The source of the news was already huge and complex, and it seemed to be true and false, and the news brought back by Ma Hemu made Yuxi Timur's judgment of the situation confused again, as if he had plunged into a thick fog, and there was a white expanse everywhere, unable to discern the direction, and did not know where to go. This caused him to fall into deep thought again, trying to clear his mind and find a way out of it.

The news brought by Ma Hemu, although Timur in Yuxi had water, it is definitely a fact that the Song Water Army participated in the war and there was a fierce battle in Yangzhou. What made him depressed was that now the enemy army had blocked the Yangtze River again, so that the news was cut off, and it was impossible to know the outcome and movement of the battle. And this is related to how he chooses the direction of attack, even forward or retreat.

The Song army delayed for nearly two months before suddenly launching a campaign to attack the city of Yangzhou, and Timur judged that the reason for this was because the city of Yangzhou was strong, and a forcible siege would cause heavy casualties, so the little emperor of the Southern Dynasty hoped to force the defenders in the city to surrender by means of negotiation and siege, so he never launched a strong attack. Another possibility is to deplete your own forces by besieging the city and sending reinforcements. There are only two reasons for the current difficulty:

First, he learned that his army did not save Yangzhou City, but smuggled across the Yangtze River and entered Jiangdong to approach the capital. Under the mistake of such a thief, he became angry and wanted to forcibly break through the city to vent his anger; Second, after the thief learned that he led a large army to cross the river, he was anxious to return to Jiangdong, but he was worried that the defenders in Yangzhou City would follow and pursue. You must know that there are still 30,000 troops in the city and thousands of troops of the Xue army in Zhennan Wangfu, if it is pursued and killed, it will inevitably collapse, so it is necessary to cover the withdrawal of the army under the guise of attacking the city.

Yuxi Timur, of course, hoped that this was the first outcome, knowing that his 100,000-strong army had been attacking the small city of Changshu for four or five days without success. The city of Yangzhou is several times stronger than the small city in front of him, and the population is much larger, so it is almost impossible to take the city in a war. If they attack the city with anger and anger, they can contain them in Jiangbei, and then they can calmly arrange to attack Jiangdong.

But Yuxi Timur knew that as long as people were not mad, no one would do such a stupid thing that was abandoned and disregarded. And with the cunning of the thief, he will naturally call back the army to rescue Jiangdong, so it can explain why the navy army that has been operating in the open sea suddenly entered the river, and its purpose is to return south from the canal by water transportation to help Jiangdong or Lin'an, which is several times faster than marching by land.

However, Yuxi Timur felt that his judgment just now was unclear, because he made a conclusion based on the setting that most of the Jiangdong Song army was still in Yangzhou. In this way, it is impossible to explain why the Fifth Brigade of the Song Army's Imperial Front Protector suddenly appeared in Changshu, and there is no way to explain the information brought back by the scouts, who should have been outside the city of Yangzhou, not Wuxi, Pingjiang, and Kunshan.

"Impossible!" If this is the case, unless Ma Shao was bribed by the Southern Dynasty to become an enemy spy, leaked his battle plan, and lied about the military situation, concealing the news of the Song army's quiet withdrawal. And Yuxi Timur quickly dispelled this thought, shook his head and said softly.

In addition to himself and the Great Khan, only a few cronies and staff members knew the details of the entire battle plan for the expedition, and even the accompanying generals only knew before the expedition, and even if the secret was leaked at that time, the Song army did not have time to complete the withdrawal. As for Ma Shao, although he kept in touch with him, he did not divulge a word to him, but only asked him to try to delay the siege time of the Song army and buy time for mobilizing reinforcements.

"Advance or retreat?" Yuxi Timur was troubled by this problem, and went around in the tent like a trapped beast, and did not come out of the tent until late at night......

…………

The Yuan army did not attack the city for a day, which made the Song soldiers who had been fighting hard for days a rare day to relax, and looked at the destroyed stone throwers and siege equipment outside the city, thinking that they had achieved results. But they did not dare to slack off, because from a distance they could see that the Yuan army had gone out early and returned late, and had brought back a large amount of timber, and the enemy camp was also brightly lit at night, and the sound of axes and chisels was continuous, and it must have been building siege equipment overnight.

After staying overnight, the Japanese army did not attack the city, only the rangers continued to approach the city to reconnoitre. It was not until the evening that another large army was discovered, but it was a large number of people, not only soldiers on horseback and bows, but also shepherds driving cattle and women in large chariots, which were loaded with equipment and food, and a large group of infantry guards in front and behind. In this way, everyone understood that the Mengyuan cavalry that had advanced had consumed a lot of siege weapons and food for several days, and was waiting for the infantry army to come to replenish the baggage and be more adept at siege warfare.

But on the third day, there was still no waiting for the enemy to attack the city, and what was even more strange was that the Yuan army camp was quiet, that is, there were no herds of horses grazing by the river and in the fields, and even the smoke of cooking did not rise. The abnormal situation was quickly reported to the brigade headquarters, and Luo Datong quickly went to the city to observe when he heard the news, and he was also puzzled by this, but he did not dare to open the city easily. Because he knew that when the Mongol army could not attack for a long time, he would often withdraw his troops to confuse his opponents, and when he thought that he would withdraw from the siege and open the city, the ambush soldiers suddenly attacked and captured the city.

It wasn't until the third pole of the day that there was still no movement in the enemy camp, and Luo Datong sent scouts out of the West Gate to investigate. The scouts soon reported that the town was already empty, and all that was left in the camp was empty, and the Yuan army had withdrawn from the siege and did not know where to go. He was shocked when he heard this, and then sent scouts to follow the traces left by the Yuan army to find out if there were ambushes left around.

