Li Jinglong personally commanded hundreds of thousands of troops across the world-famous Lugou Bridge in Wanping County, this unique ancient bridge built in the Jin Dynasty is one of the eight views of Yanjing, once written by Marco Polo in the travelogue, so it is famous in Europe, known as the stone lions with different postures, each vivid, together constitute a beautiful spectacle.

Since its completion, the Lugou Bridge has experienced countless ups and downs, and it is the only way to enter Beiping, and it has always been a place where the northern soldiers must fight.

For the rebels who first abandoned Tongzhou, a gateway town sixty miles east of Beiping, and then abandoned the gate to rush to Lugou Bridge, Li Jinglong, who was riding on a horse, couldn't help but show contempt for King Yan, "Monk Likong, do you say Zhu Di was frightened?" ”

Xu Wen, who was leading the horse, suddenly said angrily: "Shi can be killed, but not humiliated, Brother Li, don't bully people too much." ”

Li Jinglong laughed at first, and then said with a straight face: "You keep respecting me as a brother, but instead of abandoning the secret and turning to the light, you fell into the grass, and you rebelled against the court first, which can be described as a serious sin, this handsome man is already an extrajudicial favor if he doesn't kill you, and you dare to speak out?" ”

Xu Wen hurriedly put on a smiling face and said in a low voice: "At that time, the younger brother of King Yan was just forced to surrender to the enemy, and he always wanted to find an opportunity to assassinate him, but he was seen through by the first step, and he had to kill a bloody way, and he was left alone, and he shaved his hair because he was coerced by thieves. Alas! Otherwise, I would have gone to my brother a long time ago. ”

Li Jinglong said with a smile: "The ghost only believes you, and besides, His Majesty has explicitly ordered that Zhu Di should not be killed, if you really succeed, you will have to be escorted to Beijing to be killed now." ”

Xu Wen licked his face and smiled: "With my brother taking care of me, my younger brother won't say anything, and I am willing to die for my brother before and after the saddle." ”

"Then I will believe you once, and you will be allowed to make meritorious contributions."

Li Jinglong raised his head and admired the stone lions with different postures on the bridge, and was full of spirit, "Order the whole army to speed up the march and stay under Beiping City tonight." ”

Meanwhile. Zhu Di and Zhu Quan, who entered Daning City alone, hugged their heads and cried, and King Yan choked and said: "The court has no way to force us to die and wait for the blood of the first emperor, and I have to raise troops to survive because my brother is forced to survive. ”

Zhu Quan smiled bitterly: "How can I not know the hard work of the fourth brother? It's a pity that the elder brothers died early, so that the emperor and nephew can't tolerate you and me, and it is my duty to invite my brother, but is it really impossible to resist the imperial army? ”

Zhu Di sighed and said: "My troops are only forty or fifty thousand. How can it be the opponent of hundreds of thousands? If the strength is doubled, Li Jinglong will not come back to discipline him. ”

Zhu Quan shook his head lightly: "I knew that it was good to send tens of thousands of elites under my command to the fourth brother, but now that I have been stripped of my military power, the commander Zhu Jian has never taken me seriously, and the troops defending the city have all listened to his orders and are powerless."

Fourth brother, you have to think about it, and if you ask the court for guilt, you will not only be imprisoned, but I am afraid that even my brothers will be escorted to Beijing and demoted to commoners. ”

Zhu Di said quietly: "The ancients and Yun brothers are united in their interests and cut off gold, or they will die with their hands tied." Either I will fight and die, and I will be willing to live in a nest for the rest of my life? At present, although the imperial court is strong, you and my brothers can fight together, and after the matter is completed, the world will be divided. Divide the river and rule. ”

Zhu Quan immediately shook his head, his face became cloudy, and he said dejectedly for a long time: "No, it's a matter of life and death." Fourth brother, my son is less than a year old! ”

"My eldest grandson is not yet a year old, do I want the whole family to die?" Zhu Di was furious. looked at his younger brother, who claimed to be comparable to him, and remembered Xu Hao's evaluation of King Ning, 'Those who are good at scheming but not decisive, ambitious but courageless, and not enough to achieve things must be held hostage by external forces'.

Zhu Di's expression softened, and he said in a gentle tone: "Then this crime will be borne by me, the failure has nothing to do with you, and the success will divide the world equally." ”

"Alas!" Zhu Quan was happy in his heart and thought that he had a plan, so he half-pushed and half-acquiesced to the agreement, and now he refused to return to Beijing by the holy decree, which was already a blatant violation of the imperial court, and the consequences were terrible.

