While the people in Bianjing were panicking, there was a strange calm inside and outside Hejian City. The Liao cavalry under the soldiers did not rush to attack the city, but only plundered the countryside and forcibly captured the people to build camps. The north and south sides of the river are crisscrossed by canals, and it is difficult for the Liao cavalry to deploy, so they camp in the east of the river.

Not far to the west of the Liao army camp is the bifurcation of two tributaries of the Yellow River, every time Sima Wang Yan patrols the city, looking at the continuous camp tents of the Liao people, he will sigh, if the 200,000 troops in the Hebei camp are complete, from the river to the west to oppress the Liao army, with the narrowness between the two tributaries of the Yellow River, these Liao cavalry can be driven down the Yellow River to feed the fish.

The Liao army did not attack the city for a long time, but only built fortifications, and even the communication between Hejian Fucheng and the Yellow River wharf was not cut off. Outside the chaos of war, the tall mansion city between the river gave the surrounding rural people an illusion of safety, more than 20 days of effort, the people fled into the city of the river as many as 100,000. Zhu said that because he fled in a hurry, he almost only wore a single coat and ran out empty-handed, Wuheng's tenant farmer Wang 13 lived by digging rat food all the way, and some hid in the field during the day to avoid the Liao soldiers, Liu Mazi of Xian County wanted to cross the freshly thawed river and flee to the south in the dark, but was frightened by the drowned floating corpses of the Yellow River in the morning, and fled to Hejian City to the north. The Liao soldiers even deliberately drove the people of the Song State to the river, leaving the men and women in their prime, driving the old and the young into the city, consuming the grain and grass of the Song army, and the intentions were quite vicious.

Since retreating to Hejian, Tong Guan almost completely handed over the city defense to Wang Yan, Han Shizhong and other generals, and worked with a group of scribes to ponder the military reports sent to Bianjing every day.

In this period of calm and strange days, in the military newspaper between the river, the Hebei camp and the Liao army fought day by day, several battles, killed tens of thousands, Tong Guan must be the first soldier in every battle, and supervised the army to serve the emperor, because it was too close to the front, the Liao soldiers were hit by several arrows, and the Tong Gonggong Judah shouted a hearty battle, and finally inspired the soldiers to retreat from the Liao soldiers, and when the thousand armies were defeated, they turned the tide and did not lose the river, and became the mainstay of the Great Song Dynasty to resist Liao.

In the twists and turns, Tong Guan vaguely mentioned that the mutiny in the Hebei camp was related to the deduction of the reward, the prince Zhao Ke was too afraid of the enemy, and was unwilling to go to the front line in person, and the Daimyo's mansion was not effective in transporting grain and grass, which also made the soldiers and soldiers of the Hebei camp frustrated, and Tong Guan was willing to confront the cowards who caused the loss of the teacher and humiliated the country in front of the official family.

Tong Guan also claimed that Sima Wang Yan of the Hebei march was of great use, and the current Liao attacks were repeatedly repulsed, and the situation between the rivers gradually stabilized, which was enough to take on the responsibility of guarding the rivers.

On the night when the Hebei camp was attacked by the Khitan cavalry, most of the civil officials and scribes were separated. Together with the secretary Zhou Dingchen, Tong Guan summoned several scribes from Xiaochang's writing to draft a daily military newspaper.

Therefore, Sima Wang Yan, the marching army who coordinated the city defense, had no one available, and Zhao Xingde, who had nothing to do, became Wang Yan's scribe, and followed Wang Yan to inspect the army and civilians during the day, count the remaining grain and grass equipment in the city, and make a register of the refugees who fled in, and arrange for the officials of the battalion to give porridge to the old and weak every day. Zhao Xingde is proficient in mental arithmetic, and often closes his eyes and thinks about it, and he can calculate the days when the city's rations are distributed and supported.

When the armies asked for the replenishment of ordnance, grain and grass, Wang Yan often asked casually, "Is the treasury still worth it?" Or, "Did you really run out of the previous distribution?" Zhao Xingde was able to answer immediately, so Wang Yan took him with him wherever he went.

Taking this opportunity, Zhao Xingde can be regarded as one of the people who knows the situation in Hejian City the most. There are more than 40,000 forbidden troops in the city, another 5,000 van troops, and 220,000 people, and among the people, there are 60,000 Ding Zhuang and 40,000 healthy women, and the rest are old and weak who are unusable and only consume food. There was a lot of ammunition in the city, but because of the influx of people into the city, there was a shortage of food and grass. Some scribes had already reminded Wang Yan not to fall for the calculations of the Liao people and stop letting the fleeing people into the city.

"These are the people of my Great Song Dynasty," Wang Yan pointed to the endless stream of people under the city tower to help the old and the young, and the Liao soldiers burned all the nearby villages that could be burned. "What you eat in your mouths and what you wear on your bodies are all the fat of the people and the ointment of the people, and now our people are caught in fire and water, and they forbear to abandon them, what is the difference between man and beast? How am I different from a thief? ”

Wang Yan usually does not smile, he is quite serious, and his staff does not dare to persuade him again.

Zhao Xingde could only make repeated calculations to ensure that the distribution of gruel among the people in the city did not starve to death, and the grain and grass could still support three months. Zhao Xingde estimated that the Liao army actually burned down the village without foresight, and at the time of the lack of success, the logistics of the hundreds of thousands of Liao soldiers who entered the city were also worrisome, but the Liao soldiers had an advantage over the Song army in the besieged city, and they could always find some food in the field, and they could eat horse meat if they couldn't do it.

Although the Liao army did not attack the city, there were also confrontations between the Song and Liao sides, every few days, the Liao general Yelu Dashi would send someone to send a letter to persuade him to surrender, when Zhao Xingde read to Wang Yan, Wang Yan was too lazy to reply, but later there were envoys who persuaded to surrender, whether it was a Khitan or a Han, cut off their ears and put them back, and Yelu Dashi was no longer persuaded to surrender.

