Not long after, Zhai let a close subordinate sent by Zhai into the tent.
This man was in his forties, and Li Mi and others knew him, and he had been by Zhai Rang's side for a long time.
When this man came in, his expression was calm and his robes were very neat. Li Mi felt a lot more at ease. Then he saw the man looking at Li Mi, cupping his fists and saying, "I pay homage to Duke Mi. I have been ordered by the master to have a letter."
Here you go." After saying that, he took out a letter from his pocket and handed it over with both hands.
Li Mi nodded, and a soldier walked over, took the letter, and handed it over. Li Mi checked the paint, tore open the envelope, and took out a piece of paper. The handwriting was a bit embarrassing. He recognized that it was written by Zhai Rang, who was not very literate.
handwriting.
But Li Mi glanced at it, and his expression immediately changed.
Xu Shiji was shocked when he saw this, and just as he was about to ask something, he saw Li Mi looking at the small piece of paper carefully again. Suddenly, he leaned forward, and with a pop, he spit out a mouthful of blood, and the blood was just right.
I vomited on the letter and the handwriting on it was immediately difficult to read.
Everyone's expressions changed drastically. Li Mi's expression changed. He swept his eyes across the whole place, and finally settled on the face of the confidant man sent by Zhai Rang. He said with a ferocious smile: "I didn't expect that the confidant of Master Zhai was actually from the Far Eastern Army. Who's here?"
Let me chop him down."
The messenger was stunned for a moment, and just as he was about to say something, one of Li Mi's confidant generals suddenly drew his sword and waved it. The messenger opened his mouth wide, but could not make any sound.
There was a bloody mark on this person's throat, but it was cut.
When everyone saw this scene, they were stunned and looked puzzled.
Li Mi gritted his teeth and said: "Something happened to the Wagang tribe. In addition, the hundreds of thousands of foreign camp troops who are gathering in the plan will not come, and we are afraid that we will have to move back."
Xu Shiji narrowed his eyes and took a deep look at Li Mi, but said nothing. Xie Yingdeng, who was in charge of the intelligence work, had a look of disbelief on his face. He wanted to say something, but in the end he stopped talking.
…………
…………
The night of February 19, the thirteenth year of Daye, was destined to be a night that made it difficult for Li Mi to sleep peacefully.
Li Mi deceived everyone. In that letter, Zhai Rang said two things. One was that the hundreds of thousands of troops from the outer camp who were still on the road would no longer come. Zhai Rang gave an order to go back and defend.
Their respective territories. Second, Zhai Rang asked him to hand over all military power to Xu Shiji immediately, and then asked him to return to Wagang Village as soon as possible, saying that he had important matters to discuss.
The content of this letter was a bit weird. The meaning and some things contained in it made Li Mi shake his mind and feel chills all over. If Zhai Rang's handwriting was not very obvious and the person who sent the letter was indeed Zhai Rang's confidant, Li Mi would even doubt this.
The letter is fake.
When they thought about what this letter meant, and the current level of the war, their initial plan to encircle the Far East Army and Wang Junlin had completely failed, and there was really little hope of capturing Fengyang City.
Unless it takes several months or even more than a year to trap Fengyang City, but how is this possible? The Far East Army does not only have the manpower in Fengyang City.
Therefore, Li Mi discovered that, whether he believed it or not, the most important thing at the moment was how to return to Wagang Village safely and smoothly under Wang Junlin's eyes.
When a large army retreats, it is most likely to be sneak attacked by the enemy. Once the enemy succeeds in the sneak attack and forms a rout, he doesn't know how many people can escape back to Wagang Village.
The generals of the foreign camps under Li Mi had serious disagreements about the next retreat plan. To put it simply, it was a question of whether to retreat during the day or at night.
Li Mi and Xu Shiji believed that retreating at night would be difficult to hide from the Far Eastern Army's spies, and retreating in the dark would easily lead to confusion and a greater possibility of defeat. However, the generals believed that they had the upper hand, and that retreating at night in the dark would be able to entangle the Far Eastern Army.
There are only a limited number of people living there, so the number of people they can successfully withdraw to Wagang Village will be more.
However, Xu Shiji and Li Mi still had another worry - even the stupidest generals under their command at this time knew that the situation of Wagang's army was already very bad. And these generals with backgrounds as thieves and bandits were all capable of sharing wealth but
We cannot share adversity. At this time, we cannot give them too much time to stop and think. We can only lead them to fight continuously. Only in this way will they follow Li Mi or obey Xu Shiji's orders to fight out of habit.
