Datang New Order

In May of that year, Liu Shouwen, the Jiedu envoy of the Yichang Army, led his troops south to Neihuang to block the Bian army, and accidentally fell into ambush, and the general Shan Keji was killed on Qingcaopo.Li Si'an, Zhang Cunjing, and Yuan Xiangxian of the Bian army led the army to cover up and kill them, but Liu Shouwen escaped and fled back to the city of Weizhou.That night, Lu Long's army, which suffered a severe setback in the siege, withdrew its camp, but Huangfu Jun, Ge Congzhou, and He Delun led the attack in the city.Lu Longjun at the back of the palace burned the camp in an attempt to stop the enemy, but was killed by Li Si'an and others who arrived later.So Lu Long's army was completely defeated.

Thanks to the previous retreat arrangements in Li Chengzhong's military tent, the well-organized Qianying soldiers maintained a complete organizational system during the rout.The small group of cavalry and infantry who were chased many times on the way did not flee like the other Lu Longjun. Instead, they turned around and stopped, with long spears in the front and bows and arrows in the back.For such a well-organized army, the chasing army is not interested in fighting, more heads are ahead, why bother to fight here?

As for the chasing soldiers of the brigade, you can see them from a long distance, and it is much easier to hide or change direction to escape.Therefore, along the way, Youdu miraculously did not lose a single person.While this orderly marching retreat ensured relative safety, it also lost speed. In addition to carrying food and weapons, the loss of speed was also caused by Li Chengzhong's deliberate suppression.

Zhou Medao was the first to raise an objection. His reason was simple. With such a move, it would take half a month to return to Youzhou. This journey was full of chasing soldiers, many of whom had already far surpassed Youdu. When those pursuers retreat, the two sides will meet again.This view was supported by many Youdu soldiers, who were more eager to go home than ever.

Zhang Xingzhong firmly supported Li Chengzhong on this point. After careful consideration, he expressed the reasons why Li Chengzhong did this according to his own understanding.A marching speed of forty miles per day is appropriate, so that you can have the physical strength to go into battle when you encounter the enemy. For the pursuers, the enemy who is organized and capable of fighting will not attack. In addition to the military common sense of "chasing", any victorious army is unwilling to make unnecessary sacrifices after a big victory, because they already have enough heads to receive military merit.This point has been fully proved in the encounters of these two days.

Now that Zhang Xingzhong was aware of his intentions and made it public, Li Chengzhong was unwilling to waste his words.With the support of Zhang Xingzhong and Jiang Miao, Youdu continued to march northward at a speed of forty miles per day. Zhou Paidao and those brothers who were too slow had no choice but to follow suit. The fate of Bing Kuiyong running away alone on the land of Hebei is terrible, which has been proved by the headless corpses seen in twos and threes along the way.

Li Chengzhong also asked everyone to save food rations as much as possible.At the time of departure, the rations prepared in each person's package were only enough for three days, that is to say, at least twelve days' worth of food was still lacking.Fortunately, in this era, the land of Hebei has dense pastures, clusters of forests, and an excellent environment, so there are more wild animals.Along the way, you try to focus on hunting as much as possible, hunting hares, guinea pigs, wild sheep and the like for food, and try to save food for emergencies.

In Youdu, you can often see the corpse of Lu Longjun lying on the ground, the head of which has been cut off, lying in the wilderness like this, maybe some wild beasts will come over soon, take away the meat from the corpse, and eventually turn into Lots of bones.Thinking of the living brothers Lu Longjun who were still alive before these corpses, fighting side by side on a battlefield, everyone felt very uncomfortable.

After staying away from the Weizhou battlefield, Youdu has been temporarily safe for the past few days, and has not encountered any pursuers for a whole day, but this kind of safety is destined to be temporary. The pursuers have already surpassed Youdu, and they may be on the way back soon They will meet each other on a narrow road.So everyone raised their vigilance, not daring to be exposed to the wilderness too much, and marched along the wooded area.

