Considering that the soldiers were exhausted from successive battles and the burden on the people was too heavy, Chen Sangliang had the food left by Emperor Wen and Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty to squander, but other military supplies had to be plundered from the people, so Chen Sangliang had not planned to do this before. He was about to march into the Central Plains, and for a time he planned to send some help to Liu Changgong and Pei Xingfang, asking them to kill Xiao Mian who was easier to deal with first, so that the main force could rest more and expand their territory in the south. The three major accomplices Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui and Wei Zheng all strongly opposed Chen Sangliang's actions, and they all pointed out: "Your Highness, our main force is exhausted from years of fighting, but Wang Shichong's bandit army is a hundred times more exhausted than us! If we say that the main force of our army is now If only 80% of the combat strength is left, then only half of Wang Shichong's bandit army will be left at most! If we send troops now, we will be more sure of defeating Wang Shichong!" "Your Highness, I know that you are considerate of the people and do not want to start frequent wars. The people will bear the burden." Fang Xuanling pointed out: "But don't forget, your highness, if our army does not seize the time to send troops to pacify Wang Shichong and give him a chance to breathe, then he can surrender to him after Li Mi's defeat. The local forces in the Central Plains are integrated together, gathering sand into a tower, and establishing a powerful force that can compete with our army head-on. At that time, if we want to send troops to pacify him again, not only will the resistance we face will increase several times, but the burden endured by the people will also increase. The burden will be several times, ten times, or even dozens of times greater! " "So, it is better to send troops to the Eastern Capital sooner rather than later!" At this point, Fang Xuanling, who had always been gentle, waved his hand and said loudly: "I would rather do it! Peace dogs, don't be a man of trouble! The people of the world have been suffering from war and chaos for a long time. Your Majesty, you send troops to conquer Wang Shichong at this time and restore peace to the Central Plains. The people of the Central Plains will definitely eat pots of pulp to welcome the king. Master, the people of Guanzhong can enjoy peace after this battle and no longer have to suffer the pain of war! Your Highness, why don't you do it? " I think the words of the accomplices are reasonable, and considering that the long-term pain is not as good as the short-term pain, why don't you do it? Li Jing also wrote from Taiyuan to suggest that Chen Sangliang send troops to the Central Plains as soon as possible, so as not to give Wang Shichong a chance to breathe and consolidate the rule of the newly surrendered counties. At the same time, Yuan Tiangang also pointed out that the climate in Luoyang this year is with little rain in spring and summer, which is suitable for sending troops. Chen Sangliang hesitated again and again, but finally gritted his teeth and made up his mind. He decided to personally lead the main force to conquer Luoyang again, and adopted Wei Zheng's suggestion. He basically prepared all the preparations before making the decision to go public, and deliberately set the date of the expedition in the discussion. Wang's message directly stated that it created an atmosphere of panic for the puppet Zheng court. It also demonstrated Chen Sangliang's arrogant momentum and boosted the morale of the Sui army officers. Chen Sangliang's move indeed achieved satisfactory results. After the message to challenge the king reached Luoyang, the puppet Zheng court, which had serious internal problems, immediately went into panic. While letting the exhausted main army prepare for war, it hurriedly drove the people to build buildings. A large number of military fortifications. Zheng's soldiers, who were already overworked, became even more exhausted. The people of Dongdu, who had been suffering from hard labor, not only had to continue to work for Zheng's army for free, but also had to bear the risk of delaying the farming season. Therefore, the phenomenon of young men fleeing was very serious. , the puppet Zheng court, which was not very popular among the people, had to order the hunt down and kill the deserting people, and used swords, guns and whips to force innocent people to give up spring farming and work for the army, and the people were filled with resentment. This statement also brought a negative effect to Chen Sangliang, that is, what he said must be true. It