In the sky of Hanzhong at the beginning of October, the rain was falling. As winter approaches, the cool breeze mixed with the cold rain begins to make the temperature feel a little chilly, however, there are still countless people in Hanzhong City who are shirtless, soaked in the rain curtain, and work hard to build the city walls.

Liu Yuyang glanced behind him with his peripheral vision, where King Rui, who was wearing a brocade hat and a mink fur and a ring around his body, was being supported by a house slave, trembling and walking up the wet bluestone brick steps. Beside him, there were three or four house slaves with huge umbrellas to shield him from the wind and rain.

Although he has lived in Hanzhong for decades, King Rui has never set foot in the city. There is naturally an element of grounding in this, but in Liu Yuyang's mind, if it weren't for the persuasion of himself, Sun Xianzu, and Liu Shaozong, King Rui, who is used to being pampered, would never have taken the initiative to come to this "filthy" place.

"The prince is coming, you just have to work hard, and you will be rewarded!" A house slave walked in front in the rain, shouting loudly as he went. He was carrying a bamboo basket in his hand, heavy. Like him, seven or eight house slaves followed him, and they also shouted, and their baskets were full of copper coins.

Liu Yuyang shook his head, helpless. He already knew the name of King Rui's love for money, but he didn't want to be attached to the fame like ants. Therefore, although he agreed to Liu Yuyang's request to go to the city to encourage the soldiers and the people, he also asked for a part of the military expenses, so as to give favors and favor in this way, so that the name of Rui Fan's benevolence could spread faster.

The other party retreated, and Liu Yuyang was not easy to make inches. And although this is suspected of selling fame and reputation, it is a small section. As long as it doesn't interfere with the overall situation, it can be left to its own devices.

"Thank you for your lord's grace, thank you for your lord's grace!"

The house slaves shouted and began to scatter the copper coins in the basket on the ground as if no one was around. The people who were working looked around to make sure that the overseers had no intention of stopping them, and in an instant they swarmed up and began to scramble for the copper coins scattered all over the ground.

Muddy water mixed with rain splashed in the chaotic crowd, and the people threw themselves on the potholed, muddy stone path, collecting every copper plate trapped in the cracks of the ditch. Even though the whole body is dirty, he is not aware of it. They are fighting, shouting, and even pushing each other, as long as they are fast, and if they get a few extra dollars, it is enough to be several times more than the subsidy promised by the government. Only a few of them held a copper coin in their hands, and kept kowtowing to thank them: "The villain thanks the prince!" More of it was preoccupied, picking it up while muttering, "One, two, three......"

King Rui was very satisfied with this scene and smiled. Seeing this, the few house slaves who walked in front became more and more vigorous, and preached the benevolence and compassion of the Rui Domain, and their hands were like heavenly maidens scattering flowers, and they kept throwing copper coins, so that many copper coins flew to the city because of their excessive strength.

Liu Yuyang saw that several overseers also secretly picked up a few copper coins that rolled to his feet, but he didn't see them. At this time, only when there is money and food can we win the hearts of the people. The end of having no money and no food is to drive these officers and soldiers to the opposite side of the people and become rogues who are incompatible with the imperial court.

Except for a few who are alone, the vast majority of people are old and low in their families - whether it is the overseers here, the people, or themselves and King Rui. They are all hard-working people who survive in troubled times, and only with more understanding and understanding can cooperation be carried out better.

"Take it." A few copper coins bounced in front of Liu Yuyang, he leaned down, picked them up one by one, whispered to a nearby official and soldier, and stuffed them under the other party's stunned expression.

At this time, several house slaves gradually moved away with a long roar, and King Rui slowly walked behind, approaching Liu Yuyang and said, "Lord Liu, you just said that the city was damaged in many places? ”

Liu Yuyang nodded and responded: "Yes, it has been raining heavily for several days, and many of the city walls damaged by thieves earlier have collapsed, and they are now trying their best to repair them, but because there are many damaged places, with the current repair progress, it will not be able to come down in three or two months." Speaking of this, his face changed slightly, "If the thieves know about such important circumstances and take advantage of the gap to attack, it will be difficult for us to defend." ”

Rui Wang knew that Liu Yuyang had always been calm and would never deliberately say something alarmist, so his color changed slightly, and he said, "What can I do if so?" ”

Liu Yuyang looked at the Great Wall Wall that stretched out in front of him, shook his head and said: "The repair of the city, you can't rush and can't slow down, I'm afraid that the work will not be strong, and if you put it off, you're afraid of long ......nights and dreams," but seeing King Rui's panicked face, he continued, "But the prince doesn't have to worry too much." A few days ago, he returned to his hometown and met with Hou Shuai, and he was reluctant to be righteous. Yesterday's family letter said that Hou Shuai had sent a guerrilla Hou Yingfu, and Liu Gui, the capital secretary, led 1,400 strong people in Sichuan to come to Hanzhong with his younger brother, and he would arrive in a few days. ”

