July 187 A.D.

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Zhang Yan stood by the Jinshui River, looking at the flow of people on the pontoon, silent.

After Zhang Ju and Zhang Chun were in Youzhou, one claimed the emperor and the other, and also built the country name of Dayan, which Zhang Yan did not expect. After Zhang Ju became the emperor of the Great Yan Kingdom, he issued several edicts to Zhang Yan in a row, and also named him the general of the Great Yan Kingdom. Zhang Yan was very angry, did not accept it, and did not reply. He felt that Zhang Chun, the handsome Anding, had changed, and he was no longer the Andingshuai of the Yellow Turban Army, but an ambitious Anding King.

Zhang Chun is one of the eight disciples of the great sage and good teacher Zhang Jiao, who hid in the court as an official a long time ago, reported to the Yellow Turban Army, and later provided money and food support to the Yellow Turban Army after becoming a local county guard. Last year, when Zhang Chun returned to Youzhou from Luoyang, he went to Taihang Mountain to see Zhang Yan once. At that time, Zhang Chun had already decided to raise troops in Youzhou to rebuild the Taiping cause, and he hoped to get the help of Zhang Yan and other Yellow Turban leaders in Taihang Mountain. Of course, Zhang Yan agreed. However, Zhang Yan didn't know what Zhang Chun was going to do.

At the end of last year, Master Xiangkai of Dazhitang and Wang Fen, the assassin of Jizhou, were ready to take advantage of the Son of Heaven to return to his hometown to worship his ancestors, kidnap the Son of Heaven and rebuild the Han Dynasty. He sent people to find Zhang Yan, hoping to join forces with the Yellow Turban Army and join forces in a big move. Zhang Yan felt that Xiang Kai's strategy was feasible, and Xiang Kai and his Dazhitang had always had a close relationship with Taiping Dao, and it was incumbent on them to form an alliance to help each other. But Zhang Yan was afraid that Xiangkai's plan would sabotage Zhang Chun's preparations for the uprising in Youzhou, so he specially sent someone to tell Zhang Chun.

Soon, Yuyang Daru Zhang Ju rushed to Taihang Mountain with Zhang Chun's letter. Zhang Ju explained to Zhang Yan in detail Zhang Chun's plan to raise troops. He said that about Jizhou, Xiangkai also found Zhang Chun, and Zhang Chun also agreed, and he would definitely help, but Zhang Chun had Zhang Chun's thoughts. Zhang Chun believes that after Xiangkai hijacked the Son of Heaven, he set up the Liu clan as the new emperor, which was simply self-defeating, and he would inevitably lose in the future. Zhang Yan didn't think much about it at the time, but only objected to Zhang Chun's use of the power of the Karasuma people to raise troops. Zhang Ju didn't seem to want to explain more, but said that the uprising in Youzhou was different from the uprising in Jizhou, and it was necessary to unite with foreign tribes, otherwise it would be easy to be attacked by foreign tribes and fall into the two-sided attack of the official army and foreign tribes.

Xiangkai and Wang Fen's cunning fell short because of the appearance of the leopard. Wang Fen committed suicide by leaking the matter. The disciples of Xiangkai and Dazhitang were pursued by the government and had nowhere to hide, so they had to flee to Taihang Mountain. Zhang Yan originally thought that this incident would force Zhang Chun to postpone the incident, but he didn't expect Zhang Chun to send someone to send a secret letter later. Zhang Chun told him that everything was ready, and he would only start an incident when the official army and the Xianbei people were inseparable from each other in the western frontier.

Zhang Yan hesitated. The Xianbei people's invasion of the Han Dynasty was very large, and once the Han army could not resist it, Guanzhong and Guanxi would fall, and the people would suffer, which was completely contrary to the teachings of the Taiping Dao. Taking advantage of the Han army's resistance to the Xianbei invasion, it was obvious that they were helping the Xianbei invasion, and many leaders of the Yellow Turban Army refused to go down the mountain at that time. In the opinion of Zhang Yan and some leaders of the Yellow Turban Army, Zhang Chun could wait until the Han army defeated the Xianbei people, and at that time, the Han army was exhausted and its strength was greatly damaged, and the timing was even better than when the Xianbei people attacked the western frontier.

After the invasion of the Xianbei people, Zhang Chun began to urge Zhang Yan to lead the army down the mountain, Zhang Chun's reason was very far-fetched, he thought that the leopard Li Hong would definitely defeat the Xianbei people, as long as Li Hong relieved himself, it was the Yellow Turban Army that suffered. At this time, Xiang Kai spoke, he observed the heavenly phenomena, divined the turtle divination, all showed that there was no war disaster in Guanzhong, he told Zhang Yan that the leopard Li Hong would definitely win this battle, and it was better to go down the mountain and occupy Taiyuan as soon as possible. Thinking of the leopard Li Hong's brave and good fighting, the leaders of the Yellow Turban Army were still shaken.

