"Ugunai! Stop farming! Your Highness is surrounded by officers and soldiers from the south, and they say they want to kidnap Your Highness!"
"What did you say?!"
"Everyone from the Ayan tribe will come with me!!"
Inside and outside Jilin City, due to the deliberate spread of the news by Yisiha Mingren, the Jurchens and Han people who had previously been hostile to the officers and soldiers led by Zheng Gongzhi picked up their farm tools and rushed to the Bohai Palace.
"kill!!"
The Chengyundian Square, which can accommodate thousands of people, is now crowded, and Bohai soldiers and Liaodong officers and soldiers are fighting.
At the gate of the palace, more than a hundred Liaodong Dusi soldiers and horses closed the gate of the palace, and Wang Rong and others fought hard.
Two thousand versus three hundred, they fought from the Chengyun Palace Square to the Chengyun Palace.
Zhu Gaoxu, wearing double armor, broke into the enemy's formation and fought alone. He fought hard and killed dozens of people in a row.
"Those who surrender will not be killed!!"
After smashing several people over with his mace, Zhu Gaoxu shouted loudly, and soldiers from the Liaodong capital on the left and right swarmed up and came from all directions.
Liaodong soldiers on the square continued to pour into the hall. The usually spacious Chengyun Hall was now crowded with fighting people.
Hundreds of Bohai elite soldiers formed a formation to fight and approached Zhu Gaoxu.
Zhu Gaoxu fought bravely, and no one could join him.
The calls for surrender came and went, as if Bohai was the place with the most people at the moment.
"The hall is too small to form a formation! Everyone, get out!!"
Liu Wu, who had a broken arm, held his broken arm and escorted Zheng Gongzhi staggering out of the Chengyun Hall.
Following his command, Liaodong soldiers began to withdraw from Chengyun Hall, and Zhu Gaoxu led the Bohai soldiers to pursue them.
When passing by the palace gate, he grabbed and pulled out the twenty-four-pound iron gun hidden here.
Standing on the platform, he looked at the Liaodong soldiers who were retreating to the square with Liu Wu and Zheng Gongzhi, and simply wiped the blood on his face.
Against the backdrop of dozens of Bohai soldiers chasing him, his figure looked very tall.
It was obvious that he was using a blunt weapon, but his armor was stained with blood. This image made the Liaodong soldiers fearful and uneasy.
Both sides rarely maintained a certain degree of silence. Three hundred palace guards surrounded more than a thousand Liaodong soldiers.
The elite soldiers in Bohai were waiting for Zhu Gaoxu's orders, and the soldiers in Liaodong were also looking at him and fearing him.
Logically speaking, since Zhu Gaoxu decided to raise troops, he should not be indecisive. He should kill all these Liaodong soldiers.
However, after wiping the blood on his face, Zhu Gaoxu did not act. Instead, he glanced at the blood on his face, and then looked down indifferently at the Liaodong soldiers who were several times his own.
If he doesn't move, no one dares to move...
"Why are you standing there in a daze! The terrain here is open, capture and kill the common people of Bohai quickly!"
Liu Wu endured the pain of a broken arm and issued orders to all directions.
More than ten soldiers went to the high platform to kill, but when they were a few steps away from Zhu Gaoxu, they stopped under Zhu Gaoxu's eyes and did not dare to step forward.
"Emperor Taizu Gao left a ancestral precept during his lifetime: There are no honest ministers in the government, and there are evildoers in the government. We must train troops to fight against them, so as to eliminate the evildoers on the emperor's side!"
"I am forced to bow to the current disaster. I really want to survive, but I have no choice..."
Seeing that the Liaodong soldiers did not dare to take action, Zhu Gaoxu himself spoke out the words of the "Huang Ming Ancestor Instructions" left by Zhu Yuanzhang, and explained his difficulties to the Liaodong soldiers.
"Brothers of Liaodong Dusi! Are there any of you who will accompany me to fight at Jixi Pass?"
