At the same time, in the camp of the Liang army, all the generals also gathered together to discuss the next move.

"According to the order that His Majesty just sent yesterday, the next priority for our army is to withdraw the army safely. Under this premise, it would be best if our army could defeat the enemy; If not, then there is no need to risk forcing an enemy into battle. ”

In the tent of the Chinese military camp, Niu Cunjie, the head of the Liang army, first announced his thoughts to everyone.

In fact, in the original edict sent by Zhu Youzhen, Niu Cunjie tried to defeat the Wu army as much as possible and end the war; Only on the premise that there was no way to defeat the Wu army did he choose to withdraw his troops.

However, there is nothing wrong with this understanding according to Niu Cunjie, after all, self-preservation is the most important thing, and the current situation obviously does not allow them to have too many choices.

For the Niu Cun Festival, the generals naturally have no opinion.

In fact, if Zhu Youzhen hadn't insisted that he couldn't withdraw his troops, he was afraid that the generals would have proposed to retreat long ago.

After all, everyone can see the situation clearly, and know that in the case that the Wu army has occupied Xuzhou, and the Wu king Yang Wu has personally led the troops to arrive, their chances of retaking Xuzhou are extremely slim, and continuing to stay here is just to delay time, and there is no other use.

That is, Zhu Youzhen, who was in the rear and didn't know anything about the battle situation ahead, still had illusions in his heart, so he didn't allow the Liang army to retreat, and as a result, he had to withdraw in a hurry until now.

Below, Liu Jun, Xie Yanzhang, He Gui and others, who were deputy generals, were all listening quietly, with a thoughtful look on their faces.

"Now that the Jin army is about to go south, our army cannot be attacked from both the north and the south, so in this case, we must first end the war on the Xuzhou side; Wu Wang Yang Wu must have thought of this, or he has not attacked our army for half a year, but chose to hold on to our army, and his purpose should be to wait for the Jin army to move south. ”

"So once our army withdraws, the enemy will inevitably bring troops to chase after it." Niu Cunjie said loudly.

"In other words, our army can set up an ambush when withdrawing, wait for the enemy to pursue and suddenly kill, and then the whole army counterattacks back and defeats the enemy in one fell swoop?" He Gui frowned and asked.

Niu Cunjie nodded, then shook his head and said: "The general does have this plan, since the enemy army must come to pursue, then the general will naturally set up an ambush by taking advantage of the situation." However, the general felt that even if our army set up an ambush, it would be difficult to defeat the Wu army, and at most it would cause certain losses to the enemy army, so that it would be convenient for our army to withdraw. ”

On the side, Liu Yan also nodded and said, "It's really difficult." Wu Wang Yang Wu is good at strategy, and I heard that this person has Guo Chongtao and Zhu Jin next to him to plan military aircraft for him, and he will take the two of them with him every time he goes out; One of these two people is good at strategic planning, the other is battle-experienced, coupled with the wisdom of King Wu himself, and the reminders of other Wu generals, I am afraid that it will be difficult for Wu Jun to step into an ambush. ”

For Guo Chongtao and Zhu Jin, the two staff officers of King Wu, the generals of the Liang army have naturally heard of it for a long time.

Although there are also many resourceful people under the command of Li Cunmiao, the king of Jin, who gives advice to him, and those generals of the Jin army are also experienced in a hundred battles, but the character of Li Cunqing, the king of Jin, is sometimes too arrogant, can't listen to the advice of others, and even sometimes likes to act bravely.

However, Yang Wu, the king of Wu, is different, this person has an extremely cautious personality, and he will not make a move if he is not sure enough in every big battle; In the use of soldiers, he can also listen to the opinions of others, especially the opinions of Guo Chongtao, Zhu Jin and others, and has always attached great importance to them.

This makes him extremely steady in his use of troops, and although he sometimes loses many opportunities to win, he rarely has any major flaws.

Therefore, in the eyes of Liu Jun and others, although the King of Jin has won many battles, as long as they deal with it properly, they still have a chance to defeat Li Cunxuan; But for Wu Wang Yang Wu, if the strength of the Liang army is superior, there may be a greater hope of victory; But if the Liang army does not have an advantage, then it will be difficult for them to win.

Of course, it doesn't mean that Yang Wu really can't be defeated, after all, the battlefield situation is unpredictable, and no one can say that he will not fail.

After Liu Cheng and Niu Cunjie said this, the generals also nodded secretly in their hearts and agreed with the two of them.

