"Cao Mengde came to the crowd and threatened to bury the people of Hezhou, Xuzhou, which shows that Cao Cao has a dead thought about my Xuzhou, and diplomacy is obviously ineffective. Facing the full hall of civil and military officials, all of them looked like mourners, and the elderly Chen Qi slowly knelt down and stood up.

"Dare to ask Han Yugong, where are the reinforcements?" Since learning that Cao Cao's three armies had invaded Xuzhou, for several days, Tao Qian couldn't sleep at night or eat at sun, and the whole person suddenly seemed to be twenty years old, and his spirit was also sluggish.

"Hebei Yuan Benchu, Beihai Kong Wenju, and Huainan Yuan Highway can all send envoys." Chen Qi replied in a deep voice.

"What Han Yu said is very true, you can immediately send a fast horse with documents to ask for help." Tao Qian now has no idea at all, and without the slightest consideration, he repeatedly said that it is feasible.

"Although Han Yugong's words are feasible, but the far water can't save the near fire, Yuan Benchu is far away in Jizhou, and if he sends troops, he is afraid that it will take several months, and Beihai Kongwen has few major generals and few generals, and he is powerless. Shouchun Yuan Highway, I heard that he was even defeated by Cao Cao before, and now he is attacking Lujiang, don't say whether he dares to face Cao Cao, just say that he dares, and at this moment he also resolutely drew troops to rescue my Xuzhou crisis. This will not be engaged in Mi Zhu, sighed, shook his head and analyzed the possibility of rescue from these parties.

"Zizhong, what do you mean by this? Do you have to make me surrender? Tao Qian's face changed, and he looked at Mi Zhu with an unhappy expression.

"Cao Cao's attack on my Xuzhou this time is in the name of revenge for killing his father, but who in the world doesn't know, his father was not killed by you, but he still came under the banner of revenge, to put it bluntly, it's just a map of my Xuzhou territory." Mi Zhu was not afraid of Tao Qian's suspicious eyes, and continued: "Ming Gong, have you forgotten that Han Ziyang, the guard of Guangling County, is also a soldier and horse under the rule of Xuzhou? At present, Xuzhou is in danger, Han Ziyang, as an official under Xuzhou, naturally has to guard the responsibility of guarding the land, why didn't Ming Gong issue a military order and let him lead his troops to the East China Sea to help? ”

"Will he come?" Tao Qian has heard a lot of rhetoric about Han Lie's arrogance and rebellion recently, such as his private dispatch of troops to attack Wu County and Danyang County, and for example, he led his army to slaughter salt officials and merchants.

It was precisely because he had heard too much slander about Han Lie that Tao Qian's subconscious naturally included Han Lie as a hostile figure, and he was not listed as an ally who could rush to help at all.

"Ming Gong is Xuzhou Mu, plus General Andong, is the official position of His Majesty's edict, he Han Lie is Guangling Taishou, plus the right Zhonglang General, no matter which position, it needs to be controlled by Ming Gong, I believe that as long as Ming Gong goes down with a military order, he will not be able to refuse." Mi Zhu is the right color of the answer.

Tao Qian frowned, nodded and said: "Zizhong, you and Han Ziyang are said to have a good relationship, so I will bother you to go on a trip to this matter, be sure to ask him to send troops to help, tell him that the military food and equipment he needs will be consumed, and everything will be paid by my Xuzhou Prefecture, and if you bring a million coins over, it will be said to be a reward for the three armies." ”

"Ming Gong Shengming." Mi Zhu leaned sideways and complimented.

Above the lobby, Cao Bao, Cao Hong and other officials of the Xuzhou clan were also entrusted with military power by Tao Qian, shouldering the defense of Xuzhou, although these people were very reluctant to take on this errand, but they also knew that now is the time of life and death, it is not that they can surrender if they want to.

Because Cao Cao's crusade was very clear, he did not accept the surrender of any official in Xuzhou, and he wanted to use the blood of Xuzhou to mourn his deceased father to soothe his grief-stricken heart.

Therefore, Cao Cao was obviously confused, did not accept surrender, and slaughtered all of them, so he naturally forced all the people of Xuzhou to fight against him to the end.

However, Cao Cao did this, it was also a helpless move, at the moment he Yuan Shao was staring at the death, the territory was limited to the narrow land of Yanzhou, and there were hostile forces on all sides, if he did not kill in the name of revenge, Yuan Shao would definitely not watch him swallow the fat of Xuzhou.

In order to appease Yuan Shao, who is currently the biggest threat to him, he can only deliberately pretend to be stupid, attack Xuzhou in the name of revenge, and then take the opportunity to annex Xuzhou.

After the meeting, Chen Jue did not communicate with Mi Zhu, the two just exchanged glances, and then left the state pastoral mansion back and forth, and now for Chen Jue and Mi Zhu, it is naturally the best opportunity to welcome Han Lie as the lord of Xuzhou.

Just now, Chen Qi deliberately recommended a few princes who could rescue Xuzhou, but he didn't mention Han Lie, so he was naturally suspicious of picking himself up, because Chen Qi knew very well that Tao Qian had a deep suspicion of Han Lie.

