At the beginning, after Guo Ziyi retreated to Hanzhong, he continued to recruit troops and horses to consolidate his strength, and ordered people to go to Shuzhong to seek support. In charge of Shuzhong was Li Heng's thirteenth brother Li Xuan, who was quite trusted by Li Heng and was able to succeed him as the envoy of Jiannan Festival in Sichuan. However, Li Jian didn't know whether he was instructed by Li Heng or Li Fuguo, and he was quite jealous of Guo Ziyi, who was famous all over the world, so he only allocated 30,000 stone grain and grass to Guo Ziyi, but did not send any armed forces, nor did he give him the power to levy Ding.

What Guo Ziyi controls is only a few hundred miles of land in Hanzhong, and the population is only tens of thousands of households, and he can levy 20,000 yuan in a year, which has greatly overdrawn the people's power in Hanzhong. And Shuzhong is known as millions of households, the country of abundance, but he refuses to send a single soldier to participate in Guo Ziyi's great cause of recovering Guanzhong.

Now Guo Ziyi's shortcomings of insufficient troops have finally appeared, Hanzhong is surrounded by Li Siye's army, Nanyang direction is unwilling to send people to help, to Shuzhong letter for help, Li Ziyi said that he wants to lead troops to help, but Guo Ziyi in the Hexi army under the siege, waited for more than ten days, there is no elite soldiers in Shu to come to the rescue.

Guo Xi was indignant and persuaded his father to withdraw to Shuzhong to seize Li Jin's Jiedu envoy, so as to use Shuzhong's household registration to pay taxes, train more than 100,000 strong soldiers in the future, and have the opportunity to recover Hanzhong and enter Guanzhong in the future. And now the father and son are forced to stick to Hanzhong, and they can't get the slightest assistance from the imperial court, so why bother.

Guo Ziyi disagreed with her son's opinion, and taught Guo Xi a lesson: "Why are we called loyalty, why are traitors called rebellion, and why are you and my father and son loved by the people of Hanzhong." It is not precisely because we are loyal to Datang that we are obedient and disobedient. Even if a father can't see the general trend of the world clearly, he also knows that loyalty and filial piety have been demonstrated through the ages, and even if there is a moment of bad luck, it cannot be changed. If they are all like Li Siye, the reputation accumulated in the first half of his life will also be ruined. ”

Guo Xi squatted on the ground and said with a bitter face: "But now in the world of the Tang Dynasty, I think it is too difficult to be a loyal minister, the better your father's reputation, the more people think that you are pretending to be a loyal minister, and one day you will show your true face." Father, the greater your credit, the more they think that you are too powerful, and they are afraid that you will threaten the emperor and the imperial court. But weren't those who threatened the court and the emperor already exposed? They didn't deal with Li Siye and Shi Siming, but helped them to drag us back, how can there be such a thing in the world. ”

"The human heart is the most sinister, and the human heart is also the most complex, I have said this to you countless times, but it is precisely in this way that we must adhere to our hearts more and more. Those who slander our Father and Son are self-conscious. What kind of person he himself is will use the greatest malice to guess others. But most people in the world are sober-minded, and they can judge what kind of people we are by our deeds, and as long as we do what we think is right, the people of the world will naturally turn to us. ”

After a heart-to-heart conversation, the father and son looked at the distant sky, and the banners of the Hexi Army fluttered freely in the four fields, but there was no real Tang army to rescue them.

Li Siye rode his horse to the city alone, and shouted to the city to persuade him: "Guo Ziyi, what is the meaning of being a loyal minister to you now?" I think that you and I were evenly matched at the beginning, and the Shuofang army was also famous all over the world, but now there are only 30,000 old, weak, sick and disabled left, with your ability, why is this. Fighting hard for half a life but being constrained and defeated again and again, if the general trend is irreversible today, instead of being defeated and captured, it is better to surrender early and worship the current emperor with me, the number one hero of Lingyan Pavilion is still you, and the position of the third prince can still be given to you! “

"Hahaha!" Guo Ziyi picked up his stubborn and emaciated chin, his pale beard became more and more tenacious, and he laughed loudly: "Li Thief, I know your background well, I think you were just a brave warrior in Gaoling County, Guanzhong, and you entered Chang'an to live on the streets. You later became an official in Longyou, and you were favored and reused by the emperor, and finally promoted to the position of the Three Towns Festival, so that you could be crowned the king of the opposite sex, and steal the position of the three dukes, but you didn't want to serve the country, and carried out rebellious acts, so that the people and gods of the world were angry, and you were really ungrateful. Thou and the Thief Lushan are a raccoon dog, and they will be infamous for all generations! ”

