Dongjun was already under the control of Xuan Zong, so Li Jing walked very smoothly from here. After passing Dongjun, he reached Dongping County, where there were two groups of rebels, Xu Yuanlang and Du Yanbing.
Li Jing was afraid of irritating the other party, so he kept marching along the river bank. When the scouts sent by Xu Yuanlang learned the news, they felt as if they were facing a formidable enemy.
Juancheng, here is Xu Yuanlang's hometown, adjacent to the Yellow River in the north, on the only way Li Jing must pass.
Dongping County has six counties: Yuncheng, Juancheng, Xuchang, Sucheng, Leize, and Juye. Among them, Xu Yuanlang occupies three counties and Du Yanbing occupies one county. The capital Yuncheng is still under government control.
The prefect of Dongping was named Yang Xuanjing, and he was of the same generation as Xuangan. His grandfather Yang Jin was the Minister of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and his father Yang Min was the Minister of the Northern Qi Dynasty You Pushe and King Yang Min of Kaifeng.
Their branch, Hongnong Yang, was relatively miserable. Their grandfather's generation was almost wiped out by Er Zhurong. His father escaped by chance and joined the Qi Dynasty as an official to assist the young emperor Gao Yin. In the end, in order to protect the young emperor's imperial power, he launched a coup against the powerful minister Gao Yan. , failed and killed.
This is a family of loyal ministers. After Gao Huan helped the Yuan family of the Northern Wei Dynasty eliminate the remaining forces of the Erzhu Rong family, he posthumously granted the title of Yang Dajia to this Hongnong family. It is said in history that "the prosperity of chasing glory is unprecedented in ancient and modern times."
As for Yang Xuanjing, he survived. After the founding of the Sui Dynasty, he used Yang Su's branch to work successively in Shangshu Province and Taichang Temple, and now serves as the prefect of Dongping.
Due to the family tradition, he has defended Yuncheng to this day and has not lost it. 150,000 rebels passed under his nose without causing any trouble to him, because the clan is so famous in Shandong and everyone in the family is loyal.
Xu Yuanlang originally had an army of 20,000. After the battle at Xingyang, he came back to count the number and found that there were less than 10,000 left, so he is currently seeking an alliance with Du Yanbing.
Du Yanbing was also miserable, with only a few thousand people left, and he had already agreed to rely on Xu Yuanlang.
On the wall of Juancheng, Xu Yuanlang was worried and deployed the city defense himself.
"The scouts came to report that the banner of this imperial army is Li. I heard that it is the Duke of Lintao County. It can't be Li Jing, right?" Shi Hongzhou, the general under his command, said.
"It's not him," Xu Yuanlang's mouth twitched: "Who else could it be?"
Many of the rebels under his command had participated in the expedition to Goguryeo, so they naturally knew Li Jing's reputation. In fact, Li Jing was very famous throughout the Sui Dynasty and was already the leader among the younger generation of generals.
"Then what should we do?" Shi Hongzhou asked.
Xu Yuanlang frowned and said, "If you ask me, I don't know what else to do except defend. I hope Li Jing won't fight here."
As a Shandong native, Shi Hongzhou couldn't get used to Xu Yuanlang's inverted sentences. Hearing this, he said:
"What if we are attacked?"
"It doesn't look like it, I think," Xu Yuanlang said: "Let's walk along the river bank. This is Dongping County. If we don't wait here, we can survive this period and retreat south."
Regardless of whether Li Jing hits them or not, Xu Yuanlang is already scared as long as he appears in this place. When the scouts come to report, the opponent's men are all elites, all equipped with refined weapons, and there are many of them.
If it weren't for the ice and snow that made it impossible to walk, Xu Yuanlang would have wanted to escape from Dongping County right now.
I was on tenterhooks like this all day. When I came to report, Li Jing passed by and seemed to be going to Shandong.
Xu Yuanlang finally let go, and then arranged for his men to abandon Juancheng County and slowly withdraw to Leize County, his other base.
Under the dangerous wall, a gentleman cannot stand, and Xu Yuanlang has become timid.
In fact, Li Jing was also very hypocritical. Although he judged in his heart that the rebels would probably not cause trouble to him, they were also panicked when they actually passed by.
He has a mission and cannot be held back.
"This section of the river bank is narrow. Instead of collecting ferries, it is better to build pontoons," Liu Hongji suggested.
It won't take long for 10,000 troops to build a section of pontoon bridge.
Li Jing nodded and said: "Let's make arrangements immediately. The pontoon bridge must be built before nightfall. We will set up camp after crossing the other side."
In this way, those who cut down trees felled trees, and those who looked for boats found boats, each having their own division of labor.
As a result, in the afternoon, the rangers sent downstream made an emergency report. Just ten miles away from Li Jing's pontoon bridge, there was also a large army building a bridge on the other side.
who is this?
Pei Xingyan led 500 people to rush downstream to check. On the other side was Hebei. Who could be coming from Hebei at this time? Anyway, it won’t be our own people, because there are not many local people in Hebei.
It was a cloudy day today, and visibility was already poor in the afternoon, especially when heavy fog shrouded the river intermittently.
When Pei Xingyan arrived here, it was already evening. Taking advantage of the darkness, he braved his courage and moved forward some distance.
"The accent sounds like it's from the south of the Yangtze River. How come a southerner is here?" said a lieutenant under his command.
Pei Xingyan bared his teeth and said, "These are Xiaoguo's gang of rebels. Which way are they going to go? If we run into Xiao Mian, it will be difficult for us."
Xiao Mian himself has more than 30,000 people, and he has gathered 50,000 people all the way south. Otherwise, the rebels from all walks of life would not watch him go south, mainly because they could not stop him.
