The weather was getting hotter and hotter, the willow branches were wilting, there was not a single wind, and those who were exposed to the sun soon sweated like pulp.
The cloudless sky seemed to have diluted the clouds because of the heat, and it was white, and the sun in the white expanse had no reflection, and it looked not much bigger than a piece of cake, but its fiery light was unscrupulously spewing scorching heat to the earth, and the power was beyond the reach of the monstrous fire.
There is a depression on the edge of the forest, surrounded by a circle of elm trees, which is a rare shade, and it has just rained here a few days ago, and the water on the ground looks very deep, because the trunk of the tree can still see the traces of being flooded, but now there is not a drop of water on the ground, and the cracked ground is like tiles, and the ground is warped up piece by piece.
There was a well on the edge of the forest, the mouth of the well was crowded with Khitan soldiers, buckets of water were easily lifted up by them, and the men and horses had been filled to their heart's content, and now they were washing their hair, faces, and horses with cold well water, and the ground around the wellhead was trampled into a piece of mud.
Under a pergola, Yang Fan carefully wrapped his thighs with strips of cloth, and looked at Fei Mo next to him.
Fei Mo's injury was very indecent, Yang Fan was hit by an arrow in the thigh, and the place where Fei Mo was hit by the arrow was his buttocks, he was very depressed lying on a half-new mat, and a big man had just bandaged his wound roughly.
Yang Yi glanced at him, and couldn't help but want to laugh, that big man is really not stingy, there are a few white stacked cloths copied from large families next to him, he used a white cloth to wrap Fei Mo's swarthy big ass tightly, Fei Mo doesn't have to wear a robe now and doesn't have to worry about "spring leakage", but looking at the posture wrapped in white cloth, Fei Mo is afraid that it will be more troublesome when he is urgent.
After the imperial court rejected the Khitans' request for peace, Li Quanzhong and Sun Wanrong led the army out of the mountains and fought in Hebei again.
They are still very good in the field, but they can't attack cities, it is difficult to capture slightly larger cities, and the grain and grass in small places cannot supply such a large army.
In desperation, Li Quanzhong had no choice but to divide the main force into many squads, and use their powerful mobility to raid everywhere and confiscate grain and grass.
Fortunately, since they played the slogan of "return my Luling, come to the king", they did not dare to do too much in order to win the hearts of the people.
There is little harassment for the poor people of small households, anyway, such people don't have much oil and water, but those big families have bad luck, grain, cloth, cattle and horses, and medicinal materials, and there is nothing they don't want.
But Li Qianzhong's team can't support the wall in the mud, and it is destined to be impossible to last long.
Although they cleverly chose a correct political slogan, they only took the initiative politically, which put a certain amount of pressure on the imperial court, but did not improve their situation.
They still have no base and no long-term strategic plan, and their behavior is still no different from that of the rogue.
It's just because they want to win the support of the people, they shouted the slogan of supporting Li Tang, and they don't do anything too much, and their destructive power is not so great compared to the rogues who devour everything like locusts crossing the border.
The Khitan people robbed their homes and houses, and after more than a month, the strategic prospects did not improve, but the connection with the Xi people became closer and closer, and the Xi people saw that the Khitan people were crisscrossing Hebei, and the court was helpless, and the former mighty lion in the east was indeed old, and finally agreed to cooperate with them.
When the Khitans first made contact with the Xi, it was still highly classified, but as the two sides contacted more frequently and the alliance was established, the news became public.
Li Qianzhong's disclosure of this news is also to cheer up the soldiers.
The territory of the Xi people borders the nomadic land inherent in the Khitan people, and they are originally closely connected with each other.
Over the years, the frontier policy and ethnic policy of the imperial court have not been done well, and the empress's mind has always been on the imperial court, on cutting off all opposition forces, inheriting the Wuzhou and Zhou dynasties, and neglecting the governance of the frontier.
The hereditary border generals of the border army also concurrently serve as the governance authority of the border government, collecting taxes and governing the border people.
They seized the opportunity to expropriate and extort violently, and carried out extortion of the various ethnic minorities in the border areas, so that the relations between the various ethnic groups in the border areas and the Wuzhou court became more and more tense.
The Xi people decided to ally with the Khitans this time, in fact, they had no political proposition, they had no ambition to expand their territory, let alone a delusional attempt to overthrow the imperial court, and after the alliance with the Khitans, they did not put forward any political goals, they were purely fighting for the sake of war, which was a general outbreak of years of resentment.
At this time, the army of Jian'an Wang Wu Biyi finally arrived.
