Late Tang

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"Just because you want to stop the car with your arms, you really can't control yourself. A group of thieves and prisoners will all be dragged down and chopped down!"

Under a large white flag, several burly military officers sat on tall horses, looking coldly at the dozen or so embarrassed officials who were dragged in front of them.These people were disheveled and had whip marks on their faces. They were all former imperial court officials in Tuo County, Songzhou. After the city was broken today, they were finally found out.

Under the banner of the Yellow King under the White Flag, Zhu Wen, former General You Yi, held his sword and said in a cold tone.

Several soldiers of the 'rebel army' stepped forward and dragged down the screaming and pleading officials, turning a deaf ear.

Zhu Wen took a long breath and looked around. White flags were flying around, and the continuous follow-up team was rushing in. The messenger cavalry in silver armor with command flags on their backs galloped between the queues, delivering military orders.

This is between Songzhou and Chenzhou, and it is Tuo County, the most southwest of the eight counties in Songzhou.

After capturing Sizhou, the rebel army marched northward, breaking through Shenzhou and Ruzhou.The defense line of the imperial court has collapsed without a fight, and the Zhongwu Army has split into three. Right now, Qin Zongquan and Sun Ru in Caizhou, Zhou Ji in Xuzhou, Lu Yanhong and Wang Jian in Chenzhou are all retreating to defend the city. If you don't come out, let Huang Chao's army pass by.After the probation army was massacred by Zhou Ji for [-] people, the rest fled back to Xuzhou in a panic. The Taining army Qi Kerang retreated overnight, and ended up in a battle with Huang Chao's army, and was defeated in the first battle.

All of a sudden, apart from Luoyang and Zhengzhou and the assembled Tang army, the rest of the vassals and towns have been under the Huang Wang's paper, and they are guarding their own states, not daring to attack.

On the one hand, Huang Chao led the army to continue to approach the Eastern Capital, and on the other hand, he sent Zhu Wen to lead his troops to plunder Song and Bian to collect food and grass for the army. The Hebei rebels put more pressure on the Luoyang defenders.

Zhu Wen set off from Ruzhou and passed through the three states of Xu, Cai, and Xu. None of the former loyal military generals fought. Zhu Wen led his army to sweep through, looting a lot of food and grass, and taking away a lot of young men.On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Zhu Wen entered the territory of the Xuanwu Army. Instead of sending troops to defend in advance, Mu Renyu transferred the Xuanwu Army back to Bianzhou for defense.

Zhu Wen entered the territory of Songzhou and defeated Tuo County in just one day.

After ransacking Tuo County again and forcibly conscripting all young men into the army, Zhu Wen now has a full [-] army under his command, including [-] soldiers.

After taking down Tuo County, Zhu Wen generously rewarded the battalions here, which made the morale of the troops high.

Three years ago, Zhu Wen came to Songzhou from Xuzhou and joined Li Jing's town [***] in Songzhou.Even in Songzhou, he once fought desperately with Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao, and here he met a woman he will never forget in this life.If there weren't those accidents, he might have become a good town[***] officer, or it's also possible that he is already a military envoy now.

Time cannot be turned back, and there is no medicine for regret in the world.

He fought life and death with Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao. He used to be a subordinate of Li Jing and Mu Renyu, and he fought the enemy side by side with Zhen [***], Zhongwu Army, and Xuanwu Army.

He used to be a warrior and a hero in the eyes of Songzhou people.

But now, he is a 'rebel', a grass thief.

For three years, with Huang Chao, he moved to the north and south of the river, south of the Central Plains.Killed from Henan to Heji, from Heji to Xusi, then to Huainan, then to Shannan, Jiangxi, Liangzhe, Fujian, Lingnan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Huainan, and finally returned to the Central Plains.

More than 1000 days and nights were spent in the daily killing and rushing.

During numerous battles, he almost died on the battlefield, but in the end he survived, but with many scars on his body.

In the past three years, Zhu Wen finally climbed up from the rebel army step by step with his own hard work and ability.In the past three years, many former high-ranking generals in the rebel army died in battle, died of illness, were captured, and surrendered.

