At the end of May, it was rainy and windy along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Thanks to Cao Ziang's accommodation, Chu Zheng walked south from Shanyin to defend the seawall non-stop, and crossed the Yangtze River from Jiangmen to Yudong to the south. When Chu Zheng set foot on the land of Yudong, he was just in time for a typhoon to pass through, and hurricanes and torrential rain destroyed several roads in Yudong.

Chu Zheng was anxious to see Lin Tie, and took the critical situation of Xuyang Xin, and went south against the wind and rain.

Fortunately, the hurricane has already passed, and although it is not known whether the next wave will come again, there is a certain amount of time between them. Chu Zheng and Hu Cong's group braved the wind and rain to ride south, although it was hard, but it was not very dangerous.

After entering the territory of Jiaxing, Chu Zheng knew that the wind disaster in Yudong was relatively light.

The typhoon happened to cross Changguo Island and enter at the junction of Haiyan and Pinghu counties in the southeast of Jiaxing, sweeping all the way north, and by the time it reached Yudong, the wind had weakened a lot. Changguk Island and Pinghu County were severely affected.

Houses, fields, and roads destroyed by the hurricane were everywhere, killing and injuring many people, and leaving tens of thousands of people homeless.

Only then could Chu Zheng understand how miserable it was for the Xisha Island storm to drown tens of thousands of people in one night, and why the Jiangdong Left Army, which was dominated by the brave and brave people of Xisha Island, was loyal to Lin Jiao, and why it was able to fight so bravely and fearless of life and death.

The road was destroyed, and the cavalry was also difficult to travel, and it was not until the third day of the sixth month that Chu Zheng and his party rushed to Menshandu in the south of Haiyan County.

There were many fishing boats moored at the mouth of Menshandu to avoid the storm, and Chu Zheng wanted to hire a boat to send them across the river.

The Qianjiang estuary of the Menshan Ferry section is unusually open, and it is 50 miles away from Cixi to the shore. The fishing boats were small, and the weather was cloudy and the wind had not completely stopped.

No one was willing to risk sending Chu Zheng across the river for a few taels of silver, so they persuaded him to go to Haining and take Tazi Mountain to Shangyu on the other side, which was only twenty miles away. It is also convenient to go to Mingzhou by land from Shangyu.

Chu Zheng didn't know that Lin Lian, Gao Zongting and others were in Shangyu, and thought that he would have to go to Haining for a detour, and he would have to walk for two more days, so it would be better to stay in Menshan for one more day, and tomorrow the sky would improve, and he could cross the river directly.

Menshandu is a fishing port, forming a small town, although there is no inn in the town, but you can rent a residential house. Sleeping until the night, listening to the whirring of the wind, the sound of the rain hitting the eaves and eaves, Chu Zheng was worried that he would not be able to walk at dawn.

I don't know when the wind and rain will stop, I was awakened by the knock on the door, Chu Zheng woke up, and listened to someone knocking on the courtyard door of the master's house, listening to the door open, and someone asked the master outside the courtyard: "There are six people before nightfall, one of them has a broken left arm, and he will stay overnight with you......"

Jiaxing belongs to the jurisdiction of the Northern Zhejiang Envoy Division, which is regarded as Dong Yuan's territory. Although Dong Yuan is also a figure from the Eastern Fujian Army, Chu Zheng and Dong Yuan also know each other, but the current situation is complicated and people's hearts are unpredictable, Chu Zheng is worried that Dong Yuan will detain several of them, and they will not publicize it from the southeast of Yu.

It is said that Dong Yuan could not have known that they had passed through Jiaxing, but someone knocked on the door in the middle of the night to ask, and Chu Zheng couldn't help but be unvigilant.

No matter what, Chu Zheng couldn't meet Dong Yuan's sword soldiers, even if a few of them detained Dong Yuan, they wouldn't have to worry about their lives, hearing someone coming over here, Chu Zheng opened the door and asked, "Who is looking for me?" ”

"Captain Chu, it's me!" A young voice came from the shadows.

Chu Zheng sounded familiar at first glance, and he couldn't remember who it was for a while, so he walked over from behind the lantern, and saw the face of a young man in his twenties revealed. Chu Zheng hadn't recognized it yet, and the Hu Cong behind him slapped him enthusiastically: "Chen Xiaoyan, why are you?" ”

Only then did Chu Zheng recognize that the person he had come over was the scholar beside Gao Zongting, who had not seen him for five or six years, and the young man back then was already a heroic young man.

"Why did you come here, Mr. Gao asked you to come, what about Mr. Gao's people?" Chu Zhenglian asked.

