On April 21, the fifth year of Wuyi, the combined forces of Liang and Shu arrived in Jiangling and camped twenty miles north of Jiangling City.

The next day, Gao Jichang in Jiangling City led 10,000 troops out of the camp and rushed to the coalition camp to converge, and the coalition forces of the three families began to advance to the Wu army camp after resting for two days.

On the 25th, the coalition forces advanced to a distance of five miles from Wu's army, and the two armies faced each other across a small river, which was connected by several pontoon bridges on the river.

In the face of the advance of the coalition forces, the Wu army chose to avoid the battle; They soon abandoned their camp and retreated fifteen miles back to re-encamp; After the coalition forces easily occupied the pontoon bridge, they did not hesitate to cross the river and continue to advance eastward.

Eventually, the Wu army stopped retreating, and the coalition forces stopped.

The two armies confronted each other ten miles apart, with the Wu army in the east and the coalition army in the west; Among the coalition forces, the Liang army and the Jingnan army were in the north, and the Shu army was in the south, forming two camps, one south and one north, five miles apart, forming a corner.

On this day, an envoy from the state of Wu came to the camp of the Shu army, who was Zhou Zong, the general secretary of Yang Wu's side.

"Envoy of Wu Kingdom, what does it mean to come here at this time? Could it be that they came to seek peace? ”

In the main camp of the Chinese army, King Jiawang Wang Zongshou sat on top and laughed softly at the generals.

"I don't think it's to ask for peace, so I should have come to ask His Highness to withdraw the army, right?" On the side, Wang Zongshou's confidant deputy general Zhao Ben replied with a smile.

"You can't be here to ask for surrender, are you?" The other asked solemnly, causing the audience to laugh.

Seeing the warm atmosphere of the generals, Wang Zongshou's mood was also very good.

These days, the Shu army first succeeded in breaking through the blockade of the Wu army, and thwarted the Wu army's attempt to defeat the Liang army first, which was a great joy for Wang Zongshou.

But what made him even more excited was that in the next few days, in the face of the coalition forces pressing forward step by step, the Wu army could only retreat step by step, obviously not daring to be the enemy of the powerful coalition forces.

You must know that although the Wu army's attempt was thwarted before, the actual generals of the Wu army that time were Qin Pei and Wang Maozhang.

Although Qin Pei and Wang Maozhang can also be regarded as famous generals of the Wu army and have a high reputation in the world, they are not as good as Yang Wu after all.

And in the past few days, they have been forced to retreat again and again, but it is the Wu army personally led by Yang Wu, the king of Wu!

Who is Yang Wu? Perhaps Yang Wu has been staying in Jinling in the past few years, making his reputation less than that of Li Cunqing, the king of Jin who is now in the limelight; But in the early years, when Li Cunqiao was just an unknown teenager under the knee of Li Keyong, the king of Jin, it was Yang Wu's prestige that was widely spread in the world.

The first Northern Expedition of Huainan first broke the Liang army north of the Huai River, destroying more than 50,000 enemy troops, and then seizing Suzhou, and then, taking advantage of the Wei Bo army's rebellion, defeated the 100,000 army led by Zhu Wen himself with 5,000 elite soldiers, which was really famous all over the world.

Even now, many people believe that the Liang Kingdom turned from prosperity to decline because of that war.

Because after that battle, whether the Liang army was fighting with the Jin army or fighting with other forces, it did not have the momentum and prestige of the past, but its power became weaker and weaker.

And Yang Wu, a figure who directly changed the fortunes of the Liang State, could only retreat step by step against the advance of the coalition army in the previous few days, which naturally made the generals of the Shu army excited.

It was Wang Zongshou, as the commander, who was hindered by his identity and did not show his joy too much, but the occasional smile also showed the excitement in his heart.

Among the Shu army, the only one who felt uneasy was Zhang Wu, the deputy envoy of Zhenjiang Jiedu.

It's not that Zhang Wu saw anything wrong, but this veteran who has been fighting on the battlefield for decades instinctively feels that Wu Jun's step by step retreat is a bit abnormal.

After all, in his opinion, although the Wu army had encountered some setbacks in the previous war, in terms of overall strength, even if the Wu army was inferior to the coalition army, it would not be much worse.

This is only the conclusion that Zhang Wu drew from the comparison of the strength of the two armies.

Since the strength of the Wu army is no worse than that of the coalition army, why did the Wu army retreat again and again? Could it be that King Wu Yang Wu is so small that he doesn't even have the courage to fight with the coalition forces?

If that were the case, the Wu army had calmly withdrawn a few days ago, taking advantage of the fact that the coalition forces had not yet arrived, so why wait until now?

It's a pity that he is not the coach after all, and even he is not the highest-ranking deputy coach in Wang Zongshou's heart; In addition, although Zhang Wu felt uneasy in his heart, he couldn't produce any evidence, how easy was it to convince other confident generals?

On Gao Jichang and Kou Yanqing's side, Gao Jichang didn't say anything, this person was originally treacherous, and he wanted to take advantage of this "good situation" to give Wu Jun a "profound lesson", so as not to make a comeback soon.

Therefore, Gao Jichang naturally tried his best to instigate an attack on the Wu army.

And Kou Yanqing's attitude is the same.

