Daming kill

Chapter 254

On October [-]th, Yueyang Tower on the west city wall of Yuezhou.

Song Baolai, Zhao Lanyue, and Gao Lei were standing "with high spirits" in this ancient famous building overlooking the vast Dongting Lake below. The tables behind them were full of wine and dishes.

However, apart from Zhao Lanyue looking around excitedly, Song Baolai and Gao Lei only stared worriedly at a fleet near Junshan in the distance and remained silent.

Hu Zhongshan's wife, Yang Xiuqin, who accompanied him, and Qian Ying, who was dragged here for no reason, also had sad faces.

Shi Lei, the deputy director of the left-behind teaching office who also participated in the company, still had his usual expressionless face, and no one knew what he was thinking.

Looking back at everyone's listless expressions, Zhao Lanyue said helplessly: "Shouldn't you be happier? This is the famous Yueyang Tower! The Yueyang Tower has been rebuilt countless times. I heard that this one was newly built the year before last! And I heard that It is the most exquisite ever, and you will never see it again."

Like the Yellow Crane Tower, Yueyang Tower has undergone countless reconstructions. In the 12th year of Chongzhen (1639), the Yueyang Tower, which had just been rebuilt for 24 years, was destroyed by fire. The later famous "Xianmei Hall" was built, but the subsequent historical Yueyang Tower was destroyed and rebuilt again and again.

Touring Yueyang Tower was a proposal initiated by Zhao Lanyue, and these people were all drawn by her one by one.

"We are all in the building now, so there is no need to pretend! There are no outsiders here, and others can't see it." Song Baolai complained weakly.

They had no objection to Li Ping's raid on Yuezhou, but they had a lot of objection when he went straight to Changsha without stopping.

It should be said that except for Zhao Lanyue, everyone is against it and is not optimistic.

In particular, Li Ping took away most of the troops, resulting in only less than 1000 regular troops in the city, and the only other regular troops were the small naval battalion commanded by Yan Ming on the lake near Junshan Mountain in the distance. .

But even without considering that the large number of enemies may send troops to bypass the army led by Li Ping to sneak attack or even storm, the new captives of 6000 to 2000 people in the city and more than [-] captives from Mianyang and Hanchuan brought by them are enough to make them Head is big.

The reason why they brought the captives of Mianyang and Hanchuan was mainly to relieve Zhang Kuang's pressure.

Mianyang and Hanchuan were not abandoned. Zhang Kuang, the former magistrate of Mianyang, stayed with Yuan Jixian's guards and the newly recruited Minzhuang.

In order to ensure the safety of Yuezhou City, almost all the men, women and children in the security camp had to be armed to participate in the defense of the city and the custody of the prisoners.

Who can not worry about this?

Of course, in order to cheer up the restless subordinates in the city, the so-called leaders had to pretend to be relaxed, and they understood the reason.

But there is no need to organize a group tour of Yueyang Tower at this time!Moreover, Shi Lei, who was in charge of controlling the captives, was also brought here.

Who can be in the mood?How can you rest assured?
And now there are no outsiders in the building, so why bother to pretend?
Zhao Lanyue sighed and said, "You have to trust Li Ping, he is not a reckless person."

"But I just can't figure out why I have to take such a risk? If something happens, it's not just going back to before liberation, it's hard to say whether I'm alive or not!" Song Baolai expressed his opinion again.

Another new word from Song Baolai caused Shi Lei to glance over in surprise, but immediately his expression returned to normal.

Shi Lei has long been used to some things, no matter whether he can understand the meaning of those new words that pop up all of a sudden, he knows it's best to go in one ear and out the other.

"People who have no foresight must have near-term worries! We seem to be prosperous now, but the future is actually extremely dangerous, and sometimes we have to fight for it. We can't just be greedy for the status quo and not make progress as soon as we are stable.

In this regard, Li Ping thought a lot, and also thought far.We must trust him, support him, and be a good backing.

If he misses, he misses it!At least we tried our best, and we won't regret not doing our best in the future. "Zhao Lanyue said very seriously.

At this time, Gao Lei, who was always looking at the lake in the distance, finally turned her head, smiled wryly and said, "That's the truth! But it's always different when you really face it. Lanyue, you're still free and easy." , no wonder he is very relaxed with you."

"Ok?"

