Late at night on the sixth day of October, Li Zengbo, who was sleeping on the tower, was suddenly startled by a rapid knock on the door.
"Commander!"
"What's the matter?"
Although he was old, Li Zengbo still quickly stood up. He couldn't find his boots in the dark. He stepped on the cold floor and rushed to the door and opened it.
"Pang Pei is back."
"Where is he? Bring him here quickly!"
"He met a Yuan army scout on the road and was injured and fainted in front of the city gate."
"With His Majesty's will?"
"No letters were found on him."
Li Zengbo had already put on his armor and said: "Talking while walking."
Now the floods in Xingqing Mansion have just receded, this year's harvest has been ruined, and the city is full of dilapidated and depressed scenes.
Just a few days ago, news of Kublai Khan's personal conquest had arrived. Walking in the city at this time, people couldn't help but worry about whether such a city could withstand the Mongolian and Yuan armies.
The ground at the North City Gate is pitted, soft and covered with frost. When you step on it, there will be a "squeaking" sound of the frost being crushed, and it will sink and squeeze out the water in the mud, soaking the soles of your shoes, which is extremely uncomfortable.
Pang Pei and several soldiers fell under the wall, and a military doctor was busy going back and forth to treat them.
As soon as Li Zengbo stepped forward, he asked: "How are you doing?"
"In the past, it might have been difficult to save. Fortunately, now the military has good medicine, and everyone can survive." The military doctor responded, "Only that kid has to amputate one of his left feet. Commander, the student will be able to survive now."
Go get it intercepted."
"Go ahead."
Accustomed to the days when his colleagues would just leave him, Li Zengbo seemed a little ruthless, and without even sighing, he stepped forward and leaned over to look at Pang Pei.
Another military doctor was stopping the bleeding of other soldiers. He turned around and said, "General Pang also fainted after losing too much blood. He has been bandaged."
As he spoke, Pang Pei woke up. His body trembled, and he suddenly yelled before even opening his eyelids.
"Kill it, kill it!"
Li Zengbo was calm and calm, with a calm old face. When Pang Pei opened his eyes, he said: "Don't move, it's safe."
"Commander? Marshal..."
The moment Pang Pei, whose face was pale, saw Li Zengbo, he obviously relaxed, leaned back weakly, and almost cried when he spoke again.
"Your Majesty's decree has finally been brought back... I almost couldn't bring it back."
"where?"
"The big one was wrapped up and stuffed into the horse's belly... Tafeng Zui has been following me for three years, and I can't help him."
Li Zengbo seemed a little ruthless. He waved his hand and asked someone to take a black horse in the distance aside.
Pang Pei took a deep look over there, his eyes sad.
He raised his hand with difficulty, pointed to a wound on his abdomen, and said: "There is another little thing... here."
Li Zengbo glanced at him and asked: "Is it sewn in?"
"Xu Laofa helped me sew it up when we were on the road." Pang Pei whispered, "A few days later, when Xu Laofa was fetching water, he was shot by a Mongolian with an arrow into the Yellow River... Let's tear it apart."
Li Zengbo then waved to the military officer and said: "Demolish it."
"It's really inside?" The military doctor didn't believe it. He shook his head and said, "I have been practicing medicine all my life, and I have never seen anyone able to sew something under the skin. I don't believe it. Even if there is gold medicine, I don't believe it."
"ha."
Pang Pei gasped and said: "I am a scholar like you with thin skin and tender flesh... If I didn't have a strong penis, I would have died eight hundred times..."
He violently pulled down his clothes, revealing a huge wound on the back of his neck.
"Did you see it? I...the expeller of the Kuoduan family. This brand...I peeled off my own skin..."
The old doctor was still in a daze.
"Believe it or not, take it apart."
"All right."
When the doctor began to open the wound, Pang Pei tried his best to appear brave and calm, and even made a few jokes.
"See... I'm just a cheap man... a rough guy... he won't die that easily..."
But when he opened his mouth, he was struck by severe pain and almost bit off his tongue. The doctor quickly stuffed a piece of cloth into Pang Pei's mouth.
The screams oozed out from the cloth he was biting.
People around him couldn't imagine how painful it was when he hid the things in the skin, and some soldiers actually made fun of him.
"Hey, I'm going to have a baby when I become a general."
"Ha ha ha ha."
But since the destruction of the Xixia Kingdom, the destruction of the Jin Kingdom, and the war between Mongolia and Song Dynasty, wars have not stopped for more than sixty years.
