"It's been half a month, and I'm finally about to get out of the mountains!"

When Wan Quangan and his party continued to Lingnan, the Youtengxiang army that set out from Jinling, after arriving in Jizhou, only rested for a few days, and marched to Hengzhou according to the original plan.

At the same time, the Zhenguo Army also sent troops from Yuanzhou to attack Tanzhou.

Compared with the northern front, which had already captured the two county towns of Liuyang and Liling as the advance base in the last war, the attack on Hengzhou on the southern front had to cross the 300-mile mountain road between Jizhou and Hengzhou first.

This section of the mountain road is extremely steep and long in many places, and more importantly, when they are halfway through, suddenly it rains heavily, making the road very muddy and difficult to walk, and many soldiers are complaining.

"Two highnesses, there is the tea tomb in front, and after the tea tomb, there is Hengzhou in front of it, and there is no obstacle on the way. However, there is a local tyrant army stationed in Chaling City, and it needs to be eliminated. ”

Zhu Siqing stretched out his hand to block a branch in front of him, and said to the four young people beside him.

This attack on Hengzhou was not only the first time that Zhu Siqing took on a heavy responsibility alone, but also Yang Longyan, Yang Meng, Liu Renzhen and Cheng Zong came to watch the battle.

The rugged mountain road along the way made even those veterans feel very tired, and Yang Longyan and the other four young people were even more tired.

Fortunately, they each had horses to ride, and they had all been trained in military training and were relatively determined, so although they felt tired, none of them complained.

This made Zhu Siqing and other generals naturally amazed.

"General Zhu, does the enemy know about the arrival of our army? Also, how many enemy troops are there in Chaling City? Yang Longyan asked softly with a small face.

"The enemy should know, right? After all, the actions of our army were not concealed in the slightest. As for their strength, it is said that there are four or five thousand of them! Zhu Siqing said with some uncertainty.

"Four or five thousand? How can there be so many enemy troops? Isn't Chaling a small county town? Yang Meng was a little puzzled.

"That's right, if there are four or five thousand enemy troops in Chaling, then aren't there tens of thousands of enemy troops in Hengzhou City?" Yang Longyan was also very surprised.

According to what they know, the defenders in those state cities of Wu are generally only four or five thousand people, of course, if it is an extremely important state city, such as Ezhou, Shouzhou, Suzhou and other places, the defenders in the city are often as many as tens of thousands.

However, in those county seats, the defenders generally did not exceed 3,000 people.

Chaling is just a small county town, and Ma Yin's strength is far inferior to Wu Guo, so in the eyes of Yang Meng and others, there should not be so many defenders in the local area.

"The two highnesses don't know that the enemy army in Chaling City is actually led by a local tyrant named Kan Cai, although the nominal minister belongs to Ma Yin, the king of Chu, but in fact, even Ma Yin can't order him."

"As for his troops, they are just a rabble, and although there are many soldiers, what is the use?" Zhu Siqing explained with a smile.

He was extremely happy to explain these military details to these four little ones, and even talked a lot more than usual.

At this time, Liu Renzhen, who had rarely spoken, spoke: "What does General Zhu mean is that Kan Yan is the same as Wei Quanyan, although there are many troops, they are easy to defeat?" ”

"Yes, the soldiers are expensive but not much more expensive! The more rabble there are, the more they like to recruit more troops to strengthen their courage, but when it is really useful, too many troops are easy to cause confusion and be easily defeated. This is how many of the records in history have come to win more with less! ”

The characteristics of the rabble are that there are many and miscellaneous soldiers, the old and weak are uneven, the generals are inconsistent, the lack of training, etc., so small local forces like Wei Quanyan can gather nearly 100,000 troops, but they are easily defeated by Zhou Ben's more than 10,000 troops on the battlefield.

And big forces like Wu and Chu will not recruit too many troops, and they are generally mainly elite soldiers, and their combat power is naturally much higher.

Yang Longyan and the others were thoughtful, although they had not directly engaged the enemy army on the way from Jinling to here, but the four of them felt that they had learned a lot of useful things, which were difficult to learn from the military camp before.

At this time, a messenger came galloping on horseback in front, and when he came closer, he reported loudly: "Governor, General Chen has sent a small one to report that there is an enemy army of 4,000 men in front of him who occupies a dangerous place and cut off the way for our army to advance. At present, General Chen is preparing to command his troops to attack! ”

After so many years of qualifications, Chen Fan and Fan Si have been promoted from the two generals who first followed Yang Wu to the level of commanders.

Their command ability is relatively mediocre, after all, they were only a battalion commander at the beginning, and not everyone has enough qualifications to grow into excellent generals.

Of course, although Chen Fan's abilities are relatively mediocre, they are very diligent and brave in battle, so their performance after serving as the commander of the capital is also qualified.

"Tell General Chen, let him fight well, be sure to open the road as soon as possible, Ben will be waiting for his good news here!" Zhu Siqing didn't have much to say, and commanded the messenger directly.