However, when the next deployment and retreat, Niu Cunjie still prepared for the situation that the enemy army would chase after him.

In that case, if the Wu army is really stupid and has no defense at all, Niu Cunjie will naturally not be polite to them, and when the time comes, the main force of the army will return to the army to attack, and the Wu army will definitely be defeated.

Of course, this possibility is still the smallest, according to Niu Cunjie's estimate, the Wu army should come to pursue, but they will definitely be in danger of being ambushed.

Once the enemy army is prepared, then the effect of the ambush must be limited, and the Liang army will have to take other ways to get rid of the pursuers.

After the deliberations were settled, the generals took their leave.

Niu Cunjie grabbed Xie Yanzhang and took him aside, and then asked: "General Xie, the only thing that needs to be worried about the enemy's 3,000 cavalry is the retreat this time. The general commands almost all the cavalry of our army, and when the time comes, the flank of our army will need to be guaranteed by the general. ”

"Please rest assured that the general will defend the flanks of the army to the death to ensure that the army is not threatened by enemy cavalry." Xie Yanzhang hurriedly replied.

Niu Cunjie nodded with satisfaction, and then suddenly asked, "By the way, I don't know if General Yang Shihou has any explanation for you?" ”

Xie Yanzhang was stunned for a moment, and then he realized the meaning of Niu Cunjie.

He hurriedly replied: "General Yang didn't have any orders, but just told the last general to lead his troops north as soon as possible to assist him in resisting the Jin army." It's just that in terms of time, it seems to be a little tight. ”

At present, Xie Yanzhang is still under Yang Shihou's orders, although he is not Yang Shihou's descendant general, but he must also obey Yang Shihou's military orders.

Recently, the Jin army was about to go south, Yang Shihou naturally ordered Xie Yanzhang to return to Hebei at the first time, if there was no assistance from this cavalry, even Yang Shihou did not dare to say that he would definitely be able to block the Jin army.

Hearing Xie Yanzhang's answer, Niu Cunjie's face showed a look of "sure enough".

After he pondered for a moment, he said: "General Xie, you also see the current situation in Xuzhou, although the withdrawal of the army is already being deployed, but to withdraw the army safely, this is inseparable from the assistance of your cavalry, so no matter what, the general will ask you to wait until our army retreats before returning to Hebei." ”

Xie Yanzhang was silent, and said after a while: "General don't worry, the last general is not a person who doesn't know the severity, although General Yang's side is urgent, but the last general will try to delay for a while." ”

Niu Cunjie was relieved and said, "Then thank you general." As he spoke, he saluted Xie Yanzhang solemnly.

Without cavalry to protect them, the entire battlefield would be dominated by enemy cavalry; In addition, the terrain near Xuzhou is relatively flat, which is suitable for the use of cavalry, and when the Liang army withdraws, even if it sets up an ambush, it may not be effective, and even if the enemy uses cavalry to launch a surprise attack, the Liang army may also be defeated.

After confirming that the cavalry would stay temporarily, Niu Cunjie was immediately relieved, and talked to Xie Yanzhang about some other issues, which allowed Xie Yanzhang to leave.

Next, the various units of the Liang army began to retreat one after another.

First of all, the first step was that the Liang army on the Suzhou side began to withdraw in the direction of Xiao County, preparing to join the Liang army in Xiao County.

During this period, the Wu army in Suzhou neither pursued quickly nor allowed the Liang army to retreat, but followed behind the Liang army unhurriedly and kept a certain distance.

Then, after the two Liang armies converged, the large-scale retreat officially began.

Although Niu Cunjie intended to set up an ambush, he did not intend to retreat directly, but played a trick.

On a rainy night, he suddenly replaced the Liang soldiers with scarecrows and erected them on the city walls and the walls of the camp to temporarily confuse the scouts of the Wu army; At the same time, the main force of the Liang army evacuated in the rain overnight.

In this way, after the rain stopped the next day, when the Wu army scouts realized that the situation was wrong, the main force of the Liang army had already opened a distance of more than thirty miles from the Wu army.

After getting the news, Yang Wu immediately sent Kang Huaizhen to lead the Xiaoyi army to pursue quickly, so as to prevent the Liang army from escaping; At the same time, Yang Wu led the main force of the Wu army to follow behind, in order to meet the Xiaoyi army in front and prevent accidents.

