Zhuyi is a small county next to the Suishui River in Sishui County. It is famous for its bamboos on the outskirts of the county. In the bamboo forest is the military camp where the Chu army retreated from Pengcheng to the south of the Suishui River. Since the army started two years ago, there have been almost no Chu soldiers.
They had rested, but their morale was no longer as high as it was when they set foot in Qinland a year ago in Xihe. At this moment, they were very depressed, with an aura of failure hanging over them.
A trial was being held by the Suishui River, and the presiding judge was Xiang Ji himself.
"I thought that others would rebel."
Looking at the general who was tied up and kneeling in front of him, Xiang Ji's eyes were full of disbelief and anger:
"I didn't expect that, Zhou Yin, you actually want to follow in Zhongli's footsteps. Not only do you want to be a deserter and lead people to surrender to the Qin army, but you also want to assassinate me..."
Zhou Yinnai was from Chen. After Xiang Ji raised his army, he also responded to Chen County and joined the military officials and others. He was an important contributor to Xiang Ji's conquest of Huaiyang. During the Western Expedition, he made great contributions to Luoyang and Yiyang, but with Zhongli, Long Qie
, Fan Zeng, who is also known as the minister of bone. After Xiang Liang became the great Sima of Chu, Zhou Wen became the Sima of the left, and he became the Sima of the right. He was the fifth most powerful figure in the Chu army.
But it was such a person who planned an assassination against Xiang Ji. As a result, a captain who admired Xiang Ji learned about it and reported them, causing the operation to fail. Zhou Yin and more than a dozen Chu generals
They were all arrested and are now being held here.
"Why?"
Xiang Ji had a look of puzzlement on his face: "You were in Chendi two years ago, and together with Zhou Wen and his son, you raised troops to respond. They were the first to seize Chen. The Battle of the Chasm was a desperate battle. You also helped me defeat Wang Ben's troops in Shejian and attack the west.
Sanchuan has always been a vanguard and has always made meritorious deeds. Why do you want to harm me now at the last moment of Chu's counterattack?"
"Does Shang Zhuguo know what Hei Fu has done in Chendi recently?" Zhou Yin did not feel guilty, but declared with a straight face, even though he was tightly tied with a rope and his face was dripping with blood.
"Sacrificing Taihao Mausoleum, entering Huaiyang in Chu clothes, his army did not commit any crimes against the Chen people, so that the old scholar Chen Difu remained an old official in the township, and did not pursue the crime of killing Qin officials from Shangzhu State, and even proposed to
After the war, rents were reduced and sentences were reduced..."
Xiang Ji became even more angry: "This is a conspiracy of black thieves. They want to alienate the people of Chu. You actually believed him?"
Zhou Yin shook his head: "It's not that I believe him, but the situation is too bad for us."
"There are enemies in the northeast. Cao Shen of Jiaodong has occupied Langya and is attacking Tan County, the capital of the East China Sea."
"There are enemies in the southeast. Wu Rui from the east of the Yangtze River has captured Guangling, Huaiyin, and Dongyang with Vietnamese troops. They rebelled against Chu and surrendered to Chen Ying, his township party, to threaten Xu County. However, Weiyang, the naval commander, had already sent a stern to cross Xiapi and enter the vicinity of Pengcheng.
, everything east of Surabaya will not be protected."
"There is an enemy in the south. Zhao Tuo of Hengshan Yuzhang cooperates with Danyang Anpu to attack Huainan. They have broken through several counties and are marching towards Shouchun."
"There is an enemy in the southwest, Wu Guang defeated Runan, stationed in Xincai, and marched to Yingshui."
"There was an enemy in the west. The Koreans betrayed the Chu State. Gongsun Xin defected to the Qin army and served as the leader of Qin. He attacked Ku County and Qiao County."
"There are enemies in the north. Chen Ping recruited a large number of county officials to continuously attack our rear and trap our Pengcheng. The emperor and his ministers had to move south here."
"There was an enemy in the northwest. Guan Ying occupied Suiyang and used the Liang County government to build Dangjun troops. Li Bi and Luo Jia's troops also continued to advance eastward and fought against the great commander Xiang Liang in Mangdang."
"Coupled with Peng Yue who has taken refuge with Heifu, the Jiaodong merchant fleet that has blocked our sea, and Heifu's main army in Huaiyang, Chu State has been surrounded from all sides!"
In Zhou Yin's view, the situation has reached this point, and Heifu is good at winning people's hearts. There is nothing left to fight, and Chu will definitely lose.
Facing the collapse of the Chu State Building, Chu troops on all fronts could no longer maintain the extremely firm will they had before. Most of the county officials, after learning that the end was approaching and there was no way to save the day, chose to follow suit.
Fengfei, his colleagues in Liangdi, retreated to their hometown or surrendered.
Of course, some still have confidence in Xiang Ji and are still launching a frantic counterattack against the Qin army.
Most of these people had participated in the Battle of Xihe, and they had raised butcher knives against the Xihe people and took revenge. They had also heard about the Qin army's execution of Wei prisoners. Once the Chu State was defeated, they would probably not be able to escape death either.