happened that heavy rain fell in the Daxing area on the eighth day of February, which was not suitable for swearing to go on an expedition. However, in order to fulfill his promise, Chen Sangliang, who was not in good health, still presided over the expedition ceremony in the rain, and led the army on the eastern expedition in spite of the wind and rain. In addition, after returning to Daxing, he worked too hard on a group of beautiful wives and concubines. In the end, it was only that night that , Chen Sangliang developed a high fever, and his condition was quite serious. He had to lie down in the carriage and lead the army eastward despite his illness. He suffered a lot. Logically speaking, the army's commander suddenly fell ill just after setting off, which should be very detrimental to the army's morale. Unfortunately, Chen Sangliang's reputation in this regard is really bad. It is said that he suddenly fell ill during the expedition, let alone Chen Sangliang. Liang's enemies didn't believe it, even the officers and soldiers of the Sui army refused to believe it. They all believed that this was another trick of Chen Sangliang's to deceive the enemy. Not only was his morale not affected at all, but on the contrary, it was improved. Xue Renguo, a general of the Sui army who had suffered a great loss from Chen Sangliang in this regard, also complained publicly: "Why did His Highness do this again? Can you change to something fresh? How many people has he deceived by pretending to be sick? Wang Shichong The old man is not a fool, how could he be fooled again? " Only Fang Xuanling, Yuan Tiangang, Yuchi Jingde and a few close accomplices knew that Chen Sangliang was really ill this time. After hearing the rumors in the army, Fang Xuan Ling, Yuan Tiangang and others simply suggested that Chen Sangliang publicize his illness to the outside world, deliberately letting Zheng Jun Xizuo, who was hiding among the people, also know about it, and at the same time create a maze to keep the enemy from figuring out Chen Sangliang. At the same time, he took the opportunity to slow down the pace of the troops and reduce the daily marching distance, so that Chen Sangliang could rest in peace and recuperate in a slightly relaxed environment. Chen Sangliang, who was indeed seriously ill, accepted the kindness of Fang Xuanling and others, ordered to act according to the plan, and thenHe smiled and said: "I never thought that deceiving people too much would have such benefits. In the past, I always pretended to be sick and deceived people, and the enemy suffered a lot. But when I was really sick, the enemy didn't dare to believe anything they said. I guess when my father-in-law heard the news, he would yell like Xue Renguo, you should just lie to others, I¡¯m not a fool!¡± Fang Xuanling and others laughed, saying that Wang Shichong must be like this. In response, Chen Sangliang also smiled self-deprecatingly, and then suddenly sighed softly and said, "Just by doing this, I have delayed my important event." "What important event have you delayed His Highness?" Fang Xuanling said asked in shock. "Capture Luokou Cang." Chen Sangliang said calmly: "The Eastern Capital City is strong. The imperial city and the palace city are both brick-clad and rammed-earth structures. Our artillery siege tactics and gunpowder blasting tactics are all effective against this kind of city wall. It has little effect, and Wang Shichong's military style is known for his tenacity. It is easy to defeat him but extremely difficult to defeat him. We will definitely face a long and hard battle in attacking the eastern capital Luoyang, but the fatal weakness of the eastern capital Luoyang is that the granary is far away from the city. There is not enough food in the city, so I originally planned to advance to Luoyang City as soon as possible and not give Wang Shichong the opportunity to transport a large amount of food from Luokou Warehouse to Luoyang to stock up. I also immediately divided my troops to capture Luokou Warehouse and completely cut off Wang Shichong's supply of grain and grass. " , Chen Sangliang couldn't help but sigh again, and said: "I just didn't expect that I would suddenly fall ill on the night of the Eastern Expedition. This time, I could only give Wang Shichong an opportunity to rush to transport food and grass." Everyone was silent, Then Sun Fujia cautiously suggested: "Your Highness, since you think it will be beneficial to our army to capture Luokou Cang as soon as possible, why don't you order General Liu Heita to send troops to attack Luokou Cang first? Or send a front army. Go ahead and attack Luokoucang first?" Chen Sangliang smiled and said, "Is it that easy? Not to mention that Liu Heitai is confronting the main force