Chapter 395: The emperor personally led the army?

Li Jingda and Chen Jue of the Southern Tang Dynasty had just ordered the retreat, and the Southern Tang naval army was in chaos. Some ships were eager to adjust their direction and hit the side of adjacent ships, blocking the waterway and cutting off traffic. Seeing this good opportunity, King Huan of the Later Zhou Dynasty immediately launched a general attack and personally led the warships to chase Li Jingda and others.

It should be said that Li Jingda still has a certain sense of responsibility. At first, he tried to rectify the formation and arrange for the descendants to break the horse. However, Li Jingda's sense of responsibility was based on the fact that his life was not threatened. When he found that Wang Huan's ship rushed over with murderous intent, Li Jingda immediately gave up his efforts to reorganize the army, fully utilized the collision advantage of his ship, and broke open a passage in the dense warship cluster, and quickly fled downstream.

Li Jingda's impact basically announced the beginning of the demise of this navy. Under the attack of the Zhou army, the Tang army sailors, whether warships were burned to death, or they took the initiative to surrender and offer ships, only a few people were able to escape from the battlefield with Li Jingda and others. After the war, the Southern Tang lost 30,000 to 40,000 sailors! Not only that, the Southern Tang warships, food and supplies, and weapons and armor captured by the Zhou army basically emptied the strategic reserves that the Southern Tang navy had accumulated for many years!

When the news reached Shouzhou, the joy was thunderous, and Guo Rong praised Wang Huan and Dong Zunhui repeatedly, ordering them to take advantage of the situation to pursue and make new achievements.

After the news reached Jinling, there was a lot of sadness. Li Jing, the leader of Tang who had been greedy for beauty recently, was angry and anxious, and vomited blood several times. Li Jing immediately said that he would cheer up and lead the army in person!

However, the ministers expressed their opposition, and everyone thought to themselves: Now is the autumn of life and death. The emperor with high vision and low skills and low ambitions and talent are better not to come forward to cause trouble! Among them, Qiao Kuangshun, the secretary of the Secretariat, spoke particularly fiercely, and listed the emperor's lack of virtue and asked the emperor to issue an edict to inspire the people's hearts.

So Li Jing issued an edict decisively, but not an edict for his own crime, but a charge of slandering the emperor and exiling Qiao Kuangshun to Fuzhou!

Li Jing asked Zhu Kuangye, Liu Cunzhong and others about defense strategies, and tried to urgently build fortifications near Haozhou to resist the attack of the Later Zhou army.

At this time, tens of thousands of elite troops in the Southern Tang Dynasty were all trapped in Zijin Mountain. The only navy with strategic advantages was defeated by the cooperation between the Zhou army on the water and land. Zhu Kuangye smiled bitterly and said to Li Jing: "When it comes, the world and the world work together, and heroes are not free!" Liu Cunzhong next to him also smiled bitterly and kept silent.

Li Jing was furious. Now is the time when we urgently need to inspire the military and public opinion. As senior generals in the army, you two actually followed the censors of the court to pour cold water on me. Are you impatient to live?!

Li Jing rebuked angrily: "You are actually sitting on the verge of national danger. You don't know how to give me advice. Instead, you recite poems and joke. Can you make fun of me?!"

Zhu Kuangye and Liu Cunzhong quickly apologized, but Li Jing was furious. He immediately exiled Zhu Kuangye to the deputy envoy of the Zhaowu Army and exiled Liu Cunzhong to Raozhou.

After these two incidents, no one in the Southern Tang court dared to oppose Li Jing's personal expedition anymore, so Li Jing immediately dispatched his troops and prepared to go north.

At this moment, Li Jingda, Chen Jue and others fled back from Haozhou in a panic. In order to avoid being pursued by the emperor, the two of them bribed the emperor's close ministers, especially Song Qiqiu, who was in charge of the emperor, who was the focus of the two's bribery.

Although the two of them were not good at fighting, their ability to spread gold and silver was very effective. In a few days, the court's stroke changed and they were no longer held responsible. Instead, they found many reasons to excuse them. Only then did Li Jingda and Chen Jue dared to show up openly and went to the palace to ask for a meeting.

After seeing the two of them, Li Jing remembered the arrival of the elite Tang army who were ruined by them, so he asked angrily: "What are you two here for doing? Where did you give them to your elite troops? Where have you all destroyed them?!"

Chen Jue knelt down on the ground with a pounce, kowtowed repeatedly, and cried and said, "The criminal has been entrusted by Your Majesty. He should have died for his country for a long time. But he cannot report the true situation of the Zhou army to Your Majesty. I am really dying with my eyes open! This time our army has suffered consecutive defeats. I have summarized several lessons and hope that Your Majesty can allow me to report to you personally!"

When Li Jing heard this, his heart was already a little relaxed. After pursuing Chen Jue, Li Jingda's idea of ​​responsibility was shaken. He sighed and whispered: "Then just talk, let me listen... get up and reply!"

"I thank Your Majesty for your kindness!" Chen Jue hurriedly bowed, stood up from the ground, and bowed and said, "The experience and lessons summarized by me are as follows: First, never believe in surrendered generals easily, especially those surrendered generals who defected from the Central Plains. It was because I trusted Zhu Yuan's loyalty to our Tang Dynasty that I did not take decisive measures to control him, and eventually led to the tragic defeat of Zijin Mountain!"

"What's the second thing?" Li Jing nodded slightly and asked Chen Jue.

