At the beginning of April, the Zhou army launched an offensive just over half a month ago. The envoy of Qinzhou Xiongwu Jiedu fled to Chengdu, and the envoy of Fengzhou Weiwu Jiedu was besieged and killed in Weiwu City, and no one in Qin and Feng was able to mobilize troops anymore. The garrison of Guzhen thought that the city wall of Jiezhen was too low, and Fengzhou in the east was besieged again, so they rushed west to Chengzhou. Guo Shao's troops occupied Guzhen bloodlessly.

Qinzhou in the northwest (near Tianshui City, known as Shangqi in ancient times), after Han Jixun, the marshal of the Xiongwu Festival, fled, he transferred the judge Zhao Wei to Qinzhou and ordered him to defend the city.

Zhao Wei felt very helpless, as soon as he took over the city defense, many routs came from the direction of Qinling and Weishui; How the situation looks, how wrong it is. He ordered his generals to arrest the rebels and inquire, only to learn that the Zhou army was marching into Qinzhou from the north and south.

At this moment, the Shu army grabbed a fine work. He claimed to be an envoy of the Zhou army and brought him to Zhao Wei.

The envoy tore open his clothes, took out a letter, handed it over without humility or arrogance, and said: "I am General Xiang Xun, the commander of the Great Zhou Western Expeditionary Army, Zhen'an Jiedu, and ...... general" He looked back around and continued, "Zhang Qi, the guest of the scene. The forward of today's Western Expeditionary Army drove straight into and captured more than 10,000 people, and had occupied Guzhen; The towns of Fengzhou were unable to fight again and fell into a heavy siege, and Qin Feng became a leader. Qinzhou is lonely and hangs outside!

The Fengxiang army and the Zhen'an army have advanced to Qinzhou in two ways. Why didn't the general judge the situation and surrender to Qinzhou? First, to avoid the misery of Qinzhou, and secondly, to personally promise to the festival marshal that he must first treat the soldiers of Qinzhou well, and then ask the court for merit, and recommend the main general of Qinzhou to enter the Great Zhou as an official ......"

Zhao Wei pretended to be annoyed, and without waiting for the messenger to finish speaking, he said coldly: "It turned out that it was persuaded to surrender, come on, take it for me!" ”

The messenger raised his head and said: "If you can't listen to your ears and insist on going your own way, please take the soup wok." ”

After Zhao Wei retreated to the hall, his cousin hurriedly followed, and said hurriedly: "Qinzhou is bound to become a lonely city, and the Zhou army is pressing the border. What the envoy said was consistent with the description of the rout, and the Chengzhou messenger confirmed that Guzhen was occupied...... Why not take the opportunity to surrender the city? If the situation wasn't critical, how could Han Jixun run overnight? ”

"You come with me." Zhao Wei led his cousin to the signing room, and said in a deep voice, "Although the generals of Qinzhou are panicked and have no fighting spirit, I am not familiar with them. If you say in public that you want to surrender, if a military general gives an order and rushes up to chop us up, what will you do? ”

The cousin hurriedly said: "What do you mean by brother......"

"Chengzhou and Jiezhou are friends with me, you can secretly go out of Qinzhou, run to Chengzhou and Jiezhou at night, and bring my handwritten letter to ask them to surrender together, and the credit will be even greater at that time." Zhao Wei pondered for a moment and said, "Qinzhou asked me to do it, quietly let go of the envoy for a while, send someone to escort him out, and ask that Xiang Jie Shuai to come." As soon as the Zhou army arrives, I will guard the east gate with my heart, open the city gate and let the Zhou army enter the city, and the big thing can be decided! ”

……

A few days later, the mighty city was breached by Wang Jingbu, and the Shu army killed Wang Huan in battle; In mid-April, the three prefectures of Qin, Cheng, and Jiecheng surrendered.

The lonely city of Fengzhou was surrounded by several armies and became an isolated city. Wang Jing ordered a siege on three sides, and a frenzied siege day and night.

Guo Shao personally rushed to Fengzhou, and under the pretext of strengthening defense, he hurriedly withdrew the first army of Hujie's left wing. The army was moving westward one after another, Guo Shao couldn't help but look back at Fengzhou City, a familiar scene was in front of him, this scene was so similar to what Jinyang saw!

Fengzhou is backed by a mountain on one side, and the city walls on three sides are full of people, and looking at it from a distance, it makes people's scalps tingle. The Zhou army went up to the forbidden army and down to the local festival town army, and there seemed to be no second way to attack the city, only one dry method: climbing the wall without brains.

In this situation, the whole city seemed to be a cake thrown on the side of the road, crawled all over by a group of ants, and there were black figures falling on it, and the smoke and dust were billowing around, and the shouts of the people could be heard clearly from two miles away.

There seemed to be a burnt smell wafting in the wind, mixed with a disgusting fishy smell. Guo Shao no longer stayed, and led the army straight to Guzhen.

In the evening of the same day, the scout reported that someone had arrived in Tokyo. Guo Shao hurriedly left the barracks and waited outside the town, and after waiting for a while, he saw a civilian official wearing a black veil and a round-necked green robe coming on horseback, followed by a few retinues and more than ten cavalrymen.

