Chapter 368: Retreat and join the network

At noon the next day, An Lushan's subsequent 20,000 troops also arrived in Tongguan. At the same time, the 5,000 new recruits led by Li Qing's Anya's chief commander He Yingchuan also arrived in Tongguan. These 5,000 new troops were originally soldiers from all over the country, but they fled to the house and became refugees due to land annexation, and are now reorganized.

This is Li Qing'an's strategy. He cannot stay in Chang'an for a long time, and it is even difficult for a short period of time. Once Li Heng's main force returns to Beijing, he must leave Chang'an immediately, but Chang'an must have his power. These 20,000 new troops are his representatives. For this reason, he specially left five hundred personal guards to Nan Jiyun, and each of these five hundred personal guards led for forty new troops. In this way, the entire army was closely controlled by the Anxi Army.

The arrival of the five thousand new recruits added great power to Tongguan's defense and completely shattered An Lushan's ambition to enter Guanzhong to control the court.

At the top of Tongguan City, Li Qing'an looked at the military camp of An Lushan in the distance with a complicated expression. He had just received an emergency information. There was an abnormal movement in the Qinggangshan camp far away in Qingzhou. The scouts sent to monitor the situation found that Geshuhan's envoy had secretly arrived at the Qinggangshan camp. Soon, the Tang army of Qinggangshan camp launched a fierce attack on the brothers of Bian Wang. Before King Rong came to rescue him, they defeated more than 10,000 troops of King Bian and King Xiliang in one battle.

It was not until this time that Li Qing'an understood the real purpose of Li Heng's constant control. He had an absolute advantage in military strength and had experienced veterans like Guo Ziyi. He actually confronted King Bian and King Rong's army for thirteen days, which made people have to doubt Li Heng's motives.

It turned out that Li Heng wanted to establish a relationship with Ge Shuhan, which shows that Ge Shuhan must have defected to Li Heng, so he let go and attacked the other two princes.

Li Qing'an was in a very complicated mood. The time for Li Heng's army to return to Beijing is just around the corner. The changes in the Tang Dynasty are coming soon, and there are not much time and opportunities left for him. How should he seize his own opportunity? Time, the time is fleeting, can he seize this fleeting opportunity?

"See General!" Li Qing'an's tent captain He Yingchuan walked forward quickly and half-kneeled to salute Li Qing'an.

He Yingchuan was the regiment recruited by Li Qing'an in Yangzhou. He was seriously injured in the Battle of Shibao City. He had been recuperating for nearly two years before gradually recovering and became one of Li Qing'an's personal guards. This time, Li Qing'an entered Beijing, besides Nan Jiyun, he was the main general. According to Li Qing'an's deployment, Nan Jiyun guarded the capital, while He Yingchuan stationed in Jingzhou. In this way, the two sides could echo each other and support each other. If they encountered a crisis, they could also withdraw from Jingzhou from Guanzhong.

At this moment, Tongguan was in danger, and He Yingchuan did not go to Jingzhou for the time being, but rushed to Tongguan to support him.

"How does the new recruiting army feel?" Li Qingan asked with a smile.

"Most of the new troops we recruited this time were formerly the old mansion soldiers, at least more than 60% were from Guanzhong. They had a very good foundation and were very skilled in bows and crossbows and swords. They could fight without training them. From this forced marching, we can see that the discipline is very good and no one fell behind."

He Yingchuan praised his new subordinates with great stinginess, and it can be seen that he liked this new army very much.

Li Qing'an nodded and said, "You must firmly control these 20,000 troops. When the conditions are ripe, you can send backbones to Anxi to train in batches. In addition, you must treat them well. The military pay required will be provided by Juhai Xinggufang. I will also order the officials in Anxi to allocate military fields to them in Anxi, treat them as Anxi army and give them a sense of identity. If I am not in Chang'an in the future, you must keep in touch with me at any time, and someone will come to you."

"The last one will obey the order!"

"There is another thing you have to remember. The military discipline must be strict. You are not allowed to ruin my reputation in Chang'an. Have you heard it?"

"The last general will never dare to restrain the good soldiers."

"Not only do we have to restrain the army, if someone dares to pretend to be you and destroy my reputation, you must investigate it strictly to the end. I have told Nan Jiyun that I will tell you again today, don't be weak, whoever dares to offend my Anxi's interests, you must stand up."

"Yes! I will remember it."

