Chapter 171 The victory and defeat are announced in advance
Prince Lu and Prince Fu took Huang Degong's route and confirmed their willingness to flee to Xinyang first.
The subsequent specific arrangements are much simpler, and there is nothing to elaborate on.
It was only after Huang Degong had in-depth contact with Liang Yizhang that he discovered that Liang Yizhang did not know that King Lu had come to Shangqiu. He had been keeping anonymity and kept a low profile, and only showed up after the siege of the city.
Therefore, Huang Degong also judged that the so-called statement at the beginning that "Yuan Zongdi came to attack Shangqiu in order to kill the king and subdue the vassal" was probably a misunderstanding, or it was a self-defeating strategy on the part of the bandits.
It is normal for hundreds of thousands of armies to spread out and attack each other for hundreds of miles. Information exchange is not smooth and messages are sent incorrectly.
In any case, since Yuan Zongdi was so cowardly and retreated from the two wings of the east gate and south gate of Shangqiu City after being defeated, he would not be too determined to prevent Huang Degong from retreating in the future.
Just to be on the safe side, Huang Degong did not act rashly immediately. He let the troops rest in Shangqiu City for an afternoon, had two good meals, went to bed early at Shenshi, and got up at Yinshi the next day to assemble out of the city.
This leaves about two hours of action time before dawn, ensuring that Yuan Zongdi's reaction time can be further compressed.
After the plan was arranged, Huang Degong gave Liang Yizhang a few final words of concern: "Prefect Liang, it is impossible for our army to take the initiative to attack the camp and seek a decisive battle with Yuan Zongdi for your sake. After he reduced his troops, after all, he had a strong camp to rely on for several days.
, it would be too much of a disadvantage to attack with cavalry.
So after our army retreats, you can spread the word tomorrow that King Lu and King Fu were indeed in Shangqiu City before, but he was rescued by me.
In this way, Yuan Zongdi will definitely be half-hearted and wavered, and he will be reluctant to spend all his money to attack Shangqiu. If he can be tempted to split his troops to pursue me and fight with our army in the field, Huang will definitely be sure to severely damage his main force again!"
Liang Yizhang was grateful for Huang Degong's generosity, but he was still a little worried, so he asked, "Will this increase the danger to King Lu and King Fu?"
But Huang Degong patted his chest and assured him: "Don't worry, Yuan Zongdi can't catch up with me, and even if he dares to chase me, he can't beat me. Besides, you don't need to take the initiative to publicize it tomorrow morning.
Can we wait until Yuan Zongdi comes to attack the city again before telling him about this to dampen his morale? In this case, at least another day and a half will be delayed. Our army is all cavalry and has already run far away. And if you delay
Later, I said that I would not offend King Lu and King Fu. This was tacitly understood beforehand. How did King Lu and King Fu know about it?"
Liang Yizhang thought it right and immediately said that he knew how to control the level of confidentiality, the timing of leaking secrets, and what to say and what not to say.
The troops and horses that Li Zicheng gave to Yuan Zongdi were definitely more than 50,000 to 60,000 men at first. However, Li Jiyu was annihilated and Yuan Shizhong surrendered. The two sums combined reduced the invasion force to at least 20,000 men.
In addition, Huang Degong defeated the Yuan army in Nancheng by kicking the camp, and the bloody battle in Shangqiu City in the previous few days caused damage to the invading army. It can be said that in the past ten days, Yuan Zongdi's troops have reduced their effective strength by at least 30,000 people.
There are at most more than 30,000 left. If Huang Degong huddles in the camp and defends it with trenches and horses, Huang Degong may have to pay a heavy price to take it, so he is reluctant to waste his elite cavalry.
But if Yuan Zongdi dared to chase him out, he would definitely be seeking death.
What's more, Yuan Zongdi does not have the whole army of cavalry, but Huang Degong has the whole army of cavalry. He has recharged his energy and maintained good physical strength, so that he can march quickly and for a long time. As long as Yuan Zongdi dares to pursue him within a day or two, he will definitely lose touch with the front and rear armies.
, the beginning and the end cannot be considered.
When the time comes, Huang Degong, who has the advantage of organic power, can kill a carbine and only attack and kill the part of Yuan Zongdi's troops that are chasing faster, which will definitely make it easier to kill him.
Huang Degong knew such superficial common sense about the art of war, and Yuan Zongdi must also know it, otherwise he would not be qualified to be one of the five generals under Li Zicheng. So as long as he is not mentally retarded, he will definitely not do such a stupid thing.
