The head of the Han family and the head of the Chen family were specially invited to Li Cunhui. Because Taizhou could not be conquered for the time being, these two carefully planned plans to dedicate the city gate could not be implemented yet.
Therefore, in order not to dampen others' desire to serve, Li Cunhui did not hesitate to condescend to meet Han and Chen, and also gave each of them twenty pieces of white cotton as a reward.
As for why they couldn't fight? The reason is very simple. Li Cunhui and Murong Nobunaga agreed to use the Yang Wu clan in Taizhou as bait to attract the Southern Tang army to cross the river quickly.
But who would have thought that the Southern Tang court acted too slowly.
Li Cunhui specially sent people across the river to remind him. As a result, when he slowly gathered his troops, he could capture Taizhou immediately, and the Southern Tang army had not yet arrived.
This... directly embarrassed me, Grand Duke Li. If he captured Taizhou now, the Southern Tang Army would probably give up on themselves and not cross the river, or they would not be in such a hurry to cross the river.
So Li Cunhui reported to Murong Nobunaga and suggested giving up the plan to conquer Taizhou, and at the same time tried his best to comfort his subordinates who wanted to conquer Taizhou.
Murong Nobunaga saw Li Cunhui's report and immediately understood what was going on.
So he deliberately mobilized the prefecture and county soldiers and fishermen who had taken refuge in Yangzhou City, pretending that he wanted to use all his troops to attack Taizhou.
Sure enough, Murong Nobunaga's actions immediately "warned up" the Southern Tang court, and they began to speed up the crossing of the river.
At this time, on both sides of the river, those who are loyal to the Southern Tang Dynasty are still the mainstream.
In addition, the southerners were good at boats. Although the Zhou army occupied Yangzhou, it was impossible to maintain strict control for a long time. If it was slightly relaxed, the Southern Tang court on the other side of the Yangtze River could easily obtain information about Yangzhou.
So Murong Nobunaga simply came up with a plan.
At the beginning of May, Murong Nobunaga forcibly recruited about 10,000 people from Yangzhou, plus 7,000 Zhou Dynasty defenders in Yangzhou, known as an army of 50,000, and began to slowly approach Taizhou.
Yangzhou was guarded by Zhao Kuangyin with 3,000 men, which seemed to be very empty.
Li Jing immediately used his smart mind. He felt that this time, he must have caught the mistake of coach Zhou Jun.
Humph! You didn’t expect it, so what if you occupied the Eastern Capital? Thousands of righteous people would have tipped me off.
So just when Murong Nobunaga led his army to leave Yangzhou, and the soldiers and civilians loyal to the Southern Tang Dynasty inside and outside Yangzhou City frantically reported to the Southern Tang court that Yangzhou was empty, Li Jing made an arbitrary decision and accelerated the dispatch of the Imperial Army.
Two days later, the Southern Tang Dynasty's Jiangyin military envoy led 4,000 troops and 70 warships to Jiangning.
One day later, Nan Tang Jing's naval commander Yao Yanhong, who was originally planning to take the land route to support Taizhou, also arrived with 7,000 soldiers and 100 warships.
Li Jing then mobilized all the imperial troops in Jiangning and even looted all the prefecture and county soldiers in the upper reaches of Hezhou, barely scraping together 20,000 people.
The Forbidden Army, together with the Jiangyin Army and the Jing Haijun that came upstream, totaled 31,000 people. Together with more than 10,000 civilians and fishermen, the force reached nearly 50,000 people.
And these 50,000 people gathered on the river near Jiangning, shouting "horses", soldiers wearing various armors and stomachs crowded shoulder to shoulder, and hundreds of warships on the river connected end to end. Li Jing finally felt a lot more at ease.
The officials of the Southern Tang Dynasty were also encouraged by this gesture, and all of them seemed to have high morale.
Only Bian Hao hesitated to speak, because Zhou Jun's actions were too abnormal!
There is no one who has penetrated hundreds of miles into the enemy's territory and captured an important town without holding on to wait for reinforcements or plundered and then left. Instead, the whole army was sent out, and the news was not blocked, and he went directly to attack the nearby Xiaoyi.
It doesn't look like he wants to control the Yang Wu clan, but it looks like he is deliberately showing off his flaws to attract people from his side to cross the river.
Bian Hao wanted to suggest that Li Jing wait until the 10,000 soldiers of Wei Jian, the governor of Wuchang in Ezhou, and the 20,000 elite soldiers of Chen Jue, the privy envoy of Zhaowu in Fuzhou, arrived before crossing the river.
However, Bian Hao opened his mouth. At this time, he was not the Southern Tang general who destroyed Ma Chu in history. He was just an officer who had some military merit and was promoted to the central government.
He was not a confidant of Li Jing, the leader of the Southern Tang Dynasty, so how could he dare to say depressing words at such a time.
More importantly, it was his suggestion to cross the river as soon as possible to prevent the Zhou army from gaining a foothold in the north of the river.
Now that the emperor has followed your advice and will send a large army to cross the river, wouldn't it be a trick on the emperor to say that he would postpone the crossing or cross the river with caution?
