"What kind of military situation is it?" Liu Yan glanced at Liu Kuo, and then hurriedly asked the spies who ran into the hall.

"An hour ago, the enemy army in the north of the city suddenly went south and charged with cavalry, but the defenders in the north of the city were unable to respond and fled in all directions! The north and west gates have been heavily surrounded by enemy troops! The spy was sweating profusely and hurried back.

As soon as these words came out, the generals were in an uproar, just now they were still talking about assisting in the defense of Yangzhou City, and in a blink of an eye, the defenders were defeated, and the two gates were besieged by the enemy?

Hearing the news, Liu Yan's face was ugly, and in a blink of an eye, he saw that Liu Kuan's expression was as usual, and his rapidly beating heart was a little calmer.

"How's it going in the city?"

The spy replied: "After the enemy army was attacked, after the two armies fought in the north of the city, the south gate that was originally wide open has been closed, and no one can enter or leave, and the defeated defenders have withdrawn to the east, and the other is already on the way to Guazhoudu. ”

Knowing that Yangzhou City was fine, Liu Yan felt a little more settled.

I only heard him shout loudly to a group of whispering generals: "You don't have to worry so much, Yangzhou City has thick walls, there are 20,000 defenders in it, hundreds of thousands of people, and Huaidong pacification envoy personally sits in the town, it is impregnable, only 20,000 enemy troops, give them three months, it is impossible to capture Yangzhou City!" Tomorrow we will reorganize our troops and horses and drive away the enemy troops outside the city in one fell swoop, and Yangzhou City will still be in our hands! ”

"30,000 defenders, if you say defeated, you will be defeated, what can we do if we go to 50,000? The enemy has four legs, we have two legs, they can't win and can still run, what do we chase? Do we still have to divide a part of our troops to garrison Yangzhou City? Isn't that the same fate as those 30,000? If you want me to say, since Yangzhou City has the Huaidong pacification envoy personally in charge, and there are more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in the city, and there are enough food and grass materials, they can defend it themselves, and we will do our best to defend the Guazhou Ferry, can the enemy 20,000 or 30,000 people still dare to come to grab the ferry? ”

One of the commanders did not agree with Liu's proposal for military action, so he unceremoniously dismissed it, completely ignoring his relationship with Liu.

For those of them who carry knives to eat, in the face of the threat of death in war, when it is a matter of life and death, no matter how hard you are, no matter how hard you are, it is worthless in their eyes.

Liu Yan was choked and speechless.

Liu Jian said: "What Chen Min said is reasonable. Since the defenders outside Yangzhou City have been defeated and all the four gates are closed, there are so many soldiers and civilians, food, and materials in the city, as well as Liu Ze, who has appeased Liu Ze to personally sit in the city, they will support them for a few months, and there will be no problems. We deployed defenses in Guazhou, and they couldn't take Yangzhou, and they didn't dare to rush into battle. ”

"Report! Yangzhou emergency military situation! ”

Before Liu Kuang's words fell, there was a shout outside the door, and a spy rushed into the conference hall.

Without waiting for someone to ask, the spy sweated like rain, raised his hand and hurriedly said: "Yu Dashuai, appease Liu Ze to lead the army to withdraw to Taizhou, and Yangzhou City is lost!" ”

"What?" Liu Jian was startled, and fought directly from the chair, he couldn't believe that this was true.

"How, tell me carefully!"

Seeing that Liu Jian was staggering and about to fall, Liu Yan hurriedly stepped forward, supported the other party, and then slowly sat down.

The spy hurriedly said: "After the defeat of the defenders outside the city before, the original four city gates have been closed, but just when the enemy troops besieging the north gate and the west gate saw that the high walls of Yangzhou City were thick and difficult to break, and after retreating for five miles, the east gate suddenly opened, and an army escorted a gorgeous carriage out of the city and evacuated eastward in a hurry. The army was accompanied by a number of officials, gentry, and a large number of civilians. As soon as the army withdrew from the city, it was discovered by the enemy sentry outside the city, and in less than half an hour, thousands of enemy cavalry rushed to the east gate and rushed directly into the undefended Yangzhou City. I don't know what the situation is in the city now. ”

After listening to the spies' complaints, Liu Jian suddenly began to cough violently, and he couldn't say a word.

Seeing this, Liu Yan hurriedly said: "Everyone dispersed first, and all the armies hurriedly camped on the spot to defend against the enemy!" ”

Seeing that the boss had been changed dramatically in Yangzhou, the generals were speechless with anger, how dare they continue to sit here and wait for death, set up camp and defend themselves, and save their lives is the most important thing.

More than twenty commanders left in a hurry.

Yang Congyi also followed the general flow, quickly left, and urged the horse to rush back to the camp on the left bank of the ferry.

On the same day, they informed the generals and colonels of the whole army of the latest military situation on the loss of Yangzhou, and asked all commanders to familiarize themselves with the Yangtze River waterway within 10 miles of the nearby upper and lower reaches as soon as possible, and make preparations for fighting with the enemy on the water.

At the same time, it was ordered to advance the barracks on the shore to the direction of Yangzhou for three miles, set up many obstacles to the march in the camp, and prepare for fighting with the enemy in the camp, so that when it was absolutely necessary, the large force would withdraw to the middle of the river, leaving enough space and time.

The enemy army was close at hand, and Liu Jian's army, which had withdrawn to Guazhou Town, immediately took action, day and night, and spent two days building a huge defensive battalion with Guazhou Town as the center, with a full 50,000 troops in the camp.

