——Jiangxia County, Iron Mountain——

Iron Mountain, as the name suggests, is a mountain rich in iron ore and is one of the many mines in the Great Zhou Dynasty. But unlike other places, although it was ostensibly controlled by the Great Zhou court, in fact, the Taiping army was its real master.

It is no wonder that, after all, the Great Zhou's control of important national resources such as copper, iron, salt, and rice is far stricter than that of gold and silver, which makes the Taiping army not only have no way to obtain weapons and equipment with the Great Zhou army through certain channels, but can only mine iron ore and smelt weapons privately, and even they have to be vigilant at all times in this kind of matter, in case a large Zhou army suddenly comes to encircle and suppress.

In fact, [Eight Sages King] Li Xian has never relaxed his control over the mines in Jiangnan, and has taken advantage of the convenience of local city guard exercises several times to track down the secret hiding place of the Taiping Army in Jiangnan, but unfortunately due to the relationship of intelligence, Li Xian was unable to cut off the lifeblood of the Taiping Army.

But I have to say that Li Xian did have a very serious impact on the Taiping Army, which is also the fundamental reason why the Taiping Army sent [the first Tianquan God General] Ji Hong to assassinate Li Xian, but who would have thought that Ji Hong, who was obviously a stabbing man, was persuaded by Li Xian and became the latter's right-hand man.

Due to the generational limitations of scientific and technological power, the minerals that can be mined in the world are at best exposed bare mines, and the technology is not enough to support the country's deep ore mining. Therefore, when the bare mines of Iron Mountain were exhausted, it was gradually abandoned, and only a few hundred people remained here, mining the last bit of iron resources, or trying to dig deeper to see if there were similar rich deposits underground.

And today, Liu Qing has once again returned to this abandoned mine. Not for anything else, she came for rice. After all, after the Iron Mountain was abandoned, it became the place where the Taiping army hid and stored food.

However, to her surprise, when Liu Qing rushed to Tieshan with the three hundred Tianfu troops led by Yang Yu, she found that everything that could be eaten here had been cleaned up.

"What's going on?"

Frowning and looking at the place where the grain and grass were secretly piled up turned into ruins, Liu Qing frowned and asked Yan Shao, the general of the Taiping Army who had arrived in Iron Mountain a moment earlier.

"I don't know!" Shaking his head, Yan Shao said respectfully, "The end will come." This is already the case here, the grain has been moved, those who can't be moved have been burned on the spot, and even the nearby miners have been driven away with the facilities here. - The last general questioned a miner. According to the man, yesterday an army raided the place under the banner of the state of Zhou. ”

"The Great Liang Army?" Liu Qing frowned and asked.

Yan Shao nodded and said affirmatively, "Great Liang Jun! ”

"This is strange...... looking at the ruins not far away, frowning deeply, Liu Qing muttered as if talking to himself, "The Great Liang Army has obviously been behind our army these days. How can you suddenly ...... behind our army step by step How did they know we were coming? How do you know that there is still a lot of rice grain for our army here? ”

Yang Yu shrugged when he heard this and said, "Maybe it's a leak, right?" ”

"That's probably it...... Not so good! Sighing slightly, Liu Qing said in a low voice. In order to ensure the speed of the march, the officers and men of our army only carried three days' rations with them, thinking that they could be replenished at any time along the way, but they did not want to. Unexpectedly, the Great Liang Army took one of the leads...... Is there an ambush of the Great Liang Army now? ”

"No!" Yan Shao shook his head and said respectfully. "When Her Royal Highness the princess has not yet arrived, the last general has sent people to search the nearby mountains and forests, and has not found any whereabouts of the soldiers of the Great Liang, and according to those miners, the Great Liang Army continued to march to the northwest after burning down the facilities here, it seems that there is no intention to ambush our army!"

"Northwest?" Liu Qing frowned when she heard this, and then suddenly said, "Did you go to Jiangxia?" - I see! It seems that Xie An at least knows the destination of our army's trip. ”

"Princess, what now?"

