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Fang Yankai remembered that when he was in Qingfu County, Li Xia was very stubborn. Once he made up his mind, no one else could persuade him.
At that time, the two would quarrel whenever they had different opinions.
Now that Li Xiagui is the emperor, Fang Yankai still dares to refute.
"In my opinion, your Majesty will be in more danger after arriving in Ezhou. Xiangyang has not been captured yet, and soldiers and horses from Beijing and Hu are gathering here, but your Majesty wants to go deep."
"Yes, the Song army in Jinghu and the Yuan army in Lianghuai were all led to the Han River by us. Therefore, our army can capture Ezhou, and once I arrive in Ezhou, the Song court will be even more shocked."
"What if Lu Wenhuan comes down from the Han River and cuts off His Majesty's retreat?"
"He doesn't dare." Li Xia said: "Lu Wenhuan is good at defense but not good at attacking. He will never dare to send troops now."
"I am bold and have to remind Your Majesty that Guanzhong is under siege by a powerful enemy. It is definitely not the best idea to go to Ezhou."
"Didn't you find it?" Li Xia asked back: "Among the Yuan troops stationed in the Huaihe River, Ali's Hague Division was not transferred to the Guanzhong battlefield, but was sent to the Xiangyang battlefield."
Fang Yankai was stunned for a moment, thinking about the meaning of Li Xia's words. He glanced back to the north and vaguely understood something.
At this time, everyone thought that the Yuan army was storming the pass, and what Li Xia needed to do was to return to defense.
But today Li Xia came up with another idea. Instead of returning to defense, he went to Ezhou, which would attract and contain more Yuan troops.
Fang Yankai was not sure whether the situation would turn out this way.
But it is certain that this seemingly risky move must have exceeded the expectations of both the Song and Yuan parties...
A few more days passed, and it was already December.
The weather is getting colder and colder.
Lu Wenhuan would visit the city every day to listen to news about the horses.
"Report, the rebels outside Saiyang City have retreated and are heading up the Han River."
Lu Wenhuan was not happy but was surprised.
He originally thought that Li Xia would return to Chang'an and leave his troops to continue to intimidate the Song Dynasty. This was a normal situation. The king would sit in the capital and dispatch his troops to fight against foreign enemies.
However, the peace treaty has not yet been reached and the benefits have not been fully taken. How can Li Xia withdraw his troops?
Unless Li Xia transferred his troops back and went to Ezhou in person, which was completely contrary to Lu Wenhuan's judgment, why would he go to Ezhou now? Negotiating peace was already the most likely outcome.
Li Xia can't still want to attack Song Dynasty, right?
"Has the news from Jiangling come back?" Lu Wenhuan asked.
In fact, Song Jun's scouts said they saw Li Xia's honor guard heading south, but Lu Wenhuan never believed it.
Suddenly, another scout came back outside the south city gate.
"Report!"
Lu Wenhuan originally thought that the news came from Jiangling or Ezhou, but he was stunned when he heard it.
"Report! The Yuan army from Lumen Mountain sent a large number of exploration horses, heading south along the east bank of the Han River!"
Before the military news here was finished, a school general came over from the East City and said hurriedly: "General, Ali Hague has sent people here, saying they want to use the road to encircle and annihilate Li Ni."
Lu Wenhuan was a little angry.
The Yuan army first sent a detective horse south, and then asked him to borrow a passage. How arrogant and arrogant.
After calming down for a while, Lu Wenhuan asked: "The Yuan people are sure that Li Ninan is down?"
"Sure."
"Mom, won't he go back to celebrate the New Year?" Lu Wenhuan said to himself, "The Yellow River should also freeze."
"General, will you meet Yuan Ren?"
"No. Tell Ali Hague that our officers and soldiers of the Song Dynasty can put down Li Ni's rebellion, and he doesn't need to worry about it."
"Here!"
But from this moment on, various news about the Yuan army began to gradually converge on Lu Wenhuan.
"General, Ali Hague sent an envoy to inquire about the general's attack on the headquarters of Baijianu."
"Report, a large Yuan army movement has been discovered in Nanyang."
Lu Wenhuan thought about it and thought that Li Xia only had more than 20,000 people on the Yangtze River. It was really impossible to attack Lin'an. He was also trying to attack Lin'an to scare the court.
And the imperial court seems to be really afraid of this kind of scare.
The bigger problem is that the Yuan people are watching Dandan from the sidelines, obviously looking for an opportunity to destroy Li Xia and the Song Dynasty in one fell swoop.
Faced with this situation, the first thing Lu Wenhuan did, who had a large number of troops in Jinghu, was not to lead his army south, but to write a letter to Li Xia.
In the letter, he finally stopped calling Li Xia a traitor, "Huan Zhijun has always regarded restoring the Central Plains to the north as his own responsibility. I hope you will take care of the overall situation of the Han family and never kill each other and be taken advantage of by foreign invaders."
The letter was quickly sent from Xiangyang to Jiangling Mansion.
At this time, Jiangling Mansion had been captured by Tang Army general Jiang Cai, and the Song Army and Jingmen Army were gathering at Jingmen in the north to defend the city.
Lu Wenhuan's messenger, escorted by the Jingmen sergeants, carefully arrived at the gate of Jiangling City to ask for an audience. A sharp arrow was nailed to his feet with a "whoosh".
"Your Majesty has led the royal army to Lin'an along the river. You must surrender as soon as possible!"
The messenger was a brave man selected by Lu Wenhuan from the army. He shouted, "If the two countries are at war, the messenger will be killed!" and put the letter in his hand into the hanging basket. All the people in Jiangling City could be heard shouting, "Lv Wenhuan is sending the message!"
