Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 547 The Child Relies on His Father

On the second day, Ding Daxing found several comrades who were also returning home to visit their families, and asked them to help escort these thieves who were pretending to be officials.

As soon as we set out, the newly arrived comrade brought us a piece of news.

Luo Shenyan, following Liu Huai's military order, led 500 soldiers of the left army to station in Lianshui to prevent the Song army from crossing the river.

The person who came was Wu Chao, the commander of the right army of Jiankang. He personally led two thousand people to cross the river and head north to Yizhou, but was stopped. He couldn't help but feel extremely angry.

Originally in history, it was Jia Hezhong who went to Haizhou to seize power from Wei Sheng.

He won over the generals and annoyed Wei Sheng endlessly, but in the end he was able to get rid of Jia Hezhong through Zhang Jun.

But now that Zhang Baiyu found an excuse to catch Jia Laoer from the army and beat him up in public, he was completely afraid of this group of bandit-like warlords who did not give him any face at all. Faced with such an appointment, he directly refused on the pretext of illness and would rather lose his official position than dare to go north to Shandong.

However, given the trouble-making nature of the Song State, which was suppressed and constrained at every level, it was impossible for it not to cause trouble, so this glorious and arduous task fell on Wu Chao.

Wu Chao was also a hero in the fight against the Jin army. When the Huaibei and Huaibei regions suffered a great defeat, he still dared to lead his troops and fight the Jin army in Zaojiaolin together with Yuan Qi and Jia Hezhong. He was courageous and brave.

But people need to be looked at from two sides.

Take Han Shizhong for example. He was famous for his bravery, but also for his greed. You can't say he was a perfect man just because he was a hero. He also had major shortcomings.

These two characteristics are particularly evident in Wu Chao, but he is not as brave as Han Shizhong, but he is more greedy.

He was not only greedy for wealth and women, but also for power and even military power.

Since he was a brave man, Wu Chao was naturally not afraid of taking risks. After seeing his army being blocked from crossing the river by Luo Shenyan some time ago, he simply crossed the Huai River with generals such as Yuan Qi and rode alone to Yizhou, wanting to ask Wei Sheng for an explanation.

Officials such as Mao Zhiyu arrived in Haizhou by ship. Although they did not know Wu Chao's whereabouts, they knew that the court had sent troops to support them. Therefore, they did not care and wanted to seize power directly.

Ding Daxing naturally didn't know about this. He left those officials and their entourage in Haizhou, stuffed Mao Zhiyu and others onto the boat, and headed towards Linyi.

As they got closer to Linyi, the news brought by merchants became more and more frequent. When Ding Daxing got on and off the boat from the Shuhe River and arrived near Hejiazhuang by land, he finally got some accurate news.

Liu Huai is finally returning to Yizhou.

Mobilizing a large army, whether advancing or retreating, is not so simple, especially when there are a large number of people from Lianghuai among them. These people have become refugees, and many of them have gone hungry for several meals. Naturally, they cannot force their way forward and can only be transported by large ships.

Not to mention that the Jin army in Wokou was not a good group either. After they gathered some defeated soldiers, although they could not cross the river to fight a strategic battle, they were still good at attacking and killing civilians.

In order to ensure the transportation route of troops along the Huai River, Liu Huai had to make a move to cross the river and attack, forcing the Jin army to withdraw its troops.

In the process of going back and forth, a lot of time was wasted.

And today, Liu Huai is finally going back to his loyal Shandong. It is a great joyous event. Not only the local officials and generals of the Jingnan Army, but even the leader Geng of the Tianping Army has sent envoys to welcome Liu Huai's triumphant return.

Now it was Ding Daxing's turn to hesitate.

On such a happy occasion, isn't it a bit too much of a spoiler to hand over this group of bandits who are not sure whether they are officials or thieves?

But if we don’t report the handover immediately, won’t we have to spend money to support these people for a few days in vain?
That's the hard-earned money, how can you waste it like this?

After hesitating for a moment, Ding Daxing made up his mind.

Let’s put the money aside for now. There is absolutely no reason to keep such a big thing from Duke Wei and Mr. Liu. It needs to be reported immediately!
After completing the psychological preparation, Ding Daxing shouted to the donkey pulling the cart and hurried towards the Linyi ferry.

We still have to get on the boat to cross the river, time is running out!
Another person who had also completed the psychological preparation was Wu Chao, who was in front of Linyi City, welcoming Liu Huai with a group of Shandong civil servants and generals.

Although he had won over a large number of local Shandong officials in just a few days, Wu Chao felt that his reliance was still on Liu Huai, the commander-in-chief of the Jingnan Army and a heroic figure with outstanding military achievements in Huaixi.

Yes, it was indeed a bit arrogant of him to want to lead the army into Shandong without Liu Huai's consent, and Wu Chao was also willing to make a deep self-reflection.

But Liu Huai used to be a general under Wei Sheng. After he went south to participate in the war, his army expanded to such an extent that even the Dongping Army had been annexed. Would he still be willing to be inferior to Wei Sheng?

