Gentlemen, listen to the sword chant

Chapter 105 Open the bow without turning back the arrow
Xuzhou city.

Xi Shen stood in front of the bronze mirror, and a servant girl carefully dressed him and put on the royal crown, which was a black silk python robe that symbolized the queen. The counselor Chen Jian stood beside him, shaking a paper fan, smiling all over his face, flattering him. Said: "Congratulations to the Lord, oh no, congratulations to the king, the king is a thousand years old."

Finally he got his wish and put on the python robe and ascended to the throne, but Xi Shen couldn’t be happy for a long time. His eyes hesitated. This python robe and crown were gifts sent by Uesugi when he was leaving. The workmanship is exquisite, black brocade The material for embellishing the python pattern on the crown is gold thread, and the crown is embellished with hundreds of crystal clear gemstones, which is very noble and solemn.This boa robe was much more expensive than the official robe bestowed on him by the Great Liang court, but he still felt that it was a bit worse, what was it?
There was an impulse in his heart that it might not be as good as his official robe.

"Chen Jian, wearing this boa robe, I'm a dog raised by Dongying people, alas."

Chen Jian smiled slightly: "Master, the world is impermanent."

Xi Shen stared at himself in the mirror, and inexplicably found that he was much haggard, maybe he was old and sick from overwork?No, it's not, he fell into deep self-doubt, and in the future, he went to Jiuquan, went to Fengdu, and went to the ancestors, how to explain to them?He suddenly felt that he was wrong, the wrong was outrageous?
At this time, Xi Shen suddenly felt a chill behind his back, and then, a tingling pain swept his whole body, Chen Jian shouted angrily, and hurried forward, Xi Shen reacted quickly, and quickly kicked the maid away, only then did he realize that, At the moment when he lost his mind, the maid took out a dagger and stabbed him in the waist, Chen Jian shouted: "Come on, come on!"

Xi Shen took a deep breath, several soldiers rushed in and pressed the maid on the ground, the maid smiled miserably, stared straight at Xi Shen, smiled cruelly, and said with a sinister smile: "Traitor, you Damn it, I can't figure it out, someone will take care of you, I'll wait for you on Huangquan Road."

"Take it away and interrogate it carefully." Chen Jian waved his sleeves.

After a while, another old doctor came in to treat Xi Shen. Fortunately, the dagger was not poisonous, and the prick was not deep. After applying medicine and bandaging, it was almost done.

Xi Shen looked at the blood-stained python robe and bowed his head in silence.

In the past few days, too many assassinations like this have happened to him. More than once, that servant girl was not the first, nor would she be the last, but she was the first to hurt him.Chen Jian saw something wrong with Xi Shen's mental state. Ever since he saw the court issued an edict to take back his title, Xi Shen never laughed again, and was depressed all day long, worrying about gains and losses.If it was normal, he was attacked by a small maid and suffered such injuries, he would definitely be furious, order a strict investigation, dig all the people related to that maid, and then drag them out to chop Yes, to deter those lunatics, but this time Xi Shen didn't have that idea.He looked at the blood-stained python robe in a daze, and he didn't even pay attention to the fact that a bloody hole was pierced in this python robe that symbolized power.

"Your Majesty, there is no turning back when you shoot the bow." Chen Jian comforted.

Xi Shen smiled wryly, "Chen Jian, you don't need to comfort me anymore, this dress is just a reminder suit, I really played a good hand of cards so badly, now the world can't tolerate me."

"My lord, you are now the new king supported by Dongpu. You only need to wait for Wuzhou to restore order, and you will always be the king."

Xi Shen laughed at himself. What he was afraid of was, would the new Dongying commander Chizuko Homma let her go?

Chen Jian bowed his head, he knew what Xi Shen was thinking, he could only say that the Imperial Court of Great Liang issued an edict to take back Xi Shen's hereditary title of Muzhou Mu for more than 400 years, which was unexpected.You should know that although this title was awarded by the ancestors of the Xi family for their illustrious military exploits following Ji Wuya in the world more than 400 years ago, for more than 400 years, if you look at the fourteen states, unless there is a specific event, such as a certain prince's rebellion, or a local state Only when a peasant uprising occurred in the mansion and overthrew the governance of that prince, leaving a vacancy in the position, the imperial court will cancel this title, such as Cheng Shouyu's title of Yuezhou Mu, or the Lianchi Uprising, Jingzhou Mu and Chu King They all died in the chaos of war, and their titles were naturally revoked.King Juquan of Yue betrayed his country and surrendered to the enemy, but the imperial court still did not revoke this title. This is an exception, and the reasons are very complicated.For example, the doves in the imperial court were worried about revoking the title of King Yue. Although King Yue was stupid and had no ambitions, the advantage was that he was a fool. He could turn against Dongpu today, and he might return to Great Liang if the situation was not right in the future.

