Receiving such information, Zheng Yu's mood finally relaxed - after being entangled with this Qiu Yizhi for half a year, he could finally let himself live in peace for a New Year. But he thought about it, he was going to celebrate the New Year, and he was going to celebrate the New Year, and now he was gathering the army, wasn't it also the result of the declining morale of his soldiers?

You must know that Zheng Yu is the son of Zheng Gui, the king of Lingnan, who has been obese since he was a child, and his talents are very ordinary, so he has always lived in the shadow of his brother Zheng Nuo.

Now his father, Zheng Gui, the king of Lingnan, has finally made up his mind to rebel, and he has indeed gained the upper hand over the court in a few months, and his eldest brother Zheng Nuo has been captured by the court and placed under house arrest, and he is already fierce and unlucky, and he is in danger - in this way, not only will he have a great chance of becoming the prince of Lingnan, but he is also very likely to be crowned the crown prince and be able to ascend to the throne in the future.

But things didn't go as smoothly as Zheng Yu imagined.

After his father Zheng Gui handed over the military and political power of Jiangnan Province to Zheng Yu, Zheng Yu was not able to capture the important town of Jinling, but was subject to Qiu Yizhi's thief everywhere. Originally, Zheng Gui, the king of Lingnan, wanted to rely on the money and grain of Jiangnan Province to support his enterprising cause, but under the auspices of Zheng Yu, the situation in Jiangnan did not advance but retreated, and the rivers were declining.

Such a development of the situation will undoubtedly leave a bad impression on Zheng Gui in his heart.

And in recent days, some bad news has reached Zheng Yu's ears around Zheng Gui, the king of Lingnan.

It is said that the progress of the Lingnan army has not been smooth recently, and the Lingnan king drove a few strategists to come up with an idea and asked the Lingnan king Zheng Gui to negotiate peace with the emperor - on the one hand, the Lingnan king stopped the attack and continued to call his ministers weak; On the other hand, the imperial court divided Yungui Road to the jurisdiction of the Lingnan Palace, and returned the seized Lingnan Wang's son Zheng Nuo.

Regardless of such a proposal, whether Lingnan King Zheng Gui will agree or not, whether Emperor Zheng Rong will agree, such a murmur is always a great bad news for Zheng Yu.

Therefore, after Zheng Yu heard the news that Qiu Yi's turtle was shrinking in Shanyin County, he immediately thought that his time had come - as long as he could rely on the advantage of being numerous and powerful to encircle and annihilate Qiu Yi's troops, then the problem in Jiangnan would be completely solved, and he would also add a heavy weight to his father's heart.

He estimated that although the opponent only had more than 20,000 people, the commander Qiu Yizhi's troops were tricky and strange, and if he wanted to attack the city he defended, he must have more than three times the advantage of troops.

So Zheng Yu gritted his teeth, mobilized a large amount of grain from several Yicang and Changping warehouses in the south of the Yangtze River for disaster preparedness, and gathered 30,000 elite soldiers from all over the country, together with the 30,000 soldiers and horses in his hands, a total of more than 60,000 people, bluffing that there were 200,000 troops, and rushed towards Shanyin County.

Shanyin County is a remote town in Yuezhou Prefecture, because it is located in the mountains, there is no wide road, only three small roads that twist and turn in the mountains to communicate with the outside. Among them, the trail on the west leads directly to Huguang Road; to the south leads to the capital of Yuezhou; The path to the north is connected to Jinling City.

If you attack such a small city according to the art of war, and you have three times the strength of your opponent, then you should divide your troops and advance from the three roads to surround the small county town of Shanyin, and even if you besiege but not attack, you can starve and trap the defenders in the city to death.

But at present, Huguang Road in the west of Shanyin County is still in the hands of the right general Wei Hu; Although Zheng Yu, the city of Yuezhou in the south, was lost and recovered, there were not many troops to use, so he sent troops to bypass here, and sent his troops on an expedition, and it was difficult for logistics to keep up; Only the passage to Jinling City in the north is quite convenient for marching and transporting.

