Late Tang

It was late at night, and in Xingqing Palace in Chang'an, Li Ye stood with his hands behind his back in front of the sand table of Tang mountains and rivers made of glutinous rice, mercury, colored silk, etc. in the palace, and it was difficult to calm down for a long time. The black eagle flag representing Qin Fan is made of small red colored silk on the sand table, and it has gradually approached the Central Plains from the east. Chengde, Weibo, Hedong in Hedong, Heyang and Luoyang in Henan, Li Jing swallowed the five towns, Hezhong and Zhaoyi in Hedong are also in danger, seeing that Li Jing has changed from a tyrant dominating the east to occupying half of the country How could Li Ye sleep peacefully as the overlord.

Li Jianrong of Zhaoyi held a silk cloak in his hand, walked slowly behind Li Ye, and gently put it on for him.

"It's late at night and the dew is heavy, isn't Your Majesty still resting?"

Li Ye stared at Li Zhaoyi, tears streaming down his face, "I know you never interfere in political affairs, but you should also know that the current situation is really bad, and I can't pretend that none of this happened. Zhaoyi, Li Jing, he wants to usurp The Tang Dynasty is under control. Yang Jianjun was captured and Li Keyong was killed in battle. Who else in this world can stop Li Jing."

Li Jianrong stroked Li Ye's arm comfortingly, "Lieutenant Yang has united with the Supreme Emperor and Zhu Wen, and a total of 21 towns have joined forces to attack Li Jing. Your Majesty, don't be too worried, just wait for the good news. "

Li Ye smiled wryly: "My dear concubine, you can pretend that you don't know how powerful Li Jing is, and pin your hopes on Yang Fugong and the others. But I can't pretend that I don't know how powerful Li Jing is. Li Jing has been devouring it all the time, but now it has become a trend, and I just gobble it up. Yes. Look how many feudal towns he has annexed these years? Ziqing, Pinglu, Andong, Lulong, Yiwu, Cangjing, Chengde, Weibo, Datong, Yanmen, Taiyuan, Tianping, Ganchang, Yi Cheng, Taining, Hedong, Hanoi, Luoyang. There are also Fujian, Zhejiang East, Huaixi, Shannan, Lingnan East, Lingnan West, Annan attached to him... There are not so many towns that I can command. Li Jing. The situation has turned into a dragon, and no one can stop it. The Tang Dynasty is about to perish in my hands."

"Li Jing is indeed very strong, but until the last step, Your Majesty must not give up. Think about how rampant the thieves were during the Anshi Rebellion, but in the end the court also regained the mountains and rivers. Didn't the Huang Chao not long ago run rampant all over the world? , captured the two capitals, but now Huang Chao is also strangled?"

"They are not Li Jing, and Li Jing is not them. The dynasty has risen and fallen for 300 years, and the Li family has enjoyed the country until now. After all, they are abandoned by the heavens." He sighed long, and he became more and more haggard. A lot of gray hairs have grown on it.In fact, he is only 16 years old now. "Step forward with the front foot. Only when the back foot is heeled can a person stand firmly. One cannot always stand with one foot in front of the other. Li Jing has already stepped forward with one foot, and his other foot will soon be Follow up. I have already stepped back with one foot, now for our own sake, we can only step back with another foot, so that we can stand firmly."

Li Ye was full of pessimism about the coalition forces drawn up by Yang Fugong and about the upcoming decisive battle. "I want to live!"

Li Zhaoyi looked at the young emperor in surprise. In her eyes, the emperor was a strong man. Even when he was just the king of longevity, when Huang Chao entered Guanzhong and drove out of Beijing, he had never been so negative.

Li Ye caressed the sand table and sighed: "If it's just for me, I'm not afraid of death, but I have to think about Li. Since Li Jing's usurpation of the Tang Dynasty is inevitable, I have to leave a way for Li. I heard that Li Jing He has always given preferential treatment to those who surrendered. Not only those Jieshuai who were annexed by him are treated well, but also those tribal chiefs who were conquered by him outside the pass are also living well. I think that if the time is too late, I will take the initiative to surrender to him. Maybe Li Jing can save the Li family."