Therefore, when the river is in decline, one can only choose to fight to the death and fight as a trapped beast.
Zhou Yin nodded: "I know that Shangzhu Kingdom has been looking forward to it, hoping that the Chu Kingdom will have a great victory three hundred years ago, when King Chu Zhao defeated the Wu people and restored the country, or that Xiang Yan defeated Li Xin's great reversal
!”
So under this situation, Xiang Ji still issued his war mobilization order, calling on the Chu people to refuse to surrender, defend their homeland, and fight to the death with the Qin people in every lane.
At first, the Chu people held their weapons fearfully, but when they discovered that the enemy had no intention of annihilating the Chu people, and even kept saying that they wanted to "liberate" them from Xiang Yu's hands, who would heed this order?
Faced with this situation, Xiang Ji could only use one thing to encourage everyone to continue to believe in him.
"Since I raised my troops, I have not lost a single battle!"
"Shangzhu Kingdom."
Zhou Yin said solemnly: "Since the army was launched two years ago, the soldiers followed the Shangzhu Kingdom to fight in the south and north. They started from Huainan, captured the East China Sea, settled Chen County, attacked Dang County, approached Sanchuan, crossed the river, entered Guanzhong, and massacred
Xihe...then rushed thousands of miles back to Huainan, attacked Hengshan and Nanjun in the south, but returned without success, and then ran to the Central Plains to fight hard with the Qin army and defeated Peng Yue. As long as Shangzhu is a general, there is really no defeat."
"But we are really tired. We have worn out more than ten pairs of shoes, and there are fewer and fewer countrymen around us."
"As for the common people, they have sent their children to Shangzhu's army. Most of them have died in the battle, and they are unwilling to make more sacrifices. I'm afraid Shangzhu Kingdom doesn't know about it. In some places in Chendi, the Chu people began to send soldiers to Shangzhu early.
The bedding at home was hung outside the window as a sign of surrender, and they even begged the Chu soldiers to stop defending their hometown, lest they anger the Qin army at the last moment and suffer disaster."
"But what order did you give to Shangzhu Kingdom?"
But what echoed Heifu's efforts to win over people's hearts was Xiang Ji's order to "fight in scorched earth".
According to the strategy of exchanging space for time and involving Heifu's supply line, Xiang Ji required that all Chu people north of the Sui River and west of the Ying River should migrate.
The land is not divided into Eastern Chu and Western Chu. People, old and young, all have the responsibility to defend the land and resist Qin!
He hoped so, but he failed to solve a problem: How easy would it be to ask them to abandon the crops that were about to mature and leave the land where their ancestors lived? Moreover, millions of Chu people migrated on foot without any safety guarantee, and they had to endure heavy rains.
There was no food supply, and even Xiang Ji's army began to run out of food and was eating mulberries.
So after all the talk, all that was left was an empty slogan from the Chu army:
"Rather Stick to your guns!"
This was Xiang Ji's angry shout. He hoped to use five million Chu people's jade fragments to show the Qin people the dignity and pride of Chu!
This phoenix, which has been standing for eight hundred years, has been reborn once, and it doesn't want to die yet!
"Jade pieces?"
But Zhou Yin laughed loudly at this:
"But Shang Zhuguo, you thought of one thing wrong. Everyone is just a tile."
"Only a noble person like you is worthy of jade!"
…
The supporting characters died from talking too much.
When Zhou Yin died, Xiang Ji personally beheaded him. His blood flowed into the Sui River. His head was hung high on a freshly cut bamboo pole and inserted on the bank of the Sui River as a gift to those who were lucky.
As a warning, every Chu soldier crossing the river would take a look at it, then lower his head and continue walking forward.
A rebellion seemed to have subsided, but Zhou Yin's words echoed in Xiang Ji's ears, as harsh and cruel as war drums:
"Everyone is greedy for life and hates death. More than ten years ago, Chu people have already been destroyed once. As long as they can survive, do they mind if they do it again?"
"In that case, if it's going to be broken, let us break the Shangzhu Kingdom first!"
"This is the reason why I, together with the soldiers who have the same idea, want to assassinate Shangzhu Kingdom!"
"Admit it, Xiang Yu, the Chu people have lost this battle!"
Looking back, Xiang Ji looked at the Chu soldiers who were hungry because they could only eat porridge. The generals who did not dare to look directly into his eyes showed that the morale of the Chu army seemed to be even lower.
"I haven't lost yet."
Xiang Ji could only repeat this sentence in his mind, smiled, and encouraged everyone:
"The Qin army raised its troops and surrounded the Chu State from ten sides. But in fact, the black bandit has violated a military taboo. He divided his troops into ten groups. It looks like a mass of people, but in fact the enemy is divided and I am the only one!"
"The time for the decisive battle has arrived!"
After crossing the Suishui River, when summoning Yingbu, Longqie, Yuziqi and other generals for a meeting, Xiang Ji loudly announced the Chu army's tactics:
"No matter how many ways he comes, I will only go one way, and I will definitely defeat these enemies on all ten sides!"
