The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 993
It took three days for the North Road army led by Yang Tong to cross the Jianshui due to the large number of siege equipment and food supplies. When he was ready, he ordered Mai Zhongcai, who was resting in Wanchun County, to lead an army of 15 soldiers to attack Chengdu. Xicheng; order Su Dingfang, Cheng Yaojin, and Huang Junhan to attack Chengdu Dongcheng.At the same time, Shen Guang, Li Jing, Xue Wanjun, Yang Yichen and other southern troops were ordered to surround the southern part of Chengdu from south to north.He personally led an army of [-] to the south along the official road, marching towards Chengdu City in mighty force.

Between Xingle County and Chengdu City is the Wudan Mountain Camp, where the Tang army deployed [-] troops, and the commander was Deputy Luo Jun who had retreated from Wanchun County.

Deputy Luo Jun is also a person who has been with Li Shimin for several years. He is brave and good at fighting, and he is a rare general in the Li Tang Dynasty. Sent here to sit in town, hoping that he can buy himself time to deploy Chengdu's defense.

Deputy Luo Jun knew the news that Yang Tong led the army to go south. The Sui army vanguard was Luo Shixin, a fierce general of the Sui Dynasty, and his deputy Xue Wanche led [-] elite soldiers to kill Wu Wo.

The Sui army came to attack in a big way, which increased the pressure on Mr. Luo. He knew very well that his demoralized army could not hold back more than [-] elite soldiers of the Sui army. Rather than being crushed into powder by the Sui army, it is better to take the risk. .If he killed Yang Tong here, the Tang Dynasty would have more opportunities.

Discussing with Deputy General Qiu Yingqi, the two immediately led an army of [-] to leave the camp, detour from the northeast to the only way the Sui army must pass, and then lay in ambush in a pine forest full of dense pine trees.This is the remnant of Wudan Mountain, the terrain is very flat, not a dangerous place, but just because it is not dangerous, it is easy for people to ignore its value.

When their emergency deployment was completed, night had already quietly fallen, and a group of Sui troops finally appeared, and the Sui cavalry with bright armor and armor walked past the Tang army's ambush with murderous intent.

Perhaps it was the general situation at hand, and it was unexpected that the Tang army would dare to take the initiative to attack, so the passing Sui army did not have the slightest intention to be on guard against the murderous intention in the forest, and even the scouts did not expand the search area.

Qiu Yingqi asked in a low voice: "General Luo, when did Yang Tong show up?"

"Wait patiently! Just look at his king's flag, and he should appear." Deputy Luo Jun glanced at the sky, and said, "Let the soldiers hurry up and rest, and kill Yang Tong in this battle."

Qiu Yingqi asked again: "But the sky is dark, how can you distinguish Yang Tong's Wang Qi?"

"When the female soldiers of the Sui Army appear, it must be where Yang Tong is." Deputy Luo Jun didn't know how to tell the difference, but he knew that Yang Tong's imperial guards had a rather fierce female soldier besides the Xuanjia Army. , Their armor is bright and beautiful, which is completely different from the Xuanjia that is popular in the whole army.

"I see." After Qiu Yingqi finished speaking, she went to make arrangements.

The Sui army walked under the eyes of the Tang army's ambush for an hour, and the team suddenly stopped, and there was no more army following behind. Deputy Luo Jun waited for a while, but still did not see the army. Deputy Luo Jun felt bad, thinking that he was ambushing No, instead he was surrounded by the Sui army. After thinking this through, he hastily ordered: "Send the order and withdraw the troops to the east immediately!"

But it was too late, when his personal soldiers were about to issue the military order, the sound of killing behind him was loud, and drums were beating loudly from front, back, left, and right, and an unknown number of Sui troops surrounded them.

"The whole army breaks through the encirclement to the east!" Deputy Luo Jun roared, and led the army to break through the encirclement eastward with spears in hand, but they were already surrounded by the Sui army regiments, and the soldiers of the Tang army fell in pieces under the dense arrow rain. The wails and cries of the soldiers of the Tang Army resounded everywhere. Deputy Luo Jun and Qiu Yingqi, who were in the lead, were caught off guard, shot several arrows in the chest and shoulders, and turned over and fell off their horses with a loud cry.

