Liu Shifa's surrender has allowed the strength of Chang Zhenbang's hands to reach six battalions and two brigades, and then this is a good thing and a bad thing, those patchwork Shahe Town brigades can only play some bluff effect, if they really fight, the other party will charge over, and these will fall apart, as for Lin Bao and Liu Shifa's troops, their combat effectiveness is strong, but they are all demoralized, after all, they are all surrendered troops, not to mention that the gang of people in Wenxian County do not approve, even those newly recruited Shahe people also greatly look down on these people. Therefore, there are not a few verbal fights, fortunately, Liu Shifa's strict military discipline did not cause a conflict that went too far, but Lin Bao's people were miserable, and they were not beaten and kicked by the Xingang Army, Lin Bao himself greatly reduced his prestige after surrendering, and he couldn't control these Qiu Ba under him at all, who knew that the more he couldn't control it, the more his prestige was greatly reduced, and the more his prestige was greatly reduced, the more uncontrollable it was, this set of vicious cycles was tragically staged on him, and suddenly pulled Lin Bao's combat effectiveness to the lowest, also made him suffer from the eyes of many generals.

Who is to blame for all this?

The Xingang soldiers were captured by Chang Zhenbang bloodlessly, the defensive measures did not move at all, and the artillery dismantled from Shahe Town finally gave Chang Zhenbang a short period of time to attack and defend the area, and couldn't help but give him a breath, and then sent Zhang Xiaoliu to send the good news of the victory of recovering Xingang, and feasted the three armies in Xingang to boost morale.

When everyone was drinking, suddenly there was a hurried sound of horses' hooves outside the door, and then the noisy footsteps got older and closer, and suddenly someone shouted: "Report, Adjutant Zhang Youneng has an urgent matter to see your lord!" ”

As soon as Chang Zhenbang heard this, if there was no big event, Zhang Youneng would not be able to disturb himself at this time, after all, it was Li Chun who had something to do to make this happen, thinking of this, he held a wine glass to the soldiers who were drinking happily, and said: "Friends have something, retire first." I salute the brothers with a cup, and everyone eats and drinks well. As he spoke, he took a few newly selected personal horses out of the banquet.

In addition to Zhang Xiaoliu, almost all of these personal horses are strong men selected from the Shahe Town Brigade, Lin Bao Department, and Liu Shifa Department, it can be said that after Zhang Xiaoliu reported the good news, Chang Zhenbang was surrounded by the gang of people from the Gan bandit army, although Hua Zhongtian and others were very opposed to keeping these people around, but Chang Zhenbang was not worried, and he used everything that should be used, and he didn't treat these people as outsiders at all.

Out of the banquet, Chang Zhenbang saw that Zhang Youneng, who was covered in dust, was a little restless, as soon as he saw Chang Zhenbang come out, he immediately pounced, these new personal horses did not recognize Zhang Youneng, and when they saw him pounce, they immediately aimed their guns at him.

"It's okay!" Chang Zhenbang waved his hand and said, and the horses took their guns back in a daze.

Zhang Youneng threw himself in front of Chang Zhenbang and said, "Something happened to my cousin!" ”

Chang Zhenbang stepped forward, stretched out his hand to lift him up from the ground, and said, "If something happens, just tell me!" ”

Zhang Youneng hurriedly said: "On the evening of the 20th, after my cousin left, General Duan Zhigui led the eight battalions of the Gongwei Army to Jiujiang.

Li Chun, a son of a bitch, asked us to attack Shahe, and then when we attracted the attention of the Gan bandit army, he secretly Chen Cang and led the elite soldiers of the Beiyang Army to attack Hukou in three ways. The right flank attacked Gutang, the left flank attacked Gray Mountain, and the middle flank, under the cover of the navy, smuggled into the dark of night in the early hours of this day to carry out a landing operation from the front. The Gan bandit army was caught off guard, the predicament has appeared, and there is a possibility of rout at any time! ”

Chang Zhenbang's face was pale, but he didn't expect to be used as a gunman by Li Chun.

