The fall of Li Keyong quickly reached Yang Tiancheng's Western Front headquarters with Tieliang's flying horse, and then he also flew pigeons to the base camp and Cangzhou. This incident also made the current battle situation of the Tiance Army begin to adjust rapidly. After the return of Tieliang, the huge corps on the western front quickly divided into two routes, one through Fenzhou to the city of Taiyuan, and the other main force forced Zhou Dewei, a left-behind corps of Shatuo, into the boundary of Luzhou.

However, at this time, Yang Tiancheng did not stage a good show of chasing thousands of miles again, but began to slow down, seizing the territory of the state city by city, and the receiving personnel sent by the base camp also set off in the starry night, and began to follow Yang Tiancheng's steps to receive these cities after Yang Qiu was transferred as the person in charge.

The western front of the Tiance army was grabbing territory, but the northern line was racing lightly, galloping all the way from Danzhou on the northern line to the south, Liu Rengong and Li Congwei along the way originally wanted to take advantage of the fire to rob, but tens of thousands of cavalry roared by, so frightened that they quickly retreated back into the city to concentrate on defense.

However, this method also became impractical after Chen Fan's main force set off from Yizhou. The northern line corps began to divide its troops after Tuoba Si went south, and the troops were divided into three routes, one was led by Tuoba Siji, attacking along Zhuozhou, Jizhou and other places, all the way south to Mozhou Yingzhou, and the other road to the southwest, attacking and advancing towards Dingzhou and Zhenzhou. In this way, the Youzhou area has been completely included in its own attack scope. Lee Converse and Liu Rengong faced an existential situation almost instantly.

The two put aside their past grudges in the face of the predicament and began to work together to prepare to deal with the Tiance Army together. With the integration of the high-level, the troops on the front line are also rapidly integrated, and all the soldiers and horses of Li Congwei on the northern front near Jizhou are concentrated in Jizhou, preparing to drag the troops of the northern line of the Tiance Army, and Liu Rengong on the southern line also concentrates his housekeeping capital on the main force of Yingzhou and Li Congwei - Youzhou and Mozhou, which are stationed in the base camp of Youzhou, are horns of each other, trying to intercept the army of the Tiance Army by relying on this situation of a long snake formation.

However, these two people did not pin all their hopes on the military, and almost unanimously sent an envoy in the direction of Cangzhou to meet Li Xuanqing.

However, at this time, the Cangzhou Corps personally commanded by Li Xuanqing had already set off to the north. And unlike Chen Fan, who also had to divide the forces of Li Congwei and Liu Rengong, Wang Houchun carried out an indiscriminate attack. Liu Rengong and Li Congwei have done a lot of things to bully and oppress the people in Youzhou for so many years, but Wang Houchun has no intention of keeping his hands at all, and took this opportunity to clean up together.

Li Xuanqing didn't bother to see the envoys of the two families, but asked An Xiuxiu to secretly take some of his personnel to set off towards Bingzhou, preparing to call on some Shatuo people to give up resistance and end the war on the Western Front as soon as possible in the name of Li Cunxiao's old department. In fact, Li Xuanqing is not very optimistic about how much this method can play, but An Xiuxiu's plan is not on these troops, but on those ordinary Shatuo tribes, hoping to save some of the tribes with Li Cunxiao's appeal, otherwise the Shatuo tribe will really suffer a catastrophe.

Li Xuanqing's acquiescence also made Gao Siji, who had been following him for this time, quietly frown, and he became active. Li Xuanqing felt a little strange about his changes at first, and then he didn't bother to pay attention to them. He asked several generals transferred by Xuan Yingwei to be responsible for the daily training of the infantry in the city, and he began to consider Zhu Quanzhong's reaction. Obviously, the offensive pace of the Western Front Corps will definitely attract the attention of the other party, but I don't know if Zhu Quanzhong has the courage to send troops north again to compete with him for the territory of the state.

