At this time, Pei Lin got up and saluted and said: "Zhang Xuan has always been far-sighted, Weichen feels that this should be an action he has planned a long time ago, and it will never be a whim, the Sui army occupies Pujin Pass, and the threat to Guanzhong and Chang'an is too great, but if the troops are not enough, then it will not be possible to capture Chang'an, so Weichen feels that Zhang Xuan's original intention is not to continue to attack Guanzhong or Chang'an, he is likely to just make a gesture, in order to retaliate for us attacking Huguan when he attacked Goguryeo." ”

As soon as Pei Lian's words fell, Liu Wenjing snorted coldly and said, "Will Zhang Xuan be so bored and take revenge on us for a small kettle?" ”

Pei Lin was suddenly annoyed in his heart, and looked at Liu Wenjing angrily and said: "The saint said that everyone expressed their opinions, I just said my thoughts, why did Liu Xiangguo target me everywhere?" ”

Everyone was big for a while, these two people had to fight each other wherever they went, and they refused to stop such an important discussion, Li Yuan was very unhappy in his heart, and said to Liu Wenjing very unceremoniously: "What opinion does Liu Xiangguo have, please tell me!" ”

Liu Wenjing hurriedly got up and saluted: "Weichen also accepts General Ma's inference that Zhang Xuan is currently in the Central Plains, and if he intends to attack Guanzhong on a large scale, he will inevitably return to Zhongdu to sit in the capital, so he must have another deep meaning in attacking Pujin Pass this time." ”

"What will he mean?" Li Yuan asked.

"Wechen thinks it should be inferred from what Jaang Hyun is currently doing."

Liu Wenjing's words suddenly pointed out the direction to everyone, and Chen Shuda hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, Liu Xiangguo is right, Zhang Xuan is currently leading the army to fight for the Central Plains, and the battle situation in the Central Plains must have changed dramatically, so Zhang Xuan ordered the army to attack from the north and capture Pujin Pass." ”

The situation became clearer and clearer, and Li Yuan immediately ordered: "Zhao Cijing, the squire of the Xuanbing Department, will come to see me immediately!" ”

Zhao Cijing was waiting outside the hall, and when he heard the call, he walked into the hall quickly, bowed down and said, "Weichen see Your Majesty." ”

"Zhao Shilang, is the latest battle report from the Central Plains here today?"

"Back to Your Majesty, the battle report has just arrived, because the road was wet by heavy rain, Weichen is re-copying and sorting, Your Majesty, please wait a while, you can submit it to Your Majesty in a quarter of an hour at the latest."

Li Yuan was so anxious that he could wait for a quarter of an hour, so he hurriedly said, "Just talk about the content!" I want to know what happened in the Battle of the Central Plains? ”

"Back to Your Majesty, His Royal Highness the King of Qin led the army to defeat Wang Shichong again in Chengxiu County, Xiangguo County, Wang Shichong has retreated to Yique County, the situation is very critical, the latest news is that Zhang Xuan personally led 50,000 troops into Yingchuan County, and is confronting General Qu Tutong's army."

As soon as this news came out, all the ministers in the palace understood that this was the strategy of encircling Wei to save Zhao, and the Sui army entered and occupied Pujin Pass, threatening Guanzhong, and forcing the Tang army to withdraw from the Central Plains.

Li Yuan let out a long sigh and said: "What a strategy to encircle Wei and save Zhao, this move is decisive and vicious, not only tearing up the armistice agreement signed between the two armies last year, but also killing me in horror!" ”

Ma Sanbao got up again and said: "Your Majesty, in fact, our situation is very critical, our troops south of Taiyuan are empty, and the Taiyuan army is pinned down by Liu Wuzhou and cannot go south, if the Sui army continues to increase its troops in Hedong County, I am afraid that it will really attack Guanzhong on a large scale." ”

"What does the General think we should do?" Although Li Yuan's tone was calm, he was also a little anxious in his heart, and a trace of imperceptible anxiety flashed in his eyes.

Ma Sanbao said again: "Taiyuan City should be able to squeeze out a little army, Your Majesty can lead General Li Xiaogong to immediately lead 10,000 troops south to attack Yiguan, and find a way to cut off the Sui army's westward road, although the possibility of success is not large, but at least it can drag the Sui army and buy a little time, Weichen thinks that His Majesty will immediately transfer back to the Central Plains army to support Guanzhong." ”

"Does the general mean that all the Central Plains troops have been transferred back?" Chen Shuda asked.

Ma Sanbao leaned over and said to Chen Shuda: "I think that leaving a part of the army is not enough to safeguard the interests of our Central Plains. ”

Everyone was silent, Ma Sanbao's meaning was very clear, and he immediately withdrew his troops from the Central Plains, but the Eastern Expedition to the Central Plains had been planned by Li Yuan for a long time, and the current Tang Army had achieved fruitful results, so how could he be willing to give up easily.

Li Yuan pondered for a long time, and slowly said to everyone: "The results of the Central Plains cannot be easily given up, since the King of Qin has occupied Xiangguo County, then you can go to Hongnong County to withdraw part of the army, such as letting General Qu Tu lead 30,000 troops back, I think Guanzhong should be fine." ”

．．．．．

Although Li Yuan asked the ministers to block the news of the Sui army's occupation of Hedong City and Pujin Pass, the news still spread, first in the imperial court, and then many Chang'an clans got the exact news from the flying pigeon letter sent by Feng Yijun, and the news that the Sui army captured Pujin Pass and Guanzhong was facing a crisis spread throughout Chang'an City like wings.

