The soldiers of the Lingnan Army were certainly unwilling to obey such a ridiculous order. They only drew their bows and arrows and waited carefully behind the preset shelters in the camp, not daring to act rashly.
Qiu Yizhi was not surprised by the reaction of the Lingnan Army. He immediately ordered Zheng Yu to be escorted to the Lingnan Army and asked the "Black Neck Toad" loudly: "The Second Prince of the King of Lingnan is here. Do you dare to disobey my orders?"
The Lingnan Army saw Zheng Yu every day, and they were all shocked to see that he had been captured by the enemy. Unfortunately, the old general Sun Hao was not in the army at the moment, and the 20,000 defenders were without a backbone, and they had no idea how to respond.
But someone shouted from the other side: "The Second Prince orders you to open the city gates, line up outside the camp, and not to carry weapons. Do you understand?"
Although Zheng Yu's body was out of control, his mind was still clear. He struggled to raise his head and shouted to the camp: "Don't listen to their nonsense. Everyone, stay in the camp and don't come out easily!"
Qiu Yizhi sneered, drew the sword from his waist, put it on Zheng Yu's neck, and shouted to the camp: "If you don't leave the camp, I will kill the second prince, and you will be my accomplices. I wonder if you can take this responsibility?"
When the soldiers in the camp heard these words, they immediately began to whisper.
Qiu Yizhi was afraid that if they delayed for too long, something might happen again, so he ordered the "Black Neck Toad" to shout to the camp: "My master said that if you don't respond, I will take action if you count to a few dozen!"
"one!"
"two!"
"three!"
… …
When the "Black Neck Toad" counted to "seven", four or five officers who looked like generals finally appeared in the camp. One of them said to Qiu Yizi, "Wait a minute! Lord Qiu has succeeded, please show mercy and don't hurt my second prince. We will obey your order and leave the camp."
Zheng Yu still wanted to stop them, but unfortunately his mouth was tightly blocked by the soldiers escorting him on both sides, and he couldn't utter a word.
Qiu Yizi was naturally very happy to hear this, and replied with a smile: "Okay! I will keep my word. Please line up outside the city and do not carry any weapons! I hope you will act quickly. If you delay, please do not blame me for being soft-handed and quick with my sword, and accidentally injuring the Second Prince."
The generals of the Lingnan Army were shocked when they heard this, and hurriedly urged their soldiers to open the camp gate. They all took off their armor, left their weapons, and walked out of the camp one after another, with empty hands and without armor, and lined up in order. Although they were reluctant, Zheng Yu was in the hands of the enemy, so they had to act quickly. In less than half an hour, they had completed the line-up.
Qiu Yizhi saw this, and finally felt relieved. He also saw Wu Changxi, Zhang Qi and military advisor Lin Shuhan from afar, who had gathered 20,000 soldiers and horses and were rushing towards him. He said to several Lingnan officers who were only wearing underwear and shivering in the cold wind: "I have no intention of making things difficult for you, and I don't want to kill indiscriminately. The main force of the Lingnan Army is now in a sea of fire, so you should hurry up and put out the fire."
A leading officer of the Lingnan Army bowed to Qiu Yizhi and said, "Our army has finally been defeated. We are convinced, but could you please release our second prince? We will have an explanation in front of the Prince of Lingnan."
Qiu Yizhi liked this kind of straightforward and open speech the most, so she also said bluntly: "I'm sorry that I can't obey your order. But please rest assured, the Prince of Lingnan has spared me twice, so I will not embarrass or abuse the Second Prince. Please leave quickly. If you delay and hesitate, I will find it difficult to keep my promise for my own protection."
The generals of Lingnan had no choice but to choose to trust Qiu Yizi and lead the 20,000 unarmed troops to retreat like a tide.
Qiu Yizi did not dare to relax and divided the remaining 20,000 troops into two - 10,000 stayed outside the camp to monitor the enemy's actions and guard against enemy sneak attacks; the other 10,000 entered the camp to sweep, take over the entire Jinling camp, and get in touch with the defenders in Jinling City.