In order to find out about this matter, the Flying Eagle Brigade also asked Li Xuanqing to send to Luzhou and other places bordering Bianliang and Bingzhou to monitor the other party's movements at any time, and asked Zhao Si to contact Xuanyingwei in Bianliang and other places to find a way to find out the relevant information.

But at this time, Hu Xiaosi, who was in the Eastern Capital, was stunned by the back hand he arranged. The secret guards placed in Zhu Quanzhong's mansion poisoned the food of Zhu Quanzhong's wife Zhang, and at this moment, Zhu Quanzhong was like a headless fly and arrested all the doctors in Bianzhou City to his Guogong Mansion, wanting to save Zhang's life.

"Damn, this is the time to do it, isn't this here to make trouble?" Hu Xiaosi walked back and forth in the house, trying to find a way to deal with the aftermath.

"Commander, the lord has an urgent order." Just when Hu Xiaosi was arranging how to divert Zhu Quanzhong's eyes from himself, the guards on duty outside the door sent Li Xuanqing's order.

"It's okay now, even if Zhu Quanzhong didn't want to send troops, he will not die this time." Hu Xiaosi's face turned across, he sat on the chair and was silent for a long time, and began to reply to the base camp and Li Xuanqing while muttering to himself: "Sure enough, I often walk by the river, how can I not get my shoes wet." In order to end the game, I even had to take out the last hand in advance. If the lord knows this, he will not be able to pick my skin. ”

However, although Hu Xiaosi said so, the speed of his arrangement was unexpectedly fast, almost when Zhu Quanzhong was busy detoxifying these doctors, he had already sent people to erase all traces of Xuan Yingwei, and very insidiously pointed the clues to Zhu Quanzhong's eldest son Zhu Youqi, and forged a lot of evidence, and at the same time quietly released the news to Zhu Youshu, who was fighting for the throne of the prince with Zhu Youzhong. Moreover, he forced Xuanyingwei near Bianzhou to minimize all activities in the near future, and turned Qingzhou and Zizhou, which are far away from Bianzhou, into the focus of Xuanyingwei's activities, so as to confuse the public in order to get rid of suspicion.

At the beginning of December 889, after nearly ten days of hard work, Zhang still could not persevere, and died, ending his life at the age of 30. Zhu Quanzhong cried and fainted several times for Zhang's family, and ordered a grand funeral to be held in Bianzhou in order to pay tribute to his virtuous wife, and at the same time asked Emperor Zhaozong to give Zhang's Mrs. Liangguo a product and a seal of order to show his grace.

Zhu Quanzhong was busy with his wife's funeral, and he didn't pay much attention to the war in the north for a while. But Zheng Fan, at this time, used the intelligence power in his hands to thoroughly investigate all the details of the Zhang poisoning case.

At first, Zheng Fan was also very suspicious of Xuan Yingwei, thinking that the other party was doing it, but after investigating the recent movements of Xuan Yingwei, he dispelled this doubt again, especially when he learned that Hu Xiaosi, who had been shuttling between the Eastern Capital and Chang'an, had appeared in Yang Tiancheng's corps, and asked him to shift his attention to other places. Moreover, after secretly discussing the possibility of this matter with Xie Tong, he also felt that if it was done by Xuan Yingwei at this time, it would actually be unfavorable to the Tiance Army. But if it wasn't for Xuan Yingwei's doing, then who else around the Xuanwu Army would have such strength to do such a shocking thing in the base camp of the Xuanwu Army?

Suddenly, the two of them suddenly looked at each other, and for a moment they understood the meaning in each other's eyes. But neither of them said anything in the end, and after being silent for a long time, Xie Tong slowly spoke: "Lord Zheng, this matter is best investigated secretly, and it is an accident to treat Mrs. Zhang as Mrs. Zhang before there is conclusive evidence, even if the lord asks, he can't reveal half a word." ”

Xie Tong's words, Zheng Fan naturally understood the power, and nodded wordlessly. But the two of them suddenly felt absurd and desolate, and they were silent for a long time, and Zheng Fan was even more thoughtful, and he didn't even notice when Xie Tong left.

