Chapter 352 Collapse
The first year of Chengtian, the first year of Republic, March 25th.
At this time, the siege of the city had been over for more than a month, and a sudden heavy rain fell on Xiangguo City.
In the heavy rain, Liu Hui, who entered the city single-handedly, was walking on the dilapidated streets led by more than a dozen Han army officials.
Liu Hui looked at both sides of the road with a complicated expression, and saw some corpses that had not been cleaned up in time and were abandoned in the ravine. Under the baptism of the heavy rain, the yellow mud on their faces was washed away, revealing their pale faces.
The person who attracted Liu Hui was a young military officer named Liu Gu on the top of the city. He was a member of the Liu family of King Zhao. He and Liu Hui had already exchanged genealogies and confirmed Liu Hui's identity, so at this moment Liu Gu was interested in Liu Hui. There is no doubt about Liu Hui's identity.
This is the lineage of Zhen Zhen Zhen Ding Wang, or a direct descendant.
This method of exchanging genealogies is how the children of this generation of aristocratic families confirm each other's identities. Children of aristocrats such as Liu Gu and Liu Hui spent most of their time memorizing family trees in addition to the education they should have since they were young, and they knew their ancestors' in-laws' families and branches very well.
Therefore, when two strangers from aristocratic families meet for the first time, they will first ask each other about their origins, and then tell each other about their ancestral relationship.
For example, if your great-uncle married a daughter of a certain clan, the other party would definitely know it. So when we ask each other questions, as long as the other party can answer them correctly, there must be no problem with their identity.
Because the genealogy is complicated and only the direct lineage can be seen, anyone who dares to pretend to identify it can be exposed at once. This is the aristocratic version of the incision.
Therefore, even if Liu Gu, a descendant of King Zhao's clan, and Liu Hui, a descendant of King Zhending's clan, meet for the first time, as long as they complete the genealogy, they will become members of the same family.
After confirming that Liu Hui's identity was correct, Liu Gu personally took Liu Hui down to the top of the city to see the Prime Minister Jushou.
After passing through a long and narrow corridor, Liu Hui was led by Liu Gu and others to an urn city.
Along the way, Liu Hui, although he didn't look around, could still see the layout behind the city wall clearly.
Sure enough, there is an Wengcheng in Xiangguo City. Moreover, the wall of the corridor between the city gate and the urn city was full of energetic archers, who looked at Liu Hui and others eagerly when they passed through.
Obviously, after more than a month of siege on Xiangguo City, at least the morale of the elites in the city is still very high.
When they arrived at the Wengcheng, Liu Hui was surprised to find that there was no city gate here!
What's going on?
Just when Liu Hui was confused, his elder brother Liu Gu shouted to the soldiers on the Wengcheng:
"I am Liu Gu, Sima of the Outer City, and I have specially brought the reinforcements envoy to meet with the Prime Minister."
When the people on the top of the city heard that the messengers of reinforcements were coming below, they were surprised, and then they cheered thunderously.
The reinforcements are really coming! The Han family has not failed us.
Then a bamboo basket was put down on the upper floor of the urn, and Liu Gu put his talisman on it.
With a squeaking sound, the bamboo basket was pulled up, and after it was properly closed, the top shouted:
"Let go."
Just when Liu Hui was thinking about whether to go up in a bamboo basket, Liu Gu touched him and smiled at him:
"Brother, why are you still standing there? Come with me this way. Let me tell you, if the Prime Minister knew that Changshan Kingdom had sent reinforcements, he might be so happy? Hey, there is no need to sleep so hard at night. .”
With that said, Liu Gu took Liu Hui and turned to the right. There was a corridor there and a gate there, which was obviously the gate of Wengcheng.
Seeing this, Liu Hui already understood its role in defense.
That Jushou was really clever, he did not place the gate of Wengcheng in the middle, but on the side. This is to protect against enemy cavalry.
After the outer city is broken, the cavalry is the easiest to drive straight into. If the Wengcheng gate is placed in the middle, it is easy for the cavalry to rush in at the speed of the assault.
But turning the city gate to the side and using an L-shaped layout broke the speed of the cavalry. In this way, when the cavalry rushed to the urn city and found that the door was on the right, they could only speed up again. But this pause is their death pause. The city shooters who react will bury these enemy cavalry.
Really vicious.
Thinking of this, Liu Hui became more natural and tried hard to act like a reinforcement messenger.
That's right, Liu Hui was not the envoy of reinforcements from the Changshan Kingdom at all. All of this was Guan Yu's whim arrangement after meeting Liu Hui.
Guan Yu wanted Liu Hui to pretend to be an envoy and enter the city, looking for opportunities to create cover for the Taishan army to attack the city.