But Mi Zhu, as a businessman, has business dealings with Han Lie, which is no secret in Xuzhou, and it is not abrupt for him to recommend Han Lie to rescue Xuzhou, and it will not make Tao Qian feel unacceptable.

This is of course that Mi Zhu is a businessman, and secondly, Mi Zhu has no military power in his hands, and he can't form a situation of internal and external collusion with Han Lie at all, but Chen Ju is different, he is the leading figure in Xuzhou regardless of his identity and status, although he also does not have real military power in his hands, but who can guarantee that he does not secretly control some generals who lead troops in the city?

Cao Cao attacked Xuzhou this time, raising 35,000 troops, including 5,000 cavalry, known as 100,000 troops.

Starting from Dongjun under the rule of Yanzhou, if you enter the boundary of Xuzhou, it is the Xiapi State, so when the news reaches the Xiapi State, the first thought of serving as the Minister of Xiapi is not to lead the army and people to resist, but to immediately flee Xiapi and return to his hometown.

In the early years, when Tao Qian recruited troops in Danyang, he led the crowd to support and was able to recruit 8,000 Danyang elite soldiers, which made Tao Qian gain a firm foothold in Xuzhou, and also made Zhenrong from a place to be strong, all the way up, and was entrusted by Tao Qian as a confidant, and once controlled the power of Caoyun taxes and taxes in Xiapi, Pengcheng and Guangling counties, and collected more than 100 million yuan for this.

And Wu Jun, the commander of Yandu County, is actually the cousin of his concubine, who made a lot of money in Yandu, and was suppressed and slaughtered by Han Lie not long ago.

In order to protect himself, when Cao Cao's text just arrived in Xuzhou, he led the three thousand Buddha soldiers who had been trained for many years, carrying the money accumulated by many years of greed, gave up the Xiapi County, and fled to Pengcheng for several days.

When Pengcheng is the prime minister of Xuzhou, Zhao Yu is a famous person in Xuzhou, Zhao Yu's word Yuanda, Guangling people's family, this person is indeed a good man, not only saved Zhang Zhao, but also intersected with Wang Lang, and Chen Deng is close friend, can be described as a famous person in Xuzhou.

Zhao Yu, a good old man, saw that Zhen Rong led the Buddha soldiers to come, and thought that Zhen Rong was going to hold some Buddha meeting, it turned out that although Zhen Rong was greedy for money and profit, on the surface he was a Buddhist, in order to deceive those people at the bottom, he usually liked to disguise himself as a Buddha-like face, and built a total of 36 temples in 16 counties under the rule of Xia Pi State, attracting more than 100,000 good men and women.

At this time, although Western Buddhism has been introduced to the Han Dynasty for hundreds of years, because it has not been recognized by the imperial court, the preaching and life are very hard, and the Western Buddha at this time actually does not have as many rules and precepts as later generations, so there is naturally no restriction on Zhenrong.

This is not Zhao Yu received the news, when Zhu Rong, the minister of the state of Pi, came to Pengcheng, Zhao Yu, who thought that he was going to open the Buddha conference, was hospitable, and did not have any precautions against Ji Rong, but when Zhao Rong entered the mansion of the minister of Pengcheng, he saw that Zhao Yu was living a rich life, and there were as many as 100 servants and maids in the family, so he thought that Zhao Yu was rich.

As a result, on the night of the same day, he led the Buddha soldiers under his tent to slaughter Zhao Yu's family in one fell swoop, confiscated the Pengcheng treasury, set a fire, and led the crowd to carry a large number of gold, silver, jewelry, and money, and left Pengcheng in a mighty way, and Pengcheng, which suffered from this catastrophe, was destroyed by the fire of Zhengrong almost overnight.

When the news spread that Di Rong abandoned the city and fled, slaughtered Zhao Yu's family, and set a fire to destroy Peng Cheng in a fire, Di Rong led his subordinates and entered the Huaishui waters by boat.

This news for the current Xuzhou, is undoubtedly worse, Xuzhou five counties, the East China Sea as the state of governance, is naturally the richest county, but Xiapi and Pengcheng, in fact, is also the barrier of Xuzhou, once the loss of Xiapi and Pengcheng as a buffer land, then Cao Cao's army can drive straight in, straight to the East China Sea, once the East China Sea is captured, it also means that Xuzhou has completely fallen.

The reason is because of the current Langya County under the rule of Xuzhou, and now most of it is in the hands of Xiao Jian, the minister of Langya State, and Zang Ba and other Taishan Qunkou, these people are basically semi-independent (standing) to Tao Qian, and Guangling is in the hands of Han Lie.

For this reason, when the news reached Tao Qian's hands, Tao Qian, who was over the age of six, fell completely ill, vomiting half a liter of blood, and he lay on the sickbed like this, and never got better, and all the affairs of the state and county were entrusted to Chen Qi and Cao Bao.

