Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 89: The Father-in-law

Fang Yongming Niu Jin attacked the city with all his might!
Amid the artillery fire, the ruined city walls were already crumbling.

Everyone realized that the city was about to be breached, so every soldier rushed towards the city with extreme bravery, wanting to compete for the credit of being the first to break the city.

The generals looked at Niu Jin with envy. If nothing unexpected happened, the credit for breaking the city should belong to Niu Jin.

In the setting sun, Niu Jin took the lead and rushed up to the city. The nearly two-meter-tall strong man was extremely conspicuous in the crowd. He chopped off Daxi's flagpole with an axe, and the Huaiyin army immediately cheered.

At the foot of the city, Fang Yong smiled and said to Lin Ruhai:

"My Lord, how are my subordinates?"

Lin Ruhai snorted coldly and said:
"You clearly want to capture Yangzhou, and you even said you wanted to invite me. You are so shameless and treacherous. I think Yu'er was deceived by you!"

Fang Yong smiled.

"Just as my father-in-law said, I come from a humble background, uneducated and uneducated. I want to go to Yangzhou because I want to be a good match for Yu'er."

Lin Ruhai was startled and said, "Actually, what I said that day was just an angry remark. You don't have to..."

As he was speaking, there were sudden changes in the city.

I saw a somewhat wealthy general with many soldiers blocking Niu Jin. The general had a bit of a pot belly and a large piece of gauze tied around his body.

Niu Jin knew this man. It was he who was commanding the city in the past few days, which made it difficult for the Huaiyin army to capture the city.

Niu Jin rushed forward angrily with a big axe, determined to chop the man in half.

The general was estimated to be only a little over seven feet tall, had no aura of a fierce general, and was injured. There was no way he could be a match for Niu Jin.

Then Ji Quan took out a paper bag from his arms, raised his hand, and large pieces of lime flew out, burning Niu Jin's eyes.

Fang Yong below was speechless.

Lin Ruhai's mouth also twitched.

"Well, this man's name is Ji Quan. He is well-versed in the art of war and has some skills..."

Lin Ruhai said this but didn't finish the rest of his words.

After a while, Niu Jin, who was rescued by his personal soldiers, knelt in front of Fang Yong again.

The two-meter-tall man had tears in his eyes. They were real tears because his eyes were burned red by the lime.

"No need to say more, go and wash it quickly, don't hurt your eyes!"

Fang Yong said so.

Niu Jin was so moved that he kowtowed heavily and went downstairs to wash it.

At midnight that night, Zhou Shuan took over Niu Jin's attack mission with a big laugh, and ordered his men to speed up the attack without stopping.

Different from Niu Jin's fighting style, Zhou Shuan prefers to command the army to attack from below, check for deficiencies and fill in the gaps, and coordinate the situation, rather than leading the troops to charge personally.

This may be related to their backgrounds.

Niu Jin was born into a noble family. He had been training his body since childhood and was strong and healthy. After being sent to the army, he was protected by his personal soldiers, so he was naturally more willing to charge into battle himself.

Zhou Shuan was born into a commoner family. He didn't have enough food to eat when he was a child, so naturally he was not very tall and strong.

Zhou Shuan was promoted bit by bit by Fang Yong from a small soldier. It can be said that he was a general who crawled out of a pile of corpses. Therefore, he valued his life even more. Unless he was absolutely sure, he seldom led his troops to charge into battle personally.

At the hour of Mao, the city was broken.

A centurion named He Ai under Zhou Shuan led his troops and won the great merit of being the first to capture the city.

Of course, as a conductor, Zhou Shuan’s contribution is also indispensable.

After the city was broken, Ji Quan still wanted to lead his men to engage in street fighting in the city, but his soldiers had already lost their morale after many days of confrontation with the Huaiyin army. After the city was broken, most of the remaining soldiers fled. Ji Quan tried his best to gather them, but in the end he only gathered less than two hundred people.

Soon, Ji Quan and his soldiers were surrounded in an alley by the Huaiyin army. Ji Quan sighed helplessly, put down his weapons and chose to surrender.

He considers himself a spineless person.