Guo Shao has never been a civil official, and he has worn the official uniform of the assassin once he was issued, but he also has a general understanding of the official costumes of the Zhou Dynasty, and the civil officials who came were not of high rank. And he is very young, with a good face, sitting on a horse in a flat and stable position, and his face looks yellow and thin, I don't know if it is because of the hard work of the road.

Guo Shao smiled hospitablely and stood still. When the civil official saw that the generals at the gate of the camp were surrounded by a military general, he got off his horse and asked, "I want to see Guo Du, the vanguard of the Western Expedition, to pick up Lu Duoxun on the lower left." First in Fengxiang, Fengxiang's colleagues informed Guo Du that he was in Guzhen. ”

"I'm Guo Shao, I've been waiting for a long time." Guo Shao said directly, and said with a smile, "It turns out that it is a colleague from Tokyo, please invite Dr. Lu to the Chinese army." ”

Lu Duoxun hurriedly said: "Congratulations, congratulations, Guo Du has been promoted!" ”

The crowd laughed and was elated. Yang Biao, who was present, completely ignored the etiquette, grabbed Lu Duoxun's sleeve, and asked, "Don't talk about everything, what position has my eldest brother been promoted?" ”

Lu Duoxun was stunned, and it was difficult to shake off the sleeves of his robe, so he had to say: "Prime Minister Wang Cheng personally asked the subordinate officials to send the appointment certificate, and when he left Beijing, the imperial court did not know that the three prefectures of Qin, Cheng, and Jiezhou had been recovered; This time, the Privy Council's commendation is only about Guo Du's achievements in Weiwu City and Huanghua Valley for winning the Shu army. Xia Guanxian has informed Wang Jieshuai, the commander of the Western Expedition......"

"! Why are you talking so much nonsense? Yang Biao scolded. Everyone was smiling and didn't care.

Lu Duoxun was so scolded that he forgot what he had just said, so he had to say: "Hujie is the commander of the left wing, and he is also the commander of the Shangzhou regiment, and he is the camp supervisor of the Western Expeditionary Army. ”

"Say no and it's over!" Yang Biao scolded and quarreled again. Everyone didn't speak for a while, and it was estimated that they were pondering how big the commander of the box was...... The four elites of the forbidden army of the Zhou Dynasty, the Hujie Army was one of them; The Hujie army is divided into two compartments, which means that Guo Shao's military power has theoretically one-eighth of the main force of the forbidden army of the entire Zhou Dynasty, and of course it will be subject to many restrictions.

Guo Shao laughed and said: "Doctor Lu is not like a martial artist, the brothers are all rough people. ”

"No, no, no." Lu Duosun followed Guo Shao into the barracks, and casually mentioned it, "I hope General Guo will say a few good words in front of Prime Minister Wang." He just saw that everyone was happy, and took the opportunity to say it casually, maybe the generals didn't care about such a sentence.

Unexpectedly, after Guo Shao entered the line, he specifically said the sentence just now: "I know the prime minister of the Ministry of Rites, Shangshu Wang Cheng, his second son once went to the forbidden army camp to join the army, I sent it back, and I became familiar with him." If we can meet again next time, I will definitely talk about this time when Dr. Lu traveled thousands of miles and walked the difficult Shu Road to the front line to comfort the soldiers. ”

A left-hand pick-up, his job is to check and fill in the gaps and make suggestions by the emperor's side. Guo Shao thought about it anyway, he didn't need money to say good things, and he was quite polite between his words.

Lu Duosun is young after all, and it seems that he has just been an official for a long time, and when he heard that a general was so courteous, he immediately said with a sincere face: "I don't hide it, the lower official came from a humble background, just became a jinshi, and was originally a secretary." I wrote a poem and sent it to Prime Minister Wang, so I made a left legacy, and I was entrusted by Prime Minister Wang Cheng to come to deliver official documents and reward the soldiers in front of the court for the imperial court, which was really honored, and there was no hardship. ”

"If you win the Jinshi, that's one in ten thousand." Guo Shao said casually, thinking in his heart that although he was close to a high-level general, he didn't seem to be able to accept Jinshi as a staff member.

Lu Duoxun was empty-handed, saying that the letter of appointment had been handed over to Wang Jing, the chief general of the Western Expeditionary Army. Guo Shao had no choice but to talk to him with his generals, Lu Duoxun was a civil official who had read a lot of books, and he had nothing to say to the generals, except for Guo Shao to talk to, only Li Chuyun could still say a few words from time to time.

After a while, his subordinates came up with dinner. A large basket of wheat cakes, two wooden barrels of vegetable leaf soup, and a few pieces of cured meat were thrown into it.

Unexpectedly, Lu Duosun didn't pick at all, ate three flatbreads in a row, drank two iron cups of vegetable soup, chewed with relish, and lost all his previous elegant manners. He suddenly found Guo Shao smiling at himself, and said busily: "My family is also a generation of students, but it is a family of Confucianism. If the way of heaven is not good, it is common to eat bran vegetables. This wheat bread is made of fine grain, and it tastes good. ”

After hearing this, the generals looked at Lu Duoson's eyes a little softer.

Guo Shaodao: "The soldiers are in front of the battle, fighting bloodily, we can't eat better than the soldiers, the food is the same up and down, there are really no dishes to prepare, Doctor Lu is used to eating." ”

Yang Biao snorted and said: "Just eat this food, we still snatched it from the Shu army, otherwise we won't even have to eat wheat cakes." ”