Two hours later, 25,000 Tang troops gave up their armor and spears, lightly left the north gate, and marched quickly to the northeast. At this time, it was almost dusk, and less than an hour left before the time required by Xu Shiji to leave the city.

Just as the Tang army left, Liu Xin, Sima of Shu County, led 1,000 county troops to surrender at the southern gate. The five thousand Zhou troops who had already been waiting outside the city quickly entered the city and controlled important places in the government office, warehouse, military camp, city gate, etc. At this time, Xu Shiji led a large army of 10,000 to line up and enter the city.

Just as Xu Shiji entered the city gate, a carriage came towards him, with more than a dozen cavalry guards next to him, "What is that?" Xu Shiji asked with a horse whip, pointing his finger at the carriage.

Sima Liu Xin bowed and said, "Report to General Xu, the carriage is the prince-in-law Chai Shao, and he has not woken up yet."

Xu Shiji was stunned and urged him to open the car door immediately. A strong smell of alcohol came to his nose. Chai Shao was drunk in the carriage. He didn't know the personnel. Xu Shiji frowned, "Why is this happening?"

"I will not hide it from the general. The prince and Prince Chai have a deep conflict. Prince Chai is determined to refuse to retreat, so the prince captured Prince Chai with a trick."

At this time, Ling Jing urged him to come forward and smiled, "Li Shenfu was afraid that he could not explain when he went back, so he gave him to us."

"It's a big fish!"

Xu Shiji sneered and said to Ling Jing: "Since he wants to go back so much, I will let him go back. If Li Yuan is surrounded by such people, why worry about the immortality of the Tang Dynasty?"

"The general really wants to release Li Shenfu back to Hanzhong?" Ling Jing asked in a low voice.

Xu Shiji smiled faintly, "Since I have agreed to him in the letter, of course I will not break my promise, but whether his army is willing to go back with him is not my decision."

Returning to Hanzhong from Shu County is not easy. The main natural danger of Shu Road made the march particularly difficult. However, the early march was relatively smooth. After four days of emergency marching, a 25,000 army arrived in Zitong County, Pu'an County. Here they received some food supplies and each person received seven days of dry food. However, the amount prepared by the Zhou army for them was not much. It was nominally seven days, but in fact it was only enough for five days to consume.

He hated Li Shenfu that he wanted to order the plunder of Zitong County, but the Zhou army was prepared for it. There were three thousand defenders in the city. They walked lightly and could not attack the city at all. Helplessly, Li Shenfu had to implement Wang Jun's backup strategy, disbanded the five thousand Shu soldiers, took away their military rations, and let them die. In this way, each of the 20,000 Tang soldiers had nine days of military rations, and could barely go to Hanzhong.

The 20,000 troops continued to march northeastward. Two days later, the team arrived in Pu'an County, where Jianmen Pass was located. There were high mountains and canyons around, steep mountains and roads were difficult, and the team marched particularly hard.

In the evening, the team marched to a dam, that is, the mountain basin, which was more than fifty miles away from Jianmen Pass. After crossing two mountains, they arrived.

Seeing that the team was exhausted, and the strategist Wang Jun did not follow him, Li Shenfu ordered the entire army to rest overnight and set off again tomorrow morning.

Li Shenfu was quite worried. He didn't expect that the food would be consumed so quickly. In two days, the soldiers ate the amount for four days, but he could not blame the soldiers. Without meat and vegetables, the marching consumed too much energy. Of course, the soldiers ate a lot, but before Jianmen Pass arrived, they only had five days of dry food left, and there was nearly five hundred miles of mountain road. Can this be reached Nanzheng in Hanzhong?

"Go back and see if Mr. Wang is here?" Li Shenfu ordered several personal soldiers to be upset.

Wang Jun was one step behind because he wanted to resettle the disbanded Bashu soldiers. If they were not placed well, the Tang Dynasty would completely lose the hearts of the people in Bashu. The only way to resettle the five thousand Tang soldiers was to surrender to the defenders of Zitong County, but the defenders of Zitong County may not be willing to accept them. This required Wang Jun to negotiate with the Zhou army and persuade the defenders of Zitong to accept the five thousand surrendered troops with Xu Shiji's handwritten letter.

Logically, this matter is not a big deal. As long as Xu Shiji's handwritten letter is written by him, the guards will definitely accept it. And they have also slowed down the marching speed. Why didn't Wang Jun catch up? Did something happen to Wang Jun?