…
Early the next morning, the pampered King Lu was also pulled up by his maids and eunuchs because he was about to leave the city at Yinshi.
The palace's delicate belongings have been packed in advance.
When they left Wei Hui and came to Shangqiu, they took advantage of the bandits to attack Huaiqing, and they ran away in advance because they were across the border of a mansion, so they brought everything more comprehensively, even the royal palace's silk and silk were fine and soft.
You can bring it all with you.
When Prince Lu was in Weihui, he accumulated at least 7 to 8 million taels of movable property and brought out more than 6 million taels. Recently, some of it was spent to reward the army.
This time, because I was accompanying the army, I had to throw away all the silks and pieces of silver, as well as all the copper coins of ordinary maids and eunuchs. The prince gave them silver ingots to replace them. After all, I only took away more than five million taels.
It was worth nearly one million taels and was relatively heavy, so it was left to Liang Yizhang to reward the army.
The entire city's garrison in Shangqiu was also called up early in the morning to be on guard and ready to cover at any time. The soldiers were quite complaining at first. But when they heard that each soldier could be given three bolts of Lu silk and two silver ingots, all of them were immediately
All dissatisfaction disappeared, and he vowed that he would follow Magistrate Liang to defend the city well and survive this winter.
Huang Degong allowed King Lu to ride in the carriage, but he still prepared horses for them all, which could be exchanged at any time when they needed to ride. The five million taels of property were divided among the soldiers to carry them separately, which was quite easy.
Because at least half of the value of the wealth exists in the form of gold, it only amounts to more than 20,000 kilograms. It is enough to pick three hundred soldiers to carry seven or eighty kilograms each.
The only thing that Huang Degong didn't understand was that Prince Lu's palace asked people to bring a lot of bronzes and musical instruments. Huang Degong was a rough man, and he didn't know anything about elegant things. He felt that he had even lost the broken silver, so why did he use the bronzes.
Prince Lu couldn't talk about the money in person, so in the end it was the little princess Zhu Yuchan who came forward wearing a curtain hat to explain: "Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Huang. We are not greedy people who force others to do anything. It is really more difficult to carry these pianos than to carry the same weight of silver."
Still valuable.
The famous qins collected by my father are either antiques or rare pieces of famous craftsmen in the world. Those ones wrapped tightly in silk bags and held in fragrant wooden boxes are all guqins from the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
The remaining ones are only stored in silk bags, at least from the Tang and Song Dynasties. Those that are open and open are the new ones of the dynasty. My father never kept any less than one thousand taels. Those bronze incense burners were also made from the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
They existed in the Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties. My father after the Song Dynasty was too lazy to accept them."
Huang Degong heard that these things were so valuable, so he gave up.
…
Da Junyin was quietly leaving the city, and the journey went smoothly at first. The biggest problem was that King Lu and King Fu were not in good health. These pampered nobles were vomiting from the bumps of the carriage on the night road.
Fortunately, the visibility was not very high, and the cars and horses did not go too fast. By daybreak, we were already more than thirty miles away from the city.
On Yuan Zongdi's side, he also noticed that there were troops leaving the city in the south of the city at three o'clock in the morning, but he didn't take it seriously. He was very anxious now. He wanted too much and had the ability to get too little. The Shangqiu defenders could get away with part of them.
He didn't bother to stop it.
It was not until Chenshi that Yuan Zongdi tentatively went to Shangqiu City to organize another small-scale attack. However, at first glance, he had no intention of fighting to the end. He was just exploring the situation, mainly using crossbows and old-fashioned fire guns.
Of course, Liang Yizhang led the Shangqiu defenders to severely defeat Yuan Zongdi's attempt, which made Yuan Zongdi realize clearly that the soldiers and horses leaving the city in the early morning did not damage the will of the Shangqiu defenders, and Shangqiu City was still determined.
Stay till the end.
After obtaining this important information, Yuan Zongdi's goal was achieved. There was no need to waste more time after hundreds of people died.
When the battle was approaching noon, when Yuan Zong's troops were about to withdraw to the camp, Liang Yizhang at the head of the city watched the bandits retreat, and then the scolding soldiers shouted in unison like crazy:
"Thieves will die! Yuan Zongdi, you who will die without a burial place, have fallen into Shen Futai's plan! Huang Chuangzi is here to break up your men and horses, burn your baggage, carriages and horses, so that you can't move quickly
Return to support Chen County!