Han Lie received the news that Zhen Rong had killed Zhao Yun and set fire to Pengcheng, much earlier than Tao Qian, because just when Cao Cao's crusade against Xuzhou had just arrived in Xuzhou, Han Lie sent Diao Chan to the East China Sea to meet Chen Qi, and Zhang Yao was sent to Pengcheng.

Zhang Yao and Diao Chan's two daughters, now keen to carry forward the reputation of the Taiping Sect, although after Han Lie's name change, the name of the Taiping Sect's external mission is the Heavenly Master Concept, Zhang Yao's Taoist name is the Taiping Heavenly Master, and Diao Chan's Taoist name is the Red Lotus Heavenly Master, after the development of Yandu, the second daughter relies on the original 120 Taiping Sect backbones, after a few months of development, the number has grown to 500 people, these people are fanatical believers, mainly women.

There are only a few male believers, but they are all some peripheral disciples, and they are the ones who really gain Zhang Yao's trust.

When he learned the news, Han Lie summoned Guo Jia and made arrangements as soon as possible, that is, the 21,000 soldiers of the Red Flame Army were immediately deployed, and all the soldiers only brought food for three days, and as for the military supplies for food, they were temporarily supplied by the counties along the way.

As for the follow-up food and salary, Zhang Zhao, the governor of the Central Governor's Republic, was responsible for the preparation, and the unified allocation was transported to Huaiyin City through the waters of Hangou.

This time, Han Lie can be said to be pouring into the nest, 21,000 men and horses, Han Lie personally served as the commander, the five battalion commanders will go out at the same time, Guangling is Zhang Zhao is in charge, responsible for the overall management of government affairs and grain and grass affairs, the city defense by the Hengjiang Governor Jiang Qin led the 2,000 naval army, and the city is defended by 3,000 armed troops in the city.

The armed army is actually a military service system developed by Han Lie according to the service system of the current world and the militia of later generations. The first stipulation of the armed army is that all men over the age of 16 and under the age of 56 in the county must serve for two months a year, generally before spring ploughing and before winter, during which they need to train and build water conservancy, build dikes, etc., and the government will arrange food and uniform clothing (Note: If you do not want to serve, you are allowed to pay someone to serve, but at the same time you need to pay 1,000 yuan to the government for the record. ）

The second provision is that in wartime, the government has the right to mobilize all men who serve in the army, such as transporting grain and grass, assisting in the defense of the city, preparing equipment for defending the city, and other auxiliary combat matters. During wartime service, all personnel are paid military salaries, and those who die in war are paid according to the normal pension.

The third provision is that all personnel of the armed army can apply to join the standing army, and the standing army is the soldiers and horses of the Red Flame Army mastered by Han Lie, and the Red Flame Army belongs to the standing army, they can not only eat military salaries, but also make meritorious contributions, and the general service time is ten years, and after ten years, they can apply to be transferred to the armed army to serve, and if there are meritorious service of the third class or above, they can return home and do not need to serve again.

It can be said that Han Lie's set of military merit reward measures has played a strong appeal for the improvement of the combat effectiveness of the Red Flame Army and the participation of young and middle-aged people in the army.

This means that Han Lie strictly controlled the number of troops of the Red Flame Army, otherwise, with the three counties under Han Lie's rule at the moment, plus the Yellow Turban soldiers and civilians who moved in from Qingzhou in Licheng, with a population base of nearly 1.3 million, it may be difficult to overrecruit 100,000 people, but recruiting 50,000 troops is obviously not a problem.

The Red Flame Army's 21,000 soldiers and horses, from the call to the start, only took half a day, it can be said that in this era, it is absolutely a unique speed of dispatch.

At the pledge meeting of the troops this time, Han Lie had clearly instructed that this time it was a group of thieves carrying a large amount of wealth to block, and all the soldiers who made meritorious contributions in this battle would be given double rewards.

The discipline and reward and punishment system of the Red Flame Army is also very clear, all seizures are uniformly distributed, women are not (degraded) (humiliated), people are not robbed, and those who violate the law will have their gains confiscated, and 50 military sticks will be punished with a cane, and those who are afraid of battle will be punished with a hundred military sticks, and those who flee from the battle will be beheaded and decided.

The battle merit is mainly based on the army commander, the statistics of the chief and the enemy's left ear shall prevail, and the person who kills one enemy will be rewarded with 100 yuan, and the family will be awarded five points of private land, and so on, and those who have won ten people will be given a first-class military merit, and the first-class military merit can be exempted from all taxes of a person in the family, and a mu of land will be given, and the war merit will be divided into 20 grades, and so on.

If someone has made a twentieth rank of military exploitation, he can be given a knighthood. However, since Han Lie does not have the right to be knighted at present, the knighthood reward has not yet been released. The twentieth rank of combat merit is not only for sergeants, but for the unified implementation of the Red Flame Army, and there are only two people in the entire army who do not carry out the merit rank, one is Han Lie, and the other is Guo Jia.

Therefore, when all the soldiers of the Red Flame Army learned that the thieves who blocked this attack would double the rewards for each head they killed, the morale of the army suddenly rose, and almost all the soldiers felt that their steps were much lighter.

(To be continued.) )