of Wang Shichong's bandit army and can't escape at all, even if I can dispatch it. A partial division goes first, or Liu Heitai is ordered to give up the task of frontal containment and go around to attack Luokou Cang. Luokou Cang is not easy to capture. It goes without saying that Luokou Cang is the lifeblood of Wang Shichong, and a large number of troops must be stationed for protection. , and the Hulao Pass rebel army, which is only thirty miles away from Luokou Cang, will definitely send troops to reinforce Luokou Cang as soon as possible. Unless our main force is dispatched, there is absolutely no hope of winning with just one or two partial divisions. If you go to Luokou Cang, you will die in vain." Sun Fuga shut up. Fang Xuanling, who accompanied Chen Sangliang for the first time, hesitated to speak. After thinking carefully for a moment, Fang Xuan Ling still said: "Your Highness, I don't have much military experience, and I don't know much about battle formations, but I still feel that you seem to have neglected a little." "What did I neglect?" Chen Sangliang asked blankly. "The time of grain and grass transportation is a problem." Fang Xuanling said hesitantly: "The time spent on the road to transport grain and grass is much longer than that of the army. Even if the distance from Luokou warehouse to Luoyang is only a hundred miles, whether it is by land, carriage or horse It is absolutely impossible to transport it by boat upstream of the Luo River. In this case, if our army's partial division can capture a city fortress between Luokoucang and Luoyang first, it can choke Wang Shichong's thieves. If the army's grain transportation road is blocked, then troops can be sent out at any time to cut off the grain transportation route of Wang Shichong's bandit army. In this way, won't Wang Shichong's bandit army be able to stockpile a large amount of grain and grass in Luoyang City first? "Fang Xuanling hasn't said anything yet? After finishing, Chen Sangliang had already sat up from the hospital bed, and said angrily: "Why did I get into trouble? Our army's partial division cannot capture Luokou warehouse first, but it is very possible to seize other cities and cut off Wang Shi's food supply road. ? After success, it will either prevent Wang Shichong from transporting grain from Luokou warehouse to Luoyang, or force Wang Shichong to send out a large number of troops to counterattack our army and clear the grain road. Both points are very beneficial to our army, and we can do it! , then which place do you think should be captured first?" Fang Xuanling asked quickly. "Yanshi!" Chen Sangliang replied without thinking: "The Jiushan Trail cannot transport food. Wang Shichong's rebel army wants to transport food from Luokou Warehouse. Regardless of whether they take land or water, they must pass through Yanshi City and capture Yanshi. "Then, your highness, do you think we should detach a branch from our main force to attack Yanshi first?" "Fang Xuan?" Ling quickly asked again. After playing with the quilt for a long time, Chen Sangliang suddenly laughed and said with a smile: "Brother Qiao Song, this time it is your turn, the wise man Qianli accidentally made a mistake. How could you forget? On the Luoyang battlefield, we are still Is there an idle army? " "Idle army?" Fang Xuanling was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized, "Li Keshi! General Li Keshi's Yiyang Army is idle now!" It's him. He has recruited Hao Xiaode and has Fang Huang's new force at his disposal. His strength is barely enough." Chen Sangliang nodded.??quickly told Sun Fujia: "Fujia, prepare paper and pen to write a letter for me. This time, it depends on my cousin, the bird thief, whether we can seize Wang Shichong's food route first." "Getting sick on the road? Is Little Thief Chen tired of using this trick to deceive others? Is he as stupid as old man Li Yuan? Is he as stupid as Xue Ju and Xue Renguo? Will you still believe this trick?" As expected by Chen Yingliang, Fang Xuanling and others, when Wang Shichong received the news that Chen Sangliang suddenly fell ill on the night of the dispatch of troops, Wang Shichong's first reaction was that his unscrupulous son-in-law had come to deceive others again, and he did not want to believe him from the bottom of his heart. With such good luck, it would be a blessing in the sky to encounter the enemy's coach who suddenly fell ill on the day he sent out troops. After ridiculing Jiang Lang's talent for his unfilial son-in-law, Wang Shichong ordered the entire army to step up their vigilance to prevent the unfilial son-in-law from showing up. At the same time, he also urged his precious son Wang Xuanying, who was in charge of the Eastern Front, to transport grain to