Just when Shi Siming, who suffered a fiasco in Changfeng Valley, gathered nearly 20,000 defeated soldiers, and scolded angrily with blood in his mouth, Yang Ping'an had already led his soldiers and horses around Changfeng Valley, passed through Tianchang County, and entered the territory of [***].

The Zhou army, which occupied [***], had already sent troops to Tianchang County, cooperating with the two Zhou armies attacking Yangzhou to contain the Tang army in Tianchang County.

Tianchang County is located between the three big cities of Yangzhou, Yongyang and Xuyi, and is just a small county town, with general city defense and average military strength, but because of its geographical location, it is not so easy to capture.

The defender of the city is a veteran, who has passed the age of the sixtieth year, and his beard is white, and he has no great merit or great fault, and he is only one line higher than the people of Lulu.

However, because of his age, he has already polished the frizziness on his body, and Guo Ziyi ordered him to guard the sky, that is, he likes his lack of attack and more than enough defense, and he likes his stability.

He also lived up to Guo Ziyi's expectations, and in the face of the Zhou army that had just defeated [***], he avoided its edge and implemented the strategy of clearing the wilderness, gathered all the soldiers and horses into the county seat, prepared for a long-term defense of the city, and let the Zhou army come to attack the city.

He was sure that he would hold Tianchang for five days, as long as he had five days, no matter whether Yangzhou and Yongyang would send reinforcements, the Xuyi reinforcements in the rear would definitely be able to arrive.

"My lord, the last general will ask for battle, and I am willing to lead the soldiers and horses of my headquarters out of the city to fight the enemy."

The war has lasted for three days, in three days many generals in Tianchang County have asked for war, the war so far, Tianchang and Yangzhou, are the first to war, many of the generals who are full of fire are not willing to shrink into the city, have asked for war.

However, the old guard sent away the generals who asked for battle with only one sentence: "You want to fight, and when I die, you will be in charge of Tianchang." ”

On the fourth day, the Zhou army, which was storming the Great Wall of Heaven, suddenly retreated, and the retreat was extremely panicked, and the old guard general took a cadre of lieutenant generals to the top of the city, and watched the banner retreat in the direction of [***] like a fire on the buttocks, and couldn't help frowning.

"General, could it be that the enemy army is trying to lure us out of the city."

"General, the sudden retreat of the enemy army must be due to an accident in its rear, and the last general is willing to lead a force of soldiers and horses to pursue."

For the withdrawal of the Zhou army for no reason, the generals in the city were divided into two groups, arguing endlessly, but the old guard general did not speak, just looked at the Zhou army who gradually disappeared from sight, full of suspicion.

Xuyi's reinforcements have not yet arrived, why did the enemy withdraw, didn't they want to block this road to Yangzhou, could it be that Yangzhou was broken.

Impossible, Yangzhou's city defense is strong and the soldiers are well fed, and it must not be broken in three or five days, so why is it.

Just as I was surprised, I suddenly heard someone shouting in my ear: "General, look, it's our people over there." ”

I saw a large army appear in the east, holding high the two banners of "Tang" and "History", although the formation was chaotic, but the momentum was still there, and it was rushing towards the sky.

"Oh, the last general knows, it must be the Zhou army that discovered the reinforcements from Yangzhou, so they retreated in a panic." A young general said excitedly, "If you can go out of the city to pursue just now, you will definitely be able to kill a lot of enemy troops." ”

The soldiers and horses who came were none other than Shi Siming's department who visited from Changfeng Valley, all the way west to Tianchang, and they urgently needed to rest.

The old guard recognized Shi Siming and asked him to lead a few personal soldiers into the city, while the rest of the soldiers and horses were stationed outside the city, and the old guard arranged for people to send military supplies.

Shi Siming naturally couldn't tell the other party that he was defeated Tianchang, and when he learned that the Zhou army was attacking Tianchang, he immediately said that he was a Yangzhou reinforcement and came to rescue Tianchang County.

