Late Tang

The sky is dyed golden.

Li Jing rested his hands on the solid parapet of the ship, staring at the gradually spreading light.Dawn covered the river and the fields, and the world beneath his feet turned from pitch black to blue, then to green, and then to the green of the wild and the yellow and white of wildflowers.The rushing water comes from the Yellow River, all the way to the southeast, and never returns.Looking at the waves of the river constantly beating against the side of the boat, Li Jing could vaguely feel the mist splashing on his face.

On the Huainan battlefield at this time, Zhao Ji lived up to his expectations, and with a small force, he successfully blocked Gao Pian's footsteps, leaving his heavy troops trapped under the fortified city, making it difficult to advance an inch.The south was stable for a while, and Li Jing finally rested his troops in Xiapi and officially launched the battle to capture Xuzhou.

After discussing with Li Zhen and other advisers and generals, Li Jing finally decided to divide his troops into three groups.

Lin Wei led [-] partial divisions out of Xiapi and attacked Xuzhou along Surabaya, forming the right army.The task Li Jing gave Lin Wei was not to take the initiative to attack Xuzhou, but to guard Xuzhou's soldiers so that they could not go south.Once Xuzhou soldiers want to go south, pester them immediately.

Then Li Jing personally led 2 horses as the Chinese army, and marched westward along the Sui River from his accommodation, and went directly to attack the Yongqiao, the governor of Suzhou.Taking Zeng Yuanyu as the left army, leading 1 troops, they dispatched troops from Linhuai, Sizhou, and marched northward along the Bianshui canal, sweeping the surrounding cities of Suzhou.

Three groups of soldiers and horses came out together, but the overall tactics were to attack Suzhou in the south first, and then attack Xuzhou.

Suzhou is smaller than Xuzhou. It was originally separated from Xuzhou, Haozhou, and Sizhou. Compared with Xuzhou, Suzhou is easier to fight.But the status of Suzhou is also very important, with Xuzhou in the north, Haozhou in the south, Sizhou in the east, Haozhou and Yingzhou in the west.Qin Jun took Suzhou first, which would be more beneficial to the stabilization of Haozhou in Huainan.

Take Suzhou, then Xuzhou will be surrounded by the Qin army on three sides.

At the end of May, Lin Wei led 1 troops into Xuzhou and forced Huo Cun, the governor of Xuzhou, into the city.

At the beginning of June, Li Jing personally led 2 troops to the city of Yongqiao in Suzhou, cutting off Zhang Guiba, governor of Qizhou, from the surrounding cities.Zhang Guiba, the governor of Suzhou, saw Li Jing's menacing approach, so he had to retreat to the city and sent someone to Luoyang for help.At the same time, they sent people to seek help from Ge Congzhou and Zhang Guihou of Ying and Hao, and sent troops to Zhu Wen in Bianzhou to send troops to Cao Song to contain and share the pressure of the Qin army.On the one hand, he urgently sent someone to Huainan and wrote a letter to Gao Pian, asking him to send troops to Li Jing's rear to divide the Qin army.

Li Jing also knew that Huang Chao had just won Xusu Erzhou, so he would not lose it again.Huang Chao will definitely send troops to help. In order to avoid nights and dreams, Li Jing only assembled [-] soldiers and horses in such a short period of time to kill them, and also to prevent Huang Chao's follow-up troops from rushing to reinforce.Therefore, Li Jing issued a death order, requiring all ministries to capture Suzhou as quickly as possible.

At the beginning of the month, Zeng Yuanyu took advantage of Li Jing's opportunity to encircle Suzhou City, and led his army to quickly sweep the periphery of Suzhou. Before Ge Congzhou and others arrived, he took the first step to capture Fuli and Qixian cities in the periphery of Suzhou.

On June [-]th, Li Jing and Zeng Yuanyu besieged Suzhou. The puppet Qi general, Suzhou governor Zhang Guiba led his army to defend to the death.After a bloody battle between the two sides, Li Jing dispatched heavy crossbows, catapults, and even the flying thunder cannon. Although many casualties were caused to Zhang Guiba's troops, they still failed to break through the city.

Zhang Guiba, Huang Chao's general, is best at crowd tactics.He sent all the young and strong men in Suzhou city to the top of the city. In the first day of the battle, although there were many casualties, most of them were ordinary people, and the casualties of his troops were not large.