At this time, the torch was already lit outside the forest, and a majestic and heroic voice sounded, "I am Wei Chigong, the Great General of Sui Youweiwei, and I am ordered by the Holy Majesty to tell you: Those who surrender will not be killed, and those who resist in the corner will be killed without mercy. "

Yu Chigong and his soldiers yelled three times in a row, the soldiers of the Sui Army stopped shooting arrows, and the surviving soldiers of the Tang Army fell into a siege. The eagerness made the soldiers of the Tang army throw away their weapons one after another, and walked towards the woods in groups.

Yang Tong also came to the ambush under the escort of the Xuanjia Army. When he saw groups of Tang Army soldiers being escorted out in a panic, he couldn't help laughing out loud.

Li Shimin now only has the Tang army in Wudan Mountain at the forefront. How could the Sui army's scouts not stare at them?

Although this deputy Luo Jun is very courageous, but his experience is too poor, he doesn't seem to know how to ambush, he pulled out the army in broad daylight, and started ambush even a hundred steps away from the official road, even if the Sui army didn't Staring at his camp, he will also deploy patrols along the way. How can he ambush people?

At this time, several soldiers of the Sui army came out carrying two stretchers. On the stretchers were Deputy Luo Jun and Qiu Yingqi. Qiu Yingqi was dead, and Deputy Luo Jun had eight arrows in his body, and the fatal arrow hit him. Left chest, although he is still alive, but he obviously can't survive.

Yang Tong stepped forward and stared at him for a long while, and said, "You are commendable for your loyalty and courage, but now the pseudo-Tang gods are hard to save, how can you stop them? Go at ease, I will bury you honorably."

A loyal person would rather die than surrender. Although it sounds a bit stupid to say it, it is precisely because of the existence of these "stupid" people that the word "loyalty" and the spirit of loyalty are spread. enemies, but Yang Tong is unwilling to humiliate these people.

Deputy Luo's lips moved, but finally died.

"Contain the corpses of the two generals and bury them generously in Wudan Mountain."

"Here!"

……

Yang Tong arranged for Liu Gang to take over the captives, and Yang Tong led the army to continue southward.Today's Wudanshan camp has lost [-] troops, and there are only [-] soldiers left in the camp.These soldiers were defeated and retreated from various battlefields. Regardless of their combat effectiveness, their will to fight alone is worrying. When the news of Luo Junfu and Qiu Yingqi's defeat and death came, the soldiers panicked.

They were bewitched before, saying that every time the Sui army broke through a battalion or a city, they would slaughter the camp and the city, so they worried that they would be bloodbathed by the Sui army, and that's why they survived until now, otherwise, they would have surrendered long ago.

In the early morning of the next day, when the soldiers in the camp were panicking, Luo Shixin and Xue Wanche had already led the former army to the outside of the camp. Luo Shixin neither attacked the city nor set up a camp, but came with a group of personal soldiers on horseback. Outside the camp, he said loudly, "I am Luo Shixin, the great general of Sui Zuowuwei, and I was ordered to persuade you to surrender."

"Don't listen to his nonsense." Jing Junhong, who was guarding the camp, ordered to shoot Luo Shixin with an arrow.

"Wait a minute." A general stopped Jing Junhong with his hand, and said with a frown, "We have reached this point now, if we don't surrender, we will die. General Jing wants to put thousands of soldiers to death?"

This person was Zhang Zhen, the son of Zhang Shigui. After deciding to surrender that day, Li Daliang came forward to arrest Zhang Shigui, but he fled back to Chengdu by "killing a bloody path". Not only was he not punished, he was promoted to an official position , After he arranged his relatives to take refuge in a private house in the city, he was ordered by Li Shimin to serve as a guard here, but Li Shimin then sent the defeated Luo Jun over, so his position of guard was quickly lost.At this time, his relatives were safe, and he didn't want to hide it anymore.

"General Zhang wants to turn against Tang, can't he?" Jing Junhong said angrily.

"It's not that I want to oppose the Tang Dynasty, it's that we can't beat the Sui army at all, and I'm responsible for the lives of my brothers." Seeing that the soldiers showed their approval, Zhang Zhen continued: "Let's listen to what the other side has to say first?"

Ignoring Jing Junhong at the moment, he went straight to the front of the barracks, and said in a loud voice: "My next Zhang Zhen, I have seen General Luo!"

"General Zhang is polite." Luo Shixin sat on the horse and nodded slightly. He knew that Zhang Zhen was one of his own, but he wanted to hear what he had to say.

"I have a question. I wonder if General Luo can answer it?" Zhang Zhen looked at Luo Shixin and asked in a deep voice.

"Please speak." Luo Shixin nodded.

