Qin State Harem, Mingxin Palace.

This is the dormitory of the Empress Dowager Zhao Ji, Qin Zheng became the emperor, and her status is naturally rising, becoming the most noble person in the harem.

Now she is pregnant with the posthumous child of the first emperor, her belly is already high and bulging, and she is very careful all the time. When her biological flesh and blood were born, she died young, and every time she missed her child, she couldn't cry, but now she has her own child, which solves the regret in her heart.

"Where's Chang Yu?" Zhao Ji lay down on the soft floor and asked her confidant.

The old woman said, "I am resting in the house, do you need a summons from the slave?" ”

Zhao Ji shook his head and said, "I tired him last night, let him have a good rest." ”

After speaking, Zhao Ji thought about other things.

Although Li Xi died, Emperor Qin Zheng's attitude towards her also became extremely bad, she used to often enter the palace to ask for peace, but now she doesn't come at all, although there is tension in the Qin State, but more often Qin Zheng has doubts about his life experience.

This made Zhao Ji feel a headache, and she couldn't help but resent Li Si, who was already dead. If this situation develops, it will greatly affect Zhao Ji's follow-up plan.

At the same time, Chang Yu also felt a headache.

Chang Yu stayed in the room and did not rest, but locked the door and looked at the handwritten letters sent to him by his cousin.

Last time, in order to assassinate Li Si, Chang Yu had to show up from the fraud and contact his cousin Wang Dazhi, but he didn't expect that it didn't take long for Li Si to be assassinated and killed, and since then, Chang Yu has understood that it is definitely not an accident that he came to Qin.

At this time, he received a handwritten letter from his cousin, which verified Chang Yu's conjecture. And when I finished reading the content in my heart, Chang Yu felt a headache.

Emperor Xia actually let himself assassinate Emperor Qin on the condition of being a marquis!

In the past, Chang Yu absolutely sneered at him, he was the biological father of the future emperor of Qin, a little marquis of Xia Kingdom, what a fart!

But what about now?

Qin Zheng already doubted his background, although Li Si was dead, but the seeds of Qin Zheng's doubts had been planted in his heart, which led to the question of whether their follow-up plans could be realized. If it can't be realized, will you stay in Mingxin Palace forever as a fake eunuch?

She is still so young, and Zhao Ji is still beautiful, but what about another ten years, or even twenty years?

Chang Yu didn't dare to imagine the life of staying here in the future.

Moreover, now that the Qin State has been defeated by Great Xia, it is difficult to say whether the Qin Dynasty can survive this predicament, it is okay to survive it, but if it can't survive, it will lose the country, and then he has nothing.

So Chang Yu had a headache, and he didn't know what to choose.

"Should I gamble on the future, but should I choose to make a profit or lose money?" Chang Yu muttered to herself, unable to make up her mind.

......

After taking the county seat of Shanxi, the soldiers and horses repaired for two days, and then continued westward.

The county seat of Shanxi was lost, and all the Qin soldiers in Shanxi County were evacuated to the west, so the soldiers and horses of Great Xia did not encounter any fighting, and five days later, they entered Balcony County.

In Balcony County, it is the node of the second line of defense, which is in charge of the commander Zhang Chao, with about 400,000 troops, and it is also a mixture of Qin soldiers and conscripted people, plus the Qin soldiers who fled and evacuated, so it reached 400,000.

Compared with Liu Shuai's steady reliance on the defense of the county town, Zhang Chao's strategy is completely different. He divided the 400,000 troops into four parts, 100,000 troops guarded the balcony county, and the remaining troops lined up in a zigzag formation in front of the balcony county, and the intention of taking the initiative to attack was very obvious. Even if you are defeated, you can retreat to the balcony county town for defense.

In the face of Zhang Chao's provocation, Han Xin's strategy was to break through at the same time, divide three troops and horses, each leading 80,000 troops, and attack Zhang Chao's zigzag formation at the same time.

