The continuous turmoil in southern Wu quickly spread north to Suzhou City and came to Sun Tu.

It just so happened that after many days of disputes, the Song Dynasty court finally made a decision. The Privy Council had ordered Jiangnan to go south to pacify the thieves as soon as possible and not delay the relocation.

Although the military order was very strict and did not mention the crime of pardoning Sun Tu's crimes and killing important officials without any reason, this ambiguous attitude was enough to make people completely calm down. Because not mentioning it is the best expression, proving that the court no longer intends to pursue the matter again. At least before the south is pacified, the murder of Zhu Jie will not be mentioned again, and Sun Tu can lead a 100,000 army to quell the Fangla thief rebellion.

Of course, the problem still exists. If Sun Tu fails to quell the rebellion this time, then what awaits him will definitely settle the accounts after the autumn, and it will be light to defeat it by life. Once the rebellion in the south is really quelled, the trick of a rabbit dead and a dog cooking birds and hiding the bows. This requires him to make plans early. But in any case, the court's decision still greatly boosted the morale of the Suzhou government army, and the previous worries and concerns quickly dissipated.

That's not all. As time goes by, two batches of grain purchased by Su Mao and other merchants to the north were finally delivered one after another, which completely solved the army's worries. But when checking the grain and grass later, everyone was surprised to find that a large part of the two batches of grain was actually the military rations that were hoarded in Danyang! Zhu Jie asked someone to sell it to the north, and then after a while, the merchants there raised the price by 50% and sold it back to the Song army again. This is really ironic. Of course, this also made the soldiers hated Zhu Jie more and more. If he was still alive at this time, he might be beaten to death by the angry soldiers again!

The military rations are in place and the morale of the army is available. Moreover, the army has not been idle in Suzhou for more than a month. They are forced by Sun Tu to work hard. Although the 100,000 troops here dare not be called a complete transformation, their combat power has indeed improved a lot compared to before. Many soldiers are ready to fight against the thieves and be rewarded for making meritorious contributions.

So, after a series of accidents in the south, Sun Tu felt that the time was ripe. At that moment, he quickly ordered to send several troops from north to south to attack many counties and prefectures and cities under the control of the Wu army. This time, he did not choose some important city to use troops, but directly spread a large net. While the Wu army was still busy extinguishing fires everywhere and could not draw out many troops to deploy defenses in front of him, he sent troops to attack those less important small cities.

Although Sun Tu did not use the most elite Shandong army this time, he only sent troops and horses such as Huainan, Huainan, Jingji, and Jingnan to train them with war, the effect was quite good. The Wu army had only been invented for two years, and its combat effectiveness was not as good as the Song Dynasty's official army. In addition, the rear was unstable, and the city massacre occurred, which made people panic. Even if there were cities to guard, they were still unable to defend it.

After more than two months of continuous attacks, the cities under the Wu army were successively lost. Some of these cities were forcibly captured by the Song army, while others quickly opened the city to surrender after the troops arrived at the city. The Song army took down the city without bloodshed. The reason was that Sun Tu's manifesto had too much influence. The local gentry had long been separated from the Wu Kingdom. When the news of Zhu Xie's death spread, they had no last concern. As soon as the official army arrived, they immediately surrendered.

When July entered, the Song army had taken down all the cities north of Huzhou. It can be said that even half of Fang La's old nest Zhejiang had fallen into the hands of the Song army. That's not all. As the war progressed, the Song army also divided up all the troops and fought westward, and took back Shezhou, which had been taken down by the anti-army.

As a result, the official army continued to advance, compressing the rebel territory to the south, and the last few groups of people gathered to join forces and dispatched troops under the city of Huzhou.

It was not until this time that the Wu country was finally completely pacified. The rebels that had previously committed rebellion were either completely suppressed or remorseed. However, the Wu army also damaged its vitality, and the loss of large areas of territory in the north had put the newly established regime in a precarious situation.

The only thing that is fortunate is that the big city of Huzhou is still under their control. This is thanks to the timely dispatch of troops by Fang Shifo, who had just caused a great disaster before.

Although Qian Maocai was famous, the defenders of Huzhou City were also loyal enough. However, in terms of how to use troops, they were far from comparable to Fang Shifo, the Wu army's killing god. When the Song army began to launch an offensive against many cities in the north, he also led his army to attack Huzhou and led his army to the city within ten days, killing the defenders to be frightened.

Afterwards, Fang Shi Buddha once again reported that he would massacre all the soldiers and civilians in the city after the city was destroyed. This scared the people in the city and were already in the past. Who would dare to underestimate the saying of this god of killing?