"Mr. is on the boat, his identity is sensitive, and it is inconvenient to go ashore, knowing that you are looking for a boat to cross the river in Menshandu, so he asked me to come to you, fortunately, the town is not big, otherwise I will break my leg." Chen Xiaoyan said.

Chu Zheng wanted to find Gao Zongting first, but he didn't expect that Gao Zongting's people had already arrived at Menshandu, so he hurriedly settled the house with the master's family, and followed Chen Xiaoyan to the ferry with his servant.

At this time, the wind and rain stopped, and there was a faint starlight in the sky, and when people reached the ferry, they could see the shadow of a large sea ship parked not far away, which shook the wind and waves.

Chu Zheng first took a small boat to Jiangxin and then climbed onto the big boat, Gao Zongting wore a long robe, stood on the deck, and watched Chu Zheng board the boat with a smile. In the Eastern Fujian Army, Gao Zongting had the best relationship with Lu Jingyan. He is not as difficult to approach as Dong Yuan and Chen Zhihu, and he has a good relationship with the generals below the Eastern Fujian Army.

"How did Mr. Gao cross in Menshan?" Chu Zheng respectfully saluted Gao Zongting, and casually asked about the reason why Gao Zongting was in Haiyan.

"I came to pick you up, but I didn't expect to be in time to go - Changguo Island was very seriously affected by the typhoon this time, I inspected the disaster situation on Changguo Island with the envoy, and I knew that you were coming, and I was afraid that you would go wrong, so the envoy asked me to take a boat to come here and try my luck," Gao Zongting explained the reason why he came to Haiyan, and said, "You really came to Mingzhou, Ao Canghai, Tang Fuguan, Chen Dingbang, Yang Zichen, Yu Wencheng, and Yu Wenbei are all in Mingzhou-Quanshan's letter is one step faster than you, complaining that you passed through Chongzhou, and also went to see him first." ”

In the Qingzhou Army, Chu Zheng is just a small Yang Xinwei, who has brought out more than 1,000 elites in recent years, and also seized military power for the Gu family and his son. At this moment, Chu Zheng's heart was surging, as if he was returning to his hometown, and Lin Jian made a special trip to ask Gao Zongting to cross the river to pick him up, and his heart was even more moved.

got on the big boat, Chu Zheng didn't think that the wind and waves at the mouth of the Qianjiang River were too big, and Lin Zhengjun also quietly set off and headed for Changguo Island. Gao Zongting invited Chu Zheng into the cabin to talk about the situation in Qingzhou in detail.

Chen Zhihu attacked and captured Leling, and Gu Siyuan led his troops to attack it.

After several days of fierce fighting in Leling, Gu Siyuan was never able to recapture Leling, and when the rebel general Zhou Zhizhong led his troops to cross the Zhulong River into the south bank, Gu Siyuan was forced to lead his troops to retreat into Yangxin and defend the city.

The development of the situation in Qingzhou is clear to Huaidong, but the specific deployment and defense strategy of the Qingzhou Army are far less detailed than Chu Zheng's.

Before Chu Zheng went south, Gu Wuchen moved his line to Yangxin in order to strengthen his confidence in guarding Yangxin and Zhulonghe, and urged the army and civilians to step up the construction of fortifications on the south bank of the Zhulong River.

Due to the fact that the garrisons were scattered on the various sub-garrisons of the fortification, when Chen Zhihu unexpectedly led his troops to attack through Pingyuan Mansion, the garrison in Leling Dangli was less than 2,000, and the garrison assembled in Yangxin City was less than 4,000.

The Leling garrison was attacked and defeated by Chen Zhihu, and Gu Siyuan couldn't gather enough soldiers and horses in Yangxin to immediately counterattack Leling, which finally gave Chen Zhihu a firm foothold in Leling.

If it weren't for the fact that the Qingzhou Army was divided into defensive bases and could not gather enough troops to fight a counteroffensive for a while, even if Chen Zhihu's troops were brave and good at fighting, and Chen Zhihu was a famous general in the world, the possibility of being driven away would be more likely to be driven away in the case of exhaustion of the forced march in a few days and less than 3,000 soldiers and horses rushing to Leling.

Chen Zhihu's troops are all elite in a hundred battles, and once they gain a firm foothold, they will be as stable as a rock, and the Qingzhou army, which has not been hastily expanded and has incomplete armor, can be the enemy; The only hope is that the Liang family can send the elite to join forces with the Qingzhou army to recapture Leling.