The Qin army did not borrow the terrain to play a tough game, if the Xia army did not dare to fight, it would be embarrassing, and Han Xin was not afraid of a hard encounter.

In fact, Han Xin could guess Zhang Chao's intentions, he didn't use terrain to defend, he wanted to exchange human lives for human lives and consume the strength of the Xia army. The Xia army has a total of 1.6 million troops, and two Qin soldiers consume one Xia army, and they will sacrifice 3.2 million, and the Qin State does not have so many soldiers, so let the Qin people go up, four for one, the Qin State has a population of more than 70 million, are you still afraid of consumption? As long as you can repel the Xia army, it will be a victory!

Therefore, Zhang Chao, who has a strong personality, decided to fight hard and exchange his life for his life, he has already made up his mind that even if his side is completely annihilated, he will bite off a large piece of meat of the Xia army, so as to create a greater chance of victory for General Meng Tian in the third line of defense.

Han Xin and Zhang Liang both understood, so they had a plan for a long time.

The army marched for more than ten days and approached Zhang Chao's defense line.

Xiao Rui did not continue to follow the army forward, stopped in the rear, there were 100,000 troops to protect him, and he was not afraid of being attacked by the Qin army, and the 10,000 or 20,000 Qin troops could not play the beheading operation at all. Besides, the two wings are Li Cunxiao, Dian Wei, and Yang Youji's soldiers and horses, as well as powerful scouts to investigate, and the large-scale Qin army doesn't want to get close. Unless the other party can fly away from the sky and avoid Han Xin and Zhang Liang's arrangement.

So Xiao Rui played chess with Jia Xu with peace of mind, waiting for the good news from the front.

According to Han Xin's layout, Wu Zhanfa led 80,000 soldiers and horses to attack the Qin army on the left, Wei Guang led 80,000 soldiers and horses to attack the Qin army on the right, and Han Xin personally commanded 80,000 troops to attack Zhang Chao's main force in the middle. Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang had already memorized Han Xin's layout, so they knew how to fight this battle, and then the three forces separated and went to find their respective enemies.

Han Xin led 80,000 troops to march more than 100 miles, and finally met Zhang Chao's 100,000 troops.

This is a flat terrain, there are no mountains and rivers, and the two armies clash in this terrain, that is, to see whose soldiers are strong, whose horses are strong, and whose equipment is strong.

Zhang Chao laid out a matrix, and the 100,000-strong army was divided into five camps. And Han Xin's 80,000 soldiers and horses set up a Liuding Liujia formation.

Seeing Xia Jun's formation, Zhang Chao frowned.

The other party led his troops to kill, naturally he wanted to fight to the death, but why did he put up a circle formation, it seemed that it was mainly defensive? starting point

And the more he looked at this array, Zhang Chaoyue was shocked.

I saw that the entire formation of the other party was divided into twelve parts, and the twelve parts formed a huge circular formation, and the formation was not fixed, with the control of the formation flag, it was changing in an orderly manner.

"What is this? It's unheard of! Zhang Chao felt a little uncomfortable, and he thought of the purpose of this trip with some panic in his heart.

Fight for your life and consume the opponent's strength!

Now that you have made up your mind to fight to the death, what are you waiting for!

"Blow the horn of the attack! Offensive! ”

Zhang Chao immediately raised his arms and shouted, and the herald beside him immediately blew the horn of attack, this time there was no fighting general in front of the battle, just a charge, destroying the enemy in front of him!

Han Xin sat in the heart of the Liuding Liujia formation, watching the Qin army attack, he laughed and said with a smile: "Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang should have a result!" ”

The scene shifts to the north and south.

Wu Zhanfa led the troops to attack the Qin army on the left, and after the soldiers and horses of the two sides approached, they fought directly, and not long after the confrontation, another Xia army was killed in the south, and it was Li Cunxiao's soldiers and horses.

Li Cunxiao's soldiers and horses attacked from behind, so the Qin army on the left was immediately defeated, and was quickly killed and fled.

