Realm of Power

Yanzhou, Shangjing,

Dark clouds rolled up from the sky, quickly piled up, and quickly covered the entire world in everyone's sight. The strong wind blew the land into a patch of wind and grass. The whining sound passed over the ravine covered with weeds. After winter, the temperature began to rise. The warm and moist air flow crossed the mountainous Yanzhou North and rushed straight down. It was this beating that almost made people's eyes open. Due to the rainy season, the soldiers of the Luzhou Army in yellow armor and red scarves did not dare to relax and looked outside Yanzhou City while standing in the pitter-patter rain.

A large area of ​​grassland tents with no end in sight surrounded the entire Yanzhou Shangjing outskirts. The broken outer walls that had collapsed in the past few days were washed away by the rain and glowed with a layer of white luster unique to Yanzhou stone, making everyone's faces look even more grim. It looks ugly,

The grassland people rushed in like a tsunami from the Hural Pass in the northwest of Yanzhou. Their numbers were too large to be counted. The entire Yanzhou was plunged into the brutal war of fire almost in one day. It was not bad to garrison the important barrier areas where the main force was located. , those scattered teams that were just sent to various parts of Yanzhou to gather homeless people encountered prairie people. The cavalry was a disaster. Fortunately, the Luzhou Army responded quickly enough. In addition, since it was an infantry army, the scope of its full dispersal was limited. It immediately ordered the entire army to shrink towards the Yanzhou Shangjing barrier, which was able to block this wave. The ferocious tide is heading south, but no one is sure how this battle will be fought!

Under the heavy rain, the Luzhou Army camp on the outskirts of Shangjing in Yanzhou was full of panic. The rain was so fierce that it almost flooded the military town of Xiongcheng in the northern plains. The Luzhou Army marched north. , was a test by the Emperor of Central Asia, so the military capital he brought was very sufficient, and even if it was to be defended, it would be enough to last for more than three months. However, the prairie people broke in too hastily and hastily retracted the defense line. The military supplies that could not be taken away had to be burned. Otherwise, if they were left to the prairie people, they would be endangering the enemy.

Sixty thousand Luzhou troops gathered in Yanzhou and went to Beijing in one go. They defended themselves with heavy armor. They were able to stabilize their position under the impact of the prairie cavalry. However, they also fell into a dilemma of lack of various logistical supplies. Now that they encountered this heavy rain, everyone Everywhere in the camp, the fences were being reinforced. Work harder to dig deeper the drainage ditches around the camp.

"Hurry up, don't be lazy, we can't dig a channel to drain the water, and everyone will be soaked in the water tonight!" The trusted officers under the generals roared at the top of their lungs against the strong wind. Let the soldiers work harder. They were beaten so hard by the rain that they almost choked out the blood in their lungs. Those who had a place to take shelter from the rain were already the middle and upper-level officers of the Luzhou Army. The Yanzhou barrier was destroyed by the grassland people, and the most serious one was in Shangjing. In the area, countless grassland people have died on this barrier for decades. If it weren't for the Yanzhou barrier, most of it was built with solid rocks. It would take too much effort to destroy it, and the entire Shangjing would probably be wiped out, and the grassland people would set Shangjing on fire. The fire burned for seven days,

When the Luzhou Army entered Beijing, not only did half of the city wall collapse, but not even a single intact house was found in the city. It had not been partially repaired due to the fine weather in the past half month, and now even the two commanders of the Luzhou Army could only hide in half of the city. In a dilapidated house covered in rain and mud

The barrier to the capital is more than ten miles long and wide. Although it is dilapidated, it is enough to house 60,000 Luzhou troops. But when the Luzhou army entered Yanzhou, they wanted to obtain enough manpower to repair this barrier. So they searched everywhere for the refugees in Yanzhou. There were 70,000 to 80,000 people in total. They all followed Luzhou military vehicles and evacuated to Shangjing. It suddenly became crowded. There were not enough tents for the soldiers, let alone them.

These Yanzhou refugees who survived the catastrophe and struggled to survive usually relied on the scraps of food given out by the army. This spring rainstorm poured down, the cold rain poured on their bodies, and the food in their stomachs It's also cold, or else The smelly food soaked by the rain turned white and rancid, but even such food is not available every day. In many cases, the refugees can only dig wild vegetable sprouts that have just sprouted in spring in the fields, while tens of thousands of people squat in Beijing. No matter how many wild sprouts there are, they will all be gone soon.

The whole body was covered with pipa leaves from the field, and half of the rotten wooden board was supported on it. The whole family huddled together. Except for the eyes, the whole body was green, and the skin was whitened by the rain. The moon's rain is still bitingly cold in the northern land, It was soaked. If there was no fire at night, it would basically be miasma. In the past few days, more than a thousand corpses of refugees have been carried out from the camp shacks, and there are even more people lying half-dead and half-alive in the mud. No one dares to take care of it, and no one dares to clean it up.