Central Plains, Luoyang City.

Just after the first meeting was officially pushed aside by the officials to persuade them to come in, Li Jing immediately held a high-scale meeting of important ministers before the imperial court.

At the meeting, Gongsun Lan reported the latest information to the imperial meeting on behalf of the Supervision Office. Yang Fugong and Tian Lingzi reached an alliance, and this time they also attracted Zhu Wen, eight towns in Guanzhong, three towns in Sanchuan, five towns in Jianghan, and two towns in Hedong. The three towns in Shanghenan united a total of 21 towns, assembled and pieced together an army of 35, divided into five groups, and prepared to attack Luoyang.

"Your Highness, please return to Taiyuan to supervise the battle and attack Hezhong and Zhaoyi!" Shangshu Zuopu shot Zheng Congyu loudly.

"The ministers and others seconded the proposal!" The second minister, Zheng Tian, ​​and others also echoed.

Li Jing saw everyone's expressions and immediately guessed what they meant.This obviously wanted him to leave Luoyang, the front line, but in order to take care of his face, he used the excuse of returning to Taiyuan to supervise the battle.Li Jing smiled: "Soldiers come to block, water comes to flood the earth, how can Gu avoid the battle and fear the enemy? You don't need to say more, since Gu has come to Luoyang, unless Gu wants to leave by himself, no one can scare him away."

Li Jing will not leave Luoyang easily, especially at this moment, when the Qin army has just taken over Heyang and Luoyang, and their morale is high. How can there be more?Although the Qin army now has only 5 horses in Luoyang City.But there are water and land channels, and it is not a problem to deploy troops for reinforcements.Another thing is that Li Jing didn't take the coalition army seriously. Although there were 21 towns, which sounded scary, they were actually just a mob.

35?The real elite can have 4 people.These armies didn't even have a unified command, and they were divided into five groups, which obviously gave the Qin army a chance to defeat each of them.There is another one, such as the four towns of Baoda and Dingnan in Guanzhong, although there are [-] people, but in fact they can only be regarded as [-] people, and the four towns don't work at all.Another example is the five towns in Shannan. Although there are tens of thousands of people, they are still far away in Xiangyang. According to Li Jing's estimation, even if the war is over, these tens of thousands of people will not be able to leave Shannan. Qin Zongquan's army is there , is enough to deal with them.

There is also the second town in Hedong. Now they are surrounded by Li Jing, and they can't take care of themselves, so how can they be regarded as soldiers?No matter how you look at it, the situation of the Qin army is very good, so there is no need to worry at all.How could he, the commander-in-chief, be scared and retreat to Taiyuan?

"You don't need to say much, I won't go anywhere."

"Your Highness, the son of a thousand gold. I can't sit still..."

Li Jing shook his head and interrupted Luo Yin's words.Turning to Cui Anqian, he said, "Zeng Shuai. How can the General Staff Council deal with the enemy?"

Everyone saw that Li Jing had made up his mind, so it was hard to persuade him. Besides, Li Jing was not the kind of emperor of peace. He was a great general who had risen from many battles. Although the enemy army was making a lot of noise right now, everyone knew that It's just a gun head like silver wax, with a smooth surface of sheep dung eggs.Not to mention that there is a strong city like Luoyang, which is close to the Yellow River in the north.Connecting Hanoi: "The battle plan of the Staff Council is to defeat the enemy before they arrive. First, while increasing troops to Luoyang, we will launch a fierce attack on the second town of Hedong. The attack is divided into four routes, all the way along the Fen River to attack the middle of the river, The first route was to attack Luzhou from the southeast of Taiyuan. The third route was to attack from the newly collected Weizhou to the Xingming Zhuzhous east of the Taihang Mountain in Zhaoyi Town. The fourth route was to attack Tianjingguan from Hanoi and cross the Taihang Mountains to attack Zezhou. Lu Qifa, before the imperial court's five-way allied forces encircled Luoyang, first attack and capture the second town of Hedong."

