The internal turmoil in the southern Wu Kingdom soon spread northward to the city of Suzhou and reached Sun Tu.
Coincidentally, at this time, after many days of wrangling and deliberation, the Song Dynasty court finally made a decision. The Privy Council had sent an order to Jiangnan, asking the troops and horses here to go south to defeat the thieves as soon as possible without any delay.
Although the wording of this military order was very strict, and it did not mention pardoning Sun Tu and his subordinates for committing the crime of killing important officials without permission, this ambiguous attitude was enough to make people feel at ease completely. Because not mentioning it is the best sign, proving that the court no longer intends to pursue the matter. At least until the south is pacified, Zhu Meng's murder will not be mentioned again, and Sun Tu can lead an army of 100,000 in name only. Put down the rebellion in Fang La.
Of course, problems still exist. If Sun Tu fails to quell the chaos this time, then what awaits him will definitely be a reckoning, and it will be light to pay for it with his life. And once the chaos in the south is really put down, the trick of killing the rabbit and killing the dog, cooking the bird and hiding the bow may happen again, which requires him to make plans in advance. But in any case, the court's decision boosted the morale of Suzhou's officers and soldiers, and their previous worries and concerns quickly dissipated.
Not only that, as time went by, two batches of grain purchased by Su Mao and other merchants from the north were finally delivered, which completely solved the army's worries - but when they checked the grain and grass later, everyone was surprised. It was discovered that a large part of these two batches of food were actually the military rations that had been stored in Danyang! But it was Zhu Meng who had people sell it to the north, and then after some time, the merchants there raised the price by 50% and sold it back to the Song Army. This is really ironic. Of course, this also made the soldiers hate Zhu Meng even more. If he was still alive at this time, he would probably be beaten to death by the angry soldiers again!
The military rations are in place and the morale of the army is available. Moreover, the army has not been idle in Suzhou for more than a month. They were all forced to train hard by Sun Tu. Although the 100,000-strong army here today cannot be said to have been reborn, its combat effectiveness has indeed improved a lot than before. Many soldiers are gearing up to fight the rebels so that they can be rewarded for their meritorious service.
Therefore, when changes occurred one after another in the south, Sun Tu felt that the time was ripe. At that moment, he quickly ordered and sent several groups of troops from north to south to attack many counties, prefectures and cities that were still under the control of the Wu army. This time, he did not choose an important city to deploy troops, but directly cast the net. While the Wu army was still busy putting out fires everywhere and could not spare many troops to defend the front, he sent out troops to attack those who did not know it. Such an important small city.
Although Sun Tu did not use the most elite Shandong Army this time, and only sent out Huainan, Huaibei, Jingji, Jingnan and other troops to fight for training, the effect was not bad. The Wu army had only been founded for less than two years, and its combat effectiveness was not as good as the official army of the Song Dynasty. Coupled with the instability in the rear and the massacre of the city, people were even more panicked. Even if there was a city to defend, it was still unable to hold it.
After more than two months of continuous attacks, the cities under Wu Jun's rule were lost one after another. Some of these cities were forcibly captured by the Song army, while others quickly surrendered after the troops reached the city. The Song army simply took the city without a single blow. The reason is that Sun Tu's message had too great an impact. The local gentry had already alienated the state of Wu. As soon as the news of Zhu Meng's death spread, they did not even give their last words.
There was no scruple at all, and as soon as the officers and soldiers arrived, they surrendered immediately.
When it entered the July season, the Song army had captured all the cities north of Huzhou. It could be said that even half of Fang La's home base in Zhejiang had fallen into the hands of the Song army. Not only that, as the war progressed, the Song army also divided a group of troops to fight westward and recaptured Shezhou, which had been captured by the rebels.
As a result, the government troops continued to advance, compressing the territory of the rebels to the south. The last few groups of troops gathered to join forces and deployed troops under the city of Huzhou.
It was not until this time that the internal situation of Wu State was finally completely calmed down. Those rebels who had caused rebellion before were either completely suppressed or reorganized into the army in remorse. However, the Wu army was also weakened, and the loss of a large territory in the north put the newly established regime in a precarious situation.
The only good thing is that the big city of Huzhou is still under their control. And this was all thanks to the timely dispatch of troops by Fang Shifo, who had just caused a big disaster.
Although Qian Maocai had a good reputation and the defenders of Huzhou City were loyal enough, when it came to the use of troops, they could not compare to Fang Shifo, the god of killing in the Wu army. When the Song army began to attack many cities in the north, he also led his army to storm Huzhou, and within ten days he led his army to the city, killing the defenders and making them timid.
Later, Fang Shifo once again spread the news that he would massacre the entire city's soldiers and civilians after breaking the city. This frightened the people in the city out of their wits. Chongde had already learned from the past, so who dared to despise the words of this murderous god.