When Liu Hui took Guo Shu, Zhang Xiang and others south to join the Taishan Army, they were quickly caught by the roving flying dragon riders.
After Liu Hui and others shouted that they were rebels who went south to join the Taishan Army, they were sent to Li Hu by the flying dragon cavalry.
Li Hu had already captured the wall of Bairen's front line.
These dock walls were originally built by the Han army to defend the Qiang rebellion in the east of the river.
According to the establishment, there are at least fifty people per dock wall. But as decades passed, these became a thing of the past. Except for some old, weak, sick and disabled people who relied on the land beside these beacons for a living, the other beacon soldiers had long been divided up by the nearby big families.
Now these beacons are being used again because of Jushou's suggestion to Lu Zhi to build two cities and two defenses. Although some small dock walls are still abandoned, large dock walls such as Bairen, Zhongqiu and Fengshan have been repaired.
Lu Zhi also specially allocated 200 elite soldiers from his small military strength, and then teamed up with the local soldiers to guard these dock walls.
But unfortunately, no one expected the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry to come so quickly.
When they learned that the Taishan Army had set off from Handan, before they could start guarding, the flying dragon riders and flying tiger riders that emerged from the wild had already charged into the unprepared dock wall.
Therefore, the Bairen frontline, which Jushou had placed high hopes on, failed before it could play its due role.
After breaking through the Bairen line, Feilong General Li Hu and Feihu General Xu Huang stayed here and began to build a defense line to defend Changshan Kingdom in the north from the south in accordance with Guan Yu's plan before the war.
They quickly broke down the nearby rural dock wall, punished the stubborn village tyrants inside, mobilized a group of disciples to join Qianshou, and then trained them to serve as the defense troops of the dock wall.
Then, more than a thousand cavalry troops such as Feilongqi and Feihuqi were still hanging around nearby, and from time to time they would cross the border and launch attacks in Changshan Kingdom.
But after doing so much, in the end they did not wait for the so-called reinforcements from the Changshan Kingdom. Instead, a lot of rebels came down from the south of the Changshan Kingdom. Although they were poorly equipped, either with wooden soldiers or hoes, they trickled and continued. Enter the Bai people's camp.
As an old brother, Li Hu certainly knows what the Taishan Army stands for and knows what kind of people to rely on. So no matter how busy he is, he will always find time to meet with these rebel leaders.
It was under this background that Liu Hui was sent to Li Hu's tent, and Liu Hui's brothers were arranged near several tents outside the camp, where there were various volunteers, making the noise as if they were alone. ocean.
As for the weapons of Liu Hui's brothers, they were not confiscated. It was not because the Taishan Army was so trusting. I never thought whether these people might be fake Han soldiers. In fact, these people were not a threat at all.
Why are you afraid of those wooden and bamboo spears?
Li Hu met Liu Hui and was greatly surprised when he learned that this person was a descendant of King Zhending. After all, this is the first Liu family descendant to defect to their Taishan Army.
You must know that our Taishan Army wants to kill your Liu family.
However, after learning about the conflict between the Zhending King lineage and the Han Dynasty later, Li Hu could understand. But Li Hu didn't know how to arrange Liu Hui, so he simply sent him to Guan Yu's camp in Xiang State. There is a big battle going on there, let this Liu family see the mighty division of our Taishan Army.
Later, Liu Hui led Guo Shu, Zhang Xiang, Bu Sheng, Zhang Yan, Li Feng, Guo Chao and other warriors to follow a convoy to the Xiangguo camp in the rear.
There, he met Guan Yu, who looked like a heavenly being.
But at this time, Guan Yu seemed to be worried. Although his face was expressionless, that was how Liu Hui felt.
Yes, Guan Yu was indeed worried, and he was close to being anxious.
He had received military reports from the rear and knew that Yiyang had been lost at this time. Under the guidance of the local tycoon Liu Shi of Yiyang, Julu Guo Dian's army was marching quickly towards Handan.
There is the food platform for the army, where all the food and clothing of the army are. Once Handan is lost, the army will be in danger.
Originally, Guan Yu wanted to continue the siege, but it was foreseeable that the Taishan army might not be able to attack Xiangguo for a long time.
What about a strong attack? The casualties must be huge. Guan Yu has an elite field force of the Taishan Army in his hands. If it is lost in this unnecessary siege, then Xiangguo will not want it.
Just when Guan Yu was thinking about joining forces and withdrawing his troops, Liu Hui appeared.
Then a bold idea emerged.
……
Liu Hui met Jushou.
Jushou should have been lying down at this time, but in order to give the reinforcements messengers confidence, he still forced himself to change into leather clothes and met Liu Hui in the shogunate.
When they met for the first time, Liu Hui made a good impression on Jushou.
Although his clothes were stained with blood and his face was dirty, his heroic spirit still made Jushu sigh. After all, the children of the Han family were so lucky and so heroic.
