"Ten brothers, the lives of more than 6,000 of our soldiers, and more than 800 families and relatives of the Han Kingdom's civil and military affairs, I will entrust them all to you."

"I, the general, deserve to be ashamed, and I can't stand you, for the sake of my brother Han Wang, I insisted on bringing you here, causing you to suffer so much and suffer so many crimes, and I don't even dare to let you rest enough, I must ask you to go to Zhao with a letter asking for help, and tie your head to the silk belt to help me ask for help from the army of the King of Han, I, Feng Zhong, really owe you too much."

"But ten brothers, you can put ten thousand hearts, as long as one of you can send a letter for help to the army of the king of Han, let the army of the king of Han come and rescue us, and when we see the king of Han, as long as you are still alive, I will keep your high-ranking officials and Houlu, and you will be prosperous and rich for a lifetime, and you will not be able to enjoy it endlessly! sacrificed, your parents and children are my Feng Zhong's parents and children, I will keep them for the rest of my life, and I don't have to worry about food and clothing! The reward you deserve, I also promise that one and a half will be handed over to your parents and children! If I, Feng Zhong, don't believe what I say, cross the river and tear down the bridge, and ask a thunderbolt from heaven to strike me! Crush bones and scatter ashes, and there is no place to bury you! ”

"Ten brothers, please, sorry, I don't even have a boat, out of the city, I can only ask you to find a way to cross the river by yourself. Also, please bow down to me before you go! ”

After saying these words with tears in his eyes, in front of everyone, Feng Zhong bowed to the ten carefully selected self-sergeants, and bowed heavily, and the civil and military forces next to him, such as Li Shiqi, Xu Ci and Wang Fang, were also the same as Feng Zhong, all bowed to the ten Feng Zhongjun soldiers who were ready to sacrifice their lives to go out of the city for help, and bowed their heads, and the ten messengers who had already disguised themselves as ordinary people also knelt down and saluted, and said with tears in their eyes: "General rest assured, no matter what method you think, no matter how difficult and dangerous it is, We will surely send your letter to the army of the King of Han, and ask them to come and rescue you. ”

On the second night of being trapped in Pingyuan County, taking advantage of the fact that the Chuji coalition army had not yet had time to build siege fortifications and completely cut off the communication between the plain and the outside world, at the time of the third watch, the three gates of Pingyuan City were quietly opened at the same time, and the suspension bridge was suddenly put down together, and ten Feng Zhongjun soldiers with a letter asking for help went out of the city, and rushed to the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River overnight, looking for boats to cross the river, and going to the Julu battlefield where the Han army may have arrived to ask for help, so as to fight for the last line of life for Feng Zhongjun and the Han army's family members who have been completely cornered.

Let Feng Zhong worry about it, on the city of the north gate of the plain, he saw and heard very clearly with his own eyes and ears, the four messengers had just left the city, and the suburbs of the north gate of the plain, which was most likely to break through, soon some torches appeared, and the sound of horses' hooves and shouts of killing could be faintly heard, it was obvious that the Fulu soldiers of the Chuji coalition army who were ambushed outside the city found that Feng Zhongjun's messenger went out of the city, and suddenly killed to intercept and pursue, and because it was late at night and the distance was far away, it was impossible to see the situation of the four messengers from the north gate, so the only thing Feng Zhong could do, It was just a silent prayer, praying for God's blessing, so that the messenger of the army could successfully escape the enemy's interception and pursuit, and smoothly deliver the letter asking for help to Julu and hand it over to the Han soldiers who might have arrived there.

Feng Zhong also had to be glad that he had the opportunity to make a quick decision, and on the second night after being trapped, he decisively sent a messenger out of the city to ask for help, because it was just the morning of the third day, and the flag was unfurled on the southeast galloping road, and a large number of Jibei troops came to reinforce, and at the same time, by observing the flag, Feng Zhong was also quickly stunned to find that the person who led this Jibei army was likely to be the king of Jibei Tiandu, who had had several relationships with him!

Before that, because of the Western Chu Army's request for help and Xiang Yu's order requirements, Tian Du was already ready to help the Western Chu Army encircle and suppress Feng Zhongjun, and received a letter from the general Tian Jiao, and learned that Feng Zhongjun's persimmon was soft and pinched, and he insisted on flowing on his own territory without fleeing westward, Tian Du was even more angry, and immediately took 12,000 elites of the Jibei Army to the north, and killed the plain in the direction that Feng Zhongjun was most likely to choose to break through. He also rushed to the plain battlefield much faster than Feng Zhong and the others expected.

