After a brief exchange of greetings, Xu Huai invited Zhou Jing to go to the inner hall.
Liu Yueting felt that his status was low, so he and Han Qihu, a descendant of the Han family, stood in the yard waiting.
"Yue Ting, Qi Hu, you should also come in and understand the situation together, so as not to waste time explaining it to you again later..." Xu Huai saw Liu Han standing in the yard and did not follow them, but stood on the porch.
Invite them into the inner hall together.
Liu Yueting was a member of the Liu Family Collection in Shangshui, and his father was a powerful man among Ruying. Chushan repeatedly invited him to go south but hesitated. In the end, the Liu Family Collection was destroyed by Yue Hailou. Liu Yueting and his underage brothers only brought them with them.
A few dozen villagers escaped.
Liu Yueting has extraordinary skills and is very familiar with Ruying and other places. Han Qihu, Han Lurong and others, who were descendants of the Han family, used to work in the Gengjin Pavilion of the Khitan specializing in military intelligence spying. They were also good at lurking with Zhang Xiongshan and others who were lurking in Bianliang in the Khitan.
All spying matters were transferred to Zhou Jing.
They are all young generals with great potential.
Everyone in Chushan basically came from a rough and humble background, and it was in the early days of creation. There was not so much seniority. Wherever there was a position, they were basically occupied by capable people, those who were brave and good at fighting and could make contributions to Chushan.
Walking into the inner hall, apart from Yan Xiaoyi, Zhang Xiongshan and others who were discussing matters, there were also two strong men with unfamiliar faces standing aside. Judging from their similar looks, they should be father and son, uncle and nephew.
"We are able to hide here, thanks to the help of Master Zhou Xuyi and Master Zhou Luo! You and Zhou Jing are still the same family!" Xu Huai introduced the young and old to Zhou Jing.
Zhou Jing’s commander Yan Xiaoyi, Zhang Xiongshan and others were responsible for contacting and supporting the resistance forces in Hehuai and other places. Of course they knew that Zhou Xuyi, Zhou Luo and his son were people from Zhoujiazhai, and were secretly the Yanling resistance forces.
The leader of the Red Turban Army.
However, Zhou Jing is in charge of military intelligence and spying and cannot do everything personally. He has not had the opportunity to meet Zhou Xuyi and Zhou Luo before.
Seriously speaking, the Yanling Zhou family is indeed a branch of the Yingzhou Zhou family where Zhou Jing was born.
However, after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the rise of the imperial examination, prominent families no longer controlled the way to promotion. In addition to the clansmen who lived together in the same clan, they still maintained strong cohesion, and the branch branches that were separated mostly only had some closeness based on blood.
Of course, Zhou Jing was only an ordinary member of the Zhou family in Yingzhou, otherwise he would not have been reduced to Yuhuangling with his family in his early years and was sent to the Xu family as a tenant.
"The Marquis has promoted Xu Yi..." Zhou Xuyi, who was over fifty years old, stood up with his eldest son Zhou Luo to salute Xu Huai, Wang Ju and Zhou Jing.
Although the people of Hehuai have not given up resistance, the captive soldiers and surrender forces in Hehuai and the left and right are too strong. Especially the important towns and cities outside Bianliang are heavily garrisoned.
Zhengzhou to the west of Bianliang is the base camp of Xiao Qian's troops; the three states of Chen, Xu and Ying in the southwest are garrisoned by 60,000 soldiers and horses in Yuehai Tower; Weizhou to the north in the east is where the Xinxing Palace of Prince Yanzong of Chihuping is located; Qingqi and other states have 30,000 troops.
Yanji surrendered and garrisoned; in the south, in the southeastern Song Prefecture, Bozhou, Suzhou, Xuzhou and Sizhou, the main force of the Yan army in Chihuping and Yanji surrendered most of the vassal army, totaling hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, intending to launch another offensive against Huainan.
