On the sixth day of the first month, King Xian's urgent mail was delivered to Bailiyan's camp fifty miles east of Lingchang, and when he saw that it was still the secret box he had sent out, Bailiyan had already guessed King Xian's intentions, so he invited Xu Jinzong and Botai to the tent to open it in person.

Although he had already guessed King Xian's intentions, when he took out the Wang Zhi brocade silk, the content was still beyond Bailiyan's expectations. There is only one big word "earth" on the whole brocade book.

"Hey, the word ...... the ground" Xu Jin was puzzled after reading it, and asked Zong Botai "Mr. Zongbo, what does it mean that the king only writes the word 'land'?" ”

Zong Botai was thoughtful, and looked at Baili Yan and asked

"Does the deputy marshal know the king's mind?"

Bai Liyan nodded slightly

"I understand a little, but the words are still not clear, dare to ask Mr., what does the king mean by the words of the land?"

"Hehe......" Zong Botai smiled lightly, came to the Baili Yan table and lifted the pen shaft to dip it in black ink, and wrote the word 'soil' on the yellow paper, he said, "Earth, soil, the deputy marshal thinks why the king wants to replace 'soil' with 'earth'." ”

"Sir is saying that the earth is also the earth, but the earth is different from the soil, and it has another deep meaning, not related to this matter."

"Yes, it has nothing to do. Deputy marshal and look, there is nothing before the ink on the brocade book of the king's will, and the king only writes a ground word, which is the meaning of belonging. In other words, if this brocade book is an ownerless white land, the king writes a word that is the king's land, which shows that the king has the heart to chase the Central Plains, which is one of them.

Second, the soil is the foundation of the world, and the emperor's capital is also, if you want to get the world, you must take the land, and those who get the land will take the world, so this place is also through the emperor. I thought that the king intended to take the world and support the dignity of the emperor. ”

"The king's meaning is to allow the attack on the beam!"

Xu Jin hurriedly asked, Zong Botai shook his head and said

"No, the king has this in mind, but we can't act recklessly, we can only go with the flow step by step."

"Yes, what Mr. Zongbo said is true." Bai Liyan affirmed, and then said, "The king intends to hint at determination, but how to act must be cautious, although the current situation is favorable to our army, it is not enough to completely reverse the pattern of the Central Plains, and at present, the Liang State cannot be deposed lightly, lest the situation collapse out of control." ”

It is an inevitable trend for the wall to fall down and everyone pushes it, but the first one to push the wall has a greater than half chance of being crushed to death by the wall, and the Liang State, as the suzerain, has its political significance and historical symbols, and it is still not suitable to replace it before the political environment and economic strength are immature. A rash change in the existing political landscape is likely to trigger a new geopolitical turmoil.

After clarifying the intention of King Xian, Bai Liyan put away Wang Zhijinshu and sealed it into a secret box, and put it into the iron box carried by the army, and there was a six-digit code steel lock on the iron box, without a password, with the current technology, except for the high temperature, there was no way to destroy the iron box to obtain the items in it.

"Wei Qi, is there any news from Kong Lin's department?"

"Back to the deputy marshal, I haven't received the battle report from Kong Lin's department, but there is news that Gu Ruquan has attacked Wucheng."

"Tell me quickly, what is the situation in Wucheng."

"It is reported that Gu Ruquan's siege of the city did not go well, so he has stopped the siege, and his subordinates speculate that Gu Ruquan has changed his mind and is waiting for the defense of the country to hand over Gongxiang County."

The Liang army was very well-equipped and originally lacked combat experience, but after the black scarf invaded the Liang State, it greatly sharpened the Liang army's combat ability and had some combat experience. But in the end, there is still too little experience in fighting wars, and even less experience in the use of hot weapons.

The attack on Lingchang was largely due to the fact that the guards were unprepared and were taken off guard, and after Wucheng received the warning, he was bound to strengthen his vigilance and change the direction of the operation, and it was very difficult for the Liang army to sneak attack again. Coupled with the division of troops to the south to besiege Ningning, Gu Ruquan did not have enough troops to launch a strong attack. can only continue to change to siege and wait for the handover of the country.

