Mo Chongwen had a big heart, a heavy iron helmet on his head, and strode onto the top of the adobe kiln, and his eyes suddenly opened up.

Looking north, the earth is full of earthy yellow.

There were no villages, no farmland, no trees, and no trace of green.

In the dust tail like a yellow dragon, a yellow-black line gradually emerged. It stretches all the way to itself, thick in some places, thin in others; Some places are straight, others are curved.

A few miles away, the yellow-black line suddenly broke down into a dense dot matrix, with black, red, yellow, and white dots of different sizes scattered around.

Mo Chongwen knew that there was Ding Qirui, the governor of the five provinces of the military department, the governor of Huguang, Henan, Sichuan, and the northern and southern armies of the Yangtze River, who was still the governor of the military affairs of the three sides of Shaanxi, and the Chinese army where the two adults of the general Pingjiao and the prince Shaobao Zuo Liangyu were located, including Ding Qirui's superintendent and Zuo Liangyu's pro-army camp of nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses. It seems that the cavalry of the Chinese army has finished today's journey early and set up tents in advance.

After the Chinese army, there is still an endless stream of infantry.

As the distance got closer, the small black dots gradually turned into small dots of red, black and gray, and the flow of people merged into several narrow and continuous lines. Suddenly, a ditch in the middle of the road twisted these neat lines into a mess, and even from a mile or two, it seemed that the sound of people neighing horses could be heard.

Looking west along this road ditch, you can see a slender silver belt in the north-south direction, which is the Jialu River.

The Jialu River flows down through Zhuxian Town, a tributary connects the Vortex River, and a tributary passes through Weishi and Yanling counties, first flowing into the Yinghe River at Zhoukou, and then flowing into the Huai River with the Yinghe River.

Since this ditch across the marching road connected the Jialu River, it must have been a river before. The drought in the Central Plains for many years has turned many similar rivers into large ditches that cut deep into the roads. If the bridge is damaged or there is no bridge at all, then the only way for people to pass is to go down to the riverbed, so it will be chaotic.

I hope that under Kaifeng City, there will be no such road ditches! Mo Chongwen thought.

Otherwise, the two sides will definitely fight along the ditch, and finally fill the ditch with corpses!

There is a small village not far from the ditch, but it is already charred black. All the officers and soldiers who came in and out were there, and there was not a single villager to be seen.

Mo Chongwen retracted his gaze and bowed his head to the south.

I saw a large red flag in the queue walking towards his feet. There was a thick black circle in the center of the flag, and a large character was formed in the white space in the black: "Mo".

This is Mo Chongwen's own banner, and it is the qualification he only earned after 20 years of bloody territory.

After the banner, he is naturally his son of Mo Ying.

It's just that Mo Chongwen didn't find the spirit of the dragon and tiger that he hoped to see. The soldiers were like a pile of sun-dried eggplants, moving weakly forward with the banner in groups of three or five.

"These bastards!"

Mo Chongwen scolded hatefully: "With such a look, how can you get into the battle array!" Could it be that the son of Shu Shiguo can not be a prophet, and it is expected that I will be defeated if I go here? ”

A sturdy soldier galloped towards the brick kiln on horseback, carrying a bucket that swayed from side to side. It seems that he did not find a source of water nearby.

The soldier fell under the adobe kiln, and then carried the empty bucket to the top of the kiln.

"General!" The soldier reported to Mo Chongwen anxiously, "There is only one well in the village. I was afraid that the water in the well would run out, so I hurried over to it, and the fucking ...... was still preempted by the battalion head in front......

Lo and behold, there's all this muddy water left in the well! If the horse doesn't drink, neither can the man......

It's so hot, and the brothers are thirsty, so think of a solution! If you follow the Chinese army like this, don't talk about fighting in Kaifeng, you will give away your life in vain on the way......"

Mo Chongwen pinched the horsewhip and listened to the nagging of his own soldiers with his hands behind his back, and his face became more and more gloomy.

Someone once joked that this time the four general soldiers marched into Kaifeng, the third road was the real general soldier, and the whole way was a fake general soldier!

What do you mean by that?

Now the total soldiers of the imperial court are becoming less and less valuable, and the soldiers under his command have reached tens of thousands, but it has become a rarity.

