for Wuxiang County, which is further north, there are actually not many soldiers. The middle school felt that it was not easy to defend there. Sooner or later, it would be taken by Li Yun, so there was no heavy army.

The mountain road from Lianghouyi to Tuanbai Valley is steep, and there are many military villages in the middle, and there are not many defenders. The most important Fenshui village often has four battalions of troops stationed there. "

Lu Zan pointed to a point he had drawn between Bi County and Taiyuan and said to Shi Congyun, and the clerk next to him wrote down all these words.

"Further to the north, there used to be a large camp near Tuanbai, but now they have been mobilized to the south. In fact, it is empty. There are almost no defenders near Tuanbai. As long as you leave the mountain, you can reach Taiyuan.

As for the deployment of Taiyuan, I don't know, the villain knows so much, every sentence is true, if there is a little bit of lies, it will make my whole family die, and the sky will be thundered!Your Majesty trust me! "

Shi Congyun had his drawings carefully put away, and took the clerk's notes in person to see if he had recorded them all, and then said: "Well done, I will save you from death, and when Master Wang succeeds, I will give you Reward him for his merits, take him down to rest."

Lu Zan breathed a sigh of relief and thanked him again and again before being taken down.

Shi Congyun also breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing so many military deployments will definitely be of great help to the Northern Han Dynasty. Of course, the authenticity of this information is still unknown and needs to be verified.

Next, after listening to all the good news, he asked people to carefully record them one by one, and prepared to return to the court to discuss meritorious deeds, and then continued to march north, aiming at Zezhou.

Due to the slow movement of the artillery of the Shenhuo Army, Shi Congyun's central army was not moving fast, and one after another battle reports came from the front.

The Qin army successively defeated the Northern Han army in Shishili of Zezhou, Yangma City, and the foot of the east mountain of Zezhou City, and Li Jun's army resisted.

In the afternoon, the new battle report came, Li Yun fled into Zezhou City, followed by Wang Shenqi and Li Hanchao, who had led the main force to surround Zezhou City.

After Shi Congyun heard about it, he immediately ordered the whole army to advance quickly, and they had to rush to the city of Zezhou before dark.

This is great news. What he fears the most is that Li Yun fled back to Luzhou, his hometown after the defeat. Now it seems that Li Yun has no time to escape, and he dare not go north for fear of being chased on the road, so he can only enter Zezhou in a panic.

But Zezhou is far less solid than his hometown Luzhou, and once he enters the city and is besieged to death, it will be dangerous.

The first time he heard the news, Guo Jin who was following him said in surprise, "Li Yun is in a daze!"

"He is indeed in a daze, but there is nothing he can do about it. His Majesty's army is overwhelming. Where else can he go if he doesn't flee to Zezhou?"

Along the way, Shi Congyun encountered many captives tied together with ropes and guarded by soldiers of the Qin army, as well as piles of stripped corpses piled up on the side of the road.

This battle seemed to be crowded, but it was not that tragic. Li Jun and the Northern Han army did not suffer many casualties.

Shi Congyun was already very experienced in war. According to his visual estimation, the number of enemy troops he killed would not exceed [-], and the number of prisoners would be more, but it was far from what he did when he fought the Liao Kingdom the year before.

First, he didn't order to kill them all. Second, many of the soldiers were the husbands and sons of the people in Hedong. If they fled, they would want to go home and hide, so as to avoid being hunted down.

Shi Congyun didn't intend to find them out either. He was tolerant towards the people of Shanxi, and he felt guilty. During the first Northern Expedition of the Zhou army, he was powerless and failed the people's high hopes.

Along the way, passing through the corpses and the Qin army who kept saluting on both sides, and the crying prisoners of war, in the afternoon, the sun had not completely set, and the eyes passed through a peach forest and a narrow river, and the Zezhou City in the distance had a panoramic view.

Outside the city, there were tents and dancing figures of the Zhou army everywhere. The small city of Zezhou was surrounded by four sides, impenetrable, but in the big camp it was relatively quiet and there was no movement.

The officer next to him immediately said: "I'm going to inform the former army that the official's house is here!"

"No need." Shi Congyun immediately raised his hand to stop, "The quietness in the camp means that the soldiers are all tired, after fighting all day and chasing all night, let them rest, the same is true for the enemy, don't worry.

We're going to camp here, and we'll go to the city of Zezhou early tomorrow morning. I will personally supervise the siege and capture Li Yun! "

(End of this chapter)