Tibet

Helong's army has already reached the city. The main force is outside the north city. There are 10,000 cavalry in the east and west cities. There is only no army outside the south city. The army is overwhelming and there is no end in sight. The spears are like a forest, the war flags are flying, and tens of thousands of people are wearing iron helmets. The armored cavalry were murderous.

At this time, a cavalryman rushed forward and shouted: "I have been ordered to deliver a message!"

The soldiers who originally wanted to release arrows at the top of the city put away their arrows. The cavalry set up their bows and shot an arrow onto the top of the city.

A soldier picked up the arrow and ran to give it to the commander-in-chief Pan Yue. Pan Yue took the letter and saw on the envelope it was written, "General Tiance of the Tang Dynasty, Jiedu Envoy of the Three Towns of Longyou, Hexi, and Shuofang, from King Li Ye of Qi to General Pan Yue" '.

Pan Yue was shocked to find that it was a letter written by King Li Ye of Qi. He opened the letter uneasily and wrote: "General Pan Yue, the emperor has issued an edict to abolish the emperor's younger brother and declare that Li Lin deceived the emperor and abused the emperor. , leading to the death of the Supreme Emperor, and the crime cannot be forgiven.

In response to the emperor's edict, I led an elite army of 150,000 people to go south. I have deployed 30,000 troops south of Weicheng County to cut off your army's return. However, I cannot bear to kill the soldiers, let alone harm the people of Weicheng. Li Lin's crime is related to It doesn't matter to you, I have given General Pan and his generals an hour to discuss whether they should open the city and surrender, or abandon the city and retreat south. Those who surrender will retain their military positions, and those who abandon the city will not be pursued within ten miles.

If you don't surrender and don't give up, I will destroy Wei City with thunder and rockets, and kill them all! "

Pan Yue was stunned. He even told him clearly that there were 30,000 troops in the south. This did not give him any choice. In fact, it only gave him one way: surrender.

Pan Yue was flustered for a while. He forced himself to calm down, pondered for a moment, and then immediately ordered: "Find all six of you!"

He is nominally the general, but in fact, the 30,000 troops are in the hands of six commanders, each of whom controls an army of 5,000. One of the six commanders is his confidant, and the other five are directly controlled by the prince. appointment.

In a moment, six officers came from all directions. Pan Yue handed the letter to them and said, "This is a handwritten letter sent by someone from Li Ye. Take a look!"

After reading the letter, everyone fell silent. Pan Yue sighed and said: "After reading the letter, let's make a choice! Everyone broke an arrow behind their backs. Those who took out the arrow tip expressed surrender, and those who took out the arrow tail indicated their willingness to retreat. Surrender out of the North City and retreat through the South City without forcing each other."

At this time, the commander-in-chief Li Tianfang said coldly: "What if we want to defend the city and fight to the death?"

Pan Yue glanced at him and said calmly: "If you fight to the death, you don't have to participate in the vote. You can leave now. If we leave, General Li can continue to defend the city!"

Li Tianfang turned around and left. Suddenly, a dozen of Pan Yue's soldiers rushed forward and stabbed Li Tianfang with more than a dozen spears.

Li Tianfang was unable to dodge and was immediately assassinated by spears. Pan Yue said coldly: "Retreating is a dead end. There is no need to vote. Kaicheng surrenders!"

After eliminating the general who was determined to fight to the death, Pan Yue had no worries and immediately ordered Kaicheng to surrender.

Thirty thousand troops came out of the city and surrendered. Helong soldiers captured Weicheng County without bloodshed. Li Ye ordered to continue advancing towards Mianzhou and arrived at Brazil County the next day. Mianzhou governor Zhou Xiangyang led officials to surrender to Li Ye.

Zhou Xiangyang was Li Linfu's disciple, and he had an old feeling, so Li Ye thought highly of him.

In the big tent, Zhou Xiangyang said to Li Ye: "Your Highness, the officialdom in Chengdu is not monolithic. It is divided into two factions. One faction is headed by Shi Xue Yu, the governor of the Jiedu Prefecture, and is loyal to Li Lin, including Li Taiqing, Wei Zichun, Cai Chang and other senior officials.

The other faction is headed by Cui Yuan, the governor of Yizhou, who is loyal to the Supreme Emperor. Cui Yuan has a wide network of contacts, and officials from all over the Shu region give him face. Although Li Lin does not believe in him, he does not dare to dismiss him easily, and Cui Yuan is a very good person. Slick, seemingly respectful to Li Lin, and not opposed to Li Lin's various instructions, Cui Yuan never lost power. "

Li Ye nodded and asked again: "Are there any conflicts between these two factions?"

