Northern Dynasties

Chapter 1337: Troops Enter Wuzhong

"We want to see King Linchuan! If the king refuses to see us, we would rather shed blood in front of the palace than leave!"

Outside the Linchuan Palace in Changcheng County, nearly a thousand Wuzhong gangsters gathered in front of the palace. A dozen of them shouted loudly towards the inside of the palace. They showed no fear when facing the fully armed guards in front of the palace who were holding swords and wearing armor.

In the inner hall of the palace, Chen Qian looked at Shen Ke who had hurried into the hall with an irritated look on his face and asked, "Have you found out who committed the murder?"

After more than a month of preparation, the Tang army did not wait for the arrival of the enemy. Instead, because most of the local righteous troops were concentrated near the Linchuan Palace, the entire Wuxing County was full of bandits and thieves. Among them were real strong bandits, and there were also powerful troops who took advantage of the situation to rob. In short, except for the area near the Linchuan Palace, the order in the rest of the territory was very chaotic.

The villagers who were gathered outside the mansion and shouting were the people from the northern border of Changcheng County. Their village was recently robbed by gangsters, and not only were their property looted, but their families and fellow villagers were also killed or injured. Therefore, these people gathered in front of the mansion, hoping that King Linchuan would investigate and severely punish the murderer.

In recent days, Chen Qian had been overwhelmed by various unexpected events. Upon hearing that such a heinous murder had occurred within the county, he was extremely angry and immediately ordered his subordinates to investigate the matter thoroughly.

"We have checked and found out that it was Lu Zilong's division and brigade that did it."

Shen Ke's face was also not looking good. He lowered his head and whispered, "When his troops evacuated Wujun, they were ordered to guard the rear, and they fought hard to escape, but all the supplies they brought were left behind. After retreating to Wuxing, they saw that the villagers were well-off, so they condoned their troops to commit murder."

"This bastard, this bastard! Doesn't he know that now is the critical moment to prepare for war? How dare he kill and rob in my village!"

After hearing Shen Ke's report, Chen Qian became even more furious and shouted loudly.

Lu Zilong was born in the Wujun Lu family and was also one of Chen Qian's generals. Therefore, when they planned to attack Wujun, they also asked him to lead a team of troops. Recently, people's morale was low and Chen Qian wanted to use this incident to crack down on the bandits who took advantage of the situation, but he didn't expect that after investigating, he found that he was the one who was found.

Although he hated him deeply, Chen Qian thought that Lu Zilong was loyal, brave and strategic, otherwise he would not have been assigned to be in charge of the rear guard. He would definitely be a brave general in the battle with the Tang army in the future, so he could not bear to punish him severely.

After a brief pause, Chen Qiancai said, "Order Lu Zilong to hand over the ten murderers who committed the crime. They will be executed together with the bandits captured elsewhere and their heads will be sent to the camps to give an explanation to the victims! Also order them to lead their troops to garrison in Qiantang and not to stay in the Great Wall any longer!"

In order to calm the victims, Chen Qian no longer stayed in the palace. He left the palace in a military uniform and went to the parade ground to supervise the execution. The soldiers from various camps also came to the parade ground to watch the execution. When the heads of the criminals were chopped off one by one, the bloody scene immediately stimulated the surrounding spectators to shout and scream.

Taking advantage of the excitement here, Chen Qian strode onto the high platform and shouted loudly: "Now the powerful enemy will arrive in a moment, and my country is in danger. All the soldiers have gathered in my house, hoping that you can fight the enemy and defend my country! I am listed in the clan register. If I am afraid to surrender to the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty will show leniency in order to unify Jiangdong, and I think I should not lose my title of nobility. However, the villagers are loyal to me, how can I bear to save myself and abandon them!

Today, there are strong bullies taking advantage of the chaos to cause trouble and help the tigers. The people of my village have suffered great persecution, and even their families have been destroyed. The Tang army has not arrived, but the disaster has been so severe. If the enemy enters the village, the disaster will be even more serious! Now there are still many villagers who are united and fight against the strong enemy. If the people are scattered in the wild and each guards their own house, how can they resist the enemy? They are just waiting to be killed!

