Looking at the team that rushed out unsuccessfully but fell into the siege of the enemy under the city, rushed left and right and never got out, but became smaller and smaller in the call to the death, the defense of Chenzhou made Zhao Li's heart more and more cold and sad. Because his other younger brother, Chen Xu, the commander of the defense and containment, was among them.

And the men and horses sent by him to respond and contain them did not play a corresponding role; Just when the thieves army had many whirlwind cannons and hair rods, the momentum was disrupted by the sudden rain of rocks. Then it was attacked by the horse team behind the hidden camp of the thief army, and in the end, it could only recover less than half of the number of dead and wounded.

Among them is the body of his son Zhao Quan who was killed by a cannon stone and was desperately snatched back by his subordinates; The moment he saw the bloody corpse, it was as if he had aged several years all at once.

However, no matter what he thought and mourned, the stone cannons of the thief army under the city continued to fire like rain, and the frequency and accuracy were gradually increasing, and more than a dozen rounds of bombardment soon made the potholes on the city like dogs.

However, in this rash battle, he almost lost most of the mobile men and horses in his hands; There are also two relatives to rely on. At this moment, he looked at the stunned and frightened face of Zuo Jin, and continued to hold on to the words that would turn around, but he still couldn't insist on making it up after all.

And when the sound of the rapidly approaching attack under the city began to resound in the sky, Zhao Li, who had made up his mind, also began to explain the future to the generals he had been with since childhood.

"Although I have long been effective in the ambition of Zhang Zhongcheng, I can't bear to raise the descendants of the clan to go to the country with me. The inner city has its own hidden place to pass through the outer state, and the drinking water is stored inside, which is enough for more than ten months. . . ”

"Once the thieves gain power, you will cut off my head and vote, maybe you can save your life. Then, I'm waiting for an opportunity to think of a way to get them out of the city. ”

As his words spoke, as if the heavens had sensed something, suddenly some cold sensations began to fall on the back of his bare hands and face, but they were quite fine snow particles.

At the same time, the first light snow of early winter was falling all over the sky. As the leader of the team under the command of the eastern defense envoy to pull out the mountain capital, Wang Chongshi, who was born as a swordsman in the north, also stepped on the stacked corpses and flowing blood, held up the long-handled sword full of cracks, and slowly climbed the head of the Chenzhou wall;

Just like that, through the aisle of the city full of corpses and flesh and blood, it appeared in Zhao Li's field of vision; And at this moment, he also recalled his life again,

His family background is a loyal general, since childhood has a resource, when he was a child and the neighborhood children played on the road, he lined up the troops, he was a marshal, and the command was measured, and his father saw what he saw. ”

When he became an adult, he was promoted to a dental school because of his erudition, skill in arching horses, and his courageous and decisive personality. During the Huichang period, the Zhaoyi Festival made Liu Zhi rebellious, and Zhao Li went out with his father and participated in the battle to recover Tianjingguan.

Soon after, he followed the conquest of the barbarians, and turned to Xidong for a month to conquer it, and won a lot of people, and Zhao Li was awarded the title of Marquis of Yu, the capital of the loyal army, for his merits. Until the second year of Qianfu, Wang Xianzhi led the people to rebel in Cao and Pu Prefectures, and attacked Ru, Zheng and other prefectures in the south.

After the contemporary Zhongwu army was in tatters, Zhao Li was elected as the leader of the army, and with a lonely city of Huaiyang, Chenzhou, he repeatedly thwarted countless sieges and cages of the thief army. But now all this persistence and persistence has obviously come to an end.

"I can't kill myself to serve the country."

He took the initiative to raise the sword in his hand, and roared at the thieves who had already entered the city.

- I'm the dividing line -

The imperial city of Chang'an, the capital of the Great Qi Dynasty, is also swaying down like a small snow sprinkled with salt.

Huang Chao, who is enjoying the song and dance drill of the Great Dynasty, is also slightly bowing his head and embracing this recent new favorite. A petite and touching concubine is a noble daughter born from the princess Yongshou and the concubine Xue Tong from the clan family.

Outside the palace, he was responsible for guarding the guard and patrolling, and he was already a new "Weihe Mansion" general who came out of hundreds of thousands of righteous troops and was known for his loyalty, bravery, and majesty; As for the guards who originally followed, they were expanded into a separate Gonghuan army, guarding the three major palaces and palaces in Chang'an City today.

