Chapter 296: Act Slowly
The three kings negotiated with Empress Cui and Cui Jingsheng, got the power they wanted, and participated in the decision-making of the court the next day, and Pei Wenju, Liu Pingyuan, Wang You, Guo Xing, Tang Jian and others, who had been marginalized before, also re-entered the political hall and returned to their respective departments.
All of a sudden, Dayan's atmosphere of morning and twilight suddenly became much more active.
And on this day, Li Muzhi swore outside the city, and personally led 200,000 troops north to Hangzhou to deal with Ji Qingchen, this time only Empress Cui and Cui Jingsheng appeared at the oath meeting with Ji Qian and some courtiers, and the rest of the courtiers expressed silence. Because they know very well that as long as they participate in this death pledge, they will be branded as the Eight Emperors Party or the Later Party, which is a stupid move for them who want to protect themselves when the situation is still unclear, and they will not do it now.
As for Empress Cui and Cui Jingsheng, they still did not accept Bai Jin's suggestion in the end, and asked them to compromise with Ji Qingchen, and then reorganize the army and fight with Ji Qingchen.
Because they already have a more effective plan, that is, by selling the country in exchange for the support of the Liguo and Xishu and Lingnan Yi people, let the Three Kingdoms deal with the Three Kings and Ji Qingchen, and they will reap the benefits.
After the cold oath meeting, Li Muzhi led an army of 200,000 to leave King's Landing, and it took him ten days to set foot on the border of Hangzhou, and then he marched carefully along the way. Because he knew that the long-distance attack in Ji Qingchen's best cavalry battle, if he was negligent and let the rangers sent by Ji Qingchen find out, I am afraid the consequences would not be too good.
He now only has 20 troops in his hands, even if he adds the local defenders in Hangzhou, the number is less than 300,000, and he is not the opponent of Ji Qingchen's 500,000 army at all, not to mention that the cavalry of Ji Qingchen's army is fast, well-equipped, and has strong combat effectiveness, and there are foot soldiers in his army, and the combat effectiveness of the soldiers is not as good as that of the Northern Liao Iron Cavalry.
Therefore, the plan he formulated was to march step by step, steadily and slowly.
However, what made him happy was that his army marched in Hangzhou for six days, and he was stunned that he did not encounter the harassment of the rangers sent by Ji Qingchen, nor did he encounter the night attack of Ji Qingchen's cavalry, so that he successfully reached Fengxian County, which was only three hundred miles away from Fengyundu, and set up the camp here.
At this time, Li Fang also led the remaining 30,000 foot soldiers to Fengxian to join forces with him, he learned in detail from Li Fang's mouth how Ji Qingchen annihilated Li Fang's 70,000 elite soldiers, after listening to Li Fang's narration, he frowned and fell into deep thought. Because there were devil riders in Ji Qingchen's army, he didn't expect this heavy cavalry to arrive at Fengyun Ferry so quickly, which was more tricky.
Because until now, he had not come up with a way to break the charge of the heavy cavalry.
If Dayan wants to crack this cavalry, he can only surround them with an army several times their size, and kill the Iron Floating Massacre, which has a strong impact but lacks mobility.
But now the situation of the Devil Riding is different from that of the Iron Float.
Because Ji Qingchen changed the tactics of the devil horse, whenever the devil rode out to fight, there were always 60,000 light cavalry by the side of this cavalry, as long as anyone dared to use the numerical advantage to pile up the devil horse, these 60,000 light cavalry would always break through the defense line as soon as possible, making enough room for the devil to charge.
Therefore, the previous method of dealing with the Iron Floating Slaughter can no longer be used on the body of the devil rider!
"General, what should we do now? Li Fang felt that this time we could no longer take the initiative to attack, but to defend, because now our army is not the opponent of the Northern Liao Iron Cavalry at all! Li Fang sighed and said what she was thinking.
This time, he really saw the power of the Northern Liao Iron Cavalry, a cavalry like the wind, and it was definitely the first time he encountered a cavalry that made him frightened after joining the army.
"Let's take a look at Ji Qingchen's movements first!" Li Muzhi said lightly, "The old man always felt that this march was a bit strange, with the long-distance attack advantage of the cavalry around him and the ability of the Northern Liao cavalry to be stronger than ours, he could harass and intercept the old man on the march, so as to consume the old man's strength and hit the morale of the old man's army, but he didn't do thisββ"
Li Muzhi stopped when he said this.
Indeed, this is what puzzles him the most.