……

Fifty miles southwest of Huaiyin, Panjiazhai.

Panjiazhai is a cottage built on the mountain. The mountain stretches for more than ten miles. It is vulnerable to attack and the terrain is steep. There are seven or eight villages, large and small, around it.At this time, the Taozhishan rebels stationed in Panjiazhai with food, grass and weapons.That day Lu Qian saw the Dongying Army in Changlong Valley, so he ordered someone to report to Huaiyin City, but the subordinate did not come back, but the news of the fall of Huaiyin City came. Huaiyin couldn't help worrying, thinking that his speech was in danger. He wanted to send troops to help him. After careful consideration, he decided to forget it. He didn't know that King Wu's army had been dismissed. He thought that there were tens of thousands of troops stationed in Huaiyin City. If he died in battle, then he, Lu Qian, could only offer a stick of incense for his speech in Qingming, which could be regarded as mourning.Later, news came out that there were only [-] troops in Huaiyin, the entire army was wiped out, and Her Royal Highness was captured. Lu Qian felt guilty, but also felt lucky that he was smart and didn't go to support, otherwise he would have died ten times without his life. lifeless situation.

After Lu Qian came to Panjiazhai, the local villagers warmly welcomed them. Lu Qian explained his purpose to the village owner here, and said that he would station troops in Panjiazhai, but he would not take the common people one by one, and would help them resist the attacks of the Dongying people. Killing and looting.The local people readily agreed. You must know that in this troubled world, the people are like Mianyang waiting to be fed. Who knows how the Dongying people will squeeze them after the autumn harvest this year?The Taozhi Mountain Rebels came, not only to protect them, but also to bring their own food without taking a cent. This year, they can save a sum of taxable food, why not do it?Furthermore, if the Taozhi Mountain rebels were defeated, when they withdrew their troops and the Dongying people came, it would be fine, and they should pay taxes.

The essence of war is the plunder of resources.

It has been like this throughout the ages.

Ordinary people can take it easy, they are uneducated, their minds are only working at sunrise and resting at sunset, and they lack the feelings of family and country. There is no essential influence, just a little bitter, and relatively bitter.

Lu Qian actually doesn't have the habit and experience of sand table warfare, but after coming to the League, he found that all armies like to conduct actual combat simulations and strategic deployments on the sand table. In the first war, I felt that the sand table simulation had a very good strategic effect.So, after building the cottage, Lu Qian set up a simple sand table in his large tent of the Chinese army. According to the map, there are mountains, rivers, towns, big and small, everything that one expects to find. It's just that the workmanship is relatively rough, but it doesn't hurt.

He stood in front of the sand table, with one hand resting on the saber at his waist, staring at the sand table seriously, looking like a general.

The lieutenant snickered from the sidelines. He knew how important Lu Qian was, so it was okay to let him charge into the battle. Let him watch the formation of troops on the sand table. That was really a high opinion of him. Seeing that Lu Qian was silent for a while, the lieutenant smiled and said: " General, my subordinates have asked, there are indeed scholars in the village, and it is said that Taian was admitted as a scholar in 16 years."

"Scholar?" Lu Qian looked down on him a little, waved his hands irritably, and said, "Forget about being a scholar, the 16-year-old scholar in Tai'an has not even won a single candidate. What's the use of coming? Our 44 Banner Army If your life is handed over to a pedantic scholar, who will be responsible if something goes wrong?"

The lieutenant smiled awkwardly.

Lu Qian sighed: "It's different now, we are fighting for the nation, and our opponents are the brave Dongying people, they are insidious and cunning, we can't play the same way we used to be reckless, we still need to use our brains in war. You see, if the Laozi beat Hailing this time, if our rebels behaved like before, how could we be willing to leave?"

The lieutenant gave a thumbs up and praised: "The general is right. If the general hadn't ordered us to empty Hailing and escape in the middle of the night, otherwise we would have been surrounded by Dongying people and died."

Lu Qian stared at the topographical map, looked and looked, thought and thought, scratched his head, racked his brains and couldn't figure out why, he looked for the statement in his memory, held his chin, and said solemnly: " Well, the Dongying people will definitely make some moves in the near future.”

The lieutenant general had black lines all over his face, thinking to himself, isn't this obvious?

"Old Kui, if you are a Japanese pirate, what should you do next?" Lu Qian squinted at the lieutenant general, who complained in his heart, thinking that if I knew what the Dongying people were thinking, what kind of general would I want you to be?Although he was full of slander in his heart, the deputy general did not dare to neglect, and said flatly: "General, of course it is to wipe out the remaining forces."

"Oh? Why did you say that?"

