General Zhao Pingzhao asked Pei Baoman to stay in Lanzhou to wait for his equipment, and he led the other soldiers back to Zhenwu New Town.

The next day, in the newly built barracks of the envoys, He Daxian sat in the study early in the morning and pretended to be forced. In fact, this forced force didn't start pretending this morning, since last night, He Daxian has been sitting at the desk without sleep, pretending to be all night!

The cicada accompanied the side to grind the ink, and it also grinded all night, and the whole person was sleepy-eyed and kept yawning. The left hand grinds until it can't stand it, and then the right hand grinds again, and after grinding the right hand, grinds the left hand again, endlessly.

But she didn't dare to stop, and the adults had written a lot of words tonight! That's seven or eight words! Although Cicada has learned to write at home since she was a child, and she can recognize about 2,000 Chinese characters, she can't understand a single one of the words written by adults last night.

Min'er stood on the other side to cut the lantern flowers and pour oil on the lamp. Although there are a lot of lamps in the small study, there are almost ten lamps of all sizes, but a lamp needs to be burned for about an hour before you need to cut the lamp flowers and make up the lamp oil.

Therefore, although Lu Cicada was so busy that she never stopped grinding ink, Lu Min'er was idle, a piece of wood seemed to be standing there, dozing off at fixed points and times, and almost didn't light the curtain around her several times.

However, Lord Zhao didn't allow them to change.

The cicada wanted to be a little coquettish, but before she could speak, Lord Zhao babbled out: "Do you remember this story of grinding through the iron inkstone?" ”

Seeing that adults could still guess other people's thoughts, Lu Chan'er had no choice but to stop this thought and continue to grind her ink.

The sky was dark, and the two little girls were about to fall asleep, but Lord Zhao was getting more and more energetic, and his eyes were getting brighter and brighter.

At sunrise, Zhao Ping Zhao's eyes were blazing, and when he was trembling, he suddenly struggled to write, and the snow-white brush passed by like a dragon flying and a phoenix dancing on rice paper, and a big word "town" jumped on the paper!

"Phew!"

Lord Zhao's heart fluctuated, passionate, couldn't help but shout, scared awake the two little girls who were gradually falling into a dream, Lu Min'er jumped up at once, swished on the beam, the whole person hung upside down on the beam, and accidentally knocked down a wall lamp on the pillar, the fire lamp fell, lit a curtain next to it, the little girl quickly jumped down again, stretched out two little hands and kept beating the curtain of the fire, and finally shot out the flames, and made her hands full of black face.

The cicada was even more miserable, and directly moved horizontally to the door, and the ink inkstone in his hand was not held steady, and it fell, and the ink spilled all over the ground, staining one of the big characters that Lord Zhao laid on the ground and looked at from a distance.

"Get out! Get out of here! ”

In the post-Tang Dynasty, the idea of warlords fighting for hegemony was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and almost every court member with heavy troops had selfish intentions, and hundreds of thousands of regular troops in the Later Tang Dynasty actually let Shi Jingjiao's 30,000 Taiyuan soldiers and 50,000 Khitan iron cavalry feel like no one, and they were helpless against the Khitans wreaking havoc on the Central Plains.

Fortunately, He Daxian thought hard before, killed Zhang Jingda for his own selfish interests, and got a few forged secret decrees to mobilize the Tang army, so that the situation of the Tang army around Taiyuan would not be as shaky as in the official history.

It's just that there are still too many internal contradictions in the Later Tang Dynasty, various factors are complicated, and everyone has ghosts.

On the side of the rebels, there were 30,000 Jin troops stationed in Taiyuan City and more than 40,000 Khitan cavalry who went south to support. On the side of the Tang army, in addition to the 50,000 soldiers and horses of Jin'an Dazhai who were facing each other, there were several reinforcements surrounding them, and the fists of the Tang army had been slowly pinched.

Jin'an Dazhai, a hundred miles south of Taiyuan, is the closest to the rebels and is a force that fights the rebels head-on.

After Zhang Jingda's death, under the leadership of Gao Xingzhou, the new Taiyuan envoy from all sides, brainwashed and unified his thoughts every day, held mobilization meetings every night to swear allegiance to the Tang Emperor, and the food standard was also raised.

As for the reinforcements, the 20,000 loyal troops led by Zhao Yanshou had already arrived at Tuanbai Valley, fifty miles behind Dazhai in Jin'an, and began to deploy before the war.

However, the other main force that came to reinforce, the envoy of Lu Longjiedu, and the Youzhou army of Zhao Dejun, the king of Beiping, who was recruited from the northeast and ordered by Zhongshu, were still delayed for two days.

Zhao Dejun has long had a backbone, and he is also surnamed Zhao, who claims to be a descendant of the Yan Kingdom, and has long wanted to establish himself as the king in the Lulong area to establish the Yan Kingdom. This time, I originally wanted to hide in the city of Youzhou (now Beijing) and sit on the mountain to watch the tiger fight, wait for the Tang army to fight to the death with the Khitans, and then see the opportunity to rise up, make a rebellion, and establish a country or something.