Previously, I discussed with all the villagers how to meet the enemy, but none of them had any good ideas, so they all looked to me for help. At that time, I told all the villagers that they only needed to follow orders and discipline, so that they could defeat the strong enemy. Now the enemy is not fighting, hoping to make our morale slack, and even spread rumors and slander us repeatedly, all because they are afraid of our large numbers and strong will! Whatever the enemy wants, we must do the opposite, and then we will have a chance of winning! Now the sword is placed here, no matter whether the thieves are inside or outside, anyone who harms our hometown will be killed with the sword and abandoned by the crowd! "

Chen Qian's words immediately made the people around the parade ground more excited. The villagers raised their hands and shouted in response, which also boosted the morale that had obviously become low in recent days.

But after the execution, the general villagers and spectators returned to the camp after having fun, but those villagers who had really suffered the misfortune were unwilling to give up easily. They went forward to carefully identify the criminals to see if there were any who had escaped.

It didn't matter that someone soon discovered that the real leader of the criminals was not among those being punished. After all, although Lu Zilong's troops had killed and injured a large number of villagers, they could not kill all of them. There were still people who had escaped by chance and remembered the appearance of these evil thieves deeply. Now they found that there were still thieves at large, and these people naturally couldn't stand it.

They didn't think that King Linchuan was deliberately shielding them. After all, what King Linchuan said just now was righteous and generous, and even they were deeply moved and even burst into tears. Now that they found that there were still people at large, they also wanted to report to King Linchuan as soon as possible so that they could continue to kill these bandits and not let them continue to roam the countryside and cause trouble to the world.

Chen Qian had just returned to the mansion and was about to deal with other matters when he was told by the mansion officials that the villagers had gathered again. He was very annoyed and thought that these villagers would continue to harass him endlessly. He immediately ordered the guards in the mansion to expel them and disperse them. If they still refused to leave, they would be arrested and made into slaves.

  In his opinion, these people were still entangled in noise and had gone beyond the scope of pursuing the murderers. Instead, they were questioning and challenging his authority. After all, he had just given these people an explanation in public. Since they were still stubborn and unruly, they would naturally be severely punished!

The villagers who had gathered outside the palace had originally had some illusions in their hearts, thinking that King Linchuan would seriously listen to their reports and demands. However, they saw suddenly a large group of armored soldiers pouring out of the palace, surrounding them and chasing and beating them, and even directly tying them up and arresting them. This immediately shattered their illusions. Many people realized that King Linchuan might be intentionally protecting those criminals, and for a moment they were extremely sad and angry, and kept shouting and cursing.

However, the villagers in the camps had just been encouraged by King Linchuan, and were cheering each other up in the camp. Few people paid attention to these villagers who were not able to take revenge but were beaten and punished. Even if someone noticed, they only felt a little sympathy in their hearts, but did not dare to speak out directly to support them, so as not to cause trouble for themselves.

Many things in this world often have their threads buried beneath the calm surface before any specific changes occur.

In order to preserve his country and resist the invasion of the Tang army, Chen Qian worked hard and made great efforts. However, many things are not necessarily rewarded after making efforts, especially when they are against the general trend and the means and methods are not necessarily correct. No matter how good the original intention is, it will often only lead to bitter consequences in the end. For example, at present, although the Tang army has not actually launched an attack on Wuzhong, the rural troops in Wuzhong have already suffered various trials.

Chen Qian's desire to rely on the Three Wus to resist the Tang army was not blindly arrogant or a pipe dream.

The people in Jiangdong generally held a resistance and hostility towards the northerners' invasion of the south. In addition, Chen Qian's momentum in Wuzhong and the increased threat as the Tang army entered Jingkou, attracted many local troops in the villages of Changcheng, even reaching more than 50,000 at one point.

In addition, although Wuzhong did not have any strategic locations such as high mountains and dangerous ravines, it was densely covered with complicated water networks, which limited the archery and horse riding tactics that the northerners were accustomed to using. The Wuzhong folks could rely on this geographical factor and their familiarity with the village to set up defenses layer by layer, fight step by step, and use small-scale battles to wear down the Tang army's spirit, thus successfully defending their hometown.

However, the Tang army did not use force directly afterwards, but chose other means to gradually disintegrate the hostile sentiment and resistance. The most obvious manifestation of this is that the number of local gentry troops gathered around the Linchuan Palace is decreasing sharply over time. Although Chen Qian used various means of coercion and inducement, the trend of the gentry fleeing is still irreversible.

On the day of the Spring Festival, Chen Qian ordered the officials to raise funds from the treasury to reward the local people, and he himself led a group of trusted men to visit the camps to comfort the soldiers.

The soldiers also responded enthusiastically, lining up in the camp to welcome the Prince of Linchuan and his entourage. However, this enthusiastic scene could not conceal the overall bleakness. Many camps were short of soldiers, and some camps were even empty.

