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Chapter 254 A Careless Move(1/2)

Chapter 254 An accidental move

On October 15th, the Yueyang Tower on the west wall of Yuezhou.

Song Baolai, Zhao Lanyue and Gao Lei were standing in this famous building with "elegant interest", overlooking the vast Dongting Lake below. The table behind them was filled with wine and food.

However, except for Zhao Lanyue who looked around with interest, Song Baolai and Gao Lei only stared worriedly at a fleet near Junshan in the distance and remained silent.

Hu Zhongshan's wife Yang Xiuqin, who was accompanying him, and Qian Ying, who was dragged in for no apparent reason, also looked sad.

Shi Lei, the deputy director of the left-behind education office who also participated in the escort, remained expressionless as usual, and no one knew what he was thinking.

Looking back at the listless expressions of everyone, Zhao Lanyue said helplessly: "Shouldn't you be happier? This is the famous Yueyang Tower! The Yueyang Tower has been rebuilt countless times. I heard that this one was only built the year before last! And I heard that this one was rebuilt many times.

It’s the most beautiful thing ever created, and I won’t be able to see it again.”

Yueyang Tower, like the Yellow Crane Tower, has gone through countless reconstructions. In the 12th year of Chongzhen (1639), the Yueyang Tower, which had just been rebuilt for 24 years, was destroyed by fire. The following year, the Yuezhou Prefecture promoted Tao Zongkong to rebuild the Yueyang Tower, and on the left side of the building

The later famous "Xianmei Hall" was built for the first time, but the subsequent historical Yueyang Tower was repeatedly damaged and rebuilt.

The tour to Yueyang Tower was initiated by Zhao Lanyue, and these people were all attracted by her one by one.

"We are all in the building now, no need to pretend! There are no outsiders here, and no one else can see it." Song Baolai complained helplessly.

They had no problem with Li Ping's raid on Yuezhou, but then they had a strong objection when he headed straight for Changsha without stopping.

It should be said that except for Zhao Lanyue, everyone is opposed to it and is not optimistic about it.

In particular, Li Ping also took away most of the troops, resulting in less than a thousand regular troops in the city. The other regular troops were the small naval battalion commanded by Yan Ming on the lake near Junshan in the distance.

.

But even if we don't consider that the enemy in large numbers may send troops to bypass the army led by Li Ping to sneak attack or even attack by force, the five or six thousand new prisoners in the city and the more than 2,000 prisoners from Mianyang and Hanchuan brought by them will also

It's enough to make someone's head grow bigger.

The main reason why they took the prisoners from Mianyang and Hanchuan was to relieve Zhang Kuang's pressure.

Mianyang and Hanchuan were not abandoned. Zhang Kuang, the former magistrate of Mianyang, stayed with Yuan Jixian's bodyguard and the newly recruited Minzhuang.

In order to ensure the safety of Yuezhou City, almost all the men, women, and children in the support camp had to be armed to participate in defending the city and guarding the prisoners.

Who can not worry about this?

Of course, in order to cheer up the restless subordinates in the city, they, the so-called leaders, have to pretend to be relaxed, and they also understand.

But there is no need to organize a group tour of Yueyang Tower at this time! Moreover, Shi Lei, who is responsible for controlling the prisoners, has also been invited.

Who can be in a mood? How can they be at ease?

And now there are no outsiders in the building, so why bother pretending?

Zhao Lanyue sighed and said, "You have to believe Li Ping, he is not a reckless person."

"But I just can't figure out why we have to take such a risk? If an accident happens, we will not only go back to before liberation, but it's hard to say whether we are alive or not!" Song Baolai once again expressed his opinion.

Another new word from Song Baolai made Shi Lei look over in surprise, but his expression immediately returned to normal.

Shi Lei has long been accustomed to some things. Regardless of whether he can understand the meaning of the new words that always pop up suddenly, he knows that it is best to go in with one ear and out with the other.

"If you don't have long-term worries, you will have immediate worries! We may seem to be prosperous now, but the future is actually extremely dangerous. Sometimes we have to take a risk. We can't be greedy for the status quo and not think about making progress just after we feel more stable.

In this regard, Li Ping thinks a lot and thinks far ahead. We must believe in him, support him, and be a good backer.

If he misses, then it's a miss! At least we tried hard, and we won't regret not doing our best in the future." Zhao Lanyue said seriously.

At this time, Gao Lei, who had been looking at the lake in the distance, finally turned his head, smiled bitterly and continued: "This is the truth! But when you really face it, it will always be different. Lan Yue, you are still free and easy.

, no wonder he feels so relaxed when he is with you."

"Um?"

Song Baolai looked at Gao Lei in surprise, and then looked at Zhao Lanyue.

When he noticed Zhao Lanyue's rare stiff expression, he was stunned.



While Song Baolai, Zhao Lanyue and others were visiting Yueyang Tower, Li Ping was riding a horse on a small highland more than ten miles northeast of Xiangyin County and looking southward.

Xiangyin County is located on the east bank of the Xiangjiang River 200 miles south of Yuezhou, and about 100 miles away from Changsha. The white water flowing from east to west merges into the north-south Xiangjiang River in the south of the city.

At this time, a huge army with flags covering the sky and the sun was crossing the white water in a chaotic manner with a width of more than ten miles.

That was Zhang Xianzhong coming to meet Li Ping's army.

The two sides could meet here only because Li Ping didn't walk very fast along the way, and he stopped completely 30 miles away from Baishui yesterday.