The two general soldiers of the left road tiger Dawei and Yang Dezheng are the real general soldiers, and the total strength of the old and weak war auxiliaries is less than 10,000;

Fang Guoan, who set out from De'an Mansion on the right side, was also counted as a true general soldier, with no more than 20,000 troops.

But Zuo Liangyu in the middle is different, although he still carries the name of a general soldier, but he has the big seal of the commander and the general of the peace thief, and he is in charge of more than 100 general soldiers, deputy generals, generals, guerrillas, and more than 50 battalion heads of all sizes. The total strength of the officers and troops is 180,000, and the strength of the left army is more than 100,000, accounting for more than half of the total number of reinforcements!

Such a majestic general soldier, can it be a real general soldier?

Jokes can be laughed at, but more than 100,000 people crowded on an official road for long-distance marching make people unable to laugh.

Soon after leaving Runing Mansion, the army of reinforcements entered the grain shortage area of hundreds of miles in the central Henan Plain.

In order to loot as much food as possible, the front army launched a wide frontal search with cavalry. Everywhere they went, there were no grains left, and even the seedlings in the fields were gnawed away by the horses. The remaining Henan people have no second way except to abandon their homes and flee;

The rear army followed the front army and hurried, not only could they not eat food, but now they couldn't even drink water!

Hundreds of thousands of people marching on a single road is a taboo for soldiers. Mo Chongwen knew that Zuo Liangyu, who had been in battle for a long time, would not make such a low-level mistake, but he had to do so.

Today's Left Army is a smorgasbord of civil ministers commanding military generals and leading troops, and their descendants are mixed and matched.

Wenchen was not worried about the generals, fearing that they would flee in battle, and he would fall to Fu Chonglong, Wang Qiaonian and Hong Chengchou;

The generals hated the ministers, hated their blind commands, and liked to use the emperor's signboard to scare people.

The descendants are not worried about miscellaneous cards, for fear that they will not listen to the command and make trouble everywhere;

Miscellaneous cards are even more worried about their descendants, for fear that they will suddenly retreat without even saying hello.

Now the only link in the whole army is tied to Zuo Liangyu and Zuo Ping. Only he can use his trust, prestige, experience, connections, and popularity to unite the whole army and form a unified operational whole. If the battalions advance separately outside the line of sight of the Chinese army, they may not wait for the thieves to fight, and the battalions will be in a mess because of their own actions!

But if we don't move forward separately, how can we solve the problem of food and water?

There is still food, and no one will starve to death without food for three days; But without water, it won't be a day!

Mo Chongwen had a splitting headache when he thought of this. At this time, he suddenly envied Jia Denglian.

Maybe he doesn't have so many worries there!

“…… General, you can't drag it out like this! ”

The pro-soldier carried half a bucket of mud and water, and still rapped in Mo Chongwen's ear: "I heard from the brother at the head of the camp in front of me that there is no water in the front five miles, maybe you have to go to Wei's county town to have water." And the brethren also said, There is a river on the west side that has not dried up, and you see, my lord, that is there......"

The army is currently in such a way that a daily march of thirty miles is the limit. And here is at least more than fifty miles away from the county seat of Weishi, at least a day and a half of travel. The man could still support him for a day and a half, but the horses were all gone. So the only way out was to march westward, chasing the Jialu River. But......

The more the soldiers shouted, the more uncomfortable Mo Chongwen felt in his heart.

A nameless evil fire surged up from Mo Chongwen's belly. He wanted to whip back and smash the rap mouth.

But you can't help it, you have to hold back.

Because this personal soldier's name is Long Qisheng, who is the messenger and the so-called "liaison officer" of the Protector Army sent to him by Jia Denglian.

Mo Chongwen must give Jia Denglian face, and he must also leave a way out for himself and his more than 2,000 sons.

Mo Chongwen tried to squeeze a smile on his face, turned to stare at Long Qisheng and said, "I don't know if you have any good ideas?" ”

"Master Jiang, Master Jia is for the good of you and your brothers!"

Long Qisheng first affirmed for Jia Denglian, and then approached Mo Chongwen and whispered: "I just heard a reliable news: the baggage of the left army is left in Yanling City!"