This matter not only felt strange within Xuanwujun, but Li Xuanqing, who was connected to the news transmitted by Hu Xiaosi, had a big head for a while, rubbed his forehead and began to send out several urgent information after thinking for a long time, and in order to prevent leakage, all of them were changed to cipher sending, and people were sent from the secret channel to Yang Tiancheng on the western line and Chen Fan and Wang Houchun on the northern line. At the same time, preparations for the next step of the response began.

The next day, several urgent orders were issued from Cangzhou again, this time against Chen Fan and Wang Houchun on the northern front, ordering them to take the entire Youzhou region within a time limit, and then join Yang Tiancheng on the western front. This is also a coping strategy that Li Xuanqing pondered for a long time, moving the troops of the northern front to the south in the winter, preventing Zhu Quanzhong from sending troops to fight a decisive battle with the Tiance army in Bingzhou after finding out the truth. It's just that in this way, not only will the army have to face continuous combat, but also the Youji region will not be able to provide assistance to the Tiance Army because it has no time to cultivate, and even affect its future development.

However, at this time, for Wang Houchun and Chen Fan on the front line, the order from Li Xuanqing also had his reason, and the weather in Jizhou and other places in the Bohai Bay generation was already extremely cold at this time, and if the battle situation was still unresolved for a long time, it would inevitably bring great difficulties to the logistics of the Tiance Army, which was already extremely tense. So the two didn't think so much and began to urge the front-line generals to complete all the battles before the New Year's Festival, and then except for Jizhou and other places to leave the basic garrison troops, all the other cities were handed over to the city defense army sent by the logistics department and the officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs to manage, and the main force went south to Jizhou.

However, compared to the south Wang Houchun and Chen Fan's main corps part is still on the march, Tuoba Si in the Youzhou region has begun to attack the city, after Li Congwei concentrated his forces in Jizhou, other cities surrendered in the Tiance army as soon as the army arrived in Wangfeng, on the eighth day of December 889, Tuoba Si besieged Jizhou with 50,000 people, and the army attacked for five days. The remaining more than 30,000 Youzhou troops and a small number of Shatuo people in the city were all disarmed, and some of the stubborn Jizhou defenders were killed. At this point, the entire war in Youbei was basically over.

The good news of Tuoba Siji quickly reached the hands of Chen Fan on the front line, and learned that Youbei had been recovered, Chen Fan quickly mobilized the two cavalry battalions in the hands of Tuoba Siji to go south, and the remaining three infantry battalions took a short rest After a short rest, except for one who stayed in Jizhou, the remaining two also went south to participate in the battle.

At this time, Wang Houchun's Cangzhou Corps had also arrived outside Yingzhou City and began the siege rhythm. Compared with the elite troops in Chen Fan's hands, the Cangzhou Corps except for the personal guard battalion was a newly formed infantry, and it needed siege warfare to hone its combat power, so Wang Houchun began to fight siege warfare. In the campaign, he specifically guided the ability of those newly trained middle- and grass-roots generals to command troops, including Guo Chongtao, who was directly promoted by Li Xuanqing.

Yingzhou is the location of Li Congwei's base camp, and it is also the junction that connects Liu Rengong and Li Congwei's forces, and the city defense of Yingzhou City is very complete among the surrounding military towns. Moreover, when Wang Houchun besieged Yingzhou, Li Congwei decisively mobilized all the soldiers and horses in Youzhou to Yingzhou, and secretly prepared a naval army on the coastline southeast of Mozhou, preparing to take advantage of the freezing season of Bohai Bay to arrange a retreat.

