Under the order of Wei Quanxian, the coalition army, which was already slow to move, settled down completely after arriving at Ivory Pond, and went down along the banks of the stream, and the camp stretched for more than ten miles, and the momentum was very spectacular. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

After learning the news, Liu Wei was immediately relieved, knowing that his suspicious plan had worked, and the enemy army should not launch an attack until they figured out the reality of Hongzhou.

After a few days, more than 3,000 reinforcements from Jiangzhou successfully arrived in Hongzhou, and Hongzhou's defensive forces gradually became abundant.

As for Gao'an's side, the Chu army was not as slow as Wei Quanyi, but began the siege battle on the second day after arriving in Gao'an.

However, although Gao'an is only a small city, Liu Wei has invested 4,000 troops to defend it, and the Chu army has not had much experience in attacking Jiancheng so far, so the defense on Gao'an's side is still stable, at least there will be no problems in the short term.

"Now it depends on when the reinforcements from Guangling will arrive!" Liu Wei frowned and thought.

In the city of Guangling.

Compared with Wei Quanxi's slow action, after learning the news that Wei Quanxiao had sent troops, Zhou Ben made all preparations for sending troops as soon as possible.

"Soldiers, you are fast! This time, everything is won with speed! Wei Quanxian only thought that the main force of our army had been transferred to Suzhou by the king, and there were not many people left in Guangling, so he dared to attack the army! Now there are not many defenders in Hongzhou, and they all rely on Liu Wei to maintain them there, so the general must rush over as quickly as possible, not only to relieve the crisis in Hongzhou as soon as possible, but also to be able to fight the danger by ......surprise."

In King Wu's mansion, Zhou Ben faced Gao Xuan, Li Shenfu, and Zhou Yin, the three left-behind scholars, and said in a deep voice his strategy of using troops.

According to the instructions left by Yang Wu, this time against Wei Quan, the specific military command will be fully responsible for Zhou Ben, and others including Gao Miao, Li Shenfu and others are not allowed to intervene, which can be said to give Zhou Ben the greatest freedom to use troops.

However, Zhou Ben considered that Gao Miao and the others were the people left by Yang Wu to be in charge of the military and political affairs in Huainan after all, and this kind of major event related to the danger of the entire Jiangxi still needed to be reported to the three of them, so he still found the three of them before sending troops.

Among the three, Gao Miao and Zhou Yin didn't understand military affairs, so after listening to Zhou Ben's report, they just encouraged him to act cautiously and not underestimate the enemy, but Li Shenfu asked: "I don't know if the general plans to deal with the Chu army first after arriving in Hongzhou, or the coalition army that is dangerous?" ”

"Of course, it's to deal with the danger first! Although the Chu army had few troops, it was relatively elite and difficult to defeat in a short time; And although there are many dangerous armies, they are many but not refined, and it is not difficult to break them in a short time! Zhou Bendao.

Li Shenfu nodded, and then asked, "Then how many troops is General Zhou going to bring with him?" ”

Now the total number of troops left in Guangling is only 20,000 people of the Zhenguo Army, plus the 2,000 people of the Crane Control Army guarding Wu Wangfu, just in case, the 20,000 people of the Zhenguo Army must not all be sent to Hongzhou, so Li Shenfu asked.

"10,000 is enough!"

"Only 10,000? I'm afraid it's too little, right? Zhou Yin said with some concern: "Although it is said that we want to leave troops to guard Guangling, it should be enough to leave five thousand elites; And there are as many as 80,000 enemy troops in Jiangxi, and the general only brings 10,000 troops to go, I'm afraid it's too few, right? ”

Zhou Ben said with a smile: "Judge Zhou is too worried, the so-called soldiers are not expensive but expensive, and the more troops brought to Jiangxi, the better!" What's more, the more troops, the slower the march, and the more difficult it is to reach Hongzhou in time, it is better to bring only part of the troops to rush over as quickly as possible! ”

Li Shenfu said with a smile: "To deal with the danger of Quanxian, if you command it properly, 10,000 troops are indeed enough!" However, the king's goal is not only to defeat the danger, but more importantly, to take advantage of the victory to conquer the southern states. If the general brings too few troops, he may not have enough troops to attack Fuzhou and other places in the future! ”

"It's better to lead 10,000 elite soldiers to Hongzhou first, and then transfer 20,000 state soldiers from the states south of the Yangtze River to come later! By the time the general defeats Wei Quanyan, presumably the 20,000 state soldiers have also been mobilized! ”

After years of training and strengthening, today's elite mobile troops in Huainan can fully dispatch troops as quickly as possible after receiving orders.

However, the state soldiers need to go through a process of mobilization and assembly before they can be dispatched, and the reaction speed is much slower, which is also an important purpose of Yang Wu to establish a mobile force.

After listening to Li Shenfu's suggestion, Zhou Ben immediately nodded and said, "Okay, since that's the case, then the general will thank General Li a lot!" ”

It is naturally better to be able to use more troops, and of course Zhou Ben will not object. And the use of state soldiers requires the unanimous consent of Gao Miao and the other three. Gao Miao and Zhou Yin didn't know much about military affairs, and they were still a little worried when they saw that Zhou Ben only planned to take 10,000 people to Hongzhou, and they would not oppose the plan to increase troops at this time.

