national surname chiming

Chapter 243 Li Zicheng Can't Hold It Anymore
After listening to Song Xiance's analysis of the army's marching route and grain roads, Li Zicheng also felt that although the Henan Plain is vast, there are only a few rivers that can transport grain in a certain direction.

If the government and army want to advance to Kaifeng Mansion, the food roads cannot go around Yancheng anyway, so it is absolutely necessary to gather most of the main force in Yancheng.

After thinking about this point, the follow-up arrangements will be logical.

Li Zicheng's reckless background was already very good at execution, so he asked Song Xiance to write the reply letter to Zuo Liangyu that night.

The next morning, Hao Xiaozhong was summoned again, and Enwei said a few words together, and then asked one of his confidants, who was quite clever, to follow Hao Xiaozhong back, making sure that the reply letter was delivered to Zuo Liangyu in person, and observed Zuo Liangyu's behavior again. Response, the details of which need not be mentioned.

From Kaifeng to Nanyang, it took at least two full days to travel quickly, not to mention that Li Zicheng's envoy did not have to be in a hurry, so after five full days, on September 24, Li Zicheng's confidant sent to deliver the letter returned to Kaifeng.

In the past five days, Li Zicheng has not been idle, and has been gradually moving troops southward according to Song Xiance's suggestion, gathering troops to the front line of Yancheng at a rate of 3 to [-] people per day.This day is already the last batch of people who need to be mobilized, and even Li Zicheng himself is about to go on the road.

However, when the confidant who delivered the letter came back, he brought bad news that alarmed Li Zicheng.

That confidant basically said something like this: "Your Majesty, we personally handed over the letter from Army Master Song to Zuo Liangyu. After Zuo Liangyu read it, he was also very grateful that His Majesty was willing to live in peace with him, and even hosted a banquet for the villain. .

However, just as we were about to leave Nanyang, we discovered something—the official Shen Gou also sent someone to contact Zuo Liangyu, and also sent a letter.The emissary seemed to be a well-known scholar in the south of the Yangtze River. We secretly asked his name, and it seemed to be Gu Yanwu.

After I learned about it, I turned back and questioned Zuo Liangyu. Zuo Liangyu looked a little embarrassed, but swore that he had a grudge against Shen Gouguan and would never cooperate with Shen Gouguan.In the end, it seemed that he was afraid that we would not believe it, so he showed me the letter in its entirety.

The villain was afraid of being cheated, so he wanted to ask Zuo Liangyu for a letter and bring it back for the king to have a look at.But Zuo Liangyu said, "Who knows if you will take this letter and send it to the court to frame me."We and King Chuang are not in conflict with each other, and we cannot leave evidence', so I was only allowed to copy a copy of the letter without official Shen Gou's seal, and let the villain bring it back—the copied letter is here, please have a look at it. "

Li Zicheng frowned when he heard this, and immediately took the copied "Letter from Shen Shuren to Zuo Liangyu", read it, then waved his hand to signal the envoy to back down, and asked someone to find Song Xiance.

Li Zicheng didn't have much doubt about Zuo Liangyu's secrecy operation as relayed by the envoy.Because Zuo Liangyu contacted him, it was indeed necessary to keep it confidential. The letterhead was not even stamped, and the handwriting was not Zuo Liangyu's own. It all depended on the testimony of Hao Xiaozhong to prove its authenticity.

In this way, once the messenger leaves, no physical evidence will be left behind.Even if the original is stolen or used elsewhere for denunciation, it can still be said that someone forged and framed——

As for Li Zicheng's reply letter to Zuo Liangyu, Zuo Liangyu must have burned it directly after reading it, and it will not be kept at all, and the original work or copying does not matter.

The two parties seem to cooperate sincerely, but in fact, who is not [-]-hearted to guard against each other.This is all as it should be, and it is not insincere.

However, just because Li Zicheng didn't care about Zuo Liangyu's secrecy measures doesn't mean he didn't care about the contents of the letter either.

After Song Xiance came, he carefully studied the "transcription of the letter Shen Shuren sent to Zuo Liangyu through Gu Yanwu", and immediately felt that something was wrong.

Song Xiance considered it carefully and said, "Your Majesty, I think this letter is a bit weird, but I can't provide clear evidence, so I dare not jump to conclusions."

Li Zicheng's expression turned alert: "But it's okay to say! We'd rather be in vain than let it go!"

Only then did Song Xiance say: "In this letter, Shen Shuren's reason for persuading Zuo Liangyu to put aside his past suspicions and continue to work for Chongzhen together seems a little bit off.

It was said earlier that Shen Shuren treated Liu Guoneng and other surrendered generals equally, and would never advance aggressively like other civil servants, did not cherish the lives of soldiers, and did not treat warriors as human beings.

Ordinarily, it should be developed in the future, soliciting Zuo Liangyu, saying that Zuo Liangyu can have long-term wealth as long as he puts aside his past suspicions.However, this aspect of the letter stopped abruptly, and it only said in general that 'following King Chuang will not lead to long-term wealth'.

