Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 318 Sun Deya, are you crazy? !

After listening to Lu Jin's arrangements, Feng Guoyong looked at the map and asked again.

"Marshal, the 106th Division is already marching towards Zhenzhou. It's only 60 miles from Liuhe to Zhenzhou. They start marching today and will arrive at Zhenzhou tomorrow. The 102nd Division will launch a general attack on Tianchang tomorrow. The two divisions will meet at Yangzhou in two or three days at most. Should we notify Taizhou and Taixing to start the uprising now?"

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin did not say anything, but picked up the information sent by Bao Yu and looked at it on the map. From Zhenzhou to Yangzhou, there is a Yangzi County in the middle, and there are only a dozen miles between Zhenzhou and Yangzi. Although they are called two counties, they are almost directly adjacent to each other.

Lu Jin looked through the information again and found that Yangzi County had no city before. But since Liu Futong started the uprising last year, the Red Turbans all over the world responded, and Xiao Tieguo ordered all places to build cities on their own. After a year, a small city suddenly emerged in Yangzi County, which originally had no city walls.

Although such a small town cannot stop the siege of the main force of the 36th Army, it will still affect the time of the advance to some extent.

So Lu Jin calculated and said, "Don't worry. Zhenzhou and Yangzi have both rebuilt their city defenses, and the two cities are next to each other. Logically, the two cities can support each other. Even if we can take them down, it will take some effort. After taking Yangzi, we can attack Yangzhou. There are another 60 miles in between. Tianchang is a hundred miles away from Yangzhou, and it will take at least two days to march. They can't fight that fast.

"It is now the 13th. After three days, notify Taizhou and Taixing and ask them to start the uprising at dawn on the 17th of this month. The troops in Zhenjiang Road will also cross the river and join the battle after daybreak on the 17th."

Feng Guoyong frowned upon hearing this and explained, "General, I also know the speed of the 36th Army's advance. What I mean is that if Taizhou starts an uprising one or two days in advance, it can contain the Yuan army in Yangzhou and make them dare not support the west. Otherwise, the 102nd and 106th Divisions will be divided into two groups, and there will be no one to contain the east of Yangzhou. If they encounter reinforcements from Yangzhou, it will be troublesome."

Lu Jin shook his head and said, "You think too much. The Yuan army in Yangzhou will not send troops to support the west. Tianchang is already occupied by Sun Deya. If we attack Tianchang, the Yuan army in Yangzhou will be eager to let the two of us fight each other so that they can benefit from it. Are they going to rescue Sun Deya?

“And even if Sun Deya wants to surrender to the Yuan army in Yangzhou in exchange for their support, you have forgotten my book on military strategy, which contains several pages on encircling an enemy and attacking its reinforcements. All officers and soldiers of our Shengwu Army will pay attention to the enemy’s reinforcements.

“Besides, Zhu Liangzu still has Zheng Yong’s Second Cavalry Regiment, with more than 4,000 armored cavalry. If Yangzhou Road really dares to send troops to support, you can just wait and see how Zhu Liangzu handles them.

"As for Taizhou and Taixing in the east, they have too few people. It would be risky to let the spies start a rebellion and seize the city. It would be better to let them prepare for two more days."

Feng Guoyong nodded upon hearing this. Well, actually, he was too nervous and almost forgot about Lu Jin's quick-learned military strategy. The officers and soldiers of the Shengwu Army all learned military tactics according to Lu Jin's book of military strategy. They might not be able to say anything else, but when it comes to the understanding of besieging a point and attacking its reinforcements, almost everyone can recite it by heart.

In this situation, Zhu Liangzu still had a regiment of cavalry in his hands. How could he be afraid of the enemy reinforcements from Yangzhou? He was probably hoping that the enemy would come.

"Then I'll have someone send a message to Taizhou and Zhenjiang?"

"No, just send a message to the people at the intelligence station and ask Bao Yu to do it. Speaking of crossing the river, I just remembered something. See if you can do it." Lu Jin suddenly turned around and looked at Feng Guoyong, and said thoughtfully.

"I want Bai Guangtai's 1st Marine Regiment and Sang Shijie's 2nd Marine Regiment to switch battle zones. Let Sang Shijie fight upstream and Bai Guangtai fight downstream."

Feng Guoyong immediately asked in confusion, "Why is it arranged like this?"

"Because Sang Shijie is from Wuwei, his connections and background are relatively clean and he has no involvement with others. I can rest assured that he can go wherever he wants. But Bai Guangtai is an old subordinate of Kang Maocai, whom Kang Maocai brought from his hometown Qichun. If I let them fight in Jiangxi in the future, I'm afraid he might do the thing that happened at Huarong Road if he happens to meet someone he knows." Lu Jin explained.

