Xu Huai and Wang Ju led a small group of troops and galloped eastward along a dry ditch.
At the end of the dry ditch is a frozen lake shoal, with speckled reeds and grass exposed outside the ice and snow; along the coast are sparse forests of mulberry and jujube trees, and further to the east is a road more than ten feet high.
A long hillock about seven or eight miles long lay horizontally from north to south; the remaining snow beside the forest beside the lake was trampled into a mess, and you could tell at a glance that someone was hiding in the forest.
However, even if the Red Hussars find refugees fleeing into nearby woods or hills, they cannot just dismount and sneak into the woods and kill everyone.
The Chihu people did not have particularly abundant troops at this time, so they needed to concentrate their limited forces in the main strategic directions and mop up the fish that slipped through the net. At this time, the focus of their operations was obvious.
Zhou Jing arranged for people to wait by the forest. He saw Xu Huai, Wang Ju and Zhu Tong coming over and entering the forest from the path.
This forest covers a large area, and there are many refugees hiding from the Japanese soldiers. When they saw Xu Huai and the others, they trembled and fled deep into the forest.
When Xu Huai went north this time, he did not ask the Red Husbands to act recklessly, and ordered the generals to pretend to be prisoners of war.
In addition to wearing dirty Hu's fur robes over the armor, everyone thought their hair was too ugly, but they all shaved their hair short and wore bean hats. Their manes were bald and they had thick beards on their lips and chins. From a distance,
Going up, there is not much difference from the Hu people; in addition, there are more than 30 authentic Xishan Hu people including Wu Chihai and others who are accompanying the army to fight.
As long as Xu Huai and the others did not come into direct contact with the Red Husband Cavalry, they could still deceive others in the ordinary sense.
The refugees who had just escaped from the massacre yesterday suddenly saw a small group of Japanese soldiers rushing into the woods. How could they not be afraid?
Walking through the maze-like forest, Xu Huai noticed that he had seen a long hill in the distance, with two shallow hills rising to the west, forming a shallow valley on the east side of the forest.
Zhou Jing, Lu Xiong, and another young military general in his thirties stood at the entrance of the valley, waiting anxiously and worriedly. Xu Huai also noticed that dozens of Jian Rui, who was wearing plain robes but with a sturdy figure, were standing beside Zhou Jing and others.
In the jungle behind them, people looked towards them with wary faces.
Xu Huai looked at Lu Xiong and the young generals next to Zhou Jing. He looked familiar and thought of Wang Zhen. When Zhu Hang accompanied King Jing Zhao Tuan to the Mao Erhu mutton soup restaurant in Zangjin Bridge, this man led the guards around King Jing.
Shou stood under the bunk and asked in shock: "You are with His Highness King Jing, and His Highness King Jing is here?"
"Zhang Xin, the guard commander of Prince Jing's Mansion, has met Xu Junhou," the middle-aged man said, cupping his hands. "His Highness is in the valley. Is there any way that Xu Junhou can escort His Highness back to Bianliang?"
Xu Huai didn't expect to meet King Jing Zhao Tuan here, but he didn't know how to answer Zhang Xin's question for a while.
The deployment of soldiers and horses of the Chihu East Route Army changed very quickly. The two days of storming Yongqiu, Tongxu, and Yanling all had the meaning of thunder. At this time, Xu Huai did not know the deployment of the Chihu people in the south of Bianliang. The scouts and reconnaissance reconnaissance a few days ago
The information is no longer available.
"Your Highness has an order, and Xu Huai must do his best to comply with it." Xu Huai vaguely replied to Zhang Xin, and then asked about Lu Xiong's injury with concern, "Master Lu, does your injury matter?"
"After escaping from Yanling City, I was hit by two arrows from the captors on my back, but fortunately they didn't go deep into my flesh," Lu Xiong said.
Zhou Jing left Zhou Jing and his people to guard at the entrance of the valley. Xu Huai, Wang Ju and Zhu Tong followed Lu Xiong and Zhang Xin to the shallow valley. On the way, they heard what Lu Xiong said and found out that King Jing Zhao Tuan was sent to Tongxu to reward the defense the day before yesterday.