In fact, he could have continued to besiege but not attack, but whenever he attacked the city, time allowed to besiege the city, and then attack the city when the defenders ran out of ammunition and food and morale was low, and then wounded the city, destroyed the city walls and created panic, and then attacked the city.

Gu Ruquan besieged the city for only a few days and was in a hurry to attack the city, to a large extent, affected by the Xian army, Gu Ruquan, who was anxious, also wanted to copy Lingchang's victory to capture Wucheng, but he did not fight a hard battle, and he did not even fight a decent battle, and the guards were generally equipped with earth-type explosive firearms, which caused a lot of trouble for the siege Liang army.

Although Gu Ruquan's encounter was not a long time to attack and overcome, the casualties of a few days of storming the city were enough for Gu Ruquan to have half a year in his heart.

As the commander of an army, when the casualties of the war exceed the expectations in his heart, whether to continue to complete the battle head-on, or to stop, often depends on the experience of the battle and the campaign goal to be achieved.

At the same time, if he had not experienced the baptism of large-scale war, the sudden surge in casualties was enough to make the generals lose their sense of proportion and lose their minds. Therefore, many generals are not defeated by the battle, but by their own psychological endurance.

Two days later, on the 11th day of the first lunar month, Kong Lin fled back to Lingchang in disarray, bringing more than 13,000 people with him, and when he returned, there were still more than 10,500 people left, and about 2,700 people were either dead or missing.

"General Kong, what is the situation, why did you have to withdraw when you encountered a small battle."

Wang Guan questioned Kong Lin in dissatisfaction, but Kong Lin shouted that he was wronged

"The guards are really powerful, they didn't wait for the general to get close and then buried mines in the ground and sprinkled thistles, our army couldn't move an inch, and was frequently attacked and harassed by bandits along the way, so we had to retreat."

Kong Lin led his troops to chase Jiang Jie, and Jiang Jie threw triangle iron and thistle terrestris all the way, buried a fixed tripwire, and caused a lot of losses to Kong Lin.

This triangle iron is a four-angle angle iron, when using three of the horns on the ground, one corner to the sky, the horse's hooves on a foot, will pierce the horseshoe cuticle directly piercing the horseshoe live cuticle, and then the person turns over on the horse's back, the horse will also be seriously injured and disabled and lose the ability to run. This thing is an anti-cavalry weapon that appeared in the Tang and Song dynasties, and it is the cheapest and most effective of all anti-cavalry weapons.

Tribulus terrestris is another miniature version of the triangular iron, which is different from the triangular iron against horses, and the tribulus terrestris is used against the foot plate of personnel, and it is a hole when stepped on. The infantry of the princes of various countries are either equipped with cloth shoes or walking boots, and there is nothing they can do about thistles. Triangle iron is used in combination with thistle terrestris to slow down the march of the cavalry.

However, it is also very easy to crack the tribulus terrestris triangle, walk on the ground with your feet, and sweep the tribulus terrestris to the side, but if you sprinkle the tribulus terrestris for several miles or ten miles, this is not good, and people can walk on the ground with two feet, but horses can't.

Kong Lin encountered Jiang Jie's tricks, but this is not over. Along the way, there were also tripping mines pulled by wooden-handled grenades, traps dug underground, and the Liang army was unprepared to step on the mines and pursue, chasing all the way and blowing them up. Not long after it stopped, Jiang Jie's ambush soldiers immediately killed, and did not entangle, and immediately withdrew after a row of guns, and if the Liang army pursued, they would sprinkle triangular iron thistle terrestris.

When the Liang army was sleepy and lacking, the Sun Guoyi army led by Zhou Kong took turns to kill, and the disturbed Kong Lin was in a panic, and finally chased out a few days later and retreated to Lingchang for repairs.

"This group of goddamn guards is really hateful, and it is disgusting to use such despicable and obscene means to calculate against me."

"What about the guards and bandits, whether they went north or entered our country."

