When Yang Wu personally led the army to besiege Dong Zhang in Yuncheng, the situation in the north finally changed significantly.

In mid-December, under the persuasion of Wang Yu, the Khitan Yelu Abaoji finally sent troops to the Central Plains and began a new round of looting.

The surging Khitans claimed to have an army of 300,000, and after entering the Central Plains, they attacked Youzhou first, and the defender of Youzhou was Li Shaohong, the general of the Jin State.

The Khitans had suffered a big loss under the city of Youzhou before this, when the army besieged Youzhou for nearly two hundred days, besieged day and night, I don't know how many troops were lost, and never took the city, and finally was defeated by the Jin army reinforcements led by Li Cunxian.

This time, in the face of Youzhou Jiancheng, which was also holding on to help, Abaoji did not dare to attack the city again, so he chose to make a detour to the south and besiege Zhuozhou first.

Compared with Youzhou, Zhuozhou is far inferior in terms of the number of defenders in the city, the weight of money and food saved, and the solidity of the city wall; In addition, the Khitans have made great progress in siege technology in recent years through the teaching of Lu Wenjin, a traitor, so after the Khitan army besieged Zhuozhou for more than ten days, it was finally broken and captured Li Sibi, the assassin of Zhuozhou.

While besieging Zhuozhou, the Khitans divided their troops south to attack Dingzhou.

Although this trip to the Central Plains was the result of Wang Chuzhi's instigation at the earliest, but now that Wang Chuzhi has been imprisoned and Wang Du has replaced his position, the Khitans will naturally no longer regard Dingzhou as an ally, but want to take advantage of the fire to rob and capture Dingzhou.

In the face of the siege of the Khitans, the royal capital soon could not resist it and sent people to the king of Jin to complain.

……

"Those who should come always have to come, and it is a good thing for the Khitans to enter the prison at this time, and the later it is delayed, the worse it will be for us."

Outside Zhenzhou, in the camp of the Jin army, after learning the news of the Khitans' entry into the Kou, Li Cunmiao did not feel anxious, but breathed a sigh of relief.

Since he personally led the troops to besiege Zhenzhou, almost two months have passed now, but Zhenzhou has not collapsed as quickly as he expected; After the defenders failed to surrender, they strengthened their determination to resist, Zhang Chujin personally climbed the city wall to boost morale, and took out a large amount of money and food to reward meritorious soldiers, and for a time the morale of the defenders was greatly boosted and the fighting spirit was high.

As a result, although the Jin army has been besieging continuously in the past two months, it has not made the slightest breakthrough except for the loss of a large number of soldiers.

In addition to the unsatisfactory progress of the war on the Zhenzhou side, the development of the situation in the Central Plains in the south was also somewhat unexpected by Li Cunqiao.

The first is that the speed of the Wu army in attacking the city and plundering the land is too fast, and it is not surprising that the cities in the south, which have little force to defend, will quickly fall; When Songzhou fell, there were only 3,000 defenders in the city, and it was suddenly attacked by the Wu army, so it is understandable that it was broken by the Wu army; But the siege of Yunzhou by the Wu army was different.

Yunzhou is not far from Yang Liudu, and the Jin army is very familiar with the garrison there, and knows that Yunzhou is a hard nut to bite; But Wu Jun also took it down in only two months; As for the cities to the east, they are even more wind-falling.

Comparing the progress of the Jin army's siege of Zhenzhou, the speed of the Wu army's siege is somewhat amazing.

In addition to the astonishing speed of the siege, another piece of news that made Li Cunqiao feel bad was that Zhu Youzhen actually chose Duan Ning to be the main commander of the Liang army.

Who is Duan Ning? It can be said that except for a few people such as Zhu Youzhen, everyone else knows that this person is by no means a general: a general who has risen to a high position by bribery, flattery and other means, what ability can he have to command troops? Zhu Youzhen asked this person to be the commander of the army, isn't this delivering food to Wu Jun?

Therefore, after learning the news, Li Cunqiao felt deeply uneasy, and at the same time sighed in his heart, during the confrontation between Jin and Liang, why did Zhu Youzhen not let Duan Ning be the commander, if that was the case, I was afraid that the Jin army would have defeated the Liang army a long time ago, and now there is no need to sit and watch the Wu army recklessly.

"What the king said is extremely true, it is indeed a good thing for us that the Khitans have entered the army at this time. Sooner or later, the Khitans will invade, and if we defeat them at this time, when we go south to compete with the Wu army in the next year, the northern front will be able to rest assured; Otherwise, when we fight the Wu army, it will not be good if we have to guard against the Khitans at all times. Yan Bao, the envoy of the balance festival and the servant, spoke in agreement.