For example, he feels very satisfied with today's trend. Although Zheng Zheng, the former prime minister of Fengtiancheng (now Qianxian County, Shaanxi) in Fengxiang Prefecture in the northwest, once again refused his persuasion to surrender, and stripped the envoy to the city to show his determination; However, Fengtian City, where many barricades and gates have been uprooted on the periphery, is just a lonely dead place.

Although the Dasanguan in the south, which is the gateway to Sanchuan, cannot be taken for a long time, it can only defend itself for a while, and let the rebels build their continuous fences outside, and gradually encircle and trap themselves in the mere Guancheng.

Not to mention that the remnants of the enemy in these two places, one north and one south, are fighting separately, and they can no longer use and echo each other. Except for some remnants who gathered on Taibai Mountain and Louguan Mountain to cause trouble, there were still no people in the huge hinterland of Guanzhong who could stop and resist the footsteps and existence of the rebels.

As for the north, although the lack of food, grass and winter clothing slowed down the aggressive offensive in Fangzhou; However, there were already several representatives of the Guanbei Domain in Chang'an City, secretly discussing the conditions and prices for the corresponding change of banners and vassals.

Once this matter is completed, in addition to the existing three towns of Wang Chongrong in Hezhong, Zhuge Shuang in Heyang, and Heshuo, in the towns of the 29th Road in the North; There are still a small half of them who have surrendered to the name of the new dynasty of Great Qi.

And the people and horses from all walks of life under the banner of the Great Qi Imperial Court in the Kwantung region are also in the siege and plundering of the land that blooms on all sides. From time to time, the officers and troops were defeated, and the good news that the entrenched places were uprooted came one after another.

This was followed by the continuous improvement of the external strategic situation of the Great Qi regime; The southwest was still under the rule of the cheap son-in-law, who was also part of the rebels; With his ability and ability, he was not afraid of being threatened and invaded by foreign enemies in a short period of time south of Wuguan.

And in the southeast, Gao Biao, the only old thief in Huainan who can still fight, is now separated from the old dynasty and claims to be on his own side, and he is just a thief who does not want to make progress. The other opposing forces that spun up and chose to destroy were nothing more than this in his eyes as he had fought all the way.

Although there are still a few remnants of the old dynasty entrenched in Hedong, which is dominated by its terrain, if they want to threaten and intrude on the Guannei Road they occupy, they must first deal with Wang Chongrong, the envoy of the town in the river who has been annexed to the Great Qi, this natural barrier on the road.

The only thing that is slightly regrettable is that the cheap son-in-law who occupies most of the southwest of Hunan, Jingnan, Shannan, Lingnan, and Annam, although he has been "exporting and supplying" since the establishment of the new dynasty, has always been self-contained and basically not subject to the official positions and appointments of the new dynasty.

But this is a matter that only his son's generation needs to consider; He still has plenty of time to run and concoct this before his two children are old enough to do so. At present, the stakes of the founding of the Great Qi are undecided, and the Great Qi Imperial Court is still needed to continue to envelop and maintain relations with this person.

Therefore, before this, he had never tried to give him a royal title, even if it was the lowest miscellaneous prince. However, it was unexpectedly opposed by the newly appointed Shangshu Ling Shangrang, Pingzhangshi Cui Miao, Zhongshu's right servant Li Junru, and Shangshu Huang Rui of the Ministry of Officials.

The reasons for their respective positions are also very strong, which are nothing more than that:

"If you suddenly give a high position at the beginning of the establishment of the new dynasty, it will be difficult to reward and control it in the future."

"The old brothers of Henan have followed the king and fought for many years, do they still want to be a newcomer who has emerged from Guangfu in terms of fame and title?"

"This generation has always been free from the orders of the military government, if the new dynasty gives Houjue, wouldn't it encourage those who are attached to it, and they will have to do their own thing."

"How can he be virtuous sometimes, worthy of being a king on a par with all clans, isn't this chilling and cold-toothed?"

After all, these people represent the old Henan brothers in the army, the subordinates of the scholars who surrendered after the uprising, and the new subordinate faction composed of the people of the old dynasty, as well as the positions of the blood relatives and clansmen who have always been with them, and even Huang Chao cannot easily deny or ignore their opinions.

However, at the beginning of the new dynasty, it was absolutely impossible to ignore the lord of the Taiping army, or exclude him from the righteous army system; So he could only retreat and let people give him the title of a county duke.

As a result, there was a mistake in this matter, and he did not continue to inquire and realize afterwards for a while, so he asked people to draw up the title of Duke of Beibi; However, Liu Tang was sent as the messenger of the edict.

