Compared with the joy in Yiyang City, the palace of the King of Chu in Tanzhou City is a gloomy and bleak scene.

Compared with the impact of the continuous defeats in the war, the news just announced by Liu Yingyu shocked these people even more: the Tang Dynasty in the east sent an envoy surnamed Lin, this envoy brought a group of brave men, and at the same time, the Tang Dynasty's Wuchang reinforcements had arrived!

These news were told to Liu Yingyu after the two soldiers who escaped from the warship after hearing Lin Feng's speech and returned to Tanzhou, they were originally the soldiers on the command ship, and the two tried to swim across the Xiangjiang River and lurk around the mountains on the east bank of the Xiangshui River to Tanzhou City.

After getting this news, Liu Yingyu naturally tried his best to publicize it, and even described the Southern Tang Dynasty Lin Renzhao and other fierce generals as if they were the first in the world, and naturally wanted to save some face for their defeat.

One bad news after another, like an invisible mountain, covered the entire Chu Palace. Although the lobby was full of civil servants and military generals, all with bitter faces, no one touched the wine, food and fruits on the table, and the atmosphere was extremely depressing.

Ma Xiguang, who was sitting on the chairman, "snapped" the table, which not only shook the bowls on the table, but also made his fat all over his body tremble.

Ma Xiguang was so angry that his fat face swayed, and he pointed at the civil and military ministers at the scene one by one, and said loudly: "Aren't you usually very good at talking and blowing?" The second child, the bastard who sells his lord for glory, is about to come to the city, and you are silent one by one! ”

Li Honggao, a scholar from the Tiance Mansion with a black beard, stood up and said loudly: "King Chu, for today's plan, the old man thinks that there are two ways to go now, one is to introduce external reinforcements, the outside can find the surrounding countries, and the inner can urgently ask for help from other jiedu envoys; The two exerted the power of the soldiers and distributed the money in the house to the soldiers, believing that there will be brave men under the heavy money! Back then, Li Honggao was also one of the ministers who insisted on welcoming Ma Xiguang, so he naturally won Ma Xiguang's attention.

Ma Xiguang smiled bitterly and shook his head, the way to introduce foreign aid has been thought of for hundreds of years.

Langzhou and Tanzhou are less than 200 miles away in a straight line, and after the second child wanted to make trouble again this year, he got the news early. Last month, he sent an envoy to Tokyo (now Kaifeng, Henan), and urgently asked Emperor Yin of the Later Han Dynasty to send troops to Tunli Prefecture (now Li County, Hunan) on the grounds that Jingnan, Southern Tang, and Lingnan were conspiring and wanted to divide the land of Hunan, so as to curb the road of Southern Tang and Jingnan to aid Langzhou. Then the chaos within the Han court was rising, and Emperor Yin of Han was too busy to take care of himself, so he naturally politely refused.

In addition to Ma Xicao's Wuping Jiedu envoy and Ma Xiguang's Wu'an Jiedu envoy, the other Jingjiang and Ningjiang Jiedu envoys are not to mention.

The main army of Chu was originally in the hands of the two brothers Ma Xicao and Ma Xiguang, and there were not many elite soldiers in those two places, and the two jiedu envoys were even more slippery one by one, and they all said various reasons in the face of their envoys, it seems that when the situation of the battle between the two brothers is unclear, these people are unreliable. Forget it, let's scatter some of the money first.

Ma Xiguang waved his hand, motioned for Li Honggao to sit down first, and said: "Open the warehouse tonight to get money and jewelry, and reward the soldiers of the three armies tomorrow!" ”

However, when Ma Xiguang then asked who took the initiative to lead his troops to stop Ma Xicao, no one took the initiative to come forward. The banquet suddenly fell silent again.

Ma Xiguang had no choice, so he slapped the table again, and ordered loudly: "From tomorrow, the commander of the navy will allow Qiong to camp in the north of the city with 500 warships, and Xi Chong will personally serve as the supervisor; The commander of the Ma army made Li Yanwen lead 3,000 cavalry to camp at Hukou; The commander of the infantry army, Han Li, led 3,000 infantry to camp at Yangliu Bridge, waiting for the second bastard to take the initiative to enter the urn! ”

Tanzhou, since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of about 2,400 years ago, the city site has not changed, and has become the origin and continuation of Chu and Han civilizations and Huxiang culture. Five generations later, in the second year of Liang Tiancheng (927 AD), Ma Yin built the Chu State, changed Tanzhou to Changsha, as the national capital, the Five Dynasties Chu State also became the only country with Changsha, Hunan as the national capital.