Li Jing led the generals to watch the battle. He stood under the commander-in-chief flag, held up the binoculars and looked at the top of the city. He saw a general with a big arm, a round waist, a full face and a beard, and a fierce appearance. It is self-evident that this man Among Huang Chao's generals, Zhang Guiba was sworn brothers with Ge Congzhou, governor of Haozhou, and Huo Cunnai, governor of Xuzhou. In addition, Zhang Guihou, governor of Yingzhou, and Zhang Guimou of Luoyang City were his cousins. .

Beside him, there are several generals standing, one of them is very young, handsome and out of tune with Zhang Guiba and others.

Li Jing pointed to the top of the city and asked the generals, "Who is this?"

The fifth concubine of the Military Intelligence Bureau replied: "This man's name is Zhang Yun, a wealthy family in Haizhou. He is one of the two generals under Shi Pu's account in the former probation army. He was the governor of Suzhou. Because Shi Pu surrendered to Huang Chao, Therefore, he also belongs to Zhang Guiba's subordinates."

Hearing that this person was originally a general of the probation army, Li Jing nodded.Seeing that the sky was going to be dark and there was not much progress in fighting for a day, Li Jing ordered the troops to withdraw.

The Qin army retreated back to the camp, and Li Jing discussed with the generals: "According to today's siege method, it must be three or five months, and if you kill [-] enemies, you will lose [-]. Guan Jian is, we don't have so many If the time continues like this, Ge Congzhou and Zhang Guihou will definitely send troops to help, and the battle of Xu Su must be resolved quickly! Everyone, do you have any good strategies?"

Liu Xun, the envoy of the Shengjie Army, suggested: "A certain view of Suzhou has a low and flat terrain, and the west of the city is slightly higher than the east of the city. If we build a dam, Suzhou City will be turned into a big lake in no time. Suzhou City is a city wall built with rammed earth, so it will not last long. Besides, we have navy to assist in the battle. Once Suzhou is flooded, it may Send the navy to attack the city with warships, what defense will Zhang Guiba use then?"

Li Jing asked someone to fetch the sand table, and after carefully watching the terrain of Suzhou, he was also very happy.Zhang Guiba was not easy to deal with in the normal way of fighting, and he had to knock down a few teeth if he wanted to eat him.But if it is attacked by water, it is different.

Jing Xiang, the envoy of the Council of Staff, said at the side: "Zhang Guiba is a strong grass thief. Today, we have failed to attack the city for a day. You must be careful that this thief comes out of the city in the middle of the night to attack."

Li Zhendao: "Today the grass thieves didn't get any favors. Ordinary thieves would not dare to come. But Zhang Guiba is the general of the grass thieves. I have to prevent him from attacking me unprepared. What the Senate said is not bad, we must be cautious. For the top."

Li Jing nodded and sent someone to be careful.

In Suzhou City, Zhang Guiba and others were also discussing matters.In today's great battle, although the city was completely defended, the many heavy crossbows, cannons and firearms used by the Qin army when they attacked the city still caused great losses to the Qi army. The young and strong people arranged to defend the city, so the Qi army lost more than a thousand soldiers and horses.However, if this is the case, there will be thousands of casualties in one day. With today's style of fighting, Zhang Guiba will have to wipe out his soldiers in half a month.

Zhang Guiba asked Zhang Yun, "What good strategy does General Zhang have to defeat the enemy?"

Zhang Yun was born in a wealthy family, and Zhang Guiba could be said to be two types of people, but now he is in Cao Ying, but he is also helpless.After pondering for a moment, he said: "Li Jing personally led the army to attack. Although he did not break the city today, he also killed a large number of our soldiers. I see that the Qin army is setting up a stronghold ten miles outside the city. It is not that our army will be released. In the eyes. The Qin army underestimates the enemy, and will not be on guard tonight, so you can lead your troops to attack at night. If you break the enemy's camp, the siege of Suzhou can be broken. This is the best strategy."

Zhang Yun was still using the second strategy, but when Zhang Guiba heard the best strategy, he was so happy that he didn't listen anymore, so he followed this best strategy, led his subordinates personally, and brought Zhang Yun by his side to choose 1 people marched out of the city in the middle of the night.

