30,000 rebels under the leadership of the deputy general to Pingcheng, only to see the city wall with fierce flags, the soldiers flashing, the defenders of Pingcheng have been in strict formation, Gao Lang and Li Quan and other major generals Zhuo Li on the city head, on the city wall, hanging high free battle card.

"How is this possible? Didn't Wu Protector carry out the decapitation operation? How could the main generals of Pingcheng not have any losses!" the deputy general stared at the head of Pingcheng and said suspiciously.

"Brothers of Chen Shuizhou, I am Li Quan, the former lord of the ancient city!" At this time, Li Quan shouted at the head of the city, "I know that most of you are not willing to follow Wu Jing to betray the Shuntian Empire, but even attack Gupingzhou under the leadership of the rebel generals. Now that Wu Jing is in ambush, thinking of the love of being brothers in the past, our army will return his corpse, and I hope you will bury it thickly!

The gates of Pingcheng rumbled, the gates were wide open, and the drawbridge was lowered. A soldier walked out pushing the wooden cart where Wu Jing's body was placed.

In full view of everyone, the soldiers pushed the wooden cart in front of the rebel formation, put down the wooden cart, and returned to Pingcheng. When the soldiers entered the city, the gates of the city were closed, and the drawbridge was pulled up again.

"Dear brothers of Chen Shuizhou, I know that you have been bewitched by thieves, so you have embarked on the road of betraying the imperial court! But you must think clearly, if you continue to be the enemy of the Shuntian Empire, and you die in battle, your parents and family will not be protected and compensated by the imperial court; if we die in battle, your hands will be stained with the blood of your robes, and your sins will be even greater! If you are willing to abandon the darkness and turn to the light, Pingcheng welcomes you, and the court welcomes you; if you do not repent, you have to go all the way to the dark, and the next time we meet, don't blame our army for being ruthless!" Li Quan continued to shout at the head of the city.

When the rebels heard Li Quan's shout, many soldiers showed signs of struggle. They were already without food for a day, hungry and had no intention of fighting, and after hearing Li Quan's words, they had no fighting spirit. What's more, watching the body of coach Wu Jing being picked up, a depressed mood spread in the army.

The deputy general originally came to attack the city on Wu Jing's orders, but now that Wu Jing is dead, the Taiyin Sect's beheading operation seems to have failed. Seeing that the morale of the whole army was low, where did the adjutant general still have the heart to attack the city, he took Wu Jing's body and ordered the withdrawal of the army.

Watching the rebels withdraw, cheers immediately erupted in Pingcheng, if it is not necessary, who is willing to fight each other with swords and lives!

"Prepare for war, let's get ready for breakfast!" Gao Lang ordered in a loud voice at the head of the city.

After receiving the news of the withdrawal of the rebels, the chef was even more smiling, and the chef was in charge of the spoon while excitedly directing, steamed pastries, baked flatbreads, boiled fresh soup and hot porridge, mixed side dishes, boiled poultry eggs...... A sumptuous breakfast was sent out in waves for the whole city to enjoy by the soldiers and civilians of the city.

Ye Heng and Snow Wolf came to the city together, found the two generals Gao Li, and saw that the two were sitting on the city wall eating breakfast, so they unceremoniously shared the food.

"Two generals, I estimate that the rebels will not come to attack us again until the grain and grass are settled, and while there is no fighting in the past few days, I want to go to the neighboring Linhan Prefecture to see why the imperial reinforcements have not yet arrived. If you can, can you ask friendly troops to help us fight the enemy together? Ye Heng preached while eating.

"That's fine, then it's going to trouble Brother Ye Heng to run away!" Gao Lang immediately agreed.

Li Quan shook his head and said, "Brother Ye Heng, the reinforcements have not come for so long, something must have happened in the DPRK." It's nothing for you to run for nothing, I'm afraid that you are a sheep in the mouth of a tiger, and the people of Linhan Prefecture will be unfavorable to you!"

"Li Quan, what are you talking about! Can it be that the friendly army can still see death without asking for it?" Gao Lang said dissatisfied.

Li Quan smiled bitterly and said: "General Gao, we have been fighting for more than a month, and the friendly troops are afraid that they have already gotten the news, but why haven't we seen a single soldier so far?"

Gao Lang was speechless for a while, not knowing how to answer.

"Well, Snow Wolf and I will pretend to be civilians to investigate, and if something happens, we'll make a plan. Ye Heng said.

Considering the strength of the two, it should not be dangerous to find out the news, Li Quan nodded and said: "Then you must be more careful, and return immediately when you see that the situation is wrong!"

Ye Heng nodded in agreement, and after breakfast, he went back with the snow wolf to change his clothes, and then left from the east gate on horseback.

Pingcheng is already a city close to the edge of Gupingzhou, only more than 100 miles away from Linhanzhou. Ye Heng and the others quickly stepped up and only took half a day to enter the boundary of Linhan Prefecture. Linhan Prefecture was located in the central and western part of the Shuntian Empire, far from the war, but it was also affected, and some small villages and towns on the edge were very sparsely populated, and the young people and their families had already migrated to the safer big cities, leaving only some widows, old and weak.

Ye Heng and the others pretended to be a young couple who wanted to go back to their hometown to visit relatives, and when they pretended to ask the villagers for directions, they would be kindly reminded by the old people from time to time to go home and pick up their parents and leave quickly, saying that Linhan Prefecture would not be peaceful, and there would be a war soon.

After continuous inquiry, Ye Heng learned that there was indeed an army stationed in Linhan Prefecture some time ago, but later it went south. This shows that the imperial court did not support Gupingzhou, but later something happened and the reinforcements changed direction. 52

"It seems that General Li's guess is right, something has happened in the imperial court, otherwise, the army that originally went to support Guping Prefecture would not change direction. Ye Heng said to the snow wolf. The two of them searched all the way to a small city, and were eating in a restaurant at this time.

