Seeing that Zhang Ping should accept this matter, Han Qian personally introduced the situation in Xuanzhou in the south and Liyang and Jintan counties in the east to Zhang Ping and Gao Shao in the past two days:

"At present, there is news that King Xin has only recruited strong slaves and maids from Dantu, Jingkou, and Danyang counties for the time being, and has not yet affected the four counties of Jintan, Liyang, Imjin, and Yangyang, but these four counties and the villagers of Changzhou and Suzhou counties on the north coast of East Taihu Lake will inevitably feel the pressure soon. And the Chuzhou army on the south bank of the Yangtze River is a little more sufficient, let alone rush to a decisive battle with the Anning Palace, I think they may go east to control Changzhou and Suzhou first, to ensure that their grain is worry-free, and at the same time they can search for the ships of Surun and Changsanzhou to expand their naval army. Prior to this, the Lou Ship Army under the command of Yang Jian had always been a threat to it......"

"Lord Han seemed to be more worried that the Chuzhou army would divide its troops and go south, enter between Jieling Mountain and Fuyu Mountain, and seal the passage of the Chishan Army to the east?" Zhang Ping said with some doubts.

"I did have this worry before," Han Qian said, "I recruited slaves and maids into the army in Maoshan, and what I touched was the scale of the local forces, which greatly disturbed the villagers east and south of Maoshan. If the Chuzhou army is not in a hurry to expand its troops and horses at this time, it will even give up confronting Anning Palace at the southern foot of Baohua Mountain, and shrink the forward 30,000 elite troops from Jingshan Nunnery to Dantu, Danyang and other places, so that the Nanya Forbidden Army and the Shouzhou Army can free up their hands to force us from the west. At the same time, they can also draw more elite soldiers and horses to the south; And to be able to take advantage of the local forces' jealousy and hatred towards us, and form a joint defense between Jieling Mountain and Fuyu Mountain—this is the most headache for me. Fortunately, King Shin is not patient enough, and he is not the kind of person who is willing to give up the initiative for the time being and sit back and wait for the opportunity. Now that the Chuzhou army is requisitioning strong slaves and maids in Jingkou, looking at their measures, it seems that they are more relaxed than ours, but the large strength of the Chuzhou army makes the local forces jealous of them. It would have made me less worried if they had to divide their forces south on a large scale at this time......"

Zhang Ping thought about it, too, the Chuzhou army was dividing its troops to the south at this time, and it could not win the trust of the local soldiers and horses in Xuanzhou and Huzhou, and even strengthened the taboo of the local soldiers and horses in these two places, which would cause the southern front to fall into a more subtle containment, which may not necessarily be unfavorable to the Chishan army.

Under such circumstances, the Chuzhou army will give priority to strengthening its control over the northern plain of Taihu Lake, where the situation is much simpler and the grain resources are more abundant.

As a result, the Chishan Army can get a certain amount of respite, but the problem is that this time may only be one or two months, thinking that every step in the follow-up is intricate and frightening, Zhang Ping couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's also a loss that you dare to fall on such a chessboard." ”

"Take a step back from the abyss, and you can't stop playing, you can only bite the bullet, and wherever you go." Han Qian said with a calm smile.

At present, in addition to the Chuzhou Army in the east, the local soldiers and horses in Xuanzhou in the south, Huzhou, Xiuzhou, and Hangzhou in the southeast, and even the forces in Yuezhou, Mingzhou and other places farther away are all factors that the Chishan Army needs to consider at this time.

The sand table is inconvenient to move, the old sand table is left in the courtyard at the northern foot of Maoshan Mountain, the new sand table has not yet been made, a topographic map has been drawn beyond recognition by Han Qian with charcoal in the past two days, and I don't know how many times Han Qian has deduced this topographic map.

As a military envoy, Zhang Ping does not need to bear too much responsibility, but he is still very clear about the situation faced by the Chishan Army.

In the early years of the founding of the Great Chu Dynasty, the war in the eastern provinces of Jiangnan was basically subsided until the eighth year of Tianyou, on the one hand, the prefectures and counties in the eastern part of the Yangtze River were given nearly ten years of rest and recuperation, and on the other hand, the military potential of these prefectures and counties had not been corroded and weakened by a longer period of comfortable life.