After arriving at the city of the plains, of course, Tian Du immediately scolded Tian Jiao, who was not effective in pursuit, and asked him why he was so incompetent, and he never managed to catch up with the tired Feng Zhongjun, even let Feng Zhongjun, who was already at the end of his rope, take the small city on the plains, and let the Jibei army, which was already a small profit, suffer greater losses.

At this time, on the contrary, it was the old general Ding Guding who jumped out to be a good person, and pleaded for Tian Jiao and persuaded him: "The king of Jibei was angry and failed to catch up with Feng Zhong's thief army in time, which is indeed the common fault of the old man and General Tian Jiao, but the loss of Pingyuan County has nothing to do with General Tian Jiao, it is the negligence of General Tian Zhu of your army, and he actually let Feng Zhong's soldiers follow his defeated soldiers directly into the city, which led to the loss of Pingyuan, and has nothing to do with General Tian Jiao." ”

After that, Ding Gu said with a smile again: "Besides, it doesn't matter much if we lose the plain county for the time being, at least we have completely trapped Feng Zhongpifu in Pingyuan City, and then we don't even need to attack the city, as long as we hurry up and repair the fortifications and completely cut off Feng Zhongpifu's way out of the city, it won't be long before Pingyuan City will naturally return to your hands." When the time comes, all the families of the Han thieves will be captured, and our king of Xichu will be rewarded for his meritorious deeds, and naturally he will not treat you badly. ”

"No siege? Can you trap a thief to death? If only it were that easy! Tian Du was not as optimistic as General Ding, and said coldly: "General Ding came from afar, probably not yet, right?" The Han thieves sent troops north from Puyang, and they had already taken Handan City, an important town of Zhao State, and it was possible to hit Julu City immediately. If our friendly army of Zhao State is not in a good position, and the Han thief arrives in Julu and receives news that he knows that Feng Zhong's rebel thief is trapped in the plain city, and if he doesn't do well, he will send troops to rescue Feng Zhongpifu, if such a situation really occurs, then we will be in big trouble! ”

"The thief is about to hit the giant deer? So fast? ”

Ding Gu and Tian Jiao screamed together, and indeed they didn't have time to know this important situation, Tian Du nodded, and then told Ding Gu and Tian Jiao about the changes in the battle situation of Zhao that the Zhao army had informed him, and as a result, Ding Gu and Tian Jiao finally came to their senses, looked at each other and exclaimed: "No wonder Feng Zhongpifu sent someone out of the city to ask for help last night, does he also know about this situation?" ”

"What do you mean by that?"

Tian Du asked a little confused, Tian Jiao hurriedly told Tian Du what happened last night, saying that the Chuji coalition army, which was responsible for monitoring the four gates of the plain, found that there was an enemy out of the city, and hurriedly dispatched to pursue and intercept it, and finally succeeded in killing four Feng Zhongjun messengers, captured two alive, and also searched out Feng Zhong's letter to the Han army asking for help from them, and then Tian Jiao said: "At the beginning, the last general and the old general Ding were extremely strange, and they didn't understand why Feng Zhongpifu worked so hard, Send so many messengers to ask for help from an army of Han thieves thousands of miles away? Now it seems that Feng Zhong's puppet should have also heard the rumors and knew that the Han thieves were about to hit the giant deer, so he sent people out of the city to ask for help at any cost. ”

"Have all the messengers of the thieves been caught and killed?" Tian Du hurriedly asked, "Are there any fish that have slipped through the net?" From the plain to the giant deer all the way to the gallop, if the thief of the giant deer receives the news, it is extremely convenient to save the plain! ”

Tian Jiao and Ding Gu shook their heads helplessly, saying that the light was too dark last night to confirm how many of the same messengers Feng Zhong had sent out of the city, and naturally it was impossible to know whether the self-army had wiped out all the Han army messengers. Tian Du was furious when he heard this, and hurriedly shouted: "What are you doing then?" Hurry up and give this king a time to interrogate the confession, and be sure to ask me how many messengers Feng Zhongpifu has sent to ask for help! Also, send people to search the upper and lower reaches of the river, and if they find suspicious outsiders, they will all be taken down by this king! ”

Tian Jiao had no choice but to make a promise, and hurriedly sent people to search the upper and lower banks of the Yellow River to find the Han army messengers who might have slipped through the net, and at the same time sent people to seize the time to interrogate confessions. In the afternoon, one of the two Han messengers who had been captured could not withstand the torture, and honestly confessed that Feng Zhong had sent a total of ten messengers, and admitted that Feng Zhong had asked them to find a way to cross the Yellow River by themselves, and sent the letter asking for help to Julu to hand over to the Han troops who might have arrived there.

