Ouyang Lin knew very well that as die-hard allies of Wei Zixuan and Yin Chengyi, whether it was Tian Mu, the head of the Beiya Nilin Division, or Cheng Wen, the Queen of the Holy Tang Dynasty, they could pose a huge threat to the secret investigation he carried out.
If you are a little negligent, you will end up with the tragic end of dying before you start.
Therefore, if we really want to secretly target Wei Zixuan Yin Chengyi, we must first clear the obstacles of Tian Mu and Cheng Wen.
Tian Mu is easy to talk to. According to Ouyang Lin's judgment, this person is purely a man of fame and fortune. Although he is attached to Wei Zixuan's family, his involvement is not too deep. Ouyang Lin only needs to explain the situation to the emperor Li Bing, and then Li Bing will come forward to point out Tian Mu. The most useless Chang Shi in the history of Nilin Division will definitely not dare to move.
The real trouble is actually Cheng Wen.
Since the death of the old Duke Cheng Kaiyang in Liangzhou, the Zhenguo Palace has plummeted. It barely survived the darkest period of the Holy Tang Dynasty and was directly wiped out in the long river of history.
Today, the reason why the Cheng family has miraculously turned around and once again become a leader among the nobles of the dynasty is largely due to the great help of Wei Zixuan and Yin Chengyi.
For this, the Cheng family is grateful.
What's more important is that whether it's the government of the country or the queen, they still need strong allies in the court, so that they can gradually consolidate the foundation of the family's power. Wei Zixuan, who is the minister Zuopushe, and Yin Chengyi, the governor, are naturally the first choice partners that Cheng Wen and his sister cannot refuse.
To put it bluntly, the fundamental interests of both parties have long been deeply tied together.
Especially the murder of Cheng Xi made Queen Cheng Wen completely furious. She hated Li Jiangyao, the chief protector of the Zhenjiang Army, and moved closer to Wei Zixuan, vowing to work together to get rid of the enemy.
In this case, even if the emperor was asked to come forward, Ouyang Lin was not sure to prevent Cheng Wen from secretly intervening in the investigation.
What's more, he couldn't ask Li Bing to show up.
After all, Cheng Wen is the queen and the emperor's wife. As a subject, if you dare to instigate the relationship between the emperor and the empress, it will be a capital offense.
However, Cheng Wen's factor had to be resolved. Behind the Zhenguo Duke's Mansion are many wealthy nobles. Their connections and informants are everywhere inside and outside the palace, in the government and in the public. The information is probably as good as that of Beiya Nilin Division. Therefore, this is definitely a huge obstacle for Ouyang Lin to secretly investigate Wei Zixuan and Yin Chengyi.
What to do?
Just when Ouyang Lin was worried about how to deal with the peripheral hidden danger of the queen, an unexpected situation shocked him: Fengyi Palace sent a decree and summoned Ouyang Lin, the imperial guard of the tiger and leopard cavalry.
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Boom——
With a loud noise, the east gate of Xuancheng was suddenly knocked open by a thick log. The soldiers of Zhenjiang Sixth Army loosened the cowhide straps binding the tree trunks, drew out the long knives from their waists, and rushed into the city with shouts.
At the same time, the infantry of the Second Army had also climbed to the top of Xuancheng and started a fierce battle with the rebels.
Farther away, tens of thousands of cavalry from the Gale First Army were rushing left and right, roaring back and forth, violently sweeping away the enemy soldiers outside the city.
The general attack launched at dawn has lasted for three hours now, with smoke billowing up and down Xuancheng and fighting battlefields everywhere.
As the main force followed the general Ye Rongcheng to the lower reaches to aid Jinling, the rebel force in the Xuanzhou direction dropped sharply, to less than 50,000 troops at this time. Xu Youchang's Xinjiang Army not only had the numerical advantage, but also launched a surprise attack from the east, which immediately gave the rebels guarding the city the illusion that Ye Rongcheng's large army had been defeated or even annihilated.
For a moment, the defenders were panicked and demoralized. If they didn't have the city defense to rely on and barely resist, let alone three hours, they might not be able to hold on for even half an hour before they would collapse and flee.
However, those three miraculous hours had already reached the rebels' limit. As the east city gate was knocked open by the Zhenjiang Army, the fighting will of the defending side finally collapsed and dissipated. More and more people gave up resistance and either surrendered on the spot or seized the road before the Zhenjiang Army surrounded Xuancheng. And escape.
In one morning, Xu Youchang successfully captured Xuanzhou, the frontline camp of the Jiangnan rebels. The Zhenjiang Army wiped out more than 21,000 enemies and captured more than 9,000 people. There are countless trophies of various types of food, equipment, weapons, horses, etc.
When the news came, Ye Rongcheng, who was confronting Li Jiangyao in Dangtu County, a hundred miles away to the east, was suddenly confused.
After just one night's sleep, his old nest was kicked directly by the opponent, and it was Xu Youchang who was supposed to attack Jinling downstream. It was simply inexplicable.
It was only then that Ye Rongcheng finally realized that he had fallen into a trap.
It was a lie that Xu Youchang led his troops to attack Jinling, but it was true that he took a detour to kill Xuanzhou and turned around. Li Jiangyao's ambush of Feng Tuo and guarding Dangtu was just a show, with the purpose of containing the main force of the rebels and covering Xu Youchang's actions.
Ye Rongcheng gradually realized the pain of Ronya and Durham, and also understood the difficulties of Bao Yuchun. Li Jiangyao is indeed as brave as a tiger and as cunning as a fox!