There are also several places where the language, writing and rhetoric vary greatly.The student wondered...whether Shen Shuren's original letter made more sense, but there must be something that insulted the king.

So when your envoy asked for the letter of the thief, Zuo Liangyu was afraid of angering the king, so he asked someone to rewrite and transcribe it temporarily, and deleted those words that were disrespectful to you, the king? "

Song Xiance pointed and pointed at several places in the letter where the words were turned and turned bluntly. Although Li Zicheng was uneducated, he realized the problem after a few touches.

On this point, Zuo Liangyu can’t be blamed for his negligence. It was a hasty affair. Zuo Liangyu couldn’t forge it too delicately if he wanted to—mainly Zuo Liangyu’s literati and staff. It cannot be compared with Gu Yanwu.

The secret letter of Shen Shuren written by Gu Yanwu was just a pawn in a scheming plan, but Gu Yanwu also worked hard to write it well and tried his best, so the words were quite lethal. If Li Zicheng saw it, he would definitely Doubt its effect on Zuo Liangyu.

Zuo Liangyu had no choice but to delete and revise, but the literary talents of his subordinates were too rubbish, which made Song Xiance see out of touch and deletion, and the style of writing was not uniform.The level difference is really too big.

But the question is, in the fall of Chongzhen's 15th year, how many literary giants can be found in the world who can be compared with Gu Yanwu?Even if there was, with Zuo Liangyu's reputation as a feudal town, how could it be possible to attract such a level of literati, leaving a loophole would be impossible.

This little trick was originally a big problem, but Li Zicheng is also a suspicious person. After thinking about it for a while, he still felt that he couldn't fully trust Zuo Liangyu, so he angrily said:

"Sure enough, you can't trust the left thief! This guy tricked me into withdrawing the soldiers and horses in Yuzhou and Yexian respectively. I'm afraid he wants to cooperate with Shen Shuren's sneak attack, right? He should make him pay some price because of his correspondence with Shen Shuren, deletion and deception!
Send me an order to transfer the last two waves of troops who were originally going to Yancheng to Ye County!On Zuo Liangyu's side, he had to be on guard! "

Song Xiance felt that the troops were scattered, so he couldn't help persuading him euphemistically: "Are you being too cautious? Even if the left thief has selfish intentions, but Ye County is in the hands of our army, and the dangerous pass of Tongbai Mountain is not something that Zuo Liangyu can easily cross. This force is enough to defend.

Moreover, the terrain of Ye County is dangerous, the population is sparsely populated, there is no waterway for large ships, and it is difficult to transport grain and grass.There are many troops stationed in Ye County, and they have been stationed for a long time. Even if they rely on cannibalism to solve the military rations, there are not so many local people to eat. "

Li Zicheng raised his hand and signaled Song Xiance to shut up: "Be careful, there is no big mistake! Besides, this is also a good opportunity to see Zuo Liangyu's sincerity. Even if Gu recruits troops to Ye County, he will go secretly. You can even let Zuo Liangyu go again Make that Hao loyal to the supervisor.

Let's play the trick of Dong Zhuo and Li Shimin in the play, and play it in reverse, 'Lead soldiers into the city secretly at night, and go out of the city with great fanfare during the day', telling Zuo Liangyu that we withdrew most of Ye County's troops.

If Zuo Liangyu keeps his promise and withdraws most of the troops from Yuzhou, we will live in peace.If there is a disturbance, or if the garrison in Ye County is really short of food, and the other side has an opportunity to take advantage of it, we will tear up the covenant and attack Nanyang to feed Zuo Liangyu!
Gu Ke heard that Nanyang was originally the basis for Yang Sichang's attack, and there were still some food reserves. The surrounding areas of Henan were devastated by the war and there was no food. "

Song Xiance heard what the king said to this point, breaking the covenant oath is as easy as drinking water and farting, of course he can't persuade him anymore.

……

After all, because of Li Zicheng's suspicion, a rift was torn open.

In the next few days, Li Zicheng also allocated [-] to [-] extra troops to Ye County as promised, but the troops from Ye County that were supposed to be transferred to Yancheng were not transferred at all.

One back and one back, under the ebb and flow, Li Zicheng's 38 troops originally planned to station 20 troops around Yancheng, with a maximum of [-] to [-] in Ye County, [-] around Kaifeng, and a small number of sporadic scattered robbers. Grabbing supplementary forage.

Now there are less than 15 stationed in Yancheng, and [-] to [-] in Ye County. There are still more reserve teams staying behind along the way, which can be hidden and mobile reinforcements at any time. It is difficult to describe the details for a while.

In a word, Shen Shuren mobilized Li Zicheng only by relying on a letter and allowing Li Zicheng's confidantes to see the existence of Gu Yanwu, and also let Li Zicheng's troops deployed to the front of Yancheng weakened by at least [-]%. To guard against threats that do not exist.

