The head of the Han family and the head of the Chen family were specially invited to Li Cunhui. Because Taizhou could not be conquered for the time being, these two carefully planned plans to dedicate the city gate could not be implemented yet.
Therefore, in order not to dampen others' desire to serve, Li Cunhui did not hesitate to condescend to meet Han and Chen, and also gave each of them twenty pieces of white cotton as a reward.
As for why it can’t be fought? The reason is very simple. What Li Cunhui and Murong Nobunaga agreed upon was to use the Yang Wu clan in Taizhou as bait to attract the Southern Tang army to cross the river quickly.
But who would have imagined that the Southern Tang court moved too slowly.
Li Cunhui specially sent people across the river to remind him. As a result, when he slowly gathered his troops, he could capture Taizhou immediately, and the Southern Tang army had not yet arrived.
This... directly embarrassed me, Grand Duke Li. If he captured Taizhou now, the Southern Tang Army would probably give up on themselves and not cross the river, or they would not be in such a hurry to cross the river.
So Li Cunhui reported to Murong Nobunaga and suggested giving up the plan to capture Taizhou, and at the same time tried his best to comfort his subordinates who wanted to conquer Taizhou.
Murong Nobunaga saw Li Cunhui's report and immediately understood what was going on.
So he deliberately mobilized the prefecture and county soldiers and fishermen who had taken refuge in Yangzhou City, pretending to use all his troops to attack Taizhou.
Sure enough, Murong Nobunaga's actions immediately "warned up" the Southern Tang court, and they began to speed up the crossing of the river.
At this time, on both sides of the river, those who are loyal to the Southern Tang Dynasty are still the mainstream.
In addition, the southerners were good at boats. Although the Zhou army occupied Yangzhou, it was impossible to maintain strict control for a long time. If it was slightly relaxed, the Southern Tang court on the other side of the Yangtze River could easily obtain information about Yangzhou.
So Murong Nobunaga simply came up with a plan.
In early May, Murong Nobunaga forcibly recruited about 10,000 people from Yangzhou. Together with the 7,000 Zhou defenders in Yangzhou, it was known as a 50,000-strong army and began to slowly approach Taizhou.
Yangzhou was guarded by Zhao Kuangyin with 3,000 men, and it seemed that the military strength was very empty.
Li Jing immediately used his smart mind. He felt that this time, he must have caught the mistake of coach Zhou Jun.
Hum! Unexpectedly, what if you occupy Dongdu? Thousands of righteous people informed me.
So when Murong Nobunaga led his army to leave Yangzhou, and the soldiers and civilians loyal to the Southern Tang Dynasty inside and outside Yangzhou City frantically reported to the Southern Tang court that Yangzhou was empty, Li Jing made an arbitrary decision and accelerated the dispatch of the imperial army.
Two days later, the Jiangyin military system of the Southern Tang Dynasty sent an envoy with 4,000 troops and 70 warships to Jiangning.
One day later, Nan Tang Jing's naval commander Yao Yanhong, who was originally planning to take the land route to support Taizhou, also arrived with 7,000 soldiers and 100 warships.
Li Jing then mobilized all the imperial troops in Jiangning and even the state and county soldiers in the upper reaches of Hezhou, barely scraping together 20,000 people.
The Forbidden Army, together with the Jiangyin Army and the Jing Haijun that came upstream, totaled 31,000 people. Together with more than 10,000 civilians and fishermen, the force reached nearly 50,000 people.
And these 50,000 people gathered on the river near Jiangning, shouting and shouting, soldiers wearing various armors crowded shoulder to shoulder, and hundreds of warships on the river connected end to end. Li Jing finally felt a lot more at ease.
The officials of the Southern Tang Dynasty were also inspired by this gesture, and all of them seemed to have high morale.
Only Bian Hao hesitated to speak, because Zhou Jun's actions were too abnormal!
There is no one who has penetrated hundreds of miles into the enemy's territory and captured an important town without holding on to wait for reinforcements or plundering a handful and then leaving. Instead, the entire army was sent out, and the news was not blocked, and he went directly to attack the nearby Xiaoyi.
It doesn't look like he wants to control the Yang Wu clan, but it looks like he is deliberately showing off his flaws to attract people from his side to cross the river.
Bian Hao wanted to suggest that Li Jing wait until the 10,000 soldiers of Wei Jian, the military envoy to Wuchang in Ezhou, and the 20,000 elite soldiers of Chen Jue, the privy envoy to Zhaowu in Fuzhou, arrived before crossing the river.
However, Bian Hao opened his mouth. At this time, he was not the Southern Tang general who destroyed Ma Chu in history. He was just an officer with some military merit who was promoted to the central government.
He was not a confidant of Li Jing, the leader of the Southern Tang Dynasty, so how could he dare to say depressing words at this time.
More importantly, it was his suggestion to cross the river as soon as possible to prevent Zhou Jun from gaining a foothold in Jiangbei.
Now that the emperor has followed your advice and will send a large army to cross the river, wouldn't it be a trick on the emperor to say that he would postpone the crossing or cross the river with caution?
So Bian Hao, who clearly saw the problem, did not speak out to persuade him. He could only comfort himself in his heart. The others were false, but it was not false that the Zhou army only had 10,000 people.
