According to the agreed results, Song Jian's power of 6,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry remained in Fengzhou, and was responsible for taking over the surrendered city to supervise the Hui people's compliance with the agreement. In addition, the Shence army needs to go south immediately, and thousands of wounded soldiers can only stay in Fengzhou to recuperate, and Song Jiangong's shoulders are not small. But although Song Jiangong is not a world-class talent, but in the past few years of following Wang Yuan's campaign, he has been shrewd and capable as steady as Mount Tai, and these things should not be a problem for him.

The Hui people all evacuated Fengzhou before the time, and most of the Shence army did not enter the city, but immediately transported grain, grass and water from the city for supply. It was busy until the evening, and the soldiers and horses were recharged. After dinner, Wang Yuan ordered the whole army to rest immediately and start marching south early tomorrow morning. As soon as the sun set, there was already snoring in the barracks. The soldiers had barely closed their eyes for two days, and had experienced a fierce battle of life and death, and they were already tired and dying. They fell to the sand and fell asleep.

Wang Yuan didn't sleep, Gao Xianzhi made a pot of wine and invited Wang Yuan to drink and talk in his tent. The two sat in a tent with a light like beans, drinking slowly.

"Brother Xian, the news from the south that Li Heng and them were defeated under the city of Chang'an and retreated to Pizhou to refuse. I estimate that Pizhou will not be able to hold it, and the army will go south, and I am afraid that it will face the most difficult things. ”

"Yes, Li Heng and Li Pu are really vulnerable. I thought they would be able to hold out for a while, but I was shocked to see how I was crushed by a single blow. On the other hand, it also shows that our worst fears have happened. Reinforcements from the south must have arrived. Although the intelligence does not make this clear, it is not difficult to guess. ”

"Exactly. An army of 60,000 attacked Chang'an, even if it could not capture Chang'an, it would not be defeated. It was a different kind of accident. It is only possible that it was attacked by soldiers and horses outside Chang'an and was forced to evacuate Chang'an City. Brother Xian, although we avoided a final fight with the Uighurs, we saved our troops. But now we have just over 70,000 troops left. In particular, the cavalry suffered more than 10,000 casualties, dozens of tiger squatting cannons were close to being scrapped, more than 100 Shenwei cannons were also destroyed, and all the firearms were also consumed, and it was difficult to replenish them in a short time. If Li Mao's soldiers and horses enter Shu, we may not be able to carry out the plan of besieging Wei to save Zhao, and attack Chang'an to force them to return to the army. ”

"That's exactly what I'm thinking about. Although our artillery and firearms were strong, the battle with the Uighurs depleted almost all of our stocks. There are still dozens of tiger squat cannons in Chengdu, but this thing can only attack the city, and it is almost useless to engage head-on. If we want to approach Chang'an, we can't quickly mobilize the Tiger Squat Cannon into the army. Moreover...... I have thought about it, the current situation is unclear, and it is not the best choice for us to lead our army to rush into Chang'an, both morally and strategically. The army needs to rest, and I don't want to fire the first shot. ”

Gao Xianzhi looked at Wang Yuan and was silent, and said for a while: "Then, I can only go back to Qingzhou." But I'm worried that if Piju is lost, I can come to Gyeongju in one day and one night. Old General Li Mi only has eight or nine days to mobilize troops, how many troops and horses can he mobilize? Brother Xian, in fact, at this point, you don't have to think too much, you can do what you have to do, there is no way back. ”

Wang Yuan smiled and said, "What my brother said is, am I too pedantic. Well, if nothing else, approaching Chang'an at this time is not good for us. We can't take Chang'an, but we will fall into passivity. The current situation is unclear, if a large number of troops from the south are recruited to the north, the number of defenders in Chang'an will also be quite large. In the left and near Chang'an, we have no foothold. Therefore, I decided to give up the plan to save Zhao from Wei Wei. ”

Gao Xianzhi thought for a while and said, "Otherwise, I ordered Liu Jun to lead 30,000 cavalry to Gyeongju first, and he would definitely arrive within five days." If General Li can keep the time of Liu Jun's arrival, he may be able to turn around. Even if Gyeongju is not protected, we can establish a defensive line in Ningzhou and defend it until our follow-up troops and horses arrive. ”