The deputy general had no choice but to say honestly: "General, we took down several counties around Taozhi Mountain during the Taozhi Mountain uprising. After we occupied it, it was time to attack the surrounding villages and towns. , and have to be cleared up slowly. Did the general forget? Back then there was a group of rout soldiers who would rather die than surrender and hid in the corners of the mountains to confront us. We didn’t want to cost casualties, so we kept them. He sneaked out to loot us when he had the opportunity, and he was so annoying that he had no choice but to order that the rebels should be wiped out no matter the cost..."

Lu Qian's eyes lit up, that's right, after finishing fighting the county town, it's time to fight the county town.What the Dongying people want is the control of the entire Wuyue land, not those counties.Their strategic deployment is to win the economic center of gravity first, capture the most powerful and most difficult county town with the most troops deployed, defeat the garrison in the county town, and defeat the main force of Wu Yue, and the remaining counties and towns are nothing more than There is nothing to worry about these stragglers, and it is only a matter of time before they are wiped out.

Now all the nine counties in Jiangdong have fallen into the hands of the Dongying people. Although Xi Shen was supported as a puppet, it is said that Xi Shen was dismissed from the title. The reaction from various places was very strong, and many riots occurred; moreover, the 28 towns had no time to withdraw. There were always those who were dispersed from the team, like Lu Qian, who had no choice but to retreat to the cottage.In the next step, the Japanese generals will point their fingers at the county towns and villages.

After thinking this through, Lu Qian was terrified.

He patted the lieutenant on the shoulder, and said solemnly: "Old Kui, what you said is not bad. In this way, we may not have a long hard life."

Lu Qian's original plan was to borrow the geographical location of Panjiazhai. First, Panjiazhai is located between Huaiyin and Hailing. Although it is not a traffic fortress, it is not far from the traffic fortress. His plan is to launch some ambushes at any time , looting and plundering the materials transferred from Huaiyin to Hailing Dongying people, but now he has dismissed this idea.What he can think of, can't the Dongpu people think of it?Panjiazhai is too close to the throat between the two cities, Dongying people will definitely not let it go, maybe some Dongying people will come to Panjiazhai to search in the near future, once they learn that Panjiazhai is stationed in Taozhishan Rebel Army It will definitely face the encirclement and suppression of the Japanese people.

Lu Qian was full of worries.

"Damn it, it looks like we're digging our own grave, what should we do?" Lu Qian paced around the camp anxiously, with a heavy expression on his face.

The lieutenant general said: "General, if we really can't do it, let's withdraw. Wuzhou has fallen, and if we fight, we will die."

"Withdraw? It's easy to say, withdraw, where to withdraw, Wuzhou has completely fallen, and we can't fly away even if we have wings."

The lieutenant general's face changed, a little desperate.

……

Purple Bamboo Forest.

Recently, hundreds of missionaries from fourteen prefectures have received wind and rushed to Zizhu Forest. Jiang Ziqi used the name of Xin Wuji's son to draft a document and spread it out secretly. Many missionaries rushed to Zizhu Forest to meet the alliance.

After many days of recuperation, Chen Ci returned to his peak condition. Every day when he got up, he would take the ancient winter solstice sword and go to the riverside to practice.After getting along for a few days, Chen Ci also probably knew about Zhang Qiaoqiao's poor life experience. In her words, it's all over. The past follows the wind, and one should look forward.Chen Ci knew in his heart that if such a thing happened to any girl, it would be a scar that could never be erased in her heart. Even if the mirror was broken, even if it was glued together again, there would still be cracks, let alone people?Zhang Qiaoqiao's toughness and coldness are just a disguise for a poor woman in this troubled world.

Today, however, Chen Ci found that there was no trace of Jiang Ziqi, and he was a little puzzled. For several days, Jiang Ziqi would seek him out to discuss things together, and Chen Ci was used to it.

"A distinguished guest is coming."

Zhang Qiaoqiao explained.

"Your honored guest? Could it be someone who is in charge like the giant of the Mohist school?"

Zhang Qiaoqiao covered her mouth and snickered, held the bowl and chopsticks, and gently parted her red lips, "Of course not, in fact, the war more than ten years ago had already dispersed our hundreds of families, and we couldn't contact the heads of each family." This time, the honored guest is Yuan Ji, who is outstanding in martial arts, has countless disciples under his sect, and has peaches and plums all over the world. His influence, with a single call, can attract thousands of disciples who have faith in their hearts to come to us at will. "

"Yuan Ji?" Chen Ci chewed on the name lightly, jokingly said, "My surname is Yuan. Could it be that he is a relative of Peigong from Taozhi Mountain?"

Zhang Qiaoqiao smiled like a flower, "The concubine's guess is really accurate. This person and Tao Zhi Shan Pei Gong are cousins, but...their ideas are contrary, but it has nothing to do with it."

He didn't take the statement to heart, he still looked down on these so-called missionaries from the bottom of his heart, thinking that they were no different from bandits Caomang.

(End of this chapter)