From Ezhou to the north of Huaiyang Mountain, in the wilderness of thousands of miles of mountains and rivers, there are many eagles and falcons, and when the two carrier pigeons flew back to the pigeon nest in the Wujinling camp, the wings and abdomen were injured, and they almost failed to fly back.

This is also the most important uncertainty factor in the use of carrier pigeons to transmit books over long distances.

At this time, I don't care if the two carrier pigeons can be cured, but the secret letter sent back by Guo Ke and Feng Yi is enough to shock everyone.

"The late Red Mansion must be worried that the news of Heshuo's shocking changes will not be hidden from us for too long, Yao Xishui left the Lingshan camp and borrowed the road to enter Dongting Lake, he must be thinking of causing trouble in Xuzhou and attracting our attention!"

Feng Yi was still staying in the Wujinling camp at this time, and when he received a letter from Guo Qi who had passed the book back from the flying pigeon, he immediately summoned everyone to the courtyard where Han Qian lived daily to discuss the matter, and Feng Yi was the first to guess that Yao Xishui's whereabouts were erratic, and he must have bad intentions for them.

As the core disciple of the younger generation of the Late Red Mansion, Yao Xishui has the most trust of Lu Qingxia, and can be said to be the successor of Lu Qingxia's mantle.

Therefore, the Military Intelligence Staff Department is also extremely concerned about Yao Xishui's movements, but the late Red Mansion, as the remnant of the Shenling Division, is also very good at sneaking and stealing, and it is not easy to confirm Yao Xishui's whereabouts at any time - even the official ships of the Weaving Bureau are almost a dozen ships outside at the same time, weaving silk fabrics from the state and county to supply the palace, providing great convenience for its secret spy and eyeliner activities.

Yao Xishui ran to see Li Zhihe, Zhou Shu, Li Xiu, Deng Tai and others a few days ago, which could further verify their prediction of the situation in Heshuo, but Yao Xishui did not stay in Li Zhihe for a few days, so he suddenly ran to Dongting Lake.

After the destruction of the Great Chu Naval Division in Hongzepu, Han Qian transferred more than three-quarters of the generals from Xuzhou to form the Tangyi Army, leaving only a small number of soldiers and horses in Xuzhou to take care of it.

Before Han Qian and Wang Jun got married, they specially took Zhao Ting'er over for a reunion, and then Zhao Ting'er became pregnant again, gave birth to a daughter for Han Qian in East Lake, and never left to return to Xuzhou.

At present, the military and political affairs of Xuzhou are mainly presided over by Xi Xunqiao, Qiao Weiyan, Xi Chang, Wei Xu, Han Dong, Guo Xiao, and Tan Yuliang, who stayed in the Wuchuan River Valley.

In order to allocate resources to support Tangyi as much as possible, the Xuzhou Prefecture Soldiers and Tianping both had only about 2,000 soldiers on active duty to maintain the defense and local law and order of the eight counties.

Considering the military and political environment around Xuzhou, this amount of troops can be said to be quite stretched.

On the periphery of Xuzhou, not counting Zheng Hui's department on the east side of Xuefeng Mountain, the three families of Xiyangtian in Chenzhou, Sizhou, and Yezhou have more than 6,000 soldiers; The ancient counties of Qianzhong in the upper reaches of the Qianjiang and Ruan rivers, and the native surnames in Zhuzhou counties have stronger military strength.

In the past, the Tangyi army attacked the city and plundered the land in Jianghuai, and the soldiers were unrivaled for a while, and the Han family spoke loudly above the court, coupled with the long-term large-scale business exchanges, Han Qian did not have to worry about what the Xi family, the Yang family, and the Tian family dared to move, but if Yao Xishui secretly planned something in the name of Cishou Palace, maybe one or two forces would be instigated to move.

Of course, whether it is the Sizhou Yang clan or the Yezhou Tian clan, who have suffered a big loss in the Sizhou civil unrest, or the Xi clan, which is the strongest among the three forces, may not dare to leave a tongue and openly use troops against Xuzhou, but they learn from the Sizhou civil unrest and secretly connive at the Liukou, or they send elite soldiers and horses to directly pretend to be Liukou and burn and loot in Xuzhou, how should the people who stay in Xuzhou respond?

