Although there were many difficulties and dangers, Wu Jianying still decided to fight, and after arranging all the matters for the army's preparation for war on the morning of the next day, Wu Jianying randomly found an excuse to call several middle-level and grass-roots generals who had been optimistic about him to the back hall, and let his henchmen and soldiers watch the front and rear doors and windows, and officially had a secret showdown with these subordinates who had received his favor.

There was still a cannon sound coming from the dragon's neck, and Wu Jianying also started with this as a topic, and said in a low voice: "Brothers, do you hear it, the cannon sound on the dragon's neck has not been broken since yesterday, and it looks like the enemy is going to enter the city from the dragon's neck." But I can tell you clearly, the dragon's neck side is a feint, and our Shence Gate side is the main battlefield! Within three or two days, we will be under fire, a sea of corpses and blood, whether we can survive this hurdle and continue to live, no one can say! ”

"Shi Tianan, how do you know?" Several middle-level and low-level generals asked in surprise.

"Call me Brother Wu." Wu Jianying corrected the name of his subordinates to himself, and said in a low voice: "Not only do I know about this, but he also knows about King Zhong, so he forced us to stand on the wall of Shence Gate, and asked his godson Li Rongfa to be stationed in Liuxiang with the army, just to force us to fight to the end with the enemies outside the city, and use our blood to dye his reputation of loyalty to the king for thousands of years." ”

Several middle-level and grass-roots generals were dumbfounded, looking at Wu Jianying's suspicion, Wu Jianying understood their thoughts, and said: "A few brothers, I know that you don't believe it, and I also know that you will think that King Zhong is not that kind of person, but don't forget, Fu Zhenggang and Brother Fu's army is trapped on Jiuhuan Continent, has Li Xiucheng been in charge?" These days, we have lost a series of battles and died, and so many brothers have died, has Li Xiucheng taken care of it again? The demon army is powerful, and everyone knows that Tianjing City will definitely not be able to hold it, but Li Xiucheng still wants to force us to enter the city, has he considered our life or death? You say, when the demon soldiers come to fight the Shence Gate, will Li Xiucheng force us to fight the demon soldiers to the death, but we will leave a way to live? ”

After the successive defeats, the morale of the Taiping Army has already fallen to the bottom, and the confidence in victory has been completely lost, and the middle-level and grass-roots generals who are favored by Wu Jianying are of course no exception, so after listening to Wu Jianying's demagogic words, several Taiping Army generals present all nodded slightly, full of despair about the future and fate. Wu Jianying observed his words and took the opportunity to say: "Brothers, do you want to die or live?" ”

"Brother Wu, they were all raised by their parents, who would want to die?" A division commander replied with a wry smile, and said: "But what can I do if I don't want to die, who dares to disobey the military order of King Zhong's Chitose?" If you resist, you still have to die? ”

"As long as you don't want to die, there is a way to live!" Wu Jianying's voice was full of cruelty, and he said in a deep voice: "As long as you listen to me, follow me, I will keep you alive!" I also guarantee that you will make a fortune, and you will enjoy prosperity and wealth in the future! ”

Wu Jianying said it to this point, and several grassroots generals in the Taiping Army of course vaguely guessed what Wu Jianying meant, and after hesitating for a while, a brigade commander named Wang Zhaoqiang said in a low voice: "Brother Wu, when I was in Huzhou, you saved my life on the battlefield, and my life is equivalent to what you gave, what do you say, I will do it!" I'll go with you! ”

"Very good, Brother Wang, I will never be able to treat you badly in the future!" Wu Jianying nodded in satisfaction, turned to the other generals present, and asked in a low voice, "How are you doing?" Would you like to come with me? ”

The rest of the generals were a little hesitant, Wu Jianying asked the soldiers in the room to bring a package, opened it to reveal some gold and silver ingots, and said in a low voice: "Brothers, this is all my savings, whether you want to go with me or not, you all take it and divide it, and then those who are willing to go with me will listen to my orders, and I will guarantee that you can get more in the future!" If you don't want to go with me, you can leave now, but I ask you to do one thing, and don't let anyone else know. ”

Not only coveting the reward given by Wu Jianying and the more gold and silver that he may get in the future, but also really despairing and greedy for life and fear of death in the current battle situation, several middle and grassroots level nodded one after another, and opened their mouths to express their willingness to follow Wu Jianying forever. Wu Jianying was overjoyed, when he made a bloody alliance with several subordinates, swore that he would never treat these loyal subordinates badly in the future, and then ordered a few generals to go down to prepare secretly, control the army and obey his dispatch at any time, and several generals agreed, and they also swore that they would never betray and follow Wu Jianying to the death.

