Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 192: Prince Teng's Defeat

As mentioned earlier, when Emperor Longqing moved south, he ordered Wang Ziteng to send troops to block the grassland army and buy time for the court to move south.

After Wang Ziteng learned the news, he had no intention of being loyal to the court. Instead, he decided to lead his troops to join Fang Yong.

Fang Yong had not arrived yet. Wang Ziteng was afraid that Pinggu County, where his troops were stationed, would be breached by the grasslands because its defense was too weak. Therefore, he prepared to withdraw his troops to Jizhou for defense and wait for Fang Yong's army to arrive.

However, if he wanted to withdraw smoothly, he had to first find a way to hide it from the grassland soldiers who were eyeing him covetously not far away. Otherwise, if they discovered him, they would definitely launch an attack while he was withdrawing.

To this end, Wang Ziteng came up with a plan to confuse the grassland army.

He ordered his soldiers to recruit a large number of civilians from the surrounding areas, as if to recruit soldiers to defend against the enemy.

At the same time, he ordered his soldiers to make fire with wet grass and wood, creating large clouds of smoke in the city every day.

Finally, he ordered his soldiers to cut down a large number of trees in the surrounding area, build cities and defense facilities, and create the illusion that they were prepared to defend the city for a long time.

In this way, the grassland army would not think that he was preparing to withdraw, and he could take the opportunity to quietly withdraw the army in batches at night.

On the other hand, Caoyuan had already received Sun Shaozu's secret letter and knew the true situation of the capital.

After confirming that the information in the letter was correct, Kah Khan decided to cooperate with Sun Shaozu to capture the capital. Before the action, he dispatched three armies according to the strategy proposed by Li Hao to ensure the success of the operation.

The first army was mainly responsible for pursuing Emperor Longqing. It had less than 30,000 soldiers and horses, and was the army led by Gong Yulie and Batu Xiong.

The second army was mainly responsible for being stationed between the capital and Jinhai to guard against Fang Yong's Huaiyin army, with a total of 35,000 soldiers and horses.

The general of this army was named Huleleyong, the leader of the largest tribe under Kah Khan. He was brave and good at fighting. Zhang Yuan, the naval general under Fang Yong, had fought against him during this period.

The last army was mainly responsible for resisting Wang Ziteng's army. Although according to Li Hao's prediction, Wang Ziteng should have lost his will to fight after Emperor Longqing moved south, it was still best to be prepared anyway.

After all, Wang Ziteng still has an army of 200,000 under his command, and he should not be underestimated.

After careful discussion, the task was finally handed over to the Han general Chen Zhengdu.

On the one hand, Chen Zhengdu and Wang Ziteng have a deep hatred, and the two will never be compatible; on the other hand, Chen Zhengdu and Wang Ziteng have worked together before, and he has some understanding of Wang Ziteng's personality and tactics, so it is most appropriate to give this task to Chen Zhengdu.

Under the order of Kah Khan, Chen Zhengdu led 20,000 Han surrendered soldiers and 10,000 elite cavalry from the grassland to guard against Wang Ziteng.

He didn't need to defeat Wang Ziteng's army. He just needed to report any abnormal behavior of Wang Ziteng in time and temporarily stop him.

After receiving the task, Chen Zhengdu was stationed in another county town near Wang Ziteng.

Although Chen Zhengdu and Wang Ziteng had a great hatred and he wanted to rush into the enemy camp and behead Wang Ziteng, Wang Ziteng now had an army of 200,000 while he only had 30,000 soldiers. The gap between the two was huge. A rash attack would be like hitting a rock with an egg. Chen Zhengdu could only suppress his hatred temporarily.

However, things often develop in unexpected ways.

There is an old saying that too much is as bad as too little.

Wang Ziteng confused the enemy by increasing cooking smoke, recruiting young and strong men, and building city walls.

But Emperor Longqing has now moved south.

Wang Ziteng's behavior seems a bit strange.

The emperor has already run away, what is he still doing here?
If it were any other grassland general, he might have thought that Wang Ziteng was a loyal and patriotic man who planned to stay here and repay his country with his death.

But Chen Zheng knew Wang Ziteng very well. In the past, he had defended Zhending for three full months but failed to receive any reinforcements from Wang Ziteng. How could such a pest who only cared about his own wealth and glory choose to be loyal to Daxi?

There must be something wrong here!

Chen Zhengdu immediately sent people to investigate. On the first day, no problems were found.

As long as Chen Zheng doesn't give up, there must be a problem!

The next day, he personally led people to investigate and waited until the next day, when he finally discovered the situation.

At the hour of Chou at night, a large number of people walked out of the city, some disguised as caravans, some disguised as civilians, and dispersed from the city in waves.

Such a large number of people leaving could not possibly be a caravan of civilians.

Chen Zhengdu led his troops to quietly follow this group of people and found that they took a detour, gathered after reaching a mountain, and then went into the mountain.

Chen Zhengdu immediately sent people to capture the nearby people for questioning, and learned that the area was called Nanyugou, and the location it connected to was Jizhou!

Now, Chen Zheng understood everything!

the other side.

Wang Ziteng didn't know at this time that his plan had been exposed.

He had a total of 170,000 troops (actual number) under his command, which would be withdrawn in batches of about 20,000 each time. It was expected that the evacuation would be completed in a week.

The first and second days went smoothly.

But on the third day, Wang Ziteng received news that the capital had been breached.

With the cooperation of Sun Shaozu, the grassland army successfully captured the capital in just one day.

This is absolutely bad news for Wang Ziteng.

Because after the capital was captured, the grassland army would be free to deal with him.

There is no way the other party will tolerate this nail sticking in their throat!

Under such circumstances, Wang Ziteng couldn't help but feel a little anxious.

On the third day, he accelerated the evacuation and withdrew 40,000 people at one time, led by Mao Cheng.

Chen Zheng did not take any action because the number of troops evacuating this time was not large, and Wang Ziteng was most likely not among them.

What he didn't know was that although Wang Ziteng was not there, Mao Cheng was.

If it weren't for Mao Cheng, Chen Zhengdu wouldn't have fallen to this point. If he knew Mao Cheng was in there, he would definitely hunt him down at all costs!

On the fourth day, Wang Ziteng relaxed his vigilance after the success of the previous three days.

In order to avoid any further complications, on the fourth night, Wang Ziteng personally led 70,000 people to evacuate, leaving only 20,000 defenders in Pinggu City as a mere shell.

For some reason, Wang Ziteng felt a little uneasy this time. He ordered his soldiers to speed up and pass through Nanyugou as quickly as possible.

The army advanced smoothly without any accidents.

Seeing this, Wang Ziteng's uneasiness gradually dissipated.

However, just when the army reached the Dashiling area, an accident occurred!
The Dashiling area is the only way on this route, and after Dashiling you will reach Jizhou.

However, the Dashiling area is somewhat easy to defend and difficult to attack. The mountains on both sides are concave, and the mountains are not particularly steep. The overall angle is relatively gentle. But natural dangers are still natural dangers, especially for Wang Ziteng's army that evacuated secretly at night. Once they encountered an ambush, the result can be imagined.

(End of this chapter)