"Guo Ke, Feng Yi, and Lin Sheng have all followed to Xuzhou, as long as Xiying, the Yang family, and the Tian family are not bold enough to dare to openly send troops to invade Xuzhou, the situation in Xuzhou may be a little chaotic, but there is nothing to worry about," Guo Rong frowned and said, "At this time, if we still want to hide from the world, when something happens in Xuzhou, how should we deal with it, so that the Wanhonglou mistakenly thinks that we don't know anything about the situation in Heshuo?" ”

Guo Ke's secret letter was sent back through the flying pigeon, Han Qian just got up, he was still freshening, and he sat behind the long case with his hair scattered, and his fingers rhythmically tapped the wooden case to think about the question raised by Guo Rong.

Wang Jun was dressed in a shirt, sat beside Han Qian, and said: "Looking at the current preparations of the Yiyang soldiers and horses, the main plan is to enter Luoshan City, and there is no too greedy intention......

"Li Zhihe is steady in his use of troops, he doesn't have a full chance, and he won't shoot easily, but this is also the biggest problem." Han Qian smiled bitterly.

The so-called strategy, when it does not have the strength to crush, can only pin more hopes on the opponent to make more mistakes.

Yao Xishui's westward expansion is determined to make trouble, if Li Zhihe has high hopes for Yao Xishui's westward expansion, they can naturally make targeted deployments.

However, the problem is that Li Zhihe is extremely steady in his use of troops, and at present, they have not shown too much greed in the deployment of troops on the front line of Yiyang and Luoshan, and they have not shown any signs of special expectations for Yao Xishui's westward advance.

In this way, no matter how they deploy and how they hide from the world, in fact, in the end, they may not be able to achieve the results they expect, and may even be self-defeating.

"Do we adapt to change?" Feng Yi asked hesitantly.

The messengers sent by Guo Ke and Feng Yi when they were at the Lingshan camp had already arrived at the Wujinling camp two days ago to bring back the defense deployment of the Zuo Longque Army and the Zuo Wuwei Army in the areas of Yiyang and Luoshan, as well as the preliminary coordinated combat plan reached by the two armies.

According to the previous information, it can be preliminarily speculated that even if Li Zhihe already knew that Heshuo was about to undergo drastic changes, his target was still relatively conservative on Wen Bo's subordinates who guarded Luoshan City.

When the drastic changes in Heshuo disturb the southern defense line of Liang State, Li Zhihe should lead his troops to cut off the retreat of the defenders of Luoshan City, forcing the defender Wen Bo and his more than 10,000 elites to surrender, and at the same time, the entire Gwangju area west of Luoshan City will also fall into the hands of the Xiangbei Metropolitan Defense Mission.

Feng Yi suggested that the change should be unchanged, that is, to assume that Li Zhihe's intentions would not change because of Yao Xishui's westward advance, or that his intentions would not change greatly at least until Yao Xishui really made things happen in the west, and the Tangyi army would not make major deployment adjustments, and when the Shouzhou army's position was in chaos, the first goal was only limited to taking over the villages of Anfengzhai, Gaocheng, Yincheng, Qisi and other counties in the southern part of Huozhou......

At this time, a guard walked in and handed a secret letter directly to Han Qian.

Han Qian unfolded the secret letter, pondered for a while, and said, "Then we will respond to all changes with the same!" ”

Wang Jun looked over suspiciously, she saw that Han Qian was obviously quite hesitant just now, and she didn't know what news was written in the secret letter, so Han Qian suddenly made up his mind.

After everyone present read the secret letter, Han Qian did not hand over the secret letter to Guo Rong for archiving, but directly threw it into the copper brazier and burned it to ashes, and said to Feng Yi: "I will go to Yanzi River in the past two days, you and Guo Rong will accompany me to take a look......"

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In the past year, the Shouzhou Army took Anfeng Village as the core, and built a number of walled cities to garrison elite soldiers and horses, blocking the passage out of the Nanshui River Valley.

Not to mention that the Tangyi army only has more than 6,000 horse infantry troops in the Wujinling camp, even if the strength is doubled, it is difficult to directly send troops north along the Nanhuishui River Valley.

Can they take advantage of the unstable and chaotic position of the Shouzhou army when the situation in Heshuo changes drastically, and seize the walled city in the south of Huozhou as soon as possible.

Although the Honan Task Force Battalion gathered 8,000 or 9,000 soldiers and horses on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, it dragged more than 40,000 old and young people.

Among them, there are tens of thousands of people, all of whom fled into the mountains because they fled to escape the forced migration of the Shouzhou army, or because they were afraid of the Shouzhou army's forced conscription of Ding Zhuang, and they had no basis for survival in the mountains.

