Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 187 Coincidence
"Where did the carriage come from? Who is this person?"

When Mr. Miao saw his son hijacking a carriage from somewhere, he couldn't help but frown and said, "Didn't I tell you to be careful and low-key and not to easily expose our whereabouts? What if we are exposed and the enemy doesn't send reinforcements to Tongcheng?"

However, Miao Yi seemed very excited. In the evening, he took a dozen elite soldiers and dressed up as woodcutters. Each of them carried a load of firewood to sell in Tongyang. As a result, on the way back, they met Darughachi, Belieqiebuhua, and his concubine who had escaped from Tongcheng.

The couple, one riding a horse and the other in a carriage, happened to be overheard their conversation by Miao Yi who was passing by. Realizing that the identities of this group of people were not simple, he immediately formulated a strategy and captured Belieqiebuhua and his concubine. This guy was in trouble.

"Pull the person out."

As soon as Miao Yi gave a call, soldiers immediately pulled several people off the carriage. In addition to the couple Belieqiebuhua, there was also a coachman and a guard who were also captured alive.

Four people were tied up and dragged in front of Mr. Miao, with cloth stuffed in their mouths. The leading man had two pigtails on the sides of his face and a tuft of bangs on his forehead. He was clearly dressed like a Mongolian, staring at Mr. Miao with his eyes wide open.

Seeing this, Mr. Miao frowned and asked immediately, "Who is this person?"

"Dad, this is the Darughachi of Tongcheng, Beilieqiebuhua. He is the one who went to Anqing to seek help." Miao Yi immediately introduced his spoils excitedly.

But Miao Daheng frowned even deeper and asked, "If you capture him, who will go to Anqing for help? Wouldn't the strategy set by the commander-in-chief be in vain? We are here to fight for reinforcements. If the reinforcements don't come, what are we going to fight for?"

Miao Yi curled his lips, pointed at the trembling woman next to him, and said, "Dad, who would drive a carriage and bring concubines and valuables when going out of the city to seek help? He is not going to seek help, he is clearly going to escape.

"I have interrogated them. The guards of this man said that they were indeed trying to escape. Beilieqiebuhua had already moved his family to Congyang Town, leaving only a concubine with him. When he heard that we were going to attack Tongcheng, he immediately volunteered to go to Anqing to get reinforcements. In fact, he was escaping.

"But he did not forget to ask for help. He took his concubine to Zongyang, but he had sent someone to Anqing to report the news in advance. I think the message for help has reached Huaining by now. Therefore, even if we capture him, it will not delay the commander-in-chief's plan."

Beilieqiebuhua listened to the conversation between the father and son and widened his eyes in shock. No wonder only the two regiments led by Liao Yongan went to Tongcheng. It turned out that the other two regiments had already arrived here and were waiting for reinforcements. Lu Jin was so insidious and Liao Yongan was so cunning.

Although he himself was not very courageous and was rather timid, Beilieqiebuhua naturally hated the Red Turban Army who dared to rebel against the Mongols. At this moment, he hoped that Anqing would be informed of the ambush here, and he also hoped that Anqing would not send reinforcements.

No, that's not right. If reinforcements are not sent, Tongcheng will surely fall. But if reinforcements are sent, they will probably be ambushed and killed by the ambushes here. For a moment, this guy was even tangled up.
After hearing this, Mr. Miao finally understood what was going on, but he asked again, "Since he has already sent someone to report the news, why did you arrest him? What if Anqing sends someone to contact him again and we can't find him then?"

Upon hearing this, Miao Yi immediately said excitedly, "Dad, this man is a Tartar official. It is our duty to capture him. It will be a military achievement. Secondly, our next target is Congyang Town. This man's family is all in Congyang Town. If we use his identity and sneak into Congyang in advance, can't we capture Congyang without bloodshed? This is another great achievement!
"The commander-in-chief and the commander-in-chief have specifically explained that Congyang is a commercial port. There are many merchant ships in the port, and we should try to seize as many as possible. Didn't Dad worry about not having a solution before? Now the solution has been delivered to our door.

"The third one, Dad, I have a good idea, maybe we can give it a try."

Tycoon Miao raised his eyebrows. His youngest son's performance today was beyond his expectations. Not only did he take the initiative to disguise himself as a woodcutter to scout in Congyang Town, but he was also quite opinionated. After discovering the identity of Beile Qiebuhua, he did not ask and rashly decided to capture this man. Now he even said that he had a good plan? Could it be that he had misjudged this second son and that he was better than the eldest?
Mr. Miao wanted to see what his second son was capable of, so he said, "Tell me what you have planned."

Miao Yi immediately leaned close to his father's ear and whispered, "Dad, you have to fight for military merit on your own. When I was interrogating him just now, the guard told me that the Tartars in Huaining City had moved their families to Jiangxin Island long ago, and those senior officials had no confidence in defending Anqing.

