As the time entered the handover in August and September, while Guo Rong led his troops to approach Bianzhou, the battle situation around Datang that had been brewing and holding each other for nearly two months finally began to change on a large scale.

In the direction of Liaodong and Liaoxi, the front and rear chaotic army, and there was a strong enemy behind, the lone army penetrated deep into the hinterland of Liaodong, and under the guidance of the scouts of the Changying Army led by Yu Qian, they broke through to the northeast along the Liaoxi Corridor.

The 100,000 elite Lu Longjun sat in Yingzhou, isolating Liaodong from the Central Plains, and at the same time, it also turned the rich Liaodong into a vacuum.

Under the deliberate indulgence of President Liu, the remnants of the Tang Dynasty border army and border people, the Liaodong aliens who went south under the instigation of Lu Kang, who occupied the magpie's nest, the Bohai State under the instigation of Chen Hongzhi, and the former Tang Jiaodong defense envoy Silla under the control of Li Shidao, and Goguryeo, who had revived in Baekje, began a large-scale melee in the vast Liaodong.

In this case, the sudden entry of Li Yu's troops was beyond the expectations of everyone in the chaotic battle.

Surprised, coupled with the strong combat power of Li Yu's department, within a month, Li Yu's department broke through more than 1,200 miles, and killed from Yingzhou White Wolf Mountain to Yanjin Prefecture under the rule of Andong Protectorate, beheading more than 100,000 people on the way, killing the entire Liaodong and Liaoxi blood.

While re-advancing at the same time, the scattered border army and the remaining Tang people were gathered.

It's just that in Yanjin Prefecture, Li Yu's troops encountered the soldiers and horses of the Bohai State who entered Liaodong under the guise of helping the Tang Dynasty to quell the rebellion.

After Li Yu and Yu Qian discussed, Li Yu's troops suddenly turned south from Yeonjin Prefecture to the Liaodong Peninsula, and broke through Liaocheng, Anshi, and Jili that had been occupied by Silla and Baekje all the way, and established a relatively stable defense line in the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula in mid-August, and continued to attack northward relying on the defense line.

On the western border, the Tuboans, who had been confronting the Tang army for nearly two months, suddenly began a large-scale attack from the three directions of Longxi, Longnan, and Jiannan at the end of August.

At the same time as the invasion of the Tibetans, the forbidden army that had just completed its formation in Chang'an began to advance westward one after another.

Emperor Taishang Li Yuqin led the Yulin Army of the Four Armies of the Northern Ya to enter Chencang;

Li Chun's eldest son, the crown prince, Li Ning led the Shenwu Army into Jingzhou;

Li Chun's second son, King Li, Li Yun led the left guard into Sanguan;

Li Chun's third son, Sui Wang, Li Heng led the right guard into Xiaoguan;

Li Chun's fourth son, King Shen, Li Yi......

……

In just half a month, under the attention of all the people in Chang'an City, Emperor Taishang Li Yu and all six adult princes of Emperor Li Chun led their troops into all strategic places in Guanzhong.

In the core battlefield of the Central Plains, with Bianzhou City as the center, a full 600,000 soldiers and horses from the rebels of the three towns of Hebei and the rebels of the Tang Dynasty with the forbidden army as the core, the final mobilization of the two sides has also begun.

At the end of August and the beginning of September, a coalition army of 80,000 people with a size of 80,000 people led by the Chengde army crossed the river from Liyang-Baima (belonging to Huazhou), and the Yicheng Jiedu, which controlled Huazhou and Zhengzhou, made Yuan Zigui unable to retreat and allowed the three-town coalition army to wreak havoc on Huazhou.

On the second day of the first month of September, the three towns of Lulong, Weibo and Chengde each left 10,000 people stationed in Baima, Lingchang and Kuangcheng to guard the ferry and retreat, and the remaining 50,000 Chengde troops continued to move south and entered the Central Plains battlefield near Bianzhou.