Wang Guan asked, Kong Linmeng drank his saliva and said hurriedly

"Rushing to the west, it must be towards my Tianyun City. By the way, there is news from the captain that the reinforcements will arrive. ”

was asked by Kong Lin, Wang Guan suddenly remembered that more than ten days had passed, and there was no news of his own people

"It's broken! We have fallen for the evil of the defenders. The lieutenant has not replied so far, thinking that the guards must have robbed and killed the scout and blocked the news. ”

"What, there has been no reply so far! Why don't you send someone to escort you and get in touch again? ”

"I just thought that the Taiwei had gone far south and the scouts hadn't rushed back yet, so where did he think that the guards would rob and kill our army scouts."

"Quick, send a thousand people to ride to the Taiwei camp to report the news, quickly!"

Kong Lin immediately sent a thousand cavalry to Gu Ruquan's camp to report the news, and Lingchang's every move was in the eyes of the Xian army, and the news quickly spread to Bailiyan

"Deputy Marshal Qiqi, a thousand cavalry of the Lingchang garrison went out from the south gate to the south, and they should rush to the Gu Ruquan camp to report the news."

Wei Qi said in detail, and Bai Liyan looked down at the map and asked

"Have all the scouts we let out have been recovered?"

"There are four people still on the way."

"Well, continue to monitor, especially the news in the Liang Kingdom, I think that most of the guards should have received the news, and the situation will change. It has been less than two months since the grain and grass of the Western Front Guards were pinched, and they will inevitably have to transfer grain and grass from the territory of Liang, but any news related to Liang's grain and grass will be transmitted to me immediately. ”

"No!"

Kong Lin's defeat was expected, the tactics of the Xian army mixed the characteristics of each era, and the Liang army was still in the Bronze Age of farming, let alone the triangle iron had never been seen, let alone the grenade that pulled the string.

On the way to Kong Lin's escape, Bailiyan got the news, and immediately withdrew the scouts who had intercepted the scouts of the Liang army. Although he explained to them before leaving, he only stopped the sporadic ones and did not rob the batch, but it was difficult to ensure that Kong Lin designed to lure them to catch the live mouth to obtain information.

This thousand-man cavalry team hurried day and night, hurrying and hurrying, and finally arrived at Wuchengxia two days later.

At this time, Gu Ruquan was annoyed, first the siege was frustrated, and then the king of Wei handed over Wucheng was not smooth, Gu Ruquan was already very angry, and heard that Kong Lin was driven back to Lingchang, or the news more than ten days ago, Gu Ruquan's anger finally broke out

"Lost the camp and let go of the guards, why didn't Kong Lin report to the general for a long time, why!"

"Captain Qi, General Kong and General Wang sent seven groups of scouts to report the news in more than ten days, but they never heard from the captain, only thinking that the captain had gone far south and the scouts had not yet been found, so how did they know that they were robbed and killed by the guards on the road."

The right lieutenant quickly explained the reason, but Gu Ruquan was still annoyed

"Do you know who led the troops?"

"I don't know, I only know that about 40,000 guards who rushed into Jingyuan from Zhongmo County last month, together with the remnants of the local guards, robbed and killed the baggage of the Xian army, and obtained a large number of the latest earth-shattering fires and firearms of the Xian army, which was very powerful. In just one hour, three or four thousand people were killed or wounded. This is a letter written by General Kong, please look at it with the Captain. ”

Gu Ruquan saw Kong Lin's letter and immediately felt tricky, the guards who had entered the territory of Liang State were equipped with advanced firearms and artillery, the culprit of this matter was the Xian army, in other words, Gu Ruquan would definitely go to Xingshi to ask for guilt at this time. But now that the Xian army is strong, where can I go to Xingshi to ask for guilt. Moreover, the Xian army lost the latest firearms, and it could not be easily returned to the Xian army.

But fortunately, Weiguo had promised to give up the land and join forces to deal with Xianguo, Gu Ruquan thought about it and thought that he should go to Zhao'an to intercept the firearms of the Xianjun army.

Having made up his mind, Gu Ruquan left a group of soldiers and horses to continue to surround Wucheng, and he led more than 30,000 people to rush back to Lingchang, and arrived at Lingchang City on the sixteenth day of the first month.

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