Chen Jue hurriedly said: "Secondly, don't underestimate the Zhou army, especially Guo Rong's courage. When Guo Rong first invaded the south, there were basically not many ships in the army; and when the Zhou army headed south, its navy could already confront our elite troops head-on, and the number of enemy giant ships was far greater than that of our army! Although the Central Plains occupied by the Zhou army was repeatedly hit by wars, it was vast and had a strong national strength. When fighting with them, we must gather all the superior forces of our army, and a lion fights against a rabbit to win!"

After hearing this, Li Jing nodded repeatedly and ordered someone to present ginseng tea immediately and rewarded it to Chen Jue, Li Jingda and others.

Chen Jue took a sip of ginseng tea and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he said to Li Jing: "The third point is to pay attention to Dong Zunhui and never let him leave our sight! After several battles after the army invaded the south for several weeks, Dong Zunhui played a key role in it, causing our army to suffer huge losses! It can be said that as Guo Rong's confidant general, the troops commanded by Dong Zunhui are definitely the elite of the Zhou army. The attack direction chosen by Dong Zunhui must be the main attack direction of the Zhou army!"

Li Jing nodded repeatedly, forgot to pursue Chen Jue's faults, and Chen Jue used this to push all his faults on Zhou Jun and Dong Zunhui, avoiding talking about his command mistakes and moral defects. After Chen Jue said this, Li Jing felt that Zhou Jun was indeed extremely powerful and would never insist on the matter of the emperor's personal expedition.

However, after Li Jing ended his idea of ​​personally escorting, his first move was to use all the materials he prepared to strengthen the defense of Jinling Prefecture. This was supported and loved by the ministers, and everyone's relatives had their future in Jinling Prefecture. Keeping Jinling was equivalent to saving everything. Therefore, in intentional or unintentional negligence, Haozhou, which was on the forefront of the Anti-Zhou, did not receive reinforcements from the Southern Tang court at the first time!

At this time, the governor of Haozhou was Huang Renqian, but everyone knew that the person who spoke and in charge was Guo Tingwei. This person's prestige was based on the blood and tears of the soldiers of the Later Zhou Dynasty. It was because the Later Zhou was busy attacking the Southern Tang Dynasty in depth, so he did not find him to settle the score. However, as the Later Zhou conquered the Purple Jin Mountain and defeated the Southern Tang Navy, the Later Zhou army became closer and closer to Haozhou. As close as Li Jingda, Chen Jue did not dare to stay here and wait for death. He risked being executed by the emperor to escape back to Jinling Mansion!

Guo Tingwei said to the frowning Huang Renqian: "A good news and a bad news. Which one does Lord Huang want to hear?"

Huang Renqian sighed and whispered: "Why do you have to tease me by Lord Guo? There is no good news now? Everything that reaches my ears is bad news!"

Guo Tingwei smiled slightly: "The good news is that although the court has not sent reinforcements for a long time, Chen Decheng, the commander of the Jingjiang Army, led a soldier to our Haozhou to help the war!"

Huang Renqian suddenly stood up, "This is great news. Although we have accommodated nearly 10,000 defeated soldiers, we have combat effectiveness. There are not many established troops. The soldiers are now large, but the combat power is very average. Chen Decheng's troops arrived at the right time! What is that bad news?"

"The bad news is that Chen Decheng will lead his army to retreat soon and refuse to stay in Haozhou! He claimed that since he brought a soldier and horse here, he should lead a soldier and horse back to the base, and he should not stay here to die!" Guo Tingwei said softly, but he said it heavily from a soldier and horse.

Huang Renqian's heart lit up. Could it be that the old friend reached an agreement with Chen Decheng, replaced his soldiers and the defeated soldiers, leaving a new force in the city?

Huang Renqian went to see Guo Tingwei with doubts, but saw Guo Tingwei nodding slightly, indicating that his guess was correct. Huang Renqian said with a wry smile: "This is the best news I have heard in three days. Although there are only 2,500 soldiers in one army, these are new forces after all. Arrange them on the city wall to at least resist the charge of tens of thousands of enemy troops!"

Guo Tingwei shook his head slightly and said to Huang Renqian: "Mr. Huang, these soldiers should not be involved in the war of attrition guarding the city. While their morale is booming, I think it is better to implement the plan we had planned before!"

"You mean sneak attacking the enemy's floating bridge?" Huang Renqian shook his head repeatedly, "It's too risky, too risky!"

Guo Tingwei curled his lips slightly, "It's very risky, but this risk is very worth taking! Now that the Zhou army is divided into two parts by the Huaihe River, the two armies cannot echo. The only passage in the past was the floating bridge near Xiacai Town. Now with the increase of the Zhou army's power, another floating bridge was built by the Zhou army, and our goal is this floating bridge! I have quietly gone to reconnaissance. As long as I select dozens of elite soldiers to go secretly with me from the water, I can completely destroy the floating bridge! The Zhou army, which has lost the floating bridge and was divided into two parts, was the lamb to be slaughtered!"

Guo Tingwei became more and more excited as he spoke. Soon he successfully convinced Huang Renqian, but Guo Tingwei did not succeed in the raid. The subordinates he sent were either caught by fishing nets or died under the guns of the Zhou army patrol team. In the end, Guo Tingwei could only sigh and retreat into the city, and at this time Dong Zunhui had already led his troops to approach Haozhou.

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Chapter completed!