On the same day, a full 70,000 Lu Long troops set out from Bianzhou to the east, and were placed under the command of Tan Zhong, a veteran of the Lu Long Army, so that the strength of Tan Zhong's command reached a full 120,000.

At about the same time, Guo Rong, who controlled the battlefield in the Central Plains, also issued an order according to Wu Shaoxiong's suggestion to transfer troops and horses from the outside line, as the Lubei Army of the second line of the official army, the Xuanwu-Huaixi Army, and the Yanhai Observation of the third line, so that the soldiers and horses under his command were drawn at the same time and marched in the direction of Bianzhou.

It was easy for Wu Shaoxiong to make a suggestion, and Guo Rong's order was very simple, but it was not so simple to involve the transfer of more than 100,000 soldiers and horses.

The reason why the consumption of grain and grass skyrocketed when the army was drawn out was that in fact, the main increase was not the food and drink of people, but the consumption of horses and livestock.

Although the Changying army itself had only 40,000 men, the allocation of horses was more than three times that of the regular Tang army, and although the Lubei Army and the Xuanwu-Huaixi Army could not reach the establishment of the forbidden army, the allocation of horses and livestock also exceeded that of the ordinary feudal army.

With 40,000 Changying troops, 30,000 Lubei troops, 70,000 Xuanwu-Huaixi troops, 40,000 Dongdu defense troops, plus nearly 200,000 livestock to which they belonged, the grain and grass they consumed was destined to be an astronomical amount!

Guo Rong originally did not want to prematurely mobilize the troops and horses of the three towns as the second line, in addition to defending against the rout of the army and preventing the strategic target from being discovered in advance, he also considered that their early mobilization would inevitably bring a lot of consumption of grain and grass.

Now, not to mention that at least 100,000 soldiers and horses have participated in the war in advance, the goal and method of the battle have also changed from encirclement warfare to routing warfare, which will not only lead to the failure to take the rebels' grain and grass supplies in the later stage, but will lead to a sharp increase in the amount of grain and grass lost.

Therefore, it is inevitable to calculate the quantity from scratch, but this situation is too complicated, so that Liu Yuxi was a little confused when Guo Rong issued an order and asked him to immediately calculate the grain and grass needed for allocation.

Fortunately, Guo Rong not only has an excellent logistics manager Liu Yuxi by his side, a complete logistics management team composed of disciples of the six schools of Guozijian, calligraphy, Taixue, and the four schools, and Wu Shaoxiong, who claims to be ignorant of military affairs, but is omnipotent in government affairs.

Under the leadership of Wu Shaoxiong and Liu Yuxi, the logistics team of the Changying Army spent a whole night calculating the total amount of grain and grass needed to support the entire battle of Bianzhou.

Although the number was calculated, Liu Yuxi, who was used to seeing large numbers, felt his scalp tingle, and Wu Shaoxiong, who had been in charge of the money and grain of the most six states, was quite surprised, and the moment he saw the number, Guo Rong almost fell directly to the ground!

Because the figure they finally gave was almost more than Datang's annual income for half a year, this is really a cannon sound, ten thousand taels of gold, Guo Rong, who has never cared about money and food, almost stripped his hair.

Fortunately, Guo Rong is not only the commander of the Changying Army, but also the identity of the chief of the march of Henan Province and Hebei Province and the deposed envoy of Henan Province, and he also has the "Shang Fang Sword" given by Li Yu in his hand.

It was these two identities and a "Shang Fang Sword" that gave Guo Rong absolute power, so that Guo Rong could fully mobilize all the forces of the Tang Dynasty around the entire war zone.

As the so-called soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first, all the treasury in Caozhou, Yunzhou, Puzhou, Huazhou, and Songzhou in the entire Henan Province near the war zone was opened, and the people and servants were transferred in large numbers, and countless personnel and materials began to gather in the direction of the Changying army's march, and they were only the supply of grain and grass in the early stage.