"Yes, and the last general thinks that the reason why the defenders of Zhenzhou are so warlike and resolutely resist is that they still have hope, and think that the Khitans will come to rescue them, if we repel the Khitans, maybe the defenders of Zhenzhou will collapse?" Shenwu commanded Wang Sitong to echo the road.

"Great King, the last general thinks that the Khitans must expel him as soon as possible, so as not to take root in the Central Plains and become a great disaster in the Central Plains." Other generals spoke out one after another.

All the generals present understood the importance of resisting the Khitans, and knew that the Khitans could not be given the opportunity to take root in the Central Plains, but when they said how many troops should be used to deal with the Khitans, the generals had a dispute.

According to various rumors, the Khitans entered the army this time with a very large number of troops, even as high as 300,000 troops; Of course, everyone knows that there is a lot of water in this, although the Khitans have a large number of troops, it is impossible to have 300,000 people, at most 150,000 is remarkable.

Moreover, the vast majority of the Khitan army is actually just ordinary herdsmen, a temporary rabble, so it's okay for them to take advantage of the fire to rob, but it's not okay if they really want to fight a tough battle.

There weren't many truly elite troops in the Khitan army; If the Jin army can defeat this part of the Khitan elite, the remaining Khitan army will naturally collapse and flee.

There are many examples of such battles, such as the battle of Li Cunxian's rescue of Youzhou, the Jin army actually dealt with the Khitan army of 20,000 or 30,000 people, and after these 20,000 or 30,000 people were defeated, the Khitan army that looked like a menacing force completely collapsed.

Otherwise, if there were really 300,000 regular troops that could compete with the Jin army, not even 300,000, as long as there were 100,000 elite soldiers, the Khitans would have already invaded the Central Plains, and they would not be beaten up every time they invaded like now.

Of course, although the strength of the Khitans cannot be overestimated, the strength of the Khitans cannot be underestimated either.

As a nomadic Khitan, the biggest feature of the Khitan people is that the army is dominated by cavalry, coming and going like the wind, and they are very mobile.

Over the years, the Khitans have been hit hard every time they enter the Kou, but they have never been injured, but have grown their strength in invasion and looting again and again, because they escaped quickly.

Although Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, was originally a Shatuo person and started from the Shatuo tribe soldiers, after so many years, the Shatuo people have basically been sinicized and no longer live on nomadism.

This made the Jin army more cavalry, which had a great advantage over the cavalry of the southern countries, but its army was dominated by infantry.

When facing the Khitan army, the infantry-based army will naturally be subject to various restrictions, and it is the cavalry of the Jin army that can really be used against the Khitans.

But if only the cavalry is invested to deal with the Khitans, there are not many Jin cavalry on the Zhenzhou side at present, only 5,000 elite cavalry, and the rest of the cavalry is scattered everywhere, and it is difficult to assemble for a while.

Therefore, some generals felt that the Khitans were menacing and had a large number of troops, so they should be cautious, and it was best to transfer the main forces of Zhenzhou to resist the Khitans, and only need to leave a small number of troops to contain the defenders of Zhenzhou.

At this time, Li Sizhao, the envoy of Zhaoyi Jiedu who had just rushed to the Zhenzhou army from Luzhou a few days ago, said: "The king, the last general thinks that this time the use of troops should not be slow, only cavalry is enough, if all the Zhenzhou army is transferred to Dingzhou, not only will it be delayed for a long time, but the remaining army in Zhenzhou will be insufficient, which will give Zhang Chujin a chance to breathe." ”

Li Cunmiao listened and nodded repeatedly.

Li Sizhao continued: "The Khitans entered the Kou this time, mainly because they were tempted by Wang Yu, their main purpose was to loot goods and wealth, and they could not save Zhenzhou from danger. In recent years, the king has defeated the Liang army, and the Khitans have repeatedly invaded and been defeated by our army. ”

"So this battle is dominated by cavalry, our army only needs to file and defeat its forward troops, and the enemy troops behind will definitely flee, why use the Zhenzhou army to waste time and fighters?"

Li Cunmiao listened enthusiastically and said impassionedly: "Brother is right, the rise of the emperor has its own destiny, what can the Khitans do to me?" Gu Zeng used tens of thousands of troops to pacify the vast area east of Taihang Mountain, and now to deal with the vulgar Khitans, if you have to use all the troops of Zhenzhou, then how many troops will be used to deal with the Wu army in the future? ”

"I have made up my mind, so I will go with five thousand elite horsemen, and General Yan will stay behind to lead the army to besiege Zhenzhou, and we must not give Zhang Chujin a chance to breathe!"

