Chapter 182 The Flames of War Begin in the Mountains

Although Cui He's face was shocked, he was not as out of shape as Wei Liaoweng.

Wei Liaoweng is a scholar, but Cui He used to be a marshal, when he supervised Shu, he often fought with the Jin people, and he also had a lot of experience in military affairs.

He also entered the court for two months, and he learned about the situation of the Hu people through various intelligence channels. The Jin State was able to defeat the Kaixi Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty more than ten years ago, but in front of the Hu people, they only lost their troops and lost their land, and the Hu people's combat power made him extremely shocked.

"Your Majesty has foresight, if it weren't for the Liuqiu army placed in Xuzhou, Huaibei, with the ...... of the two Huai forbidden armies and the loyal and righteous army," he thought for a long time, and said with a wry smile: "I'm afraid that it will be difficult to stop its front, and I can only rely on the Yangtze River." ”

It is undeniable that in the hearts of the courtiers of the Great Song Dynasty, the Liuqiu army that defeated the Jin State twice with 3,000 people is one of the strongest armies. It's just that the name of the Liuqiu Escort is awkward, and it is not good, so in private, the officials call this army, which has an extraordinary relationship with the Son of Heaven and the noble concubine, the "Liuqiu Army" or the "Guards".

Gradually, this title also became the official name of the Escort in the Great Song Dynasty army sequence, and the name "Escort Team" was used within it.

"Your Majesty, only by the Guards...... After all, it was a little more dangerous, and the minister thought that he should reinforce the Guards. Some time ago, in order to train a new army, His Majesty transferred a forbidden army from Gyeonggi, so he might as well use this forbidden army to go north by boat for reinforcements. ”

Yue Ke is a soldier of the Ministry of War, he said loudly, Zhao Heju smiled slightly, Yue Ke only said common sense, he is not a good soldier of the Ministry of War, but with the help of Yue Fei's prestige, so he uses his ear.

"Jingfu is a heavy land, and it cannot be moved." Cui He shook his head and said: "Now I don't know how many soldiers and horses there are in Menghu, don't act rashly, with Zhende Xiu to transfer two strong Huai troops, Peng Yibin gathered the Jingdong Loyal and Righteous Army, and joined forces on the south bank of the Huai River, attacking it in the middle stream, which is a foolproof strategy." ”

Zhao and Ju ordered people to bring a map, pointed to the Huai River on the map, and then went north to Hebei: "In this way, the land of Jingdong ......"

If you use Cui's strategy, Jingdong can only give up. Cui is so decisive, he has his own reason, the combat effectiveness of the loyal and righteous army, when the battle is smooth, is extremely strong, but if there is a stalemate or downwind, it is often scattered in a roar, and it is scattered all over Jingdong, the Hu cavalry is fast, and it is easy for the enemy to break through. Although Zhendexiu's Lianghuai is a strong army, but after the rebellion in Chuzhou, the morale is not high, and it is okay to defend according to the danger, but it is not possible to take the initiative to attack. The Liuqiu army is a strong army in the Great Song Dynasty today, the soldiers are neat and tidy, and the armor is distinct, but the number is not much, and the number of troops has been increased twice, and the number of Liuqiu troops in Xuzhou is only 5,000 people. Therefore, if Meng Huzhen moves south, it is really a last resort to protect the Huai River.

Zhao Youju didn't think so, guarding the Huai River, but he could resist the enemy, and acting like this would inevitably lead to the interruption of the development of Jingdong, which he had high hopes for.

"I think I can fight Humon here." He pointed to a place on the map, and said with a blazing gaze: "I am afraid that the land of Jingdong and Huaibei will no longer be owned by me, and I think that the Hu people are not good at boating, and since Li Quan, I know that our navy is sharp, and I will inevitably avoid the coast, but choose this road to go south." I expected that the Hu people had two purposes for going south this time, one was to plunder the Great Song Dynasty to provide supplies, and the other was to seize Xuzhou as the basis for attacking gold. ”

"Therefore, Xuzhou is the key to this battle, so that the loyal and righteous army will give way, keep Jingdong East Road, and let Menghu go south, we are here, take advantage of the rivers and lakes, and fight a decisive battle with Menghu in the wilderness!"

Zhao and Ju thought that the Great Song Dynasty was currently stronger than Menghu, one was the naval army, the other was artillery, and the retreat was a move, although it could give full play to the strengths of these two, but Menghu had no one, how could he be easily fooled. If Temujin used Li Quan to win the hearts of Jingdong, he would confront the Great Song Dynasty across the Huai River, and the enemy would be cut down, which would not be a lasting way. Moreover, abandoning the land of Jingdong without a fight will terrify the people, and the reputation that they have built up for a long time will probably be ruined.

The enemy must be engaged in battle north of the Huai River, and must be defeated, only in this way can the losses be minimized. If there is any failure, it is not too late to retreat across the Huai River and engage the enemy under the city of Xuzhou.

