In June 888, Li Xuanqing, who had just been promoted to the rank of general of Tiance, suddenly ordered that the Tiance army be divided into three routes, and almost overnight, 100,000 troops were dispatched to enter the territory of Guanzhong, and the situation in Guanzhong changed for a while.

"Is the civil administration ready, sir?" Li Xuanqing was about to go to the Modao camp early in the morning, but was blocked at the door by Cen Tianshi, and what made him very strange was that Yang Yi, who had been staying in Fengzhou since he was rescued by himself, actually followed Cen Tianshi.

Cen Tianshi also knew where Li Xuanqing was going, so he walked over and said with a smile: "Don't worry, the Tiance Mansion has dispatched ten sets of teams to prepare to receive it, and at present, the local people in various states and counties in Guanzhong, Xuan Yingwei and the Ministry of Civil Affairs have also investigated, and some of them can be retained or transferred, to ensure that where the army hits, the Ministry of Civil Affairs will receive it, and the restructuring of our Tiance Mansion will follow wherever it goes, and it will not drag the lord back." Cen Tianshi didn't mind the way Li Xuanqing talked to himself while walking out, and said as he walked: "Tianshi is here to discuss something else with the lord. After speaking, he pointed to Yang Yi behind him and said with a smile: "Brother Yang came to me today, wanting to do something for the great cause of the lord, and I want to ask the lord to arrange it." ”

Li Xuanqing smiled when he heard this, stopped and said, "Brother Yang is willing to go out of the mountain, and Xuanqing naturally raises his hand to welcome him." In this way, there are two things that just need manpower now, that is, I don't know if Brother Yang is willing to deign to take office. ”

"Command, General. Yang Yi should do his best. Yang Yi stepped forward and bowed his hand slightly: "During this time, Yi has also traveled around a lot of places in Lingfeng, and the places he went to are full of vitality, the people are stable, and the army is also preparing to quell the rebellion. The general's heart is easy to know, and he came here to follow the general, do something for my Chinese people, and have the face to meet the ancestors a hundred years later. ”

Li Xuanqing also sighed when he heard this, waved his hand and said: "The world is difficult, and the people are suffering, it is our sin. But born in troubled times, aspiring men should do their best for the common people's suffering. Brother Yang can have this heart, and Xuanqing is also very pleased. After a pause, he said: "Now that the Modao Battalion is being formed, Shi Jian really can't manage it alone, why don't you go to the Modao Battalion to work?" He is a descendant of General Shi Ba, and I think you can get along very well. ”

Yang Yi still maintained his immovable nature, shook his head and said: "In addition to General Li Siye, the Modao team was the most experienced by General Shi Ba, and I guess I won't be able to help much." Does the general have anything else that Yang Yi needs to do? ”

Li Xuanqing also knew where his heart knot was, and he didn't break it, so many years of Anxi's descendants had paid too much to protect that ethereal secret back then, and he didn't want to touch his heart knot at this time, so he nodded and continued: "There is one more thing, the strategy of Guanzhong has been launched, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs has a lot of things to do in the later period of building roads and bridges, reorganizing water conservancy, and excavating Qianmo. Last time, I captured 18,000 Tibetan prisoners from Yuanzhou and prepared to devote them to Guanzhong, and now there is still a lack of one person to assist the Ministry of Civil Affairs in managing these prisoners, I don't know if you are willing? "To be honest, with Yang Yi's heart and ability, it is really condescending to be the commander of a logistics prisoner camp, but Li Xuanqing can only do this when he has no way to arrange his military position.

Cen Tianshi knew Li Xuanqing's thoughts, and took over the conversation and said: "I think this position is very suitable for Brother Yang, these captives are merciful and allow them to serve hard labor for three years. So—"

Before his words were finished, Yang Yi had already raised his head and said, "Thank you, General, Yang Yi is willing." After speaking, he arched his hand towards Li Xuanqing.

Li Xuanqing laughed and said: "Yang Yi will be handed over to Mr., the logistics department of the prisoner camp has been assembled outside Lingzhou City, and it can be handed over at any time, and I will let someone convey the order." Okay, the war in Guanzhong has started now, so I won't accompany you much. With that, he walked briskly forward.