In the middle of the night, Zhang Guiba led his army to the northern camp of the Qin Army's camp, and broke in from all directions.The defenders couldn't stop them, they were defeated in one blow, scattered in all directions, and the Qi army took the northern camp.Just as he was happy, Zhang Yun rode over and said, "General, things are weird. I broke the camp of the Qi army so easily. There is a fraud in it."

After being reminded by Zhang Yun, Zhang Guiba immediately woke up, who is Li Jing?The famous general in the world, how could his camp be so vulnerable? Thinking about it carefully, there seemed to be few people in the camp of the Qin army, and the other party seemed to have expected them to come. As soon as he attacked, The opponent ran away, seemingly collapsed, but in fact, it seemed that they had been prepared for a long time, and they didn't kill a few people at all.

At this moment, I suddenly heard drums beating loudly from all sides, and Liu Xun led the troops of the Shengjie Army to kill them.

Zhang Guiba personally led his troops to fight, and the two armies collided and formed a massacre.

After another copy, there was another drumbeat in Zhengxi, a sergeant reported to Zhang Guiba, and Li Jing personally led the soldiers and horses to surround him.Zhang Guiba already understood at this time that, as Zhang Yun said, Li Jing was in ambush.Not daring to fight at the moment, he led the army to abandon the camp and break through.

Liu Xun and Li Jing led the army to chase after him.

Zhang Guiba and Zhang Yun couldn't stop their enemies and fled northward.Just after running not far away, another group of men and horses suddenly came out from the darkness. On the left was Wang Yanzhang, the chief iron spear general of the Feather Cavalry Army, and on the right was Li Cunxiao, the chief tiger general of the Black Banner Army.Zhang Guiba and Zhang Yun tried their best to break through, but they couldn't stop the Qin army's soldiers from rushing and trampling them.

Zhang Guiba had no choice but to lead his army to flee to the west. Suddenly, he heard the sound of killing and shouting loudly, and another Biao army arrived.Zeng Yuanyu, the governor of the rear army, and the Huben army advocated Chengzong, and Liu Shouqian, the leader of the Longxiang army, blocked the way.

Zhang Guiba charged fiercely, Zeng Yuanyu's three generals were all infantry, although they were not as strong as cavalry, but at the sound of a whistle, arrows shot towards them like a shower of arrows, and the Qi army rushing in front immediately fell down.Zhang Guiba couldn't break through and had no way out.

With despair in his heart, he raised his iron gun and danced left and right, shouting: "Who save me!"

Among the horse troops behind him, a general ran to him. It was Zhang Yun, holding his horse's spear in his hand, and shouting: "General, go first!"

Nai leaped his horse horizontally, jumped into the front of the army formation, stabbed left and right, killed several people in a row, the army formation burst, and killed a gap.Zhang Yun took advantage of the situation and rushed in, opening a bloody road. For a while, the Qin army couldn't resist and couldn't be surrounded.When Zeng Yuanyu, Zhang Chengzong and Liu Shouqian arrived, Zhang Yun had already led Zhang Guiba out of the encirclement.

Liu Shouqian rushed over on his horse, and shouted: "Stop the grass thief!"

Zhang Guiba was terrified, but it was his younger brother Zhang Guimou who came with [-] troops from the city of Suzhou to meet him.With this new force, Zhang Guiba also turned around to fight, finally stopped the rout, fought for a while, gathered part of the defeated army, and retreated into the city.

At daybreak, Zhang Guiba counted his troops, and out of 1 troops who left the city last night, only less than [-] returned to the city, half of which was lost.He was so angry that he almost vomited blood, and remembering that this strategy was offered by Zhang Yun, he couldn't help being furious.Originally, Zhang Yun saved Zhang Guiba's life last night, but in the end it was worth the effort. Not only did he not get a reward, but he was reprimanded by Zhang Guiba and demoted from the military.All the probationary military power in Yuan's hands was taken over.

Zhang Guiba was also worried about a new defeat, and the former probation generals in the city would secretly surrender to the enemy, so he ordered the former probation generals to be seized of their military power and demoted to idle positions.For a moment, the former probation generals were all angry in their hearts, but they dared not speak out.

Afterwards, Zhang Guiba kept busy with various sects, no matter how Li Jing challenged him, but he couldn't hold on. (To be continued.)