In April of the seventh year of Taiping, in the territory of Shaanzhou (now Sanmenxia City) south of the Kushan Mountain, in the city of Lingbao.

And like some kind of historical repetition, after many years, Zhang Dekun, the former lord of the Northern Han Dynasty and the king of Shunyi, had to be like Zhang Enxian, the last powerful brother of the Northern Dynasty who died at his hands in the middle of the escape, and began to taste the bitter fruits and sufferings of being in a desperate situation and about to fall.

In fact, all this, since he removed the self-proclaimed king and joined the forces of the western army advancing eastward, he has not been able to get the promised seven states in the west of Hebei and Henan along the Yellow Six Prefectures as scheduled, but has been the vanguard of the Huai army, which has taken the lead in occupying the key points, and has begun to show some bad signs when the lost troops are defeated;

In the end, the result of his mobilization of troops to the south to attack Tongguan this time was that there were no other benefits and practical benefits except for the fictitious title of the head of the eastern marching capital set up by the Xingning Imperial Court, and a little symbolic reinforcement.

On the contrary, after the beginning of the spring of the following year, on the basic Panhe East Road, where he relied for his survival and foothold, he was subjected to a full-scale attack from the forces of the Huai Army in Hebei, and the situation suddenly took a sharp turn and was irreparable;

And it was only at this time that he was a little mad and angry to discover that several key points and strongholds of the Hedong Kongdao in Taihang Bacheng had fallen into the hands of the enemy as early as the early winter of last year, but because no one reported it in the local area or covered up the corresponding news in the struggle for merit.

However, this result also made him a little helpless and sad, obviously his time to dominate the land east of the river is still short and his foundation is still much shallow;

Therefore, under his strong hand and force on weekdays, all kinds of different thoughts and can still be suppressed to maintain a situation where the basic order is smooth; But as soon as he left with his army, there was a lack of sufficient suppressive power, and all kinds of problems and incidents began to be revealed at once with the invasion of foreign enemies.

As a result, after the beginning of spring, the Huai army's several fronts were ready to attack again, and the situation that Hedong Province had to face began to deteriorate, and it was no longer out of control. And he didn't even have time to try to remedy and redeem one or two, and he received a series of bad news and defeats.

First of all, Xinzhou, as the "lock key of northern Jin" and the two towns of Baoxing Army and Ninghua Army, as well as the two towns of Baoxing Army and Ninghua Army, fell one after another because of the invasion of the Huai army by the military capital and the Flying Fox, and the brave soldiers who were responsible for fighting the front station were actually those Pinglu soldiers who surrendered to Huaizhen.

Then Guangyang City, the capital of Shouzhou (now Yangquan, Shanxi), the gateway to the east of Jin, was also broken by the Huai army's partial division that entered Niangzi Pass through Jingcheng, so that the Huai army approached Taiyuan, Mengxian and Shouyang on the edge of the Jinzhong Basin.

The closest road to him is the Huai army that invaded the four prefectures of Shangdang Heights from the Baicheng Valley Road in Xiangzhou in southern Hebei, and has now conquered Luzhou and Zezhou in the south of Shangdang (Jincheng Basin) from south to north, cutting off the access roads to Shaanzhou in the south of Wangwu Mountain; Only the Beishang Party (Changzhi Basin), where Liaozhou and Qinzhou are located, is still resisting.

And the fortresses and fortifications in the mountains that he had carefully built and built at the expense of the people and money had almost no use and obstacles in the face of the Huai army's offensive, and they had already fallen and broken through one after another.

According to the words of the people who escaped, this time the Huai army adopted a new type of firearm with incomparably powerful power, the sound was like thunder and the mountain was split into a rock, and the shape was like powder.

As for those powerful and powerful factions who are entrenched in the localities and are self-reliant, and only undertake military service with limited money and food, they are even more vulnerable in the face of the soldiers of the Huai army; Most of their performances can be described as collapsing or collapsing at the touch of a button.

Of course, there are not a few unusual performances that are remarkable.

For example, Wenjiabao, as the surname of Kaiping, once attacked in groups on the basis of the dangerous mountain, killing and injuring hundreds of people in the rear team of the Huai army, and then the Huai army guided by the local villagers attacked the steep mountain fort and intensively projected it with arson and flammable things, and thousands of men, women and children were burned together;

There is also the Bai clan of Liaoshan County, who made the song in the middle of the city in the name of ****, and the slaves and maids were young and strong, and tried to sneak attack the Huai army that entered the city, but the result was that the whole family died and became extinct;

There is also the defense army fled without a fight to occupy Huguan, and the alliance of eight surnames who were waiting for the young and strong people in the clan, after several days of unsuccessful negotiations with the Huai army, were still lost by the landslide caused by the artillery bombardment brought by the Huai army, and finally the heads that were cut off were almost all over the entire city wall.

However, these are all drop in the bucket and will not help the general trend. As for the Western soldiers and horses who were stationed in Hedong under the pretext of borrowing land for food, and actually harassed and demanded from the localities, it is even more impossible to count on much.

You must know that the soldiers and horses of the headquarters he brought out from Taiyuan Mansion were only 60,000 people, and he had lost nearly 10,000 when he attacked Baiya City, and at the request of the Xingning Imperial Court, he divided his troops to the south to help in the war, and stationed a part of Luonan and Lu south of the river;

However, even the two southbound men and horses also had some kind of problem after a whole winter; Because Zhang Dekun found that as time went by, the reports and communications from the two armies became less and less, and in the end there was only some kind of routine simple contact left.

This also means that his control and influence over the two eastern armies sent out to the east of the river are gradually being weakened and reduced; However, under the disparity of strength within the Western Army, he was powerless to do anything, and he could not even take precautions and act rashly.

Therefore, there are only more than 30,000 soldiers available to him now. Even if you add the nearby Western Army sent to cooperate in the garrison, or the soldiers and horses that are nearby to monitor are only more than 50,000.

But once the supply of money and food in the rear is cut off, it is completely difficult to say how long it will be able to hold out. You must know that under the pressure of the situation, he also had to bear the supply needs of these cooperative western armies.

Not to mention that once the old nest that has just settled down for many years - once the Taiyuan Mansion falls, whether it is those years of government treasury collection that has been owned by the enemy, or those family members who have stayed in the rear are captured by the enemy, it will have a huge impact and impact on the morale and morale of his subordinates.

After all, except for the thousands of old subordinates who followed him into Hedong with light cavalry, most of the soldiers under his command were local people in Hedong; And even these old brothers he brought, most of them married wives and had children in Hedong, and settled down, and there were various fetters and involvements with the locality.

Although he had sent many messengers to the south asking for help, and sent large sums of money to the Xining court, in fact he did not have much hope.

Because, since the situation of the Western Army went south, it began to gradually fall into chaos and out of control; Compared with the Guannai Province, which is ruined into a white land and is completely populated, it is a barren place, whether it is Jiannan Road or Shannan Province, it is rare to have a large population and abundant land.

As a result, after the various routes successively divided their troops and attacked, because of the struggle for their own territory and the places along the way, the Western Army united the troops of different backgrounds and regions, and began to show all kinds of slander, confrontation, and right and wrong.

Even the Generalissimo's Mansion, which is in charge of the actual situation at the front line, is inevitably a little too busy to run and coordinate for a while, let alone let these soldiers who have already gone south put aside their personal ready-made gains, losses and interests, and come to the rescue of him, a newly attached peripheral force, for the sake of the so-called overall situation.

It seemed as if he had run out of options.

That night, as the secret order in the army spread, hundreds of heads suddenly fell to the ground.

(End of chapter)