At present, the situation in Luoyang, the eastern capital, is just as the father-in-law of Qinchawen who came to deliver the decree said, the soldiers and civilians of the city are looking forward to the arrival of reinforcements day and night. I don't know if it's deliberate, or if there are other hardships, the anti-thief Yang Xuangan's way of using troops is extremely unreasonable. On the third day of the sixth month, he rebelled in Liyang and recruited more than 10,000 Caofu and Minzhuang to enlist in the army. Immediately afterwards, he waved his army westward to take Hanoi. As a result, after two days of unsuccessful storming of Hanoi, the rebels turned around and went east to attack Xiu Wu. Xiuwu County ordered Wang Xuanyi to lead the people to guard the customs clearance, Yang Xuangan did not have ladders, rushing cars and other things to break through, turned around, continued to the east to rush to the Jixian ferry, from there to cross the Yellow River south.

After crossing the river, the rebels abandoned the city fortresses along the way and headed west along the embankment of the Yellow River to Luoyang. While walking, the people were forcibly conscripted into the army. Outside Luoyang City, the total number of soldiers and horses has reached 100,000. Yang Xuangan ordered his younger brother Yang Jishan to lead 3,000 troops as the left army to march west along Luoshui from the south of Yanshi, and ordered another younger brother Yang Xuanting to lead 5,000 elite soldiers as the right army to attack Luoyang from Bai Sima Ban (Note 1) across the mountain and attack Luoyang in a roundabout way. Fan Zigai, the secretary of the Ministry of Civil Affairs who stayed in the eastern capital, saw that the enemy army was fierce, so he had to drive the ducks to the shelves, and sent Henan Ling Daxi to lead 5,000 troops to resist Yang Jishan, and sent Henan Zanzhi Pei Hongce to lead 8,000 soldiers to meet Yang Xuanting. Da Xi's good intentions did not understand military affairs, and the 5,000 elite soldiers were actually beaten by the 3,000 people under Yang Jishan's department. Pei Hongce was unable to support himself, fought and left, and in the blink of an eye, he had lost four battles, from the suburbs to the base of the Luoyang city wall.

The old general Yu Wenshu received an urgent document from the Eastern Capital, ordering all soldiers and horses to advance separately, replenish their own supplies along the way, and be sure to arrive in Luoyang before the end of this month. Because as early as when the Eastern Expeditionary Army returned, Yu Wenshi and the Xiongwu Battalion had collected more than 15,000 war horses, so the Xiongwu Battalion of the reinforcements from all roads went the fastest, and a few days ago they had crossed Laishui and went to the Great Sui Official Road from the vicinity of Qixian.

More than 10,000 soldiers galloped on horseback, and the torrent generally rolled over the official road. When the emperor was alive, the official road built by the people was smooth and straight, from the county on the south bank of Laishui to the county on the bank of the Yellow River, thousands of miles unimpeded. Except for a few narrow sections over the mountains, most of the official roads can be stretched in parallel with six horses. At the current pace, within ten days, the Xiongwu battalion will be the first reinforcement to rush from Liaodong to the vicinity of Luoyang.

Hearing the news that the officers and soldiers were about to pass by, the people near the official road had already fled far away. It is now the beginning of July, but the wheat in the field is still not harvested. As soon as the yellow ears were beaten by the rain, new malt sprouted from the tips of the ears. Flocks of birds sang and jumped in the wheat fields, heard the hooves of horses, flapped their frightened wings, and fled into the distance. During the march, everyone often saw all kinds of voles, hamsters, and short-tailed small animals with unknown names dragging their round bellies, staggering across the official road, and rolling into the roadside fields at the moment when they were about to be trampled into meat sauce by the horses' hooves.

"I've seen such a bad thing, but I've never seen such a bad thing!" Zhou Daniu was beside Li Xu, muttering and complaining, when he was in his hometown, he also touched the plough stick, and he knew more or less that it was difficult. At present, the people of this place put good wheat and do not harvest it, but let it sprout in the ground, feed the house finches and feed the mice, what is this not a ruined behavior? If the grain is not collected, what will the government pay for next year's rent, and what will the people chew? Could it be that God's mercy will blow the grain to the door of the house with a strong wind?

"There's no way, the men are still in Zhuo County, and few of them can come back in time! At the moment, the family is full of women and children, and they have the intention of harvesting autumn, but they don't have that strength!" Zhang Xiu loudly defended his hometown father next to him. The county is also under the jurisdiction of Shanggu County, and it is only more than a hundred miles away from Yi County, his and Xuzi's hometown. In the past two years, in order to conquer Liao, the emperor has completely drawn out the young and strong people in several border counties. For a large local family like the Zhang family, the head of the family is forced to go to the field himself. Those small families who can't afford to buy servants and can't afford to hire long-term and short-term laborers can only watch the wheat rot in the ground?

"It's all Yang Xuangan's trouble. If he hadn't rebelled in the rear, we would have pacified Liaodong this year. As soon as the Liao matter is resolved, the imperial court will no longer need to transfer the people. The crops in the field have been harvested, so we don't have to work so hard to catch up!" The commander of the Xiongwu battalion, Shi Zhao Ziming, swore to explain to everyone.