The Liang family should no longer have the mind to watch the fire from the other side at this time, and the defeat of Chen Tangyi has long proved that the Liang father and son are not generals who can be relied on, but the slow reaction of the Liang family and father and son this time is still disappointing. Maybe their ability is to bully and bully the exile army.

At this time, it was not clear how many troops Yan Hu would put into Yangxin, but since Chen Zhihu was transferred from the Western Front this time, Yan Hu would definitely not be less in this battle.

After learning some details of Qingzhou's military deployment that Huaidong couldn't know from Chu Zheng, Gao Zongting stood up and let out a long sigh with the candle flame on his back.

Chu Zheng also knew the military strategy, and of course knew that Yangxin's situation was critical to the point of being a desperate shot.

Linzi Mansion is located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, due to the Yellow River burst in the ninth year of Chongguan, the flood in the lower reaches of the Yellow River flooded, and Linzi Mansion became a country of Wang Yang Ze for a while.

The Yellow River embankment was in turmoil, making the efforts to repair the old embankment of the Yellow River come to naught, but the flowing water eventually followed the low-lying line, and after several years of tossing, the Yellow River was finally diverted by the Zhulong River, the Wei River, the Xiaoqing River and other rivers.

Flowing through the territory of Linzi Province is the Zhulong River and the Xiaoqing River. The Zhulong River flows north of Yangxin City, and the Xiaoqing River flows between Yangxin and Guangrao. The Xiaoqing River actually forms a natural barrier between Yangxin and Guangrao, shielding the southern area of Linzi Province.

However, when the main force of the Qingzhou Army gathered in Yangxin, and Chen Zhihu gained a firm foothold in Leling, the rebel general Zhou Zhizhong then led his troops to cross the Zhulong River, and the Xiaoqing River became an obstacle to the calm withdrawal of the main force of the Qingzhou Army from Yangxin.

There is only one wooden bridge over the Xiaoqing River, and it is difficult to use this wooden bridge to evacuate tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians to the south.

At present, the main force of the Qingzhou Army can only gather in Yangxin City to defend ......

"Yan Hu chose this time to attack Yangxin, which is not conducive to the dispatch of his cavalry, but in fact, it is also to take advantage of the violent summer and autumn storms in the East China Sea to avoid the Huaidong army from taking the sea route to attack and disturb its flanks - it depends on how long Yangxin can hold it!" Gao Zongting said.

Yangxin is not far from the sea, and when Chu Zheng was in charge of the township soldiers in Yangxin, he often went to the seashore for training, but how can the storm in Bohai Bay compare with the East China Sea in summer? In the past, I only knew that Huaidong borrowed sea ships to travel between the north and the south, but I didn't know that the sea people often said that the sea journey was so terrifying.

This time, I came to Mingzhou to find Lin Jian and Gao Zongting, and walked through the southeast coastal area where the hurricane had been hit, and I knew in my heart that even if Huaidong and Qingzhou did not fight each other, before the storm season passed, Huaidong would never be able to take the sea route to help Qingzhou.

Almost all of Huaidong's troops are pressed on the southern front, even if they ignore the military pressure of the luxury family in Zhejiang County, they can all be drawn out - they can't take the sea route, tens of thousands of soldiers and horses cross the Qianjiang River, enter northern Zhejiang, go north from Hangzhou, pass through Pingjiang Mansion along the west bank of Taihu Lake, then cross the Yangtze River to Chongzhou, take the Hanhaidi Avenue to Shanyang to cross the Huai River into Huaisi, and then cross the Yishan Mountain through Yinan into the territory of Qingzhou Mansion - even if Dong Yuan and the Liang family agree to borrow the road for the Huaidong Army, such a toss, 350,000 troops enter Qingzhou Mansion, to say the least, it will be two months later.

Far water can't save the near fire!

Can't count on Huaidong, can you count on Dengzhou Town or the Liang family, can you count on the Changhuai army further west?

Obviously, Yan Hu's troops in Jinnan will inevitably be dispatched to contain the Changhuai army and the Liang family, even if Liu Yefei ignores the previous suspicions, the strength of Dengzhou Town is really limited, and the garrisons in other areas in Qingzhou except Yangxin can also make up more than 20,000 miscellaneous soldiers, and it is not yet possible to defend the land, how to rescue?

At present, we can only hope that the main force of the Qingzhou Army led by the Gu family father and son can hold Yangxin, as long as Yanhu is exhausted by the troops and horses sent south, the siege will be relieved. Fortunately, Gu Wuchen was dedicated to keeping Yangxin before, and the grain and grass stored in Yangxin were relatively sufficient, which could support it for a few months.