"Order the whole army not to stop, let the defenders of Mianzhou prepare meals, and let's eat and leave." Hu Jingzhang ordered the forward to cross Mianzhou and rush towards Chengdu Mansion. As a pioneer officer, Liu Zhijun was summoned by the herald, and while sending someone to inform the defenders of Mianzhou to prepare dry food and drinking water, he urged his subordinates to speed up. At this time, Liu Zhijun and Hu Jingzhang were on fire and upset, and several messengers sent to Chengdu were all sunk into the sea, and there was no news, which made the stones in their hearts sink more and more.

"Boss, Li Maozhen's army has already crossed the mountain pass, and it is less than fifty miles away from us." In a mountain range in the northwest of Mianzhou City, Liu Yonghe, who was in charge of investigating the enemy's situation, was about to go back to report when he saw Hu Jingzhang's forward, when the other party's reconnaissance horse suddenly went forward in the direction of the city.

"Let's change the way and notify the marshal immediately." Liu Yong didn't know what the other party's Tanma was going to do, so after leaving a few people, he decisively took the path back to find Xue Yang.

At this time, Xue Yang had already taken Mianzhou, the original Mianzhou defenders were wiped out after the third battalion raid, and a small number of them were killed by the assault team after escaping from the city.

"Marshal, the front of the enemy army is already very close to us, and it is estimated that it will be more than an hour away. And the fast horses are already coming into the city. Liu Yong rushed to find Xue Yang before the other party explored the horse.

"Tell them to go down, open the gates, and not let the other side see the flaws, and let the soldiers and officers who are anyway come forward to greet the messengers of the other side. The main force of the 3rd Battalion immediately went out to ambush. Xue Yang decisively began to arrange, let Liu Yong be in charge of everything in the city, and led his army out of the city to prepare to intercept and kill the opponent's forward.

"Dashuai, there are few of us, so it's better to guard the city." Liu Yong looked like he hadn't experienced the baptism of war, so he had a difficult face.

"Don't worry, I'm here for the war, and you're in charge of the rear. I left a team of men and horses in the city, and I will cooperate with the main force outside the city to attack when the time comes, and you don't need to worry about the war. Xue Yang didn't have time to explain why he led the army out of the city and began to ambush in a small forest five miles outside the city, this grove was just divided into two by the post road out of the city, and after the heavy troops were ambushed on both sides, Xue Yang was also quietly waiting for the other party to appear.

Time is moving forward little by little, and the Tanma sent by Liu Zhijun to Mianzhou also reported that Mianzhou is ready to wait for the return of the army. All this made Liu Zhijun feel a little relieved, and began to urge his subordinates to speed up their pace, and the soldiers also suddenly accelerated their steps after hearing that there was food, but they didn't know that they had fallen into the trap planted by others.

The other party's pace quickened, and the soldiers of Xue Yang's third battalion who were in charge of tracking the enemy soon discovered the other party's traces, which also indicated that this ambush battle was about to begin.

Li Maozhen was caught off guard by the middle of Sichuan, and after Chen Yu sent Li Feixue to sweep Ezhou and Suizhou on the Shannan side, the forces of the entire Xuanwu Army in Shannan Dongdao were uprooted, and Ge Cunzhou led more than 30,000 remnants of the army to retreat in embarrassment. This made Zhu Quanzhong furious, and directly ordered Ge Cunzhou to be dismissed and investigated, and even Wang Yanzhang and Zhang Guihou were also punished.

And Xie Tong, who had long expected the outcome of this battle, directly spurted out a mouthful of blood when he heard this, and fell to the ground. The brilliant man finally fell ill after a series of blows. And this news made Zhu Quanzhong so frightened that he couldn't care about dealing with Ge Cunzhou's loss of his master's land, and panicked and dispatched famous doctors in the city to treat Xie Tong.

