When Wang Zhen watched the fleet of Wu Guo's naval army that came to the rescue from the canal outside the city fall into the encirclement of enemy ships and turn to ashes, he immediately understood the enemy's intentions.

The capture of Gaoyou was not the enemy's goal at all, they just wanted to attract the naval army to come to the rescue, and then achieve the purpose of encircling the point to send reinforcements, and now their goal has been achieved.

What is the purpose of annihilating the Third Army of the Naval Army, it goes without saying that Yangzhou is their goal, and it is not possible to say that the Huaiyou Army has launched an offensive against Yangzhou by land?

And what about Chuzhou?

It is absolutely impossible for the Xuzhou army to only attack Yangzhou and turn a blind eye to Chuzhou, and if it attacks Chuzhou and Yangzhou at the same time, this is to cut off the foundation of Wu, and the army of Wu is still deep in the battlefield of Runchang and cannot extricate itself, will this be a conspiracy between Xuzhou and Yue and the ant thieves?

Thinking of this, Wang Zhen shuddered, if this is the case, then the country of Wu will be over, it will be completely over, and the three families will join forces to divide Wu, and nothing can be done.

Chu Yang lost, the Wu army fighting in Runchang Erzhou must be in turmoil, and it will not be able to resist the Yue army and ant thieves, especially the Yue army will take advantage of the situation to cover up and take Runchang Erzhou in one fell swoop, it is already more difficult for the Wu army to get rid of the Yue army, not to mention that there is a big river in front of the Wu army returning to the north, with such a far-reaching plan in Xuzhou, mobilize the third army of the water army to Gaoyou to ambush, the fourth army may not escape the doom, there is no water army to cover up, how can the Wu army in the south of the Yangtze River cross the river?

At this time, Wang Zhen no longer had much interest in clearing out the remnants of the water thieves in the city, and he had to think about what he should do now?

The naval fleet that came to help was ambushed, almost the whole army was wiped out, and this is by no means something that the water thieves can do, the shadow of Xuzhou here has been seen, the next step may be that the Xuzhou army crosses the Huai to the south, and even the Huaiyou Army in the west has already moved eastward, but he has not yet gotten the news, Chuyang Erzhou may be attacked immediately, how much of a role can his own troops play?

Wang Zhen's guess was not wrong, when the Third Army of the Wu State Navy was ambushed outside Gaoyou City, the Wuning Army led by Chai Yong was crossing the river on a large scale from the Huaishui between Huaiyin and Shanyang, while Tian Chunlai's Huaishui Army was unscrupulous from the Huai River, quickly approached Shanyang, and entered the canal section.

In the south, Xu Ziqing's Huaiyou army also marched eastward from Yongyang, and captured Liuhe County, which was less than a hundred miles in one day, because most of the main force of the Wu army went south to Runchang, the Eastern Navy and the Zhen Navy of Chuyang Erzhou have actually temporarily given up the defense of the county seat, and handed over to the garrison army to be responsible for defense, and these garrisons have taken the initiative to surrender before the arrival of the Huaiyou army, of course, there is no difference between the active figure of Wuwentang.

In fact, before the ant thieves crossed the river to the south, the years of war turned the city of Chuzhou into a ruin, whether it was Xuyi in the west, or Yancheng in the east, and even Tianchang and Liuhe in Yangzhou, they were all sacked by the ant thieves, and the local gentry were extremely dissatisfied with Li Yu's conservative strategy, which was almost sacrificing the interests of their countryside.

Later, although the ant thieves crossed the river and went south, the barren farmland and the damaged irrigation facilities could not be restored in a day or two, and the people who fled everywhere made the gentry in the countryside of Chuyang and Yang extremely dissatisfied.

They think that Li Yu's performance is not the same as that of Yang Xingmi in previous years, and he spends a huge amount of money and food, but the performance of the army is so unbearable, even Yang Pu is not as good as him, at least when Yang Pu was in power, ant thieves were not so rampant.

In contrast, Xuzhou in the north and Luhao and Chu in the west are thriving under the control of Jiang Feng, and the gap between the two is too great.

For the local squires, their requirements are actually very simple, to ensure the safety of one party, not from the ravages of bandits and thieves, so that they can continue their prosperous life in peace and stability, and if they can't even do this, then they can't blame them for being half-hearted.

Especially in the prefectures and counties where the Xuzhou army pacified Yanyunyi, where the bandits were most rampant, and then restored Pinglu Town in one fell swoop, Jiang Feng's prestige spread far and wide.

The combat effectiveness of the Xuzhou army is even more vividly reflected, and in such a situation, when Wuwentang took the initiative to contact these country gentry, it naturally received a positive response from them.

Of course, while Li Yu still maintained absolute control over the metropolises of Shanyang and Jiangdu, and still had a relatively strong army stationed, the gentry would not easily openly reveal their political leanings unless they were convinced that Wu's rule was coming to an end.

Liuhe, the progress of the Xuzhou Army's offensive was sharply accelerated, along the river bank, Guabu and Baisha two Jiangbei key passes were controlled by the Huaiyou Army, bypassing Aijingpi and reaching Yangzhou.

Li Yu's face turned pale, his body even trembled uncontrollably, and the letter paper in his hand could no longer be pinched, and fell to the ground.

There was no sound in the hall, only the heavy breathing of a cadre of military generals and ministers, indicating the severity of the current situation.

The situation couldn't be worse, no one thought that Xuzhou would suddenly move south and east at this time, Chuzhou and Yangzhou were both attacked by the enemy, from the time they received the warning, how long they could hold out, no one knows.

