Ji Zhijiang sat in the big tent, and below, there were a few cavalry generals who had escaped from Jigongling. More than 20,000 cavalry went out, and less than 500 returned.

Ding Hao is finished, Changsha is finished, and all the schemes this time are all finished.

Ji Zhijiang lamented in his heart.

The Tang army on Tiaoziling was already holding the handle, and originally thought that when he waited until dawn tomorrow to launch another attack, everything would be over.

But now, what's the point?

Shi Zhuang's army was only a stone's throw away from him, and now every quarter of an hour of delay was pushing himself one step closer to the rout.

"Convene a meeting of all the generals." He said weakly, "It's time for us to retreat." ”

The meeting was sad and dreary.

The generals of Lingnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan had nothing to say about the current situation. When it comes to responsibility, no one can escape it here. If they could quickly kill the Tang army on Tiaoziling, if they hadn't delayed for so long, would all this have changed again!

"General Ji, now that the eldest prince of Ding is leading the army back from Yiyang, can we also march in the direction of Changsha, and strive to fight with the eldest prince of Ding on both sides, and turn defeat into victory?" A Hunan general asked.

Ji Zhijiang looked at the other party and said lightly: "With all due respect, the failure of Young Marshal Ding is inevitable, if anyone wants to go, I won't stop it." But if anyone still wants to live, follow me back to Lingnan! ”

"We can go back to Jiangxi, General Qian is still in Yichun!" Another Jiangxi general jumped out.

"Still what kind of sentence, if you want to live with me to go back to Lingnan." Ji Zhijiang didn't bother to explain, the battle had become like this, Right Qianniuwei didn't pay attention to Qian Shouyi's strategy of luring the enemy to go deeper, and he still stayed in Yichun, and Liu Xinda saw that the situation was not good, so he had already slipped away, and now he was afraid that he would soon arrive in Yongzhou.

Liu Xinda naturally saw the potential danger before he ran.

"Let's all disperse, go and prepare." Ji Zhijiang waved his hand: "If you want to go back to Changsha, if you want to go to Yichun, please do it." If you don't want to make senseless sacrifices, follow me back to Lingnan, and now General Xiang is the time to employ people, you are all generals of a hundred battles, and when you arrive in Lingnan, you will inevitably be reused. ”

When the sky was bright, the Lingnan army under Ji Zhijiang had been prepared, and Ji Zhijiang also walked out of the big tent with his whole body draped, turned over his horse, turned around, and finally took a look at Tiaoziling, on which the military flag of the Tang Army was still flying high. It only takes one more attack to take it completely, but it's not worth it anymore.

Kill these Tang troops in front of you to vent your anger?

That will make a lot of his own subordinates follow the burial.

For an unworthy goal, even if one more person dies, Ji Zhijiang feels that there is no need for it. Every soldier here is worth cherishing. Running thousands of miles, fighting many times, winning victories and witnessing defeats, these soldiers are the backbone of the future resistance to the Tang Army, and if one can be saved, it is one.

The Lingnan army went straight out, and in the other camps, after a little hesitation, the two armies of Jiangxi and Hunan obviously had a disagreement within the ranks, one followed Ji Zhijiang in the direction of Lingnan, and the other part went their separate ways, one to Changsha and the other to Yichun.

Nearly 30,000 troops were divided into three here. There were more than 20,000 people in the direction of Lingnan, and the other two groups, each with thousands of people.

On Tiaozi Ridge, in the military village that was almost in ruins, Qin Kuan, who was sleeping in a daze wrapped in a broken sleeping bag, was awakened by the cheers of the soldiers.

Rubbing his eyes, he crawled out of his sleeping bag.

These days, he has been on the front line, and the armor on his body has formed a thick layer of blood shackles, if ordinary people approached him, they would definitely be frightened away by the thick smell of blood on his body, but for him and his companions, they were not aware at all.

"What's wrong?" He roared.

"The enemy has retreated, the enemy has retreated!" A soldier with a thick gauze wrapped around his head jumped three feet high in place, pointing at the departing Confederate troops.

The other party is in the field of vision, and he has gone farther and farther.

"Retreated?" Qin Kuan jumped out of the trench at once, ran a few steps forward, stood on the edge of the trench, and looked down with wide eyes.

His telescope had fallen apart after being slashed by an enemy in an earlier struggle, and now he could only rely on a pair of big eyes.

The enemy is really gone.

Not to coax them.

Because of the facts, they are no longer worth coaxing, and now there are no more than 2,000 people who can still fight on Tiaoziling. Except for the dead, there are those who are injured and can only lie there.

Two days ago, when a large number of Southern Alliance cavalry left, they already had a premonition that a big change should have taken place, and the imperial court must have made a big move, so that the opponent had to respond, but for them, it seemed that it was too late, and there was still only one road in front of them.