Zhu Gaoxu moved out of Jixi Pass because almost all the surviving Liaodong soldiers in that battle were promoted.
Sure enough, when he spoke, there was a moment of commotion among the Liaodong soldiers.
"Since you have fought side by side with me, don't you know who I am?!"
He asked loudly, and many people lowered their heads in guilt.
They naturally know who Zhu Gaoxu is.
During the battle at Jixiguan, Zhu Gaoxu paid them a reward out of his own treasury. It is needless to say how generous it was.
"I hereby swear that raising troops this time is really a helpless move. When we go south to enter the Guan Jingnan, we will not cause any harm to the people along the way. Wherever our troops pass, military households will be divided into guard fields and their military garrison taxes will be abolished. "Those who don't want to serve as soldiers should be dismissed, and those who don't want to go south to fight the civil war should stay where they are and guard the border."
"Your family is still waiting for you to go back. Do you really want to be my enemy?!"
After Zhu Gaoxu finished speaking, he also raised his legs and walked down the steps. He approached step by step, but the Liaodong soldiers retreated step by step.
Anyone who has been in the army for more than three years has never heard the vivid story of the soldiers who returned from Jixi Pass, and who doesn't know that the king of Bohai County bravely conquered the three armies.
If they were just a story before, then Zhu Gaoxu's fight in the Chengyun Hall was enough to prove it again.
There were at least dozens of soldiers who fell under his hands. The condition of their death can be seen from the blood stained on Zhu Gaoxu's armor.
Who can doubt him if he can use blunt weapons like this.
"Common people in Bohai, don't talk nonsense! If you just restrain your hands obediently, I can let the past go..."
Zheng Gongzhi was trying to stabilize the morale of the army, but the more he spoke, the softer his voice became because he saw Zhu Gaoxu's searching eyes.
When he and Zhu Gaoxu looked at each other, even though they were dozens of steps apart, he still shrank his neck in fear.
"Your Highness!!"
"Your Highness, are you in there?!"
Suddenly, there were a lot of shouts outside the Prince's Palace of Bohai, and the sound was transmitted into the Palace and echoed in the Chengyun Hall.
Some of them were speaking Mandarin, and some were speaking the Jurchen language from various places. Their voices echoed loudly and came from all directions.
Outside the Bohai Palace, tens of thousands of Bohai people gathered holding hoes and farm tools, and some also had hunting bows used for hunting.
They surrounded the Bohai Prince's Mansion in a watertight area, making it difficult for even a bird to fly out of this area.
Their shouts weakened the confidence of the soldiers in Liaodong, because they knew that it would be difficult for them to capture Zhu Gaoxu, and if they could not capture Zhu Gaoxu, it would be impossible to break through.
"I'll say it again!!"
Zhu Gaoxu held a gun in one hand and a mace in the other. He spoke in a loud voice and glanced around.
"If the brothers who don't want to be enemies with me put down their weapons and disperse to the left and right, I will forget about it!"
"If there are still people with weapons in their hands who want to help this sycophant murder me, they will be killed without mercy!!"
After the words fell, Zhu Gaoxu stepped off the high platform faster and fought bravely.
The 24-pound heavy iron gun was swung with one hand and knocked over a person in just an instant. Without waiting for a reaction, the iron mace in his left hand was also swung down.
While breathing, four or five people were knocked over, their faces bloody and bloody, and the sound of bones breaking was horrifying.
Without long spears, the short-handed military formation held by Liaodong soldiers was not easy for Zhu Gaoxu to break.
Under his leadership, three hundred Bohai soldiers pounced on the Liaodong soldiers who were several times their own number.
"Your Highness! Do you still remember Liu Zhao of Jixiguan!"
"Remember! Jixiguan was injured three times and decapitated seven times! He is my good brother!"
"But put down your weapons and wait for me to kill this sycophant. Let's drink and reminisce with you!!"
A flag officer bravely shouted, but he didn't expect to get a response, and the response was extremely detailed.
"I won't fight anymore!"
