After Xiao Ding returned to Shaoxian with his troops, he checked Song Yinzi's injuries and helped him heal his injuries. After that, he returned to his room and thought about how to strengthen the protection of King Mu.

After all, he often has to take his troops out to fight, and it is impossible to always accompany Song Yinzi as his bodyguard. The other generals are mostly horse generals, who are good at leading troops to fight, rather than being personal bodyguards.

If there is a master of the Great Interior, or a royal guard, he can also protect King Mu, but unfortunately this place is far away from Zhongzhou, and Song Yinzi did not bring a royal guard when he came.

The people who came to assassinate the other party must be from the rivers and lakes, and it is natural to use the people of the rivers and lakes to deal with the people of the rivers and lakes. Ordinary soldiers can't beat the people in the rivers and lakes.

So, Xiao Ding thought of the Jianghu sects that were still stationed in his general's mansion at this time.

Now that the route to Jiaozhou has been opened, it is not impossible to mobilize these Jianghu people to Shaoxian. They came over, firstly, to help themselves protect King Mu, and secondly, they could be ready to attack Tianluomen at any time.

Although Xiao Ding still doesn't know exactly where Tianluomen's lair is, he believes that there should be someone among those people from the Jianghu Sect who will know.

So, Xiao Ding immediately wrote a letter to Mei Qiuyang, Bai Qianbei and others who were in the general's mansion, and asked them to lead the various Jianghu sects to gather in Shaoxian County first.

After writing it, send someone to send it to Zhongzhou City.

Early the next morning, Song Yinzi's injuries improved significantly, the high fever had subsided, and he no longer continued to be in a coma. After drinking some lotus seed porridge in the morning, he was also in a lot of energy, and he was also very happy to hear that Xiao Ding had returned from another big victory.

Xiao Ding was naturally very happy to see that Song Yinzi's injuries had improved, and after he checked Song Yinzi's wounds after breakfast, he came to the county hall to discuss the next strategy with the generals.

Now that Song Yinpan's troops in Tingzhou Pass have been removed, and then they have to attack the king of Jiaozhou, there are no worries. Therefore, all the generals suggested that they should drive straight into Jiaozhou and kill Jiaozhou.

Xiao Ding looked at the military map spread on the table and found that from Shao County to Jiaozhou, there were two counties in between, Yuanhua County and Qingde County. After these two counties, not far from Jiaozhou City, there are two small cities, Xiguan and Zhaoqing, which are at the corner of Jiaozhou City.

Among them, the cities of Yuanhua County and Qingde County, and Zhaoqing City were built on the edge of a river called Beijiang. Xiguan City, on the other hand, was built on the edge of a river called the Dongjiang River.

Jiaozhou City is located between the two rivers of Beijiang and Dongjiang, and its south is close to the north bank of the Zhuyue River.

The Zhuyue River is a huge water system that flows through Jiangzhou and Jiaozhou. Many tributaries in Jiangzhou and Jiaozhou, including the Beijiang and Dongjiang rivers, eventually converge into the Zhuyue River and then flow to the sea.

Xiao Ding looked at the military map on the table, thinking back to the map in the world before he crossed over, and felt that the location of the Zhu Yuejiang River in front of him seemed to be the location of the Pearl River in the later life. It's just that the Pearl River has another name for the Yuejiang River, but it does not have the title of Zhu Yuejiang. Perhaps, this is the different name of different eras.

Seeing that these cities were all close to the water's edge, Xiao Ding secretly thought that if he had a naval army, it might be easier to win by attacking both land and water, but unfortunately, he did not have a naval army under his command.

Everyone was gathered around the table, discussing the next march route, when suddenly a guard outside the door reported that the Chang County Order of Jishui County had sent someone to deliver a letter.

When Xiao Ding heard this, he said in his heart what could happen in Jishui County? Could it be that another batch of crossbows has been built? However, it seems that it has not been a few days since the last batch was shipped, how can it be so fast?

