In the fifteenth year of Wuyi, the nineteenth year of Jin Tianyou, in the twelfth winter of December, Li Cunqiao, the king of Jin, led tens of thousands of elite soldiers to cross the river and fight a decisive battle with the Wu army, but he was defeated and returned, losing more than 30,000 soldiers.

The news of Wu's complete victory was soon sent to Luoyang overnight on an expedited fast horse of 800 miles.

After getting the news, the prince and the ministers who stayed in Luoyang were all boiling.

Since the Northern Expedition was decided in August last year, the Wu army was still successful all the way at the beginning, and successfully took Luoyang and eliminated Houliang without much difficulty; However, the news of the Jin army's raid on Yunzhou brought everyone a blow to the head.

As a powerful country with the same strength as Wu, the Jin State really made an extraordinary move, and captured Yunzhou in one fell swoop; Coupled with the brilliant achievements of the Jin army in the past many years, even the crown prince Yang Jiong and the hundred officials of the court and others were skeptical about whether they could win this battle, at least they did not have much confidence.

And the siege that lasted for more than eight months made everyone look forward to it, and they didn't know how this decisive battle that would determine the general trend of the world would end.

It is a pity that they could not use the big war on the front line, so they could only work hard to stabilize the rear under the leadership of Chen Yanqian and other scholars, and provide an endless supply of grain, grass and baggage for the front line.

Now, the news of the great victory finally came, and the court was naturally ecstatic.

Yang Jiong immediately ordered that the news should be spread all over the country as soon as possible to appease people's hearts.

Early the next morning, when the people had just woken up from their sleep, the officials in Luoyang were already beating gongs and drums to announce the news of good news on the streets.

When it was decided to move the capital to Luoyang, Yang Wu also ordered the relocation of 100,000 people from the south of the Yangtze River to enrich the population here, and now the order to relocate has basically been implemented.

Those people who migrated from the south originally complained about this, believing that the environment in Jiangnan was more stable, but Luoyang was on the front line, and if the decisive battle with the Jin State was unfavorable, they might fall into war.

Now that they got the news of the victory, these people immediately relieved their hearts and shouted long live one by one.

And the original people of Luoyang, who were under the governance of the Liang State before, suddenly became the people of the Wu State, and they were still somewhat estranged in their hearts.

Fortunately, most of the officials appointed by Yang Wu were diligent and loved the people, and treated the people much better than the officials of the original Liang State, so after most of the year, these people basically accepted the rule of the Wu State.

Now that the news of the victory has been received, the people's hearts have suddenly become more stable and they are no longer worried about the future situation.

At the same time, there was another group of people in Luoyang City, who couldn't sit still after receiving the news of Wu's great victory.

Among them, Li Congyi, the son of Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, reacted the most fiercely.

King Qi has always valued military strategy and neglected civil governance, but Li Congyi is just the opposite, very interested in cultural governance, but not interested in martial arts.

At the beginning of this year, Li Maozhen sent him as an envoy to Wu Guo, firstly to let him befriend Wu Guo, and secondly, to let him secretly observe Wu Guo's strength.

Among them, the former goal was easily achieved, Yang Wu welcomed his arrival very much, and after hearing that he liked literature and history, he specially invited some great Confucians to accompany him, and allowed him to visit and study in Guozijian and other places in Wu State.

The Wenzhi of the State of Wu is the best place today, not to mention the command of King Qi, that is, the Kingdom of Jin, the State of Shu, and the former Later Liang, which are far from being comparable to the State of Wu in this regard.

Li Congyi was naturally very happy when he arrived here, deeply attracted by everything here, and felt that this should be his ideal country.

In his letter to Li Maozhen, he really said a lot of good things for Wu Guo, and even asserted that the one who can rule the world must be Wu Guo.

Li Congyi also took the opportunity to persuade Li Maozhen to come to the court in person, at least to send more formal envoys to express his submission.

It's a pity that after the Jin State attacked in a big way, the war fell into a stalemate, and Li Maozhen I was a hero, so that he surrendered directly to the Wu State, and he was a little unhappy in his heart, so the matter was temporarily stopped; And Li Congyi has also stayed in Luoyang.

Now, with the news of the great victory, Li Congyi suddenly couldn't sit still, he immediately took pen and ink, and wrote an enthusiastic letter, intending to persuade his father to surrender, and send someone to Fengxiang as soon as possible.

