At midnight, after the hard fighting during the day, the soldiers in the camp were already exhausted, and they were sleeping soundly on their bunks. Because he stood by Zhou Ping's side to protect during the day, Li Bao did not go into battle to fight, so it was his turn to be on duty at night. He sat by the fire by the gate of the fortress, carrying a long-handled bone in his hand, which he used as a cane, and wore iron armor, and every once in a while he stood up and patrolled to see if the soldiers on duty at night were lazy and dozing.

"Why is there something wrong with this bang?" A look of confusion appeared on the face of one of the entourage.

"What's wrong?" Li Bao asked.

"Tell the head, at this time it was the villain's fellow villager Tian Qi who was on duty at night, and the three fingers of his right hand were cut off when he was fighting the water thief, so he could only knock it for half a day when he hit the bang, otherwise it would fall. But now the sound is exactly the same as usual! ”

"Really?" Li Bao stood up, his face full of murder.

"Really, but maybe it's a temporary replacement!" There was an uncertain look on his face.

"Pick up the guy and go over there!" Li Bao stood up, lifted the bone and walked in the direction where the sound of bangzi came.

"Someone up there is going over the wall!" After walking about forty or fifty steps, a sharp-eyed retinue had already seen a figure climb over the fence, which looked particularly clear in the moonlight. A person next to him took out a bow from his back and was about to shoot, but Li Bao stretched out his hand and held it down, and said in a low voice: "Don't worry, you go and report, the two of you go to occupy a high place, and the rest will come with me!" ”

The seven or eight people under Li Bao were all healthy members of the pro-soldier team, and they took the orders one after another. Li Bao then pulled out the saber at his waist. Holding a long-handled bone in one hand, he half-bent over and walked over there.

After walking more than a dozen steps, Li Bao saw more than a dozen figures in the corner not far away, who were busy with something next to the fence of the earthen fortress, he pounced without saying a word, and cut off the head of the nearest person with a knife in his hand, a terrible scream broke the silence, and the attacked party shouted desperately to resist, listening to the Wu language in his ears, Li Bao shouted loudly: "A certain family Kaifeng Li Bao." Which one dares to come and put it right with a certain family! ”

The Manichaeans who attacked at night saw the ferocity of his coming. surrounded him, but Li Bao was not afraid, with a bone in one hand and a sword in the other, daring to be in front of him. They all fell like reeds. He also received a few blows on him. But he relied on the thickness of his armor and stiffened through. Seeing this, the Manichaeans fled. But he was driven up by Li Bao's personal entourage, stabbed and killed one by one, and several people climbed up the earthen ramparts with light skills, trying to escape over the fence, but they were also shot down by the archers who had occupied the high place, and there was not one out of ten who could escape.

"Tell the head, Tian Qi on duty was killed, it looks like he was asleep and killed, these are the ones who came to set the fire, and they all have torches and clear oil on them!" After searching the bodies of the dead and prisoners, a soldier reported to Li Baoyu.

"Well, search carefully to see if there is anything that has slipped through the net, and take the good life into custody, and wait until the prisoner wakes up to ask about it. Tian Qi's team was arrested, beaten with twenty whips, and Tian Qi's body was hung in front of the door to show everyone! ”

"Li Bao!" Zhou Ping rushed over wearing only a robe and asked, "How is the situation?" ”

"It's okay, a few Manichaean thieves have come to steal the camp, and they have been killed by me!" Li Bao said with a smile.

"Huh!" Zhou Ping suddenly pointed to the other party's right rib and asked, "What's wrong with you here?" ”

"Hey!" Li Bao felt a tingling pain in his right rib, and even the outer robe was wet when he touched it with his hand, it turned out that he was just killing on Xing's head, and he didn't notice an arrow on his right rib, and the tip of the arrow penetrated the iron ring, but fortunately it was not deep in the flesh and did not hurt the internal organs. He gritted his teeth and pulled out the arrow, and his subordinates on the side hurriedly helped him sit down, Zhou Ping carefully untied the iron armor for him, sucked the blood from the wound with his mouth, and took the clean cloth to wrap it for him, and sighed: "Fortunately, the opponent's bow is soft, and it didn't shoot through, otherwise if this arrow hurts the internal organs, it will be troublesome, and the next time you go into battle, you have to be careful, don't go too deep into the battle." ”

"The prisoner is smiling!" Li Bao smiled: "I'm a rude man, and when I see that the situation is critical, I can't care so much about it!" ”

Speaking of this, Zhou Ping's face became gloomy, and he lowered his voice and asked, "Brother Li Bao, do you think we should withdraw all the brothers to the city?" ”

"Retreat to the city?" Li Bao was stunned for a moment and asked, "Aren't the reinforcements coming?" “

"Hmm!" Zhou Ping nodded, under the flickering firelight, his face was cloudy, and he looked a little scary: "But who knows when it will come, if the Manichae thief does this day and night for a few more days, the brothers will be exhausted without fighting." Besides-" Speaking of this, Zhou Ping's voice lowered a little.

"I'm afraid that reinforcements won't come for a while."

"Can't come?" Li Bao was shocked and asked, "How is it possible?" Doesn't it mean that the army has already crossed the river, and it is only a few days from Jingkou to Xiuzhou? ”

"Be quiet, don't let people hear!" Zhou Ping said in a low voice, looked at no one on the left and right, and whispered: "Li Bao, there are outsiders in the daytime, and there are some things I can't say." I have thought about it carefully in the past two days, if I am the king of the capital, it would be better for the army to come later! ”

"Late?" When Li Bao heard this, this brave man who had just faced the enemy and didn't know the fear suddenly felt a chill crawling up his spine, and he couldn't help but shiver.