Once they think about this situation carefully, even several foreign camp leaders
A little communication will lead to disastrous consequences.
Because it is easy for them to imagine how much the troops they regard as their livelihood will suffer if this battle continues. Even if the Far Eastern Army is barely repelled in the end, how many troops will be left in each of their hands.
However, the elites of the Wagang inner camp have suffered heavy losses. Can they still frighten the troops of the outer camps and control the Wagang army, which seems to have a large number of troops, but has a chaotic system, numerous hills, and selfish generals? This is also the case for Li Mi and Xu Shiji
Something very doubtful.
And in this case, if the generals of the outer camp thought of fighting on their own, or trying to escape each other, there would be many flaws in the retreat. Then it would be really difficult for Li Mi to lead the army of more than 100,000 to withdraw to Wagang Village.
Xu Shiji's reasons for persuading Li Mi to oppose the night retreat were also very good - although both sides had recovered most of the rangers after nightfall, with the abilities and experience of Wang Junlin, Li Jing and others of the Far Eastern Army, there would definitely be some success.
Be alert, they will notice if there is any slight movement in the Wagang camp. Without the suddenness, retreating at night will just provoke a night battle.
And their Wagang Army has more than 100,000 troops outside Fengyang City. If they form a square formation, the front width will be more than ten miles. Such a heavy army group relies heavily on the command of flags and drums.
, especially the flag.
And at night, even if it is a month-long night with few stars, when the soldiers are holding fire, they can only see a few flags. As for the color and shape of the flags, in battle, it is difficult for most soldiers to
Clearly distinguishable.
Therefore, for night battles, the more people and horses there are, the easier it is to become confused and unable to command. Once a melee occurs, it is not uncommon for them to attack each other and even cause the camp to be bombed.
Especially among the dozens of Waiwagang troops, most of them were from foreign camps, which were actually bandits and bandits. In the night battle, the existence of these troops was definitely not enough to accomplish anything, but more than enough to destroy it.
However, at this time, it was impossible for Li Mi to abandon these men from the outer camp and lead his tens of thousands of elite troops from the inner camp to break through. Otherwise, I'm afraid there would be internal strife within them without the Far Eastern Army taking action.
Of course, this chaos is caused by both sides. Unless the Far Eastern Army cannot stand firm, they will also have to accept the test of night battles.
This was also after Xu Shiji and Li Mi's persuasion by the generals of the foreign camps to request a night retreat to no avail. Xu Shiji and Li Mi felt that it was not without reason to take the risk to retreat at night. After all, the Far East Army had a small number of troops, and it was now certain that Wang Junlin did not want to use the force.
There are too many losses, so the Far Eastern Army may be afraid of chaos and dare not go to war. Even if it goes to war, this chaos will make the outcome unpredictable.
However, the experience of fighting against the Far Eastern Army these days made Li Mi and Xu Shiji vaguely feel that the Far Eastern Army they faced might be far more capable of dealing with melee than their Wagang Army.
In addition, the direction of retreat is also a problem. Some tribal generals even believe that they should not retreat to Wagang Village in the southeast at this time, but simply retreat to the southwest and rest in the nearest outer camp village first.
.
Li Mi understood that he might have one last chance to make a choice. Not to choose a better retreat plan, but to choose the one that was not the worst. This decision would directly determine his relationship with these more than 100,000 people.
The life and death of the army.
Despite the ups and downs in his heart and unprecedented hesitation, from the outside, Li Mi became calm and calm.
However, Li Mi knew very well that he was not afraid of anyone in terms of intrigues and intrigues, but in terms of resourcefulness in fighting the war, he still had to rely on Xu Shiji, even though Xu Shiji had just been defeated at the hands of the Far Eastern Army.
However, Xu Shiji had no intention of retreating from the bottom of his heart, but he was a smart man. Although he did not see the content of the letter, and Li Mi concealed it in every possible way, he knew from Li Mi's expression and behavior that it would be difficult to stop him.
I got Li Mi's idea to lead troops back to Wagang Mountain.
"Whether we withdraw during the day or at night, as soon as we start withdrawing, our army's morale will first drop. Secondly, with the power of the Far East Army's gunpowder packs, we can easily turn from retreat to rout. By then, we will not be far from annihilation of the entire army.
"If you don't believe it, think about it. I led the inner camp troops to retreat from Xiaohedao Pass. In less than two hundred miles, almost the entire army was wiped out," Xu Shiji said solemnly, using his last effort.