In this land where an entire race can be massacred, a little flesh wound is really nothing.
"Take good care of yourself."
Li Zengbo patted Pang Pei, picked up the bloody oil paper bag, turned around and left.
Pang Pei's whole body relaxed, he leaned back and murmured: "Please drink some wine, handsome..."
~~
The sky was already bright, and the morning light shone into the tower through the arrow holes in the windows.
Li Zengbo opened the smelly oil paper and saw many letters inside.
He was about to read the letter, but then he looked at a bloody piece of wood.
As soon as he weighed it, he knew there was something inside.
Li Zengbo then opened it and took a look at it. Although Pang Pei said that this was sent to Chang'an by His Majesty with other orders, not for him to see.
When he saw the tiger talisman between the two pieces of wood, his expression became solemn.
This tiger talisman is only as big as two fingers, but its workmanship is extremely fine. It is impossible for anyone in the world to imitate it. It is Li Xia's military talisman.
Li Zengbo felt that Li Xia should not have handed over such an important thing to Pang Pei for escort, but when he thought about Pang Pei's injuries, he was speechless for a moment.
He then put it away and looked at the letter in the package.
Some of them are written in secret script and need to be deciphered, while others are in ordinary characters.
Li Xia had a letter to him. The writing did not look like an imperial edict, but rather like an ordinary letter from home.
Perhaps due to haste, the handwriting is a bit sloppy, and some words are obviously not thought through. It can be seen that I just said what came to my mind.
"Li Qing has been out in various parts of the world for thirty years. I remember that I just arrived at Xingqing Mansion that day. When I gave you the Li family's ancestral genealogy, I also said that after the Hetao is recovered, you should go to Gongchang to celebrate the New Year this year. What a shame.
Accompany Jia Juan who stayed there. Unfortunately, Kublai Khan's personal expedition was delayed again this year. Since we regained the Hexi Corridor, it has been the third year since you have seen your family. I heard that your ancestral home is in Qinyang, Henan
, I hope that one day you can take your family back to your hometown to worship your ancestors..."
There seemed to be no really useful words in the whole letter. Li Zengbo didn't think that at his age, he could wait until Henan was recovered.
However, he could see Li Xia's meaning from it, that is, Li Xia did not intend to interfere in the defense of Xingqing Mansion, and how to defend Xingqing Mansion was entirely under the command of Li Zengbo, the commander-in-chief.
Later, I translated the secret text and saw that it was indeed the case.
Li Xia even directly told Li Zengbo that if he felt that Xingqing Mansion could not be defended, he could retreat to Lanzhou or Liangzhou, strengthen the walls, clear the country, and concentrate his troops.
Li Zengbo ignored these words and was more concerned about where Li Xia went and what he wanted to do.
He read the content behind carefully, his eyes gradually became serious, and finally stood up, walked to the map, looked at it for a long time, and began to pace anxiously.
He had just seen a few wounded soldiers, and his expression had not changed, but he lost his composure because of Li Xia's secret letter.
"Your Majesty is still so young. You can retreat to Chang'an and study for a while. Why take such a risk?"
After muttering to himself like this, Li Zengbo felt inexplicably sad when he thought about what Li Xia had said in his letter just now about going to his hometown to pay homage to his ancestors.
Sadness and worry are mixed together, and the mood is complicated.
Finally, he turned to look at the other letters in the package.
It was to be sent to Chang'an for the ministers who were staying at the court. Logically speaking, Li Zengbo shouldn't have seen it.
But after only hesitating for a moment, Li Zengbo took a knife and cut open the sealing wax. He read the seal and put it back without changing a word.
He leaned tiredly on the chair and rubbed his forehead, worried.
After rubbing and rubbing, he finally stood up, excited by an idea that came to him in an instant.
"That's fine." He said to himself, "If we don't fight decisively, what will happen to me when I die of old age? I can experience a national war in my lifetime, what more can I ask for..."
~~
October 11th.
The news from all parties was finally delivered to Chang'an on an eight-hundred-mile rush.
Han Chengxu did not dare to read Li Xia's letter alone, so he summoned all the old officials of the Hantai shogunate.
Every letter has been read, and a tiger charm is placed on the letter.
The hall fell into a long silence.
Finally, it was Li Yong who spoke first.
"Since it is His Majesty's will, let it be done."