What made Li Yu even more desperate was that he didn't know if this was a conspiracy between Xuzhou and Yue Guo and the ant thieves, if so, then Wu Guo was in danger.

What now?

Some time ago, the Wu army on the southern front won successive victories against the ant thieves on the front line of Danyang Hunan, Gucheng Lake and Lishui, and had already taken advantage of the situation to cross the Tongwei River.

The northern line of the Wu army in the south bank of the river step by step, relying on the support of the water army, in Danyang Hubei in one fell swoop to defeat the Jiang Kou, and take advantage of the situation to capture Dangtu, the current water army along the river upstream, occupied Wuhu Town, and control the Wuhu water line, close to Heqi City, and Heqi City and Tongguanye are only dozens of miles away.

The southern line infantry army went south along the Qingyi River, threatening Nanling, Jingxian and Xuancheng, these three counties are the foundation of the ant thieves, once these three cities are conquered, it can be said that the control of the ant thieves in the east of Xuanzhou will completely collapse, and the threat to the two states of Runchang will also be solved.

At the same time, at the invitation of Li Yu, the army of the Jiangzhou Dazhong clan also launched an attack from the front line of Madang Mountain and captured Zhide County in one fell swoop.

After the capture of Zhide County, the army of the Great Zhong clan was divided into two routes, and the army of the North Road went east along the river, and the progress was extremely fast, and it had captured Wushi Mountain and approached the line of Guichishui.

Once the Guichi water is broken, it can threaten Qiupu, an important town in the northwest of Xuanzhou, and at the same time, it is also the location of Meigen Jian and Tongguanye, which is also another fundamental place for ant thieves, Li Yu promised it to the Da Zhong clan at any cost, otherwise the Da Zhong clan would never have sent troops.

The army of the Great Zhong Clan's South Road fought steadily, and after capturing Zhide, it steadily advanced eastward, pointing at Shidai and Taiping counties, intending to meet with the Wu army in Jing County and completely solve the ant thieves.

It can be said that this game designed with great painstaking design, and I saw that I was about to win, but I didn't expect someone to make a knife behind it.

On April 18, when the army of the southern front reached the outskirts of Xuancheng and controlled the line of Jingting Mountain, the army of the Yue Kingdom attacked in three ways.

The navy army landed in Wuxi along the coast of Taihu Lake all the way and advanced to Wujin.

The infantry army of the southern front broke through the line of Guoshan and Zhanggongshan, quickly occupied Yixing, and caught Xu Wenzhi, who was in charge of guarding the southern front, by surprise, and Xu Wenzhi was forced to stop the defense on the front line of Wujin and prevent the enemy from continuing to advance north.

The Vietnamese army on the northern front went west along the river bank, and with the support of the Vietnamese naval army, stormed Jiangyin, and Han Xizai, who was in charge of the defense of Runzhou, was unable to support it and was forced to retreat to Wujin and ask Li Yu for help.

Once the Wujin is conquered, Changzhou will be lost, Runzhou will not be protected, and it will also greatly endanger the rear road of the Wu army that has penetrated into the inland area of Xuanzhou.

On the second day of the first month of May, the Vietnamese army converged, stormed Wujin, Xu Wenzhi led 20,000 troops to fight bloodily, repelled seven attacks by the Vietnamese army, and the king of Yue, Qian Yuanjun, came to the battle in person, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Wujin fell, and Xu Wenzhi retreated to Qu'a and Yanling.

Li Yu, who received the bad news, didn't have time to launch an offensive, knowing that maybe the capture of Xuancheng could completely defeat the ant thieves, but he was too late now, so he had to retreat on all fronts and retreat northeast along Qingyishui, but now as soon as he retreated to Lishui, he got that the Vietnamese army had occupied Jintan and began to besiege Yanling.

The situation was so bad that Li Yu was a little desperate, but Bian Hao and the others still kept their composure, continued to command the army to steadily withdraw from Xuanzhou, and also made a beautiful counterattack on the front line of Chishan Lake, annihilating nearly 10,000 people of the ant thief Sun Daobu, forcing the ant thief Lin Rubu to evacuate in embarrassment and have occupied Jiangyan.

Unexpectedly, at this time, such bad news came from Jiangbei, and this was not the last straw that broke the camel, but directly smashed down a boulder, which was going to crush the camel to death.

Suddenly, Li Yu seemed to have aged ten years old all of a sudden, leaning on the chair, curled up, looked at the beam of the house with some distraction, and muttered to himself: "Is it that the sky is going to destroy the orphans?"

Bian Hao's face was also a little depressed, and he no longer had the demeanor that he could maintain calmly even when he was chased by ant thieves.

Because he knows very well that once the Xuzhou army goes south, it will not be as simple as the Yue army and the ant thief, and it is very likely that the Xuzhou side and the Yue country and even the ant thief have some kind of tacit understanding, and even the ant thief retreats westward, and attracting the Wu army to the west is also one of the links.

Now that the Xuzhou army is attacking Chuyang Erzhou, this news alone is enough to make the Wu army who are on the expedition abroad very confused, in this case, even if Han Xin is resurrected and Li Jing is alive, it is impossible to reverse this defeat.

Go?

No one knows what to do now, under the posture of the Xuzhou army going south, the morale of the Wu army has fallen to the extreme, no one believes that Li Jingtong can hold Yangzhou, since the Xuzhou army dares to press the border like this, it is naturally absolutely sure.