Zhu Wen did not die in battle, nor did he surrender, and eventually became a senior general in the rebel army, with [-] elite soldiers in his hands.

Huang Chao now trusts Zhu Wen very much. Although he is not as good as Lin Yan, Huang Ye, and Meng Kai, he is already regarded as the core general in the rebel army.Huang Chao didn't ask for the more than 1 elite soldiers in his hands, but instead gave him a lot of armor and equipment.

This time when they attacked Luoyang, Huang Chao directly let him stand alone, led an army to fight alone, and gave him [-] young men.After the division of troops, Zhu Wen fought all the way and took another [-] young and strong soldiers into the army. Now there are [-] auxiliary soldiers, [-] soldiers, and an army of [-] in his hands. The momentum suddenly became huge.

Because he had stayed in Zhen[***] for a while, Zhu Wen had been training his troops in the same way as Zhen[***].Up to now, Zhu Wen has two armies under his command, namely the Xuanfeng Army and the Tabai Army, each with 5000 soldiers, led by Zhu Cun and Zhu Zhen respectively.In addition, the [-] auxiliary troops were also organized into eight armies.Zhu Wen also established a personal guard capital, all cavalry, a total of one thousand cavalry, named Luoyan Capital, with Ding Hui as the envoy.

Zhu Wen was usually the most generous towards his subordinates, and most of the gains he gained from breaking the city were distributed to the soldiers, so he was very much supported by his subordinates.Moreover, Zhu Wen also attached great importance to literati. Every time he passed by a place, he would ask the local literati for his own use.Up to now, under Zhu Wen's tent are Zhu Cun, Zhu Zhen, Ding Hui, Li Tangbin, Guo Yan, Zhang Ren and others, and Wen has Xie Tong, Liu Han and others. power.

Zhu Wen's selection of the front and the second army of Tabai consisted of 5000 people each, of which each army had hatchbacks, one wing had five battalions, each wing had four battalions of infantry and one battalion of cavalry.Each army has four thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry.The equipment of this unit is no different from that of Huang Chao's elite old battalion. Each infantryman wears leather armor, and out of the 2000 infantry, [-] infantrymen are equipped with a set of leather armor, a leather shield, a spear, a bow, and a horizontal knife. .Another [-] of them were equipped with a single crossbow.The remaining [-] infantrymen were equipped with a set of infantry armor, a square iron shield, and a rifle.

The [-] cavalry in the whole army are also equipped with leather armor, riding shields, sabers, and riding bows.

In addition, there are many heavy crossbows and large shields such as Fuyuan crossbows in the whole army.Even those auxiliary soldiers are equipped with a spear, and some of them are equipped with horizontal knives.In addition, all the people were also equipped with the spear throwers and slings that Zhu Wen came into contact with in the town [***], and each auxiliary army carried twenty short spears and a bag of stone bullets.

If tens of thousands of auxiliary soldiers shoot and throw spears at the critical moment, it will be a huge lethal force.Even if the throwing spear is gone, the attack from the huge auxiliary soldiers is just as extraordinary.Simple tools such as spear throwers and slings have made the rebels' human sea tactics even more powerful.

The military discipline under Zhu Wen is also much stricter than other rebels.Although Zhu Wen couldn't help looting Jianyin, every looting must be ordered by Zhu Wen before it can be carried out.After several years, Zhu Wen's soldiers in the headquarters have basically been able to do this kind of prohibition.

Although he had already betrayed the town [***], the various systems of the town [***] have always been respected by Zhu Wen.The words Li Jing said, without discipline, it cannot be called an army, at most it can only be regarded as a bandit's words, has been deeply imprinted in his mind.For a long time, no matter how many people he had under his command, he never gave up the importance of military discipline.

After crossing the moat, a group of soldiers in black clothes with black flags appeared in the front of the city. Most of these soldiers were small in stature, and some were even disabled with broken hands and blind eyes, but everyone looked solemn.These are Zhu Wen's gendarmerie, which was completely modeled on the town [***], to supervise military discipline and prevent spies from spying.These people were originally elite veterans, but because they were injured and were not suitable for combat, Zhu Wen arranged them as military police to make the best use of their talents.