However, at this time, Zheng Fan's men and horses arranged in Sichuan also got the news that the flying pigeon sent a message to Bianzhou, and Zheng Fan, who received the information, changed his face greatly, and hurriedly walked into Xie Tong's official residence. At this time, Xie Tong had already woken up, and he was just in a hurry before, a mouthful of blood blocked his throat and eyes, and it was much better to spit out the blood. Seeing Zheng Fan's heavy face, he ignored Zhu Quanzhong by his side, and asked directly after letting the doctor go out, "Did something happen to Lord Zheng?" ”

"According to reliable information, the Tiance Army has taken Chengdu Mansion in Yinpingdu, and Li Maozhen's whereabouts are unknown, and it is estimated that he has fallen into the hands of the Tiance Army." Zheng Fan sighed for a while, he had been in the middle of the river for so long, and in the end, he still couldn't stop the other party's attack.

"Immediately pass this news to Wang Jian and give him a suggestion to take advantage of the chaos to occupy the southern part of Xichuan, connect with the steep Dongchuan, and block Li Xuanqing's forces in Xichuan." Xie Tong didn't want to directly bypass Zhu Quanzhong and give Zheng Fan an order.

Zheng Fan nodded and went out to decorate, and Zhu Quanzhong's face also changed, and after seeing Xie Tong's pale face, he couldn't help but ask, "According to Mr. Wang's opinion, what should we do next?" ”

"Lord, Ge Cunzhou is a handsome talent, this defeat has nothing to do with the army itself, and I hope that the lord will give him a chance to make meritorious contributions." Xie Tong slowly explained to Zhu Quanzhong: "The next step of the Tiance Army is definitely to prepare to unify Sichuan, and we let Wang Jian occupy the southern part of Xichuan to create trouble for him, and at the same time, it is also to let Wang Jian have a little more strength to confront Li Xuanqing, so as to buy us a little time." At this time, the lord should quickly reorganize the whole army to deal with any changes that may occur at any time. The troops of the northern front of the Tiance Army basically did not use it, just to see the next move of our army, if it continued to increase the number of troops in Jingnan, it would inevitably cause the hinterland to be empty, and if the opponent's hundreds of thousands of cavalry moved south, it would be a catastrophe. ”

"At this time, Lord Zheng and I have already found the formula of the other party's new weapon that will explode, and we are seizing the time to test it, hoping to play a role in the future when the two sides fight and restrain the opponent's cavalry brigade." At this time, Xie Tong couldn't care about the original agreement with Zheng Fan, and decided to tell Zhu Quanzhong.

"How did you get this recipe, sir?" Zhu Quanzhong Huo Ran got up, surprised and happy.

"This was originally a recipe that the Taoist priest accidentally got when he was refining the pill, and I don't know how Li Xuanqing got it, but Master Zheng and I did get it from a traveling Taoist priest when we were resting on the canal." Xie Tong brushed aside the formula for the gunpowder he could get, but there was still a sadness on his face that could not be dissolved, "Lord, this time Shannan Dao lost more than 100,000 elite soldiers, and General Ding Hui also died in his duties, which is sad and lamentable." The strength of my Xuanwu Army as a whole has lagged behind the Tiance Army a lot, and I hope that the lord can work hard to make the country prosperous, reorganize the army and fight the military, and don't let the gap get bigger and bigger. ”

Xie Tong's words meant something, and Zhu Quanzhong was also embarrassed when he heard this, but he still nodded quickly. The two continued to talk for a while, and then Zhu Quanzhong returned from Xie Tong's mansion. However, what Xie Tong may not know is that the secret that he and Zheng Fan have kept secret for so long will be discovered by Xuan Yingwei so quickly because he wants to motivate Zhu Quanzhong and reveal it.

