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Compared with the thunderous cheers of the Huainan army, the Liang army was gloomy and bleak.

Because when crossing the river, it was put on the side by the Huainan army, and the losses of the Liang army were amazing, but fortunately, the most elite troops under his command all crossed the river by boat, and did not suffer much losses, otherwise Zhu Quanzhong was only afraid that he would vomit blood in anger.

After crossing the Huai River, because most of the grain and grass were abandoned by him, the army had to go hungry and endure hunger, and the soldiers complained a lot, and many people became deserters on the way.

After returning to Yingzhou, the Liang army went south with 200,000 troops, not counting Yang Shihou's 30,000 troops, and the 100,000 people who finally fled back, and the remaining 70,000 troops were either wiped out by Huainan or deserted on the way to retreat.

Such a heavy loss can be said to be the heaviest in recent years, and the last heavy defeat was the battle of Qingzhou two years ago, when Zhu Youning was defeated by the combined forces of Wang Maozhang and Wang Shifan.

However, unlike that time, many of the soldiers killed and wounded during Zhu Youning's defeat were Zhu Quanzhong's servant Wei Bojiedu's army of Luo Shaowei, and even if Zhu Quanzhong died, he was not very distressed; This time it was his own well-equipped and well-trained soldiers who were lost.

What's more, it was his nephew Zhu Youning who was defeated last time, and it had no effect on his own popularity; And this time, it was defeated by the Huainan army when he personally led the troops; And what defeated him turned out to be a young man less than twenty years old, which made him, a veteran of the battlefield who had fought for more than 20 years, and was in full swing, how could he be embarrassed?

"Give birth to a child like Yang Wu! Compared with Yang Wu, Lone's sons are like pigs and dogs! Zhu Quanzhong let out a long sigh.

The generals did not dare to speak, for fear of attracting Zhu Quanzhong's anger, only the Yingzhou defense envoy Gao Jichang persuaded in a low voice: "The king does not need to worry, there are many rivers in the south, and there is a natural barrier in Huainan, and it is normal for my northerners to not know the water *** war; If you come to the north and lose the convenience of geographical advantages, the Huainan Army will be far from being the opponent of our army. ”

Zhu Quanzhong sighed and said: "What you said is naturally clear, but the army has recently suffered a major defeat, and the soldiers have no fighting spirit at all, and they need to retreat to Bianzhou to rest." If Yang Wu took this opportunity to cross the northern expedition, how should he resist? ”

In today's situation, as the news of the defeat of the Liang army spreads, the feudal towns of all parties will definitely not let go of this opportunity to weaken Zhu Quanzhong, so in the face of Huainan's attack, the Liang army can only temporarily take a defensive position, first concentrate on defeating the challenge of other feudal towns, and stabilize the overall situation.

Gao Jichang's heart moved, he immediately stood up and bowed to the ground, and said loudly and generously: "King, if the Huainan army dares to attack Yingzhou, the last general will fight to the death, as long as the last general does not die one day, Yingzhou will never fall into the hands of the Huainan army!" ”

Zhu Quanzhong nodded, and immediately promised: "If General Gao can protect Yingzhou from loss, he will definitely promote you to be the envoy of the festival!" ”

Gao Jichang was overjoyed in his heart, he was just a house slave of Zhu Quanzhong's adopted son Zhu Yourang, and later Zhu Quanzhong felt that he had an extraordinary bearing after seeing him once, so he asked Zhu Yourang to adopt him as his adopted son.

In this way, he is actually the adopted son of Zhu Quanzhong's adopted son.

Three years ago, when Zhu Quanzhong was crusading against Li Maozhen, the king of Qi, because the army could not break through Fengxiang for a long time, Zhu Quanzhong wanted to withdraw his troops and go back, but at the critical time, Gao Jichang spoke out to stop it.

At the same time, Gao Jichang offered a plan to help Zhu Quanzhong defeat Li Maozhen, and made a great contribution to finally forcing Li Maozhen to surrender, so Zhu Quanzhong let him restore his original name and gradually promoted him to the defense envoy of Yingzhou.

With the promotion of his official position, Gao Jichang is naturally proud, but people's ambitions are endless, when he was still a domestic slave, all he thought about was to be able to eat enough every day; But now, what he thinks about is how to be a festival envoy.

At this time, after listening to Zhu Quanzhong's promise, Gao Jichang was extremely excited in his heart, and the opportunity he had been waiting for had finally come!

He endured the excitement in his heart and began to mention to Zhu Quanzhong the conditions he needed to defend Yingzhou, and Zhu Quanzhong agreed one by one.

After sending Gao Jichang out, on the side, Li Zhen said cautiously: "King, this Gao Jichang is not small, if he is appointed as the envoy of the festival, I am afraid that he will not lose his tail in the future......"

Zhu Quanzhong waved his hand and said: "That is in the future, it is still important to defend Yingzhou now, and the siege methods of the Huainan army are extremely sharp, especially their gunpowder, I heard that it can blow up the city wall." If he didn't make heavy promises and stimulate the fighting spirit of the generals, Yingzhou was afraid that he would fall if he didn't hold on for long, so now Lone needs him to buy time! ”

time, this is what Zhu Quanzhong needs most at the moment.