As soon as Tuo County was broken, the military police immediately supervised military discipline in the county.Although Zhu Wen promised to plunder, he stipulated that [-]% of all captured items should be returned to the public, and the remaining [-]% could be kept.As for those returned to the public, [-]% of them will be distributed equally to all tactics, and the rest will be used as military funds.

Zhu Wen saw the counselor Xie Tong not far ahead, leading a group of literati staff who are now following him to register boxes of account books, caught up a few steps, and said with a smile: "Ziming, how is the harvest?"

Xie Tong turned his head and saw that it was Zhu Wen. A smile appeared on his slightly pale face. He was originally from Fuzhou and stayed in Chang'an for three years. Unfortunately, he failed the exam for three consecutive years and finally returned to Fujian. I happened to meet Zhu Wen's troops, and after talking with Zhu Wen, I felt that this grass thief was not as good as I imagined, so I stayed in the end.With his talent, he naturally shined quickly among the grass thieves, and gradually became Zhu Wen's most important counselor, and now he is Zhu Wen's secretary.

"The harvest is indeed a lot. In the fertile land of Bian Song Dynasty, a small county town has more money and food than a state in Fujian and Hunan."

Zhu Wen smiled with satisfaction, and said to Xie Tong: "The small Tuo County has this harvest, then we will gain even more if we conquer Songzhou City."

Until now, Zhu Wen still couldn't completely forget Song Zhou and the woman Song Zhou met.When he came back this time, he had already found out that the woman had already married Li Jing and was now in Dengzhou.However, his father was still serving as the governor of Songzhou, and he never moved.Zhang Tailiu, who followed him at the beginning, died of the plague when he was in Guangzhou.Whenever he thinks of Song Zhou, the voices and smiles of Zhang Hui and Zhang Tailiu can't help appearing in his mind.After a while, he said harshly: "This time, we must take Songzhou."

Hearing what Zhu Wen said, Xie Tong felt a little worried. He didn't know the grievances between Zhu Wen and Zhang Rui, the governor of Songzhou, so he stroked his beard and said, "This time our main purpose is to collect money and food, and to deter the towns in Henan. Let them not dare to assemble and go to Luoyang. Songzhou city is strong and has enough food, I am afraid it will not be easy to fight. If the army is under the strong city, it will be unfavorable for a long battle, I am afraid it will make other towns ready to move."

Zhu Wen thought about it. Although the rebel army swept across Henan several times and invaded the territory of Songzhou several times, in fact, they had never really besieged Songzhou City.He is clear about the strength of Songzhou. If he has soldiers and horses in his hand, he is sure to deal with the soldiers and horses in Songzhou city. He is worried about the reaction of other towns.Thinking of this, he said hesitantly: "The other towns may not have the courage to leave the town. There are not many soldiers in Songzhou City. If Songzhou City can be breached, it will definitely have a greater deterrent effect."

Xie Tong pondered for a while, and finally nodded.If it can capture a state city, it will be of greater help to the capture of Luoyang.

Thirty miles south of Luoyang is Yique, also known as Longmen Mountain.

Longmen is the open gate to the south of Luoyang, where Fragrant Hills and Longmen Mountains face each other on both sides of the bank, and Yishui flows, looking like a natural gate from a distance.Therefore, since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there has been a very vivid name here, Yique.Sui Yang came to Luoyang, because the gate of the imperial palace was facing Yique, and the ancient emperors regarded themselves as the real dragon emperors, so it was named Longmen.

Yique was one of the Eight Passes of Luoyang in Han Dynasty.

The densely packed farmers are picking soil and moving rocks, digging ditches and ditches under the supervision of Tang Jun in red military uniform.At the entrance of this dangerous pass, the nearly three-foot-long city wall began to show its scale, and most of the battlements had already been repaired.Many deep ditches and big moats were dug in front of Guancheng. In addition, on the river surface, many large and small ships were continuously sinking stones into the Yishui River, blocking the river course, forcing the boats to be unable to move, and laying large iron piles on both banks to connect them Three big iron chains thick as arms.

At the pass on the west bank, there are also many pulley nooses. When the pass is strong, the iron ropes can be twisted, and the iron ropes cross the river to block Yishui.