Because Li Muzhi's army had both cavalry, foot soldiers and a convoy of grain transport, if Ji Qingchen could harass his foot soldiers on the march and then intercept and kill his grain team, with the gap between his cavalry and the Northern Liao cavalry, he really had no way. But Ji Qingchen didn't do this, which made him feel strange.
Because he thinks that with Ji Qingchen's resourcefulness, he shouldn't be unaware of this!
"Yes!" Li Fang received the order, bowed down and withdrew from the big tent, leaving Li Muzhi who was still pondering.
β¦β¦
Fengyundu, the camp tent of the Northern Liao army was already full of generals in the army, among them were Xu Dachun, Zuo Zongquan, Cao Yukun and Huang Taiji, who had arrived before, and Meng Li and Guo Quan, who had only reached Fengyundu later, as well as Bai Xiangcheng and Xiang Ziyu, Wang Yin, Liu Qingqing and others who had just arrived in the camp today.
"Has the Long March started?" Ji Qingchen sat in the position of the coach and asked Bai Xiangcheng. Just after Fengyundu defeated Li Fang, he ordered Li Changzheng to go to Northern Liao to transfer troops and immediately go west to Xizhou.
"It's already gone!" Bai Xiangcheng said, in fact, he didn't understand what Ji Qingchen meant by doing this, and put the 100,000 army in Xishu for nothing, which was indeed a bit of a waste. He had the same thoughts as the generals, that is, Ji Qingchen was able to immediately lead the army south, break through King's Landing, kill Queen Cui and Cui Jingsheng, and ascend the throne as emperor.
"En-" Ji Qingchen nodded slightly, he knew the thoughts of the generals in the big tent, but he had his own plans. Seeing him groaning for a while, he said to Guo Quan, "Tell me about the news from the 'Iron Suit'!" β
The "iron suit" is external, and the "inner factory" is internal, which is the direction that Ji Qingchen determined when he established the secret guard system. Therefore, even when he was imprisoned in the Northern Liao Palace, King's Landing three years ago, when the "Iron Suit" suffered a devastating blow in Beirong, the "Iron Suit" did not affect the external secret guards.
Therefore, now Guo persuaded the reconstructed "iron-clad" secret guards, and sent the secret guards outside to transmit the information they had collected back to China.
"Fundamentally, the information of our secret guard, in the past few days, there are signs of sending troops to the country, Xishu and Lingnan Yi tribes, leaving the country to prepare to recruit 400,000 troops, with Mu Feng, the commander of Xijing Town, and go south to Ningzhou. Xishu is ready to send 200,000 troops, with Chen Wenbao as the main general, to invade our Dayan Xizhou. As for the Lingnan Yi tribe, it seems that they have sent 200,000 troops to attack our Yizhou, and as for who will lead the troops, it has not yet been detected. Guo Quan, expressionlessly, said the news from the Three Kingdoms that the "iron-claded" secret guard had.
As soon as his words fell, the generals of the big tent talked about it, and the atmosphere was a little weird.
Because this means that Dayan has a crisis point, the three countries have united and attacked Dayan again. It's just that this attack on Dayan, the generals always feel a little weird, because the Three Kingdoms seem to be a little too deliberate in doing this.
"Xishu has long been eyeing Dayan, and Xu Shao, the king of Shu, is even more ambitious, if he lets his army invade Xizhou, it will be very unfavorable to Dayan, and the northwestern states of Dayan may be invaded by Xishu in an instant, so this king will send Li Changzheng to lead an army of 100,000 to sit in Xizhou." Ji Qingchen said lightly.
"As for leaving the country, this king didn't consider their threat before, after all, there are more than 100,000 troops in Liudonglou in Ningzhou, and it is enough to defend the city." Ji Qingchen said in a flat tone, "But now the situation is different, this time it is the king's senior brother who leads the troops, his command talent does not belong to the king, it may be even more powerful than the king, if he is allowed to attack Ningzhou, Liu Donglou is no matter how good he is at fighting, it is estimated that there will only be one defeat, so this king will be stationed in Fengyundu, I want to see the situation in Ningzhou." β
Seeing that the generals didn't understand what they meant, Ji Qingchen, who paused for a moment, said, "Because just before this king left King's Landing, before his father died, he came to the palace and told this king, let this king must prevent the departure of the country from riding south, he said that leaving the country is the real enemy of our Dayan, and this king has promised his father, so he can't fail to keep his promise." β
"The rest of the Lingnan Yi clan, this king is powerless! It depends on the meaning of the ministers of the DPRK and China! Ji Qingchen said this, his tone was stunned, and his words were full of killing atmosphere, "Therefore, this time we will defeat Li Muzhi's army in one battle, and the troops will be divided into two routes, one is led by Baixiang City, as long as you dare to leave the country and go south to Ningzhou, you will rush to Ningzhou, and one route will be led by this king, and we will go directly south to King's Landing City." β
"No!" The generals understood Ji Qingchen's thoughts, and immediately spoke up.