And Zuo Liangyu was also mobilized by Shen Shuren, he obviously didn't want to share the pressure for Shen Shuren.But after breaking up with Li Zicheng and letting Li Zicheng know that "there is a considerable amount of food stored in Nanyang City that Yang Sichang hoarded for the bandit army before his death", Zuo Liangyu also had to protect himself.

In fact, he was also in Yuzhou playing the trick of "pretending not to leave a lot of troops on the front line, but in fact he was just Li Zicheng's inspection emissary, playing the trick of withdrawing troops openly during the day and returning secretly at night", and both sides could only be chained by suspicion.

And the strategic goals of the three parties have also become more and more clear during this tugging——

The thief is waiting for Shen Shuren to storm Yancheng, or if Shen Shuren dares to bypass Yancheng and go directly to Kaifeng, he will cut off the food road for Shen Shuren.

However, Shen Shuren can take advantage of "after the thieves moved to Yancheng, because of the concentration of troops, it is more difficult to send most of the troops out to kill, rob and find food, and it is difficult to last." .

The key here is all kinds of psychological warfare,

For example, how does Shen Shuren convince Li Zicheng that "I consume more energy than you, I have more food than you, and I am not afraid that Chongzhen will force me to fight",
And how will Li Zicheng convince Shen Shuren that "I don't believe that you consume more energy than me, and I don't believe that you can withstand the pressure of the pig leader Chongzhen to fight."

Of course, this kind of psychological warfare cannot be rushed, so after the two armies had a stalemate between Yancheng and Shangcai, Shen Shuren did nothing for the first four or five days, but did a good job in intelligence investigation work, and some small-scale incidents broke out between the two sides. Conflicts are scouting wars.

And this kind of small-scale scouting battle is often won by the official army-because of the small-scale cavalry confrontation, the equipment advantage of the official army is too obvious.

The elite cavalry under Zhu Wenzhen's command, with the blessing of all the revolver pistols, can definitely kill several times the enemy's scouts.In contrast, the advantage of the number of thieves in the scouting battle was completely useless.

It wasn't Li Zicheng's scout cavalry who encountered Shen Shuren's scout cavalry, and then most of them were slaughtered.

It was Li Zicheng who sent out a small group of troops to kill people and grab food. They were attacked and lost all the food they grabbed.

Or Li Zicheng wanted to send a mobile force to infiltrate and cut off the food channel of Shen Shuren's troops in Shangcai after he suffered a loss, but he was still defeated by Shen Shuren——

The main reason is that Shen Shuren has separate troops in Shangcai and Ruyang for strict guarding, and the distance between Shangcai and Ruyang is not far away, so there is very little space for detours and interspersed. Once Li Zicheng's food-strapped troops infiltrate, they will be discovered immediately, and then they will be rescued. Beat up.

After suffering several losses, Li Zicheng finally discovered a problem.

"Is this official Shengou so arrogant? I heard that he is in Xinyang Mansion, and his entire army is only 8 to [-] people, and some of them are left to guard the rear. The front army should be only [-] to [-] people, right? How dare he be in the upper echelon at the same time?" Both Cai and Ruyang stayed behind to prevent stalemate with my army?
Isn't he afraid of being defeated by all of us?Have you found out exactly how many defenders there are in Shangcai and Ruyang cities? "

One day at the end of September, Li Zicheng couldn't help but angrily reprimanded his generals after losing two more scouting battles and grain harassment battles.

He could already see that Shen Shuren's deployment was not conducive to the break-in army's penetration and division of the food road because of his step-by-step strategy. The rear was too stable.

But the stability of the rear also comes at a price, because there are only so many troops in total, and fortification everywhere is equivalent to insufficient troops everywhere.

If Li Zicheng chose a city siege point to attack and eat it with force, Shen Shuren would be defeated one by one.

After recognizing this situation, the generals Li Zicheng brought to Yancheng also clamored.

The top general Liu Zongmin and his nephew Li Guo did not come to the front line of Yancheng because they were left in Kaifeng to besiege the city.In addition, Yuan Zongdi was left in Ye County to guard against Zuo Liangyu.

Therefore, Liu Fangliang, Tian Jianxiu and others who were under Liu Zongmin took the opportunity to ask for a fight: "Your Majesty, the last general sent someone to investigate the day before yesterday. More than [-] to [-]!
At the end of the day, the general is willing to lead the troops and horses of the headquarters, attack Shangcai first, wipe out one of them, and wipe out the spirit of Shen Gouguan!If Officer Shen Gou dared to use the main force of his army to come to aid from Ruyang and other places, then the king would just happen to command the army himself, besiege the city, fight against it and destroy it in the field! "

Li Zicheng thought about it for a while, and then announced: "Okay, it's up to you, Tian Jianxiu, you take your troops and horses to the battle first! Liu Fangliang, you are the reserve team, if Tian Jianxiu fails to attack the city, you go again! If there are officers and troops If the reinforcements change, you should immediately meet them, and this king will lead the main force to respond!"

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PS: Regardless of whether the comment server is restored or not, two updates will be restored starting next Monday (the day after tomorrow, 24th).It should be soon.

(End of this chapter)