The generals behind Li Siye were annoyed when they heard this, and they all wanted to raise troops to attack the city, but Li Siye waved his hand and said: "Since ancient times, the winner is the king, and the loser is the coward, and it is common sense to change the dynasty, so you don't have to be angry." ”

He shouted at Guo Ziyi again: "Guo Ziyi, I will give you three more hours to think about it, if you are still obsessed after three hours, I will definitely attack the city with artillery, and it will be too late to regret it." ”

"Whew! Traitor, look at the arrows! ”

Guo Ziyi's third son, Guo Xi, scolded angrily, took a longbow from the soldier, and threw an arrow at Li Siye, but he had already lost his head because the distance was too far. Li Siye hurriedly turned around to avoid it, and rode his horse back for dozens of steps.

Li Siye was actually waiting for a large amount of artillery ammunition to be sent from Guanzhong, and when the time came, hundreds of artillery shots would be fired endlessly, which was enough for Hanzhong City and Guo Ziyi, a veteran, to drink a pot.

By the time the shells arrived, it was already dark, and Li Siye decided to wait for another night and attack the city the next morning.

That night, Li Siye had a premonition that Guo Ziyi would definitely lead his troops to raid the camp and raid his grain, grass and gunpowder hoarding point, so he immediately ordered someone to set up an ambush, and when Guo Ziyi came in, he would be caught off guard and killed.

At the time of the third watch, Tian Zhen led the soldiers to ambush in the haystacks on both sides of the camp, and saw the enemy troops riding war horses and holding torches from a distance.

Guo Xi raised his eyes and saw the empty camp tent everywhere, but countless arrows shot into the camp from the periphery of the camp, knocking down the dozens of soldiers who rushed to the front. He shouted in a panic: "There is an ambush!" Evacuate! ”

For a while, the shouts of killing were loud from all sides, and the soldiers of the Hexi army rushed towards them with shields, Guo Xi waved a horse lance in his hand, and chose a direction to lead the soldiers to break through. He stabbed and provoked several Hexi soldiers who were blocking in front of him to jump and kill, and rushed out of the first layer of encirclement. Soon the Flying Tiger cavalry also rushed towards them with spears in hand, and Guo Xi swung his lance upward, passed the spear head of the enemy cavalry, and picked three cavalry off their horses one after another.

Guo Xi broke through three encirclements in a row and fled back to Hanzhong City with some brave soldiers, but most of them failed to escape back and were captured by the Tang army on the spot.

Guo Ziyi walked out of the tent, hurriedly helped his son off the horse and asked, "What happened?" ”

Guo Xi sighed and said: "It turns out that Li Siye has been prepared for a long time, and we failed to find his stockpile of grain, grass and gunpowder, but was ambushed by him and broke off many brothers. ”

Guo Ziyi nodded gloomily: "Then Li Siye is strict in his use of troops, and this matter is also reasonable, but it's a pity that I can't get through this pass tomorrow." He has flying tiger cavalry, and he also has siege weapons such as artillery, and with these two armies in hand, I am afraid that no one in the world is his opponent. Tomorrow, you, my father and son will have to figure out a way out. ”

"All the generals hope to be able to retreat to Shuzhong, I don't know what you think, father?"

When we retreated to Hanzhong, the sage intended to let my father take Shuzhong as the basis, with Hanzhong as the forward, and be able to advance and retreat to be able to deal with Li Siye, but unfortunately Li Fuguo in the court made a slander to His Majesty, so that we can only stay in this corner of Hanzhong, if we don't take Shuzhong now, where else can we go? ”

Guo Ziyi sighed and said, "Your Majesty may not be really willing to let me go to Shuzhong, otherwise I won't change my attention." In fact, his intention was to hope that I would go to Jingxiang and let me stick to the gate of Jiangdong, so that he could rest assured that he would be in a safe corner. ”

Guo Xi said angrily: "I, Guo, am loyal, and fight for him Li Heng to quell the rebellion and fight in the north and south, but I only deserve to show him the gate?" ”

Guo Ziyi glared at her son and said, "Don't say anything like this in the future!" As a human minister, you should share your worries for the king, so why care about your status. What's wrong with showing the emperor the gate, I'd rather be the general of Yulin who guards the imperial palace. Jingxiang's weight is the gateway to Jiangdong, and I am afraid that my father will not be able to bear it. ”

The father and son were relatively silent, and each went back to the camp to rest.