Zhang Zhen said: "Before we heard that the Sui army passed by and there was no grass growing. If we surrendered to the Great Sui Dynasty, would you kill them?"

"Our army slaughtered soldiers of a foreign race, not the same race." Luo Shixin understood Zhang Zhen immediately, and said in cooperation: "We were originally citizens of the Sui Dynasty. If Li Yuan had not conspired against us, we would not have fought each other. Now that the Puppet Tang Dynasty has fallen Immediately, the Holy Majesty will only pursue the bandit leaders such as Li Shimin, not you ordinary soldiers who are forced to follow the thieves. As long as you abandon your weapons and surrender, the Holy Majesty will let you go, and the officials will also register you. For you, if you resist stubbornly, there is only one way to die. Of course, a traitor like Jing Junhong, who helps the evil and abuses the Lord, is definitely not included in the pardon, as long as you take him down, the Holy Majesty will reward you."

"Oh?" Zhang Zhen heard the words and turned to look at Jing Junhong who was beside him. Not only him, but also the eyes of the surrounding soldiers were full of malicious looks.

"Soldiers, don't listen to his nonsense!" Jing Junhong took a few steps back with his complexion changed, and hissed, "This is Luo Shixin's plan to alienate people, everyone should not believe it!"

"Hmph!" Zhang Zhen snorted coldly and said, "The Sui Dynasty's hundreds of thousands of troops will soon kill outside the city of Chengdu, and our Tang Dynasty will be destroyed soon; for the sake of our [-] soldiers, please, General Jing, end it on your own!"

"You..." Jing Junhong said angrily, "Even if I die, do you think Luo Shixin will let you go?"

"There are only 3000 people in our camp, and the military camp is not a fortified city. As long as Luo Shixin is willing, our army camp can be broken. So Luo Shixin doesn't have to lie to us at all." Seeing that the soldiers had been encouraged by him, Zhang Zhen continued Said: "Everyone, don't forget the storm on the day of the Double Ninth Festival. What was that? Heaven and earth will not tolerate Li Shimin. We are all good men who stand up to the sky. Serve to death, otherwise, heaven and earth will not tolerate it, and our underground ancestors will be ashamed."

"Stop talking nonsense with him, let's do it!" A captain snorted coldly, and rushed towards Jing Junhong with everyone.

"I betrayed the sage (Li Yuan), and I was betrayed by you today, retribution." Jing Junhong watched the crowd pressing towards him, drew his sword in his hand, and said with a sad smile: "I won't bother you."

After speaking, he wiped the sword on his neck, and then the blood gushed out, and he fell to the ground, dying of breath.

Zhang Zhen took a look at Jing Junhong's body, waved his hand and said, "Open the gate of the camp, everyone put down their weapons, please come out of the camp."

"Here." Everyone responded with a bang, and the weapons of "Ding Ding Dang Dang" were thrown all over the ground.

The fall of the Wudan Mountain Camp also meant that the north gate of Chengdu City was officially opened. One day later, Yang Tong led an army of 15 soldiers to the city of Chengdu, and set up a camp on the south bank of Qingbaishui; in order to avoid being attacked by these Tang troops, Yang Tong First, according to the drawings drawn by the soldiers of the Black Ice Terrace, [-] elite cavalry were sent to various places to take charge of pulling out the secret strongholds Li Shimin had placed outside the city; Outside the city of Chengdu, closely monitor the movement in the city.

. . . . .

There are thirteen city gates in Chengdu City. Due to the abnormal weather on the Double Ninth Festival, a large number of soldiers and civilians fled. Therefore, Li Shimin asked Ma Sanma to close the gates. Only the Zhengnan Gate was left to pass through the whole city. But now soldiers are approaching the city. The door is closed.

The city of Chengdu, which is big enough to accommodate a million people, is in a depression. The shops in the city have been closed as early as the day of the Double Ninth Festival, and every family is closed. The streets are deserted. Pedestrians are rarely seen walking during the day.

After Li Shimin ascended the throne, in order to create an illusion of festive self-deception, he did not order martial law in the city, but also withdrew most of the patrolling soldiers to the barracks in the city to participate in the preparations for the war.At the same time, measures such as tax exemptions were used to encourage businesses to open their doors and encourage people to go to the streets. The doors of each square were not closed day and night, and people in each square were allowed to come in and out at will.However, Li Shimin's various measures are destined to fail in this extraordinary period. Except for the day when he was enthroned, the common people were escorted out by the army, and they hid at home for the next few days.