So after patrolling the camp and returning to the palace, Chen Qian's face showed no joy, but he still forced himself to cheer up and hold a banquet with the officials to celebrate the New Year.

But when the banquet was over and he returned to his bedroom, Chen Qian looked at Han Zigao who had returned from Wujun and was tidying up his bed. He sighed and said in a hoarse voice, "I often hear people say that Li Boshan of the Tang State has profound strategies and is a master at using troops, so he is invincible. I always disagree with this. If we dare to fight the enemy and the soldiers are willing to fight, how strong the enemy is, we can defeat them? But now we are really fighting, and the enemy is only luring us but not firing, and I am about to be defeated and cannot fight!"

When Han Zigao heard Chen Qian's slightly depressed words, he turned around and knelt in front of Chen Qian, lowered his head and whispered: "Your Majesty, there is really no need to be discouraged. Li Boshan is indeed a hero of the Northern Kingdom, but his current powerful strength is just the advantage of the first move. But if Your Majesty can gain power and dominate at the same time as him, and control all the people and land of Jiangdong, you will surely be able to repel him from the Jiangbei area and confront the north and the south!"

"What people are fighting for is not the current situation. Zi Gao's remarks are truly shameless."

Chen Qian raised his hand and stroked Han Zigao's hair, saying, "If the Tang army attacks tomorrow, it will be like a thunderbolt. I'm afraid that our Wuzhong division, whose morale is low, cannot resist. You escort the princess and the prince to retreat to Qiantang first. If this place cannot be defended, I will meet you later."

After hearing this, Han Zigao bowed his head and cried, "There is no war in the rear, anyone can take on this escort duty. I will serve you, the king, and share life and death with you!"

After hearing this, Chen Qian could not help but be moved. His attitude towards people and subordinates was greatly influenced by his uncle Chen Baxian, and many people who were originally his enemies were taken as his confidants, which also made him often boast of his ability to manage his subordinates.

However, Hua Jiao's betrayal made him feel shocked, angry and disappointed, and he even doubted himself for a while. But after hearing Han Zigao's sincere expression, he felt relieved, and his depressed mood improved slightly.

Not to mention that Chen Qian was depressed and had begun to consider retreating, after the New Year, the Tang army had also begun to formally prepare to attack the Three Wus.

Although the military strength of Southern Chen was far weaker than that of Northern Qi, the significance of conquest was far greater than that of Northern Qi. Although Li Tai did not personally lead the army this time, he was very concerned about this matter.

Because Chang'an was farther away from the Jiangdong front line and information was inconvenient to transmit, after celebrating the New Year in Chang'an, he led a group of important court officials to Luoyang, where he presided over the implementation of government orders in Hebei, Henan and other places, while taking into account the development of the war in Jiangdong.

Because he knew that the temperature in Jiangdong would warm up earlier than in the north, and the soldiers had stayed across the river for half a winter and must have adapted to the wet and cold climate in Jiangdong in early spring, so in the formal tactical formulation, Li Tai set a deadline for the frontline soldiers to basically end the fighting in the Three Wu regions before the official arrival of spring plowing, and try not to delay the arrangements for agricultural production in Wuzhong for the following year.

In total, the battles in the Three Wu regions had to be completed within a month after the Spring Festival, which was a challenging task for the Tang army. The key was that in addition to Wujun and Wuxing, the Kuaiji region across Zhejiang was larger and more complicated, so when the relevant plans were passed on to Jiangdong, the generals of the various armies also perked up and did not dare to neglect it.

The main general in this expedition against the Three Wus was Shi Ning, and Quan Jingxuan and Ruoerfeng served as deputy generals. After the court's conscription order was officially issued, Shi Ning ordered Ruoerfeng to lead 10,000 infantry and cavalry from Jingkou to Wujun in the south, preparing to break through the Songjiang defense line of Wuxing. Quan Jingxuan led the navy to push downstream and take over the defense of the Yangtze River below Dongguan and east of Hengjiang.

In this way, the entire Jiangdong region will be open to Jiangbei. If the Jiangdong side takes advantage of the fierce fighting on the front line to make any repeated moves, the Jiangbei side can immediately send troops to put them out.

As for Shi Ning himself, he led his troops to push eastward from Xuancheng and directly attacked the Wuxing area south of Taihu Lake. As the troops from all directions set out together, the long-prepared Three Wu Campaign officially began.