"It's a pity that this place is far away from the imperial capital, and the people here are also spreading falsehoods, and they don't really know what is going on there. Snow Wolf said regretfully.

"Although we don't know exactly what happened, however, from the known news, we can analyze that first the crown prince took the crown princess to leave the imperial capital and went to Hindu Prefecture, and then the emperor suddenly fell ill and was unable to deal with the government affairs, so there was a power struggle between the second prince and the third prince, which led to the failure of the imperial decree, which should be the general context of the matter. Ye Heng drank a glass of wine and slowly analyzed.

Snow Wolf nodded, and suddenly asked, "Wolf King, although we don't know the emperor's health condition, but at this time, he suddenly fell ill, don't you think it's a very strange thing?"

"The war in the four directions has started, and the DPRK and China have lost their helm, if there is no connection in this, I won't believe it! It seems that the imperial court has been controlled by some conspirators, and their power is extremely great, and they can even change the movement of reinforcements, this is really troublesome!" Ye Heng frowned and said, "It seems that they have given up Gupingzhou, this is to kill us!"

"So what are we going to do?

"Of course we can't just go back, no matter what, we have to go to the state capital of Linhan Prefecture and ask Linhan Prefecture to send troops to relieve the plight of Pingcheng. Ye Heng said firmly.

At this time, a group of people entered the restaurant crying, looking like a big family. The old man at the head cursed: "Damn Jiang Zhikun, vainly being the governor of a state, when the country is in trouble, he doesn't think about serving the country and the people, but he comes to oppress the people, where is the conscience, where is the justice!"

"Master, don't be angry, be careful of getting angry. Let's eat here first, and then find another way out!" the old lady advised.

"This master, eat my food, eliminate disasters for me, the name of the chief, don't mention it! The small shop is a small business, and you can't cause trouble, I hope you Haihan!" The shopkeeper immediately came to the old man and reminded cautiously.

"Alas, that's it, that's it! What kind of world is this, the little people have suffered injustice, not only have nowhere to reason, but it is not okay to complain a few words!" The old man sighed with emotion, "Little Er, each of us will give us a bowl of noodles, and three cheap vegetarian dishes, if there is a pot of hot tea, we will be tired and thirsty first." ”

"Okay, wait a minute!" Xiao Er agreed, and went to the back kitchen to report the food.

"Let's all sit down, don't cry, let others laugh in public!" said the old man to his family. The family sat around and slowly stopped crying, but they only sighed for a long time, and had no interest in talking.

Ye Heng secretly observed, looking at the behavior and conversation of this family, he did not look like a vulgar person, and when he heard the old man cursing Jiang Zhikun just now, he had the heart to investigate.

"This old man, my wife and I are going to Lintai City to visit relatives, is there something going on there?" Ye Heng came to the old man and asked.

The old man stared at Ye Heng up and down, but seeing that the young man had clear eyebrows and pure eyes, he replied: "Young man, I advise you not to go in the near future, Lintai City is now like a beast that eats people and does not spit out bones, you can't go!"

"I hope the old man will make it clear, what the hell is going on!" Ye Heng pleaded.

"Come on, come on, please take a seat!" The old man gave up a seat for Ye Heng, sat down under him, and said: "You also saw the state of our family when they came in, and we can't hide it, we just returned from Lintaizhou and passed through here. ”

At this time, Xiao Er sent the hot tea over, Ye Heng hurriedly took it, poured a cup for the old man first, and helped others fill the teacups in front of him by the way, feeling that the teapot was almost empty, please refill the pot with Xiao Er, Only then did he sit down and asked, "Could it be that there is also a war in Lintai City?"

"No, no, it's not war, but it's more terrible than war!" the old man shook his hand and said, "Lintai City is now allowed to enter but not to leave, and the notice says that it is afraid of letting go of the fine work." But it is not easy to enter Lintai City, the city gate is guarded by soldiers, and anyone who wants to enter the city must be strictly checked. This is supposed to be a thing, but it is said that it is an investigation, but in fact it is to collect money! They rummage through the belongings of the people who have entered the city, and all the valuable things are taken away by them, and if you swallow your anger and put them in the release, if you do not give or ask for them, you will be charged with disrupting order and sabotaging law enforcement, and not only will the property not be returned, but you will also be turned away from the city gate and not allowed to enter the city! The old man just can't see their practice of bullying Baixin, and if he asks them for a theory, the whole family will be beaten out!"

"How unreasonable! They don't care about the lives of the people!" Ye Heng said indignantly.

"Linhan Prefecture is under the control of Jiang Zhikun, and it is said that there are people in the court who are usually arbitrary, but now that the government and the opposition are oscillating, who can control him? Now he is like a local emperor who divides one side, and he is even more reckless, and the people are miserable!" The old man said helplessly, "Having said that, you think that everything will be fine when you enter Lintai City? After entering the city, there are so many harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes that are as bad as cattle hair, and there is even a road tax when you go out and walk, you can tell me, how can the people live? Once they fail to pay the taxes, they will be expelled from Lintai Prefecture by officers and soldiers!" Young man, the old man doesn't know what kind of relatives you are visiting in the city, so if it is not necessary, it is better not to go. ”

Ye Heng was dumbfounded when he heard this, and he was furious, he couldn't imagine that the governor of a state would actually do such a thing!

"Thank you father-in-law, this meal boy is invited!" Ye Heng got up and saluted, put down a silver ingot on the table, asked Xiao Er to settle his own meal money, and left the restaurant with the snow wolf.