Wang Yuan nodded slightly and said, "It's okay, the cavalry goes first, which can save more than ten days." But I think that the march route of Liu Jun's 30,000 cavalry should not go directly to Gyeongju, but should detour from the left near Chang'an. ”

Gao Xianzhi was stunned, and then laughed and said, "Brother Xian, do you want to try Li Mao's reaction and see if he is afraid?" If you are afraid, you may gather your troops and horses back. But in this case, the cavalry may be delayed for three days. ”

Wang Yuan nodded and said: "Three days is three days, and it's a big deal to Rao Shangningzhou." I have already explained to General Li, don't dwell on the gains and losses of one city and one pool, the important thing is to delay time and preserve troops. The loss of Qingning and the second state will be lost, and the contraction and retreat to Longzhou will be. I asked the cavalry to walk next to Chang'an City, not to completely test Li Mao's courage, but also to see the reality of Chang'an, and perhaps temporarily cut off the passage between Chang'an and Ningqing, and cutting off its grain route is also a way to force them to retreat. The cavalry will do it, I am not worried, Li Mao may not have a large number of cavalry soldiers and horses in his hands, and they can't do anything about Liu Jun. ”

Gao Xianzhi touched his beard and smiled: "Good way." It seems that I am overthinking, and the virtuous brother has already thought very clearly. Come on, come on, drink. ”

……

Two days later, Gyeongju Castle.

Cloud-like flags flutter in the valley below Gyeongju Castle. A large military camp spread out under the city in the evening. That was the nearly 80,000 troops of the imperial court led by Li Guangbi and Zheng Qiushan, who entered Shu according to the established plan.

Two days ago, on the Gobi Desert in the north, Wang Yuan's Shence army broke the Hui army at the same time, Pizhou was broken, and Li Heng was captured alive. Of course, Li Guangbi would not kill Li Heng with his own hands, he didn't even interrogate, but politely greeted Li Heng, and ordered someone to escort Li Heng and the other dozens of captured princesses and relatives back to the capital that night.

In this regard, Zheng Qiushan was quite disdainful. Before, Li Guangbi and Zheng Qiushan were ventilated, saying that no matter who caught Li Heng, Li Pu and others, they could be killed on the spot, and said that this was His Majesty's order. On that day, outside the northern city of Pizhou, Zheng Qiushan captured Li Pu and Li Ji and their families alive, and immediately ordered his son to escort them to the capital. scolded Zheng Qiushan in front of the generals. Zheng Qiushan naturally admitted that he was not thoughtful at that time, and let out a low voice. Li Guangbi is not really good at what Zheng Qiushan does, Zheng Qiushan's status is not low now, but he can't move if he wants to.

And now, his behavior is the same as Zheng Qiushan, he will never kill Li Heng's head with his own hands and bear the charge of killing the royal family. For such actions, Zheng Qiushan did not seize the opportunity to insinuate a few words. Everyone tacitly agreed, but in fact, the mustard has deepened further.

According to the previous plan, after taking Pizhou, while the soldiers and horses of the Shence army were still fighting with the Hui people in the north, Li Guangbi ordered the army to send to the city of Gyeongju the next day. Two days later, an army of 80,000 arrived in Gyeongju and set up camp.

Under the setting sun, Li Guangbi and Zheng Qiushan led the generals to the top of the hillside of the camp and looked towards the head of Gyeongju City. Gyeongju, the city on the west side of the Qinling Mountains that must be passed through to enter Longyou Road, stands right in front of it. Li Guangbi knew the city defense situation of Gyeongju City, and when he and Guo Ziyi entered Sichuan from Chang'an, they turned right from Gyeongju to Longlong and went to Chengdu. At that time, he was amazed at how strong the Gyeongju city defense was.

Wang Yuan has been in Shu for several years, and he did not work hard in the west in the direction of Tubo, but on the east side of the Qinling Mountains in the direction of Bashan to build a lot of construction to strengthen the city defense, which makes people feel somewhat puzzled. And it was at that time that Li Guangbi faintly sensed that Wang Yuan seemed to have some ulterior secrets in his heart. Wang Yuan did this to defend against an attack from the east. But the east is the hinterland of the Tang Dynasty, who is guarded against? Self-explanatory. Wang Yuan obviously wants to build Shu into an independent kingdom, perhaps since then, Wang Yuan has harbored evil intentions, so there is today.