As the saying goes, before the soldiers and horses move, the grain and grass go first. Think about it, why did Zuo Liangyu leave only the baggage? You don't have to think about it to know that it must be that he has no intention of fighting the thief at all! Leave the grain and grass behind, you can run faster! ”

Yanling County belongs to Kaifeng Prefecture and is one of the southernmost counties of Kaifeng Prefecture. The city was breached by thieves in mid-December last year. Liu Zhenzhi, a native of Cixi, Zhejiang, Yanling Zhi County, was tied up in the snow and frozen for three days and three nights, and was later dismembered alive and died. The gentry who assisted the government in defending themselves were also killed.

According to the rules after the thieves broke through the city, the city walls were generally stripped down to prevent them from being reused after the official army counterattacked. However, due to the rapid arrival of reinforcements at that time, the Yanling city wall stopped after a gap.

Of course, after the official army reoccupied Yanling, all those who were not killed by the thieves were suspected of being thieves, so they were killed again, and the first people to bear the brunt were those activists who broke the wall.

In order not to become the credit of the official army, the people had to rush to the south and flee to the relatively peaceful Huguang through Runing Mansion.

After a few tosses, Yanling County became a dead city with relatively complete walls.

Last year, the thieves attacked Kaifeng for the second time, and the supervisor Ding Qirui used the excuse of rescuing Kaifeng and escaped from Xuchang City, which was coerced by thieves. As a result, thirty miles away from the city, Xuchang fell immediately. Since then, the relationship between Xuchang and Yuncheng has become the front line of the confrontation between officials and thieves in western Henan. This time, Inspector Ding and Zuo Ping led the Chinese army from Yuncheng, and did not directly attack Xuchang to the north, but bypassed Xuchang in the northeast and advanced along the road from Yanling to Kaifengfu. Yanling City happened to become the forward base and logistics supply depot for the reinforcement army.

Mo Chongwen is clear about these situations.

Therefore, it is not the point that the left army's baggage remained in Yanling. Whether the left army will continue to move forward and who to follow is the key!

Mo Chongwen was thinking about the problem with his brain, but Long Qisheng's mouth was not idle: "General, as the saying goes, you are unkind to me!" If the left army wants to run, we will follow! Why should I wait for my brothers to die for them? ”

Mo Chongwen remembered the first battle he participated in in his life, which was in Pingyue, Guizhou twenty years ago......

On the night before the battle, more than half of the recruits ran away, but Mo Chongwen didn't. The next day, Wang Sanshan, a senior official in Guizhou, inspected the military camp and asked Mo Chongwen why he didn't run, and his answer at that time was......

Right! At that time, what I answered was the four words tattooed on the back of Prince Yue:

Serve one’s country with true allegiance!

At the end of that battle, he became an officer.

"Then what do you mean......" Mo Chongwen tried to keep a smile and asked Long Qisheng, "Today, Ben will face the two adults of the Inspector and the Thief, move the camp on the grounds of lack of water, and then secretly observe the movements of the Chinese army, just wait for them to move, and we will ...... like a wind"

"Exactly!" Long Qisheng replied excitedly, and the white pimple on his face was red.

"But Ben wasn't going to run! Ben will be in the army for 20 years, and he will fight bravely to be the first in every battle, and he has never thought of being a deserter! Even if the general has no battlefield, it is to die for the country and be loyal to the king! Mo Ying is too small to accommodate you, a great god, and I ask you to go back and tell Jia Denglian that he is loyal to the country, and this is the long-cherished wish of the general! Please be so self-cherished as well! If Ben Jiang is destined to be with him in the next life and be a brother again, then please pick up the war knife and stand by Ben General's side as in the past......"

When he said this, Mo Chongwen's eyes were red, his hands trembled, and he was very excited.

And that Long Qisheng is obviously not a person who is afraid of things, so he immediately stopped following it.

He grabbed off his tasseled helmet, and immediately knelt down in front of Mo Chongwen and shouted loudly: General Mo, General Jia is still thinking about you thousands of miles away, that is treating you as a brother! The little ones come all the way to you and talk nonsense, that's for your own good! For the good of the whole camp!

The two stood on the top of a high adobe kiln and talked, and they could be seen within a radius of more than ten miles. But the people standing under the kiln are different, they not only can see, but they can hear.

Hearing that Mo Chongwen and Long Qisheng had a conversation, one of the generals immediately looked at the soldiers:

Things are broken! Hurry up and call for help!