After reporting some details to Gao Miao and others, Zhou Ben said goodbye to a few people and led an army of 10,000 to cross the river south by boat.

Although they can go from Guangling to Jiangzhou by boat, because the road is against the current, and the wind direction is not favorable for them, if they take a boat, the speed will definitely be very slow.

In peacetime, in order to save the physical strength of the soldiers, Zhou Ben would definitely choose to go to Hongzhou by boat, but now in order to speed up the march as much as possible, Zhou Ben chose to march from land.

After landing from Runzhou, the army traveled lightly and hurriedly, day and night, and arrived in Jiangzhou in only fifteen days, but the soldiers were also very tired after arriving here.

Fortunately, from Jiangzhou to Hongzhou, you can travel by boat, first, the water here is not as turbulent as in the Yangtze River, and the boat speed is faster.

Zhou Ben was overjoyed when he got the news, and he was menacing, but he began to hesitate before he arrived in Hongzhou, which is enough to show how poor this person's ability to lead the troops is.

Since Wei Quanqi did not rush to attack Hongzhou, and the situation on Gao'an's side was still under Liu Wei's control, then Zhou Ben did not need to work day and night like before, at least let the soldiers rest to maintain their sufficient physical strength to fight with the coalition army.

A few days later, the army finally arrived outside Hongzhou, and Liu Wei, the governor of Jiangxi, personally brought Jiangxi civil and military officials to greet him.

"General Zhou can be regarded as coming, but this official has been waiting for a long time!"

In the past few days, Wei Quanwei has constantly sent people to investigate the truth of Hongzhou, and after a long time, he naturally found a lot of useful news, knowing that there is no strong army ambush in Hongzhou City.

Knowing that he had been deceived, he immediately regretted it, and immediately prepared to lead the army to attack Hongzhou.

It's a pity that after staying in Ivory Pond for more than ten days, the spirit of the coalition army when it first set out has been exhausted, and now is the hottest time, and the soldiers are not willing to march and fight in this weather, so the military orders for the danger have been delayed for various reasons.

And Wei Quanyan also felt that the weather was very hot now, and it was impossible for Huainan reinforcements to arrive so quickly, and he should still have enough time to attack Hongzhou, so he didn't force his generals too much.

As a result, now, although it is known that the strength of the defenders of Hongzhou City is relatively empty, the coalition forces have no signs of rapid dispatch, and seem to be waiting for the hot weather to pass.

"Wei Quansari is so slow to act, he really doesn't know the art of war! This person even dared to have the ambition to covet Jiangxi, and the general could be regarded as admiring him! Listening to Liu Wei's introduction to the current situation, Zhou Ben couldn't help laughing.

"And what about Gao An's side? What is the progress of the Chu army's siege? How long can Gao An hold out? Zhou Ben continued to ask.

"The situation in Gao'an is not optimistic!" Speaking of Gao An, Liu Wei's expression suddenly became serious.

Although there were 4,000 defenders sent to Gao'an, these 4,000 troops were only state soldiers selected from the previous Hongzhou army, and their combat experience was poor, and their combat power was far from being comparable with the elite of Huainan.

Although the Chu army did not have much experience in siege, they had an absolute superiority in strength, and after the siege these days, the local defenders had sent people to seek reinforcements many times.

"General Zhou, this is the situation now, compared to the danger of the whole irony, this official is more worried about the situation on the side of Gao'an! So can the general first go to lift the siege of Gao'an and then return to attack the whole irony? Liu Wei said.

"Gao An?" Zhou Ben frowned.

In this case, he was not willing to attack the Chu army first, after all, he only had 10,000 elite soldiers, while the Chu army had 20,000, if he was entangled with the Chu army and could not defeat them in a short time, then this plan would be a complete failure.

Thinking of this, Zhou Ben shook his head and said: "The Chu army is just here to support Wei Quan, if our army defeats Wei Quanyan, then the siege of Gao'an will be automatically lifted, why fight!" So the key now is to solve the crisis first! If Governor Liu is still not at ease, he can send 3,000 Jiangzhou reinforcements to Gao'an to stabilize the local situation! ”

Liu Wei also knew that what Zhou Ben said was reasonable, so after thinking about it for a while, he nodded and said, "Since this is the case, then as the general said, let's defeat Wei Quanyan first!" ”

After discussing the military situation, Liu Wei warmly invited: "General Zhou has worked tirelessly, day and night, and this official has prepared a banquet in the mansion, so the general might as well go with this official, so that this official can fulfill the friendship of the landlord!" ”

"Thank you Governor Liu for your kindness! However, now that the military situation is urgent, there is no room for delay, and the general is afraid that he will not be able to enter the city! It's better to wait for the general to defeat Wei Quanyan, how about you and me drink in Fuzhou City again? Zhou Ben politely refused.

At his insistence, Liu Wei had no choice but to give up.

On that day, Zhou Ben only rested for a short time under the city of Hongzhou, then led the army to continue southward, and finally arrived at the north bank of Ivory Lake on the 17th of August, where he confronted 60,000 enemy troops across the stream.

A decisive battle related to Jiangxi's belonging is about to break out!