Ning Ze thought about it carefully and felt that the only effect of poisoning Lou Qu was to sabotage his negotiations with Cheng Wan and worsen the relationship between the two parties.

The reason why Lu Cong's side will do this is probably to use Cheng Wan to drag himself and find something to do.

Thinking about it, Sima Fa must be worried that after he solves Chu Bai, he will meddle in Yanzhou.

Obviously, the other party is thinking too much, Ning Ze does not plan to meddle in Yanzhou at this time, once he directly fights with Lu Cong, things will become difficult to clean up.

Moreover, to clean up Chu Bai, we have to appease Xi and Yuan Erzhou as soon as possible to deal with Lu Cong, who will definitely come next year, and prepare for a stronger enemy.

Lu Cong is not a small prince like Chu Bai and Cheng Wan, not to mention that after getting Sima Fa, he will be invincible in the east and west.

Sima Fa hoped that he would be furious and wave his army south to clean up Chu Bai. But some overestimate Lou Qu's status in his heart, in fact, Ning Ze attaches great importance to it on the surface and gives Lou Qu a lot of power, but he is actually not ready to leave this shameless man. During the attack on Bashan County, Lou Qu was disappointed that he did not die on the battlefield. There is no benefit to keeping Lou Qu!

It's not that Lou Qu is guilty, it's just that Ning Ze doesn't like this kind of character, leaving this kind of person who can manage himself more than ten years younger for utilitarianism shouts his father and mother, doesn't have the slightest face, and has no loyalty, it will only have a negative impact.

But where Lou Qu wants to save face, he can tolerate it just by surrendering and saying that Ning Ze can make the best use of things if he arranges a position that is not too important. Blame him for his own ambition too.

Ning Ze was not ready to immediately challenge Cheng Wan, and after cleaning up Chu Bai, there was time to solve the Jiangzhou problem. But you can't do nothing, even if you don't admit it, some people outside think that they are acquiescing to Lou Qu as a "righteous son", otherwise why would they take a special fancy to it and repeatedly arrange important positions. If the "righteous son" is killed, if he swallows his anger, he will become a laughing stock if he spreads it.

In this era, although there is a difference between a righteous son and a biological son, they are basically the same.

Ning Zefeige sent a letter to inform Qian Chun and Qian Shi that they wanted the two of them to show a tough and angry posture as messengers, on the one hand, forcing Cheng Wan to immediately track down the real culprit and change justice, and on the other hand, asking Cheng Wan for huge compensation for this matter. Both things are indispensable, otherwise the negotiations will be delayed forever, and then no matter what happens, you will bear the consequences.

Nominally, it is a challenge, showing that he attaches importance to this matter. But in fact, Ren is procrastinating, and when he bears the consequences is up to himself.

Cheng Wan must seek Lu Cong's protection, but now that Lu Cong has no time to meddle in Jiangzhou, spending some money to delay time in order to protect himself is the best way. It is completely possible to extort a sum of money and food from Cheng Wan to fill his own military treasury.

After receiving Ning Ze's instructions, Qian Chun and Qian Shi brothers had a plan in their hearts, and immediately followed Ning Ze's requirements, and challenged Cheng Wan with an extraordinarily tough attitude, demanding a thorough investigation of the real culprit and handing him over to Ning Ze's side, and at the same time asking for 300,000 gold and 600,000 stone military rations.

Cheng Wan had a headache, he had already determined that the murderer was in the Lu Cong Mission, how could he dare to investigate?

Even if the murderer is found out and handed over to Ning Ze, it will be impossible to dispel Ning Ze's idea of annexing Jiangzhou, and it will offend Lu Cong, once Ning Ze sends troops to attack Jiangzhou, without strong backup support, he will definitely die.

But he couldn't decisively refuse Ning Ze, so he assured Ning Ze's envoy to investigate the matter thoroughly in a friendly way, but secretly he was passive and slack, purely pretentious.

It is impossible for Cheng Wan to agree to Ning Ze's envoy's request for 300,000 gold and 600,000 stone military rations, this is a lion's big mouth, all the money and grain in the Jiangzhou government are now added together, and this number can be made up, if you really give Ning Ze it, it will become an embarrassing situation with no money to use and no food to eat.

But you can't refuse outright, after all, you are at a loss, a big living person is poisoned under your nose, empathy, the other party will be angry.

Moreover, a refusal annoyed Ning Ze, and the other party immediately sent troops to attack, and Lu Cong's side was powerless to help.

No matter what, it has to be delayed until the beginning of spring in two years, and when Lu Cong can make a move, this level will be passed!

For this reason, he personally negotiated with Qian Chun and Qian Shi brothers, and the compensation was okay, but with the current financial situation in Jiangzhou, the maximum compensation was 50,000 gold and 100,000 stone military rations.

He also knew that it was impossible for the other party to accept such a low compensation, so he deliberately drew a benchmark and then had room for negotiation. As long as the posture of negotiation is shown, the other party will not immediately turn its face, and delaying time through negotiation is the only way at present.

Cheng Wan's mind is exactly the same as Ning Ze's, the current is not the time for conflict, he can't be led by Sima Fa, both sides have to find excuses to delay.

Of course, Cheng Wan wanted to delay the beginning of spring next year, but Ning Ze was trying to take Chu Bai and free up his hands to deal with Cheng Wan.

It is impossible for him to let Cheng Wan delay until next year and wait until Lu Cong is available to rescue.

Only even if Chu Bai and Cheng Wan are taken down, can they concentrate on preparing for the big battle with Lu Cong.

As for Sima Fa, he didn't care if Ning Ze annexed Cheng Wan. For him. As long as Cheng Wan and Chu Bai play a role, they can make Ning Ze unable to interfere in Yanzhou and affect their own strategy, it doesn't matter whether they are dead or alive.

