The room was very silent, and after a long time, Chu Xingshui saw that his second brother Chu Xingyun remained silent, so he asked Chu Jinglei again: "Jinglei, what do you think now?" ”

Although Chu Jinglei is rude on the outside, but he is a fine person on the inside, he has always strongly advocated that the Chu family must not give up the army, otherwise the huge wealth of the Chu family will become fish and meat on Zhang Huan's chopping board, for this he tried his best to persuade the people of the Chu family, won a lot of support, and now Zhang Huan sent troops, but he still refused to give up, he snorted coldly and said: "Zhang Huan sent troops probably not against the Chu family, but to take advantage of the situation to eliminate Li Shidao, I still remember that Zhang Huan specially wrote a secret letter, asking to kill Li Shidao, This shows that he attaches great importance to this person, so he killed the killer, the matter should not be the worst, it really can't be done, we can shrink the force, if Zhang Huan feels that the price he needs to pay is too great, he will sit down and negotiate with us. The starter"

"Thunder thought about Zhang Huan too simply." Chu Xingyun, who had been silent, spoke, "If he just wants to kill Li Shidao, why do he want to slaughter the troops, this is obviously to kill our Chu family, if we don't know the current affairs, he will slaughter our Chu family." ”

"What does it mean to slaughter the Chu family, does he even want to kill his own mother?" Chu Jinglei was a little dissatisfied.

Chu Xingyun glanced at him, sneered in his heart, and retorted: "It is precisely because we are his maternal uncle that he will be even more killed, he just wants to let the world know his determination, even his own maternal uncle dares to kill, let alone others." "You're alarmist!"

"That's it!" Chu Xingshui interrupted their argument, "You guys stopped first, as if the information I was waiting for came." ”

At this time, I heard a report from a guard outside the door: ""Boss, Wang Lianjiang brought it." ”

"Come in." Chu Xingshui commanded tiredly.

The door opened, and the man in black entered the door and gave a salute, "Subordinates see the big handsome!" ”

The man in black was a secret agent specially sent by Chu Xingshui to monitor Zhao Yan, called Wang Lianjiang. Directly under the command of Chu Xingshui, a few days ago he found out that a person was secretly looking for Zhao Yan, and immediately reported to Chu Xingshui. Chu Xingshui ordered him not to startle the snake. Keeping an eye on this person's whereabouts, he has been following this person for the past few days, but last night this person suddenly disappeared, bursting like a bubble, without a trace, Chu Xingshui was angry and ordered him to find out the identity of the person who came, otherwise he would have to die.

Chu Xingshui glanced at him and said coldly, "Have you found out the identity of the person who came?" ”

Wang Lianjiang took out a register book for the inn. \\\\ said stubbornly: "My subordinates have searched all the places they can." There is only a little clue in this inn register. ”

"What clues?" Chu Xingshui didn't answer his book.

"This person has always been registered with the name Qin Tai, but his name changed on the last day, what is Longyou Dumei."

"Dumay!" Chu Xingshui stood up suddenly, he snatched the book, and sure enough, on the last line was written the words Longyou Du Mei, of course Chu Xingshui knew who Du Mei was. Zhang Huan used to be the chief of staff, Pei Jun once praised him, saying that he was good at seeing the big from the small, he actually came to Guangling, and for a while, countless questions appeared in Chu Xingshui's heart, "What is he doing in Guangling?" Why do you want to leave your real name? Isn't he afraid of betraying Zhao Yan? ”

Chu Xingshui stood there, unable to say a word, at this time. Chu next to him thundered and banged! The ground slammed the table. Gritted his teeth and said: "What a Zhao Yan, we let him do the history of assassination for so long." I don't know if it's just a return, I even betrayed the Chu family, is it really impatient to live? and I will go and destroy his whole house. ”

"Thunder, don't be impulsive." Chu Xingyun stopped Chu Jinglei, who was about to get up, and hurriedly said to Chu Xingshui: "Big brother, since Du Mei dares to leave his real name, I'm afraid the situation over there in Linhuai is not good." ”

A sentence reminded Chu Xingshui, he sat down dejectedly, covered his face with his hands and said nothing, Chu Xingyun saw that the eldest brother had messed up, so he said in a deep voice: "Big brother, why don't I go on a trip in person to find out Zhang Huan's bottom line." ”

Chu Xingshui let out a long sigh, "I thought that the imperial court would send important ministers to negotiate a settlement, but I didn't expect that Zhang Huan would come in person, and what I didn't expect was that he opened the killing ring as soon as he came, and even Li Shidao, who was good at leading troops, was defeated so badly, not to mention the rest of our Chu family, things have come to this point, I'm afraid our Chu family will be more auspicious." "Big brother doesn't have to be discouraged, even if there is something bad on the Linhuai side, then we can also transfer 30,000 sailors to the north, together with 10,000 elite soldiers in Guangling, and more than 40,000 people to defend Guangling

Without waiting for Chu Jinglei to finish speaking, Chu Xingshui waved his hand and said: "He defeated Li Shidao without even regretting the thunder, which shows the sharpness of his army, forget it, the people of Guangling have raised our Chu family for decades, so leave a way for them to survive!" ”

Speaking of this, Chu Xingshui solemnly said to Chu Xingyun: "The second brother can negotiate with Zhang Huan on behalf of the Chu family, as long as the conditions he proposes are not too excessive, we can all agree." ”

Linhuai County, which is an important transit point for Caoyun and the most important crossing of the Huai River, is where the Chu family deployed nearly 40,000 troops to fight against the Longyou army to the south.

