Chapter 617: Flying Dragons Ride the Clouds
Li Shimin in the morning light is like his lover Matarer, extremely tired and his eyes are blank. The once handsome and peerless son has become much gloomy since he was disfigured and broken, and he is often intimidated and afraid to approach.
He wore a white cloak soaked in blood and stains on his shoulders, and after many days of bloody battles and flights, this once precious and gorgeous white cloak had long since made it impossible to see its original color. Under the cloak was a black bright light armor, and the pieces of armor leaves connected by copper wires were already covered with dust and soaked in blood, and the black iron armor leaves were mixed with dark red coagulated blood stains, so that people could already feel the feeling of death and gloom on his body a few steps away.
Under the cold face, the sleeve of his left hand was empty, and he used his intact right hand to press the horizontal knife at his waist, and his feet put on a pair of deerskin boots and calmly walked out of the cave. He had just returned from a search outside, and before he had time to freshen up, the fog and dew of the night had already wet his cloak, and a few strands of loose hair hung down under his helmet. The originally smooth chin was also densely covered with blue and black stubble at this time, and the roots were erected like iron wire, and they protruded chaotically.
As soon as he saw his sister Li Xiuning, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he said hello and stopped and stood there.
"Jiro." Li Xiuning stepped forward and kindly helped his younger brother tidy up his cloak, "When did you come back?" ”
"Before dawn, the safest time." Li Shimin's cold face rose slightly. The dark night before dawn is the most peaceful and safe time of the day, and the pursuers sent by Yang Jian are often already resting in the camp at this time. A few days ago, Li Shimin asked himself to take people to the bottom of the mountain to inquire about the situation, trying to find a way to let these thousands of remnants retreat to the north.
"How's it going?"
Li Shimin shook his head helplessly, "As the third sister said before, now that we are trapped in the mountains, there is no way out." The south is the Yellow River, the east is Yuwenjia, there is Yang Jun in the north, and Wang Shichong in the east, we are surrounded on all sides and have no way out. Although Taiyuan, Shangdang and other places are still in the hands of my Li family, it is difficult to quench our thirst from far away, we can't go back, and they can't have the ability to come south to save us. ”
Although he has not found a way out in the past few days, Li Shimin still inquired about a lot of useful information. At this time, Hedong, not to mention counting on Li Shentong, Li Daozong and others to save them, their own self-protection is already insufficient. He got the news that Wang Shichong had previously waved his troops to attack Huoyi, wanting to go north to fight for Taiyuan. However, the Liang division on the other side of Luliang Mountain suddenly came over the mountain, led a strange army to rush in front of Wang Shichong's soldiers and horses, and captured the three cities of Huoyi, Jiexiu and Lingshi, and firmly occupied the three roads of Bird Mouse Valley, Qianjun Cheng, and Tongjun Chuan, which must be passed through in the north. The road to the north was taken, and the backyard of Luoyang was robbed by Li Mi, and Wang Shichong had to collect his troops and retreat to Jiangxian.
However, Liang Shidu took the opportunity to wave his army north, and within a few days he had occupied Xihe County, and went north along the Fen River, and the soldiers and horses had approached the south of Taiyuan, and he sent another army of soldiers and horses from the west of Taiyuan from Shijun, approaching the west of Taiyuan.
And Wang Rengong, Liu Wuzhou and others in the north of the river are not lagging behind. Wang Rengong and Ma Yi Liu Wuzhou, Yanmen Yao Junsu, Yulin Guo Zihe gathered soldiers and horses, and organized a westward camp, Wang Rengong was the marshal, Liu Wuzhou and others were the deputy marshals, and the soldiers and horses gathered more than 100,000 horses. From the north to the south, all the way into Loufu County, in less than two days, all the counties of Loufu County were lost, and the soldiers and horses invaded Taiyuan County. Li Shentong, who stayed in Taiyuan, led 30,000 troops to the north of Taiyuan to block the city, and the city was broken in less than three days, Li Shentong's 30,000 horses and horses were wiped out, and only dozens of people fled back to Taiyuan. After this defeat, Li Shentong and Li Daozong no longer dared to divide their troops in Zhucheng, and hurriedly withdrew from the outer cities of Taiyuan to Taiyuan City. …,
First under the city, then down to Fenyang, then under Mengxian, Shi Ai, Shouyang, Leping, Heshun, Liaoshan, Pingcheng, Taiyuan peripheral cities fell one after another. About three days earlier, Wang Rengong's Western Coalition army had surrounded Yuci City, a barrier east of Taiyuan. The two armies to the west and south of the Liang division also captured the three cities of Wenshui, Qixian and Taigu, and 50,000 soldiers and horses converged to surround Qingyuan City south of Taiyuan.
In the entire northern and central counties of Hedong, in a blink of an eye, only Taiyuan City and the surrounding cities of Yuci and Qingyuan remained. Li Shentong and Li Daozong gathered all the remaining 100,000 people to defend Taiyuan, guarding Li Tang's last base and the families and relatives of all civil and military officials.
Taiyuan City is in danger, and because of its geographical advantage, Shangdang County, which sits in the three major mountain ranges of Taiyue, Taihang and Wangwu, is still in the hands of Li Tang, but the north of Shangdang has been blocked from Taiyuan, and the south has been cut off by Wang Shichong from Wangwu Mountain, and Hedong County has also been cut off. Although for the time being, with the advantage of high mountain location, it will not be lost for the time being, but it can only sit in a corner, and in the end it can only watch the Li family perish.