"You go back and report to General Li first. As for whether it's Xiao Xian, I'll stay and observe." Pei Xingyan sent ten people to return to the west in three directions, while he led the people to continue sneaking ahead.
Get closer to understand the situation.
"Those who crossed the river within two quarters of an hour were all refined weapons, most likely Xiao Mian. What should we do? They are also sending ranger scouts everywhere. If we don't leave, we will be discovered," said the captain road.
Pei Xingyan shook his head: "Which of you has kerosene on your body?"
"I have."
"I have."
"I'll take it with me."
After a while, Pei Xingyan collected twenty pots of kerosene and whispered:
"Right now, only a small group of rebels are crossing the river. We still have a chance to burn his pontoon bridge. After most of the enemy's troops cross the river, their rangers will definitely discover our main force, which will inevitably affect our ability to cross the river. Who will make the first move now? Whoever will benefit, I have agreed in advance, if any of you dare to withdraw later, my knife will not recognize anyone."
Several captains nodded quickly.
The Mo Dao team of nearly 500 people just jumped out of the forest, stepped lightly, and rushed towards the pontoon bridge.
At the same time, Li Jing had already begun to cross the river. When he received the military information downstream, he quickly urged the army to cross the river quickly.
"This is really a narrow encounter," Liu Hongji said: "Who would have thought that Xiao Mian would go south so quickly. If he was allowed to leave, Duke Wei in Jiangdu would be in catastrophe."
Han Xiaoji said: "I will take another thousand people over to prevent them from crossing the river."
"That's not appropriate," Han Shi'e said, "The main force of the enemy's army should be on the other side. We have only two thousand people crossing the river now. I'm afraid the other side has discovered us. We should withdraw. I have no camp on the other side and cannot set up defenses. "
Li Jing shook his head: "We can't retreat. The impact of not being able to cross the river will be too great. Immediately send a message to Xuan Zong in Baima County, telling him to rush here as quickly as possible. Xiao Mian must not let him go. Once this thief goes south, I'm afraid It will become a serious problem."
Next, Li Jing ordered the two thousand people who had crossed the river to take the initiative to go east to find suitable terrain to form an array. He also took his two brothers to cross the river in advance, intending to have a tough fight with Xiao Xian on the other side.
On Pei Xingyan's side, two hundred people died, and they still couldn't get close to the pontoon, so they had no choice but to evacuate.
The other party did not pursue them. After all, they had been discovered by the officers and soldiers, so protecting the pontoon became the top priority.
So the current situation is that Li Jing crossed the river from the south and Xiao Xian crossed from the north, twelve miles apart.
After Li Jing crossed the river, he led 3,000 people eastward in a battle formation and advanced slowly. Before going far, he found traces of the rebels.
After all, there are too many people in Xiao Mian.
As for Xiao Mian, he actually sent an envoy to negotiate with Li Jing, meaning that if you don't cause trouble for me, I won't deal with you. It's best for everyone to live in peace.
Li Jing directly chopped down the messenger, which was a sign of his attitude.
Taking advantage of this little time difference, he led people directly into the formation.
This is a frontal fight with huge disparity in military strength.
Because Pei Xingyan did not burn the pontoon bridge, Xiao Mian did not hesitate to fight. Instead, he sent his general Guo Hua to lead 5,000 people to stop the enemy, while the rest were still crossing the river.
He doesn't want to waste his time here. Returning to the south is the stage for him to show off his talents.
But he didn't expect that Guo Hua was defeated too quickly. The main force of five thousand people was defeated by Li Jing in less than an hour. Only then did he realize that he had met the main force of the imperial court.
The southerners were not able to fight in the first place, and the journey south was too smooth. They did not realize that they would encounter hard problems here, and they were not mentally prepared.
Li Jing's command was led by the left and right guards of the East Palace, the best among the best.
Xiao Mian had no choice but to lead the remaining army that had not crossed the river to retreat to Yuancheng. He could not figure out the enemy's path, so he would not choose a decisive battle.
Li Jing was unable to pursue any more, so he had to rest in a nearby village and build a fortress.
Dong Jingzhen, who had crossed the river, was Xiao Xian's absolute confidant. When he learned that the army had given up crossing the river and evacuated to Yuancheng, he knew that he had to intercept the imperial army crossing the river in the west, so he led the Xiaoguo army who had crossed the river and headed madly towards West.
He had already guessed that there were definitely not many officers and soldiers in the west. If there were many people, after setting the fire just now, a large army should have come to prevent them from crossing the river. If they didn't come, it meant that there were not many people and they were rushing to cross.
There are not many people who can be the leader who are not smart, and his judgment is completely correct.
But he didn't know that the person opposite him was Pei Xingyan.
The elite infantry of 1,500 people are already here and are hiding in the woods on the shore, waiting for him to come.
Pei Xingyan was ordered to go to the rear. The swordsmen and axemen were in the front, with the spearmen Mo Dao team in the middle, and the bow and arrow team behind them. Despite the small number of people, they could definitely resist the beating.
Dong Jingzhen only had 5,000 men in his hands, 5,000 against 1,500, so the advantage was not with him.
As soon as his leading troops arrived at the ambush site, they were killed by the officers and soldiers who came out of the woods. Dong Jingzhen was a rebel after all. Not long after being entrusted with important tasks by Xiao Mian, he controlled the people below. limited.
Not long after the fight, half of the army was about to disperse. In desperation, Dong Jingzhen issued an order to withdraw.
Pei Xingyan chased and killed him for several miles before giving up.
"A bunch of cowards," Pei Xingyan licked his chapped lips, and shot a wounded rebel beside him: "Cross the river, this place is no longer under our control."
Yang Xuanzang, who received the news, was rushing here at starry night. (End of chapter)