Tanzhou is surrounded by mountains on three sides in the north and southwest, and hills in the southeast, and Tanzhou is in a small basin that is slightly higher in the south and slightly lower in the north. In the westernmost part of the basin, the Xiangjiang River, the most important river of the Yangtze River, runs north-south from the west of Tanzhou. The north of Tanzhou refers to Beijin, and the north of Orange Island in the center of the Xiangjiang River is the dangerous place to defend the waterway attack; Huokou is located at the intersection of the Liujiang River into the Xiangjiang River estuary, which is an important pass to protect Xiangyin Road; Yangliu Bridge is the only way to come from Yuelu Mountain in the west of Tanzhou, and it is the key to protect Xiangxi Road.

The civil and military forces below didn't have much courage to meet the enemy, but they could still shoot the sycophants, and several people stood up at the same time, but Li Honggao, who was standing at the front, took the lead and said: "The king is wise!" In this way, the three armies of Ma Buzhou are each other's horns, and Tanzhou will be impregnable! ”

Ma Xiguang shook his head and smiled bitterly, just defending the top fart, the second child will definitely not take the initiative to retreat easily. Besides, where can I come up with this defensive strategy, it is naturally a countermeasure proposed by Liu Yingyao, the commander of the Zhan Di capital and the commander of the camp in Tanzhou, who returned from the defeated army.

Ma Xiguang snorted coldly, and was about to leave with his sleeves up, when he shouted outside the door: "Lord Tuoba has returned from his mission!" ”

Ma Xiguang froze his body and looked straight at this strong old man.

Tuoba Heng didn't say a word of nonsense at all, and repeated the wild words that Ma Xixuan replied, and went directly to a corner, standing in his hands.

Ma Xiguang suddenly laughed wildly, pulled out the sword from his waist, slashed at the table in front of him, cut a big gap in the middle of the table, and shouted: "Second brother, you are a madman, you want the entire Chu State, are you worthy?" ”

Ma Xiguang pulled out the sword that cut into the table hard, but he didn't pull it out, and he didn't care about it anymore, raised his foot and kicked the table hard, turned around and brushed his sleeves out. The rest of the civil and military officials looked at each other, and they all stood on tiptoe one by one and quietly dispersed.

Ma Xiguang had just turned into the back hall when a thin Taoist priest and a chubby monk appeared in front of him.

The thin Taoist priest said with a voice of immeasurable heavenly venerable, and said, "His Royal Highness the King of Chu, but you don't have something to worry about?" The fat monk preached Amitabha Buddha and said softly: "The king of Chu is currently in calamity!" ”

Ma Xiguang was not so arrogant at this time, and bent down slightly and said: "Qingfeng Dao Chang and Master Decheng are really as wise as a torch, please relieve Xiguang's worries." ”

This time it was the fat monk who spoke first, he quickly dialed the Buddha beads in his hand with one hand, pointed to the night sky with a halberd in the other, and said softly: "For several days, the poor monk watched the sky at night, and found that the northwest and east two evil qi rushed straight to the sky, and I think that the king of Chu must be troubled by these two directions!" ”

Ma Xiguang nodded again and again, the second Ma Xicao's Langzhou is in the northwest direction, isn't the east the Tang Dynasty that sent envoys? This master really deserves his reputation, and he deserves to be a capable person hired by me with a lot of money.

"Does the master have a magic recipe for misfortune? Xiguang will have a good reward! Ma Xiguang bowed again.

"The king of Chu is the mandate of heaven, and the poor monk relieves his worries for the person of the mandate of heaven, which is really a blessing for the poor monk. If you want to get through this misfortune easily, the king of Chu must be so ......" The Buddhist bead in the fat monk's hand suddenly stopped, and whispered in Ma Xiguang's ear.

As soon as the monk's words stopped, the Taoist priest on the side shook the dust of his right hand, and said with a twist: "The king of Chu obeys the sky and responds to the people, and he is dry all day long, and he will be blameless if he is violent, and he will be blamed ......for it.

This Taoist priest strung together several hexagrams in the Book of Changes, which means that King Chu, how powerful you are, you are God's ordained and deeply supported by the people! You are like a gentleman, handle it carefully, lest you make a mistake, and you will naturally be fine! At this time, your career is hindered for a while, but it is really for the future to develop more ambitiously!

Listening to the "wonderful strategy" described by Lao Dao in his ear, Ma Xiguang's face was much soothed, and he nodded yes again and again.