Chapter 827 Jade
Zuo Fengyi, Liang Shanyuan.
After an encounter, Wang Chang led his men to defeat the rebels and successfully retreated to this land.
This place is very close to the Northern Shaanxi Plateau, and there are plains like this everywhere.
Now, Wang Chang rests on this atom with only more than 1,300 remaining pro-army troops.
The morale of the people was very low. They originally thought that this time they would be able to defeat the rebellion easily.
As the most elite troops of the Fenshui camp, they go to fight against those insurgents who don't even have the weapons. Isn't it enough that they have the skills?
But no one expected that the number of rioters would be so large and they would be so unafraid of death.
They won a few small battles at first, but were attacked by a group of rioters at night.
Can rioters attack at night? Can you believe this?
But it was such underestimation of the enemy that caused Wang Chang to suffer heavy losses.
After that, they retreated all the way, and finally repelled their pursuers east of Yaxian County, and then they retreated here in embarrassment.
At this time, while Wang Chang was resting, his soldiers were digging a pit to bury the body of Paoze they brought out.
Because of the hasty retreat, only the last group of brothers who died in the battle were brought out, and now they are lying in the dug pit.
Due to lack of tools, these Hedong soldiers were unable to dig each of their dead brothers into a pit. They could only dig ten corpses into one pit.
But just like that, the Hedong soldiers dug hard for a long time before digging forty-three large pits.
As Wang Chang's pro-soldiers, the feelings between these Hedong soldiers are very good. Seeing their former brothers sleeping in the tunnel, some sensitive ones have wet eyes.
Wang Chang was silent the whole time and seemed a little absent-minded, which made some Hedong soldiers who saw it feel uncomfortable.
Wang Chang felt it, but he didn't explain much, because in fact, it was his neglect that led to the death of so many brothers.
He cannot absolve himself of the blame for this.
It's just that the more this time came, the clearer Wang Chang's mind became. He reviewed the scene when the angels entered the camp that day, and the more he felt that something was wrong.
Sighing, what's the use of thinking so much?
At this moment, the general walked to Wang Chang and whispered:
"Brothers are ready."
Wang Chang nodded heavily, then stood up and walked to the grave, holding a wooden board in his hand.
He had just cut this piece of wood out one by one with a knife, and there was a word written on it in blood:
"Sad."
It's just a pity that I don't know whether this tragedy is the tragedy of officials or the great Han Dynasty.
Wang Chang inserted the wooden board into the soil and then personally performed the ceremony.
He took the water bag handed over by the general on the side and sprinkled the water on the loess. Seeing these brothers who lived and died with him sleeping here, Wang Changbei came out and cried loudly.
When he cried, all the troops cried, and the sound of crying filled the plains and drifted into the distance with the wind.
On the edges of these graves, these white flags are planted, which are soul-inducing flags.
The bodies of many Hedong soldiers could not be brought out. They were all broken into pieces by the mob, so the living people have the obligation to take their souls back from there.
At this time, Wang Changqing cried deeply and lamented:
"The soul is gone, the return is here! Sorry for my elders from Hedong!"
"The soul is gone, the return is here! Sorry for my elders from Hedong!"
"The soul is gone, the return is here! Sorry for my elders from Hedong!"
……
After chanting it three times, all the soldiers from the east of the river cried out in lamentation without stopping.
Wang Chang had cried to the ground until the general whispered "The time has come", and then Wang Chang gave up.
With the sound of "covering the earth", the loess covered the withered and pale corpse, which also gave the living some comfort.
That night, Wang Chang and the remaining Hedong soldiers stayed in Liangshanyuan.
In the middle of the night, several soldiers who had been sent to the Fenshui camp to ask for rescue troops came back. They brought Wang Chang news that made him spin:
"The Fenshui camp is empty, with only jade remaining on the thirty-six walls."
……
At the same time, at night, on the south bank of Fen River, under Yubi Pass.
Pan Zhang was listening to the camp commanders reporting to him the casualties of the afternoon attack on Yubi.
The more he listened, the angrier Pan Zhang became.
In front of several generals, he slapped the table and cursed:
"They are all rubbish. How could Nai Gong make progress on that day? He captured and killed seventy or eighty thousand people without killing so many people. Now he beats a small jade jade. Do you want to hear the number you reported? In total, there are less than four hundred people. This one You just lost four hundred people to me this afternoon?”
The more he talked about it, the angrier he became:
"Hot girl, the Han army inside the wall may not even have 400 people, and you are just messing around like this?"
The faces of several generals present were gloomy, especially the two brothers Lu Kuang and Lu Xiang, whose faces were even darker.
Pan Zhang's deputy general Deng Guang saw the expressions of the Lu brothers and changed his mind:
"Military leader, we have seen that jade in the daytime. It is really standing on a wall. All the armies fought very hard. Besides, attacking a city is helpless, and casualties are inevitable."
