Yang Guozhu pointed to the map and said, "The commander and the horses report, Nangong and Xinhe around Julu. To the east, Guangzong, Weixian, Pingxiang, Quzhou, Longping, Baixiang and other places are all occupied by Jiannu. There is a flat horse around Julu, and there is no danger to guard."

"Our army followed Jiannu to pursue this place, seeking a decisive battle between Jiannu but failed. Now they went deep into Julu to fight with our army here! They have done nothing since October when I was the commander of the army. Since Jiannu has come, we will fight with Jiannu to the death in Julu to repay the court's grace of knowing each other!" Lu Xiangsheng said calmly.

Lu Xiangsheng led the 5,000 Tianxiong Army and Yang Guozhu, the powerful army of 10,000 Xuan, heading straight for Julu.

"Supervisor! Supervisor!" A cavalry came from behind, and when he arrived in front of Lu Xiangsheng, he turned over and dismounted, knelt on one knee, and sobbed, "I failed to lend a soldier and a horse from Zhending. I hope the supervisor will be punished."

"Get up quickly!" Lu Xiangsheng looked full of grief and angry, "This is not your crime, but Director Gao dared not send troops!"

Hu Dawei stepped forward and said, "Supervisor, what should we do? Gao Qiqian held his troops without moving, and he was determined to harm us."

"Continue to set out towards the Julu!" Lu Xiangsheng pointed forward without hesitation in his hand.

"Our army has few soldiers and lacks food and grass. Going to Julu is like throwing himself into a trap." Yang Guozhu also stepped forward and persuaded.

Lu Xiangsheng said loudly: "A real man died for the country on the battlefield, and was buried in a horse and corpse! We are all ministers of the Ming Dynasty, so we should go to the national crisis together!"

The Tianxiong Army and Xuan Da Army headed south along the way, and there were only empty cities left in front of them. All the cities occupied by the Qing army had been abandoned. Gao Qiqian led the Guanning Army to follow from afar. Guanning Army successfully "recovered" one by one. Gao Qiqian was very happy and reported the victory to the court, saying that he had recovered many cities.

Lu Xiangsheng led the Tianxiong Army and Xuan Army to Julu County, but saw that Julu County was already an empty city. However, what made Lu Xiangsheng strange was that Julu had no trace of plunder in the Qing army, but it was just an empty city. Lu Xiangsheng judged that the military and civilians should have given up Julu in advance. The Qing army seized an empty city and did not get anything. The Qing army voluntarily gave up Julu.

"Report, our army was five miles away and found that the Jiannu army was following our army from afar." The horse was probing the horse and found the traces of the Qing army.

Lu Xiangsheng ordered to continue to march southwest. After walking for a while, a 15,000 army arrived at the border of the Hakka River. The river water was wide and turbulent. Along the banks of the river, there were thick ice layers. However, in the center of the river, the surging river water rushed down with ice, and people and vehicles could not cross the river.

"There is a big village in front of you, and it should be Jiazhuang there!" Hu Dawei pointed at a huge village in front of him.

Lu Xiangsheng ordered to stop moving forward and asked someone to take a map given to him by Li Guodong, spread it flat on the ground and open it. According to the location on the map, the village was indeed Jiazhuang. The entrance of the village was walking south along the Haoshui River for a short distance. There was a majestic stone bridge, which was the bridge called Haoshui Bridge by the locals. From the map, it can be seen that trenches were dug around the village, and the only road that could enter the village was facing Haoshui Bridge.

"Sir Lu, look, there is our banner in the village!" Yang Guozhu suddenly pointed at Jiazhuang and shouted.

On the high platform in the center of the village, a banner of the Tianxiong Army's "Yang" fluttered in the wind, which was the banner of Lu Xiangsheng's confidant Yang Lukai.

"They are in the village!" Lu Xiangsheng was overjoyed, "Let's get into the village quickly!"

