Bright Spring

At this moment, a voice came from outside: "Qi Butang, is Qi Butang here?"

It sounded like Fang Xiaoru's voice, Qi Tai hurriedly got up and went out, and sure enough, he saw Fang Xiaoru standing under the eaves, putting away his umbrella.Qi Tai hurriedly stepped forward and bowed: "I dare not call myself a minister, how could Mr. Fang be here?"

Fang Xiaoru smiled and said: "It's a coincidence! I saw Duke Qi's memorial, and I figured you should have arrived in Yingtian, so I asked for an order to go out of the city to meet you. When it was raining heavily on the way, I happened to see a guard hiding from the rain at the entrance of the village, so I asked someone to come up and ask , It really is Duke Qi!"

"Please come inside." Qi Tai said, "I don't want us to meet in this hut."

Fang Xiaoru smiled.

After the two entered the house, they sat down at the broken wooden table by the window, and there were guards around the house.Fang Xiaoru said: "Even if Duke Qi doesn't write the letter, the Holy Majesty will issue an order to call you back to Beijing. Yan Ni is approaching Pei County, Duke Qi should know?"

Qi Tai nodded, frowned and said: "I have been planning a strategy day and night for the past few days, and I will wait until Beijing to speak."

Fang Xiaoru said: "Your Majesty also wants to hear Duke Qi's strategy."

Qi Tai pondered for a long time, then bowed his body and said in a low voice: "This move by Yan Ni intends to go straight to the capital!"

"Ah?" Fang Xiaoru immediately showed shock, then calmed down again, and glanced at Qi Tai, "If that's true, Yan Ni is really bold, and Qi Gong's view is also amazing."

Qi Tai shook his head and said: "I'm just judging based on the facts. First, Sheng Yong worked hard to manage Shandong. This place is located on the flank of Beiping's southward capital, using this as a basis to threaten Yanni and make him dare not go south. He thought it would be a long-term plan. But now Yanni Regardless of Shandong, if the soldiers go to the ground in Xuzhou, if the target is not in the capital, what is the use of this move?"

Fang Xiaoru was thoughtful.Qi Tai glanced at him, thinking that no matter how hard Fang Xiaoru thought, Fang Xiaoru couldn't figure out why, and he wasn't to blame for this, Mr. Fang was not good at military tactics.

Qi Tai asked Fang Xiaoru what he knew better, and said in a low voice, "It is said that the imperial court has spies in Beiping. There is no news about such a big event?"

Fang Xiaoru hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice: "Indeed, there is a very important detailed work... Except for the Holy One, there are only two people in the court who know about that person!"

"One of them must be Fang Gong." Qi Tai said casually.

Fang Xiaoru nodded and said, "But a few months ago, that person suddenly disappeared! The imperial court sent people to Beiping to inquire about the details, but they reported that nothing happened. It's really strange!"

After hearing this, Qi Tai didn't ask any further questions. Since the Holy Majesty hadn't let him know for so long, it was hard for him to ask any more.He asked again in a half-joking tone: "I heard that Fang Gong proposed a plan to divorce, so it was Wei Guogong's idea?"

Fang Xiaoru was a little embarrassed and said: "It is true, but Wei Guogong was afraid that the Holy Majesty would not accept it, so he asked me not to say it was his suggestion."

Qi Tai remembered that before the outbreak of the "Battle of Pingyan", Xu Huizu tried his best to prevent Gaoyang King Zhu Gaoxu from leaving the capital before the outbreak of the "Pingyan War". Later, Gaoyang King really made great contributions to Yanni.Now it seems that Xu Huizu's heart is indeed for the court.

"Wei Guogong has a rift with Huang Zicheng." Qi Tai called him by his first name without concealment, and he also disliked Huang Zicheng, "So Wei Guogong is looking for Fang Gong, and he hopes that Fang Gong will recommend him to lead the army, so that he can be useful. "

Fang Xiaoru sighed: "How could I not know? It's just that Yan Ni is Wei Guogong's brother-in-law. I worry that the Holy Majesty will not agree."

Qi Tai calmly said: "Since Wei Guogong found Fang Gong, why don't you give it a try?"

Fang Xiaoru finally nodded.

The summer rain comes as soon as it is said, and stops as soon as it is said to stop.After a downpour, the rain stopped.Qi Tai glanced out the window, then got up and said, "Let's go back to Beijing first."

Fang Xiaoru said: "A heavy rain has caused Duke Qi to live here, please!"

Qi Tai didn't take it seriously, it's not that he never lived in a thatched cottage before, the house he lived in when he was a child was only worse than this one!At that time, I couldn't afford the paper and ink needed for reading, so I had to rely on family support.

... After Qi Tai entered Beijing, he immediately offered the strategy of "attacking from top to bottom, attacking and defending in the long run".

After his face-to-face, he proposed to move the main front to the south.Shengyong was transferred south to the Huaihe River, and then the Beijing camp was transferred to the north for reinforcements, thinking that it would be deployed in the south; the Ping'an army followed to Jining, Shandong, located in the north of Xuzhou and Peixian.Most of the two groups of officers and troops are attacking the main force of the Yan army from north to south!

At the same time, there are long-term preparations for both offense and defense.In advance, Mei Yin, the son-in-law captain, was appointed as the commander-in-chief of Huainan, and gathered Huainan soldiers and horses to manage the Huaihe defense line, thinking of a long-term defense strategy.

Then strictly ordered the Liaodong Army to go south, intimidating | forcing Yanni to attack the empty old nest in Beiping, thinking that he would attack from afar.

Shi Yanni suddenly went south, marching very fast.The Holy Majesty and the princes of the court couldn't come up with a comprehensive strategy for a while, so they roughly followed Qi Tai's suggestion and only made some minor changes.

