More than a dozen horses galloped towards Gao Jie's military camp five miles away by the night, and the people on the horses were all dressed as ordinary people, they were the fifteen dead soldiers secretly arranged by Wang Lanping, and the purpose of this trip was related to whether Gao Jie and his 30,000 army could be successfully resolved.

More than a dozen horses soon came to the outside of Gao Jie's barracks, and a hundred and ten steps away from the camp were surrounded by a group of soldiers.

Dozens of spears were pointed at them, "The barracks are heavy, and those who trespass will not be forgiven!" ”

The fifteen people did not panic in the face of it, and the leader calmly took out an iron plate from his arms and handed it over, and at the same time said, "We have something important to see General Gao, and report it quickly."

Someone in the night patrol army recognized this waist card, this is Xu Dingguo's seal, it is General Xu's attitude immediately eased, the third watch must be a big event in the middle of the night, everyone dare not slack off, a night patrol soldier looked at these dozen people, turned his head and threw down a sentence, "Wait"

This waist card was stolen by Wang Lanping when Xu Dingguo was drunk during the banquet.

Gao Jie was woken up in his sleep and cursed.

When he heard that Xu Dingguo had sent someone, he immediately fell asleep, put on his clothes and let people bring them in.

"Slow!" Gao Jie changed his mind in the blink of an eye, Xu Dingguo only sent someone at noon today, why did he come again, it was still the middle of the night, he had never sent someone during this time period in the past, Gao Jie was full of doubts in his heart.

Gao Jie has also been in the army for a few years, this is obviously unusual, he can also smell a hint of danger, fifteen secret envoys at a time, and ride fast horses with such fanfare, is this Xu Dingguo treating Wang Lanping as a fool? Or does Xu Dingguo want to play some new tricks?

Gao Jie pondered for a moment and said, "Where are the people?" ”

"Outside the Camp"

Gao Jie said, "Let them wait where they are, and I'll be there later."

"Yes!"

After a while, Gao Jie came to the outside of the camp with dozens of guards, and immediately lit dozens of torches, and the fifteen people waiting outside were already a little anxious and nervous.

"See the Chief Soldier" fifteen people knelt down and saluted together.

Gao Jie stopped when he was more than ten steps away from these people, and by the light of the fire, he looked at the dozen or so people who held Xu Dingguo's waist card, and he couldn't recognize any of them, and the more Gao Jie looked at them, the more suspicious he became, it was impossible for Xu Dingguo to send some fresh faces.

"You are all Xu Dingguo's soldiers?" Gao Jie asked.

"Yes, the fifteen small people are all soldiers of the Shanzi battalion under General Xu."

Gao Jie said, "Why have I never seen you?" "In fact, even if it is really Xu Dingguo's soldier, he doesn't know Gao Jie, there are tens of thousands of people in the whole army, how can he recognize it.

"The little ones have a low status, how can the general recognize them"

Gao Jie will be suspicious, it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, but Xu Dingguo's waist card is like a fake, and he will not easily show such an important thing.

Gao Jie nodded, "What did Xu Dingguo ask you to do?" ”

"Send a message"

"Sending a message? Yangzhou City is only five miles away from here, can you use such a teacher to mobilize the public, fifteen people are not afraid of revealing the news when they send letters? ”

"I don't know, this is General Xu's arrangement"

"What about the letter?" Gao Jie asked.

"It's a message"

Gao Jie turned his head to several guards around him, and a few people understood, walked to the person who claimed to have a message, and carefully examined his whole body, and was sure that this person did not carry a weapon.

"You come forward," Gao Jie nodded at him, his hands inadvertently already in a defensive posture.

The person who came slowly stepped forward, walked to Gao Jie's side, leaned close to his ear, and said softly, "General Xu asked me to tell you, don't prevent him from being promoted and making a fortune, he, he has endured you for a long time" After that, he hugged Gao Jie fiercely, and then dragged Gao Jie backwards, shouting while pulling back, "Brothers, what are you waiting for?" ”

Gao Jie also crawled out of the pile of dead people on the battlefield, as soon as he saw the other party's body move, he knew that there was really a fraud, and at the moment his hands and feet moved together, at the same time that his body was just hugged by the comer, Gao Jie quickly pushed forward with both hands, flew up with one foot, and kicked on his lower abdomen, but the person who came was too tight, even if Gao Jie reacted quickly, he couldn't break free in an instant, and the other party's hands grabbed his collar stiffly.