Especially after learning that this person was able to break into the city from the tight siege of Taishan Army, his bravery and courage were truly extraordinary.
But after hearing Liu Hui introduce himself as the True King of Ding, Ju Shou's brows knitted together.
As an elite member of the Hebei gentry, Jushou naturally knew all about the secrets of the dynasty. It can be said that the Zhending King lineage is not loyal.
Jushu himself has no objection to the Zhending King lineage, and even has a little sympathy for others who harm their own kind. Because the reason why their Hebei faction declined so much in the country was due to the case of Zhending Wang Liu Yang and the subsequent case of King Chu.
When Guangwu conquered the world, the Hebei family made great efforts. However, under the intentional purges of the Henan faction, first King Zhending and his line were eliminated, then his niece Queen Guo was deposed, and finally the king of Chu who was the daughter of Queen Guo was imprisoned for treason. After that, there was Daxing Prison, where all the scholars from Hebei were arrested.
Since then, the Hebei faction has been in decline. It wasn't until Emperor Huan and the Western Emperor to the west were both from Hebei that they regained their momentum a little.
Therefore, Ju Shou does not reject the Zhending King lineage. After all, he is also from their Hebei sect. Even his good friend Shen Pei, a Hebei sect who is more fierce than him, will he appreciate him even more if he meets this person named Liu Hui?
But people will be people, things will be things. Although he had a good impression of Liu Hui, Jushou still became suspicious because of King Zhending, so he asked:
"Oh, as a reinforcement of Changshan Kingdom, can you send me a letter?"
Who knew that Liu Hui replied generously:
"There are no letters, only oral messages. Because Feng Guoxiang was worried that the letters would be intercepted by Taishan thieves and then scheme to make money for Xiangguo, so he asked me to replace them with oral messages. If I am captured, I only need to die."
Jushou listened to Liu Hui's words expressionlessly, and suddenly praised:
"After all, Prime Minister Feng is careful and knows that the letter is inappropriate. Then I ask you, since you don't have a letter, how can I trust you?"
Liu Gu, who was waiting beside him, heard what Jushou said and was about to step forward to answer, but was stopped by Jushou, who said:
"You can only prove that you are a descendant of the Zhending Liu family, but you cannot prove that you are the so-called reinforcement messenger."
Faced with Jushou's doubts, Liu Hui bowed calmly and said:
"There is the seal of King Changshan as proof."
After saying that, Liu Hui took out a golden talisman from his sleeve pocket and handed it to Jushou.
Jushou looked at it repeatedly. Although there were blood stains on the seal, it was indeed the seal of King Changshan. As for the blood stains, they should have been left by Liu Hui when he entered the city.
After touching the seal, Jushou asked again:
"The leader of your Changshan reinforcements this time is King Changshan?"
Liu Hui nodded.
But Jushou immediately scolded:
"It's nonsense. How can the King of Changshan have the right to command the army? According to the laws of the country, the princes and kings cannot build an army and go on expeditions without a central order. How can the King of Changshan dare to command the reinforcements to save me?"
Liu Hui didn't expect that Jushou would give him a trap, but his strong psychological quality still allowed him to calmly answer:
"Laws are dead, people are alive. This time the troops were sent with the unanimous consent of the Prime Minister and King Changshan, and then they were led by King Changshan from afar. This was to make up for the sin of King Changshan abandoning the country during the Yellow Turban Rebellion. In this way, Ju The Prime Minister still doesn’t believe it, so An Liu has no choice but to go out again.”
Jushou was silent, no one knew what he was thinking. After a long while, he asked:
"What is the message you sent?"
……
There was a silent confrontation inside the city, while the heavy rain outside the city became more and more majestic.
The rumbling thunders were louder and louder, lighting up the boundless darkness and illuminating the hearts of the Han army officials in Xiangguo.
At this time, the Han army officials on Xiangguo City were ecstatic in the heavy rain. They held the city head and stared at the slope outside the city.
They shouted:
"Collapse, collapse, collapse for Naigong."
Just as everyone was thinking, the soil slope outside the city really gradually collapsed in the heavy rain.
The earth mountain that took half a month to build turned into mud in a heavy rain. But fortunately, the Taishan Army Commander Archers on the slope had withdrawn because they were taking shelter from the rain, otherwise there would have been heavy casualties in this landslide.
Even so, the officials and servants in Xiangguo City couldn't help but be ecstatic, singing and dancing in the heavy rain. The two nightmares that shrouded them were finally separated.
Now, let’s see how the Taishan thieves attack the city!
Also at this time, no one noticed that Zhen Ku, a big grain merchant, slipped down from the city with his remaining thirteen disciples and went straight to the wall of his house.
(End of chapter)