Wherever your feet landed, there was muddy water mixed with all kinds of excrement. The yellow and white colors were floating on the water, like a huge open-air toilet. If anyone wanted to go over and mop up the people on the ground, they would have to do it before they even got there. He will be immediately shot to death by an arrow from the army.

This is because the cold miasma has begun to run rampant in the army. Cold miasma is actually dysentery. The extremely harsh and humid environment, unclean food, and the occurrence of plague are inevitable. Vomiting and diarrhea, dehydration of the body, even if you use the fastest speed Isolation has been adopted, but it has already emerged. In such an environment, how can it be suppressed!

In the past, the refugees could still see people from the army coming to look for people to work among the refugees. In the past two days, even the army has stopped sending people. The army has given up on the refugees, and it feels like tens of thousands of people are slowly waiting to die. Far more heart-wrenching than the cold rain falling on my body. Seeing my wife, children, and parents fall down one by one and never stand up again. It’s not like no one has the courage to go out and try to find a way to survive, but The barrier wall guarded by the army was like a big fence trapping everyone inside.

Within fifty meters of the city wall, if there were no military orders and slogans, the bows and arrows on the city wall would be shot down mercilessly like a heavy rain. It was useless to kneel in the muddy ground and kowtow to the military master on the city wall, crying so hard that the heavens and the earth would split. The city gate cannot be opened. If you see the outside of the city, the people in the grasslands are eagerly waiting for the city to open!

General Luo Wenyue of the Fengwu Army did not know whether all the refugees would eventually die in Shangjing, but the Luzhou Army marching north might be doomed. Luo Wenyue felt this when he received an urgent order from the Zhongbia court.

The army of the prairie people is pressing down on the city, but they will definitely not attack the city, because until now, the prairie army outside the city has only pieced together a dozen or so columbiners, and the targets of the attack are only some isolated small barriers on the periphery. Thousands of them attack five. I can count them on my fingers.

Yanzhou went to Beijing for more than ten miles to form a defensive line with overlapping mountains. This is specifically for the grassland people. The barriers are made of stones from Mount Lu, a hundred miles away. They are extremely strong. The rammed earth for the base of the lower part of the city wall is also made of steamed earth that is not easy to shake. Not to mention more than ten buildings. . Even if the number is ten times greater, it still cannot be shaken at all. The repairs have been perfected over the past hundred years, all kinds of fantastic ideas, and the defense equipment have been installed one after another, between the stacked city walls. Like spider webs, they can guard each other. The distance between some protruding barriers is only fifteen meters. You can pass through them by putting up a long and wide wooden board, and reinforcements can be sent up at any time. Whoever hits the first line of defense actually hits the entire barrier. Without the courage to fight three to five times the number of defenders, attacking Yanzhou and Shangjing is a joke!

But now, this barrier is more like a cage. In Shangjing City, it is quiet these days. Ever since the order from the Zhongbia court spread, no one looked back, even though it was still daytime. But it’s already cold under heavy rain,

The courtyard where the military headquarters is located is as silent as a mourning hall. Occasionally, officers would rush by in a hurry, and they would all stand on tiptoe for fear of making any unnecessary noise.

In a large room. The raindrops are like short beads rushing down along the eaves, the wind is blowing and the rain is cold. There is even more of a sense of desolation,

The generals of the Luzhou Army sat in two lines. Wutong and Fengwu's two military commanders sit side by side at the front. Lu Guangyan, the commander of the Wutong Army, has a thick face, thick eyebrows like swords, and eyes as cold and sharp as knives. Sitting there, he naturally has the aura of a general.

Forty-one-year-old Lu Guangyan is the most energetic age in his life. Most people in the south are not tall. This can be seen in Lu Guangyan, but sitting there, he is like a tower, weighing down The wind around him was motionless. Even the wind seemed to slow down in front of him. The Lu family was already there. Rooted in Luzhou for more than 300 years, the Lu family of Luzhou has been a prominent general in the past dynasties. There are definitely no more than five sects in Central Asia who can squeeze the sect into the second rank. Not to mention, Lu Guangyan once served as the attendant of the previous emperor. He has been a boyhood friend with the current emperor and has deep trust from the royal family.

Since taking charge of the Luzhou Army, he has suppressed and intimidated the mountain barbarians in the south and restored the traditional heavy armor of Luzhou. Even when facing the Song clan, one of the four first-class clans, he has not lowered his head. He is as if he is the plenipotentiary representative of the central empire in the south. When it comes to The position in the army is slightly inferior to the Long family in the southwest.

