Chapter 371

The intention of more than 6,000 soldiers and horses of Bauhinia Wei stationed in Xishuizhai was to oppress Ansu and protect Baoding Mansion and cut off the road to the west of the thieves.

The next morning, the army arrived outside the east gate of Baoding Mansion, but did not hear the sound of siege and fighting, but the army did not dare to take it lightly, still set up a formation to cover the past, but saw the open ground of the east gate shrouded in morning fog, thousands of ragged people stood there trembling and did not know what to do, at a glance they were all defenseless refugees, where there were any thieves attacking the city.

"What's going on?" Bauhinia Guanwei Commander Tan Zhangyue immediately stepped forward and asked.

"My lord, I can't figure it out." The generals were also confused.

"Grab a couple of people and ask what's going on." Tan Zhang shouted angrily, he traveled all night to get here, but it turned out to be an empty run, worried in vain, how could he not be angry in his heart.

Several people with yellow faces and thin muscles were dragged to Tan Zhang's horse, and Tan Zhang asked, "Who are you waiting for?" Why are you outside the city gate of Baoding Mansion? ”

An old man with gray eyebrows knelt on the ground, trembling and said: "Master Jun, I am a refugee who escaped from Ansu, I rushed here last night and wanted to take refuge in Baoding Mansion, but after shouting all night, the city gate of Baoding Mansion was closed, and the villains had nowhere to go. ”

Tan Zhangqi scolded, what kind of fame did Dong Jie, the prefect of Baoding, call the door into the city, and they were actually regarded as thieves attacking the city, and they tossed themselves in the middle of the night and rushed over, not to mention how annoyed they were.

The military and political officials of Baoding Prefecture, who had been frightened all night at the head of the city, did not see the situation of the two armies fighting, and also felt that something was wrong, so they opened the city gate, and more than 2,000 soldiers and horses surrounded the Baoding prefect Dong Mingcheng to inquire, and they were also very surprised after learning the situation.

"This ...... Last night, I heard these people shouting with torches in their hands, and some people shooting arrows at the city, how could it be that refugees arrived? Dong Jie said.

Tan Zhang grabbed the collar of a refugee's clothes, opened his bow left and right, and said: "You dare to shoot arrows at the head of the city, and you still say that what kind of refugee it is, it must be a disguised thief!" ”

The refugees knelt down and kowtowed and shouted that they were wronged, and the white-haired old man shook his throat and said: "Wronged, my lord, we were driven here by the thieves, the food in Ansu City was exhausted, the cattle, sheep, chickens and horses were slaughtered, and the thieves said that there was no food to give us life, so they burned our house and sent hundreds of thieves to drive us to Baoding Mansion, saying that God has the virtue of a good life, so we escaped into Baoding Mansion to live; We are deeply afflicted by thieves, and naturally we can't ask for it. ”

"And what do you do with archery?"

"It was an arrow shot by the thieves, they said that the arrow was to attract the attention of the defenders, and they also said that it was dark for the defenders to dare not open the city gate, so we lit torches and shouted outside the city gate to open the city, so ......"

Everyone was stunned, Dong Jie said with a ashamed face: "Commander Tan, this is an oolong, last night I saw someone throwing arrows at the head of the city, and I saw the torches lit, and there were a lot of people, so I thought it was a surprise attack by thieves, and I was afraid that Baoding would be lost, so I asked the general to come to the rescue; Now that you have arrived, please allow this official to welcome the brothers in the capital to give them a treat, so as to relieve your shame. ”

Tan Zhang didn't have much to say, and he couldn't blame Dong Jie, the thieves might really have the intention of taking advantage of the opportunity of Baoding Mansion to open the door to accept refugees to sneak into the city and attack the city, and it is also possible to escape after the thing fails.

At that time, the army searched the refugees from head to toe, and confirmed that all of them were unarmed and pure people, so they were allowed to enter the city, and all of them were arranged in the school field in Nancheng, and porridge and rice were boiled to relieve them.

From the mouth of the refugees, I learned that the city of Ansu has been a mess of thieves, the men in the city are coerced to follow the thieves a lot, the number of thieves is definitely not a few, Tan Zhang did not dare to stay for a long time, ordered the soldiers to rest outside the city for two hours, then hurriedly rushed back to Xishui Village, Baoding prefect Dong Jie tried his best to keep it, so he ordered someone to carry hundreds of pigs and sheep to apologize, and secretly stuffed two hundred taels of silver to Tan Zhang.

Tan Zhang led the army to hurry back, but halfway through, he saw dozens of horsemen coming towards him, led by a thousand households who stayed in Xishui Village, and the thousand households saw Tan Zhang hurriedly rolling the saddle and dismounting to salute.

