Chapter 552: The Darkness Before Dawn

The night before dawn seemed to be extraordinarily silent, even the insects seemed to be tired, stopped chirping, and Xiangyang City, which had been chaotic for most of the night, seemed to be a giant beast and fell asleep.

A wealthy mansion only one street away from the Xiangyang Palace added a light to the darkness, the bonfire in the courtyard was burning with skyrocketing fire, and the wide lobby of the mansion was as bright as day, and at the bottom of the hall, the chairs had been removed, replaced by dozens of people crowded inside.

At the top position, Leng Zhuogao sat in the main position, and Zhuge Liang stood at the back of Leng Zhuo's side, watching Ma Chao, who was the last to come to join the team, then put down the teacup in his hand, glanced at the generals below, and said: "I know everyone is very tired, along the way, we gathered from Baijiaji to Jiaocheng, the battle continued, and we hurried to this Xiangyang City."

"With less than 3,000 soldiers to take this important city of Chuzhou, the big port on the Tianhe waterway, the generals have made great contributions, the rebellion in the city was finally calmed down, and everyone needs to sleep well, but it's not that I don't want everyone to rest, but the anti-army is chasing tightly."

"The news that the Tan Cavalry has just brought back, at least no less than tens of thousands of anti-king troops have been stationed in Zhujia Town, less than fifty miles away from Xiangyang, fifty miles away, it only takes a morning's work to whip up the horses, even if there are infantry dragging, it is enough to rush to the city before the afternoon."

Leng Zhuo said in an accentuated voice: "The credit for winning Xiangyang City has been a heavy stroke, but if we don't block this army and horses, all our efforts will come to naught, and the success will be lost, so I want everyone to cheer up, no matter what, we must hold this Xiangyang and drag it until the army rushes to help."

"Young master, rest assured, discipline them and have no return" Li Yuanba, who was standing in the forefront, patted his breastplate and said in a loud voice.

The rest of the generals also expressed their attitudes, although everyone was tired on their faces, but their eyes were shining, even if Leng Zhuo did not mobilize, few of the people present could sleep peacefully, recapture Xiangyang City, what kind of credit is this, it is strange to be able to fall asleep.

Leng Zhuo looked at the high morale of the people, and was relieved in his heart, the city defense of Xiangyang City is not blown out to play, if it weren't for Leng Zhuo and his party coming too unexpectedly, they would really be blocked outside the city, and it was really impossible to take Xiangyang, but it was not enough to have a complete city defense, and it was necessary to have soldiers and horses to defend it, only relying on those people led by Leng Zhuo, the twenty-kilometer-long city wall of Xiangyang City, ten meters to insert a person, is not enough to stand on the pile.

"Let you recruit and reduce the army, how effective is it?" Leng Zhuo asked.

The generals glanced at each other, and finally Shi Wansui stood up, hugged his fists and said: "Young master, in the Xiangyang Palace, we have collected and surrendered more than 6,340 soldiers, these soldiers and horses belong to the 10th battalion of the inner city guard, and some of the military yamen of Xiangyang City are official yamen."

"That Li Tang's generals are indeed good at training, half of the recruits are trained quite methodically, and the system is complete, just remove those leaders and lead the team, and after installing our people, they can drive, put out the fire in the afternoon and evening, and it can be regarded as a slight run-in, although these soldiers are less murderous, but the order is prohibited, the attack is insufficient, and the defense is more than enough"

"So, these soldiers and horses can be ordered to move."

"Hehe, whoever is not convinced, go up and beat him first, plus these people are in a hurry to draw a line with the anti-king and want to make meritorious service to atone for their crimes, so they are very obedient" Shi Wansui said: "But ......" Shi Wansui said and glanced at Lin Chong and a few generals.

Leng Zhuo looked at Shi Wansui and looked at Lin Chong, Yang Zaixing, and couldn't help but turn his head and said, "What, is there anything else you can't say?"

Lin Chong glanced at each other, and finally Lin Chong stepped forward, hugged his fists and said: "Young master, this matter is not a big deal, it is just a little troublesome, I, General Xu, General Chang and General Yang The soldiers received by the four people belong to the yamen and official offices of the military army, although these soldiers have a structure, but these two soldiers and horses were under the command of Situ Nalan before."

"And the source of soldiers, most of them are the former military yamen and yamen, these people have low physical fitness, and each of them is very slippery, it is said that this army of soldiers and horses are all helping Situ Nalan to rob large households, catch women, look like dogs, but as soon as they move, they are all exposed, take them to quell the chaos, these guys are good, but many of them have joined the chaos, and dozens of them have been killed, which is a bit of a rule, compared to those recruits are far worse. ”

Leng Zhuo sighed, frowning slightly, if this is the case, these people and horses can't be used, if they really let them go up, it doesn't matter if they don't kill the enemy, they are making a little mess, it's a big joke.

Leng Zhuo's gaze swept to Wei Qing and Sun Wu's side again, and said, "What is the situation of the soldiers and horses recruited outside the city?"

The soldiers and horses outside the city were mainly trained by Sun Wu, Wei Qing, and Huo Quai, but they chose one hundred and ten optimistic recruits, unless they were all trained by Sun Wu, Wu Zixu, Han Baohu, and Niu Gao.

Sun Wu stepped forward and said: "Back to the lord, this batch of recruits was put together only a month ago, the longest training is only a month and a half, and the shortest is only more than 20 days, from the Wei and Huo generals, I learned that these soldiers can do the order and prohibition, but the training days are short, so the will is not strong, and there is no experience in fighting, it is easy to collapse, but it should be useful to defend the city, but it is necessary to form a supervision brigade to ensure that these soldiers will not escape from the battle"

Leng Zhuo snorted, nearly 10,000 people in the city and outside the city can be used by the surrendered soldiers, it should be enough, Leng Zhuo thought, turned his head, looked at Zhuge Liang on his side, and said, "What does the military advisor think?"