The terrain of Linhuai County is high in the south and low in the north, there is a big mountain that stretches for 20 miles in the territory - Duliang Mountain, the army of the Chu family is stationed in an open high ground north of Duliang Mountain, the dense tents are one after another, stretching for several miles, less than two miles away from the camp is the Huaishui that goes to the east, and on the opposite bank of Huaishui, tens of thousands of Longyou troops have been ready to cross the river, nearly 100 big ships are lined up, the saber rattling is tense on the river, and the war is about to break out.

Different from Li Shidao, a professional soldier stationed in Yancheng, the general who commanded the Linhuai Chu family army was a Confucian general from a civilian background, his surname was Jiang, called Jiang Kaiyuan, nearly fifty years old, and he was born as a scholar in the fourth year of Germany, and before that, he had been a civilian in the army, and he had a prestige in the Huainan army, and his other identity was Chu Tan's second son-in-law, Chu Xingshui's brother-in-law, Chu Tan had six daughters back then, and the eldest daughter was Zhang Huan's mother Chu Banglan, and the second daughter Chu Fangfei married this Jiang Kaiyuan.

Although Jiang Kaiyuan lacked a murderous aura of cutting and killing, he was sober-minded and cautious. He has been in the army for a long time, so Chu Xingshui ordered him to command Linhuai's army, and Jiang Kaiyuan's defensive deployment in the past few days seems to prove that Chu Xingshui knows how to make good use of people. Iron chains are locked across the river. Small boats full of firewood and hay filled the river, dozens of huge trebuchets lined up on the shore, 10,000 crossbowmen Chen soldiers on the shore, and Wang Siyu's army had hundreds of large ships in the dripping defense, but they could not cross the river.

But Jiang Kaiyuan's joy did not last for a few days, and soon the news of Li Shidao's annihilation came from Yancheng, but it was 30,000 iron horsemen who cut off his retreat with the news, and Jiang Kaiyuan woke up. The reason why Wang Siyu was reluctant to cross the river was to drag him in Linhuai.

Around noon. A soldier galloped into the barracks and rushed to the big tent to report: "Envoy, there are two boats on the other side of the river that have drifted to the surface of the river and are stopped by iron chains, somehow? ”

Jiang Kaiyuan was stunned, he immediately got up and said, "Take me to see!" ”

Moment. A team quickly out of the camp, galloping towards the bank of the Huai River, the south bank of the Huai River has been deployed 20,000 Huainan troops, from this morning, the opposite bank began to move, which made the Huainan army even more nervous, everyone stretched their bows and arrows, trebuchets squeaked and rattled full of strings, but what made them strange was that. Only three ships came from the river. The two ships in front are slightly larger, and they can both carry more than 100 people. And the back boat is a flat boat, which can only carry three or five people, and what makes the south bank even more strange is that there seems to be no one on the first two boats, through the artesian flow, and is now being stopped in the river by a long chain, while there are several people in a small boat behind, hundreds of steps away from the two big ships.

The fact that the movement of a morning on the north shore had come to such a result was really incomprehensible to the soldiers on the south bank, and if they wanted to burn the chains, the two ships seemed to be a little less.

The soldiers on the south bank were in a commotion, and they flashed to both sides, under a big flag, Jiang Kaiyuan came to the shore surrounded by hundreds of cavalry, and several generals came forward to see, Jiang Kaiyuan took the curtain and looked at the river, and asked: "What's the movement now?" ”

"Back to the envoy, the river is very quiet, and the three ships have maintained the status quo for almost an hour."

As soon as the words ended, there was a commotion on the shore, and a soldier rushed forward and shouted: "There is movement in the boats on the river." ”

The generals flocked to the shore one after another, looking at the situation on the river, and sure enough, the small boat behind began to slowly approach the two big boats, and the two big boats were only more than two hundred steps away from the south bank, there seemed to be hooks on the boat, hooked the iron chain, undulating with the river waves in the water, and there was indeed no one to be seen on it, at this time, Jiang Kaiyuan suddenly had a strange intuition that the enemy army was waiting for him to come before he began to act.

"They lit a fire!" A soldier pointed to the river and shouted, and at this time, the boat was less than a hundred paces away from the two large boats, and it could be seen that someone in the small boat had already lit a torch, and then two more people had lit a rocket each.

Jiang Kaiyuan suddenly remembered something, his face turned pale in an instant, and he shouted urgently, "The trebuchet is released, smash and sink the ship." ”

Everyone was puzzled, but they still carried out the commander's order, woo! A boulder flew out first, smashing out four hundred paces away, and a column of water rose on the surface of the river.

But at the same moment when the boulder flew out, two rockets also took off from the boat, drew an arc, and accurately fell into the two big ships, the big boat was obviously coated with fire oil, the flames flew, and the billowing smoke went straight into the sky, and the boat immediately turned around and rowed to the north bank. The mast broke and fell into the river.

Jiang Kaiyuan knew that it was irretrievable, he sighed helplessly, and subconsciously covered his ears, at this moment, the two big ships broke out with an earth-shattering loud bang almost at the same time, and two large clouds of white smoke enveloped the hull in an instant, and the red flames in the white smoke soared into the air, and countless fragments of the hull flew sideways, booming! Bang! The explosions continued one after another, the faces of the 20,000 soldiers on the south bank were all pale, and countless people were already standing unsteadily, kneeling on the ground, covering their ears tightly. The explosion stopped, the smoke cleared, and the two large ships on the river had disappeared, the arm-thick subway chain was blown off, and the river was full of fragments of the two large ships.

There was silence on the south bank, everyone stared blankly at the river, and everyone's heart was heavy, full of fear for the future.

(The addition of 904 monthly passes to 923 monthly passes has a slight lead, shouting about monthly passes!) ）