Song Baolai looked at Gao Lei in surprise, and then looked at Zhao Lanyue.

When he found Zhao Lanyue's rare stiff expression, he was stunned.

……

When Song Baolai, Zhao Lanyue and others were visiting Yueyang Tower, Li Ping was riding a horse on a small highland more than ten miles northeast of Xiangyin County looking south.

Xiangyin County is located on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River, 200 miles south of Yuezhou, and about 100 miles away from Changsha.

At this time, a huge army with banners covering the sky and the sun was chaotically crossing Baishui with a width of more than ten miles.

That was Zhang Xianzhong's army that came to meet Li Ping.

The reason why the two sides can meet here is because Li Ping did not travel fast this way, and he stopped completely 30 miles away from Baishui yesterday.

Li Ping never planned to cross Baishui, nor did he think about attacking Xiangyin County.

He came to persecute Zhang Xianzhong, not to commit suicide.

Seeing the chaotic but cautious army crossing the river in the distance, the faces of everyone who followed Li Ping to observe changed drastically.

Baishui is not big, but it is not small. At least it is no problem to drown people.

Therefore, Li Ping's reconnaissance troops did not cross the Baishui to extend the reconnaissance line further, and naturally they failed to find this huge army approaching in time.

Although it is impossible to estimate the number of enemy troops, just looking at the formation in front of you, you can know that the enemy troops are conservatively above 5, and may even be unable to fight [-] to [-].

This greatly exceeded their expectations.

"Our goal has been achieved. We should withdraw our troops immediately while the enemy is crossing the river, and discard all the luggage as much as possible, otherwise we may not be able to leave." Lu Liang, the chief of operations section, eagerly suggested to Li Ping.

Lu Liang didn't quite understand why Li Ping had to come to see it with his own eyes after getting the news from the reconnaissance team. He didn't think it was necessary, and he believed that the reconnaissance team would not exaggerate and make mistakes on such issues.

The size of the enemy army is too large, it must be impossible to fight!
On the way back to Yuezhou, there are still several rivers to cross, and the sooner they make up their minds, the more likely they are to get rid of it.

Otherwise, it is really easy to get lost.

That's right, their main purpose has been achieved, and they should no longer be entangled in the details.

After all, no one is a god, and accidents are always inevitable.

According to what Li Ping told them, Li Zicheng's main force has already gone northward, and it doesn't make much sense to continue to make small troubles behind his back, and it is beyond his reach.

It is better to follow the military order of the new Governor Lu Daqi and attack Zhang Xianzhong who is rapidly growing in front of him.

For this reason, Li Ping decided to surprise Yuezhou first.

According to Li Ping's judgment, as long as the surprise attack on Yuezhou is successful, Zuo Liangyu will definitely take action out of various considerations, at least to take advantage of it.

And as Li Ping's entire army continued to attack southward decisively and quickly, and made an attempt to completely expel Zhang Xianzhong from Dongting Lake and seal him out of the Huguang Plain (two lakes basins), Zhang Xianzhong would cause the entire Huguang official The army has made up its mind to take advantage of the illusion that he will go south to deal with him while he divides his troops to attack.

Otherwise, from Zhang Xianzhong's point of view, Li Ping has no reason to continue to gather the main force to quickly go south after the successful sneak attack and attack the crowd with a few.

Since Yuanzhou, the gateway to Jiangxi, is easy to defend and difficult to attack because it is stuck on the passage among the continuous mountains and mountains, and with Zhao Jin present, Li Ping believes that Zhang Xianzhong's troops attacking Jiangxi are unlikely to succeed.

And it is difficult to achieve a breakthrough in a short time even if the army and good generals are assembled.

If Zhang Xianzhong doesn’t want to be trapped in Changsha and Hengzhou surrounded by mountains, if he doesn’t want to continue to develop southward and enter the Nanling Mountains where the northerners are likely to be seriously unaccustomed to the environment, only the armed forces with a dead end will go. road.

It is very likely that he will gather his troops to go north to meet the government troops going south, and try his best to regain Yuezhou, which is stuck at the junction of the Yangtze River and Xiangjiang River.

At the same time, this is also in line with Zhang Xianzhong's character and past habits of bandits.

Zhang Xianzhong is based in Changsha, where he can go to Jiangxi in the east and Dongting Lake in the north, instead of Hengzhou in the south. It has already shown that he may not be very interested in the southward strategy, and he doesn't like leaving himself with no choice and being trapped by others. live.