In fact, the reason is not that Zhu Quanzhong is not strict with his mouth, but because people sometimes have curiosity. After knowing that Xie Tong had secretly tested the gunpowder formula, Zhu Quanzhong couldn't help but find Zheng Fan, saying that he wanted to see gunpowder. Zheng Fan saw that it was Xie Tong who told Zhu Quanzhong without saying a word, and took Zhu Quanzhong to a secret base outside the city, which was actually a gunpowder research and development base with an ordnance repair bureau on the outside, which made Zhu Quanzhong rush to surprise. But at this time, there is nothing to visit in this base, because it is secretly developed, so the process of collecting many raw materials is relatively slow, and even can't blatantly do experiments, so so far, Zheng Fan has just collected all the materials, and has not carried out the ratio test according to the formula.

With a wave of his hand, Zhu Quanzhong decided to involve his own guards and swallows and take charge of the defense mission. This made Zheng Fan's face stunned, and then a complicated look appeared, but he still nodded and agreed.

But the swallows are the focus of Xuan Yingwei's attention, a dilapidated repair bureau actually used swallows, although Zheng Fan tried his best to use various tricks to disguise, but did not hide from Biaozi's eyes. To be honest, the key monitoring objects of the two sides are the movements of the middle and high-level and key troops, and Yanzi, as the elite of the Xuanwu Army, is also responsible for Zhu Quanzhong's safety, and every move is within the scope of Xuanyingwei's monitoring.

After finding out this, Biaozi began to sacrifice his killer weapon, while sending people to try to get in touch with the repair bureau, and on the other hand, he began to dig holes from far away, preparing to listen to the movements at close range. At the same time, he hurriedly sent a letter to the base camp to report the movements of the Xuanwu army.

Xuanyingwei was staring at the movements of the Xuanwu Army, and the Xuanwu Army was also stumbling on the Tiance Army in Sichuan. Wang Jian of Dongchuan soon received the news from the Xuanwu Army, and Wang Jian, who was shocked, urgently summoned Wang Yan on the front line to inquire about Li Maozhen's movements, and learned that Hu Jingzhang led the army to evacuate Bazhou, Wang Jiansizhi repeatedly made a bold decision to lead Wang Yan to withdraw the army from Bazhou and move south rapidly.

This decision, which surprised Wang Yan, also shattered the coalition's attempt to block the Tiance Army's frontal corps in an instant. Although he didn't understand why his brother made this seemingly ridiculous decision, he faithfully carried out his order and told Wen Tao of the coalition of this decision.

Wang Yan didn't understand what Wang Jian meant, but Wen Tao keenly grasped the key, and after Wang Yan withdrew his army, he also led the army to retreat to Mianzhou, preparing to catch up with Hu Jingzhang, and to tell Hu Jingzhang what he thought.

In his opinion, eighty percent of Chengdu Mansion has already fallen, and it is too late to rescue at this time. In this case, it is better to take advantage of the military power in hand or go south to occupy the southern Sichuan secession side, or directly negotiate with the Tiance army to cede Xichuan. At this time, Wen Tao didn't have too much selfishness, with the great god Hu Jingzhang here, the entire Li Maozhen's Qi army listened to him except for Li Maozhen, and the others could only be regarded as generals at best.

Although Wen Tao's reaction was fast, what he didn't know was that Hu Jingzhang had already fought with the Mianzhou defenders at this time, to be precise, the pioneer Liu Zhijun was caught off guard by Xue Yang, who was ambushed. When an endless stream of soldiers of the Tiance Army came out of the woods, the vanguard of the entire Qi Army was suddenly blinded, and Liu Zhijun himself was surrounded by his opponent before he had time to react. At the same time, a team of people in Mianzhou City also followed closely to kill, which means that they are surrounded by the opponent in three ways, and the back road has not been copied.

The soldiers of the Tiance Army pounced from the woods, and the follow-up rain of arrows instantly disrupted the deployment of the Qi army, and even Liu Zhijun himself was shot off his horse by an arrow, and in this way, more than 10,000 people in front of him were cleaned up by three times and five divided by two. In the chaos, Liu Zhijun was helped up by his own soldiers and escaped taking advantage of the chaos.

