Chapter 1183 City-Wide Search

When Li Ye led his army to the battlefield, the war was over. Li Xilie's army retreated eastward in a hurry. The collective surrender of Wang Zhongsheng's remaining troops became the source of Li Xilie's report. The 30,000 troops quickly retreated eastward. The Guanlong cavalry chased and killed for more than ten miles, did not take prisoners, and killed more than 4,000 enemies. In addition to killing more than 6,000 people on the battlefield, Li Xilie's army was killed 11,000 people. The rest of the army quickly retreated eastward, and the Guanlong cavalry did not continue to chase.

Xi Wanli was not in a hurry to chase and kill, but incorporated nearly 8,000 remnants of Wang Zhongsheng.

Eight thousand soldiers took off their armor, put down their weapons, and sat in the wilderness, waiting for the Guanlong army to deal with them.

At this time, Li Ye came to the battlefield that had just ended under the escort of 20,000 cavalry. The 20,000 troops were flying flags and had a great momentum. Xi Wanli hurriedly took several generals to pay a visit.

"Your Highness, Li Xilie's army fought with my 30,000 cavalry for half an hour, and they were exhausted and retreated?"

"Is it a rout or a retreat?" Li Ye asked, the two are completely different.

"Your Highness, it was a retreat, so I only chased them for a dozen miles and stopped chasing them. A total of 11,000 enemies were killed, and we suffered about 2,000 casualties."

Li Ye nodded, pointed his whip at the surrendered soldiers sitting on the grass in the distance, "Who are they?"

"Your Highness, they are the remnants of Wang Zhongsheng, who turned against their side and surrendered on the battlefield, causing Li Xilie to not dare to fight and retreat in a hurry. We chased and killed more than 4,000 people. According to your Highness's order, we did not take prisoners of Li Xilie's army, and all were beheaded and executed.

"They deserved to die! "

Li Ye cursed and ordered the military commander Zhao Yannan: "Give each surrendered soldier one string of money and two dou of rice, and send them all home. Warn them that if they dare to rob the people on the way, they will be killed without mercy!"

"I obey your order! "

Zhao Yannan took hundreds of soldiers to deal with it. Thousands of seized carts were sent, which were the wealth accumulated by Wang Zhongsheng, 3 million strings of money and 1 million taels of silver.

This unexpected wealth made Li Ye very happy. He immediately ordered General Wei Zhou to lead 3,000 soldiers to send them to Shouchun County for temporary storage. After the war, they were sent to the court by boat.

Xi Wanli continued to reorganize the army and horses and continued to track the remnants of Li Xilie.

Li Ye was no longer interested in Li Xilie. Li Xilie only had 19,000 people left. How could they resist the encirclement and suppression of 110,000 troops from four armies?

Li Ye rested for a night and turned to Hefei the next morning.

Hefei County is currently guarded by Wu Shaocheng, Li Xilie's staunch confidant, with 20,000 people. The battle situation in Haozhou has not yet been transmitted to Hefei County. Wu Shaocheng only received news that his lord Li Xilie killed Wang Zhongsheng and his son died, and a large amount of wealth was seized.

Since Li Ye did not declare war and there was no sign of attacking Huaixi, all the generals of the Huaixi Army believed that the court was still unifying the Central Plains and it was not Huaixi's turn yet.

Including Wu Shaocheng, no one in Hefei City had a sense of crisis for the time being, and they did not know that 30,000 Jingxiang troops were coming to kill them.

Zhang Dian led a thousand scouts disguised as civilians to Hefei. Zhang Luanzi kept his promise and arranged a thousand scouts into the city in batches in the name of making gunpowder, and arranged them in three workshops.

In a house in the workshop, Zhang Dian met Zhang Luanzi, and Zhang Dian slowly said: "The sincerity of the immortal has been seen by His Highness the Regent. His Highness the Regent has expressed that Hefei can only be taken smoothly. He will no longer pursue the immortal's past, and the immortal can continue to practice in the Jianghuai area."

Zhang Luanzi was overjoyed and said quickly: "Thank you for your tolerance, His Highness the Regent. I wonder what else I can do for the general?"

"Weapons and armor! "

Zhang Dian said without hesitation: "We need a thousand sets of armor and weapons."