In this way, Li Ping can rely on Yuezhou to slowly consume Zhang Xianzhong like he did in Daye County and look for opportunities to injure Zhang Xianzhong.

This is Li Ping's plan.

A plan that is a small part of lies but also looks believable.

The only thing Li Ping didn't tell anyone was that he still had a plan to give up Yuezhou and give Zhang Xianzhong access to the Yangtze River.

Although many people expressed doubts and even doubts about this plan, the main reason is that this game is too big and there are too many variables!
But no one objected.

They have become accustomed to Li Ping's decisiveness and surprises on key strategic issues.

Moreover, the subsequent development of events generally confirmed the correctness of Li Ping.

A thousand elite soldiers drawn from the whole army led by Li Ping not only succeeded in a long-distance secret rush to Yuezhou, but also let them pass through the outer layer with ease by the heavily guarded Yuezhou peasant army defenders. The line of defense reached directly under the city wall.

Even when they started to climb the city directly, the peasant army guarding Yuezhou was still in a state of confusion. They didn't react for a long time, and it was impossible to talk about counterattack.

As a result, Li Ping and his troops climbed into the city so easily, and then defeated the unorganized and stunned peasant army, and captured most of them in a way of catching turtles in the urn.

This is a very typical Zhang Xianzhong-style surprise attack.

Later, when they notified Zuo Liangyu of the capture of Yuezhou, Zuo Liangyu sent troops south as Li Ping expected.

And according to the latest report, Zuo Liangyu has occupied Jiayu and Puqi counties abandoned by the peasant army, and Bingfeng has reached Linxiang County, 60 miles northeast of Yuezhou.

The only error in judgment was that Li Ping did not expect that Zhang Xianzhong would complete the mobilization and assembly of the army so quickly.

According to his original estimate, it may take more than ten days for Zhang Xianzhong's army, which is severely undertrained, to complete the assembly and go north to meet them.

Before that, Zhang Xianzhong should urgently order some troops to block him layer by layer, and use Xiangyin County as a key strategic point for key defense.

Therefore, Li Ping's plan is also to complete the threat to Xiangyin County and resolutely defeat the enemy troops who harassed and blocked him.

But unfortunately, Zhang Xianzhong did not act according to his idea, but directly gave him a one-step solution, which made it difficult for him to bear.

"There are too many enemies, and they are very cautious. We have no chance. And even if we have the opportunity, we can't take risks. This will only take us off. It is safest to withdraw!" Zhou Wen, who felt that he had seen through Li Ping's thoughts, also persuaded.

At this time, I came to observe the enemy army. Zhou Wen, who came with me, knew that Li Ping didn't believe it, but probably wanted to launch a sneak attack to disrupt the enemy army or even destroy the enemy army's crossing operation, so as to increase their chances of safely withdrawing. Chance.

However, although Zhang Xianzhong's army crossed the river, it seemed chaotic, but it was indeed very cautious. Not only were the troops crossing the river from the vicinity of Xiangyin County, where the river surface conditions were very poor, to protect them, but also the troops crossing the river did not carry luggage. , and immediately began to prepare for battle after crossing the river.

Even after finding someone observing them from a distance, they didn't send cavalry hastily to drive them away.

"No hurry, let's take a look." Li Ping replied with a sullen face.

It seemed that he didn't agree with the suggestions of his subordinates, and he didn't seem to care that the longer the time passed, the less chance he had, and it made it even more difficult to retreat safely.

Li Ping was not in a hurry, and the few people who accompanied him could only look at each other.

They really couldn't figure out that their own army was still 30 miles away, and when they made up their minds to send troops over, even if they had a chance, they would lose their chance.

But I can't figure it out, and I can't help it.

After an unknown amount of time, the peasant army crossing the river finally decided not to endure their prying eyes, and a cavalry began to come straight to them.

"Go back and prepare to attack tomorrow!" Li Ping ordered decisively.

"what?"

"what!"

……

There was an exclamation around Li Ping, and Zhou Wen was so shocked that he almost fell off his horse.

Everyone looked at Li Ping in disbelief, and they all hoped they had heard wrong.

But Li Ping's repetition was clear and firm: "We will attack tomorrow!"

(End of this chapter)