If it weren't for the disguised rejection by the other party, Zhao Zhang, who was in the waiter, found out about the problem and came to the door, and he would have been kept in his bones. After all, as the basic common sense of scholars who once entered Beijing to take the exam, the Beibi Mountain outside the city of Luodu is not a good place, but the mausoleum of the emperors and generals of the past dynasties.

In the meantime, there were neither land nor towns, but only abandoned side halls, ancestral temples and deserted graves. Taking it as a food town and being knighted by others will inevitably mean deliberate humiliation and denigration. Therefore, Huang Chao couldn't help but immediately become furious and ordered a strict investigation.

But in the end, it was only a punishment of a few bachelors and subordinates who were responsible for drafting and drafting edicts; The relationship behind it can no longer be found. Because some of them quickly confessed their guilt, saying that they wanted to "cause the thieves to fight against each other", and then committed suicide during torture.

Then, out of the dignity and authority of the new dynasty, it is impossible to take the initiative to admit mistakes and lose sincerity to the subordinate forces; Therefore, this matter can only continue to be maintained when both sides keep silent and deliberately ignore it.

Still, the good things about the south are obvious. At least when he stood on the wall of the imperial road in the imperial city and watched, he could find that there were fewer and fewer displaced people and poor households gathered in front of the relief points. And the cold and cold streets of the two major cities in the east and west have also regained some popularity and hustle and bustle.

In the case of being blocked in three consecutive directions, some people have recently even put forward a proposal at the court meeting to send troops south to take advantage of Shannan and attack the remnants of the old dynasty in Sanchuan.

"Xuancheng is waiting to come to meet you,"

He was watching the singing and dancing and enjoying the beautiful woman and was thinking about it, when suddenly an envoy with a dusty whisk came in respectfully and said:

"Announce it."

Huang Chao waved his hand. Immediately, in the cold wind blowing into the hall, Huang Xin, a distant nephew who was newly named Xuancheng Hou and also served as the Privy Councillor, was brought in, and at the same time brought a good news from Kanto.

"Zhu San'er?。。 Has he already knocked down Chen Zhou? It's also a capable person.。。 ”

At this moment, Huang Chao couldn't help but see a face with thick eyebrows and big eyes and a simple expression.

"But it's for our old brother who died back then, but the last bit of resentment and regret is gone. I should be rewarded as an example. ”

However, he saw that Huang Xin wanted to speak and stopped staying where he was. Huang Chao couldn't help waving his hand and retreating left and right, and said warmly to the woman in his arms:

"Let's go to the hall and play, and I'll watch the song and dance with you later."

"Holy Lord, there are other inside stories in it."

With the curling incense wind, along with the curtain lifted, it was blown away by the cold wind and then indoors, Huang Xin said with some foresight.

"At present, General Li (Bintang) Lang of Zhu Sanjun sent someone to spread the news, saying that there are many fine armor and siege equipment in the department, all of which are supplied from the south. There are more people who practice walking in the army. Now, I'm afraid that the two are too close. ”

“。。。 I'm afraid that some people will criticize it in the future, whether Zhu Sansuo's department is a subordinate of the king, or a vassal supported by the Taiping Army. ”

"How can this be reasonable, Zhu San is loyal to the front and uses his life to contribute to the country, how can he make people's eyes red. Isn't he from Yu Yi's hand-held background, don't say more in front of such jealous and jealous words. ”

Huang Chao interrupted impatiently.

However, after repulsing Huang Xin, Huang Chao groaned for a while, but there was no new favorite Xue concubine to call back; Instead, people summoned the imperial historian Zheng Hanzhang, the right servant of the monk and the general military envoy Gai Hong;

"I want to do the dispatch of the envoys of the prison army in the order of the five armies, seven wings and eleven rates, and the order of guarding (several states), staying (large states), defending (small states), and garrisoning (counties) in various directions."

"This is a great thing."

Gai Hong, whose face was old and full of ravines, which contrasted sharply with the opulence of his robes, said immediately.

"Is the saint planning to send corresponding people from the three courtyards of the minister's imperial history platform?"

Zheng Hanzhang, the imperial historian with a little literary atmosphere, also knew the elegance of the song when he heard the strings.

"That's right, the old dynasty used eunuchs for me not to take; The envoy of the prison army represents the dignity of the country and the imperial court, how can he be left to the five bodies and 5 crippled people. ”

Huang Chao nodded in praise.

"Therefore, it is necessary to bother Han Zhang to carefully select the corresponding candidates, so let's start from the Eastern Capital and the garrison of the various armies in Dugi Province."

(End of chapter)