The decision was affirmed, and the Qin army's war machine immediately sped up again.

According to the strategy set by Li Jing.Implemented various strategies to defeat the coalition forces, and among them, the second town of Hedong was attacked first, and Zhaoyi town was the most important target of the second town of Hedong.

Zhaoyi Town, also known as Zelu Town, is a feudal town located in the southeastern part of Shanxi Province and the southwestern part of Hebei Province today. It began in the middle Tang Dynasty.The capital is Luzhou, and it has jurisdiction over Xing, Ming and Ci prefectures to the east of the Taihang Mountains, and Ze and Lu prefectures to the west of the Taihang Mountains.The establishment of this feudal town was to contain the three towns of Heshuo.For more than a hundred years since its establishment, it has been generally loyal to the imperial court, but there have also been rebellions by Lu Congshi, Liu Congjian, and Liu Zhen.Among the towns in the Tang Dynasty, Zhaoyi Town ranked among the top three for the number of mutinies in the past hundred years.

Today's Zhaoyi Festival Commander Meng Fangli came to power through a mutiny.

Meng Fangli was originally from Xingzhou. When Huang Chao invaded Guanzhong in the first year of Zhonghe, he served as the defense envoy of Tianjing Pass in Zezhou.At that time, the commander of Zhaoyi Festival was Gao Xun. He led the army to serve Wang Guanzhong, but was killed by his general Cheng Lin.After Cheng Lin killed Gao Xun, he seized military power and returned to Luzhou.Meng Fangli heard the news and led his men to attack Cheng Lin, and beheaded Cheng Lin after victory.

After killing Cheng Lin, Meng Fangli did not stay in Luzhou, the city of Ya, but led his army back to his hometown of Xingzhou. At that time, the Ya army in Luzhou pushed eunuch Wu Quanxu as his queen.In the second year of Zhonghe, the imperial court appointed Meng Fangli as the governor of Xingzhou, but Meng Fangli refused to accept it, and detained Wu Quanxu, saying that eunuchs could not be left behind.He wrote a letter asking the imperial court to send a civil servant to be the commander-in-chief, and the imperial court sent Zheng Changtu as the queen.As a result, Meng Lifang bribed Le Congxun, the son of Wei Bo Jieshuai, to ambush Zheng Changtu.The imperial court had no choice but to appoint Wang Hui as Zhaoyi Marshal again, but Wang Hui refused to take up the post knowing that Meng Fangli had already controlled the three states of Xinglao and Ci in the east of Taihang Mountain in Zhaoren Town and killed Zheng Changtu.As a result, no one wanted to go to Zhaoyi, and Meng Fangli actually controlled Zhaoyi Town.

In order to strengthen his control over Zhaoyi, Meng Fangli moved the capital of Zhaoyi from Luzhou to his hometown Xingzhou. He called himself Jieshuai, and appointed Yuanya general Li Yinrui as the governor of Luzhou.The reason why he moved the capital to Xingzhou was mainly because he believed that Luzhou Yabing was fierce and had overthrown the Jieshuai several times in history.In order to weaken Luzhou's Yabing, he built a new Yabing, and forced generals and wealthy families to move to the three states east of the Taihang Mountains.This action made the generals of the two states of Zelu and Luzhou west of Taihang Mountain very dissatisfied.Qi Shenjiao, the eunuch of the supervising army, and An Jushou, the eunuch of Wuxiang town, wrote a secret letter to Zhuge Shuang, the commander of Heyang Festival at that time, asking him to send troops to intervene.Later, Zhuge Shuang sent troops to Zelu and captured Zezhou.

