In the city of Songzhou, unlike Li Chengding and Chai Kehong, the main force of the Liang army was still stationed in various places at this time, and did not send troops to intercept Zhu Youneng's return.

The main defensive object of the Liang army stationed on the southern front was the garrisons of Xuzhou and Suzhou of Wu State, so the main garrisons of the Liang army were distributed in Songzhou, Bozhou, and Huizhou counties, as well as the Chongde army set up in Zhu Wen's hometown of Dangshan.

Although Zhu Youzhen had just raised his troops, Zhu Youzhen issued an edict asking Huo Yanwei to send troops to intercept the rebels and cut off their back roads, but until now, Huo Yanwei has been delaying and has not acted in accordance with the edict.

At this time, looking at the good news from Kaifeng, Huo Yanwei not only felt excited in his heart, but his face showed a look of worry.

However, the generals were puzzled by his worries.

"General, Your Majesty's edict has been issued for several days, and now that the rebels have been defeated, if our army still does not send troops, I am afraid that Your Majesty will blame it at that time, and no one will be able to bear the responsibility!"

"General Huo, if you don't send troops at this time, the credit will be robbed by other generals."

"It's all like this, what is the general still hesitating about?"

The generals asked one after another, if it weren't for Huo Yanwei's usual popularity with the military, I was afraid that these generals would rise up and rebel; Even so, there are still many people who think that Huo Yanwei is not afraid of the enemy or has bad intentions in his heart.

In the eyes of these generals, they have been stationed on the southern line all the year round, and the Wu army on the opposite side has not moved, so they can only watch the generals of the Liang army along the Yellow River make military achievements one by one.

And this time King Hui rebelled, for those rabble, they, the regular army generals, naturally looked down on them, so this was an excellent opportunity for them to make meritorious contributions.

It's a pity that their commander, Huo Yanwei, has no intention of sending troops for so many days after receiving the holy decree.

Now that Zhang Hanjie and Wang Yanzhang have led the army to defeat the main force of the rebels, if they don't move again, let alone make meritorious contributions at that time, it will be good if the court does not condemn them.

"Are you all wondering what Ben is hesitating about? yes, what the hell is Ben hesitating about? Huo Yanwei finally spoke at this time: "What the general hesitated about was that this Kaifeng victory came too easily!" ”

"General, King Hui's rebels were originally a rabble, isn't it normal for us to easily achieve victory?" General Wang Xing disagreed.

You are right, King Hui's army is indeed a rabble, and it will be easy for us to defeat them; However, although King Hui is stupid and unwise, he should not be so stupid. If he hurriedly rebelled without other preparations, and wanted to capture Kaifeng in the land of Chenzhou, do you think this is possible? Huo Yanwei asked solemnly.

"What does the general mean?" Another general, Quan Yan, asked.

"Ben will be worried that King Hui may secretly collude with Wu Guo!"

"What? King Hui colluded with the state of Wu? The generals were shocked.

If it is a single Hui king, no one will take it to heart; With the strength of the Liang State, even if most of the military strength was dragged down by the Jin army, it was still very easy to deal with a King Hui.

But if it involves Wu Guo, then things are not simple.

Regardless of whether Wu planned to directly send troops to intervene or intend to take advantage of the opportunity, this was a test for Liang, and it was impossible to win as easily as he did now.

Huo Yanwei's words obviously startled the generals, but then someone questioned: "General, it's not that the last general doesn't believe in the general's judgment, but until now, we haven't received any news of the transfer of Wu's army; If the Wu army intended to take advantage of the fire to rob, would they have not moved until now? ”

Quan Yan stood up and hugged his fists and said: "Yes, General, there is no abnormality in the Wu army these days, and there is no major movement on the Jinling side; Whether they want to send troops to intervene or take advantage of the fire, they shouldn't have no reaction at all, right? It won't be that the general is suspicious. ”

"Do you think Ben is suspicious? Ben also hoped that I was suspicious. Huo Yanwei said coldly: "But what if the Wu army pretends to be calm, but secretly prepares to attack our army?" You must know that the people of Wu are the most treacherous, and this kind of raid method has not been used once or twice, so we have to guard against it. ”

"This ......" the generals were dumbfounded.

Indeed, it is no secret that the Wu army loved raids; In the course of the battle with the Liang army, he won many victories by means of surprise attacks.

Of course, the Liang army and the Jin army were equally fond of raids, after all, they could easily win by surprise attacks, and who wouldn't like to do that?

It's just that the current situation is that the Wu army has the opportunity to raid the Liang army, and the Liang army does not dare to take action against the Wu state easily even if it has the opportunity.

