Of course, Li Zhihe and Chai Jian knew in their hearts how dangerous the current situation was.

In addition to the local state soldiers, the Xiangbei Army was mainly composed of the Zuolongque Army, the Zuowu Guard Army and the Zuolongwu Army, and the generals of the three towns, including the team leader, the Wu Chang, the Shi Chang and other grass-roots military attachés, were all recruited and transferred from the cantonment military government in Tan, Lang, Yue, Deng, Xiang, and Jun.

There are 45,000 soldiers in the three towns, of which nearly 26,000 are from the cantonment military offices in Tanzhou, Langzhou, and Yuezhou; This is related to the fact that a large number of Tanzhou troops were recruited in the later stage of the war to cut down the feudal domain, and they were organized into military government soldiers on the spot, which was also the main source of generals of the forbidden army for a time, followed by Jiangxi and Jiangdong soldiers.

Once the news of the failure of the palace change spreads, this part of the general's mind will become extremely unstable.

Even if it is difficult for low-level military attaches and generals to control their own destiny, and it is easier for them to be coerced by middle and high-ranking generals in the chaos of war, it is not possible to expect them to have high combat effectiveness and morale, and it is even difficult to avoid large-scale exodus in the future.

At the beginning of Anning Palace's escape across the river to the north, the scale of the Shouzhou army must have been as high as tens of thousands, but until the battle of Hong Zepu secretly attached to the Liang army to destroy the Wuya Army and the Youshenwu Army, it was not capable of launching a decent counteroffensive.

In addition to the shortage of supplies, another major reason is that in addition to the Ya Army, a large number of Shouzhou Army generals and children have been abandoned on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and the morale of the army has been severely hit.

In addition, there were about 2,000 soldiers in the Xiangbei Army, who came from the Taowu Jitunying Military Mansion in Gyeonggi.

The earliest generals of the Dragon Bird Army were all requisitioned from the Taowu Military Mansion, after many bloody battles, the Taowu Military Mansion sacrificed heavy soldiers, and the number of soldiers dropped greatly on the one hand, on the other hand, the Dragon Bird Army was split into the left and right Dragon Bird Army, and the right Dragon Bird Army is currently in Zheng Hui's command is entering the jurisdiction of the Qingyuan Army Jie Du Envoy to fight, and in the later period, some elite soldiers were recruited into the sequence of the guards and pro-army, resulting in the military government of Taowu Collection, the proportion of the military household in the Xiangbei Army has been greatly reduced.

Although the number of these generals is small, they are the most elite veterans in combat.

Before the palace change, both they and Jinling had hoped that these old soldiers would be included in the planned new Youwu Army, so they intended to concentrate under Li Qi, and they are currently stationed at Wuguan with Li Qi.

Once the news of the failure of the palace mutiny, Li Pu's suicide, and Li Changfeng's indiscriminate beheading of Jinghaimen reached Wuguan, it was hard for them to imagine that Li Qi would choose to stand with them.

This also means that Li Mo's department may become their most immediate threat at present; Of course, they could block the narrow passage between Wuguan and Jingzikou for now, temporarily isolating Li Qi from Junzhou.

They also sent people to Jingzhou the day before yesterday to ask to see Zhang Ben, but the messenger fled back in embarrassment under the random arrows and failed to enter Jingzhou City to see Zhang Ben.

Zhang Python did not directly order the messenger to be shot under the city of Jingzhou, he already took into account the old friendship, and in the current situation, it is impossible for Zhang Python to choose to stand with them, and even wait for the official decree of the imperial court to arrive, Zhang Python's department is likely to be the vanguard army attacking Xiangbei.

What can really be better mastered for them is the generals who are all recruited from the military government in Xiangbei and Xiangdeng Jun, and there are only about 17,000 people in this part of the army.

And in the current situation, don't expect them to have a high will to fight for the time being.

What is more critical is the supply of military materials such as grain and straw.

In the past, the Privy Council would send over supplies such as grain, salt, iron, and armor equivalent to 150,000 yuan every month, plus a part of the local self-raised funds for the garrison of soldiers and horses in the three towns and the cost of war, which was quite comfortable and nourishing.