And they did go to attack Taizhou. Even if it was a deception, after they returned more than a hundred miles away, Yangzhou might have changed hands.
Therefore, Li Jing built an altar at Bailuzhou upstream of Stone City to worship the general. He worshiped his third brother, deputy marshal of all the troops and horses, and King of Yan Li Jingda for the deployment of the capital of Jiangbei. He appointed Bian Hao, commander of the Divine Guard Army, and Yao Yanhong, commander of Jing Haijun, as his commander. He deployed left and right, commanding an army of fifty thousand, and claimed that one hundred thousand crossed the river to recapture Yangzhou.
At this time, Zhao Kuangyin, who was acting alone for the first time, couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Murong Nobunaga had some considerations in leaving him to guard Yangzhou.
Because considering the enthusiasm of Yangzhou people to inform the Southern Tang Dynasty, our own strength cannot be kept secret, so if we want to show weakness, only Zhao Kuangyin is the most suitable.
Among the highest-ranking generals of the Zhou army, Murong Nobunaga, Li Cunhui, and Yao Yuanfu were not easy to mess with at first glance.
Although Gao Huaide was as young as Zhao Kuangyin, the reputation of the Gao family and his son, especially the reputation of his father Gao Xingzhou, resounded throughout the north and south.
Even people from the Southern Tang Dynasty knew that no one would regard such a general as a soft persimmon.
Only Zhao Kuangyin is the youngest. He is only nineteen years old now. He is fair and tender, a little fat, and has not yet grown a beard. From this look, he doesn’t know who comes to gold plating and doesn’t learn from it. An unskilled person.
Therefore, leaving a useless general like him to guard Yangzhou City would further stimulate the Southern Tang Army's desire to attack.
This is also true. Before the Southern Tang Army set out, they received a large number of reports that the Yangzhou coach of the Zhou Army was a white-faced scholar.
Li Jingda was very proud of this, and felt that his strategy of ignoring Taizhou, first conquering Yangzhou, and then blocking the Zhou army's retreat in Taizhou and attacking fiercely was very successful.
However, none of the generals below were as confident as Li Jingda. They still knew that the Yongliang cavalry was powerful. If the Zhou army quickly returned to the army and attacked halfway, it would still be quite a threat.
However, when Yuhou, the former military capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty, successfully landed at Guabu with 2,000 men without encountering resistance, the Southern Tang generals on the ship were all smiling.
When the army successfully docked, dozens of Yangzhou volunteers came to report that the white-faced commander of the Zhou army was arrogant and did not stay in Yangzhou city. Instead, he led his army west to Yizheng, which was only more than forty miles away.
Even eating shit can’t keep up with the heat!
If the Zhou army had arrived quickly, it might have caused some trouble for the army to land, but he actually only reached Yizheng.
Not to mention that Yizheng City is small, the city walls are not complete, and it is not a strong city like the eastern capital of Yangzhou.
It is simply impossible for three thousand people to defend such a small town against an attack of fifty thousand.
I'm afraid even these three thousand people can't be accommodated in Yizheng City, right?
After listening to this, Li Jingda suddenly felt that the sky was vast and he couldn't help but laugh three times.
"How quickly the Zhou army came, and how quickly they left!
I heard that Murong Nobunaga claimed that Xue Youzhou was still alive. I didn't expect him to be so ignorant and sent a weak general to guard the Eastern Capital. Do you really think that just anyone can be a champion? Ha ha ha ha! "
The surrounding Southern Tang generals all grinned, feeling more confident in defeating the Zhou army.
Bian Hao hesitated to speak again. He was now almost certain that Murong Nobunaga, Duke of Qinghai County of Zhou State, was definitely cheating.
The shadow of a person's famous tree can travel from Hexi to the Central Plains. The person who has achieved such a prestigious reputation must not be the fool Li Jingda thinks.
But? What is Zhou Jun waiting for? They originally had only 10,000 people, and they were divided into two groups. Now they even gave up Yangzhou.
Once the imperial troops enter the city, relying on Hangou and the surrounding rivers leading to the river, they can mobilize their troops at will and attack everywhere. Sooner or later, the Zhou army will be finished.
Do they really just want to take away the Yang Wu clan?
Bian Hao became more and more confused as he thought about it. He had not considered the possibility that Murong Nobunaga might surprise them.
However, Taizhou is two hundred miles away from Guabu or Yizheng. It is surrounded by volunteers from the imperial court, and it is impossible to hide its whereabouts.
Unless their war horses can run the two hundred miles quickly without sleep, and then still have the ability to fight.
In other words, the Zhou army believed that the three thousand men in Yizheng could hold off ten times more enemies for several days.
Thinking of this, Bian Hao, who was always cautious, thought that Zhou Jun was too trusting.
He stepped towards Li Jingda. He was going to suggest to His Highness King Yan to reward the righteous people around Yangzhou generously and let them come to assist in the siege.
We must kill the 3,000 Zhou army in Yizheng as quickly as possible, and at the same time send people to recover Yangzhou, so as to block the Zhou army's retreat along the canal.
(End of chapter)
