"Why do you need to come and apologize?" Han Shizhong continued to sneer, but he turned around again in his chair and pointed at the generals behind him. "There are more than a dozen boxes of secret letters in and out of the pass, and there are also more than a dozen documents from the Imperial City Department and the Military Control Department... I'm afraid that the three of us may not know as much as the officials on the other side of the Yellow River about the messy accounts yesterday and last night."
Li Yanxian finally lost his composure: "So, the Prince of Han came here just to ridicule me today?"
"So what if I laugh at you?" Han Shizhong finally became serious. "Li Jiedu, we are all veterans... No matter how strange the incident last night was, it has nothing to do with the others. It's just your greed for merit and recklessness! If you hadn't rushed here with your entire army to fight for merit, and even exhausted the soldiers, how could the Wanyan cavalry with only a few thousand scattered cavalrymen have rushed to the camp of nearly 20,000 people? Besides, it would be fine if you were just fighting for merit, after all, you have the Tieling Pass to explain it, but let me ask you, why did you only report to the emperor this time and not to me?"
Li Yanxian's face was as gloomy as water, but he was unable to refute.
In fact, he realized his underestimation of the enemy and fatal mistake after arriving at the pass yesterday evening, before the Jin army raided the camp... Because at that time he discovered that the so-called main force of his own army, which had rushed a long distance and captured four cities, Xiaxian, Wenxi, Caozhang and Dongzhen, was already exhausted and had lost its basic organizational and combat capabilities.
At that time, they could only maintain the marching inertia and external momentum, but they were already vulnerable inside.
Therefore, he did not choose to attack Tieling Pass as soon as possible yesterday, because he was afraid that a direct attack would fail and would expose this fact.
In sharp contrast, his subordinate vanguard Lu Heshang's troops, with only a few hundred people, arrived at the pass in the morning and chose to seize the pass without hesitation.
Therefore, not to mention that he was unable to guard against the subsequent surprise attack by the Jin army, nor did he have the ability to guard against it. He was even lucky enough to capture Tieling Pass.
"And there's Guanbei... What do you think of the battle during the day and the bombing at night?!" Han Shizhong was still trying to control Li Jiedu. "It's your credit that we captured Tieling Pass, but so many people died. Is it a victory or a defeat?"
Hearing this, Ma Kuo, who had been cautious all the time, also changed his attitude a little - although Li Yanxian had always been the one in contact with Taihang Mountain, and they had some friendship, the problem was that the two sides were on the same level after all. Before he arrived, the army suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Li Yanxian, and in the end some of the blame had to be put on this mainstay.
"What does Prince Han want to say?" Li Yanxian finally lost his patience.
"Simple." Han Shizhong was too lazy to say anything more. "I just want to tell Li Jiedu... this war is a national war. Hedong is the main attacker, the emperor is the commander-in-chief, but I am not. I, Han Shizhong, and the left army of the imperial camp are actually the vanguard! What vanguard are you fighting for?! Did you fight for the vanguard?"
Li Yanxian tried very hard not to bite her fingernails.
Because he knew that there was no point in refutation or loss of composure here... It was one thing that Li Yanxian's political status and military qualifications were not as good as Han Shizhong's; it was another thing that he was defeated last night and owed a favor to others; the most crucial thing was, as Han Shizhong reminded him, the real decision maker was Emperor Zhao, and everything here could not be hidden from Emperor Zhao, who had already controlled the commander-in-chief in Heyin.
Han Shizhong's behavior was half true and half false, and he was just speaking to Emperor Zhao.
It's even hard to say whether there's some deliberate acting involved here, so he's deliberately breaking up with me to reduce suspicion.
There was a moment of silence that made the generals behind him feel guilty, and what broke the silence was not the general manager Ma who suddenly realized something, but the rumbling sound of horse hooves and a five-colored flag holding the sun.
Balisu arrived, and brought with him a large number of Jurchen cavalry, which caused the Guanbei troops, who had just established some camp regulations, to fall into panic again.
There was no need for anyone to remind him, as Shao Long, the commander of the imperial army, had already hurried down to the pass to take control of the camp in front of the pass.
Han Shizhong sat upright on the chair, motionless, just looking at the smoke and dust under the flag with a half-smile. When the smoke and dust gradually settled, he turned his head and gave orders for the third time, but his smile was like a spring breeze: "Wang Shixiong, go down and ask Balisu for me..."
"How, how do you ask?" Wang Shixiong was a little nervous for a moment.
"Ask him if he can see my big banner clearly. If he can, get out of here and go back to Liaodong, and I will spare his life." Han Liangchen, Prince of Yan'an, pinched the jade belt around his waist and responded with a smile.
PS: Thanks to Wuyan Da Xigua and Tell Xiaoguo for their help... I got to know Tell Xiaoguo through Zhihu...
I'm so sleepy, so I'll adjust my schedule. I don't have any tonight, so I might as well take a day off.
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