Hou Shuai is the Sichuan general soldier Hou Liangzhu, the strength is quite strong, and he has also been to aid central Shaanxi many times before, but I heard that his people have recently been at odds with Wang Weizhang, the governor of Sichuan, and did not listen to the dispatch, and ran northern Sichuan by himself, so the little red wolf and other rogues in southern Shaanxi were able to recover. If this person helps, plus Sun Xianzu's 1,500 people, Liu Shaozong's nearly 3,000 people, and Liu Yuyang's more than 2,000 soldiers, the actual deployable troops in Hanzhong are approaching 10,000 people. Whether it is defending the city or fighting in the field, it is more comfortable.

"Brother Ling? But Ji Long? King Rui raised his eyebrows.

"Exactly." Liu Yuyang has three brothers, and the youngest Liu Yuliang has the greatest reputation.

"With Ji Long coming out, it's no wonder that Hou Shuai will promise it." King Rui twisted his beard and smiled, "Xiang Nian he went to Beijing to serve, and he once came to my house to pay a visit, although he was short, but his momentum was extraordinary, and his conversation was even better. Haha, this king's view of people is accurate, and he is afraid that he is a talent! "King Rui's domain in southern Shaanxi echoes the north and south of Chengdu's Shu domain. Although the two kings were not allowed to travel, they relied on their families and privately spread their servants and bought properties. Therefore, some of the big families in Shu have secretly dealings with these two feudal clans.

Liu Yuyang smiled and said, "King Rui is too famous." My younger brother doesn't like to read the most, and he can't stay in the library, so how dare he say anything else. As an elder brother, he knows his raunchy younger brother very well, and in Liu Yuliang's temperament, it is not groundless to say that he can enter the cabinet in the future.

"Haha, I don't like to study but I am a junior high school in the morning, it's rare." The two walked side by side, and King Rui said with a smile. Liu Yuyang chatted with him, but he began to feel that this prince who lived in Yuntai was not so difficult to contact......

The wind was howling, the rain was pouring in, and under the gray sky, the little red wolf was in chaos in the northern camp.

Among the thieves in southern Shaanxi, the little red wolf is the first, followed by the tiger, the heavenly dragon, and the little yellow warbler. Since the defeat at Buckwheat Mountain, the Little Red Wolf led the crowd to retreat to the Yanjing area in the western part of Buckwheat Mountain. Several wells were opened here during the Chenghua period to boil well salt, which was abandoned for a long time at this time, but left many houses for temporary residence.

From here further west, it is about to go out of the hills and mountains, into the plains around Hanzhong City, although the little red wolf is arrogant, but he does not dare to run under the noses of Sun Xianzu and others to spread wild. He originally thought that Zhao Ying's return to the horse gun was to ensure a safe retreat of the counterattack, so he garrisoned the army again and watched, wanting to wait for Qin Jinxiao and the others to return after they really retreated. Unexpectedly, after Qin Jinxiao met Hao Shaoqi in Buckwheat Mountain, he didn't stop and immediately chased after him.

In order to prevent the possible attack of Zhao Ying, he deliberately moved the camp to the north for a few more miles, so that he could run away as soon as possible, but he didn't expect his move to be used by Zhao Ying. Meng Aocao led the horse army to move to the south, successfully aroused the vigilance of the little red wolf and others, and then Hao Shaoqi led the right battalion to dare to die, and cut off the connection between the north camp of the little yellow warbler and other camps at that time, and finally joined forces with Qin Jinxiao, almost wiped out more than 1,700 people under the little yellow warbler, and the little yellow warbler himself was hacked to death with a knife.

The little red wolf still has tens of thousands of horses at this time, and Qin Jinxiao and Hao Shaoqi can't swallow a breath no matter how big their appetite is. Therefore, the principle is that "it is better to cut off one finger than to hurt ten fingers". After annihilating the little yellow warbler, he began to expel the frightened little red wolf and other departments, and won more than ten small battles in the pursuit.

The little red wolf and the others were already less likely to fight tough battles, and they had no intention of fighting at a disadvantage, so they began to continue to retreat westward. However, Qin Jinxiao, Hao Shaoqi, and Meng Aocao found that the development of events seemed to be different from the original plan.

Roughly speaking, the little red wolf did not enter the Hanzhong Plain area to the northwest as Zhao Ying thought, but instead had a tendency to drill into the mountains in the southwest.

Qin Jinxiao was very sensitive to the battle situation, and stopped Hao Shaoqi's action of rushing to kill in time, and did not move. At the same time, Zhao Dangshi sent three messengers to report the situation to the north.

Where does the little red wolf want to go?

Zhao Dangshi was also puzzled when he first received the news, but after Mu Gongchun's reminder, he realized that the little red wolf wanted to go back to his hometown and hide in Ningqiang Prefecture.