In this way, after the success of the risky showdown, Wu Jianying finally had a barely reliable armed force in his hands, although the strength was not much, but it was enough to deal with Xu Lianfang's army who controlled the key to the Shence Gate, so Wu Jianying quickly made up his mind again, and decided to set fire to the powder magazine of the self-army when the Wu army launched a sneak attack, weakening the unstable force in his army, and at the same time risking a raid on the Shence Gate, and striving to kill Xu Lianfang and open the Shence Gate directly!

In addition, Wu Jianying also prepared a backup plan, preparing that once the plan to directly open the city gate failed, he would take an army loyal to him to control a section of the city wall to cover and receive Wu's army to enter the city! In this way, even if the Wu army's sneak attack failed, Wu Jianying himself would have a chance to escape.

After calming down a little, in order not to arouse the vigilance of Li Xiucheng and other friendly troops, Wu Jianying did not dare to contact outsiders in addition to working hard to prepare for war, hiding in the camp of the Chinese army just patiently waiting for dark, and planned to send a messenger out of the city to contact Wu Chaoyue at night, and agree with Wu Jun on a specific time to do it, and then act conveniently. However, to Wu Jianying's surprise, he finally stayed up until the evening, but Chen Defeng, the supervising army, suddenly sent someone to invite Wu Jianying to come over for a talk, saying that he wanted to discuss with Wu Jianying about restricting military discipline.

It was not early, and there was still something important to do in the evening, Wu Jianying of course politely declined Chen Defeng's invitation, but what made Wu Jianying even more surprised was that he had just sent away Chen Defeng's envoy. Fang Youcai, the right-hand deputy, even sent someone to visit, saying that he wanted to discuss with Wu Jianying about military affairs, and wanted to invite Wu Jianying to come to the camp to talk.

As mentioned above, when Wu Jianying lost power and was down, he temporarily lived in Fang Youcai's army, and Fang Youcai not only treated Wu Jianying quite well at that time, but also allowed Wu Jianying to enter and leave his camp defense area, which gave Wu Jianying the opportunity to inadvertently meet Li Xiucheng and Li Shuxiang to make a comeback. So after receiving Fang Youcai's invitation, Wu Jianying almost opened his mouth to agree, but when the words came to his lips, Wu Jianying suddenly remembered that he was going to send someone out of the city to contact Wu Chaoyue, hesitated for a moment and changed his words, and said: "Go back and tell Fang Tianyan, just say that it is getting late, I will go to the city wall to inspect the night defense, and I will talk about it tomorrow." ”

"Shi Tianan, we said that Fang Tianyan is in a hurry, and it is inconvenient for him to come over, so please be sure to come over." On behalf of Fang Youcai, he came to invite Wu Jianying's personal soldiers, and said with a smile: "Also, our Fang Tianyan also said that he knows Shi Tian'an, you like hometown food, and he happened to get a few stinky mandarin fish, and I want you to go over and share them together." ”

After fighting in Jiangsu and Zhejiang for many years, Wu Jianying, a native of Anhui, has not tasted the famous dish of his hometown stinky mandarin fish for a long time, and after listening to Fang Youcai's words, he couldn't help but swallow his saliva directly, but fortunately, Wu Jianying also knew what was light and heavy, and after swallowing a mouthful of slander, he said: "Tell Fang Tianyan that I have understood his kindness first, but I really can't get rid of it." Well, the stinky mandarin fish can stay overnight anyway, and I'll go and taste it with him tomorrow. ”

Seeing that Wu Jianying resolutely refused to accept the invitation, Fang Youcai's personal soldiers did not dare to insist, so they could only cautiously say goodbye and leave, Wu Jianying also began to arrange a messenger, preparing to personally send him out of the city to contact Wu Chaoyue. But just when Wu Jianying was about to go out, another soldier suddenly came from outside the door to report, saying that the brigade commander Gao Dong asked to see him.

