"Whew, whew, whew......" Heavy panting came from time to time in the woods.

"Captain, stop and rest for a while, really, I really can't run......"

"No, we're still very close to the battlefield, and the enemy will soon be chasing after us. If you hold on a little longer, the enemy will not be able to pursue it all the time! He Cheng gasped for breath while loudly boosting the morale of his subordinates.

Not long ago, after defeating the Wu army, under the order of Dong Zhang, the Liang army competed for merit and pursued the Wu army, but who knew that it didn't take long for them to be raided by the cavalry of the Wu army, and the army was in chaos and could not resist at all.

What's even worse is that Dong Zhang, as the main general, saw that the situation was not good, and fled with the guards at the first time, and the army that lost his command was even more chaotic, and immediately collapsed under the attack of the Wu army, and the soldiers scattered and fled.

He Cheng and his dozens of soldiers were also on the run, their luck was not very good, they were targeted by a Wu cavalry, followed them and kept chasing and killing, as long as the soldiers who fell behind were killed or captured by them.

At this time, there were only more than a dozen soldiers still following He Cheng, and all of them were exhausted, and several of them were still injured.

"Captain, in my opinion, why should we run? It's better to surrender the Wu army directly. One soldier panted, his weapon had long been thrown away, his hair was scattered, and he was extremely embarrassed.

"That is, it is better to surrender directly, I heard that as long as it surrenders, the Wu army will not kill it, at most it will be sent to the south to build roads; If you are lucky, it is also a good way out to directly join the Volunteer Army. The other soldier chimed in.

"yes, you might as well surrender, Captain!" The other soldiers chimed in.

He Cheng smiled bitterly in his heart, knowing that everyone had no fighting spirit, only thinking about surrendering, and even if they continued to escape, it would be difficult to escape, the other party was cavalry, they were infantry, how could a two-legged one run over four legs? What's more, they hadn't eaten at noon, and they didn't have much strength to run away hungry.

"Well, since everyone is going to surrender, then I won't object. Everyone, stop, and when the enemy comes, let's surrender together. He Cheng stopped, took a breath and said.

"Thank you, Captain!" Everyone hurriedly agreed.

After a while, a cavalry squad of more than ten people caught up, and He Cheng immediately stepped forward to ask for surrender.

For this kind of initiative to surrender, the Wu army naturally would not embarrass them, and soon sent people to escort them to the rear camp.

……

There are not a few people like He Cheng who choose to surrender, and in today's battle, it is too easy for the Wu army to win.

Except for the 500 infantry who were the bait at the beginning and suffered some losses, the subsequent ambush went extremely smoothly, and by the evening when Chai Kehong ordered the pursuit to be stopped, the Wu army had captured more than 7,000 prisoners alone, and killed more than 2,000 enemy troops, as well as countless weapons and armor captured.

After the final results were counted, the overjoyed Chai Kehong immediately ordered the good news to be sent to Songzhou.

Early the next morning, he personally led his troops to escort the prisoners, preparing to return to Songzhou, and finally arrived outside Songzhou in the afternoon.

At this time, the Zuo Tengxiang army led by Zhu Qianyou also happened to arrive in Songzhou and joined the besieging Wu army.

Two pieces of good news arrived at the same time, which made the soldiers of the Wu army rejoice.

"Send the order to Zuo Tengxiang's army to send troops to escort those prisoners to the city, let the defenders know that the reinforcements they had been hoping for have been defeated by our army, and let them surrender as soon as possible. Ben General didn't believe it, and after losing reinforcements, they would hold on. Li Chengding immediately ordered.

His order was immediately carried out, and Zhu Qianyou personally led 5,000 men to escort the more than 7,000 captives captured yesterday to the city of Songzhou to show off his might, and at the same time sent people to the city to persuade him to surrender.

"Listen to the defenders of the city, you have bravely resisted our army with 3,000 soldiers, and you have been holding out for a month, which is enough to prove your loyalty. But now the reinforcements you expected have been defeated by our army, more than 7,000 people have been taken prisoner by our army, and Huo Yanwei, Wang Yanzhang, Dong Zhang and other generals have been defeated. ”

"Now that you have lost reinforcements and suffered heavy casualties, you can't hold on, and if you don't surrender, when will you wait?"

……

The sound of persuasion to surrender spread throughout the city, and soon caused a great commotion among the defenders of the city.

"What? Our reinforcements have been defeated? ”

"More than 7,000 people were taken prisoner?"

"Wang Yanzhang, Huo Yanwei, Dong Zhang and other generals were all defeated?"