"Then you go! Take a good rest and recuperate the army. When I am not here, I can help General Wang defend Tongguan."

He Yingchuan turned around and wanted to leave, but he stopped again and asked in a low voice: "When will the General be ready to leave Tongguan?"

"The fastest is tonight, and the slowest will be tomorrow."

Li Qingan stared at An Lushan's camp. He needed to observe An Lushan's movements before he could decide his own route. It seemed that he needed to use a special warning.

Inside and outside the An Lushan camp, dozens of executioners were pressing An Qingxu to beat him up, which made An Qingxu scream like a pig. The generals around him were so scared that no one dared to enter the tent and plead for mercy.

In the big tent, An Lushan, who had just recovered from illness, was furious. The failure of the Six Thousand Niu Horse Team completely lost his hope of taking over Guanzhong. His dream of tying the emperor to shatter the princes. Although An Lushan ordered Shi Siming to capture Tongguan within three days, he himself knew very well that it was almost impossible to capture Tongguan within three days, and there was Li Qing'an in Tongguan.

When he thought of Li Qing'an, he was furious and vented his anger on his son. It was his incompetence that led to his failure. If he tried his best, he could forgive him. After all, An Lushan also knew the power of Anxi Army, but he did nothing at all. When Sun Xiaozhe attacked Tongguan, he did not organize effective support.

It's no wonder that An Lushan was furious. Shi Siming knelt down below with a pale face. He knew that after dealing with An Qingxu, it would be his turn next. He escaped in front of everyone. Even if he didn't kill him, at least one hundred military sticks would be indispensable.

Shi Siming kept looking at Gao Shangshi standing aside. The only person who could save them now was the counselor Gao Shang, but Gao Shang was lowering his head and pondering, as if he was thinking about something, and hated Shi Siming for gritting his teeth.

At this moment, a small school walked into the door, holding a large cloth bag in his hand, and reported: "Master General, Li Qing'an ordered someone to send this cloth bag, saying that it was General Sun's head."

When talking about Sun Xiaozhe, An Lushan felt heartbroken. He was one of his most capable subordinates, his niece, and he died in Tongguan.

"Where is the one who gave the head?" An Lushan asked viciously.

"The Grand Marshal is just a local old farmer, not an Anxi soldier."

An Lushan snorted, "He knows what he is interested!"

His eyes fell on the big cloth bag and ordered, "Unlock it!"

A personal soldier carefully untied the cloth bag, and there was a large wooden box inside. The personal soldier hesitated for a while and did not open it. He was waiting for An Lushan's order.

"Open!"

"Let's wait!"

At this time, Gao Shang suddenly spoke, and he said to An Lushan: "Master, opening unknown things sent by the enemy in the big tent is a taboo in the army, so the Master must be careful."

An Lushan was reminded all of a sudden, so he left the wooden box far away and said, "Open it!"

The two personal soldiers opened the wooden box, and heard a slight sound of "click!". The wooden box opened. It was indeed a human head. But what was strange was that blue smoke came out of the wooden box. Several personal soldiers surrounded him and were about to take out the human head. An Lushan was about to step forward. At this moment, a bright light flashed through the wooden box, followed by a shocking explosion. The wooden box was blown into pieces. Several personal soldiers fell on their backs, and screams sounded.

This wooden box is obviously not comparable to the sand table that killed Tubo Zamp. Li Qingan didn't really want to kill An Lushan. Without An Lushan, would Li Qingan still have a chance?

He was just a warning, and he didn't even put some poisoned iron nails and iron pieces in the wooden box. So except for the closest personal soldier to the wooden box, one of his arms was blown away, the other three personal soldiers were only slightly injured. As for the flesh and blood on the ground, it was Sun Xiaozhe's head that was blown to pieces.

The smoke of gunpowder dissipated, and the big tent was silent. Even the execution outside stopped beating. The dozen people in the big tent were like clay sculptures. After a moment, countless soldiers rushed towards the big tent. The large group of personal soldiers were about to snatch the big tent, but An Lushan suddenly yelled: "Stop everything!"

His roar was like a detent technique in fairy art. Nearly a hundred personal soldiers who were about to rush into the tent were settled at the door of the tent, and no one rushed in.

An Lushan slowly walked to the table, and most of the wooden box was blown away, and there was a chassis left on the table. He was stunned for a long time and murmured: "This is Li Qing'an's thunder, I finally saw it with my own eyes."