"The King of Bohai County is a wise king. He has given his brothers rewards that the court has never given them. I won't fight him!"
In the military formation, some people actually dropped their weapons and dispersed to the left and right of Chengyun Hall Square.
"A bunch of lazy soldiers! Is this how you treat the imperial court?!"
Zheng Gongzhi cursed loudly, and the surrounding Liaodong soldiers' faces turned dark when they heard this.
These days, they have been tormented by Zheng Gongzhi a lot.
They marched more than sixty miles every day, walking for eight hours from Yin Shi to You Shi, and it took another hour to set up camp when they arrived at the place where they were stationed.
By the time they could rest, it was already a matter of time. They had only been lying down for three hours before they had to be woken up by this guy to hurry up. Now this guy actually had the nerve to call himself a lazy soldier...
Suddenly, the sound of weapons being dropped suddenly increased, and Zheng Gongzhi's voice also stopped abruptly.
As the soldiers dispersed, there were fewer and fewer soldiers guarding Zheng Gongzhi, but Zhu Gaoxu still fought head-on, overwhelming the soldiers in front and making them unable to breathe.
Wherever Zhu Gaoxu passed by, the soldiers' weapons were knocked away, their armor was smashed into pieces, and they were either killed or injured.
Gradually, some people could no longer resist and began to drop their weapons in front and surrender.
Once the signal of surrender is sent out, people around you will rush to follow suit.
No one wants to fight against Zhu Gaoxu, they know their own weight very well.
Therefore, after a moment of the sound of weapons falling to the ground, the number of soldiers remaining beside Zheng Gongzhi became less and less, and gradually there were only a dozen or so.
"Where are you going?! Don't you want to think about your family?!"
Zheng Gongzhi used his family members to restrain the soldiers, and at the same time reached out to hold one person, but the person immediately threw him away and kicked him at the same time.
"Serving you as a soldier means death, and surrendering means death. I would rather surrender than help you!"
"I died in the battle a long time ago. Who knew I had surrendered to the enemy!"
Abuse came from all around, and Liu Wu and others standing beside Zheng Gongzhi didn't know what Zheng Gongzhi had done all the way, so they just felt it was very ridiculous.
Two thousand people can't take down three hundred people...
"Hahaha..." Liu Wu laughed helplessly and took the initiative to pick up a knife from the ground and handed it to Zheng Gongzhi.
"Angel, it is better to kill yourself than to fall into his hands."
Liu Wu knew very well what his fate would be if he fell into the hands of Zhu Gaoxu, so he committed suicide and fell down after giving the explanation.
The blood sprayed on Zheng Gongzhi's face, and he was so stimulated by the scene of Liu Wu committing suicide that he could not recover for a long time.
"Angel?"
When Zhu Gaoxu's voice sounded behind him, he turned around and looked up, only to see Zhu Gaoxu looking down at him.
"Bohai... Prince Bohai... you..."
Before he finished speaking, he saw Zhu Gaoxu raising the mace. Before he could finish speaking, the mace fell, smashing his Tianling Cap and even half of his head.
Red and white things flew everywhere, and the soldiers around who had not yet surrendered were frightened.
When Zhu Gaoxu glanced at them, they consciously dropped their weapons.
"In this battle, all soldiers in Liaodong will die. You don't have to worry about your families!"
"The whole army packs up and follows me south to Jingnan in three days!!"
Zhu Gaoxu shouted with all his strength, which made the soldiers around him relax.
"Liu Wu, you piece of shit!!"
Wang Rong's shouts and curses rang out, and Zhu Gaoxu looked over when he heard the sound, and saw him kicking Liu Wu's body and hitting his face with a hammer, leaving him bloody and bloody.
"Your Highness, this bitch committed suicide!"
Wang Rong turned around and looked at Zhu Gaoxu. He immediately pointed at Liu Wu's body and said: "Chop the body into pieces and feed it to the fish. Cut off the head and insert it on the mark to prove that all the soldiers in Liaodong were wiped out."