After listening to Huo Yanwei's worries, the generals understood the reason why he had been delaying and unwilling to send troops for so many days.

However, although they understand the reason, there are still many generals who feel that Huo Yanwei is making a fuss, but Huo Yanwei is deeply popular with the military, so no one directly stands up and accuses.

Quan Yan frowned and asked, "General Huo, although what you said has some truth, we want to embankment the Wu army; However, Wu Jun has not moved at all at present, so we may be overly vigilant; Second, we can't fail to obey His Majesty's holy decree, otherwise it will be a rebellion. ”

"Yes, General." Wang Xingyi chimed in: "A few years ago, the general led his troops to fight with the Jin army, but the battle was not smooth, and he was squeezed out by Zhang Hanjie, Zhao Yan and others; This time, it happened to be Zhang Hanjie who led the troops to quell the rebellion, and if the general did not move, this person would inevitably slander in front of His Majesty. ”

"Zhang Hanjie?" As soon as he heard this name, Huo Yanwei felt a little disgusted in his heart.

After the Battle of Huliupo, Huo Yanwei served as the envoy to the north for a period of time, responsible for commanding all the Liang troops on the Yellow River defense line; However, during that period of fighting with the Jin army, the Liang army suffered successive defeats, coupled with Zhang Hanjie and others slandering Zhu Youzhen in advance, so that he was demoted to Shaanxi County to stay behind.

Last year, Liu Yan led the Liang army to crusade against Zhu Youqian, the king of Ji who rebelled again, in the river, and Huo Yanwei led the army to help the war and made meritorious contributions, so he was re-promoted to the southern envoy and commanded all the Liang troops near Songzhou.

It can be said that his impression in front of Zhu Youzhen is not very good now, especially his relationship with Zhang Hanjie and Zhao Yan is not harmonious, if this time to quell the rebellion of King Hui, Zhang Hanjie and Wang Yanzhang have made great contributions, but if he alone does not move, Zhu Youzhen will definitely not have his good fruit to eat in the future.

Thinking of this, Huo Yanwei was also a little helpless, the traitors in the DPRK and China were in power, and capable generals could not be reused, but generals like Duan Ning, Dai Siyuan, and Zhang Hanjie were constantly promoted, which was indeed Liang Guozhi's misfortune.

At this time, Wang Xing saw that he was silent, his expression was still very hesitant, and he immediately reminded in a low voice: "General, don't forget Liu Jun's fate." ”

"Liu Jun?" Huo Yanwei's heart was awe-inspiring.

Liu Jun, a famous general of the Liang army, is naturally good in commanding troops, but he has never achieved any results in leading the Liang army in recent years, but has been defeated one after another, losing many soldiers.

Especially in the Battle of Weizhou, the 60,000 Liang army led by Liu Jun, although he once resorted to a strategy of raiding Jinyang and made the Jin army a little passive, but with the strong mobility of the Jin cavalry, his strategy still failed in the end; Not only that, Liu Yan's 60,000-strong army was finally annihilated under the city of Weizhou, which directly led to the loss of the entire Hebei to the enemy.

And last year, he led the army to recruit Zhu Youqian, the king of Ji, and the Liang army still had the upper hand at first, but because the army of the king of Ji held the city, it was difficult for the Liang army to capture it for a while, so Liu Jun planned to send someone to persuade Zhu Youqian to surrender.

Who would have thought that Zhu Youqian resorted to a trick of surrender, and he sent people to contact Liu Cheng to discuss the surrender in order to delay time; At the same time, he sent people to ask for help from the Jin army.

As a result, Liu Cheng was in the middle of the plan, and finally the Jin army arrived, and Zhu Youqian's army attacked inside and outside, defeating the Liang army.

Originally, although Liu Jun was at fault in this matter, but now that the Liang army lacks excellent generals, Liu Jun should not be guilty to death.

But the problem is that Liu Jun and Zhu Youqian, the king of Ji, were originally in-laws, and the two were sons and daughters.

This kind of relationship would be normal in normal times, but now after the defeat, Zhang Hanjie and Zhao Yan took the opportunity to attack Liu Jun, saying that he deliberately delayed time in the name of surrender, but secretly colluded with Zhu Youqian.

Finally, in May of this year, Zhu Youzhen ordered Liu Cheng to be summoned to Luoyang, and he was given to death shortly after.

The relationship between Huo Yanwei and Zhang Hanjie is also not good, and he is now a southern envoy, commanding the main force of the Liang army on the southern front, which was originally a position that Zhu Youzhen was jealous of.