"As for how to distribute the soldiers and horses on the two routes, after the war, the Northern Liao army went to Ningzhou, and the prince led the Beirong Iron Cavalry south to King's Landing City, Brother Xiang Cheng has no opinion, right?" Ji Qingchen moved his gaze to Bai Xiangcheng and asked.
Because Bai Xiangcheng has married Mulan, and Mulan is Mu Feng's daughter, and Mu Feng is Bai Xiangcheng's father-in-law. Therefore, Ji Qingchen's arrangement was a bit of a trick for Bai Xiangcheng, so he would ask Bai Xiangcheng for advice.
"Nope!" Bai Xiangcheng replied.
"Hehe-" Ji Qingchen said with a faint smile, "Don't worry! With the ability of the senior brother to command the army, you can only be defeated by him, and it may still be difficult to defeat him, and it will not make you embarrassed when the time comes. β
"But even if you lose, you have to hold Ningzhou, and you can't let the national railway ride south to the northern capital." Ji Qingchen said in a cold tone.
"No!" Bai Xiangcheng got up and took the order.
"By the way, you send a message to Zhou Shun and let him stay in Beirong, no need to go south, Beirong is our foundation, we can't lose it, and there can't be accidents." Ji Qingchen said to Meng Li.
The land of Beirong Sanzhou is vast, but only 200,000 troops are guarded, and now Meng Li has transferred 100,000 troops to the south, leaving only 100,000 in Beirong, if Zhou Shun transfers these 100,000 troops to Ji Qingchen's side, there will be a vacuum in Beirong's defense, which Ji Qingchen does not want to see, so he will say so.
Because Beirong is the foundation of Ji Qingchen, no matter what he does in the hinterland of Dayan, as long as he has Beirong, it is equivalent to having a way out, even if he is defeated in King's Landing City, as long as he retreats to Beirong and then guards Yanmen Pass, no one can help him.
"No!" Detachment from the Commandment.
"Zhang Rang, are you talking about Li Muzhi's situation!" Ji Qingchen said to Zhang Rang, because Zhang Rang's "internal factory" is responsible for domestic intelligence.
"Two days later, Li Muzhi's army will reach Fengxian, Fengxian is about three hundred miles away from Fengyundu, Li Muzhi may camp in Fengxian, he now has 200,000 elite soldiers around him, 150,000 cavalry, 50,000 foot soldiers, plus the Hangzhou garrison, it is estimated that the number will reach 250,000." Zhang Rang replied to Ji Qingchen simply.
"We now have 200,000 iron cavalry in Beiliao, 100,000 iron cavalry in Beirong, and nearly 30,000 Qingfeng cavalry, a total of 330,000 horses, which is enough to deal with them. The reason why this king did not sneak attack Li Muzhi in the past few days, and did not intercept and kill his grain transport pair, wanted to defeat him in Fengyundu and defeat him in a dignified manner, and the battle was decided! Ji Qingchen said domineeringly, "You guys go down and prepare!" Four days later, we went to war with Li Muzhiββ! β
"No!" The generals received the order and withdrew from the main hall in turn.
"Your Highness, do you really want to send troops to Ningzhou?" Just after everyone left, Zhang Rang asked Ji Qingchen.
"I can't help but send it!" Ji Qingchen sighed, "If we leave the National Railway and ride south to the Northern Capital, we will break through King's Landing, what's the use?" You can't fight with the country. In that case, why not settle the battle in Ningzhou? β
In fact, Ji Qingchen was also very helpless, because only when he had left the country and been a hostage of the country, he knew best what the people who left the country thought, and they aimed to go south to attack the city of Dayan Junlin. Therefore, if they don't stop the southbound Tieguo Iron Cavalry in Ningzhou and let them break through this line of defense, they will definitely use all their national forces to go south to Dayan, and then King's Landing City will definitely not be protected, and Dayan may face the situation of losing the country and moving the capital.