This is the rhetoric he negotiated with Li Xu, Yu Wenshi and a few core generals. The old general Yuwenshu ordered all the soldiers and horses to supply themselves along the way, and after the more than 300,000 troops were like locusts, the local officials and treasury were counting on what was left. The officials and soldiers had to do it as a last resort, so this bad debt must be counted on Yang Xuangan's head.

"When we catch that bastard, let's light him in the sky lantern!" Zhou Da Niu snorted angrily.

"He's ***, he only has the ability to fight in the nest. If you have the ability to fight the Goguryeo people, go there!" Several pro-soldiers chimed in.

The sound of horses' hooves was very loud, so the soldiers spoke loudly. All kinds of complaints and discussions came into Asahiko's ears in waves, which made his mood extremely disturbed.

This place is less than 200 miles away from Yi County. Horseback riding for a day and a night can be driven back and forth. The intense nostalgia kept attacking him, and he wanted to order the soldiers to stop their tracks several times. While the excitement of knighthood and gold medals is still there, the closer you get to home, the stronger the feeling of homesickness becomes. He hadn't been home for more than half a year, and Xu Zi really wanted to let the Xiongwu camp be repaired in Suicheng for a day or two, so that he and Zhang Xiu could find an excuse to sneak home, let his father and mother see the holy decree and the gold medal, and share the happiness of success with him.

The ancients said, "Wealth does not return to the hometown, just like a night road in brocade clothes!". Xuzi doesn't need to let his parents and villagers boast that he has the ability and talent. He just wanted to see the smile on his mother's face, or sit at the table and drink another bowl of cloudy wine with his father. After becoming a general, he tasted a lot of good wine. So far, no wine has been as strong as my uncle's private wine.

However, the words that Yu Wenshi and the few words he had said yesterday morning weighed heavily on his heart, so that he had to brace his spirits and urge the soldiers to hurry to the battlefield.

"In the short term, it will be a blessing to you. What will happen in the future, Zhong Jian himself has to think about it carefully!" After the Battle of Nameless Valley, Yuwen Shi Ji no longer stuck out his tongue like a poisonous snake, but his words became more and more intriguing. Xuzi knew that yesterday in front of so many soldiers, many words were only half spoken. But the reminder and the analysis of the scaly claws had already benefited him a lot.

Xuzi can't expect Yu Wenshi and like Liu Hongji to think about everything for him and explain it clearly. His friendship with Yu Wenshi is not so deep, far from the point of talking about everything. He was not a retainer of the Yuwen family, and the Yuwen did not carry his responsibilities. Before falling asleep last night, Xuzi synthesized the analysis of the Holy Decree and Yuwen Shiji and deduced a conclusion. A few generations of wealthy families in the court are likely to reject themselves, and the reason why His Majesty the Emperor gave him a gold medal is to remind those wealthy families that they have the royal family to support them.

"I am a retainer of His Majesty the Emperor!" This conclusion once made Xuzi excited for a little night. As a citizen of the Great Sui who has read a lot of words of loyalty, at this moment, he deeply feels the grace of His Majesty the Emperor for his knowledge. But after calming down, he began to worry about his future again.

His Majesty the Emperor was not sure how long his support would last. The emperor's mind is not something that he, a rookie who has just entered the officialdom, can guess. From Yu Wenshiji's hints, Xu Zi faintly felt that His Majesty the Emperor seemed to be a person who was happy and didn't care, but it was easy to forget his promise afterwards. Many of the children of big families that Xuzi knows have this kind of problem, because life is too smooth, and they often look at problems too ambitiously. After encountering setbacks, it is especially easy to give up on themselves. When it comes to friends, they like to make promises easily, but when they should keep them, they are used to avoiding responsibility!

Xuzi knew that he shouldn't speculate on an emperor with the eyes of ordinary people, and he also understood that this kind of thinking was a bit rebellious, but when it came to his own fate, he still couldn't help but guess the situation to the worst.

Thinking about it, Xuzi decided to listen to Yu Wenshi's words and try to leave as little control as possible. So, even though the door was just a stone's throw away, he decided not to go back to visit. In the second half of the night yesterday, he got up and wrote a letter to his family under the lamp, briefly introducing to his parents the good news that he had won the knighthood and the gold medal for avoiding death. Before the army set off this morning, he asked Zhang Xiu to send a team of trusted soldiers to deliver the letter home. By the way, Xu Zi asked his own soldiers to transport 1,500 horses from His Majesty the Emperor back to the Li family, and 200 horses to the Zhang family.

"With these shackles, my father and uncle will have enough to stock up on some food to survive this winter and next year!" Riding on the horse, Asahiko thought gloomily. Based on the scenes we have seen along the way in the past few days, it is very likely that there will be a food shortage in some places next year. In particular, in the counties of Hebei, a large number of young and strong people have been conscripted into the army for two consecutive years. Only women, the elderly, and children were left in the people's homes, and the production of the fields naturally decreased significantly.

