A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 923: Suspicion at the sharing meeting, the Yellow Army splits and separates

June of the fourth year of Qianfu
Wang Xianzhi's troops, who had been retreating all the way from Songzhou, finally arrived in Ezhou. Without the threat of government troops, they could finally rest for a while and immediately ordered people to count the remaining people.

Along the way, countless rebel soldiers were scattered, captured, or died for various reasons.

According to statistics, only nearly 100,000 people can reach Ezhou now.

In an offensive against Songzhou, Wang Xianzhi directly lost one-third of his forces.

In a palace in Ezhou, the weather-beaten Wang Xianzhi sat in the first seat with a dejected look on his face. The generals below were also in low spirits and no longer as active as before.

"Bang!" A loud noise suddenly occurred in the lobby, attracting everyone's attention. They then discovered that it was General Wang Xianzhi.

"Huang Chao misled me, and Lord Shang was stupid, otherwise why would we allow the enemy cavalry to break into Songcheng and cause our army to suffer a disastrous defeat?"

Hearing Wang Xianzhi's words, the generals looked at each other in bewilderment.

At this time, one of the generals stepped out. It was Wang Xianzhi's brother-in-law and a trusted general, Cai Wenqiu. This man had always been at odds with Huang Chao and was jealous of Huang Chao's power:

"General, my army has suffered a great defeat, while Huang Chao and Shang Chao suffered very little loss. Huang Chao only had 50,000 fewer men than us, but he just followed orders and ignored decrees."

"Now that the number of people in our two groups is not much different, there is no guarantee that Huang Chao will not have other ideas."

Wang Xianzhi hesitated after hearing this. Coincidentally, a rebel general who was on good terms with Huang Chao stepped forward in the hall and gave him frank advice.

Looking at the generals in the court who spoke for Huang Chao, Wang Xianzhi made up his mind.

"Send an order, order Lord Shang to come to E immediately to join me."

"Also, inform Huang Chao that the failure of the Songzhou battle is entirely his fault. If the enemy cavalry had not broken through his defense line, Songzhou would not have been lost. Order Shang Rang to lead 50,000 men of Huang's army to Ezhou and come under the command of Shang Junchang to supplement the main force of the rebel army to prevent the government troops from attacking."

"Huang Chao led his troops to station in Yingzhou. Without the order of this general, they are not allowed to come to Ezhou."

Caizhou was where Huang Chao's troops, who had been fighting and retreating from Xiangyi, settled.

Because of the timely retreat, Huang Chao's troops suffered little losses, only about 10,000 people, and most of the elite troops were there.

However, the women and children did not retreat with them and were settled in Mengzhuze, north of Songzhou. Huang Chao ordered his nephew Lin Yan to lead 10,000 people from Yingzhou to bypass Haozhou and pick up the families of the rear camp to come to Cai.

Just as Huang Chao was preparing to take his subordinates to Ezhou to meet Wang Xianzhi and discuss the next move of the rebel army.

Someone is coming from Ezhou.

Huang Chao looked at the cavalry team that was stirring up a cloud of sand as they approached from afar. The leader was a young man named Shang Guangde, who was the son of Shang Junchang and the younger brother of Shang Rang.

"Uh-huh!!!"

Shang Guangde came to a place not far from Huang Chao and dismounted, saying, "I meet Commander Huang, uncle."

"Haha, Guangde is here, come quickly, let me see him." Huang Chao was very cordial, as if he had met his own nephews.

Shang Rang, who was standing by, was also happy to see this situation and smiled without saying anything.

The three of them exchanged pleasantries for a moment, and Shang Guangde took out Wang Xianzhi's order with an embarrassed look on his face and said, "Commander-in-chief, the general has an order for you."

Huang Chao and Shang Rang immediately knelt on one knee and obeyed the order.

Although Huang Chao and Wang Xianzhi are now at odds with each other, the other party is the leader of the rebel army after all. He needs to use his name to suppress the other rebel leaders in his headquarters.