The army, but they didn't want to leave Bianliang City not long ago and had not yet entered the territory of Tongxu. Originally, there were not many captive soldiers outside Bianliang City. Suddenly, a torrent of captive cavalry rushed over from the outside. They also fought with a small group.
Lu Qi crashed directly into it.
Fortunately, King Jing was not a very particular person, and his journey to Tongxu was quite simple, with only a hundred guards accompanying him.
Zhang Xin led his troops to escort King Jing out of the siege, but the group of captive cavalry did not realize what big fish had escaped and did not mount their horses to pursue them. At the cost of forty or fifty casualties, Zhang Xin and others still escorted King Jing Zhao Tuan to escape.
come out.
However, at that time, the captives had gathered at the foot of Tongxu City, and they could not return to Bianliang. They could only find a way through the gaps between the captives, and risked their way to escort King Jing to Yanling.
But they didn't want to rest for half a day in Yanling City when thousands of captives came rushing towards Yanling.
After Lu Xiong entered Yanling City, he met up with King Jing Zhao Tuan, Zhang Xin and others. When the soldiers captured the city, they first disguised themselves as civilians and lurked in the city, and then jumped out of the city at night.
Zhang Xin has the responsibility of guarding, so naturally his top priority is to escort King Zhao Tuan back to Bianliang, but this is obviously not the only option.
However, we have to meet King Jing Zhao Tuan to figure out how to do it.
There were also dozens of people in the valley surrounding King Jing Zhao Tuan.
Seeing Xu Huai, Wang Ju, Lu Xiong, and Zhang Xin coming over, King Jing Zhao Tuan came up to greet them and grumbled unhappily to the people around him: "The Wang family is loyal to the imperial court, and Marquis Xu Jun is also a member of the imperial court in Yunshuo.
You have made great contributions, you people are too narrow-minded!"
Xu Huai looked at the subordinates in the valley and knew that the people around Jing Wang Zhao Tuan were still a little suspicious of him. He made plans to surround Jing Wang Zhao Tuan and escape from the valley after hearing Zhang Xin's warning. He smiled inwardly and stepped forward together with Wang Ju.
Salute to King Jing Zhao Tuan: "Xu Huai has met His Highness!"
Zhao Tuan motioned with disgust to move away, leaving only Zhang Xin, Lu Xiong and a middle-aged man sitting on the fallen dead trees and rocks talking.
"I heard Lu Xiong said that he rushed to Caizhou to see you this time. It was because the king wanted you to lead troops to reinforce Zhengzhou?" King Jing Zhao Tuan did not rush to talk about returning to Bianliang, but asked why Xu Huai led the army
He showed up in Yanling, still dressed like this?
Although Wang Zhen asked Lu Xiong and others to keep the matter of asking Xu Huai to send troops to reinforce Zhengzhou strictly confidential, Lu Xiong met King Jing in Yanling and had no way to keep it secret from King Jing.
On the one hand, as a member of Wang Zhen's side, he suddenly appeared in Yanling, and he needed to give King Jing a reasonable explanation; on the other hand, King Jing Zhao Tuan, as a prince, was subject to various restrictions and had limited influence on military and state affairs, but he still tried his best
Provide support to Wang Zhen in charge of the defense affairs of the capital.
Wang Zhen was well aware of the importance of the counties in the city to defend Bianliang, but the officials listened to the suggestions of Wang Qiyong, Wang Boqian and others and asked Wang Zhen to withdraw the elite garrison from Tongxu and other counties into Bianliang City - King Jing this time
Taking part in the danger also hopes to boost the morale of the military and civilians in Tongxu and other counties.
"I still have the autographed letter from Prime Minister Wang, and I don't know whether I should approach Hu Shijun to request a battle to aid Zhengzhou, so I thought I would come over personally to scout out the enemy's situation before making a decision, but I didn't expect to meet His Highness.
"Xu Huaijiu said truthfully.
