Kuoduan waited for Song Yichang to enter the city to persuade the soldiers and civilians of Huizhou to surrender, delaying the launch of the general attack by one day. But after waiting for a day, Song Yichang did not return. On the contrary, when night was about to fall, he discovered the movement of the Jin army in the city.

The Jin people quietly lowered hundreds of soldiers from the city walls, hid in the woods north of the city, and quietly approached the Mongol army camp in the northwest. It's a pity that everything was seen clearly by the Mongolian sentinels who were lying in ambush in the long grass.

When they took advantage of the darkness of the night to begin a surprise attack on the Mongol camp, they were greeted by the long-awaited rain of arrows and the sudden attack of cavalry from the flank, and the night raiding troops immediately fell into a desperate situation of facing them on three sides. It stands to reason that at this time, all the night raiding troops will take advantage of the darkness of the night and the vision is not good, so as to scatter and flee, in order to leave a life.

But these night raiders are not at all, they continue to pounce on the Mongolian army camp like madness, everyone shouts loudly and waving the weapons in their hands, in the darkness the Mongolian army can not use their best accurate shooting, but they can't stop these night raiders who have decided to die by random arrows, the two armies are engaged in a melee on the periphery of the camp, but since the Mongolian army has been prepared, it has an overwhelming advantage in terms of strength, but in a moment, these night attack Jin troops were all annihilated on the periphery of the Mongolian camp.

"Rats." Kuoduan scolded: "Tomorrow will break the city, and there will be no mouth in the city!" ”

After a pause, he said: "After breaking the city, pay attention to searching for Song Yichang's traces, this person is very important to the Great Khan, and his life must be saved!" ”

Of course, this sentence is based on the fact that Song Yichang was able to survive the bloody battle after the city was broken.

On the road from Huizhou to Lanzhou, several figures are running desperately. The purpose of the night attack on the hundreds of dead soldiers in the Mongol military camp was only one thing, to cover up the true whereabouts of this group.

There are people in them who deserve to be protected with their lives.

It's a pity that this place is already full of Mongolian horses. Even in the deep twilight, the roads were guarded by Mongol troops.

Under the low starry sky, two horsemen suddenly leapt out of the grass by the side of the road. Stop in front of the people who are running.

One asked in Chinese, "Who are you, why do you have to travel at night so late?" ”

The leader was the henchman of Guo Shrimp Toad's subordinates, who pretended to be a farmer at this time, stepped forward and said cautiously: "I am the people of Gujiazhuang in Shannan, my name is Jin Fu, and I want to go to Shangluo Mountain to seek refuge with relatives and friends to avoid the disaster of war." ”

The two knights glanced at each other, and one of them said, "We are under the command of Mr. Song Yichang, the planner of the Mongolian army, and we are traveling back and forth from the south of the city to the north of the city, just to find a road. ”

The two of them whispered to each other, and the henchman Xiao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, clasped his fists and said, "So please leave it to the two of you next." ”

As he spoke, he called for someone to bring forward the person who needed to be escorted.

These two were originally Jinghu spies who infiltrated the north in the Southern Dynasty and were used as Song Yichang's henchmen. Tonight, I received a secret order from Song Yichang, but it was Marshal Guo in Huizhou City who needed to be welcomed. I didn't think about the two young children who were picked up by two big men.

One of them was a five-year-old boy, and the other was a three- or four-year-old girl, with dark eyes, curved eyebrows, and lovely white skin.

The knight was stunned for a moment, and asked, "What are these two children doing?" What about Marshal Guo? ”

"Marshal Guo wants to live and die with Huizhou City," the little school replied proudly: "If the two of you can successfully send these two children to Bi Zilun of the Southern Dynasty, it will be the greatest favor to Marshal Guo." This kindness, the military and civilians of Huizhou will be rewarded in the next life. ”

The two knights deliberated in a low voice for a moment, then turned around and said, "In this case, put the child on the horse, and we will escort it all the way to Jinghu." ”

The little colonel agreed, gritted his teeth and said, "If we hurt two children during the journey, we won't let Song Yichang go." ”

The knight snorted, "Why is this so?" said that it was a safe escort, a strong man said a word, and a quick horse whipped, is there still a place to deceive you? But where is Mr. Song Yichang? Isn't he supposed to come out with you? ”

"You don't have to worry about this, when you escort the child safely, Mr. Song will naturally be able to go out of the city." The little colonel clenched his fists and said: "Say goodbye here, you need to teach Jinghu Zheng Yunming to know the way, there are good men who sacrifice their lives in Huizhou." ”

The two knights watched from afar as they returned to the darkness, and then looked back at the child behind him behind him, and one of them asked, "You two, you must have a name, you can't be called male and female all the way." ”