In the future, the central grain will be cut off, and they want to maintain the current scale of troops and horses to resist the attack, even if they can still control the existing territory, but the shortage will be apportioned to the heads of the prefectures and counties with a total population of less than one million, which is equivalent to each household having to pay an extra four to five stone of grain, so how tense will the local contradictions be?

Is there anything to be optimistic about in such a situation?

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Only a few people such as Su Hongyu, Yao Xishui, Zhong Yanhu, Zhou Yuan, Chun Shisanniang and others took more than 100 soldiers to the Empress Dowager Wang Chan'er, Chen De, An Jixiang and others to land and enter Yingzhou City to meet Li Zhihe and Chai Jian.

Seeing Li Zhihe's resolute and gloomy face, just past the age of confusion, but a lot of frost-white hair has grown on his temples, Yao Xishui was also ashamed and embarrassed in his heart, standing beside Lu Qingxia, unable to say a word.

The detailed process of the failure of the palace change, Lu Qingxia had already sent someone to send a message in advance to inform him, Li Zhihe held the sword on his waist, stood in front of the city gate and looked at the people who were in a hurry like a lost dog, and he had nothing to say for a while, and even saw the forty-year-old and charming Queen Mother Wang Chan'er, who had no intention of stepping forward to salute.

Su Hongyu walked over with her young son in her arms and called in a low voice, "Husband." ”

Li Zhihe nodded, and just said coldly: "It's been hard all the way." ”

Su Hongyu saw that Li Zhihe was still resentful, but she couldn't say anything about her suffering, she couldn't say in front of a group of people that she didn't know about the palace change from beginning to end, or did she get a message after the palace change failed, so she followed Lu Qingxia and them out of Jinling City in embarrassment, right?

"Daddy!" Li Zhi, who had just turned sixteen, and his second son, Li Jin, who was not yet fifteen years old, both put on armor at this time, held waist knives, and stepped forward to salute Li Zhihe.

Seeing that the two sons who were almost as tall as him, but the childishness on their faces had not been completely taken off, Li Zhihe somewhat regretted that he had not brought them into the army two years earlier, so that they could hardly hide the panic in their eyes at this time.

Li Zhihe patted the shoulder of the eldest son Li Zhi, who was tall, sighed lightly, and said, "Everyone is running all the way, let's go to the yafu with me to rest first." ”

Chai Jian watched his wife and concubines and sons come over, but he just nodded with a gloomy face, and was not in the mood to say anything comforting. However, even if Lu Qingxia didn't bring his wife and children over, it would be impossible for him to give up his military power and go to Jinling to throw himself into the net and let others slaughter him.

"Zhou, Chai Xun, Deng Tai, what about them?" Zhou Yuan peeked at the generals beside Li Zhihe, but he didn't expect the figures of Zhou Shu, Chai Xun, Deng Tai and others, and asked.

"The number of weeks is in Suiyang, Chai Xun and Deng Tai are in Liangzhou." Li Zhihe said.

Of course, he knew what Zhou Yuan was worried about, but was it possible for him to order Lu Qingxia, the Empress Dowager Wang Chan'er, the "Second Prince" and others to be detained and handed over to Jinling for a chance to change the right side?

In fact, the remnants of the Late Red Mansion forces are intertwined among the middle and high-ranking generals in the three towns of Xiangbei, and he has never been able to bypass Lu Qingxia and others to make a decision, which may be the fundamental reason why they have come to this end step by step, right?

…………

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Yingzhou Thorn History Mansion was repaired a few years ago, and it was quite open, so please ask the Queen Mother Wang Chan'er and others to enter the side hospital to rest, and the descendants of the family guards strictly "guarded", Li Zhihe asked Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan and others to follow him to the yatang to discuss follow-up countermeasures.

At this time, the sky was dark, and the two old soldiers lit a large candle, beeping and peeling and burning, emitting the smell of tung grease.

Lu Qingxia and the others fled all the way to the west, walking 17,800 miles of waterway in seven days, and rushed to Yingzhou after a steady stream of harassment and interception from the states along the river.

Their connection with the land was almost cut off along the way.