Luoyang as soon as possible, so that he could rely on the strong city of Luoyang to fight with the unfilial son-in-law for a long time. Preparation for confrontation. On the evening of the same day when I received this so-called good news, unexpected news came from Yiyang. Li Keshi, who had been bullied by Pei Renji before and dared not even leave the city, was lucky enough to defeat Pei Renji. Since he did not know whether to live or die, he sent seven troops. Qian Dong advanced, and threatened to go north from Jiuqu City to the Xin'an battlefield, and join hands with Liu Heitai to regain Xin'an, and open up a road for the main force of the Sui army to reach Luoyang City. In this regard, although a general of the Zheng Army volunteered to lead his army to fight, drove Li Keshi back to Yiyang and settled the score with the shameless traitor Hao Xiaode, Wang Shichong, after careful consideration, still shook his head and said: "Ignore it, let him and Liu Heitai has joined forces, and Gao Bi can stop them. If he sends out troops to fight, he may be like the traitor Pei Renji, who is led to the foot of Yiyang City by the bird thief, where the Xiong'er Mountain Trail is again. This is Chen Xiaothi's specialty, so we must be careful that he deliberately lures the enemy." Facts have proved that Li Niotie's army was indeed luring the enemy. After waiting for a day at the Jiuqu City Fort, Wang Shichong did not come to fight. , Li Niiao led his seven thousand soldiers and horses straight to Luoyang along the official road, and once again made wild promises, saying that he wanted to capture the southern city of Luoyang to show Wang Shichong some color. As a result, after Zheng Jun carefully brought the news back to Luoyang, all the civil and military officials of the puppet government almost burst out laughing. Wang Shichong even laughed loudly and said: "You want my Nancheng of Luoyang? Just come! I'm afraid of you. Don¡¯t dare to come!¡± Not to mention, Li Niiao was really a bold leader. After a day¡¯s march, he actually led his army to the outside of Luoyang City and established a temporary camp ten miles south of Luoyang South City. , the generals of Zheng's army enthusiastically requested a battle, vying to lead their troops into battle. Wang Shichong, however, refused to miss this God-given opportunity to completely annihilate the Sui army in Yiyang. He flatly refused the request to go to war immediately. He simply arranged for his nephew Wang Renze to lead 5,000 elite soldiers out of the city at night and rush to the official road in the southwest to intercept them. , blocking the way for Li Keshi to escape back to Yiyang. Wang Renze led his army out of the city at night to block Li Keshi's return route, which was not hidden from the eyes of the Sui army scouts. After receiving this spying report, Li Keshi, who was so nervous that he had not slept all night, breathed a sigh of relief and sighed. Said: "As I expected, old man Wang Shichong really suspected that our army was luring the enemy, and went to cut off our return path first. Whether it succeeds or not depends on tomorrow. If it succeeds, we will achieve great success. If it fails, we will Of these 8,000 troops, I don¡¯t know how many people can escape back to Xin¡¯an.¡± Wang Shichong¡¯s greed helped Li Keshi a lot. In the early morning of the next day, Wang Shichong sent Wang Shiyun and 20,000 troops out of the city to meet the enemy. However, in order to ensure that Li Keshi was annihilated. Wang Shichong sent out troops from Houzai Gate in the southwest corner of Luoyang's south city to block Li Keshi's westward escape to Xin'an. Li Keshi pretended to be defeated and immediately led his army to escape to the east. , voluntarily entered the death zone surrounded by Wang Shichong's main force and Wang Xuanying's troops on the eastern front of the Zheng Army. Wang Shichong was overjoyed when he heard the news, and immediately asked Wang Shiyun to launch a pursuit, demanding that Li Ke's division army be annihilated no matter what. Next, of course, Li Keshi led the Sui army soldiers to flee eastward along Luoshui, running faster than a rabbit. Wang Shiyun also led the army in hot pursuit behind him, but because there was only a dead end ahead, Zheng Zheng The army officers and soldiers pursued them somewhat unhurriedly. Even though Li Keshi successfully opened a distance of more than ten miles, they were not at all anxious. Anyway, it was a dead end. Unless Li Keshi grew wings and flew back to Xin'an, the Sui army would not be able to return directly. Either way, whether he crossed the Luoshui River and returned to the west, he would definitely be stopped by Zheng's army. It is precisely because of this that Li Ke's army quickly opened the