According to the prior agreement, Zhang Yan led an army of 300,000 down the Taihang Mountain and attacked Taiyuan County. Because Zhang Yi, the assassin of Bingzhou, took the county soldiers of each county to Yanmen Pass to stop the Xianbei people, there were almost no defenders in each county, and he easily captured the sixteen cities of Taiyuan County. Just as he was capturing the last city, Jinyang City, he received two pieces of news.

The first news was the one he wanted to hear, that the leopard Li Hong had defeated the Xianbei people. The soldiers of the Yellow Turban Army cheered when they heard that the Xianbei people had fled in defeat, but after they were happy, everyone was very uneasy. After the leopard's victory, he will definitely be sent by the Son of Heaven to Bingzhou to quell the rebellion. What will be the fate of everyone after the leopard comes?

The second news is that the Youzhou Yellow Turban Army has won successive battles, and the momentum is like a bamboo, and it is advancing in the direction of Jizhou. After Zhang Yan received the news, he was not happy at all, but was very angry, he felt that he had been deceived by Zhang Chun like an idiot. Zhang Chun and Zhang Ju have been hiding from him to build the country and claim the emperor. Who is the Great Yan Country? Whose emperor is the emperor of the Great Yan Kingdom? If the Great Yan Kingdom is the Great Yan Kingdom of the Yellow Turban Army, then why is Zhang Ju the emperor? Who gave him the qualifications to be emperor? Who are those horns, horns, hundreds of thousands, millions of Yellow Turban soldiers fighting for? For whom did they pay with their blood and lives?

The leaders of the Yellow Turbans were furious.

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Sun Qin dismounted from a distance and walked over.

"Handsome ......"

Zhang Yan still looks like Fu Wen is weak, but she has lost a lot of weight, and her eyes are more calm and capable than before. He beckoned to Sun Qin and said with a smile: "Jingzhi, how are the people in the city evacuated?" ”

Sun Qin smiled bitterly, "Everyone is reluctant to go." He pointed to the fields by the river and sighed, "There are many fields here to feed and clothe us, and when we return to the mountains, we have nothing to offer, not even hope." ”

A trace of helplessness flashed on Zhang Yan's face.

"Dashuai, after we withdraw to Shangai, will we continue to stay in the mountains, or will we go directly to Changshan?"

Zhang Yan bowed her head and was silent.

Sun Qin looked at Zhang Yan, and suddenly said excitedly and loudly: "Dashuai, you won't take us to Changshan, right?" What are we doing in Jizhou? Kowtow to those two bastards and shout hooray? ”

"Marshal, we have worked the battlefield for several years, and countless brothers have died, why should we give everything to them? What did they do for the Yellow Turbans? Where were the masters when they died? When the big handsome died. Where are they? When Huangfu Song killed 100,000 of our brothers in Xiaquyang Pit, where were they? ”

"Respectfully, we can't give up the great cause of the Yellow Turban Army because of these things." Zhang Yan looked at the clear water of the Jinyang River and said weakly, "They are also the Yellow Turban Army." ”

"They're not the Yellow Turbans." Sun Qin tried his best to restrain the anger in his heart, and said in a low voice, "They are the army of the Great Yan Kingdom, and they have nothing to do with us. ”

"Respect for the ......"

"Dashuai, don't say it." Sun Qin raised his hand to interrupt Zhang Yan's words, and said with a resolute face, "If you still go to Jizhou according to Zhang Chun's arrangement to fight hard for his big Yan country, then you go, Heizi and I won't go, we will stay in Taihang Mountain." ”

Zhang Yan sighed. He really couldn't understand why An Dingshuai did this. If he thinks about the emperor, but it is not him who is the emperor, if he is for the great cause of the Yellow Turban Army, but he does not help the unity of the Yellow Turban Army at all, doesn't he know that doing so will make the various parts of the Yellow Turban with their own thoughts split faster? What does Anding Shuai want to do?

"Dashuai, now all the little marshals don't want to leave Jinyang." Sun Qin said, "I came to talk to you about this. If the marshal decides not to go to Jizhou, then there is no need for us to withdraw to Taihang Mountain. ”

"I decided to ......," Zhang Yan smiled bitterly, "I decided...... What can I decide? ”

"The marshal can decide whether we stay in Jinyang or not and fight the leopard again." Sun Qin looked up at the blue sky, and couldn't help but flash the sky in the north in front of him. Back then, I stood on the shore of the giant horse and looked up at the sky almost every day. The sky there is bluer than here, and the blue is intoxicating; The leopard was also smaller then than it is now, and the small one could almost eat him, but now?

