Chapter 851: Zhu Tao Goes South

Xindu City has lost its former prosperity, the city gate is closed, the people of the villages within a radius of 20 miles outside the city have been moved into the city, the city, more than 20,000 soldiers are waiting for the battle, and there are hundreds of thousands of stones of grain in the Xindu City, which can hold on for at least a year.

But the morale of the army is generally not high, and even very low, generally speaking, unless it is a foreign invasion, everyone can still unite to defend the country, but this kind of domestic warlord melee is different, the source of soldiers are nearby states and counties, and the attacking soldiers are their distant relatives.

After a series of wars and defeats, and finally fell to the point of holding on to the isolated city, this great frustration could never keep the morale of the soldiers high, and everyone was thinking about how to escape from the war and escape home.

But for the generals under Li Wujun, it is another feeling, Li Wujun's battle deployment is disorderly, it is clear that the Jin army is the biggest threat, but he is not calm-headed, blindly attacked Tian Yue, and made a new enemy, not to mention the fiasco, but also led the wolf into the house, summoned Zhu Tao, and now Tian Yue has withdrawn, Zhu Tao has no sign of retreating.

Li Wujun's stupid behavior of luring the wolf into the house made the generals generally dissatisfied, and complaints arose in the barracks, and the dissatisfaction became increasingly hot.

Li Wujun locked himself in the palace, he was under great pressure these days, Tian Yue unexpectedly withdrew from the army, but Zhu Tao occupied Shenzhou, and continued to march towards Jizhou, Li Wujun realized that he had done a big stupid thing and made a serious strategic mistake, Tian Yue and himself were also facing the pressure of the Jin army, but they would not necessarily do anything to themselves, but Zhu Tao was a tiger and wolf, and if he found an opportunity, he would definitely chew himself to the bone.

Li Wujun is remorseful and hateful, he desperately drinks and gets himself drunk to escape reality.

In the afternoon of that day, Xingzhou soldiers and horses made Li Enze lead 3,000 troops to withdraw to Xindu, and he brought Li Wujun an important news.

Li Wujun just woke up from drinking, sat in a chair and listened to Li Enze's report in a drowsy manner, and it took him a long time to understand that the Jin army was also massively increasing its troops to Zhaozhou, and the number of troops increased from 20,000 at the beginning of the year to 50,000.

Li Wujun is a spirit, he is completely awake, wasn't Guo Song dragged by Hanzhong? How could he increase his troops on a large scale, and did he also want to join the chaotic war in Hebei?

"Is your news reliable?"

"The news is absolutely possible, the brother of the flag officer under the lowly rank is working in the state of Zhaozhou, and he got the news from him.

Li Wujun walked back and forth in the room, he knew in his heart that Guo Song's increase in troops to Zhaozhou was of course not coming at himself, but at Zhu Tao.

Guo Song already regarded his own territory as his, but Zhu Tao occupied Shenzhou and Zhaozhou, how could Guo Song tolerate it?

Li Wujun saw a glimmer of hope in front of him, if Guo Song and Zhu Tao lost both, he might still have a chance to turn the tables.

This shows that his strategy of inviting Zhu Tao to go south was not wrong, at least he lured Guo Song out, forming a situation in which he sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight.

Thinking of this, Li Wujun's sorrow was swept away, and he jumped up and shouted: "Change my armor, I want to go to the city to inspect!" ”

He is now starting to pay attention to morale, and he must keep it high in order to hold the city.

........

At this time, Zhu Tao personally led an army of 30,000 to occupy Hengshui County, Zhangshui to the south, and Xindu County to cross Zhangshui for another sixty miles.

Zhu Tao decided to cross Zhangshui in Hengshui County, the army was stationed outside Hengshui County, Zhu Tao sent soldiers to look for boats, it was getting late, the soldiers found more than 60 small wooden boats, Zhu Tao ordered these boats to be put together, put wooden planks on them, and form a pontoon bridge.

It will take at least one night to build the pontoon bridge, and Zhu Tao is not in a hurry, waiting patiently for the pontoon bridge to be completed.

Zhu Tao since the failure of the attack on Hedong, these years has been vigorously troops, expand the armament of the war, he married the daughter of the nobles of Hui and Khitan as side concubines, got the support of the two families, obtained nearly 10,000 horses, formed a powerful Youzhou cavalry, and has nearly 100,000 armored soldiers.

Of course, Zhu Tao's expansion of the army was also strongly supported by his brother Zhu Zhu, who, after capturing Yangzhou, used the civilian maritime merchant fleet to continuously send Zhu Tao a large amount of gold, silver, pig iron and grain.

