Although Xie Yuheng has tried his best to block the news, paper can't contain the fire after all.

Seeing that the entire palace was sealed by officers and soldiers, and Emperor He An had not been to the court for many days, even a fool knew that Emperor He An must have had an accident.

Could it be that the Xie family has launched another mutiny? Do you want to be the emperor directly this time?

Because of the lessons of the past, this speculation was the first thing that came to the mind of many families and officials.

It's just that due to the power of the Xie family, no one dares to ask about the whereabouts of Emperor He, and everyone is tacitly pretending to be deaf and dumb.

Xie Yuheng naturally knew what everyone in the court was thinking, but he had a hard time.

He didn't dare to directly say that there was a plague outbreak in the palace, and the emperor and the two princes were now being treated, and their lives and deaths were uncertain.

He was afraid that if he said this, the entire court would be in turmoil.

Everyone knows that it is the Xie family who now controls the government, and Emperor He An is just that fig leaf.

But at this stormy juncture, the Zhao family, which has been established for more than 200 years, is a fig leaf that can gather people's hearts and fight against Hu together, and it must not be discarded at this time.

However, since Mr. Qiu, who was planning this move behind the scenes, has already come here, how could he not have a back move.

Just when everyone in the court was suspicious, the "Seeking Truth" that had been disappearing reappeared.

Every time this mysterious tabloid appears, it causes an uproar among the people, and this time is no exception.

This time, "Qiuzhen Daily" reported an astonishing news: a plague broke out in the palace, and Emperor An and the two princes fell ill one after another, and their lives and deaths were unknown. The Xie family closed the news and besieged the palace.

Although no one knows the origin of this "Seeking Truth", every time it appears, the content reported is true, so many people subconsciously believe what it reports.

Almost overnight, the tabloid newspaper was circulating everywhere in the provinces of Jiangnan, and almost everyone who could read and could read had read it.

Especially the hundreds of officials in the court, after comparing the abnormal behavior of the Xie family, they learned that such a major event had happened in the palace, and they were all shocked.

If the court is still like this, the impact on the people will be even greater.

There was a plague rampant in the past, the invasion of the Hu people in the back, and now the emperor is seriously ill, this series of bad news makes more and more people feel that the Great Wei is really going to die.

The so-called trees fell and Sun scattered, and for a time, there was a large number of fleeing waves in various places.

Many people fled to the north with their families in the hope that they could escape from the troubled Jiangnan.

This is true for ordinary people, not to mention those merchants and wealthy gentry who have a certain family background.

It's just that they will not follow the army of displaced people to the north, but choose to secretly take a boat to move to Jiujiang Province in the northeast.

Because many merchants who have been to Jiujiang say that Jiujiang is willing to accept merchants and wealthy families from Jiangnan to settle in the local area, but the premise is that they must hand over a certain amount of grain before they can take refuge in the city.

Although Jiujiang's practice is suspected of taking advantage of the fire to rob, in order to save their own lives, these businessmen and rich gentry can manage so much, and they have moved to Jiujiang with all their belongings.

For this wave of fleeing from the provinces south of the Yangtze River, the Xie family didn't want to stop it, but they were really powerless.

In order to resist the menacing Hu people, the Xie family has sent most of their troops to various important towns on the front line to defend.

The remaining troops have to be dispersed to various places for epidemic prevention and quarantine, and there is no surplus manpower to prevent the people from fleeing.

At this time, it can only be described by the word "chaos", everything is chaotic.

This panic not only affected the people and merchants, but even the ordinary soldiers in the army had a sense of doom and morale became extremely low.

If it weren't for the fact that there was still food to eat, it is estimated that there would have been a wave of deserters in the army.

At this time of panic and panic, the Hu people, who had occupied Xuyang Mansion not long ago, started a new round of attack after repairing.

In just two months, the Hu people captured many county seats.

In the face of the Hu people's overwhelming offensive, the Xie family had completely given up sending troops to rescue these small counties, and instead concentrated their forces on defending several large cities such as Ganyang, Wanzhou, Fengchun, and Huazhou.

Finally, after a round of attacks, the Hu people set their sights on the city of Wanzhou in Huainan Province.

Wanzhou City is the gateway city of Huainan Province, once this city is lost, the Hu people can drive straight into the entire Huainan region.

Huainan Province is only more than 600 miles away from Xinjing, which is an extremely important buffer zone.

If the Hu people are really killed, then Xinjing will be in danger.

In order to protect Wanzhou City, Xie Yuheng not only mobilized a large army to gather here, but he also personally led his eldest son Xie Changfeng and nephew Xie Changping to Wanzhou City to supervise the battle.

In order to ensure that nothing went wrong, Xie Yuheng even brought 3,400 firecrackers made by the Ministry of Industry for three years, working day and night, as the secret weapon of this city defense battle.

At this time, more than 200,000 soldiers and more than 100,000 people had gathered in Wanzhou City, of which 46,000 soldiers were the Southwest Army cultivated by An Guogong back then, and they were also the real members of the Xie family.

Now in order to win this battle, the Xie family has even transferred this Yan clan's people.

Although the rest of the men and horses are not the troops of the Yan clan, they are also capable soldiers who have been mobilized from all over the country.

It can be said that this time the Xie family really took out all the belongings at the bottom of the box.

Xie Yuheng and others are well aware of the importance of this battle.

If the battle is won, even if the Hu people cannot be allowed to retreat to the south, they can at least allow the Xie family to reorganize Jiangnan and leave it for another battle in the future.

But if they lose, then the Xie family will have no way out.

Therefore, this battle must be won no matter what.

Just when the Wei army was waiting for the Hu people to come, the Hu army did not show its face for a long time.

One, two, three...... Soon half a month passed, but there was still no trace of Hu Ren.

Due to the more than 200,000 soldiers in the city and a large number of people, the amount of grain and grass consumed by so many people and horses every day is astronomical, which can't help but make Xie Yuheng and the others more and more anxious.

Could it be that the Hu people are really not coming?

Two days later, Hu Ren finally appeared.

But this time there were not only Hu people, but also others.

When they saw the crowd walking in front of Hu Daren's army, including Xie Yuheng, almost everyone's faces changed.

I saw that walking in front of the Hu army, there were more than 100,000 people of the Great Wei who were roped together like livestock.

These people ranged in age from their teens to their fifties and sixties, all men, and none of them were women.

Their clothes were ragged and their faces were full of misery, and they were whipped forward by the Hu people like walking corpses.

And just behind the Hu army, there is another even larger team.

Unlike the male civilians in the first row, these people were all weeping women and children.

They were also roped together like cattle, and were driven away by the Hu people with whips.

At this time, Xie Yuheng and the others finally knew why the Hu people came so slowly, it turned out to drive these people over.

As for why the Hu people did this, almost everyone has already thought about it.

Needless to say, the Hu people wanted to use these people as substitutes for the dead.

There have long been many records in the history books of the enemy driving their own people to serve as siege soldiers, but most of them are only a few thousand or tens of thousands.

The scale of driving more than 100,000 people to act as substitutes for the dead like the Hu people is unprecedented.

Just a few small counties will definitely not be able to get together so many people, and it is obvious that most of them are the people of Xuyang Mansion, which was captured not long ago.

After knowing the Hu people's plans, Xie Yuheng immediately ordered all the generals: "Pass my order, after the war starts, no matter the Hu people or civilians, anyone who dares to approach the city wall will be killed." Did you hear it all? ”

"Yes, General."

The generals responded in unison.

Xie Yuheng looked around at the head of the black crow crow under the city and sneered: "I want to win by relying on more people, Hu Ren really underestimates our Xie family." ”