At this time, Li Zhihe also informed them of the changes in the situation in Jinling City in the past few days:

“…… Three days ago, Yang Yuanyan sent his son Yang Cong and his secretary Wang Wenqian Jinling to support the new emperor, and asked the new emperor to abolish the Huaidong Domain, and transferred Zhao Zhen's troops to join the Right Guards to conquer Xiangbei......

"Huaidong's reaction is so fast!"

Unexpectedly, Huaidong Fei not only became the elbow to contain the soldiers and horses of Gyeonggi and Tangyi, but asked for the first time to cut the domain, and sent elite combat forces to directly participate in the attack on Xiangbei.

This news means that Jinling has basically grasped the situation in Jianghuai, and the next state and county lords and Zhang Bang in Jingzhou to express their obedience to Jinling will happen in a very fast time, and then Jinling will be able to officially send troops to suppress Xiangbei.

"What's going on in Huaixi?" Zhou Yuan asked with some frustration.

The imperial court can directly call the limited number of soldiers and horses, and Zhao Zhen's department is the right military army, and Zhang Ben's right military guard army rendezvous, there are only 30,000 elites, Zhao Zhen and Zhang Ben each have ghosts, not to mention, even if tens of thousands of state soldiers can be recruited from Hunan and Jiangxi states, it will take at least two to three months to complete the assembly of soldiers and horses.

At present, the most worrying thing is that the elite Tangyi army attacked Wusheng and Pingjing passes between Huaiyang Mountain and Tongbai Mountain, threatening the northeastern flank of Suizhou, and ordered the Tangyi Navy to cooperate with the Right Wuxiang Army and the Right Wuwei Army to advance north along the Han River and tear apart their fragile defensive lines in Jingmen and Yingzhou.

"Tangyi's soldiers, horses and military supplies in Huaixi are still constantly assembling in Shouchun and Fengtai, and three days ago they also successfully erected a cable pontoon bridge in Jiaoshan Gorge east of Fengtai, opening up the land passage through the two states of Cai's troops and the northern aid to Bianjing, and there is no sign of moving westward for the time being." Chai Jian said with a gloomy face.

On the west wall of the hall, a topographic map of the middle and upper reaches of the Huai River is hung, and the floodplains on both sides of the Shaying River and the specific location of the Jiaoshan pontoon bridge are also roughly marked.

The narrowest part of the middle reaches of the Huai River is the Kip Shi Gorge on the north side of Bagong Mountain, where it only takes 200 meters to build a suspension bridge or a pontoon bridge, but the north bank of the Kip Shi Gorge, that is, the low-lying area near the West Kip Shi Mountain, has been flooded.

Even if a suspension iron bridge is built to connect the east and west Kip Rock Mountains, it is difficult to pass through the flood plain north of the West Kip Mountain, which is thirty or forty miles wide, and it is still impossible to attack from the south to the north.

Only by bypassing the floodplain, moving more than 60 miles to the east, and building a cable pontoon bridge in the Jiaoshan Gorge between Fengtai and Linhuai, can we open up a passage from the hilly area on the north bank of the Jiaoshan Gorge and extend directly to the hinterland of Qiaozhou in the north.

Jiaoshan Gorge is more than twice as wide as Kip Shi Gorge, and the world has not been able to build such a long iron cable suspension bridge, so it can only build a pontoon bridge, but in such a short period of time, it is definitely the embodiment of Tangyi's strength to be able to build a cable pontoon bridge to resist the impact of upstream floods.

The biggest problem of the pontoon bridge is that it will cut off the Huai River, which will cut off the connection between the Tangyi naval forces in the upper and lower reaches of the Huai River, but this also shows Tangyi's determination to send troops to the Huai River.

From the construction of the Jiaoshan Crossing Bridge, it can also be seen that Tangyi's strategic choice to send troops to Hehuai should be a partial division to take a boat along Yingshui to the north, from the southern end of the Chen Bian Post Road, to aid the Liang army that should hold Bianjing, but the Chen Bian Post Road is too easy to be cut off, and it can't accommodate many soldiers and horses to go north, not to mention the retreat of tens of thousands of old and weak soldiers and civilians in Bianjing City, the main force of the Tangyi army should also cross the river directly from Jiaoshan, attack all the way north from Chenzhou, and seize Qiaozhou, eastern Chenzhou, Bozhou and other areas from Xu Mingzhen's Shouzhou army. Completely open up the communication between the southern part of Bianjing and Huaixi.