Zhang Youhua saw that Chang Zhenbang's face was not good, and hurriedly said: "However, the great achievement of the adults to conquer Shahe Town has been reported to the imperial court by Li Chun in front of everyone, and the imperial court's reward for the adults will arrive today!" ”

Chang Zhenbang turned his head, looked at Ma Ben beside him, and said, "Inform the generals to come to our Chinese army camp for a meeting!" After speaking, he picked up Zhang Youhua and walked quickly into his camp, and after a while, the slightly drunk generals were brought in by the horses.

"My lord, are you looking for us?" Hua Zhongtian burped and said respectfully.

Chang Zhenbang sighed, pulled Zhang Youneng in front of the generals, and said, "Youneng will tell you what you know!" ”

Zhang Youneng once again told Li Chun how to use Chang Zhenbang's ministry as bait, how to repair the plank road and secretly attack Hukou, and the battle situation at Hukou before he came, but his current rhetoric is slightly different from the rhetoric when he met Chang Zhenbang, exaggerating Li Chun's insidiousness and the fierceness of the Hukou battle, which made the generals hate Li Chun at the same time, and felt that if he sent troops to Hukou now, he would not be able to get a piece of the pie. So they all asked for a battle to beat the water dogs!

Chang Zhenbang's eyes swept over everyone's faces one by one, and the faces of those officers in Wenxian County were all excited, for fear that if they went late, they would not be able to get their achievements, but Lin Hu gritted his teeth again, his mind Chang Zhenbang knew that if he couldn't exterminate Li Liejun's Gan bandit army and let President Yuan Da unify the mountains and rivers, how could he live between heaven and earth? Only Liu Shifa stood aside without saying a word.

Chang Zhenbang smiled slightly and said: "In this battle, General Li Chun will definitely be able to defeat Li Liejun like the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, if Li Liejun is defeated, this rebellion in Jiangxi will end, and the brothers will go home." Officers, pass on this good news and calm the hearts of your brothers! ”

Although the officers still wanted to persuade Chang Zhenbang to quickly send troops to divide a piece of the pie at Hukou, what Chang Zhenbang said was not unreasonable, for the well-equipped, well-trained, and talented Beiyang Army, the Gan bandit army only had a few military talents such as Li Liejun, Lin Hu, and Li Shijun, and it could be said that the victory and defeat had been divided.

Just when the generals were returning to the camp, a fast horse carrying a messenger suddenly rushed into the camp, as soon as the horse entered the camp, it fell to the ground with a bang, and could no longer get up, the messenger got up in embarrassment and grabbed a soldier and said: "Take me to Chang Daren's place, 100,000 urgent!" ”

The soldiers took him outside Chang Zhenbang's camp and informed Chang Zhenbang, Chang Zhenbang hurriedly invited him into the camp, but the messenger Chang Zhenbang also recognized that it was Tang Xiaosan, the personal horse of the third Tang Baichuan.

After Tang Xiaosan saw Chang Zhenbang, he immediately saluted, and took out a letter from his arms and handed it to Chang Zhenbang, and then the person fell to the ground like a puddle of mud.

"I see! General Li Chun has conquered the mouth of the lake, and Li Liejun fled in embarrassment! Chang Zhenbang read the letter and said. All the generals are pity, they know that the Beiyang Army is powerful, but they don't know that the Beiyang Army is so powerful.

"This time let those dogs of the Beiyang Army eat alone. It's disgusting! Lin Bao said half like and half sadly. He was happy that Li Liejun was defeated, and his act of defecting to Chang Zhenbang could be disguised as abandoning the darkness and turning to the light, but he didn't expect Li Liejun to be so reluctant to fight, and he failed so quickly before he had time to let Chang Zhenbang intervene.

Chang Zhenbang smiled slightly and said: "Attacking Shahe, we have been a spear for the Beiyang Army, and now there is an opportunity for the Beiyang Army to be a spear for us, I don't know if you are interested in hearing it!" ”

"Your Excellency, please speak!" Everyone said with their heads sticking out their heads.

