After meeting Wang Jian, Zhang Jue was about to take Li Xia to settle the troops.
But Zhao An ran back from outside and said, "General Zhang, there are a group of children crying outside the door."
"Crying?"
"They are all the sons of the brothers who died in the battle last night. It is difficult to drive away the generals..."
This matter is a trivial matter, but if it is not handled well, it will dishearten the soldiers.
Although Zhang Jue was busy, he immediately rushed outside the general's mansion.
Li Xia walked behind and saw more than ten half-year-old boys kneeling there neatly.
The youngest of them was only five, six or seven years old, and the oldest was only eleven or twelve years old. They all had white cloth tied on their foreheads and tears on their faces.
"General Zhang is here..."
Zhang Jue recognized these young men in the army and raised his hand to point to them one by one.
"Wang Li, Shi Zheng... your father and brother died for the country, and the court will provide compensation for it. General Wang will never treat orphans and widowers harshly, so there is no need for you to cause trouble!"
"General Zhang, we are not here to cause trouble." The boy named "Wang Li" at the head raised his head and said...
He was only seven or eight years old, and his little face was tensed up. He tried not to cry, and said, "I'm going to join the army!"
After saying that, he kowtowed heavily.
Zhang Jue was slightly startled when he heard this.
"Young brat, you talk nonsense."
"Please General Zhang allow us to join the army and kill the prisoners!" Wang Li said loudly.
Zhang Jue's tone finally softened, and he waved his hand and said, "We'll talk about it when you're older."
"I want to kill the prisoners! My father said that he must defend Diaoyu City. If Meng Tatar fights for one year, he will defend it for one year. If they fight for ten years, he will defend it for ten years. If they fight for twenty years, then I will take over."
Wang Li's voice was still choked with sobs, but his eyes were full of determination.
"Now... now that dad is gone, I will guard him!"
"Yes, we will guard it!" a group of boys cried one after another.
"What a shameless statement." Zhang Jue cursed lightly, stepped forward, pressed Wang Li's head against his lapel, and wiped his tears and nose.
…
After finally appeasing these children and letting Zhao An send them away, Zhang Jue looked at the background and was still sighing.
"Wang Li, this kid, is not simple at such a young age... His father, Wang Chuan, died in the battle last night while supporting Ma Junzhai."
Li Xia nodded. When he entered the city, he saw Wang Chuan's body.
Zhang Jue sighed: "I joined the army at the age of eighteen, went up to the mountains, and stayed there for fifteen years... These children have grown up here since they were young, and I don't know how many more years they will stay."
Li Xia asked: "General Zhang has never thought that one day he would no longer have to guard the mountain city?"
"What can we do if we don't defend? In the terrain in central Sichuan, only mountain fortresses can defend against Mongolian cavalry." Zhang Jue said: "General Wang and I have been prepared to defend the mountains for the rest of our lives... provided that we are not killed in battle."
In the situation of the Song Dynasty, no one dared to say the word "recovery".
For these generals, they did not think that the Song Dynasty would be destroyed, so of course they could only hold on to it.
Zhang Jue couldn't help but feel even more emotional when he thought of this.
"Even after my death, my son will survive. My sons will beget grandchildren, and my grandsons will beget sons. There will be no limit to the number of descendants... In ancient times, there was a Foolish Old Man who moved a mountain. Now we can only guard the mountain and the country with the Foolish Old Man's ambition."
This was probably a self-deprecating joke among the generals of Diaoyu City.
Li Xia didn't find it funny.
These talented generals should not be trapped in this mountain city, but should go to a larger world to display their greater ambitions.
Wei Qing went straight to Longcheng and regained Heshuo; Huo Qubing drove to Mobei and sealed the wolf in Xu... This is the ambition that a general should have.
When the Song Dynasty reached the generation of Wang Jian and Zhang Jue, these ambitions had been stifled by something.
Then when children like Wang Li grow up and work hard, how much can they accomplish?
Li Xia hopes more and more to change the fate of these people.
"Has General Zhang ever thought about it? If he could one day counterattack Hanzhong, he would no longer have to defend it."
