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After Yue Lengqiu arrived in Luzhou, he received a holy decree from Jiangning on the fifth day of the seventh month, and was ordered to comfort Huaixi and Nanyang and inspect the war preparations, which also represented Jiangning's heart of sticking to the Huaihe defense line to boost morale.

In Luzhou, although he was warmly received by Cao Ziang, he was wrapped up in Luzhou City, and only heard Cao Ziang say that the soldiers and horses of Luzhou had been assembled in the Shuangmiao in the north, but the actual situation could not be witnessed with his own eyes.

Yue Lengqiu didn't know whether what Cao Ziang said was true or false, anyway, he stayed in Luzhou, and he couldn't guess whether the Huaidong people had other intentions, and after receiving the holy order, he left Luzhou and went north, first going to Shouzhou to see Dong Yuan.

Before going to Yuzhang to see Lin Bin, Yue Lengqiu hung up his boots and resigned, so he only brought two servants. At this time, Yue Lengqiu still retained the official position of privy deputy envoy, and carried a decree to comfort Huaixi and Nanyang, which was naturally to restore the status of the minister, Deng Yu selected more than 300 elite soldiers from Chizhou to serve as a guard of honor, and also protected Yue Lengqiu's safety along the road.

For more than a year, Huaidong has invested a lot of resources in Luzhou. Excluding the taxes collected by the Luzhou Prefecture locally, one million taels of silver were invested in Luzhou in the war bonds raised and sold after last autumn alone. This made the Luzhou area quickly recover from the chaos brought about by the Yongxing Emperor's flight to the north, and the roads in the north of Luzhou City were built quite well, including the rivers such as the Huai River that connects to the Huai River from the north of Luzhou, and the embankments along the coast can see the traces of new rectification.

Although in the past, Huaixi was very vigilant against Huaidong's garrison in Luzhou, and in the south of Shouzhou and the southeast of Xinyang, they built fortresses and garrisoned soldiers, but the post roads and rivers in Huaixi were basically unblocked, at least the contradictions had not developed to the extent that the two armies were facing each other.

All the way to the north, encountering the east-west river, the small river erects a bamboo and wood bridge, and the big river connects the boat to lay a pontoon bridge, the post road is smooth, all are barrier-free, and the post road that wants to go to and from Xinyang is also smooth.

The smoothness of the post road also ensured that Huaidong's soldiers and horses in Luzhou could enter Xinyang at the fastest speed, and enter Nanyang through Xinyang.

Although Huaidong's troops stationed in Luzhou exceeded 40,000, plus the unknown size of the army, in the upcoming Battle of Nanyang, they could quickly enter Nanyang and Xinyang to fight, but it was easy to invite God and difficult to send God, and Dong Yuan had no intention of asking Huaidong soldiers and horses to enter Xinyang too early.

From Luzhou to Shouzhou, only two hundred miles.

Three hundred soldiers are the elite cavalry, Yue Lengqiu does not want to delay time on the way, and leaves Luzhou early in the morning, and when it is night, Shouzhou is already in sight.

Passing through the county along the way, and seeing the restoration of agriculture in Huaixi, Yue Lengqiu had to admit that Dong Yuan was also a man of literature and martial arts, and he was indeed talented.

According to last year's secret discussion with Huaidong, starting this year, the grain and salary allocated by the household department to Huaixi will be sharply reduced to 1 million taels, and if there is not enough to raise troops, we can only extract taxes from the localities.

In addition to the slightly better situation in Luzhou, Xinyang, Shouzhou, Haozhou, and Wuyang, Yingkou, Sizhou and other places on the north bank of the Huai River were almost completely destroyed in the Huaisi War, and Dingkou was also greatly reduced, and it was only later to accommodate the displaced people who fled from Henan, Shandong and other places before regaining some vitality. Although the north bank of the Huai River is still a remnant of land, the three prefectures of Haozhou, Shouzhou, and Xinyang on the south bank have recovered their farming quite well, and they can basically draw grain from the localities to feed the army.

It's a pity that the situation is changing so quickly that people are dizzying, and the Yanhu army is pressing, although the troops are straight to the Yang, but Huaixi will never feel better, and will not give Dong Yuan time to calmly clean up the people's livelihood and reorganize the armament.

