"The king, since it is difficult for Wang Yanzhang to escape, why does the king feel pity?" Guo Chongtao was a little puzzled.

"You'll find out later." Yang Wu smiled mysteriously.

After a while, he sighed again: "It's not that Liang Guo has no talents, but that talents can't be reused; Even if it is occasionally entrusted with reuse, it is difficult to gain enough trust. Therefore, the situation of Liang State will gradually decline, and finally become the current situation. ”

When Zhu Wen conquered the world, although he only occupied the Central Plains and parts of Guanzhong, Jingxiang and Hebei during his strongest period, he was still far from unifying the world; However, at that time, Liang Guo, as the most powerful force in the world, did recruit a lot of talents.

It's a pity that after Zhu Youzhen took over, these talents are old and old, and the rest are not reused.

"How can Zhu Youzhen compare with the king, the king has been close to the virtuous and far away from the villain over the years, and there are many talents in the army in the DPRK and China, so my dynasty is getting stronger and stronger: this is all the credit of the king." Cheng Xun said with a smile on the side.

"Yes, this is not the work of one person, but the joint credit of the whole court." Yang Wu was humble on his lips, but there was a hint of smugness on his face.

Looking at the battlefield not far away, Yang Wu and the others chatted nonsense.

Speaking of recruiting talents, Yang Wu feels that this may be his biggest achievement over the years.

Originally, Wu was one of the best countries in the world in terms of civil governance, and for so many years, it has insisted on governing the local government with civil officials, and now it has achieved remarkable results; Coupled with the long-term selection of talents in the imperial examination, Wu Guo has never lacked civil servants.

In terms of military generals, as the meritorious veterans who followed Yang Xingmi's entrepreneurship died of illness one by one, there was a shortage of excellent generals in the Wu army.

Fortunately, Yang Wu realized this problem a long time ago, so he has been working hard to discover and train young generals, and after so many years, he has finally overcome the difficulties of being young and yellow, and young generals can basically play the role of the mainstay.

"Wang, speaking of which, in fact, the problem of talent shortage is not only in the Liang State, but also in the Jin State, but it is not obvious at present. Zhou Dewei, the famous general of the Jin Kingdom, has died in battle, and famous generals such as Li Sizhao, Li Cunzhang, Li Cunxian, and Li Siyuan are basically fifty or sixty years old now, and they will not be able to fight on the battlefield for a long time. If the younger generation of generals of the Jin Kingdom cannot grow up in the future, I am afraid that the combat strength of the Jin army will also be greatly affected. At this time, Guo Chongtao said suddenly.

Yang Wu couldn't help but move in his heart and nodded.

A boom is often followed by a full-blown recession, which is actually very common, and the key is whether there is new talent on the rise.

When Cao Cao and Liu Bei were alive, Wei, Shu, and Wu were all talented people, and many heroes and heroes were born, many of whom were the top figures in the entire history; However, extreme prosperity was followed by a full-blown recession.

Especially in the Three Kingdoms, Shu is even more lacking in talents, except for Jiang Wei, who can be called a famous general, the rest can only be regarded as mediocre; And even Jiang Wei, if he is placed in the era of hegemony in the late Han Dynasty, he may not be so prominent.

Now the situation in the Jin Kingdom is somewhat similar, Li Keyong's "Thirteen Taibao" are basically famous generals who can fight well, in addition to the veteran Zhou Dewei, as well as Li Chengsi and Shi Yan who came to Wu State, are all famous generals who are chosen for a while.

Although so many talents have made the Jin army prosperous, it is also accompanied by the hidden danger of talent fault behind it.

Yang Wu even knew that among the famous generals of the Jin Kingdom, except for Li Siyuan, who lived for a long time, the others died in the next year or two, either by illness or in battle, so that in just one or two years, there was a great shortage of excellent generals in the Jin army.

In history, if it weren't for Li Cunmiao's decisive use of the method of surprise attack to take down the Liang State in one fell swoop, I am afraid that it is really difficult to say what the final outcome of the Jin and Liang hegemony will be.

"Li Cunxun and the others will pass away in the next few years, so do I have to try to postpone the decisive battle with the Jin State for a few years, concentrate my forces to deal with the Qi State and the Shu State first, and wait until these people are dead before dealing with the Jin State?" Yang Wu groaned in his heart.

"Look, my lord, that Wang Yanzhang is exhausted, it seems that he can't fly today." At this time, Cheng Xun pointed to the battlefield in the distance and suddenly spoke.

"Huh?" When Yang Wu heard this, he hurriedly looked at the battlefield.