However, he didn't have much time to feel and empathize. The next situation would become very critical. As the commander-in-chief of the entire army, he must make a decisive choice as soon as possible.
Ye Rongcheng faced three choices: turn around to counterattack and recapture Xuanzhou; attack immediately and decisively fight against Li Jiangyao; move to the southeast and deploy a new defense system on the front lines of Changzhou, Huzhou, Liyang, and Anji to defend Hangzhou.
Soon, Ye Rongcheng gave up the first two options.
The reason is simple: he is not completely sure of recapturing Xuancheng from Xu Youchang; he also has not seen through whether Li Jiangyao is going deep alone and bluffing, or whether he is hiding a large force and has another conspiracy.
But one thing is clear. As long as Ye Rongcheng attacks one side, the other side will come to reinforce him in a blink of an eye, attacking the main force of the rebels from both sides.
By that time, who has the confidence to withstand the combined attack of Li Jiangyao and Xu Youchang at the same time?
A more important issue is that starting from Xuancheng or Dangtu, four hundred miles to the southeast is Hangzhou, where Jin Wang Li Zhen is located. There are no natural cuts along the way, and it can be said that it is unobstructed and smooth.
Therefore, Ye Rongcheng could only rush to the vicinity of Taihu Lake first and build a defense system in the surrounding cities to prevent the Zhenjiang Army from continuing to raid and directly threaten the safety of the rebels' heart.
Thinking about this, Ye Rongcheng no longer hesitated. On the day Xuancheng fell, he led his troops to leave the Dangtu battlefield and go straight to Taihu Lake.
In this way, the rebels completely abandoned Xuanzhou, the fulcrum of the Dajiang defense line, and the breakthrough on the south bank was completely torn open by Li Jiangyao and the others.
If the imperial court can have enough shipping capacity at this time, it can even send the Azure Dragon Army and the Suzaku Army over together and immediately launch a general attack on the rebels.
Because of this, Bao Yuchun, who commanded a huge naval fleet, had to immediately suspend the war in Yiling, quickly turn around to help defend the lower reaches, re-interrupt the north-south transportation line on the river, and prevent the imperial court from fully crossing the river.
When Ye Rongcheng rushed to Huzhou in a panic to build a defense line, Li Zhang and Lao Jianhua, who were almost frightened, jointly sent instructions to Bao Yuchun, with sincere words and anxious tone. In a word: you, he Mom, come back quickly, or everyone will be ruined!
Uncle and nephew Bao Yuchun, who received the urgent military order, were also secretly surprised. They had never expected that the Xuanzhou base camp, which had been in operation for many years and was impregnable, and was also garrisoned by the fierce general Ye Rongcheng and 300,000 soldiers and horses, would be successfully captured by the Xinjiang Army in less than half a month, and even the capital Hangzhou was faced with it. The troops are on the verge of collapse. This Li Jiangyao is really terrible.
For the sake of fundamental unity, Bao Yuchun had no choice but to order the fleet to break away from the battle and rush to the downstream waterways to prevent the imperial court from launching a large-scale attack.
To be honest, in the battle in Yiling, although the rebels took the initiative and received some victories, the overall situation was already very different from that of more than half a year ago.
With the assistance of Wang Wenlie and others, Yang Li lived up to expectations and used his inferior army to desperately block the crazy attack of the Bao family's uncle and nephew. Although the loss of warships was not small, it did not damage the foundation of the fleet, nor did it lose the important naval base in Yiling.
Seeing that the overwhelming Kuohai Fleet suddenly sailed away, Yang Li and the others finally breathed a sigh of relief. They also knew that this must be the success of the Protector-General in threatening the situation of the rebels in the Jiangnan area, thus forcing Bao Yuchun to fail and have no choice but to withdraw his troops. .
A battle in which both sides aimed at their opponent's vital points at the same time finally came to an end.
Li Jiangyao and Xu Youchang led the army to retreat to Jiangbei; Bao Yuchun and Bao Xinyan commanded the fleet to block the waterway; Yang Li and Wang Wenlie repaired the water stronghold warships; Ye Rongcheng and Xie Bao rebuilt the Xuanzhou defense line.
The two warring parties engaged in an earth-shattering arm-wrestling contest, and then returned to the starting position of the war, and everything was business as usual.
After the war, Li Jiangyao's original analysis of the world situation was once again deeply recognized by the military generals: fighting a land war, fighting in the plains, or attacking a city is not difficult for the imperial army, and the problems are difficult. On the control of the river. As long as the main force of the enemy's navy is still there, a comprehensive conquest is out of the question.
Once the retreat is cut off by the opponent, and reinforcements and supplies cannot keep up, all that will be left is looting and fighting alone.
At the same time, Xu Youchang also gave a detailed summary of the entire process of fighting the rebels, and focused on analyzing the characteristics and fighting methods of the main rebel forces. He wrote a book and sent it to Murong Xue, Ma Hongjie, and Chang Tao for the benefit of the brothers. Research and prepare for war.
Regarding the experience of troops crossing the river, Li Jiangyao also added a lot of his own thoughts and opinions, especially hydrology and weather, time connection, ship coordination, etc., which are all based on battlefield records. They are both objective and solid, and provide a basis for all parties. It will provide great assistance to the Legion's future combat operations.
Li Jiangyao also emphasized one thing to Murong Xue and the others: build more ships! Collect more ships! No matter how big or small, the more the merrier!
