At the head of Fangzhou City, Zhizhou Gao Zhen looked at the city, frowned, and said, "Put the Bianliang envoy and the guards in." ”

"Tall, sir!" Chen Keli, the head of Fangzhou's soldiers and horses, and He Jingguo, the capital supervisor, said in a lost voice, "Absolutely not!" ”

"Put it in first," Gao Zhen said coldly, "capture the messenger, behead the escorted Liao thieves, and then behead the city." Such demagogues are not enough to warn the world if they are not killed! "Fangzhou City is in Dayi, west of Xiangyang, and the total number of forbidden troops is only more than 2,000 people. Hearing that the Liao soldiers were going to overwhelm the territory, the people in the city were panicked. If it weren't for the thunderbolt, it wouldn't be enough to warn the half-hearted people in the city.

Chen Keli said with a happy face: "Obey." He strode out with a sword in his hand, and commanded that the gates of the city should be opened and that the messengers should be let in.

He Jingguo is also a eunuch, he looked at the Bianliang envoy under the city, and his heart was filled with sadness for the death of a rabbit and a fox, but he didn't say anything. He Jingguo's status in Fangzhou was originally only slightly lower than Gao Zhen. However, after the fall of Bianliang, the world was in turmoil, and Chen Dong advocated in Ezhou to obey the Son of Heaven and not obey the orders of chaos, and the clear streams of the governing societies in various places echoed. Gao Zhen was originally the governor of Fangzhou, but after the fall of Bianliang, the county school squire of Fangzhou entrusted the safety of a state to him with the election system, which made Gao Zhen even more invincible in Fangzhou. And He Jingguo was originally a eunuch and went out of Beijing as a capital eunuch, and the official family fell into the Liao thief, and suddenly lost his eight points of power. The people of Fangzhou only care about the face of the imperial court, and on the surface, they still respect him as a member of the imperial court.

The gates were opened, and the messenger, surrounded by the guards, entered the city with great might. Thousands of displaced people who had fled outside the city could not help but stir up when they saw this. Most of these people are people from Tangzhou, Dengzhou, Caizhou and other places. In the flat terrain, there were Liao cavalry raging years ago, and the people had to flee to Xiangyang Mansion in the south, or flee to the mountains in the west. However, in order to prevent the Liao army from making money by working hard, almost all the cities were closed to the homeless.

"The gates are open, get in!" The people rushed to the gates. However, as soon as he got close to the city gate, a cluster of sharp arrows shot down.

"Stand back, and don't go near the gates!" The officers and soldiers at the head of the city shouted.

There was a noisy cry of mercy under the city, mixed with the crying of children, and the people mourned, which made people cry.

"Fangzhou Gaozhen's reputation is also good, but that's not the case today!" Mrs. Chao said angrily. Their team was accompanied by chariots and horses, and more than a dozen horsemen from the Li Mansion in Chang'an pretended to be dart soldiers, carrying blades on their bodies, hiding their crossbows in the carriage, standing particularly conspicuous in the crowd, and did not go to the city gate.

After Bianliang surrendered to the Liao army, the city defense gradually relaxed, because the Liao army almost exhausted the grain in the city, and the people in the city had to go out of the city to eat or flee. There were originally as many as one million people in Bianliang City, but now there are less than 200,000 people left in the city. The Chao and Li families also took advantage of the chaos to escape from Bianliang City. Because Luoyang and Xiangyang were heavy confrontations between the Song and Liao armies, after they fled from Bianliang, they traveled day and night along the way, planning to go to Shuzhong through Fangzhou and Jinzhou, and then took refuge in their daughters and sons-in-law, so they turned west after passing Dengzhou.

"The Liao thief is extremely cunning, and Gao Zhen has to do the same. Important towns such as Yingchang Mansion were mixed into the city by spies, and the inside and outside should be combined, and as a result, they were captured by Liao thieves overnight. Chao Buzhi sighed, "I have been comfortable for the soldiers and civilians in the interior for a long time, and I don't know the soldiers. Looking at the panicked people, he shook his head and sighed.