Cao Cao was defeated in the Battle of Chibi that year, and he was able to quickly stabilize the overall situation in the north, the most important thing was that the general Cao Ren guarded Jiangling and resisted the Wu army led by Zhou Yu for more than a year, which bought him enough time.

And now, if there is no general to help him block the attack of the Huainan army, so that the Huainan army has formed a trend of sweeping Huaibei, plus Li Keyong and other feudal towns in the north will attack together, then Zhu Quanzhong will really fall into a situation of being besieged from all sides.

Li Zhen nodded and said, "If that's the case, then what about Suzhou?" The geographical location of Suzhou is more important than that of Yingzhou, and the Huainan army is also likely to attack there, I wonder who the king is going to send to defend? ”

Zhu Quanzhong frowned, the importance of Suzhou is even higher than that of Yingzhou, this is because Suzhou is the flank of Xuzhou, and Xuzhou is the core of the entire Jianghuai River, and it is a real military town.

If Suzhou is lost, Xuzhou will be attacked by the Huainan army; And if Xuzhou is lost, both the Central Plains and Qingzhou will be threatened by the Huainan army.

Prior to this, the Huainan Army had sent troops north to attack Suzhou many times, and its purpose was for Xuzhou.

If you talk about defending Suzhou, the best candidate at this time is naturally Kang Huaizhen, this person has been guarding Suzhou for many years, has outstanding ability, and has defeated the invasion of the Huainan army many times.

It's a pity that Kang Huaizhen failed to escape this time, as for whether he was killed by the Huainan army or surrendered, or was captured but did not surrender, these news have not yet been transmitted for a while.

Zhu Quanzhong thought for a while and said: "Suzhou will be handed over to Kou Yanqing, I hope this person will not live up to Lone's expectations of him!" ”

At this time, a guard from outside came in to report: "King, hundreds of captured soldiers of our army have been sent back by the Huainan Army, saying that the son of King Wu has a letter to send to the king, and another ......."

Zhu Quanzhong's face sank, at this time, Yang Wu sent someone to send her a letter, it was definitely not a good thing, "What else?" ”

"In addition, they also brought back the head of General Yuan Xiangxian!"

"What?" Zhu Quanzhong's heart was shocked, although he was the most ruthless person and was careful to guard against his son, but Yuan Xiangxian was his nephew after all, and he was killed by the Huainan army like this, and he still felt a little sad in his heart.

"And what about Kang Huaizhen?"

"General Kang..."The guard hesitated for a moment before saying, "I heard that he refused to surrender after being captured, and as a result, he was also killed." It's just that Huainan values his name, so he left a whole body for him and buried it on the spot. ”

Zhu Quanzhong's face darkened, but he was relieved in his heart, Kang Huaizhen had been running Suzhou for many years, if he surrendered to Huainan, it would inevitably affect the defense of Suzhou.

Now that Kang Huaizhen is dead, things are much easier.

He immediately took Yang Wu's letter, unfolded it, and couldn't help but be furious.

It turned out that after the Qingkou War, Yang Xingmi triumphantly wrote a letter to Zhu Quanzhong and said: Pang Shigu and Ge Congzhou are not my opponents, so you should come to fight with me in person!

And this time, Yang Wu used this excuse to make fun of him: "...... In the first battle of Wangjiadu, the king was handsome with 100,000 people, but Zhu Jing, a young general under the command of the lonely, was broken by thousands of people, with more than 10,000 corpses, and the Huai River was jammed. It can be seen that the king's skills are the same as those of Pang Shigu, Ge Congzhou and others! ”

Zhu Quanzhong was furious, grabbed a jade cup on the desk and slammed it on the ground, roaring loudly: "Those wastes were released by the Huainan army, they must be the spies of the enemy army!" Kill them all at once! ”

……

Zhu Quanzhong originally wanted to change his previous plan and stay for a decisive battle with Yang Wu in Huaibei, but was persuaded by Li Zhen and others, so he chose to endure it.

Soon, Zhu Quanzhong left Kou Yanqing to guard Suzhou, Gao Jichang to guard Yingzhou, and led his troops back to Bianzhou to rest.

When Zhu Quanzhong was angry and killed, Yang Wu was desperately hoarding grain and grass in Shouzhou and Sizhou.

As Zhu Quanzhong and others expected, Yang Wu set the goals of the Northern Expedition in Suzhou and Yingzhou. Today's Huaihe defense line, its core is Shou, Hao, Si these three states, and the opposite Liang army is mainly defending Suzhou and Yingzhou, if these two states can be captured, then the Huainan army's defense line can advance a big step, and with the east of Haizhou to level the defense line.

As early as a few days ago, when the news of Zhu Quanzhong's defeat arrived, Yang Shihou withdrew from the siege of Gwangju and led his army back to Xiangzhou.

At this point, the first phase of this great war triggered by Zhu Quanzhong's southward movement officially ended, and then it was time for Huainan to take the opportunity to go north.