The Zhu brothers had reached a tacit agreement many years ago to establish a Zhu dynasty, with his brother Zhu Zhu as the emperor, but Zhu Zhu had no children, and he passed on the throne to his nephew after a hundred years, that is, Zhu Tao's son Zhu Sui, and now the crown prince is Zhu Sui.

Both sides were satisfied with the result, and the next step was to merge the two territories and connect the territories into one.

At that time, Zhu Zhu's capital was still in Chang'an, and the two sides wanted to take Hedong and connect the territories of the two sides through Hedong.

It's a pity that Guo Song completely smashed their plan, and Zhu Zhu was forced to give up Guanzhong and move the capital to Luoyang.

After the Hedong strategy could not be realized, the two sides began to plan another plan, to eliminate Tian Yue and Li Wujun, and annex Hebei, after Zhu Zhu occupied Jianghuai and unified the north bank of Chang'an.

To be precise, it started last fall, but they never expected that Guo Song had entered Yuzhou, adding variables to their plans, so that their plans had to be postponed.

The battle between Zhao and Wei triggered by this Iron Fire and Thunder Incident made Zhu Tao and Zhu Zhu see an opportunity at the same time, and they decided to use this opportunity to fully implement the plan of annexing Hebei through pigeon letters.

In the big tent, Zhu Tao sat in front of the map and pondered, he was actually still very worried about Guo Song, although it seemed that Guo Song's focus seemed to be in Hanzhong, and he had no time to look east, but Zhu Tao also understood in his heart that this was just a kind of self-consolation for self-deception, and he moved his inevitable territory, how could he give up.

Zhu Tao sighed, he really didn't want to fight with Guo Song, but the arrow had been wound, so he had to send it, he and his brother had already started the plan to annex Hebei, is it because of a Guo Song who is going to give up the plan and retreat back? It certainly couldn't be, and in any case, he could only bite the bullet and move on.

According to the plan, Zhu Tao was responsible for annexing the weak Li Wujun, and then he and his brother's army attacked Tian Yue from the north and south.

It's just that.......

Zhu Tao's eyes couldn't help but glance at Jing Cheng on the map, he had deployed a total of 20,000 troops in Jing Cheng and Flying Fox Cheng, condescendingly, occupying a geographical advantage, even if the other party used iron fire and thunder, it may not be able to capture it, as long as the defenders are not paralyzed, they should be able to hold these two fortresses.

Zhu Tao's eyes moved to Zhaozhou again, what he was most worried about was Zhaozhou, the other party had been preparing for half a year, Guo Song would definitely send troops, and the fierce battle between him and Guo Song would be inevitable.

At this time, the soldiers outside the tent reported: "Lord Qiyu, the pontoon bridge has been built!" ”

"What time is it?"

"Back to the prince, the first watch has passed."

Zhu Tao thought for a while and ordered: "Order the three armies, and the fifth watch camp to cross the river!" ”

........

Before dawn the next day, 30,000 troops crossed Zhangshui and went to Xindu County, 60 miles away, and at the same time, Zhu Tao's 30,000 troops also arrived in Raoyang, Shenzhou, and continued to march to Jizhou.

At noon, Zhu Tao led an army of 30,000 to Xindu County, which was still two miles away from Xindu County, and Li Wujun sent someone to deliver a letter.

Zhu Tao looked at the letter, the content of the letter was also expected by him, Li Wujun first thanked him for the rescue, but Tian Yue had already retreated from the difficulty, the risk was lifted, and he hoped that he would also retire.

Zhu Tao sneered and said to the messenger soldier: "I won't write a letter, you can relay my message!" Tian Yue didn't really retreat, he just feinted to retreat, if I retreated, he would definitely make a comeback, it would be better for my two families to join forces and completely defeat him to prevent future troubles. ”

"Go back and report on your humble duties!"

The messenger saluted, turned his horse's head and left.

Zhu Tao looked at the city in the distance and said, "Rest on the spot, break the city tonight!" ”

As early as the beginning of the year, Zhu Tao sent 300 elite soldiers to infiltrate Xindu City to sell coolies as porters, and he also hoarded a large number of weapons in the intelligence points of Xindu City.

He didn't carry siege weapons at all when he went south this time, so he waited for the inside and outside to take Xindu City.

At the same time that Zhu Tao led the army to Xindu City, Zhu Zhu's 20,000 vanguard troops began to cross the river by boat, and they set out from Baima and crossed the Yellow River, preparing to take Liyang in one go.

Zhu Jun had received information that Liyang County had less than 2,000 troops, and if he took Liyang County, he gave him a stronghold to go north.

Although Tian Yue already knew about Zhu Jun's intentions, it would take time to deploy his troops, and the 10,000 troops he sent were on their way to Liyang in a hurry, so he didn't know if it would be in time.

(End of chapter)