Early the next morning, Zheng Jiezhi, the envoy of Duli Town, received a message from the Shamen Town Army and asked him to go to the council hall. Hearing this, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, and had been in Duli Town for a whole day, but he was told that he was not allowed to go anywhere except that he was strictly ordered to stay in the inn. After a day in the inn room, he had already seen that this inn was not an ordinary inn, from the scar-faced shopkeeper, to the lame guy, and the blind runner, there was not a single normal person, all of them were some disabled people. And when these people look at it, they have an aura that is different from ordinary shopkeepers.

This is a group of veterans, although they have retired due to injuries, the smell of blood on their bodies is still there. He knew it must be the one who was watching him in Salmontown, so he had to stay in his room all day.

Li Jing saw that his place was on Shamen Island instead of Daxie Island, so he followed a group of soldiers in iron armor and with a calm face to Shamen Island by boat early in the morning. Along the way, he carefully observed, and found that the wharves of Da Xie Island and Salmon Island were full of boats, as well as countless piles of goods, and a large group of porters were loading the ships. In addition, there are many arrow towers on the wharf, especially on the side of Salmon Island, he landed at the Phoenix Mountain Wharf, and as soon as he went ashore, he saw nine angular fortresses with a circumference of fifty paces and a height of six zhang like a crown. Next to the group of fortresses crouching like thirty-six giant beasts, there were also thirty-six arrow towers that were also six feet high.

He remembered what he had heard before, when Feng Zhang first attacked Shamen Town, it was here that he was directly defeated. At the time, he thought it was a bit surprising, but now that he actually stepped on this pier, he was not shocked. Such a dense fortification. It's really easy to defend and hard to attack.

But when he followed the soldiers to the front of the city of Shamen. He was even more surprised.

in front of him. It's a huge new castle. The whole town is 300 steps long in the north and south, 200 steps in the east and west, and 1,000 steps in circumference. The entire town is much larger than the Great Xie Qi City with a circumference of 200 steps, and it is not much smaller than Chishan Town and Dengzhou City, which have a circumference of 1,500 steps.

At this time in April, due to Li Jing's large investment in manpower, as well as material and financial resources, the construction of the entire town was much faster than the original plan. Now. The entire most important city wall has been almost completed, the huge rammed earth and brick city wall six zhang high has been completed, and the whole castle is an enlarged version of the small fortress on the pier. The walls are full of edges and corners, tall and majestic, like a huge mountain.

In addition to the city towers, corner towers and arrow towers on the city wall have not yet been built, the city gate urn city, the moat ten zhang wide and three zhang deep has also been dug up, and the huge ditch is like a heavenly stream across the city wall, just waiting to be filled with living water from under the Phoenix Mountain.

The 100-paces outside the moat was emptied, and there were no woods or mounds of dirt. The whole shovel was flattened. Let the view of the city be clear at a glance, and anyone who wants to sneak close to the city below. It's going to be a very tough thing.

And except for a curved twenty-pace-wide avenue in front of the four city gates, the rest of the place was covered with pits, two feet deep, and there were countless pointed wooden stakes the length of the calf. In addition, there are many thistles scattered on the ground, and this thistle terrestris has four feet about three inches long, and no matter how you throw it, one foot will definitely be towards it. This thistle terrestris was found all over the city, and together with the pits and the feet of the deer, they formed a strong line of defense. Even if a soldier could surprise the city, these few things alone would greatly hinder the enemy's footsteps. By the time they had cleared the barrier, the city's defenders had already prepared for defense.

Stepping across the suspension bridge hung by thick iron chains of pigeon eggs and entering the tall doorway, Zheng Jie's eyes kept looking at this urn city gate, but saw that in addition to the two iron-clad giant wooden doors outside, there was actually a boulder gate inside, which was estimated to weigh at least a thousand catties, and if you didn't use cows and horses, you couldn't move this door at all. Moreover, on the walls on both sides of the city gate hole, there are actually many hidden holes and shooting holes, and the archers inside can directly hide in them to shoot.

When you enter the Weng City Gate, you are facing a tall city wall, and you have to go a hundred steps to the east to be the real South Gate. Zheng Jiezhi looked at the countless prominent edges and corners, and he secretly estimated in his heart that even if he took Weng City, the distance of a hundred steps from the urn city gate to the city gate inside, the attacking soldiers would be completely in the full range of fire attacks on the prismatic city wall, which was a death zone.