Li Shenfu was most worried about the 5,000 troops mutiny and killed Wang Jun in anger. If Wang Jun really died, his losses would be heavy. Li Shenfu secretly regretted it. He would have known that he shouldn't have agreed to Wang Jun's volunteer and let others go.

But Li Shenfu never dreamed that Wang Jun did help him solve the problem of five thousand soldiers surrendering to the Zhou army, but Wang Jun did not advance eastward, but turned toward Chengdu. Wang Jun offered a plan to disband the five thousand people in order to create an opportunity for himself to escape from Li Shenfu's army.

Although it is the turn of spring and summer, as the saying goes, "The fragrance of the world is over in April, and the peach blossoms in the mountain temples begin to bloom." The weather began to get hot in the plains, but when it comes to the mountain, it is still full of chill at night.

At night, drizzled in the sky, and the cold wind carried the cold rain, which made 20,000 soldiers shivered. They had no armor or tents, and were wearing only thin single clothes. Many soldiers could not withstand the cold and began to light bonfires, and there were piles of fire everywhere in the dam.

The dam where the Tang army stayed overnight was located between the mountains and ridges, which was long and about seven or eight miles long and three miles wide. It was historically stationed by the army, and the woods were cut down and covered with weeds and shrubs that were one person tall. There were steep walls on the east and west sides of the dam, and there was no way to go. Only north and south can you walk. Go down from the mountain road to the south and go up the mountain from the small road to the north. On the Shu Road, there are many such dam valleys. Although it is hard to go up and down the mountain, it also gives passers-by a temporary rest.

At this time, just above the valley, Liu Lancheng looked at the flames below with his hands behind his back. Liu Lancheng did not participate in the siege of Chengdu. His mission was to intercept the Tang army heading north in the area of ​​Jianmen Pass.

As Xu Shiji promised in the letter, he could release Li Shenfu to return north, but he did not agree to release 20,000 Tang troops to return north, at least he did not specify the number of troops that could return north.

Liu Lancheng looked for a while and shook his head and said, "This Li Shenfu really doesn't lead troops to fight. He doesn't even understand the minimum common sense. He actually allowed soldiers to light a bonfire in such a narrow valley. Once the valley burns, 20,000 troops will be buried in the fire."

"General, do you still want to intercept them at Jianmen Pass?" Li Qingming asked with a smile on the side.

Liu Lancheng looked at it for a moment and said lightly: "End their pain sooner!"

Li Shenfu's army was lucky. The bonfire was lit overnight but did not cause a fire. Perhaps because of the light rain in the world, the ground became wet, and shrubs and weeds were difficult to ignite by the bonfire, but it also caused the dam to be smoky and it was very choking.

The sky gradually became brighter, and at this moment, a commotion suddenly came from behind. Li Shenfu thought it was Wang Jun who came, so he asked quickly: "But Mr. Wang is here."

A soldier rushed over and pointed to the distance behind him and said, "Prince Qi, we have found that there are thousands of people in the Zhou army."

Li Shenfu was shocked. Could it be that the Zhou army was chasing him? He ordered him to start, "Send the whole army to set off!"

Before the team was fully organized, they set out in a mess. The soldiers rushed to the small roads on the north side. They were all afraid of being attacked by fire and burned into the valley, and none of them could survive.

But the vanguard was still one mile away from the road up the mountain, and suddenly there was a rumbling drum sound on the hillside. I saw ambushing troops rising from the north and flags waving. I don’t know how many troops cut off their way to the north.

The soldiers were so scared that they retreated one after another. At this time, there was a loud roar on the mountain behind them. The roads in front and behind were cut off by the Zhou army. The generals looked at each other and looked at the main general Li Shenfu at the same time.

Li Shenfu's heart was filled with bitterness. The thing he was most afraid of finally happened. Xu Shiji did not keep his promise. In the last step before entering Jianmen Pass, they were surrounded by Zhou's army.

"Dear generals, don't panic. There must be misunderstandings here. I'll send someone to negotiate with the other party!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Shenfu suddenly remembered that the letter Xu Shiji gave him was still with Wang Jun, but where is Wang Jun now?

Li Shenfu was panicked, but in front of everyone, he had to force himself to be Zhenning and order one of his subordinates to negotiate.

Half a moment, his subordinates ran back and bowed and said, "Your Majesty, there is Liu Lancheng's army on the mountain. He said he knew the agreement reached by the prince and General Xu."

"Since you know, why do you still block the way?" Li Shenfu asked dissatisfiedly.

"I also asked. General Liu said that the news he received was that the prince could go north to Hanzhong at any time, and he would not stop him, but General Xu did not agree to the army that he could go north."
Chapter completed!