After that, Zhu Gaoxu looked around and told Wang Rong: "Take the brothers from Liaodong to clean the battlefield, and send those who are not dead to the hospital for treatment."
"Liu Zhao!!" Zhu Gaoxu shouted to the man who was the first to surrender. Not long after, he saw a familiar face in his twenties coming out and bowed to him: "Your Highness!"
"I will promote you to the rank of Qianhu Guan, and temporarily command the brothers in Liaodong. After three days, you will leave camp with the army and go to Changchun."
"Your Highness!" After hearing Zhu Gaoxu's words, Liu Zhao hurriedly said: "At present, eight out of ten soldiers from Liaodong are following the Marquis of Jiangyin from Changchun to the north. The 30,000 guards are empty, and the soldiers left behind are still our own brothers. As long as you If we ride lightly, we will surely capture thirty thousand guards!"
Liu Zhao's information was very timely. After hearing this, Zhu Gaoxu immediately looked at Wang Rong.
Although Wang Rong did not participate in the Battle of Jixiguan, he had heard a lot about the brutality of that battle from his father Wang Yi, so he nodded: "Your Highness, with your order, we will follow you south!"
"I'll give you one thousand horses and choose five hundred troops to go south. If you capture thirty thousand guards, you will be the commander of thirty thousand guards. All the brothers who follow you will be promoted to the third level!"
Zhu Gaoxu did not hesitate and asked Liu Zhao to choose five hundred trustworthy brothers to ride south.
This trust made Liu Zhao burst into tears of gratitude, and the reward also made Liu Zhao's blood boil.
"Your Highness, don't worry, Zhao will definitely capture the 30,000 guards for you!"
"I believe you, let's wait until you win before we drink!"
After Zhu Gaoxu finished speaking, he turned around and left. Upon seeing this, Wang Rong quickly followed him.
After walking far away, Wang Rongcai said anxiously: "Your Highness, why don't you let me follow you?"
"If Liu Zhao returns to the 30,000 Guards and tells the Liaodong Dusi the news, wouldn't it mean that we can't hide the fact about raising an army?"
"I can't hide it." Zhu Gaoxu said as he walked: "Well, Wu Gao is very resourceful. It will take us three days at the earliest to send troops, and it will take another two days to reach Changchun. If Wu Gao sees something is wrong with Zheng Gongzhi, Do you think he will continue to go north?"
Zhu Gaoxu didn't believe that Wu Gao would be so easy to deal with. If it was really that easy to deal with, then Zhu Di would not use alienation tactics to deal with him.
"Can we capture the 30,000 guards..." Wang Rong was enlightened and asked.
"You can win the best. If you can't win, there's nothing you can do. It's just a loss of a thousand horses. Anyway, your father and the others still have two days to return to Jilin City."
"In addition, you have people send news to Wu Gao, saying that the vassal reduction has been successful, and let him march according to the original plan."
"yes!"
Zhu Gaoxu walked to Cunxin Hall, and Wang Rong also stopped when he saw this.
As he watched Zhu Gaoxu walk into the front bedroom door, he ran back to Chengyundian Square, ready to clean up the mess.
When he left, Zhu Gaoxu also walked into the front bedroom door under the fearful eyes of two Jingjun soldiers.
Just walking in here, he saw Guo Yan, Yi Shiha and more than ten Jingjun sitting at the door of the palace.
Except for Yi Shiha, all of them looked at him in fear, all because his armor was stained with blood, like a fallen general crawling up from the underworld.
"Your Highness!!"
Guo Yan couldn't sit still anymore. She quickly got up and ran towards Zhu Gaoxu, but Zhu Gaoxu stopped her in advance: "I'm not injured. Prepare hot water for me to wash up."
Guo Yan didn't care, and stepped forward to hug the bloody man, even though he was covered in blood, he didn't mind it.
"Prepare a few more buckets of hot water..."
Seeing that both of them were stained with blood, Yi Shiha ordered the two pure soldiers and shook his head helplessly.