As soon as Qiu Yizhi's troops entered the camp, they did nothing else but lowered the large flag with four golden characters "Lingnan Palace" in front of the central army tent, and then slowly raised the battle flag with Qiu Yizhi's name on it, letting the Jinling defenders know that the camp had been captured by them.
At this time, several carriages drove out from behind the enemy and stopped steadily in front of Qiu Yizi. Several people on the carriages lifted the curtains and came down. They were Wen Lingjiao, Wu Ruofei, Yang Qiaoer and other female relatives. They were sent by Qiu Yizi to hide nearby before the war. When they saw the big flag with their own names raised in the camp today, they knew that the great mission had been accomplished, so they boldly came out from their hiding places.
Qiu Yizi was relieved to see that they were safe and sound. Thinking of the chaos outside the camp, he quickly asked them to go into the camp to rest.
But Qiu Yizi was afraid that the Lingnan Army would follow suit and set up some traps in the camp, so he immediately followed them into the Jinling camp set up by the Lingnan Army and personally checked it before he felt relieved.
The soldiers of the Lingnan Army were relatively honest. They left in a hurry and did not even have time to destroy their food and equipment, let alone set up any traps or mechanisms.
Just as Qiu Yizi was rejoicing, he heard faint shouting and cursing coming from outside the camp, as if someone was challenging him.
Qiu Yizhi felt both amused and surprised, and smiled at Lin Shuhan beside him and said, "The Lingnan Army is indeed persistent. We have Zheng Yu in our hands, so we are not afraid of them coming to attack us, but it is not a good idea for them to block our way like this, so let's go out and meet them for a while."
After saying that, Qiu Yizhi ordered Zheng Yu to be escorted to the front of the camp, while he himself led Yuchi Jiming, 17 personal guards and 200 local militiamen, and rode out of the south gate of the camp on their horses. When he looked up, he saw that there were indeed soldiers of the Lingnan Army lined up in front of them, with a total number of 30,000 to 40,000. Although most of them had black eyebrows and black eyes due to smoke, they were still in good spirits.
Seeing this scene, Qiu Yizhi secretly reminded himself: "Although the opponent is a defeated army that fell into a trap, they still have the advantage in numbers. Although I am taking the initiative now, I have only won by force. My subordinates are all tired and outnumbered. Therefore, I must not underestimate the enemy."
Lin Shuhan also saw the pros and cons of this, and whispered in Qiu Yizhi's ear: "As the saying goes, 'An army that mourns will win.' The enemy's army is quite well-organized. If you feel that you are not sure of victory, it is a good idea to return to the camp and hold on, and get in touch with the defenders in Jinling City."
Qiu Yizi nodded and replied in a low voice: "Let's wait and see, let's wait and see." But in his heart he was thinking about how to defeat the enemy.
At this moment, the sound of war drums from the Lingnan Army suddenly reached the sky. He held his breath and listened carefully, but he could hear the drum beats were calm and orderly, very confident, not like the bluffing of a newly defeated army.
Qiu Yizhi felt strange and said to himself, "The Lingnan Army just fell into my fire attack plan. It was a bit difficult to mobilize these troops in a short time. How can they have such momentum in the blink of an eye? In addition, the enemy's signal guns and baggage were either lost in the sea of fire or seized by me. Now where did these war drums come from? Listening to the drums, they don't sound like broken drums and hammers collected from the garbage dump..."
While he was thinking, he saw a passage opened in the Lingnan army formation, and two rows of ceremonial guards walked out of the passage, each holding a weapon or ceremonial vessel in their hands. The unfurled flag startled Qiu Yizhi.
On these dozen golden dragon flags, there was a line of words the size of a bowl written clearly and distinctly: "Zheng, the King of Lingnan of Han"!