"How is this possible? Xiuzhou City can only fight our 800 people, but there are tens of thousands of Manichae thieves outside, and this Xiuzhou City will definitely not be able to hold it after a long time, and the Son of Heaven will definitely know it-"

"Po! The Son of Heaven took Tong Guan as the pacification envoy of Jianghuai and Jingzhejiang, and many cities lost in Jiangnan went to Hangzhou, even Hangzhou, what is one more Xiuzhou? As long as Tong Guan can finally calm Fang La, these things are nothing. When Zhou Ping said this, his face became more and more gloomy: "We have also seen it in the past few days, in fact, the Manichae thieves are some rabble,

It's just that in recent years, Jiangnan has become accustomed to peaceful days, and people are not used to fighting, so they will get this situation. If it was on the Anyang side, just the local tyrants and villagers would be able to make these Manichi thieves drink a pot. With the elite of the Western Army, it is just idle to defeat the Manichaean thieves. It's just that although these Manichae thieves have average combat strength, if they are allowed to wander in all directions or flee back to their lair, and the war drags on, it will be troublesome. “

When Li Bao heard this, his face had become as pale as a dead man, and he asked in a trembling voice, "Could it be that we are here-" Speaking of this, his voice suddenly froze.

"Yes, we're bait!" Zhou Ping said in a low voice: "Think about it, when Wang Dutong was in Guangling, he obviously had tens of thousands of troops on hand, why did he send us hundreds of people over." He gave us 300 divine arm archers, and told us to use them only in times of emergency. This is clearly to prevent Xiuzhou City from being defeated immediately, and not to let the Manichi thieves find out that the army is coming and flee back to the lair. Speaking of this, Zhou Ping stretched out his finger and drew a few times on the ground, pointed to it and said: "This is Xiuzhou, this is Jingkou, and this is Hangzhou." If I were that king, I would show weakness while sending a deviant division to cross the river from upstream, cut off the road to the Manichi thief's lair, and then flank the front and back to wipe out the thief army! ”

Hearing this, Li Bao's whole person was already paralyzed on the ground, and after about half a sound, he asked in a low voice, "When do you think the reinforcements will arrive?" ”

"I don't know, but when the detachment cut off the Manichaean thieves' way to their lair, and when reinforcements should have arrived." Speaking of this, Zhou Ping's face showed a wry smile for the first time: "As for us and this Xiuzhou City, it's good to be able to hold it, but it doesn't matter if we can't hold it." Anyway, if we can put down the Manichae thief, who will care about our five hundred soldiers. ”

"Hey!" Li Bao sighed: "Detention, did you tell others about this?" Does that Chang Zongtian know? ”

"Nope!" Zhou Ping shook his head: "I also figured it out just now, and you were the first to know." How dare that Chang Zongtian tell him, he is from the Western Army, and we are not of the same mind, who knows if he will report it to me for the crime of disturbing the morale of the army? Speaking of this, Zhou Ping sighed: "We warriors are like arrows in Hulu, just shoot at will!" ”

"Then let the brethren withdraw immediately?" When Li Bao heard this, he was already cold, and he couldn't wait to immediately retreat into Xiuzhou City. Zhou Ping shook his head and said: "Wait for the day, just a few little thieves come to attack the camp and enter the city, I can't say anything, wait until tomorrow when I can't hold it during the day and then retreat, let the torch camp burn, and the Mani thieves can't force it up!" ”

"That's right!" Li Bao felt that everything Zhou Ping said was right at this time, Zhou Ping looked up at the stars in the sky, and said with a smile: "Look, it's almost the fourth shift, and I can't sleep anyway, let's go to my tent to eat something!" ”

"Thank you, detaine!"

Time passed quickly, and it was already the next morning in a blink of an eye, Zhou Ping was thinking about what excuse to let people transport some of the baggage in the village back to the city, but he saw Chang Zongtian running towards him with a smile on his face, and he said loudly when he was far away: "Juncheng, Juncheng!" Great joy, Tong Shuai sent reinforcements! ”

"Reinforcements?" Zhou Ping was stunned for a moment, and turned his head just in time to see Li Bao's puzzled gaze. He hurriedly squeezed out a smile and responded: "That's great, what's going on, Chang Yuhou said I'll listen!" ”

"Tong Shuai sent five hundred people, all of whom were first-class veterans. The military order said, let's stick to Xiuzhou City, the army will arrive just around the corner, and break the enemy in one fell swoop! Speaking of this, Chang Zongtian showed an envious smile on his face, and said: "Zhou Prison, Wang Dutong really values you very much, and all the soldiers sent here even have a commander, only the soldiers have no generals, and they are obviously afraid of fighting for power with you." It's rare to be so sympathetic to the husband below! ”

When Zhou Ping heard this, he couldn't help but secretly complain in his heart, these five hundred reinforcements were obviously afraid that Xiuzhou City would be captured by the thief army too soon, so that the roundabout partial division would not have time to arrive to cut off the enemy's way back. As for the words "reinforcements are coming soon", it also coaxes people like Chang Zongtian, in Zhou Ping's opinion, it is clearly "you go to carry the black cauldron". (To be continued......)