There have long been rumors that the emperor has long intended to use the Luzhou Army to replace the Zhangwu Army that suffered a disastrous defeat in Beijing. Not only because the Zhangwu Army was in disgraceful decline by flattery, but also because Lu Guangyan once boldly said that if China and Beijing were defeated, There are 200,000 Luzhou troops. No need to fight, the prairie people will be scared away by themselves! Flattery Zhangwu's army of 300,000 is no match for Luzhou's 100,000! "Starting from this morning, the grassland army outside the city began to show signs of floating. It seems that they are preparing to move to Anza, a high place. If that is the case, there will be loopholes in the blockade outside the city." A young officer said with a look on his face. He was explaining the situation outside the city with some excitement. After all, going to Beijing was not Luzhou, and no one was risking their lives. It is necessary to leave it here. If it were not for the strong pressure from the grassland people outside the city, the Luzhou army would not have defended Kyoto, but would have returned long ago. It was just a moment of hesitation that led to the current embarrassment. "It is not difficult to go to Kyoto. It is difficult to do so." How to get out of Shangjing! I still say the same thing, this rain is not good for our army, and it is even more bad for the grassland people. , their goal is to go south, not to fight with us and go to Beijing. The most appropriate way is to wait and see what happens. Don't watch those grassland people wandering leisurely outside the city. I dare say that the Right Prime Minister Yelu Hongtai is now He must have gotten angry because of the anxiety!" The old man sitting next to Lu Guangyan said in a bad tone. He was already over the age. He is over sixty, his body is thin, and he looks a little depressed. In this kind of weather and environment, a middle-aged person can't bear it, let alone an old man. The green-red copper armor is pressing down on his body, and it is so heavy that it is slumped, and his temples are as white as Snow, those eyes that seemed to have seen countless scenery narrowed into lines, revealed a shuddering sharpness.

"That's what I said, but the emperor's order cannot be violated!" A general muttered with an ugly face.

"The adults in the court did not understand the situation in Yanzhou at all, so they issued an order to evacuate with all their strength. They never thought about how an infantry group like our Luzhou Army could survive in this vast mud with as many troops as the people outside the city. If you fight out among the prairie cavalry, even if you really fight out, can two legs outrun four legs? It’s really going to kill you!”

The old man curled his lips slightly. There are some words that others dare not say, but he can say them because he is Luo Wenyue, the leader of the Fengwu Army. In terms of seniority and age, he is definitely the first among the Central and Asian armies. He is a veteran who has served three emperors. Participated in the Northern Expedition Battle of the Grasslands and rescued vehicles four times. Although they were unruly and rebellious, they were all loyal ministers in the emperor's heart. He was a famous and aggressive figure in Luzhou back then. Several generations of prime ministers had scolded him, but he still went his own way. With this qualification of having rescued the emperor four times, even if the court knew about it, he would It's just another scolding of an old man.

He stood up from his position, tilted his head, and said with a somewhat stern tone, "Tens of thousands of Luzhou disciples left Luzhou with great momentum, and only a few generals returned alone. How about a general who has lost his army by drowning in the saliva of Luzhou people?" ?, if you want to leave, you can leave. I am old and will not bear this crime. I have not read much, but I have also heard that if there is a general outside, you will not be punished!"

Lu Guangyan sat silently, with a wry smile on his face. As a confidant of the emperor, he certainly knew more than Luo Wenyue. Old man, just say less. This kind of thing is what you can say to the one here. I don’t have qualifications like you. The current situation is not the same as before. The emperor’s plan to seize the Long Family’s Western Army failed. , had no choice but to move the Luzhou Army into Yanzhou. They originally wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to mobilize elite troops from the damaged flattery army, but no one expected that they would encounter such a big thing. Now the whole The court in China and Libya are all waiting to see the emperor's joke. If the Luzhou Army disobeys another order, it will really hit the sky!

There was a sudden noise outside, and Lu Guangyan raised his eyebrows. Just as he was about to have a seizure, he heard the officer in charge outside the door trembling slightly and hurriedly replying, "Sir, the grassland army outside the city suddenly began to evacuate!" Suddenly, there was an explosion in the conference hall. There was a noise

Lu Guangyan waved his hand heavily, silencing the noise. Lu Guangyan looked at the officer, eyebrows hanging upside down, eyes like lightning, and asked in a deep voice, "Are you sure the grassland people are evacuating, not moving camps?" "We sent a special mission The man sneaked out and took a look, and found that he was indeed leaving the camp, not moving the camp! "The officer said with confidence,

Just when everyone was confused, another officer quickly ran over, knelt down on one knee at the door, and said loudly, "I just received the news that the Long Family's Western Army of 100,000 left Guangling three days ago!" (To be continued)