"It seems that I have to bypass Fangzhou," Li Gefei's eyes flashed with a complicated look, and he sighed, "In more than ten days, it will be Shuzhong." "For Henan, which is in turmoil, Shuzhong is like a paradise. Therefore, although the journey was rugged and dangerous, many people of the Song Kingdom still fled westward, but for Chao and Li, this was an extremely difficult decision. Now that the two emperors are vying for the throne, the Song State has suddenly lost its orthodoxy, and it may be a chaotic minister and thief on either side. If it weren't for that, it would not be easy for Mrs. Chao to persuade her husband to go to Shuzhong to avoid trouble.

The wind at the head of the city was quite loud, and soon after, Chen Keli led a team of forbidden troops and brought up a row of more than a dozen heads. The black lacquered wooden plate was dripping with blood. The envoys of Bianliang and the Liao army guards were beheaded, and the forbidden army guards were imprisoned first. He Jingguo looked at it, the two trembled, almost disgusted, and said secretly: "This tall man is usually Sven, but he didn't expect to be a murderer without blinking." ”

Gao Zhen ordered the head to be hung in a wooden cage at the four gates, and said to Chen He and the others: "Our army has beheaded the Liao thief messenger, and we must prevent him from becoming angry and attacking him to retaliate. Now His Majesty is embarrassed by the thieves, and the generals in the camp have ill intentions. I, Fangzhou, respect the Son of Heaven, do not obey chaotic orders, but can only stick to and wait for change. The most important task at the moment is to first collect the grain and grass near the left to the city, and then evacuate the old and weak women and children inside and outside the city to Zhushan, so as to prevent the Liao army from coming over and destroying the lives. "Zhushan County is in the west of Fangzhou, from further west is the important town of Jinzhou, the town of Fangxia, this area of the mountain road is rugged, the army is inconvenient, if the Liao army can not capture Fangzhou, the army is also difficult to bypass.

In the past two months, rumors of the Liao army's attack have continued, and the people in the city have fled with their families and mouths, and the displaced people outside the city want to take refuge in the city. In order to prevent the Liao people's meticulous work, Zhizhou Gao Zhen ordered the four gates to be strictly controlled, and only people were allowed to go out, and no people were allowed to enter the city. The Great Song Dynasty was known for its literature and martial arts, and Gao Zhen was quite prestigious in the local area and won the support of the gentry and the common people. He made up his mind, and Chen Keli, the chief of soldiers and horses, and He Jingguo, the capital supervisor, had no objections.

"Let's go." Chao Buzhi sighed and turned around to walk, when there was a sudden exclamation from the crowd under Fangzhou City. "Human heads!" Immediately after, more people screamed. Chao Buzhi looked back, only to see a row of more than a dozen wooden cages hanging at the head of the city, and then looked closely, the wooden cages were filled with the envoy who had just entered the city and the Liao soldiers who escorted him. The people next to him were talking, some clapped their hands and applauded loudly, and some people had palpitations, glad that they didn't follow into the city just now.

"The afterlife is terrible, the afterlife is terrifying!" Li Gefei sighed twice in succession. Chao Buzhi glanced at the Chengtou banner, the figures of the few Great Song Dynasty officials were blurred, and when they turned around again, their backs felt a little older. Li Gefei felt that Mrs. Wang's palms were cold, guessing that she was frightened by this bloody scene, he stretched out his hand and patted her gently on the back, and sighed: "There are talented people in the country, and Gao Fangling is a move to make a quick decision and break the boat, which is far better than us old scholars." ”

He was not soothed, and when he spoke, Mrs. Wang couldn't help but sob: "If you are empty, my child ....." Her voice was very small, and the women and children of the people next to her were also crying, so as not to attract attention at all. Li Gefei could hear it clearly, his heart felt as if he had been hit by a heavy hammer, and he couldn't say anything comforting. The eldest son Li Ruobing was trapped in the Khitan camp, and the life and death of the youngest son Li Ruoxu were uncertain. As soon as he thought of this, his heart twitched.