Zhuge Liang pondered for a moment, and said: "With these 10,000 people, and the generals are in charge, there should be no problem in defending the big city of Xiangyang for a few days, the enemy army is coming, the direction of the siege will be to the east, the south two cities are the mainstay, the east city can be garrisoned by General Sun, General Han led 4,000 troops, and General Wei led a personal guard cavalry as the overseer camp." ”

"Nancheng, General Shi and General Xu led 3,000 soldiers to defend Nancheng, and General Huo led a personal guard cavalry as the overseer camp"

"The north city is garrisoned by 1,500 people led by General Wu, and the west city is guarded by 1,500 people led by the fourth general of the Yang family to guard the three gates, and the cavalry under the command of General Ma Chao can respond in the game, and the soldiers and horses of General Lin, General Xu, and General Chang are used as reserves, in addition, the psychic brigade has also been dominated by the east and south cities, each divided into half, leaving one which side is endangered and which side is supported"

"It is still unclear the size of the enemy's army, and whether the other party knows that our side has captured Xiangyang, my suggestion is that Xiangyang City also hangs the Xiangyang King anti-flag, if the enemy soldiers and horses do not know, they can use the defense of the urn city, destroy part of him, and then make meritorious deeds, if the other party perceives a change, they will defend the city, as long as the enemy's soldiers and horses do not exceed several times, it should be no obstacle to support for three or five days, as long as the soldiers and horses of Pingnanhou can quickly go north, the siege of Xiangyang City can be solved, if the enemy can't escape, he can be strangled under the city."

Leng Zhuo snorted and said, "All the generals have heard what the military advisor said, so let's do it, immediately start to deploy troops and wait for the enemy to attack."

The generals promised and took orders one after another.

Leng Zhuo was not idle, and wrote a letter again, urging Pingnan Hou Chen Nan to go north as soon as possible to solve the danger of Xiangyang, after all, Xiangyang is located at the northern end of Xiangfan, but it is in the enemy's nest, and the huge wealth in Xiangyang City is enough for Li Tang to recapture Xiangyang desperately, so Leng Zhuo's trip is far from safe.

The war changed three times a day, and the speed of change was so fast that Chen Nan, who led a number of noble soldiers and horses to the bank of the Xiaoshui River and set up camp, was a little unable to respond.

After Leng Zhuo took Xiangyang City, he immediately sent a spirit warrior with a flying monster mount to fly to the south with a letter, looking for Chen Nan's soldiers and horses, and telling the matter, and this earth spirit warrior lived up to expectations, and finally in the middle of the night, through Poyang Mansion, found the soldiers and horses camp located on the bank of the Xiaoshui River.

At this time, the fastest marching Nanxing First Rebellion Division had already captured Xiaobei County, and most of the soldiers and horses were sent to Baijiaji, while the main force of the aristocratic private army led by Chen Nan, almost 80,000 soldiers and horses, stopped on the bank of the Xiaoshui River and never took a step forward.

In this regard, although Chen Nan was angry, he was helpless, because the main composition of this army of soldiers and horses was the private army of the nobles, although Chen Nan was the rebel envoy of Chuzhou appointed by the above, and he could control all the soldiers and horses in Chuzhou, but in fact, Chen Nan was quite difficult to command the three major legions, not to mention these private soldiers and horses.

And the people of the Huang family are in the middle here, and the weight of the words is extremely heavy, so although Chen Nan is eager, it is difficult to move an inch, and the other party is delaying the march in every way, what food and grass are insufficient, what former enemy is unknown, in short, there are thousands of reasons, otherwise at this moment, these tens of thousands of soldiers and horses would have entered Poyang Mansion a long time ago.

"What you said is true" Hearing what the messenger sent by Leng Zhuo said, Chen Nan couldn't sit still any longer, he got up, put his hands behind his back, and on his originally gloomy face, he finally cleared the clouds and saw the sunny day, and walked back and forth in the big tent with his steps, quickly calculating in his mind what this matter would bring.

The food war in the Vermilion Bird City is estimated to come to an end, once the news of the king of Xiangyang being killed spreads, the food prices that are suppressed, but still rising, will fall rapidly, and the money invested is not in vain, but this matter is not the first place at this point, Xiangyang City is the big one.

Leng Zhuo made it clear in his letter that there were a lot of seizures in Xiangyang City, and he didn't care about this, but he couldn't help but take the credit of Xiangyang, and in the past half a year, the Xiangfan Rebellion had made Chuzhou, especially him, a rebel, lose face, and this time he could finally get it back.

"You rest for a while, you need to repeat what you said before from the side" Chen Nan said, facing the outside of the tent, and shouted loudly: "Come on, immediately wake up the commanders of the various armies for me, just say that after half an hour, there will be something to discuss in the big tent, and it will not wait."

If it was said that in the previous days, Chen Nan was very aggrieved, but now he doesn't have to be a tailsnake with this group of guys, come, Ben Hou will give you a great credit, if you don't come, then wait and regret it, he believes that as long as the news of Leng Zhuo's capture of Xiangyang City is said, as long as it is not a fool, everyone knows what to do.

Under the pretext of procrastination, hum, a piece of cake as big as Xiangyang City is waiting to be shared, it is estimated that these guys are running faster than anyone, and there is no need for him to urge at all.

This night is destined to be sleepless