Listening to these news, looking at the dense captives tied up by ropes not far outside the city, every soldier on the city wall was terrified and pale.

In this month, they seemed to resist resolutely, but in fact, everyone knew in their hearts that if there were no reinforcements to relieve the siege, Songzhou City would eventually fall into the hands of the Wu army.

As Huo Yanwei's confidant general and the chief general of the defenders, if he hadn't repeatedly announced to the soldiers that "reinforcements are coming", I am afraid that the defenders would have been unable to support it a long time ago.

The slogan "reinforcements are coming" also became the last motivation and belief of the defenders to persist in resistance.

And now, the reinforcements have been defeated, their last hope is shattered, and the generals are suddenly depressed and have lost the courage to hold on.

"Don't believe the enemy's conspiracy, it's a trap, it's not a prisoner who is tied up, it must be the enemy who deliberately makes people pretend, don't believe it!" Jeon Yan was still unwilling and shouted loudly.

Many people began to hesitate when he said this.

At this moment, I saw that there was a new change in the Wu army outside the city, and several middle-aged people who were tied up were pushed down the city shirtless.

"This is Qiu Dening, the deputy commander of the Chongde Army."

"This is the commander Yoo Young-dong."

"This is ......"

"These people are all Liang generals who were captured by our army, maybe some of you know them, these people can prove that what our army said is true, your reinforcements have been defeated, surrender quickly!" There was another sound from below the city, which caused the defenders to shake even more.

Taking advantage of the afterglow of the sunset that had not yet set at this time, many people rushed to the edge of the city wall to look into the distance.

"It's really General Liu, he came to our Songzhou last time, and the general had seen him at the beginning."

"Yes, that person is Qiu Dening, the general knows him, he is a general under General Dong, but I didn't expect him to be captured by the Wu army."

The generals talked a lot, and soon confirmed the identities of the captives below.

No matter how much Quan Yan denies this, he will not be able to make the crowd continue to calm down.

"General, why deny it now? Now that the reinforcements have been defeated, let's surrender! ”

"Yes, General, we have been holding the city for so long, and we are loyal to the imperial court, and now it's time to think about it for ourselves."

"General, you are loyal to General Huo, but you also have to think about your own future, Songzhou can't hold on, so it's better to surrender as soon as possible!"

……

The reason why the generals stick to Songzhou is not out of loyalty, but for merit; If you can hold Songzhou, this great achievement is enough to make everyone promoted and rich.

But no matter how great the credit is, you have to have a life to get it, now that the reinforcements are cut off, the defenders in the city have suffered heavy casualties, and continuing to hold on is just a life, and the generals are naturally unwilling to do such a thing; Those low-level soldiers have long been unwilling to fight again.

In this case, even if Quan Yan is unwilling, he also understands that the general trend is gone.

That night, after careful deliberation, Quan Yan sent an envoy out of the city to discuss the surrender with the Wu army.

The next day, the defenders went out of the city to surrender to the Wu army, and the city of Songzhou officially fell into the hands of the Wu state.

With the city of Songzhou as a base for advancement, whether it was to contain the Liang army or further attack Kaifeng, Luoyang and other places, the Wu army was in a favorable situation of advancing and retreating.

At the same time, Liu Xin and Mi Zhicheng's offensive against various parts of Shandong in the east also progressed very smoothly.

After Liu Xin's army arrived in Yanzhou, the Yanzhou defenders resisted for three days before being defeated, and then Liu Xin led his troops to continue north to attack Yunzhou.

Yunzhou is different from Yanzhou in that it is close to the front line of the Yellow River and has more defenders.

During these years, the Jin army captured a total of two ferries on the south bank of the Yellow River, one of which was in Desheng City, located in Huazhou, near the core area of the Liang State, and the main force of the Liang army on the northern front was stationed in Yang Village, not far from Desheng City, and had a long-term confrontation with the Jin army.

The other ferry, Yang Liudu, is sixty miles east of Dong'e, not far from Yunzhou.

Historically, Li Cunmiao went south from this ferry, attacked Yunzhou, which was empty of troops, and finally led the army to attack, break through Kaifeng, and eliminate the Liang State.

Today's Yunzhou garrison has a lot of forces, and even the Wu army can't capture it in a short time.

The other Wu army led by Mi Zhicheng attacked in the direction of Yizhou, and the momentum along the way was like a bamboo, and Yizhou, Mizhou and other places surrendered one after another, not daring to resist at all.

This rapid progress continued until the city of Qingzhou, when the Pinglu Jiedu of Qingzhou led the defenders to try to resist.