Chu Bai was under a lot of pressure, Qingshan County was defeated, and although he successfully escaped to this side, he suffered extremely heavy losses.

Ning Ze led the army to press forward step by step, and Dewey, Ding Mu, and Ghost Face all marched to this side, and the counties, towns, and villages along the way looked at the wind and surrendered, with almost no resistance.

Now there is only one lonely city left, and we must do our best to survive this winter, and we must not be attacked by Ning Ze's army.

Inevitably, there will be a situation where Qingshan County should be united with outsiders again, and Chu Bai will replace all the important positions in the city with henchmen, especially the city gate guards, and will never use outsiders.

As long as the important positions in the city are controlled by henchmen, they can be kept from leaking, and then all the forces used to consolidate the city defense will definitely be able to block Ning Ze's army from the city.

This time is a battle for survival for Chu Bai, and there is no room for negligence.

When Ning Zejun arrived at the city, he found that Longshou County was indeed well defended and had no loopholes.

The generals defending the city are extremely loyal, and there is no existence that can exploit loopholes.

Chu Bai learned to be smart after the battle in Qingshan.

Even so, Ning Ze had to take him down as soon as possible.

Therefore, before the other three armies came, they first launched an offensive, first, to use hot air balloons to fight propaganda warfare, throwing proclamations of persuasion into the city, and encouraging the people, officials, and generals to surrender to the city, and second, to throw phospho powder jars at the defenders, so as to cause psychological oppression. Then the four sides of the city gates were surrounded, and they were impermeable.

The pressure in the city was indeed extremely great, but Chu Bai was decisive, because all the important positions were controlled by henchmen, and it was very convenient to command, so the whole city was on guard, confiscating and destroying all the announcements thrown by Ning Zejun. If there is any non-cooperation, it will be directly punished as an anti-thief.

Second, all resources were mobilized to build fire shelters above the heads of the defenders everywhere, in order to deal with the phosphorus fire thrown by hot air balloons and reduce the casualties of the defenders.

At the same time, a group of people were mobilized to set up an emergency fire team, no matter where the hot air balloon threw flames to create chaos, the fire team would rush over to extinguish it as soon as possible.

I have to say that Chu Bai is very set, in the face of Ning Ze's offensive, it did have an effect at the beginning, but he was quickly suppressed by him, and the signs disappeared.

Seeing that the hot air balloon tactics were not used, the explosive crossbow in Ning Ze's hand had been used up, and there was no inventory, so it was impossible to forcibly break the city.

So he ordered the whole army to repeat the old trick and throw snowballs near the city gate.

This time, Chu Baixue was obedient and did not order the fire to be burned, but strengthened the garrison of the city wall.

Seeing that the other party was fighting steadily, Ning Ze had another plan.

Because Chu Bai chose to hold on, he would not dare to go out of the city to fight, so the army was very arrogant and stationed next to the city of Longshou County to build an ice and snow castle.

Chu Bai had no choice, even if the other party was very provocative to build the city in person, he could only shrink into the city.

So Ning Zejun successfully built the Ice and Snow Castle and stood head-on with Chu Baijun.

When it was extremely cold at night, Ning Zejun beat gongs and drums and blew horn cards in the ice and snow castle, creating an atmosphere of enemies on all sides.

The defenders of Longshou City were frightened and immediately sent a signal, and all the soldiers in the city gathered in a panic to guard the city wall in the extreme cold.

As a result, it was frozen for a long time, and Ning Zejun did not appear, and finally found that the other party was in the ice castle, hiding in the warm igloo.

So the soldiers on duty were left behind, and the rest of the people dispersed one after another, living to sleep and rest in a warm room.

Not long after he fell asleep, gongs and drums sounded outside the city, and trumpets sounded in unison.

The defenders panicked and dressed and went out, only to be frozen again.

For several days in a row, Ning Zejun harassed him at night.

A few days ago, the defenders paid special attention and did not dare to relax in the slightest. But after a lot of times, I knew that Ning Zejun was deliberately harassing. The other party was just beating gongs and drums and blowing horns in the ice and snow castle, and he had no intention of sending troops, but his side had to be scared again and again to garrison the whole army, and it was really uncomfortable to freeze several times a night. Later, when Ning Zejun heard the gongs and drums and the horns, the patrolmen in charge of the guard were tired of it, and they didn't care about the fire. The rest of the defenders continued to sleep soundly in the barracks.

Ning Ze could see clearly through the virtual map, so he summoned his subordinates and said with a smile: "Can you rest during the day?"

The generals said that they rested too much during the day and were too awake at night, every day.

Ning Ze said with a smile: "That being the case, would you like to warm up well when the weather is freezing cold?" After attacking and harassing tactics for several days, Chu Baijun has been paralyzed, and even if the gongs and drums are sounding in unison, they will not move. The defenders of the city have also lost their vigilance, and if they quietly attack at night at this moment, they will definitely succeed!"

So the order was sent down, and the four camps outside the city gates in the southeast, northwest, and northwest were all prepared with ladders and city trucks, and attacked at night.

For a while, gongs and drums rang out in unison, and the sound of killing shook the sky.

The soldiers on duty hurriedly sent a message to inform the enemy army of the siege.

However, after being harassed for several days, the defenders in the city thought it was still the same and did not pay attention to it.

There are not many soldiers on duty, where can they withstand the onslaught of Ning Ze's army?

When the continuous signal was issued, the defenders in the city found that something was wrong and rushed out of the camp in a panic to help, the swarming Ning Ze army either climbed the city wall with the help of the ladder, killed the defenders, or knocked open the city gate, and smoothly entered the city.

The defenders were frightened and hurried to the four city gates, trying to repel the Ning Ze army that broke through the city, and the two sides engaged in a fierce battle.