"The walls are very high, and it doesn't look easy to take down." Zheng Qiushan looked at Chengchi and smacked his lips.

Li Guangbi snorted coldly: "No matter how high the city wall is, it needs to be guarded. How many soldiers and horses can Gyeongju have? Wang Yuan's 100,000 soldiers and horses are all in the north, how many people can defend here? Vice Marshal Zheng, what are you worried about? ”

Zheng Qiushan smiled and said: "Don't worry about the old man, with you here, what am I afraid of?" Li Shuai has experienced a hundred battles, how can this little pill city be in his eyes? This time, I want to take a good look at how Li Shuai destroys the withering and decaying. ”

Li Guangbi said in a deep voice: "Then you can be optimistic." I, Li Guangbi, am not boasting, and I don't need to worry about attacking this small city. ”

The camp was set up, and Li Guangbi decided to launch an attack early tomorrow morning. But after dark, Li Guangbi received bad news. As the messenger came to the hillside outside the camp, standing on a high place and looking at the fingers of the people around him, Li Guangbi saw the light of a large torch. They were winding along the mountain road southwest of Gyeongju City. Like an endless fire dragon, it slowly moved and slowly entered the city of Gyeongju.

"After dark, the lookout posts on the hill saw a steady stream of torches for enemy reinforcements, and it seemed that they had mobilized a heavy force to defend the city. So he reported to the generalissimo. The general beside him replied in a low voice.

Li Guangbi frowned and pondered, the other party's reinforcements arrived, looking at the posture, there were really a lot of people. Tomorrow's siege will probably take a lot of time.

A group of people rushed from the camp, but it was Zheng Qiushan who arrived.

"Hey, so many reinforcements have arrived? With such a large number of defenders, combined with a fortified city, this is no joke. Li Shuai, in my opinion, we need to be cautious tomorrow. It was agreed before that there was no need for too many siege equipment to directly storm the city, but according to this posture, I am afraid that the strong attack will suffer a big loss. Zheng Qiushan muttered.

Li Guangbi frowned and didn't answer, his eyes staring at the endless fire dragon. It had been standing here for half an hour, and the fire dragon showed no sign of breaking off. A rough calculation shows that tens of thousands of people have already entered the city.

There are not too many defenders in this city, even if there are only 20,000 defenders, and with 80,000 soldiers and horses on hand, it may not be a problem to storm it. But the problem is that nearly half of the 80,000 soldiers and horses under his command are newly recruited soldiers and horses, and they are not the material for attacking the city.

Storming a city is not something that can be done with a shout, it requires extreme tenacity and courage. These require elite troops to serve as the main force before they can bite the bullet. Those newly recruited soldiers and horses, once they see many casualties, they will collapse. Li Guangbi has seen this situation many times. If the casualties are too great, it may be difficult to advance behind. Although Li Guangbi did not mind the lives of these recruits, it was difficult to replenish the soldiers and horses in a short period of time. Although the south is constantly recruiting, it will take time for the soldiers and horses to arrive. And if the first battle into Shu is carelessly defeated, it will be a big laughing stock.

"Maybe we should build some siege equipment, I'm afraid that a rash attack will fail here." Li Guangbi groaned in his heart. But he said, "So what? Such a small city, trying to block the way of my army? That's a fantasy. Tomorrow morning, the camera acts. ”

Zheng Qiushan sneered in his heart: "The camera acts? If you are not sure, you are not sure, but what you want to say is so good. ”

In the early morning of the next day, Li Guangbi came to the camp early to observe the enemy's situation, and under the dawn light, the city was empty, only a small number of soldiers were wandering. The dense defenders of last night are all gone for some reason. The soldiers at the head of the city were leisurely and contented, and did not seem to be as tense as if they were facing a great enemy. There seemed to be loud laughter from them in the tower.