Gao Zhen looked at the back of the departing father of the Central Plains, and a wave of guilt surged in his heart. In a heavy tone, he instructed Chen Keli not to slack off his watch, and first pile up arrows, stones, and other things to defend the city near the corridor under the city wall, so that they could be easily used when defending the city. Back in the study, Gao Zhen took out a letter from his arms, there was nothing else on it, only four lines of poetry were written: "Idle walking at the bottom of the stream to pick calamus, thousand-year-old dragon snake bouldering." The Ming Dynasty looked for Fangzhou Road and flew down the mountain without helping. He sighed, and let a few Yamen scribes come in, and ordered the six scribes to join the two classes of officials in Zhuangkuai, and check the city of Fangzhou for those who have come from other places to seek refuge with relatives and friends in recent months, and at the same time check the household registration in the city, and if the Liao army besieges the city in the future, they can distribute rations by mouth.

Outside the city of Fangzhou, the chariots and horses slowly bypassed the heavily guarded city and continued to go west. After the head of the city hung out, many people also gave up the last hope of entering the city to take refuge, and fled with their families towards Daba Mountain and the remaining veins of the Qinling Mountains in the west. The prefectures and counties on the western border of the Great Song Dynasty were sparsely populated, and there were still many tigers and leopards and other fierce beasts in the high mountains and dense forests, but since they fled here, no one wanted to return to the Central Plains, which was being ravaged by the Liao cavalry.

............

Although there were relatively few Liao soldiers in the west, the mountains in the area of Fangling were treacherous, and they were places where the imperial court exiled prisoners since ancient times. Many people who had lived in the plains for generations instinctively feared the mountains and dense forests, so they risked being captured by the Liao cavalry and fled in the direction of Xiangyang. Because the Liao cavalry wandered around, the people did not dare to walk during the day, so they hid in the mountains and forests, and then went south in the dark at night. Many people were stopped by the Liao soldiers halfway through, and after they were swept away, the strong ones were conscripted into the signing army.

Li Ruoxu squatted in a bush, his face covered with dust, his lips chapped, and his eyes full of vigilance. In order to hide people's eyes, the fox fur and the silk robe changed into burlap clothes and pants from the people along the way, and covered them outside the chain mail. He shoved a handful of corn into his mouth and chewed vigorously. Just a few days ago, he saw several rout soldiers shot by the Liao cavalry because they were making fires to keep warm. From then on, even his hands and feet were a little frostbitten, and Li Ruoxu didn't dare to make a fire. When he heard that Chen Dong and others were uprising in Ezhou, he relied on his youth and strength to barely survive and fled south.

There was a disgusting stench coming from the wind, Li Ruoxu frowned, brushed aside the grass, and just walked a short distance, he saw several corpses in the sparse woods, it seemed that a family had been robbed here, there were gray-haired old people, and teenage children. I don't know if it was done by Liao soldiers or country bandits. Several wild dogs were biting at the carcass with their heads down.

"Duh, duh-" Li Ruoxu shouted a few times, "Get out!" He waved a stick in his hand.

The wild dog, not only did not frighten him away, but raised its head, its eyes staring at him viciously, and a deep growl came from its throat. The dog's eyes are all red. This is a beast that is used to eating dead human flesh, even if Li Ruoxu is a living person, in the eyes of wild dogs, it is also classified as "food".

"Troubled times come," Li Ruoxu sighed, "People are not as good as dogs." A sudden burst of extreme grief and indignation rose in his heart, and he clenched the stick in his hand. You man-eating brutes! Li Ruoxu let out a low roar and went crazy and shot at a few wild dogs. His eyes turned red, and he roared angrily, "Man-eating beasts, you beasts! ”