The leader who led the way saw that he was constantly looking around, and he couldn't help chuckling and said to him, "How about it, this city is majestic enough!" ”

"Majestic!" Zheng Jiezhi nodded very seriously. Zheng Jiezhi Xingyang Zheng was born, is one of the five surnames and seven high families in Shandong, more than half of his life, Chang'an, Luoyang and other places in the world have never been there. It is wider than the majestic city of Shamen. Not to mention Luoyang, Chang'an, it is Duli Town, which is also a huge metropolis with a population of 200,000 and a floating population of 300,000 or 400,000 all year round. Duli Town is much bigger than Shamen Town, but what he praises is also from the heart. Shamen Town may be a little small, but in terms of the defensive performance of this city, it is definitely the largest and strongest defense among the same cities. In particular, this is a fortress castle that was built in four months, and it is amazing in any way. Duli Town was a city that existed for hundreds of years in Goguryeo, and after the Tang people occupied it, it operated for more than 200 years before it has its current scale. Li Jing built such a castle in April, and Li Jing is only a small town general, how can this not be amazing.

Entering the center of the town, in front of the town general's mansion hall, the stone-carved green wolf opened its teeth and claws, revealing sharp wolf teeth and sharp claws, and the pair of wolf eyes made of glass, with a trace of blood red in the pupils, as if watching everyone who passed under it all the time, and the more timid people would feel a huge coercion and shudder.

Passing under the giant wolf, there are several arrow towers in front, and a row of gendarmes wearing black armor but wearing red armbands with the word Neiwei written on them are on guard.

Further on, there were ninety-nine steps in front of the town general's mansion, and both sides of the steps were covered with tall soldiers with silver helmets, silver armor and silver spears. They stood in a daze. It was as motionless as if it were two rows of sculptures. But Zheng Jiemin believes. This group of immovable guards. If you move, you must be like a tiger. When he went up the stairs, he had just been subjected to the coercion of the giant wolf, and now he was being coerced by this group of statue-like guards, Zheng Jiezhi felt that his calves were constantly trembling, and he was almost about to cramp. His people felt that this was very ridiculous, and he had seen a lot of winds and waves, but today he was really uncontrollably deterred. It's a fear that comes from within.

Entering the hall, he saw at a glance that the hall was full of people.

On the left side are all clerical officials wearing hard-horned winged hats and round-necked robes.

On the right side, there are all tall generals wearing red lacquered mountain armor and red cloaks on their shoulders.

The left and the martial right, the left respects and the right is humble, this civil and military position made him slightly surprised. As far as he knew, as today, not all feudal towns were respected by martial arts. The status of literati is not high. Unexpectedly, the little Shamen Town made great achievements. But the military generals are still subservient to the literati, and this Shamen town is really full of different mysteries. He looked up and stole at the top seat.

It was a black iron seat, and there were nine bright and shining swords on the back of the black and cyan iron seat, and the tips of the swords were facing upward, which was very strange. Beneath the edge of these nine long swords, a young man sat on the iron seat. is really young, although he is tall, nearly seven feet, with sword eyebrows and starry eyes, and white face and red lips. He wore a scarlet painted mountain armor, a long cloak of crimson woven gold silk, no head or hood, but a purple and gold crown with his hair, his hands on the iron seat, and a pair of eyes were looking at him with a smile.

Zheng Jiezhi hurriedly bowed his head and didn't dare to look at Li Jing, and before walking a few times, he bowed and saluted: "Zheng Jiezhi, the special envoy of Wang Pu, the city lord of Duli Town, will meet General Ji Yu and greet the general on behalf of the city lord of my family." ”

"Hello General Zheng!" Li Jing looked down on this silver-haired messenger who was over fifty years old. He had already received all the news of this messenger from Gongsun Lan and Li Wei, and he didn't see him for a day yesterday, so he asked people to touch his bottom. This person is a descendant of the Zheng family in Xingyang, Henan, but he is not the eldest son but the second son, so he was arranged to go to Duli Town later. has been in Duli Town for many years, and now he is the deputy city lord of Duli Town, and he can be regarded as a person who has more power to speak in Duli Town. This time, Duli Town sent him as an envoy, which can be regarded as very sincere.