"How can two spoons in a bowl not collide?"

Zhou Xiangyang sneered and said: "As small as the distribution of official residences, as large as the division of power, they fight every day. Li Lin stipulated that they have two factions, one is in charge of the army, and the other is in charge of politics. But Jiannan's military and political affairs are integrated, how can they be separated? ?”

Li Ye suddenly understood what Zhou Xiangyang meant and said calmly: "Did Zhou Shijun advise me to use Cui Yuan?"

Zhou Xiangyang shook his head, "I am just describing a fact to His Highness. Speaking of which, Cui Yuan and I still have a personal grudge."

"What personal grudge?"

"In the eleventh year of Tianbao, when I was still the magistrate of Taigu County, Li Xiangguo was going to promote me to the post of Shaoyin of Taiyuan Prefecture. At that time, Cui Yuan was appointed as the Sima of Hedong Jiedu Prefecture. He wrote a letter to Yang Guozhong, and I was changed to Pu'an County of Jianzhou. The county magistrate, Cui Yuan, was also appointed as Zuo Sima, the governor of Shu County, and later he concurrently served as the governor of Jiannan Jiedu Prefecture. Fortunately, the Supreme Emperor came to Bashu, took over his humble post and performed meritoriously, and was promoted to the governor of Jianzhou. Last year, he was promoted to the governor of Mianzhou. "

Li Ye smiled, it turned out that such a trivial matter was still bothering him now, but he had just come to Bashu and really needed a local snake like Cui Yuan.

Li Ye was not worried about what Cui Yuan had in mind. As long as the army was in his hands, where could he, a civil servant, go?

"I understand what you mean, I also need local snakes, let's talk about it then!"

At the same time that Li Ye captured Mianzhou, Li Guangbi led an army of 50,000 to Jinniu County. King Zhao Li Xi was very reluctant to be the general in the southern expedition, but was oppressed by his father and had no choice but to come. When he arrived in Nanzheng County, he pretended to be ill and refused to continue westward. Li Guangbi had no choice but to lead his own army to Lizhou.

As for Yu Chaoen, Li Guangbi didn't know what he was thinking and didn't want to care about him. It was up to him whether love came or not.

Jinniu County is the beginning of Jinniu Road. It is located at the junction of Liangzhou, Xingzhou and Lizhou, but it is under the jurisdiction of Liangzhou.

Li Guangbi ordered the army to camp on the spot, and then ordered Wu Changlong, the military envoy from Liangzhou, to be brought to him.

Li Guangbi's face was gloomy. He had already received news in Nanzheng that Lizhou seemed to be occupied by Li Lin's army, and Wu Changlong could not even attack Qipanguan.

Not long after, Wu Changlong came to see him in a hurry. He was a descendant of Wu Zetian's family and a son of a powerful person in the capital. He had been a palace guard for several years. He was relatively mediocre and had nothing outstanding, so his family paid him money from Yu Chaoen. I bought a soldier and horse envoy, thinking that nothing would happen, but I didn't expect that I would be involved in a war.

"For a humble job, please see the deputy commander!"

Li Guangbi took a look at Wu Changlong and saw that he looked like a deer. He was really unhappy, so he asked coldly: "How many troops does the military commander have under his command?"

"There are three thousand people."

Li Guangbi slammed the table, "Three thousand people can't win a small Qipan Pass?"

Wu Changlong said bitterly: "The deputy commander doesn't know, it's really difficult to fight. Not to mention the dangerous terrain, the soldiers guarding the pass are very brave. They rushed out of the pass and fought with us fiercely. We couldn't resist, so we had to retreat in embarrassment!"

Li Guangbi was startled. It was rare for the soldiers guarding the gate to rush out and fight fiercely.

"How many of them rushed out?"

"About fifty people."

"Then how many of you are there?"

Wu Changlong hesitated and said: "The mountain road is very narrow and cannot accommodate too many people. Three hundred of us went up."

Li Guangbi was furious: "Three hundred people can't beat the opponent's fifty people?"

Wu Changlong lowered his head and whispered: "Beizong really can't understand it. They are all well-trained troops, but those guys are like wolves and tigers. One person can fight several of them. Beizhong's men were really beaten to pieces. .”

Li Guangbi felt a little strange. When did Li Lin's army become so powerful?

Wu Changlong said cautiously: "Also, they are cavalry and we are infantry. Deputy Commander, how can the infantry defeat the cavalry?"

"cavalry!"

Li Guangbi was stunned. How could there be cavalry guarding the border in Bashu? A bold thought suddenly came to his mind. Could it be that the other party was Li Ye's Helong Army?