Chapter 404 Marshal Xiao, please don't withdraw your troops.
As dusk settled, the military flags flew low.
The Zhenbei Army slowly broke camp, but as soon as their horses started moving, they were blocked by a tidal wave of people who rushed over carrying hoes, sickles, carrying poles and other farm tools.
The soldiers, mistaking them for enemy civilians disguised as soldiers attacking the army, drew their bows and aimed their arrows at them.
Xiao Xuance raised his hand to stop them, "Don't fire the arrows! They are just ordinary people."
The people rushed in front of them, lined up horizontally, and blocked their way. A few people in front knelt down, and a whole group behind them knelt down, their knees slamming heavily onto the sand.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Their families had been occupied by enemy forces for decades, and they finally got to this day. No matter where they settle down, they always remember that their roots are in Youzhou.
"Waaah..." The crowd collapsed in tears, and even the children being held in their parents' arms, unaware of what was happening, burst into loud sobs, "Waaah..."
"Old folks, what are you doing? Get up quickly." Xiao Xuance dismounted and knelt on one knee in front of the old men, reaching out to help the first old man up.
The old man waved his hand, unwilling to get up, and kowtowed to him, saying, "Marshal, Marshal Xiao, I beg you not to withdraw your troops. We have been waiting for this for thirty years."
He went from sobbing softly to wailing in grief. He was crying over the broken country, the loss of his family, and the sorrow, regret, and helplessness of his own army suddenly withdrawing when they were at the gates of the city.
They waited for thirty years, from black hair to white hair.
He's seventy years old now, how many more thirty years can he wait?
A man pointed in the direction of Youzhou and cried, "Marshal Xiao, we can't retreat! We've fought our way here with great difficulty. If we just take one more step, we can take back Youzhou. That's our home!"
“My poor daughter and daughter-in-law were violated by those beasts, and my husband and son were killed by them. Now I am the only old woman left in the family. Although I am old, I still have the strength to kill my enemies.”
If there are not enough soldiers, I will join the army; if there is not enough food, we are willing to give all the edible food in our homes to feed the soldiers; if the court wants to punish the marshal, let the court cut off our heads.”
As she spoke, the old woman looked not very old, but most of her hair was white, and her thin, bony hands held a few wild eggs wrapped in patched rags.
This was the only food she could offer, and she kept it all this time, reluctant to eat it.
Xiao Xuance wrapped the egg in a rag and stuffed it back into the old man's arms, saying, "Old man, I can't accept it."
The old man's bark-like hand suddenly gripped his wrist, his knuckles bulging, like a drowning person clutching a piece of driftwood. He opened his mouth, too frantic to speak, and a hot sob escaped his throat, "Waaah..."
"Marshal, they have robbed us of our houses, fields and money. I would rather follow Marshal Xiao into battle to avenge our loss and reclaim our lost territory."
"I am willing to follow the marshal into Youzhou and drive the barbarians out of my Central Plains."
"I'd like to too..."
"Please rise, everyone."
The old man who had spoken earlier said, "I'm old, just a bunch of old bones, I'm useless now, I can't go to the battlefield with everyone."
His family members all died at the hands of the enemy, and he longed for revenge. If there was no hope of revenge, he would not live on.
So he decided to kill himself by crashing his head into a wall to express his determination to fight the enemy.
As he spoke, he crashed into a tree to the side.
Xiao Xuanwu flashed forward and blocked the tree, the old man bumping into his stomach, "Hmm..."
"Bang!"
The old man felt no pain in his head at all; it was as if he had bumped into a piece of soft pork. Could it be that the tree was rotten?
Looking up, I realized I had bumped into a little baby.
He charged in with the determination to die, and the force was immense.
The old man gently stroked Xiao Xuanwu's abdomen. "Child, how are you? Are you hurt? It's my fault. I'm an old man with no bones left. You shouldn't have saved me. You got hurt and can't fight on the battlefield. It's my fault."
Xiao Xuanwu felt as if his internal organs were about to be displaced, so he quickly drank two sips of 'holy water'.
"Sir, I'm fine. No matter what happens, please don't try to kill yourself. In times of war, it's already difficult to survive. Your family wants you to live a good life."
"But I don't have many days left to live. If I can't watch my army reclaim Youzhou, I will die with regrets."
Xiao Xuanwu solemnly said to him, "Old man, believe me, the land that my Great Zhou has lost will one day be recovered."
Xiao Xuance and his soldiers tried to persuade the people to get up, but they refused.
He glanced at the sky, estimated the approximate time, and when the time was right, he told the people the truth, "Fellow villagers, get up quickly. We have no intention of withdrawing our troops. We are only packing up our camps and supplies and heading south to mislead the enemy."
"Really? The Marshal isn't lying to us, is he?"
"Absolutely true."
"Great! The Marshal didn't retreat!" The people wept with joy, cheering and shouting, "Marshal Xiao! Marshal Xiao didn't retreat!"
"Please keep this quiet. The fewer people who know before we attack the city, the better."