Therefore, Zheng Yu had no better way, so he could only lead the 60,000 elite soldiers gathered from all over the place, starting from the camp besieging Jinling, and marching along a winding road to Shanyin County. The movement of Zheng Yu's army was not slow, but although the official road leading to Shanyin County had been rectified, it was still narrow and winding, which was not conducive to the movement of the army—the 60,000 army was squeezed into a long snake formation, and the team was more than ten miles long before and after.

Zheng Yu claimed to be the representative of the King of Lingnan in Jiangnan Province, his own identity, and he was a little afraid of being sniped by Qiu Yizhi's stealing plane, so although he personally commanded the army, he did not walk in the forefront of the team, and in the Chinese army, the pioneer officer named Sun Hao, a member of the Lingnan Army, to serve as a general.

Sun Hao is nearly fifty years old this year, and since he was still the prince of Lingnan, he has followed Zheng Gui and watched Zheng Yu grow up since he was a child. Although he did not pay attention to any clever and good strategies in the use of troops, he was more important than the word "stability", and even if the two armies could not win a battle, there would be no major defeat, and they often played the role of a mainstay. Zheng Gui, the king of Lingnan, left Sun Hao by Zheng Yu's side, using his qualifications, prestige and calmness to stabilize the situation in Jiangnan Province.

It is precisely for this reason that Sun Hao, who has rich combat experience, saw that his army stretched for more than ten miles when he marched, and he was very frightened, lest the opponent set up an ambush on both sides of the road, and he could easily separate and scatter his own army.

Therefore, Sun Hao was extremely cautious when he commanded the march of the army, and he always sent several groups of spies to the front to investigate, and only after he did not find that there was an enemy ambush did he dare to order the army to move forward. When the army moves, it is necessary for all parts of the army to cooperate closely, and it is better to move slowly than to leave a gap for the opponent.

Therefore, the Lingnan army has been walking for five or six hundred miles from the Jinling camp to Shanyin County, and it has only been halfway through.

Zheng Yu, who was sitting in the Chinese army, was a little out of breath.

First, he was eager to make meritorious contributions, lest Qiu Yizhi, who had finally caught his whereabouts, be transferred out and lose his fighter from then on; Second, he was raised in the palace since he was a child, and he was delicate and expensive, and he couldn't bear the hardships of long-distance marching and mountain roads in winter, and wanted to get to his destination as soon as possible.

Therefore, he repeatedly urged Sun Hao to speed up the march, to strive to take Shanyin County, capture alive or kill Qiu Yizhi before the arrival of the Spring Festival and Chinese New Year's Eve, even if it was too late to return to Jinling camp to eat dumplings, he could not celebrate the New Year under the county town of Shanyin.

At first, Sun Hao was able to rely on his old qualifications to put Zheng Yu's order on top. Later, Zheng Yu urged more and more tightly, and Sun Hao himself couldn't resist it, so he had to let the front probe horse briefly reconnoitre, and then ordered the army to move forward.

Sun Hao walked in fear for three days, and finally came out of the endless mountains and hills and came to the city of Shanyin County.

Sun Hao was worthy of the name of "calm", seeing that Shanyin County was at the mouth of his army, but he was not in a hurry to open his teeth to gnaw, but ordered the troops who arrived first to set up camp one mile away from the county seat, waiting for the army to arrive. He himself personally led his own soldiers to follow, and walked around the county seat of Shanyin on horseback to explore the reality of the enemy army.

However, the situation in San'in County is very strange.

If the opponent heard that his army was prepared to press the border, but there was no deployment of troops outside the city wall, and even the fortified wall Qingye did a little perfunctory, and he could still find some food and supplies.

