Wen Huanzhang and Gao Yu saw that there were wax pills again, so they hurriedly opened them to see, and at a glance, both of them were dripping with sweat. It turned out that the above Sanniang said that Wen Huanzhang and Gao Yu could see this wax pill, indicating that the two were loyal ministers and humerus, and they could be entrusted with important tasks, so they taught the two to assist Lou Minzhong in handling various official affairs in Kaifeng, and stabilize the situation in Kaifeng as soon as possible, so that after the army defeated the Jin people, the new monarch could return to the capital as soon as possible.

Lou Minzhong saw that the faces of the two of them changed greatly, and said with a slight smile: "Between the two of them, they are not only saving themselves but also helping their own officials, to be honest, there are no less than one million soldiers and civilians in Kaifeng Mansion, and they have already withered under the previous raids by the government and the Jinren. Now it just so happens that the two are willing to hand over all the connections of Cai Jing and the party, it can be said that the two of them have no selfishness and are worthy of the important task entrusted by the lord. ”

Wen Huanzhang and Gao Yu are both secretly dangerous, if they refuse to hand over the connections of Cai Jing and his party, and hold them into self-respect, maybe they have been questioned by Lou Minzhong for colluding with the Jin people and harming the people, Kaifeng is now in this situation, Lou Minzhong casually refers to a person collaborating with the enemy, and the people will never distinguish between black and white, as long as they are officials, the people of Kaifeng now hate it.

The two thanked each other at the moment, and then discussed government affairs. Lou Minzhong said: "Now Kaifeng is most short of money and grain, and there is also a shortage of firewood, oil and salt, and when I came, I had hoarded a large amount of money and grain, firewood, coal, oil and salt in Dongwu County, and it needed to be transported into the city as soon as possible." "Kaifeng has millions of soldiers and civilians, and everything in the city is needed, and the firewood is brought in from outside the city. The Jin soldiers besieged the city for more than two months, cutting off the access to the inside and outside of the city, the firewood in the city has already been consumed, the trees in the city have been cut down by the people, soldiers and civilians to make fires for cooking, heating and lighting, and even many people have burned the door panels to keep warm, because the city is in urgent need of firewood.

In ancient times, firewood for heating all relied on firewood, coal, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, which was the first of the seven things needed for the livelihood of the people, which was very reasonable, whether it was cooking or heating, and even a pot of hot water needed firewood, so firewood was the first place. And Kaifeng such a big city, the population is large, and the city does not produce firewood, oil, salt, rice and grain, everything depends on the Bianhe River water transportation supply, so once the supply is cut off, it will suddenly return to the point of mushroom hair drinking blood, and the city will be finished sooner or later.

Gao Yu heard this: "If it is usual, you can take the Ximen Canal along the waterway and transport everything you need into the city, which saves time and animal power than taking the land route, but now the outside of the West Gate is still occupied by the Jin people, and it is only difficult to transfer." ”

Lou Minzhong said with a smile: "There is no need to worry about this matter, last night we have already taken the four walls of Kaifeng, the lord and his father-in-law led the army, and has taken a detour to the west of Kaifeng Zhongmu, presumably at this moment has captured Zhongmu, the Jin people heard that the back road was cut off, and they will go all out to the west, intending to open up the passage to the north, and Kaifeng here, sooner or later the siege will be lifted, not to mention that our army and the navy will definitely start to open up the waterway today." In that case, let's arrange to transport everything by water into the city. ”

Wen Huanzhang said: "Now Kaifeng City military and civilian millions, the need for things are astronomical amounts, the lower officials think, long-term relief is not the way, when the work for relief, call on the army and the people to repair the city roads, four city walls, tidy up the palace, wait for the Jin soldiers to retreat, as soon as possible to resume industry and commerce, the city can also restore a variety of workshops, for the army to make a need for clothing, weapons, tents and other things. ”

Lou Min bowed his head and said: "Wen Shumi is really talented, since this is the case, he appointed Gao Taiwei to be responsible for liaising with Dongwu County to transport money, grain, firewood, oil, and rice into the city, and Wen Shumi is responsible for appeasing the people and handling the matter of work for relief." I took charge of Kaifeng's defense, and also maintained law and order in the city, restored everything needed in the palace, and wanted to deal with the enemy and the civilian officials. After discussing at the moment, the three of them went their separate ways.

Lou Minzhong is managing government affairs in Kaifeng City, but outside the city, fierce battles are in full swing. After the dawn, Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang waved their troops to the north of the city to set up a formation and invited the Song army to fight. When Lu Junyi heard the report, he didn't pay attention to it, and only ordered all the troops and horses under his command to strengthen the trench in Beiying to hold on.

After Zong Wang and Zong Han lined up, they didn't see the Song army arranging a confrontation, but just guarded the camp. Zong Wang was furious when he saw it in front of the battle, and ordered several of his generals to attack the northern camp of the Song army. But after attacking all morning, the Song army relied on firearms and crossbows in the camp to fight the retreaters.

In the past, if the Song army encountered a strong moat or camp so arranged, the Jin army was surrounded but not attacked, cutting off its grain route, waiting for the Song army to break itself, but now the Song army has connected the camp to Kaifeng City, the back city is lined up, and there is the Kaifeng moat for the waterway transshipment, and the Jin people cannot cut off their grain route at all.

The Song army's divine arm crossbow, yellow birch bow, bed crossbow, etc. were defensive weapons, and the Jin people had no way to storm the densely defended camp of the Song army, and the Shandong Song army had sharp rockets, artillery, grenades and other weapons, and it was even more difficult to break through the camp.