For a time, Chang'an was in the wind, a kind of uneasy mood spread rapidly in Chang'an, the most obvious is the price of rice, which is the vane of the crisis, overnight, the price of rice rose from Doumi Baiwen to Doumi 150 Wen, many families with rice bags rushed to Chang'an's major rice shops, in the afternoon, the price of rice rose to 200 Wen.

Not only did the price of rice rise rapidly, but every household began to pack up their money and belongings, preparing to consider escaping the city and taking refuge from relatives in the countryside when the crisis was serious.

Chang'an West City is a distribution center for bulk goods, where a large amount of grain, cloth, oilseeds, and livestock come and go every day, and the business of each store is particularly prosperous.

There is a wine shop called Wenchangju Restaurant diagonally opposite the north gate of Xicheng, although the scale can only be regarded as medium in Chang'an, but the location is good, and the daily business is also quite prosperous, another background of this wine shop is an intelligence point of the Sui Army in Chang'an, after nearly a year of hard work, the intelligence point of the Sui Army in Chang'an has expanded to thirteen, this Wenchangju Wine Store is one of them.

At noon, the business of Wenchangju wine shop was very prosperous, the three floors were full of guests, and the guests were talking about the matter of Pujin Pass, and there were already seven or eight versions of the matter of Pujin Pass, each version was said as if it were true, and all kinds of gossip was spread from places like wine shops.

At this time, a young scribe hurriedly walked into the wine shop, and the shopkeeper who was greeting guests in the lobby saw the young scribe, and hurriedly greeted him and said with a smile: "It turned out to be Mr. Gao, I haven't seen you for a long time, and today I am still in the old seat?" ”

The young scribe smiled and nodded, the shopkeeper gave him a look, and continued to smile: "Master Gao, let's go upstairs, please!" ”

The young scribe was called Gao Jin, born in the Bohai Gao clan, but only a concubine, who served as the lieutenant of Gaotang County, Zhang Jin said that when he plagued Qinghe County, he abandoned the official and went home to study and farm, defected to Zhang Xuan three years ago, and has now been promoted to join the army, and was sent to the Chang'an Intelligence Bureau as a military officer a few months ago.

Although Gao Jin is in charge of internal affairs, he also has certain tasks, and he is mainly responsible for one-line contact with a high-ranking official in the Chang'an court.

Gao Jin and the shopkeeper went up to the third floor, the third floor was all a single room, and it was already full, they came to the east of the farthest room, Gao Jin pointed to the next door, the shopkeeper hurriedly whispered: "There is no one next door!" ”

Gao Jin pushed the door and walked into the elegant room, there was already a guest in the elegant room, it was a fair-skinned middle-aged man, he was wearing a gauze hat, wearing a red official robe of the Tang Dynasty, standing in front of the window with his hands in his hands, Gao Jin hurriedly stepped forward and saluted, "Students see the waiter!" ”

The middle-aged man said lightly: "I want to go back immediately, there is only one news to tell you, the Son of Heaven has decided to transfer 30,000 troops from the Central Plains back to aid Guanzhong, and the King of Qin will continue to stay in the Central Plains." ”

After speaking, the middle-aged man turned around and left the room, the door knocked softly, and the footsteps quickly walked away.

Gao Jin sat in the room for a while, and then left the wine shop, he didn't go far, but came directly to the West Market,

There is a rather large goods store in the northeast corner of the West City, more than 20 large and small shops, it is a goods store specializing in selling all kinds of four treasures of the study, because Chang'an people have a great demand for stationery paper, so the business here is also extraordinarily prosperous, from morning to night are crowded with guests, there are often the tolerances of the government to rush to buy pen, ink, paper and inkstone, especially the demand for paper is the largest, this is the best selling commodity in stationery.

Although the goods store is small, but the dragon and the tiger are hidden, one of them mainly sells paper, called the Donghai paper store Wenbao shop is the Sui army's intelligence station in Chang'an, no one would have thought that this store filled with a smell of paper tents is actually Zhang Xuan's window to understand various trends in Chang'an.

Gao Jin came to the Donghai paper store, there were more than a dozen guests in the front hall were selecting stationery paper tents, dozens of baskets of large and small sizes in the store were full of various empty scrolls, and white hemp paper and jute paper were piled up two stories high, two guys were greeting guests, seeing Gao Jin walk in, one of them hurriedly greeted him.

"Is proprietor Yang back?"

"Just came back! It's inside. ”

Although this is the intelligence headquarters of the Sui army in Chang'an, the intelligence leader Yang Chonglan rarely stays here, he will appear at various intelligence points in Chang'an every day, listen to the deacons' reports, and then bring back important information to Gao Jin to deal with.

Gao Jin walked directly into the backyard and went up to the second floor, Yang Chonglan was writing at the desk, he looked up and saw that it was Gao Jin, and quickly put down his pen and asked with concern: "Did you see someone?" ”

Gao Jin nodded, "He told me an extremely important piece of information, which is exactly what we are most concerned about. ”

Yang Chonglan hurriedly closed the doors and windows and asked in a low voice, "Has Li Shimin withdrawn his troops from the Central Plains?" ”

Gao Jin shook his head, "Li Yuan is only willing to withdraw 30,000 people back, and Li Shimin will continue to lead the army to stay in the Central Plains." ”

Yang Chonglan's expression became solemn, no matter what, this is an extremely important piece of information, and he needs to send the information to Zhongdu immediately. (To be continued.) )