With no backup and no support, Sun Tu and the Shandong Army in Changshu were in dire straits. Under such circumstances, anyone else would have collapsed and given up, fought desperately to break out of the encirclement, or agreed to Wu Jun's persuasion to surrender and become a member of Fang La's rebel army.
But Sun Tu did not complain about this, nor did he give up the idea of surviving in death and winning in defeat, and soon formulated a bold and risky idea that was somewhat crazy-to use a small number of elite soldiers to jump out of the siege and fight with Capture Suzhou with lightning speed and completely turn the situation around!
This strategy may seem crazy, but it actually makes sense. Because now in order to defeat the Shandong Army in one go, Pang Wanchun has mobilized all the available forces in Suzhou and devoted them to the battle against Changshu. As a result, his rear will inevitably be empty, even if it is as important as Suzhou. In the city, there must be insufficient troops left behind, so this is a great opportunity for him to take advantage of it.
And once Sun Tu is really allowed to capture Suzhou, the result will be completely different. Suzhou is not comparable to Changshu. As long as the news spreads, even if Zhu Meng has other ideas, he can only cooperate in sending troops, otherwise even the court will They will not let him go, and they will suspect that he has already colluded with the rebels.
Of course, problems still exist for Sun Tu. The first is how to escape from the encirclement, and then how to enter Suzhou City. Although the remaining troops in Suzhou are insufficient, there are always thousands of troops. It is still possible to break the city with only a few hundred elites. It's nothing short of whimsical, so we have to use other means.
The former problem was easily solved with Qin Chi's persuasion to surrender and Pang Wanchun's initiative to retreat, but the latter problem was difficult to solve. At least after arriving at Suzhou City two days ago and checking the defense situation at the head of the city at night, Sun Tu This leads to the conclusion that we cannot attack by force, we can only outwit them.
As for how to outsmart him, with the appearance of Xie Mo, there is an answer.
It is said that long before Sun Tu led his troops to go south, he had asked Tong Mu to find a way to send Xie Mo out of Jinling and take him to the south. Of course, at that time, he did not know that Mr. Xie could play such a big role. It was purely because he hoped to use his reputation to build good relations with the people and offset some of Fang La's claims.
Relying on the contact secrets that the Shandong Army always used, Xie Mo, who escaped from Jinling and headed south with the help of Tong Mu, actually met up with Sun Tu outside the city of Suzhou. As a celebrity in the south of the Yangtze River, he had deep friendships with merchants and celebrities from all over the country. Counting the days, he quickly suggested that Sun Tu seek help from Su Mao, a big businessman in Suzhou, because with his family's wealth and status, he could easily make a few fortunes. Hundreds of people were sent to Suzhou without anyone noticing.
Sun Tu immediately accepted his suggestion, and then the meeting in Hanshan Temple took place. With Xie Mo's reputation, it was not too difficult to get Huikong to help him meet Su Mao alone.
After Su Mao agreed to help them, things became no longer difficult—
On the morning of the sixth day of February, as the sky brightened, Suzhou's city gate, which had been closed all night, finally slowly opened. Immediately, many soldiers, carrying swords and guns, yawned and came to wait in front of the gate.
Although the fighting on the front has not stopped, Suzhou City has not been completely closed.
It was not only a means used by the newly established Wu regime to stabilize the morale of the people and the military, but also had a more practical consideration, which was to collect taxes from it. Because now with the expansion of the war, the monarchs and ministers of the Wu Kingdom have become increasingly stretched, and need to use various methods to obtain supplementary money and food. The methods such as collecting city gate tax and commercial tax are the most immediate methods.
However, things like this, which Zhu Meng had never done in the past, were naturally not accepted by the people, so now the number of people entering and leaving the city gate of Suzhou has become extremely rare, making a prosperous city deserted.
But the situation was different between yesterday and today. Yesterday morning, the Su family spent a lot of money to open the city gate early and brought hundreds of people out of the city. Today, the soldiers guarding the city saw from a distance a larger team of monks and laymen carrying various sacrificial utensils slowly approaching. The leader was naturally the most familiar Su Yuanwai.
Although everyone was already familiar with each other, the soldiers still stopped the entire team according to the rules and asked: "Executive member Su, what are you doing? Only a hundred people left the city yesterday, why did the number double when they returned to the city today? More than that?" As he said that, his eyes swept over the large group of people behind him.
Su Mao compensated with a smile and said: "Young Master, I don't know. Yesterday I left the city to go to the temple to worship my ancestors, but today I brought all the monks from the temple to my home to worship. This is a habit that has been maintained for many years. Don’t dare to make any changes, otherwise it will be disrespectful to our ancestors.”
