Yanggu fell in less than two days, and the nearest route for the Jurchens to send reinforcements in theory was cut off. These events were temporarily unknown to Kong Yanzhou and Liu Lin… Or rather, they didn't even know that some Chancellor had gone to Yanggu, nor did they care to know.

For Kong and Liu, who had established a camp in the open wilderness north of Pingyin on the southeast side of the Ji River, they were simply fighting diligently and conscientiously, doing their best to paralyze Zhang Rong on the opposite side, waiting for Li Cheng's so-called fatal blow.

However, suddenly, Li Cheng arrived, but not from behind Zhang Rong; instead, he rushed past them on the other side of the Ji River without stopping, never to return.

In fact, at that time, with the military acumen of Kong Yanzhou and Liu Lin, they had already begun to be alert. Kong Yanzhou had even ordered the front-line troops to withdraw from the forward combat area to prepare to gather their forces. But no amount of alertness could withstand the fact that Li Cheng had just passed by the northwest side of the Ji River, and then岳飞's troops swarmed out of Mount Tai in the east, directly cutting off their retreat.

The situation was such that there was no hope of reversing it.

And since there was no hope of reversing it, they inevitably had to seek their own paths to survival.

However, in this, Kong Yanzhou and Liu Lin differed somewhat:

Liu Lin was the false太子 (Crown Prince); he knew that once he fell into the hands of the Song army, he would only face death… Even if the Emperor in Tokyo truly didn't care about him as rumored, the civil and military officials of Zhao Song would never let him live.

Therefore, without any hesitation, as soon as he realized the urgency of the situation, he immediately began to gather the troops in his hands, rewarding soldiers, promising promotions, and making vows, seemingly ready to make a desperate gamble.

As for Kong Yanzhou, seeing the situation deteriorate badly, he actually sent an envoy to岳飞, trying to negotiate a result.

This man's actions seemed understandable.

First, it was the old cliché that Marshal Kong and Commander Li were essentially warlords transformed from bandits and mutineers who had drifted into Shandong. Moreover, if Li Cheng harbored some plausible ambitions, then Kong Yanzhou acted purely for personal wealth and enjoyment. He could be lured by Liu Yu with official titles, treasures, and the temptation to secede and govern Yanzhou. Today, to save his life and break away from Qi, he naturally had no qualms.

Second, although he and岳飞 had no deep friendship, and were even a rogue and an archer in their hometown, they were not the same kind of people. But after all, they were from the same hometown and could always find someone to pass on a message.

Third, 岳飞's journey across the Wen River, over Mount Tai and the surrounding hills, had essentially cut off his home base in Yanzhou. Therefore, even if he managed to escape this time, it would be difficult for Kong Yanzhou to hold onto Yanzhou. This was somewhat unacceptable to Marshal Kong, who had only enjoyed a few days of wealth.

However, people's thoughts, even their worldviews and values, are completely different. When Kong Yanzhou's letter of surrender was delivered,岳飞 didn't even feel like scolding him… Because for him, Kong Yanzhou was precisely the person who must be eliminated this time!

It must be known that it was this same hometown fellow's reversal that day that caused the situation in Shandong to deteriorate greatly, directly leading to Zhang Su's martyrdom in Nanjing. How could he, Yue Pengju, as a subordinate, not avenge his benefactor?

Moreover, it was also this fellow who, in Yanzhou, used the name of hometown to lure countless Hebei refugees, and then coerced them to surrender to Qi. Among them, Xu Qing and thousands of Xiangzhou children came burdened with burdens, only to have to escape in a sorry state. Before they could successfully clear their names, they died prematurely under the walls of Changshe. As a superior, shouldn't he, Yue Pengju, erase their pre-death regrets?

Not to mention that in the past few days, 岳飞 had come from Mount Tai. Elsewhere, to prevent revealing their tracks, they dared not launch large-scale offensives, but Fengfu (now Tai'an), a key point, had to be taken first. After breaking Fengfu, Yue Pengju learned of his hometown fellow's actions in Yanzhou… It turned out that after Kong Yanzhou surrendered to Qi and became the local emperor of Yanzhou, his rate of corruption was astonishing.