The other fourteen people two feet away saw that their companions suddenly attacked, they all moved in unison, pulled out the dagger on the cuff, and stabbed at Gao Jie with a cold light, Gao Jie's dozens of guards reacted not badly, but the perpetrator and General Gao were too close, they didn't dare to act rashly, they could only shout loudly on the side, "There are assassins, there are assassins, fence them up, surround them"

These fifteen people, all of whom were the most loyal dead soldiers around Shi Kefa, had no intention of going back this time, and assassinated the opposing general in the barracks, and they could not escape death regardless of whether they succeeded or not.

Fourteen daggers were intertwined and turned towards Gao Jie, Gao Jie was also extraordinary, dragging the person who was dragging his clothes to dodge left and right, but he couldn't hurt him at all, Gao Jie shouted, grabbed the opponent's iron tong-like hand, rolled to the ground on the spot, and rolled to the feet of his guard.

The assassin hit the air with one move, and there was no second such a good chance, Gao Jie's guards had already besieged him, and dozens of spears knocked five or six assassins to the ground in the blink of an eye, and the assassin who was entangled with Gao Jie was also broken by Gao Jie's arm in the rolling, fainted, and was cut beyond recognition by Gao Jie's guards in a blink of an eye.

Gao Jie got up from the ground, shrunk into the soldiers, and scolded, "Looking for death, catch alive, Lao Tzu killed you with his own hands."

At this moment, there was a burst of war drums from the direction of Yangzhou City, followed by firelight, and the rumbling sound of horses' hooves roared towards Gao Jie's military camp, shouting and killing shook the sky.

"Kill, capture Gao Jie alive, General Xu has an order, capture the anti-thief Gao Jie, reward a thousand taels of silver, kill!"

In the night, there seemed to be thousands of troops and horses killing Gao Jie's camp, Gao Jie panicked for a while, looked around, couldn't tell how many enemies came, and couldn't care about the few assassins who didn't die, waved his hand, and shouted, "Resist the enemy, what's the matter, is Xu Dingguo crazy?"

In the blink of an eye, Gao Jie's military camp was in chaos, only the sound of shouting and killing was heard continuously, and the torches protruding from the camp were protruding from the camp.

It turned out that this was arranged by Wang Lanping in advance, while Xu Dingguo was drunk, he transferred the 3,000 cavalry used to monitor Xu Dingguo, and after Gao Jie saw the assassin, he ordered the whole army to make a feint, and then add more fire to the contradiction between Gao Jie and Xu Dingguo, he replaced all the flags of the whole army with Xu Dingguo's banner, shouting, under the illumination of the torches, the 'Xu' character banner was called in the night wind, ensuring that Gao Jie could see it at a glance.

Wang Lanping's 3,000 cavalry ran back and forth outside the Gaojie barracks, shooting a random arrow from time to time.

Gao Jie didn't even have time to wear armor, after being dragged by the assassin just now, he looked embarrassed, his cloak was surrounded by the army and hid in the Chinese army, he didn't know how many enemies came, he only saw that Xu Dingguo's banner kept wandering outside the camp, he gritted his teeth with hatred, and kept repeating, "Xu Dingguo, Lao Tzu treats you well, you dare to betray me, I have to kill you, I have to kill you, I have to kill ........"

Wang Lanping didn't dare to let the cavalry rush too close, after all, this Fengyang army was different from Liu Zeqing's Huai'an army, such a sudden attack only made Gao Jie's camp chaotic for a while, and soon saw that the camp organized a defensive formation, Gao Jie was not so easy to deal with, after a feint, Wang Lanping ordered the whole army to quickly disappear into the night.

