Two hours later, the 25,000 Tang troops gave up their armor and spears, left the north gate lightly, and marched quickly to the northeast, when it was almost dusk, and there was only less than an hour left before Xu Shiji's time to leave the city. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

As soon as the Tang army left, Sima Liu Xin of Shu County led 1,000 county soldiers to open the south gate and surrender, and the 5,000 Zhou troops who had been waiting outside the city quickly entered the city and controlled the official offices, warehouses, military camps, city gates and other important locations, at this time, Xu Shiji led 10,000 troops to begin to enter the city.

Just as Xu Shiji entered the city gate, a carriage drove head-on, with more than a dozen cavalry guards next to him, "What's that?" Xu Shiji pointed to the carriage with a horsewhip and asked,

Sima Liu Xin bowed and said: "General Xu, the carriage is the horse Chai Shao, he hasn't woken up yet." ”

Xu Shiji was stunned, urged him to open the car door, and a strong smell of wine came to his nose, only to see Chai Shao drunk in the carriage, I don't know what to do, Xu Shiji frowned, "Why is this happening?" ”

"Don't hide it from the general, the prince and the chai horse have a deep contradiction, and the chai and the horse resolutely refuse to retreat, so the prince used a trick to capture the chai and the horse."

At this time, Ling Jing immediately stepped forward and said with a smile: "Li Shenfu was afraid that he would not be able to explain when he went back, so he gave him to us." ”

"It's a big fish!"

Xu Shiji sneered, and said to Ling Jing again: "Since he wants to go back so much, then I will let him go back, if Li Yuan is surrounded by such people, why worry about the immortality of the Tang Dynasty?" ”

"The general really wants to let Li Shenfu go back to Hanzhong?" Ling Jing asked in a low voice.

Xu Shiji smiled faintly, "Since I have promised him in the letter, of course I will not break my promise, but whether his army is willing to go back with him or not, it is not for me to decide." ”

.........

It was not easy to return to Hanzhong from Shu County, the main natural danger of Shu Road made the march particularly difficult, but the early march was relatively smooth, after four days of rapid marching, 25,000 troops arrived at Zitong County in Pu'an County, where they got a little food supply, each of them got seven days of dry food, but the Zhou army did not prepare much for them, nominally seven days, but in fact it was only enough for five days to consume.

Hated so much that Li Shenfu wanted to order the looting of Zitong County, but the Zhou army had already prepared, there were 3,000 defenders in the city, they traveled lightly, and they could not attack the city at all, so helpless, Li Shenfu had to implement Wang Jun's backup strategy, disbanded the 5,000 Shu army soldiers, took away their military rations, and left them to fend for themselves, so that the 20,000 Tang army soldiers each had nine days of military rations, and they could barely go to Hanzhong.

The 20,000-strong army continued to march northeastward, and two days later, the team arrived at Pu'an County, where the Jianmen Pass was located, surrounded by high mountains and valleys, steep mountains, and difficult roads, and the march was particularly difficult.

In the evening, the team marched to a dam, that is, a mountain basin, more than 50 miles away from Jianmen Pass, and then crossed two mountains to arrive.

Li Shenfu saw that the team was exhausted, and the strategist Wang Jun did not follow behind, so Li Shenfu ordered the whole army to rest on the spot for the night and set off again early tomorrow morning.

Li Shenfu was quite troubled in his heart, he didn't expect the food to be consumed so quickly, in two days, the soldiers ate four days' amount, but he couldn't blame the soldiers, there was no meat and vegetables, the march consumed too much physical strength, of course the soldiers ate a lot, but the Jianmen Pass had not yet arrived, they only had five days of dry food left, and there were nearly five hundred miles of mountain roads, could this go to Nanzheng, Hanzhong?

"Let's go to the back and see, is Mr. Wang here?" Li Shenfu was distraught and ordered several of his own soldiers.

Wang Jun is one step behind because he wants to settle the disbanded Bashu soldiers, if they are not well settled, the Tang Dynasty will completely lose the hearts and minds of the people in Bashu, and the only way to place 5,000 Tang soldiers is to surrender to the defenders of Zitong County, but the defenders of Zitong County may not be willing to accept it, which requires Wang Jun to negotiate with the Zhou army, and persuade the Zitong guards to accept the 5,000 surrendered troops with Xu Shiji's handwritten letter.

It stands to reason that this is not a big deal, as long as there is Xu Shiji's handwritten letter, the guards will definitely accept it, and they also specially slowed down the march, why didn't Wang Jun catch up for a long time, did something happen to Wang Jun?