Xue Yang didn't care about Liu Zhijun's life or death, so he grabbed all the rebels who were not dead and rushed into the city and handed them over to Liu Yong, so that he could take these prisoners of war to hurry up and repair the city defenses, create various defensive measures, and prepare to fight Hu Jingzhang face-to-face.

But at this time, Hu Jingzhang had also been caught up by the fast horse sent by the rear army and informed him of what happened in Bazhou, and at the same time Wen Tao was not worried about Hu Jingzhang, so he also arrived and told Hu Jingzhang what he had in mind, and suggested that Hu Jingzhang find a way to go south to cut off southern Sichuan.

At this moment, Liu Zhijun returned to Hu Jingzhang in embarrassment with dozens of personal guards and reported the ambush in front to Hu Jingzhang.

"Dashuai, the other party has taken Mianzhou, and there is not much time left for us, and eighty percent of Chengdu Mansion has already fallen. Where to go, please make a quick decision. Wen Tao immediately got up and said, "The last general swears to support the commander to the death." ”

"The last general is also willing to support the commander, and he will not hesitate before and after the saddle." Liu Zhijun glanced at Wen Tao and said the same thing.

Hu Jingzhang knew the thoughts of the two, and said with a long sigh when he heard the words: "Everyone, you have to think about it, what if we go south to our family in Chengdu Mansion?" ”

"The marshal doesn't know, the Tiance Army pays attention to doing things according to law, and the Dashuai and General Liu have no bad deeds, and the Tiance Army will not do anything to the families of the two. It's my family, but I don't have any children yet, and I don't even have a wife, so it's nothing. Wen Tao saw that Hu Jingzhang had already made a decision, and hurriedly said.

"Whether it goes south or north, we must take Mianzhou. Mianzhou is the logistics base of our Qi army, stockpiling the grain, grass and equipment of our front-line army for more than a year, without which we will be homeless even if we go south. The terrain in southern Sichuan is complex, and it is impossible to support our nearly 100,000 horses in the short term. Liu Zhijun pointed to the Mianzhou City Road in front of him.

"Then try it, if Mianzhou can win the best, if not, we can go directly to Luzhou, as long as we get to Luzhou, the sky will be open." To the west, you can go directly to the Jianchang Mansion of Dachanghe, and to the east, you can take the Qiqi. Wen Tao is very open-minded, and at the same time points out where the future lies.

"In this case, let's immediately march into Mianzhou, for a period of three days, if we fail to conquer it in three days, we need to immediately turn around and go directly south, otherwise we will inevitably fall into the danger of losing our ground." Hu Jingzhang nodded and began to move forward as a whole.

In fact, for the attack on Mianzhou, if it were not for the logistical needs, he was not willing to consume troops here at all, and the 100,000 army in his hands was the last capital of these people, and he should not fight with the Tiance army. But there is nothing to be done for the sake of today, and if you are not wise, you will have to fight.

At this time, Xue Yang, who was in Mianzhou, already knew that the main force of the other party would soon arrive, but he still didn't expect that there would be so many, and the soldiers of the Qi army all over the mountains made Xue Yang gasp, there should be 100,000 people, right? With so many troops, could it be that Hu Jingzhang withdrew all the Qi troops on the front line? Thinking of this, Xue Yang also began to urgently summon Qian Ning of the frontal corps, asking him to quickly occupy Bazhou and then join forces with himself to defeat Hu Jingzhang.

A great battle began outside the city of Mianzhou. Can Hu Jingzhang get his wish this time? And Xue Yang is facing the non-stop attack of 100,000 troops with an absolutely inferior force, can he support the main force? Until after the war, Li Xuanqing was still puzzled by so many changes that had taken place in a short period of time in central Sichuan, shouldn't this Hu Jingzhang die early? Why is the war fought so vigorously now? And even went abroad.

"Abroad?" When Li Xuanqing muttered to himself, he didn't notice Xu Tianxiang's inexplicable eyes at the door.