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Zhang Yan walked slowly on the riverbank, gently kicking the wildflowers on the bank with her foot from time to time, her heart empty. He was at a loss, he didn't know what he was going to do.

Back to Taihang Mountain? Occupying the mountains is the king, and the grass is the coward, and after all, the survival problem of the millions of displaced people in the mountains cannot be solved.

To Jizhou? Zhang Chun's unreasonable approach angered the leader of the Yellow Turban Army, and no one was willing to fight for him. Although he is the commander of the Yellow Turban Army, his qualifications and prestige are simply not enough to make the Yellow Turban subordinates obey their words.

Stay in Jinyang? The army of leopards has already crossed the Luliang Mountain and is assembling at the Fen River, and they will soon be able to reach Jinyang City. I didn't have the confidence to defeat him. The 120,000 Xianbei Iron Cavalry were all defeated by him, not to mention his hundreds of thousands of hungry Yellow Turban Army.

Li Hong's confident smiling face, the long hair that was scattered, and the awe-inspiring murderous aura suddenly swept through Zhang Yan's mind, and Zhang Yan couldn't help but shudder.

Suddenly, he remembered what Li Hong said that day. That day, Li Hong asked him and Yang Feng to meet on an unknown hill outside Zhending City, and Li Hong gave him a suggestion to continue to survive. For more than a year, he has been struggling to survive according to the advice Li Hong said. If it weren't for Li Hong's words, he wouldn't have seen hope, and he wouldn't have known what the future of himself and the Yellow Turban Army would be. No matter what Li Hong's purpose was for meeting him at that time, what he said gave him confidence and confidence to survive, and from this point alone, he felt that he still had to thank Li Hong.

At that time, Li Hong may have rushed to the Xiliang battlefield in order to quell the rebellion, so he made an appointment with himself, and said a lot of things that should not be said by a person of his status, but those words seem to prove that Li Hong and Huangfu Song and Guo Dian are not the same kind of people, Li Hong back then did not seem to have the idea of resolutely putting the Yellow Turban Army to death, so what about today? Is the leopard who has already shocked the world today and Li Hong on the hill that day not the same person?

If today's leopards still have the same idea about the Yellow Turbans and hope that the Yellow Turbans can continue to survive, then ......

Zhang Yan didn't dare to think about it anymore, and the strong feeling of suffocation in his heart made him almost out of breath.

"Da Shuai ......" Sun Qin, who had been following behind, saw Zhang Yan's thin body shake twice, as if he was about to fall, and hurriedly shouted.

Zhang Yan took two long breaths in the fresh river breeze, and for a moment she only felt that her confidence had doubled, and she no longer had any fear.

"Okay, just listen to you, let's fight the leopard again."

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Li Hong's army arrived at Zishi City in Taiyuan County from the southern foot of Luliang Mountain.

At the same time, the imperial decree was sent to the camp. Hearing that Liu Zheng, the Taishou of Youbeiping County, was killed, the former Lu Longsai soldiers were very sad. Li Hong, Yushi and the others were all Liu Zheng's subordinates, and since Liu Zheng sent them out of Lu Longsai, everyone had never seen him again. Li Hong, Yushi, Zheng Xin, Tian Chong, Yan Wuxing and others set up a spiritual tent in the camp to pay tribute to the deceased. The soldiers of the former Lulongsai came to pay their respects and send their condolences.

In the big tent, Li Hong sat on the ground, his face pale. Last night he didn't close his eyes all night, and he couldn't sleep. When he left Lu Longsai, the scene of Liu Zheng straightening out his messy hair always appeared in his mind, which made him feel sad and unbearable. Liu Zheng has always cared for him very much, even when he arrived in Xiliang, Liu Zheng did not forget to write thousands of miles to greet Taiwei Zhang Wen, hoping that he could take care of Li Hong. Li Hong felt his kindness, and always thought that one day when he returned to Lu Longsai, he would repay him well, but he didn't expect Lu Longsai to become a permanent secret. When Liu Zheng needed him the most, he couldn't rush to his side to repay him, Li Hong was very sad and blamed himself, but what made Li Hong hurt the most was that the person who killed him was Zhang Chun.

Thinking of the days when he and Zhang Chun got together in Lunu City, Li Hong was even more difficult to let go. What is the relationship between himself and Zhang Chun? A mentor and a friend? Zhang Chun was old, treated him like a child, and taught him many things. His sympathy for the Yellow Turban Army was first caused by what Zhang Chun said to him by the Shengshui River. Without Zhang Chun's earnest teachings, he might have killed more innocents, and he might have killed like Huangfu Song.