Huaixi was represented by Liu Tingzhou, the right deputy capital of the imperial history, out of the city to the Shili Changting to greet him, watching the horse team hugging two carriages from the south, Liu Tingzhou walked down the long pavilion with a long beard and greeted him on the side of the road.

Yue Lengqiu came to inspect the military equipment on behalf of the Privy Council, which did not relieve the gloom on Liu Tingzhou's face.

Everyone knows that after Yue Lengqiu's defeat in Zongyang, he was also forced to be driven by Lin Tie and do this kind of errand work, in fact, how the Nanyang war will develop completely depends on Huaidong's attitude, and Yue Lengqiu cannot represent Huaidong at all.

Yue Lengqiu came over, and he would be able to boost his morale, and the real practical problem would be to send someone to Luzhou to talk to Cao Ziang. On the north bank of the Yangtze River, Cao Ziang is the one who can speak on behalf of Lin Lian.

Yue Lengqiu was born as a civil official, and after he was over fifty years old, his muscles and bones were not as good as before, although he was traveling by car, but he had a bumpy journey of two hundred miles a day, and the bone frame was almost torn apart.

Seeing Liu Tingzhou greeting him on the side of the road, Yue Lengqiu was also very emotional.

"After a year of saying goodbye to Tingzhou, I came to Shouzhou here, and I was afraid that I would miss and not be able to meet Tingzhou." Yue Lengqiu said.

Liu Tingzhou was originally a little disappointed that Yue Lengqiu was not accompanied by Huaidong dignitaries, but when he heard Yue Lengqiu's sincere words, a warm current also surged in his heart, remembering that he could occupy this position, and he was also thanks to Yue Lengqiu's promotion, and he made a subordinate salute, and said: "Governor Yue's demeanor has not diminished back then, can Tingzhou miss the meeting with Governor Yue?" However, if you can't rush back today, you can't rush back for the negligence, so you can ask Tingzhou to apologize to Governor Yue. ”

"The enemy outpost has reached Yingkou?" Yue Lengqiu asked.

"......" Liu Tingzhou nodded and said, "After the rebel general Ji Shiben led his troops into Ruyang, Chen Zhihu led his troops eastward along the Beiru River, and more than 5,000 horsemen in the front led by Leng Zilin have entered Suiping; In addition, in the east, the rebel general Yuan Lishan also moved, and all the soldiers and horses piled up on the front line of Jining. At this time, the water is still strong, and Huaidong has a water battalion warship on the Xusi defense line, but he is not afraid that Huma will dare to rush in, but the situation on Huaixi's side is much more severe......"

Huaixi also builds warships, but how can the scale and combat power of the water camp be compared with Huaidong?

Again, Yingshui is smaller than the whirlpool, Bianshui, and Surabaya in the west, and the small naval army does not have foot soldiers to cooperate along the coast, and if it is deeper than Yingshui, it is easy for the enemy to intercept and eat, so it will be very difficult for Huaixi to prevent a large force of Yanhu cavalry from approaching the north bank of the Huai River.

Yue Lengqiu knew in Luzhou that the soldiers and horses that entered Ruyang first showed signs of expanding to the southeast along Rushui and Yingshui, but it was not known who Yanhu would use as a general to use troops against Huaixi.

Yue Lengqiu returned the salute to Liu Tingzhou, and did not delay outside the city, and invited him to ride with him.

Although Dong Yuan is not in Shouzhou, Chu Wang Yuan Hancheng, Ding Zhiru, Chen Jingrong and others, like Liu Tingzhou, have a pivotal position in Huaixi.

Dong Yuan is not there, and it is the same to exchange opinions with the people of Huaixi, if Nanyang can defend it, then naturally he must try his best to defend it, if he can't defend it, Yue Lengqiu will have to find a way out for Chizhou.

Entering Shouzhou, I did know that there was a lot of noise in Shouzhou City, and the grass and trees were all soldiers - everyone knew that Yan Hu would take Guanzhong and go south, which was not trivial, and the soldiers were defeated and died at every turn, so who could relax.

