Tibet

When Li Ye led his army to the battlefield, the war was already over. Li Xilie's army retreated hastily eastward. The collective surrender of Wang Zhongsheng's remaining troops became the source of Li Xilie's report. Thirty thousand troops quickly rushed eastward and retreated eastward. The Guanlong cavalry pursued them for more than ten miles. They refused to take prisoners and killed them. There were more than 4,000 enemies, and more than 6,000 people were killed on the battlefield. Li Xilie's army was killed with 11,000 people. The rest of the army quickly retreated eastward, and the Guanlong cavalry did not continue to pursue.

Xi Wanli was not in a hurry to pursue him, but instead gathered nearly eight thousand Wang Zhongsheng's remnants.

Eight thousand soldiers took off their armor, put down their weapons, and sat in the wilderness, waiting for the Guanlong army to fall.

At this time, Li Ye, escorted by 20,000 cavalry, arrived at the battlefield that had just ended. The 20,000 army had flags fluttering and the momentum was huge. Xi Wanli quickly went to see him with several generals.

"Your Highness, Li Xilie's army fought with the humble 30,000 cavalry for half an hour, but they have already retreated?"

"Is it a defeat or a retreat?" Li Ye asked. The two are completely different in nature.

"Reporting to Your Highness, it was a retreat, so I only pursued them for a dozen miles before I stopped pursuing them. We killed ten thousand enemies in total, and we suffered about two thousand casualties."

Wu Shaocheng is about thirty years old, tall, with a sinewy face, very fierce appearance, and a pair of triangular eyes full of cunning.

Zhang Dian said without hesitation: "We need a thousand sets of armor and weapons."

Miao Qi said slowly: "I only give you one piece of advice. Don't think that he will surrender. He is Li Xilie's confidant. When Li Xilie went to Haozhou, he did not let his son guard Hefei, but let Wu Shaocheng be the general. Twenty thousand The fact that the army was handed over to him shows the trust in him, so Wu Shaocheng must kill him! "

Including Wu Shaocheng, everyone in Hefei City had no sense of crisis for the time being, and they did not know that 30,000 Jingxiang troops were coming towards them.

The soldiers rushed into the inns, searched every inn, questioned all the guests, searched their luggage, and if they were found to be carrying weapons, they would be arrested immediately.

"I haven't had time to ask him yet, let me ask you first!"

"We have recruited a group of craftsmen from other places, but they are not in the city during the day. They are mining outside the city and will not come back to rest until night."

The streets and alleys of Hefei City immediately became deserted. There was not a single pedestrian in sight, and the shops were closed one after another. There were only groups of soldiers running in the city.

"It's very possible that this person does his duty and usually patrols the city wall at night, but I don't know when. In short, you have to prepare for the worst."

Li Ye cursed, and then ordered the marching commander Zhao Yannan: "The surrendered soldiers will each be given a piece of money and two buckets of rice, and they will all be sent home. Warn them that if they dare to rob the people on the way, they will be killed without mercy!"

Zhang Luanzi shook his head, "But let me tell you, this is a top-secret firearms workshop. I develop firearms for the prince and others. The prince has ordered that no one is allowed to enter the firearms workshop."

Two days later, Miao Qi, the shopkeeper of Jishitang Drug Store, sent a batch of medicine to the workshop. This was a signal.

"Bing Jia!"

Zhang Luanzi was overjoyed and said quickly: "Thank you, His Highness Jianguo, for your tolerance. I wonder what else I can do for the general?"

Li Ye nodded and pointed his riding whip at the surrendered soldiers sitting on the grass in the distance, "Who are those?"

After pondering for a while, Zhang Dian asked again: "How much do you know about this Wu Shaocheng?"

Zhang Dian nodded, and it came faster than he expected. He thought he would arrive in at least two days, but he didn't expect that it would start tomorrow night.

Wu Shaocheng was very decisive and immediately declared the city of Hefei to be in a state of war. The entire city was under martial law and the city gates were closed. At the same time, suspicious people were searched in the city.

He suspected that Guan Longjun's spies had sneaked into the city.

Zhang Luanzi nodded, "It's not a big problem. The weapons workshop is next door. There is a large warehouse over there, which is full of armors and weapons. We will arrange for you to live next door. There is a small door leading to the warehouse. It is usually occupied by Lock it, you need to break the lock directly and enter the warehouse."

