On November 17, Qu Cheng led 15,000 Pingyang troops and finally arrived at Zhengyang City, Zhixian County, Zhengyang County.

Different from the rest of the battles in recent days, this time the Chu soldiers defending the city of Zhengyang County were obviously prepared, so that Qu Cheng failed to conquer the city on that day.

Fortunately, there were not enough Chu soldiers to defend the city in Zhengyang County, so Qu Cheng spent two days asking his subordinates to cut down trees nearby to make long ladders, and after paying more than 3,000 casualties, he conquered the city in the early morning of the 19th.

After conquering Zhengyang, Qu Cheng did not wave his army to continue to the south this time, but made his army enter Zhengyang City and quietly waited for the arrival of Zhao Hongrun's army.

I waited for seven or eight days.

It's no wonder, after all, along the way, Qu Cheng conquered a total of five local big clan cities, just to empty the treasures hidden by those big clan families, the five thousand Yan Ling soldiers who were responsible for moving the property were sweaty and tired, and in the end, Zhao Hongrun had to borrow five thousand soldiers from the Junshui Camp to help the Yan Ling soldiers move together.

In this way, Zhao Hongrun still moved for two whole days.

I saw those carriages full of money and goods, transported to Runan, the scene was really spectacular.

Looking at that scene, Zhao Hongrun was secretly glad that he had asked the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry to build enough carriages in advance, otherwise, he would not be able to transport such a huge amount of property from the local area to Runan in a short period of time.

It was also at that time that Zhao Hongrun realized again that the wealth of Chu was beyond his imagination.

Once upon a time, he mistakenly thought that Chu was a country where its citizens were poor, but in fact, it was the reason for the widespread poverty of the Chu people. It is because the nobles and powerful forces in Chu almost control nearly ninety percent of the financial resources of the entire country, no, just by confiscating the cities of only five big clans such as the Peng family and the Lu family, Zhao Hongrun has made a lot of money and wealth.

It is no exaggeration to say that the wealth he is holding in his hands at the moment. It is even far more than the tax revenue of the Great Wei Household Department that year, which is such a terrible figure that it is enough to make people crazy.

This made Zhao Hongrun, who originally planned to lead the 10,000 Wei soldiers of the Junshui battalion directly to Zhengyang, had to change his mind halfway and let the Wei soldiers escort the carriages that consigned the treasure in batches and escort them to Runan.

Thousands of carriages loaded with heavy boxes drove into Runan City, and the whole city was shocked, because everyone with a good brain could guess where the Wei army had earned such a large sum of money.

"Congratulations to His Royal Highness King Su."

The clan chiefs of Runan City who have been converted. Headed by the sheep tongue of the sheep tongue clan, they respectfully greeted them near the city gate.

Don't look at the Yangyu clan in Runan in the past, it was not a prestigious clan, even in this Runan City, there are not a few clans that are richer and more powerful than him, but who is calling people to climb the high branches of the Wei army now.

Now the entire clans of Runan are privately rumored that the little granddaughter of Yang Yu Tao went to the bed of King Su of Wei Guo, and this news made the rest of the clan patriarchs secretly scold Yang Yu Tao as a "shameless old thing". On the one hand, he secretly blushed at the sheep's tongue and the current situation.

Because, a few days ago, before leaving Runan. Zhao Hongrun once instructed Yang Yutao to come forward to appease the Chu people in Runan City, and asked him to be responsible for accepting those Chu people from other places who had moved to Runan one after another.

In fact, Zhao Hongrun's idea of this matter is very simple, after all, it is better for his Wei people to come forward to appease the people of Chu in Runan, it is better to let Qu Cheng, Yan Mo and other generals who are Chu people come forward to appease, but Qu Cheng and Yan Mo. After all, it is not as good as the local clan that originally lived in Runan.

So, Zhao Hongrun casually chose Yang Yutao as the Wei army's spokesperson in Runan, and asked him to come forward to appease the people of Chu in the city and ease the tension between the Wei people and the Chu people.

As for the reason for choosing the sheep's tongue, Zhao Hongrun firmly denied that it was because of the relationship between the sheep's tongue and the apricot. He just felt that the Yangyu Yi clan was only a small clan in the past, with a deep foundation and relatively easy to control, and besides, Yangyu Tao himself was also a timid, cautious and well-known person, so he would not dare to betray the Wei army.

However, the jealous clans in Runan City did not see it that way, they secretly hated it, and they were eager to give all the little granddaughters in their family to Zhao Hongrun in exchange for the benefits of the family.

After all, from a woman's point of view, no matter how old or young, no matter how high or low the status, and no matter what country it is, women always enjoy less status in the family than men.

Even later, even Yang Yutao himself mistakenly thought that Zhao Hongrun looked at their family differently because of his granddaughter, which made him even more complacent, and he didn't think about it at all, in fact, Zhao Hongrun was angry and wanted to kill him.