Having persisted until now despite such a huge disparity between the enemy and us is already worthy of the court's grace. As for dying for the court...

Ji Quan told the truth, he couldn't do it.

Cowardly and incompetent!
Ji Quan let out a long sigh, knelt on the ground and surrendered.

Soon, the Huaiyin army quickly occupied the Song city, which included the Yangzhou government office, the Lin family's official residence, etc.

The only pity is that Huang Wenzhou was taken out of prison by Wei Yinghong and taken to Songjiacheng. At present, Yangzhou has basically been captured by Fang Yong, and only the lonely Songjiacheng is still resisting stubbornly.

Wei Yinghong guarded Songjia City with less than a thousand remaining soldiers and was unwilling to surrender.

Fang Yong had nothing to say about this. After meeting up with Zhang Yuan, Fang Yong ordered his men to prepare for the siege.

Niu Jin has already started gearing up.

Then, Lin Ruhai found Fang Yong alone.

"Please take a seat, father-in-law. What can I do for you?"

Lin Ruhai opened his mouth, but he couldn't utter the word "Xian..."

Fang Yong pulled Lin Ruhai to sit down and said with a smile:
"Father-in-law, please tell me what you want to say. Don't be obsessed with the title."

Lin Ruhai relaxed a lot after hearing this.

"The matter of Hongda, um, is that of Wei Yinghong, the governor of Yangzhou. I wonder if you could temporarily suspend the attack on the city?"

Fang Yong's eyes flickered slightly, and his expression was unclear.

"Why, father-in-law, do you still want to delay the war?"

Lin Ruhai waved his hands repeatedly.

"No, no, no. Actually... Hongda is my former classmate. We have a close relationship. He is a stubborn person. Although he blocked your action, we both serve our own masters. He is also a good officer. If you are willing to postpone the siege for three days, I will persuade him to surrender. Afterwards, I will not stop you from killing him or chopping him up. You can also sacrifice fewer soldiers. Okay?"

Lin Ruhai advised sincerely.

Lin Ruhai knew that now that the overall situation had been determined, Yangzhou would definitely not be able to be defended.

If Wei Yinghong led the remaining one thousand men to resist to the end, he would certainly be executed after the city was captured and would have no chance of survival.

Only Wei Yinghong took the initiative to lead his people to surrender, and he was able to gain the credit of surrender. Although the credit was not great, he should have at least saved his life.

On the other side, listening to Lin Ruhai's words, Fang Yong fell into deep thought.

Lin Ruhai looked at Fang Yong very nervously.

At this time, the identities of the two seemed to have been swapped, Fang Yong was the father-in-law and Lin Ruhai was the son-in-law.

In fact, Lin Ruhai was very self-aware and he knew his position. Facing a self-made prince like Fang Yong, he would never dare to act like a father-in-law.

Just like what happened to Ji Quan before, Lin Ruhai actually wanted Fang Yong to spare Ji Quan's life, but he only mentioned it carefully from the side and did not dare to interfere too much.

It is still the same now. Lin Ruhai does not dare to ask for anything, but thinks of his friendship and tries his best to find a glimmer of hope for his friend.

If it works, then do it.

If it doesn't work, he has tried his best and will burn more paper money for Hongda in the future.

On the other hand, in Fang Yong's heart, Song Jiacheng was already a trapped beast, and it didn't matter to him whether he died two days earlier or later.

He could agree to Lin Ruhai, it was nothing to him.

But he couldn't agree to it for nothing.

Lin Ruhai had to give something.

Coincidentally, Fang Yong needed Lin Ruhai's help with a small matter.

"Father-in-law, I can promise you that I will postpone the siege for three days. However, you have to do me a favor."

Lin Ruhai was very happy to hear this and said:

"No problem, as long as I can do it, I'll do whatever I want."

Fang Yong said: "It's not a big deal, I just want my father-in-law to help me write some books and teach some students."

When Lin Ruhai heard this, he thought, it’s just a small matter!

For him, who had once ranked third in the country, writing a few books and teaching a few students were nothing, so he agreed immediately.

Lin Ruhai even thought to himself: His son-in-law is a pretty good person.

Fang Yong smiled.