What Zhang Wu didn't know was that the reason why Kou Yanqing advocated a decisive battle with the Wu army was due to two considerations.

The first aspect, now that Zhu Wen is seriously ill, the situation in Liang is likely to be turbulent with the succession to the throne, if he can't defeat the Wu army in one fell swoop this time, then when the internal turmoil in the Liang State comes, the Wu army will attack again, and he can't guarantee what kind of situation the Liang army will be at that time.

And the second reason that forced him to be tough on Wu Jun is a bit ridiculous to say.

In the battle north of Jingmen, although the Liang army thwarted the Wu army's attempt to defeat them, it actually suffered large losses and did not take advantage of it; But in the letter to Zhu Wen, Kou Yanqing said that the battle was a victory.

Zhu Wen was seriously ill, the situation in the DPRK and China was turbulent, and he was in need of a big victory to inspire people, and as a result, what was an ordinary victory in Kou Yanqing's mouth became a big victory in the mouth of some people in the DPRK and China.

Since it was a big victory, how could there be any reason to withdraw the troops halfway? Therefore, Zhu Wen gave Kou Yanqing a strict order, and he must take this opportunity to defeat Yang Wu, so that Yang Wu would not dare to go north to peep into Liang Realm in the short term.

So at this time, Kou Yanqing had to fight without fighting.

Of course, he is not a fool, if he can't beat Wu Jun, he won't fight hard; What really made Kou Yanqing decide to fight a decisive battle with the Wu army was the 15,000 reinforcements that Liu Yan brought when he went south.

Among the 15,000 people, in addition to the 10,000 state soldiers recruited from all over the country, there are 5,000 people who are the elite of the Longxiang army.

It was precisely the reinforcements of 15,000 people that made Kou Yanqing think that the strength of the coalition army had overwhelmed the Wu army.

At this time, they have a good chance of winning a decisive battle with the Wu army; And once he really defeats Wu Jun and defeats Yang Wu, then he Kou Yanqing can't say that he will really be famous in the world and become a general in the Liang army who can compete with Yang Shihou.

Zhang Wu didn't know Kou Yanqing's thoughts, so naturally he couldn't understand why he also insisted on forcing Wu Jun.

But even if he knew, it would be useless, because the decisive battle with the Wu army was almost the unanimous opinion of the vast majority of the generals of the coalition army, and he alone could not change it in any way.

At this time, after the generals of the Shu army laughed for a while, Wang Zongshou ordered to summon the envoys of Wu.

"Zhou Zong, the general secretary of the Lower Wu Kingdom, has seen His Highness!" As soon as he came in, Zhou Zong saluted Wang Zongshou, using the etiquette of the Tang Dynasty when he met the king of the county.

Obviously, he still recognized Wang Zongshou's prince, but he did not admit the fact that Wang Jian was the emperor; This kind of etiquette in between the two just illustrates the attitude of Wu towards Shu.

Seeing this, Wang Zongshou just nodded indifferently and didn't say anything.

He also knew that it would be good for Zhou Zong to be able to do this, expecting the other party to recognize his title of prince, so where would he put Yang Wu?

So Wang Zongshou said directly: "Your envoy, please get up, I heard that King Wu was unwell some time ago, but I don't know if he is getting better now?" ”

Zhou Zong said with a smile: "Thank you, Your Highness, for your inquiry, my king is now well; This time, he also specially asked him to say hello to the lord of your country on his behalf! ”

Wang Zongshou smiled "haha", and immediately replied: "Then thank you King Wu for your concern, the last time this king saw my majesty in Chengdu, His Majesty also said that King Wu is a masterpiece in the world, so that this article should have a good relationship, and the friendship between the two families for many years can not be ruined." ”

……

Zhou Zong and Wang Zongshou did not mention the upcoming war at first, but told about the past friendship between the two families.

For a while, the atmosphere in the field seemed rather strange.

In fact, if you really want to talk about it, there is really not much "friendship" between Huainan and Shuzhong.

In order to fight against Zhu Wen, the two had a brief cooperation; However, Shuzhong is remote after all, and Li Maozhen is sandwiched in the middle, so Wang Jian did not feel much pressure; Huainan was different at that time, after the Battle of Qingkou, the Liang army had always had a large army stationed at the border of the two families, threatening the north of Huainan at all times.

Therefore, the relationship between Huainan and Zhu Wen is much more tense.

It is precisely because of this that Huainan and Hedong, Zhu Wen's old enemies, can be regarded as deep friendships.

And the friendship between Shuzhong and Huainan may be the time when Zhu Wen became emperor, and the two families spread the news of the major feudal towns in the world together for their different purposes, asking to crusade against the traitor Zhu Wen together.

However, that joint operation was only a hasty end in the end, and nothing came of it.

As for after that, there was no friendship between the two families; Now they meet directly on the battlefield, which is even more unfriendly.

Wang Zongshou and Zhou Zongshou talked about it for a long time in this weird atmosphere, and finally Wang Zongshou couldn't help it first.

His expression froze, and he asked solemnly: "I don't know what the purpose of King Wu sending a noble envoy to come this time, please let the envoy speak up!" ”

Zhou Zong sneered in his heart, finally you couldn't help but ask first.

He also restrained the smile on his face and said solemnly: "The king of my family let me come down to avoid the two families from fighting, so as to continue the friendship between the two families!" ”9110