Chapter 706 Beacons everywhere

The place of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou is recruiting soldiers, but there are wars outside and wars continue.

Cao Bin divided his troops into four groups, and a group of troops guarded Jinling City. He was guarding these ministers and officials, and he was about to be sent to the capital of the Song Dynasty again.

The other three routes were Cao Bin himself, Pan Mei and Li Jixun each led 20,000 elite troops, and they started to march south from Jinling City to conquer the southern territory.

It can be said that now that Jinling City is broken, some cities along the river, such as Chizhou, Jiangzhou and Ezhou City, have been conquered, but these territory together are only one-fifth of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

There are still four-fifths of the territory, and there is no Song army at all.

The demise of the Southern Tang Dynasty was a bit strange. The capital chose the prosperous Jinling City, with only a natural danger of the Yangtze River. As long as the city was broken, the country would be destroyed. However, there were more than a dozen prefectures and dozens of counties and towns in the south of the Tang Dynasty, and there were completely resistance power, so Li Yu gave up.

It can be said that this is the short-sightedness of Li Yu and the Li family's royal family and no strategic vision.

In history, when the Northern Song Dynasty destroyed the Tang Dynasty, if Li Yu could move the capital to Hongzhou and be in the hinterland of the Southern Tang Dynasty, either the Song army would have been trekking deep into the Jiangxi-Anhui region of the Southern Tang Dynasty, but the march was difficult, with foothills and thorns everywhere, with lots of water and water, high temperatures in summer, and rainy days, the soldiers of the Northern Song Dynasty would not be able to adapt at all. The Southern Tang Dynasty could have waited for work, fight and retreat while dragging down the Song army.

Even if Li Yu had no brains, he could still let his emperor brother rush to Hongzhou, Yunzhou, Yuanzhou, Jianzhou, Xinzhou, Qianzhou, Jizhou, Fuzhou, Tingzhou, Raozhou and other places to gather troops. Even if the imperial city is lost and Li Yu is captured, his emperor brother, emperor nephew, eldest prince and others can take the opportunity to ascend the throne in the local area and continue to compete with the Northern Song Dynasty under the banner of the Southern Tang, rather than being taken to the slaughter.

This Southern Tang royal family is so stupid that they choose all the royal family to die in Jinling City and establish a capital city nearest to the border of the Northern Song Dynasty without changing according to the situation. What a stupid behavior.

At this time, Lu Jiang led the remaining troops to flee here from Xuanzhou, and cooperated with the governor of Shezhou Tao Ze to fight against the Song army.

But no one expected that Tao Ya never moved her nest after she arrived in Shezhou until Tianyou died in office as the governor of Shezhou for ten years, and was rectified and managed for twenty years.

Lu Jiang said gratefully: "Thank you, Lord Tao, the Song Dynasty destroyed the Tang Kingdom, which led to the destruction of many people's families. We swear not to surrender!"

Several armies of the Song Dynasty were in a fierce battle, and Lu Zheng led tens of thousands of elite soldiers to Fuzhou City.

The Tao family had a rigorous style and always regarded himself as a minister of Wu. Surrendering to Li Tang was a helpless move. After all, Li Bing usurped power from Xu Wen, then abolished the Southern Wu Emperor and established the Tang Kingdom. The entire court was overwhelmed. At that time, the Tao family was alone and had no ability to resist Li Bing's general trend.

But now it’s different. There is news about Yang Wu’s descendants, which is also a spiritual pillar. Following the reinstatement of Wu, one can achieve the rightful and purposeful battle with the help of the dragon.

If you fight to the end, you don’t even have a single child of the Li Tang royal family and don’t have the flag to restore the country. It’s a bit unjust and difficult to grow. You can join forces with other governors to persist to the end, giving each other hope to restore the country.

Shecheng was once a place where military strategists often fought. In August of the second year of Jingfu in the Tang Dynasty (893 AD), Yang Xingmi, the governor of Huainan of the Tang Dynasty, saw that his subordinate Tian Fu could not capture Shezhou for a long time. After careful consideration, he accepted the peace agreement proposed by Pei Shu, the governor of Shezhou, that as long as the people were not killed, he would withdraw from Shezhou and return to Chang'an. At the same time, he sent his subordinates, Tao Ya, who was the envoy of Chizhou at the time, was appointed as the governor of Shezhou to consolidate this newly obtained territory.