Fang Xiaoru recommended Xu Huizu.The Holy Majesty trusted Fang Xiaoru very much, and was persuaded by reason, and finally appointed Wei Guogong Xu Huizu as the chief soldier of the Beijing camp who went north for reinforcements.

Qi Tai planned a countermeasure as quickly as possible.Yan Ni's plan to go south suddenly by surprise may not go so smoothly.

The confrontation that had been silent for half a year was now broken by King Yan's going south, and a large-scale war was inevitable.

Xu Huizu wiped off the butter on the armor, finally put on the armor as he wished, and came to the barracks in high spirits, his posture had never been so airy. .

Chapter 1 The Pioneer

At the end of July in the third year of Jianwen, King Yan led an army of more than [-] to surround the county seat of Peixian County, and shot a letter of persuasion into the city with arrows, but was rejected.So more than a thousand artillery pieces, large and small, shook the cannons on all sides, and the whole county was filled with gunpowder smoke.

The King of Yan believed that the county seat of Peixian County was about to be broken, so he took Zhu Gaoxu as the vanguard and led his headquarters with five thousand cavalry and three thousand feudal cavalry to go south, and the former army forced Xuzhou.

Zhu Gaoxu took the order, and led the crowd to leave Pei County.After walking for a long time, I could still faintly hear the sound of artillery from the north.

A large number of people and horses squirmed like a black dragon on the road. There were no people on the plain, and they probably hid when they heard the gunfire.Looking at the wilderness, Zhu Gaoxu saw a large area of ​​crop fields around him, but rarely saw wasteland, and felt that there were not many people nearby.

It was the time when autumn was high and clear, and the scenery he saw was completely different from his previous life.The sky is blue, the air is moist and clear, the wheat in the dry land has been harvested, the cabbage and beans are still in the field, and the rice in the paddy field is beautiful orange and has not yet been harvested, and has been bent over by the rice ears.

Seeing this, Zhu Gaoxu thought to himself: The time to go south this time is very appropriate!

The king of Yan fought with the government army in Hebei and faced off for half a year. Suddenly, an army of 10,000+ marched south, and the food must be very tight.But once you come to the Xuhuai Plain, you don't have to worry about food and grass; even if you send soldiers to the fields to harvest, you can still get a lot of food... However, Zhu Gaoxu was overwhelmed by the momentum of King Yan's cannons to deter the wilderness wherever he went. I feel that King Yan will directly force the local officials to pay the grain.

The vanguard army marched from the west side of Huishan Lake, and the road was flat all the way without encountering any resistance.Three days later, Zhu Gaoxu arrived at the south of Huishan Lake, which is only twenty or thirty miles away from Xuzhou City.

Xuzhou has been the site of the Four Wars since ancient times and is a big city.Zhu Gaoxu guessed that it would be no problem for the officers and soldiers to casually gather tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, so he did not rush forward, and ordered to build a camp first to gain a foothold.

Wang Bin first "requisitioned" a large village surnamed Zhou, and Zhu Gaoxu's Chinese army was stationed in the village.Using the earth wall already outside the village, dig trenches outside the wall to build fortifications; and build another military camp outside the village, thinking of the situation of the corner, the troops built simple defense facilities before dark.

...Zhu Gaoxu's troops rested in the village for two days. On the third day early in the morning, he led the cavalry out of the barracks, leaving the infantry behind for defense... He thought that he only had 8000 people in total, and he only took the cavalry to Xuzhou. But still run.

The horse army came out of the camp one after another, heading straight for Xuzhou City from the plain.Not long after they left, the scouts reported: "Xuzhou city officers and troops are out of the city to form an array, there are tens of thousands of people!"

In the past two years, the cavalry of the officers and soldiers was exhausted, and even Ping An lacked fine cavalry. Zhu Gaoxu believed that it was impossible for the officers and soldiers defending the city to have many cavalry.

Moreover, Xuzhou's defenders were not the main force of the official army. When Zhu Gaoxu was still in the Yanwang Zhongjun, he knew that Ping'an had not yet arrived in Jining; Sheng Yong's army was still in Shandong, and there was a secret report that Sheng Yong would lead his army to Huaihe.

Zhu Gaoxu was confident and led more than [-] cavalry to continue southward.

The army soon arrived at Xuzhou City.Sitting on his horse, he looked as far as the eye could see, and he could already see the city tower standing on the edge of the foggy sky. As expected, there was a dense array of phalanxes in the north, posing in a posture.

Zhu Gaoxu's cavalry left the main road one after another, spread out to the two wings, and moved forward slowly.At this time, he turned his head and said to his soldiers: "Order all the ministries to stop advancing, and the generals of more than a hundred households will go to the front of the army to obey orders."

"Order!"

Thousands of people gradually stopped, facing each other with a distance of nearly two miles from the official army formation.Dozens of generals also gathered near Zhu Gaoxu one after another.

Zhu Gaoxu rode a horse in front of the army and watched for a while. When he turned around, he saw many eyes looking at him.He said: "We are the vanguard, and we are only responsible for clearing the way to Xuzhou. There are tens of thousands of officers and soldiers, and they will harass as much as they can. Don't go deep into the enemy's line, just wait for my father's army to come."

All the generals clasped their fists and responded one after another: "The last general waits for orders!"

Zhu Gaoxu pointed to the face with his hand again, "There are some village markets attached to the city over there. Now that the battlefield is in the north of the city, the people may have already fled. In case there is an ambush... Wang Bin!"

Wang Bin cupped his fists and said, "The end is here!"

Zhu Gaoxu said: "You lead a rush of people and burn down the village. If the government and reinforcements come, avoid the battle when you see the opportunity!"