When the generals saw that he had made up their minds, they immediately replied in a loud voice: "The last general will obey." ”

The next day, Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, personally led 5,000 elite cavalry from Zhenzhou to Dingzhou to rescue, and at the same time sent Shenwudu commander Wang Sitong to lead troops to be stationed south of Wolf Mountain to contain the Khitans.

Li Cunmiao's decisive advance greatly surprised the Khitans, and he was unprepared for the arrival of the Jin army; Later, the Jin army fought with the Khitans, although they encountered danger in the middle, even Li Cunmiao was besieged by the Khitan army, and he almost couldn't break out of the enemy's encirclement, fought bravely against the Jin army, and finally defeated the Khitans.

Just as Li Sizhao expected, after the Khitan front was defeated, the follow-up Khitan army really fled in a hurry, and the Jin army pursued at the end of the ranks, all the way north to Yizhou.

At this time, it happened to encounter heavy snow for more than ten days, and the snow on the flat ground was several feet thick, and the Khitan army had no food to eat, and people who froze to death and starved to death were endless.

In the face of such a fiasco, Yelu Abaoji raised his finger to the sky and said to Lu Wenjin: "God didn't let me come here!" At this time, he recalled that when he first sent out the army, his wife had dissuaded him after Shulu, but unfortunately he did not listen, and finally led to such a fiasco, and he regretted it for a while.

Since then, Yelu Abaoji has been greatly disappointed in Lu Wenjin and no longer trusts him as before.

On the other hand, after defeating the Khitans, Li Cunmiao personally led his troops to pursue.

The Khitans walked, and the Jin army also left; The Khitans rested, and so did the Jin army.

During this period, Li Cunmiao saw that where the Khitan people camped in the wild, the grass on the ground was surrounded squarely, as if it was woven and cut with scissors.

Seeing this situation, and then recalling the dangers encountered during this use of troops, Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, also had to sigh and say: "The Khitan people strictly enforce the law, so they can do this, which is inferior to many armies in the Central Plains." ”

Over the years, although the invasion of the Khitans has been repulsed, the strength of the Khitan is increasing day by day, and judging from their performance, it is obvious that the discipline of the Khitan army is also increasing, and it is no longer the rabble that it was at the beginning.

Strict discipline is the root of a strong army, the Khitan people were originally mainly cavalry, if there is strict discipline to restrain it, it will definitely become a big disaster in the Central Plains in the future.

Thinking of this, Li Cunqiao was very worried.

……

Of course, all this is a later story, when Li Cunqiao led his army north to Dingzhou to fight the Khitans, the situation in the Central Plains was also changing.

In Qingzhou City, in the home of Han Guangsi, the envoy of Ziqing Observation and the deputy envoy of Pinglu Jiedu, in the study, the flickering candlelight kept jumping, making the room flickering and dark.

"Have you already been contacted? Nothing could go wrong, right? Han Kwang-si's face was full of worry.

Standing solemnly in front of him was a young man of about twenty years old, this person had an elegant complexion, quite majestic, and looked more calm and magnanimous than Han Guangsi.

This young man is not an outsider, it is the eldest son of Han Guangsi, and he is the famous Han Xizai in history.

Although Han Xizai in history is more famous for the "Han Xizai Night Banquet Picture", he still has some ability and talent to be the prime minister of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

The Han family is a family of eunuchs, and Han Xizai's great-grandfather Han Jun once served as Taichangqing; His grandfather Han Yin served as the imperial historian, and in his father's generation, Han Guangsi, he served as the deputy envoy of Pinglu Jiedu in Qingzhou, but he was not famous.

This time the Wu army attacked Qingzhou, Han Xizai was originally traveling outside with his friend Li Gu, a native of Yingzhou, and after learning the news that Qingzhou was under siege, the two quickly returned to Qingzhou.

At this time, Yingzhou had already fallen into the hands of Wu State, and Li Gu's father held an official position in Yingzhou and later surrendered to Wu State, so Li Gu was barely a person on the side of Wu State; In addition, Wu Guo attaches great importance to cultural governance and treats them more favorably, so Li Gu and Han Xizai both have their hearts set on Wu Guo.

Now that Qingzhou is besieged, the two of them thought about whether they could persuade Han Guangsi to surrender to the Wu army, if they could help the Wu army break through Qingzhou, it would also be a great merit, and it would be beneficial for them to enter the Wu State in the future.

So Han Xizai volunteered, entered the city in the night, and personally went to persuade Han Guangsi to surrender; Li Gu remained in Wu's army to be in charge of liaison.

It was with the help of the two of them that Mi Zhicheng knew the situation in the city well, and Han Guangsi promised to act as an internal response, so he dared to boast to Yang Wu that he would be able to capture Qingzhou within half a month.

And tonight is the time to besiege the city!