And Wei Guang led his troops to attack the Qin army on the right, and after the soldiers and horses of the two sides approached to start the battle, a Xia army of soldiers and horses was also killed in the north, which was Dian Wei's soldiers and horses.

Therefore, the fate of the Qin army on the right can be imagined, being flanked by the front and back, and fleeing directly.

It turned out that after Han Xin and Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang separated, Han Xin deliberately slowed down, so Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang fought with the Qin army first. And as early as after finding out Zhang Chao's intentions, Han Xin didn't really plan to fight hard, and the troops of Great Xia could not be consumed, so he immediately sent a message to Li Cunxiao and Dian Wei in the Eagle Report.

The two of them were on either flank of the Mid Lane Army, and although they had their own lines of attack, from the very beginning, their task was to serve the Mid Army at all times.

Therefore, Li Cunxiao and Dian Wei immediately divided 40,000 troops and attacked from behind, directly inflicting heavy losses on the Qin army, and did not let Zhang Chao's conspiracy succeed.

It was also because Han Xin deliberately slowed down the speed of the march, at this time, when Han Xin and Zhang Chao clashed, Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang had already ended, and the fleeing Qin army naturally had to flee to Zhang Chao.

So then, an interesting scene happened.

Zhang Chao led his troops to attack Han Xin's Liuding Liujia Formation, the defensive power of this formation was second only to the Bagua Array, and it was impossible for Zhang Chao to tear it apart. So when they were still gnawing on the hard bone of the Xia army, the Qin army that had fled from the north and south rushed over.

Hearing that the other two forces were defeated and suffered heavy casualties, Zhang Chao was shocked.

He had just started the war, and the other two roads had been defeated, and he had already fled here.

Zhang Chao was not stupid, he immediately understood, no wonder Han Xin was late, it turned out that he deliberately slowed down the speed, so that the north and south roads could start fighting first.

Now the defeat of the north and south roads has directly affected Zhang Chao's soldiers' morale.

At this moment, Han Xin's soldiers and horses immediately changed their camp, and the Liuding Liujia formation was directly split into twelve parts, turning from defense to offense, and the drums of the attack made a rapid roar, and the Xia army began to counterattack.

As soon as the army's morale was scattered, they fell directly into weakness, and the Qin army was defeated and retreated, and they had no courage to fight for their lives at all.

Zhang Chao had no choice but to withdraw from the army and retreat to the balcony county first.

Han Xin led his troops to chase and kill for dozens of miles before finally stopping.

Next, Wu Zhanfa and Wei Guang's soldiers and horses came to converge, while Li Cunxiao and Dian Wei's troops returned to their route, Xiao Rui in the rear heard the good news, and was already accustomed to it, and then ordered the army to continue to march, and after joining Han Xin in front, the troops came to the outside of Balcony County.

Subsequently, the army set up camp.

Zhang Chao fled back to the balcony county, and when he counted the troops, there were only 150,000 left, and as for the other troops, except for those who died in battle and were captured, the others were scattered.

Some of the Qin people who were forcibly conscripted were probably also deserters and were unwilling to continue to die, so even if there were Qin soldiers returning in the future, the number would be limited.

So how should Zhang Chao defend the balcony county?

Request reinforcements from the imperial court?

Where is there any surplus troops in the imperial court, the Great Xia soldiers are divided into eight routes, attacking from eight directions, and each road of the Qin State has to be fortified to resist, which requires nearly two million troops! Moreover, heavy troops had to be stationed near the Qin capital, so as not to make mistakes, and Daxia seized the opportunity to attack the Qin capital directly.

Is this situation impossible?

How did you lose the three passes of Qinling?

Therefore, Qin Zheng was also afraid that Xia Guoming would repair the plank road and darken Chen Cang, so he directly came to a beheading plan.

"If there are no reinforcements, then defend this city!" Zhang Chao was ruthless and decided to live and die with Balcony County.

But in the next few days, the soldiers and horses of Great Xia had no intention of attacking the city.

At the same time, the temperature is getting colder and colder, and the water in the river has become thick with ice.