In addition, many of the main officials such as the Thorn History, Changshi, Sima and the county commanders, county lieutenants, and county officials in Jiangdong Prefecture were generals from local families.

This was a compromise made by Emperor Tianyou in order to quickly stabilize the situation in the prefectures and counties of the eastern province south of the Yangtze River, and it was also related to the fact that after the civil official selection system of the previous dynasty was destroyed, the Great Chu had not been able to establish an effective civil official selection system in time for so many years.

Gu Zhilong, the assassin of Xuanzhou, was a senior general at the level of Yuhou in the capital of Shengzhou Jiedu in his early years.

Emperor Tianyou led the Huainan army to cross the river, he led his troops to join the army for the first time, and then led his troops to participate in many wars against Dong Chang, the king of Yue, and made great contributions.

And after pacifying the Yue King Dong Chang, he once served in the Yongjia Jiedu Embassy of the Wuling Army in southern Zhejiang, Tianyou 11 years, Tianyou Emperor reduced the garrison of the Yongjia Jiedu Embassy, Gu Zhilong in addition to hundreds of soldiers, other soldiers and horses were included in the Nanya forbidden camp, and he himself was transferred out of the Yongjia Jiedu Envoy, out of the Xuanzhou Assassin History so far.

When the main force of Emperor Tianyou and Dong Chang, the king of Yue, fought fiercely in Runzhou, Huanghua led his troops to defend Liyang, and entered the Chu army that guarded Maoshan and Lishui at that time.

After the battle of Runzhou, Huang Hua handed over the soldiers and horses of his department, and then successively served as the assassin of Xiuzhou and Huzhou.

In addition to Zhou Bingwu, the envoy of Yongjia Jiedu who commanded 10,000 elite forbidden troops in southern Zhejiang to defend the Wuwei army in the south, Hangzhou, Yuezhou, Mingzhou, Xiuzhou, Taizhou, Quzhou and other Jiangdong states have almost a similar history.

Almost all of these Dazhou thorns have as few as hundreds, as many as four or five hundred elite troops, together with their own relatives and family soldiers, plus the number of low-level slaves and maids controlled by them, it is a group of as few as one or two thousand, and as many as three or five thousand people.

The situation in the DPRK and China is stable, and the governors of these states are all well-behaved and obedient, and there is no dissent at all, but the situation is turbulent, and the central government's control over the local areas is weakened.

And then collude more closely with the local family lords, and the soldiers and horses in their hands can expand rapidly.

In the later years of the previous dynasty, the situation of martial artists in power and many heroes was like this; And the founding of Great Chu for more than ten years has not been able to fundamentally change this status quo.

This is also the fundamental reason why Yue Yang's excessive dependence on the Zheng family and the Xinchang Marquis Mansion, as well as the fact that the Xinchang Marquis Li Pu recruited the families in Lishui and allowed them to directly lead private soldiers, and Zhang Ping was very worried about this - in this way, even if the three princes could win in the end, in fact, it would not fundamentally change the status quo of Great Chu.

The reality is that after the Jinling Incident, Gu Zhilong, the assassin of Xuanzhou, recruited troops on the basis of the Xuanzhou soldiers, and expanded the Xuanzhou soldiers from the initial 3,000 to 8 or 9,000 in a short period of time.

Gu Zhidong originally wanted to make a choice after the Chuzhou Army and the Anning Palace competed for victory, but he never thought that the Chishan Army would be born.

This time, the Chishan army's invasion of Shangjiabao was a great victory, but it disturbed the villagers' families, and Zhang Ping believed that it would make it more convenient and easier for Gu Zhilong to collect and gather the local villagers' soldiers and horses in Xuanzhou.

Han Qian's next words also confirmed Zhang Ping's speculation: "Gu Zhilong, the assassin of Xuanzhou, originally led troops and horses to garrison Xuancheng to wait and see the situation, after we captured Shangjiabao, the villagers in the north of Xuanzhou were frightened, and fled south like frightened birds, making it more convenient for Gu Zhilong to recruit troops and buy horses, and the two cities of Langxi and Xuancheng south of Fushan, this morning, the garrison should be increased to about 6,000 people." ”

"So many soldiers?" Gao Shao asked in shock.