Before the arrival of the Honan Task Force, these people were fed on bark, grass roots, or Guanyin soil in the mountains, and their living conditions could be said to be precarious.

After the Honan Task Force entered the mountainous area of Beipo, although it mobilized the poor people at the bottom to stand up and overthrow the rule of the big wealthy people, and the momentum of expropriation of grain and grain from the fields and houses was very large, due to the shortage of material production in the mountains and the influx of a large number of displaced people before, the grain stored was still difficult to feed such a large base of the population.

Not to mention the armor and weapons, the current situation of the Honan Task Force has not been fundamentally improved, where can it have strong combat effectiveness, let alone take the initiative to attack, kill the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, enter the Honan Plain, and attack the walled city defended by the Shouzhou Army?

Before the plank road was repaired, only three or five hundred people shouldered and carried on their backs, and an average of three or four thousand catties of materials could be transported over the mountains and mountains every day, which was already the limit, but more than 40,000 women and children, old and young, were waiting to be fed, and at least thirty or fifty thousand catties of materials needed to be replenished every day in order to fundamentally change the state of starvation, and the gap in the middle was too big.

However, after more than 2,000 craftsmen have continued to work for more than four months, the main body of the Huazhufeng plank road is also close to completion, and there are still three iron chain bridges that have not been finally penetrated; And these three chain bridges are also the key nodes of the Huazhu Peak Plank Road.

The first chain bridge was located in the upper valley of the Swallow River, and it was also the first place that Han Qian would inspect.

The climate in Huaiyang Mountain is still warmer than outside the mountain, the ice and snow have melted in late February, and there is occasionally a cluster of new green or tender yellow stamens exposed on the mountain cliff, which is particularly eye-catching.

The upper reaches of the Yanzi River are rocky and rocky, and it is impossible to sail by boat, so from the downstream wharf, you can only take the land route.

Wang Jun was not good at horseback riding, and the post road built in the upper valley of the Yanzi River was extremely steep, so Han Qian and Wang Jun rode the same horse and walked slowly along the road.

Wang Jun snuggled in Han Qian's arms, but there was no restraint, looking at the swallow river under the post road has become abundant, flowing rapidly on the reef, impacting the white waves, and then looking at the black brown stone wall on the west bank, occasionally one or two green pines grow tenaciously from the stone wall, thinking about how good it should be if this spring day is delayed, slowly walking in the road, and the post road will never end.

In the upper reaches of the Yanzi River, there are many cliffs and stone walls on the west bank, the terrain on the east bank is relatively gentle, there are mountain people and medicine farmers stepping on the trail for thousands of years, and the east bank post road was repaired on this basis before, but to the upper reaches of the Yanzi River, it is necessary to build an iron chain bridge to connect with the starting point of the plank road of Huazhu Peak on the west bank.

More than 1,000 years ago, there was a precedent for making iron cables to cross the streams and canyons, and Xuzhou has given priority to the development of iron smelting and casting in recent years, and it is not much effort to build more than 1,000 zhang long iron cables, but there is no boulder on the east bank of the key Yanzi River that can fix the iron cable.

In the end, it was decided to water the piers with stone mortar at any cost.

Before the winter of last year, the cellar was built on the east bank of the Yanzi River, the clay and limestone were mined and roasted in the cellar, and then the water mill was built to grind the coarse material and finally make the stone slurry, and then the stone slurry and special iron bars were continuously watered, and four months passed, Han Qian and Wang Jun rushed to the upper reaches of the Yanzi River surrounded by many guards, and saw that the east bank had been watered out of two huge bridge piers five feet square and more than five zhang high.

But it was also a coincidence that Kong Xirong also rushed over from the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain today to see the progress of the construction of the Yanzi River Chain Bridge.

Although there are still three key nodes on the Huazhufeng plank road that have not been connected, there are temporary slings or simple pontoon bridges built on these three nodes to transport craftsmen and construction materials.

Nowadays, it is much more convenient to travel from the Swallow River Valley to the Baishui River Valley, and the materials transported to the upper Baishui River valley every day have also increased from two or three thousand catties in the early days to tens of thousands of catties; The travel of a small number of people has also been shortened from four or five days to one day.

However, before the construction of the three chain bridges to allow the passage of vehicles and horses, large-scale transportation of materials and personnel is not yet realistic.