"......" Looking at the ruins close at hand, Liu Qing pondered for a moment, and Liu Qing said in a deep voice, "In my opinion, most of the Great Liang Army has changed its tactics. - Seeing that they could not successfully pursue and kill our army, they changed their tactics halfway, and did not plan to wait with me to hide and seek along the way, but went straight to Jiangxia! - Also, it seems that such an obvious thing is really a fool's dream to hide it from Xie An's party! As she spoke, she paused and instructed her subordinates, "Since this place has been burned, there is no reason for our army to delay here any longer, and I ordered my subordinates to rest for a while and set off for Jiangxia!" - Yan Shao, leave a few people to pass on the news to the army behind, inform them of the direction of our army, and then, you can withdraw with me and others! ”

"Yes, Your Highness Princess!" Yan Shao clenched his fists and took his life.

At this time, Liu Qing had not yet learned that her good ally Mirage Qin Ke'er had betrayed a lot of information about her Taiping Army to Xie An, the commander of the Great Liang Army, for some reason, but purely understood this incident as the Great Liang Army's blind cat bumping into a dead mouse.

But after a few days, Liu Qing gradually realized that something was wrong.

On 19 August, Liu Qing, who had withdrawn his troops northwest from Tieshan, finally withdrew to Jiliang County, a small county just over 100 miles away from Jiangxia.

When he arrived in the local area, Liu Qing found that Zhou Jun had once again taken the lead and came to Jiliang County first, and the grain stored in the granary of the county government was distributed to the county citizens free of charge.

In other words, the granary of the county government in Jiliang County is empty......

"What the hell is going on?!"

Due to the growing shortage of food in the army, the Taiping army could no longer carry out the plan of small corps, as Xie An guessed, once people are in a critical situation, they can't help but want to stay with familiar people and advance and retreat together.

The Taiping Army, which was short of food in the army, really followed Xie An's thoughts, from the initial seventy or eighty small corps, gradually converged and gathered on the way.

And right now, the generals of the Taiping Army, who unconsciously joined up with their allies because of their uneasiness in their hearts, were looking at the scouts who had just come out of Jiliang County to find out the news.

"Damn it! This is already the fifth county seat! ”

Feng Xi, the general of the Taiping Army, scolded with some annoyance.

"......" Looking at the direction of Jiliang County, Liu Qing frowned and thought deeply, without saying a word.

After all, along the way, the Great Liang Army no longer wanted to chase them as it did in the first few days, as if the two armies were in a race. It's fighting for marching speed.

If the Taiping army is half in the morning, they can get supplies on the spot, but on the contrary, if the Liang army arrives a little earlier, then the Taiping army will not receive any support.

This point has been noticed by Liu Qing since she accidentally bumped into an army of the Great Liang Army on the way, but the other party did not kill directly as she thought.

It's not so much that the Great Liang Army is chasing them, it's better to say. The Great Liang Army was implementing the Qingye tactic, trying to prevent their Taiping army from getting even a grain of rice as much as possible.

"What about the prefectural order? Where? - I remember it was called Zhang Hu......" Liu Qing asked the scout about the county order of Jiliang County.

"......Killed," the scout clenched his fists and whispered, "According to the citizens of the city, a group of people claiming to be Nanzhen Fuji [Six Gates] came to the county one day ago. I found out Zhang Hu's letter to our army, and he was beheaded on the spot by the dismissal department, and his head is still hanging on the tower of the county town......"

Anyway, it was also a county order, and he was killed directly?

The generals looked at each other for a long time, and the general Feng Xi hesitated and said, "Your Royal Highness the Princess." What is it doing now? The rations carried by our soldiers are exhausted, and we are counting on some supplies from Jiliang County......"

General Jiang Pei licked his lips when he heard this, and whispered, "Or ......."

"No!" It seems that he has seen through what Jiang Pei is thinking. Liu Qing frowned and said, "Then Xie An expected that our army would pass by here, and emptied the grain in the granary in the county one step ahead of time and gave it to the people in the county free of charge, isn't this his move to buy people's hearts?" - He wished that our army would attack Jiliang County because of the lack of food. Forcibly ask the citizens of the prefecture, so that. Our army's status in the hearts of the people in Jiangnan will plummet, how different is it from thieves?! ”

Jiang Pei lowered his head when he heard this, and stopped talking.