In order to ensure that the battle would not be lacking in grain, grass and supplies in the later stage of the extreme situation, it was not originally included in Guo Rong's plan, and it was not established until after the pacification of Pinglu, and the Yanhai Prefecture soldiers, which were equivalent to the direct jurisdiction of the imperial court, were also transferred, but their existence was not a war soldier.

The 30,000 Yanhai Prefecture soldiers had only one task, to transport the grain and grass from the six prefectures of Jianghuai, which had been enriched by Yanhai Observation, to the Bianzhou Theater as a supply of grain and grass in the later stage of the battle.

The logistical aspect needs to consider the supply, while the frontal needs to consider the positioning and determination of the two feudal armies.

Strictly speaking, Han Chong and Zhang Su are quite close to the forbidden army system headed by Changyingjun.

If he hadn't returned to Xuanwu from Chang'an, then Han Chong would probably have become the general of the Twelve Guards of the Southern Ya of the Forbidden Army, one of the guards, and at this moment, he might have led his soldiers and horses to leave Chang'an and go to the battlefield in the direction of Tubo.

And Zhang Yu is the embraced of the emperor Li Yu, Pinglu Town was pacified, and after the establishment of Lubei, he and Li Yu watched each other and sat in Shandong for three years.

Many of the core backbones of the Lubei Army under Zhang Su are the rear reinforcements of the former forbidden army, and their tactics and systems are basically inherited, and the early template of the Changying Army, that is, the establishment and system of the Changying Army before the second military reform, so it is not difficult for them to cooperate with the Changying Army.

And the soldiers and horses in Han Chong's hands with the Xuanwu Army and the Huaixi Army are not so optimistic, they are the most traditional Tang Army model.

In order to ensure that these two soldiers and horses could roughly maintain coordination with the Changying Army on the battlefield, after careful discussion and thinking, Guo Rong directly split an infantry regiment of the whole formation.

After being split, most of them will be added to the Xuanwu-Huaixi Army, and a small part will be added to the Lubei Army as liaison officers and instructors.

For a whole night, all the logistics, staff officers, and middle and senior generals of the Changying Army stayed up almost all night, completing the overall planning and planning of the new operation.

With all the preparations and plans completed, one after another orders were issued from Guo Rong's Chinese army tent, and groups of heralds began to gallop towards the entire land of Henan.

Soon, in the south of the Great River, north of Huaishui, and in Henan Province, hundreds of thousands of troops, dozens of prefectures and counties, and hundreds of thousands of people and servants were requisitioned, and the forces of the Tang Dynasty in the hinterland of the Central Plains quickly gathered in the direction of Bianzhou.

The first purpose is to cover the large-scale movement of troops, personnel, and baggage, cover the battlefield, realize the fog of war against the other side, slow down the eastward advance of the enemy's army, and provide time for the two support armies to assemble.

With the passage of time, the influence of various arrangements and tactical deductions in the early stage began to ferment, and after the large-scale attack of the scouts, they had begun sporadic battles with the cavalry and scouts of the rebels.

At the same time, more and more information about Bianzhou and the rebel direction was passed back.

First of all, Mo Lingjun sent back the reaction of the rebels, and the number of rebels marching east was determined, that is, between 100 and 120,000, and from this number, it seems that Mo Lingjun took the risk and succeeded.

Although it is not clear what the ratio of the other party's score camp is among the more than 100,000 rebels, according to Mo Lingjun's estimate, most of the people who will command this army are Tan Zhong, a veteran of Lu Longjun's army, and Wu Shaoxiong, who has just become the chief of Guo Rong's march, has given support to Mo Lingjun's news.

It's just that the follow-up news was completely unexpected by Guo Rong.

Tan Zhong, who has more than 100,000 Hebei elites, did not adopt the strategy of striding forward, on the contrary, he began to camp after only marching ten miles every day, and the daily camp was not dismantled.