So Bian Hao, who clearly saw the problem, did not speak out to persuade him. He could only comfort himself in his heart. The others were false, but it was not false that the Zhou army only had 10,000 people.
And they did go to attack Taizhou. Even if they were deceitful, after they returned more than a hundred miles away, Yangzhou might have changed hands.
Therefore, Li Jing built an altar at Bailuzhou upstream of Stone City to worship the general that day, and worshiped his third brother, deputy marshal of all the troops and horses. King Yan Li Jingda deployed the capital of Jiangbei, and appointed Yao Yanhong, the commander of the Divine Guard Army Bian Hao and Jing Haijun, as his commander.
He deployed left and right and commanded an army of 50,000 people, claiming that 100,000 people crossed the river to recapture Yangzhou.
At this time, Zhao Kuangyin, who was acting alone for the first time, couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Murong Nobunaga had some considerations in leaving him to guard Yangzhou.
Considering the Yangzhou people's enthusiasm for informing the Southern Tang Dynasty, their own strength would definitely not be kept secret, so Zhao Kuangyin was the most suitable person to show weakness.
Among the highest-ranking generals of the Zhou army, Murong Nobunaga, Li Cunhui, and Yao Yuanfu were not easy to offend at first glance.
Although Gao Huaide was as young as Zhao Kuangyin, the reputation of the Gao family and his son, especially the reputation of his father Gao Xingzhou, resounded throughout the north and south.
Even people from the Southern Tang Dynasty knew that no one would regard such a general as a soft persimmon.
Only Zhao Kuangyin is not only the youngest, he is only nineteen years old now, and he is fair and tender, a little fat, and has not yet grown a beard. From this look, he doesn't know who comes to gold plating and doesn't learn from it.
An unskilled person.
Therefore, leaving a useless general like him to guard Yangzhou City would further stimulate the Southern Tang Army's desire to attack.
This is also true. Before the Southern Tang Army set out, they received a large number of reports that the Yangzhou coach of the Zhou Army was a white-faced scholar.
Li Jingda was very proud of this, and felt that his strategy of ignoring Taizhou, first conquering Yangzhou, and then blocking the Zhou army's retreat route in Taizhou and attacking was very successful.
However, the generals below were not as confident as Li Jingda. They still knew that the Yongliang cavalry was powerful. If the Zhou army quickly returned to the army and attacked halfway, it would still be quite a threat.
However, when Yuhou, the former military capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty, led 2,000 people to successfully land at Guabu without encountering resistance, the Southern Tang generals on the ship were all smiling.
When the army successfully docked, dozens of Yangzhou volunteers came to report that the white-faced commander of the Zhou army was arrogant and did not stick to Yangzhou City, but led his army west to Yizheng, which was only more than forty miles away.
Even eating shit can’t keep up with the heat!
If the Zhou army had arrived quickly, it might have caused some trouble for the army to land, but he actually only reached Yizheng.
Not to mention that Yizheng City is small, the city walls are not complete, and it is not at all a fortified city like the eastern capital of Yangzhou.
It is simply impossible for 3,000 people to defend such a small town against an attack of 50,000 people.
I'm afraid even these three thousand people can't be accommodated in Yizheng City, right?
After listening to this, Li Jingda suddenly felt that the sky was vast and the earth was vast, and he couldn't help but look up to the sky and laugh three times.
"How quickly the Zhou army came, and how quickly it left!
I heard that Murong Nobunaga claimed that Xue Youzhou was still alive. I didn’t expect him to be so ignorant and sent a weak general to guard the Eastern Capital. Do you really think that just anyone can be a champion? Hahahaha!"
The surrounding Southern Tang generals all grinned and became more confident in defeating the Zhou army.
Bian Hao hesitated to speak again. He was now almost certain that Murong Nobunaga, Duke of Qinghai County of Zhou State, was definitely cheating.
The shadow of a person's famous tree can travel from Hexi to the Central Plains. The person who has gained such a prestigious reputation must not be the fool Li Jingda thinks.
But what are the Zhou troops waiting for? They originally only had 10,000 troops, and they were divided into two groups. Now they even gave up Yangzhou.
Once the imperial troops entered the city, relying on Hangou and the surrounding rivers leading to the river, they could mobilize their troops at will and attack everywhere. Sooner or later, the Zhou army would be finished.
Do they really just want to take away the Yang Wu clan?
Bian Hao became more and more confused as he thought about it. He had not considered the possibility that Murong Nobunaga might surprise them.
However, Taizhou was two hundred miles away from Guabu or Yizheng, and was surrounded by volunteers from the imperial court, so it was impossible to conceal his whereabouts.
Unless their war horses can run the two hundred miles quickly without resting, and then still have the ability to fight.
In other words, the Zhou army believed that the three thousand men in Yizheng could hold off ten times more enemies for several days.
Thinking of this, Bian Hao, who was always cautious, thought that Zhou Jun was too trusting.
He walked towards Li Jingda. He was going to suggest to His Highness King Yan to reward the righteous people around Yangzhou generously and let them come to help attack the city.
We must kill the 3,000 Zhou army in Yizheng as quickly as possible, and at the same time send people to recover Yangzhou, so as to block the Zhou army's retreat along the canal.