"Now that the officials have decided, it is not too late to send food and salary to the front line as soon as possible, and reinforcements from all parts should also be ready to go." Cui He simply accepted Zhao and Ju's judgment, he thought that the estimation of the combat power of the convection army was not as accurate as Zhao and Ju, so Zhao and Ju thought that they could fight with Menghu in the field, so they had a field battle with Menghu.

"I will issue a secret decree with expeditiousness, I hope ...... It's not too late. Zhao Youju smiled bitterly.

He didn't think that Menghu would give him time to prepare calmly, and it was very likely that at the same time as Shima Guangyan came south, Menghu had already mobilized the army, and then he was discharged.

As he expected, in the afternoon of the same day, an urgent military report from Jingdong arrived in Lin'an, and Menghu, with Shi Tianze and Li Quan as the main and deputy vanguards, raised 150,000 troops, and had already left Yanyun and pointed directly at Jingdong. Peng Yibin's troops fought with the daimyo at the daimyo, and retreated unfavorably, and defended the Maji River to fight again, but it was not conducive to rout. When this military report was issued, the Menghu forward had already rushed to Yanggu, a small town in Yanggu County, which was low and lacked money and food, so it was impossible to defend at all.

As soon as the military report arrived, the whole court was shocked.

Before the military report arrived in Lin'an, Li Ye of Xuzhou got the news, and this kind of unexpected situation was not unexpected for him, because in the habit of Liuqiu, they all had an "emergency plan", that is, before that, he made preparations for how to deal with the Jin State and the Hu people.

The first is to gather the people, not only the people in the various places under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou, but he will take all the people in all the places he can touch to cross the Yellow River and send them to the rear of the south bank. The returnees from Liuqiu had already arrived in various parts of Xuzhou, and they formed the core of Xuzhou's low-level farms, so this migration was greatly aided by them, and in many cases they were immediately operational as soon as the messenger arrived. Although the use of force was inevitable, within five days there were almost no people on the north bank of the Yellow River.

Menghu is accustomed to coercing the common people as a precursor, and withdrawing the civilians can make Menghu have no captivity and no use.

The second is to contact Peng Yibin and Zhen Dexiu to inform them of their countermeasures. The system of seeking from each other is most taboo to fight separately and not help each other, and to contact Peng Yibin and Zhen Dexiu, you can also use them, especially Peng Yibin is currently on the front line to fight against Menghu and collect Menghu's military information.

The third is to mobilize in Xuzhou and Huaibei. Although there are only 5,000 Liuqiu guards stationed in Xuzhou, since September, more than 10,000 Liuqiu people have come to Huaibei, Xuzhou, or Tuntian, or to open mines, and they are all trained in military affairs, and at least half of them can be used as auxiliaries immediately -- although they are auxiliaries, in terms of combat effectiveness, they are better than the elite of the loyal and righteous army.

On March 25 of the first year of Yanhuang of the Great Song Dynasty, an envoy from Lin'an brought a secret decree from the Son of Heaven to cross the river with Li Ye's overseer army and choose a place to fight Menghu.

At this time, Xuzhou City has completely become a militarized city, and the city defense is all taken over by mobilized auxiliaries, and 5,000 elites will gather in the barracks, and no one will leave without permission. The artillery guards wiped the heavy artillery and field light artillery at the head of the city clean and transparent, and the warehouses in the city were full of grain and grass materials for armaments.

Li Ye squinted his eyes and stood at the edge of the queue with his chest straight, the news that Wang Yu was killed by the Hu people had already spread, and many of the grassroots officers of these escort teams were Wang Yu's students, and there was almost no need to agitate for revenge for the division.

"Li Hanfan, take care of yourself here."

Liu Quan grabbed Li Ye's arm and shook it vigorously, and then said with a smile: "It's okay if you lose other things, that job is not taken away by Hu Ren, your new daughter-in-law is still waiting for you!" ”

Two months ago, Li Ye became a relative and married a local girl in Xuzhou, which can be regarded as a move to stabilize the hearts of the people in Xuzhou. However, Li Ye is still very considerate to this girl, and the righteous young man who came out of Yuzhang Villa has three wives and four concubines, and he will not regard women as objects.

"Old thing, what's wrong with Fang Youcai?" Li Ye smiled, but he didn't see much nervousness on his face, but asked about Fang Youcai. Because of the flood in Xuzhou, Fang Youcai was sent by the Son of Heaven, but he didn't do it for a few days before he encountered this incident. With Li Ye's understanding of the other party's wealth, he must want to run away at this moment, as far as he goes.

"The old thief walked up the riverbank in great form, and he said what a mere hulu was, and when the cannon went off, it was full of broth. He also said that you should not forget to bring him some Hu people's gadgets, which can be regarded as a reward for his hard work......" Liu Quanpu smiled, shook his head and said: "That guy is following the boat, as long as there is something, you can get on the boat at any time." ”

Li Ye laughed when he heard it, Fang Youcai was afraid of being trapped in Xuzhou City, so this was the case, but he was still a dead duck with a hard mouth.