In addition to ordering the Jibei army to step up the search for the remaining four Han army messengers, he also adopted the suggestion of Liu Hua, a strategist under his command, and personally wrote to contact Dongwu, Cuo County and other places in the land of Zhao State, asking the Zhao army to also help search and intercept the Han army messengers, and clearly explained: "No matter what method you think, you must catch or kill the remaining four Han thief messengers, and you must not let them get in touch with the Han thieves of Julu!" Otherwise, even if the Han thieves only send 3,000 troops to reinforce them, the Han thieves in the Plains City will definitely fight to the death, and it will be even more difficult for us to recapture the important places in the Plains! ”

It is a pity that although the Jibei Army used a lot of manpower to search and search, but by the evening of the same day, the Jibei Army only found and killed two Han army messengers on the bank of the Yellow River, and there were still two Han army messengers whose whereabouts were unknown.

But there is also an unexpected gain, that is, during the search and arrest of the soldiers of the Jibei Army, they undoubtedly found two suspicious men with foreign accents, and after surrounding them on all sides, one of the men also took the initiative to throw down his weapon and raise his hand to surrender, and said loudly: "Don't kill me, I am Han Cheng, the king of Han, bring me back to your king, I was also forced to escape from Pengcheng." ”

Then, when the unlucky Han Cheng and Han Xin were escorted back to the Jibei military camp, the scene of being able to kill the Korean loyal minister Zhang Liang appeared, in front of the royal family's orthodoxy far inferior to his own Tiandu, Han Cheng was both pretentious and bowed, cheekily put all the responsibility for his escape from Pengcheng on Peng Yue and Feng Zhong, shamelessly claiming that he had always wanted to organize the old people of Han to help Xiang Yu crusade against Xiang Kang's rebels, but he didn't expect to be held hostage by Peng Yue and Feng Zhong, so he had to flee with Feng Zhong, also said that he was unwilling to accompany Feng Zhong to death because he had wanted to escape from Feng Zhong's thief army for a long time, and blindly just wagged his tail and begged for mercy, begging Tian Du to spare him from death, and whimsically begging Tian Du to release him and return to Han Land, and promised to repay him twice in the future.

It's a pity that Tian Du didn't bother to pay attention to Han Cheng at all, and before Han Cheng finished speaking, he quickly waved his hand and ordered: "Put these two horsemen into the prisoner car, escort them to Pengcheng and hand them over to the king of Western Chu, and ask the king of Western Chu to send them down." ”

The guards in the tent sang a promise, and immediately stepped forward to take the person, Han Cheng hurriedly opened his mouth to beg for mercy, but Liu Hua, the Tiandu strategist who was also in the tent, rolled his eyes, and hurriedly got up and walked in front of Tian Du, turned his back to Han Xin and Han Cheng first glanced at Tian Du, and then said: "Great King, after all, King Han is the royal family of South Korea, his status is noble, even the King of Western Chu has not treated him slowly, according to the opinion of his subordinates, we still leave King Han in the army first, so that we can entertain him, and it is not too late to do it in the future." ”

After finishing speaking, Liu Hua also gave Tian Du a look like a chicken and wiping his neck, Tian Du knew that something was wrong, so he also changed his words, and asked the guards to take Han Cheng and Han Xin down to treat each other politely, Han Cheng thanked him with great joy, and left with a thousand thanks. Then after the guards took Han Cheng and Han Xin away, Tian Du asked Liu Hua very strangely, "Why?" Stay and waste our food? ”

"Because this puppet is still of great use to us." Liu Hua replied with a smile, and then said: "King, since we have confirmed that Feng Zhong Pifu already knows that the Han thief army is about to arrive in Julu, then seeing that there is a glimmer of life, the Feng Zhong thief army in the plain city will inevitably fight to the death, waiting for the rescue of the Han thief army, so it is very unfavorable for our army to attack the city, so even if we recapture the plain county, we will definitely pay a lot of price." ”

"In that case, why don't we take advantage of the fact that Han Cheng, a shameless horseman, was once Feng Zhong's companion, and carry out a plan to draw salaries from the bottom of the kettle, to strain the morale and fighting spirit of the thief army in the city, and to make the thief army in the city have the idea of surrendering and begging? If this move is successful, if we want to regain the important land of the plains, we will definitely be able to multiply it. ”

"So how do you get paid?"