Sure enough, I saw that there were not many Liang troops on the battlefield, only the tall body was still fighting bloodily.

However, although Wang Yanzhang was still sitting on his horse and rushing back and forth, it was obvious that his physical strength had been exhausted, and he was almost beaten off his horse when fighting with the Wu cavalry.

Looking at him again, there were already seven or eight arrows stuck in him at this time; Although Wang Yanzhang was wearing heavy armor, these arrows may not have penetrated the armor, but they must have caused him a lot of trauma.

"Pass the order, for Wang Yanzhang, if he can be captured alive, he will be captured alive; If not, then shoot directly, without mercy, to save the lives of the soldiers. Yang Wu ordered.

In history, after Wang Yanzhang was captured by the Jin army, Li Cunqiao sent people to persuade him to surrender one after another, but unfortunately he was rejected in the end; Yang Wu didn't think he could make Wang Yanzhang submit.

After all, the current Wang Yanzhang is almost sixty years old, and even if he surrenders to Wu State, he will not have a few years to live; Rather than live for a few years after surrendering, I am afraid that Wang Yanzhang would prefer to die in exchange for leaving a name in history.

"If he had been ten years younger, he might have been able to persuade him to surrender; But now I'm afraid it's going to be difficult, and I wouldn't choose to surrender if I did. What's more, if Wang Yanzhang surrendered directly, would he still be the same Wang Yanzhang in history? Yang Wu shook his head.

Wang Yanzhang is famous more because of his loyalty; If it weren't for his loyalty, it would be difficult for him to have such a great reputation for his martial prowess alone.

Many generals in this era are very martial and brave, and Wang Yanzhang does not have too many outstanding features in this regard; Only his loyalty makes him like a bright star shining in the world in this troubled world, leaving a name in history.

Yang Wu's order was quickly conveyed, in fact, Shi Hongyi's previous fight was the idea of capturing Wang Yanzhang alive, so during this time, the main thing was to send troops to take turns, mainly to consume Wang Yanzhang's physical strength, so that he gradually became exhausted.

Otherwise, if Shi Hongyi really wanted to kill him, he would have been able to let people shoot him with random arrows a long time ago, and it would not have been delayed until now.

After another quarter of an hour, with a "bang", the spear in Wang Yanzhang's hand was knocked off and fell to the ground with a crisp sound; Many soldiers of the Wu army swarmed up and captured him alive and escorted him to the hillside, where Yang Wu came forward.

……

Outside Yuncheng City, in the camp of the Liang army, Dong Zhang and other generals looked at the empty camp in front of them and were silent for a while.

"General, judging from the news I received, Wang Yanzhang and the others left with their troops yesterday, and they should have set off after knowing that they had been dismissed as reinforcements, maybe they were going to attack and disturb the enemy's logistics, right?" After a long time, a general stood up and said.

"What is the attack on the rear of the enemy? It must have been this man who, upon learning that he had been dismissed as an envoy, felt embarrassed by his condescension to the general, so he slipped away before the official edict was issued. Immediately, someone retorted.

"Yes, there are only 500 cavalry around him, and the prince of Wu personally conquered Yunzhou, and it is said that he brought 5,000 cavalry with him. If Wang Yanzhang used 500 cavalry to attack and harass the enemy, how was this different from sending him to death? He wouldn't have done that. ”

A general asked: "Is it impossible that he led 500 cavalry to the city of Yunzhou and launched a decisive battle against the Wu army that was besieging the city?" Ben will hear from a brother who served under General Wang that General Wang has such a plan and wants to establish immortality. ”

As soon as this statement came out, it caused the generals to laugh "haha".

"What are you kidding? Still rushing straight to the city of Yunzhou? Are you a fool to me, or are you a fool to be Wang Yanzhang? ”

"That is, if King Wu is a fool, tens of thousands of siege troops, including 5,000 cavalry, if this can allow Wang Yanzhang to kill under the city of Yunzhou, then King Wu might as well be killed by himself!" The generals made fun of it.

"Enough!" Dong Zhang finally spoke: "If Wang Yanzhang led his troops to attack and harass the rear of the enemy, this would have been believed, after all, everyone knows the bravery of this person. But if this person dared to go down to Yunzhou City with 500 horsemen and launch a surprise attack on the besieging Wu army, this would have been unbelievable. ”

In fact, Dong Zhang still admires Wang Yanzhang very much, although he himself is brave in battle, and often takes the lead, but he is still much worse than Wang Yanzhang.

Not only that, in terms of troop use ability and army command methods, Wang Yanzhang also has many places worthy of Dong Zhang's admiration; However, admiration is admiration, but Dong Zhang will not be stupid enough to agree to Wang Yanzhang's suggestion, and take more than 6,000 remnants of the defeated army to Yunzhou with him to die.