Calling the messenger into the hall, Xiao Ding took the letter sent by the messenger, opened it, and was immediately overjoyed.

It turned out that it was not a matter of building crossbow arrows, but that Xiao Ding had left Yongcheng County, the county seat occupied by the king of Jiaozhou in Zhongzhou, which had not been attacked, as Xiao Ding expected, after more than half a month of isolation, the defenders in the city took the initiative to surrender.

Yongcheng County is located in Zhongzhou, north of the Great Yuling Mountains, after Xiaoding occupied Qianling County and Shao County, it completely cut off the connection between Yongcheng County and Jiaozhou City. The original defenders in Yongcheng County, plus the defenders who fled later, totaled more than 10,000 people, eating, drinking, and sleeping every day, and the consumption was extremely fast.

The grain and grass originally stored in Yongcheng County were only for the original defenders. Now that there are thousands more people at once, there will naturally be insufficient food and grass.

And the people in the county, because they are on the border, heard that the king of Jiaozhou rebelled and led his troops over, and most of them had already fled in advance. Therefore, in the county, there are almost ten rooms and nine empty rooms at present.

Even if the defenders wanted to extort the people, there were not many people to extort.

The guards of Yongcheng County, when they saw that the grain and grass in the city were in an emergency, wanted to contact the king of Jiaozhou, but they had already been cut off, and wanted to lead troops out to attack other counties, but they didn't have the guts.

Because he had also sent a scout horse to investigate, in Bin County and Heng County, the two county seats closer to Yongcheng County, Xiao Ding had already stayed behind to defend the army and was always monitoring Yongcheng County. As long as there are soldiers and horses in Yongcheng County, soldiers from one city will immediately go to intercept them, and soldiers from another city will take the opportunity to attack Yongcheng County.

Therefore, the guards of Yongcheng County did not dare to act rashly.

As a result, the more than 10,000 people under his command are about to starve.

The defender could not think of any other idea, so he had to surrender.

Moreover, in their hearts, even if they surrendered, it was not a shameful thing, after all, they were all soldiers of the Great Song Kingdom before, but the king of Jiaozhou rebelled, forcing them to follow the rebellion.

Now facing the critical moment of life and death, he has no choice but to surrender, or else he can only watch his soldiers starve to death.

So, this guard general wrote a surrender letter to the Chang County Commander of Jishui County, promising to surrender the city, and from then on it was under the command of the Great Song Kingdom.

After receiving the surrender document, Chang County Commander was naturally very happy, and immediately wrote a letter and sent someone to Shaoxian County.

After reading the letter, Xiao Ding was naturally happy, everything was going according to the plan he had set in advance. That Yongcheng County really broke down in the end, and all of them took the initiative to surrender, in this case, wouldn't they have another 10,000 surrendered troops!

So, Xiao Ding immediately ordered and sent someone to Qianling County to inform Lu Changping, and ordered Lu Changping, the chief general who was guarding Qianling County, to hand over the task of defending the city to the capital commander in the city, and then he led a thousand soldiers to Yongcheng County to collect the more than 10,000 troops.

After collecting the army of Yongcheng County, he was ordered to go to Bin County and Heng County to continue to transfer troops. Previously, 5,000 soldiers were left in each of these two counties in order to monitor Yongcheng County.

Now that Yongcheng County has surrendered, naturally there is no need for so many soldiers to stay in the rear. Xiao Ding asked Lu Changping to leave 1,000 soldiers in Yongcheng County, Bin County, Heng County, Jishui County, and Qianling County, and all the rest of the soldiers should be taken to Shao County.

With this operation, the troops that can be transferred to the front line from the rear, together with the surrendered troops, can reach a total of more than 20,000 people. Coupled with more than 30,000 people in Shao County, there are nearly 60,000 troops in total, which is enough to compete with the king of Jiaozhou.

After Xiao Ding gave the order, he sat in Shaoxian County and waited for the good news that Lu Changping would bring his troops.