"Why dirty all your clothes..."
Zhu Gaoxu also smiled bitterly, but Guo Yan saw a lot of dented nails on his body, and raised his head in distress: "Are you really not injured?"
"It's just some bruises at most." Zhu Gaoxu grabbed her hand and walked into the hall.
Not long after, buckets of hot water prepared early were carried into the bathhouse.
After they finished washing and everyone gathered in the front bedroom, two maids combed their hair.
Yi Shiha looked at Zhu Gaoxu and said, "Wang Rong came just now. One hundred and seventy-two brothers from Liaodong died, twenty-seven of our brothers died, and four hundred and fifty-seven were injured on both sides."
"Then Liu Zhao has already taken people out to pick up the horses. He chose our own people to go south instead of bringing the brothers from Liaodong."
"Brothers in Liaodong, the servants have asked Wang Rong to take them to the treasury to transport grain to make military rations."
Yi Shiha explained everything that happened when Zhu Gaoxu was washing. Guo Yan also saw that Zhu Gaoxu was not injured, but had seven bruises, so he grabbed him and said, "When will Your Highness plan to go south?"
"Three days later..." Zhu Gaoxu said without thinking: "I have already sent letters to Chen Chang and Meng Zhang before the war. I think they will arrive in two days. What we need to do now is to prepare military rations and beans and wait for them. Arrive, head south immediately."
Due to the presence of Liu Wu and others, Zhu Gaoxu and others were unable to produce military rations on a large scale in advance for fear of leaking the news.
At present, Liu Wu and others are dead, and Hu Lun and others have also picked up the rest of the Jin Yiwei. They must be able to hide it from Wu Gao for a day or two.
"If we can capture 30,000 guards, then Wu Gao won't have anything to worry about, right?" Yi Shiha asked Zhu Gaoxu, but he shook his head:
"Capturing the 30,000 guards would at most slow down Wu Gao's army's return to Liaodong. If he had been prepared, Liu Zhao might not be able to capture the 30,000 guards."
"But if we really capture the 30,000 guards, the food contained therein may be able to tide us over the current predicament."
The dilemma Zhu Gaoxu mentioned is nothing more than food. The food in Bohai can last until the ninth day of June, but that is normal.
At present, tens of thousands of troops are about to move south. If you want to prepare enough military rations for them for a month, you will at least lose a lot of food.
Zhu Gaoxu must enter Liaodong within a month and obtain one or two reserve warehouses.
Fu Rang told Zhu Gaoxu about the situation of the Liaodong reserve warehouse. There are basically 50,000 to 150,000 shi of grain in a guard's reserve warehouse. If a reserve warehouse for a military camp can be obtained, more than 100,000 people in the Bohai Sea can be saved. Lasts a month and a half.
If he hadn't needed to coordinate the three armies, and Jilin City was short of troops, Zhu Gaoxu might have personally led his troops to the Thirty Thousand Guards.
"Just wait, it's only three days, it will pass soon..."
He sighed, and Guo Yan brought Zhu Gaoxu back to reality with one sentence: "We have raised troops, what will happen to Peking?"
"..." Her question made Zhu Gaoxu silent for a moment: "If my father had been prepared, he would have been able to successfully launch his troops even if he got the news. If his father was not prepared, he would have had no choice but to leave it to fate."
"Things in Peiping are too far away for us to control. Right now I'm worried about only Wu Gao."
Zhu Gaoxu looked at the door, his eyebrows solemn.
While he was worried, as time passed, Wu Gao, who had not heard from Zheng Gongzhi for a day, began to worry.
On a low hill in the north of Changchun, there is a camp with nearly 70,000 civilians stretching for several miles. The civilians come and go from the camp gate, constantly transporting food from the south.
They also had worried faces, but they were not worried about Zheng Gongzhi, but worried about whether they would encounter barbarians on the way to the Northern Patrol to transport grain.
Comparing their worries, Wu Gao, who was in the commander's tent, looked at Geng Yu: "Since the news was received at noon yesterday, there has been no news for fourteen hours."