Perhaps in order to relieve him from the siege, the general Feng Xi interjected and said, "Speaking of which, Nanzhen Fusi [Six Gates], what is that?" Does Jiangnan have this government? ”

"I don't think I've heard of it......," the generals looked at each other.

"No, that's from Jijing." Seeing that the generals under his command were puzzled, Liu Qing took a deep breath and explained, "Nanzhen Fusi [Six Doors], that is a special supervision office of the Jijing Zhou Imperial Court, when it was first established, it was originally used to divide the power of the fifth son of the emperor Li Cheng, to put it simply, the purpose of the original establishment of this government was to oppose the Beizhen Fusi [Jinyiwei] of the fifth son of the emperor Li Cheng. ——At the beginning, in order to usurp the throne of the emperor of Zhou, Li Cheng ordered [Ghost Ji] Jin Ling'er to assassinate important officials of various prefectures in Jijing, on the one hand, to eradicate dissidents, and more importantly, to suppress the [Jinggi Three Lieutenants] who were responsible for the security of Jijing at that time, that is, the guard commander Xun Zheng, the court captain Xie An, and the lieutenant Wen Qin, and even Li Xian's imperial history platform was once pulled into the water. Afterwards, Li Cheng used the excuse of weak defense and unstable law and order in Beijing, and proposed to Li Ji, the emperor of the Zhou State at that time, to set up the Zhenfu Division [Jinyiwei], which set many functions and powers such as supervision, arrest, and interrogation, and overrode the three judicial offices of Weiwei Temple, Guanglu Temple, and Dajiao Temple, and even the Yushitai, but he didn't want to, that Xie An also had a master around him, and saw through Li Cheng's intentions, and at the same time, he played Li Ji, the emperor of Zhou, and proposed to add the Zhenfu Division [Six Doors], so Jijing appeared Beizhen Fusi [Jinyiwei] and Nanzhen Fusi [Six Doors] These two functions and powers are similarly said to be exactly the same as the supervision of the government! ”

"No wonder ......" Jiang Pei nodded suddenly in realization.

Glancing at Jiang Pei, Liu Qing continued, "And since the failure of the emperor's fifth son, Li Cheng, to win the throne, these two officials of the Zhenfu Division have been assigned to the name of his henchman, that is, Xie An, the secretary of the Criminal Department, by the new Emperor of Zhou, and Mo Fei of the Dongling Dynasty and Ding Qiu of the Jinling Dynasty served as the commanders of the Si Du respectively. In terms of the distribution of powers, Mo Fei's Beizhen Fusi is more responsible for the garrison of the Jijing Imperial Palace and the secondary supervision of the Beijing Division, which can be said to be the spy leader who obeys the orders of Li Shou, the emperor of the Zhou State, while Ding Qiu's Nanzhen Fusi is more to cooperate with Xie An's other supervision of the Ya Prison Temple. - But in any case, these two prefectures can be said to be the institutions used by Li Shou, the emperor of the Zhou State, to stabilize the situation in Jijing. ”

The generals were taken aback when they heard this, and among them, the general Chu Qi asked in surprise, "Then Xie An turned out to be such a big official?" ”

"Hmm!" Liu Qing nodded, and said with a straight face, "Xie An and Li Xian are the two most important courtiers of Emperor Li Shou of the Zhou State. Although Xie An is the secretary of the Criminal Department, he can have a good relationship with Li Shou. Since Li Shou became the emperor, Xie An has risen to the top, and his power in Jijing has even stabilized Li Xian, who served as prime minister. - Otherwise, how could Li Shou send Li Xian and Xie An to be in charge of the important affairs of Jingzhou and Yangzhou respectively? ”

"Then what is the right of the South and North Towns? It seems that he just asked the Ministry of Officials and the Imperial Historical Tower, and directly dismissed the local officials, or even killed them on the spot? Feng Xi, who used to be a military horse, instantly captured what Liu Qing wanted to express.