Ningqiang Prefecture is the place where the ancient White Horse Qiang lived, Liu Song Dynasty was Dongyizhou, there are 100 prison passes, 7 pan passes in the territory, 500 miles between the road to Chaotianling, through Guangyuan, is the throat of Qin Shu. But since the thieves rebellion, because it is an important place for transportation, so Ningqiang Prefecture has been repeatedly warned, and when the Zhao camp entered Sichuan last year, it was discovered that its place was already a city without a pheasant moat, and the people were scattered. If the little red wolf and the others are allowed to run there, they will rely on the ruins of the mountain, which will not be easy to get, and the promise made by the contract with Wuda will also become a mirror.

Zhao Dangshi hoped to establish his prestige through this battle, and naturally did not want to release Wu Dading's pigeons. But now Meng Ao's Cao Department has been exposed and has lost the role of a suspicious soldier. If you want him to drive west quickly and force the little red wolf to reroute, it is almost impossible. It is also unrealistic to take the main force of Zhao Ying to the south to block it.

Qin Qigong and Mu Gongchun joined the army as left and right, and were soon called in front of Zhao Dangshi. Both of them were very calm, because this plan involved the cooperation of several soldiers and horses, and Zhao Ying had no experience in this kind of coordinated operations before, so even if the action within two or three hundred miles had a fork, it was normal.

Since they knew early on that something would go wrong, they had already prepared countermeasures for several possible accidents. Especially Mu Gongchun, in his consideration, the little red wolf not retreating according to the predetermined path is the easiest situation to deal with, so after listening to Zhao Dangshi's story, some apprehensions at the beginning completely disappeared at this time.

Being able to put forward a solution as quickly as possible at a key point is Zhao Dangshi's basic requirement for the two to join the army. Qin and Mu obviously have this quality. Qin Qigong was steady, and he could see that Mu Gongchun wanted to show his mentality in front of Zhao Dangshi, so he was silent and gave the opportunity to the other party. Mu Gongchun was also not polite, and seeing that Qin Qigong was silent, he opened his mouth and said: "This matter is easy to hear, raising soldiers for a thousand days, and it is used for a while, and the county lord of Huaqing has been a guest in our camp for so many days, and he can't be entertained in vain." ”

The county lord of Huaqing is a good bargaining chip, but Zhao Dangshi has never thought about how to use this bargaining chip. Hearing his words at this moment, he asked, "Mr. Mu said this, you want to bring out the county lord?" After thinking about it, he said suspiciously, "The little red wolf is too busy to take care of himself, and I have the county lord waiting for him, so I have nothing to do with him, how to arrange it?" "It is definitely feasible to use the county lord to coerce the martial arts, but the little red wolf and the others have nothing to do with the county lord of Huaqing, don't say whether it is true or not, can you still send the county lord to him, and then ask him to change the route? It's ridiculous to think about.

Mu Gongchun didn't know where to get a pure white robe these days, and picked up a chicken feather fan, and dressed up with two times, which was very generous with a lupine scarf. Some generals saw it, and some secretly said that he lived like Zhuge Kongming. When he heard this, he was overjoyed, and he was even more determined to stick to this dress.

The cool breeze outside the tent blew in, but he didn't care, in order to maintain his style, he still fanned the chicken feather fan in his hand, shook his head and said: "The interests of the county lord of Huaqing are related to the three parties. One side is our battalion, one side is the military battalion, and the other side is the official army. Among the three parties, the officials and soldiers thought about it the most, so they all thought, once we threw the lord of Huaqing out, could King Rui not accept it? ”

Zhao Dangshi nodded seriously and said: "What Mr. said is extremely true, as he said, the county lord and I are all related." But what does it have to do with the little red wolf if you throw her out at this time? ”

"Zhu Wen was born as a grass thief and was a sworn enemy of the Tang Dynasty, and the confrontation between officials and thieves was not the same. But in the end, Zuo Jinwu was the general of the Tang Dynasty, why not? When Mu Gongchun said this, he deliberately paused, looked at Zhao Dangshi, and then said, "Without him, Li Ye." ”

Zhao Dangshi hurriedly said: "Sir, please continue." ”

Mu Gongchun was very satisfied with Zhao Dangshi's attitude, and said leisurely: "The state of friend and foe is fickle, and the root cause is not out of the category of good words. The soldiers who can fight in Hanzhong City stop Sun and Liu. If you are the two of you, what kind of conditions can you accept in order to get the miraculous merit of rescuing the county lord? ”

Zhao Dangshi is not stupid, and he has a clear understanding of what Mu Gongchun means when he says this. He rubbed his hands lightly and said, "This plan can be done, and the little red wolf has no reason to exist again." While thinking about it, he suddenly found that his pattern seemed to have risen to a higher level.