“……”

Zhang Shigui knelt in front of the lonely grave, and suppressed the pain in his heart with a heartbreak, so as not to let himself howl uncontrollably.

"Let's go?" Shi Ruhai patted Zhang Shigui on the shoulder, motioned for Zhang Shimin to grab his brother's arm with him, carried it behind his back, and took advantage of the night to brave the wind and snow to pass through the forest east of Tunzhai and walk north.

In order to prevent Zhang Shigui and Zhang Shimin from lying, after Han Bao left Beihengchong with his team, he still specially touched the tunzhai where the villagers of Hengchong Village moved north to the north of Huozhou.

This was also done to conceal their motives and routes for going north.

Even if the enemy scouts found their tracks on the northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, they would mistakenly think that they were only reconnoitring back and forth in the area on the edge of the defensive line, then after they entered the northern area of Huozhou and crossed the Huai, they would become much safer and could slightly speed up their northward journey.

However, when I touched the tunzhai that the villagers of Beihengchong in the north of Huozhou moved into, I was stranded for two days before I learned that Zhang Shigui was pregnant, grew up in the same village since childhood, and his wife, who had already died in childbirth on the way to the north.

Because of the military confrontation between Liang and Chu in these years, the land along the Huai River is fertile but the population is sparse.

Like Haozhou, the total number of people in the counties does not exceed 60,000 or 70,000.

The northern slope of Huaiyang Mountain, in the south of Huozhou and Shouzhou, has long been the inner hinterland of Shouzhou and Shouzhou, and the degree of disturbance caused by the war is much lighter, and it is far better than other areas in terms of gathering of private households and military reclamation.

Nearly half of the more than 700,000 people under the control of the Shouzhou Army are concentrated in these counties.

However, the battle of Wujin Ridge completely changed this pattern.

In the past, the hinterland of the inner line, which was regarded as relatively safe, became a front-line theater where the Shouzhou Army and the Tangyi Army faced off and fought frequently, and because the Shouzhou Army completely fell to the Liang State, the previous theater on both sides of the Huai River became the hinterland of the inner line.

After the Wujinling fiasco to avoid population loss and organize the resumption of production in the areas along the Huai River, Xu Mingzhen did not wait to stabilize his position in Anfeng Village, and immediately forced all the households in the south of Huozhou and the north of Chaozhou to move north as soon as possible.

After the Jinling Incident, Shouzhou's grain supply was extremely tight, and in the past two years, Bianjing transferred 450,000 stone grain and straw from Song Ying and other prefectures every year to help the Shouzhou army, which only barely made up for the shortage of military funds.

Not to mention the fiasco of Wujinling, not only a large number of casualties among the generals, but also the loss of a large number of war materials, making Shouzhou's grain more and more stretched, but also the all-round adjustment of the defense line that broke the muscles and bones.

In this situation, the people of Shouzhou naturally fell into extreme poverty, regardless of whether they were high or low, but all the stored grain was forcibly requisitioned by the Shouzhou army, and two or three hundred thousand old and weak women and children were forced to migrate on a large scale without sufficient migration and resettlement preparations, and the tragedy of the famine epidemic was unimaginable.

Zhang Shigui's wife died in childbirth on the way to the north, and his brothers' parents lived under a leaky hut built of fluffy grass after moving north, picking up wild vegetable bark for food every day, and both froze to death within a few days of winter.

However, this is only a very inconspicuous tragedy under the turbulent situation of the Jianghuai war, because of the shortage of materials, when the Anning Palace crossed the river, a large number of people fled north, and in the past three years, there have been countless people who have died of starvation, freezing to death and illness without medical treatment.

If the soldiers killed in battle and seriously wounded are counted, the loss of people under Shouzhou is at least more than 100,000.

In comparison, the states in the south of the Yangtze River can be called the rule of the world.

Looking at the tunzhai at night, Han Bao pursed his mouth, his thin cheeks were like a knife and an axe, giving people a sense of perseverance, and he thought to himself, only the new system can be pushed to the world, and the poor people like ants will be a little more relaxed if they are like a boulder crushing, right?