No, when Zhao Hongrun saw the thirteen-year-old girl who was also standing in the team that greeted him, he was depressed for a while.

Okay, okay, to be honest, the little girl of the sheep's tongue apricot does make Zhao Hongrun happy, because this girl is not only smart, just like a little jade person, and very simple, and has not been instilled with any messy remarks, I'm afraid it is still unclear that she was not "sleeping" by Zhao Hongrun, but the two of them slept on the bed for a night.

The only problem is that this girl is too small, no matter how beautiful and smart she is, Zhao Hongrun doesn't have the slightest convenience for her. After all, compared with such a young girl, Zhao Hongrun prefers a mature and feminine sensual woman like Miss Su.

As for this little girl, hehe, let's talk about it in ten or eight years.

"Why are you here too?"

may be for the sake of "sleeping", so that when Zhao Hongrun rode a war horse past the city gate, he saw the little girl standing next to his grandfather Yang Yutao, her little nose and face were red from the cold weather, and she really couldn't bear it, so she got off the horse, took off the brocade robe and draped it on her.

"Grandfather said that the slave is now your daughter of His Royal Highness King Su, and the slave should be greeted when the husband returns." The little girl said timidly.

"Woman......

The corners of Zhao Hongrun's mouth twitched a few times, and he couldn't wait to slap the sheep's tongue that was smiling "hehe" on the snow.

"Go, go with the king into the city."

Stretching out his hand to take the little hand of the sheep's tongue apricot, Zhao Hongrun hugged her on the horse. Immediately he also turned on his horse, and the two rode straight to the city.

He didn't bother to pay attention to the sheep's tongue that had been laughing beside him.

To be honest, Zhao Hongrun is tolerant enough not to use a sword to kill this old thing that ruined his reputation.

It's a pity, that old thing, hmm. It's a sheep's tongue, and he doesn't care about Zhao Hongrun's indifference to him, anyway, in his opinion, as long as his granddaughter can please this king of Wei Guosu, they won't worry about anything else.

After Zhao Hongrun entered the city, on the one hand, he asked Cao Jue, Gong Yuan, Yu Chun and other generals of the Junshui Battalion who were guarding the city to hand over the carriages full of treasures, and on the other hand, he sent people to investigate the progress of Gu Liangwei, Wu Majiao, and Wu Ji in attacking Pingyu County.

A day later, the news returned from the investigation was not bad, and it should be said that it was a conservative estimate of Zhao Hongrun, who had made more progress.

Let's talk about Gu Liangwei, Wu Majiao, and Wu Ji first. Taking advantage of the fact that Pingyu County's defense is now empty, the three of them conquered Pingyu County with lightning speed and took their respective families to the county seat.

It may be because there are no worries, or it may be because the defense of the territory under the rule of Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu is empty, and the three of them are not satisfied with the current progress after discussion, so Wu Majiao stayed in Pingyu County, while Gu Liangwei and Wu Ji waved their troops north. Gu Liangwei was responsible for attacking Xiangcheng, while Wu Ji was responsible for capturing Chen County, near Xiangcheng.

After hearing about it. Zhao Hongrun hurriedly sent someone to deliver a message to Wu Ji, telling him to prepare enough ships after conquering Chen County, so that the Wei army could transport a large amount of money and goods to the territory of Great Wei through Yingshui.

Regarding the path of escorting those money and goods, Zhao Hongrun originally thought about taking the waterway of Rushui-Yingshui, but after seeing the distribution of waterways in Chu State. He gave up on the idea anyway.

Because it takes a long way to take the Rushui-Yingshui waterway, the fatal thing is that the waterway is still in the territory of Chu that the Wei army has not yet attacked, in order to prevent sideways branches, Zhao Hongrun decided to change the path. Let Yan Lingbing escort the money and goods to Runan-Shangcai, and after arriving in Shangshui, then mobilize the fleet from Wu Ji in Chen County, and then make the warships carry the money and goods, go to Yingshui-Cai River, and finally transport them to Daliang, the capital of Chen.

What made Zhao Hongrun feel relieved was that although he did not recover the lost territory in time, but under his dispatch, the Weirong army in Anling, Huaiyang and other counties had already been dispatched according to his orders, according to the latest news, Huaiyang's Weirong army had recovered Xiping and Shangshui, so as long as Wu Ji conquered Chen County, this transportation channel would be completely opened.

It is worth mentioning that Zhao Hongrun's previous consideration was correct, when the news of his defeat of Yangcheng Jun Xiong Tuo reached Zhaoling, Linying, and Xiping, the Chu soldiers who had Xiong Tuo left behind in several places surrendered almost without much resistance after being attacked by the local Wei Rong army of Wei.