The bad situation was not what Li Shimin was most worried about, he was more worried about the families who had taken refuge in their Li family in the Hedong Prefectures. At the beginning, they became the winner in the Taiyuan dispute, occupied the center of Taiyuan, and passed on the land of more than ten counties in Hedong. Those wealthy families all fell to them one after another, but now, Wang Shichong in the south and Wang Rengong in the north took away more than ten counties of their Li family in an instant without much effort. This filled his heart with a feeling of being deceived and betrayed, and when he was angry, he couldn't help but think of Chen Pojun's ruthlessness to those big families in Hebei and eradicating them in one fell swoop. When he first heard this, he also thought that Chen Pojun, who had always been smart, had made a big mistake and provoked those nobles to cause endless trouble. But now, he realized that the original person was still right.
This time, he went down the mountain and sent people to infiltrate the three counties of Hedong County, Jiang County, and Hanoi, trying to contact the family Haoqiang of the three counties and the local officials appointed by their Li family, trying to get them to do things behind the backs of Yang Xuan, Wang Shichong and others, causing chaos, so as to take them down the mountain and return to Shangdang or Taiyuan. But the envoys sent out one by one came back with disappointing news, and later he personally took people to the Pei family, the largest family in Hedong County, hoping to get their support. But the head of the Pei family was hospitable on the surface, nodded again and again, and agreed, but secretly sent someone to report to Yang Xuan. Fortunately, he and his subordinates were vigilant, and in the middle of the night, they found that the atmosphere was not right, and they fought their way out before the men and horses sent by Yang Jian arrived. Rao was so, and more than twenty of the brothers who went down the mountain with him remained there forever.
What is the reason for the refusal of the clans? At first, he couldn't figure it out, but before he even returned to the mountains, he had already figured it out. Their Li family is the representative of the clan valve, thinking about the Li family's code of conduct all along, it is not difficult to understand the reaction of these clan heroes to the situation in Hedong at this time. The powerful people of the world are not loyal, they only care about interests, as long as they can keep the interests of their family, as for who is the lord of Hedong and who is the lord of the world, for them, it has nothing to do with it.
"Have you talked to them all?"
"All?" Li Shimin shook his head with a mocking smile, and when he saw one family, he almost couldn't come back, where did he dare to see other families. But he still didn't omit what he had to do. Although he did not go to contact and discuss in person later, he still sent his subordinates to visit his family with his own letters. But as a result, half of the powerful people of the world refused to even meet his envoy, and a small number of them did, but there was no reply, only a few words of innocuous reply, and as for the things they were asked to do, they all shirked all kinds of excuses. There are also a very small number of people, as shameless as the Pei family, as soon as they saw his envoy, they immediately sent someone to arrest them and send them to Yang Yun to invite merit. …,
"I only met with the head of the Pei family in Hedong, but the shameless old thief wanted to tie me up in the middle of the night and give it to Yang Jun, but fortunately I was alert and escaped. As for even the people, it's not much better. Our Li family has now fallen into such a field, these guys can't wait to come to the well, and want them to send charcoal in the snow, which is impossible. ”
Although Li Xiuning doesn't care about the interests of the family, what is the competition for the world. But when he heard that the powerful people of the Hedong clan who were attached to the Li family treated the Li family like this, they couldn't help frowning.
"Erlang, I heard that you brought a group of strangers back when you came back, who are they?"
"The Golden Armor of the Kingsguard."
"The Golden Armor Guards of the Royal Forest?"
"Chen Pojun's janissaries are equivalent to the three guards of Yiwei, personal guards, and Xun guards in the original imperial court." Li Shimin explained to his sister, "However, Chen Pojun's personal guards are not those who are composed of noble relatives and the children of civil and military ministers. His personal guards are divided into gold-armored guards, silver-armored guards, bronze-armored guards, and iron-armored guards. Among them, the Golden Armor Guards of the Imperial Forest are the best young officers selected in the army, and the total of one hundred and eight Golden Armor Guards are all young and the best, all of them are seven-rank martial arts, and their futures are limitless. ”
A majestic and brand-new guard battalion for young officers is exactly a new thing that a person like Chen Pojun can come up with. Although Li Shimin had already regarded Chen Pojun as an enemy of life and death in his heart, no one paid much attention to Chen Pojun. He will always be the first to know about some changes around Chen Pojun.
It has been said that if you want to understand a person, then ask his opponents. Li Shimin thinks that there may be no one in the world who knows Chen Pojun better than him. Since he met Chen Pojun, he has found that Chen Pojun has always been a person who likes to push through the old and bring forth the new. No matter what is the case, when he was in Liaodong, he dared to change the military system and get a military rank. Now that he had a brand new Praetorian Guard, there was nothing surprising that only he could do.
Listening to her younger brother calmly say that the stranger she brought back was actually her husband's personal guard, she couldn't help but feel dizzy, her heart was still beating violently for a long time, she held her forehead, her eyes were extremely bright, and she grabbed Li Shimin's hand urgently with both hands, "What did you say?" Are you really bringing back his people? ”
(The body is recovering, and the update is also beginning to recover slowly, and the body will begin to return to the normal update speed when it gets better, thank you for your support!) Thank you! )
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