"With the officials above being like this, how can the captains below have the will to fight? Moreover, the intelligence sent by the commander-in-chief also said that Huaining City only has three walls and 8,000 defenders. They are not even sure of defending Anqing by themselves, so how dare they send reinforcements to help Tongcheng retreat?"

"Then what do you mean?"

"Can we pretend to be sent by this Darughachi and go to Huaining to ask for reinforcements? Even if Huaining doesn't send troops, we can ask them to transfer troops from Wangjiang and Taihu. If they really don't send any troops, then we won't have any chance to fight this battle, right?
"I've also heard Commander Zhao from the 11th Regiment tell the story of how the Marshal led them to lure the enemy to surround a point and attack its reinforcements. Sometimes the enemy is unwilling to come to rescue, so we have to find ways to force the enemy to come to rescue."

Upon hearing this, Mr. Miao frowned and thought for a while, he felt that this plan was indeed feasible. The key point was that even if it failed, the problem would not be big. At worst, he would not be able to fight in this battle, and then wait for Liao Yongan to come and besiege Anqing together. Since it couldn't be that bad, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

So he said, "You can try it, but if you pretend to be a messenger and go to ask for help, you have to pay attention to some details, otherwise you will be exposed."

"What details?" This time it was Miao Yi's turn to not understand.

Mr. Miao knocked on his son's head and gave him a lecture.

“First, you must continue to interrogate these prisoners and inquire about every move in Tongcheng. Otherwise, if Anqing asks you about it, you will be exposed.

“Secondly, we must control the Tartar’s family in Zongyang. If any of his men come looking for him, we must arrest them directly to prevent the news from leaking out.

“Third, we need to send people to guard the road from Tongcheng to Anqing and intercept all messengers from Tongcheng to prevent any mistakes from happening if the messengers from Tongcheng say something different from what we said.

"Only when you accomplish these three things can you implement your 'brilliant plan'."

Miao Yi was stunned when he heard this. After a while, he gave a thumbs up and praised, "Old people are still the wisest. Dad is still the most thoughtful!"

"Oh, you kid, you have to learn more in the future!" Miao Daheng said proudly. The father and son immediately supplemented each other and agreed on a plan, and then made arrangements. Miao Daheng led his men to continue to ambush in the mountains north of Congyang, let Lu Xian intercept the messenger from Tongcheng asking for help, and then let Han Qinglu sneak into Congyang Town to quietly capture Beilieqiebuhua's family and property, and secretly check who owns the merchant ships in the port, and be prepared to seize the ships at any time.

The father and son of the Miao family had a good idea. They planned to pretend to be messengers to force Anqing to send troops to rescue. However, they did not expect that Guo Zixing's troops on the right wing of the army actually had the same idea as theirs. In fact, Zhang Desheng came up with this idea earlier than them.

Guo Zixing's Eighth Regiment sneaked along the river valley in the northeast corner of the Dabie Mountains. It took them three days to finally reach the upper reaches of the Shahe River. Then they immediately implemented the plan that had been discussed previously. Cao Liangchen led his men to row a boat to the ferry upstream of the Shahe River and intercepted three waves of messengers from Tongcheng in succession. After interrogating them about the situation in Tongcheng, they sent people pretending to be messengers to Anqing and Qianshan for help.

As a result, under the clever operations of the left and right armies, Liao Yongan had just led the central army to Tongcheng when Anqing and Qianshan had already received more than ten letters for help. Moreover, the messengers asking for help continued, with two people coming almost every day to urge for reinforcements.

The senior officials in Anqing are already overwhelmed.

"Master Han, you can't just ignore us in Tongcheng. The people of the city are counting on you to send reinforcements."

Han Jian frowned and immediately shouted, "Stop crying and tell me about the enemy's situation. How many soldiers did the Luzhou Red Turbans send over here, and where are they now?"

The soldier kneeling in the hall to report the news said, "My lord, Luzhou has sent out about 10,000 soldiers, maybe more than 20,000. We only have 5,000 defenders in Tongcheng, and more than half of them are without armor. We really can't hold on."

"Shut up. Let me ask you, didn't the person who came to report the news say that there were only two regiments with 10,000 people? How come it became 20,000 in just one day?" Before the man could continue crying, Anqing Road Darughachi Alchangpu, who was sitting next to him, interrupted him and asked.

The soldier who delivered the letter immediately explained, "My lord, there were indeed only two regiments of bandits before, but on the third day of their march, several thousand cavalry suddenly appeared behind them. Those cavalry hunted down our scouts everywhere, and we could no longer get any news about the bandits.