Huang Chuangzi's cavalry comes and goes like the wind. When they reach Chen County, they will attack Shen Futai from both inside and outside. They will definitely kill the intruder! By then, you won't even have a place to surrender to the dog master!"
These remarks were not all organized by Liang Yizhang. They were all talking about scolding the players for freely expressing themselves according to the central idea, so the complaints were very scattered, with one sentence here and there and a hammer here and there.
After finishing the main theme of the scolding, someone mentioned again, "Huang Degong has made great achievements and saved the vassal king."
The soldiers of the Chuang Army below didn't take it seriously at first. After about half an hour, Yuan Zongdi realized the problem after all channels were gathered one by one.
"Huang Chuangzi is really here to save the kings? Is the information sent by Mr. Song accurate? Isn't it tricked by me? Huang Chuangzi wanted to defeat my men first and hold me back, but he relied on the speed of the cavalry.
Can you rush to the main battlefield and attack from a flank?"
After Yuan Zongdi smoothed over the situation, he became slightly frightened.
In fact, it is not that he has not thought of this possibility, but the key point is that even if he had vaguely thought of it, he could still bet that his soldiers, captains at all levels, and commanders did not know about it.
As long as the people below don't know, he can pretend to be a fool, and he doesn't have to join forces with Li Zicheng or fight a tough battle.
But now Liang Yizhang directly asked people to scold the formation to make these words clear, which means that even the most mentally retarded junior officers in Yuan Zongdi's army know this.
If Yuan Zongdi continues to be afraid and does not move forward and does not share the worries of King Chuang, he may be bitten and exposed by the people below in the future, and he will be liquidated by the Queen.
You can pretend to be an ostrich or blind to the law, but you cannot know the law and break it.
After understanding this truth, Yuan Zongdi was extremely depressed. He knew that now he could only respond to the situation and show that he was still loyal to Li Zicheng and willing to fight for Li Zicheng.
"The whole army breaks camp and returns to the west! Pursue Huang Degong and reinforce King Chuang! Reinforce the main battlefield of Chen County! Give up the attack on Shangqiu!" Yuan Zongdi gave this order reluctantly but righteously on the surface.
Several confidants also advised: "General, don't do it. Huang Degong is a cavalryman, and he just defeated us once. Now the morale is declining, and a lot of the baggage, carriages and horses have been burned, looted and destroyed. If we pursue now, our army will be seriously out of touch."
of."
"These are all minor issues! King Chuang has lured the main force of the army out for a decisive battle. Now that we know it, how can we not go! I, Yuan Zongdi, am loyal and righteous, and you are not allowed to dissuade me! Anyone who dissuades anyone is disloyal!"
After saying these cruel words and suppressing the half-hearted presence in the army, Yuan Zongdi set off.
Of course, he also had a foresight, and sent the most stubborn troops under his command, the ones who were most loyal to Li Zicheng and the most difficult to win over, to the front line, letting them rush to the front to chase Huang Degong, and even gave them priority
Allocate more war horses.
Those die-hard followers of Li Zicheng who were relatively the least brainy, of course, charged with unparalleled loyalty. Then one day later, they were defeated by Huang Degong, who was shot and killed by Huang Degong near Zhecheng County.
Several of Li Zicheng's commanders and a captain were all killed by Huang Degong.
After learning that the former army was defeated, Yuan Zongdi changed his posture of marching in a hurry and became cautious. He gradually gathered the defeated troops and fought steadily: Look, it's not that we are not loyal to King Chuang, but that we are too loyal and have suffered a loss. If we are not cautious again,
It's a small thing to die on the way, but it's a big mistake to be unable to be loyal to King Chuang even if you die.
After two days of marching, Huang Degong successfully returned to Chen County. Before arriving in Chen County, he also detached three thousand cavalry to escort King Fu King Lu to Xiangcheng further downstream in Chen County.
At the same time, the scouts he sent in advance had already made contact with Liu Guoneng's Department and the Shen Family Navy fleet outside Chen County. Naturally, they also allocated manpower to receive this important chess piece.
As for Shen Shuren himself, they were unable to notify him for the time being, because Shen Shuren was surrounded in Chen County, and the news was temporarily cut off. However, Shen Shuren did not panic from beginning to end. Even if he was surrounded, he did not feel at all
There will be danger.
Huang Degong severely damaged Yuan Zongdi, and also annihilated and forced the landing of two local Henan peasant army forces, completely curbing Yuan Zongdi's attempt to help Li Zicheng raise food from Guide Mansion. Therefore, the winner of this stalemate has actually been decided.