It was gradually time to the third day, and Cheng Yaojin, who went to deliver the wine, had no news. The night was dark, and the darkness was invisible. Only a torch on the top of the city looked particularly bright in the night.

In front of the window, Wang Xiao's neck was sore, and Cheng Yaojin was still not seen. Seeing that the third update was about to come, he had no choice but to walk quickly to the inn. More than a hundred Sui army scouts were lined up, led by a captain.

Wang Xiao sighed and stepped forward to the lieutenant and said, "Captain Yang, there is still no news about General Cheng. Time is coming soon. Let's take action!"

The captain nodded and turned around and said to the soldiers: "Even if he died in battle tonight, he would seize the southern city gate. Those who escaped at the battle would be treated as military law!"

The soldiers were speechless. At this time, Wang Xiao opened the store door, looked at it, turned around and waved his head. The captain led the soldiers out of the inn and lined up to walk towards the city gate.

The inn is about thirty steps away from the city gate, and basically it will be discovered about twenty steps away from the city gate. The Sui army soldiers did not know the order tonight. Once asked, in addition to trying to delay the answer, they would only forcefully attack.

But strangely, they were only ten steps away from the city gate, and no one asked them. They only saw a few soldiers lying at the city gate. The soldiers rushed over quickly. They saw more than a dozen soldiers in the city gate cave and were drunk. Captain Yang winked. Several soldiers rushed forward, poked each Tang army soldier's heart and killed them all.

Although they occupied the city gate, the city gate must be opened in the city tower, and the suspension bridge must be lowered, which must be operated on the top of the city. The Sui soldiers have experience. There will not be many soldiers in the city gate hole, and the defensive soldiers are mainly concentrated on the top of the city.

"The first group guards the city gate, and the other brothers come with me!"

The Sui Army Captain left ten soldiers to enter the city cave to stand guard, while the remaining hundreds of soldiers followed him along the upper city corridor toward the city.

To everyone's surprise, the city was as deserted as it was, and there was no defender. The winch that opened the city gate and lowered the suspension bridge was next to the female wall. There were no soldiers guarding each other, and all the soldiers looked at each other.

The Sui Army Captain left fifty soldiers to open the city gate and lower the suspension bridge. He led the rest of the soldiers to walk into the city tower, which was where the soldiers rested, and there was a faint light inside, but a strong smell of wine came to his face when approaching the door.

There was a crack in the gate of the city tower, and everyone leaned up carefully. Only the sound of a broken gong that made them very familiar came from inside, "The last one, bet! Bet! The ones that were opened in front were all big. I guess this one was small and wanted to make a comeback. This was the last chance. If you bet big, you will lose. Don't blame me for not reminding me!"

Everyone leaned in and couldn't help but be stunned. The ground was covered with drunken soldiers, surrounded by seven or eight people at a table in the middle, each of whom had lost his eyes red. One person sat on them, with copper coins piled up in front of them, and smiled and asked everyone to place bets. This person was their chief general, Cheng Yaojin.

There were only seven or eight soldiers in the city tower. The Sui army rushed in and stabbed the soldiers who were drunk on the ground to death. Several soldiers who were gambling finally reacted and were so scared that they knelt down and begged for mercy.

At this time, the captain stepped forward and bowed to Cheng Yaojin and said, "Report to General, the time has come, and we have seized the city tower!"

Several Tang soldiers were shocked. They looked at each other, as if they had heard the most incredible thing. The guy who drank and gambling with them was actually a general of the Sui army?

Cheng Yaojin has not had such good luck for a long time. He stood up with satisfaction, patted off a few chicken bones on his body and smiled: "Then let's act as planned!"

He pointed to seven or eight soldiers who had already lost their minds and smiled: "Since these people have surrendered, don't kill them. If you win money, you have to kill people. If you are not in accordance with the rules, please spare their lives!"

"Abide by the orders!"

The captain turned around and ordered, "Send a signal!"

The city gate slowly opened, the suspension bridge was also lowered, and a fire was lit at the south city. This was a signal to the Sui army ambushed outside the city. Han Tianding, the general of the Sui army, who was ambushing hundreds of steps away, yelled, "Care with me!"