Gao Dong was one of the generals who agreed to participate in Wu Jianying's rebellion plan during the day, and of course he would not refuse to see Wu Jianying, but to Wu Jianying's surprise, Gao Dong first closed the door with his own hands after entering the door, and then said with a panicked face: "Brother Wu, it's not good, Wang Zhaoqiang is gone." ”

"What?!" Wu Jianying's face turned white, and he hurriedly asked, "How do you know?" ”

"I was looking for him just now, and I went to his camp and found him seeing him." Gao Dong said in a panic: "I asked him where he went, and his people told me that he went out of the camp, as if he went in the direction of Liuxiang!" ”

"Willow Lane? Wang Zhaoqiang went to Willow Lane?! Wu Jianying almost collapsed on the ground in fright, his mind was suddenly blank, and he immediately remembered his tragic fate after the matter was revealed.

"I went in the direction of Willow Lane!" Gao Dong nodded vigorously, and said tremblingly: "Brother Wu, Wang Zhaoqiang's dog mongrel shouldn't be going to tell the truth, right?" That dog mongrel has always been two-faced, one on the mouth and one behind the back, if he goes to the snitch, we will be finished! ”

Thinking carefully about Wang Zhaoqiang, who had been saved by himself, Wu Jianying first thought it was impossible, but after thinking about it again, he found that it was not impossible - otherwise Wang Zhaoqiang would not have gone to the direction of Liuxiang where Li Rongfa was stationed for no reason. Therefore, Wu Jianying also quickly made up his mind and instructed Gao Dong: "Brother Gao, quickly, invite all the brothers who formed an alliance today, we must do it as soon as possible, otherwise it will be too late." ”

Gao Dong nodded in agreement, and then asked, "Brother Wu, is the King of Zhennan ready?" If he doesn't send troops to respond, he won't be able to hold out for long just by relying on the men and horses in our hands? ”

Wu Jianying's eyes moved slightly, and he immediately said: "Don't worry, I have already contacted him on the side of King Zhennan, and he will do it tonight, although the time may be a little poor, but as long as we do it, he will do it immediately!" The soldiers and horses of the king of Zhennan are not stupid, and when they see movement in the city, they will not be without action! ”

Believing in Wu Jianying's promise, Gao Dong hurriedly went out to contact the same party, but as soon as Gao Dong left, Wu Jianying immediately grabbed his own personal soldier captain and ordered: "Take three absolutely reliable brothers to the city, go out with a rope, and be sure to send the news to the king of Zhennan as soon as possible, saying that our matter may have been exposed, and ask him to immediately send troops to Shence Gate to respond!" No matter what I do, I will try to open the gates of the city and welcome him into the city! ”

The captain of the pro-soldier led the three absolutely reliable pro-soldiers, Wu Jianying also clasped his hands together, and muttered nervously in his mouth, "God bless, God bless, God Guanyin bless, Wang Zhaoqiang, that dog mongrel, don't go to the snitch!" Don't go to the snitch! ”

…………

It's a pity that prayer is useless, and Wang Zhaoqiang, who quietly left Wu Jianying's army camp, really betrayed, and came to find Wu Jianying's nemesis Li Rongfa to report it. The reason that prompted Wang Zhaoqiang to make the decision to whistleblower is that Wang Zhaoqiang is not optimistic about Wu Jianying's rebellion plan, and is worried that he will die without a place to bury after failure, and second, Wang Zhaoqiang actually does not miss Wu Jianying's original life-saving grace, on the contrary, he also complains about Wu Jianying, who has never reused himself, and feels that after exposing Wu Jianying's treacherous plot, he will definitely get more rewards, which is more profitable than following Wu Jianying to surrender to Wu Jun, so Wang Zhaoqiang decided to take revenge when it was getting dark and denounced his life-saving benefactor Wu Jianying.