Pili Lei is an dream of An Lushan. After the Battle of Shibao City, An Si, then the governor of Hexi, followed some Tuyuhun soldiers who participated in the Battle of Shibao City, learned that Li Qing'an had this secret weapon. He immediately told An Lushan that An Lushan had dreams of getting this weapon in recent years, but he had no idea. The Anxi army regarded this weapon as the highest secret. Even a high-ranking official like Li Fei Yuanli did not know what Pili Lei was. Only the dozen personal soldiers who followed Li Qing'an for a lifetime knew this secret. These personal soldiers were all in the Shi Kingdom, and An Lushan, who was far away in the Central Plains, could not know it.

Last year, he asked Li Longji to force Li Qing'an to hand over the formula, but after he tried it dozens of times, he realized that Li Qing'an's so-called formula was simply fake, and Li Qing'an had already returned to Anxi.

An Lushan was obsessed with his dreams for several years. Today he finally saw it with his own eyes. At this moment, he suddenly found that there was a little red powder left on the edge of the chassis. An Lushan was ecstatic, just like an addict who had run out of ammunition and food in his later generations, greedily and carefully clamped the ignition of red powder with his fingers, and finally got a little bit of powder the size of a pill.

Gao Shang also walked forward, stopped three feet away from the table, stretched his neck, and looked like a frightened turtle prime minister.

"Master, is this Thunderbolt? I don't feel that the power is very good!"

"You are a literati, you don't understand."

An Lushan glanced at Gao Shang with some displeasure and said, "You don't know that Li Qing'an used this thunder thunder in the end of the Battle of Talas. How many people were killed in one go? A big pit dozens of feet was blown up on the ground. This is a real thing. Today, the box cannot hold so many, otherwise you and I will die."

Speaking of this, An Lushan lowered his head and sniffed the red powder. Suddenly a strong breath stimulated his nostrils. He couldn't help but sneeze. He secretly screamed in his heart. When he looked at it again, the red powder had already disappeared.

An Lushan punched the table hard, his teeth clattered, and he cursed: "I hate to kill me!"

In fact, if An Lushan was careful, he would find that the ground was covered with red pink. Those were just lime used to place human heads, dyed into fiery red to confuse An Lushan. What was really useful were the paper flowers all over the ground, which were the remains of firecrackers. When placed in human heads, they had long been unknown where the bombing had already been blown away.

An Lushan finally found the fiery red powder on the ground. He ordered people to collect it and study it for several months, but in the end he still found nothing.

The sudden explosion disrupted An Lushan's plan and also gave up his idea of ​​attacking Tongguan. Li Qing'an had thunder in his hands, how could Tongguan be able to attack? Just when An Lushan was extremely depressed, Gao Shang gave him a reserve plan, called "retreat and build a net".

"Master, I actually thought about it, what should I do if I can't enter Guanzhong?"

An Lushan was lying on the bed, naked, enjoying the comfort of two maids pressing him with fat. He was packing his luggage outside the military camp and preparing to return to Hedong.

An Lushan suffered a severe blow and his confidence was sluggish. He said lazily: "Tell me! What should I do now?"

"Actually, the method I want to talk about is the same as when entering Guanzhong and controlling the imperial court, but it is just to achieve it using another means."

An Lushan was a little interested. He waved his hand and ordered the two maids to go down. He sat up and put on a robe, and smiled and said, "Sir, please say, I'm very interested."

Gao Shang smiled and said, "Actually, Gao Xianzhi is already using the method I want to talk about. The Grandmaster might as well guess."

"You just like to let me guess the riddle!"

Even though she said this, An Lushan still frowned and guessed with interest. He suddenly laughed and said, "Do you also ask me to have a prince to play?"

"The handsome man is very smart, he will be right as soon as he guesses."

Gao Shang gave a thumbs up, slapped An Lushan hard and said, "Master, think about it, you have a prince in your hand, and everything will be issued in his name. I guess after Li Yu ascended the throne, the princes who have military power in other places will not admit it. Naturally, the princes in the hand of the Master, naturally, they will not admit it. When the time is right, the princes in the hand of the Master will be emperor, use his name to attack the princes, gradually strengthen themselves, and then attack Chang'an in his name. At that time, kill the princes in his hand and make a young king the emperor. Isn't the result the same?"

An Lushan slapped his forehead and laughed: "It's still my military advisor who works. He has such a good plan to not disappoint me!"

"Which prince does the handsome man want to play with?"