"Our camp has not changed. Even if we add the distance, it shouldn't be more than two hours late."
Wu Gao smelled something amiss, and at this moment a commander walked in outside the handsome tent.
"Master Marquis, Zheng Gongzhi's messengers are here. They say that the reduction of the vassal state went smoothly. Please go to Jilin City according to the original plan."
"Bring the people up, I'll see them in person." Wu Gao said without thinking. The commander was stunned, and Geng Feng also urged: "Go."
"Yes!" the commander agreed, and soon he led a flag officer to the commander's tent.
"I have met the Marquis of Jiangyin..."
The chief flag officer knelt down and bowed, but Wu Gao stepped forward with a smile: "Did you succeed in cutting down the feudal vassal? How did you succeed?"
"After we entered the city, there was Hu Lun, the official of Qianhu, a royal guard, as an internal response. In addition, Liu Qianhu controlled the city defense, so we easily surrounded the palace."
"The king of Bohai County raised troops to rebel, but Liu Qianhu led his troops to suppress and restrain him."
"During this period, the people of the Bohai Sea besieged us, but Zheng Yushi threatened them with the Bohai County King and temporarily let them retreat."
"It's just that although they retreated, they still surrounded the palace and refused to let us leave."
"Then how did you leave?" Wu Gao was still smiling, and the chief flag officer also explained: "There is a drainage channel in Jilin City. I climbed out of the palace along it, and then I found Liu Qianhu's brother. A horse, that’s why it’s so late.”
"Okay..." Wu Gao laughed and helped him up: "I will lead the army to Jilin City tomorrow. Now you can go back to Zheng Yushi with the news."
"Yes..." the flag officer agreed, and then exited the commander's tent.
Geng Feng on the side also sighed when he saw this: "I never thought that Zheng Gongzhi could really capture the Bohai County Prince."
"Who said he was captured?" Wu Gao turned around, the smile on his face had disappeared, replaced by a solemn look.
Seeing his appearance, Geng Feng frowned: "Is there something wrong?"
"Have you ever seen a chief flag officer deliver a message with such a clear mind?" Wu Gao asked Geng Wei, and Geng Wei also responded: "Indeed, in the past, if the chief flag officer was suddenly received, he would often speak indiscriminately. This person The answer was too fluent."
"I'm afraid I made it up on the way here." Wu Gao snorted coldly, and then said: "If it were just this, I wouldn't suspect anything, but don't forget who Zheng Gongzhi is?"
"Well, Zheng Gongzhi, if he really captured Bohai County King, do you think he would let us lead the troops to share the credit? I'm afraid he would not have directly escorted Bohai County King to the drainage canal and headed south of the city."
"What do you mean..." Geng Gu felt something was wrong, and Wu Gao also said decisively: "Order the three armies to break camp and go south to return to the 30,000 Guards."
As he ordered, he sat back in the coach's seat with a heavy heart.
"The Prince of Bohai County is difficult to deal with. I have warned him a long time ago, but the imperial court insists on reducing the vassalage. Now I am afraid that Liaodong will rekindle the war."
Wu Gao's words made Geng Gu bow his head. He had never fought against Zhu Gaoxu, so he didn't know how scary he was. He just thought Wu Gao was exaggerating.
But whether it's an exaggeration or not, I'm afraid he won't know until he sees Zhu Gaoxu with his own eyes...
"Bohai Chronicles": "Jianwen Jun sent troops to reduce the vassal but failed, Gongzhi was killed by his superiors, and all the remaining soldiers surrendered. Gao Duomou found out the next day and withdrew his troops."
"Records of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty": "Jianwenjun sent troops to Bohai to cut down the vassal state, but Gongzhi respected Jianwenjun and wanted to kill Jilin. His soldiers admired Bohai, and when they heard that Gongzhi wanted to kill them, they turned against him. Gao heard that Gongzhi was defeated and withdrew his troops. "
(End of chapter)
