Chapter 58: Truce
The people who followed Zheng Anping, as well as the rest of the upper and middle doctors, will leave Wu'an and go to Handan to obey orders; The next doctor was moved to Wuji City, waiting for orders. Zheng Anping watched feebly as the doctors were taken away, and his party was invited into Wu'an City, where Pingyuanjun and Xinlingjun would host a banquet to entertain them. Everyone has a feeling that fate will be reversed on this day.
The banquet was very pompous, with wine and meat, and there were martial arts and dances and wine during the banquet, which was very lively, as if the war had never happened. But the atmosphere of the banquet was very dull, and there was hardly anyone talking, everyone was just eating and drinking.
Due to the low spirits, the banquet ended quickly. Pingyuanjun gave Zheng Anping a ride and congratulated him on his crown, and since then he has been on an equal footing with himself and Wuji, and they are all princes! Moreover, Wuyang is adjacent to its own fiefdom Dongwu City and Xinling Jun's Tangmuyi and Shanyi, both of which are important border points: "Wuyang is close to Yan and Zhongshan, the people are fierce, and when Anping uses force!" Zheng Anping could only talk and didn't dare to say much.
Zheng Anping got into the car with the public passenger and the official doctor, and ten doctors followed behind the car, walking behind the car of Pingyuanjun and Xinlingjun, leaving the Wu'an Valley and galloping to Wangcheng. Along the way, the countryside is barren, overgrown with weeds, and small beasts are infested from time to time; Most of the towns are deserted, and the wounds of war are looming.
Zheng Anping and his entourage were arranged in a post house in the city, surrounded by Zhao army patrols. Xin Lingjun sat with Zheng Anping for a while, and left only when the place was properly settled. He was arranged by King Zhao in a city outside the city, where most of the people fled and left, leaving behind a lot of vacant houses, just enough for Xinling Jun and his party to live in.
According to the arrangement of the pedestrians, Zheng Anping entered the palace two days later and officially accepted a bag of soil and a jade zhang, indicating that he had inherited a piece of national land; Then under the auspices of the plain king, the road sacrifice and temple speech were carried out. After the Yellow River opens, under the guidance of pedestrians, take a boat at the Yellow River ferry to Wuyang. The other upper and middle doctors were also appointed and scattered to the border counties; Those who took the waterway also arrived at the banks of the Yellow River with Zheng Anping and boarded different boats.
Zheng Anping and his party of thirteen people were all alone, only with their clothes, nothing else, not even the simplest auxiliary cover. Their weapons were confiscated, and they were allowed to wield swords only after repeated insistence, but they had to purchase them themselves, not by the officials. Fortunately, Xin Lingjun freed some weapons for them from his own disciples, otherwise they would have to go on the road with their bare hands, and in case they encounter thieves along the way, they would not even have the ability to defend themselves.
They also did not bring food, so they could only stay at the pavilion along the way, and the officials gave them rations. Xin Lingjun gave Zheng Anping and his entourage ten gold each, and Zheng Anping asked everyone to put it close to their bodies and not put them in their bags. The carriage given by Pingyuanjun could not be transported away with the ship, so Zheng Anping returned it to Pingyuanjun.
On the day of departure, Xin Lingjun came to the pavilion by car to see off Zheng Anping. He only brought a dozen or so guests with him, and after politely saluting the passers-by, he walked hand in hand with Zheng Anping. Due to the pedestrians, Zheng Anping couldn't say a lot of things openly, and could only say some innocuous words. Xinlingjun repeatedly encouraged Zheng Anping to be loyal to King Zhao. Both of them have fallen from great wealth to the current situation, and they have the same disease in their hearts, but they can't say anything in their mouths.
After a burst of rushing and protruding from the Great Wall, Wang Yi came to the shore of Zhangshui. Originally thinking that it would take a hard battle to open a passage, and did not want all the Wei troops along the Zhangshui to retreat, and there was no enemy army to pursue in the Great Wall, Wang Yi easily occupied the cities along the Zhangshui and collected enough ships to cross the Zhangshui. Due to the lack of enemy oppression, Wang Ji's troops not only crossed all the combat troops, but also crossed the river with the wounded and chariots, and also collected a large amount of grain on the front line of Zhangshui.
After passing the Zhangshui, it is considered to enter the border of Wei. Unlike the starvation outside Handan, this place has not been affected by the war and is very rich. The rivers are vertical and horizontal, and the water and grass are abundant. After calmly crossing the Zhangshui, Wang Yu crossed the Huanshui from the middle and lower reaches of Ningxin to the south, and occupied a large-scale city near the mouth of the Huanshui River, Huangcheng. After crossing the Yellow River from here, enter the area between the two mouths of the Yellow River; Fanyang to the north and Licheng to the south are both crossings of the Yellow River and prosperous cities, with the two Yellow River rivers forming a natural barrier to protect the peace of the area. Crossing the second river from Licheng is Puyang, the capital of the country!
With money, food, population, and trade, this is an ideal place for Wang Yi to raise soldiers. After crossing the Yellow River, he easily occupied Fanyang and Licheng, and together with Huangcheng, stood between the rivers to form a solid defensive system. The physically and mentally exhausted soldiers of the Qin army could rest and recuperate here, and the wounded and sick could be treated.
