More than ten days before the beginning of winter in the fourth year of Qianyou, the situation in the north was treacherous, enough to see the eyes of flowers. The Han and Liao countries, mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers, forced each other, the clouds of war completely shrouded the sky over Hebei, seeing that the war was about to start, and came to an abrupt end.

The Khitan changed the emperor, the Han Emperor stopped the northern expedition, and the Youyan first-line border, under the constraints of the upper echelons of the two countries, invariably stopped the war, the sharp war knife was retracted into the sheath, and the winding bow and arrow were replaced with quivers.

Those who are in the depths of the puzzle are almost at a loss, and those who are uncomfortable must be ridden by more than 40,000 paces of the two divisions. The hardships of the march are secondary, and most of the soldiers are ready for a bloody battle with the Khitans, and then they received a military order not to fight the Khitans, but to march south......

However, as a soldier, even if you are puzzled, you will obey the order. There are not many complaints, and even if there are, they only dare to bury them in the bottom of their hearts. There may still be many omissions in the system of the Han Dynasty, but the military law is perfect enough, and in the barracks, if you complain, you will be severely punished, and in wartime, you will be directly killed. In addition, the Son of Heaven has placed comforting envoys in various armies, and it has also begun to work.

The army continued to advance towards Huainan, and Wang Jun and Murong Yanzhao, as the commanders of the camp, were ordered to enter the palace and receive the holy teachings of the Son of Heaven when they passed through Tokyo. Liu Chengyou, with his usual style, did not say anything about it, and bluntly said that the affairs of the former camp in Huainan were entrusted to the second secretary, and the affairs of the north were deserved.

Murong Yanzhao, who was a defender of his duties, humbly said that he would do his best to capture the Huainan Prefectures for His Majesty, occupy their land, property, and Dingkou, and eliminate the puppet Tang army. In terms of strategic goals, Murong Yanzhao understood it very well.

In contrast, Wang Jun is much more arrogant. Since the early years of Qianyou, he led his army to resist Shu and defeated the Shu army in the Battle of Jifeng Mountain, Wang Jun has been a little arrogant and difficult to control, even in the two years of the Privy Council, he has not smoothed out the edges and corners.

This time, he was assigned to the front camp of the southern expedition, and directly patted his chest and assured Liu Chengyou: "The affairs of Huainan have their own ministers' dishes, Your Majesty should not worry, you will take all the land to dedicate the palace!" ”

The momentum is very strong and the ambition is also high, but the tone makes people feel uncomfortable, but Liu Chengyou is just the kind of person who can bear it. Wang Jun's personality problem cannot be a reason for Liu Chengyou to give up using him.

Of course, Liu Chengyou didn't think about changing the commander, but it was difficult to find a suitable commander for a while. Someone suggested Guo Wei, but Liu Chengyou directly ignored it, and remembered the privy officer who entered the speech.

And other suitable people, Guozhang Gao Xingzhou contracted the disease, Fu Yanqing needed to sit in Yedu, Guo Congyi was also the leader and slippery garrison, and Zhecongruan was still in the northwest. As for the rest, either it is not enough to make Liu Chengyou trust, or it is not capable enough.

Or, it is completely unqualified, such as Murong Yanzhao, even if Liu Chengyou has been repeatedly promoted, but there is still a distance from the commander of the army, and Liu Chengyou can only put him in the position of the Marquis of Duyu.

Although Liu Chengyou has promoted many young and strong generals over the years, when it comes to mobilizing the army, he still has to consider the issue of seniority.

With Wang Jun, the concern is that this person is arrogant and difficult to control, but the reassuring place is also his character. People of this character, to be honest, are not difficult to deal with. Of course, the most fundamental thing is that Wang Jun has the ability to command the army, and when he was in Guanzhong, he was the enemy at the border, and Liu Chengyou still remembers it vividly.

......