Once the fourth brother is defeated, he is not alone? But after thinking about it, he didn't have the courage to raise the flag and rebel, and he originally wanted to profit from it, but now it seems that it is just a delusion, and he has to make a choice.

In this way, Zhu Quan sat back and watched the Yan army secretly contact the generals and the leaders of Duoyanwei inside and outside the city, pretending not to know, and accompanied Zhu Di to eat and talk in the palace every day, and drafted a plea form to appease the hearts of Zhu Jian and others.

In the city of Tongzhou, the forward of 3,000 officers and troops was surrounded by nearly 10,000 Yan regiments with hidden dwellings, and soon the whole army surrendered. Zhang Fu looked at the rapidly expanding Shenji Battalion standing all over the city, and couldn't help but secretly say that his brother-in-law's methods were too unfathomable, and he really didn't know where to get thousands of guns and nearly a hundred artillery pieces.

In any case, Zhang Fu is confident that he will resist the enemy with 10,000 firearms and hold the passage for King Yan to return from Daning, and now he is most worried about Beiping, most of the people have been sent to the north of Tongzhou, and the soldiers and civilians of Beiping together are only 100,000 people, can they hold it?

Not to mention Zhang Fu's worries, Li Jinglong, who learned that Tongzhou was lost and recovered by the Yan army, was furious, Liu Jing said: "Now that Princess Yan and her son Zhu Gaochi and others are in the city, and the general Zhang Yu and others are not there, the city's air defense is weak, and the top priority is to command the whole army to attack Beiping with all its might, and send a partial division to attack Tongzhou or form a village to hold the Zhengcun Dam to prevent the reinforcements led by the King of Yan from coming." ”

Li Jinglong remembered the battle a few years ago, he just underestimated Xu Hao being broken by each other, squinted his eyes and said: "You forgot that there is another Xu Hao in the rebels, he is not easy to match, he is the best at sneak attacks, Tongzhou must be from his handwriting." ”

Liu Jing said disdainfully: "It's just a flattering courtier, who dares to boast that my father is reincarnated, and the villain is also." ”

Li Jinglong said unhappily: "It was praised by the first emperor himself, not that he boasted about himself." You have never seen him and dare to make such an assertion, it can be seen that you are just in vain, get out of the handsome account for this handsome. ”

"You!" Liu Jing was furious, and immediately threw his sleeves away with a black face.

Li Jinglong sneered: "Liu Jing is not too disappointing. Passing on my military order, leaving 200,000 people to besiege Beiping City, Xu Kai and Wu Jie led 200,000 people to move to Tongzhou, and both commanded Sheng Yong to lead 50,000 people to dig deep barriers in Zhengcunba, and ordered Shanhaiguan Wu Gao Yang Wen to attack Yongping, be sure to take it within ten days, and then go north to Daning Mansion to capture Zhu Di alive. ”

The generals agreed loudly, so that Li Jinglong was not afraid of being reused by Xu Hao's old skills to break through the military horses all the way. And then encroach step by step.

Immediately, the 200,000 troops of the imperial court cut down the woods, built fortresses, dug trenches and so on outside the nine gates.

Xu Hao at the head of the city said with a smile: "Brother Jinglong really hasn't changed at all, before the war, he was so persistent and liked to repair the camp first, if the 400,000 troops immediately took turns to attack day and night, it is estimated that the city gate will be captured in less than three days." ”

Zhu Gaochi frowned and said: "Today is different from the past, so many people can gather their armpits into furs overnight, and they will have to fight to the death in two days at most." ”

Xu Haoyao pointed to the cavalry running back and forth outside the city and asked, "General Gu, do you know who is the best at fighting in the opposing army?" ”

Gu Cheng said slowly: "It's too much." It is a pity that the commander of Sheng Yong's civil and military all-round talents has not been reused, the cavalry governor Chen Hui is brave and good at fighting, the governor Qu Neng and his son all have the courage of ten thousand people, and most of the other generals are brave and not afraid of death. ”

Xu Hao said with a smile: "You deliberately don't say that the four generals with the highest official ranks, Xu Kai, Wu Jie, Wu Gao, and Yang Wen, can be seen that a group of wolves and tigers are led by four sheep, and there is my big brother Jinglong, who belongs to the sheep, no matter how brave the official army is, there is no place for it." ”

Gu Cheng once again carefully looked at Xu Hao, who had been valued by the first emperor, and was surprised by this person's young but transcendent status in the Yan army, not only did the prince not mind him as the head of the whole army. Even Yao Guangxiao, Zhang Yu, Zhu Neng and others, who had followed King Yan for the longest time, were all polite to him, not only because of his relative status, but because this son must have something to be proud of.