"This..." Feng Guoyong wanted to refute, but he couldn't find a reason. He wanted to say that Bai Guangtai performed very well in this battle of crossing the river, but if he met acquaintances in the future, would he turn a blind eye and deliberately let a few acquaintances go? He really couldn't guarantee it.

Instead of having this suspicion, it would be okay to change it. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but I can just avoid suspicion.

Thinking of this, Feng Guoyong immediately said, "It's okay to change it, but we have to change it quickly, otherwise it will be bad if we wait a few days until Zhenjiang crosses the river to change it."

Lu Jin nodded, "That's what I thought. If you think it's okay, then give them the order to change guards now. Only Bai Guangtai and Sang Shijie will be replaced. Liu Chuanyi from the First Regiment of the Navy will remain upstream."

"Okay." Feng Guoyong agreed immediately.

Then before dark that day, several orders were sent everywhere, to the navy, to Zhenjiang, to Taizhou, to Liao Yongzhong and Zhu Liangzu.

After talking about a series of arrangements made by the Marshal's Mansion, he talked about the front line of Yangzhou Road.

Zheng Yong captured Yu Shiliang's camp in the early morning of the 13th. He spent a night to reorganize the prisoners and began to march towards Tianchang County at dawn. Shiliang Station was only 40 miles away from Tianchang County. The cavalry could reach the city of Tianchang County in an hour at a fast pace.

So Sun Deya had no time to prepare at all. At dawn on the 13th, Sun Deya discovered that thousands of Shengwu Army cavalry appeared outside the city. Zheng Yong left Zhang Huzi's battalion at the back to escort the prisoners, and took his own battalion and Zhou Dexing's two battalions to the outside of Tianchang Wall. At this time, Qi Xiang, who stayed with Zhu Liangzu as a vanguard, also arrived. The three cavalry battalions met at the foot of Tianchang County. Sun Deya and Liu Minhua in the city were immediately panicked.

"Why did this guy named Lu send troops here at this time? There are so many rich places in Jiangnan, but he chose to go against me instead of conquering them. What should I do now?" Sun Deya, wearing his helmet askew, came to the top of the city in a panic. In the cold morning of late autumn, he was so frightened that he broke into a cold sweat.

Liu Minhua said hurriedly, "General, don't panic. Tuotuo is about to go south. There is absolutely no reason for Lu Jin's Shengwu Army to attack Jiangbei at this time. Moreover, they are only cavalrymen, and cavalrymen cannot attack a city. Maybe Zhu Liangzu has sent troops privately to scare us. We must not lose our composure at this time."

Sun Deya finally calmed down after hearing this. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked worriedly, "But the cavalry here looks like there are at least 3,000 of them. I'm afraid that the only place where the surname Lu can provide so many cavalry is the cavalry regiment. Now most of the cavalry regiment is here. Do you think they are leading the main force as the vanguard, and Zhu Liangzu is leading the infantry to follow behind?"

Liu Minhua was also panicked when he heard this, and hurriedly comforted himself, "They have so many cavalry here. If the main force is still behind, it must be Zhu Liangzu of Haozhou who will come out in full force. If they plan to attack the city, they will definitely not let Yu Shuai at Shiliang Station go.

"So if we want to determine Zhu Liangzu's true purpose, we only need to send someone to Shiliang Station to investigate. If there are enemy troops at Shiliang Station, they are coming to attack the city. If there are no enemy troops at Shiliang Station, we can also ask General Yu to quickly bring troops to support us. As long as there is a detachment waiting outside, it will not be so easy for Zhu Liangzu to capture Tianchang County. We can think about it later."

However, before Liu Minhua could finish, Sun Deya could no longer suppress his trembling, and pointed towards the city, "Min, Minhua, look there."

When Liu Minhua looked down at the city, his face turned pale. He saw that the cavalry of the Shengwu Army suddenly carried a large flag and stood just within an arrow's reach of the city. They also dragged a man from behind the horse with a rope, led him to the city like a dog, and tied him to the flagpole.

The distance of more than 200 meters was a bit far, and the two men could not see clearly who the person tied to the flagpole was, but they recognized the big flag. It was a blue flag more than six feet long with the word "Yu" in the middle. It was Yu Shiliang's commander's flag.

If Yu Shiliang even lost the commander's flag, who else could be tied to the flagpole? Of course, it was Yu Shiliang himself.

"Yu, General Yu's village is gone. He is ready to fight us to the death. Zhu Liangzu's main force must be behind us."

