If possible, Wang Kuan wished that the city wall in front of him could be twice as high and three times as thick, but he also knew that this would actually be of no use: a war cannot be won by building city walls. If the battle cannot be won on the battlefield, then no matter how high it is, Thick city walls are useless. The Goguryeo people are a good example. They spent hundreds of years building hundreds of precipitous mountain cities on the hills of southern Liaoning and Korea, and filled the warehouses inside with grain. But it eventually perished. Although Liucheng is well built, it is a flat city after all. It is definitely not as easy to defend and difficult to attack as a mountain city.
When it comes to fighting, Wang Kuan becomes a little discouraged. Although he is no longer in the army, as long as he has eyes, he can know how bad the current war situation is. Frankly speaking, General Xue is a good general, both brave and strategic. The only problem is that the soldiers no longer believe that he can lead them to victory. This is the most terrifying thing. As a veteran, Wang Kuan knows that soldiers may be the most realistic people in the world: to put it simply, as long as you can lead the soldiers to win the war, then all your shortcomings will not be shortcomings in the eyes of the soldiers. If It would be even better if he could be more tolerant and generous after winning the battle. The soldiers would be willing to enshrine such a general on a shrine and follow him to the ends of the earth. On the other hand, if the general loses the battle, the soldiers will quickly push him down from the shrine and let it fall to pieces.
Xue Rengui is a good example. With his past bravery and achievements, he once won the trust and love of the soldiers. However, the tragic defeat of Dafeichuan changed everything. The soldiers were too lazy to care about the real reason for the defeat. They only know that Xue Rengui went out with an army of 100,000 people, but less than one-third of the people returned to the starting point. They were old, weak, even tired of the gods, and were no longer lucky. No matter what kind of ridiculous reason, He can find supporters among the soldiers, but of course the consequences are the same - he is no longer the General Xue who "broke through the formation alone in a white robe" and "fixed the Tianshan Mountains with three arrows".
"We must change someone, someone who can give the soldiers hope again!" Wang Kuan thought to himself as he walked through the muddy streets. He looked left and right, and everywhere he looked, there were dead gray faces and desperate eyes. This is impossible to win!
"Brother Wang, you are back!"
"Back!" Wang Kuan waved to the middle-aged man on duty. They, a group of pioneers, did not enter the city. Instead, they found an open space outside the city and surrounded the carriage in a circle, using thick wood on the outside. The boards were blocked, leaving perforations, and chains were strung between them to form a crude camp. This was the result of Wang Kuan's discussion with everyone. Of course it would be safer to enter the city in normal times, but it is different now. There is a lot of property in their carriage. If the rebels arrive, the first move of the defenders will definitely be to block the city gate. At that time, they will not be able to escape. Moreover, as outsiders, their belongings are likely to be confiscated, and they themselves will be enlisted as the lowest level cannon fodder in the army. But staying outside the city, there were dozens of young and strong men in their camp, with complete weapons and crossbows, and they were united. They were not afraid of small groups of thieves at all. If they found a large group of rebels coming to attack Liucheng, they would have enough time to escape.
"Have you eaten outside?" The man on duty waved his hand and asked the two teenagers behind him to move aside so that Wang Kuan could come in.
"There's nowhere to eat outside!" Wang Kuan sighed: "When I just sent Ah Zhiluo off, I passed by the market by the river. Everything is so expensive. Even a liter of acorns can cost a few pieces of meat!"
"Acorns cost money?" The middle-aged man's eyes widened: "Isn't that stuff meant to be fed to pigs? It's bitter and astringent. If you eat it, you won't be able to poop out. Who would buy it?"
"Don't mention it, a lot of people are buying it!" Wang Kuan casually found a wide wooden pier and sat down: "Isn't there a war now? When you are hungry, let alone acorns, even mud can be eaten, and acorns are at least still You can feed pigs, but even pigs won’t eat mud!”
"That's true! Grind the acorns into powder, then soak them in water and sift out the pulp. Then steam them in a steamer. Cut them into pieces and dip them in honey. It's really delicious!" The middle-aged man laughed: " Especially in summer, it’s so refreshing to have a bowl of it cooled down!”
"You've already been dipped in honey, so what's not delicious about it?" Wang Kuan snorted coldly, picked up a few pieces of cold dry biscuits given by the woman and ate them with the hot soup, while eating he said: " Everyone should keep their eyes open these days. Even if you are sleeping, don’t sleep to death. I will go to the city again later to see if I can sell some of the things in the car!"
"The war is in turmoil, and nothing can be sold for the price!" The middle-aged man advised: "Why sell now?"