In this civil strife in Heyang, Liu Jing returned Zezhou to Meng Fangli and brought him in for help. In the end, he was still defeated. However, although many troops were lost, Meng Fangli took back Zezhou north of Taihang Pass.

Although Meng Fangli has controlled Zhaoyi for several years, Zhaoyi is not monolithic, especially the three states to the east of Taihang Mountain and the two states to the west of Taihang Mountain are full of contradictions.Regarding the internal conflicts in Zhaoyi Town, the Military Intelligence Bureau had already

I can touch it clearly.

Wangwu and the Zezhou courtyard in the north of Taihang Mountains were closed, and the guard general Xi Zhongxin had a happy event. His wife had just given birth to a fat boy for him.Xi Zhongxin was in his 40s, and had given birth to seven daughters in a row. Among many wives and concubines, none of them gave him a son. He was very worried about this matter.I don't want to think that this year Xinna, the eighth lady, became pregnant shortly after entering the house, and gave birth to a big fat boy in her first child.Xi Zhongxin was overjoyed and excited. He generously ordered the whole army in the pass to be rewarded and had three days of banquets.

The entire Tianjingguan defenders were immersed in the joy, wine and meat. Xi Zhongxin sat in the general's mansion, his face flushed.Keep raising your glass.Shouted loudly: "Dry!"

The following generals raised their glasses and drank all their mouthfuls.The dishes were delivered like water, and everyone ate comfortably. Only one of them, the captain, did not eat much. This captain Ma Jun was under Xi Zhongxin's command only a year ago. Skilled in crossbows, he performed outstandingly in several battles, and was promoted to Lieutenant of the Horse Army after accumulating meritorious service.

"Old Liu, why don't you eat?" Zhao Dutou, a colleague next to him, asked quietly. "Not to your taste?"

"Ah, it's nothing." Xiaowei Liu said, "I just feel that since I joined the general, I didn't make any contribution, but I often receive the general's kind treatment, and I feel sorry."

Zhao Dutou is a veteran soldier, and he said with a strange smile: "I heard an allusion from Zhang Jichen's office before. It said that the emperor of the Jin Dynasty was probably the Yuan Emperor. When the Ming Emperor was born, the officials said at a banquet. We, Colonel Liu, were as embarrassed as we were. We were ashamed to say that the subject had no credit for it. At that time, Emperor Yuan laughed. He said, how can you get any credit for this matter!"

Everyone was startled for a moment, and then after thinking about it, they all burst into laughter.Xi Zhongxin, who was slightly drunk in the seat, didn't think he was disobedient when he heard this, and laughed along with him.Captain Liu's black face suddenly turned purple, and he smiled helplessly.

He poured a glass of wine, picked it up and stood up. "

"General Xi, Mr. Liu is very grateful for the general's love. Today is a happy day, and Mr. Liu has something to say by this opportunity."

"Speak up if you have something to say, why are you still being so polite?" Xi Zhongxin used to be the general of Zhaoyi, and he was the commander of the official. Later, he had a dispute with Ma Shuang, the general of Zhaoyi. Ma Shuang tried to kill Xi Zhongxin, but Xi Zhongxin went down first. Ma Shuang fled to Wei Bo, Xi Zhongxin bribed Le Congxun to kill him.For this matter, Meng Fangli demoted Xi Zhongxin several levels in a row. This time, he was able to become the general of Tianjingguan because he sent troops to Heyang earlier, and he made great contributions.

Liu Xiaowei glanced at the generals in the hall, and said surprisingly, "The general is happy today, and I shouldn't have said such a thing. But, it's impossible not to say it. General, the Qin army has already taken it down. Hedong Town, Chengde Town, Weibo Town, Heyang Town, Luoyang, our Zhaoyi has now become an isolated island in the vast ocean of the Qin Army. Seeing that the next big tide of the Qin Army is about to come, don't we have to Sit and wait to be swallowed?"