"Feiyu is too young and thinks too simply."
Zhang Jue waved his hand, obviously not agreeing with Li Xia's attitude at all.
He and Wang Jian were both the specific executors of Yu Jie's strategy of "building a fortress to defend Shu".
In terms of understanding of the Sichuan-Sichuan war situation, few people can match them.
Counterattack?
Is there any possibility of counterattack?
Zhang Jue couldn't help but remind Li Xia and said: "When doing things, you must be down-to-earth and never aim too high... Ha, we meet you for the first time today. Don't blame me for being long-winded."
"General Zhang can give me some advice because he treats me sincerely. It's not too late to thank you."
Li Xia changed the subject and added: "Commander Yu built the base to defend Shu. But then he immediately wanted to restore Hanzhong, didn't he? How can we defend and counterattack if we only defend but not counterattack?"
"It's easy to say the truth, but it's all lies if you can't do it." Zhang Jue smiled bitterly, not wanting to talk more about this useless matter.
He is still very busy.
Li Xia stopped talking and deliberately retained this conflict of opinion with Zhang Jue.
~~
In this way, Diaoyu City gradually showed Li Xia its magnificence, as well as its helplessness and limitations.
And the 100,000 Mongolian troops surrounding Diaoyu City at the foot of the mountain seemed to be severely intertwining the fate of Li Xia and this mountain city.
That day, the heavy rain did not stop.
Some Mongolian soldiers fled back to Wang Dechen's camp and handed Wang Zhongchen news one by one...
~~
Speaking of the Wang family in Longxi, it was Wang Shixian who started his fortune.
After Wang Shixian's death, the title and official position left behind should have been inherited by his eldest son Wang Zhongchen.
However, Wang Zhongchen believed that his ability was far inferior to that of his second brother Wang Dechen, so he gave up his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Twenty-Prefecture Capital to Wang Dechen.
Empress Naima Zhen was the regent that year. She admired Wang Zhongchen's broad-mindedness and appointed him Marshal Gongchang and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Capital.
After this incident, Wang Zhongchen felt... like he was not very capable.
But in fact, Wang Shixian was able to kill the famous Song Dynasty general Cao Youwen, and Sichuan established the envoy Chen Longzhi, all because of Wang Zhongchen.
Even when Cao You heard that Wang Shixian had been besieged by soldiers and was just about to kill the Mongolian commander-in-chief, it was Wang Zhongchen who rushed into the Song army's formation and personally killed more than ten people, desperately trying to rescue Wang Shixian from the siege.
This is the side of him that is good at fighting.
When Kublai Khan went on an expedition to Dali, Wang Zhongchen supervised the water transport on the Jialing River and delivered the baggage to Kublai Khan under the nose of the Song army.
This is the side of him that is good at governance.
In short, Wang Zhongchen is by no means an incompetent person.
It's just that when he does things, he doesn't want to work as hard as Wang Dechen.
This time Wang Dechen personally led the elite troops to attack Diaoyu City. Deputy Commander-in-Chief Wang Zhongchen was in charge of the main camp, preparing to lead the follow-up troops to attack the mountain.
Unexpectedly, Song soldiers suddenly launched a sneak attack in the camp.
The Song army frightened all the horses, causing them to step into various tents and trample and injure countless Mongolian soldiers. The Mongolian soldiers who were still in formation were caught off guard. They didn't know where the Song army came from and how many people there were. They just thought that magic soldiers were descending from the sky, and they were in chaos.
Channel.
The elite of the camp had all been taken away by Wang Dechen. Wang Zhongchen could not calm down the soldiers, so he immediately gathered his own soldiers and rushed to the southern camp to ask for reinforcements.
He reacted quickly enough to avoid losses to the greatest extent.
They were busy until dawn, and when Wang Zhongchen borrowed help from other Mongolian troops to fight back, the Song army had already boarded Diaoyu City.
At this point, he knew that Wang Dechen's night attack plan would have failed.
But there is nothing that can be done about it. Wang Zhongchen only hopes that his second brother can return safely...
The wait was another half day.