Xiao Xuance was worried that the news would leak out, so he had to finish the battle quickly before the enemy learned of it. After hurriedly calming down the people, he decided to act quickly.
They set off immediately for Youzhou. The soldiers heading south pretended to go south, but actually took a longer route through the forest and headed north to Youzhou.
They first feigned a withdrawal to mislead the enemy, and then seized Youzhou as quickly as possible while the defending troops were off guard.
Everything was thanks to that timely imperial edict.
Otherwise, this strategy would not have easily deceived the enemy. After pacifying the people, Xiao Xuance immediately led his army to the city of Youzhou.
The commander-in-chief, Wanyan Zongqin, was complacent and lazy, spending his days eating, drinking, having fun, and sleeping with women.
He was careless and underestimated his enemy, and his soldiers followed suit.
When the soldiers of the Great Zhou army besieged the city, the defenders happened to be soldiers under Wanyan Zongqin.
As dusk fell, their black armor blended almost seamlessly into the night, and they slumped over, dozing off.
"Whoosh whoosh!!!"
It wasn't until the cold arrows pierced their bodies that they realized the enemy had already reached the city walls.
"Something's wrong! Someone's attacking the city! The enemy is attacking the city!"
They were caught completely off guard and were struck by a sudden attack.
When Wanyan Zongqin received the news, he had just finished a "battle" with a woman in bed and was exhausted. He was about to rest when he heard that the enemy was launching a night attack. Asking him to put on his armor and go into battle to resist the enemy was tantamount to handing his head to the enemy.
He ordered others to go up and commanded his soldiers to go to the city gate to greet them, but when they arrived, the city gate had already been breached.
The fall of the city was not only due to the Zhenbei Army, but also to the people who had suffered under their oppression. Upon receiving the signal from outside the city that they were attacking, they rose up in resistance, carrying their farm tools and rushing to the top of the walls to fight the enemy.
"kill!!!--"
With the help of the soldiers from within and without, the soldiers of the Great Zhou Dynasty opened the city gates and stormed into the city. Only then did Wanyan Zongqing and Wanyan Zonglie receive the news.
Troops were sent to the city gate to resist, but they could not withstand the attack, and after two hours of fighting, the city fell.
The remaining 100,000 troops of the Great Jing Dynasty hastily withdrew from Youzhou.
Thirty years later, the Great Zhou Dynasty once again reclaimed Youzhou, which they had lost.
Xiao Xuance was revered by the people as the God of War.
However, when the court and the public learned that he had disobeyed the imperial edict and even detained the eunuch who read it, showing no regard for the emperor, they submitted memorials impeaching him for treason and demanding that his family be arrested and used to threaten him into surrendering his military power and returning to Lin'an for trial.
The ministers dared not take action, but only dared to try to force the emperor to act, because they were wary of Xiao Xuance's hundreds of thousands of troops. If he wanted to march on Lin'an, it wasn't a question of whether he could do it, but whether he wanted to.
If the enemy marches to Lin'an and declares himself emperor, they can surrender to him; they just can't afford to offend him too much.
Meanwhile, court officials who supported Zhao Rui also tried to muddy the waters, submitting petitions urging Zhao Xuan to punish Xiao Xuance and imprison the Xiao family to await their fate.
Zhao Xuan's reliance was on the hundreds of thousands of Zhenbei Army soldiers. If he lost Xiao Xuance's support, he would be nothing.
Zhao Rui killed him and could seize the throne at any moment.
Prior to this, Zhao Xuan had been assassinated multiple times, and he knew who the assassin was: Prince Rui.
Once, while he was enjoying the company of a concubine, he heard someone outside shouting that there was an assassin. He was instantly terrified and became weak. For the next two weeks, he had to take medicine to recuperate and did not touch a single concubine.
Zhao Xuan knew his situation and didn't want to touch Xiao Xuance, but Xiao Xuance did something that made Zhao Xuan wary.
However, none of the Xiao family members escaped; they remained at the Zhenbei Prince's Mansion in Lin'an.
If the Xiao family wanted to rebel, they would have taken their relatives away long ago.
He ordered the Imperial Guards to surround the Prince of Zhenbei's residence, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving.
He planned to issue an imperial edict summoning Xiao Xuance back to the capital, allowing him to return alone without any personal guards. He would have the veteran official He Yushi read the edict aloud to test Xiao Xuance's attitude.
He still needs Xiao Xuance's support.
However, he couldn't help but hear the ministers and Yun Jiaoyue nagging him that they must strike first, otherwise it would be too late to regret it if Xiao Xuance led his army to Lin'an.
On this day, he decided to imprison the Xiao family members in the imperial prison and keep them under strict guard.
A memorial from the border and the tiger tally of the Zhenbei Army were sent to the palace.
Zhao Xuan changed his mind again. Instead of having Xiao Xuance escorted back to the capital, he sent a large army to let him lead eight hundred soldiers back to the capital to receive rewards.
On the day of their return to the capital, the people of Lin'an crowded both sides of the streets, cheering with joy.
"Marshal Xiao, the Prince of Zhenbei has returned..."
"Marshal Xiao, Marshal Xiao..."
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