How can it be?

Wu Chao asked himself if he were in the other's place, he would immediately annex the Loyal Army and drive Wei Sheng back to his hometown!

During the conflict, Wu Chao could take advantage of the situation and profit from it. In the military, the strong are respected, and although Liu Huai is much younger, in terms of combat prowess, Wu Chao's former superior, Liu Qi, is his equal. He could politely address Liu Huai as "General Sir," which was not excessive.

Seeing Yuan Qi looking a little worried, Wu Chao nudged him with his elbow and said, "Ah Qi, what are you worried about? From today on, we will naturally have Liu Dalang to support us."

Yuan Qi smiled bitterly twice, looked up at his extremely excited comrades, and was speechless.

This fellow had an overly good self-image. Over the past ten days, the Shandong civil and military officials whom Wu Chao had won over were obviously just perfunctory and polite to him, but Wu Chao felt that these people were truly loyal to him, and he had the aura of a king and the people of the country were loyal to him, enough for him to become a prefect of a border area and establish his career.

Now he says that Liu Huai is his support, which is simply ridiculous.

After all, Yuan Qi had fought side by side with the Jingnan Army in Chao County, so there was some fate between them. What do you, Wu Chao, have?
Did you have the experience of being defeated by the Jin army and fleeing in a panic in Zaojiaolin?

Huyan Nanxian and Liang Yuaner, who were closest to Wu Chao, looked at each other in confusion after hearing his bold words, not knowing what to say.

At that time, these two men were the general manager and deputy general manager of Wucheng Army, stationed near Yidu Prefecture in northern Shandong.

If Huyan Nanxian still had some ambitions before, he completely gave up his ambitions after hearing the news of the great victory in Chao County.

How strong was the Jin army? As the former deputy commander of the Wucheng Army, how could Huyan Nanxian not know? Moreover, it was the Jin emperor who was captured by Liu Huai and taken to Jiangnan like a little chicken. It was truly astonishing.

Especially after most of the Wucheng Army that had marched south was persuaded by Liu Huai to surrender and return north, Huyan Nanxian was left with only gratitude towards Wei Sheng and his son.

In his opinion, how could Liu Huai be the others' support? He was clearly Wei Sheng's support.

If Liu Huai hadn't been there to keep him in check, not to mention Huyan Nanxian, even people like Zhang Qing and Huyan Chuo might have had other thoughts.

There is also a powerful governor like Geng Jing outside, and if he has any bad intentions, it can cause a big chaos.

For example, the three generals under my command, Xin Qiji, Jia Rui and Li Tieqiang, all take orders from you. Isn't it normal for me to poach two of them?

It was because Liu Huai had gained fame and prestige that these people were as steady as quails. Not only did they not dare to do anything, they didn't even dare to think about it, for fear that Liu Huai would come back and make a list and settle accounts with them one by one.

Thinking of this, Huyan Nanxian looked at the complacent Wu Chao again and sighed inexplicably in his heart.

What kind of person is this Song general? Why can't he even understand this?

Is it that the Southern Dynasty has bad feng shui? Why did so many rats emerge after it took control of Jiangdong?

While Huyan Nanxian was lost in thought, he heard a military envoy approaching on horseback. He dismounted, bowed, and said to Wei Sheng, "Lord Wei, the commander-in-chief just learned that you are coming to greet us personally, and has hurried over."

Wei Sheng nodded slowly and said to the military envoy, "Tell Dalang not to be so anxious. Safety comes first."

The military envoy agreed and immediately mounted his horse and left.

In less than half a quarter of an hour, smoke and dust billowed in the distance, and more than ten riders came galloping. When they were more than thirty steps away, the leader had already dismounted and was striding towards them.

Wu Chao recognized that the man was Liu Huai, and was instantly overjoyed. He cheered up and was about to go forward to greet him.

However, he only took two steps, and saw Liu Huai came to Wei Sheng. Regardless of the armor on his body, he knelt on one knee in front of Wei Sheng: "Father, the child is back."

Wei Sheng stepped forward, took Liu Huai's hands, and said with a smile, "Da Lang, I'm glad you're back. I hope you're back safely."

After just two words, Wei Sheng burst into tears without knowing when.

"Greetings to the Commander-in-Chief." Behind Wei Sheng, Wei Jiao took the lead and bowed to Liu Huai.

Afterwards, generals such as Huyan Nanxian, Dong Cheng, and Huyan Chuo, and civil officials such as Zhang Xiaoxiang, Cui Hema, and Zhang Chou also saluted.

"Greetings to the Lord Commander."

Yuan Qi was a little surprised, but also felt that it was reasonable, so he bowed and saluted, leaving Wu Chao standing there, stunned.

It was not until then that Wu Chao reacted.

It turned out that those people who he thought he had won over never took him seriously. They didn't even remind him of the true relationship between Wei Sheng and Liu Huai.

One has the surname Liu and the other has the surname Wei, so how can they be father and son?
(End of this chapter)