Meng Xianli went on to say: "If Your Highness does not wish to see the Emperor, I am willing to risk my life to go. As long as it is for the good of the old prince, I will risk my life or death, success or failure!" At this point, Meng Xianli was so touched by his own words that his voice was choked with sobs.
Unexpectedly, Zheng Yu laughed out loud and said, "Hahaha, you sounded so high-sounding, but in fact, isn't it just the word 'surrender'? And you want to go to the court yourself, what's the matter? Are you planning to sell us out and then gain merit in front of the emperor so that you can get promoted and make a fortune in the future?"
Meng Xianli's mind was full of consideration for the old prince Zheng Gui, but he didn't expect Zheng Yu to comment on him like this. He hurriedly explained, "No, no, it's not like that. My father works in the Lingnan Palace, and I have been a guard in the palace since I was a child. I have never seen or spoken to anyone in the court. How could I have any idea of being outside the palace?"
"Humph! According to what you said--" Zheng Yu said, "If you have met the people of the court and exchanged a few words with them, you would have thought of betraying them? You have fought so many battles with the court, but you have never captured a single prisoner from the government? After capturing them, you never asked them a single question?"
Zheng Yu's words were pure nitpicking. Since there was no logic in his words, there was naturally no way to refute it. Meng Xianli was so anxious that his face turned red.
Zheng Yu continued to talk: "Look, your words are contradictory and absurd. You can't believe a single word of what you said about negotiating with the court. You just don't want to face the disaster with us because you see that our army is losing power. Well! In this case, you can surrender to the court, I will never stop you. You, leave now! Get out!"
After hearing this, Meng Xianli, a seven-foot-tall man, could no longer hold back his excitement and cried out in sorrow, "Your Highness, you, you, how could you say that to me?"
"Hmph! Why can't I say that to you? Get out of here now and stop getting in my way!" Zheng Yu scolded.
Meng Xianli suddenly stopped crying, his eyes flashed, and he suddenly pulled out the sharp blade from his waist, staring at Zheng Yu.
Zheng Yu was frightened by his eyes and asked hurriedly: "You...you...what do you want to do?"
Unexpectedly, Meng Xianli said, "I grew up in Lingnan Palace. If Your Highness drives me away, I will have nowhere to go and no place to stand in this world. Well, I might as well die, so that I can continue to serve the old prince in the afterlife!"
After saying that, Meng Xianli raised the sword in his hand and slashed it towards his throat.
The generals on both sides saw that he was going to commit suicide, and they rushed forward to take the weapon from his hand. However, Meng Xianli was determined to die, and he attacked fiercely and quickly, chopping his neck into a bloody mess with one knife. The blood flowing from his carotid artery was like a torrent of water, and he was twitching all around, and he was already dead.
Zheng Yu was so shocked by this scene that he stood there in a daze.
Even though Zheng Yu was a little dull, he knew from Meng Xianli's performance of fighting to the death that this man had absolutely no intention of betraying - there was no doubt that he had wronged him.
However, Zheng Yu knew that he was now the supreme commander of the Lingnan Army. If he admitted in public that he had made a mistake, his already low prestige in the army would plummet, and his already weak credit would be completely bankrupt. Therefore, he could only say stubbornly, "Humph, this Meng Xianli is indeed a traitor who colluded with the court. Now that he has been exposed by me, he has committed suicide to apologize for his crime. Well, God is merciful. Considering that he has fought for the Lingnan Palace, you should bury him properly and don't implicate his family."
After saying that, Zheng Yu walked quickly through the crowd, as if he was escaping from a defeat, and quickly left the dilapidated temple that was swaying in the wind and rain.
After this incident, no one in the Lingnan army dared to oppose Zheng Yu anymore.
Therefore, according to Zheng Yu's ideas and deployment, the Lingnan troops stationed in various places all gathered together and quickly moved towards Wenzhou Prefecture in Jiangnan Road. If they wanted to open up this connection, they could reach Fuzhou in Lingnan Road through Wenzhou, which would mean escaping the encirclement of the court.
However, Meng Xianli's death still caused a great shock to the Lingnan army. Many generals were already chilled to the bone. They led their troops, some left the group and sought a way to the south, some disbanded on the spot and fled into the countryside, some found a place in the mountains and rivers to become bandits, and some simply surrendered to the court.
Such a large-scale action by the Lingnan Army certainly could not escape the attention of the imperial court.
Battle reports came from all directions to the emperor who was stationed in the "Qingya Temple" in Jinling City. Decades of experience in leading troops in battles told him that the Lingnan Army had now reached a point of desperation, and the current action was a last-ditch effort.
But the more such the enemy is, the more we must not underestimate them. Throughout history, many wars have been won by fighting with all their might. As an outstanding general, Emperor Zheng Rong would never allow this to happen.
Therefore, based on the intelligence that the Lingnan Army was advancing rapidly to the south, Zheng Rong ordered the imperial guards stationed in Wenzhou and Zheng Xin's troops stationed in Quzhou to strengthen their defenses and strictly prohibited any unauthorized actions to attack the Lingnan Army. Not even a rabbit could be allowed into Lingnan.
He also ordered the emperor's second son Zheng Sen, who was in charge of mobile operations, to select elite soldiers and generals to find and follow the main force of the Lingnan Army all the way, and wait for opportunities to engage in small-scale battles with the enemy, trying to delay the pace of the Lingnan Army and buy time for the final decisive battle.
Zheng Sen, who was in charge of containing the Lingnan Army, was good at cavalry combat. Relying on the hundreds of cavalry he brought from Youyan Road, he galloped across the Jiangnan Plain and continuously attacked the left and right wings of Zheng Yu's army. In order to move south quickly, Zheng Yu had no time and was unwilling to organize a decent counterattack, so he could only let his army be repeatedly harassed by Zheng Sen's troops.