The old guard general has lived a lot of age and has a wide range of knowledge, and from the personal soldiers around Shi Siming, he suddenly saw that something was strange, he always felt that what Shi Siming said was untrue, but now was not the time to delve into this matter, because he had already learned the number of soldiers and horses under Shi Siming's command, and judged that the defeat of the Zhou army was definitely not due to the arrival of Shi Siming's troops.

Since this is not the reason, there is only one possibility, [***] is dangerous.

Thinking of this, he immediately ordered people to lead the only 5,000 soldiers and horses in the city, lightly armed Jane Cong only brought five days' rations per person, and quickly pursued the enemy army, to cooperate with the Tang army that was attacking [***], and inflicted heavy losses on the Zhou army that had just retreated.

Looking at the five thousand light horsemen galloping to [***], the old guard general opened his mouth to probe: "Thank you General Shi for the source, the old man thanked the general for his help on behalf of the people of Tianchang, I heard that Yangzhou is facing the onslaught of the Zhou army, such as today's long dilemma has been solved, the old man does not dare to delay General Shi's time, but unfortunately the Great Wall of Heaven is outnumbered, and the old man can only make up all the military supplies for the general's soldiers and horses, and I wish the general a victory in opening the banner and repelling the enemy who invaded Yangzhou." ”

The old man belongs to the soy sauce faction in the army, otherwise he would not be a big old man to mix with a guard in a small county like Tianchang, he doesn't form a gang, but he can't get used to seeing civilian officials in the army, and he is also dissatisfied with Shi Siming's arrogance, so he gave a very euphemistic eviction order.

But on the way here, Shi Siming had already discussed with Xiao Dingmou that they would never be able to return to Yangzhou, and they would not go back until the battle in Yangzhou was over.

Li Linfu's "viciousness" about Yang Ping'an has convinced them that if they return to Yangzhou at this moment, Yang Ping'an will definitely not let them enter the city, and when the time comes, they will face the Zhou army of 70,000 or 80,000, they are afraid that they will be completely annihilated.

Therefore, the three of them agreed to enter Tianchang cultivation first, and at the same time replenish the soldiers, horses, grain and grass, and wait until the battle in Yangzhou is over, they will depend on the situation.

But Shi Siming's duty is to guard Yangzhou, if they rely on Tianchang, the old man sent a letter to Guo Ziyi in Chuzhou, then Guo Ziyi, who was worried that he couldn't find a chance to clean him up, would definitely use this as an excuse to remove him from his military post and deprive him of military power.

During the war, the generals were not subject to the orders of foreign monarchs, not to mention that Guo Ziyi never put Taishi Xiao in his eyes.

Seeing that the old guard picked up the tea and stopped talking, Shi Siming and Xiao Dingmou glanced at each other, and the former got up and said: "Our army is tired and tired of rushing overnight, and tonight we will rest again for the night, and we will return to Yangzhou tomorrow, you need to replenish food and grass for my soldiers and horses as soon as possible, there is a problem." ”

This request is human nature, and the old guard general did not refuse, but he didn't know that after Shi Siming, Xiao Dingmou and Li Linfu left, the former lowered his voice and asked: "Childe, I don't know that in Tianchang County, there are shadow guards." ”

The five thousand cavalry sent by the old guard, the leading general is his grandson Chu Pei, who has been in the army for two years and is only eighteen this year, and the old man knows that his life is like this, so he pins his hopes on his grandson, hoping that his grandson can make some contributions in this battle, so as to be promoted.

There were as many as 30,000 Zhou troops defeated from Tianchang, and Chu Pei took away 5,000 cavalry, and he pulled away nearly half of Tianchang's defenders, but Rao was like this, and he didn't know the bottom of his heart, after all, the number of enemy troops was several times that of him.

After a night, they caught up with the Zhou army, fell far behind, and watched the enemy's movements.

When he found out that the Zhou army did not attack, but continued to retreat south, he felt that his old man's judgment might be correct, so he boldly led the army to carry out a tentative attack on the rear army of the Zhou army.

Although the Zhou army resisted resolutely, when they retreated, the Zhou army did not pursue, but only asked the rear army to slow down to prevent the pursuit of attack.