"General Zheng!" The supervising army Zhang Chengye sat first on the left, still above Zhang Hong. He said in a unique slightly shrill voice: "Duli Town wants to cease fighting, I don't know what kind of conditions you bring, say it, if you are not sincere, there is no need to say it." ”

Zhang Chengye's aggressive attitude suddenly made Zheng Jiezhi's brows furrow. Although I expected that this trip would not be easy, I did not expect that it would be so difficult. He looked up and said with some confusion: "I don't know who this is?" ”

"This is the close attendant of His Majesty the Emperor of Chang'an, Zhang Chengye Zhang Jianjun, who once served as the envoy of the Ziqing Town Supervision Military Academy, and his father is Zhang Gong, a regular servant in Chang'an, and now he is specially sent to Shamen Town to serve as a supervisor." Li Jing replied.

Zheng Jie's heart was even more shocked, Shamen Town is just a small town, and now there is a prison army. And he is not an ordinary prison army, this young eunuch is actually the adopted son of Zhongchang. He couldn't help but feel a headache, and he still underestimated Li Jing when he came. Li Jing has such a prison army, so he can go directly to Tianyan.

Zheng Jiezhi bowed to Zhang Chengye again, and then said in a more humble tone: "I am here to ask for peace on behalf of Duli Town, the last incident was just a misunderstanding, it was all because of Feng Zhang's false words and deception, saying that the Feng family in my city was moved, and they lobbied many representatives in charge, and the last battle was only after that." We are also deceived, but we are willing to make amends for our mistakes. Zheng Jiemin stated their conditions: "Duli Town is willing to compensate Shamen Town and Qingnipu for 200,000 yuan each, in addition, we also hope that we are willing to pay for the redemption of our soldiers captured by the two families, and we will pay 100,000 yuan to redeem all the prisoners." Correspondingly, Duli Town hopes that the war between Shamen Town and Qingnipu will be suspended and friendship will be restored. ”

Zhang Chengye cleared his throat, "Da Xie Yan's deputy soldier and horse envoy, the town general of Shamen Town, the pioneer of Ziqing Town, the Jiedu guard, the guerrilla general, the general Li Jing, the captain of the cavalry, and General Li Lingfu of Qingnipu, as well as our family and everyone have carefully and seriously considered the peace conditions you proposed, but I regret to tell you that these conditions are unacceptable. I'm sorry for you to go back and tell Wang Pu that we will give you a chance for an official decisive battle, so that you can freely choose a date, and the three of us will fight it out. ”

Zheng Jiezhi was stunned for a moment, his conditions had just been proposed, but this eunuch actually said that they had all considered it, isn't this nonsense. But he did not dare to accuse them, who called him the one who asked for peace now. Swallowing his saliva, Zheng Jiezhi licked his dry lips, "Please also ask the generals to think about it more, igniting the flames of war will not benefit anyone, and harmony will make money, and harmony will make money." If several generals are not satisfied with the conditions we have proposed, you can also make your own demands. We discuss slowly, and in the end we can always seek common ground while reserving differences. ”

Li Jing smiled, this Duli Town was really as afraid of war as he expected. Since they are bent on peace, then he doesn't blame himself for being ruthless.

"My conditions are as follows!" Li Jing said loudly: "All the soldiers and horses in Duli Town must rejoin the Tang Dynasty, declare their allegiance to His Majesty the Tang Emperor, and pay taxes to the imperial court in the future." Each family has to send a descendant to my Shamen Town as a hostage. As long as Duli Town is loyal to the Tang Dynasty from now on, then their son will be courteous and will never be harmed. This is a prerequisite, and only if this condition is met, it is necessary to talk about the details that follow. ”

Zheng Jiezhi was stunned for a moment when he heard this condition, although its realization was already under the control of the imperial court in the entire eastern and western Liaodong. But in fact, Liaodong and Liaoxi still belong to the territory under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, and until now, no one in the countries of Bohai and Silla dares to really openly violate this article. Therefore, in fact, Duli Town was originally under the rule of the Tang Dynasty, and it is only because of the special situation in Liaodong that the situation of Duli Town as a free trade city for a hundred years has been caused. Now Li Jing's request to belong to the Tang Dynasty is nothing, it is just to pay some taxes to the imperial court, and it is impossible for the imperial court to really reach out to Duli Town.

"Okay, we're willing to accept that."

Hearing this, Li Jing instantly smiled like an old fox. (To be continued.) For mobile phone users, please go to read. )