Wu Zetian accepted Di Renjie's conditions, and on the second day of his private visit to Di's mansion, she issued an order, Luantai Shilang, Tongfeng Pavilion Luantai Pingzhangshi Di Renjie and Yinqing Guanglu Doctor, and accepted the words, promoted to the chief writer of the political affairs platform, gave him a purple robe and a turtle belt, and personally wrote on the purple robe for him "Applying the political wood, keeping the Qing diligence, promoting the position, and encouraging the ministers" Twelve golden characters as an encouragement.
At the same time, according to Di Renjie's request, she appointed the crown prince Li Dan as the generalissimo and Di Renjie as the deputy marshal to recruit troops to conquer the Turks.
Of course, Wu Zetian can't really let the prince out to be the generalissimo, what if the prince has soldiers and horses in his hands and waves his army to counterattack the capital The generalissimo of the crown prince is just a fictitious position, and Di Renjie acts as the deputy marshal for the marshal, but despite this, this move has been approved by the princelings.
The princelings also knew that things could not be done overnight, and it was enough to use this incident to expand the prestige and influence of the prince.
As a result, Wei Yuanzhong, Yao Chong and other princely ministers switched from non-violent non-cooperation to fully cooperate with Di Renjie's actions, and raised the banner of the prince to recruit troops.
The remnants of the Li Tang royal family, such as the princelings, the Luling party, and the Taiping party, coupled with the full cooperation of the major wealthy families, turned the previous resistance into the biggest driving force, and they quickly recruited a large army and prepared enough food and grass.
With just the name of a prince, he has such great power, and he will be supported by so many people Wu Zetian did not know the operation of those hidden forces in it, and when he saw this result, he was only secretly frightened, and his firm idea of inheriting the country to the descendants of the Wu clan slowly wavered.
She didn't want to die second, she thought that as the only female emperor in history, she was a great emperor enough to be compared to Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wen of Sui.
However, she didn't want to follow in the footsteps of Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wen of Sui, if the heir she chose was so unpopular, don't say that her empire could not be inherited, I am afraid that her grave would not be preserved, so that it would be difficult for her to be at peace after death.
This incident shook Wu Zetian's determination, and she began to re-plan her vision for the future of the empire.
As the new chief prime minister of the Wuzhou Empire, she personally performed for Di Renjie, leading a large army to the Western Regions, joining the Helongbian army, and launching a counterattack against the Turkic Khan Mosi.
Because of the emperor's concessions on the northern road, the political goal has been achieved, and it is impossible for the domestic anti-military forces to let the Khitans sit in the north and cause greater harm to the imperial court, so Wu Biyi's army finally gathered enough numbers and began to rush to the Hebei battlefield.
It's just that in the Northern Route Army, there are a large number of prisoners and slaves, these people may be brave in battle, but the military discipline is really too poor, stealing chickens and dogs, taking the lead in military exploits, raping women and other things emerge in an endless stream, compared to the harm caused by the Khitan people to the local people, they are not far behind.
After Wu Yi led the army to Hebei, because of the previous 160,000 troops annihilated, he was extremely afraid of the Khitan combat power, and then there was news that King Xi sent troops to join forces with the Khitan, so he adopted a conservative confrontation strategy, and he concentrated the main force on the line of Yuyang and Youzhou, and resisted the Xi people in the north and the Khitan in the south.
Of course, the Khitans will not be stupid enough to take the initiative to find a decisive battle, they still attack the Quartet, but they have avoided the location of the heavy troops of Wuyouyi, and the two sides have not entered the confrontation stage, and the Khitans continue to plague Hebei, and the imperial court soldiers and horses are as stable as Mount Tai, and more than 100,000 troops are stationed in Hebei, and the consumption of money and food is like flowing water.
The Khitans did not dare to attack the cities with heavy troops, so they could only sweep some small villages and towns, and there was nothing to copy if the villages and towns that had been swept away, and gradually the supply of grain and grass was seriously insufficient.
In desperation, Li Quanzhong and Sun Wanrong had to fight Lu Long's idea again.
Lulong City is an important city, and there are few other cities around it that can be garrisoned to help defend it, so it is the best target to choose from, and if you can conquer this city, the supply problem can be solved immediately.
Wu Yi didn't dare to sit idly by and watch such an important city fall, so he immediately sent heavy troops to help after breaking through the news.
The Khitans attacked Lulongbuke, and the imperial reinforcements had arrived, so they reused their old tricks and used the mobility advantage of the cavalry to attack Danzhou day and night.
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However, they have already played this trick once, how can the Zhou army be fooled, the city of Danzhou is thick and thick, as long as there is a defense, it is simply wishful thinking for the Khitan cavalry to capture it.
