After the meeting, it was already dawn, but the snowstorm outside had not stopped, the generals returned to the camp to rest, and in the private house temporarily requisitioned as a command post, the guards prepared a bedroom for Lin Bin, Lin Jian took off his armor, leaned against the bed board of his kimono, and did not even take off his riding boots, and flipped through the Tang copy from the Jiangdong fast horse.

Liu An'er finally couldn't hold it back, and sent troops to besiege Haozhou in early December, and the siege lasted for seven days, and the siege was lifted and returned to Sizhou; Lin Tingli wanted to take advantage of the attack on Shiliang to repel Liu Miaozhen, Liu An'er's sister, but there was no action in the direction of Weiyang and Huai'an; The situation in Hongzepu seems to be at a stalemate again.

In addition to the Tang copy, Lin Jian also wrote him a private letter from Lin Jingzhong, which mentioned that an important piece of information was that the price of salt in Hongzepu had dropped sharply after mid-November.

Liu An'er raised the banner to rebel, and Jiangdong County imposed a severe blockade on Hongzepu between the four prefectures of Huai, Hao, Yang, and Yang, and the most obvious feature of such a strict blockade was that the price of salt in Hongzepu soared, even reaching the point of one or two silver and half a catty of salt, which was fifty or sixty times higher than the normal salt price in Jiangning.

The sharp drop in the price of salt in Hongzepu indicates that a large amount of illegal salt flowed into the Hongzepu area in mid-November, and due to the situation in the Hongzepu area, the illegal salt dealers can only cooperate directly with Liu An'er's department.

The forces of Luxury Feihu and Qingfengxing should be closely monitored by Li Zhuo, and it is difficult to enter Hongpuze from Jiangning or Weiyang. Which side is the problem? Lin Jian couldn't figure it out.

Regardless of which side has gone wrong, Hongzepo, who seems to have returned to the stalemate, seems to be hiding a larger crisis.

***************

"Did you sleep?"

Lin Jian heard Cao Ziang's voice, and replied in the room: "I haven't slept yet...... I sat up, picked up the big coat on the table and opened the door and walked out, saw Cao Ziang in the hall, and asked, "What's the matter, why don't you go back to rest?" ”

"I slept in the car when I came, but now I can't sleep," Cao Ziang said, "If you don't feel sleepy, I'll talk to you again......"

"That's right, I also slept in the car when I came, and I was worried about how to pass the time...... Lin Jian said with a smile, beckoning Cao Ziang to sit down in front of the brazier, picking up the tongtong to pick up the coals, and the guards brought some charcoal over and put them next to the brazier.

"I thought, it's not necessarily a bad thing for the Dongyu Nayan to bite us," Cao Ziang picked up a charred firewood and drew the terrain of Pingyuan Mansion on the mud ground, and at dusk, they grabbed a few live mouths here, knowing some details of the Dongyu cavalry who were engaged with them, "Most of them will mistakenly think that we are going to reinforce Texas, then we will plan and make a situation ......of reinforcing Texas."

"Are you saying that the left flank and the right flank four sentry horse infantry will make a posture of attacking Texas, attracting the eastern capture outposts of the Yan Department and Yangxin, so that my main force can penetrate north into Hejian Mansion?" Lin Jian asked.

"That's right," Cao Ziang nodded, "It's just that Zhao Qingshan and Ning Zechen's troops are under a lot of pressure......

"This is very risky," Lin Jian said, "once the weather improves, the cavalry captured in the east of Dezhou will only travel two hundred miles, and it will only take a little more than a day, and we can't confirm that Nayan will not ask for reinforcements......

**************

After Yang Zhaoqi led the Jinzhong Qinwang Division to be completely annihilated in Gaoyang, the Qinwang Division and the Jinggi garrison troops in Datong, Xuanhua, Jibei and other border towns were transferred to the Gyeonggi area to add up to more than 100,000 people, and the Jibei Army led by Hao Zongcheng and the Datong Army led by Chen Zhihu were all elite.

Nearly 40,000 cavalry on the northern front were led by the prince of Dongyu, Ye Ji Luorong, and were active in the area south of Gyeonggi, mainly to monitor and suppress the defenders of the Gyeonggi region and the Qinwang division in the trilateral towns of Datong, Xuanhua and Jibei.

The other soldiers and horses of the Dongyu who entered the army this time were led by the king of the Dongyu, Khan Yezier, and gathered in the south of Xingzhou Mansion, near the foot of Taihang Mountain, and entered the Pingyuan Mansion, the Daimyo Mansion, and the Jinan Mansion.