There are also countless grain trucks carrying grain from Luoyang to Guancheng.

The Tang army in fiery red armor stood above the Guancheng, and the big red handsome flag fluttered high on the flagpole measuring eight feet long.Under the flagpole, an official with a thin body and a thin face in a purple official robe was surrounded by more than a dozen generals in majestic suits and gorgeous body armor.

This is Cui Anqian, Shangshu of the Ministry of Officials of the Tang Dynasty and commander of the camp in southern Hebei.The two people on his left and right are Du Ke, the defense envoy of Jidu of Dongdu who just came from Luoyang, the deputy commander of the battalion in the south of Hebei, the general of Zuo Weiwei, the deputy commander of the battalion in the south of Hebei, and Zhang Zimian.

"Duke Cui, the emperor has ordered Liu Yunzhang to stay behind in Ren Dongdu, and he has issued an order No. 11 to lead our troops to Tongguan to guard the gate." Du Tao said helplessly to Cui Anqian.

Zhang Zimian also reported with a dark face: "The sentinels have found out that Huang Chao will arrive in Yique in three days, and his department has 30 people. In addition, Huang Chao has also divided two troops, one of which is led by Zhu Wen. He led the army to Song and Bian, intending to go around to the east of Luoyang to attack Zhengzhou and cut off the water transportation of the Bian River. At the same time, he sent Ge Congzhou to lead his troops to attack Ying, Hao and other places to prevent Huainan, Yuzhen Navy, Liangzhe, and Jiangxi Wait for the troops from the town to go north. According to reports, Zhu Wen and Ge Cong’s two tribes both have about 5 people, and with Huang Chao’s leadership, there are 40 bandits.”

Cui Anqian's face was uncertain, and he sighed after a long time: "Luoyang Fortified City, we will defend according to Guanyi City, the so-called 40 yellow thieves, there are only a lot of mobs, and the real elite is no more than 8 or [-]."

"It's a pity that at this time, the probation army rebelled, the Zhongwu army rebelled even more, the Hezhong army rebelled again, Qi Kerang was defeated, the probation army retreated, Huainan, Zhenhai, Liangzhe, and Jiangxi all stopped. Now we wait Although they are determined to defend Luoyang, Chang'an is worried that Tongguan will not be able to stop the rebels, and they are only anxious to let them retreat to Tongguan. There are 10,000+ Shence troops in the pass, but when it is really time to use it, there are no soldiers to use, a bunch of waste. "Zhang Zi Mian said with some resentment.

Cui Anqian was also very disappointed in his heart. The Zhongwu Army was also his old subordinate, but he didn't expect to behave like this this time. The three states under the army killed officials one after another to stand on their own, which was like a rebellion, causing the Weishui defense line to collapse.Right now he is determined to stick to Luoyang, but Chang'an has no confidence in it.The Zhongwu Army and the Hezhong Army were already unreliable. Both the Taining Army and the Tianping Army were defeated by Huang Chao one after another.

There are also Hebei rebels in the north. If Luoyang can't hold it, even this soldier will be lost by then. With only the 10,000+ forbidden army, Tongguan will not be able to hold it.

But it is really not reconciled to abandon Luoyang and retreat to Tongguan without fighting.

In the silence, there was another rush of footsteps.

Cui Anqian turned his head to look, but saw an eunuch coming up to the city under the guard of several imperial guards.

"Under the door: Cui Anqian, Du Wei, and Zhang Zimian quickly retreated Luoyang soldiers and horses to Tongguan, on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month in the sixth year of Qianfu."

Cui Anqian gritted his teeth for the No. 12 imperial decree within three days. In the end, he had no choice but to step forward to accept the imperial decree, then turned his head to look at the quietly flowing Yishui, and said after a long time: "Order the whole army to return to Luoyang immediately. , the whole army will retreat to Tongguan early tomorrow morning."

The eunuch who delivered the decree breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Cui Anqian finally ordered the army to retreat to Tongguan.However, the generals Du Wei and Zhang Zimian all lowered their heads, gritted their teeth, and were full of unwillingness! (To be continued.)