Declare the letter and surrender to the Tang Dynasty!"
On December 11, a large fleet of ships arrived in Huangzhou. Chen Yizhong boarded Qixia Tower, met with local officials, and learned the news that surprised him.
"How could this be? Won't he go back to celebrate the New Year?"
A blurted question made Chen Xuazhong look a little silly.
However, Li Xia had just ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, so there were bound to be many state ceremonies during this New Year, and state affairs had to be handled in the capital. Chen Yizhong had always thought that Li Xia would return to Chang'an, leaving behind the majesty of the soldiers and generals, and the civil servants to discuss peace.
"Ms. Chen, I can confirm that Li Ni is in Ezhou City."
Chen Yizhong felt suspicious and said to himself: "Could it be that he wants to negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty in person?"
He basked in the sun and shook his head, secretly thinking that given Li Xia's current status as an emperor, it would be a bit disgraceful for him to personally talk to him, the temporary Minister of Rites.
The Emperor's Honor was what Chen Yizhong recognized in his heart when the Song Dynasty court decided to negotiate peace.
Along the way, he would sometimes remember that he had met Li Xia in Taixue.
At that time, he ascended to a high place and led people to Fucheng to write a letter to the court to get rid of Ding Daquan, a female official. Li Xia defected to Ding Daquan and became the Western Secretary.
The two people took different paths.
Now he, Chen Yizhong, has chosen to join Jia Sidao and work for the country, taking the same path that Li Xia once walked. But Li Xia has already embarked on the path of treason.
It makes people lament the unpredictable changes in life.
Thinking about this, Chen Yizhong decided to go to Ezhou to meet Li Xia in person, regardless of his own safety.
When the time comes, he will state the current situation with a sharp tongue and persuade Li Xia to retreat.
He first sent a messenger to inform him and agreed on a time...
The fleet from Lin'an was moored at Huangzhou Shazhou Wharf. There was an official sitting in a cabin listening to the report of the subordinates he sent out to inquire about the news.
"You mean, Li Xia is in Ezhou?"
The official spoke in a shrill voice, but it was Yanxi, the eunuch in charge next to Quan Jiu.
Different from others, Yan Xi was not surprised by the news, but smiled and said: "That's good, we don't have to run to Chang'an anymore, we can just leave a message in Ezhou and return. Have you asked? When will Chen Yizhong go?
Ezhou?"
"I've sent someone to inform you. It must have been in the past few days. I just don't know how the chief manager will go with him."
Yan Xi calmly took out a token from his sleeve, threw it over, and said, "This is the Queen Mother's token. It means that the Queen Mother is worried about the peace negotiation and sent us to watch it."
"yes."
After Yan Xi dealt with this, he took a sip of tea and thought that if everything went well, he might be able to return to Lin'an before the New Year.
"Right." He thought of something again and asked: "
We heard that Li Xia brought Concubine Ning or Concubine Shu, the concubine who was with the late emperor back then?"
"I've never heard of this, I wonder where the great general got the news? I'd like to go find out."
Someone in the court is spreading a rumor, which is said to be intelligence from Xiangyang, saying that Li Xia is going to attack Lin'an and specially brought two people from Lin'an."
"I'm going to inquire about it right now."
"Go ahead." Yan Xi said to himself: "If you are really a noble concubine, you will have to prepare a generous gift."
After all, Jing came from the palace, and was very familiar with the process of finding Martin Run as an official.
With his hands behind his back, he led the people to stagger off the boat and went to the streets of Huangzhou to buy some gifts.
On another boat, a woman with a sword on her waist had just returned from Huangzhou City. When she turned her head and saw Yan Xi's back, a look of doubt flashed in her eyes.
"That man looks so familiar," she murmured.
We turned back to the cabin, bolted the door, and quickly reported what we had seen today.
"There is a shop selling Sichuan brocade in the south of Huangzhou City. When I showed the token, I thought it was really a smuggling business."
"Really? Where is she now? Is she still in Xiangyang?"
"It is said that Li Ni has arrived in Ezhou, but we still need to find out the details."
"Well, we are not in a hurry. We will wait for Chen Yizhong to go talk to the traitors first."
Chen Yizhong is still waiting to negotiate with Li Xia, and is increasingly certain that Li Xia wants peace talks.
During the three days, he communicated with the Huangzhou defenders and learned that although Shi Jun had captured Ezhou, he actually had only 20,000 troops and didn't even bring much baggage.
If Jiang Cai had not conquered Jiangling in time and opened up the Yangtze River waterway, Shi Jun would have been out of food and grass and would have had to collect food locally in Ezhou.
After the two rebel armies merged, they had less than 30,000 combat troops, excluding casualties, and they had to defend the upper reaches to ensure food routes.
In other words, the rebels could only have 20,000 troops at most to continue moving down the river. In Huangzhou alone, there were 15,000 official troops plus more than 30,000 militia guards.
The rebels also commandeered a large number of people and ships to transport heavy supplies between Chongqing and Ezhou, which cost a lot of money.
If he didn't rob the people of their food and property, Li Xia wouldn't be able to support the New Year's Eve with the consumption of this war.
Chen Yicheng thought, it's a pity that this information was not known when Lin'an was reported. Well, it would be useless to know, because the court was already panicked.
In short, Li Xia urgently needs to return to his master, needs the coins, and needs the Song Dynasty to recognize his status.
Absolutely.
Chen Yizhong was willing to pledge his head as a guarantee, and Li Xia urgently needed to negotiate peace with Song Ting instead of actually attacking Lin'an...