So in the next few days, the defenders and the people in the city actually secretly escaped from the city at night. But this time, Fang Shifo was actually much smarter. Instead of besieging the city on all sides like they had done before when they attacked Chongde, they came to surround the city with three and one missing. This made the defenders feel they had an opportunity to take advantage of it, and more than 30% of them fled in a short period of time.
Under such circumstances, Huzhou could no longer hold on. In panic, Qian Maocai finally led his troops to break through the siege on the night of May 20th, abandoning the city and fleeing. As a result, Wu Jun finally regained control of Huzhou without paying a high price.
It was not until the army entered Huzhou and raised the banner that Qian Mao, who was still fleeing, realized that the leader of the attack on Huzhou had changed. He was actually Pang Wanchun!
It turned out that the Wu court was in an uproar when they learned about Chongde. Fang Fei and other civil servants could not accept Fang Shifo's inhumane practices, and strongly demanded that he be punished to express the anger of the people. Fang La also knew that Fang Shifo had indeed gone too far this time, so he followed suit. When he learned that Fang Shifo had once again used troops against Huzhou, he hurriedly sent the more stable Pang Wanchun to replace him.
After all, Fang Shifo was loyal to Fang La. Even if he was very dissatisfied with this arrangement, he could only accept it and return to Hangzhou without restraint. After Pang Wanchun took over from Fang Shifo, he also understood that he was in a difficult situation and had to capture Huzhou as soon as possible, so he came up with this strategy to scare out the rebels. Fang Shifo's fierce reputation was really useful. As expected, it only took three days to force the enemy out of the city, and then easily captured Huzhou.
After leaving Huzhou, Qian Maocai completely became a tree without roots. Even though he had thousands of troops around him, he was unable to move even an inch within the territory of Wu. After a few days, they lost more troops and generals, and were almost forced into a desperate situation. Without any choice
, he could only choose to go north and finally surrendered to the Song army.
Sun Tu naturally approved of such a rebel army of the Wu State. Not only did he immediately allow their surrender, but he also personally led people to see Qian Maocai and pardoned him for all his sins on behalf of the court. His subordinates were organized into one of the official troops, and then turned back to kill Huzhou.
Relying on the continuous recruitment of Wu soldiers and horses, the strength of the Song Dynasty official army not only did not decrease in this series of battles, but also tended to increase. By the time the army gathered under Chen Shi's Huzhou City, the Song Army's strength had reached 130,000, and they could even encircle this important city of Wu State on all sides.
Even though Pang Wanchun was calm and good at fighting, he didn't have much confidence in this battle since there were only 50,000 to 60,000 troops in the city. However, he will defend Huzhou at all costs, because he knows very well that this is the last strong city in the north of Hangzhou. Once this place is lost and the Song army is allowed to use it as a stronghold to move south, the city of Hangzhou will inevitably face a huge crisis. The pressure will even be broken by the Song Army in a short time.
But looking at the endless stream of Song troops coming south, his eyes were still full of worry: How to defend the city
The same problem also troubled the monarchs and ministers of Wu State further south. They also knew what Huzhou meant to the entire war situation, and they must send troops to rescue as soon as possible.
Although the chaos in Wu State has now subsided and all kinds of troops are available, how to use troops to march north is still a big problem.
Fang Shifo did not change his position after being convicted. Naturally, he was bent on making meritorious service for his crime, so he asked Fang La for battle several times, hoping that he could lead the army directly to Huzhou to fight the enemy head-on.
Fang Fei and other civil servants did not agree with this. The Song army has achieved great momentum, and now it is even more powerful. Even if the Wu army can gather 200,000 troops to go to Huzhou, they may not dare to say that they will win.
In fact, this still saves face for the family. Some officials who know the situation of their own army understand better. If they really send 200,000 people, not to mention whether the logistics and supplies can keep up, just a head-on confrontation will not be the Song Army. opponent. The Wu army has developed too fast in the past two years, and it seems that it has plenty of troops. But in terms of combat effectiveness, apart from a few tens of thousands of troops, it is mostly just a mob. This is also one of the important reasons why the Shandong Army was able to defend the small county town of Changshu with inferior strength. The gap between the soldiers of the two sides was really too big.
Sun Tu and the Shandong Army were already well-known. No matter how confident these officials were, they would not believe that sending 200,000 ragtag troops could defeat the elite Song army in a head-on confrontation in the wild.
Faced with the different opinions of the two parties, even Fang La was a little confused about what choice to make. In the end, he could only look at Jiang Shihu, who had been silent all this time: "Commander, what do you think?"
Jiang Shihu pondered for a while before speaking: "I have already considered this matter. Huzhou must be preserved, but it would be inappropriate to directly send troops to rescue it, so why don't we learn from what Sun Tu did before What’s the approach, avoid the reality and attack the weakness, and attack its weaknesses?”
After all, Fang Shifo was also a rare general. He immediately grasped the opponent's intention: "You mean to capture Suzhou?"
Jiang Shihu smiled unpredictablely: "Not only that, we can also..." But he had a bolder idea!