"Could it be that the opponent is pretending to be powerful and impersonating the King of Lingnan to scare me off?" This was Qiu Yizi's first reaction, but he overturned his thoughts after a little thought, "The King of Lingnan is such a noble and majestic person. Even if his soldiers and generals are brave enough, they dare not impersonate his name..."
Qiu Yizi was daydreaming when he heard the sound of war drums in front of the battlefield. He saw more than a hundred elite cavalrymen of the Lingnan army slowly walking out from the center of the guard of honor. Among them was a man wearing a red robe and golden armor. It was indeed the King of Lingnan, Zheng Gui himself!
When Qiu Yizi saw this, his face turned pale with fear, and he quickly called out to the "Black Neck Toad" behind him: "Quick, pass the order down and tell Zhao Chengxiao that the Prince of Lingnan has arrived in person, and ask him to lead the entire army out to line up and confront the enemy."
The "Black-necked Toad" also knew that the situation was serious, so he quickly agreed, turned around and went downstairs to pass on the order.
Qiu Yizhi saw that the "Black Neck Toad" was walking fast. He just turned his head to see what was going on ahead, but he saw Lingnan King Zheng Gui pointing his whip at him and said, "My dear nephew, I haven't seen you for a few days. I'm glad to see that you won such a big victory!"
Qiu Yizi swallowed his saliva, but didn't know how to respond, so he had to change the subject and said, "I didn't know the prince was coming, and I didn't come to greet him. I'm really sorry. I only knew that the prince was still fighting with the emperor in the west, how come he's in Jiangnan in the blink of an eye?"
This sentence was exactly what Qiu Yizi wanted to ask: He knew from the news that the King of Lingnan was fighting with His Highness Zheng Xin in Hanzhong, where Sichuan and Shanxi meet. The battle was very fierce and it should be difficult for him to escape. Even if he heard the news of the defeat in Jiangnan, Sichuan was thousands of miles away from here, and it would take at least seven or eight days to walk. How did he suddenly come to him
Qiu Yizi's prediction was very detailed and thorough, but she guessed wrong the day of King Lingnan's departure from the very beginning.
It turned out that after King Zheng Gui of Lingnan heard that his second son Zheng Yu was besieging Shanyin County, he sent someone to open the topographic map. After taking a look at the nearby terrain, he knew that Zheng Yu was in great danger in this battle, and he had to go to Jiangnan again to clean up the mess.
So he used a risky strategy. He only left a small army to continue to create the illusion of attacking Hanzhong City, while he personally led the main army, risking being besieged in the mountains, and infiltrated to the north of Hanzhong, catching Zheng Xin, who was guarding the city, off guard.
In this battle, it took only one day to capture Hanzhong City, which had been defended for two months. All the elite soldiers defending the city were surrounded and captured. Even His Highness Zheng Xin only managed to escape from the city with the desperate protection of a few of his trusted men.
Logically speaking, after taking Hanzhong City, the road to Shanxi and Shaanxi would be opened for the King of Lingnan. He should take advantage of the situation to march north, attack Chang'an, eye Dasan Pass, and send troops to Guannei Road. He would immediately see the hope of capturing Chang'an and ascending the throne to become emperor.
However, King Zheng Gui of Lingnan was a man well versed in military strategy. He knew that the Road to Shu was narrow and it was difficult to transport large amounts of food supplies in a short period of time. It would be difficult for him to launch a larger-scale offensive before spring. Although it was easy to say "leave Bashu, take Shanxi and Shaanxi, and attack the interior", it was actually difficult to do.
Therefore, he immediately ordered his troops to enter Hanzhong and consolidate the defense of the surrounding areas, and no longer go north to expand the results of the war. He hurriedly led only 2,000 elite ceremonial soldiers around him, and passed through Bashu, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Lingnan to Jiangnan. He wanted to take advantage of the Lingnan army's advantage in Jiangnan to defeat Qiu Yizi in one fell swoop, capture Jinling City, and completely control the entire Jiangnan area in his own hands, and then see how the situation changes after the New Year.