Compared with the ignorant teenager who was full of brute strength and resentment but didn't know how to vent it during the Jinling Incident, four years have passed, the tempering of the battlefield or bloody battles, and the systematic training from the primary literacy class, intermediate literacy class to the martial arts school, Han Bao at this time has grown into a qualified middle-level military general in the Tangyi Army.

His elder brother Han Donghu was already a first-class senior general in Duyuhou, of course, he could stay in the army as a battalion commander, or go to the inner line counties to serve as a county lieutenant or secretary, but he still chose to take on more arduous and dangerous tasks.

He initially chose to lead a small group of elites to the mountainous areas of eastern Huazhu Tsim Sha Tsui to launch and lead the low-level poor and slaves to carry out riots, and expand the effective jurisdiction of Huaiyang County beyond the barrier of lofty mountains and mountains to the western mountainous areas.

Han Qian emphasized that the intention and role of guerrilla warfare must not be limited to sending troops and horses to take advantage of the terrain to contain and harass the enemy army, but more importantly, to mobilize the poor people at the bottom.

Only in this way can we effectively reduce the population and area controlled by the enemy, weaken the enemy's ability to exploit resources and continue to feed the war, so as to achieve the goal of fundamentally weakening the enemy's army.

The follow-up Han Leopard failed to make the trip, and it was the Military Intelligence Staff Department that had a more important reconnaissance mission assigned to him.

…………

…………

After crossing the Yellow River and crossing the mountains, Han Bao's team entered Zezhou in early December.

The news of the death of Emperor Shi Chongsi of the Jin Dynasty was officially announced to the world in late spring last year.

At that time, Shi Chengzu, the crown prince of Jin, was in Shuozhou, and the Empress Dowager Zhang and the privy envoy Liu Yun welcomed Shi Jiyuan, the king of Jinlu, into Taiyuan Mansion to ascend the throne.

Shi Chengzu, the prince of Jin, was supported by soldiers and horses in northern Jin, and became independent according to Shuozhou and Daizhou, and the Jin Kingdom fell into civil strife for a while.

Before the news of the death of Emperor Shi Chongsi of the Jin Dynasty spread, Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang supervised the battle in Sizhou, and learned the news that Shi Chongsi was seriously ill a moment earlier, so he immediately mobilized elite soldiers and horses to go north.

Seeing the chaos in the Liang realm, Zhu Yu sent troops from Weizhou and Bianzhou to seize the Wei, Huai, and Yi prefectures on the north bank of the Yellow River that were taken away by the Jin army during the Liang civil strife, and then in the winter of last year, he crossed the mountains at the southern foot of the Taihang Mountain and attacked Zezhou, an important town in the south of the Jin Kingdom, which is known as the "Hedong Domain, the Gateway of the Three Jins, the Shouchong of Taihang, and the Throat of Heshuo".

Shi Chongsi established the Jin State according to Hedong Road and Hebei Province, and has long been operated by Zezhou as the most important town in the south, and has been guarding Zezhou with elite heavy troops for many years, and the Jin army is based on Hanzhou out of Taihang Mountain, which can seize the Weihuaiyi Prefectures on the north bank of the Yellow River, threatening the Liang capital Bianjing, and the code can be used outside the Taihang Mountain for the Liang army.

Although Zezhou and nearby cities have long been the focus of Liang and Jin soldiers' contention, in the past 30 years, Liang Emperor Zhu Wen (counting Zhu Wen during the period when Zhu Wen was crowned King of Liang), Zezhou City did not fall into the hands of the Liang army once, and several times the Liang army was repulsed under the city of Zezhou, or could not be captured for a long time, and had to withdraw the army.

This time, Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang also took advantage of the fact that nearly half of the defenders of Zezhou were taken to Jinjing by Luwang Shi Jiyuan, and sent troops to besiege Zezhou before his soldiers and horses returned to help, and then spent four months erecting a whirlwind cannon to blast the walls of Zezhou City open, and crushed the reinforcements led by Liu Yun, the privy envoy of the Jin State, in the north of Zezhou City.

Han Jun spent several days around Zezhou, looking for traces left by the battle between the soldiers and horses of the two sides, and it was obvious that the Jin State did not expect that the Liang army would be able to hold out on to the siege of Zezhou City for four months in the severe cold season of wind and snow.