"Pass the order, and the whole army will rest in place!"

"Order the rear army, let them catch up as soon as possible!"

……

Then, Zhu Siqing gave orders again and again.

It is still in the middle of a mountain road, and it is difficult for a large army to deploy, so the best way to face enemy interception is to use a small number of elites to open the way in front, and the rest of the army to act as a rearguard.

Of course, at this time, Chen Fan's front army had 5,000 people, and it was a well-trained elite forbidden army, which was completely enough to deal with the enemy army with fewer troops than them, so Zhu Siqing would give the order to let the armies rest in place and leave the battle completely to Chen Fan.

"Your Highnesses, rest assured, even if the enemy army occupies a dangerous place, with the strength of our army, it has always been thought that it will not be long before the enemy army can be defeated!" Seeing that Yang Longyan and the four of them were a little restless, Zhu Siqing couldn't help but laugh.

Sure enough, an hour later, the messenger from the front came again to report that they had routed the enemy army, captured the enemy camp, and were now pursuing the enemy army.

The news made everyone breathe a sigh of relief, and all of them had smiles on their faces, clearly happy about the victory.

Soon, Zhu Siqing ordered the army to move on.

When passing by the enemy camp that had been captured by the Wu army, looking at the corpses everywhere in the camp and listening to the howls of the wounded soldiers, the four teenagers couldn't help but stop and be silent.

"What are they doing? Didn't you say that our army gave preferential treatment to prisoners? Looking at the Wu soldiers in front of him killing the captured enemy wounded soldiers one by one, Yang Longyan frowned and asked the three friends beside him.

Liu Renzhen replied in a deep voice: "Those enemy wounded soldiers are too seriously injured to survive. And it is impossible for our army to waste energy on them! ”

Yang Longyan looked at the young man in front of him who was two years younger than him with some surprise, but he seemed more mature and stable.

After all, he grew up in the palace, although he had seen the description of the battlefield in books, but this was the first time he had seen the cruelty and bloodiness of the battlefield with his own eyes, and it was also the first time that he understood that the battlefield was by no means as glorious as they imagined.

At this time, Zhu Siqing came over and said lightly: "This is the battlefield, you will get used to it in the future!" Alright, hurry up, we've been too late in the mountains! ”

After the front out of the mountains, then Chaling County; After the battle just now, the defenders in Chaling City must not have much courage to continue to resist, even if they were not frightened.

There is still a short distance from Chaling to Hengzhou.

There are not many enemy defenders in Hengzhou City today, that is, only five or six thousand people.

According to the original plan, Zhu Siqing and the others needed to capture Hengzhou as soon as possible, and then march north to join Liu Xin and attack Tanzhou together, so they couldn't delay too much time halfway.

"Hmm!" Yang Longyan nodded, and while riding forward, he looked at the inconspicuous small camp in front of him with a complicated expression.

"This is the battlefield, this is the place where Brother Wang started! In the future, I must gallop like Brother Wang! ”

……

When the war between Wu and Chu broke out, in the northern Zhenzhou city, Wang Rong, the king of Zhao, stared at the soldiers of the Liang army with a frightened face.

These Liang soldiers fled from Wang Yanzhang's department.

While Yang Wu was worried about Wu's financial shortage, Liang's finances were also very tight, and it wasn't until last year that the ministers of Liang's court began to receive full salaries.

Prior to this, the ministers were either only half of their salaries or had no salaries at all.

Even the salaries of those ministers are in such a situation, and the treatment of ordinary soldiers can be imagined.

Therefore, there are often some soldiers of the Liang army who can't survive and will choose to flee to other forces, and there is nothing strange about this.

However, what shocked Wang Rong was the shocking news brought to him by these fleeing Liang soldiers: Wang Yanzhang's purpose in entering Xiangzhou was to plot his territory!

What worries him even more is that before this, Du Yanyin and Ding Yanhui, the worship officials of the Liang State, had already led Wei Bojun to enter Shenzhou and Jizhou in the name of helping him guard against Liu Shouguang, the king of Yan!

"Zhu Wen destroyed Tang Sheji, and the three-foot boy knew what he was like. However, the king relied on the good of the two in-laws to believe in his good intentions, and this so-called open-door thief is also. It's a pity that the people of this city will no longer belong to the king! ”

Recalling the exhortation words of Shi Gonggong, the guard general of Shenzhou, Wang Rong regretted it in his heart.

Open the door and thieves!

He and Zhu Wennai were related by marriage, and the southward movement of the Yan army did pose a huge threat to him, so when Du Yanyin and Ding Yanhui led the troops, he ordered the two states to open the city gate and let Wei Bojun enter the city without the slightest defense.

Even when the Shenzhou guard general Shi Gonggong was resolutely opposed, he chose to transfer Shi Gonggong out of Shenzhou City to avoid him from clashing with the Liang army.

Looking back now, how ridiculous and naïve my decision was!