"This time, I'll go and try to bring Menghu's iron-clad work to the old man, so that he can make up for it." Li Ye scolded, and said with a solemn expression: "Wang Yu's revenge must be avenged!" ”

"I expect that in some time, Liuqiu will send reinforcements." Liu Quan nodded and said, "You can rest assured of this Xuzhou." ”

After Menghu broke the Yang Valley, he marched eastward, conquering Dong'e and Tai'an, and then turned south. At this time, Peng Yibin also received the imperial court's order, asking him to retire to Ludong, Peng Yibin fought three battles, all of them were defeated, and he also lost his heart of war, and learned that the Liuqiu army had crossed the river, so he let Qufu open and retreated to Yizhou, and at the same time shrank his troops from everywhere and prepared to cross the river.

On April 2 of the first year of Yanhuang, Nansha River in Tengzhou.

Tian Jiehu rode on the horse vividly, looked at the group of soldiers behind him, and laughed twice.

Since the defeat of Xuzhou, he and the department will be under the jurisdiction of Li Ye, their combat effectiveness is not successful, the rout is extremely powerful, when the Jin State counterattacked Xuzhou, initially Li Ye took them as the vanguard of the field battle, as soon as the battle was engaged, the whole army was defeated, which made Li Ye extremely disappointed, and the evaluation of them behind his back was "nothing but escape". However, they are at least a good labor force, and the infrastructure projects in Xuzhou in the past six months are really inseparable from them.

"Can eat and work", this is Liu Quan's evaluation of these people.

Thinking of these two evaluations, Tian Jiehu laughed again.

Although he was demoted, he had to be convinced, in the past half a year, he had seen the training of the Liuqiu Escort Team, and people suffered from that, so they naturally had such combat power, and they were ......

But today it can be regarded as a good use.

"Wu Quan, you guys should be clever for me, don't go wrong!" He was thinking about it, and when he saw the big man walking in the front of the row slowing down, he seemed to want to stop, and immediately shouted.

"Don't worry, it's not about life and death." The big man who was called Wuquan was extremely majestic, and when he heard this, he glared back with some dissatisfaction: "I ...... again"

Before he could finish speaking, he turned his head back sharply, waved for everyone to stop, and then fell to the ground and listened.

He can become the vanguard, naturally he has a strength, don't look at him with such a big man, but he is notoriously timid as a mouse, every time he goes to the battle array, he is always the first to discover the enemy's situation, and the first to start running away.

"Yes...... There is a large brigade of cavalry, and it is by no means a loyal army that comes! He jumped up and said loudly to Tian Jiehu.

Tian Jiehu looked around, and then said with a smile: "It's just right, Lao Tzu doesn't want to go forward, brothers, the sword and arrow have no eyes, throw away all the hard things, and get the lid on the back of the pot, maybe it can save your life!" ”

"Also, the leggings are tightened, the cuffs of the shirt are also tied, find a good direction, just wait for me to shout!" The martial arts shouted a little lazily.

He is used to escaping, and he has summed up a set of experience on how to escape the fastest.

In just a few moments, a small group of cavalry appeared in their sight, and Wu Quan shouted, threw away his spear, turned around and ran. The rest of the soldiers did the same, one ran faster than the other, they were all good at escaping from the 100,000 Red Jacket Army, and this escape was really full of tricks. There were those who shrank down and wore them into the grass, and there were those who rolled and crawled with their hands and feet and their limbs together, and although their original intention was to lure a small group of Menghu scouts, the appearance of this escape was more like the real thing.

Tian Jiehu pretended to shout twice, and when he saw the team of Hu people scouts rushing over, he turned his horse's head and ran away. After only delaying for a moment, Tian Jiehu felt ashamed when he saw his subordinates fleeing far away.

The Hu people left one behind, and the rest began to spread out from the two wings, because only Tian Jiehu was riding a horse, and the Hu people were not anxious, and let out a strange laugh, and someone had already bowed in his hand, and shot an arrow at Tian Jiehu from a distance.

Although the arrow hit Tian Jiehu's back, it was blocked by the wooden pot lid he carried on his back, and failed to pass through Tian Jiehu's paper armor. But after Tian Jiehu felt a pain in his back, he followed the momentum and lay on the horse's back, shouting and urging the horse to run quickly.

They ran more than 300 paces, not by the way they came, but sideways to the southwest. Hu Ren's cavalry has been accustomed to seeing the loyal and righteous army who have lost their armor for a long time, so they did not doubt it, and leaned over unhurriedly, seeing that they were about to chase each other, and then they heard a sharp whistle.

As soon as the whistle sounded, everyone who ran in front of them fell down together, and it was Tian Jiehu, who was riding on a horse, who also turned over and threw himself off the horse. Then there was the sound of machine crossbows, from the grass on both sides, dozens of crossbow arrows were shot, and the leader of the Hu people's detective cavalry shouted "ah" angrily, but before he could turn the horse's head, he was pierced through the heart by the crossbow arrows.

The Hu detective who remained at the end did not hesitate, turned his horse's head and galloped back.