This large battalion stood there, and without three or four times the strength of the force, it was difficult to break through in a short time.

Directly north of the ferry, as soon as the large battalion facing the direction of Yangzhou City was erected, the three defenders stationed at the ferry had a strong barrier, and if the large battalion was not broken, they would not see the enemy.

However, Yang Congyi is well aware of the dangers.

The big battalion seems to be huge and strong, just like the impregnable Yangzhou City in their mouths, but Yangzhou City was broken in an instant, and the enemy took it down without much effort.

If Liu Jian was twenty years younger, it would still be possible, but now he is seriously ill, once his physical condition is unexpected, with the current state of the generals, the camp will be chaotic, and then the armies will rush to the south, and the camp will not attack itself.

In addition to Liu Kuang's accident, there is also a possibility that if the imperial court learns that Yangzhou is lost, in order to preserve military strength, it is likely to transfer the army back to the south bank to defend.

So whether Liu Jian can go or not will determine whether the Guazhou camp can be defended.

If Yangzhou is still in the hands of the Great Song Dynasty, Liu Jian will stick to Guazhou no matter what, but with the current situation, it is speculated that he will definitely go, even if he doesn't want to go, the imperial court will definitely not watch him bury the 50,000 army, after all, the army that can be mobilized on the south bank has been transferred to Jiangbei, and the army that cannot be built to defend in a short period of time is too late to be requisitioned from other parties, so the army of the Guazhou battalion is the main force to defend the south bank.

After thinking about it carefully, Yang Congyi couldn't raise the slightest confidence in the seemingly solid Guazhou camp.

If you maliciously guess again, Liu Jian built a huge camp in Guazhou in a short period of time, I am afraid that it is just to scare the enemy army and make them dare not come to attack easily, so as to buy time for the army to retreat to Jiangnan smoothly.

Yang Congyi was comparing the map in the camp, carefully deducing the gains and losses of the enemy's advance and retreat, looking for an opportunity to make meritorious contributions, and suddenly the spies came back to report the enemy's situation.

The spies reported that after arriving to investigate, the enemy troops near Yangzhou had been united, and their sentry spies had repeatedly gone out of the city to spy on the military situation near the camp in Guazhou, and judging from the movements inside and outside the city, they were likely to try to attack the camp within two days.

The Western Route Army occupies Hezhou and is preparing to cross the river, and the Eastern Route Army really can't wait, let's see how Liu Jian breaks the enemy!

As a well-known veteran general, it is impossible for him to leave the Guazhou camp without winning a battle.

From the camp of Guazhou to the city of Yangzhou, the enemy has superior cavalry, and this terrain is most suitable for their cavalry to charge into battle, how to fight this battle?

The map in Yang Congyi's hand is not detailed, and he can't see the terrain that is favorable to them, so could it be that this battle must rely on a strong battalion to fight an offensive and defensive battle?

Just as he was meditating, the heralds of the Guazhou battalion came to give the order and ordered the commanders of all armies to go to the Shuai camp to discuss matters quickly!

In the council hall of the handsome camp, more than 20 commanders are basically in place.

Not long after Yang Congyi, Wei Jun, and Wang Fang arrived, Liu Jian walked into the conference hall accompanied by Liu Yan.

"Dashuai!"

The generals stood up and saluted.

Liu Jian raised his hand slightly, without words, his complexion was a little worse than a few days ago, if it continued like this, I am afraid it would be difficult to survive this winter.

With the arrival of Liu Kuang, the chaotic conference hall quickly quieted down.

After everyone sat down, they only listened to Liu Yan, who was standing beside Liu Kuang, and said: "Not long ago, I received news that an enemy army of tens of thousands of people appeared in the direction of Zhenzhou, and they have occupied Zhenzhou City. Half an hour ago, I received news that the enemy army occupying Yangzhou City was preparing to go out of the city to attack the camp in Guazhou. ”

Hearing the news, the generals were speechless for a while and fell silent.

The enemy is flanked by two directions, what countermeasures can this have?

After a period of silence in the hall, someone stubbornly said: "We should stick to the camp, as long as we don't hold out, it's still no problem to hold on for half a month." ”

"Yes, let's defend the camp, if we don't go out of the camp, they won't be able to enter."

"Just keep the camp."

As soon as someone spoke, everyone agreed.

The enemy is preparing a two-way attack, in addition to defending, there is only retreat, a few days ago Liu Jian said to hold on, the generals will retreat and flee the royal power criticized, at this time of course no one jumped out and said to retreat, that is not to stretch out the face to let people beat?

Not only was he slapped in the face, but he also had to bear infamy, and finally he had to be punished.

Those who can achieve the command of one army are all smart people, and everyone understands this truth.

But in the midst of the cries of everyone echoing the need to hold the camp, there were also two discordant voices.

"We should go out of the camp and fight to extinguish the enemy's prestige!"

"Take the initiative and defend actively!"

As soon as two abrupt voices appeared, they attracted everyone's attention.

One is Chen Min, the commander of the enemy army, and the other is almost unknown.

"The commander of the enemy army Chen advocated going out of the camp to fight and confront it head-on. Another one advocates taking the initiative to attack and actively defending, forgive me for being clumsy, can you tell me the origin? Liu Yan asked loudly.

"The last general is under the command of the elite army, Yang Congyi!"