Kong Xirong personally entered the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain in the past few months, his cheeks were covered with dense stubble, and he was even more rugged at this time, and saw Han Qian and Wang Jun walking over surrounded by Guo Rong, Feng Yi and others, bowed his hand, pointed to the bridge pier and said: "These two bridge piers can be said to be the culmination of the construction of Xuzhou. ”

Although the chief engineer who presided over the construction of the plank road of Huazhu Peak was Qiao Jun, a disciple brought out by Chen Jitang, Chen Jitang and Ji Xiyao did not go out of the mountain in person, but since the first time four years ago, the first time in the experimental furnace of the engineering school successfully used clay and limestone to fire the first furnace of stone slurry, the stone slurry is used as a building binder and stumbled with river sand into concrete, and special bamboo or iron bars are used for the irrigation of foundations and beams and columns.

Kong Xirong said that these two piers are the culmination of Xuzhou's engineering skills, which can be said to be not an exaggeration at all, and the next thing to do is to connect the piers with six iron cables between the piers and the west bank, and then lay thick wooden planks, these means are simple.

Since he met Kong Xirong, Han Qian inquired in detail about the situation of Huo Nan's advance camp.

In the past ten days, the scale of the import of materials has been greatly improved, mainly gathered in the Baishui River and the upper reaches of the Guan River in the Huonan advance camp Zhuzhai, the situation is also very different than the most difficult time, at least out of the more serious state of famine, the spring plowing work in the upper valleys of the Baishui River and the Guan River has also been carried out one after another, and the generals have also resumed a certain degree of training.

The situation of displaced people who fled from the southern counties of Huozhou to the depths of the northern slope last year has also been sorted out.

Among the tens of thousands of displaced people, almost every household has an adult Ding Zhuang who was forcibly conscripted by the Shouzhou army to attack Wujinling before the victory of Wujinling.

After combing, almost 4,000 of these people were captured by Tangyi during the victory of Wujinling, and almost all of them were incorporated into the baggage camp as auxiliaries and garrisons after the war.

In addition to the need to add a group of experienced military attachés to the Huonan advance battalion, Kong Xirong now hopes to transfer these 4,000 auxiliary soldiers from the baggage battalion and integrate them into the Huonan advance battalion as regular pawns.

Whether it was the Wujinling Battalion that mobilized the low-level poor to join the battalion from the hinterland of the northeast slope at the beginning, or the Huonan Advance Battalion that entered the hinterland of the northern slope to mobilize the low-level poor a few years ago, the scale of the population was definitely not low, but the low-level poor had been starving for a long time, and their physical condition at the beginning of their enlistment was very poor.

In addition to abundant japonica rice and pasta, the army also provided a certain amount of meat, soy products, and poultry eggs, and it took about a year or two for the physical condition of the soldiers to improve, barely reaching the standard of elite soldiers.

The generals of the Wujinling battalion have been resting for nearly a year, and the situation has naturally been greatly improved, but the Huonan advance battalion has only been slightly looser in the last ten days.

If the drastic changes in Heshuo are imminent, it is obviously unrealistic to hope that the nearly 9,000 generals of the Huonan advance battalion will be able to rest and become elite soldiers in the next month or two.

However, with the addition of a number of experienced and brave grassroots military attachés and 4,000 auxiliary troops who have been recuperating for more than a year, have a certain foundation in drill and training, and have guaranteed follow-up cohesion and morale, Kong Xirong believes that the overall combat strength of the Huonan Advance Battalion can be considerably improved.

"We have just decided that all the troops of the left and right armies will keep the status quo unchanged for the time being, and mainly consider strengthening the Honan Task Force so that when the situation in Heshuo changes drastically, we can recover the walled city in the south of Huozhou as soon as possible. At present, it seems that it is necessary to transfer these men from the heavy camps and hand them over to you as soon as possible. Han Qian said.

At that moment, he drafted the military order with Guo Rong leaning on the horse, he came to sign it, sent people to hurry back to the Wujinling camp, and the Military Intelligence Staff Department transferred these personnel from the camps according to the list......

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In late February, the land of Jianghuai has been in spring, but the heavy snow in Heshuo has not disappeared.

On the last day of the end of February, the lead-gray haze sky over Dingzhou City was fluttering with snowflakes one after another, and it seemed that the arrival of the warm spring season would not be seen for a while.

"What's going on with God in the past few years, the spring is getting later and later every year, and in the summer and autumn, it's getting drier and drier year by year, and God still doesn't let the people live? When is this all the time, and there is still so much snow! ”

In the tea shop opposite Guanjiang Building, a few rude men pushed the door and walked in, complaining loudly about the heavy snow that was blowing outside.

