After a long journey that lasted nearly a month, the 3,000 soldiers and horses of Jieyuan and Lu Lihua finally arrived at Hanhai City.

But what made them a little disappointed was that standing outside Hanhai City, Zhu Lihua and the others saw an empty city-like existence.

Hanhai and Shuofang counties are more extensive than other counties, and most of the landforms here are plains, with grasslands and green areas on both sides of the Huangshui Road to the east, while the rest of the land is mostly the endless Hanhai Desert.

This is also the reason why Shuofang County is called Hanhai.

Although Jieyuan and Zhu Lihua had never been to Shuofang County, they had already known that in this place, except for the people living in Hanhai City, most of whom were mainly traders, almost all the cloth people in the whole territory lived by herding.

Moreover, this place has been the production area of Daqin's war horses since ancient times.

There are legends in Daqin that this Shuofang horse is extremely handsome and is known as the heavenly horse, and the people of Shuofang also raise horses almost every family, because they can't do without horses in life or trade, not to mention that the horse itself is also a sought-after commodity.

Before coming to Shuofang, Xijing had sent a letter to Jieyuan that when Edo led the troops south, there were about 40,000 soldiers and horses left behind, and most of these soldiers and horses were transferred to the border defense adjacent to Lanlu and Yangping counties of Qinlan County to advance north.

However, Xijing also reminded them that when Fang Yuanheng was in Artemisia County, he also sent scouts to contact Shuofang's soldiers and horses to fight with him in the north and south, but strangely, none of the soldiers and horses that should have been stationed in the north of Qinlan County were found.

And the scouts didn't dare to go too far north, so they had to retreat to Artemisia County.

Therefore, what happened to Shuofang County, which has the largest area and the smallest population and only five prefectures in the entire territory, no one can know since Edo left there.

As the county seat, although Hanhai City is not as large as Wenshui City and Suibei City or Hanping City in Shubei County, this city also used to have 80,000 people living in it, but after Jieyuan and Lihua entered the city, they found that there were less than 10,000 old, weak, sick and disabled people left in this large county town and waiting for death.

After carefully exploring the city and finding nothing unusual, Jie Yuan discussed with Lihua that the army should rest in the city for a few days, and then consider the long term.

Through conversations with the people in the city, Jieyuan, Zhu Lihua and others learned that a rebellion broke out in Hanhai City as early as a month ago.

After the rebellious people killed all the 2,000 defenders in the city overnight, they slaughtered all the nobles in the city, the county lieutenant, the county prince, and the three elders.

Originally, the matter was over at this time, but who would have thought that there would be infighting among several leaders who led the rebellion because of the power struggle and whether to surrender to the rebels.

In the following week, several rebel armies dragged the people to kill each other, and the original 80,000-strong city actually attacked each other in a few days, causing seventy or eighty percent of the people to die and flee.

And the result of the final battle between the several families was that they were left with only the two most powerful.

After that, the two families abandoned the city one east and one west, and naturally they voted for the Rong people in the west, and the rebels who went to the east voted for Pucheng and Fengtong.

Once they were gone, they hadn't been back for weeks.

However, there are only less than 10,000 old, weak, sick and disabled people left in Hanhai City.

After talking with the people, Jieyuan and Zhu Lihua also got a piece of news that made them a little desperate, the four counties of Jilin, Yancheng, Yongning, and Acropolis in the west of Hanhai City had all fallen as early as two months ago.

After obtaining all the information from these people, Jie Yuan and Lu Lihua discussed countermeasures in the Hanhai Mansion.

They decided to send scouts to investigate the situation of Ji Linrong's soldiers, who were closest to Hanhai, before making plans.

Lu Lihua once again sent Wei Mu and others to Ji Lin in batches to investigate the movements of the enemy army.

Seven days later, the first group of scouts reported to Hanhai, saying that Ji Lin had 10,000 troops stationed there, and all of them were Qin.

After that, several groups of scouts reported back, and Wei Mu also caught a few soldiers who surrendered to the army on the way.

These soldiers, like Wei Mu and others, were also scouts, but they were armed with the Burning Red Sun Banner and were ambushed and captured by Wei Lin on the way to Hanhai to investigate.

After escorting the scouts back to Hanhai City, Wei Mu personally interrogated them, and handed over the confessions obtained after the interrogation to Jieyuan.

Jie Yuan and Zhu Lihua read the confession together, and then they knew the reason for the fall of Shuofang counties.

It turned out that after Edo led most of the soldiers of Shuofang County to the south to join Fang Yuanheng, the remaining Shuofang soldiers were under the leadership of the county guard Yuanming, and after leaving a few defenders to guard the counties, they took the remaining 20,000 troops to the Acropolis of Chen, ready to support the Lingzhou border pass at any time.

Then the Rong people moved quickly to the east, and after occupying the whole county of Qin Lan, Na Yuanming learned about it from the fleeing people.

Yuan Ming was originally a noble son of a family, and there was no strategy in his chest and abdomen, and even the captured rebel scout talked about him with disdain.

But the soldiers of the whole army were not afraid of the Rong people, because there was also a general in the army who was assisting Yuan Ming.

This person's name is Zhang Ren, and he is a brave general under the command of the deputy general Edo, but this time Edo did not take Zhang Ren with him when he went south.

This Zhang Ren is quite famous in the army, because his background is too legendary.