A thousand soldiers followed him out of the woods and rushed towards the south city gate two hundred steps away. At this time, the main force of the Sui army several miles away also saw the flames on the top of the city. Lai Hu'er knew that Cheng Yaojin had succeeded, and immediately ordered: "The whole army entered the city and wiped out the Tang army in the city."

Twenty thousand Sui troops rushed across the wooden bridge and rushed to the south city gate three miles away. At this time, the Tang army posters outside the city also discovered an abnormality and ignited fire to warn them. However, it was no longer meaningful to issue an alarm at this time. Han Tianding's 1,000 soldiers had taken the lead in the city and completely controlled the south city gate.

A rapid alarm sounded "Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang! The city gradually began to become chaotic. Lai Huer led a large army into Baling County.

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Baling County was a logistics important place for the Tang army's Eastern Expedition, and all the food and resources were stored here. The Sui army captured Baling County, which was like cutting off firewood from the bottom of a pot, which immediately put the Tang army in a situation of cutting off motivation.

Even if they could get some food from Poyang and Yuzhang counties so that the Tang army would not have food immediately, without logistics supply of food, no army could last long, and the Eastern Expedition could obviously not continue, but even if they wanted to escape unscathed, it seemed that it was not so easy.

The news of Baling County's loss has not reached Li Xiaogong so quickly, but coincidentally, at the same time when the Sui Navy conquered Baling County and drained the Tang army from the Eastern Expedition, the Tang army in Yiling County was also subjected to an unexpected sneak attack.

Yiling County was the last line of defense for the Tang army to protect Bashu. Due to the emptiness of Bashu, the Tang army gathered 50,000 heavy troops in Yiling County, and also moored hundreds of warships seized from Xiao Xian's army, commanded by Liu Hongji, the general of the Right Guard.

The Sui army that sneaked into Yiling County was the three thousand inner guards, led by Liu Lancheng, the chief general of the inner guard. After Liu Lancheng pretended to be Han Huang and killed Du Fuwei, he pretended to be Du Fuwei and led his army to run around the counties in Jianghuai, creating great momentum. Then he claimed to the outside world that they had gone to Siding Mountain, but in fact they had secretly withdrawn from Lujiang County.

Liu Lancheng received a new task given by the commander Zhang Xuan. He led three thousand cavalry through Yong'an County, Anlu County and Jingling County, where the troops were scarce, entered Yiling County from the Dangyang County in the north of the southern county, and went south along Jingshan, and directly rushed to Yidao County.

Liu Lancheng had rushed thousands of miles to block Li Xiaogong's 50,000 troops from the Three Gorges Road two years ago. This time he still advanced west along the original road, which was familiar with the road. On the other hand, because the Tang army took time out all the troops of the secondary counties in the east, there was no garrison in the hinterland of Jingzhou. Liu Lancheng's three thousand cavalrymen were not blocked and rushed to Yiling County.

Liu Lancheng's sneak attack on Yiling County was an important part of Zhang Xuan's strategic goal. The main purpose was to uncover the defense loopholes of the Tang army in Jingzhou and force the Tang army in Jiangxia County to retreat to the hinterland of Jingzhou to defend the Jingzhou, thereby reducing the resistance of the Sui army to attack Jiangxia, and at the same time, it could defeat the Tang army scattered in various counties.

Another purpose of Zhang Xuan was to destroy the naval army just established by the Tang army and ensure the absolute control of the Northern Sui Navy over the Yangtze River waterway.

Liu Lancheng's target was Yidao County, which is today's Yidu County, Hubei. It is located at the confluence of the Qingjiang River and the Yangtze River.

It is also the intersection of two routes into Shu, one is the Three Gorges Road and the other is the Qingjiang Road. Due to the extremely important geographical location of Yidao County, the Tang army deployed 20,000 troops here, and hundreds of warships were also anchored on the Yangtze River outside Yidao City.

Yidao County is located on the south bank of the Yangtze River, but the Tang army camp is located on the north bank of the Yangtze River. In addition, some Tang army stationed on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Their mission is to protect hundreds of warships anchored on the dock.

However, Yiling County is still very far away from the Sui army. The Tang army in the eastern expedition had already captured thousands of Poyang County. Du Fuwei rebelled again in the Jianghuai River, causing the Northern Sui army to be in a hurry, but the main force of the Sui army was far away in Hebei.
Chapter completed!