To give a simple example, according to the surrendering people who had witnessed it in Fengfu, Marshal Kong now needed twenty or thirty young and beautiful maids just to eat a meal at home… Doing what?

Holding dishes, just holding dishes.

And besides that, things like taking a fancy to a beautiful woman and forcing her family to ruin, or forcing local officials to collect taxes for the next ten years in advance, or systematically imprisoning and exploiting local wealthy merchants, seemed somewhat easy to understand.

Could岳飞 let such a person return to Yanzhou?

"It's not impossible."

Inside a hastily erected camp, the current Grand Commandant and Commander of the Vanguard Army, Yue Pengju, listened to the envoy's narration in his hometown dialect, and appeared quite composed. "But in the past, he defected in battle, causing Commander Zhang to suffer a great defeat. Commander Zhang is now on the opposite side, making it difficult to explain. Moreover, the court above and below is also filled with resentment towards his surrender to Qi. If he wants to return to Yanzhou this time, he must make a great contribution… Capture Liu Lin and bring him to me, and then we can talk about Yanzhou."

The envoy nodded obsequiously, but was not surprised. He readily agreed and immediately retreated.

As soon as the envoy left, others knew that something was amiss, and all refrained from speaking. Only Pū Tiān Diāo (Sky-Soaring Eagle) Li Zhang, a straightforward fellow, immediately asked, "Does Grand Commandant really want to let this person go?"

岳飞 was equally direct, simply sitting in his place, coldly confronting him: "It's just to deceive him a little. If a few words can trick him into starting an internal rebellion, wouldn't that save a great deal of effort? It would also reduce some casualties… And regardless of success or failure, we will still proceed as usual, prepare ourselves, meet the soldiers with resistance and the water with earth. When the time comes, we will attack."

Li Zhang and other rough generals all understood, and many other generals in the tent seemed to have expected this.

Without mentioning how岳飞 had made his decision and was planning a general offensive, on the other side, Kong Yanzhou received the message in his own tent. Before he could take any action, he received an invitation from Liu Lin. This person actually had no misgivings and led a hundred or eighty guards, braving the summer heat, to the other's tent.

At noon, the weather became increasingly scorching and oppressive. Looking at the situation, there seemed to be some summer rain coming. The two promising young generals of Shandong met face to face. Perhaps because they had reached a critical moment of life and death, both sides were extremely frank.

"Marshal!"

The two sat opposite each other across a table. After serving the melons and fruits that had been stored in the deep well, Liu Lin could not wait to clasp his hands and say, "I heard that you sent an envoy to 岳飞's camp. What was your intention? And what was the result? Marshal, do you really think that岳飞 can tolerate you? In the current situation, even if he promises you, it's just to deceive you."

"He did promise me, but I'm just trying to deceive him as well,太子(Crown Prince), don't overthink it." Kong Yanzhou freely took out a knife from his seat and cut the melon on the table. With one stroke, the juice flowed out. He divided the crisp melon into two and pushed one piece to the other party. "I defected that day and directly killed Zhang Su, and I defended Nanjing for several months. In addition, Zhang Rong hates me to the bone. Why would 岳飞 tolerate me, just because we are from the same hometown? It's just that the current situation has reached the point where it can't get any worse. I'm treating it as a dead horse and trying to deceive him…"

"How to deceive him?" Liu Lin didn't eat the melon, but was just moved for a moment.

"太子(Crown Prince), think about it, whether it's true or false, since he has promised me, I can always buy half a day to gather my troops, right? Then I can swagger forward for a few miles. If岳飞 still has the intention of dealing with me without wasting any soldiers when I get to his camp…" At this point, Kong Yanzhou took a bite of the crisp melon, the juice overflowing from the corners of his mouth, but he laughed ferociously. "I'll let him know what it means to lose Jingzhou through carelessness, as described in the storybooks."