The wind and snow poured in with the curtain of the door that was pushed open, and everyone sitting in the warm tea shop couldn't help but shiver.

Han Bao and Zhang Shigui sat in the corner by the window drinking hot tea full of tea foam, the tea soup was a little bitter, Han Bao and they were not used to drinking it, but the hot tea soup was comfortable in the stomach.

They glanced at the few rude men who walked into the teahouse at this time, and then peeked through the gap in the window to the Guanjiang Building opposite the teahouse, bowed their heads and held a clay bowl with a small sip missing, and drank the tea soup.

Several rude men walked towards them, six of them sat around an adjacent tea table, and two of them came to the table of Han Bao and Zhang Shigui, and while greeting the guys to make tea in a rude voice, they took out wheat cakes from the package, looking at their patched dog skin jackets, looking like ordinary horsemen from the countryside.

The tea shop is not a high-end place, in addition to tea, it also provides some simple food, and it is normal to share the table, but Zhang Shigui vigilantly pressed the short blade under his shirt.

Han Bao grabbed his wrist and told him to calm down.

"Han Bao, these are the two escapees you caught from the North Hengchong, very vigilant, the seedlings are good." A man with a beard on his face lowered his voice and laughed.

"His name is Huo Li, and he is his uncle and cousin who joined Tangyi from Yangzhou with his wife, and he is also a member of the Military Intelligence Staff Department." Han Bao said to Zhang Shigui.

"Don't deliberately mention my identity, as if I was missing you." Huo Li grinned, he was only twenty-five years old, but he had a beard, or he had experienced a lot of ups and downs during this time, and his appearance looked rough and vicissitudes compared to his actual age.

Huo Li and Wang Ji were once in the Military Intelligence Staff Department, and even Han Bao's elite scouts who went north to reconnoiter the enemy's situation, or Huo Li accompanied Xi Fa'er to pick them out, Han Bao naturally recognized Huo Li, who deliberately wore a beard, and he saw that Huo Li was going to arrive in Dingzhou earlier than they expected at this time, which shows that the situation in Dingzhou has indeed caused Tangyi to be extremely serious.

At this time, Han Bao took out an iron ring from his arms and placed it on the table, facing Huo Li with the ring with special imprints.

Seeing Han Bao take out this iron ring, Huo Li pointed to the man opposite who was much weaker and taciturn, and said: "Wang Zhe, Lord Leopard may not have seen it, he is Wang Zhang's seventeenth brother, he used to work in the General Administration Department, and he traveled to Heshuo in his early years, so he came with me this time." The Lord and the Lady have specially instructed us to come over and obey the dispatch of the Leopard Master, and you don't have to deliberately put this Jinyun Martial Arts Ring out. However, it's not easy for the Leopard Master to be able to keep an eye on Guanjiang Tower before we come, I thought the Leopard Master knew how to charge into battle and kill the enemy......"

Han Bao joined the Chishan Army during the Jinling Incident, before he and his brother Han Donghu learned foot boxing kung fu, and then practiced swords and guns with the good hands in the army, the progress was rapid, the martial arts were extraordinary, and the combat was also extremely brave, several bloody battles were charged in front, won nearly 100 heads, repeatedly made military exploits, and was good at learning, and had been promoted to the command of the battalion before going north, but his age had just turned twenty-one years old.

Although young generals like Han Bao abound in the Tangyi army, and Han Bao, like his brother Han Donghu, used to have a rare calmness of his peers, and rarely showed his edge, but at this moment in front of Huo Li and Wang Zhe, he was still a little different.

Wang Yan, Wang Zhe, Huo Li and others, although they are all concubines within the Wang Huo clan, but in the eyes of the Tangyi generals, they are the children of the clan after all, and it is difficult to completely eliminate some estrangements in a short period of time.

At this time, Han Bao was somewhat worried that Huo Li would rely on his background and age, not listen to his dispatch, and even make his own opinions, so he made clear the difference between priorities and priorities with Huo Li for the first time, so as not to disagree and delay major matters.

Of course, Wang Zhe and Huo Li entered Tangyi with their wives, and in terms of origin and status, they were all stronger than ordinary generals, but at this time, seeing that they were able to brave the danger, travel two or three thousand miles away, and go deep into the enemy territory to connect with them, Han Bao's heart was also quite touched.

In particular, they were able to come to meet so quickly, which can be seen to ensure that they are connected to them as soon as possible, and they are rushing around the clock, in fact, in addition to doubly hard, they also have to take greater risks.