"My lord, do you want to take a break?" Shinoarashi, who was standing on the side, asked softly.

Li Hong shook his head and said to everyone in the tent: "Xiao Lan just read the letter of Lord Shangshutai Huangfu, are you very clear about the current situation?" ”

"It's clear, it's clear, but isn't it a bit ...... Your Majesty asked us to surround Zhang Yan's Yellow Turban Army in the Jinyang area" Lu Yi pointed to Jinyang City on the map, and stopped talking.

Li Hong glanced at him and said, "What's the matter?" A bit difficult? ”

"My lord, after Your Majesty saw the map of Bingzhou, did you think that Bingzhou was a flat river?" Lu Yi sneered, "The terrain of Taiyuan County is complicated, and there are mountains everywhere, and His Majesty has ordered us to surround the Yellow Turban Army in this kind of place, how can we surround it?" Do you fly with wings? ”

Someone in the tent covered their mouths and snickered.

"My lord, I think the court has ulterior motives." Yan Rou said, "At present, Jizhou's troops are empty, and they can't stop the Youzhou rebels at all. If Jizhou is lost, many ministers in the DPRK and China will not be able to escape responsibility, so they have come up with such a trick to shirk their responsibility. ”

"We 70,000 people beat Zhang Yan, and Zhang Yan will definitely not be able to stop it. Even if he can hold on to Jinyang for a while, he still has to run in the end. Whether he ran back to Taihang Mountain or Changshan, only Jizhou was lost, and the blame was ours. How can there be such a reason in the world, we won the battle in Jizhou, but we have to bear the responsibility for the loss of Jizhou. Yan Rou scolded hatefully, "There is no good thing in the imperial court. ”

Li Hong thought for a moment and said: "At present, the Yellow Turban Army is waiting in the Jinyang area, and it is indeed nonsense to say anything about encircling the rebels at this time. Lord Huangfu Song said very implicitly, only said that the Yellow Turban Army would stay in Bingzhou, and did not say how long it would take to surround it, nor did it say how long it would take, so we don't pay attention to His Majesty's holy decree, as long as we understand what Lord Huangfu means. ”

He looked at the generals and continued: "There are still many ways to keep the Yellow Turban Army in Bingzhou. From tomorrow, we will only walk fifty miles a day, so don't rush to Jinyang first. ”

Ko Yi smiled: "My lord, you crawl like this, the Yellow Turban Army has already run away." ”

Li Hong said expressionlessly: "You guys go back and rest." Shou Yan and Zi Cicada stayed. ”

Immediately, he pointed to Zuo Yan and Li Wei and asked, "Junyi, Zhong Yuan, have you come up with a way?" ”

Zuo Yan's face was embarrassed, and he was about to speak, but he was interrupted by Li Hong, "You don't want to sleep, discuss it immediately, and give me a return tomorrow morning." ”

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When everyone walked out of the big tent, Li Hong called Xiao Lan to stop.

"Tell Junyi and Zhongyuan to get some food and drink, don't be hungry at night."

Xiao Lan quickly thanked and hurried away.

"Shouyan, what's unusual about the soldiers lately?"

"Your Excellency feels it, too." Zheng Xin said with a serious expression, "The current infantry soldiers, almost all of them are Yellow Turban soldiers, they heard that they were going to fight Zhang Yan, they were very uneasy, especially the group of soldiers who had just come from Jizhou, they complained a lot, their morale was very poor, and some of the team leaders and commanders were also depressed and listless, and even a few military commanders complained in private that they were not enough, and they also talked nonsense in front of the soldiers. ”

Li Hong was silent for a long time and sighed: "Zuo Yan and Wei Zheng have rarely spoken since they heard that they were going to Bingzhou to fight Zhang Yan. Shangguan can't control his feelings, let alone the subordinate officers and soldiers, forget it, just know, anyway, I don't plan to start a war with Zhang Yan, don't be careful, the soldiers have no morale. ”

Chen Ming looked at Li Hong gratefully and whispered, "Do you want me to go to Jinyang?" ”

"Yes." Li Hong said, "The last time I met Zhang Yan, it was through you and Yang Feng that I was matchmaking, so this time you should make a trip." ”

"You have to see Zhang Yan as soon as possible no matter what, you tell him that what I told him last time, there is hope that it will be done this time."

After Li Hong finished speaking, he took two steps back and forth in the tent, thought for a long time, and said, "Before I go to Jinyang, I want to see him once." ”

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