The Lingnan Naval Division was almost wiped out, Zeng Shou, the commander of the Naval Division, was killed on the spot, and the Tang Naval Division under the command of Pan Motang won a great victory and landed on Xiangshan in eastern Zhejiang.

At this moment, the rescue army assembled by Rong Hong, the Fujian observation envoy, has arrived in Wenzhou under the leadership of his general Yu Wenqing, and after the news came, Rong Hong was silent for a long time, and immediately sent a messenger to quickly whip up, demanding that Yu Wenqing immediately stop the pace of advance.

Three days later, a second messenger arrived at Yu Wenqing's camp with the latest orders.

The whole army retreated.

The Fujian army withdrew from eastern Zhejiang, and Du Xian, who was trapped in Shaoxing, finally opened the city gate and surrendered to Liu Ruyan in despair. Immediately, Liu Ruyan's generals Li Kang and Ren Xiaonian's soldiers were divided into two routes and went deep into eastern Zhejiang. Unlike the elite of western Zhejiang who were killed by Liu Ruyan's surprise attack in Jiaxing, western Zhejiang was besieged by the Tang army because the Tang army was advancing too quickly, and Du Xian was besieged by the Tang army without even completing such a large-scale gathering.

Of course, this also made Tang Jun encounter some difficulties in the later period. There are many local wealthy clans, relying on the private soldiers in the clan, gathering the young and strong people in the township, gathering in the tunpu to fight against the Tang army. These dock forts in eastern Zhejiang, living near mountains and rivers, are easy to defend and difficult to attack, and these local wealthy families naturally have their own ideas.

Such a dock fort is really easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is more brain-consuming than ordinary big cities, and the heroes and powers in these places are to first take advantage of the geographical advantages to frustrate the Tang army's sharpness, and then express their willingness to surrender, so that they have some capital for negotiation, and try their best to ensure that their interests do not suffer too much loss.

But this time, they clearly miscalculated.

The Tang army gave them only one answer, unconditional surrender.

The right Qianniu Wei of the Tang Army, to put it bluntly, is Li Ze's pro-army, and its equipment is the best among the twelve guards of the Tang Army.

Immediately after the deadline was reached, the Tang army went on the offensive. When the heroes in the castle saw the Tang army quickly assembling one large trebuchet after another outside the castle, it was too late to regret it.

No matter how strong the castle was, it could not withstand the indiscriminate bombardment of such large trebuchets, and within half a day, the entire dock fort was in ruins. The destruction of a dock fort represents the destruction of a powerful landlord in eastern Zhejiang. After the Tang army captured these dock forts, they unceremoniously confiscated the property of these landlords and powerful people, confiscated the land, and tied up the entire family in strings, first went to the dock forts of the gentry who still wanted to resist to show the public, and then exiled to the Western Regions. From the east of Zhejiang to the Western Regions, the road is thousands of miles, and under such weather, how many people can live to go is unknown.

After several times, the psychology of these gentry landlords in eastern Zhejiang finally collapsed, and the reinforcements they hoped for were not heard from, in this case, they could only surrender one by one, at this time, they didn't want to have any interests at all, just to save a life, not to be killed, not to be exiled.

As for these surrendered families, the Tang Army only detained the head of the family and some core figures, and then gave up, and even confiscated the floating wealth of these people's families.

This news accelerated the surrender of the local resistance forces in western Zhejiang, and a month later, the entire eastern Zhejiang was completely pacified.

At this point, all the eastern and western Zhejiang fell into the hands of the Tang army, and Li Ze immediately announced the merger of eastern and western Zhejiang, called Zhejiang Province, with Xu Xiang as the governor of Zhejiang, and the governor's office was located in Hangzhou.

Before that, the entire Pinglu was changed to Shandong Province by Li Ze, and Zhang Xun was the governor.

The establishment of these two provinces also means that Li Ze is about to carry out a new round of merger and rectification of the territories under his rule, and Shandong and Zhejiang, the two newly annexed places, are just his experimental fields.

In just one month, eastern and western Zhejiang were defeated by Liu Ruyan, and the result of one death and one drop not only shocked the entire south, but also frightened Yang Mi, the Xuanhui observation envoy.

After Du Xian surrendered, even though Yang Midang brought a team of personal guards, he actually went to Hangzhou in person, met Liu Ruyan, and presented the household register of the place of Xuanhui on the spot, indicating that the land of Xuanhui was at the disposal of the imperial court.

In fact, after Liu Ruyan returned to Hangzhou, he was already planning to take the land of Xuanshe by the way, and the Xuanshe Observation Envoy owned 20 counties in Xuan, She, and Chi Prefectures, although the place was not large, but within its territory, there were things that Li Ze coveted, that is, rich deposits of iron, lead, copper and other minerals in its territory, and Xuanshe's weapons manufacturing industry was extremely developed, with a large number of mature and skilled craftsmen.

Liu Ruyan left Xu Xiang with Ren Xiaonian's 5,000 troops, and was planning to lead Li Kang and Li Yuzhi's troops to directly march to the Xuanshe Observation Envoy by virtue of the great victory, but Yang Mi arrived at the right time.

It is of course the best thing to be able to surrender without a fight. Liu Ruyan personally met with Yang Mi, praised him, and personally assured Yang Mi's future political treatment, and then threw it to Xu Xiang, who discussed relevant matters with him.