An Lushan narrowed his eyes and thought, "I like the two young faces born by Wu Xianyi very much, let's just them! If we can get Wu Xianyi to play together, that would be the best."

"It's very simple for the Grand Marshal to want those two little white faces. As long as I follow my arrangements, not only are the two little white faces, King Bian and King Xiliang, but also the old white faces, King Rong. If you have good luck, you will even have the 40,000 Hedong Army in his hands."

"Okay! This time I will definitely follow my husband's advice and will never change it."

That night, An Lushan withdrew his army and crossed the Yellow River north. He completely followed the noble arrangements and the army was stationed in Jiangzhou in the southeast of the river. He remained silent and cast a net of heaven and earth, waiting for the prey to take the bait.

In Tongguan, Li Qing'an finally got the exact news that An Lushan had indeed withdrew his troops. Before dawn the next day, he led 2,500 cavalry out of Tongguan and headed north along the Yellow River. This was the vast Loess Plateau, with the mountains undulating to the west and it was difficult to cross. Only by going north along the Yellow River beach, the road became more and more difficult. Three days later, Li Qing'an led his troops to reach Mengmen Mountain with difficulty. After walking forward for several miles, the famous Hukou Waterfall. From there, it was dangerous to the south. The water flowed fast and could not cross the river. Only by crossing Mengmen Mountain and reaching Yanzhou area could it be possible to cross the river. Especially the Yellow River Guandu in Menshan County has been a place where merchants gather since ancient times, and there are many large ships crossing the river. Li Qing'an's goal was to target Menshan Guandu. He sent dozens of scouts to inquire all the way, and he himself lurked down.

After nearly half a month of confrontation, Li Heng finally waited for something he had been looking forward to. Geshuhan sent his confidant to interview him. At this time, Geshuhan returned to the Hehuang Valley. He had weak troops and lacked supplies. He had no strength to support the imperial court and had no strength to support the emperor and Changsun ascend the throne and was willing to obey the imperial dispatch. Of course, as a condition, Li Heng promised not to remove Geshuhan's position as Longyou Jiedu, and to support Longyou's money and grain.

After solving Geshuhan's problem, the overall situation was settled. Li Heng immediately ordered Guo Ziyi to move troops. Guo Ziyi, who had already prepared enough, defeated the army of Li Qi and Li Qi's brothers in one battle, and then turned south and rushed straight to the Rongwang army entrenched in Fuzhou. Guo Ziyi was worried that King Rong would go south to Chang'an, so he divided his troops into two groups. He ordered the general Li Guoliang to lead 20,000 troops to surround Fangzhou and cut off the Rongwang's way south.

Guo Ziyi then led an army of 80,000 along the Huachi River to advance to Fuzhou, gradually shrinking the defense line of King Rong and forcing King Rong to the area of ​​Fulu County in the northern part of Fuzhou.

It started drizzling again, cleaning the dryness and dust that had been going on for days, and a fresh and moist feeling in the air.

In the Tang army camp, Li Heng held an oil-paper umbrella and quickly walked to Guo Ziyi's tent. Since Li Heng ordered the attack, he had let Guo Ziyi send troops to set up the formation and never interfered. However, Li Heng finally couldn't help it in the past two days. The day before yesterday, he could have intercepted King Rong's army in the Dapan Mountain area, but Guo Ziyi still let him escape, which made Li Heng puzzled.

"His Highness Yong is here!"

When the guards in front of the tent saw Li Heng coming, they immediately shouted loudly.

Li Heng waved his hand quickly and signaled the guards not to inform him, but Guo Ziyi had heard it and came out.

"Your Highness, it's raining outside, why don't you rest in the tent?"

"Oh! It's boring when it rains, so I want to come out for a walk and have some breath. It's just right for you, so I want to come and see the old general."

"Your Highness, please come in!"

Guo Ziyi gave Li Heng in. There was a huge sand table in the middle of the tent, but this was left by Li Longji. Li Longji is still in a severe coma, and Wu Xianyi is responsible for taking care of him.

There were also several generals standing next to the sand table, and it was obvious that they were negotiating a combat plan.

Li Heng walked into the big tent. He slowly walked to the sand table. Seeing a red flag in Fulu County, he smiled and said, "Are the old general preparing to fight against King Rong in Fulu County?"

Guo Ziyi shook her head and smiled, "If you want to fight to the decisive battle, you can fight in Dapan Mountain the day before yesterday. Why wait until now?"
Chapter completed!