Thinking of this, Huo Yanwei finally made up his mind: "That's it, it's not a matter for the general to guard against the Wu army." Now that Ben will act according to the holy order, even if something goes wrong, he can't blame Ben Jiang. ”

"The general's order, Wang Xing, orders you to lead three thousand troops as the vanguard, immediately prepare to send troops, and set out to intercept King Hui's rebels in half an hour; Ben will personally lead the army as the follow-up. It is necessary to make a complete contribution in one fell swoop, and we cannot let King Hui escape back to Chenzhou to continue to cause trouble! ”

"The last general obeys!" Wang Xing hurriedly got up and replied with his fists clenched.

His subordinates had long been ready to send troops, but they had never received Huo Yanwei's military orders; Now that the military order had been issued, he did not hesitate to return to his camp to prepare for the dispatch of troops.

Only a quarter of an hour later, the three thousand forwards under Wang Xing's command left the city; And the generals of the other departments are similar to Wang Xing, and they have also prepared to send troops before, and now that Huo Yanwei has given an order, the army in Songzhou City will be mobilized quickly.

Except for the 3,000 people under the command of Quan Yanwei who were ordered by Huo Yanwei to stay and guard Songzhou, and the command of Wang Degong to lead 1,000 troops to guard Xiayi, the rest of the nearly 20,000 troops stationed in various parts of Songzhou were mobilized by Huo Yanwei to intercept King Hui's rebels.

As for the army on the Bozhou side, Huo Yanwei also sent people to give orders, asking them to mobilize 5,000 people to join the counterinsurgency; More than 10,000 people from the garrison in Huizhou and the Chongde army in Dangshan were left behind.

At this point, the situation finally changed as Li Chengding and the others expected.

At this time, the cavalry advance led by Chai Kehong was only thirty miles away from Bozhou.

Zhangjiaji, this is a small town in the southeast of Bozhou City.

The population of the town is not large, mainly some middle-aged and elderly people, and the number of young people is not large; They are mainly engaged in farming, and although it is already August, there are still a lot of agricultural work that has not been completed.

At dusk that day, the calm of the town was broken by the roaring hooves of horses, and many people who had just finished their farm work and returned home to rest for a while suddenly had a bad premonition.

"Isn't there a bandit coming over in this posture?" An old man with gray hair asked suspiciously.

On the side, another middle-aged man with a lame leg said with a pale face: "What bandits? This is the posture of a cavalry charge! Everyone, run away, it must be the people of Wu who are coming! ”

"What? Wu Guoren called? Haven't we all fought against the Wu people for many years? How could they suddenly call? Seventh Brother can't be mistaken, right? "Some people wondered.

"Mistaken? How could Lao Tzu be mistaken? See my leg? The middle-aged man was so angry that he pointed to his leg and said, "Lao Tzu's leg was poked by the cavalry of the Shatuo barbarian on the battlefield." This shaking stance of the ground is only possible when a large number of cavalry charges. And our army in this vicinity does not have cavalry, only the Wu army has it. So it must be Wu Jun who called! ”

This middle-aged man is obviously a veteran who has been on the battlefield, fought with the Jin army in Hebei, and has seen the scene of the cavalry charge, and the shocking scene makes him remember it vividly.

If it weren't for the fact that he was injured and unfit to fight, I am afraid that he would now be a low-level officer in the Liang army.

When the middle-aged man said this, everyone reacted, and they were busy packing up their things and preparing to escape from the military disaster.

"It's over, it's too late!" The middle-aged man's face became more and more pale, a lot of sweat was left on his forehead, but his mouth was trembling.

Judging from the shaking on the ground, the enemy army was already very close to here, and with the speed of the cavalry, they were afraid that they would arrive in an instant, and they would not be able to escape far.

Besides, it would be useless for them to flee far, the terrain around here was so flat that there was nowhere to hide.

"It is rumored that the military discipline of the Wu army has always been good, and under normal circumstances, they will not kill people indiscriminately, at most they will plunder. Hopefully, these rumors are not wrong. ”

The middle-aged man thought in his heart as he shouted, "Don't move, go home; Even if you hear something, don't just come out. Uncle Jiu, you quickly ask someone to prepare some food, and let's go to meet Wu Jun together. ”

"What? Greet Wu Jun? The gray-haired old man was stunned for a moment, and then reacted: "Okay, okay, the old man will go." After saying that, I hurriedly went back to prepare.

And at this time, with the help of the last little afterglow of the setting sun, everyone could see that a large group of cavalry had appeared in front of them, and was roaring towards them.