"Not bad." Gu Cheng put away his attitude of relying on the old and selling the old, and became modest.

Xu Hao smiled at this. Raising his hand to tighten his collar, he looked up at the gray sky and said, "The wind is about to rise, and it should be snowing soon." The official army came in winter and was defeated before the battle, so tonight I will give Brother Jinglong a big gift. ”

In the middle of the night, more than 100 dead soldiers of the Yan army lurking in the roads outside the city came out, all wearing official uniforms. Zhu Gaoxu led 3,000 cavalry to storm the outermost camp, killing more than 1,000 officers and soldiers, and burning down hundreds of barracks.

Li Jinglong didn't care about this, he had long expected that Xu Hao would never be restrained, and the loss of materials and personnel was just a drop in the bucket for him, so he ordered Chen Hui to lead the cavalry to be responsible for exterminating the rangers, and sent people to urge the rear to supply supplies.

Early in the morning of the third day, 100,000 officers and soldiers pushed all kinds of siege weapons and began to storm the nine gates of Beiping, the Yan army defending the city resisted to the death, the artillery and muskets played a huge role, and the casualties of the officers and soldiers were far greater than those of the defenders, but relying on the absolute superiority of the troops in an endless stream of turns, the battle situation in Beiping was stalemate for a while.

The disadvantage in the strength of the army made the 10,000 Yan army gradually feel strained, and when the gunpowder, cannonballs, arrows, etc. were always gone, Xu Hao stood on the city tower for many days, taking the lead and killing the enemy desperately.

With a bang, the tower was smashed into the corner by a flying boulder, and several sergeants screamed and were crushed into the ruins.

Xu Hao's expression remained unchanged and he pulled the trigger at the officers and soldiers who climbed up with fire, and the officers and soldiers immediately fell headlong off the city.

A large basin of boiling oil was poured down by four or five sergeants, and the disgraced Li Qiu threw down the torch again, and a howl before death broke out from below in an instant.

Xu Hao, who was hoarse, took a breath and yelled, "Why didn't anyone come to report?" ”

Soon Mu Yi ran over and shouted: "Here, more than half of the brothers in the West City Gate have been killed or wounded, and they are about to be unable to defend it." ”

Xu Hao said: "Remove all the people and replace them with 300 people." ”

Mu Yi said: "But there are less than 2,000 people left in the reserve, and if it goes on like this, there will be no soldiers available tomorrow." ”

Xu Hao pondered for a moment and said, "Organize men to issue weapons, go to the city together to kill the enemy, and prepare to fill the oil barrel with oil." ”

Glancing at Mu Yi who was hurrying away, Xu Hao shouted at the soldiers who were struggling to kill the enemy on the city wall: "The prince will soon lead the army back, brothers hold on." ”

With a loud bang, ten cannons erupted tongues of fire, and shells whistled towards the city.

Seeing the soldier die in front of him, Li Jinglong shrank his neck and said angrily: "Why are the firearms in Beiping so powerful? Are all the craftsmen of the court dead? ”

"The Ministry of War has already started to produce new firearms, which will arrive next month." Liu Jing said again: "Marshal, the weather is too cold, and the soldiers can't support their hard work day and night, and it will snow soon." ”

Li Jinglong glared and said angrily: "Don't you know that the enemy army is harder? It was the time of the whole blow, and without my military order, there was no time to stop. ”

Suddenly, he saw hundreds of black water spewing out from the city tower, and Liu Jing screamed, "It's not good, it's black oil." ”

Rumble! In the blink of an eye, the city became a sea of fire, and I don't know how many officers and soldiers were drowned, and there were fire men struggling and wailing everywhere, and a group of Yan soldiers poured out of the city gate, slashing to death, and the arrow tower and the ladder were all burned, and the remaining officers and soldiers ran to the rear.

Faced with this situation, Li Jinglong had no choice but to say helplessly: "Suspend the army for the time being, build siege weapons overnight, and fight again tomorrow." (To be continued......)