It's just that a strategist below suggested that this was actually a good opportunity to incorporate the local army and expand its influence.

So, Zhao Dejun left 50,000 people to guard Youzhou, led 30,000 Lu Long army, all the way to the south, through Yizhou (near Baoding today), holding his own official position, commanding the northern camp to make Liu Zaiming and his more than 10,000 Yizhou troops to collect, into the Youzhou army sequence.

When passing through Zhenzhou (now Shijiazhuang) in the Chengde area, he went to the house of Dong Wenqi, the envoy of the Chengde Festival who guarded Zhenzhou, and ate and drank every day. This Zhao Dejun competed with Dong Wenqi on the wine table, won the bet, and then didn't know how to fool Cheng Dejun in.

Dong Wenqi agreed to serve as his deputy envoy, and personally led 20,000 Zhenzhou soldiers to join the Youzhou army.

In this way, Zhao Dejun went all the way south, and in more than ten days, the total strength of the army increased to nearly 70,000, and he also controlled the Zhenzhou soldiers under the Chengde Jiedu envoy in disguise!

At this time, Zhao Dejun began to swell, and felt that the opportunity to rebel had really come.

So he simply stayed in Zhenzhou and wrote a letter to the emperor, saying that my troops are still not enough, I think I should not go over to fight the Khitans so quickly, but still go south again, go to Luzhou and join the forces of Zhao Yanshou, the envoy of Zhongwu Jiedu, and then go north to Taiyuan again.

Li Congke was furious, and replied to a letter and scolded him, saying that you should go to war, you should go out for a trip? The Khitans are in the north, why are you going south to Luzhou? Got water in your head?

Then, after Zhao Dejun received the holy decree, he was "sick", and the army stayed in Zhenzhou to accompany him to recuperate.

At this time, He Daxian's forged secret decree also arrived, in the name of Emperor Li Congke, ordered the northern camp to command Liu Zaiming to set off overnight, and asked him to lead the Khitan soldiers composed of 3,000 silver saddle cavalry, fast horses straight to Tumengu, through the valley to kill to Yizhou north of Taiyuan, another secret decree is for Dong Wenqi, let Dong Wenqi lead 20,000 Cheng German troops to set off on their own, along the same route to Yizhou and Liu Zaiming.

Early the next morning, when Dong Wenqi said goodbye to Zhao Dejun, Zhao Dejun learned that Li Congke had made a move to "skip the command" and directly transferred the two local armies that he had worked so hard to collect.

Zhao Dejun and Dong Wenqi have a very good personal relationship, so they can stay in Zhenzhou and sleep. Zhenzhou is the territory of the Chengde Army, the Chengde Army and the Youzhou Lulong Army are the main forces, what do you want to do if the head of the Youzhou Lulong Army stays in the territory of the Chengde Army?

The boss Dong Wenqi is also gone, you still don't leave?

Zhao Dejun had no choice but to "recover" immediately and lead the army to follow Dong Wenqi to Yizhou.

In addition to these two reinforcements that were mobilized at the beginning, Li Congke, the Later Tang Emperor who was later plagued by depression, suddenly had an idea on a sober morning, and transferred Tianxiong Jiedu to Fan Yanguang to lead 20,000 Weizhou soldiers to help, and at the same time notified Pan Huan, the defense envoy of Yaozhou, who was far away in the western capital of Chang'an, to transfer soldiers along the road to move in the direction of Taiyuan through Jinzhou.

The Heyang Army, which was originally planned to be personally recruited by Emperor Li Congke, was also led by Fu Yanrao and left Heyang and arrived in Luzhou.

For a time, the Quartet Tang Army was mobilized layer by layer, forming a trend of encirclement on all sides.

The Jin army and the Khitan army combined with 80,000 troops, and the Tang army will have a total strength of nearly 200,000 after being surrounded on all sides. A decisive battle in Taiyuan, which has never happened in history, is about to start near Taiyuan.

Fan Yanguang's 20,000 Weizhou soldiers moved quickly, and when Zhao Dejun and Youzhou were still pretending to be sick in Zhenzhou, the Weizhou army had already arrived in Liaozhou (now Zuoquan County, Shanxi), and formed a horn with Gao Xingzhou's Jin'an Dazhai.

Two days later, the first unit of the Youzhou army, three thousand silver saddle knights, passed through the mouth of the Tumen Valley and appeared in the rear of the Khitan army, under the city of Yizhou. Ding Xianqi, the assassin of Yizhou, who originally had an ambiguous attitude, suddenly beheaded several Khitan envoys who remained in Yizhou, and declared his loyalty to the position of Tang Emperor Li Congke.

When the news of Yizhou's reversal of position reached the Khitan camp, Yelu Deguang did not hesitate and immediately sent 5,000 Khitan cavalry to Yizhou, preparing to eliminate this silver saddle knight army and block the belated Zhao Dejun in the big sand ditch.

The decisive battle of Taiyuan, which decided the fate of the Later Tang Dynasty, kicked off with two cavalry teams under the city of Yizhou, which were also composed of Khitans but divided into two armies.