And like the Shuofang Jiedu envoy in Lingzhou, the Dingyan Jiedu envoy in Xiazhou, etc., the envoys they sent also stayed in Luoyang, intending to wait and see the results of this decisive battle between Jin and Wu, and then decide on the next step.

The strength of these feudal towns is far from being comparable to that of King Qi, and they don't have much ambition, they just want to keep their current position, so they have already submitted to the state of Wu to express their submission.

However, the news of this great victory still brought a great shock to these envoys, and they were all passing the news back as quickly as possible.

In short, one stone stirred up a thousand waves, and the news of Wu's great victory soon attracted clouds in all directions.

……

Compared with the ecstasy on the side of Wu State, after the Jin King Li Cunqiao fled back to Hebei in embarrassment, he looked at the only thousands of remnants of the defeated generals in front of him, and his heart was inexplicably sad and indignant.

In the case of interception in front and chasing soldiers in the back, if he wants to cross the river and flee for his life, Li Cunqiao is of course well aware of the danger.

He knew that once he was attacked by the Wu army, it was not uncommon for the army to lose more than half.

In fact, he had made a plan before crossing the river, even if he lost half of his troops, he would bring the other half back to Hebei.

However, the actual situation was even more cruel, and the final loss of troops was far greater than he imagined, and the Jin army, which was responsible for the break, collapsed too early and failed to shoulder its due responsibility.

The reason for all this was because he was attacked by the Suzhou artillery of the Wu army, but when he was dodging, the Wu army seized the opportunity to release rumors, which led to a great confusion in the army's morale and the rapid rout of the army.

"I knew that crossing the river would be so defeated, it was better to fight to the death!" He thought without tears in his heart.

Of course, that's what he said, if he really sent troops to counterattack, with the low morale of the Jin army, even if he fought hard, he would not be able to break through the defense line of the Wu army.

And as time goes by, there will be more and more reinforcements from the Wu army, and the blockade of the river by the Wu army will become stricter and stricter, and in the end, even if you want to cross the river, it will be too late, so that the losses will only be worse.

In any case, the defeat is already a fait accompli, and what Li Cunmiao has to think about now is how to calm people's hearts.

The pacification of Hebei by the Jin State was only a matter of the last few years, and the people's hearts were far from being attached, if the Jin army could maintain a big victory, there would be no problem; But now the Jin army crossed the river and fought a decisive battle with the Wu army, but returned defeated, and when the news came out, who knows how the people of Hebei would react.

Of course, compared with ordinary people, Li Cunqiao was more worried about the generals under his command at this time.

The system of the Jin State continued many of the systems of the late Tang Dynasty, especially in terms of the festival envoys, which were similar to those of the late Tang Dynasty.

Although the authority of the Jin King is far greater than that of the central court at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and there are great restrictions on the local Jiedu envoys and the history of the assassination, but everything is based on the strong military power in the hands of the Jin King.

Now that the Jin army has been defeated, will those jiedu envoys take the opportunity to expand their authority? Even took this opportunity to make a fuss. Stand?

Not to mention anything else, Li Jitao, the envoy of the Zhaoyi Army in Luzhou, was already in a semi-split state before, not only launched a mutiny to imprison his brother, but also privately recruited a large army to fight against the King of Jin, and his ambition can be seen.

However, at that time, Li Cunqiao was still busy with the war of all parties, Zhenzhou had not yet been captured, Hezhong Mansion was besieged by the Wu army, and the war in Yang Liu and Yunzhou was also in an emergency.

Now that the Jin army has returned defeated, if Li Jitao learns the news, I am afraid that this person will further cause a split, and may even collude directly with Wu State.

Luzhou was the Shangdang region of later generations, and its strategic location was so important that for Li Cunqing, he would never tolerate turmoil here, let alone fall into the hands of Wu.

Therefore, after retreating to Hebei in embarrassment, Li Cunqiao finally made up his mind to take advantage of the news of the defeat before it was leaked, and strive to solve Li Jitao in one fell swoop.

Soon after, Shi Jingjiao, who had just been promoted by Li Cunmiao to be the commander of the An Yuan Army, led 300 cavalry and rushed all the way to Luzhou.

At the same time, Li Cunqiao ordered the news of the army's defeat to be tightly sealed, and anyone who dared to leak the news would be immediately killed.

He also knew that it would be difficult to completely hide from the world, but even so, it would at least delay the spread of the news so that he would have enough time to deal with possible changes.