Besides, there were many veteran volunteers in his army, and they only recognized Wang Xianzhi.

As Shang Guangde's voice gradually became smaller, Huang Chao's face became increasingly gloomy as he lowered his head, and veins bulged on his clenched fists.

"Uncle, uncle." Huang Chao finally reacted after hearing Shang Guangde's voice, but he did not immediately accept the general's order.

But the general of the Huang faction behind him could not stand it, and immediately stood up and shouted:

"What does this mean, General? The commander-in-chief saved the lives of his brothers, but now he is being treated like this. What a rubbish general."

"Yes, that's right. If you respect him, you can call him a general. If you don't respect him, he is nothing."

"He's just a salt smuggler. Give him some face."

"Great Commander, you must not agree to this. If it really doesn't work out, we can just lead a team and work on our own. We may be able to carve out a niche for ourselves."

Huang Chao remained silent. Shang Rang stood up and shouted at the rebel generals who were shouting behind him:

"Shut up, you filthy bastards, how dare you disrespect the general?"

"The general is the leader of the righteous army. Without him, we will be wiped out by the government troops overnight. Our lives will be taken at will. How can we achieve great things and achieve wealth and glory?"

The rest of the generals who were not from the Huang faction took the lead and joined in. The two factions immediately started arguing with each other, and some even started fighting each other.

This scene made Shang Guangde, who was holding the general's order, break out in a cold sweat. He stared at Huang Chao, who was kneeling on one knee without moving.

"Hahaha!!!"

The crowd, which was already in chaos, looked towards Huang Chao, only to see him stand up and laugh loudly. His laughter was full of heroism, which made everyone stop what they were doing and look at him unconsciously.

"Brothers, Mr. Shang is right. The general is the leader of the righteous army and must not be disrespected."

"Now that the main force of the rebel army has been damaged, we, as the rebels, should help them. Helping them is helping ourselves."

Hearing Huang Chao say this, Huang Gui and the others looked anxious and wanted to say something: "Commander-in-chief..."

"Don't say more. A real man will never be short of soldiers or talented people. When we brothers rose up, there were only a thousand of us. Now there are a hundred thousand brothers, and it has only been a year."

"It's just a small army of 50,000. As long as the court is still so incompetent, it would be easy to defeat 100,000, 500,000, or even 1 million. Don't act like a girl."

Shang Rang bowed and said, "Great Commander, great justice."

Huang Chao held his hand with his backhand and said with tears in his eyes: "You are a wise man, like my Zifang. When you return to Ezhou, don't forget the days when we fought together."

Shang Rang wiped away the tears from his eyes and said, "Don't worry, Commander-in-Chief. I am in Ezhou and will never let what happened today happen again."

"Okay, okay."

Because Wang Xianzhi was in a hurry, the few people did not communicate much. Huang Chao immediately ordered those generals who disobeyed him to be handed over to Shang Rang, asking him to take them back to Ezhou.

Looking at Shang Rang and the other 50,000 soldiers going away, Huang Gui behind him could not help but say angrily: "Uncle, Wang Xianzhi has gone too far this time."

Huang Chao replied expressionlessly: "So what if they disagree? Will these people listen to me?"

Then he looked at the clear sky and said lightly, "It's just right. Let's reorganize the team to prevent them from being pulled away by outsiders in the future."

July of the fourth year of Qianfu
Shang Rang's troops and Shang Junchang's troops arrived in Ezhou one after another.

Wang Xianzhi, in his capacity as a general, took Shang Junchang's troops under his command, but handed over Shang Rang's troops to Shang Junchang, and Shang Rang became a logistics officer again.

Such unscrupulous annexation of other people's troops naturally caused dissatisfaction among many people.

However, due to Wang Xianzhi's status as the leader of the righteous army and Shang Junchang's appeasement, these dissatisfactions remained submerged and did not erupt.

(End of this chapter)