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Shen Ruoxiao's arrow wound recovered quickly. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 At first, the medical officer Jung Won-tae thought that he would inevitably have a high fever and was in a coma for several days, and he had already told Tie Hyun to make all kinds of preparations. Unexpectedly, the wounded would soon be able to go to the ground, which made him even wonder if Shen Ruoliao's heart was growing in the right place.

It was the end of summer, and the water of the Daqing River was rising rapidly; Throughout June, there was a sea outside the city of Jinan. Although under the supervision and inspection of Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong day and night, none of the four city walls leaked, and with the growth of time, the groundwater of the entire Jinan was affected; There is no living water in Daming Lake, and algae begin to multiply in large quantities, and there are peculiar smells on the lake; And the springs in all parts of the city, and the wells of the people, were no longer clear, and became dirty.

Shen Ruoyu recuperated from his injuries for half a month, and he was completely free to move. Tie Xuan did not agree with him to return to the city wall, and he must be watched by Tie Liu and not allowed to leave the palace.

Three days later, Shen Ruoyu couldn't stand it anymore, and finally saw the opportunity, taking advantage of Tieliu's inattention, ran out of the mansion, and ran to the western city wall like a desert. Tie Hyun was taken aback when he saw him:

"What did you do to my daughter again??"

Shen Ruoyu was so frightened that he shook his head again and again: "No, no, I swear to God!" I just slipped out while she wasn't looking. Brother Keystone, don't think about it, I don't dare to do anything to Miss Liu. ”

Tie Xuan breathed a sigh of relief: "Then you shouldn't either." Your injuries haven't healed yet, why can't you stay idle? ”

Shen Ruoyu said: "My injuries have long been healed. If I stay with the government any longer, I will get sick. I'll come over and see if I can help. ”

Tie Xuan said, "There is nothing to do with this wall of yours so far, and there is nothing you can help with." ”

"However, it's not a problem to keep going on like this. To be honest, I can smell Daming Lake here. The water from the wells in the whole city is no longer drinkable. In this way, if we do not drown, we will surely die of thirst. ”

"What can you do? Open the gates and surrender? Tie Hyun asked rhetorically.

Shen Ruoxiao's face turned red: "I...... I didn't think about it...... I don't have any ideas......"

Tie Xuan said, "The water level outside the city will go down soon." Don't worry, let's hold on for two more days, and we'll get out. ”

Shen Ruoyu said: "But in July, the river will rise even more." I'm afraid that the water level will not go down until the beginning of August. When the water level slowly went down, the people of the whole city were already dying of thirst. ”

Tie Hyun looked at him and asked, "Are you sure your injuries are healed?" ”

Shen Ruoyu was stunned: "Brother Dingshi, I don't have any problems." Say whatever you need me to do. ”

Tie Xuan smiled slightly and said, "You were wounded by an arrow, and King Yan was also wounded by an arrow." In my opinion, King Yan's injuries are nowhere near as serious as yours. Now, since you are already well, King Yan's injuries must also be healed. With my understanding of King Yan, he is now bent on revenge, and he can't wait to set foot on Jinan City immediately, so that he will not honestly sit on the other side of the Daqing River and wait calmly for two months to wait for the water level to fall. Before the end of the month, he will definitely seal the river again, and then lead his troops back to the city. In his opinion, flooding for a whole month will definitely make us miserable, and let us taste the best, which is enough for him. In contrast, it was the cannon that relieved him more. What do you think? ”

Shen Ruoyu pondered for a moment. "By the end of the month -- it wasn't long. It's just that I don't know how many days the people can hold out. ”

Tie Xuan said: "You go and tell Xianning that he should write a notice immediately, and from now on, no matter the well water, the spring water must be precipitated and filtered before it can be boiled before drinking." In addition, in case of rain, every household in the city must receive rainwater together, and then use the same method to filter and disinfect before it can be used. ”

Shen Ruoyu said: "Yes; - Well, Brother Dingshi, in case King Yan really makes up his mind to kill us with thirst and does not take any measures to seal the river,-"

Tie Hyun glanced at him and was silent for a long time.

"That's it—" He opened slowly, then stopped. After a while, Shen Ruoyu heard a heavy sigh.

"It's really that point," said the Shandong political officer in a low voice, "We have no other choice, what do you say?" ”

"What do you mean—"

"What do you mean?" Tie Hyun looked straight at him, his eyes full of anticipation. "In your opinion, what do you think we should do when it comes to that point?"