And with Li Xuanqing's hurried footsteps, the battle in Guanzhong officially started at this moment. In front of the Tiance Army, the soldiers of the Shence Army could not afford to have any thoughts of resistance at all. Under the unified command of Xu Tianxiang, the three-way army rushed into the pass like a dumpling, and the first road Wang Houchun once again staged a good show of long-distance running, and forcibly cut off the connection between Yanzhou and Chang'an with the advantage of the cavalry of the direct battalion, and personally led the main two battalions to march eastward in the starry night, marching 260 miles in three days, rushing from Yanzhou to Yanzhou City, so quickly breaking the illusion of Yanzhou Defender Ming Ze, the soldiers gathered in a hurry had no intention of defending the city, and quickly retreated under the strong ballista attack of the Tiance army. Wang Houchun personally led the guards to the city, and in less than a day, the important town holding northern Shaanxi changed hands, and the guard general Ming Ze was captured.

The capture of Yanzhou also cleared the way for Yang Tiancheng, who was in charge of the second road, and before the first battalion arrived in Guanzhong, the fifth and eighth battalions of Lingzhou, which had crossed the river in advance, began to take the lead in assembling towards Gyeongju and storming Gyeongju. At this time, the Divine Ce Army reacted internally. Yang Fugong urged Li Maozhen, who had just occupied Fengxiang, to return to the north for reinforcement almost three times a day, and at the same time transferred troops from Yang Shouliang's Shannan West Road to reinforce Guanzhong.

At this time, Yang Fugong went to Lingzhou in the name of Emperor Zhaozong, trying to reprimand Li Xuanqing in the name of the righteousness of the imperial court, and asked him to stop attacking the Shence army, and then sent an edict to the surrounding Wuding, Pizhou, and Hezhong Mansions, declaring the Tiance army to be a rebel army in the name of the imperial court, trying to mobilize several towns to make troops work together to deal with the Tiance army.

It's just that the edict sent to Lingzhou asked Cen Tianshi to pull out the prison guard Cui Lian and block it. This unlucky prison soldier finally returned to Lingzhou City after eating sand with Zhang Quanfu for half a year in Sanfeng County, how could he offend Li Xuanqing for a mere edict, so he blocked it without thinking about it.

The edicts sent to King Qin to other towns in Wuding and Pizhou were quickly replied, but these military towns themselves were vassals of the Shence Army, although they were also actively sending troops, but after Yang Tiancheng's first battalion arrived in Gyeongju, these feudal towns were only harassment at best, and they could not shake the overall situation at all. After Yang Tiancheng arrived at the front line with the first battalion, he directly used the secret weapon, the explosive pack, to blow up the city gate, and the 30,000 troops swarmed up and took down all the Shence troops who were stunned by the explosives bag and had not yet figured out the situation. This time, in order to deter the Shence Army, Yang Tiancheng followed the list provided by Xuan Yingwei to pull the captured middle and high-level generals of the Shence Army who had committed boundless killings and some evil soldiers at the bottom to the city gate to behead the public, and the bloody thousands of human heads were hung on the tower of Gyeongju City in a row, setting the tone for this battle of Guanzhong.

With Yang Tiancheng taking Gyeongju, the battalion directly under him also freed up his hand and was transferred to the west by Xu Tianxiang, the commander-in-chief of the front, and the cavalry corps of more than 10,000 people frantically swept through Li Maozhen's territory, cutting off the connection between Jingzhou, Longzhou, Fengxiang and other places like a plough and sweeping the holes.

As soon as the fighting on the southern front was one-sided, the 5th Cavalry Battalion on the northern front also crossed the Yellow River at night and appeared in the area under the jurisdiction of the Jinglu Army in the north of Xiazhou, and this area was quickly wiped out. According to the plan, Tuoba Siji, who retreated from Youzhou to this place, began to officially pull out the banner and quickly gathered the troops of the Jingluo Army that were driven here by the Fifth Cavalry Battalion, and in less than ten days, this group of various personnel was reorganized into a corps of 50,000 people by Tuoba Siji. After Hou Yong showed his head and completed the task, he quickly returned to the north to Fengzhou, and the sixth and second battalions entered Xiazhou and began to advance towards Youzhou.

Such a large-scale advance not only shook Guanzhong and Xiazhou, but also Li Keyong and Zhu Quanzhong, who were fighting fiercely near Luzhou in the Central Plains. What kind of goods Yang Fugong is, these two are very clear, if Li Xuanqing is allowed to advance so wildly, in less than a month, the Guanzhong region will be captured by this young Tiance general. Coincidentally, for the first time, the two faced the young junior and regarded him as an equal opponent.