Liu Minhua's face turned pale. It didn't matter whether Yu Shiliang was dead or alive. The most important thing was that they had no reinforcements now. No matter what happened next, they would have to be trapped in the isolated city. No matter how weak the Shengwu Army was, they could kill them just by besieging the city.

Sun Deya was obviously aware of this problem and immediately said, "We have to find a way to ask for help."

"Where can we go for help at this time?" Liu Minhua asked in confusion. Sun Deya gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "Go to Yangzhou and Gaoyou to ask for help from the Yuan army. As long as they send troops to help us, we will surrender to the Yuan army. Otherwise, when the Lu family takes over for a long time, they will attack Gaoyou and Yangzhou next. It is better to keep us as neighbors than to keep neighbors with the Lu family. The Lu family has more soldiers and will not be afraid of them."

Liu Minhua thought about it and said, "We can try it, but now the enemy cavalry is besieging the city, how can we send a messenger?"

"."Sun Deya was speechless.

It was possible to surrender to the Yuan army, but the key was that he couldn't even send out messengers. However, he still didn't give up and said, "There are only two ways to deal with it now. Either we send a group of scouts to break through and ask for help before Zhu Liangzu's main force arrives."

"The enemy has three to four thousand cavalrymen. What if our scouts can't break out?" Liu Minhua asked again.

"Then we will hold on until night. When it's dark, we will send people out of the city with baskets hanging in them and break out in different places. A few of them will always be able to escape." Sun Deya said in despair with his eyes closed.

After a while, the city was ready.

Tianchang County City has a rammed earth wall that is only six meters high. Because there is no large water source nearby, there is no moat, but there is a trench. At the beginning of the morning at 9:00 p.m., the drawbridge at the east gate was lowered. Zhou Dexing, who was guarding the east gate, thought that the enemy was going to come out of the city to fight, and hurriedly asked his cavalry to prepare.

But the next moment, a group of women, children, the elderly and the weak ran out from the city gate, crying and pushing each other, and were driven out of the city by a group of soldiers.

As soon as these women left the city, the defenders on the city wall forced them to run in all directions. Anyone who dared to stay under the city would be shot to death with arrows. So the women began to run around crying. Taking advantage of the cover of these women and children, the East Gate was closed again and the drawbridge was pulled up again. Zhou Dexing was stunned.

What should we do? Just kill all these women, children, the elderly and the weak? That's definitely not an option! But what if there are spies from Sun Deya among them? If we ignore these people, wouldn't we just let them go?

Thinking of this, Zhou Dexing suddenly felt overwhelmed and shouted, "Surround them, don't let any of them escape, go find the commander for support! Don't kill them indiscriminately!"

More than 800 cavalrymen immediately moved upon hearing the sound, and went around to capture the women and children who were driven out of the city. Upon hearing the news, Zheng Yong also hurriedly dispatched two companies of 400 cavalrymen to the east gate for support. Qi Xiang also sent out two companies for support. The troops in the three directions of north, south and west suddenly became sparse.

Just when the cavalry regiment's attention was drawn to the east gate, the west gate suddenly opened, and more than a dozen scouts immediately swarmed out of the city, desperately trying to break out in all directions. This caught Zheng Yong and Qi Xiang off guard, and they quickly sent people to surround the scouts.

The strength of the troops on the three sides of the city was reduced again. Taking this opportunity, the two city gates in the north and south were suddenly opened, and more than ten scouts were released to break through to the north and south.
This time, Sun Deya had exhausted all the scouts in his hands. It was not that he had no cavalry anymore, but the only dozens of armored cavalry left were all his personal soldiers. They were used to escort him to escape when he had no choice. He was reluctant to throw all of them away to deliver letters.

However, Sun Deya's multi-wave saturation breakout caught Zheng Yong off guard. They had guessed in advance that Sun Deya might send a messenger to ask the Yuan army for help, but they did not expect that he would use this method to break through.

Fortunately, the cavalry of the Shengwu Army were well-trained and highly organized. When Zheng Yong discovered that Sun Deya was deliberately luring the tiger away from the mountain, he ordered each battalion to form companies and platoons, and always leave a company to guard each gate. The other troops formed platoons and dispersed to pursue and encircle the messengers. They soon captured them all.

The more than 1,000 elderly, weak, women and children who were released at the beginning were all blocked back. When these women and children were being surrounded, some people really wanted to escape and break through. It turned out that they were soldiers dressed as women. They also searched them and found more than 20 letters asking for help. So, the first wave of women and children were not all fake, and there were really messengers mixed in.
Zheng Yong exclaimed, "What a guy! Sun Deya had his soldiers fighting hard in order to break out and seek help. He even thought of all kinds of dirty tricks."