"Hmm!" Liu Qing nodded, sighed slightly, and said, "These two are the supervisory bodies that override the Third Department of Justice in Jijing and the Imperial History Observatory, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are the eyes and ears of Li Shou, the emperor of the Zhou State. In particular, the boss of these two government offices is still Xie An, who is deeply respected and trusted by the emperor, and in my opinion, the emperor of Zhou State on this trip is probably to give Xie An the authority to appoint and dismiss all local officials in Jiangnan at any time, in other words, Xie An can replace any local officials at any time. As long as he thinks that man has anything to do with our army...... That's what I'm worried about right now! - That Xie An is obviously going to Jiangxia, and the Jiangxia prefect is a person from our army, once this matter is known by him, it means that our army can no longer use the strength of Jiangnan to calculate Xie An......"

Speaking of this, Liu Qing suddenly paused, as if thinking of something, Liu Qing frowned and glanced at the sergeants nearby. Frowning and asking, "When we set out, our army had seventy-six forces of no more than five hundred troops, but now we have only reached more than thirty ......."

It seems to have guessed what Liu Qing was thinking. The general, Feng Xi, clasped his fists and explained, "Princess Huiyu, this is the case, and there are still many squads due to problems in the distance. Most of them are still on the road at this time. As for the rest of the ......"

"What's wrong?" Liu Qing frowned and asked.

I saw Feng Xi lick his lips and whispered with his fists. "Don't dare to hide it from Her Royal Highness the Princess, in the past few days, more than ten squads have lost contact with the last general and others, if the last general is not bad, it should be the Liang army......"

"How many?"

"Hmm...... According to the brothers who escaped, there were about 100 ......"

"A hundred? ——More than a hundred people have destroyed more than ten of our army's squads......" Speaking of this, Liu Qing suddenly paused, nodded as if awakened, and muttered, "Most of them are the Dongling assassins led by Mo Fei...... The hundreds of Dongling assassins are not something that our army squad can handle. - No wonder I didn't give the order to gather, but more and more of the squad moved closer to us...... Not? ”

"What's wrong, princess?" Feng Xi asked suspiciously.

Without answering Feng Xi's question, Liu Qing's beautiful eyes narrowed, and she was secretly surprised in her heart.

Is this the idea? Xie An......

Whether it is to make our army short of food, or to send Mofei to assassinate the strength of our army's squad later, it is all to put pressure on our soldiers, right? Let them, who are becoming more and more uneasy in their hearts, unconsciously move closer to the position where Liu Qing is, so that he can grasp the true route of our army......

As Brother Chen said, he is indeed very capable!

Liu Qing secretly gritted her teeth.

Merely......

Even if we grasp the general direction of our army's march by this method, it is impossible to be so clear about the route chosen by our army, right?

Liu Qing was really a little puzzled, the Liang Army, which had been a little at a loss since she divided her troops a few days ago, actually took the lead step by step at this time......

Something is wrong......

Why did the Great Liang Army seem to know the route of our army's march, as if it were ...... Someone revealed the information of our Taiping Army to the Great Liang Army......

No way?

As if she had thought of something, Liu Qing's face showed a look of horror, far more shocking than when she was attacked by Xie An at night that day.

Qin Keer......

It's just that woman! Only that woman would know so much about our army's intelligence......

That woman has always been very shrewd, although she is a private ally, but she has never neglected to spy on our army's intelligence, wanting to use it as a backup move, so as not to be betrayed by our army......

Sure enough, she is very cautious, a woman who wanders between the Zhou State and my Taiping Army, waiting for the price to sell......

Could it be that woman took refuge in Xie An?

What's going on? If that woman really took refuge in Xie An, why did she vaguely remind me of Mo Zhong's Xie An's tricks? But on the other hand, if there was no woman to lead the way, how could Da Liang Jun know everything so well?

Although Xie An is from Guangling, he has never been to Jingzhou, and the same is true of the Great Liang Army, why would they know so well?

Liu Qing frowned. Putting aside all the stakes, in her opinion, Xie An is really a good choice for [Mirage] Qin Ke'er, after all, Xie An is young, and he is only twenty-one years old now, even one year younger than Qin Ke'er, and he is a high-ranking and wealthy family, and what is even more commendable is that he is the confidant of Li Shou, the emperor of Zhou. In other words, as long as Li Shou reigns for one day, Xie An's position will be as stable as Mount Tai. How can such a young and wealthy Jijing magnate not be the husband that women are looking forward to?

But from the point of view of interests, Liu Qing really didn't want Qin Ke'er to have anything to do with Xie An. Because in that case, their Taiping army will be very troublesome, quite troublesome......