Xuancheng is further south, located in the middle of the flare mouth terrain formed by the sandwich of Fuyu Mountain and Yishan Mountain, as the state seat of Xuanzhou, it is very understandable that there are more garrisons, but Langxi is located at the northwest foot of Fuyu Mountain, to the south to choke the attack on Xuancheng, to the east to block the passage into Huzhou, Gao Shao is somewhat unimaginable, now even Langxi's garrison is more than 6,000 soldiers?

"Xuanzhou is also exposed to the two cities of Xuancheng and Langxi, but the location of Langxi is more critical, in other words, I will arrange the main troops and horses to Langxi," Han Qian said, "Now Gu Zhilong evenly distributes his forces between Xuancheng and Langxi, which shows that he only wants to hold the two crucial nodes in the north of Xuanzhou at this time, and has no intention of leading his troops out of the city to take advantage of our Chishan army." ”

Zhang Ping nodded, distributing troops evenly is a seemingly safe, but most conservative strategy.

Gu Zhilong is conservative, which is more or less good news for them.

It is likely that Gu Zhilong will only hold Langxi City and block the Chishan Army from entering Xuanzhou, but will not send troops out of Langxi City to block the passage of the Chishan Army from the north of Langxi City and east into Huzhou.

"Gu Zhilong's approach is a bit beggar-thy-neighbor, he just wants to keep us out of Xuanzhou, but he doesn't care about the monstrous flood in Huzhou!" Gao Shao frowned and said, "What's the reaction from Huzhou's Huanghua?" ”

"From the time we formed the Chishan Army in Maoshan to recruit slaves and maids, Huang Hua seemed to have expected that we would march eastward, and at that time, in addition to recruiting troops and horses in Huzhou, he also sent his children back to Xiuzhou, where the Huang clan has deeper roots, to recruit soldiers and soldiers to Huzhou!" Han Qian said, "Although it has only been two days, and Huzhou, which reacted a little later, has not yet received direct feedback, I think that after we move into Huzhou, it is likely that we will have to gnaw on this iron plate!" ”

Zhang Ping and Gao Shao both felt that Gu Zhilong was fighting with the idea of beggar-thy-neighbor, and Huzhou Huanghua was even more difficult, so they found that even if the Chuzhou Army would not send further troops south for the time being, the military pressure faced by the Chishan Army on the southern and eastern flanks in a short period of time would only be greater, and it would not weaken at all.

At this time, if Li Pu could hold the situation on the northwest flank, they would have to hold their noses and endure him for a while.

Han Qian said to Gao Shao again: "You can't rest when you come back, and when the sun is a little slanted and not so vicious, you will lead two battalions of soldiers to Nantangbu." The squires of Nantangbu have fled south with their families, and there are currently more than a dozen scouts guarding there, you lead your troops to go over, build a village and build a camp, if possible, before the Chuzhou army moves south, the western foot of Jieling Mountain will also be controlled......"

"Not for two days?" Gao Shao asked suspiciously.

Although it is speculated that the Chuzhou Army and the Xuanzhou Assassin Gu Zhilong have chosen a relatively conservative attitude towards the Chishan Army during this time, it does not mean that the Chishan Army will really show fatigue and flaws, and they will not pounce and bite.

Therefore, the Red Mountain Army still has to maintain a vicious posture and show its fangs and claws.

Although Gao Shao understood this truth, he had just led two battalions of soldiers and horses to withdraw from Lishui, but he did not expect that he could only rest for one noon, and he would have to bypass Donglu Mountain and advance from the east flank to the southeast.

"The more resolutely we advance, the more hesitant the enemy will react...... Han Qian said undoubtedly.

Zhang Ping also felt that it was not realistic to storm Langxi City or Liyang City at present, so it was necessary to choose one or two key points in the southeast of Donglu Mountain and west of Jieling Mountain, select the villages abandoned by the family gate lords to consolidate them, and send a part of the elite troops to the past, so as to deter the Xuanzhou soldiers and horses from going north and the Chuzhou army from moving south, but they could not help but let the generals take a breath.

However, seeing Han Qian's determined expression, he thought that his calculations had not yet failed, and secretly felt that perhaps in Han Qian's eyes, the situation was still so urgent that he could not breathe a sigh......