But even so, Youdu still encountered the first retreating Bian army chasing troops.At that time, Jiang Miao, who had better eyesight, saw a small forest in the northeast, and it was already noon in the sun, so Li Chengzhong decided to lead everyone to the forest to have a rest to avoid the scorching sun that was directly overhead.This decision is normal, and none of the three gang leaders has any objections.So Youdu quickly entered the forest.

Here, they ran head-on into a small group of Bian Army infantry who were resting in the forest.The sudden encounter between the two sides was inexplicable surprise, and after a while of shouting, they confronted each other fiercely.There are many people in Youdu, more than twice the number of the Bian army, which has only ten people, and it looks like a group of people, so the leading Bian army officer did not dare to fight first.

Although the Bian army is small in number, they are well equipped. Everyone is wearing leather armor and iron helmets on their heads. In addition to swords and swords, they also have two crossbows!In comparison, Youdu looks a bit shabby.Especially looking at these two crossbows, Li Cheng tightened his grip and didn't dare to do anything wrong.

The two sides confronted each other for a long time. Beads of sweat were dripping down their foreheads, and they were all looking at each other. No one dared to take the lead, and even didn't dare to wipe off the sweat.Behind Bianjun there was an ox cart that was obtained from somewhere, and the cart was full of heads. Li Chengzhong's eyelids twitched and his scalp tingled when he saw it.He knew that this must be the other party's spoils, and the heads of Lu Longjun's brothers must be in the car, so he couldn't help but feel a little sad and indignant.Looking at the head of the car, he really wanted to jump up and kill these sons of bitches, but... there are 22 brothers from Youdu behind him, and he had promised everyone loudly before that he would keep everyone safe to take home.

The officer of the Bian Army suddenly said: "Brothers on the opposite side, why don't we fight each other? You go north, we go south, just pretend we didn't see it."

Li Chengzhong looked at the car, thought about Brother Youdu behind him, and finally held back and nodded.The two sides retreated slowly, and when Li Chengzhong led the team out of the forest, the Bian army also drove an ox cart through the forest and headed south.

Out of danger, Li Chengzhong heaved a sigh of relief. He was about to speed up the speed of Youdu, but suddenly he heard a crisp "cracking" sound behind him.Turning around, he saw that Zhou Chopper was slapping himself vigorously, and his cheeks were flushed.Everyone watched in amazement, only Zhou Xiaolang, a fellow villager who beheaded Zhou, kept pulling his arm to stop him, but Zhou Xiaolang's eyes were already red.

Zhou Chopper squatted down slowly, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears: "A certain is a coward... A certain is a coward who is afraid of death! A certain should rush up..."

Zhou Xiaolang was also weeping.

Li Chengzhong asked for a long time, but Zhou Medao just cried and didn't answer, only Zhou Xiaolang explained the whole story while crying.Thirty miles further north is Zhougezhuang outside Wuyi City, which is the home of Zhou Medao and Zhou Xiaolang.It was not the head of Brother Lu Longjun that was pulled on the bullock cart behind Bianjun just now, but the heads of the villagers of Zhou Gezhuang!Some of them are obviously the acquaintance of the two.The Bian army is killing the good and pretending to be meritorious!

Zhou Kuaido squatted on the ground and cried loudly, smacking his mouth repeatedly: "A certain person is arrogant, but he is a coward! He doesn't have the courage to go up there and fight for his life...Damn the thief Bianjun, the old man who is almost sixty will not let him go...Three Uncle... you have favored a certain one since childhood, but a certain one dare not avenge you!"

Zhou Xiaolang also cried: "There is still the youngest son..."

Zhou Paidao was stunned: "Is there Xiaoyao?"

With tears all over his face, Zhou Xiaolang nodded: "Da Lang, I saw Xiaoyao inside..."

Zhou Medao howled loudly again: "Little Yaozi...I'm sorry..."

The two of them wept so loudly that the Youdu brothers fell silent. Li Chengzhong felt depressed when he thought about the carload of heads.

Crying and crying, Zhou Chopper stood up abruptly, turned around and ran towards the way he came, followed by Zhou Xiaolang.Li Chengzhong hurriedly asked to bring the two of them back.Zhou Medao really put in a lot of strength, Zhang Xingzhong waited for the three brothers to go up before pushing him to the ground.Zhou Chopper struggled, and shouted to himself: "Let go of XX! Let go of XX! XX wants to go back to take revenge! Those surnamed Li, let them let XX go! Damn Zhang Xingzhong, let go!"