This general, who was not a hereditary nobleman, slowly climbed to the position of general by virtue of his record of not tasting defeat in countless battles and small formations.

Such an experience was extremely rare in the four kingdoms, so it also gave him a very high status in the hearts of the soldiers of the Shuofang Qin army.

Compared with the famous generals from the hereditary aristocracy, this grassroots general is easier to get close to the soldiers.

Therefore, with Zhang Ren here, the more than 20,000 Qin troops in the Acropolis have the backbone.

After that, as Fang Yuanheng achieved continuous victories in Qin Lan, Na Yuanming gradually relaxed his mind, and just drank and had fun in the Acropolis every day, watched dancing and listened to music, and completely handed over the military to Zhang Ren.

One day not long after Fang Yuanheng occupied Luhao County, 40,000 Rong cavalry suddenly came to the Acropolis, these people were menacing, and under the defenselessness of the Qin army, they rushed to kill and conquered the west gate of the Acropolis in one day.

For the sake of the Qin army, General Zhang Ren did not hesitate to rush to the Rong camp alone with infamy, and after negotiating with the Rong people, he handed over the Yuan Ming to the Rong people, and the 20,000 soldiers and horses were also saved.

After that, Zhang Ren personally led his troops to capture the unsuspecting Yongning, Yancheng and Jilin in more than half a month, and the number of soldiers and horses under his command increased to 30,000.

However, this smooth sailing happened in Hanhai City.

At the time of the occupation of Ji Lin, the news of the rebellion of the Qin soldiers on the front line still leaked out. Therefore, the 8,000 people of the Hanhai garrison, under the leadership of the county lieutenant Li Mi, put up a stubborn resistance to the attack of Zhang Ren's army.

But at the same time, Li Mi didn't have time to send a message to Hexi for help, so he was surrounded by Zhang Ren's army, and the water was impassable.

This siege is more than three months long.

As the seat of Shuofang County, Hanhai has high walls and is not easy to attack, and the army guarding Hanhai is also quite brave under Li Mi's reward.

So after nearly four months of siege, Zhang Ren, who was short of food and grass, led the rebels back to Jilin.

However, according to the scout, not long after they returned to Jilin, they received news of a rebellion among the people in Hanhai City, and the whole army was quite surprised.

When a rebel army defected to Ji Lin, Zhang Ren was convinced that Hanhai's situation was true, so he sent scouts to Hanhai to investigate the city's recent situation.

Because Zhang Ren thought that Hanhai City was still in the hands of another rebel, and what he didn't know was that the rebel army had already gone to Hexi County.

Jieyuan and Zhu Lihua looked at each other after reading the confession, and they didn't know whether they were lucky or unlucky.

They thought of the reason why so much was happening in Shuofang County and Xijing didn't know it.

That is, Zhang Ren's rebellion happened suddenly, and it was easy to capture the counties and besiege Hanhai, so that the Hanhai defenders could not send a letter at all.

In addition, there were rebellions in the counties north of Hexi County, which objectively caused Hanhai City in Shuofang County to become an enclave.

Therefore, Xijing didn't know what happened in Shuofang County until this time, and thought that there were still 40,000 soldiers of Great Qin and five cities of Great Qin.

The two of them understood that although they had captured Hanhai City without a single soldier, they were also caught in the middle of the attack of the rebels and the Rong army.

Thinking about it, Li Mi's 8,000 defenders were only 2,000 after Zhang Ren retreated, and they were easily defeated by the rebellious people, and none of them were able to escape from Ascension.

This also shows how fierce the rebellion of the people in Hanhai City, who have been besieged by the fire of war for four months.

"Hua'er, can you write the letter to Xijing?"

Although Jieyuan sighed in his heart, he finally knew where his duty was, so he asked Zhu Lihua.

Zhu Lihua nodded, and handed the letter he had just written to Jieyuan.

After Jieyuan read it, he extended the seal letter on the letter, handed it to the sergeant on the side, and asked him to send it to Xijing as soon as possible.

"Teacher, Hua'er thinks that Ji Linrongjun knows that our army occupies Hanhai, and it is estimated that it is only a matter of the past few days.

Before fighting with them, the first thing to do was to calm the people in the city and concentrate food and grass supplies.

The current situation is already very dangerous, and I still ask the teacher to decide what to do. ”

Jie Yuan naturally understood what Lu Lihua said, Hanhai has become a place of four wars, that is, there are no reinforcements and no food and grass, there are Rong troops in front and rebels in the back, and it is not wise to defend this place.

But he finally sighed, and said to Zhu Lihua: "Qin Gong shouned me with a letter and ordered me to come here to quell the rebellion, how could I just think about leaving, but the letter has been sent, I believe that Qin Gong and the center will make a decision." ”

Then, he looked at Zhu Lihua, smiled and said, "I know that you will not let you go back at this time, so let my master and apprentice be loyal to the country here." ”

Speaking of which, Jie Yuan still looks like an old man in the age of the cane country, and in the eyes of Lihua, he is more like a strong man with hair and beard.

Zhu Lihua couldn't help but be happy for Jie Zi, isn't this the goal that the teacher has pursued all his life.

Then, he followed the energetic Jieyuan out of the government and went to the place where the garrison was.

Because the huge Hanhai City almost became an empty city, the soldiers and horses of Lihua were stationed in the city.

However, Zhu Lihua always felt that there was something wrong in his heart, which came from the confession of the scout who was captured, but he still didn't know what was wrong.