It was not until the evening that the scouts who had tracked for thirty miles did not return, and the Yuan army brigade had already followed the main road towards Kunshan. Luo Datong was not happy when he heard this, and hurriedly released carrier pigeons to report the enemy situation to the Pingjiang Preparation and Placement Division, and asked whether to pursue later......

At this time, there was also a solemn atmosphere in the second hall of the Pingjiang City Establishment Division, and Zhao Mengjin, the commander of the Fifth Army, Ran Anguo, the governor of the Fifth Army, and Jiang Xuan, the governor of the political affairs who had rushed from Lin'an to coordinate the military and local operations, and Ni Liang, the commander of the imperial front guards, stared around the huge sand table in the Jiangdong area and fell into contemplation. The silence in the hall made the guards who served tea and water hold their breath and walked lightly, lest they disturb everyone.

"Zhao Zhishuai, the enemy army suddenly appeared on Changkun Post Road, and did not enter Changping Road as expected, do they want to avoid the heavy and light, and turn to Kunshan?" After a while, Jiang Xuan broke the silence and pointed to Kunshan and said.

What Governor Jiang said is not impossible, but it is still not possible to conclude that they will attack Kunshan at the moment. After all, it was only the enemy's forward army that appeared here, and the Chinese army brigade was not found to follow up, maybe it was a plan to attack the east and the west! Zhao Mengjin pondered for a moment and replied, but still gave a vague answer.

When formulating the battle plan, His Majesty predicted that the enemy army would rush thousands of miles to Jiangdong and would not carry a large amount of baggage, grain and grass, and would inevitably adopt the usual method of using the enemy's resources to obtain supplies by plundering the people and capturing the prefectures and counties. Accordingly, the policy of holding on to Changshu City and implementing strong walls and clearing the wilderness made it difficult for the enemy to obtain supplies and forced the enemy to continue to attack Pingjiang in the south.

The 100,000 army, especially the army with the cavalry as the main force, consumes a huge amount of materials every day, and there is a lack of pastures for grazing horses in the south of the Yangtze River, so a certain amount of food must be fed as a supplement, otherwise it will not be able to maintain the physical strength of the war horses. Therefore, the food alone can drive the commander crazy, according to which it is judged that in the case of a long-term attack and constant familiarity, the grain and grass carried with him are almost exhausted, and the weapons and arrows are also consumed in large quantities, and if the army cannot be replenished in time, there is a possibility of being forced to turn back.

Therefore, His Majesty arranged a naval army in the open sea, which appeared on the Yangtze River at the right time, and seized the ferry to cut off the enemy's retreat, and at the same time cut off the possibility of their hope to obtain supplies through Jiangbei. In this case, Pingjiang, which was richer than Changshu, became an attractive target, not only to obtain all the supplies they needed, but also to use it as a rear base for their further southward advance. Even if the attack is blocked, you can hold on to the city for a long time and wait for reinforcements, or as a condition for peace talks, after all, it is not comfortable for anyone to have a tiger and wolf army in their hinterland.

At that time, everyone agreed with His Majesty's plan, and it was based on the above prediction that the battle plan for the decisive battle under Pingjiang City was made, that is, the Fifth Army of the Forbidden Army was the main force to fortify and hold on to the periphery of Pingjiang as the 'anvil', and the main force of the Imperial Front Protectors arranged in Kunshan and Wuxi respectively was used as the 'hammer' to flank the enemy from the east and west flanks and encircle and annihilate them outside Pingjiang City. However, there was a deviation at the moment, and the enemy army did not come to Pingjiang, but appeared in the direction of Kunshan on the right flank, making it difficult for them to judge the enemy's intentions for a while.

"If the enemy army is attacking from the east to the west and wants to mobilize our troops in Pingjiang, if we rush to Kunshan, we will be in the enemy's plan, and it will be difficult to return to the army in time. Therefore, I think it is better to be still and make deployments after detecting the further movements of the enemy army. Jiang Xuan looked at Zhao Mengjin and said.

"What Governor Jiang said is very true, the situation is not clear, and the reckless mobilization of the army has confused our position, even if they really turn to Kunshan, with the existing forces, they can be blocked outside the city for many days, and we can win time to transfer troops to encircle and annihilate us." Jiang Xuan's suggestion tended to be obviously conservative, but it was also the best choice in the current situation where the enemy's movements were unknown, and Zhao Mengjin nodded in agreement.

"I thought it was wrong!" At this time, Ni Liang, who had been silent, objected, "The enemy's reconnaissance cavalry has frequently appeared in many directions recently, and it should have been found out that the main forces of our army are concentrated in Wuxi, Pingjiang and Kunshan, so will they still rashly attack?" ”

"Ni Dutong, the reason why Yuxi Timur dared to cross the river was based on the judgment that the army led by His Majesty was still outside Yangzhou City and the Jiangdong army was empty. Therefore, even if he finds out about the banners flown by the three places, he will think that we are bluffing and trying to deter him from continuing to move south. Zhao Mengjin smiled. He also knew that it was difficult to escape the eyes of the enemy spies when the army was gathered, but they did not dare to approach to reconnoitre, and there was an interception and killing by their own scouts, so it was impossible to determine the real situation, and the fact that the little emperor was still in Yangzhou would also make the commander make a miscalculation. Therefore, I dare not agree with Ni Liang's different opinions......