Five thousand Tianxiong Army and more than 10,000 Xuan Army advanced south along the Haoshui River and arrived at the edge of the Haoshui Bridge. Sure enough, there was an intersection facing the Haoshui Bridge. At the entrance of the village, the intersection turned south. This was a sandy road leading to the south; but there was also a fork, which was the only road leading to the village.

Lu Xiangsheng led his army to the entrance of the village and had already seen Yang Lukai and Li Guodong coming out to greet him.

"I will meet Mr. Lu!" Li Guodong, wearing armor, knelt on one knee and saluted Lu Xiangsheng respectfully.

"General Li, why are you here?" Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei were shocked at first, then overjoyed.

Yang Guozhu asked, "General Li, have you gone to Jinan?"

"That was when I found a brother who looked very similar to me to go to Jinan instead. Li was worried about Supervisor Lu and all the brothers from Xuan Da, so he came here to wait for Supervisor to arrive!"

When they saw Li Guodong, Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei and a group of Xuan army generals swept away the pessimism that had been permeating the army for several days. When they saw Li Guodong, they were like seeing the backbone. They all knew that Li Guodong never fought a battle without confidence! Since he would be besieged by the Qing army in Jiazhuang, it means that he was confident and could definitely defeat the Qing army!

Hu Dawei walked up and punched Li Guodong hard on the shoulder: "Brother, you have hidden us so hard! Even I and Mr. Yang don't know that you are here!"

Li Guodong laughed: "If you can't hide it, how can you hide it from Jiannu? Everyone, come in with Li."

When we walked into the village and walked along the central street to the middle of the village, we saw a dense and neat team standing on both sides of the avenue, with knives and card players in front and spear soldiers behind, and bird gun soldiers and crossbowmen standing in the middle of the team. Although the team was not fully armored, most of the soldiers only had a cloth armor and a red-taxed felt hat. The protection was not strong, but their morale was high. Wherever they passed, the soldiers stood neatly and shouted in unison: "Welcome to the Commander Lu!"

"I'm afraid there are 15,000 people, right?" Lu Xiangsheng asked.

"There were more than 14,000 people back to the commander, but they were all infantry." Li Guodong replied.

"I didn't expect that Guodong's virtuous nephew had an ambush here!" Lu Xiangsheng stroked his beard and smiled. This was a smile from the bottom of his heart. There was such an elite soldier. It seemed that the Qing army had to knock off a few teeth to break into Jiazhuang.

Li Guodong quickly replied and pointed at Wang Quan standing aside and said, "Go back to the commander, this is not the army of the last general, this is the army of the commander of the king, and it is the army of the last general borrowed from him."

Lu Xiangsheng laughed: "Commander Wang is also your good brother of charity. His troops are actually not yours? Don't hide it from me!"

Wang Quan stepped forward and knelt on one knee and saluted: "The last general will meet with the commander Lu! Please inspect our army! The last general will have a 14,000 army here, and also prepared 100,000 stones of food, which is enough for our army to hold on for half a year."

Li Guodong patiently introduced to Lu Xiangsheng: "Although there are no walls in this village, there are trenches outside. Moreover, the houses in the village are extremely strong, and the cannons cannot be destroyed, and they are not afraid of fire. Every house is a fortress! As long as Jiannu enters the village, they will die without a burial place!"

Then, Li Guodong took Lu Xiangsheng into a room. Several people around him lit torches. He saw that except for the entrance door, the surrounding area was sealed tightly, leaving only a few shooting holes on the walls. On both sides, there were small holes connected to both sides. When he entered the house on the side, he saw an entrance and exit under the kang. He lifted the wooden board to reveal the tunnel entrance.

Everyone got into the tunnel, walked a few steps, and could go up and enter another room.

In some places, all houses are connected in a row, and a small hole is opened on the walls between the houses, and people can climb over them. In other words, all houses are together, forming a connected fortress.

"It's so amazing!" Yang Guozhu whispered with Hu Dawei. "If you can prepare such a city, you can prepare 100,000 stones of food. This will take at least half a year to prepare! Does General Li have the skill of knowing what to do before he knows? Is Jiannu going to set up an ambush here and wait for our army?"
Chapter completed!