The five-year-old boy shuddered, his dark eyes fixed on the tall stranger on horseback, and he did not dare to say anything. However, although the girl was young, she was a little calm, and said childishly: "His name is Brother Guo, and my name is Wang Mao'er." ”

The knight could not help but be amused by her childishness: "Your name is really interesting, well, we still have a long way to go, and there is no comfort at home on the road, if there is a time of hardship and fatigue, be patient, and wait until we reach the south." ”

King Mao'er's big black eyes blinked: "What is there to do in the south?" ”

"There are a lot of benefits to the south, the weather is warm, the products are abundant, and delicious things are everywhere." The knight's tone was not like that of a soldier: "But the best thing is that there will be no more fighting in the south." ”

"This must be an unprecedented and sinister battle." In the darkening night, everyone under the account of the deputy capital commander was still nervously preparing, and when Zheng Yunming said this, the generals and staff looked solemn, because they knew that the Taoist general was telling the truth this time.

"The sentry cavalry saw the traces of the advance of the cavalry in the north of Dengzhou, there were at least more than 100,000 troops, and there were hundreds of thousands of war horses, which was very consistent with the secret report of the war situation issued by the imperial court. Obviously, after a year's strategy, the Mongols thought that this time they would be able to capture the entire Jinghu area and prepare for the next step of crossing the river, so they poured out of the nest and prepared to take Xiangyang first, and then go down the river to capture Jiangling. ”

Yang Luo's expression was not as relaxed as in the past: "This time the Hu people's control of pre-war intelligence is also better than last year, all the meticulous and hard detectives who sent Lu to investigate, without exception, were harassed by the Tanma Red Army, fortunately, our spies this time are equipped with war horses, if they are still using foot soldiers to investigate like last year, this time it is impossible for anyone to come back alive to report the news." ”

He stabbed Wang Deng on the side with his elbow: "How are the emotions of the soldiers?" ”

Wang Deng's face was also not good-looking: "After the Battle of the Nine Posts, instead of building up self-confidence, the soldiers were amazed that only a few hundred Mongolian soldiers had held out in front of our army for so long. In case the enemy really came to attack with an army of 100,000, I really don't know how powerful and invincible Lu Dao is. Everyone also saw that now the soldiers in the barracks are all neck shrunk, looking nervous, and people are constantly going to the toilet. It's even more nervous than when I was in battle at the beginning of last year. ”

"Yes," Zheng Yunming said, "I didn't expect that the cowardly Xue army and our army would fight each other in an infantry team, and they could still have such combat effectiveness." Fortunately, not all of them came this time, or it was really scary. ”

Lu Xunzhi shouted: "So what, even if they are all cowardly Xue, we have to stop them under Xiangyang City, behind them are millions of people in Jinghu, it is our home to talk about, no matter what kind of three-headed and six-armed monster comes, we will never give up!" ”

Zheng Yunming smiled: "This is nature. He turned to Ma Guangzu, who looked relaxed at the bottom of the right: "Staff officer, how are the food, grass and ordnance prepared?" ”

Under the guidance of Zheng Yunming's two basic policies, relying on the local government and mobilizing the strong and powerful, the entire Jinghu area has been mobilized to carry out a large-scale harvest when the farmland is about to ripen, and now the grain and population are being continuously evacuated to safe places. Zheng Yunming learned the lesson of last year's cottage not being strong enough, and sent soldiers in advance to hire a large number of men and women to build six large cottages in the dangerous places of Jinghu, all of which were easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the government allocated officers and soldiers to assist in the defense, and the local powerful people such as Liu Tingmei and Song Weiting commanded the militia to cooperate. Some people say that this is to emulate the practice of Wu Lin and Wu Jue in Shuzhong's family village, but as far as Zheng Yunming is concerned, he may be borrowing from the method of establishing base areas behind enemy lines in the modern sense.

All in all, before the Mongols had time to ravage the fields of Jinghu, Ma Guangzu was overjoyed to see a large number of grain, cattle, horses, and people pouring into Xiangyang City. Although some people thought that it was unwise for Xiangyang City to crowd so many evacuees to consume the garrison's food in vain, Zheng Yunming insisted that Xiangyang City must be opened as a place of refuge for the people.

"The taxes on the grain of their labor are so that they can have the protection of the state when the Tartars come to invade, and if they are kept out at this time, then what kind of country is it?"

Ma Guangzu was also very indifferent to this: "Even if you count the refuge population, the food in the city is enough for three years, and the wells are tightly guarded. ”

He added, "Two million arrows have been made in the city, and thousands of collars of armor. Swords, spears, clubs, heavy axes, shields, rolling logs, and stones are innumerable. The newly built ballistas have been put into storage, and the turrets for the ballistas have been built. and,"

"We have produced enough guns, cannons, and all sorts of other types of gunpowder weapons to teach the Mongols a profound lesson," he said with a sigh of emphasis. ”