Everyone thought they were going to die.

But life appeared in front of them without warning.

Qin Kuan's legs were weak, and he sat on the ground with his buttocks, if it wasn't for the soldiers around him to hold him in time, he would definitely plant an upside-down onion into the trench.

Qin Kuan lay on the ground on all fours like this.

It's not that he's out of shape because he's too happy, it's because his nerves have been in a state of high tension these days, and it's good to be able to sleep for an hour or two a day. Ordinary soldiers only need to fight, and an officer like him has too many things to juggle.

The whole person, in fact, is supported by such a breath.

Now, this breath suddenly leaked, and the whole person collapsed.

"General, did we win?" Beside him, a young soldier squatted beside him, looking at the mustache that had just popped out of the other party's lips, Qin Kuan smiled.

"We won, yes, we won!" After saying this, Qin Kuan's tears fell suddenly.

At this moment, he really burst into tears.

Xiao Bing was obviously a little panicked, he didn't know why he was so sad about his own general with a word, he was at a loss for a while, and his face turned red and he didn't know what to do?

"You little bastard, can't you see that your general can't stand up anymore? Don't help me either! With tears in his eyes, Qin Kuan scolded with a smile.

"Oooh!" Xiao Bing hurriedly threw the spear in his hand aside, this spear that he had never let go of in the past few days, finally left his palm at this moment, and it took a lot of effort to drag Qin Kuan up from the ground.

Punching his still trembling leg a few times, Qin Kuan turned around and walked towards the military village behind him.

Pushing open the door of the only mud house in the military village, Qin Kuan saw Ren Xiaonian sitting behind the table in full armor, his unsheathed horizontal knife resting on the long table in front of him.

"General Ren, we are alive!" Qin Kuan said loudly.

Ren Xiaonian smiled and nodded: "Yes, we persevered, we lived." ”

Looking at Ren Xiaonian, who was sitting there, Qin Kuan suddenly felt that something was wrong, "General Ren, what's wrong with you?" ”

The smile on Ren Xiaonian's face slowly disappeared.

"But we have an army of 10,000, not counting the medical battalion, logistics and baggage technology, etc., and now there are only more than 2,000 left. Eight thousand brothers, because of one of my decisions, died on the battlefield. ”

"If you are a soldier and fight, who knows if you will be able to survive until tomorrow!" Qin Kuan took a few steps forward, and he found that Ren Xiaonian was a little abnormal. Because Ren Xiaonian actually changed into a set of clean clothes, and his hair was obviously cleaned and combed, and the armor on his body was also polished, compared with Ren Xiaonian, he was now like crawling out of a garbage pit. But in the past few days, Ren Xiaonian, like himself, has been charging and killing the enemy on the front line.

"Stop!" Ren Xiaonian stood up, grabbed the handle of the knife with one hand, and pulled out the horizontal knife with a bang.

"General Ren, what are you going to do?" Qin Kuan's face changed color.

"It's my fault!" Ren Xiaonian said bitterly: "It's because I saw Jose become the general of the First Guard, because I was anxious to make a big contribution, because I was anxious for success, and I was in a hurry to launch this attack without waiting for Yu Xiaowen to replenish in place." If it weren't for my series of mistakes, how could I have let such a brother die here? I don't have the face to see Yu Xiaowen, Gao Wufu, or General Li, let alone His Majesty the Emperor. I can only apologize with death, Qin Kuan, I'll leave it to you here, I want to apologize to Liu Yuan, Leng Feng, Cai Kaiming, these brothers! ”

Seeing Ren Xiaonian resting the knife horizontally on his neck, Qin Kuan was furious.

"Ren Xiaonian, you're a fucking coward! Liu Yuanzhen's fucking death is not worth it. At that time, Liu Yuan had already jumped out of the encirclement, and he had a chance to run, but why did he take the initiative to attack the enemy again and again, wasn't it just for you? You coward! Are you dead like this now? ”

"I'm not a coward!" Ren Xiaonian roared with a red face.

"Ren Xiaonian, I am not as high as you, and I can't judge what went wrong in this battle, but as a Datang soldier and a member of the Yixing Society, even if you have a fucking big problem, you can't judge yourself. If you have merit, you will be rewarded, and if you commit a crime, you should also bravely face the accountability of the imperial court, otherwise, it is not enough to deter future generations. You're dead now, what's it? Fight to the death? Are you still thinking that if you die like this, people die greatly, and the court can give you a decent ending? If you are still a man, you should hold your chest high and be a man, even if you are deprived of all glory, go to prison, and be exiled, you are still a good man! ”

The horizontal knife in Ren Xiaonian's hand fell on the table with a thud, and then tumbled and fell to the ground, he covered his face with his hands, and cried bitterly.