But if it is said that the opponent is completely defenseless, it is not necessarily, but the city wall of this Sanyin County has been really heightened and reinforced, compared with the height of two zhang and two feet mentioned in the previous information, it seems to have been raised by one zhang, and it is all built with the top number of bricks and stones, which looks extremely strong. On the city wall, the flags are unfurled, which is very distinct, and I see groups of soldiers constantly patrolling and guarding, and several of them are also pointing at the enemy troops under the city, as if they are studying the strategy of resisting the enemy, which obviously cannot be underestimated.

Seeing this, Sun Hao already had a number in his heart - it turned out that the enemy army knew that his whole army was coming, and it was expected that it would be difficult to match it head-on, so he simply retreated back into the fortified city, intending to resist stubbornly according to the city, and after the besieging army ran out of food and grass, it would naturally retreat.

Although this kind of deployment is negative, it is very right, so Sun Hao can't help but admire: "What a Qiu Yizhi, it is worthy of being praised by the prince of Lingnan in person!" ”

Therefore, Sun Hao knew that Qiu Yizhi was prepared, and did not dare to take it lightly, and strictly ordered his soldiers to strictly guard the camp and prohibit attacking the city without authorization.

However, after the urging of Zheng Yu before, the Lingnan Army's originally very long team was stretched more loosely and extended, although the forward arrived at Shanyin County in advance, the army was still on the road in the mountains, if you want to wait for the whole army to gather, it will take three days to work.

Zheng Yu couldn't even wait for these three days.

He listened to the news from Sun Hao from the front, thinking that Qiu Yizhi was timid when he heard that the army was pressing the border, and it would not be difficult to take a small county town in Shanyin, so he ordered Sun Hao to attack the opponent's city without waiting for the whole army to gather.

Sun Hao saw Zheng Yu's warrant and knew that there was no certainty of victory in the attack now, so he sent his troops back to state the benefits - but he did not forget to order his army to prepare siege equipment such as ladders, fortunately, it was reasonable to speak in front of His Royal Highness, the second son of the king of Lingnan.

Sure enough, after Zheng Yu saw Sun Nuo's request to delay the attack, instead of allowing it, he urged him to attack immediately, otherwise he would have to change his generals and replace Sun Hao, the general personally appointed by the king of Lingnan.

After Sun Hao saw Zheng Yu's warrant, he was immediately shocked, he didn't expect that this Zheng Yu, who he had seen since he was a child, who had always been honest and a little cowardly, would be so stubborn and self-serving. Fortunately, he fought with Zheng Yu for a day, and he gathered a lot of troops under his command, and now there are 30,000 troops and they are still increasing, which has formed a numerical advantage over the 20,000 defenders in the city.

So Sun Hao gritted his teeth, ordered all his men and horses to assemble in the camp, personally commanded, and selected a slightly low city wall in the west of Shanyin County to launch a concentrated attack. In order to boost morale, he offered a reward, saying that the first to climb the city wall would immediately be promoted to general, and the general would be immediately promoted to the third rank.

Under the great reward, there will be brave men.

The offensive of the Lingnan Army was indeed very fierce, and in a short period of time, four or five cloud ladders were erected on the west city wall of Shanyin County, and the soldiers rushed to climb the cloud ladders and step up to the city.

Although the city wall of San'in County was heightened, it was difficult to thicken it for a while, and a large number of defenders could not be hoarded on the city wall; The Lingnan army besieging the city was full of momentum, and in a blink of an eye, more than a dozen Lingnan soldiers climbed the city wall.

Fortunately, the defenders had received strict training from Qiu Yizhi before, and in recent days, they have been waiting for work at leisure, and their combat effectiveness is quite strong, and in a short time, they attacked from both sides of the wall, killing all the enemy troops who barely climbed the city wall, and the ladders erected on the wall were also overturned.

Sun Hao has experienced a hundred battles, and he already knows that with his current strength, the attack will not go well for a while, and it is also within his expectations.