Faced with this situation, Mi Zhicheng left 10,000 people to besiege Qingzhou according to Yang Wu's order, and he himself led other armies to attack other states and counties first.

By the end of September, all parts of Shandong had fallen into the hands of Wu, with the exception of Yunzhou, Qizhou, and Qingzhou, which were still resisting.

At the same time, Li Cunmiao in the city of Weizhou was worried about the great changes in the situation in the Central Plains and the defeat in the battle in Zhenzhou.

Since the dispatch of troops to attack Zhang Wenli in August, the progress of the Jin army was extremely smooth at the beginning, and the Chengde army could only rely on the city of Zhenzhou to resist.

However, after entering September, the Jin army suffered its first major setback, and the fierce general of the Jin army, Shi Jianjiao, the assassin of Xiangzhou, was shot by a stray arrow in the battle and died.

Shi Jianjiao's father, Shi Jingsi, was originally a fierce general by Li Keyong's side, and when Shangyuanyi changed, it was Shi Jingsi who fought bravely, which allowed Li Keyong to successfully escape, but Shi Jingsi was also killed in that battle.

Later, Shi Jianjiao was reused by Li Keyong, and he inherited his father's bravery, and he must take the lead in every battle, and soon stood out in the army and became a famous general with both wisdom and courage in the Jin army.

Unexpectedly, Shi Jianjiao would be killed in such an "inconspicuous" war as the attack on Zhenzhou, and after the news came, Li Cunqiao was grief-stricken, and immediately planned to personally lead the troops to conscript.

However, at this time, the news of the Northern Expedition of the Wu army in the south finally crossed the blockade line of the Liang army, which surprised Li Cunmiao.

The Jin State and the Liang State fought for so many years, although the Jin army won one victory after another, but also suffered heavy losses, and the soldiers were tired, the economy withered, the population of the north was greatly reduced, and the people had to bear a heavy burden in order to support the war ahead, and there were also many anti-war voices within it.

During this period, Li Cunmiao did not think about temporarily armisting with Liang to get a chance to recuperate; But after careful consideration, this idea was finally dismissed.

Hebei has been fighting for decades, and its foundation is not as good as the Central Plains, which has been stable for decades, and most of the core figures of the Jin State are martial artists, who are good at commanding troops to fight but are not good at governing places.

Although Li Cunmiao also tried to win over scholars and strengthen Wenzhi, he had to admit that the Jin State still did not do enough in terms of Wenzhi, not to mention that compared with the Wu State in the south, even compared with the Liang State.

Now the Jin State relies on the continuous victories on the battlefield to launch attacks on the Liang State one after another, only in this way can the Jin State hold its breath, let the soldiers maintain high morale, and let everyone work hard to defeat the strong enemy; Even though the people's livelihood is withering and the burden is heavy, they can still persevere under the encouragement of successive victories.

If there is a truce with the Liang State, the momentum of the brave battle will be discharged, and the Jin State will lose its goal, and it is likely to relax, and when the time comes, various internal contradictions will break out, and all kinds of dissatisfaction among the military and people at the bottom will inevitably impact the rule of the Jin State, and the goal of unifying the world will become empty talk.

For all kinds of reasons, Li Cunmiao could not stop the war and must continue to fight.

Since it is necessary to fight all the time, Li Cunmiao naturally wants to eliminate the Liang State as quickly as possible, instead of fighting against the Liang State as he is now and fighting a war of attrition with the Liang State.

During this period, Li Cunmiao tried to lead his troops to raid the enemy's rear, in order to break through the Liang army's defense line and achieve the final victory; However, his adventure ended in a disastrous victory in the Battle of Huliupo.

In addition to risky raids, Li Cunmiao also sent envoys south to Jinling many times, trying to persuade Wu to go on a northern expedition, and send troops together with Jin to destroy Liang and carve up the Central Plains.

However, such attempts also ended in failure, and Yang Wu was not at all interested in his suggestion.

But now, the Wu army suddenly sent troops to the Northern Expedition, which Li Cunqiao and others did not expect at all.

Now, there are two options in front of Li Cunqiao, the first option is, of course, to send troops to attack Zhenzhou according to the original plan, take Zhenzhou as quickly as possible, and then send troops to cross the river to the south and compete with Wu for the Central Plains.

The second option is to contain Zhenzhou with a small number of troops, and now lead the main force of the Jin army to cross the river to the south, and together with the Wu army, destroy the Liang State, fight for the Central Plains, and then return to attack Zhenzhou.

The two choices seem to be just in different order, but the final result may be very different, which makes Li Cunqiao feel a deep headache and don't know how to decide.