The heavily armed generals came to Li Guangbi's side one after another, and someone asked in a low voice: "Li Shuai, can you attack the city?" The brothers have already had breakfast and are ready to go. ”

Li Guangbi frowned and looked at the city, puzzled. He wanted to give the order to take the city in one fell swoop, but he felt that something seemed to be wrong with the situation in front of him, and there was a smell of conspiracy permeating him. He has always been a thoughtful man, and when he partnered with Goshuhan, Goshuhan was a desperate and reckless man, and he was the wise man who held the reins of Goshuhan. Because of this, many victories have been won thanks to his restraint on Goshuhan. Ge Shuhan's bravery combined with Lee's caution made for a perfect combination. Therefore, Li Guangbi has always been very confident in his style of acting. The fiasco in his life was actually not that Li Guangbi did not think it through, but that Ge Shuhan insisted on doing it, so his innocent experience was stained, and at some times, Li Guangbi still hated Ge Shuhan when he heard those things.

You need to make your own decisions about what is in front of you. Since he felt that there was a conspiracy, Li Guangbi still felt that he had to trust his instincts. The strange situation last night and now made Li Guangbi believe that this was deliberately done by the other party, deliberately showing weakness, and luring himself to attack the city.

"A group of young people, is it so easy to yin me?" Li Guangbi sneered: "Pass my military order, go up the mountain to cut wood, and build simple siege equipment to attack the city." They obviously have reinforcements, but they pretend that the defenders are scarce, how can such a small skill of carving insects succeed? In line with the principle of taking responsibility for the lives of the soldiers, we need to replenish the siege equipment to siege the city, which will be much smoother. ”

At the sound of an order, the whole army was mobilized. Tens of thousands of soldiers and horses began to go to the surrounding mountains to cut wood to build siege equipment, and they were busy.

While supervising the construction progress, Lee Kwang-pil circled around the city of Gyeongju. Looking at the leisurely situation of the defenders at the head of the city, Li Guangbi always felt that something was wrong. But what was wrong, he couldn't tell for a while.

At the end of the day, after dark, Li Guangbi went out of the camp again to look at the opposite city. But I saw that on the opposite side of the city wall, the torches were bright, and the figures were dense. Numerous defenders armed with torches appeared on the city walls after dark, densely packed and numbered in the tens of thousands.

Li Guangbi and all the generals were secretly surprised, there were so many soldiers and horses in the city, and they were really ready to defend the city to the death. The defenders at the head of the city stood still like iron towers, looking quite military and imposing.

Li Guangbi returned to the camp speechlessly, went to bed sullenly, and couldn't sleep in the middle of the night. I always feel like I'm stuck in something. There is a feeling of being shrouded in Wang Yuan's shadow all the time. Why is the opportunity to send troops so good this time, but there is still a thorny problem. The progress of building siege equipment is not fast, according to today's progress, I am afraid that it will take three or four days to get hundreds of decent siege catapults, and if the time drags on like this, it will be an increasingly unfavorable situation.

With such an anxious and boring mood, Li Guangbi fell asleep in a daze. In the early morning of the third day, Li Guangbi got up early again and came to the city again to observe. Just like yesterday, the defenders at the head of the city disappeared without a trace, and there were still only a small number of soldiers and horses hanging around the city, looking fearless.

Li Guangbi rode on his horse, looking at the direction of the city head and frowning in thought. Suddenly, as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt, he turned around and shouted to the generals beside him: "Stop logging immediately, and the whole army will reorganize its formation and prepare to attack the city." ”

The generals were all stunned, and Zheng Qiushan asked, "Li Shuai, what's wrong?" Why do you suddenly want to attack the city? The catapult is not built? The siege engines aren't ready yet. ”

Li Guangbi said coldly: "It's still a fart, we were all tricked by them." Where are they how many defenders? It's just a trick. There weren't many defenders in the city at all, and the reinforcements the night before were just bluffing to scare us. ”

Everyone was stunned, and then they heard Li Guangbi continue to scold: "I don't know who is guarding the city, but he is so cunning." This was to delay time so that Wang Yuan's soldiers and horses could come back to the rescue. ”

"Why is Li Shuai so sure that they are cheating? Obviously, we have seen a large number of their soldiers and horses reinforce the city. And last night, at the head of the city, their soldiers and horses also occupied the head of the city, you, everyone saw it with their own eyes. Zheng Qiushan frowned and asked.

"Hmph, Vice Marshal Zheng doesn't use his brains much. Since they have a large number of soldiers and horses to reinforce