However, the current situation of the two of them is not to meddle in the affairs of Guanzhong, so the two sides who were supposed to continue the war have a strange truce. Even Li Keyong, who was so ambitious, nodded in agreement after seeing the envoy sent by Zhu Quanzhong say that he would temporarily truce for a few days, and in order to show that he had no intention of sneaking attack, he even took the initiative to let the cavalry retreat for ten miles.

However, at this time, Xu Tianxiang, who was in charge of the battle in Guanzhong, did not have time to consider the actions of the two of them, he was still in command in Yanzhou, but the battle situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and the change was too fast beyond his expectations. Therefore, after hastily arranging for the third cluster to rush south, they rushed to Gyeongju to join Yang Tiancheng.

"Second brother, does the lord have the latest instructions?" In Gyeongju City, because of Yang Tiancheng's strong suppression of the Shence officers and soldiers, the common people saw a glimmer of new hope, and then the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which came to take over the government affairs, began to rectify the second cluster under his command.

Xu Tianxiang shook his head and said: "The lord said that he has already set the general direction of the war in Guanzhong, and if there is no other force involved, the lord will not interfere in the command of the front line." After a pause, he continued: "But I feel that if we are in such a hurry, it will definitely cause a chain reaction of other forces, so we must take advantage of this gap to seize the time." ”

"Does the second brother mean to take Ningzhou or Linzhou?" Yang Tiancheng pointed to the location of Ningzhou and Wuding on the map and said with a little surprise: "It's just that at present, the two roads of Houchun and I have penetrated hundreds of miles into the pass, and the troops have almost been exerted to the extreme, will the battle line be lengthened if we attack again at this time?" ”

Xu Tianxiang pointed to the location of Wuding and said: "Linzhou is located between Gyeongju and Ningzhou, the terrain is slightly east, and it is at the corner of Yanzhou. We can look at a stronghold that we are fighting for with the Shence Army in the next stage, and we have to stabilize the northern defense line before the opponent's reinforcements arrive, so that we can free up our hands to defeat Li Maozhen and Yang Shouliang's reinforcements, and then occupy Guanzhong as a whole. Li Maozhen is now shrinking in Jingzhou, Longzhou and Pizhou, just waiting for Yang Shouliang or Wang Jian's reinforcements, as long as the reinforcements arrive, we must have a tough battle with them near Pizhou, so it is important to stabilize the north in advance. ”

Yang Tiancheng nodded and said with a smile: "It seems that the second brother has really made great progress during this time, and the changes in the situation on the battlefield are more comprehensive than we can see." Tiancheng is served, second brother, you will order, Tiancheng guarantees to carry out the task. ”

"You immediately mobilize the eighth battalion to attack Linzhou, I have already passed the book to the pigeons, and he will dispatch the third battalion to attack Linzhou with you. After taking Inju, the 8th Battalion will be responsible for the defense, Yeonju Houchun will stay in Chaejia for defense, and the 3rd Battalion will come to Gyeongju to join you. Xu Tianxiang's arrangement made Yang Tiancheng a little puzzled, but after suddenly sweeping the territory of next week, he suddenly realized that he was a little risky: "Second brother, are you a little risky?" It's impossible for Youzhou to succeed that guy with Tuoba Siji? Besides, will your eldest brother's second and sixth battalions going south cause the Toyosu defense line to be empty? ”

"No, there will be no problem with the defense line in Fengzhou, as the lord told me before leaving, there are Chen Fan and Baoliang in Fengzhou, plus Hou Yong, with Li Cunxin in the east, it is estimated that it is a question of whether the front set of grasslands can be kept, and the lord still has a backhand, rest assured." As for Youzhou, it was originally just consumption, and besides, Xiaosi dug a big hole there, and whoever jumped in it would never be able to get out again. Xu Tianxiang winked at Yang Tiancheng and said with a smile.

The two of them have decided to act, and immediately start to act, Chai Jia's ninth battalion quickly pulled out, rushing towards Linzhou, on the way happened to meet the Bao army towards Ningzhou, and was broken up by Chai Jia after chasing dozens of miles, killing this army and then approaching the city of Linzhou. The third battalion of the Tiance Army, which came from the north, was under the personal command of Wang Houchun, but it rushed to Linzhou earlier. Under the guidance of Xuan Yingwei, the merchants in the city bribed the generals who defended the city to open the city gate, and lost Linzhou overnight.

The three cities were taken in a row in just a dozen days, and these feudal towns located in Guanzhong once again felt the severity of this cold snap from the northwest, which also prompted these large and small feudal towns to join forces to deal with the Tiance army for the first time. A decisive battle that would determine the fate of Guanzhong began to brew at the top of both sides.