In such an environment, the Hehuai resistance forces were indomitable, rising and falling one after another, but they were unable to gain momentum.
At present, simply because the troops surrendered in Bianliang have low morale and poor combat effectiveness, they are still unable to completely extinguish the flames of resistance.
Xu Huaiyue led his guards and soldiers to disperse and sneak into Hehuai River in order to contact and resist the rebel invasion.
Attacking Bianliang, but due to the complicated situation, time constraints, and the blockade between Chushan and Bianliang by Yue Hailou's army, it was impossible to make a detailed plan in advance.
Therefore, it was difficult for Zhou Jing and other Chushan people who stayed behind to contact Xu Huai, let alone keep abreast of the progress and specific battle plans here.
When Zhou Jing came to Bianliang, he was naturally the one to assist Xu Huai in taking over the military spying business.
Xu Huai and Zhang Xiongshan introduced the current deployment arrangements and preliminary raid plan to Zhou Jing and others in detail.
Xu Huai did not personally contact the Hehuai resistance rebels at the beginning. Xu Wujiang, Zhang Xiongshan, Yan Xiaoyi and others were also firmly opposed to taking such a big risk.
After screening, it was Zhang Xiongshan who initially led Xu Wujiang to discuss recruitment in the name of Chushan Camp with Han Changfu, the black-shirted general of the Yanling resistance force, and others who had been in contact with him many times before.
After ensuring that Han Changfu and other black-shirt generals were willing to directly accept the jurisdiction and dispatch of the Chushan camp, Xu Huaicai arrived at Yanling Zhoujiazhai, met with Han Changfu and other rebel generals, and made a plan to invite other rebels to bluff in the name of the black-shirt army to cover the guards.
The battle plan for the military camp’s assault on Bianliang City.
In this process, we anticipate that there is a high possibility that the news will leak out, and we even hope that the news will leak out.
Xu Huai currently leads a small number of men, together with the main force of 3,000 black-shirted troops led by Han Changfu who have assembled in several docks in Weishi County north of Zhoujiazhai. The soldiers and horses of the guard camp are used as the real trump card and secret soldiers.
They dispersed and lurked near Zhoujiazhai and strictly blocked the news.
Only a few generals in the Blackshirt Army responsible for cover operations knew the truth.
Ordinary rebel generals, even if they participated in cover operations, thought they were rebels secretly gathered from elsewhere.
To put it bluntly, it is to use the action of resisting the rebels to hide the existence of the guard barracks.
Otherwise, how could two thousand elite troops lurk near Bianliang without any clues or flaws?
In order to hide their whereabouts without revealing any traces, except for a small number of war horses and armor, two thousand elite guards and soldiers, most of whom left their war horses in Ye County, Wuyang also made it clear that Xu Huai was still in Wuyang and that Ye County was in charge.
illusion.
Otherwise, if two or three thousand war horses that are completely different from ordinary transport horses enter Yanling and Weishi, this target will be far greater than two thousand elites sneaking in.
The reason why the junction of Yanling and Weishi was chosen as the place where the secret troops lurked and gathered is directly related to the terrain of Yanling, Weishi and nearby areas.
Yanling and Weishi counties are located in the hinterland of the Hehuai River. The terrain is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, with large undulations. A large number of strips of hilly land are distributed among them. At the same time, in the central and southeastern areas, the terrain is depressed and runoff drainage is difficult, forming large swamps.
lake.
In particular, many river systems that pass through Yanling and flow into the Huaihe River, such as the Cai River (Langdang Water), have been flooded with swamps in Yanling and Weishi in the past two years because their dams were man-made damage during previous wars and were not repaired in time.
The water area has also been further expanded, which is conducive to hiding troops and developing resistance forces.
On the one hand, the people in Yanling and Weishi areas suffered from the pain of the war and had strong resistance. On the other hand, the Bianliang surrender troops were limited by the terrain. It was extremely difficult for Weishi's resistance to suppress Yanling.
