Lord: Start with a book of Water Margin

Chapter 711 Missed
The next day, Xue Qing arranged the defense, led 300 cavalry, and followed Zhang Rong back to Xinghua County. Lu Zhishen, Wu Song, and Jia Hu welcomed the group in.

Xue Qing had made up his mind. When he met Lu Zhishen and Wu Song from Liang State, he knelt down in the court and expressed his willingness to surrender to Liang State.

Lu Zhishen and Wu Song each grabbed one of Xue Qing's arms and pulled him up from the ground. Lu Zhishen said, "We have Commander Xue, so we can march north to Chuzhou without any worries. This is really a cause for celebration."

Xue Qing said: "I have 3,000 elite soldiers under my command, most of whom are brave and daring, and can defeat the majority with a small number. I am willing to be the vanguard."

Wu Song laughed and said, "Don't worry, Commander Xue. When the Liang army arrives, the general commander of the army, [Jade Unicorn] Lu Junyi, will naturally make arrangements."

Xue Qing heard this and said, "Gaoyou County has a large population, and Yangzhou is to the south. I don't want to fight with the Yangzhou soldiers. Please choose someone else to garrison Gaoyou. I am willing to lead the troops to fight the Jin people."

Wu Song said to Lu Zhishen, "Brother, this is easy. Just transfer Brother Shi Yong to replace Brother Xue. Only Brother Yan Liu will stay in Tongzhou to support General Manager Lu and Military Advisor Wu."

Two days later, Lu Junyi, who was stationed in, finally arrived with his army. Upon hearing that Lu Zhishen and others had captured the troops of Tongzhou, Taizhou and Gaoyou, all the fatigue from days of traveling was swept away.

After understanding the current situation, Wu Yong said, "Finally, I will not disappoint the king's expectations."

"General Manager, now it seems that the Jin Kingdom is brave and valiant, so attacking Yangzhou is the best strategy."

Lu Junyi pondered for a moment and said, "The Yangzhou garrison commander is a weak scholar who only knows how to stay indoors. Now there are only ten days left, and it is not a problem to capture one or two weakly defended places. It is good that he abandoned the city and fled. If he stays in the city, I am afraid that it will be impossible to take Yangzhou."

"I think we should go north and join the two commanders Lu and Wu to test the quality of the Jin army and prepare for the future. Besides, there are heroes everywhere who are resisting the Jin army. This way, we can attract heroes from all over the country to join us."

Wu Yong listened and nodded, "That's true. General, even if that's the case, we can also transfer Zhang Heng and Li Yu to go up the river. Li Yu was originally the commander of Taicang and Jiangyin, and maybe he can call up his old subordinates."

After the two of them discussed it, they decided to leave two generals, Bu Qing (Taihu Jiao) and Ni Yun (Curly Tiger), to patrol along the river to guard against the invasion of troops from Liangzhe. Lu Junyi mobilized all his troops, headed north to Taizhou by land, and by water, raised the flag of Liang, looking for opportunities to launch surprise attacks on Suzhou, Changzhou, Xiuzhou, and Runzhou.

These places were all occupied by Saint Fang La. Although they were suppressed, many soldiers and generals were hiding in the countryside.

After marching for more than a day, Lu Junyi and others arrived in Xinghua County. Lu Zhishen led Zhang Rong, Jia Hu and Xue Qing to pay a visit to the general manager Lu Junyi and the military advisor Wu Yong.

The troops gathered together and marched into Chuzhou.

During the days of waiting for Lu Junyi's army, the situation in Chuzhou had changed. Wanyan Chang and Aligua had led the Jin army three days ago, carrying the looted gold, silver, treasures and women back north. Now the four counties of Chuzhou have been replaced by Kong Yanzhou, the general manager of the Huainan East Road, who claims to be Qi.

Kong Yanzhou was from Linlu, Xiangzhou. He had been a scoundrel since childhood, uneducated, and had been a tyrant in the countryside, doing battle and robbery, bullying the elderly and women. He became a bandit because of murder, and had more than 5,000 men under his command.