Waiting for Wang Lanping's cavalry to withdraw, Gao Jie counted the barracks, the battalion of more than 20,000 people, there were already two or three thousand people who did not know where to go, he was angry and he put on the team, put on armor and straddled the horse, and wanted to directly wave the army to attack Yangzhou, fortunately, there were other generals to dissuade him, at this time there was no chance of winning the siege, after this trouble, it was a soldier who had no fighting spirit, morale was low, many soldiers were crowded together, stupidly staring at the darkness outside the camp, for fear that someone would rush out of the darkness again, and the soldiers who were so frightened that they could hold the camp would be good, How to talk about attacking Yangzhou City, which is high and deep.

Gao Jie had no choice but to order the whole army to retreat fifty miles at night, find a high place, and when it was dawn, he set up a camp, set up a camp defense, and prepared to recuperate, and then find Shi Kefa and Xu Dingguo to settle this account.

When he settled down again, the calm Gao Jie couldn't help but wonder a little, how could Xu Dingguo betray himself? is also a general of the Ming army, even if Xu Dingguo defects to Shi Kefa, then everyone is still colleagues, this kind of betrayal has no meaning to Xu Dingguo at all, what good is it for him Xu Dingguo to choose to offend himself? Could this be a discordant plan between Wang Lanping and Shi Kefa? But last night, the waist cards of those assassins were still in their hands, this thing can't be faked, and Xu Dingguo's banner is still rolling in Gao Jie's mind.

Gao Jie still had the last trace of doubt about Xu Dingguo's betrayal, he was even willing to believe that it was all a trick made up by Wang Lanping and Shi Kefa, the purpose was only for the sake of his own military power, in order to find out Xu Dingguo's true thoughts, he sent people to Xu Dingguo's hometown three hundred miles away, took his whole family over, and then sent people to try to sneak into Yangzhou City to find out.

At this time, Yangzhou was already under martial law, and the city gate was closed, as if facing a great enemy.

When Xu Dingguo woke up in the morning, he heard from his subordinates that last night the Gaojie military camp outside the city was full of flames, and the war drums were repeated, as if there was a war, and martial law was imposed in the city early in the morning, and no one was allowed to leave the city.

Xu Dingguo was shocked when he heard this, knowing that there must have been something big in General Gao's army last night, he wanted to go out of the city several times, but was stopped by someone, and in a fit of anger, Xu Dingguo found Shi Kefa and Wang Lanping, but both of them had no excuses, and Xu Dingguo even ate a few closed doors.

Xu Dingguo was very anxious, he didn't know the situation outside the city, and he didn't dare to take private troops, so he had to drink sullen wine at the station.

Until noon, Wang Lanping suddenly appeared in front of Xu Dingguo and told him that last night for some reason Gao Jie's army suddenly burst into flames, and it was a mess, and Shi Inspector ordered the whole city to be on guard on the grounds that the situation was unknown, and then make a decision after finding out the situation.

Xu Dingguo didn't know whether it was true or false after hearing this, how could it be, I hadn't heard of the activities of thieves and captives in this area, how could there be chaos, there were so many bandits, but how could these people dare to confront the official army, could it be a mutiny in the army?

Wang Lanping also thought that the armament in the city was insufficient, and the enemy situation was unknown at this time, just in case, since Shi Inspector had been awarded to Xu Dingguo to supervise the defense of Yangzhou City, he also asked Xu Dingguo to plan for Yangzhou City, and pulled his 5,000 army to the head of Yangzhou City, so as to solve the worry of insufficient troops in the city, stay for a few days, and then send someone to find out the whereabouts of Gao Jiejun.

Xu Dingguo couldn't shirk it, so he had to suppress his temperament and agree for the time being, while guarding the city, he was looking for an opportunity to send someone out of the city to secretly inquire about what happened outside the city last night.

Under the sunset, Xu Dingguo's flag fluttered at the head of Yangzhou City, and Wang Lanping pulled Xu Dingguo to talk at the head of the city, pointing at the firelight last night.

And all this was vividly remembered by Gao Jie's spies who were ambushed outside the city to monitor, and turned their heads to report back to Gao Jie.