"If we don't sell it, what can we use to replenish food? What can we use in exchange for soldiers' armor?" Wang Kuan asked: "Without food and soldiers' armor, how can we go back! By the way, there are also official documents on the road, and we need to get a copy. , otherwise if we act like this, we will definitely be taken by Xiang Yong and the people who are guarding us as thieves!"
"Go, do you want to go?" The middle-aged man was surprised: "It's not enough to go to Liucheng? Where else should we go!"
"Of course it's going to the west or south. From my point of view, it's still not safe unless we go to Fanyang!"
"Going to Fanyang? Isn't that going further and further? What about our family business?" The middle-aged man became anxious when he heard this: "How much hard work and effort everyone has sacrificed for this family business! Shouldn't you Will everyone give up?"
"Brother, only the living need family property, the dead do not need family property!" Wang Kuan said coldly: "You have also seen it. With the current state of Liucheng, if the thieves come here, the city may not be broken. Then we people will die! You should still remember when the Tang soldiers attacked Goguryeo, right? Every time the soldiers arrived, even if the city was not captured in the end, one or two out of ten Goguryeo people who had fled into the city would Did you survive?"
When the middle-aged man heard Wang Kuan's words, his face became gloomy. At this time, there were sounds of fighting and cursing outside. Wang Kuan jumped up quickly and pulled out his knife: "Let's go out and take a look!"
Wang Kuan rushed to the door of the car camp in three steps and asked: "What's wrong? What happened?"
"It's nothing!" The young man guarding the door said with a relaxed face: "Just now we threw two buckets of garbage out, and those people gathered around and grabbed them and got into a ball. Look, it's over there!"
The young man pointed to the west and saw a pit over there. Several women from the car camp had just dumped the garbage from the camp there. Dozens of unkempt people rushed out of the grass not far away. They rummaged through the garbage, found something edible and stuffed it into their mouths. They even yelled and beat each other, like evil ghosts and beasts, no longer human.
"Brother Wang, do you think these guys are funny or not? They are beaten like this just for some meat, skins and vegetable leaves. They are worse than dogs!" The young man laughed, completely unaware that Wang Kuan's face had turned blue.
"Shut up!" Wang Kuan shouted angrily: "I'll starve you for a few days and you'll be worse than them! After you're full, you have the energy to laugh at others, but you don't have the energy to help chop firewood? Get out!"
The young man was dumbfounded by the completely unexpected curse. The middle-aged man on the side saw it and sighed helplessly. He patted the young man on the shoulder: "Didn't you hear? You are still here to do this. Well? Come and help, please?"
The young man ran away in embarrassment. The middle-aged man patted Wang Kuan on the shoulder: "Young people are ignorant, so don't be angry with them. After all, we have lived a good life in the past few years, and these young men have never suffered. , of course you don’t understand these principles!”
"Why am I angry about this!" Wang Kuan sighed: "There are more and more people outside the city. Many people have not seen a grain of rice for several days. We still have meat and vegetables here, and there is only one dish across the street. Wooden wall, he didn’t feel scared and still laughed, luckily he could laugh! Forget it, we can’t stay here anymore, let’s go, let’s go as soon as possible, let’s go to Fanyang!”
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Fan Yang, Lu Mansion.
"Twelve! What insights have you gained when you came back from Chang'an this time?" The old man asked with a smile to Lu Guangping, who was sitting at the bottom.
"The knowledge is nothing, but the harvest is quite a lot!" Lu Guangping took out a piece of silk from his sleeve and handed it over: "Uncle, this is my plan!"
"What are your plans?" The old man took the silk and unfolded it to take a look, his face changed slightly: "Twelve, what are you going to do? Even Zhuangzi is mortgaged, and the family property left by the ancestors is gone?"
"The world is about to change greatly! It's useless to keep those farms. I plan to give them a try!" Lu Twelve said with a smile: "I have calculated that the young and strong members of the Qu clan in the family are skilled in martial arts and are better than bows and arrows. There are nearly two hundred people there, I plan to dress them all up and then join the army!"
"Join the army?" The old man laughed when he heard this: "Twelve, this is not like what you like to say! You didn't even take the exam before, so why are you suddenly going to join the army? Didn't you always say that our Lu family is from Guandong? Why do you have to work for the Emperor of Kansai? Why has your gender changed now?"
"I just said that the world is about to change! It is true that I surrendered to the army, but I did not surrender to the army of the Emperor of Kansai!"
