Time is in a hurry, and it is already September. On the second day of the first month of September, the army led by Guo Xu in Yingtianfu finally seemed to be impatient and began to dispatch the whole army, divided into three routes, and advanced from the eastern, central and western directions to the north.

From the very beginning, the war was one-sided, and the prefectures and counties occupied by seven or eight bandits, which had long since lost the ability to resist, changed hands with almost no resistance. In fact, there was no resistance in these prefectures and counties, and most of the bandits had already withdrawn to Chengwu in the north of Shanzhou, so naturally they had no power to resist.

On the fifth day of the ninth lunar month, Guo Xu personally led a large army to conquer Shanxian, which was once the place where Haidongqing settled and was also a large state capital. After Shanxizhou, which is located in the hinterland of Jingxi Road, was taken, more than half of the territory of Fuzhou County on the entire Jingxi Road has been recovered. In the northwest of Shanxian, it is Chengwu County, where the bandit forces are gathered at this moment.

For Hai Dongqing, the loss of Shanzhou means that Chengwu County is about to be threatened, and the two sides are less than 300 miles apart, and the next target of the forbidden army must be Chengwu County. That also meant that he had to launch a breakthrough operation to the west.

On the night when the news of the loss of Shanzhou reached Chengwu, Hai Dongqing immediately convened a meeting of all the guardians and protectors and announced the order of the forbidden army Xingren Mansion the next day. Hai Dongqing's demand was that he must conquer Xingren Mansion within three days and smash the last hard bone that would enter the five counties of Jingbei to the west. Three days is the fastest speed that Guo Xu's army can reinforce Xingren Mansion. If Xingren Mansion cannot be taken in three days, and Guo Xu's army arrives, it will be a situation where there is no way out and no way back.

At the meeting, all the apologists and protectors wrote down the order of the death army. Although this is a bit coercive, in fact, all the leaders know very well in their hearts that this is the last chance, and there is no way back. Only by taking Xingren Mansion can we block the attack of the forbidden army in the rear, and can we go all the way west and escape. At this moment, there is nothing fancy to speak of, you can only go all out, and if you don't succeed, you will become a benevolent.

Early the next morning, the mighty army of bandits set out. This road includes the cathars, the Holy Elders, the Holy Maidens, the Holy Spirit, and the carts of gold and silver and property that were escorted and looted, and the procession of men and horses stretched for more than 20 miles, paving the road to the west.

In the frosty mountains and wilderness, these nearly 60,000 people, who were coerced and brainwashed, or had no choice but to follow, marched westward. The autumn geese in the sky return to the south, forming in a line, going to the warm south to prepare for winter. But these people on the ground are completely different, they have left their hometowns and gone to unknown distances, and they don't know how to return.

Of course, all of them didn't have time to sigh about this, because a brutal siege battle was imminent. Chengwu County was less than a day and a night away from Xingren Mansion, and in the afternoon of the next day, the 3,000 bandits of the vanguard Guardian Army had already entered the area under the jurisdiction of Xingren Mansion.

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Xingren Mansion, formerly Caozhou. Qingfeng was upgraded to a government in the second year. The reason why it was upgraded to a government was also due to the increasing tension between the relationship with the Liao State. Since the frequent quarrels with the Liao, the Great Zhou court, in addition to increasing troops in the border towns, also began to build a second line of defense south of the border towns in order to prevent accidents. As a result, some state cities began to be upgraded, city defenses were strengthened, soldiers and horses were stationed, and the system was also upgraded. The purpose of this is obvious, there must be several lines of defense in the deep direction, and if there is a full-scale conflict with the Liao State, even if the border towns and cities are not guaranteed, they can quickly rely on the rear to strengthen and upgrade the state capital to form a second line of defense. This Xingren Mansion is part of this plan to upgrade the garrison, and together with the seven or eight upgraded cities north of Bianliang, it forms the second line of defense from west to east.

Originally, it was the Xingren Mansion of Caozhou, because it was only a state city, and there was no right to garrison soldiers and horses, after it was upgraded to Xingren Mansion, there was a box of soldiers and horses stationed here, that was the Guangji Army. The name of the Gwangje Army is derived from the Gwangje River that flows through Heungin Province. The establishment of the Guangji Army is actually insufficient, and the garrison of a local state capital has a full number of 8,000 soldiers. However, the establishment of the Guangji Army was only 5,000 men. This is also because the finances of the imperial court have been too tight in recent years, so in addition to the important border towns and the Dazhou Prefecture are full of troops, it is already very good for a place like Xingren Mansion to have sixty percent of the full amount. In many places, even half of the soldiers are undermanned. This does not seem to match the fact that the Great Zhou Dynasty had nearly two million troops, but this is exactly the reality. The Great Zhou Dynasty seems to be in a state of perpetual understaffing.

Xingren Province is also not large, in fact, it is only the size of a state, and the four counties under its jurisdiction are Wanting, Jiyin, Nanhua and Chengshi, and the population is only 120,000. However, the Mokan Mansion is not large, but the military facilities and city construction of the Heungin Province, where the government is located, are very solid. Since it was a part of the second line of defense in the north of the imperial court, Xingren Mansion did spend a lot of money and effort on the construction of city defense and military facilities. Caozhou was expanded as a mansion, and an outer wall was built on the periphery of the city wall. The outer wall is tall and sturdy, with dozens of arrow towers and enemy towers, and there is an urn city at the north gate. The whole city was divided into two cities, the inner and outer cities. The inner city is a residential and commercial area enclosed by the original old city walls. The outer city is mostly where military facilities such as military barracks and yamen, school farms and horse farms are located, which is also a major city characteristic after the transformation and upgrading of the old state capital.