Liu Lin realized that the other party wanted to use the opportunity of feigned surrender to get his troops as close as possible to the other side's camp, and then launch a surprise attack.

What to say?

The plan was naturally hasty, completely gambling on a surprise attack. In normal times, only a fool would do such a thing, but as Kong Yanzhou said, the current situation has reached the point where it can't get any worse, and that's how you should fight desperately.

It can only be said that Kong Yanzhou, regardless of his character, is known as Little岳飞, and it is not a lie. To say nothing else, although he is young, he has been mixed in the military for many years like岳飞. At the very least, he still has the basic military skills.

Back to the present, with this thought in mind, Liu Lin carefully asked, "Marshal, how do you plan to proceed specifically?"

"I was just about to tell the太子(Crown Prince) about this." Kong Yanzhou put down the half-eaten crisp melon, wiped his mouth, and said proudly, "岳飞 wants the太子(Crown Prince). In that case, I want to invite the太子(Crown Prince) into my army, pretending to be captured by me, in order to deceive 岳飞. Then, when we get to岳飞's camp, we will work together. If we succeed, we succeed. If we don't, we will go our separate ways. What do you think?"

"…"

"What do you say,太子(Crown Prince)?" Kong Yanzhou urged, holding the melon.

"Not very good." Coming back to his senses, Liu Lin carefully held the melon and said, "岳飞 has a large army of no less than 30,000, and we only have 30,000. But once we break through, Zhang Rong will definitely send his entire army to pursue us, so we should go all out… But now, of the 30,000 troops, Marshal, you have 10,000, and I have 20,000. If I go to Marshal's army, wouldn't these 20,000 Jinan troops be left empty?"

"That's true…" Marshal Kong pondered. "Then what is the太子(Crown Prince)'s plan?"

"Just find someone, pretend to be me, tie them up and fool 岳飞. I will lead the 20,000 Jinan troops behind Marshal to hold the line." Liu Lin earnestly said, "Just wait for the Marshal to make his move in front, and I will launch the Jinan army from behind and press forward with all my strength! Perhaps we can really escape!"

Kong Yanzhou immediately threw away the melon and slapped the table: "太子(Crown Prince), you are indeed the太子(Crown Prince). How could you think of such a good plan? If that's the case, let's not delay. Let's break through today!"

After saying that, he directly took his knife and left, extremely decisive.

And Liu Lin stared blankly at the figure leaving, until the other party disappeared before he realized… He wanted to promise him the land of Zizhou to win him over, but he didn't have time to say it?

But now, there really isn't time to think about all sorts of things. This Qi Crown Prince, with rich experience in escaping, knew the importance of decision-making and immediately began to prepare.

In the afternoon, after the hottest part of the day had passed, Kong Yanzhou sent another envoy to 岳飞's side, saying that he had already tricked Liu Lin into his camp and captured him alive, but he could not control Liu Lin's 20,000 Jinan troops. He only asked Grand Commandant Yue to open the camp gate and let him in for the sake of being from the same hometown.

Then, he mobilized his troops, gathering four to five thousand of the former defenders of Nanjing as the vanguard, and told these people that岳飞 wanted to kill them all because of Zhang Su, so they should fight hard.

Then, Kong Yanzhou led the vanguard himself, casually sending a deputy general to lead the rearguard, and went directly to Yue飞's camp in the northeast.

On the plains, after two days of testing, approaching, pushing, and pulling, the two sides were actually not far apart. Therefore, as soon as Kong Yanzhou's side moved, the scouts of岳飞's and Zhang Rong's troops saw the situation from afar and went to report it. On the other side, Liu Lin's camp also boiled over, with 20,000 people divided into strict formations, with the left, right, and central armies advancing together, and the rearguard holding the line.

For a time, in the hot summer, these 30,000 Qi troops actually had some momentum of burning their boats.