Chang Zhenbang stretched out three fingers and said: "Chief of Staff Tang has come up with three clever plans for us, the best strategy is to take advantage of the victory at Hukou, learn from Deng Ai's sneak attack on Chengdu, go straight to Nanchang City, recover Nanchang, and end the Jiangxi rebellion by our army." ”

As soon as this strategy came out, everyone immediately discussed, this is definitely a great achievement, but after some discussion, in the end no one dared to try the result, after all, Deng Ai still has 20,000 elite soldiers in Shu, and now Chang Zhenbang has a lot of troops at hand, but it is pieced together, such a radical countermeasure, I really dare not use it!

According to the spy report, Liu Shijun, who was guarding Jiujiang, gave up the six battalions stationed in Jiujiang City and fled alone. This strategy is to sneak attack Jiujiang, there are many Gan bandit troops in Jiujiang, but the dragons have no leader, it is very easy to capture If Jiujiang City is taken, it is the road to the south of the Beiyang Army, which is not a small credit! ”

Everyone heard the rumors and discussed, and many people were already eager to try, but Liu Shifa's face was yellow, he sat with his head down, and did not say a word.

"This strategy is to use Xingang as a base to capture the surrounding state capitals, and the credit is not small! These three strategies have been said, let's come up with a charter now! ”

Chang Zhenbang put the letter away, smiled and said to everyone.

Everyone discussed and finally pushed Hua Zhongtian out, Hua Zhongtian thought about it, and said, "Chief of Staff Tang's three strategies are very wonderful, but this strategy is too risky, and it is really difficult to bear with the situation of our army, and this strategy is too conservative, it is all a small work, only the middle strategy is feasible, and I hope that the officers will adopt the middle strategy!" ”

Chang Zhenbang said: "Since this is everyone's opinion, brothers go down and prepare, and start with me at any time!" By the way, tell the brothers that after conquering Jiujiang, our Wenxian Army will end all military operations and begin to rectify! ”

"Yes, sir!" The generals walked out of the camp in high spirits.

After the news spread, the barracks were filled with a kind of excitement, capturing Jiujiang City, ending this damn battlefield, and then hiding in Jiujiang City and waiting to go home to live the life of a small landlord suddenly became the idea of every Wenxian soldier.

The soldiers of the Shahe Town Brigade also breathed a sigh of relief, they thought that they could follow Chang Zhenbang into Xingang to make a small fortune, who knew that Xingang would be able to get it without a fight, and then let Lin Hu get the first credit, which made them realize that not every battle can make a fortune, after dispelling this idea, the idea of greed for life suddenly came up, making a fortune is not something that every war has, but the dead are no exception. The high morale dropped suddenly, but as soon as Chang Zhenbang's idea of going to Jiujiang to end the battle came out, it was in response to the ideas of these crop men, and the morale finally did not decline further, but increased, after all, they were all looking forward to conquering Jiujiang.

Don't care how Lin Hu occupied Xingang, after all, he occupied Xingang, this credit is not small, Chang Zhenbang has promised to ensure that he is promoted to the head of the regiment, and now that Li Liejun is dead, he has no shame in his heart, and he went away with Lin Hu's wife Meizizi Yunyu.

Liu Shifa's army was also excited by the words to end the battle, but the excitement was someone else's, but not his Liu Shifa's, to be honest, he was very worried about his brother, and he was also worried about the brothers in the battalions under his brother, he admired his brother very much since he was a child, especially when the Wuhan civil unrest, he felt that his brother was a hero, but today's cruel reality tells him that his brother is a coward, his brother fled without a fight in the face of the powerful Beiyang Army, and he was absconding, leaving behind those brothers who lived and died together, You really shouldn't be doing that!

Just as he sighed, one of Chang Zhenbang's personal horses suddenly broke in and said, "Lord Liu, Lord Chang is invited!" ”

This book was first published in Reading Books