For the capable Hebei Army, on the plains with flat terrain and abundant water, ten miles a day is almost a turtle speed.

And the purpose of their practice is to save time, after ten miles a day, the Hebei rebels will not return to the camp to rest, but scatter, cavalry long distance, foot soldiers short, along the way to harvest all the villages and towns, crazy looting grain, livestock, strong men, women, gold and silver......

In a nutshell, that's all the things they think are valuable.

Judging from the news sent back by Mo Lingjun and other scouts and cavalrymen one after another, the rebels' march route was already full of wolf smoke, crying and bones all over the field, and the rich hinterland of the Central Plains had become a purgatory on earth in just a few days.

When he first heard these news, Guo Rong was dumbfounded!

To tell the truth, since becoming a member of the Anxi Army, Guo Rong has fought countless battles, and Guo Rong has seen all kinds of tragic, cruel, bloody, and inhumane ......

However, most of these are used on the battlefield, such as Qiuzi, such as Xingqing Palace, such as Jingzhou, but like the Hebei rebels, there is only one time to indulge in looting before the war, that is, those island countries that landed in Jiaodong.

Guo Rong knows very well what an army is, the army is a collection of violence, and the indulged army is destined to become a devil from hell.

The problem is that those are brutes from the island country, and the brutes are brutes, and those Hebei rebels are also Tang people, so unscrupulous, from the news transmitted back by the scouts, the degree of the Hebei rebels is simply more frenzied than those who landed on the island, and they are not as good as beasts.

Guo Rong thought that this battle in the hinterland of the Central Plains would bring a military disaster to the people of the Central Plains, but Guo Rong didn't expect it to come so quickly, so suddenly, and so cruelly.

And it was he who made the decisive battle in Bianzhou, that is, it was he who sent these countless Tang people to a dead end, although Guo Rong had already made mental preparations, although Wu Shaoxiong had already reminded himself that he was not in charge of the army, but when this moment really came, Guo Rong's nerves were violently impacted.

In the face of Guo Rong's hysterical performance, and in the face of Guo Rong's angry inquiry, Wu Shaoxiong only gave Guo Rong a one-sentence explanation.

"They need food!"

In a few simple words, the essence of everything was directly said, and Guo Rong understood the ins and outs of everything in an instant.

Mo Lingjun's surprise attack accidentally burned the rebels, to be precise, Lu Long's army of hundreds of thousands of stone grain, and without food, the army would collapse.

I remember hearing the saying that a first-rate general studies logistics, a second-rate general studies organization, and a third-rate general studies strategy.

Guo Rong knows that everything on the battlefield is not so absolute, but this sentence has its value, Tan Zhong is a first-rate general Guo Rong doesn't know, but Guo Rong knows that a veteran like Tan Zhong will naturally not make the mistake of starving his army.

Guo Rong has Wu Shaoxiong behind him, Liu Yuxi, the huge and capable logistics team of the Changying Army, the support of the entire Henan Province, and the entire Datang as the backing.

But Tan Zhong didn't!

So in order to prevent his soldiers from collapsing due to lack of food, organized looting became Tan Zhong's only choice!

As for the other additional reasons in the back, Guo Rong is no longer willing to think about it.

"General, I know what you're thinking, but marching and fighting is inevitable, and the misery of the people of Bianzhou is not your fault, nor is it something you can decide! Tian Ji'an, Wang Chengzong, Li Shidao, and Liu Zong have been doomed when the rebels raised their troops, and I think that instead of attributing the blame to yourself, it is better to think about what you can do to make these tragic people have value! ”

Wu Shaoxiong's original intention was to persuade Guo Rong to pay attention to the battlefield, not to be swayed by these things, affect his judgment, and then lead to wrong judgment.

However, what they didn't expect was that his reminder made Guo Rong think of a word that should not have appeared more than a thousand years later: public opinion war!