Li Shenfu was most worried that the five thousand troops mutinied, and killed Wang Jun in anger, if Wang Jun really died, his own losses would be heavy, Li Shenfu secretly regretted it, and knew that he should not agree to Wang Jun's initiative to ask Ying, and let others go.

It's just that Li Shenfu never dreamed that Wang Jun did help him solve the problem of 5,000 soldiers surrendering to the Zhou army, but Wang Jun did not go east, but turned around and went in the direction of Chengdu.

........

At this time, although it is the turn of spring and summer, as the saying goes, "the world is full of flowers in April, and the peach blossoms in the mountain temple are in full bloom", the weather begins to heat up in the plains, but in the mountains, the night is still very cold.

At night, there was a drizzle in the sky, and the cold wind carried the cold rain, which froze the 20,000 soldiers shivering, they had no armor, no tents, only a thin single coat, many soldiers could not bear the cold, and began to light bonfires, and the dam was full of fires.

This dam where the Tang army stayed overnight is located between the mountains and mountains, it is a long strip, about seven or eight miles long, three miles wide, it has been stationed by the army here in history, the woods have been cut down, it is full of weeds and shrubs one person high, the east and west sides of the dam are high mountains and steep walls, there is no way to go, only the north and south directions can walk, from the south mountain road down, and from the north side of the path to go up, on the Shu road, there are many such dam valleys, although it is hard to go up and down the mountain, but at the same time also give passers-by a temporary place to rest.

At this time, above the valley, Liu Lancheng looked coldly at the scattered fires below, Liu Lancheng did not participate in the siege of Chengdu, his task was to intercept the Tang army going north in the area of Jianmen Pass.

As Xu Shiji promised in the letter, he could let Li Shenfu return to the north, but he did not promise to let the 20,000 Tang troops return to the north, at least not clearly the number of troops that could return north.

Liu Lancheng looked at it for a long time, shook his head and said: "This Li Shenfu really can't lead troops to fight, and he doesn't even know the most basic common sense, but in such a narrow valley, soldiers are allowed to light bonfires, and once the valley burns, 20,000 troops will be buried in the fire." ”

"General, do you still want to intercept them at the Sword Gate Pass?" Li Qingming asked with a smile on the side.

Liu Lancheng looked at it for another moment and said lightly: "Let's end their suffering as soon as possible!" ”

.........

Li Shenfu's army was lucky, the bonfire was lit overnight, and it did not cause a fire, perhaps because of the light rain in the sky, the ground became wet, and it was difficult for shrubs and weeds to be ignited by the bonfire, but it also caused the dam to be filled with green smoke and was very choking.

The sky was gradually brightening, and at this time, there was a sudden commotion from the rear, Li Shenfu thought that Wang Jun was coming, and he hurriedly asked, "But Mr. Wang is here." ”

A soldier rushed over, pointed to the distance behind him and said, "Lord Qiqi, we found the Zhou army where we came, and there are thousands of people. ”

Li Shenfu was taken aback, could it be that the Zhou army was chasing after him, and he hurriedly ordered: "Order the whole army to set off!" ”

Before the procession was fully organized, they set out in a hurry, and the soldiers scrambled to the path up the hill to the north, all of them fearing that they would be attacked by fire, and that they would not survive in the valley.

But the forward was still a mile away from the road up the mountain, and suddenly a rumbling drum sounded on the mountainside, and I saw ambushes on the mountain in the north, waving flags, and I don't know how many troops cut off their road to the north.

The soldiers were so frightened that they retreated, and at this time, there was also a loud drum on the mountain behind them, and the roads before and after them were cut off by the Zhou army, and the generals looked at each other and looked at the main general Li Shenrune.

Li Shenfu's heart was full of bitterness, what he was most afraid of finally happened, Xu Shiji did not keep his word, and at the last step before entering the Sword Gate Pass, they were surrounded by the Zhou army.

"Generals, don't panic, there must be a misunderstanding here, I'll send someone to negotiate with the other party!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Shenfu suddenly remembered that the letter Xu Shiji gave him was still with Wang Jun, but where is Wang Jun now?

Li Shenfu panicked in his heart, but in full view of everyone, he had to force calm down and order one of his subordinates to go forward to negotiate.

After half a while, his subordinates rushed back, bowed and saluted: "Lord Qiqi, there is Liu Lancheng's army on the mountain, and he said that he knows the agreement reached between the prince and General Xu. ”

"If you know, why do you have to block the way?" Li Shenfu asked dissatisfiedly.

"I also asked, General Liu said that he received the news that the prince could go north to Hanzhong at any time, and he would not stop it, but General Xu did not promise that the army could go north."

Li Shenfu was stunned for a moment.