"General Manager, what can we do if we don't retreat? Our food route has been cut off by the Far East Army. It has been less than ten days. We were originally supposed to send a large army to escort the food and grass. However, something happened to Wagangzhai. They will definitely not send us any more food and grass."
Come here, if we don't retreat, are we going to sit back and wait for death, and the whole army will starve to death under Fengyang City." A general from the outer camp said in a deep voice with an ugly face.
Xu Shiji did not answer this person's question, but said to himself: "For the current plan, if you want to lead the army to withdraw to Wagangzhai or return to your respective territories alive, you must first lure the Far East Army away."
Li Mi was best at recruiting people. He had known Xu Shiji very well for a long time and knew that the latter must have a plan in mind when he said this. His eyes lit up and he asked: "Isn't it possible that the chief manager already has a plan in mind?"
Xu Shiji nodded and said: "We have been cut off from food, grass and retreat. This matter must not be hidden from the soldiers below for long, so we cannot retreat at this time, otherwise it will not be a good thing for morale. Therefore, for the Far East
Army, we will not fight with them now, but small fights will continue every day. Come and see!"
Everyone gathered around. Xu Shiji pointed to a black curve on the map on the table in front of him and said: "This is the road from the Far Eastern Army camp to the pass of Yuanxiaohe Road. All the grain, grass and ordnance materials needed by the Far Eastern Army are here."
Transport from this stretch of road. I mean to send crack troops to attack this stretch of highway, to send out small groups of troops to harass and eliminate anyone who moves on this stretch of highway every day?”
Li Mi thought for a moment and said: "Manager Xu, the Far East Army and the Far Eastern Army must have been prepared for the defense of the grain road. One or two strikes may be effective, but if they are carried out too many times, I am afraid it will be a waste of energy and the gain will not be worth the loss."
Xu Shiji smiled slightly and said: "The attack on Chidao will naturally not last long. Whether it is the cavalry escorting the grain and grass or the special operations brigade, they will send troops to fight against the troops we send, and it is impossible for our brigade to insert into the Far East Army.
Between the camp and Xiaohe Road Mountain Pass, however, our attack on their food road was just a drunkard's intention. Think about it, where is my real target?"
Li Mi and other General Wagang all looked at the map, searching for the possible targets that Xu Shiji said. After a while, Li Mi's eyes lit up and he said: "Manager Xu, it turns out you want to...want to attack Blackwater Castle.
"
As he spoke, Li Mi pointed heavily at a fort.
Xu Shiji burst out laughing and said: "The Secret Duke has a sharp gaze. The Far East Army's special operations brigade was able to sneak in and cut off our food routes, and even sent people to rectify the situation in Wagangzhai. Why can't we treat others the same way they do?"
body.
At present, the Far Eastern Army is stretched thin. After Blackwater Fort surrendered to the Far Eastern Army, apart from the more than a thousand warriors in the fort, there were not many manpower. In addition, the secret messengers sent to Taiyuan and Luoyang also played a role. Taiyuan Li Shimin and
Wang Shichong of Luoyang led his army to attack the counties and counties controlled by the Far Eastern Army. Although he never sent troops, he also restrained many of the Far Eastern Army's forces.
Moreover, in the past two years, the Far East Army's foreign wars have almost never stopped. According to the intelligence sent by Xie Yingden, the Far East Army's food and grass supply has become increasingly tight.
Water castle.
If we burn their batch of food and grass, it will be difficult for them to hoard another batch of food and grass in a short period of time. In this way, the Far East Army will also face the difficulty of lack of food and grass. If we can capture the Black Water Fort and then burn the Black Water Castle,
The food and baggage inside Water Castle is better. Even if it cannot be burned, the main force of the Far Eastern Army outside Fengyang City attracts Black Water Castle, which is when we take the opportunity to retreat."
"But how can we hide it from the Far Eastern Army's spies? Although Blackwater Castle is not far from here, the Far Eastern Army's Military Intelligence Agency spies are very powerful." Li Mi expressed the doubts in his heart for everyone.
Xu Shiji said: "You all take turns to lead the attack, bringing one to two thousand people with you each time. But when you come back, there is no need to have so many. There is a very secret valley near the Blackwater Castle. When we gather the five thousand people,
The team suddenly attacked Blackwater Castle with a thunderous blow." Xu Shiji punched the tiger case hard, causing everything on it to jump up.
"The general manager is brilliant!" All the Wagang generals gave a thumbs up.