Dai Viet was extremely wary of restrictions on military generals. The rules formed by the founding of the dynasty were deeply ingrained, which strictly prohibited military generals from acting without authorization. As Xu Huai was a general under Hu Kai, whether he had a private message from the king or not could not be used as a basis for him to send troops without authorization.
Everyone needs to ask Hu Kai for instructions, only Hu Kai can make the final decision.
Wang Zhen's handwritten letter was also used to lobby Hu Kai.
When King Jing heard what Xu Huai said, he thought that Xu Huai was not willing to take the risk of leading his troops to reinforce Zhengzhou, so he did not directly go to see Hu Kai with Wang Zhen's autographed letter. However, Xu Huai did not want to betray Wang Zhen's trust, so he did not refuse directly.
In response to Wang Zhen's request, he led a group of troops into the Gyeonggi area and fought one or two contact battles, which was regarded as an explanation to Wang Zhen.
"Don't blame Wang Xiang for being too harsh on you. He doesn't think about you for the good things, but he pushes all the dangers to you. Many times, Wang Xiang can't help himself!" King Jing patted Xu Huai's hand comfortingly.
Shoulder, said, "The Prime Minister has insisted several times in front of his father that the imperial troops in Weishi, Yongqiu, Yanling and other cities cannot withdraw, and the defense of these cities cannot be left to the countryside who have not experienced war for a long time and have not practiced seriously.
The soldiers also cried several times about the pros and cons of the gains and losses of these cities, but Wang Boqian, Wang Qiyong and others only wanted to defend Bianliang City and wait for the reinforcements of the Western Army! Prime Minister Wang really had no choice!"
Seeing King Jing speculating on their thoughts, Xu Huai did not explain. He pondered for a moment and said to King Jing Zhao Tuan: "The soldiers have been fully deployed outside Bianliang City. If Your Highness wants to return to Bianliang, we will fight tooth and nail."
We will do whatever we can to escort you, but I’m afraid it won’t be able to protect your highness—maybe your highness can go to Caizhou for temporary refuge first?”
Normally, a prince cannot leave the capital without obeying the order, but this is not a normal time.
No matter from which angle you look at it, it was the right choice for Xu Huai to escort King Zhao Tuan of King Jing to Caizhou to join Hu Kai.
Lu Xiong and Zhang Xin also looked towards King Jing Zhao Tuan.
Many people in Yanling County know that they have settled in Yanling. If someone is spineless and takes the initiative to spread the news to the ears of the Chihu people, the Chihu people will send a large number of scouts to search for them. This is definitely not a good hiding place.
It needs to be moved as soon as possible.
"The Prime Minister and you have both spoken about the importance of Zhengzhou. The Prime Minister sent Lu Xiong to ask you to lead his troops to reinforce Zhengzhou. He was worried that the Japanese troops would attack Zhengzhou and block the Western Army's channel to reinforce Bianliang," King Jing Zhao Tuan said without haste.
Where to go and asked, "Now that the Japanese soldiers are aggressively attacking the counties outside Bianliang, does it mean that they will give up the attack on Zhengzhou and directly attack Bianliang City when they see that time is running out?"
"No," Xu Huai shook his head and said truthfully, "The Chihu people have an absolute strategic advantage at this time and will not hastily attack the 100,000 Forbidden Army without full confidence and before the flank threat of the Western Army has been resolved.
They did not need to do this in the solidly defended Bianliang City. However, the imperial court did not have troops and horses that could threaten the Chihu people near the capital, so the Chihu East Route Army gathered and dispersed, and no one could restrain the Chihu people.
People have unimaginable mobility near the capital. Maybe they will transfer tens of thousands of troops from southern Beijing to western Beijing tomorrow to surround Zhengzhou..."
"Is there no way to crack it?" King Jing Zhao Tuan frowned deeply and asked feebly.
Seeing that the worried look on the face of King Jing Zhao Tuan was not fake, Xu Huai was moved in his heart and said: "If you want to completely defeat the Chihu people, it is difficult to save the manpower at this time, but it is not impossible to make the Chihu people's wishful thinking slightly frustrated...