Yang Mi's surrender made Liu Ruyan's next military operation suddenly accelerated.

Xuanshe observed that all the troops under him would be incorporated into the Tang army as a whole, Liu Ruyan sent an officer corps headed by Li Kang, and after Yang Mi returned to Xuanshe, he immediately began the reorganization of the army, and then Liu Ruyan also led 5,000 Tang troops from Hangzhou all the way to Xuanshe, forming a huge threat to the land of Huainan.

At this time, in the land of Huainan, only a group of soldiers and horses led by Zhou Zhen was stationed in Huai'an, with only 5,000 soldiers and horses under his command. When this army of soldiers and horses faced Su Bao's department in Lianshui, they could still be full of confidence, but when Liu Ruyan won Xuanxi, Zhou Zhen suddenly panicked.

Once Liu Ruyan completes the reorganization of the Xuanshe soldiers and completes the integration of the Xuanshe land, he will inevitably launch an attack on Huainan, whether this time is long or short, Zhou Zhen is completely unpredictable.

He could only send an urgent letter to Cao Bin, who was pursuing Dai Yue into Gunhai, and on the other hand, he sent a letter asking Liu Xinda in Ezhou for help, asking Liu Xinda to support Huainan.

However, at this time, Liu Xinda himself was also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river, and it was difficult to protect himself.

Yueyang's Qian Biao had already recovered his anger at this time, and his son Qian Biao and daughter-in-law Zheng Wenjun led more than 10,000 soldiers and horses to attack Ezhou. On the water, the only naval division transferred by the Liang army from Luoyang was restrained by Zheng Wenchang, the sailor of Shang Dongting.

Zheng Wenchang's division, after breaking into the Han River and assisting Tian Guofeng's division to completely pacify Shannan Dongdao, immediately returned to the division and launched a battle for control of the Yangtze River with the naval division stationed in Ezhou.

Liu Xinda himself is difficult to protect, where will the reinforcements come from to support Zhou Zhen?

It was at this time that Zhu Youzhen and Xu Fu's department broke through Tongguan, and after more than half a month of rest, they set off again and approached Chang'an.

It was at this time that Cao Bin defeated many blocking troops of Daiyue all the way, and kept biting Daiyue to the city of Gunzhou, and after gathering the Jiang Qi troops in Xuzhou and some surrendered Gunhai troops along the way, Cao Bin's troops surrounded the city of Gunzhou, which had exceeded more than 40,000 people.

And Dai Yue, who fled into the city of Gunzhou, only left more than 5,000 of his pro-army.

Gunzhou City seems to have reached the last moment.

Faced with the 100,000 urgent letters for help sent by Zhou Zhen, Cao Bin fell into a long silence. He really didn't expect that Liu Ruyan would take eastern and western Zhejiang in a month with only 10,000 soldiers and horses, and now Xuanshu Yangmi was frightened to surrender, so that Liu Ruyan could launch a large-scale attack on Huainan in the shortest possible time.

Originally, he thought that Liu Ruyan would fall into a long-term battle process in eastern and western Zhejiang, and even if he was defeated, he would have enough time to take Gunzhou and then return to the division, but now, the situation has become so sinister.

But if you don't eat the fat in your mouth, you will never be reconciled. If you can completely defeat Dai Yue and take Gunzhou, it will be equivalent to finding a barrier for Wuning, a buffer area, making Wuning more secure. On the contrary, if you return to the army immediately now, with Dai's many years of operation in Gunzhou, I am afraid that Dai Yue will cheat the corpse again.

"General, what should I do?" Jiang Qi frowned.

"Five days, if we can't take Gunzhou City within five days, we will withdraw our troops." After thinking about it for a long time, Cao Bin finally made up his mind: "Although Liu Ruyan has entered Xuanxi, if he wants to integrate the power of Xuanxi, it is not something that can be done in three or two days, and it is doubtful how much combat effectiveness the newly attached Xuanshu soldiers can have, so it is impossible for Liu Ruyan to quickly launch an attack on Huainan, so that Zhou Zhen still focuses on the Tang army in Lianshui, as long as he can hold out for more than a month, we can return to Huainan with the whole division, and we can go back with more troops." ”

Jiang Qi nodded slightly, this is of course the most ideal state. Cao Bin's more soldiers are not groundless, in fact, they have been chasing and killing along the way, and their army is really fighting more and more, and more than 10,000 people have now been incorporated into the surrendered Gunzhou army. Even though these people's hearts are not completely attached, they are still capable of acting as pioneers and death squads, and under the persecution of the warlords.

If you can take the city of Gunzhou and kill Daiyue, you can really subdue these armies. When the time comes, return to Huainan and face the Tang army, with a better chance of winning.

"The weather will be good for the next few days, how is the siege equipment being built?"

"In the two days of the siege, the army has been building siege equipment day and night, and a large number of long ladders and hundreds of simple trebuchets have been made, and siege rams and other items have also been prepared." Jiang Qi said.

"Tomorrow, we will attack." Cao Bin said in a deep voice: "The pioneer made the troops consume the arrows and other equipment in the city, and Dai Yue also retreated to the city in a hurry this time, and there will not be many materials for defending the city." ”

"Yes."