The whole country was in chaos, Kong Yanzhou raised an army to occupy the prefectures and counties, and first submitted a petition to become a minister of the Song Dynasty. When the Jin army invaded, he surrendered to the Jin Kingdom. Now the lands occupied by the Jin army were in rebellion one after another. Kong Yanzhou was skilled in the military, and was entrusted with important tasks by Wanyan Zongwang and Liu Yu.

The four counties of Chuzhou are now under the control of Kong Yanzhou's generals. These people are Kong Yanzhou's former subordinates when he became a bandit. They burned, killed and looted along the way, and were even worse than the Jin soldiers.

The Liangshan army was divided into two groups. One group was led by Lu Zhishen and Jia Hu and went to Yancheng. The other group was led by Lu Junyi and went to Baoying County, the main camp of the Jin army. When Lu Junyi's troops entered Chuzhou, they found that the Jin army had long retreated and the soldiers defending the city were now flying the banner of Qi.

After hearing this, everyone was confused about the situation. The army did not dare to move rashly and stayed where they were. They sent out spies to investigate everywhere, and it took two days to find out the situation.

The Jin State made Liu Yu, a surrendered minister of the Song State, establish the Qi State and control the large area of ​​land occupied by the Jin Army. The rebel general Kong Yanzhou was appointed as the general commander of the Huainan East Route.

Wang Rong heard this and cursed, "It's all these shameless villains. They hold high positions and receive generous salaries, but they don't think about serving the country. They just wag their tails and beg for mercy when they see the Jin people, and now they are helping the tyrant to commit atrocities."

After saying this, he asked to be the vanguard to attack Baoying.

Wu Yong consoled him, "There's no rush. Now that we've retreated, Baoying County is only guarded by a bunch of bandits and rebels, and now they're raising the banner to recruit soldiers, so it's a good time to use this trick."

After hearing this, Lu Junyi asked, "Does the military advisor intend to send people to pretend to be rebels and surrender to us, so as to seize the city?"

Wu Yong nodded and said, "That's right. Not only Baoying County, but Shanyang and Huaiyin must also be mixed in first. Then the army will go straight to the city, with internal and external support."

"This is a good plan, but I wonder which general dares to take the risk?" Lu Junyi asked, looking around.

Zhang Rong said: "I have warriors from Baoying County under my command who can serve as internal support."

After discussion, Zhang Rong led his troops to infiltrate Baoying County, Xue Qing went to Shanyang County, but the farthest Huaiyin County was home to [Black Whirlwind] Li Kui and [White Whirlwind] Li Gui.

Everyone acted separately, and on the second day, Lu Junyi led his troops directly to the city of Baoying.

An army of 30,000 surrounded the four gates, with drums beating loudly. Then a signal cannon sounded at the east gate. Zhang Rong, who had already sneaked into the city, led 500 soldiers, rushed directly to the top of the city wall, and lowered the drawbridge.

Deng Yuanjue, the [Baoguang Tathagata] who was besieging the east gate, took the lead and charged into the city.

Later, Shanyang County was also captured with the cooperation of Xue Qing. Not only did every Qi soldier in the city survive, but all the rebels and bandits who had taken refuge in the city were also caught in the trap.

The army continued to attack Huaiyin. When they arrived at the city, the flag of Liang State had been raised on the city wall of Huaiyin County. When they saw Lu Junyi's army, Li Kui, the [Black Whirlwind] on the city wall, ordered the city gate to be opened.

When Lu Junyi saw this, he called Li Kui and asked, "Brother, how did you take Huaiyin by yourself?"

After hearing this, Li Kui asked someone to bring the two men over and said, "What a coincidence. I led some people and pretended to be bandits outside the city to seek refuge. We happened to see the soldiers in the city escorting these two men into the city. I asked around and found out that they were officials of the Song Dynasty, Li Zhe, a Wenlinlang, and Yao Bangji, a Weishiling."

"They were unwilling to surrender to Qi, so they abandoned their posts and fled. Their whereabouts were discovered, and the soldiers in the city were ordered to capture them, saying they would be beheaded in front of the people in the city. I couldn't hold back after hearing that, so I went to Caishikou to ambush them in advance, chopped the supervising official in half with an axe, and killed all the Qi soldiers in the city."

(End of this chapter)