Feeling that the enemy's morale was unstable and low, Chu Pei was even more sure at this time, and immediately led his soldiers and horses to launch a fierce attack on the troops behind the Zhou army.

After repeated battles, when the 5,000 cavalry led by him completely defeated the thousands of Zhou troops behind the palace, and then felt [***] all the way to the horse, but saw that the head of the city was fluttering in the wind was the Tang Dynasty flag, and one of the flags was written with the word "An".

"How, how is it possible, who knocked [***] down, An, I haven't heard of a general surnamed An around." Ling Chu Pei was surprised not only by this, he also found that the Zhou army, who had originally returned to the reinforcement [***], retreated after leaving a corpse at the root of the city, and the direction should be to retreat to Guabu.

Guabu is located in the south of [***], adjacent to the Yangtze River, but with [***] this kind of big city, Guabu is only a small county town, which is equivalent to Tianchang County, but is located on the side of the Yangtze River, is the first pass of the Yangtze River defense, a few years ago specially built a little, the scale has increased a lot, and it has become one of the important military towns of the Northern Tang Dynasty on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

However, at the beginning of the war, when Li Guangbi was shining, Guabu fell into the hands of the Zhou army.

Not long ago, it was captured by the Zhou army, and a small number of defenders fled to Tianchang, so Chu Pei knew more about [***], and the information that came was that after the Zhou army captured [***], 50,000 soldiers and horses were stationed in [***], in addition to sending 30,000 soldiers and horses to feint to attack Tianchang, there were 20,000 soldiers and horses in the city.

Although [***] is not as good as Yangzhou, it is not easy to defeat [***] garrisoned by 20,000 soldiers and horses, and it was captured in just a few days.

What is the origin of this general surnamed An?

Chu Pei had the heart to figure it out and led the soldiers and horses close to the city wall, but before he could get closer, he saw a shot of arrows coming and shooting fifty paces in front of them, and then he saw a man at the head of the city holding a strange object shaped like a trumpet, and shouted loudly: "Stop when you come to the enemy, and dare to come forward and kill without mercy." ”

"Kill." As the warning sounded down, a roar came from the ruined city, the sound shook the heavens and the earth, as if a monstrous killing intent poured out from the city.

"Don't get me wrong, in the next day, Captain Chu Pei, followed the Zhou army." Chu Pei ordered the soldiers and horses to stop, and the single horse slowly stepped forward, shouting, "Dare to ask General An is there." ”

As he got closer and closer to the city, Chu Pei saw a fat man, covered in armor and guarded by many soldiers, looking down at the city.

"Captain Tianchang, you are still too tender to come to this set with Lao Tzu, do you think you damn guys can fool Lao Tzu by disguising themselves as Tang Jun, come here, release arrows."

"Slow." Chu Pei was taken aback, he now had some suspicions that the Tang Army in the city was pretending to be Zhou Jun, but he really couldn't think of any reason for Zhou Jun to do so, "I really want to ask Your Excellency if you are General An." ”

"Yes and no, even if you are the captain of Tianchang, you can't stay in Tianchang well, and you come here to do something."

"General, he is really Captain Chu Pei, the last general has seen him before." Chu Pei got closer, and a young general next to the fat man recognized Chu Pei and said with a fist.

The fat man looked at the man, and finally nodded: "You are really the captain of the Heavenly Commander, well, you dare to enter the city." ”

Chu Pei also recognized the young general in the city, who was originally a captain in the city, called Kong Haoxia, because the two were of the same age and the day was not far apart, the two had fought a few times in private, so they were called friends.

Before, he thought that Kong Haoxia was killed when the city was broken, but now he was overjoyed to see it, and he no longer suspected that the Tang army in the city was pretending to be the Zhou army, so he immediately dismounted and rode the hanging basket put down at the head of the city to climb the city.

Seeing the fat man, Chu Pei gave a military salute and asked with admiration: "Dare to ask General An, how many soldiers and horses were used to defeat [***], and how to defeat it." ”

The fat man scratched his head and hesitated for a long time before saying, "We have more than 10,000 horses in total, and I don't know how we beat them." ”