It is precisely because of this pattern and various complete military facilities that Xingren Mansion withstood the test when the bandits rose up. Nearly a month ago, when the Qingjiao people of Xingren Mansion gathered in the middle of the night to control the situation in Xingren Mansion, they once occupied the entire inner city and almost controlled the place where the people lived in the whole city. However, they were unable to control the outer city. The outer city was garrisoned by the Guangji army, and the sudden uprising of the bandits did not deal a fatal blow to the Guangji army. The commander of the Guangji Army, Wu Yongbo, immediately led his troops and horses to launch the bomb pressure. The bandits themselves dug a pit for themselves in an urn, and when the inner city gate was controlled, the six or seven thousand bandits who were in turmoil in the inner city had nowhere to escape. Wu Yongbo personally led thousands of soldiers and horses to rush into the inner city, strangled thousands of bandits, and the rest of the bandits scattered.

Although later, the bandits from other counties had gathered people from several sub-altars to come to reinforce, but in the face of high walls and dense fortifications, after two days of siege, there was no result, and they could only retreat.

Therefore, Xingren Mansion is like a small boat in the stormy waves, and it has been preserved intact. It has also become a place of refuge for many people. Under the circumstance that all the counties were conquered by the bandits, Xingren Mansion was still firmly in the hands of the imperial court.

Of course, this is also because the bandits did not mobilize the main forces to attack, after all, there were only 5,000 defenders in Xingren Mansion. Before that, there were already two or three percent casualties, and the actual combat strength was less than 4,000. If Hai Dongqing could free his hands before, he would mobilize the Guardian Army to come. Xingren Mansion is absolutely unstoppable. But it makes no sense to assume, the imperial court moved quickly to quell the rebellion, and Hai Dongqing had no chance to free up his hands to mobilize soldiers and horses to wipe out this thorn, and his main force of soldiers and horses must hold Ying Tianfu. And the location of Xingren Mansion was not so important at the beginning, and there was more than one passage to the west. What Hai Dongqing thought was that if Meng Xiang took Yangwu County, even if he had to pass through Xingren Mansion when he led his army west, he could take it without much effort. Therefore, the location of Xingren Mansion was not taken seriously by them, they only regarded it as a spike, although the pestle was uncomfortable to look at there, and the person who stabbed it hurt, but it was not fatal.

However, at this moment, the Heungin Mansion has become the only stumbling block on the way to escape, and taking the Heungin Mansion has become a matter of great significance, and it must be ensured that nothing goes wrong.

Liu Mengyuan, the prefect of Xingren Prefecture, and Wu Yongbo, the commander of the Guangji Army, had long been closely watching the movements of the bandits assembled in Chengwu County. They're actually a bit big-headed. Not long ago, Xingren Mansion was still calm, but in an instant, it suddenly became a focal point.

Two days ago, the Jingbei counterinsurgency army crossed the river and arrived at Wanting, 40 miles west of the city, and camped, and Chengwu County in the east was again full of bandits. To the south, the army of King Huai is sweeping all the way to it. It seems that the three-way army is about to meet in this small Xingren Mansion. Xingren Mansion, which was originally supported by loneliness, seems to have become a flat boat in the waves at this moment, which makes people tremble.

However, one thing is clear, a storm is coming for Heungin.

Two days ago, Guo Mian, Guo Kun, Lin Jue and others led 9,000 soldiers and horses across the Guangji River and arrived in Wanting County. The army was stationed in Wanting County, and did not go directly to Xingren Mansion, which was only forty miles away. It's not that Guo Kun and Lin Jue don't want to do that, it's that they can't do that.

When the counterinsurgency army was launched, the holy decree issued to the two princes was very clear: one of the two armies was responsible for the counterinsurgency of the five counties of Jingbei to the north, and the other was fully responsible for the counterinsurgency of the east and west roads of Beijing. In principle, the counterinsurgency soldiers and horses of the imperial court should cooperate with each other to quell the rebellion together, and echo each other for reinforcements. But in fact this is not the case. Guo Xu once made it clear that the counterinsurgency action on Jingxi Road could only be solved by himself, and no one else was allowed to interfere. At first, this was naturally because he was afraid of being robbed, and it was also because the soldiers and horses led by Guo Xu were enough to quell the rebellion of the bandits on Jingxi Road. He didn't need outsiders to interfere at all.

In order to avoid unnecessary disputes, the imperial court also acquiesced to this. This is also Guo Chong's obvious partiality, he would rather sacrifice the progress of the counterinsurgency, but also favor Guo Xu, hoping that Guo Xu can hold the main credit for the counterinsurgency in his hands.

However, with the development of the war, the setback of Guo Xu's army was disappointing, but the army of the North Road was overwhelmed and easily recovered the five counties. According to common sense, the imperial court should order Guo Mian and Guo Kun to lead the army to the east into Jingxi Road, form an encirclement with Guo Xu's soldiers and horses, and assist Guo Xu to complete the counterinsurgency. However, the holy decree issued by the imperial court was to let Guo Mian and Guo Kun stick to the five counties and purge the remnants of the cult bandits, and did not let them go to Jingxi Road.

Originally, even Yang Jun thought that letting Guo Mian's army march east to encircle was the best way to speed up the counterinsurgency process, but Lu Zhongtian said something to Guo Chong, which made Guo Chong dispel this idea.