The southern front of the Eastern Capture gathered a maximum of 60,000 cavalry - in fact, in the battle between Gaoyang and Yang Zhaoqi, the cavalry of the Eastern Capture suffered considerable damage, and then pulled out more than 30 cities in a row, although the casualties were not large, but the accumulation of small amounts, Lin Liang judged that the casualties and casualties of the Eastern Prisoners in the past two months should exceed 10,000 - the maximum number of troops that can be mobilized on the southern front of the Eastern Capture should not exceed 50,000.

In addition to plundering the goods, the main purpose of the Dongyu invasion was to plunder the population, and to gather the plundered population and goods to the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain, and follow the king's tent.

Whether it is the wounded or the plundered people and goods, they have become a major burden on the main force of the southern front of the Eastern Captive, and the mobility of the Wang Tent of the Eastern Captives has been greatly affected, and it has also restrained a large number of its cavalry to stay behind to protect the Wang Tent, especially the most elite Wang Tent Guards of the Eastern Hu are stranded in the south of Xingzhou Mansion and will not be dispatched easily.

This is also the main reason why the southern front of the Eastern Captives was delayed until mid-December to complete the preparations for the attack on Dezhou, and the deployment of the Eastern Captives was overstretched, and it was necessary to gather back most of the cavalry that had been released in the early stage to plunder the three prefectures of Yannan before they could form a troop advantage over the Plains, the Daimyo and the Jinan Mansions.

In fact, the cavalry that could be freely mobilized to enter Pingyuanfu, Daimyofu, and Jinan to fight on the southern front of Dongyu was actually far less than 40,000. In order to smoothly implement the strategic goal of attacking Jinan, the main force of the southern front of Dongyu should not only cut off the screen wings of Dezhou and Linqing, but also guard against the Zhulu Qinwang division that was assembled in the northeastern area of Zhongzhou County and could attack through the Taihang Mountain Tunnel and assemble in Jinzhong. These threats all came from the west side of the main force of the southern front of the Eastern Captive, so the main cavalry of the southern front of the Eastern Captives also shrank to the west as much as possible, especially after Jinan Mansion showed a strong will to resist, the cavalry in the area of Yangxin in the east of Jinan Mansion also shrank back to the north of Dezhou, and only a small number of outpost rangers reconnoitred the defenders in the Yangxin area.

Lin Bin's intention was to leave Jinan Mansion and cross the Jishui and Weihe rivers diagonally in the northeast, and directly intersperse with Yangxin and other places from Yangxin, the empty area of the Dongyu forces, to the eastern part of Hejian Mansion.

Even if the Eastern Sentinels found out their intention to penetrate into Hejian Province, the Eastern Cavalry would have to set out from their camp in the north of Texas to pursue them.

*************

Cao Ziang suggested that the situation of reinforcing Texas should be made directly with four sentry horse infantry to attract the sentinels of the Eastern Capture in the Yangxin area, so that the main force could penetrate through the reconnaissance gap of the Eastern Cavalry, while Lin Jian was worried that the Eastern Cavalry in the north of Texas would also be attracted.

The morale of the Jiangdong Left Army is available, the equipment can be called excellent, and they fight in array in the field, and the eight hundred armor soldiers are not afraid of the impact of the elite soldiers of the three hundred Dongyu kings, but if there are more enemy cavalry, the situation will be very dangerous.

"The use of soldiers is the use of risk, how can you be stable everywhere?" Cao Ziang smiled at the coals, "Although there is a risk, it is also worth a try, Zhao Qingshan and Ning Zechen may not have enough experience, so I and Zhou Pu will lead the troops to the north to contain the ...... of the Yan department."

"Let me think about it...... "Lin Lian took the charcoal on the ground to complete the terrain around the Plains Mansion, although Cao Ziang and Zhou Pu were not afraid of danger, but Lin Lian regarded them as his right-hand man, how could he easily put his right-hand man in danger? Lin Jian frowned and stared at the lines on the ground that represented the terrain everywhere.

At this time, Sun Shangwang, a talented man from Hejian Mansion who was in the army in Jinan, walked in and saw Lin Jian and Cao Ziang sitting in the brazier, and saluted: "My lord and Commander Cao haven't rested yet......

Sun Shangwang was Chinese New Year's Eve at the time, a native of Cangxian County, Hejian Province, and after being admitted to Xiucai, he repeatedly failed in the township examination in the county, and asked his relatives to introduce him to a wealthy family in Xingzhou Prefecture as a private school.