Tan Zhang asked: "You don't stay in Xishui Village, what are you doing here?" ”

The Qianhu said: "Commander Tan, the scout horse sent to Ansu last night came back to report, saying that the gate of Ansu City was wide open, and there was no one above and below the city. The humble post felt a little strange, no, he was planning to take his brothers to the outskirts of Ansu to explore the truth. ”

Tan Zhang's heart was shocked: "Empty? This is surprising, Baoding Mansion was not raided by thieves, but thousands of refugees were driven to seek refuge outside Baoding Prefecture. ”

The thousand households were surprised: "That's strange, since the thieves didn't attack Baoding, why did they open the city gate, and there were no soldiers and horses to attack Ansu, what kind of empty city tricks did they play?" ”

Tan Zhang frowned and thought for a while, then suddenly slapped his thigh and shouted, "It's broken." ”

"My lord, what's wrong?"

"Don't ask, we may have fallen into a trick, pass the order down, turn around and attack Ansu County in the east."

"But...... My lord, didn't the governor of Gudu say that he was not allowed to attack? We're disobeying military orders. ”

"Disobey a fart, I'm afraid there is no shadow of thieves in Ansu City." Tan Zhang scolded and urged the horse to the east, and the army quickly turned around and ran towards Ansu County, marching all the way, and arrived at Ansu County in the evening, but saw that there was no one in the city, and the gate of the city was open, and there were still unextinguished flames in the city with green smoke.

Tan Zhang ordered the army to enter the city, and several generals were still to be dissuaded, for fear of falling into the strategy of the thieves, but Tan Zhang had already concluded in his heart that the thieves had abandoned the city and fled for a long time. The army poured into the city, but did not meet the slightest resistance, and there was not even a single hair of the thieves in the city, but hundreds of tortured half-dead and unclothed women were found in the city, apparently left behind by the thieves before leaving.

Tan Zhang hurriedly ordered people to treat these women, bandaged and medicated, and fed them with water and food, dozens of women regained their ability to speak, Tan Zhang hurriedly asked about the traces of the thieves, most of the women were at a loss, they were all taken by the thieves as lewd things, they were tortured dozens of times a day, and they wanted to die, where did they still have the heart to control the movements of the thieves; Tan Zhang asked for a long time, but no woman answered.

Tan Zhang was anxious, and suddenly heard a woman in the corner with a disheveled hair say: "General, the slave family knows something, but I don't know if it's what the general wants." ”

Tan Zhang hurriedly said: "Say it quickly, say it quickly." ”

The woman said, "The slave family listened to the conversation between the two thieves at night......

Tan Zhang interrupted her and said, "How could you hear their conversation?" ”

The woman hung her head and wept silently, and said in a low voice for a while: "The slave family is forced to serve those two dog thieves, in ...... In their house...... The slaves heard their conversation. ”

Tan Zhang suddenly said busily: "Tell me, what did you hear?" ”

The woman said: "The slave family knows that one of the two thieves is named Liu Qi and the other is called Zhao Madman, yesterday evening, the two of them drank in the house and said a lot of words, and the slave family didn't understand much, but what did they say to drive the people to pretend to attack Baoding, and then attack the west or something, the slave family estimated that it must be some kind of conspiracy." ”

Tan Zhang's heart was bright, it turned out that everything was a premeditated plan, and the thief soldiers attacked Baoding Mansion under a pretense, and they used this pretext to attack the east and west, and evacuated Ansu City. The purpose of their attack on Baoding Mansion was obviously to mobilize the deployment of officers and soldiers, so that the ironclad encirclement of the copper wall would expose the gaps and achieve a breakthrough.

Baoding Mansion was attacked, and the only thing that could be aided in time was nothing more than their own soldiers and horses and the Jinyi guards and horses of Xin'an County, east of Baoding Mansion, so the direction of the raid of the thieves was very likely to be to the south or to the northwest.

Tan Zhanghan has come down, if the thieves go south, it's okay, because the soldiers and horses in Xin'an County have not moved, and they still have the power to resist, but if the thieves go to the northwest, they happen to lead the troops to rescue Baoding, which just gives the thieves a gap interspersed, then it will be over.

Tan Zhang hurriedly ordered to send cavalry to inform Gu Dayong stationed in Heyang to explain the situation, and at the same time sent people to search south immediately, and informed Song Nan, the commander of the Jinyi Guard in Xin'an County, and at the same time, immediately led the troops to retreat to Xishuizhai, widely spread the horses, and searched for traces along various routes in the northwest.

Soon, in Lijia Town, twenty miles northwest of Ansu, the sentry detectives found the corpses of the people who were killed along the way, the thieves must have been afraid that the people would leak the news, the young and strong took away the army, and the old and weak women and children were all killed and buried, probably at night, the corpses were not buried tightly, and more than a dozen bodies were found by the sentry along the way.

Hearing this news, Tan Zhang's heart was cold, the thief soldiers really fled from the direction of their defense, that is, the thief soldiers will not have any officers and soldiers along the way, they slipped away quietly last night, and now more than ten hours have passed, if they advance lightly, at least seventy or eighty miles away, their own army has been tossed for a day and a night, with the current state is definitely unable to catch up, they must quickly abandon the infantry, and send more than 700 cavalry to follow quickly.

At the same time, Tan Zhang also hurriedly sent people to Heyang for the second time, informed Gu Dayong of the direction of the breakthrough with thief soldiers, and asked Gu Dayong to send cavalry to cooperate in pursuit.