Although Yanling is located between the three important towns of Bianliang, Xuchang and Wanqiu, the Black Shirt Army took advantage of Yanling's favorable terrain to achieve great success in just over a year.
But they were not suppressed and grew to more than 3,000 people.
"The rebels are secretly active and gathering in secret. They may not be able to completely escape Yue Hailou's eyes," Zhou Jing said with emotion, "However, that may be the case. Maybe Yue Hailou even senses our presence behind the scenes.
, most likely they will think that all this is done by us to hide from others. Even if Yue Hailou's intuition is not wrong, when the commander-in-chief personally leads the elite troops into Bianliang City, he will definitely be frightened and change his mind. No matter how difficult it is for him to take care of..."
…………
…………
The autumn night is cool and the grass grows long.
More than a hundred fishing boats sailed out from the reed marshes of Fengming Lake, crowded into the Cai River, which was turbid after the floods receded, and followed the broken river channel slowly northward under the cover of night.
Although the Hehuai River is dilapidated and a large number of people have fled, the once prosperous Cai River cannot see its former glory, the embankments of the Cai River have also been seriously damaged, and both sides of the river are seriously flooded in the flood season, the Cai River is still the Bianliang Jingwei.
Shi, Yanling, Fugou, Xihua and other counties go south and pass through Wanqiu (Chenzhouzhi) to enter the Yingshui River, the most important waterway.
In particular, the Puppet Chu Privy Council led troops and horses to Wanqiu (Chenzhouzhi) to supervise the war on Huaishang. Every time they sent people back to Bianliang to demand it, the small amount of grain and fodder was loaded on boats from Caihe River and headed south.
After night falls, there are still many boats on the Cai River, sailing slowly under the moonlight, or moored on the shore.
And because of the importance of this waterway, the puppet Chu army also built many sentry posts along the coast.
Two hundred small fishing boats were sailing in the Cai River under the moonlight. The fishing boats were densely packed with human figures, so it was impossible for people to miss them.
On one side, the ships in the river panicked and gave way. There were even several official ships, and the officials and soldiers on them abandoned the ships and fled. On the land along the coast where the flood had not completely receded, dozens of river patrol soldiers ran on horseback to call and warn.
However, the fleet slowly sailed northward along the Cai River without any confusion, heading towards Zhuxianyi where the Cai River connected with the Wo River.
Zhuxianyi is located forty miles southwest of Bianliang. Because the vortex of Cai River meets here, it is one of the most important land and water docks outside Bianliang City. At this time, Zhuxianyi still has a battalion of troops stationed to control this important water and land area.
Di, Junzhai is located at the west end of the town, less than a thousand steps away from Zhuxianyi Pier.
Seeing the boats coming like swarms of locusts under the moonlight as they docked at Zhuxianyi Pier, and seeing the densely packed black shadows on the boats jumping onto the pier, the defenders on the wall of the military camp couldn't help but tremble slightly in their hands and feet.
The black-shirted thieves have also robbed Zhuxianyi, and they are difficult to eliminate after several attempts. But the question is, how many men and horses did the black-shirted thieves use before?
"Why are you panicking? You are afraid that the black-shirted thieves from Yanling will eat your bird! There are so many of them, so what are you afraid of? I will chop three of them with one knife!"
The guard had learned a moment earlier that a large number of thieves were heading north on fishing boats in Yanling. He was forced to crawl out of the bed of the young widow of the Zhao family and stand on the wall. Seeing so many boats and people, he felt guilty, but he was broken.
Cursing the idiots around him who are less useful than him.
However, after seeing two to three thousand troops disembarking from Zhuxianyi's pier, they did not go straight to the military camp, but passed through Zhuxianyi's town port and went straight to the north. The guard general could not help but breathed a sigh of relief.
Apart from cursing and sending several cavalrymen out of the stronghold and taking a detour from the other direction to Bianliang City to report the news, the guard had no intention of sending troops to contain the black-shirted thieves...