Therefore, after a morning of fighting, the Jin people left more than 2,000 corpses and gained nothing, and the Song army still did not come out of the camp. At noon, Zong Wang was even more annoyed, so he wanted to let the rest of the Liao troops be used as cannon fodder, and took turns to attack the Song army camp, but was stopped by Zong Han.

Before that, Zong Han had already blocked Zong Wang once. At dawn, when he heard that Guo Yaoshi's troops in the city had rebelled, Zong Wang was already angry, and even ordered to kill all the original Liao troops in the rest of the Jin army, but was stopped by Zong Han. Zong Han said: "The rebel is the Han army under the command of Guo Yaoshi, and the rest of the Khitan army and horses have no intention of rebellion. At this moment, it is the best policy to stabilize the morale of the army first and retreat the Song army. All the headquarters of the Liao army were incorporated into our Jurchen army, and they could seize the military power of a few important Liao generals. ”

Zong Wang listened to Zong Han's words, so he didn't have the stupid act of cutting off his arm in anger. At this time, Zong Han stopped Zong Wang again, and said in a deep voice: "The Song army is weird, you can't attack again, that Liangshan female thief is scheming, and she is ruthless with her soldiers, and she will never just hold the camp like this." ”

Zong Wang pointed to the Song army camp and said: "The female thief banner is there, if you can break through the Song army camp and capture the female thief in one go, the Song army will collapse without a fight." "It turned out that although Sanniang divided his troops and made a detour, he ordered Lu Junyi to still raise his own banner to deceive the Jin people.

Hearing this, Zong Han suddenly thought of something, and hurriedly said: "It's not good, our army is in danger, and we have fallen for this female thief's plan to attack the west!" Zong Wang hurriedly asked, "What's the sound?" ”

Zong Han hurriedly ordered someone to unfold the map and said: "Our army was attacked by the Song army last night to break through the east camp and the north camp, and was broken through the four walls of Kaifeng by the Song army. But now the army and horses are just sticking to the camp and have no intention of taking the initiative to attack, presumably the female thief divided the troops. The female thief used her soldiers viciously, and if she divided her troops, the most likely thing would be to detour to Kaifeng and go directly to the west. Guo Yaoshi, the thief, rebelled, and the female thief must have known that our army was only less than 5,000 men and horses stationed in Zhongmu, and if the female thief had set off yesterday and advanced rapidly in a day and night, Zhongmu would have been in danger. If the female thief captures Zhongmu, she will be stuck on the road that our army must pass through to retreat westward, and our army will be in danger. ”

Zong Wang also knew the danger when he looked at the map, at this time, only to hear the opposite Song army camp, three horns sounded, followed by the sound of war drums, the camp gate opened, the Song army divided the way out of the camp, until the afternoon, the Song army actually out of the camp array, ready to meet the Jin army.

Seeing the posture of the Song army, Zong Han secretly said that it was not good, and hurriedly said: "Not good, the Song army must have learned that the female thief had successfully divided the troops, and it had cut off the back road of our army, and our army was in a stalemate here for a morning, which was the time when people were sleepy and tired, so they sent troops to fight at this time." He waited for work there, the soldiers were all well fed, and our army was not exhausted in the morning, so it must be dangerous, so it was better to collect the troops and return to the camp first, find out the news of Zhongmu, and then make plans. ”

After the next two were agreed, they left one army behind, and led the horses back to the camp in a hurry. Sure enough, the bad news came one after another, first of all, the sentinels sent out by the south of the city fled back to more than ten horses, it turned out that last night the Song army divided the troops to detour westward, and the sentinel horses in the south of the city were chased and killed by the Song army's horse exploration team, and they fought all night, and only more than ten horsemen were able to get out before returning to the camp to report.

Zong Wang was shocked when he heard this, and hurriedly asked, "How much is the military horse of this department?" Those sentinels said: "Last night the moon was bright, the Song army died down, and did not raise fire, but when I heard the sound of people and horses, I am afraid that there are no less than 20,000 or 30,000 people, but I can't see clearly in the night, and then I was chased and killed by the Song army. ”

Zong Wang rubbed his hands again and again when he heard this, and at this moment, he only listened to reports from outside the account, and another Zhongmu defeated army came back. Zong Wang hurriedly ordered someone to bring it in, and sure enough, he saw that Zhongmu Shou General lost his armor and took off his armor, and he was embarrassed, staggering into the account, so he buckled his head and said in a hurry: "Qiyu Marshal, when the Song army was bright this morning, it suddenly attacked and attacked Zhongmu, and the last general and others rushed to the battle, most of them died in battle, and the last general only came back with dozens of horsemen to fight out of the encirclement and report that Zhongmu has fallen into the hands of the Song army!" ”

Hearing that Zong Wang almost fainted, he hurriedly supported him left and right, Zong Wang settled down, and was furious, pointing at the defeated general, and scolded: "You have 5,000 military horses under your command, and now that Zhongmu has fallen, you still have the face to flee back?!" Someone came, pushed him out and beheaded, and ordered the three armies at the first level! ”

Soon the Zhongmu guard general was dragged down and beheaded, the guard general was also a warrior of the Jin country, and he also knew that the Jin army had strict laws, and defeat was a capital crime, and he had nothing to say, so he held his head high and died.

After the execution of the guard, Zong Wang hurriedly said to Zong Han: "Now the situation is critical, why don't you and I divide our troops, one of us will stay here to resist the Song army, and the other will lead the army and horses to rush back to Zhongmu and recapture Zhongmu, so that there can be a glimmer of life!" ”

Zong Han slowly bowed his head and said: "Okay, I will defend myself here, and the commander can hurry up his troops and horses to rush to Zhongmu!" ”

After the two agreed, Zong Han led 50,000 gold troops to defend the west camp, and Zong Han took the remaining more than 100,000 and tens of thousands of people and hard labor, and rushed to Zhongmu.