As soon as these words came out, the generals present all suppressed their smiles and fell silent.

No one knows the current situation, but no one has revealed it before, so everyone didn't think about it.

Xi Zhongxin stared at Colonel Liu, his eyes flickering. He had long seen that this old Liu was not simple. Now, it seemed that he was not simple. He thought he was a spy sent by Li Keyong, but he never touched him. Instead, he kept it by his side all the time, in fact, he planned to keep it as a way out.After all, he was born as Zhaoyi Yajiang, and he was suspected by Meng Fangli long ago.Otherwise, there would be no such incident with Ma Shuang back then.Now it seems that Old Liu is very likely to be a pawn arranged by Li Jing by his side.

At this moment, a loud shout from outside broke the silence in the hall.

"Meng Shuai of Xingzhou urgently orders!"

Panting heavily, Tan Ma took out the emergency documents from his close-fitting pocket, Xi Zhongxin regained consciousness, and said, "Submit it!"

The content of the letter surprised him. Li Jing had already sent troops to attack Zhaoyi.Among them, the road in Hebei launched a fierce attack from the states of Wei and Bo to the three states of Xing, Ming, and Ci to the east of the Taihang Mountains. Meng Fangli sent his generals Ma Ji and Yuan Fengtao to resist. The result was a big defeat. The two generals were captured and almost went to war. On the third day, the three states of Ciming and Xingming in Shandong had already lost the two states of Ciming. Now Meng Fang lost his troops and lost his generals, hiding in Xingzhou, waiting for help.Meng Fangli sent a messenger here, hoping that Xi Zhongxin and Zelu's other generals could lead troops to rescue Xingzhou.

The Qin army's offensive was faster than Xi Zhongxin expected. In three days, only three days, Meng Fangli lost two generals and lost two states.Now trapped in Xingzhou, I can no longer hold on.Thinking about it again, it was only one of the four armies of the Qin Army that attacked Meng Fangli.Xi Zhongxin's expression changed a few times involuntarily, cloudy or sunny.

He stared at the emergency document for a long time without saying a word. All the generals put down their cups and chopsticks and asked, "General, what happened?"

Xi Zhongxin sighed, and said in a heavy tone: "It's Meng Shuai's letter asking for help. The Qin army in Hebei launched an attack three days ago. In just three days, Ma Jia and Yuan Fengtao were defeated and captured, and Ciming Prefecture had already fallen. Now among the three states in Shandong, only Xingzhou is still struggling, and Meng Shuai sent an order to send us to rescue."

All the generals were silent at the same time, and many generals lowered their heads thinking about something.

When Lieutenant Liu heard the news, his eyes lit up, and he quickly said in a loud voice: "General, Meng Fangli is finished. The general should make a decision for himself and for the brothers."

Xi Zhongxin raised his eyes and stared at Colonel Liu. After pondering for a long time, he smiled and said, "Should Captain Liu introduce his identity again?"

Lieutenant Liu laughed, "I didn't intend to deceive the general. If this is the case today, then I will re-introduce Guo Wei, Lieutenant Colonel Intelligence Officer of the Military Intelligence Bureau under King Qin."

"I didn't expect Brother Liu to be a lieutenant colonel of Qin Fan. I really don't know Taishan." Xi Zhongxin was a little surprised at Guo Wei's rank, he was actually a lieutenant colonel, which is not low.

After explaining their identities, although everyone was surprised, they didn't overreact.After all, Qin Fan is very powerful, and there has been no fight with Zhaoyi Town in the past few years.Now that he has revealed his identity, in the hearts of the generals, he is happy instead.At least, there is a way out now.

Guo Wei also came as everyone expected, "If the general and the brothers believe me, I am willing to recommend you to the King of Qin. As long as the general and the brothers lay down their swords and weapons, open the courtyard, abandon the darkness and turn to the light, a great way is in front of us!" . )