Tian Du hurriedly asked again, Liu Hua smiled treacherously, and then carefully explained his strategy, Tian Du was overjoyed when he heard it, and said happily: "Wonderful plan, just do it!" The bottom of the kettle is drawn, so that the thieves in the city have no heart to fight anymore! ”

Although the plain county town is not big, it is also a city, and there are drawbridges and moats to protect it, although the Jibei army is a new force, the physical strength advantage is obvious, and it must first prepare a certain siege weapon to be sure to take the city, so in the next few days, the Jibei army can only go all out to make all kinds of siege weapons, and is not in a hurry to launch a siege, and Feng Zhongjun in the city is temporarily at peace.

During this period, Dongwu City, which was controlled by the Zhao army in the west, also sent someone to send a good letter, and sent the head of a Han army messenger and a letter for help written by Feng Zhong himself to Tian Du, although there was still a Han army messenger whose whereabouts were unknown, but Tian Du was still very relieved, believing that he would definitely not be so guilty, so that the last Han army messenger who did not know his whereabouts really sent the letter for help to Julu to the Han army, adding trouble to his own recapture of the plains.

On the afternoon of the fourth day when the Tiandu army arrived under the plain city, the Zhou Lan division of the Western Chu Army who received the news also arrived at the plain battlefield, and joined forces with the Jibei Army and the Ding Gu Army, expanding the strength of the Chuji coalition army surrounded the plain to about 36,000.

Also on the same day, the Jibei army also prepared a barely enough number of siege weapons, and Liu Hua, who was very trusted by Tian Du, immediately made a statement, suggesting that Tian Du send troops to attack the city the next day, and take the plain as soon as possible to avoid unintended branches. It's a pity that Tian Du only thought about it a little, and immediately shook his head and said: "Don't worry, wait another day, Zhou Lan Pifu will only arrive today, and he will launch an attack tomorrow, he will definitely be tired from afar, and he will not send too many troops to help us, Ding Gu's old horseman is treacherous and slippery, every time he fights a tough battle, he must hide behind, and he will launch an attack tomorrow, it must be that we fight the main force to gnaw hard bones, even if we take the plain, we will definitely lose a lot, and wait another day to launch a siege, we can pull more Western Chu troops to help, Take the pressure off our shoulders. ”

"But if the time is delayed for a long time, in case the last thief army messenger really got in touch with the Han thief, and the Han thief sent an army to reinforcements." Liu Hua said with some worry: "At that time, the Han thieves don't even need to cross the river in a hurry, they just need to set up a banner on the other side of the river, and the thief army in the plain city will definitely be like crazy and will not retreat." ”

"What are you afraid of in a day?" Tian Du asked rhetorically, and said with a smile: "The thief army in the city only sent a messenger to ask for help four days ago, even if the letter is really sent to the Han thief, and when the Han thief reacts and sends the army to respond, it will take at least ten days or so, and we will have already taken the plain by then." Besides, our siege weapons are barely enough, so prepare a little more in case of emergency, and we are also sharpening our knives and cutting wood. ”

Seeing that Tian Du had made up his mind, and considering that in such a short period of time, even if the Han army really received the news, it was absolutely impossible to send troops to make trouble, Liu Hua did not insist, so Tian Du did not rush to launch an attack on the next day, but first agreed with Ding Gu and Zhou Lan on the siege positions they were responsible for, and very generously divided some of the siege weapons prepared by the army to Zhou Lan, who had just arrived, and then in the early morning of the sixth day, the Chuji coalition army dispatched a large army very calmly, and the troops were divided into three ways to kill the plain.

According to the agreement, the two divisions of the Western Chu Army, Ding Gu and Zhou Lan, were respectively responsible for the north and south gates of the plain, and the Jibei Army was responsible for the front of the east gate facing the galloping road, and the soldiers and horses of the three routes were lined up outside the plain......