Originally, the first sentence Deng Guang said made Pan Zhang feel relieved, but after he said the second sentence, he immediately angered Pan Zhang. He completely ignored that Deng Guang was his old subordinate and directly cursed him. ：
"What kind of shameless words are you saying? If death is inevitable, you should die? Each of these brothers under me was born to my parents. They were raised to the age of eighteen and ate millet for eighteen years before they were sent to me. Pan Zhang’s hands. And then you let people die here?”
"Why, are your lives more valuable? But it's the brothers whose lives are cheap, who deserve to die?"
What Pan Zhang said was very unpleasant. Deng Guang was Pan Zhang's subordinate, so naturally he did not dare to reply.
But this angered Lu Xiang.
Who is Lu Xiang? When he was Dong Fan's subordinate, he didn't take Dong Fan seriously and directly contradicted him face to face. If Lu Kuang hadn't begged for mercy in the end, Lu Xiang would have been punished by Dong Fan that time.
Although Lu Xiang's temper improved a lot after that incident, no matter how good he was, he still couldn't stand Pan Zhang scolding him like this.
He completely ignored his brother's wink, took pictures of the case, pointed at Pan Zhang and cursed:
"What kind of thing are you Pan Zhang? You are worthy of me. When Nai Gong was serving as the king's soldier, you Pan Zhang was still a thief in the river? Now you are teaching us a lesson? Are you worthy?"
When Pan Zhang heard this, he became furious.
What he was most taboo about was his time as a river bandit. Although both he and Luo Gang had been cleared due to their repeated military exploits, he still could not tolerate anyone mentioning this to his face.
Not to mention that Lu Xiang is still relying on his old age in front of him.
He directly slapped the sword on his waist on the table and said sarcastically:
"When did our Taishan Army start talking about seniority? I just thought our Taishan Army recognized the sword in this hand? I, Pan Zhang, captured and killed 80,000 Kwantung soldiers with this sword. What did your Lu Xiang's sword kill?" Isn’t it just like your job, stuffed in a sheath and useless?”
Finally, Pan Zhang added:
"Eggless thing."
This sentence directly overwhelmed Lu Xiang's sanity. His eyes were red. He drew his knife and was about to chop at Pan Zhang. He cursed: "My lord, I will chop you down today!"
But several generals nearby had already taken precautions against this. With the help of Lu Kuang, they all restrained the crazy Lu Xiang.
Over there, Pan Zhang was still taunting Lu Xiang and talking trash.
As a result, the big tent became even more chaotic.
But at this moment, a voice came from outside the big tent and said angrily:
"What are you all doing? Are you all rebelling?"
Upon hearing this voice, Pan Zhang and Lu Xiang fell silent and returned to the mat together.
Then, the military curtain opened, and a middle-aged general was walking into the tent. He glanced at the generals, and then cursed:
"I just went to patrol the camp, and you did this?"
Then he stared at Pan Zhang and cursed:
"Pan Zhang, what are you doing? Can you, the general, do it? If you can't do it, then get back to the camp?"
Pan Zhang did not dare to reply, lowered his head and remained silent.
Just because the one who scolded them was Yang Mao, the Deputy Privy Councilor.
As the deputy who helped Zhang Chong establish Taishan Army regulations, Yang Mao had a transcendent reputation in the army.
Although he did not perform very well in the several battles before the decisive battle of Zhongrenting, which exposed his shortcomings of not being good at leading troops in combat.
However, Yang Mao was still reused by Zhang Chong and served as deputy chief of the Privy Council all year round, coordinating all military affairs.
Although Pan Zhang had made great achievements, he didn't dare to talk back to his boss's boss. Pan Zhang didn't dare, and Lu Xiang even less dared.
Yang Mao controlled the situation with a few words, then walked to the top and sat down.
This time he came to the Fenshui front line. In addition to passing on the king's attack orders, what was more important was to cooperate with Yu Jin on the south bank of the river.
Since it was forbidden to enter the pass from the direction of Tongguan, he led Pan Zhang and other three armies to cross the pass from Longmen and attack from both the top and bottom.
This requires an important person to be the central coordinator, and Yang Mao plays such a role.
After Yang Mao came to the Fenshui camp and read out the military order of the king's decision to attack, the mood of the generals was very high.
These generals have been holding back their thoughts for a long time. Because they stayed on the north bank of the Fen River, they missed the series of battles that followed. Seeing the friendly forces making more and more contributions, how could these people not be jealous?
Therefore, Pan Zhang prepared his army that day and led the Lu brothers across the river to defeat the enemy's Fenshui defense line.
But Pan Zhang and the others' full blow seemed to hit the cotton. Instead of waiting for the war, they saw empty dock walls one by one.