At the same time, the main force of the Imperial Guards stationed in Jinling City, which had been keeping a low profile, also began to stir and get ready, but they did not know the exact movement of the Lingnan Army at the moment, so they only moved slowly southward instead of advancing at full speed.
As the forces of the Lingnan Army grew stronger while those of the others declined, by the time they arrived at Wenzhou Prefecture, only a scattered 40,000 to 50,000 people were left in the original army, and morale had fallen to the lowest point. It was inevitable that they would lose.
However, as the saying goes, "a trapped beast will still fight", now in front of Zheng Yu, as long as he defeated the imperial army stationed in Wenzhou, he could enter Lingnan Road, which was the safe place in his mind. So as soon as Zheng Yu arrived at the destination, regardless of the fatigue of his soldiers, he immediately led his troops to attack Wenzhou City.
The situation is different now. The court had long guessed Zheng Yu's intention and knew that he was going south just to attack Wenzhou and Quzhou. With two cities to choose from, the court simply strengthened the defenses of the two cities at the same time. When Zheng Yu attacked, he faced such a well-prepared and strong city.
Zheng Yu's military talent was very ordinary, and he was not good at attacking cities. Not to mention the key points of a big city, he could not even capture a small Shanyin County with his overwhelming force. Today, facing the Wenzhou City that had been waiting for a long time, he was at a loss. He attacked three times in a row within a day, but did not shake the defense of Wenzhou City at all. He could only line up his troops along the city and wait for another attack tomorrow.
That night, Zheng Yu called together the generals under his command and gave them a passionate speech. However, the scene of Meng Xianli committing suicide a few days ago was still fresh in their minds. How could this inspire their fighting spirit? Zheng Yu spoke for half an hour like a monologue, and even he felt bored, so he hastily ended the meeting and ordered that Wenzhou City must be captured the next day.
Strict orders are strict orders, facts are facts. The morale of the Lingnan Army was crushed. They rushed south to attack the city without preparing heavy equipment. After the departure of Tianzun Sect Leader Wen Honghui, they lacked the method of blasting to attack the city. In addition, the elite cavalry led by Zheng Sen were constantly attacking and harassing from the outside.
Unless a miracle happens, there is no way such an army can capture a city or a stronghold.
The miracle did not happen.
After a whole day of anticlimactic attacks, Wenzhou City remained unmoved.
Zheng Yu became increasingly aware that if he continued to attack like this, even if the battle lasted another ten days or half a month, Wenzhou City would still be Wenzhou City, but he would no longer be himself.
So Zheng Yu had an idea - since the court had a large number of troops stationed in Wenzhou, there must be a shortage of troops elsewhere - he wanted to gather the remaining troops and prepare to attack Quzhou. At this time, the Lingnan army was exhausted, and the war had not made any progress for several days, which made the generals and soldiers angry and most of them did not want to travel a long distance immediately.
Zheng Yu only said that the attack on Wenzhou City was just a feint, and the real target of attack was actually Quzhou, but it was not announced publicly for the sake of confidentiality.
The generals were already full of resentment towards Zheng Yu, so how could they be willing to listen to his nonsense
Zheng Yu had no choice but to persuade the generals one by one, and finally made them believe that they were all tied to the same rope, and only by acting together could they have a chance of survival. The generals reluctantly agreed to withdraw their troops from Wenzhou and head to Quzhou.
This process took another whole day.
However, the court was unwilling to delay any longer.
Zheng Yu wanted to attack Quzhou, but Zheng Xin, who was guarding Quzhou City, came here on his own.
It turned out that the emperor had already made it clear that Zheng Yu's main attack direction was Wenzhou. Regardless of whether it was a forced attack or a feint attack, he immediately ordered the eldest son Zheng Xin to lead a team of elite troops from Quzhou to join forces with Zheng Sen outside Wenzhou to attack Zheng Yu from the northwest.
The troops Zheng Xin brought were the newly recruited soldiers in Shanxi and Shaanxi. Although they were newly trained soldiers, their combat effectiveness was not very strong, and they were not used to the humid and rainy spring weather in the south of the Yangtze River. However, the people in the northwest have the valuable qualities of being honest, hardworking and persevering. After receiving the order, Zheng Xin picked out 5,000 elite soldiers and immediately set out from Quzhou, taking shortcuts and small roads. After walking for two days in the hills and mountains in the south of the Yangtze River, he arrived outside Wenzhou and met up with his second brother Zheng Sen.
Seeing that Zheng Yu was about to break camp and set off, and that the formation was unstable, the two men thought it was a good opportunity to take advantage of, so they discussed with each other and immediately mobilized an elite force of 3,000 infantry and 500 cavalry, and rushed towards Zheng Yu's troops.
Zheng Yu was caught off guard, and his 40,000 to 50,000 men were defeated by the enemy force of less than 5,000. He had to give up the plan of immediate transfer and focus on holding on to the camp that had not yet been completely demolished.
Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen also felt that they did not have many troops at their disposal, so they gathered their troops after the small victory. Taking advantage of the fact that the Lingnan Army lacked the strength and willingness to break through Wenzhou City in one fell swoop, they made good deployment and then made a decision.
That night, the army that followed Zheng Yu from Jinling City to the south also arrived at the outskirts of Wenzhou. The general leading the army was Zhang Long, the confidant of Emperor Zheng Rong. He led 50,000 troops, which was the main force of the court in Jiangnan. He was so powerful that he had the momentum to wipe out the remnants of the Lingnan Army in one fell swoop. However, although his troops were strong, they also knew their identities. As soon as they arrived at the city of Wenzhou, they quickly contacted the two brothers Zheng Xin and Zheng Sen.