"Damn, follow the surrendered demon soldiers surnamed Wu, even if they succeed, the one surnamed Wu will take the lion's head, and Lao Tzu will share some leftovers at most. Betrayed the surname Wu, long live the king of heaven and the king of loyalty, what rewards do they have, they all belong to Lao Tzu alone! Make a fortune first, and talk about it later! ”

Fantasizing about the rich rewards given to him by Hong Xiuquan and Li Xiucheng, Wang Zhaoqiang came to the gate of Li Rongfa's camp very smoothly, and expressed his intention to the Taiping soldiers guarding the gate of Li Rongfa's camp, saying that he found that there were traitors of the Taiping Army who had a large official position secretly communicating with the Wu army, and were ready to launch a mutiny to meet the Wu army in response to the siege of the city, and asked Li Rongfa to meet immediately. Unfortunately, the Taiping soldiers guarding the gate of the camp told Wang Zhaoqiang that Li Rongfa had been ordered to go to the Zhongwang Mansion and would not be able to return for a while.

Fortunately, although Li Rongfa happened not to be in the camp, because it was about the traitors in the city, the soldiers under Li Rongfa's command still invited Wang Zhaoqiang to the camp and asked Wang Zhaoqiang to wait for Li Rongfa's return. At the same time, during this period, General Li Rongfa, who came forward to receive Wang Zhaoqiang, tried to take out the name of the traitor from Wang Zhaoqiang's mouth several times, but Wang Zhaoqiang insisted on waiting until he saw Li Rongfa under the pretext of being afraid of leaking the news-just kidding, if you say the credit, you will definitely be divided, our General Wang Zhaoqiang and Wang are not so stupid!

It's still okay, although he is still dissatisfied with Wang Zhaoqiang's tight-lipped mouth, the general Li Rongfa who came forward to receive him did not force Wang Zhaoqiang to speak immediately, but just asked Wang Zhaoqiang to wait patiently in the room for Li Rongfa's return. Wang Zhaoqiang was also quite calm, and he was so excited that he couldn't bear to wait, but after waiting for more than ten minutes, the door was suddenly pushed open, Wang Zhaoqiang also said that Li Rong had sent it and quickly got up, and before he could see the appearance of the person clearly, he knelt down and said: "The last general, Wang Zhaoqiang, has seen His Royal Highness Zhonger." ”

"General Wang misunderstood, I am not His Royal Highness Zhonger." The one who came in was a middle-aged man with kind eyebrows, and said with a smile: "My name is Song Yongqi, I am a relative of King Zhong's Chitose, and I was named Wang Zong, and now I am helping to manage the money and food in the camp of His Royal Highness Zhong'er." ”

"It turned out to be Song Wangzong." After hearing Song Yongqi's name and knowing that he was Li Xiucheng's brother-in-law, Wang Zhaoqiang hurriedly kowtowed to Song Yongqi again, and said respectfully: "The last general, Wang Zhaoqiang, has seen Song Wangzong." ”

"General Wang, please get up quickly." Song Yongqi very politely picked up Wang Zhaoqiang in person, and said: "General Wang, I heard that you found a traitor of demon soldiers in Tianjing City, who is this traitor, can you tell me?" ”

"It's ......." Wang Zhaoqiang hesitated.

"Afraid I'll rob you of your credit?" Song Yongqi smiled and said: "General Wang, don't worry, there won't be a second person who knows, you told me, I will take you to see Zhongwang Chitose immediately, and ask Zhongwang Chitose to reward you in person." ”

After that, Song Yongqi also patted Wang Zhaoqiang's shoulder, and said with a smile: "I can guarantee that if you report to His Royal Highness Zhonger, he will not take you to see Zhongwang Chitose immediately, he is too busy to have this time, you have to think about this point carefully." ”

Considering that Li Rongfa would definitely give priority to finding a way to kill Wu Jianying after knowing what happened to Wu Jianying, and it was likely that he would not have time to see Li Xiucheng immediately, Wang Zhaoqiang, who was anxious to ask Li Xiucheng for a reward in person, thought about it, and found that it seemed more advantageous to tell Song Yongqi, so he attached it to Song Yongqi's ear and whispered Wu Jianying's name, as well as the names and official positions of several of Wu Jianying's accomplices. Song Yongqi was overjoyed when he heard this, and immediately whispered: "General Wang, please, I will take you to see King Zhongwang Chitose." ”