Therefore, compared to the territory controlled by Wu and the forces affected by it, it will take some time for the news of this battle to spread in the territory of the Jin State, and it will take some time to know what the corresponding northern forces will react.

……

On the south bank of the Great River, in the camp of the Wu army.

At this time, it was already the second day of the war, and although the war was imminent, the soldiers had maintained high morale and fought bravely, but this did not reduce the fatigue on their faces.

At this time, the battle situation was decided, and the faces of the soldiers were not tired, and they were all very excited.

Some people also took the initiative to ask Yang Wu why he didn't take the opportunity to cross the river to pursue, at this time the Jin army was defeated and morale was low, which was definitely a good opportunity to beat the water dogs.

However, Yang Wu was not interested in this, firstly, it was necessary to make all kinds of preparations for crossing the river to fight, and hasty action could lead to a major defeat; Second, although the Jin army was defeated, its strength in Hebei was still relatively strong and should not be underestimated.

Of course, the most important point is that at this time, the two locations of Yang Liu Nancheng and Yunzhou City have not yet been conquered, how could Yang Wu leave these two nails behind him?

In fact, as early as last night, after the results of the battle had been decided, Yang Wu sent a herald to tell the follow-up reinforcements that there was no need to come, and let them go directly to Yang Liu Nancheng under the command of Zhou Ben, so that Zhou Ben could take the city as quickly as possible.

Yang Liu Nancheng has been besieged for more than half a year, although the grain and grass in the city can still support for a period of time, but the long-term siege has long made the morale of the defenders low, if it is not for the Jin King Li Cunqiao to lead the army to relieve the siege, I am afraid that they will not be able to hold on for a long time.

And now that the reinforcements have been routed, the defenders of the city will not continue to resist.

Yang Wu handed over the battle of Yang Liu Nancheng directly to Zhou Ben, and for the siege of Yunzhou City, he planned to personally go to supervise the battle.

After all, Yang Liu Nancheng is on the edge of the Yellow River, and it is impossible to completely cut off the news from Hebei, for example, before Li Cunqiao led the army to cross the river this time, he sent people to get in touch with the defenders in the city.

However, unlike Yang and Liu Nancheng, Yunzhou is still some distance from the Yellow River, and there is still Jishui in the middle, and it is surrounded by 30,000 Wu troops led by Liu Xin, so Yunzhou's contact with the outside world is really cut off.

In the absence of any news of reinforcements for more than half a year, the reason why the defenders of Yunzhou City have been able to hold on until now can be said to be the main reason for the persistence of the defender Li Siyuan.

Although Li Siyuan in history finally seized the throne of Li Cunqing, if you really want to talk about it, he actually has no intention of rebelling, but is more loyal to Li Cunxuan.

Later, the reason for the rebellion was more because he was desperate and had to rebel.

During the siege of the Wu army for more than half a year, Li Siyuan constantly encouraged the soldiers, declared that reinforcements were coming, and took various methods to appease the army, so that he could hold on to the present.

However, now with the defeat of the Jin army, Yang Wu has no patience to continue the siege.

After resting for three days, he led the army directly to Yunzhou, where he joined Liu Xin and prepared to launch a siege battle.

And when he had just passed Pingyin, there was good news from Zhou Ben that Yang Liu Nancheng had been breached.

Previously, Zhou Ben set up an ambush and defeated the defenders in one fell swoop, annihilating nearly 6,000 enemy troops.

With the news of the rout of the Jin king's army, the defenders' will to resist further declined, while the morale of the Wu army was high, and Zhou Ben soon launched a siege after receiving reinforcements.

After two days of fierce attack, the Wu army finally captured the city in one fell swoop, killing more than 3,000 defenders, capturing nearly 10,000 enemy troops, and capturing a large number of ordnance and baggage.

After Li Zhou, the defender of the Jin army, saw that the general situation had gone, he categorically refused to surrender, and led his cronies and guards to launch a decisive counterattack against the Wu army, and finally died at the city gate; Except for a few of his subordinates who died with him, most of the others chose to surrender.

At this point, Yang Liu Nancheng, the nail left by the Jin army on the south bank of the Yellow River, was finally pulled out by the Wu army, and the three iron cables left on the river were also cut off by the Wu army, and there was no barrier for the Wu army on the Yellow River.

In late December, Yang Wu personally led a large army to Yunzhou and joined Liu Xin to prepare for the siege of the city