A restaurant named Taishan in West Market was opened by Jiang Zhen, and it is also one of the ten restaurants still operating in the city.It's just that even if things are rare, the business of Taishan Restaurant is still very deserted. There are basically no customers in the elegant room on the third floor, only a dozen old customers drinking and chatting in the lobby on the first and second floors.

"Zhao Xiangguo and Yuwen Xiangguo are really miserable! How long have they become Xiangguo? They ended up with a full family of robbers. I heard that more than a dozen ministers were implicated. I don't know what kind of hatred they have with the one above them? "

A drinker next to him said: "I heard people say that Zhao Cijing and Yu Wenshi planned to abandon their official positions, but that person got the news of their escape, so these two Prime Ministers were exterminated."

"This dilapidated ship will sink immediately. Who wants to drown with it? And once the ship sinks, the people in high positions will be the first to suffer. It's no wonder that these two prime ministers want to flee." An old man with white beard and hair said: "However, for the high-ranking person, these two prime ministers are the people he trusts the most, otherwise he would not have appointed them as prime ministers, but they turned their backs on him at a critical moment. Could he not be angry? ?"

"That's right!" The drinkers at the same table nodded.

"Ding ding ding." At this time, there was a crisp bell sound from the other side of the stairs, and the upstairs drinkers heard it, and immediately started talking about Fengyue.After a while, three middle-aged men came up, but they just glanced at everyone sternly, and then walked down.

Soon, there was another sound of silver bells, and the atmosphere in the restaurant became lively again. The old man sneered and said, "Did you see that? This is the newly established Qianqi Division. Their responsibilities are the same as those of the previous ones." Wu Chuansi is exactly the same, they are all dog legs used to spy on the people. Although these Qianqisi are pretending to be ordinary people, their evil spirit cannot be removed no matter what."

"Everyone, I'm really sorry." At this time, the big treasurer Jiang Zhen came up, and he saw everyone looking over, and apologized in a round salute: "There is a notice from above, saying that the whole city will be under martial law starting tomorrow, so today It's the last day for the shop to open. I hope I don't come here tomorrow, so as not to make a waste of a trip. By the way, it's best not to go out these few days, I'm afraid it will be messy."

"Treasurer Jiang, you are quite well-informed. Is the Sui army approaching the city?" asked one person.

"Yes, yes, we can't even reach the city wall now, so just tell us the truth."

"At this time, I don't dare to tell the truth!" Jiang Zhen chuckled and said, "Everyone understands, right?"

"That's true." Everyone laughed. Although Jiang Zhen didn't say anything, it was tantamount to admitting that the Sui army was approaching the city.

The old man glanced at the sky outside, sighed and said: "It should come, it will come, the troubled times are finally coming to an end, this is a good thing!"

"Exactly." Everyone nodded one after another. People who dare to come out in this situation are naturally not easy to be fooled by ordinary people. They all know who is good and who is bad in the Sui and Tang dynasties.

"Why don't you give me wine? Sir, do I look like I have no money? Where is your shopkeeper? Tell him to get out!" At this moment, a rude voice came from downstairs.

Jiang Zhen ran downstairs in a hurry, just in time to see two soldiers from the Tang army walking in. Coincidentally, these two soldiers were recommended by him to Li Yuan. They came here obviously not just for the sake of drinking. : "The two generals misunderstood. For those of us who open the door for business, entering the door is a distinguished guest. It is too late to welcome. How dare you offend the two?"

One person asked: "Is there any elegant room?"

"Yes, yes, yes, two generals, please on the third floor." Jiang Zhen led him to an elegant room on the third floor, and the two laughed and said, "I offended you so much just now, brother Jiang, please forgive me!"

"It's okay, I understand."

One person put a letter on the table and said: "This is the letter Li Yuan asked us to write to the Holy Majesty. Li Shimin asked him to take charge of a defense, but I haven't said which one. It is written on it. His logo, If you see these signs, it means that you are one of your own, and whenever the army attacks, he will open the door."

"I understand. I will spread the word out of the city as soon as possible." Jiang Zhen nodded. He was not worried that Li Yuan was Li Shimin's spy. First of all, he was the military officer of his army. From top to bottom, they were all soldiers of the Sui army. Even if he wanted to play tricks, these people would be aware of it. Secondly, the Tang Dynasty was about to perish. He would not be so stupid as to give up this chance of survival to entrap Sui.

(End of this chapter)