This also means that Tangyi will spare no effort to fully participate in the Hehuai war.

For Xiangbei, Tangyi's main army will not move westward for the time being, and it may be the only news that can make everyone's minds less flustered.

Otherwise, they would have no second choice except to give up the four prefectures of Suiying, Dengxiang and withdraw all their soldiers and horses to the two places of Junliang in the upper reaches of the Han River.

"What are you going to do?" Lu Qingxia looked at Li Zhihe and asked.

"Give up the three passes of Pingjing, Wusheng, and Huang Yan, withdraw all the Zhou Shu headquarters to the west of Suiyang, and at the same time move the military households and families of Deng, Jun, and Xiang to Liang and Jin as quickly as possible, there is probably no other choice!" Li Zhihe sighed lightly and said.

Operating in the two prefectures of Liang and Jin, which have the dangers of mountains and rivers to defend, as the base and being prepared to abandon the four prefectures of Xiang, Ying, Deng, and Sui if necessary, is a strategic choice made by Li Zhihe in the face of the current bad situation.

Although there are only less than 100,000 people in Liangjin and Jinzhou, especially in the old Jinzhou, there are only five or six thousand registered households, and Shu even directly abolished Jinzhou when it had Jinzhou, but this is mainly caused by the war in the middle and late stages of the previous dynasty, and the population of Liangjin and Jinzhou was the smallest in the war, even only 40,000 or 50,000 people.

However, Liangzhou (Hanzhong County), which occupies the upper basin of the Hanshui River, has no weaker farming conditions than Dengzhou, which is known as the granary of Nanyang, but is not slightly weaker than Xiangying. In the middle of the previous dynasty, the population of Liangjin and Jin Prefecture was as high as 400,000, which is enough to prove that these two places have an agricultural foundation that can accommodate more people.

After the seizure of Liangzhou last year, Li Zhihe deliberately restored the structure of Jinzhou and focused on relocating civilian households, building weirs and ditches, and cultivating tuntian fields in Liangzhou -- although it took a year to reclaim more than 200,000 mu of military land in addition to intense defense, he finally had a good foundation.

Now, as long as there are three or four months to move more than 13,000 military households into Liangzhou, and they can plunder the next season's autumn grain harvest from Xiang, Sui, Ying, and Deng Prefectures, so as to ensure that there will be no shortage of grain and grass in the next year, they will not lose all their underwear.

Zhou Yuan asked, "Will it be too conservative and weak?" Han Qian is ready to attack Qian Bo, Xu Mingzhen will never be captured, the Shouzhou army and Xu Sijun directly surrender to Zhu Rang, it is a matter of the past two days, the battle of Hehuai, no matter how you look at Tangyi, there is no chance of a big victory......"

As long as Xu Mingzhen and Sima directly surrendered to Zhu Rang, the three forces were twisted into one, even if the elite cavalry of the Mengwu did not directly go south from the lower reaches of the Yu River, Tangyi and the Liang army on the eastern flank would face as many as 150,000 or 60,000 hostile soldiers and horses.

Han Qian can barely capture the eastern line of Bozhou and Chenzhou at that time, and retreat the military and civilians of Bianjing to the south, which is already the limit; It is more likely that the Tangyi army could not even realize this intention after paying heavy casualties.

However, after that, Tangyi and Huaidong will directly face as many as 100,000 Zhu Rang's soldiers and horses on the northern front, and it is impossible to draw their hands and throw the main force of soldiers and horses to the western flank.

They can not stir up trouble now, and they will not collude with the Mugwu people for the time being, so as to avoid angering Tangyi, but as long as the main force of Tangyi does not move westward, there is no need for them to take the initiative to give up the Pingjing and Wusheng passes, which control the mountain passes at the western foot of Huaiyang Mountain.

And only with Pingjing, Wusheng and other key points in their hands, they will have the opportunity to seize Huangzhou in the future, and take the Handong River Valley south of Huaiyang Mountain, east of Hanshui, and north of the Yangtze River.

Li Zhihe only put forward his proposition, but did not have more meaning to explain.