Not long after, all the mounted scouts and messengers were captured, and none of them escaped. After all, Zheng Yong now had three battalions of cavalry at his disposal. If he could let Sun Deya send people to break out, then he would not have to be a commander.

But to be honest, if Sun Deya had more cavalry and they broke through in several batches, maybe some of them would have escaped. Unfortunately, there is no if. If he could afford so many cavalry, he would not have stayed in Tianchang all the time without fighting outside.
Zheng Yong was even more ruthless. Not only did he seize more than 30 horses, he also tied the intercepted letters for help to arrows and shot them back into the city without missing a single one. This directly broke the defense of Sun Deya and Liu Minhua.

"Marshal, what should we do now? All 60 letters for help were shot back by them."

Sun Deya looked ashen, and said coldly, "There are too many enemy cavalry. Don't even think about breaking through during the day. Let's arrange defenses for the city. When it gets dark, send people out of the city with hanging baskets. We need to defend the city first. Even if the Yuan army is willing to send troops to rescue us, we have to be able to defend it ourselves."

"That's right." Liu Minhua immediately nodded in agreement.

The two men planned to defend the city first and then find an opportunity to send a messenger to break out and ask for help. However, their plan was just a good one. In the afternoon, when they saw Zhu Liangzu leading tens of thousands of main forces to the city and Zhang Huzi also escorting thousands of prisoners of Yu Shiliang's troops all the way from Shiliang Station, their faces became ugly again.

What was embarrassing was not that Yu Shiliang's troops were captured alive by them, but that Zhu Liangzu actually let the surrendered Zhao Que, Han Chang and others bring thousands of prisoners to the city to shout, asking the defenders in the city to surrender, and that they could save their lives if they surrendered.

Zhao Que, Han Chang and others even went to specifically instigate those generals under Sun Deya who were not from Dingyuan to rebel, telling them that Sun Deya and Yu Shiliang had deceived them. They also told them about the ugly things that Sun Deya and Yu Shiliang had done in Dingyuan, and told them that as long as they surrendered, they would be valued, and that the affairs of Dingyuan had nothing to do with those officers who were not from Dingyuan.

This immediately aroused mutual suspicion among the generals from Dingyuan and those not from Dingyuan.

Zhu Liangzu had an even more ruthless plan. He sent people to the city to tell the generals from Dingyuan that as long as they could capture Sun Deya alive, they would be spared the death penalty, and Zhu Liangzu could also recommend him as the regiment commander. There was only one chance, and if they acted too late, it would be gone.

Sun Deya no longer trusted even the officers from Dingyuan anymore, and he treated everyone as if they were out to catch him.
In the late afternoon, before the night's breakout plan was finalized, Sun Deya stared at Liu Minhua with a vigilant look on his face, as if this man was about to betray and attack him.

Liu Minhua immediately smiled bitterly and said, "General, I have followed you since the beginning of the rebellion. Even if others abandon you, I will not betray you."

Sun Deya said expressionlessly, "Of course you won't abandon me. You want to capture me and make merit so that you can get a new position as the regiment commander, right?"

Liu Minhua immediately panicked and argued, "How is this possible? The Marshal and I have been together day and night. Could it be that the Marshal doesn't trust me? My family is still controlled by the Marshal's personal soldiers. If I betray him, will I abandon my wife and children? Marshal, please don't be confused. Don't fall into Zhu Liangzu's trap. This is their plan to alienate you."

Sun Deya said calmly, "A wife, children and the elderly are nothing. You can marry another wife and have another son. As long as you get out alive and seek an official position, are you still afraid of having no descendants?

"You just said I was confused, but I remember clearly that when I decided to fight against Lu Ding, you were the one who was unwilling to do it. You also advised me not to make a big fuss. At most, I could surrender to Lu Jin like Guo Zixing did. They have more soldiers and more power, so it's not a disadvantage. Tell me, have you wanted to run away for a long time?"

Liu Minhua was shocked and said speechlessly, "Marshal, you are simply crazy. How can you miss me so much?"

"Hehe, why not?" Sun Deya sneered and waved his hand. Immediately, his personal soldiers surrounded him, two of whom held Liu Minhua's wife and children hostage.

"Minhua, don't move, otherwise your wife and children will be dead." Sun Deya said coldly like a madman.

"Husband!" Behind Liu Minhua, his wife Zhang also cried while holding her child.

Liu Minhua was furious when he saw this, "Sun Deya, are you crazy?!"

(End of this chapter)