Li Congwei's arrangement made Wang Houchun's pressure suddenly increase, and the other party even went out of the city to fight a field battle when the Cangzhou Corps besieged Yingzhou, if it wasn't for the presence of the personal guard battalion, relying on the strong cavalry to disperse the only 10,000 cavalry in Li Congwei's hands, relying on the three infantry battalions in his hands is really not necessarily able to win. In view of this, Wang Houchun began to transfer three of the remaining four battalions from the Cangzhou headquarters, and this time six infantry battalions and one personal guard battalion were concentrated, with nearly 100,000 troops, and finally Li Congwei was so frightened that he no longer dared to go out of the city.

However, in the face of the passage of time little by little, Wang Houchun was really anxious, and could no longer care about relying on siege warfare to train the combat power of the infantry, so he mobilized all the last batch of explosives stored by the logistics department of Cangzhou City, and arranged for the personal guard battalion to cut off the connection between Liu Rengong and Li Congwei, and began to bury explosives bags on December 12, and during this period, let the six infantry battalions in his hands take turns to take intensive and uninterrupted siege warfare, so that the opponent's attention will not be focused on the demolition team. In the evening, with the order to ignite from the front line, there was a loud bang, a dazzling light and a deafening explosion sounded at the same time, and the entire city wall of the west city of Yingzhou City shook violently, and the city gate was completely overturned by this explosion, and the city tower was blown up, and a gap of more than ten zhang long appeared in front of the Tiance army.

At this time, Wang Houchun decisively ordered the whole army to break into the city and begin to strangle Li Congwei's Youzhou army. The two sides fought a life-and-death battle in the city, unlike the poor combat effectiveness of the princes' armies in other places, the combat effectiveness of this Youzhou young and strong army is still very objective, at least after the city is broken, it can resist the surprise attack of the Tiance army. The whole night of fighting died down at dawn. During this period, Wang Houchun led the personal guards to guard the main roads and residential areas in the city to prevent the chaos from harming the people, and for those soldiers who took advantage of the chaos to rob and create chaos, whether it was the Tiance army or the Youzhou soldiers, all of them were killed, and the bloody thousands of heads were distributed in various main roads, which also alerted everyone to the strictness of the military discipline of the Tiance army.

At dawn, the Tiance army, which had fought all night, collected all the troops, and escorted the 13,000 Youzhou soldiers who were captured in this battle to the military camp outside the city to be guarded, leaving one to maintain order in the city, and the remaining soldiers and horses secretly galloped to Mozhou under the leadership of Guo Chongtao and other new generation generals. Among them, Guo Chongtao, as the vanguard, ordered one of his guards to disguise himself as a defeated Youzhou rout from Yingzhou to deceive the city gate, take advantage of the situation to kill the Mozhou guards on the spot, take advantage of the chaos to firmly guard the south gate of Mozhou, and make the first contribution for the main force to enter the city. And this battle was also completed by these young generals independently. The growth of Guo Chongtao and others also means that after Xue Yang, the truly systematic talents of Tiance Army have begun to continue to step onto the historical stage.

However, although the two places were taken, Li Congwei's father disappeared, along with his son and a group of family members disappeared in the chaos, which also left a little regret in the Battle of Youzhou. However, after Wang Houchun won the two places, the road passage between Chen Fan on the northern line and Cangzhou was really opened, and Cangzhou also avoided becoming an enclave outside the war situation.

After stabilizing the two places, the Cangzhou Corps began to reinforce from west to south, assisting Hou Yong, who was besieging Dingzhou, to break the situation and successfully take the city of Dingzhou, which was controlled by the Shatuo people after three days of fierce fighting. The recovery of Dingzhou also meant that Chen Fan's northern front was completely wiped out, and his main forces also moved south to begin the final decisive battle.

Li Xuanqing, who was in Cangzhou, stretched out after browsing the battle situation on these fronts, and began to gather the pro-guards and Gao Siji, preparing to carry out the next move.