Even, the Chu soldiers in Xiping and Shangshui, who were relatively close to the fiefdoms under the rule of Pingyujun Xiong Hu, had already fled, so that the local Wei Rong troops in Wei State, who had almost no experience in warfare, had won their trips one after another.

Of course, there is good news, and naturally there is also bad news.

The bad news is that Qu Cheng sent someone to Zhao Hongrun about the battle situation in Zhengyang.

Although it took Qu Cheng three days to finally conquer Zhengyang, his failure in Zhengyang to defraud the city made Zhao Hongrun clearly understand that letting the surrendered Yuan Chu generals go to the deception city, this trick may not work in the future.

Although he secretly told himself that the help of those generals so far was huge enough, Zhao Hongrun still felt a little regretful, after all, if he couldn't capture the city by deceitful city, then the difficulty of his next attack on the city of Chu would undoubtedly increase by a few grades.

And just one day later, Qu Cheng sent someone to bring worse news: he sent people to investigate Yangcheng, which is further south of Zhengyang, located in the upper reaches of the Huaishui, but learned that Yangcheng Jun Xiong Tuo had successfully returned to his own city by some means, and was preparing the army more intensively, preparing to defend Yangcheng to the death.

"True ......"

After hearing the news, Zhao Hongrun couldn't help but feel a little emotionally Xiong Tuo's life, in such heavy snow, he could still return to Yangcheng smoothly under the nose of Wei Jun.

However, Zhao Hongrun didn't care much about the new army hastily formed by Yangcheng Jun Xiong Tuo, compared with him, he was more concerned about the attitude of the next Chu State.

After all, counting the days, the news here should also reach the ears of the King of Chu, and when the time comes, it will be war and peace, all depending on the words of the King of Chu.

There is no doubt that King Chu's sentence will directly affect the current situation on Zhao Hongrun's side, and even affect the entire Great Wei.

After all, it is no exaggeration to say that the state of Chu has the heritage and national strength to fight with two countries on two fronts at the same time.

Worse still, this "two countries" does not refer to the alliance of Qi and Lu, but to the strength to wage war with Wei and Qi at the same time.

Of course, fighting with the two countries at the same time does not guarantee that the Chu State will win, which is also Zhao Hongrun's biggest reliance now.

However, on the other hand, if Chu can guarantee victory by fighting with Wei and Qi at the same time, then Wei and Qi should not be mixed up and surrender Chu as soon as possible.

Now, it depends on whether the king of Chu will continue to fight with Wei.

Although Zhao Hongrun has not yet learned that his sixth brother Zhao Hongzhao has gone to Qi as a hostage in order to obtain the support of Qi State, he does not mind pulling Qi and Lu into the water.

After all, the hatred between Qi and Lu and Chu is no less than the hatred of Xiong Tuo, the king of Chuyang City, for Wei Tianzi, if the king of Chu finally decides to continue the war with Wei, then Zhao Hongrun will have to find a way to attract the main army of Chu, try to make Chu have loopholes in the distribution of troops, and wait for Qi and Lu to take the opportunity to attack Chu.

Otherwise, with the strength of Wei alone, there is really no way to get the behemoth of Chu.

At the end of November, Zhao Hongrun led 10,000 Wei soldiers from the Junshui battalion to set out from Runan again, and after a two-day journey, Shanshan entered Zhengyang and joined Qu Cheng's army again.

During this period, the generals of the Pingyang Army, such as Zuo Xunxi, Hua Yu, Gongyesheng, and Zuo Qiumu, have also conquered the two places of Queshan and Xincai, which makes the once mighty Yangcheng Jun Xiongtuo now only three counties such as Yangcheng, Xixian, and Luoshan remain, which can be described as the end of the road.

However, the embarrassment lies in the fact that even though Yangcheng Jun Xiong Tuo only has three cities left, Tianshi is now on his side, so that Zhao Hongrun really can't break through the three cities in a row in a short period of time and capture and kill Yangcheng Jun Xiong Tuo.

In early December, in the wilderness between Zhengyang and Yangcheng, the heavy snow has accumulated half a person's height, like this recent situation, even if Zhao Hongrun is not looking forward to capturing Yangcheng in his heart, he can only rationally choose to temporarily strike the army, and quietly wait for the spring of the next year when the heavy snow will stop and the ice and snow will melt.

Taking advantage of this free time, Zhao Hongrun simply ordered the armies in each county to rest, and according to the previous promise, divided a batch of money, rice, and grain collected from the big clans, and rewarded the whole army, especially the Pingyang army.

During this period, the army of Xiong Tuo, the king of Chuyang City, was defeated, and Ji Run, the king of Weisu, waved his army to counterattack Chu State, and the news of conquering more than a dozen cities also spread far and wide, not only throughout Chu State, but also to the palace of the King of Chu, and also to Qi and Lu. (To be continued.) )