Zhang Luanzi nodded, "It's not a big problem. The weapons workshop is next door. There is a large warehouse over there, which is full of armor and weapons. We will arrange for you to live next door. There is a small door leading to the warehouse, which is usually locked. You just need to break the lock to enter the warehouse. "

"Thank you for the arrangement, Immortal! "

Zhang Luanzi rearranged the accommodation, and Zhang Dian and his men moved into the westernmost dormitory. Although the dormitory there was relatively remote and old, there was a warehouse of the weapons workshop behind it. There was a wall between the dormitory and the warehouse, and you could climb over the wall and then you could see the back door of the warehouse, which was an abandoned small iron door locked with an iron chain.

Time waits for no one, and Lai Zhen's army will soon kill to Hefei. Of course, at night, Zhang Dian led his men to sneak into the warehouse and transferred a thousand sets of armor to the dormitory.

Two days later, Miao Qi, the owner of Jishitang Pharmacy, sent a batch of medicine to the workshop, which was the signal.

An hour later, Zhang Dian came to the pharmacy. Miao Qi invited him to the backstage, poured him a cup of tea and said: "This morning, Lai Zhen sent someone to inform me."

"What did he say?"

"At three o'clock tomorrow night, he will lead the army to wait outside Huidong City. The general must seize the East City Gate. "

Zhang Dian nodded. It was faster than he expected. He thought it would take at least two days to arrive, but it started tomorrow night.

After a pause, Zhang Dian asked again: "How much do you know about this Wu Shaocheng?"

"Why doesn't the general ask Zhang Luanzi?"

"I haven't had time to ask him yet, so I'll ask you first!"

Miao Qi said slowly: "I only give you one piece of advice, don't think he will surrender. He is the confidant of Li Xilie's confidants. When Li Xilie went to Haozhou, he didn't let his son guard Hefei, but let Wu Shaocheng be the main general and handed over 20,000 troops to him. It can be seen that he trusted him, so this Wu Shaocheng must be killed!"

"Will he patrol the city at night?" Zhang Dian asked again.

"It's very possible that this person does his duty and usually patrols the city wall at night, but I don't know when. In short, you have to prepare for the worst."

At noon the next day, the atmosphere in Hefei suddenly became tense. Li Xilie still sent someone to take a detour to spread the news to Hefei that Guanlong's army was attacking him.

Wu Shaocheng was very decisive and immediately declared the city of Hefei to be in a state of war. The entire city was under martial law and the city gates were closed. At the same time, suspicious people were searched in the city.

He suspected that Guan Longjun's spies had sneaked into the city.

The streets and alleys of Hefei City immediately became deserted. There was not a single pedestrian in sight, and the shops were closed. There were only groups of soldiers running in the city.

The soldiers rushed into the inns, searched every inn, questioned all the guests, searched their luggage, and if they were found to be carrying weapons, they would be arrested immediately.

Wu Shaocheng is about thirty years old, tall, with a sinewy face, very fierce appearance, and a pair of triangular eyes full of cunning.

In the afternoon, he led hundreds of soldiers to the workshop, but was stopped by Zhang Luanzi's soldiers at the gate.

"Why did General Wu bring so many people here?" Zhang Luanzi walked out of the yard.

"I got a report that the military advisor recently recruited many craftsmen from other places. I want to take a look!"

"We have recruited a group of craftsmen from other places, but they are not in the city during the day. They are mining outside the city and will not come back to rest until night."

"Yeah?"

Wu Shaocheng said with a half-smile, "Anyone can say this kind of thing, it's just empty talk!"

"If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do!"

Zhang Luanzi shook his head, "But let me tell you, this is a top-secret firearms workshop. I develop firearms for the prince and others. The prince has ordered that no one is allowed to enter the firearms workshop."

After speaking, Zhang Luanzi took out a gold medal from his arms, with the word "confidential" engraved on it.

Wu Shaocheng didn't buy it at all. He said coldly: "This is a wartime situation. As the general who defends the city, I have the right to search any place. If the military advisor does not let me in, I can only force my way in. I will bear all the consequences. I I will explain it to my lord.”

"Okay! You must go in, and I can't stop you, but you can't let in so many people. You can only let in a few people. In addition, it involves firearms secrets, so you are not allowed to ask any more questions."

Wu Shaocheng waved his hand, "Ten brothers come in with me!"