"I really don't know what they'll eat next year? Even if every family has money, where can they buy food? Zhou Daniu's voice sounded around him again out of place, and the hearts of the people around him were smoking. He and his five brothers and sisters were all fished out of the prison camp by Zhang Xiu and became his own soldiers. Because he didn't know each other, Zhang Xiu arranged for Da Niu to be a team leader, commanding fifty people, and serving the diet and daily life of the main general. After becoming an officer as he wished, Zhou Daniu did his best, but his mouth, except for bragging and nagging, never had to be idle for a moment.

"Brother Zhou, shh-" Qian Xiaoliu, a pro-soldier walking next to Zhang Xiu, stretched out his finger and reminded Zhou Daniu not to be too arrogant. Although the sound of horses' hooves around was chaotic, the voices of everyone could still reach the ears of the main general without saying a word. When Zhou Daniu was nagging just now, Master Li's brows had already wrinkled several times. If he continues like this, he will annoy the commander, and maybe one day he will have to go back to the prison camp to suffer.

"What's wrong with Shogun Lang?" Zhou Daniu lowered his voice and asked, not realizing that Li Xu frowned because he was talking nonsense. "What's the matter, little Liuzi, did you say it?" He took the reins of his horse and asked unrelentingly. The kind-hearted Qian Xiaoliu was afraid of being misunderstood, so he was so embarrassed that his face was flushed, and he desperately hid on the side of the road, but he couldn't escape Zhou Daniu's maggot.

"Whoever upsets the adult, Liuzi, you say, the adult is as kind to us as a mountain, and whoever provokes him is ...... with our brothers" Zhou Daniu nagged endlessly, lest others not know his loyalty.

The two of them were so close that they didn't realize that they had already disturbed the cavalry formation. Captain Zhang Xiuce leaned forward and raised his hand to be a leather whip. The beaten bull finally remembered that he was already a team leader, and ran back to where he should have been in the midst of everyone's laughter. While grinning in the cool air with bared teeth, he greeted Zhang Xiu's parents in his heart.

"The bastard raised by the son of a bitch actually dares to beat Lao Tzu. If it weren't for your kindness to Lao Tzu!" He 'killed' Zhang Xiu seven times with different tricks in his stomach, and 'saved' Zhang Xiu several times on different battlefields, and finally regained his balance in his heart. After being bored and silent for a long time, he began to secretly study the figure and weapons of General Lang.

"No wonder he is so good, he is so tall and wide, so naturally he has no loss!" Zhou Daniu silently muttered in his heart, "If I look as tall as him, maybe I can be a general." That black armor is good, I don't know how much it's worth. The big horizontal knife is not bad, it seems that he has never seen such a wide and curved horizontal knife, I don't know where he bought it. And yesterday's gold medal, I don't know if it's pure gold or gold-plated. His eyes lit up, and he dreamed of one day making a gold medal flower himself. Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to the lance of another saddled war horse that followed the main general.

"This lance looks good, Lord Lang doesn't seem to have used it? Will he make a lance? What won't he do with the lance? Zhou Daniu raised his head and looked around. He wanted to ask this question, but he saw several stagecoaches galloping fast in the gap deliberately left on the left side of the official road.

"Urgent military situation, urgent military situation. On the order of the governor of Yuwen, a letter was sent to General Li that the military situation in the eastern capital had changed. The military situation in the Eastern Capital has changed!" The messenger gave a loud report as he galloped his horse.

Zhou Daniu's curiosity was immediately hooked, he stretched his neck, and his eyes looked directly at the messenger. He saw that the military book wrapped in red fire paint was taken by Zhang Xiu from the messenger and held it to Li Xu. Then when he saw General Li Lang unfolding the military book, his face changed countless times in an instant.

When he set up camp in the evening, Zhou Daniu's curiosity was finally satisfied. Outside the big tent of the Chinese army, he heard Zhao Ziming, who joined the army, relay the latest news from the front to the generals who came to discuss the matter, "Pei Hongce was defeated again, and Fan Zi was beheaded." After that, the defeated did not dare to enter the city, and they all surrendered to Xuangan. ’

Among the generals, there are more than 40 noble sons and daughters, such as Han Shi, the son of the founding father Han Baohu, Yang Gongdao, the son of Yang Xiong, the king of Guanwang, Yu Rou, the son of Yu Shiji, the son of Yu Shiji, the son of the general Lai Hu'er, Pei Shuang, the son of Pei Yun, the imperial historian, Zheng Yan, the son of Zheng Shanguo, the son of Dali Qing, and Zhou Zhong, the son of Zhou Luojiao.

Among the anti-thieves, so far it involves the seven kings of the dynasty. (Note 2)

Luoyang is at stake.

Note 1: That is, White Horse Mountain, at the northern foot of Beibi Mountain in Luoyang, Henan Province

Note 2: Regarding Lai Yuan et al.'s vote for Yang Xuangan, it can be found in the "Zizhi Tongjian" but not in the "New (Old) Tang Book". It may have been fabricated by Sima Guang. This book is, so use a fancy statement.

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