Suzhou, since the imperial court formulated the Huainan strategy, has become a border state that is the focus of the Han Dynasty. Zhao Kuangyin, the regimental training envoy, and Wang Pu, the grain envoy of Huaibei, have arrived successively, coupled with the inclination of various resources of the imperial court, in two or three years, Suzhou has developed into the most important military, transportation, and economic town in Huaibei.

In order to hide the military intentions, Zhao Kuangyin, as the military and political governor of a state, has been heartbroken for nearly three years.

Get on the horse to manage the army, get off the horse to govern the people, of course, after such an experience, Zhao Kuangyin's growth is very fast, and no one in Suzhou dares to underestimate this young regimental training envoy anymore, and the people of "Xiao Zhao Envoy" have even spread to Huainan, after all, it is only separated by a water.

Up to now, the state governance is so strong that the city is strong, according to Zhao Kuangyin, with his Suzhou soldiers, he can block 30,000 soldiers. In the north of Fuli and south of the canal, Zhao Kuangyin has recruited people to build more than ten large warehouses, each with grain, ordnance, and clothing. By the end of the autumn of the fourth year of Qianyou, with the last batch of grain and materials being transferred to Wang Pu, all the warehouses were already full.

In order to secretly build these warehouses, Zhao Kuangyin also set up a clever name, in the name of building docks, building roads, and opening canals, and concealed the news if he could. Even the people who participated in the project were Liu Chengyou who asked the imperial court to recruit civil servants from Song Prefecture and even other states further north.

In the spring and summer of this year, the people of Huainan were hungry, and some of them were eaten in Suzhou, and they were ordered to help, and Zhao Kuangyin selected hundreds of strong people from them, which were used to build warehouses and military buildings, and they have not been released so far, and they are still managed in a concentration camp, and there are fugitives who can't stand it, and they are ordered to be killed by Zhao Kuangyin, without mercy......

is on the front line of going south, an important place for military transportation, in order not to expose the strategic direction of the imperial court, Zhao Kuangyin is also well-intentioned in Suzhou, and he has done everything he can think of. Changing people casually, it is difficult to achieve Zhao Kuangyin's level.

In Tokyo, when inspecting the preparations for war, Liu Chengyou praised Zhao Kuangyin's political achievements in Suzhou. In fact, according to Liu Chengyou's employment style, Zhao Kuangyin arrived at the time of promotion as early as possible, but he has been pressing, of course, even if the court wants to transfer him, I am afraid that Zhao Kuangyin will not be happy. As long as he makes further achievements in the Southern Expedition, Zhao Kuangyin will inevitably soar into the sky after that.

100 miles south of Fuli, the vortex, the junction of Su, Hao and Shou, the place where the vortex water enters the Huai. As the military and political chief of Suzhou, Zhao Kuangyin once again took the only hundred horsemen under his command to inspect the border of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

With the importance of military strategy, Suzhou is in Dahan, and it is also a large state of regimental training, and the regimental training has risen to 3,500 soldiers. With the lack of horses in the Central Plains, the only 100 horsemen were transferred to Zhao Kuangyin by Liu Chengyou from the forbidden army.

In the northwest of the vortex, Zhao Kuangyin built a military village, called Jing Cottage, as an outpost to observe. To the southeast of the vortex, the yin of Huaishui, facing is Tu Mountain.

At this time, Zhao Kuangyin climbed high and stationed on the horse, looking into the distance, at the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, the cold wind was bleak, and the red tassels moved with the wind, but at this time Zhao Kuangyin's eyes were looming mountains and rivers.

"Brother Zhao, you have patrolled here twice in the past month, what's so special about it?" Beside Zhao Kuangyin, there is a rugged-looking young officer.

This person is named Dang, for Jin, from a humble background, and was once a domestic slave of the traitor Du Chongwei, and he has always been brave. In that year, Gaozu Liu Zhiyuan's relatives rebelled against Pingdu Chongwei, and on the day of the destruction of Yuancheng, he was captured by the Han army and later incorporated into the army. In the forbidden army, relying on a brave force and momentum, and catching up with the Son of Heaven to promote the young and strong, in the process of conquering the river, he also beheaded several rebels, and in four years, he was relocated to the commander of the Wujie military camp.