"Thank you, Immortal, for the arrangement!"

This unexpected wealth made Li Ye very happy. He immediately ordered General Wei Zhou to lead 3,000 soldiers to send them to Shouchun County for temporary release. After the war, they were sent to the imperial court by ship.

"Why didn't the general ask Zhang Luanzi?"

"Reporting to Your Highness, they are the remnants of Wang Zhongsheng's troops. They defected and surrendered on the battlefield. As a result, Li Xilie did not dare to fight and retreated hastily. We hunted down more than 4,000 of them. According to His Highness's instructions, we did not take prisoners of war from Li Xilie's army and killed them all. .

Zhang Dian led a thousand scouts disguised as civilians and arrived in Hefei. Zhang Luanzi kept his promise and arranged a thousand scouts into the city in batches in the name of making gunpowder and arranged them in three workshops.

Time waits for no one, and Lai Ai's army will soon reach Hefei. Of course, at night, Zhang Dian led his men into the warehouse and transferred a thousand sets of soldiers and armor to the dormitory.

"Tomorrow night at three o'clock, he will lead his army and wait outside Huidong City. The general must seize the east city gate."

At noon the next day, the atmosphere in Hefei suddenly became tense. Li Xilie still sent someone to take a detour to spread the news to Hefei that Guanlong's army was attacking him.

Zhao Yannan led hundreds of soldiers to deal with it. Thousands of captured carts were delivered, which contained the wealth accumulated by Wang Zhongsheng, including three million yuan and one million taels of silver.

Li Ye was no longer interested in Li Xilie. Li Xilie only had 19,000 men left. How could they withstand the encirclement and suppression of four armies of 110,000 troops?

In the afternoon, he led hundreds of soldiers to the workshop, but was stopped by Zhang Luanzi's soldiers at the gate.

"Yeah?"

"I humbly obey my orders!"

Xi Wanli continued to reorganize the army and horses and continued to track down the remnants of Li Xilie.

Zhang Luanzi rearranged the accommodation, and Zhang Dian and his men moved into the westernmost dormitory. Although the dormitory there was relatively remote and old, behind it was the warehouse of the weapons workshop. There was a wall between the dormitory and the warehouse, and you could climb over the wall and then you could see the back door of the warehouse, which was an abandoned small iron door locked with an iron chain.

Li Ye rested for a night and turned to Hefei the next morning.

Hefei County is currently guarded by Wu Shaocheng, Li Xilie's iron confidant, with 20,000 people. The battle situation in Haozhou has not yet been reported to Hefei County. Wu Shaocheng only received news that his lord Li Xilie killed Wang Zhongsheng and his son and seized a large amount of wealth.

Wu Shaocheng said with a half-smile: "Anyone can say such things, but there is no basis for it!"

An hour later, Zhang Dian came to the medicine shop. Miao Qi invited him to the backstage, poured him a cup of tea and said: "This morning, Lai Zhen sent someone to inform me."

"What did he say?"

Wu Shaocheng didn't buy it at all. He said coldly: "It is a wartime state now. As the commander of the city, I have the right to search anywhere. If the military advisor doesn't let me in, I can only break in by force. I will bear all the consequences and explain to the lord."

"I can't help it if you don't believe me!"

"Will he patrol the city at night?" Zhang Dian asked again.

"What does General Wu bring so many people to do?" Zhang Luanzi walked out of the yard.

In a room in the workshop, Zhang Dian met Zhang Luanzi, and Zhang Dian said slowly: "The Immortal's sincerity has been seen by His Highness the Regent. His Highness the Regent has stated that he will not pursue the Immortal's past as long as Hefei can be taken smoothly, and the Immortal can continue to practice in the Jianghuai area."

"They deserve to die!"

"I received a report that the military advisor recruited a lot of foreign craftsmen not long ago. I want to take a look!"

After speaking, Zhang Luanzi took out a gold medal from his arms, on which the word "confidential" was engraved.

Since Li Ye did not declare war and there was no sign of attacking Huaixi, all the Huaixi army generals believed that the court was still unifying the Central Plains and it was not Huaixi's turn yet.

"Okay! You must go in, and I can't stop you, but you can't go in with so many people, only a few people can go in, and in addition, it involves firearms secrets, so you are not allowed to ask more questions."

Wu Shaocheng waved his hand, "Ten brothers follow me in!"