Shen Ruoyu hesitated. "I ......," he said.

"You don't dare to say it?" Tie Hyun smiled faintly. "What else do you have to say in front of me? What other evil things have you not done, what corruption have I not seen? ”

"Lord Tie," Shen Ruoyu's face flushed, "don't say that. What would you think if I were to say that I was going to tie you up and dedicate you to King Yan with Jinan City? ”

"Why, isn't that what you intended?" Tie Xuan smiled, "I handcuffed you to the prisoner car and let you eat an arrow, isn't it normal for you to treat others in the way of others." ”

Shen Ruoxiao smiled helplessly: "Brother Dingshi, when is it, you still have the heart to joke." In other words, Mr. Fang, I am definitely not as interested as you. Yes, honestly, I really did intend to do so. I'm not going to tie you up; However, if it really comes to that point, I will dedicate Jinan City to King Yan. ”

To his surprise, Cheolhyun smiled gently. Shen Ruoyu raised his head and was surprised to see Tie Dingshi's slightly relieved gaze.

"Lord Iron? ……”

Tiehyun reached over and patted him on the shoulder.

"I know what you're thinking," he said softly, "'The people are precious, the community is secondary, and the king is light,' right? Emperor Gao hated this sentence, so he hated Mencius. You're afraid I'll hate that too. If you are not emperors, we are just ordinary scholars, just ordinary readers, like Mencius. Classics can be deleted, books can be burned; However, after 2,000 years, all dynasties and dynasties have not escaped this lesson. If it really comes to that point, I don't need you to worry about it, I, Tie Xuan, will obediently wave the white flag of Xiancheng, and even kneel down to King Yan, begging him to let the people of Jinan live. As for me, I really want to be cast into an iron statue like Qin Hui by the people of Jinan, and I have nothing to complain about from now on. ”

Shen Ruoliao was frightened: "Brother Dingshi...... Don't say that, and don't think so. The people of Jinan know you best, they won't be so stupid, because you were willing to suffer humiliation and save their lives, but they treated you as Qin Hui. ”

Tie Xuan said: "I'm afraid that when the time comes, you won't think like this." I'm afraid that at that time, even Fang Xizhi will regret that he saw the wrong person, and he wants to scold me as the head of the traitorous ministers of the Ming Dynasty, which is comparable to Hu Weiyong. ”

Shen Ruoliao said: "Brother Keystone, I only know three things. First thing, no matter what you do, I don't think so; The second thing, no matter what you do, Mr. Fang will not think so. And the third thing is that Liu'er is like us, she will trust you unconditionally, as always. ”

Tiehyun smiled slightly gratefully. "I only know one thing, and that's this: we don't have to worry about it at all. King Yan must not be able to sit still. Otherwise, after the flood, there will be only one dead city left in Jinan, and he will be greeted by the foul-smelling Daming Lake, and the mountains of rotting corpses piled up by the lake, including yours, mine, General Sheng's, all those he is bent on seeking revenge. Will all this be what he wants? Just wait and see. By this time, it was better than who held out longer. ”

As it turned out, Tie Hyun was right. I don't know if God favors the dangerous city of Jinan and can't bear to see the people suffer, or history favors Tie Xuan and can't bear to tarnish his eternal reputation, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, finally ordered the Yan army to close the river on the penultimate day of June, and be sure to plug the gap in the river embankment as quickly as possible.

It is easy to dig a river, but it is difficult to close it, especially during the wet season in late summer and early autumn. The Yan army had only dug a one-mile-long gap before, but after a month's impact of the flood, it had expanded to more than ten miles. More than 100,000 soldiers of the Yan Army used the fastest speed and spent a full seven days and seven nights to finally seal the rushing Daqing River again. During this time, many more soldiers were swept away by the powerful and relentless flood, or because of excessive fatigue, and became part of the newly built embankment permanently.

The embankment was repaired, but it took three days for the flood that raged outside Jinan to wash away, exposing the original land. Looking from the city wall, the place was yellow, muddy, ruined, and devastated.

The Yan army waited patiently for two more days, and only then did he return to the city of Jinan after the mud within a radius of dozens of miles was baked and hardened under the dry scorching sun in the north.

