The news came from Cao Guo, and Black Crystal Iron was shocked to the world!

"Got it, and ordered the staff to call an emergency meeting immediately. Ding Kui was mentally prepared, and he expected that the news should have come a long time ago.

It's not that Cao, Meng and other countries deliberately conceal it, but they have only recently obtained real evidence.

Meng's troops to aid Cao arrived in the Diyanhu Theater in February this year, and their own vanguard arrived a month late, giving Qi time to mobilize troops to deal with changes in the theater.

Helian Yu once again became the commander of the coalition forces, commanding the million-strong armies of Cao, Meng, and his own kingdom to fight a major war around the two states near the Diyan Lake.

However, this time the female general God met an opponent, a mysterious figure served as the commander of the Qi army, and with only six legions, he was on par with the Three Kingdoms Alliance.

It is difficult for a coach-level figure to hide his identity, and after the three kingdoms tried their best to investigate, they finally got the information of this person.

His name is Zhu Ke, Chinese New Year's Eve, originally a native of the Tongbei Empire, recommended by Ji Yu, changed nationality, swore allegiance to Qi Wan, and became a native of the Qi Kingdom.

When Ji Yu introduced Zhu Ke to Qi Shao, he said: "Zhu Ke has a scheming chest, a soldier in his belly, and an immortal strategy in the Tongbei Empire, but there is no room to give full play to his strengths. Now that your country is invaded by three countries, only Zhu may defeat the enemy army and ensure that the interests of our two countries will not be violated. ”

This is a very high evaluation, which is equivalent to saying that only Zhu Ke can fight against Helian Yu, and only Zhu Ke can defeat the Three Kingdoms Alliance.

The Qi State did not ignore Ji Yu's strong recommendation, the prince of the Tongbei Empire knew very well the importance of the eye lake, and Zhu Ke must have extraordinary skills, so the Qi State Commander's Mansion sent a group of people to investigate Zhu Ke.

Zhu Ke did not live up to Ji Yu, impressed the Qi delegation in terms of military theory, military chess deduction, and analysis of battle examples, and deduced the main direction of attack of the Three Kingdoms Alliance from tens of thousands of true and false intelligence.

Such outstanding ability was unanimously recognized by the monarchs and ministers of the Qi State, and Zhu Ke was appointed as the commander of the Diyan Lake Theater, commanding six legions against the enemy army.

In March and April, Helian Yu and Zhu Ke met for the first time.

The feint of the Three Kingdoms Alliance was discovered by the Qi State Magician Scout Team, and Zhu Ke led the main force to attack the bait sent by Helian Yu, allowing Helian Yu's main force to capture an empty city. Subsequently, the Qi army cut off the grain routes of the Triple Alliance, and the Triple Alliance was forced to withdraw from the empty city they had just occupied.

This battle demonstrated Zhu Ke's ability to command magicians, he consulted the information of all the mages accompanying the army, rearranged the mage team according to the characteristics of each mage, and formed multiple magic scout teams to firmly control every move of the enemy army.

It's not that no one used magicians as scouts before, but there was no commander who used magicians to reconnoiter on such a large scale as Zhu Ke, and he organized nearly half of his magicians into the magic scout team, giving full play to the magicians' air superiority as much as possible, even at night, monitoring the enemy's movements around the clock.

Defeated by a little-known figure, Helian Yu was very unconvinced, and sent someone to give Zhu Ke a war letter, and made an appointment to fight for life and death in Duanshui County.

In terms of the number of troops and magicians, the Three Kingdoms Alliance has obvious advantages, and she chose Duanshui County, a strategic place that Qi cannot lose, just to force Zhu Kegang to face it head-on and use the resources of the three kingdoms to fight a war of attrition.

As a result, Zhu Ke once again chose to give up tactically, withdrew all the troops in Duanshui County, and personally led the main force to counterattack Renchang City, the capital of Guangyin Prefecture.

Because he used a special black-armored unit in this attack, the defenders arranged by Helian Yu in advance were defeated and retreated, and they couldn't parry.

However, this time Helian Yu was extremely calm, and arranged for 300,000 Cao troops to defend the cities of Duanshui County, and he led 200,000 Meng troops and 200,000 own troops to sneak back to the grain storage area of the coalition army. After the Qi army surrounded Renchang City, she sent 100,000 of her own troops to Renchang City in a hurry.

Zhu Ke's attention was not in Renchang City, and when he found that the coalition army had sent reinforcements, he immediately sent troops to set up an ambush and defeated 100,000 of his own troops in the middle of the road.

Helian Yu was also ruthless enough, knowing that his army was in ambush but did not send troops to rescue him, and waited for Zhu Ke to take advantage of the victory to pursue and kill near the grain land, before leading the troops to kill. Zhu Ke did not dare to fight, gathered his troops and horses and withdrew to Qi State, and ordered the remaining troops to counterattack Duanshui County.

Don't look at the Qi army left behind only 200,000 people, among them there are troops who were once stationed in Duanshui County, and when they evacuated Duanshui County, they buried a lot of organs, and used those organs in the early stage of the counteroffensive to recapture five or six cities very smoothly.

The main force of the Qi army fought and retreated under the command of Zhu Ke, dragging the main force of the coalition army commanded by Helian Yu, and the special black-armored troops rushed back to Duanshui County as quickly as possible, and cooperated with the remaining troops to forcibly capture Duanshui County.

However, the Cao army, which was scattered to defend the city, suddenly abandoned the city and rushed to the county as fast as possible, surrounding tens of thousands of Qi troops and black armor troops, and Helian Yu appeared outside the county with a large number of magicians.

At this time, Zhu Ke realized that Helian Yu's target was that special black-armored army. He hurriedly ordered all the magicians to rush to Duanshui County City, and cooperate with the remaining troops to meet the defenders of the county town to break through.