Finally, some soldiers came back to report Wang Dechen's whereabouts.
"Report! Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Commander-in-Chief...the Commander-in-Chief was hanged by the Song people on Qisheng's door..."
"What?!"
Wang Zhongchen still couldn't believe it.
"Shunfu...Shunfu...impossible..."
He murmured and shook his head.
"You can't die... Ever since you were young, the more dangerous things you do, the more you go to them, and every time you turn danger into good luck... You said that you are favored by the immortal god... Shunfu..."
There was no time for Wang Zhongchen to mourn the death of his second brother.
Soon, Brother Meng ordered Wang Zhongchen to go and see him.
~~
"Bang!"
When Wang Zhongchen arrived outside the tent, he heard the sound of something being smashed inside.
You can also hear the Great Khan roaring in Mongolian.
"Who gave them the courage to resist?! After breaking the city, they slaughtered them all. There was no grass, no tree, not even a Song Dynasty person who could breathe on the mountain! Let them understand that the great Khan of the Great Mongolia cannot be disobedient.
, no one can stop Mongolia’s iron hoof scimitar..."
Mongolian is very suitable for using metaphors and parallelism.
Meng Ge was usually stoic, but when he got angry, his anger could be as eloquent as a parallel sentence, which was breathtaking.
Wang Zhongchen didn't dare to go in right away, so he waited outside the tent for a while before entering and crouching at Brother Meng's feet and crying.
"Profuse sweat! My second brother...Brother Tian...Brother Tian was smashed into mud!"
"stand up!"
Wang Zhongchen got up quickly.
Meng Ge's voice was as strong as iron, and he said: "Don't cry and cry. You will succeed as the commander-in-chief and be responsible for attacking Diaoyu City."
Wang Zhongchen really did not dare to disobey Brother Meng, but he still said: "I am incompetent, and I would like to recommend Wang Weizheng, the son of my second brother, as the commander-in-chief."
At first glance, it sounds like Wang Zhongchen is afraid of getting into trouble.
His name is "Zhongchen", but he seems not as loyal as "Dechen".
The atmosphere in the big tent was tense.
Obviously, Brother Meng was unhappy.
In fact, he understood that the five thousand elite members of the Wang family army had been severely defeated, and neither Wang Zhongchen nor Wang Weizheng could be as useful as Wang Dechen.
Wang Zhongchen quickly said: "I will assist Wang Weizheng and win the Diaoyu City for the Great Khan!"
Brother Meng slowly sat down and gradually regained his composure.
He suddenly thought that Wang Dechen had just died in battle, and if the position of Spyker and Commander-in-Chief had not been handed over to his son, it would definitely have chilled the heart of the general.
I was so carried away by anger just now that I almost made a wrong decision.
Fortunately, Wang Zhongchen is considerate of the overall situation.
Thinking about it this way, Wang Zhongchen is indeed a loyal minister.
"Summon Wang Weizheng into Shu and accept the position of commander-in-chief."
"Yes, the Great Khan is wise."
Brother Meng's expression was still ugly, but he was no longer directed at Wang Zhongchen.
It was his anger at Diaoyu City that made him lose his cool.
He opened his mouth and gave another order: "Order Shi Tianze to return to Diaoyu City and take charge of the main attack..."
"Sweat!"
Before he finished speaking, someone came out and interrupted Meng Ge.
This has never happened since Meng Ge massacred Ogedai Khan's family.
When Wang Dechen died, Brother Meng finally felt that his majesty had been challenged.
This is the reason for his anger...
The person speaking at this time was Meng Ge's favorite general Shusu Huli.
Shusuhuli was a rare wise general in the Mongolian army, and he spoke endlessly when he opened his mouth.
"The Great Khan has captured most of Sichuan and Sichuan, and only a few small towns have not yet surrendered. Diaoyu City and Chongqing are like bones that even wild dogs find difficult to chew. It is not worth spending precious time here. It is better to send a capable person
The prestigious veteran general will lead 50,000 elite troops to surround Diaoyu City and coordinate with Liu Heima's troops. Then the Great Khan can lead his army eastward..."