"Is there such a thing?" The dozen or so soldiers guarding the gate couldn't help but muttered, thinking that rich people have too many things to do, so there are so many details about worshiping ancestors.
At this time, the movement in front of the city gate also alerted a garrison officer. He also came out with a straight face. After looking at these many people, he frowned: "Do you know that there is a war in Jiangnan now? I Suzhou is very close to the Song Army, so we don't dare to be careless."
"What the general said is that villains will never dare to cause trouble for you. But... please be accommodating..." After saying that, Su Mao winked, and the entourage around him immediately handed over a huge money bag respectfully. He walked over and said, "This is my personal tribute to you. In addition, the taxes for entering the city must be quite a penny, so I will give them all. I hope that the military masters will let us enter the city for the sake of my ancestors." ." After saying that, he bowed again, but kept his posture to the lowest level.
"That's it..." Although the officer was still showing off, the greed in his eyes had already given him away. Sure enough, after only "thinking" for a moment, he nodded and said: "Since you, Member Su, are also out of filial piety, then we will be more generous and let you wait in. However, everyone must be searched. This is the rule!"
"Yes, yes, I understand." Su Mao responded hurriedly, and then took the lead in opening his hands to let people search him.
Next, there was a lot of busy work in front of the city gate, but it was troublesome for more than ten people to search hundreds of people. Except for the beginning, everyone did a decent search, but the two or three hundred people behind were just doing it. Looks like it. As for the various magic weapons that were placed in boxes and were to be carried into the city, they just opened the lids and glanced at them before putting them into the city. To be honest, Suzhou City, which was garrisoned by 3,000 people, really didn’t take these 300 to 400 people seriously.
So I did so much just to knock off the Su family.
So in the end, the body search was completely in vain. They failed to find the weapons hidden in the mezzanine of the box. They didn't even notice that more than half of the Su family members who left the city yesterday had been replaced. . It was still dark yesterday, how could they remember who were the family members who followed Su Mao out of the city with their sleepy eyes? As for those "monks" with bare heads, they don't take them seriously.
It only took less than half an hour for this team of three to four hundred people to successfully pass the city gate inspection and truly enter Suzhou City.
Sun Tu, who was among them, curled up his lips. Things went much smoother than he imagined. Of course, if Su Mao, a big businessman in Suzhou, had not come forward and spent a lot of money to clear the way, things would have been different. Thinking of this, he looked back at the soldiers who had gathered together in a pile, and found that they had begun to divide the money. The golden coins were the treasures of the Song Dynasty.
This made Sun Tu suddenly have an idea in his mind. Nowadays, not only on the side of the rebels, but also in enemy countries like Xixia and Liao Kingdom, the money made by the Song Dynasty is the most circulated. It can be said that economically speaking, the Song Dynasty dominates everything. exist. Obviously, the monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty never thought of using this advantage to attack the enemy. Should they use their brains on this in the future
Of course, this is all a matter of the future. The most important thing now is to seize Suzhou first while it is empty and unprepared!
￥￥￥￥￥
Outside Changshu City, there is the Wu Army military camp.
Pang Wanchun looked at Zhu Wu with a gloomy face: "Almost ten days have passed, why hasn't Sun Tu opened the city and surrendered? Could it be that you have gone back on your word and are still planning to hold on to the end? It was just a delaying tactic before, right?"
Zhu Wu, who came out of the city to delay, smiled: "Pang Shuai, please calm down. It is true that we have not considered this matter a little. Because just two days ago, after Sun Qianha told the news that he planned to surrender to you, Not only did the Huainan Army object repeatedly, but many of the generals of our Shandong Army also expressed their dissatisfaction. It is precisely in order to appease all the officers and men that my family is under control, so I dare not take action for the time being.
"But please don't worry, Pang Shuai. In a few days, the matter will be resolved satisfactorily. We Qianjia said, he will definitely do what he said and lead the entire Shandong Army to surrender to you."
"Hmph, you'd better not try to play any tricks, otherwise, once the city is breached, I will not keep any prisoners!" Pang Wanchun was also a little annoyed. Although the city has not been attacked in the past few days, the pressure on the army's food and grass is increasing. It was so big that he couldn't hold it back anymore. So after a pause, he made another ultimatum: "No matter what excuses you have, three days, I will only give you three days. If you don't open the city, I will lead the army to attack the city again. By then I won’t show any mercy anymore.”
"Yes, yes, I understand. I will go back and report to Qian Ju, and I will give Pang Shuai a satisfactory answer within three days." Zhu Wu was easy to talk to, so he immediately agreed to the matter, then said goodbye and left.
Although the other party agreed, Pang Wanchun still felt a little uneasy for some reason, always feeling that something was wrong. But after thinking about it carefully, I'm not sure what went wrong, so I can only wait and see for three more days...