Lu Qingxia pondered for a while and said:

"From a longer-term perspective and considering the worse situation, there may not be anything wrong with Zhiyu's suggestion, but the most urgent thing at the moment is that we can't block the news of the palace change for a long time without reaching the hinterland of Xiangdeng Jun and Yingsui Prefectures, and the matter of people's hearts must not be ignored!"

Zhou Yuan frowned, echoed Lu Qingxia and said: "Yes, at present, it seems that the vast majority of states and counties between Jianghuai and Jianghuai are still under the control of Jinling, and even with the reduction of Huaidong's domain, Jinling's control over Jianghuai has become stronger, we still need to have a legitimate name to control the hearts of the people of Yingsuixiang, Deng Junliang, and the states, and we must prevent the morale and morale of the generals of the three towns from collapsing in a short period of time, and we must also avoid the mutiny of the generals of the three towns and the outbreak of civil unrest in the prefectures or make the local clans and township tycoons gather the soldiers and people to resist us." Only when these are stabilized, we still have a chance to see the situation in Hehuai repeatedly! ”

Su Hongyu fled west on the same boat with Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan in the past few days, knowing that they said these words, they still had to think of respecting the empress dowager as soon as possible to ascend the throne as the second prince Yang Lin as the emperor, and spread the edict to crusade against Shen Yang, Yang Zhitang, Han Daoming and others for colluding with foreign races to murder Emperor Yanyou.

Even if this move does not shake the foundation of Jinling, it seems that it will be difficult to win the support of other states and counties at present, but in the short term, they can at least maintain a legitimate position in the states of Yingsuixiang, Deng Junliang, and Liang.

Of course, Su Hongyu has guarded the Xinjin Marquis Mansion to teach the princes in recent years, and she has not been very involved in the affairs of Cishou Palace, but she understands in her heart that Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan are eager to promote this matter, and there is a more fundamental purpose, that is, only after respecting the Queen Mother and the "Second Prince" can they justifiably control the military and political power in Xiangbei by controlling the "Queen Mother and the Second Prince".

Su Hongyu sat at the bottom, inconvenient to speak, just looked at Li Zhihe in a daze, not knowing how he would deal with Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan's hustle and bustle; Seeing Chai Jian sitting silently on the side, he didn't know what he was thinking in his heart, thinking that Zhihe's attitude was tougher, Chai Jian should stand with Zhihe, right?

Li Zhihe glanced at Su Hongyu and said: "It is not appropriate to delay the matter of calming people's hearts, but there is no need to rush today, everyone will drink and rest first, and then rush to Xiangcheng tomorrow to discuss it." ”

From Yingzhou to the north of the boat 200 miles to Xiangcheng, since the middle and late dynasties, Xiangcheng has always been the military, economic and cultural center of northern Jingxiang; Even if you want to honor the empress dowager and set up a new emperor, you can only set the capital Xiangcheng.

At present, Jinling has rumored that Zhuzhou County is rebelling, but it is still making the preliminary deployment of the transfer of troops, and the Tangyi army has no signs of moving westward, and the situation in Xiangbei is not critical to the point of burning his eyebrows, and Lu Qingxia does not want Li Zhihe to feel that they are suspected of taking the lead, not to mention that they are not sure about the thoughts of Chai Jian and Zhou Shu, so they nodded and said: "It is better to take a breath of relief first and then think about it in the long run." ”

Everyone returned to the guest house to rest, and Li Zhihe called his second sons, Li Zhi and Li Jin, to the courtyard of the back house, and said: "I will select hundreds of elite generals from the army to you, and organize them into a battalion of personal guards with the family soldiers. ”

"The child has faith." Li Zhi and Li Ji said.

Li Zhihe said to Zhang Song, the leader of the family soldiers: "The Tangyi naval army may not attack along the Han River for the time being, but the Han River is still the main passage for the imperial court soldiers and horses to enter Xiangbei. Although the Han River from Liangzhou to Junzhou is narrow and shallow, and it is impossible to travel large ships, it is still necessary to maintain the liaison between Liangzhou and Xiangbei and water transportation. ”

"The last general will never live up to the trust of the Hou Ye." Zhang Song said in a decisive manner.

"......" Li Zhihe nodded and said, "You and Li Zhi and Li Ji should go down first." ”