The Khitans were helpless, and they could not flee back to the mountains immediately due to lack of food and grass, so they had to wander around.
Now they have conquered Feizhou and the surrounding villages and towns, and Feizhou is the famous Zhuolu in history.
This place is in the middle of the various cities garrisoned by the Zhou army, and all along, the Khitans are worried that they will be surrounded by the Zhou army when they attack here, so they dare not make a rash offense, but they are in urgent need of food and grass supplements, and secondly, after such a period of confrontation, they are also clear about Wu Zuoyi's strategy, and it is expected that Wu Biyi will not dare to take the initiative to fight, so they boldly launched an attack on Zhuolu.
Zhuolu north originally had a Zhou army of about 3,000 people to defend the city, and there were about 2,000 regimental training soldiers in the city, although the city wall was not high, and the casualties were not small to capture, so at first the Khitans wanted to use the captured Zhou generals as meat shields to easily take Zhuolu.
Unexpectedly, they escorted the captured Zhou generals to the front of the city, and the Zhou army in the city actually shot arrows in unison, shooting the Zhou generals who were used as meat shields together, and the captives and the Khitans who were holding the captives to attack the city were shot into hedgehogs.
Yang Fan is also a meat shield, fortunately, he has quick eyes and hands, and as soon as Zhou Jun raised his bow and arrows, he saw that the situation was not good, and rolled to a slightly undulating mound next to him, and at the same time kicked Fei Mo down.
In the end, only these two people survived and crawled to the ground.
As early as when the imperial court refused to negotiate peace, Zhang Xuanyu and Ma Renjie, the two main generals, were vented their anger by Li Quanzhong, if it weren't for Sun Wanrong's timely stopping, saying that these generals were still useful, and the other dozen or so captive generals were also dead.
Sun Wanrong's idea at that time was to use these captives as meat shields, but he was completely wrong.
The Tang people did not have a tradition of compromising because of hostages, and if someone took hostages, the government always did not care about the life or death of the hostages, and would rather kill them together decisively than compromise with the criminals.
Although it is now in the army, it is not an ordinary criminal case, but Zhou Jun will not be afraid of them and wait for death.
Yang Fan was forced to save Fei Mo, only one of the Khitan people had a good impression of him, if Fei Mo died, even if he escaped the crossbow arrows of the Zhou army, he would have to be killed by the angry Khitans, and Fei Mo was his umbrella.
The slogan of "return my Luling, Xiangwang come" is a fulcrum, and the Khitan army and the various anti-military forces in the court are the two ends of the crowbar, Yang Fan used this crowbar to easily change the political situation that Wu Zetian had painstakingly managed since he ascended the throne, but he was always helpless about his own situation.
Fortunately, this meat shield incident has slightly improved his situation, because Yang Fan has always shown his attitude towards the Wuzhou court, coupled with his life-saving grace to the Khitan generals this time, the Khitan people no longer have too much hostility towards him, in addition to still restricting his freedom, they have completely regarded him as their own.
Yang Fan's hope of escaping the enemy camp has been greatly increased, but he still needs a chance, now that he is in the center of a heavy Khitan, it is still a wishful thinking to escape, and he has been wounded by an arrow in the leg, which makes it even more difficult to take action at this time.
Fei Mo struggled to get up, but he couldn't move after struggling for a long time, and couldn't help but scolded angrily: "How the hell do you bandage Lao Tzu's legs are not separated" Yang Fan said: "It's really difficult for him to let the big man embroider."
You lie on your stomach and don't move, I'll come."
He supported the ground with both hands, dragged his injured leg, and just got closer to Fei Mo, thinking about how to untie the twisted knot on his buttocks, several Khitan soldiers escorted a group of well-dressed people over, and a Khitan soldier in front of him hugged his fist to Fei Mo and said: "General Fei, the gentry of this town have been brought" Li Qianzhong and Sun Wanrong had already entered Zhuolu City, Fei Mo was injured during the siege of the city, so he was withdrawn at that time and stayed in this town that had been occupied.
Their only purpose in attacking Zhuolu was to resupply, and of course this town would not let it go.
The intimidation of the gentry in the concentrated town was the experience accumulated by the Khitans after several months of plundering, and some landlords' grain was hidden in great secrets, and it was time-consuming and laborious to rummage through it themselves.
As soon as he saw the gentry coming, Fei Mo temporarily stopped Yang Fan's movements, sat up on his knees with great effort, and didn't care that the "snow-white" big butt was still exposed, so he pretended to be fierce and ready to start intimidating.
Yang Fan didn't care about these gentry, he just glanced at them casually, so he didn't see a single person among the gentry, and when he saw him, a strange and surprised look suddenly appeared in his eyes
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