"This Wang Yan is really hateful, my lord, the last general is willing to take a fine cavalry and burn the dock outside Hejian City first." The commander of the pro-soldiers, Yelu Tiege said angrily.

"There's no hurry at this time." Yelu Dashi looked at the city between the rivers, two wide rivers flow through its north and south sides, and there are ice ridges floating on the river, "The river is a heroic city, even if we have a huge artillery bombardment, if the defenders desperately defend it, it will be difficult to conquer in a short time, the so-called art of war is to encircle three queyi, open one side, and keep this pier." ”

This time, the elite soldiers of Nanjing Dao of the Liao State poured out of the nest, and there were 30,000 elite cavalry only under the city of Hejian, plus the retinue of beating the grass valley and plundering the people, a total of more than 50,000 cavalry, most of these cavalry were not in the large camp of the Yellow River fork, but in the unit of 1,000 people, scattered around the wider ground.

The cavalry and retinue of each Khitan cavalry captured two or three Hebei civilians and forced them to look for fodder and grain. At night, the Khitans' tents and bonfires were all over the place, just like the stars in the sky. At the same time, people and horses from the north continued to gather here, and most of the camps built by the Khitans were empty and dark at night.

The night is cold, Wang Yan still took his relatives to inspect the city wall guard, he has served as the commander of the Jinguan Mansion, has subdued many thieves and bandits, but under the pressure of the Liao army to lead the troops to defend the city is the first time, when he came out to advise Tong Guan to deploy Tong Guan to retreat to the river, Tong Guan also took advantage of the situation to entrust the heavy responsibility of defending the city to him.

The generals were afraid of the Jinean Mansion, although they did not dare to disobey, but there was always some secret meaning of the joke, Wang Yan had to fight the spirit, do everything himself, Zhao Xingde was tired of him, more than 20 days later, people also lost a circle, to look like a scribe who has been in the army for many years.

When I came to a hidden soldier cave behind the city wall, I saw that the fire was extinguished, and it seemed that the soldiers were warming the fire. Because the soldiers often dozed off at night, Wang Yan and the others also approached quietly, but they heard the sound of someone talking in the cave of the hidden soldiers, Wang Yan felt strange in his heart, so he beckoned Zhao Xingde and the others to lower their feet and listen to what these soldiers were talking about.

But I heard a voice and said slowly: "During the former Tang Yongtai period, there was a scholar surnamed Wang in Xiaogan Temple in Yangzhou, this scholar drank excessively, just like today's cold night, drunk into a puddle of mud, kicked the door and fell to the bed, the hand was still hanging on the ground, the Hun family was worried that he was suffering from the cold, lifted the hot quilt, just wanted to pull the scholar's hand up, a pull can not move, no longer pull and move, probe to see, suddenly saw a dry hand in the dark, tightly grasped the scholar's arm, and pulled to the ground suddenly. "This person seems to be a rough and narrow ghost, telling such a scary story in this cold night, and his tone seems to have a ghostly aura in his tone, and when it comes to the critical moment, he suddenly makes a loud noise, which is really scary.

The woman's strength was so weak that she couldn't bear it, so that the scholar's body was pulled into the ground by a huge hand. But the Hun family was frightened, called the slave maid, and pulled the scholar's thigh together, preventing him from sinking to the ground, but he couldn't resist the strength of the dry bones, and finally the scholar disappeared into the cracks. The woman, who had lost her husband, wept and fussed, gathered the whole family to move the bed, and dug down more than two feet to dig out the bones of a dead man, which seemed to be hundreds of years old. But the scholar surnamed Wang was never found again. At that time, the cold wind was howling, and everyone thought about it, and after that night, a big living person was dragged into the underworld by ghosts, and the back of his neck couldn't help but feel a little cold.

Then a soldier said: "Su Wenyu, let you tell stories and wake up and doze off, don't always talk about these ghosts and ghosts, this dozing is awake, can people still sleep again?" Everyone laughed and scolded the soldier for being timid.

Zhao Xingde didn't expect that this group of soldiers would actually gather in the hidden soldier cave to listen to ghost stories because of the long night, and when they remembered the past, they couldn't help but smile. At this time, Wang Yan's brows were also slightly relaxed, he coughed lightly, and led the army inside, and the eight soldiers on night saw Wang Sima patrolling the night, and they all got up and saluted him.

"Who was talking just now?" Wang Yan looked around, they were all young soldiers, most of them were burly, but their clothes were different from ordinary Hebei soldiers. "The last general, Su Wenyu, please forgive Wang Sima!" The middle one bowed his head and said.

Wang Yan looked up and down, his eyes fell on a sign on his waist, and he suddenly smiled: "Is it from the son of the bow horse?" Zhou Tiju is good, why don't you teach the seven books of martial arts, but instead look like the 'Youyang Miscellaneous'. ”

Wang Yan was also born here, and he has been in the army in Hebei for more than ten years.

Seeing that Wang Yan didn't seem to be reprimanded, everyone sat down together, and after hearing that Wang Yan was also a disciple of the bow horse, Su Wenyu smiled even more: "Zhou Tiju didn't teach, and finally found himself to pass the time." ”

Although these children of the bow horses in Beijing were not as knowledgeable as the students, they had also read a lot of miscellaneous books, and they were bold by nature, and the winter nights were cold, so Wang Yan and these soldiers gathered around the fire to bake charcoal fires. Zhao Xingde has never had a fight, and when it comes to the matter of righteousness, he plans to continue to open it in the siege of this river, and print out the deeds of the heroic resistance of the various armies to the enemy, so as to inspire the morale of the army.