Li Ping never planned to cross the White Water, nor did he plan to attack Xiangyin County.

He came to persecute Zhang Xianzhong, not to commit suicide.

Seeing the chaotic but very cautious army crossing the river in the distance, everyone who followed Li Ping to observe changed their expressions.

Baishui can be said to be big or small, but it can be said to be small or small. At least there is no problem in drowning people.

Therefore, Li Ping's reconnaissance force did not cross the white water to extend the reconnaissance line farther. As a result, they naturally failed to detect the approach of this huge army in time.

Although it is impossible to estimate the number of enemy troops, just looking at the formation in front of us, we can know that the enemy troops are conservatively at more than 50,000, and may even be unable to defeat 70,000 or 80,000.

This far exceeded their expectations.

"Our goal has been achieved. We should withdraw our troops immediately while the enemy is crossing the river and abandon all baggage as much as possible, otherwise we may not be able to leave." Operations Section Chief Lu Liang urgently suggested to Li Ping.

Lu Liang didn't quite understand why Li Ping came to take a look with his own eyes after receiving the news from the reconnaissance troops. He didn't think it was necessary. He believed that the reconnaissance troops would not exaggerate or make mistakes on this issue.

The enemy's army is so huge that it will definitely be impossible to fight!

On their way back to Yuezhou, they still had to cross several rivers. The sooner they made up their minds, the more likely they would be able to escape.

Otherwise it’s really easy to get stuck.

Yes, their main purpose has been achieved and they should no longer get hung up on the minutiae.

After all, no one is God, and accidents are always inevitable.

According to what Li Ping told them, Li Zicheng's main force had already moved northward, and it no longer made much sense to continue to make small fuss behind others, and it was beyond their reach.

It would be better to follow the military orders of the new Governor Lu Daqi and attack Zhang Xianzhong, who is rapidly growing in power.

For this reason, Li Ping decided to surprise Yuezhou first.

According to Li Ping's judgment, as long as the raid on Yuezhou is successful, Zuo Liangyu will definitely take action based on various considerations, at least to take advantage of it.

And as Li Ping's entire army continues to attack decisively and quickly southward, and attempts to completely expel Zhang Xianzhong from Dongting Lake and seal him out of the Huguang Plain (Two Lakes Basin), it will cause Zhang Xianzhong's official disarray in the entire Huguang.

The army has made up its mind to come south to deal with his illusion while he is dividing his troops to attack everywhere.

Otherwise, from Zhang Xianzhong's point of view, there was no reason for Li Ping to continue to gather his main force and quickly move south to defeat the enemy with a small number after the successful sneak attack.

Since Yuanzhou, the gateway to Jiangxi, was stuck on a road surrounded by mountains and ridges, it was difficult to defend and difficult to attack. In addition, with Zhao Jin present, Li Ping believed that Zhang Xianzhong's troops attacking Jiangxi were unlikely to succeed.

And even if you gather a large army and good generals, it will be difficult to achieve a breakthrough in a short time.

If Zhang Xianzhong did not want to be trapped in Changsha and Hengzhou surrounded by mountains and be beaten passively, and if he did not want to continue to develop southward and enter the Nanling Mountains where northerners are likely to be severely acclimatized, he would have taken the path that historically only armed forces at the end of the road would take.

road.

It is very likely that he will gather his troops to go north to meet the government troops moving south, and try his best to recapture Yuezhou, which is stuck at the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Xiangjiang River.

At the same time, this is also in line with Zhang Xianzhong's character and past bandit habits.

Zhang Xianzhong is sitting in Changsha, which has access to Jiangxi to the east and Dongting Lake to the north, rather than Hengzhou further south. This shows that he may not be very interested in the southward strategy, and he does not like to have no choice and be trapped.

live.

In this way, Li Ping can rely on Yuezhou to slowly consume Zhang Xianzhong and look for opportunities to inflict serious damage like he did in Daye County.

This is Li Ping's plan.

A plan that lies only a small part but still looks real and believable.

The only thing Li Ping didn't tell anyone was that he had plans to give up Yuezhou later to give Zhang Xianzhong access to the Yangtze River.

Although many people have expressed doubts and even doubts about this plan, the main reason is that this game of chess is too big and has too many variables!

But no one objected.

They have become accustomed to Li Ping's decisive and unexpected decisions on key strategic issues.

Moreover, the subsequent development of events generally confirmed Li Ping's correctness.

Li Ping personally led a thousand elite soldiers drawn from the entire army. Not only did they successfully rush to Yuezhou in a long-distance secret, but the Yuezhou Peasant Army defenders, who were seriously unprepared, also allowed them to easily pass through the outer layer.

The defense line reached right under the city wall.

Even when they began to directly climb the city, the peasant army guarding Yuezhou was still in a state of confusion. It took a long time to react, and it was impossible to counterattack.

As a result, Li Ping and his troops easily climbed into the city, and then defeated the unorganized and frightened peasant army, and captured most of them in a manner of catching turtles in a jar.

This is a very typical Zhang Xianzhong style of surprise attack.

Later, when they informed Zuo Liangyu about the capture of Yuezhou, Zuo Liangyu quickly sent troops south as Li Ping expected.

And according to the latest report, Zuo Liangyu has occupied Jiayu and Puqi counties, which were abandoned by the peasant army, and his troops have reached Linxiang County, 60 miles northeast of Yuezhou.
To be continued...
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