What Zhu Di never expected was that when the hundreds of thousands of Yan troops had just stopped and were still busy camping, suddenly Sheng Yong's team of about 10,000 Southern Army cavalry fell from the sky, slashed their heads and covered their faces, and instantly rushed the hundreds of thousands of Yan troops who were caught off guard. Then while the panicked Yan army has not yet reacted, and quickly evacuated, and when the king of Yan led his troops to catch up, the raiding southern army had already withdrawn to the city of Jinan, the city gate was closed as before, the city wall was solid and intact, the defenders were in good spirits, and they were ready to fight, and it was completely unimaginable that this lonely city had just been flooded for a month. Tie Xuan still stood gracefully on top of the city tower, smiling and looking down at King Yan, who was almost angry, and said loudly Thank you Your Highness for giving Jinan a month's rest; Your Highness, don't come unharmed, the arrow wound has already healed?

Sheng Yong took the risk of taking nearly half of the defenders out of the city to attack the Yan army, and gained a lot, not only because he greatly frustrated the Yan army's spirit before it attacked. At the moment of the short sneak attack, Sheng Yong had already detected that the arrival of more than 100,000 Yan troops was not trivial; With the army came about dozens of heavy and bulky artillery.

These dozens of cannons were specially transferred from Texas by order of King Yan, and in terms of size and firepower, they were far more powerful than the siege guns used by the Yan army before.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, had not yet opened his bow with a revenge arrow, and his spirit had been frustrated, and this time he didn't want to be wordy with Jinan City, so he immediately ordered the army to immediately line up all the artillery under the four city walls, and immediately began to attack the city, but instead of a single soldier, he continuously bombarded the four city walls with powerful firepower; For a while, the cloudless and sunny sky was obscured by billowing smoke, and within a radius of a hundred miles, it seemed that only the incessant sound of cannons and the ground under their feet trembled violently, and everyone inside and outside the city walls was soon deaf.

There are basically no people standing on the city walls. The sky shook, and the rubble flew sideways. The battlements of the women's wall gradually loosened under the continuous destruction of the powerful artillery fire, and many of them collapsed and shattered into a pile of rubble. Everyone began to worry, and King Yan made up his mind to change the siege tactics this time, and at all costs to let the cannon replace the flesh-and-blood Yan soldiers, apparently prepared sufficient ammunition for this. Dezhou was originally a military storage place for the Southern Army, not only with millions of stone of grain, but also enough weapons, military clothing and gunpowder for the imperial court to be used by a million troops for ten consecutive years. When Li Jinglong retreated south in a hurry, it was impossible to take away so much baggage, the general hesitated again and again, thinking that such a huge reserve was after all from the hard work of the common people, and he couldn't bear to destroy the heavenly things, so he finally rejected the proposal of his subordinates to burn them down; This benevolence from conscience is in line with the personality of his cousin Emperor Jianwen, but on the battlefield, it has become a laughing stock for future generations. In this way, the imperial army gave the reserves that they had worked hard to manage for several years to the Yan army.

At the moment, Tie Xuan, Shen Ruoliao and Sheng Yong, including all the soldiers defending the city, and even all the people of Jinan, are hiding under the tall and heavy city walls with their heads in their hands, while constantly cursing Li Jinglong in their hearts for bad things, and the good gunpowder has not yet taken the turn to destroy the enemy army on the battlefield, and in turn it has been used on their heads. No one even dared to say for sure that the city walls of Jinan were still safe, whether they could withstand the irrational firepower of the Yan army, and how long they could hold on. Even the earth was about to crack open, and the bricks and stones shattered by the artillery fire kept rolling down, as if in the blink of an eye, the entire city wall would completely collapse.

I was looking forward to the sunset, and the sky slowly darkened. Night falls; King Yan still had no intention of ceasefire. The artillery around the siege was still roaring hoarsely and thundering, and the flames were blazing into the sky until late at night.

In the wee hours of the morning, the artillery fire finally stopped. Tie Hyun returned to the mansion with a dusty face, looking at the others who were also dusty, his face grim and gloomy.

"We have to find a way. If this continues, the walls will surely collapse. ”

Without the roar of artillery fire, the air was incredibly quiet, so quiet that it made people panic. All were exhausted by shock and fatigue, and no one spoke at the moment; Everyone only felt physically and mentally exhausted, and their minds were blank with despair.

Tie Hyun waited for a moment, but could not answer. He didn't even have an idea in his own mind. He sighed and said:

"Forget it; Two hours before dawn. Everyone hurried to take a break, and soon the cannon fire was going to rise again. When the time comes, I want to sleep, but I can't sleep. If you still sleep with me. Let's go. ”

With that, Lord Tie got up and left the table, and returned to his room first.