After consolidating his position, Wang reported his position to Xianyang. Because the city was so remote, Wang Di didn't know what it was called. From the accent of local residents, "Huanshui" is heard as "Fenshui", and "Huangcheng" is also heard as "Fencheng". When Xianyang got the report, it was already the first month. They thought that Wang Di had broken through to the Fenshui line in the east of the river, so they ordered the east guard of the river to look for it, where to find it! King Qin and Zhang Lu knew that this information was wrong, and then sent someone back to contact Wang Di. But unfortunately, the military envoy sent by Wang Yi died of illness in Xianyang! Xianyang's contact with Wang Yi was cut off, and he could only be contacted again by waiting for Wang Yi to take the initiative to send a military envoy.
After settling down at the mouth of the Yellow River, Wang Di sent patrols around, looking for a way to Tao County, and contacting the Qin army in Tao County, but unexpectedly found that the owner of Tao County had become a Chu person!
The Chu army also seems to have spotted the Qin army in the Hexia region and began to be on alert in this direction. At the same time, a Chu army began to move north. They bypassed the Qin army along the borders of Wei, Qi, and Lu, crossed the Yellow River from the plains, and entered the land of Zhao. The place they entered was the fiefdom of the Plains King! The reason why Pingyuan Jun is called Pingyuan Jun is precisely because his original fief is the plain of the original Qi State, and when the Five Kingdoms invaded Qi, he was seized by Zhao State, and Zhao Sheng was sealed in the plain, which was to occupy this place for a long time. After the death of King Zhao Huiwen, Empress Zhao Wei, in order to make friends with his mother's family Qi State, returned 57 cities in Pingyuan and other places to Qi State, and Pingyuan Jun's fief was changed from Pingyuan to Dongwu City on the other side of the river.
The appearance of the Chu army in Dongwu City naturally shook the Zhao government and the opposition. Now that the Qin army has retreated, Handan has just settled down, and the Wei army is already discussing the withdrawal of troops. At this time, the Chu army suddenly arrived, what was his intention?
King Zhao immediately sent an envoy to the Chu military camp. Sima Jingyang, the chief general of the Chu army, received the envoys of Zhao and told him that he had been ordered to rescue Handan. When Zhao heard this, he couldn't cry or laugh, so he had to reciprocate. King Zhao could only send Pingyuan Jun to negotiate again. Pingyuan Jun repeatedly expressed his gratitude to the Chu army for their rescue, and then told him that the Qin army had retreated, Handan did not need to rescue, and the Chu army could return to China.
But Jingyang told Pingyuan Jun that the Qin army did not withdraw far, and was on the line of Licheng and Fanyang in the north of the country. The reason why he wanted to go around so far was to avoid the Qin army.
The situation reported by Jingyang startled Pingyuan-kun. Where Fanyang is, Pingyuan Jun knows it clearly. It was originally Wei Yi, which was once returned to Zhao, and then occupied by Wei. It is only 200 miles away from Handan, and it is only 400 miles away from Dongwu City. Since the war had just ended, everything was complicated, and the food problem of burning eyebrows was not yet visible, and Zhao Guo did not have time to inquire about the movements of the Qin army, only knowing that they had left Zhao Realm. Unexpectedly, they had just left the Zhao Realm, and they were ambushed outside the Zhao Realm, and it only took a few days of rapid marching to appear under Handan City again!
Pingyuan Jun hurriedly returned to Handan and reported the matter to King Zhao. King Zhao urgently summoned Lian Po to discuss. Lian Po said: "It's urgent. The minister was elected and died, and he was the king. The Chu army is in the north and can be helped. It was agreed at the moment that Lian Po immediately recruited the hungry people of Handan, formed a large army, crossed the Zhangshui, and entered the Wei realm to fight. Pingyuan Jun contacted the Chu army, set off from Dongwu City and went south, attacking from both sides, and must repel the Qin army.
Needless to say, the grain and grass of the Chu army were supplied by Dongwu City, the fiefdom of Pingyuan Jun. On Handan's side, King Zhao had to open the granary again, take out tens of thousands of stone grain as military food, and at the same time collect grain and grass from Zhao Gongzi in Handan, and finally scraped together enough 100,000 stone grain. Lian Po recruited tens of thousands of hungry people, with one and a half meals a day, barely enough to travel from Handan to Zhangshui.
After the war subsided, Handan's business contacts with the outside world also began to resume; Fanyang and Anyang, which are adjacent to Handan, naturally started trading with Handan first. In the course of business and trade, the movements in Handan City were also heard by Wang Yitan. I heard that Handan began to recruit Zhao Jun again, needless to say, the target was naturally himself. A few days later, the merchant came with news that the Chu army had appeared on the side of Dongwu City, and the Chu army had also begun to move south, and I heard that it was also going to fight the Qin army.
Wang Yi felt the urgency of the war. He immediately sent outposts and spies to patrol the two directions of Handan and Tobu Castle to inquire about the movements of the enemy troops on both sides. The Chu army of Tao County in the south, he did not dare to relax his vigilance.
The first to act was the Chu army in Dongwu City, who traveled up the river by boat to the Guanshi two hundred miles away to land and collect ships. Subsequently, Handan's Zhao army also began to move south.
Wang's troops were claimed to be 100,000. After many years of fighting under the city of Handan, the losses were not small, and now there are less than 90,000 wounded. After nearly two months of recovery, there are now 70,000 or 80,000 capable fighters. After Zichu came out of Handan, he had a serious illness, and after recuperation, he has basically recovered now, but he is still a little weak. Most of the minor wounded recovered from their injuries and re-entered the team. In the past two months, more than 10,000 of the seriously wounded have died one after another, and there is still more than 10,000 of them, and the chances of their recovery are slim, and most of them will not be able to regain their combat effectiveness. But Wang Yi still hoped to take them home, and try not to die in a foreign country.