A day later, the pursuing Xiaoyi army really encountered an ambush by the Liang army, although Kang Huaizhen had already made mental preparations, and the soldiers of the various departments had already known that the enemy army was likely to have ambushes, but when the enemy ambush was launched, the Xiaoyi army was still beaten and quickly defeated.

The reason why it was defeated so quickly, in addition to encountering ambushes, another important reason is that after all, the Xiaoyi Army was temporarily formed by the surrendering army, and there was no cooperation between the various departments, and there was no trust in Kang Huaizhen, the temporary commander-in-chief.

Of course, this result was originally expected by Yang Wu and others, and the main purpose of sending the Yi army to pursue was to let the Liang army relax its vigilance.

"What does King Wu mean by this? Could it be that after a simple pursuit and an ambush, he gave up pursuing our army? The generals of the Liang army were puzzled.

It doesn't make sense to say that the Wu army was scared by the ambush of the Liang army, after all, although the ambush battle quickly defeated the pursuers of the Wu army, it was precisely because the victory was too fast that the encirclement of the Liang army was too late to be deployed, and in the end, the Wu army basically escaped.

In other words, the little loss suffered by the Wu army would never make the enemy give up the pursuit like this, and Yang Wu, the king of Wu, must have other purposes in doing so.

Liu Yan frowned and asked, "Is it possible that King Wu didn't really want to pursue our army in the first place, so he immediately retreated after encountering an ambush?" ”

"You didn't want to pursue our army in the first place? General Liu: What does this mean? Could it be that King Wu still hopes that our army will retreat completely? ”

"It's not impossible, after all, after this big war, our army should not continue to move south for the time being; And with the Jin army destroying the Yan State and setting its sights on the south again, our army will not have the energy and strength even if it has the heart to go south. If you calculate it this way, maybe King Wu doesn't want to weaken our country too much, so as not to let the fishermen of the Jin Kingdom benefit? Liu Jun explained.

The generals nodded their heads when they heard this, and they all felt that what Liu Yan said made some sense.

Liu Yan smiled bitterly and said: "It's just a random guess, and the generals must not take it seriously." ”

Niu Cunjie bowed his head and said: "Yes, although there is some truth in this statement, but after all, it is a bit absurd, and the generals must not believe it too much." No matter what the enemy's purpose is, as long as our army remains cautious in the future, the enemy will surely be unable to help us. ”

Although Xuzhou is far away from the nearest state of the Liang army, if you count the distance between the actual control area and Xiao County, it is actually more than a hundred miles away, and it has already traveled more than seventy miles before, and then as long as there is one more day, the army can enter the area controlled by the Liang army.

Of course, although this area is controlled by the Liang army, after all, the territory of the Wu army is relatively close, and there are no big cities nearby, so it is still not safe for the army to stay here, and it is not convenient enough in terms of supply, so the army needs to continue to retreat north.

After another two days, the main force of the Liang army continued to move north for more than sixty miles, and by this time they were already approaching Songzhou; At this time, the Wu army still showed no signs of pursuit, so the generals of all the departments were relieved, and even Niu Cunjie, who had always been vigilant, also relaxed his vigilance at this time.

At this time, Xie Yanzhang proposed to immediately lead his troops north to rush to Hebei as soon as possible to support the increasingly tense situation in Hebei.

Niu Cunjie hesitated for a moment and agreed.

"It seems that the Wu army really has no intention of pursuing, maybe it is really like Liu Jun guessed, King Wu wants to keep our army to consume each other with the Jin army? And then they sit and reap the benefits? Niu Cunjie couldn't figure out the reason, and in the end he could only use Liu Jun's previous guess to explain.

"Anyway, since our army has been safely withdrawn, then the next thing to see is the war against the Jin army on the Hebei side."

Niu Cunjie thought in his heart: "But the current situation is indeed a bit dangerous, the Jin army is afraid that it will have to go south in the next few years, and the Wu army may also go north every year; If we can't negotiate peace with Wu Jun, if we continue to suffer the enemy from the north and south at the same time, no matter how strong our army is, it will be dragged down sooner or later. ”

He had a faint idea in his heart, and after deciding to stabilize himself, he wrote to Zhu Youzhen and asked to send someone to sue for peace with Wu.

However, at this time, news suddenly came that He Gui's troops, who remained at the rear of the army, were suddenly attacked by the cavalry of the Wu army, and the army was defenseless and immediately rushed to flee.

What's more, after defeating He Gui, the cavalry of the Wu army did not stop, but continued to rush towards his main force at the fastest speed!