So in the next few days, the defenders and the people in the city secretly escaped from the city at night. This time, the Ten Buddhas of the Fang were much smarter and did not siege the city from all directions as before as they had fought Chongde before, but they had a siege of three and one missing one, which made the defenders feel that they could take advantage of it and escaped more than 30% in a short period of time.

Under such circumstances, Huzhou could not be defended at all. Qian Maocai, in panic, finally led his troops to break through on May 20th, abandoning the city and fleeing. As a result, the Wu army finally regained control of Huzhou without paying too much.

It was not until the army entered Huzhou and raised the flag that Qian Mao, who was still fleeing, realized that the main general who attacked Huzhou had actually changed, and it was actually changed to Pang Wanchun!

It turned out that when he learned about the morality, the Wu court was in an uproar. Fang Fei and other civil officials could not accept the inhumane practice of Fang Shi Buddha, and they strongly demanded to blame him to quell the public's anger. Fang La also knew that Fang Shi Buddha did too much this time, so he also followed the good. After learning that Fang Shi Buddha once again used troops to Huzhou, he hurriedly sent a more steady Pang Wanchun to replace him.

After all, Fang Shi Buddha was loyal to Fang La. Even if he was very dissatisfied with such an arrangement, he could only accept it and then tied himself back to Hangzhou. After Pang Wanchun replaced Fang Shi Buddha, he also understood that he was in a difficult situation and had to take Huzhou as soon as possible, so he came up with such a plan to scare the rebel army. Fang Shi Buddha's reputation is really useful. As expected, it took only three days to force the enemy out of the city and easily seize Huzhou.

After leaving Huzhou, Qian Maocai became a tree without roots. Even though he had thousands of people around him, he could not move in the territory of Wu. After a few days, he suffered losses and was almost forced into a desperate situation. In desperation, he had no choice but to go north and eventually surrendered to the Song army.

Sun Tu naturally recognized such a Wu rebel army. Not only did he immediately allow them to surrender, but he also personally led people to see Qian Maocai, pardoned all his sins on behalf of the court, and then incorporated his subordinates into one of the official troops and turned back to Huzhou.

By the continuous acquisition of Wu soldiers, the Song Dynasty's official army not only did not reduce its strength in this series of battles, but instead showed an increase. By the time the army gathered at the city of Huzhou in Chen Shi, the Song army's strength had reached 130,000, and it could even implement a four-sided encirclement of this important Wu city.

Even though Pang Wanchun is calm and good at fighting, he can only have 50,000 or 60,000 troops in the city now, and he does not have much confidence in this battle. However, he will defend Huzhou regardless of everything, because he is very clear that this is the last strong city in the north of Hangzhou. Once this place is lost and the Song army is allowed to go south with this as a stronghold, Hangzhou city will inevitably face great pressure and may even be captured by the Song army in a short time.

But looking at the Song Jun coming from the south, his eyes were still full of worry: How should we defend the city?

The same problem also plagued the kings and ministers of the Wu Kingdom further south. They also knew what Huzhou meant to the entire battle situation and must send troops to rescue them as soon as possible.

Although the chaos in Wu has subsided and all the people can be used, how to advance north and use troops is still a big problem.

After receiving the crime, Fang Shifu's position did not change, so he naturally wanted to make meritorious service. So he asked for battle several times in front of Fang La, hoping to lead his army to Huzhou to fight head-on with the enemy.

Fang Fei and other civil officials did not agree with this. The Song army had already achieved great momentum and was now even more imposing. Even if the Wu army could gather 200,000 troops to Huzhou, they might not dare to say that they would win.

In fact, this still saves face for one's own family. Some officials who know their own army's situation understand more clearly. If they really send 200,000 people, and not to mention logistics supplies, they can't keep up with them, head-on confrontation alone is not the opponent of the Song army. The Wu army has developed too fast in two years, and it looks like it is indeed abundant, but in terms of combat effectiveness, besides a few tens of thousands of people, they are just mobs. This is also one of the important reasons why the Shandong army was able to defend the small county town of Changshu with its disadvantages. The gap between the soldiers on both sides is too big.

Sun Tu and the Shandong Army have long been famous. No matter how confident these officials are, they do not think that sending 200,000 mobs can defeat the elite Song army in a head-on confrontation in the wild.

Faced with the different opinions of these two parties, even Fang La was a little confused about what choice to make. In the end, he could only look at Jiang Shihu, who had been silent all the time: "Military advisor, what do you think?"

After pondering for a while, Jiang Shihu spoke: "I have considered this matter for a long time. Huzhou must be protected, but it is inappropriate to send troops to rescue him directly. So why don't we learn from Sun Tu's previous practices, avoid the real and attack the virtual, and attack his weaknesses?"

After all, Fang Shi Buddha was also a rare general, so he immediately grabbed the other party's intention: "Are you talking about capturing Suzhou?"
Chapter completed!