As the sun further declined to the west and dark clouds gradually gathered, with the full deployment of Zhang Rong's troops in Pingyin, the narrow plain south of the Ji River appeared even more like "dark clouds pressing down on the city, threatening to destroy it."

After all, this was a battle of nearly seventy or eighty thousand troops, destined to be recorded in history. Not to mention others, even Yue飞 in the camp was independently presiding over a battle of this scale for the first time and could not help but be slightly nervous.

However, as the evening approached, after Zhang Rong's pursuing troops came into contact with the Qi army, things began to shift towards a strange situation—the vanguard of Kong Yanzhou, which was approaching岳飞's camp, became increasingly nervous, more excited, and even more invigorated. The central army of Liu Lin was still in good order, and 岳飞's camp was still quiet and composed. But the rearguards of Liu Lin and Kong Yanzhou collapsed as soon as they engaged with Zhang Rong's pursuers and scattered in all directions.

Nobody was a fool. Didn't they know they were surrounded?

Didn't they know they were being used as disposable pawns?

The people of Jinan, Yanzhou, and Dongping were originally neighbors. Couldn't they beg for their lives?

However, the collapse of his own rearguard and the rearguard on the far right of Kong Yanzhou at most made Liu Lin, who was in the middle position, a little flustered. The vanguard Kong Yanzhou didn't know about it.

Or rather, he was only two miles away from岳飞's camp and didn't care about those things, nor did he have time to care about them.

Since the second envoy had gone and not returned, Marshal Kong, who had rested here for a while, had to send the third fellow countryman from Xiangzhou as an envoy. As soon as the envoy left, he ordered the entire army to prepare. Then he personally rode up a small hill and was about to point at 岳飞's dark, silent, and unresponsive camp, which stretched for seven or eight miles, and deliver a pre-battle speech.

But before he could speak, a muffled thunderclap exploded overhead, startling Marshal Kong for a moment.

However, he was, after all, a figure in a chaotic world. After only a slight daze, he was overjoyed, and then, in the increasingly dense raindrops, he shouted with all his might:

"Did you see that? I, old Kong, am a man of destiny! 岳飞 has fallen for my trick and has no defense at all. Heaven is also raining at this time, preventing him from gathering his troops… Heaven's will is on my side. Follow me, old Kong, and charge together. After today, I want the world to know who is the number one hero of Xiangzhou?!"

After speaking, he directly whipped his horse and galloped down from the small hill, leading hundreds of the closest armored riders straight to岳飞's camp.

The rain began to fall densely, but the clouds were very thin in the west, where the sun was, although it could not be said that half of the sun was out and half of it was raining, it did not quickly enter a state of darkness because of the rain, but instead enveloped the entire battlefield in a strange tone.

Turning back to the present, Kong Yanzhou rode in front, followed closely by hundreds of armored riders, and then thousands of soldiers followed in a tumultuous manner. In an instant, they galloped for a mile and could even see the fences of岳飞's camp clearly. Marshal Kong became alert again, because on some simple watchtowers made of wooden bundles, there were clearly archers and flag bearers who could be seen from afar, but they were just whispering to each other and showed no signs of surprise or panic.

But there was no time to think too much, because at this moment, a sudden change occurred.

Suddenly, as a red flag was raised in the camp directly in front, followed by red flags being raised in various camps within a few miles, what followed was not the sound of drums as imagined, but countless people shouting in unison within the camp that stretched for seven or eight miles.

This shout was prepared in advance, not perfectly uniform, but under the leadership of the flags, it was not much different and was clearly audible.

More importantly, tens of thousands of people shouting together was earth-shattering, like thunder, overpowering the rain. With just the sound waves, Kong Yanzhou and his vanguard were frightened and lost their composure, stopped for a moment, and the offensive instantly stopped.

And Kong Yanzhou was the closest, and he could hear the sound most clearly, which was exactly:

"Kill Kong! Kill Kong! Kill Kong!"

ps: Thank you for your concern, I'll make up for last night's first… I have to be a person this month no matter what.

And then, there's also…