Sun Shangwang usually reads military books, has a bit of eyesight, and when he saw the Eastern Captives entering the Kou, he judged that Xingzhou was more vulnerable to the attack of the Eastern Captives, so he wanted to go back to his hometown in Cangxian County, Hejian Province to avoid military disasters. However, he was scattered by the Dongyu cavalry halfway, and was forced to flee to Jinan for refuge, and he didn't know what the situation was in his hometown in Cangxian County, Hejian Prefecture.

Sun Shangwang has a friend who works as a staff member in the Jinan prefect, and after he fled to Jinan Mansion, he also entered the house of the Jinan prefect as a doorman because of this relationship, but he was always worried about the safety of his relatives in Cangxian's hometown. Although the prefectures and counties in the east of Jinan Mansion have not fallen, the Dongyu cavalry is interspersed in the meantime, and the post road is cut off, and Sun Shangwang does not even know whether Cangxian County has fallen in Jinan Prefecture.

When the news that Lin Lian wanted to lead the Jiangdong Left Army north into Yannan spread within the Yamen of Jinan Mansion, Sun Shangwang expected that Lin Lian would avoid the truth and leave Hejian Mansion, so he took more than a dozen Hejian villagers who were stranded in Jinan Mansion to join the army, planning to return to Cangxian County to find his family.

The scouts sent out by Jinan Prefecture had limited reconnaissance capabilities, and Lin Jian sent Wu Qi to send outposts to find out the basic situation in Hejian Prefecture, including Cangxian, and the nine counties of Hejian Prefecture north of Cangxian County had all fallen. However, there are still twenty or thirty strong dock forts in Hejian Province, and they have not yet fallen due to the strong resistance of the village soldiers and local villagers; Cangxian people are still martial, and they can also see a thing or two from here.

Lin Lian saw Sun Shangwang come in, his eyes lit up, beckoned him to sit down, and said: "Sun Xiucai is here, you said that your maternal uncle lives in Xiaobotou Village in the southeast of Cangxian County, and the general post sent someone to sneak into Cangxian County a few days ago, Xiaobotou Village has not yet fallen, maybe your family will take refuge in Xiaobotou Village...... Now there are many docks in the river that are still waiting for help, but they are all in their own positions, and they easily refuse to trust outsiders. I sent people to contact them, but I can't get their trust, can I ask Sun Xiucai to take a risk? ”

"I beg your advice." Sun Shangwang always thought of the difference between respect and inferiority in his heart, don't look at Lin Lian as the commander of the Jiangdong Left Army, although he is the commander of the Zhengqipin, and his power is great, but it is beyond the reach of ordinary Zhengqipin officials, Sun Shangwang did not dare to overstep the courtesy and sat in front of the brazier with Lin Lian and Cao Ziang to talk.

"Sit down and talk," Lin Jian beckoned, although Sun Shangwang said that this person has repeatedly failed in scientific examinations, but the bumpy and turbulent life has made him far more experienced and knowledgeable than a scholar who only reads the books of sages, but it is too formal, Lin Jian grabbed his cuffs and forced him to sit down, and said with a smile, "Don't you think it is difficult to stand, and it is still difficult for me and Zi to talk to you with our heads up......"

"Your Excellency is still looking forward." Sun Shangwang blushed and sat down.

"My Jiangdong Left Army is going north to Yannan, and I can't do it without a foothold," Lin Jian said, "I want to send someone to escort Sun Xiucai, you first go to Cangnan Xiaobotou Village to contact, and persuade the villagers to agree to the Jiangdong Left Army to temporarily settle ......down when it passes through Xiaobotou Village."

Cao Ziang stood in front of the table and looked at the topographic map, Xiaobotou Village is in the southeast of Cangxian County, southeast of Yangxin, next to Bohai Bay, it is a fishing village by the Bohai Sea.

Cao Ziang looked at the terrain of Xiaobotou Village, turned around and asked Lin Bin: "You want to set a trap here to lure and annihilate a cavalry of the Eastern Captives?" ”

"That's right," Lin Jian stood up, pointed to the location of Xiaobotou Village on the map, and said, "As long as Sun Xiucai's contact is smooth, we will have a chance to lure and annihilate Na Yan here." This bait is not suitable for you and Zhou Pu to be, you go to Xiaobotou Village first, I personally lead the first battalion to act as the left and right wings, make a reinforcement of Texas, and then insert it diagonally in the direction of Xiaobotou, luring Nayan to chase ......"

***************

PS: Ask for a red ticket.