The Fenshui defense line, which had been operated by the Han army for a long time, was deserted within a few days.
Most of the military merits of the Taishan Army are graded according to the number of prisoners and kills. Now that the enemy camp walls have been completely withdrawn, how can the Taishan Army, which has been holding back for so long, endure it?
So after learning that there was still a group of Han troops who had not withdrawn from Yubi, they hurriedly surrounded Yubi, and then suffered a big loss here.
Three armies, a total of fifteen battalions, fought from noon to dusk. Each army took turns to attack, but in the end they still failed to capture the jade.
Why is Pan Zhang so angry? Did you say it so harshly? It's because this battle was so heated.
In fact, Yang Mao was also angry. After all, he was an envoy to the Privy Council, and it was difficult to get a front line. He encountered such a boring loss, and his face was not good-looking.
Not to mention, he just learned that Yu Jin from the south had successfully captured Tongguan and entered the pass earlier than him.
This time, I really lost face.
But when he just came back from patrolling the camp, he saw Pan Zhang and several generals swearing at each other, even going to the point of using a knife.
Now Yang Mao was no longer a matter of shamelessness, but he found that the army's arrogance had reached a point where it was difficult to control it.
Before, he didn't quite understand that the king was going to carry out purge activities at this stage, and he simply obeyed the king's orders.
But after arriving at the front line, especially the Taishan Army in Linfen Camp, they had never participated in the purge activities. Only then did Yang Mao begin to understand the king.
The arrogance of the army must be cured. He knew that Pan Zhang had a bit of a temper in the past, but back then even Xie Bi did not dare to contradict him. Now after winning the battle, he began to mock the army in front of all the generals. Zhongyuan?
He could understand Pan Zhang's change in mentality.
When it comes to fighting, whoever has good skills depends on his military exploits. If I have more military exploits, I know how to fight, and then I can give you guidance.
But what's Lu Xiang's mentality? Although his military exploits were not as good as Pan Zhang's, he did not think that he was inferior to Pan Zhang. He only thought that Pan Zhang had gotten lucky and seized the opportunity. If Lu Xiang had been replaced, he could do it.
So can Lu Xiang convince you, Pan Zhang?
These are just small aspects, something he, Yang Mao, saw, some things Yang Mao couldn't see. Maybe the internal fighting was more serious.
At this moment, Yang Mao sighed again:
"It's true that there are small difficulties and big worries. Now the Taishan Army family has grown, but the brothers don't seem to be as harmonious as they used to be."
This triggered another emotion from Yang Mao, that is, the king is still the king, and he is always wise and correct.
It seems that I will have to work harder to understand the king's meaning in the future. If I can't understand it for the time being, I will understand it through obedience.
Thinking of this, Yang Mao no longer wanted to teach the generals a lesson, and asked them to return to their camps and prepare to fight again tomorrow.
……
That same night, it was already the third watch.
Yubi's garrison general Wu Xi was taking a young military officer and several soldiers to the top of Yubi City to inspect the Hedong soldiers on the wall.
Wu Xi was previously a subordinate of Guo Si, and was later assigned to the Fenshui Camp as the Sima of the front camp.
But in fact, Wu Xi had been won over by the little emperor very early, which was regarded as a hidden line buried by the imperial party under Dong Zhuo.
On that day, the angels entered the Fenshui camp, and it was with the help of Wu Xi and several generals from the Emperor's clan that he successfully took control of the camp.
Not long after, the angel took more than 15,000 officials from the Fenshui camp on a boat from Suishui River, all the way down the river to Puban, and entered the customs there.
But Wu Xi stayed because he was appointed by the emperor as the guard general of the jade and was ordered to guard the jade.
Liu Xie was not an ignorant person. Of course he wanted to eradicate Dong Zhuo, but he also never wanted to let the Taishan Army take advantage of the situation. After learning about the danger of the jade bi, he asked the loyal and brave Wu Xi to stay.
He asked someone to leave a message for Wu Xi:
"I will never forget you Wu Xi, and the big man will never forget your Wu family."
Wu Xi understood and decided to live or die with Yubi.
At this time, stepping on the gravel, Wu Xi could see the tragic scene of being bombarded by the Taishan Army during the day.
There were rubbles smashed by stone bullets everywhere, as well as some broken limbs, which had not been cleaned up and were just buried under the gravel.
In order to prevent the enemy from attacking at night, the soldiers from Hedong slept directly on the wall. When they saw Wu Xi coming up, several guards stood up to say hello.
Wu Xi waved his hand and continued to patrol without talking to a few people.
The jade was not big, so Wu Xi soon finished walking. In a deserted place, a young military officer next to him finally couldn't help but said:
"I think this jade can't be defended anymore."
(End of chapter)