"What kind of army is there if it's not the army of the Emperor of Guanxi? Are you going to surrender to the barbarians outside Guanxi? That's not possible. No matter how dilapidated our Fanyang Lu family is, we will not work for the barbarians!" said the old man.
"Of course they are not Hu people!" Lu Guangping said with a smile: "But even if they are Hu people, it doesn't matter. Yuwen Heita in Guanxi and He Liuhun in Hebei were not all Hu people at the time. We, the Lu family, all worked for them. of!"
"That's different after all. Both Yuwen Heita and He Liuhun are already generals of the imperial court." The old man waved his hand: "That's all, if you don't talk about it, there's nothing wrong with it. You haven't made your plan clear yet! What on earth are you doing? Who do you plan to vote for?”
"Of course it's General Wang, Wang Wenzuo!" Lu Guangping said: "The imperial court has appointed King Pei as the Grand Marshal of the Liaodong Road March and the Governor of the Andong Protectorate. Wang Wenzuo is the deputy marshal of the Liaodong Road March and the Andong Protectorate March. Chang Shi, the ambassador of Hebei Province, and the military governors of Songmo, Liaodong, Jilin, Xiongjin, and Fusang have sent troops to quell the rebellion in Liaodong!"
"Is there such a thing?" The old man was surprised: "Taking the emperor's own brother as the marching marshal is a grand event that only occurred in the founding of this dynasty! The imperial court is finally going to put a lot of effort into Liaodong!"
"Uncle, why do you always fail to grasp the key points?" Lu Guangping sighed: "Then King Pei is just a banner, but the real leader of the army is Wang Wenzuo. And did you see clearly that Wang Wenzuo also served as the ambassador of Hebei Province? As an envoy, this time he is not only commanding the troops in Pingliao, he is also the king of Hebei!"
"King of Hebei? That's not the case!" The old man heard the words and said with a smile: "The imperial court probably just allows Wang Wenzuo to organize the water transportation in Hebei and ensure the transportation of grain and fodder to the front line. After all, this time it is to put an end to the Liaodong rebellion in one fell swoop, so naturally Give him power."
"Uncle, when a tiger comes out of the circle and a dragon soars into the sky, it cannot be replicated!" Lu Guangping sneered: "Don't forget, when Han Guangwu and Gao Huan entered Hebei, no one thought they wanted to establish themselves as kings!"
This time the old man fell into deep thought. He stroked the white beard under his chin with his right hand and was speechless for a while. Finally he sighed: "Twelve! It's not just a day or two that you have this idea, and I won't stop you." You, but you have to remember that if you are not completely sure about this matter, you cannot show your cards!"
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Heyang Bridge.
The morning fog covered most of the river. Standing on the river bank, you could only vaguely see a few shadows in the river.
"That's Zhongtan City over there!" Di Renjie pointed to a shadow in the mist on the river in the distance: "It was built by the Easterners in the first year of Yuan Xiang (AD 538). At that time, the Eastern and Western Wei Dynasties fought here several times. , victory and defeat alternated, the attackers often seized the river bridges to force the outskirts, and the defenders also set fire to the boats upstream to burn the river bridges, fighting each other, it was really a rare battle in ancient times!"
"Huaiying, are you talking about the several Mangshan battles between He Liuhun and Yuwen Heita?" Wang Wenzuo asked.
"That's right!" Di Renjie nodded: "In addition, after the death of these two people, the Westerners also launched a large-scale army to surround Luoyang when Yu Wenhu was in charge. The Easterners sent troops from Jinyang, rushed to Hanoi overnight, and crossed the river. King Lanling led the troops to defeat the Westerners and break the siege of Luoyang. The place to cross the river is also here!"
"Yes, this is indeed the key point of the country!" Wang Wenzuo couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the rushing river below his feet and then looked back at the bulging Mang Mountain. In the battle for hegemony among the important northern military strongholds of Chang'an, Luoyang, Jinyang, and Yecheng in the Middle Ages, Heyang Three Bridges was located at the intersection of several roads and adjacent to the northern suburbs of Luoyang. The place where wars and wars met, although Yecheng no longer exists today, Jinyang, Chang'an, and Luoyang still exist, and the importance of Heyang Bridge remains undiminished. During the Anshi Rebellion in history, it was still a place where rebels and An important node for the Tang army to compete for.
Wang Wenzuo looked at the river, the pontoon, the city in the middle of the river, and Mang Mountain, feeling nostalgic for the past, but no one around him spoke, just waiting silently. After a long time, he sighed: "Huaiying, please leave a stone tablet here for me to commemorate the time when Gao Changgong crossed the river here!"
(End of chapter)