"Right now, there is not a single one of our scouts north of Tongcheng, but several generals in Tongcheng said that the thief general surnamed Liao has more than 20,000 men under his command. He brought at least 20,000 men with him this time, and he has been sweeping villages and towns along the way. It seems that he is determined to win. It seems that he has no intention of leaving!"

Al Changpu frowned when he heard this, and interrupted him to ask, "You said that the Red Scarf had several thousand cavalrymen. How many thousands were there? Do you know?"

"The generals said that there are about 1,000 or 2,000 of them. Although that's not a lot, we have even fewer cavalry in Tongcheng, so we can't defeat them at all."

Al Changpu no longer paid attention to the soldier, but turned to look at Han Jian and others, "What do you think?"

"I don't think it's possible that there are only one or two thousand cavalry. Luzhou already has a horse farm, and Lu Jin occupied it. How could there be only two thousand war horses? I heard that the Red Turbans in Luzhou have two cavalry regiments. If they have the same military system as the infantry regiments, even if the two regiments don't have 10,000, there must be 7,000 to 8,000. If Lu Jin takes out half of it to march into Anqing, there will still be 4,000 to 5,000.

"I think these are the people from Tongcheng. They are afraid that we will not send reinforcements, so they deliberately underreport the number of enemy troops so that we will not avoid the battle."

The person who said this was Hao Rui, an official in Wanhu Mansion. He had climbed to his current position from a minor Han official and was extremely greedy for power. Therefore, he had soldiers but refused to deploy them to the front line. And his reasons were very sufficient. The city of Anqing was not solid and it was missing a wall. He could not even defend it himself, so how could he get soldiers to support it?
However, just as he finished speaking, Yang Heng, the military officer next to him, said, "I think Tongcheng should not have falsely reported the number of bandit soldiers. Just now, Hao Jingli also said that the Red Turbans of Luzhou only have 7,000 to 8,000 cavalry. Now that the war in the north is imminent, Haozhou must have half of the cavalry. The rest will go south to Anqing to fight and protect the bandit leader Lu Jin. If there are only 2,000 cavalry, it is not surprising."

"Hmph, two thousand cavalry is not a small number. Our Wanhu Mansion cannot provide so many cavalry now. If we really send reinforcements over, wouldn't that be sending food? It is better to keep the main army to defend Huaining." Hao Rui said again.

"Yes, yes, Huaining is missing a city wall, and it is definitely not able to be defended without enough soldiers." Huaining County Magistrate Ji Zeyang also pulled up his sleeve to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, and echoed.

"Okay, stop arguing and talk about whether or not we should send reinforcements. If we do, how many people will be needed and who will lead them?" Al Changpu clapped his hands, interrupting the quarrel and getting straight to the heart of the matter.

However, just as everyone was looking at each other, not knowing whether to agree or disagree, the soldier kneeling in the middle spoke again.

"Sir, please allow me to tell you something. My captain Ge has something else to say. I will definitely pass it on to you."

Al Changpu frowned, but still said patiently, "Speak."

"Thank you, sir. My captain said that the troops in Anqing Road are limited and the defense of Huaining City is not solid. We must gather all the troops in the road to stop the enemy. If we gather a large number of troops to rescue Tongcheng, even if we cannot repel the enemy, we can confront the enemy in Tongcheng and stop the bandits in Tongcheng.

"This will give Anqing Road a chance to catch its breath, or recruit soldiers, or transfer troops from Jiangnan and Jiangxi. It can also take this opportunity to repair Anqing's city defense. When the city is strong and the soldiers are sufficient, it can counterattack and repel the enemy, or it can go around Hezhou and other places to the enemy's rear and open another battlefield.

"If we don't send troops to rescue, Tongcheng will be lost. Once Tongcheng is lost, the enemy troops will have no obstacles to move south. When the time comes, the enemy will surround the city with heavy troops and approach the city. How can Anqing, with its broken city defenses, resist the fierce force of the enemy troops? I hope you will consider this carefully."

As soon as these words came out, everyone present couldn't help but frown. Huaining County Darughachi Yusufu couldn't help but say, "This Ge Yanling has some knowledge and courage. I never thought he had this ability before."

Han Jian also spoke up this time and agreed, "I think what Captain Ge said makes sense. Huaining City is in ruins now. Even with 8,000 soldiers, we may not be able to hold it. It would be better to send heavy troops to rescue the front line. This will buy us some time to repair the city walls and mobilize the army. As long as Tongcheng holds out for another month or two, we will be able to stabilize here. What do you think?"

As the highest commander here, Al Changpu did not wait for others to express their opinions. He immediately made the decision and said, "Reinforcements must be sent. What Ge Yanling said is right. I think we can do it this way. The question is where to draw troops from and who will lead the troops to support. Let's discuss it together."

(End of this chapter)