Now, Cao Bin leads troops to attack Raozhou. Here is Wu Wenyuan, the governor of Anhua, who was enthroned by the Southern Tang Dynasty, guards Raozhou. There are 30,000 Anhua troops, and they fight with Cao Bin.

Tao Ze bowed and said, "General Lu, don't be polite. My Tao family has been guarding Shecheng for several generations. The country is in trouble, so we should serve the country!"

Senior General Lu Jiang looked at the middle-aged Tao Ze and said, "Duke Tao used to be a general of Southern Wu. After serving as the governor of Shecheng, he was in order. It was a legend at that time. Even if the Li Tang established the country, he was very kind to the Tao family. He always made the Tao family the governor of Shecheng, which is really valuable!"

So, Tao Ze told Lu Jiang that the city had sufficient food and grass and many outstanding talents, and they could all be recruited and fought with the Song army to the end.

The third route was led by Pan Mei to go deep into Shezhou, which was south of Anhui, famous for producing Hui ink and She inkstone.

Just two days ago, Tao Ze had received a secret letter from Yang Wu's restoration organization, which was a secret letter written by Hu Zhongxian instead of Yang Ling'er. It was covered with Yang Wu's newly-made jade seal and persuaded Tao Ze to return to Yang Wu.

Li Jixun and Liu Guangyi led their troops to attack Xinzhou, while the governor of Xinzhou defended the city and fought, and the two sides were in a confrontation.

"It depends entirely on the trust of the official family!" Tao Ze said humbly, with a complicated look flashing in his eyes.

After all, Tao Ze's great-grandfather Tao Ya was a general under Yang Xingmi, and he was deeply trusted and considered a direct lineman.

The fall of the Southern Tang Dynasty was so fast that it was inseparable from the stupidity of Li Yu and the Li clan of the Southern Tang Dynasty. It could not blame others. It was entirely self-defeating and was just a foolish national policy.

While supporting Lu Jiang to fight against the Song Dynasty, Tao Ze thought to himself that when the time is right, he had to discuss with the veteran General Lu Jiang and re-submitted to Yang Wu and no longer be a Tang minister of the country that was destroyed.

During those twenty years, warlords fought endlessly across the country, and local prefectures and counties frequently changed hands. However, in this chaotic era, Shezhou had always been under Yang Xingmi's Southern Wu regime. Moreover, with Zhongchuan in Raozhou in the west, Qiantang in the southeast, and Wang Wu in Wuyuan, surrounded by strong enemies on three sides, Shezhou was able to not only protect itself, but also take the initiative to fight for Yang Xingmi's territory. Finally, it was an important logistics support hub for Yang Xingmi. All of this was Tao Ya's contribution.

Now, the descendants of Yang and Wu have found him, and the royal family of the Southern Tang Dynasty no longer exists, the territory of the Tang Dynasty is divided into pieces, and many governors, governors, and local officials of the Tang Dynasty are confused. Should they fight to the end or surrender to the Song Dynasty?

This Jiedushi Tao Ze is a descendant of Tao Ya. The Tao family is also a wealthy family in the local area. They have been officials for several generations, mostly local governors and Jiedushi.

Fuzhou is also known as Changyuefu, which is the capital of the Min Kingdom. In the third year of Kaiping (909 AD), Wang Shenzhi was named King of Min by Taizu of Later Liang. In the third year of Tongguang in the Later Tang Dynasty, Wang Shenzhi died and his eldest son Wang Yanhan succeeded to the throne. Soon, Wang Shenzhi's second son Wang Yanjun killed Wang Yanhan and seized the throne. He became emperor in the fourth year of Changxing (933 AD), established the capital Changyuefu, and the year name was Longqi. After that, the Min Kingdom's coups continued to undergo civil strife.

In the third year of Tiande in Min (945), the Southern Tang sent troops to attack and destroy it during the civil turmoil in Fujian. However, because the Southern Tang did not know how to appease and manage the State of Min, it plundered the local people, causing local uprisings, and used the Wu Yue troops to drive away the Southern Tang army. From then on, Fuzhou fell into the hands of the Wu Yue Kingdom.

Now, there are only thousands of people in Fuzhou City, and they were attacked by Lu Zheng in tens of thousands of troops. In just seven days, the city was conquered and successfully entered Fuzhou City.

Yang Wu restored the Northern Expedition of the Kuomintang army and achieved the first victory.
Chapter completed!