An unusually fierce breakout battle broke out in Duanshui County, and the Qi army completely ignored the defense of the city and was bent on breaking out of the heavy encirclement outside the city.

The breakout battle began in the evening and continued until the next night, with more than 300,000 men and horses on both sides, almost 2,000 magicians fighting in the air, and no less than ten master-level masters participating in the battle.

In the end, one-third of the besieged Qi army escaped, half of the black-armored troops of a division escaped, and more than half of the Qi troops who responded outside were also killed or wounded. In order to rescue the black armor troops, the Qi army paid a total of more than 70,000 casualties.

Cao's army also suffered a lot of losses, even greater than the Qi army, with more than 80,000 men permanently withdrawn from the battle and half of the cities in Duanshui County.

"In this way, the Three Kingdoms Alliance captured the equipment made of black crystal iron in that battle, which confirmed that there was black crystal iron ore in the Earth Eye Lake. When Ding Kui heard this, he basically figured out the situation.

Fei Ze continued to report: "Helian Yu led the magicians of the Three Kingdoms to participate in the battle of Duanshui County, and the capture of Cao's army was not concealed from his own country and Meng State. ”

Ding Kui patted the case and said: "Shaodian Kingdom must get a piece of the pie!"

"It's only been a few days since you were settled, and you want to toss again. Jiang Xi immediately came out and poured cold water.

"We are so far apart, how can we divide it?" Kong Ren felt that Ding Kui was whimsical, "There are more than a million troops fighting in the Diyan Lake area, how many men and horses do you want to send to join the peace? Which side do you want to help? Offend people on the left and right, it's not something we can participate in now." ”

Jiang Zhi didn't know where to pull out a map of Cao Guo, spread it out in front of everyone, and said: "Diyan Lake is too far away from us, our army has walked for more than two months to arrive, and our army is not much faster, even if we start tomorrow, it is estimated that it will be September when we arrive in the war zone." With Helian Yu and Zhu Ke's skills, we don't know how the battle situation will change, and we had better wait and see. ”

No one in the staff supported Ding Kui's proposal.

Ding Kui pinched his chin and said: "I'm talking about black crystal iron ore, judging from the investment of the Qi State and the Tongbei Empire, the Diyan Lake mining area is not small, and it can't be dug up in three or five years, and you can't watch other countries divide the black crystal iron ore."

The Qi State was supported by the Tongbei Empire, and was commanded by another general, so it was not defeated by the Three Kingdoms Alliance so quickly. They will have to fight for at least a year, and we can take advantage of this time to prepare and send at least one legion to the Earth Eye Lake theater.

As for which side to take, this can be handled flexibly, and someone must be in contact with both sides. Now that the secret of the Earth Eye Lake has been revealed, and all the countries of the Shenyuan Continent want to reach out, the water in the pond has become muddy. ”

"Black crystal iron is a good thing, but there must be a lot of people who covet it, how can we compete with other countries in our country's internal turmoil? "Jiang Xi doesn't think that the value of black crystal iron is greater than that of the unified Shaodian country.

"There is no harm in getting in touch with other countries, we are actively involved in this matter, it seems that we are the masters of the Shaodian country, and it is worth our attention to establish our right to speak in foreign affairs. ”

Ding Kui and Helian Yu had already planned for a long time, but it was not appropriate to say it at this time, otherwise some things would not be explained, and it would be easy to expose the secrets of him and the Siren Emperor.

"Military preparations can be carried out, studying the topography and climate of Cao State, studying the route of the march to Diyan Lake, studying the characteristics of the participating troops of various countries, studying the characteristics of the generals participating in the war, etc., and it is necessary to trouble Mr. Fei to collect intelligence. Kong Ren was first convinced.

"No problem, the work is already being done. Fei Ze is very experienced, and he has long ordered Shaodian to try to contact Cao Guotang, the spy department, and the Security Bureau also sent additional personnel to the Cao Guo Branch, and the two intelligence organizations worked together.

"But we don't have anyone available to us in diplomacy, and we must be cautious in dealing with this matter. ”

Jiang Xi's worries are not unreasonable, diplomacy is no trivial matter, the slightest carelessness will cause disputes that are difficult to clean up, the officials in charge of foreign affairs are all in Zhenjing, and there is no experienced person in Nanjing.

"It's okay, I'm coming! I'll personally come out of this matter, anyway, I have contacted Lu Xi and Helian Yu in Shouyang City, so my own country is needless to say, and later Ji Yu visited Juyang City again, plus my eldest brother's relationship, I have no contact with the people of Qi and Cao on the Shenyuan Continent, so it won't be too difficult to think about." Ding Kui took on this important task himself.

Only he knows the whole plan best, and he doesn't feel at ease when it is handed over to someone else to do, so he can only go out on his own.

Jiang Xi had no objection to this, but just reminded Ding Kui to ask Mu Heng more that the people in the Senate were good at diplomacy and could give some advice.

The next day, at the court meeting in Nanjing, Shaodianluan, the superintendent of the state, appointed Ding Kui as a diplomatic ambassador to contact the countries of the Shenyuan Continent with full powers on behalf of the small imperial court, and at the same time ordered the establishment of a Honglu Pavilion in Nanjing City to receive foreign envoys.

As soon as this news came out, Zhenjing City and Xingbang City immediately expressed strong opposition, especially Zhenjing City, Shaodian sent people to inform the representatives of the post houses of various countries that Nanjing City was not qualified to represent Shaodian State, and Zhenjing City did not welcome anyone who had private contact with Nanjing City.

(There were too many people to reward yesterday, and there is no space to list them one by one, so thank you here!)