distance from the pursuers to more than twenty miles during the escape battle. The same distance was still twenty miles. When the Sui army was only twenty miles away from Yanshi, At that time, a newly erected pontoon bridge suddenly appeared on the Luoshui River. The Zheng Army soldiers who were setting up the pontoon bridge not only did not feel nervous at all when they saw the arrival of the Sui Army, they immediately ran up to salute Li Keshi. Li Keshi quickly asked : "How is it? Have you been discovered by the enemy?" "Two scouts from Yanshi asked." Sui pretended to be a soldier of the Zheng army to build the bridge.The soldier replied: "We followed the general's instructions and claimed that we were ordered by Xu Shiji to build the bridge. We also showed false tokens and told a lot of internal military information about Wang Shichong's thief army. They left without any suspicion. In addition, there were also There were several fishing boats that tried to pass here, but we pretended to be rebel soldiers and drove them away. "God help me! Fortunately, we have soldiers like General Hao, otherwise we might not be able to succeed," cried Master Li. With a fluke, he ordered the army to cross the river immediately without hesitation. The officers and soldiers of the Sui army all walked quickly across the river on the simple pontoon bridge, and then immediately destroyed the pontoon bridge, not giving Wang Shiyun behind him a chance to borrow the bridge to cross the river. When Wang Shiyun heard that a pontoon bridge suddenly appeared in front of him, although he knew something was wrong and quickly urged the army to move forward, it was still too late. By the time he and his troops hurriedly completed the twenty-mile journey, the pontoon bridge on the Luoshui River had already Turned into a pile of ashes. While Wang Shiyun was in a daze in front of the ruins of the Luoshui pontoon bridge, wondering what Li Keshi was up to, Li Keshi had already led the Sui army soldiers to the dilapidated Yanshi City, facing the divine soldiers. When the Sui army suddenly appeared, the defenders of Yanshi were of course in a panic. While they hurriedly closed the city gates and prepared for a defensive battle, they sent people to Luokoucang and Luoyang for help. However, Master Li ordered the troops to form a formation immediately, and then shouted loudly on the formation: "Soldiers, you know the current situation very well! We are deep into the enemy's hinterland and have no way to retreat, and there are no reinforcements to help us. ! If you want to survive, take this Yanshi City! Our life or death depends on this!" "Kill!" There was not even a flying ladder. The soldiers of the Sui army rushed towards the small town of Yanshi crazily, imitating the Li and Tang armies in history, climbing up the city wall with their weapons in their mouths and attacking the city with their bare hands. The defenders on the city smashed stones and ash bottles frantically, and the soldiers of the Sui army fell to the bottom of the city one after another. A Sui Army soldier fell down the city wall, but immediately two Sui Army soldiers climbed up the city wall, one after another, over and over again. And as long as a Sui soldier rushed to the top of the city, what he would bring to the Yanshi defenders would be a violent storm of slashing and shouts of surrender and no killing. After all, Yanshi is a small city, located in the hinterland of the Zheng Army's control. The defenders only have a few hundred people, and they were caught off guard in a hasty battle. There is no way they can stop the Sui Army officers from such a crazy and ferocious attack. With the current situation, the Sui Army soldiers thought It¡¯s really impossible not to be crazy and ferocious. So in less than an hour, the desperate Sui army soldiers had already entered the Yanshi city, opened the west gate of Yanshi to welcome the main force into the city, and the Zheng army Yanshi defenders fled out of the east gate in embarrassment with the remaining defeated soldiers. The Sui army soldiers Quickly take over the city defense and successfully seize this small but geographically important town of Yanshi. When Wang Shiyun hurriedly set up the pontoon bridge and rushed to Yanshi for reinforcements, the Sui army flags had already covered the four gates of Yanshi. After receiving the news that Li Keshi had seized Yanshi, Wang Shichong collapsed on his dragon chair on the spot. After finally coming back to his senses, the first thing Wang Shichong did was to kick away the heavy dragon case in front of him. , yelled crazily: "Tell Wang Shiyun, give him three days! Within three days, you must get Yanshi back to me no matter what! Otherwise, I will skin him with my own hands!"