The number of troops in Huaixi was as high as 110,000, but at the most, almost 60,000 of them were scattered by Dong Yuan and organized into cantonment soldiers, which were used to cultivate the fields on both sides of the Huai River to make up for the lack of food for the army. In addition to the 10,000 elites in Shouzhou under the direct jurisdiction of Dong Yuan, Huaixi has been in Wuyang and Xinyang for a long time, and only Tao Chun and Xiao Kuian led 40,000 standing soldiers and horses.

The measure of combining the cantonment with the war was the key to extricating Huaixi from the grain predicament, and because the military pressure on Huaixi in the early stage was not great, a large number of soldiers and horses could be laid off for cantonment planting.

However, the situation developed to this point, especially after the news that Liang Chengyi abandoned the Hezhong Mansion was confirmed, Dong Yuan was also forced to recruit all the soldiers into the army, restore the full establishment of 110,000 soldiers, and even recruit a large number of people from the local army to prepare for a big battle with Yanhu on the north bank of the Huai River.

As for how serious the damage to agriculture will be in doing so, there is no time to take care of it at this time.

Dong Yuan was not in Shouzhou, and no one in Shouzhou City was more qualified to entertain Yue Lengqiu than Yuan Hancheng, so Yuan Hancheng hosted a banquet for Yue Lengqiu in the newly built Chu Palace, accompanied by Liu Tingzhou, Ding Zhiru, Chen Jingrong and others.

Yuan Hancheng and Yue Lengqiu are also old acquaintances, they were trapped in Xuzhou City and fought side by side for more than half a year, which can be regarded as a deep friendship, and it is appropriate for him to set up a banquet for Yue Lengqiu to wash the dust.

Watching the King of Chu and Yue Lengqiu resign from the throne, Ding Zhiru stood at the bottom and secretly sighed: After Chen Xiyan's death, if you want to talk about the connections in the court, no one can compare with Yue Lengqiu.

To tell the truth, after the collapse of Zongyang, Yue Lengqiu was forced to bow to Lin Tie to save the Chizhou army, in fact, Ding Zhiru was worried that Yue Lengqiu would use Lin Tie as a sword to disrupt the situation in Huaixi.

In fact, after the collapse of Zongyang, it was not impossible for Lin Tie to transfer Yue Lengqiu to enter Huaixi and ask the Chizhou army to reorganize in Huaixi, or to divide Huaixi into two pieces and hand over one to the Chizhou army for defense.

Lin Jian really wanted to arrange it like this, according to Yue Lengqiu's influence on the people of Huaixi, especially on Tao Chun, Liu Tingzhou, Yuan Hancheng and others, it was difficult for Dong Yuan and Ding Zhiru to resolutely refuse.

Fortunately, after the news of Liang Chengyi's abandonment of Hezhong Mansion spread, Lin Jian urgently transferred Chizhou to cross the river from the south to face the enemy in eastern Hubei to fight, and Ding Zhiru and Dong Yuan did not have to worry that Yue Lengqiu would come to disturb Huaixi.

After a long day of resignation, Yue Lengqiu and Yuan Hancheng sat side by side.

After greeting for a while, Liu Tingzhou couldn't bear it, and felt that there was no need to go around in circles with Yue Lengqiu, so he went straight to the point and said: "Huaixi has just been able to be self-sufficient in grain, but as soon as the war starts, all the soldiers will be transferred out to supplement the army, and the farming after the autumn will be greatly affected, and the grain will inevitably become tense again." Leave these alone for the time being, the more critical thing is that Huaixi is still short of soldiers, and the Privy Council promised to allocate a batch of them, and also promised to transfer a batch of warships to Huaixi, but there has been no movement. Yue Du had just come from Yuzhang, and from what Yue Du had seen, did the privy envoy hope that the Battle of Nanyang could be fought or not? ”

To be honest, at this time, others were not worried about whether the imperial court was determined to fight the Battle of Nanyang, but worried about whether Lin Jian was determined to fight the Battle of Nanyang. Now the area nominally ruled by the imperial court is under the control of Huaidong, and if Huaidong is not determined to fight Yanhu in Nanyang, everyone can only sleep with wash.

Although Yue Lengqiu can't represent Lin Bin, Yue Lengqiu has just gone to Yuzhang to see Lin Bin, and Liu Tingzhou believes that with Yue Lengqiu's ability to recognize people, he should be able to make an accurate judgment of Lin Bin's mentality.