When he was hunting in Dunqiu this spring, he was remembered by Liu Chengyou because of his outstanding performance, and he was later transferred to Suzhou as the commander of the Second Army in Suzhou, leading 1,000 soldiers. In the past few years, Liu Chengyou has successively selected people from the forbidden army and sent them to various prefectures and towns, which not only promoted the promising, but also played the effect of mixing sand.

Zhao Kuangyin was very happy about the party's arrival, although this person was illiterate and rude, but he was honest and open-minded, and he had a bold spirit. Especially its strength, praised by Zhao Kuangyin, plus the two are of the same age and temperament, under Zhao Kuangyin's friendship, the two soon became friends and called brothers.

At this time, hearing Dangjin's muttering, Zhao Kuangyin couldn't help but smile, raised his hand and pointed between the vortex mouth and Tu Mountain, and said confidently: "I have been inspecting the terrain here for a long time, it is a good ambush location!" ”

Dang Jin stared at it with wide eyes, turned his head and asked, "Could it be that Brother Zhao is planning to fight here?" Unless there is a Tang army passing by! ”

Dang Jin just said it in passing, but Zhao Kuangyin nodded on his face: "When the vortex mouth is about to rush by water, after the battle, it is very possible for Tang's soldiers and horses to go up along the Huai, and there is a possibility of setting up an ambush when passing through here!" ”

Hearing what Zhao Kuangyin said was a little mysterious, Dang Jin shook his head, looked at the south, and pressed the reins of his horse, but he looked eager to try: "After waiting for so long, it's finally time to start a war, and I will definitely cut off a few more heads of Huai bandits......"

"Can Brother Zhao ask Wang Dushuai to take my Suzhou soldiers as the vanguard of the army?" Dang Jin looked at Zhao Kuangyin expectantly.

Hearing this, Zhao Kuangyin replied with certainty: "It's almost impossible!" ”

"Hey!" Sighing, Dang Jin muttered, "Then why is Brother Zhao so active in patrolling this place?" ”

"I have been in Suzhou for nearly three years, and the army is going south, even if I can't be a pioneer, I have to be a guide! If the king is handsome, consult with the enemy's situation, if he doesn't know, how to deal with it? Zhao Kuangyin said.

Only then did the party enter suddenly.

Turning his head, Zhao Kuangyin pointed to the southwest direction and said: "Shouzhou is an important town in Huainan, since ancient times, the soldiers must be recruited, and the northern army is enough to control the south. ”

As he spoke, Zhao Kuangyin's dark eyes flashed with brilliance: "This place is only a hundred miles away from Shouchun, originally I thought that if I led the elite, crossed the Huai from the shallows, arrived in the morning and evening, and raided Shouchun, or I could fight down!" ”

Dang Jin's eyes lit up, and he was about to speak, but he heard Zhao Kuangyin continue in a pitiful tone: "It's a pity, since the arrival of the old general, it is almost impossible!" ”

The old general Zhao Kuangyin was referring to in his mouth was He Jingzhu, the envoy of the Qinghuai Army in the Southern Tang Dynasty. This veteran, when the Ma brothers were fighting last year, was ordered to enter Chu, led the army to help Ma Xicao seize power, and was later promoted to the Wuchang military festival envoy stationed in Ezhou. When the Tang army attacked Chu, Liu Renzhen, the deputy envoy of the Wuchang army, captured Yuezhou and was supported by merit.

And the veteran He Jingzhu was transferred to Shouzhou by the Southern Tang Dynasty as a festival envoy and stationed in this important town in Huainan. Less than a month after arriving in Shouzhou, He Jingzhu, a veteran general, searched all over the negligent precautions, and on the grounds that the country was in the war, he reorganized the army to defend itself, especially sending troops to inspect Huaishang to check for omissions.

As a result, Shouzhou's defense strength was raised all of a sudden.