"Pass the order down, go to Xiakou, and join [Yuheng Divine General]!"

"Aren't you going to Jiangxia?" Yang Yu asked suspiciously.

Liu Qing shook her head and said in a deep voice, "I feel." Jiangxia is no longer a place for our army to go! - Moreover, if even the Xiakou is lost, my army is afraid that the whole army will be wiped out here! ”

The generals were stunned when they heard this, and looked at each other.

And at the same time. In the Zhou Army's coach Xie An's team, which was about a day's away from Liu Qing, in the simple handsome tent, Xie An was looking at the newly obtained good news with a relaxed smile.

"What makes my lord so happy?" Qin Ke'er, who had resumed the night with Xie An, snuggled in his arms very affectionately. Looking at the smile on her face at the moment, it is completely impossible to see that this woman is still full of complaints a few days ago.

"Thanks to the information that Mo Yan gave to my master......" glanced at Qin Ke'er quietly. Xie An smiled and said, "Ding Qiu and Wang Huaili should cooperate with the outside world and easily take Jiliang County, and now they are preparing to put Jiangxia back under the control of our army......

Qin Ke'er naturally didn't know that Xie An was actually grateful to her, and thought that Mo Yan had never revealed her according to the agreement, and said with a smile, "That little slave congratulates the master, if you take Jiangxia, even Xiakou, with the strength of the Taiping Army, you will be completely controlled by the master in this area, and you can't get any funding......"

For some reason, seeing Xie An's smiling appearance, Qin Ke'er was also happy in his heart, of course, not including Xie An's smile when he mentioned Liu Qing. She was still jealous.

It's a pity that no matter how capable Xie An is, he can't guess this kind of inherently illusory thing, so he clenched his fists when he heard this, and gritted his teeth and said with a bit of domineering and sneering, "Liu Qing...... It's really a huge loss to this house, hum! - This time it's up to you to escape! ”

"......" Qin Ke'er glanced at Xie An when she heard this, lowered her head and was silent.

Just when she was a little inexplicably lost, she suddenly felt that she was tightly hugged by the man next to her.

"If nothing goes wrong, Jiangxia County is at your fingertips, why don't we celebrate in advance?"

"Celebrating?" Qin Ke'er was stunned, and when she noticed Xie An's somewhat narrow eyes, she understood, her pretty face was crimson, and she glanced at the sky outside the tent that had not completely darkened with some embarrassment, and said in a low voice, "Master, this is the ...... Don't, right? ...... will be discovered"

"Huh? Don't even dare to listen to the master's words? Xie An deliberately kept a straight face.

It's a pity that Xie An deliberately pretended to be angry, and he really couldn't fool Qin Ke'er, who had been in a filthy place like the Qinglou since he was a child, even if it was just a look, Qin Ke'er could guess whether Xie An was really angry or fake angry at this moment, the problem was that she didn't want to break it.

"The master is getting more and more domineering, he knows how to bully the little slave, obviously what did he say before, pity the fragrance and cherish the jade......" Qin Ke'er bit her lip and expressed her insincere dissatisfaction.

"Huh? Don't I pity the jade, sir? - These few days of hard work are me, right? Xie An's eyes widened in pretended to be angry.

In fact, in order to secretly repay Qin Ke'er for revealing the Taiping Army's information to him, and also to make up for the inadvertent snub to her a few days ago, Xie An has indeed worked quite hard these days and nights.

"Didn't you enjoy yesterday? The day before yesterday? The day before yesterday? The day before yesterday? ”

Listening to Xie An's unscrupulous teasing, Qin Ke'er blushed and looked at Xie An with helpless eyes as if she was ashamed.

"The little slave knows, don't talk about these embarrassing things again...... old man" Glancing at Xie An pleadingly, Qin Ke'er half-snuggled up in his words, his right hand easily untied Xie An's belt, and then slowly leaned down.

At this time, Qin Ke'er, who was gradually immersed in the love of men and women, and gradually developed feelings for Xie An, did not know that she had been targeted by two jealous women.

One of them, a woman who was even more terrifying and scheming than [Heavenly Ji] Liu Qing, came to them with a belly full of resentment......