After capturing Zezhou, Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang non-stop mobilized the troops and horses in Guanzhong to march eastward, attacking from east to west, and seizing more than 20 counties in the southwest of Hedong Ancient County, such as Anyi, Xiangling, Ronghe, Linjin, Quhuo, Yicheng, and Yuxiang, by this time the Liang army had almost completely occupied the southern prefectures and counties of Hedong Ancient County.

And this winter, Zhu Yu gathered nearly 100,000 elite soldiers and horses and advanced to the city of Luzhou, an important town in the central part of the Jin Kingdom.

Han Bao led a small group of elite scouts, braved the wind and snow to cross the hinterland of Hehuai, climb over the Taihang Mountain, and enter Zezhou, which was ordered by Han Qian to reconnoiter the situation of the confrontation between the two armies of Liang and Jin in Luzhou.

Taihang Mountain has eight mountains, which is the connecting passage between the ancient county of Hedong and the ancient county of Hebei and Hanoi.

Thirteen years ago, the Jin Kingdom lost Youyun and other states, and the Flying Fox, Puyin, and Jundu in the north were all lost to the control of the Mengwu people; The Liang army seized Huai and Ze Prefectures, and then controlled the three passages of Yiguan, Taihang, and Baizhou, and only Jingcheng and Fukou in the east of Luzhou became the key points for the Jin army to communicate with the East and West.

Once the Liang army captured Luzhou, it completely cut off the east and west parts of the Jin Kingdom, which not only determined the life and death of the Jin Kingdom, determined the victory or defeat of the Liang and Jin Dynasty for 30 years, but also determined the overall trend of the Central Plains in the future.

The Shouzhou army was defeated in the north of Huaiyang Mountain, and Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang did not waver in his determination to capture Luzhou in one fell swoop.

The war between the Liang and Jin dynasties also involved the situation of the Mughal people in the north running the Yunyun Prefectures, which involved a wide range of things, even if scouts were sent many times before, the information obtained was still fragmentary.

For the time being, there are no conditions for establishing a more perfect military intelligence network, and it is very difficult for three or five ordinary scouts to make an accurate judgment of the war situation in the north and the intricate relations between various forces, so as to conduct more targeted and accurate intelligence reconnaissance.

It was against this background that Han Bao and others were selected.

After Han Bao and they crossed the Yellow River, it was extremely cold in the north, and a steady stream of people and horses could be seen along the road, braving the wind and snow, escorting grain and other materials, and passing through the Taihang Pass into the southern area of Hedong Ancient County.

Most of the people are still thin and dilapidated, shivering under the cold wind, and there are many frozen corpses abandoned there on the side of the road, but the soldiers of the Liang army, even if the fabric on the inside and outside of the uniforms is still made of kudzu linen, but the vast majority of the winter clothes have been filled with warmer and more cold-resistant cotton wool.

The links involved in weaving are more cumbersome and complex, and it is difficult for Liang Jun to popularize cotton cloth in a short period of time, but the cotton planting area of Bianjing and Luoyang, personally promoted by Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang, expanded nearly 100,000 mu step by step in more than three years, and the process of stripping cotton is relatively simple.

This also became the greatest guarantee for the Liang army to continue to besiege the Jin city in the harsh winter.

Last winter, the Liang army besieged Zezhou City, and the Jin army obviously misjudged the Liang army's ability to continue fighting in winter, and did not send reinforcements to Zezhou in time before winter, and could not send reinforcements in the wind and snow throughout the winter.

This is equivalent to the southern gateway of the Jin Kingdom being kicked open by the Liang army.

In addition, the large-scale use of cyclone cannons and the significant improvement of the level of smelting, iron casting, and armor casting in the area of Bianjing and Luoyang by the Liang State were also the key to the Liang army's combat effectiveness being able to comprehensively suppress the Jin army for the first time.

Squatting deep in the mountains and forests, looking at the ruined Zezhou City in the distance, Han Bao thought that there would be no other accidents, and there should be no problem for the Liang army to capture Luzhou this winter.

In fact, the Jin army was more restricted in the cold winter wind and snow, which further widened the gap between the combat effectiveness of the two armies.