Li Chengzhong is not the kind of person who would rather stab himself twice for the sake of his brother. Strictly speaking, he is even a bit selfish.He rushed into Beizhou with the army, and violated the order to gather in Youdu before the entire army retreated, all of which were actually for himself.But he is not the kind of villain who is selfish to the extent of harming others and benefiting himself. On the contrary, his character contains a very strong blood factor.He would be overwhelmed by the fact that he was in the majestic Lu Long army, fought desperately at the moment of crisis in Beizhou, cheered for the words of the commander Liu Rengong, and grieved for the countless dead brothers in Weizhou city.

But at this moment, looking at Zhou Medao and Zhou Xiaolang who were struggling on the ground, and thinking about the carload of heads, his blood rushed to his heart again.He looked around at every brother in Youdu, then signaled to let go of the two of them, took a deep breath and said, "I want to go back... Is there anyone coming with me? Those who want to come follow, those who don't want to go stay where they are and wait." .” After that, he turned around and turned back on the road.

Without saying a word, Jiang Miao followed closely behind Li Chengzhong. Wang Dalang whistled and followed with strides.Zhou Medao and Zhou Xiaolang were stunned for a moment, then got up quickly, and chased after Li Chengzhong while wiping away their tears.Zhang Xingzhong stood there silently, watching Li Chengzhong and the others drift away.

There are 23 people in Youdu, and [-] of them follow behind Li Chengzhong.Wang Dalang yelled at Zhang Xingzhong a few times on the road: "The one surnamed Zhang is a coward!" But he was stopped by Li Chengzhong: "Don't blame them, life is your own, everyone wants to go back alive." He didn't blame Zhang Xingzhong, on the contrary. But I understand very well.To be honest, Lu Longjun's brothers had been emboldened by Bianjun, and they were asked to go back and fight on the way to escape, and it was really a bit reluctant to fight for the dead irrelevant people.Even among the people following him, there were many hesitant ones. They belonged to Jiang Miao and Zhou Chopper's group, and they reluctantly followed because of the habit of obeying the superior officers.

The group returned to the grove and began to chase south following the ruts.Wang Dalang was born as a hunter, and he was very good at tracking. He never lost track of him along the way, and soon saw the back of the Bian army driving a bullock cart on the horizon.

Li Chengzhong looked back and saw that Zhou Baidao was about to charge forward with red eyes, so he quickly pulled him back. Zhou Baidao glared at Li Chengzhong, but Li Chengzhong ignored him, and suddenly said in a low voice to everyone: "There may be someone among you." I am hesitating whether to go up and fight, whether to risk my life for the revenge of Zhou Da’s hometown. So I want to say a few words, if you look at it from another identity, what would you think if your relatives were killed?”

After a pause, seeing that everyone was thinking about his own words, Li Chengzhong said again: "Zhou Da is from Jizhou, Jiang Miao is from Yingzhou, I am from Youzhou, Wang Dalang is from Shenzhou... In short, they are all from Yanzhou." Zhao people! Zhou Da’s township was killed today, I was very angry, very angry. I was thinking, if it’s the turn of Yingzhou people, Youzhou people, and Shenzhou people to be killed tomorrow? We are Lu Longjun , we were born here and grew up here, this land is our root! If we don’t protect them, who else can protect them? If we don’t take revenge, don’t let the Bian army pay the price of blood, we will build up tomorrow The head in the bullock cart may be Jiang Miao's hometown, Wang Dalang's hometown, and all of us!"

After finishing speaking, Li Chengzhong breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that everyone was agitated, he said, "That's all I said. There is still a chance. When we fight for a while, those who don't want to go stay here."

Zhou Chopper's eyes were red, and he looked at Li Chengzhong choked with sobs: "Li Lang..."

Li Chengzhong stopped him with a smile, turned his head and left, and [-] people followed immediately behind him, and none of them was left behind.