Li Yong has not participated in state affairs for a long time. If we want to describe this situation, for example, he has never been like Li Yuan, but more like Liu Taigong.
Liu Taiping's hobbies in life were to butcher and sell young men, sell wine and wine, and fight cocks for fun. Li Yong, on the other hand, liked to see his descendants and his family prosperous. He recently opened a school in Chang'an City to facilitate future teaching.
The children of the Li family, or the princes and grandsons, study.
Now, he has been dragged back into the conflicts of this troubled world.
"I thought that the decisive battle with the Meng Yuan would take place in three to five years. At least enough food, grass, and military equipment should be prepared... But since Kublai Khan has personally conquered it, let's fight as soon as possible."
This sentence can also be said to be the process from being unwilling to fight to having to accept it.
"You don't have to sigh, just think that we encountered a ferocious beast on the road." Yang Guo said: "How could a ferocious beast wait for us to sharpen our spears and prepare our bows and arrows before attacking. When a ferocious beast pounces on us, it doesn't matter whether we or not
If you are ready, you can only fight with it."
"But it is appropriate for Your Majesty to return to Chang'an and coordinate the overall situation."
Han Chengxu raised his eyes and said indifferently, "Your Majesty's refusal to return just shows how urgent the situation is, and also shows that he is confident of victory."
If Li Xia was face to face, he might persuade him. But even if he had different ideas and made strong arguments, when Li Xia was not around, he would carry out his orders as soon as possible.
He is the old man who went to Kaifeng together back then, and everything he did was for the common idea back then.
"Sweep away the Hu Chen and unify the world. Since we want to assist His Majesty Zuo in completing his great cause, if Kublai Khan really comes, can we still retreat?"
"I won't retreat," Xi Jihu said.
Li Ye stroked his beard and smiled, and said slowly: "Two years ago, your Majesty wanted to go to the Western Regions, but the ministers opposed it and fought for two months. Today, only a tiger talisman was sent back to Chang'an. All the kings happily accepted the order?"
"
"I can't say Xin Ran, but I must accept the order." Shi Jun said with a straight face, "If we don't fight this battle, the northwest will return to Hu Chen."
"Yes, your Majesty is not named Zhao, so how can you lose ground?"
"Please come over, Queen."
Han Qi'an whispered to Guan De, stepped forward, picked up the sealed letter sent by Li Xia, smoothed it with his palm, and began to write it on the shining golden silk brocade.
…
Gao Mingyue, wearing a phoenix crown and Zhai clothes, led Li Changyi slowly into the hall.
Mother and son sat down behind the bead curtain.
"Mother, grandfather, uncle and Grandpa Han are all there." Li Changyi whispered, trying to open the bead curtain.
Gao Mingyue gently pressed her son's hand and glanced at the ministers in the palace through the bead curtain, feeling a little nervous.
Ten years have passed in a blink of an eye. When she first met Li Xia, she was just a shy girl who sat in a carriage with Han Qiaoer and chatted quietly. Now she was here to listen to politics behind the curtain.
This incident made her feel strongly uneasy and unlucky.
Although she knew very well that nothing happened to Li Xia, it was just that she could not come back for the time being and the situation was urgent, so she needed to come out to stabilize people's hearts.
She thought to herself that as a wife, it was time to share the burden for her husband, and she could be a good helper.
"Queen."
Guan De came over cautiously, holding a plate in which was placed a roll of the imperial edict that had just been expressed and a tiger talisman.
Gao Mingyue stretched out her hand, spread out the imperial edict, took a look at it, and said: "Call all ministers to the court to declare the edict."
"The imperial edict says that today the leader of the captives has invaded. I have selected troops to revitalize the brigade. I will uphold the martial arts and lead the expedition to the north. I will appoint many generals and order the Shaanxi pacification system envoy Liu Yuanli to be fully responsible for the defense of Guanzhong. I will also transfer the Sichuan pacification system envoy.
Zhang Hongdao, Chongqing pacification envoy Gao Changshou, Yunnan deputy pacification envoy Yi Shiying, Hanzhong garrison Kong Xian... led the troops to march north within ten days. Each prefecture, state, and county defense department selected and appointed generals to resist the exodus.
The bandits are the top priority at the moment. We order three groups of soldiers and horses to gather in Chang'an before February of the third year of the founding of the People's Republic of China, armed with hundreds of thousands of spears and spears, and jointly point to the leader of the bandit chieftains without delay."