The strength of the Wu army in Yunzhou is so strong, and it is Yang Wu who personally leads the troops, with their reinforcements of only more than 7,000 people and low morale, if they kill them directly, this is completely to send them to death, and Dong Zhang will naturally not do such a thing.

Moreover, Wang Yanzhang was at odds with Zhao Yan and Zhang Hanjie, and was squeezed out by the two of them, and now he can only take 500 cavalry with him to complete the impossible task of rescuing Yunzhou, and anyone with a discerning eye knows the hidden problems in this.

In contrast, although the relationship between Dong Zhang and Zhao Yan is not close, there is no contradiction; During this time, Zhao Yan and the others kept sending people to hint at him, asking him to find a way not to make Wang Yanzhang successful.

Dong Zhang was originally reluctant to lead the troops to die, but after getting the hint from Zhao Yan and the others, he naturally readily agreed, so he had the situation of staying in Yuncheng for more than ten days before.

Now that Wang Yanzhang was dismissed from the post of support envoy and suddenly left the camp with 500 cavalry, Dong Zhang was relieved, at least he didn't need to attack Wang Yanzhang under Zhang Hanjie's oppression.

"General, what should we do now? And if General Zhang asks, how will he answer? At this time, the general asked.

Dong Zhang pondered for a moment and said: "If the order goes down, it will be said that General Wang has led his troops to attack and harass the rear of the enemy army, and I believe that good news will come soon." Let the soldiers of each department stay in their respective camps, and they must not act rashly! ”

"The last general obeys!" The generals answered loudly.

"As for Zhang Hanjie's side, everything is reported truthfully, and presumably such a result is also what he is willing to see." Dong Zhang snorted coldly and said angrily.

As a leading general, he actually has no good impression of people like Zhang Hanjie who are behind the bad people and good deeds, but now that the situation is stronger than people, he has to succumb to Zhang Hanjie.

Since Wang Yanzhang led the troops to attack alone, it would be difficult to achieve victory with his little strength no matter what, and at most he would achieve some insignificant results, and Yunzhou would definitely fall into the hands of the enemy in the end.

In this way, after Dong Zhang and Zhang Hanjie fell in Yunzhou, they only needed to shift the responsibility for the failure to rescue Wang Yanzhang to "lightly attack the enemy" or "disobey orders", etc., and they could give an account to the imperial court.

"General Wang, don't blame the general for treating you like this, if you want to blame the court, your majesty, and Zhang Hanjie!" Dong Zhang shook his head and turned to leave.

……

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and soon the day passes.

Early the next morning, when the soldiers of the Liang army woke up from their sleep and started a new day, an astonishing news suddenly came, making the entire Liang army camp seem to have exploded.

"Did you hear that? Yunzhou was captured by the Wu army three days ago, and now the king of Wu himself is rushing to Yuncheng with tens of thousands of troops, it is said that there are 10,000 iron horsemen in the vanguard alone, and the scene of 10,000 horses galloping seems to be earth-shattering, and now it is only more than ten miles away from us. ”

"yes, I've heard that, too. It is said that after King Wu personally arrived in Yunzhou, he supervised the siege of the city on the same day, and the three thousand Yulin troops under his command were not afraid of death, and they rushed to climb the city wall one by one, and it only took one day to knock down the city of Yunzhou. ”

"I also heard that General Wang Yanzhang led 500 cavalry to attack and harass the enemy, but he didn't expect to encounter the Wu army as soon as he arrived in Shouzhang, and was besieged by tens of thousands of iron cavalry. General Wang was really good, he led 500 men and Wu troops to fight for a day and a night, and finally was defeated and captured. Now Wu Jun has killed us here. ”

……

All kinds of rumors are chaotic and noisy, but the overall meaning is one: the Wu army has captured Yunzhou, and the army has been transferred to start killing Yuncheng, and now the vanguard is almost here.

At first, this shocking news was only spread by a few people, and it didn't take long for the entire camp to know about it, and no matter how much the officers and generals at all levels appeased, they couldn't stop the panicked soldiers from fleeing across the camp.

Beat? How to fight? Their strength is more than 6,000, and they are the remnants of the defeated army who have just experienced a crushing defeat not long ago, and their morale is low and their fighting spirit is completely lost; On the Wu army's side, it is rumored that the enemy army has 10,000 iron cavalry alone, how can this stop the enemy army.

So not only ordinary soldiers fled, but also many low-level officers joined the fleeing ranks.